Guild Wars 2

BobbyStein.2315:

…we wanted the player to make the call by identifying the dragon in a conversation among friends. In hindsight, there should have been more build up or discovery before reaching that point. Lesson learned.

I’d also add that in this case, it wasn’t the player “making the call” that was so weird. It was the players learning something from our own characters that seemed to be common knowledge. It felt like we weren’t “making the call” so much as sharing some great, unexplained revelation.

It was a reminder that we’re not our characters. Our characters apparently know far more than we do, and being reminded in this way makes usme feel like less a part of the game world. My character may be a high-ranking officer in the Pact, and he may have lots of knowledge about these dragons and their names… But I’m not, and I don’t, and now I’ve been reminded in the middle of an instance. And my crumbling immersion mixed with the sands of Prosperity and was lost.

BobbyStein.2315:

I want to address the comments about the player character’s knowledge of Mordremoth and how that fits into the story. For some players, this may have felt like it came out of nowhere. Up to this point, the only explicit mention of Mordremoth in the core campaign was on the Teeth of Mordremoth skill in Crucible of Eternity.

Season 2 of the Living World assumes that the player character has completed the Personal Story, killed Zhaitan, and has attained the rank of Pact Commander. It also assumes completion of season 1, that the player character killed Scarlet, and has a friendship with Rox, Braham, and the rest of the crew. Because of the PC’s assumed rank in an organization that deals in fighting dragons, and that such knowledge isn’t really a secret (but isn’t widely known as characters in the world have no reason to openly discuss it until now) we wanted the player to make the call by identifying the dragon in a conversation among friends. In hindsight, there should have been more build up or discovery before reaching that point. Lesson learned.

We want to seed Tyria with lore bits and other items that can better educate adventurous players seeking more knowledge on the subject. Keep your eyes open in future releases. Thanks so much for taking the time to post your feedback regarding episode 2.

Would you please consider adding in a quick bit of dialogue (written is fine) to add to the episode in the future? Maybe some remark in one of Scarlet’s journals, or some “in case you NPCs don’t have my security clearance” kind of recap. It would go a long way toward smoothing out an immersion-jarring experience.

With the new story journal, it’s not just “all in the past” anymore. Current players can replay it, and future players or those not yet level 80 will experience it for the first time. If you add just a bit of context, as many of us have suggested, then the problem will be solved and all the people will rejoice!

So I was just thinking, “Well, it’s all in the past now, there’s nothing anyone can do about it.” Except it’s not!

With the addition of the Season 2 story journal, players can repeat the episode and new players can play through it in the future. So if they fix it now, we’ll see it if we repeat the episode, and new players will see it when they get to level 80 and play it later!

If the developers realize this, all may not be lost!

Ariella Goldstein.3562:

Thalador.4218:

I think Roy meant when Yoda came up with Qui-Gonn’s return as a Force ghost out of the blue and urged Obi-Wan to learn this technique during his self-exile on Tatooine.

Actually Yoda did hear in Qui Gonn’s voice calling out at the same time Anakin made his attack on the sand raiders in Attack of the Clones. It also looks like Qui Gonn might have made an appearance in Revenge but it either got cut early on from the script or on the cutting room floor in editing.

I was referring to the way everyone was baffled by what Obi-Wan did at the end of A New Hope, and they expected it to be somehow made apparent in the prequels. And then, just as we were thinking, “Well, this was his last chance… I guess they really didn’t care,” Yoda slips it in with, “Hey, Obi-Wan, before the closing credits roll, let me tell you about how Qui-Gonn taught me the secret to immortality! We’ll cover the details off-screen.”

I still don’t get why it was such a great idea to let Vader kill him, though.

hannah mee.7925:

I imagine it’s all a conclusion. There are some references to six elder dragons (and the name Mordremoth is as meaningless as any other name – why is Zhaitan named Zhaitan?). The player character has a bunch of little blocks to work with:

*Dragons feed off of magic (the entire Personal Story led us to this conclusion)
*Leylines are like rivers of magic across Tyria (Season 1)
*Scarlet had seen something in Omadd’s Machine (Season 1)
*Scarlet had FOUND a leyline and was going out further, trying to disrupt it (Season 1 & 2)
*There’s a probability for a 6th dragon (in-game dialogue and Inquest)

Really at that point, the player just takes shots in the dark. What would be even more interesting, however, is letting our character build a story – and then make that story completely wrong. Throughout the Personal Story and the Living Story so far our character has been a superlative genius with inductive reasoning. I think it would be much more human if they turned out to be wrong about something that caused something fatal to happen – such as any of our friends getting killed.

Zhaitan is named Zhaitan because that’s what his minions call him. Undead minions that speak refer to Zhaitan as their master. Unless they’re working for someone else and the whole personal story was just a big misunderstanding, that means the Undead Elder Dragon refers to himself as Zhaitan.

Furthermore, if we just made it up, why do the others recognize it? And if it had been such a common topic of conversation, why did it seem like such a surprise to them? They were all like, “Oh, yeah, Mordremoth. I know that guy. But… Do you really think he would do something like this?”

And yes, everyone has to have a name. It’s intelligent enough that it plans things, so it has to think of itself somehow. And even if that’s just how its minions refer to it, that’s as good a reason as any to call it that.

Unlike the servants of Zhaitan, Jormag, and Kralkatorrik, Mordremoth’s minions haven’t been very chatty yet. I’m not sure what the deal is with Primordus, but we seem to have taken the dwarves’ word that one. I suppose we need a brief cinematic in which we discuss the subject with Ogden.

Evan Lesh.3295:

However, all melee attacks hit outside the visible animation for all races.

I haven’t tested the difference in melee, but here’s a very relevant section of a thread that someone linked previously (with emphasis added):

Liberis.9573:

For reference, my female Norn is about 1/4th of the max Norn size, and my Asura is as small as they get.

First, Churning Earth.
Both the animation and the aoe range circle match, and the skill does damage inside this exact area. http://i.imgur.com/SdkBjpb.png ¹ and http://i.imgur.com/PnMgdzx.png ²

Next, Drake’s Breath.
On the Norn, the animation matches up almost perfectly with the range the skill does damage at. Max Damage range: http://i.imgur.com/80FvzGv.png ³ and just ouside of range: http://i.imgur.com/efE6QMr.png ⁴

Also, yay, pretty ele animations.

Anyway, now see what happens when you compare the animation to the real range the skill has on the tiny asura:

The exact spot the Norn was standing on. http://i.imgur.com/g2VLNzf.png ⁵
The animation doesn’t even reach half the range the skill really has. Your opponents can clearly stand outside of your burning fire yet still take damage from invisible things. This shouldn’t happen in a game that is based around reading the enemy through his animations to counter them.

I also tested Lightning Whip, Ring of Earth and Frozen Burst. They behave the same as Drake’s Breath, the animation not even reaching half the range the skill really has. http://i.imgur.com/jAAq95j.png ⁶
http://i.imgur.com/EGWkQ4H.png ⁷
http://i.imgur.com/CVBBFll.png ⁸

From some further tests on the elementalists it seems skills that are either projectiles (like Dagger Fire Auto attack) or have AOE indicator circles like Ring of Fire are the same size no matter your character size. But I suspect all Skills that aren’t single target and don’t fall into the 2 mentioned categories are effected by this animation issue (like Warrior Hammer swings and cleaves like that).
Which is huge.

“Which is huge,” indeed.

zenleto.6179:

Are we talking the style of salute known as “the bird”, or just the good old fashioned two finger variety? They can’t see me salute so I’m not surprised there’s no return.

I thought you were telling me I was #1…

Thalador.4218:

I think Roy meant when Yoda came up with Qui-Gonn’s return as a Force ghost out of the blue and urged Obi-Wan to learn this technique during his self-exile on Tatooine.

Yes.

jheryn.8390:

Jaken.6801:

We got our “explanation”.. yeah…

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/07/22/flameseeker-chronicles-introducing-guild-wars-2s-dragons-reac/#continued

not really convincing…

I agree. Lame.

Also yes. Very yes.

I’m… well, not quite surprised, but… bemused, maybe, that we haven’t seen any response yet on this. Maybe they’re busy working it into the next chapter. It could be like that scene with Yoda and Obi-Wan at the end of Episode III.

Absconditus.6804:

It didn’t make sense after how Episode 1 ended. It’s like this which we got, should have been Episode 3 and Episode 2 is lost for some reason. For all I know, maybe that is what is wrong here. Maybe we’re missing a whole episode somewhere. I dunno, something feels really off.

I’ve seen that kind of thing before, and we see how that ended.

Conncept.7638:

Now wait, what metrics do you have on players economic satisfaction? Because every single night I play some amount of guild, map, and even WvW chat is taken up by long conversations bemoaning the economy and how they don’t feel the game rewards anything for anyone but those with god-like amounts of dumb luck or nothing else in their lives to spend any of their time on.

I know you probably have the numbers and the know-how to claim and even likely prove that the game is in a good economic state, from an economic perspective; but there is no way you have the numbers to claim that the players think so, from a psychological perspective. Because as someone who plays the game, I can say that not only my but a whole lot of players experience shows there to be a sizable portion of the playerbase’ whose most positive view on the economy are ‘at least they’re not sucking me dry with a monthly fee’.

I would add that players who see (but don’t participate in) such discussions may be left with the impression that the game economy is in much worse shape than it is, as “everyone knows” such things as “the precursor market is dominated by a handful of TP flippers with unimaginable wealth,” “almost all crafting materials are farmed by bots,” and “being in a party gets you more loot because your drops are determined by the average damage of the whole party.”

So even if only a couple of people are discussing a perceived issue in map chat, there could be dozens more thinking, “Hmm, I didn’t know that.”

John Smith.4610:

Conncept.7638:

but there is no way you have the numbers to claim that the players think so, from a psychological perspective.

You’re adorable.

And yes, you have to be more clear in what “numbers” you’re talking about. I doubt there’s a survey conducted to establish a player confidence index; however, if you’re looking for proof that we’re comfortable with the economy, you need only look as far as our spending habits (of which, of course, Mr. Smith has quite a lot of data, I’m sure).

Astral Projections.7320:

The Guild Wars 2 story line has always had what I consider plot holes or logical fails. Look at the original personal story lines.

The human one near the beginning has you rescue either an orphanage or a hospital. When you get to the orphanage for example, it’s on fire with the bandits barricaded inside. Who in the world sets a building on fire and then barricades themselves inside?

The Norn starter instance where you earn the title of Slayer by killing Isomir. But the story behind it tells you something else. When you speak to Knut Whitebear he tells you: “By my own hand, I have brought the mighty wurm, Issormir. He waits above, in the plateau, for one such as you to challenge him.” Knut hunted that wurm down then somehow got him all the way up those steps and into that pen. After the animal was put in that pen by Knut we go over there and kill it, thus “earning” the title of Slayer. We get the title for killing an animal that was put in that small pen by someone else.

I made the comment a long time ago that they need either people trained as writers or people who edit for a living. Someone who goes through and specifically looks for logical inconsistencies.

I hear you. I thought the same thing about Issormir. I haven’t played the other one in a while; I know that whichever I choose (orphanage or VA hospital), the folks in the other one will die because there’s only one competent emergency responder in the entirety of Divinity’s Reach, and it’s me.

There were many times when it seemed like the writers were thinking, “You know, for this to really feel like a war, or for the dragons to really be a threat, we need to kill someone in every story arc. Maybe more than one. And the players just won’t feel it unless it’s a character they’ve come to like. We need to find more ways for characters to die.” It got to the point where they applied it not only to the players, but to the other characters as well. “You know, that NPC is too happy. They need to learn what war is all about! Time for them to feel loss.”

I eventually learned that if I found myself thinking, “Well, at least this guy isn’t dead yet,” then that guy’s next on the list. Otherwise, the game would just be too lighthearted.

Not quite the same as the plot holes you pointed out, but it’s what I remember feeling most strongly throughout the Personal Story, and the main reason why I haven’t finished it on more than one of my 8 level-80 characters.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

As it currently stands, it really feels like I missed a step somewhere. Like there was something I should have found, or something I should have read, or even something I should have done prior to the beginning of this chapter.

Hey, wait a minute… I think I understand now.

Clonk.8403:

It feels like they just skipped a good portion of the story just to get the plot moving.

Yes! That must be what happened. It wasn’t a glaring mistake at all, it was just a bug that caused us all to skip the entire first instance of this episode!

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

“All mention of Abaddon was removed by the Five Gods after he was imprisoned? So where do we get the name of the mission ’Abaddon’s Mouth’?”

I… had never put all of that together.

PopeUrban.2578:

Yes, however I’m not familiar with the concept of the mountain horse. Centaurs are easily as big/weigh as much as horses and as a basic function of physics need space to accelerate to propel that much mass. Mountain goats are much smaller, lighter, and as a result also have far less dense bones.

Okay, yeah, too much physics, but my point is you don’t usually see centaurs as mountain folk, because it seems a little out of place. In all of GW history the centaurs have been traditionally unable to do certain fine work or acrobatic feats (which is why they bother to enslave humans, to do jobs they are physically incapable of (like climbing scaffolds and cliffsides) or find difficult due to their size.

In fact, Tyrian centaurs can’t even cross a meandering stream without getting someone to build a bridge over it. You’re telling me a race that is completely isolated from a geographical area by a shallow creek is somehow capable of scaling sheer cliffs that your everyday human requires a special crystal full of ancient dragon magic to navigate?

I don’t buy it!

Okay, then. Bighorn sheep.

PopeUrban.2578:

More importantly, I want to know how all of these centaurs get to the impossibly high ledges we need to use zephyrite crystals for. They’re centaurs, right? Climbing, jumping, and tightrope walking are not among the centaur’s skillset as far as we know.

Are you familiar with the concept of the mountain goat?

Sindex.9520:

RoyHarmon.5398:

Maybe this question will be addressed in this week’s “Points of Interest.”

Oh goody then we get this information outside of the game, which means according to Bobby Stein:

BobbyStein.2315:

Unless we’ve built content around something, it’s usually considered malleable from a design and lore standpoint. Occasionally we decide to go in a different direction months or years after the first ideas are documented or even talked about externally. In some cases that means what one member of staff says in an interview can change when it comes time to building a release. It’s part of our iterative process.
In short, go by what’s in the game.

So unless it’s implemented in game the explanation would not stand according to it’s own writer, because it can be easily changed latter on.

Well, you know, it will give them a chance to tell us why we should have known, and why our confusion is unjustified. It’s like Illconceived Was Na.9781 said earlier:

Illconceived Was Na.9781:

The point is that when it mattered — during the story itself — it seemed to come from nowhere, without any foundation. That took away from an otherwise well-written and excellent story.

So Mr Stein and Ms McCoy can tell us why we should have known, but that won’t make me forget that I stopped playing Entanglement for a few minutes to try to figure out whether I missed something in the last chapter or recent dialogue (I hadn’t).

I really love the story overall and I love how ANet is telling it this time, with each of the NPCs providing an alternative perspective of events that fits their personality/background. I was just jarred by how the writers handled the most important “reveal” of Season 2 (and perhaps the most important of Season 1).

Maybe this question will be addressed in this week’s “Points of Interest.”

Lydell.8713:

The others know about Mordremoth too, they don’t react like “Mordrewho?”, they gasp. Meaning that the dragon is common knowledge in Tyria. Especially to someone like your character, whose job is basically to stop dragons. Know your enemies.

Then my character’s backstory should have been conveyed better. I’ve played him myself for nearly 3,000 hours over the past two years, so if he had ever come across this kind of information, I should be aware of it. I watch every cinematic, interact with every object I come across (which includes browsing every book card in Divinity’s Reach), and listen to all the NPC dialogue I can. And yet, somehow, it was my own character who broke spades and declared that the cause of the hostile vine creatures was in fact an Elder Dragon named Mordremoth. At least he’s original, I guess.

Zhaitan’s name was mentioned not only by NPCs, but by the dragon’s undead minions themselves. More than once they’ve shouted, “Zhaitan demands your death!” and the like. I can understand that one being well-known. Same with Jormag, since the Sons of Svanir can’t shut up about him. Kralkatorrik was outed by Glint, and since her tale is well-known, it’s also understandable. I guess Primordus made a name for himself through the actions of the Great Destroyer, 250 years ago; the dwarves would have spread the word about him, I suppose, and the obscurity of that one might be counteracted by having 250 years to propagate.

But Mordremoth… Again, I question my character’s source.

Rukh.9287:

Curunen.8729:

My god this is fantastic.

My god its full of stars!

And the rest of humanity debates these, your last words, for decades.

Renny.6571:

Haha holy cow this thread exploded with awesome screenshots and a dev too! waves You guys are awesome!

No, not a cow… It’s clearly a bull moose, given the antlers.

In the first Entangled instance, my character tells the NPCs that he thinks this is the work of Mordremoth.

Where did I get this information? Is this a result of my having played through the Crucible of Eternity, somehow gleaning the name of the Elder Dragon through Subject Alpha’s use of the Teeth of Mordremoth skill? I know the dwarven texts mentioned approximately six dragons, but has my character discovered some ancient text that revealed this particular dragon’s name?

It’s just a little jarring, I guess. I don’t recall the name ever being mentioned in-game. Like, at all. Ever. But my character just throws it out there like it’s common knowledge.
“Where did Uni go? Oh, no, Venger took him!”
“Global warming again? Thanks, Obama.”
“Village destroyed by evil, sentient vines? Must be Mordremoth up to his old tricks again.”

TL;DR: I don’t understand how my character knows Mordremoth’s name, given that I only know it because I’ve seen it tossed about on these forums and on Reddit.

Zaxares.5419:

It’s possible that because these tracks were recorded with a live orchestra, they also hold part of the rights to the track and they haven’t given permission for Maclaine to make it publicly downloadable.

In the meantime, that Sounddrain website provides a workaround if you want a copy to listen to without having internet access.

Seems to me like the kind of thing that should have been in a contract. But hey, I’m just a guy who wants to download some music, so what do I know?

Sube Dai.8496:

Yep, drives me crazy. Have been looking for 3rd part solutions.

I haven’t tried this, but I saw it listed in a thread on Reddit.

I don’t know how this relates to the third-party policy, though, so use it at your own risk.

Zaxares.5419:

Aww, the new tracks can’t be downloaded. Will that be changed soon?

I certainly hope so. I was writing up a negative review for the “SoundLoader” app (downloads SoundCloud tracks on Android if the artist offers the option) because it was giving me some crap about “the artist has not made this track available to download, sorry!” or some such nonsense. It was clearly a fundamental flaw that rendered the whole program unusably buggy, and I thought, “You know, I’m absolutely, 100% certain that these tracks are available to download, but just so I don’t look like an idiot, I should really double-check on my desktop.” Sure enough, the option isn’t there.

Glad I checked. I don’t know why anyone would want to put them on SoundCloud but not enable downloading, but maybe there’s a reason I haven’t thought of.

Now my only complaint with the app is that there are WAY too many ads… Open the program, BAM! a full-screen advertisement. Open the settings and BAM! another full-screen advertisement. Change a setting, and BAM! another full-screen advertisement.

A Massive Headache.1879:

they’re not unique animals. arctodus is a bear and I forget what pinipal counts as.

I’m pretty sure it’s a sort of walrus.

AMD’s Mantle FTW!

Yes! I’ve had this happen 4 times this week. The first was Friday night, and then it happened again to our guild twice in a row tonight with Guild Bounty Training Missions, and one Tier 3 guild bounty.

All told, that’s about 900 or so influence down the toilet, plus nine days’ worth of build queue, and 45 minutes of us standing around and waiting to try again, hoping for something besides Sottz this time.

It’s really frustrating for our small guild. We didn’t expect to finish the Tier 3, but the three training missions were important to us. What a waste.

Angel McCoy.1832:

RoyHarmon.5398:

While I understand the obvious technical reasons for it, I’m still a little bothered by the fact that we’re never mentioned by name. Even as Ellen Kiel introduces us to the Zephyrite leader along with all the others, each of the NPCs is mentioned by name. The PC, however, is “And their leader.”

LOL! I know what you mean. You have no idea how hard it is to try to make that sound natural when we can’t use the PC’s name in voiced content. I could write a whole dissertation on it. Believe me, I wish we had that technology. It’s not an easy thing to create though. Quite complex, and very unlikely to ever sound natural. I think it would end up being more immersion breaking than the nicknames we use for your character now.

P.S. You may feel you don’t matter to the game world, but you do matter to us at ArenaNet.

Aw, shucks. I bet you say that to all your players.

BrunoBRS.5178:

i feel like the “nickname” technique actually works quite well, so long as you don’t stick to it, or treat it as an actual nickname. being called “commander” by everyone in the pact felt natural (at least to me), because it’s a rank, but that’s an exception.

direct dialogue really doesn’t need namecalling, as just referring to the character as “you” seems much more natural. for example, Rox could really tone down on the “my friend” and “our friend”. it makes it sound like she doesn’t realize we’re in the room.

in the case of the festival cutscene, a simple fix would be to introduce us first (as you would introduce the leader of anything). you could call us the hero of lion’s arch or something. maybe have kiel talk to you directly before the introduction to add a personal touch.

so it would be something like this:

“allow me to introduce you the hero of lion’s arch. he, alongside his group of friends [naming them would give the player the feeling of being left out, so keeping everyone unnamed feels better to me], put an end to scarlet”.

this way we get introduced without feeling like an afterthought, and the fact that kiel didn’t name everyone but the player doesn’t subconsciously write the player off as less important.

TL;DR: being directly called out, even if not by the name, is enough. try not to stick to nicknames (god knows how grating “hero of shaemoor” got), and use whatever makes the most sense in the current context. ranks are an exception, though it doesn’t mean you should shoehorn another military group just to justify a rank. for season 2, you can call us by our pact and/or order rank where it makes sense, for example. yes, three orders, but is it really that much more expensive to record the same line changing one word?

I agree with the “commander” thing. I totally felt like I was being addressed directly when someone called me “Commander.”

As for the rest of it, you also have to consider things like file download size (more lines of audio mean larger files and longer downloads, which can matter for those with monthly data quotas and such), gender-specific pronouns (in your example, “he, alongside his group of friends”) that would have to be recorded differently (possibly have a modular system in which one-word recorded clips of the pronouns could be spliced into the dialogue on a per-character basis, though that sounds — no pun intended — as complicated as this sentence structure), and potential legal issues with the splicing of SAG voice actors’ audio recordings, although I don’t know how any of that works.

Wow, was that really all once sentence? That’s why I’m not a writer.

Silalus.8760:

Everything.

You’re right.

I have some thoughts on this issue. One of the possibly inevitable side effects of having thousands of other players around is that sense of just being a faceless number, one among a great many. In fact, there’s not much that reminds me of my own insignificance more than playing Guild Wars 2. For example…

While I understand the obvious technical reasons for it, I’m still a little bothered by the fact that we’re never mentioned by name. Even as Ellen Kiel introduces us to the Zephyrite leader along with all the others, each of the NPCs is mentioned by name. The PC, however, is “And their leader.”

I’m not trying to suggest that you develop some technology like an in-game text-to-speech engine that dynamically synthesizes a coherent pronunciation in the voice of a given NPC’s voice actor. I’m simply bringing this up as an example of the moments when I feel unimportant, like I’m pretending to be some brave hero who saved a city. It reminds me that I’m expendable; no matter who plays it, the game world itself won’t notice a difference. I don’t matter to the world. It’s a fact that can’t really be changed or disguised, only forgotten, and there are plenty of moments that remind me of it.

Another one: events that require distressingly large groups (>20) to complete. Fighting the Assault Knights alongside 149 other nameless leaders of our party, plus Rox, Braham, Marjory, Kasmeer, Taimi, Scruffy, Ellen Kiel, etc.

This one reminds me that while we’re all “super important leaders,” we’re not really, because we’re zerglings. Maybe hydralisks, at best. The NPCs are more important than we are; at least in the Marionette battle, the NPCs gave everyone else a buff.

TL;DR:
All this is to say, I can understand the feelings of wanting to be more of a hero and feeling like a nobody who gets lost in the crowd of GW2.

I completed the meta achievement last Tuesday (May 27), but I haven’t gotten my chest yet.

Just throwing it out there.

Cross-post in Game Bugs.

On Borlis Pass, the WvW map selection window (the one that comes up when you press “B”) always shows a queue of 3 for the Eternal Battlegrounds, even when we have the “Outnumbered” buff in that map. Clicking on the button to go to Eternal Battlegrounds takes you there instantly, and in most cases, we’re still “outnumbered.”

After asking in map chat, I’ve found nobody from another server who has this problem, and nobody from Borlis Pass who doesn’t have it.

It’s been like this for a couple of days now, at least.

On Borlis Pass, the WvW map selection window (the one that comes up when you press “B”) always shows a queue of 3 for the Eternal Battlegrounds, even when we have the “Outnumbered” buff in that map. Clicking on the button to go to Eternal Battlegrounds takes you there instantly, and in most cases, we’re still “outnumbered.”

After asking in map chat, I’ve found nobody from another server who has this problem, and nobody from Borlis Pass who doesn’t have it.

It’s been like this for a couple of days now, at least.

22. While participating in Plaver-vs-Player (PvP) gameplay, you will not participate in any form of match manipulation. Match manipulation is defined as any action taken to fix or manipulate the outcome of a match or alter or manipulate the rankings or ratings of the ladder. This also includes disrupting other people’s game experience by not actively participating in matches in good faith, a.k.a leeching.

Source.

I know it doesn’t necessarily sound like it applies to WvW, but I definitely recall seeing a dev post many months ago that cited it in reference to WvW.

I’ve also noticed this happening in the same place on the screen when I have the full world map open.

I think it would be helpful to fix the search function on the forum. If I type something into the “Search this topic” box at the top of the page, for instance, like the the word “thanks” (the fourth word in the first post), it says “No results found.”

If the forum search function worked, you could easily find your other thread.

The Pointless.3869:

Nethres.7168:

The Pointless.3869:

This forum doesn’t exist solely for your opinion.

Exactly, it doesn’t exist solely for -your- opinion

Then you have realised that you cannot voice an opinion and expect those in disagreement to stay silent?

Aarean.5398:

Stop flaming eachother and get off this topic. I STILL have this bug after the supposed fix a few hours ago. Im limiting what dungeons i do so i still have something to do when i log in. Fix this please

The red post specifically said next reset. The update missed the one just been by 15 minutes.

It’s true that many people here feel very strongly about this situation, and my opinion is that asking for a refund of the game or gems would be an overreaction (and I both hope and expect that they’ll reconsider). But remember that for many people, this game is their sole form of entertainment and the highlight of the day. Not everyone’s game experience is as casual as yours (you advised them to “go do something else”), and some people find comfort and joy in logging in to join their friends or loved ones online each day. For those people, this bug spoiled their happy time for a week, so it’s quite understandable that they’re unhappy.

If folks are upset about something, it usually doesn’t help to keep telling them, “Hey, you’re being unreasonable. Things could be much worse, so stop feeling so entitled!”
Honestly, your first post in this thread wasn’t the best way to start a constructive discussion, regardless of how constructive the discussion of others had been.

Let’s hope that we never hear of this incident again after a week or so. That would indicate that either the players affected by it were satisfied with the outcome, or it was a minor enough inconvenience that they chose to move on with their lives. It’s possible that some will stop playing the game altogether as a result of this bug, but I don’t think this straw is massive enough to break the camel’s back on its own.

The Pointless.3869:

Goodness me, the sense of entitlement is strong in this thread.

Were you affected by this?

If not, try to imagine what it would be like if you suddenly had your rewards in this game reduced by 90% while the majority of players did not.

Since this bug affected so much besides daily achievements (roughly 5 silver, 600 karma, and 1 laurel per day, for 7 days), like ascended crafting (hard to quantify the value of account-bound materials), home instance mining nodes (at least 30 silver in resources, by my count, per day), world boss chests, dungeon chests and rewards, daily fractal chests, and probably other things I can’t remember. Maybe guild missions, too, I don’t know. But considering that so much of the game is based on a daily timer, it’s really not hard to see why players would be upset by this.

It’s a pretty widely-accepted truth that players like to have goals to work toward in-game. For a week, their goals were taken from them. They couldn’t progress toward ascended equipment because they were denied ascended crafting and laurels. They couldn’t earn dungeon tokens because… well, you get the point.

Imagine showing up to work one day, and finding out that there was some glitch with the time clock system. For the following week, it wouldn’t record your hours worked. The people in charge of fixing this sort of thing finally got around to fixing it after several days, and they said, “We fixed it. It should start working tomorrow evening.”

When the paycheck comes along, wouldn’t you be bothered to find that you’re missing an entire week’s pay?

I’ve been instructed to add my wife’s complaint to the list. I assure you, her opinion of your response is very strong.

She would like to have her laurels, chests, ascended material crafting, and home instance mining nodes back, please.

But from me, personally, I offer the following criticism: If you knew you were releasing a patch that would affect multiple systems in fairly dramatic ways, you probably knew there would be a large number of bugs introduced in the process. Why in the world would you schedule such a release just prior to a holiday weekend, considering that apparently nobody in the bug-fixing department is willing to work overtime?

I’ve seen it, too. Happens very often. Like when I’m salvaging things and hover the mouse over a skin I haven’t unlocked yet. It’s almost like the flash is “getting ready” for some other notification. Or, more likely, it’s being triggered erroneously in some script that leads to UI notifications.

Looks like it isn’t just crafting for some people. Did your daily achievements reset?

This thread may be relevant.

My wife is irate because her daily didn’t reset.

Please, ArenaNet, fix it so I can have some peace.

I think it’s fine. Some of the changes may seem disruptive to some people, but in a couple of weeks (or less) most of us will be happy with the transition.

NiftyNags.7946:

My guess is that it’s just low priority to change this achievement, but I think there are enough of us getting the short end of the stick here that maybe they will change it within a reasonable amount of time.

That sounds reasonable. I also noticed that Evan said:

Evan Lesh.3295:

It is possible to make the achievement use skins instead, but there is no plan for it at this very second.

So maybe they’ll look into it in the not-too-distant future.

Yeah, my wife wasted a ton of gold and glory on this only to find that it didn’t count toward the achievement.

That was a downer for sure.

ExAstris.8527:

perilisk.1874:

Psientist.6437:

Based on my understanding of the MegaServer (all hail!), no one will earn influence in the zones being tested. This may lead to players actively avoiding low population zones. I understand the need to test the MegaServer feature before implementing mechanics that are based on the MegaServer, leaves you in a chicken and the egg situation.

Where did you hear that people wouldn’t earn influence in MegaServer maps?

I second. Source?

Due to the official statements that you’ll earn guild influence for the guild chapter on your home server, I’m also skeptical.
From the original blog post:

For players in guilds, the world your account uses as its home world is the same world that will receive your guild influence. That system has not changed (for now).

I’m at work now, so I just want to post here so I can find you again later.

I have thousands of hours (and 13k+ achievement points) of casual GW2 experience. All of my dungeon runs are “fun and casual,” so I’m glad you guys are doing this.

Evan Lesh.3295:

I’m excited to see how it holds up for the power builders.

You mean like Bob? Man, can that guy fix it!

I’ve definitely seen an occasional bug that causes certain orichalcum/ancient wood nodes that I’ve harvested on one character to appear “used” for a different character that I know for a fact has not used it yet.

And before someone doubts that the character hadn’t used it yet, I’ve noticed this happening to nodes in areas that were previously unexplored for that character. The map clears, I get the “new area” text, XP, and audio clip, and then I run up to a used node.

But then again, this is probably unrelated.