Guild Wars 2

1. In GW1 there were many hundreds of global run player events. Such as pink day, sponsoring districts in CNY, contests and birthday parties, community conventions and the like. How important is this to you in GW2?

2. What sort of community would you like to see in GW2

The lack of cross region guesting is proving to be huge disappointment to many, many players. How are you going to address these and ensure these long standing international communities of friends can flourish.

For some people, it seems that the way WvW has been implemented has compromised the wider game community(such as guesting and guild upgrades) how would you refute this?

I’m sure paid server transfers were for WvW. Question is. Is a single game type more important than a whole game wide community?

People have commented at length on the guesting thread about how condesing friends etc isnt acceptable so please pop over there and have a read

Leaving transfers as is, won’t make things better for WvW(neither will it make them worse). But raising the Tyrian curtain will make things a lot worse for most people (who play every type of content) if not from day one, it will eventually.

Stuff like this needs to be done in stages. Once the ‘Tyria curtain’ is raised it will be too late. Imho the fastest way of giving people the benefits of guesting but not sealing things tight is to leave some holes for people to go through until The Tyria Curtain is ready to be pulled down

Ich bin ein Tyrian

As can be seen from the Guesting thread there is a groundswell of disapointment, confusion and sadness about the inability to play with friends across the regions.

Putting guesting in, as specified will drive a spike right down the middle of the playerbase.

This is’nt about content, it’s about how you want the community to be. Unfied no matter where they are, or divided.

My suggestion is this, put guesting in BUT at a minimum keep server transfers in place as they are until something better can be worked out.

I’m sure some WvW players will be upset and thats regrettable But surely the cost and risk to player retention is greater by dividing the community than an extension of a temporary measure.

Many, many times we were told X is impossible in GW1. Hairdressers, Apperance changes, account restorations, retrospective legendary survivor titles etc.

All of these were solved with some innovation and inventiveness from Areanet.

Please step up to the plate and try again and implement guesting.. when it’s ready

I’d rather they put it in too, but keep the server transfers free and as they are now until it’s region free. The pull it option was there in case it couldnt be done

I agree about the district system, but that decision was taking years ago and reworking it would be expensive.

I agree, pull the feature and rework it or at least put the guesting part in but keep the free transfers so people can still meet up in the mean time while it’s being sorted.

Many, many times we were told X is impossible in GW1. Hairdressers, Apperance changes, account restorations, retrospective legendary survivor titles etc.

All of these were solved with some innovation and inventiveness from Areanet.

Please step up to the plate and try again and implement guesting.. when it’s ready

Give this a few days to settle down and no one will complain. Most will just give a sigh, remember how GW1 made them feel, the fun times they had there and move on to games that do let them play together whenever and where ever their friends are.

Playing and being with friends trumps content any day of the week. Why else play an MMO if it’s not to be with people and especially friends?

Arenanet learned this in GW1, perhaps its time they need to learn it again.

Once again we see the result of poor communications planning. A series of progress blogs, alerting people to the possibility would have saved so much hassle. It would give people time to plan, say goodbyes to in game friends and even offer constructive feedback.

Just like the fractals debacle we get a fait accompli that has only two choices. Put up with it or leave.

If the game fails to have the player retension it expects then the fault wont be so much of the game mechanics, but simply because GW2 is a tin man game. It’s looking for a heart

The reality is, people don’t have to live with this outcome. Arenanet do.

As i mentioned above. You don’t even need a total rework of the infrastructure to do it. Just de-couple WvW from your home server in the software and let people transfer to whatever server they want to, when they want to.

It’s all down to the importance Anet put on people being able to play with whoever and where ever they want.

Shinzan.2908:

flyingcats.6194:

Shinzan.2908:

I can transfer servers from EU to US now and it takes about a minute, so the technology is there. Since guesting isn’t what we were promised and they said server transfers would remain free until they get it working they should just keep transfers free instead and remove the time limit.

The technology for permanent switching is there. The technology for temporary switching isn’t. It’s really not as simple as just moving something and then moving it back afterwards.

I would be fine with server transfers as they are minus the cost and time restriction. Could meet up with someone on US servers then just transfer back to EU manually.

The only fly in the ointment here is WvW. If you transfer server it copies across everything so it does’nt know you from a resident.

The best solution is to decouple WvW from your server so where you are in game is indepedent to your WvW loyalty. This can be done in so many different ways I am very curious as to why it’s not done that way in the first place.

For example, a new field in the database called ‘loyalty’ this field holds the name of your chosen WvW server. To stop you WvW elsewhere the loyalty field is checked against your actual server. If the two match great.

Buffs are calculated on this loyalty field, as is every other WvW restriction. If everyone chooses the same loyalty then either cap it (just like servers are), or they accept they will have to wait longer(just like now).

Disable the ability to harvest and get Dragon loot from any server that’s not your loyal one and let people jump to whatever server they want to whenever they like. Just like they did at release.

If the server you want to go back to is full, then either wait or go to a mutually agreed server until it is.

All the issues with guesting, population in open world and the spectre of server mergers down the line go away.

The thing is, it’s a fundimental design issue. Somewhere along the development line the question ‘how do we get people playing together no matter where they live’ was either discarded as unimportant or pushed into the ‘well guesting will fix it’ bucket.

For a so called next-gen MMO, the server mechanic is as outdated as it is frustrating. What’s surprising me is that this community focussed, innovative and talented group of designers can’t find a way around it.

Lone Wolf.4129:

What most ppl are forgetting (or just dont know) is that GW1 was also divided in the beginning. They opend crossed servers much later then most ppl know.

And there it was not just NA & EU, but it was more like "America, Europe, Asia, International "

Yup. The key being international allowed anyone (except china I think) to play with anyone. Even US and EU, or EU and Asia. The only place you could’nt go were 2 special areas which depended on how well a region did at PvP.

You could even have cross region sPvP and GvG teams. Only the region associated with the guild mattered, not where the players came from.

As you said, this functionality was in on day 1. The issue I have with ‘Jam tomorrow’ is by then it will be too late. The community will be fractured apart and those who wanted to play and be part of a global MMO would either have left, given up or just beaten into a submissive silence.

You dont need duplicate sets of info. As people have have mentioned there are lots of ways of fixing it or that could be explored further. That’s not to say they have’nt been but there is the fact that other games, other companies do the same thing as this day in day out with far more data that is far more sensitive so we ask ourselves. If others do it there, why not here? If the same company managed to do it on servers, networks and databases many times slower than now why can’t they now?

I suspect it’s all to do with how they designed the game. To work with seperate servers for the sake of WvW.

While I agree that people should get the best performance possible, people should also be allowed to make that choice. If I guest to NA Imay get DC’s and a little more lag. GW1 veterans knew that going to international or another areas districts you’d get more lag but we didnt care. We just wanted to play with our friends no matter where in the world they were.

Which is entirely the point of an MMO. But’s it’s not really us who have to deal with it. We can go elsewhere. Anet have made their bed, and it will be interesting to see the shape of the game in 12 months time.

My gut feel is that it wont be anywhere near as ‘sticky’ as GW1 was and it’s stuff like this which will be the reason.

I agree WvW is a big part of the game. But there were other ways of making it work other than tying it to a server.

I’ll also dispute the lack of region guesting is a small issue. You can just see the depth of feeling here and on other forums to see that it’s clearly not.

You mention the fix is to transfer to them and play and then come back. Except there is a big fly in that ointment. It’s going to cost each and every time I do that.

So if I want to do Arah with some US friends i’ll need to pay 30 buck, once that run is over and some guidies want to do a fractal marathon that’ll be another 30 bucks and another 7 days.. How is that in any way shape or form practical?

Basically there are better ways of doing it than what we have seen or been told. It would be really cool if we had some technical transparency and reasons why they did’nt work.

I dont think they sat back and went ‘lets find yet another way to annoy our customers’ I think what we’re seeing is the limitations of the game’s architecture which seems to be based around the importance of WvW(before you refute it, look at how many game mechanics have been compromised because of WvW).

I know it’s possible to do massive OLTP across datacentres. Companies do it with more data, less latency and with more precious data all the time.

You dont need to create another datacentre. All you need to do is create another environment or use load balancing(which the Anet tech talk tells us is fantastic) to create a space where people can go.

Heck, why not make overflows multi region for that matter.

I don’t think anything but a ground up redesign will solve it which is at this time seems very unlikely.

We’ll never know the reasons ofc to reveal that would be to give out Anet’s IP.

If you have an established guild you cannot move to a server as all your upgrades and influence will go. Why? WvW of course.

The game world, the community and in game possibilties have never seemed so small tonight.

Martin Kerstein.3071:

Let me explain to you why you cannot guest on worlds in another region.

There are two databases: European player data is stored in our European datacenter, American player data is stored in our American datacenter. This is to ensure that people in these regions can still properly play in case there is an issue with the connection between the datacenters.

When you do a world transfer from the US to the EU (and vice versa) your player data is transferred from one datacenter to the other. This is not the case with guesting, as you are still “registered” on your home world.

I understand that some of you are disappointed that you cannot guest on worlds in another region, but considering the complexity of internet routing, our main priority is to ensure that players have as much of an uninterrupted game experience as possible, which is the reason why we have two datacenters.

On another note: I will try to get an answer to the guild influence question that has been posted a couple of times.

Thanks for the update. Is there any reason why that data cant be copied across until the guesting is complete. Just like server moves?

As mentioned above, many of us would rather wait 5 mins for a copy and have a little more ping than to have a flat out never.

wasted.6817:

Well, GW1 used to be divided into regions as well, for a long time actually. Anet merged regions some time after NF release, if i recall it correctly. So there’s hope, but… But it is indeed very sad news, one of my favorite things about GW1 was the fact that everyone were playing together, in both PvE and PvP. Oh, well.

Actually you could always play with other people all across the world. They had international districts where you could team up. If I recall the only region you couldnt do this was China.

As I mentioned above, just stop people harvesting on servers other than their own.

If you can meet up in overflow or do dungeons across servers why even bother with guesting at all?

Very, very disapointing and a huge step backwards towards a global GW2 community.

They should have delayed it until the cross region things was solved or just said sorry we cant do this at the moment and it’s better you get something right and make do.

Rising.

They managed perfectly well to do this in GW1 and the power of servers now dwarves that of those in 2004 when it all would have been in place. Other games manage to do it perfectly well.

I think also perhaps you are mixing up terms. A server in MMO terms is a logical thing. It does’nt mean one physical box sitting in a datacentre. Nowadays it’s more likely to mean a virtual system of which a physical box can run many.

If you listen to the tech talk by Anet you’ll see they load balance across many systems and that it’s really scaleable.

When you enter overflow all you are doing is having your character moved to a different set of systems/virtual systems

The tech was all there in GW1, it’s advanced a lot more in the mean time. While it’s not a demand I am curious to know exactly what the limitations were/are as this is a pretty big downside to the architecture of the game.

The server jumping harvesting nodes is easy to fix. Just dont allow gathering on an non home server.

As for the ping issue. Thats easily solved. Just copy the character. Sure we’d have to wait a bit, but thats better than never.

Did the huge community events such as people sponsoring districts in CNY, all the give away events, birthday parties open for all and all the tens of thousands of player who routinely joined in to game and team all over the world not even register as important?

Community is so much more than people you bump into open world..

While it’s great that it’s coming. There are some IMHO huge limitations with it.

•Because (different from a world transfer) we are not moving your character between data centers, you may only guest on worlds in the same region as your home world. Players on North American home worlds cannot guest on European worlds or vice versa.

Many of us have friends in different regions around the world, many of us have formed communities and groups of friends from the truely global game that was GW1.

Why can’t you do a copy across region for cross region guesting? Sure we might have to wait a few mins, but thats a whole load better than never..

What was the reason for this limitation? If it was ping then let us decide what’s playable or not. We now have an ‘iron curtain’ between what was once world wide communities of players, who loved to meet up and play as and when they felt like it.

For me and I know many others the ability to meet and play with people from any nation in the world was one of the HUGE things I loved about GW1.

For a game that only yesterday said that community was a focal point, I really can’t see how this can possibly help but drive divisions right across the game.

•You’re eligible to guest on only 2 different worlds at a time. Each time you guest on a world, that world becomes one of your eligible guest worlds for the next 24 hours. After 24 hours, you may choose to guest on a different world. You may log in to any world you are eligible to guest on as many times as you wish with no restriction.

Again. I’m failing to see how any of this is good for the community.

Although I was kinda expecting these limitations, it is deeply disapointing that they are made.

Great, for those that don’t know how to get into the same overflow you PM someone(in this case me) for an invite to team. Once invited you right click on my portrait and select the ‘join in LA’ You’ll then get ported to my instance where you can leave the team. Those that are already there can then get others in by using the same method.

Does’nt take long as it works exponentially(5 can bring in 5 more each, who can then bring in 5 more each etc)

To me, this is the biggest design flaw in GW2. If we had a district style system as per GW1 then a whole load of issues would go away. Population (or lack of) in open world, guesting issues, the bad press caused by server mergers, people being able to easily group up and do stuff.

If Anet’s idea of community is people bumping into each other in the open world(as it seems to be in the blog post) then surely anything that helps this has to be a good thing.

I realise stuff like server pride and WvW is important but there are ways around it. Simply decouple your WvW team from your server selection keeping all the other restrictions in place. As for server pride, then this is easily replaced by team pride. Pride in your team in the real world is a powerful motivator to compete, why would this be any different

The in game community is hamstrung by the server mechanic imho

As mentioned above, last week a group tried AC, with the howling king but the builds/tactics were’nt quite there to defend Hodgkins that well. The nice thing about these all profession things is that it makes you think about combinations and how a team needs to interact and so helps ones understanding of the profession. It often needs a left field answer (such as putting down 5 portals on each burrow) which is where (to me) the fun and challenge lie.

We’re in LA EU Overflow this week (18th) so hopefully others from other EU servers will be able to come.

Give me a PM on Friday around 20:50 GMT so we can all get into the same overflow

A bump to say this is in a little over 2 hours. Gandara DR at the Lyssa Waypoint

Next week, as a test we’ll be meeting in LA(overflow) so more people can join.

Hi, Just a quick update to say we’ll be meeting up again at the Lyssa Waypoint in DR at 21:00 GMT on Friday 11th Jan.

Hi, just a bump to say this is in 2hours.

I had hoped guesting would be in by now so we’ll see how this week goes. We can change the venue to LA next week if it works logistically. I did think of an LA overflow, but they are too unpredictable and much too spammy. Trying to get guildies into the same overflow is a pain, even with voice com and guild chat.

Happy to try next week though

Thoughts?

Hi, Just a quick update to say we’ll be meeting up again at the Lyssa Waypoint in DR at 21:00 GMT on Friday 4th Jan.

Until guesting is in, this is for Gandara only but feel free to start your own up on your server

The biggest thing IMHO the article misses out, and imho is the largest flaw in GW2 at the moment is the complete lack of community building mechanics and tools.

You can have all the content and game mechanics in the world but if there is no reason 95% of the time to do stuff together the whole game suffers.

You end up with a Tin Man game. Very, very clever but no heart.

The design of the game as present divides players up rather than gives them a reason to be together.

They split players into servers
When it finally arrives guesting will limit players movements those servers where they already know people
These players are then further split up by mechanics such as FOTM where a single level discriminates player against player.

In the open world, the bond that grouping and teaming forms is reduced to a one night stand mentality or even rendered largely pointless.

Waypoint costs reduce the incentive to travel to places especially when those places offer little challenge or rewards to higher level players.

Double wammy death penalties discourage people from ‘just having a go’ which breeds an elitist attitude.

The multi guild system means people cant communicate across guilds, no custom chat channels means that groups of friends can’t share a common chat even if they are in a guild of not and no alliances means that Guilds that share a common culture cant band together.

WvW concerns prevent guild members on different servers getting the same buffs amd upgrades, thus either forcing players to move to servers outside of their timezone, have lag issues or that may not be as popular.

There is no single unique common ‘hang out place’ where guilds can just go to chill out, play games and have parties.

The main failure of the game is’nt that there is’nt enough to do. Is that there is not enough reason, nor is it easy to do stuff together..

Hi, I’m planning my Guild’s growth and recruitment plans for the next year and as part of that i’m looking at when i’ll need to increase the guild size cap to max

But, I’ve not found any info that tells me how many members i’ll need to increase the cap or indeed the exact mechanic for doing so.

In Beta the wording used to be representing members online at one time, but now the wording is members.

So how many members does a guild need to have to raise from
50-100
100-200
200-300
400-500

And is pure membership the only criteria or is there something else?

Depending on the time the patch lands we’ll meet up as usual for the last time until after xmas.

The whole commander system needs a serious revamp and this is coming from someone who is one.
For PvE and Guild events it’s invaluable. Trying to arrange multiple teams for the same thing and to go the same place without it is just silly.
It’s also a great tool so that people can see where the event is taking place (i’m using mine for the all mesmer events on a friday) and also so that a fair number of players can have a private conversation without needing to use say or whisper.

However.. I fail to see why every player can’t form larger teams, create a custom chat channel etc. Not only that, I cant see where each player is in relation to me. There’s no easy and visual way to see who has joined my squad and no way to make team leaders so I can sub-divide my squad. If it’s supposed to mimic a raid mechanic it fails miserably.

However.. I fail to see why every player can’t form larger teams, create a custom chat channel etc. Not only that, I cant see where each player is in relation to me. There’s no easy and visual way to see who has joined my squad and no way to make team leaders so I can sub-divide my squad. If it’s supposed to mimic a raid mechanic it fails miserably.While for me it’s not a waste of 100g for PvE it does need improving to make it as useful as it should be.

Bump for tonights event

With the success of the initial event, https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/mesmer/All-Mesmer-meets-Gandara-Svr-30-11-21-00-GMT/first#post885325 we’ll be running these every Friday from now on. Simply take your mesmer to Lyssa’s waypoint in Divinities Reach at 21:00 GMT to chat, chill and team up.

Last week we did a fractals run, and also did Twighlight Arbor up-up as an all mesmer team.

Next week who knows

See you there

Shan

Bump for Gandaran Mesmers to come on Friday.

Quite simply bring your mesmer to Divinities Reach, at the Lyssa Waypoint on Friday 30th November at 21:00 GMT. Join in the chat, banter and then team up to do whatever content you want to have a go at.

During the long waiting years , the assumption by virtually every media outlet and player was that there would be NO vertical progression just as there was in GW1.

Not once did Anet come out say “well actually guys, what we mean is this..”

So either
1. Anet were not aware of all the articles and forum posts where people said oh great i’m so tired of gear treadmills, power creep and all that stuff. What a great Manifesto this is.
2. There was a huge disconnect between the game developers and the markering/CM teams leading to huge almighty screw up.
3. They knew in advance what the reaction would be, but chose not to clarify because it would reduce sales.
4. They changed direction post release and tried to make out as if it was intended all along, knowing we can’t prove otherwise.

Personally I would go for number 2.

It kinda does’nt matter if they said ‘we never said’ the vast majority of players percieved that they did.

Customer perception is a key step to customer satisfaction and the moment you have to point out ‘we never said’ is the moment you’ve lost their trust and confidence.

This is an interesting quote
“In retrospect Ascended should have been deployed pre launch and earn able throughout most activities in the game (which is how we are moving forward).”

Which seems to imply this was in the pot pre-launch. But it also raises further questions.
1. Arenanet was surely aware of the perception of Horizontal progression statements. Why was’nt this perception corrected at the time
2. If a mild vertical progression was in mind pre-launch why was’nt this feature announced before time and as part of the advertising.
3. If the game was launched ‘When it was ready’ why were features as critical not even mentioned.

Fractals are the new FOTM. They will lose their shine once people hit the gear gate so people will either not bother and do something else or not play until more content comes out.

:)

The idea of an interview is’nt to ‘catch people out’ but to give them the chance to put their views across in a logical, clear and reasonable manner.

Often this entails having to ‘show your hand’ to give them time to think and prepare the answers. I don’t think for a moment that any of the questions to do with ascended or an apparent change of direction are unexpected and so if there is any coaching going on I expect these to be covered in those sessions.

It is important that questions such as mine are shown in advance so that the ’I’m sorry I don’t know that’ or ’it’s not my area’ answers are to be avoided.

What I will say on some of the questions that have been asked in the AMA is that they are imho badly worded and allows for the opportunity for Chris to lapse into PR, spin or vaugeness. Not because we want to catch him out, but because in the high stakes, high pressure AMA it’s easy to do so. So it’s of benefit to us all to keep questions focussed, non personal and allows Chris the time to expand on what he means.

What I will say is that every single word Chris will use in that AMA and what questions he does and does not answer will be utterly critical(no pressure) The slightest whiff of PR, Spin or vaugeness is very likely to set off the powder keg and keep this running for weeks more.

Areanet has the chance on Monday to put lots of minds at rest, or make things worse. If submitting questions helps the former and stops the latter i’m all for it.

The difference was that the lightbringer skill gate was a PLAYER imposed one. With some open minded players you could do all of the content without it.

With infusions etc it becomes a GAME imposed gate. I.e It does’nt matter how skill I have, or how open minded my friends are eventually i’ll hit a brick wall that only a set gear type can remove.

In this age of social media, all it takes is for one person so say a bad thing about about a customer and tens more know about it. Sure we might only be seeing the vocal minority, but I would like to bet the silent majority are hearing about this from friends, guildies, social media and other websites.

Staying quiet until it all blows over used to be a valid(but not great) tactic for crisis management. Now it just looks as though the company has something to hide and reduces trust even more. At this point in time facts don’t matter. Perception and trust are now the only thing that does. Like new coke, Ratners or SWG NGE people’s trust in Anet is what needs to be restored.

The very worst thing to do is give spin, and PR statements to people who are already annoyed. There are two ways left now to handle this(as mentioned above) .
1. Be open and transparent. Give facts and figures along with sound reasoning to why this decision was made.
2. Apologise and say “we listened to you and we’re working on a way to fix things. Watch the space.”

Most players are mature enough to say “Fair enough” and move on. Spin and Silence will just add Gasoline at this moment in time.

Hi,

Thanks for collating the AMA questions it’ll make it a lot easier to see and respond.

If I might suggest a slight re-org of the list to help players and Anet to get the most out of it. Personally I would move all questions regarding Ascended weapons, player progression and stats increases to the top of the list. For a lot of players this is the elephant in the room. Also perhaps create a new category called player progression so as to bring out these questions and give Chris chance to talk about the future of the game.

Anyway, Please consider the questions below for inclusion

•It seems the controversy over the ascended items has unfortunately swamped the news about the new content. Has the community’s reaction surprised you and has the reaction in the community given you pause?

•To many people it seems Arenanet has gone back on it’s no gear. horizontal progression promises.

Specifically they have been quoting Colin Johanson “The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.”

and Mike O’Brian

“Here’s what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can’t realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don’t make grindy games – we leave the grind to other MMOs.”

What assurances can you give them, that this is not the case and that the statements said back then still stand?

•The post by Chris Whiteside states that there was a ‘gap’ between exotic and legendary that needed to be addressed. Since the stats gap between the two is currently zero. Is there a reason for adding increased stats, rather than cosmetic/effort required to bridge the effort/time gap?

•Another common theme that this is a gear treadmill in all but name, as it includes gated content and higher than previously maximum armor and items. Would you mind outlining why these people have it all wrong?

• Will the agony mechanic be a common factor in future content, or will you introduce a new mechanic that will need new infusions to counter?

•With the increase in basic maximum stats, how will you prevent people who only log in occasionally being excluded in existing dungeons/content due to suddenly not having maxed gear?

• Will future content be balanced around exotic gear stats, or ascended gear stats in mind?

• Does the amount of segregation of players, caused by requiring different levels in fractals concern you?

•Guild Wars one is still going strong after 7 years, and had 3 chapters, 1 expansion and loads of fun new content without any increase in the maximum stats of armor or weapons. Please detail why there was a move away from this clearly successful model?

•Will there be a subsequent increase in stats or new gated content in the future?

Hi

Some of you will remember the old GW1 All Mesmer meets and teams that met weekly for many years at the Deldrimor War Camp.

I’ve been really keen to restart these in GW2 and have been waiting for guesting to arrive to make them game wide as the original ones were. Since guesting is not here yet I’ve decided to start them up anyway and carry on when it is.

So, What’s it all about?

Quite simply bring your Mesmer to Divinities Reach, at the Lyssa Waypoint on Friday 30th November at 21:00 GMT. Join in the chat, banter and then team up to do whatever content you want to have a go at.

Don’t forget to take screenies though

All being well we’ll make this a weekly event

Me and my guild have done a few all Mesmer test runs, including fractals and dungeons and we’re confident no content is too hard for purple butterflies, legions of clones or a plethora of portals

Let’s put the ‘all professions can do anything’ to the test, kick start the Mesmer community and have fun doing so

Shan

First of all huge Kudos and an Anet purple heart to Andrew for responding to posts in the lions den

The difference between what Andrew said about GW1 and player behavoir is that the ‘must take this or that’ gate was purely player determined. I.e you did NOT Need lightbringer 8 to do DoA, Ghastly stones proved nothing and many different team and build compositions could be used to beat the areas.

Now the ‘must take this or have ascended that’ is a GAME imposed restriction. Does’nt matter how skilled, or how great your build is sooner or later you’ll hit the ‘must have infused gear’ wall the GAME imposes. That GAME imposed wall is what is driving the undesirable behavior and will continue to do so. No amount of skill, build trickery or trying to break down sterotypes will stop it.

Two very different things.

That’s kinda the whole bitter-sweet thing with fractals. Sooner or later I know i’ll hit a game imposed wall that is nothing to do with my skill, willingness of my guild to help or my build and every time I complete a level that moments becomes ever closer.

I read many of the posts on the various forums and the undercurrent seemed not to be about not so much about the increased stats, but a feeling of being lied to or betrayed by Arenanet.

It kinda does’nt matter if this is true or not, it’s the perception that has and will do the damage. It’s kinda a shame this has’nt been explored more in all the articles, blogs and posts. The focus has always been on short term is it gear progression or not. Not what this perception will do over the medium/long term.

When a customer loses faith (perception remember is often more powerful than fact) in what a company says, then they are (even though it can take a while) less likely to buy anything from said company again.

If this was all part of a pre-planned move and its a transition phase as some have said, then IMHO it was handeled catastrophically badly by Arenanet. The best way to have done this, had this been planned months and months ago would have been to back in September, issue a blog saying ‘Wow looks what’s coming up and outlining the future of the game for the next 6-9 months" Mention the new tier, saying something like we did’nt have time to put this in but don’t worry…

Then have the CM team on red alert, answering questions in a concise, detailed and non PR way and so get the community used to the idea. Also being so close the launch the accusation of breaking promises would be less potent.

The way this was handled is imho a lesson in how NOT to release sensitive news to a fanactical customer base. For sure the community can be viewed as being too crazy, but Arenanet must also share that blame for not handling them in the right way.

Another point which was made on another forum was that perhaps Anet needed to do this, to ensure the health of the game. Now, this reason I can maybe, kinda and wind in the right direction buy however…

If you (say a games company) need to recover from disapointing release, worried investors or not having as many retained customers as you want there are a whole load of things you can do first. Such as giving a roadmap of where the game is going, new bosses to kill with new shiny items, boost the rewards in down levelled zones, introduce a daily quest to give extra karma for doing personal stories with someone etc etc.

Basically you try other stuff first.

You also need to look at how similar moves in other games have worked out. I.e learn from the mistakes others have made. The radical turn in direction of SW galaxies NGE, Radiance gear in LOTR, the proven negative effect of ‘content locusts’ and of power creep has on a game. If they have worked, great do it. If not then avoid at all costs.

The very last, desperate measure when it’s all financially about to hit the fan is to bet the company on a U-turn in direction, making your previously unique product a ‘me too’ and narking off your established customer and fan base in the hope your new ones make up for any loss of income from the old narked off ones.

A move which in my experience (not going to say what my RL work is, but I know about this stuff ) seldom works.

It’s all very puzzling and makes me wonder why what is usually a last resort, was in this case a first response.

Hi

I didn’t see in the patch notes if this has been fixed. Was it fixed, but it did’nt make it into the notes?

700 ish here

Easy fix for tomorrow’s patch. Change the numbers for the items in the database to match that of exotics. This could take just seconds.

Medium term fix allow infusions to be worn on exotics

Longer term bring in Ascended items with infusions built in.

Simples.

Who says you can’t swap and change infusions freely? 6 months down the line, all you need to carry around is a set of infusions for a different dungeon. Infusions could also stack and only take up one slot.

You just don’t have enough information to make baseless jumps in logic.

It’s not baseless. You cannot remove an upgrade without destroying the base armor and if you over write it and want to go back to Agony land you either have to buy a new one or farm for it.

Now OFC they could change it, but that would mean (based on what they said for GW1) a lot of extra work