Guild Wars 2

Three Words: Super Adventure Box

It broke up the mundane nature of the game “go here and kill this by pressing 1 button repeatedly.” Close behind that are the jumping puzzles themselves. Third would be the Marionette fight which has trumped anything that has come before or after it. Of course tied for fourth place would be the Queen’s Jubilee solo fights, and the Labyrinthine Cliffs map. Even some of the dungeon paths introduced in season one were fun before they were reintroduced and broken up within fractals. Down the list would be other dungeon paths that people don’t normally run. Including the Aether Path in Twilight Arbor.

Yeah, I had this happen to me twice in a row as well today. Where after the events wraps up in Dragon Stand the post count down timer kicks in. About five minutes in everyone DC’s. The first time I was killing a treasure mushroom. The second time I was going to the spider nest via the ley-line updraft.

Just recently I actually had the game crash on me during blighted tower event. It sent out the crash report to A-net but I am not sure what can be done with it. I am also running the game on the 64-bit client.

I looked to see if this was a change they made on their part and I see nothing on it. It has to be a bug. A really annoying one at that where you have to open your inventory and then open any invisible bag you have.

I know there are many people out there who don’t use invisible bags. They go for cheaper 20 slot fractal bag option. However some of us still pay for these things, because we don’t want to sell some of our personal items to a trader NPC by accident. This bug is up there with the miniature and backpack toggle option constantly getting unchecked.

EDIT: I figured out how to fix this issue now after the latest patch. Also it seems to be only certain invisible bags that are effected by this issue. Basically take the bag out of it’s original slot and put it into your inventory. Then just put the back into it’s slot. It should hopefully fix this issue.

I would have a huge list of things but what it really comes down to me recently is:

- Butchered lore or narrative in game for the sake of rushing content out the door.

- Half of the daily system turned into a pseudo-mobile game equivalent of log in once a day system without practically doing nothing. While the other part is almost interesting enough to want me to put on a broken record of Kenny G’s latest smooth jazz album. Frozen Maw for 20th time, out of one month anyone?

- Spread out broken content throughout the game, because it can’t be managed properly. As it piles on the figurative table that is about to break over long bouts of procrastination. All the while we get more ludicrous PR spin about that table, without getting one decent honest answer about the existing issue. Unless we become an angry mob then they throw table scraps us to make us happy.

Eh, well I guess it’s good that they are throwing a speculative bone at the community to distract them. Kind of like the pre-order HoT now and it’s the only time we give out an extra character slot for free. Just to shut the community up for a bit.

Ayrilana.1396:

No. Have you worked out in the business world? Remember all of the various positions and departments that companies have? Do you think that one department can do the work of another? I guess it’s poor management if they cannot according to you. HR department can’t handle the finances? FIRE the managers!

It’s called “not allocating your resources properly.” If one department is ahead of the game and the other departments are lagging behind then it’s the perfect time to hone on your micromanaging skills. I have seen so many management teams make the same mistake before, and would not surprise me if this is what is happening. Considering how certain things come out in a jumbled mess from time to time.

Ayrilana.1396:

I disagree that the content is/was being released in a poor state./ You’re expecting perfection which will never happen.

I don’t expect perfection, but I certainly don’t want half-baked content.

Ayrilana.1396:

If they added no content between expansions, then I could see it being feasible to fix all existing bugs. However since they continually add content through the living story and now expansions, this is much more difficult. They’ve likely got a system in place on how they rank which bug has precedence over another.

Again is that suppose to be a problem that can be easily excused, simply because they made that conscience choice to release that content in poor state to begin with?

Ayrilana.1396:

Different departments/teams.

Actually it sounds like poor management overall; if you’re going in that direction.

Ayrilana.1396:

How many of their previous updates (e.g. living story, holidays, etc) had some pretty bad bugs? How about when the game was initially released? It’s impossible to test everything under every scenario. There may also be differences between the test environment and the live environment. I can’t really comment on the specifics as the extent that I have had exposure to in that process is with VBA.

Don’t take this as me trying to dismiss your gripes with the bugs you have experienced. I’m just trying to explain to you that they can only do so much and nothing is ever perfect no matter how much time you spend on it.

There has been bunch of problems from the initial release of the game till now. Some of those technical blunders that the community yelled about when undressed for years. Look at the state of dungeon content if you don’t believe me. Hence another reason why they threw up their hands and chalked up that content to other things. Fine, I can understand it taking time to fix something and other things popping up randomly. However it should not take years to fix one bug or an exploit. All the while adding more content on top of what is already broken. Causing other problems down the road, because the original problem was never fixed.

The developers have told us before that it’s not easy to fix even the most simplistic cosmetic bug, because it might break the entire game. Yet we have more black lion weapons sets with particle effects that outdo even some of the original legendary weapons. Which are sometimes added into the game on an average of once every three weeks. While that simple cosmetic or animation bug can’t be fixed for months or even years on end.

Here is something on the subject from Wooden Potatoes a couple of weeks back:

https://youtu.be/9G9R6UnXS5g?t=325

However the real problem is pretty glaring. The game and the official forums are pretty bad state when it comes to technical bugs. Even the developers themselves have commented on how bad of state they are in. Yet the admission of guilt justifies them not fixing those problems in the first place? I’m sorry but we did not ask you to rush your products out the door starting with GW2 release. It’s a bit disappointing when sometimes I feel like I am playing a steam early access game instead of a fully released product. Even worse when we have Jenga development cycle. Where new features are just shoveled over the problem and we are expected to accept it. It’s unacceptable.

You still have to complete the entire puzzle on your own. The only advantage is your doing this with no one else. So saying it’s an exploit is a bit of a stretch. It’s more of a bug.

Being able to loot the end chest without doing the puzzle over and over again would be an exploit. Or standing on a rock to make sure you don’t take damage, while killing a boss is an exploit. This is just bugged out.

I just reported this bug: GW2 Personal Winter Wonderland JP Bug

Not sure if it’s connected to the “world full” problem. However it would not surprise me if it was.

Yeah, I was about to make another bug report on this till I saw your post. As well as this other post about the same issue: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/WW-JP-servers-not-closing/first#post5865747

I even made a video about it:
https://youtu.be/85RZmNhvfg8

The remaining question I left out of that video was: does this eventually reset when everyone is out of the instance? Which is the only thing we won’t know for sure; once we leave as the last person in that particular bugged instance. It might be connected to the issue about getting into the JP in the first place, but I personally can’t know for certain. Since this seems to be an odd occurrence.

Not even sure if it’s actually an exploit. I mean there are so many problem that have cropped up with this JP during this years Wintersday event. Including disappearing assets on the client’s side (invisible rolling snow boulders). Or the fact the server is not reading there is less then 4 people in the server for fifteen minutes, and then it finally starts putting in more players at the last minute. Or sometimes leaves only a few players in that instance the entire 30 minutes until the reset. For the last two Wintersday (not counting the first year) I have never had this problem, beyond having severe lag issues at times. Well at least that lag trouble seems to be fixed this year.

You can always go to Southsun and farm Karka. Of course there not much to really do there beyond that (besides the Karka Queen).

The district system tech from GW 1 needs to come back in some way. I know the developers have been avoiding it like the plague, but it’s going have to happen at some point. Just like how we needed the LFG system back when GW 2 first released, and that took them a full year to be put back into the game. I am still waiting for two other UI systems that should return in some way from GW 2’s predecessor. Including the guild alliance, and build template systems. However it seems we have to keep improvising till these features/fixes come back into the game. Which of course means that posts on the subject of “taxi player(s) to a specific map instance” is not going to go away anytime soon.

Ayrilana.1396:

Rauderi.8706:

The only part about Triple Trouble that isn’t world-group appropriate is the simultaneous-kill portion. Otherwise, the event objectives are somewhat easy to grasp. Execution is harder, but that’s a skill challenge.

Even the simultaneous-kill objective isn’t so difficult with attentive players and commanders. It’s still not appropriate, but it requires just paying attention and coordinating.

I initially would have agreed except people have been consistently succeeding the AB meta which requires synchronized kills.

I have to agree that most of the HoT meta content can be done outside of a guild with psedo-PuG groups. The only one that seems to fail most of the time is the Tangled Depths meta. Only because there are still certain sections of that meta that is still bugged, and the lanes are a bit confusing for people to understand. Primarily due to the map layout.

Speaking of map layout. Triple Trouble is hard to follow for some people because the notification of what is going on in this open-world split meta without lanes is almost nonexistent. Some people don’t even know the event is even going on or don’t know where to go after the event starts. This was fine for the revamped Tequatl event, due to it being confined to one section of the map.

Triple Trouble was A-net’s experiment to see how far after Tequatl they could push things. Unfortunately it pushed things to a point where only a few selective guilds do this event. Or sometimes a random PuG group can lop off one wurm head. I think Triple Trouble would benefit from some of the HoT meta lessons. Including all of those nifty UI notifications on screen or on the minimap, so people no where to go and what to do. For instance have something like Dragon Stand’s UI player check system for each of the crusaders set up 5-10 minutes before the event starts. So people know they need to split up.

I am not surprised, because I know who was ahead of the mastery system. I had a feeling they would be coming out with glider skins when I first saw them. Actually I am really surprised to see that we can at least dye our default glider different colors.

Beyond that no one has noticed how certain items have been coming into the store are clear copy and paste jobs. The only thing that is different is either the color or the functional aesthetic is better. For instance the white feather back item everyone was so eager to that get (with that temp sale they originally had) were not dye-able. However a couple of months latter they came out with the black version. It’s like all those glowing masks they put in the store with different colors. Now they finally developed an outfit that allow you to change the flame color.

Also remember this blog post (on the person behind the microtransactions division & the new mastery system).

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/hidden-arcana-developer-spotlight-on-crystin-cox/

Especially when it comes to this statement:

“Crystin felt there should be a greater balance between Gem Store item offerings and in-game rewards, and she and the rewards and commerce teams have worked on creating a clear division so that items will fit their method of distribution. For example, armor sets are now exclusively designed as in-game rewards while outfits are primarily Gem Store offerings.”

Kind of funny when we have another Revenant should-be-armor set (outfit) that is not simply another 800 gem transaction. However stuck behind a 2,000 gem bundle. It’s going to be interesting to see how many armor sets and weapons set we get in the black lion store compared to what we have in HoT.

I still don’t see the reason why Arena Net has not ported over the GW1 guild alliance system to GW2. I mean people have been unofficially doing it for years now; for both larger and smaller guilds. Unofficially it has been happening in the game since it first launched back in 2012. Especially when lager guilds were reaching their membership cap. Furthermore this idea really took off when guild missions came into the game; during the initial flame and frost stuff in 2013. Nevertheless they have been ignoring the issue. Just like they have been ignoring people asking for a build template system.

Those nerfs were “Whac-A-Mole” development. It tries to advert simplistic ways to earn gold in the game, but it does not necessary changes the root of the cause whatsoever. Right now if you know GW2 well enough then there are quite a few other easy ways to make gold in game. The only thing is that they are not popular enough to be in the public eye, to make any real changes to them (from Arena Net perspective). In the end this might bring down prices for a small fraction, but latter inflation will kick in again. Which Arena Net in return will do another “Whac-A-Mole” shortcut nerf that solves nothing.

I still have not gotten the expansion. However I was wondering how long before “area/zone fatigue” would settle into the masses. The problem is Arena Net forgot they had the same problem with Orr. Where the content turned from becoming interesting to people absolutely hating Orr after a few weeks in. Especially if the small things become very tedious to get over.

I am still waiting on actual reviews to come out for the game before I make my purchase.

It’s basically making sure we are on our best behavior when HoT goes live. Remember there will be people from the gaming press and youtube fame; coming in for their one time look at HoT. Also all those new players who are coming into GW2 for their very first time. Or perhaps a second time after taking a long break for some vets who left awhile ago.

Konig I am going to concede on this one, because there is something you personally like about this latest article. Your personal opinion differs from mine, so I am going to leave it that. Instead getting into a war of words. Plus divulging into personal attacks is not entertaining for either of us.

Konig Des Todes.2086:

Do you even know what dues ex machine means or refers to? Or mcguffin for that matter?

Sounds like you’re just spewing words without knowing what they mean, all for the sake of bashing. Which honestly just makes you sound like an idiot.

Dues ex machine, “God from the machine”, refers to when in Greek plays they would literally have a god appear out of thin air, with no reason for the god to appear, and fix all problems of the play and resolve the plot. The Glory of Tyria was the closest thing to a dues ex machine in GW2 because it was poorly established. The sylvari thing does not solve problems, does not resolve the plot, and does not appear out of thin air (if it did, there wouldn’t have been debates on the matter for three years).

A Mcguffin refers to an object served to drive a plot with no purpose other than the drive the plot forward – in other words, it’s something that’s not even needed for the main plot. Now, Glint’s Egg certainly resembles this, and this is poor writing on ArenaNet’s part, but if you actually dig into the plot then you find out that there is purpose to the egg beyond driving the plot forward.

And in all honesty, a mcguffin isn’t a bad thing in of itself.

The only part of your post that deserves any credit is the final sentence. If this is the whole “Glint’s legacy in the jungle” that was hinted at when HoT was revealed, then the potentially largest mystery of the game has been spoiled and shame on Anet.

So your opinions about some of the events with the Sylvari have been good quality writing in the game so far? I mean the things that happened with Traherne (especially with Caladbolg in his hands), Scarlet being a cartoon megalomaniac silver tongue technical genius, and the sylvari relations to mordremoth (one of the elder dragons being more power then the 6 “human gods”) is considered excellent writing?

As for the egg. Of course I don’t have high end faith that the egg is going to turn out to be a well rounded plot device. Considering inconsistencies that even happened in season 2 of the living story. You really think Arena Net is going to deliver a ground breaking story that rivals anything they have ever done before?

I’m sorry but you have been the one who have also pointed to many of these flaws before.

Ugh, the writers are utilizing Steven Moffat’s self-imporatnat style, but without actually explaining anything that came before it. Basically going “hey we are clever to switch things up with convoluted and cliche writing.” It’s already bad enough with the deus ex-machina sylvari and the Glint’s egg mcguffin. Here is another notch on that jump the scarlet nonsense. Also I hope this was not Glint’s only secret, because then the writers have already given it away before even the game launches.

I can tell you right now my prediction is that this is going to slow down after a few months once HoT has been released. The one thing they are doing right now is “showing off” to new players that they can work on balancing their game at a quick pace. It’s not going to last, even if they say it’s going to. There has been way too much evidence to the contrary since even GW1 was released.

Also since GW1 was released they had stated a long time ago that smaller variety of skills in GW2, would allow them to maintain a better balanced game. Yeah look how well that’s worked out for them in the last 3 years.

Just remember that A-net has extended out their refund policy to certain people before. Especially on “special occasion,” where they screwed up so badly. Light Flamekiss armor and infinite resource gathering tools are perfect example of this. Those refunds went on longer then a month.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

I’m going to assume the last time you sent off the updated ticket was only a few hours ago (obviously) in which case you’re still in the first day of talking with them. It does take time for the replies to go back and forth and decisions to be researched and made. They do ask for at least 3 days. It’s way too soon to be calling in the BBB when the conversation is only just begun. It wastes the BBB’s time to be called into a conversation that’s just started and a final answer hasn’t been given yet.

Seven hours ago; is more then a few hours ago. I also got a my first reply telling me “no refunds,” within the first 20 minutes of submitting my ticket. Furthermore I am not continuing on discussing semantics, because we will just keep circling around the same conversation.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

A lot of time it depends who you talk to. Did you update your ticket with a link to this post and tried again and was refused a second time?

Your repeating what Qugi told me to do. Which I already did. I sent off a reply, and got nothing back.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

You can always try, but I’m not so sure you have a good case (with the BBB). The notice on the gemstore said they would be the last time you could buy them with gems, which strongly implies you’ll be able to get them some other way, in this case, with gold from the trading post or from black lion chests. Since they gave notice that the means of buying the finishers was going to change beforehand, it’s going to be difficult to prove you were not informed ahead of time.

The problem is not about what they did, as much as how they just handled it now. I was told “no refunds,” like a few others here. However for one individual they made an exception to that rule. Hence the a double standard policy.

RoseofGilead.8907:

Why? They gave warning of the items going off the gem store. They’re not obligated to keep items for direct sale, anyway. Support has no obligation to refund anything in a case like this. So, there’s no valid reason to make a complaint to the BBB.

It’s the principle of the matter when it comes to business that conduct doubles standards polices for customer service. Apparently from what I can see this hasn’t just happen once but multiple occasions.

InfamousRSX.7285:

I too asked for a refund today for the same reason, and was denied, so looks like refunds for some and others not….

In your support ticket did you link this post about the refund?

Heck, I would not mind getting the same type of refund Rozbuska got. Just the gem difference for the 4 finishers I bought. Plus I would probably get a few more things in the gem store, but it looks like that is not going to be the case.

Qugi.2653:

Support some time it seem what GM you get. I had problem one time that GM would not fix after many email but other on forum got fix for. I then send link showing on forum about that and got fix from different GM. I do wish support was some times more consistent. I imagine there are many support GM though and not all think same way.

Yeah, I sent them a reply but they have not responded back to me. Doubt I will get the refund to be quite honest. However I did file a complaint with the BBB already about the issue.

Rozbuska.5263:

Faith in devs was restored, my gems was just refunded:-)

Congrats, I surprised they refunded you after what customer support told me.

It’s not the first time that Ms. Cox and her team has made a decision like this. They have put other items in game through other means once they take them off the gem store. They did the same thing with the mini Ghost Carlotta, Scarlet’s armor pieces, Toxic armor pieces, RNG special gem shop dye packs. However the big difference between those and this is two things. First these finishers were put in the black lion chest in less then 2 day’s after the final sale of artificial scarcity. The second difference as that all of these other items were account-bound and could not be traded.

I can see why they did this because finishers were not selling well through the system they had set up. However I bet you that some people think that this will be a bunny ears, aviator sunglasses, or SAB finisher all over again. Where the items have been away a long time. Or it be awhile before they found a new place in game. I thought maybe they would be put into a PvP/WvW reward rotation way down the line. However I bought 5 of them recently because I do less PvP & WvW as of late.

Also I contacted support and according to them they will not be refunding these types of transactions. Which I kind of figured they would not be doing in the first place.

“Purchases from the Gem Store are seldom refundable, and in this case we are not able to provide a refund of your purchase. We encourage you to exercise care when conducting all your gem transactions.” – GM Baba Yaga Guild Wars 2 Support Team

As far as I can remember download speeds was never hindered as bad as it was with this last patch. Even during the beta events just before the release of GW2. The only thing I can think that might have changed that is the game going F2P. So there is bound to be more connections and probably more download stalling during these larger patches in the near future.

You have a better chance at winning a dollar from a two dollar lottery scratcher ticket then you do getting a key in game. Might as well be farming your one week guarantee PS key reward.

I think the only time I have used the ice bow and my elemental was for Ascalon Catacombs. Just because the targeting for the graveling burrow still easier to take out with a constant AoE effect like the ice bow #4 skill. Unless they fixed that issue with the burrows always being obstructed in the last 3 plus years? Anyhow I can adapt because it really does not drastically change how I play the game anyways.

Eh, it’s Arena Net’s fault for hiring top voice actors from the guild. They knew this way before GW2 went live. You know why we did not have our PC characters re-voiced during the living world season. Is directly related to them hiring people from the guild who have other contracts and priorities. It’s called “think before you do,” and that’s on A-nets plate (not the guilds).

I can already see how this plays out. Sylvari PC hears the voice of Mordremoth. Ignores it at first then eventually it grows louder. Sylvari PC struggles against the desire to fall to the whims of this monstrous and vile calling. Eventually ending with some sort of melodramatic ending; where the Sylvari PC gets over it. Which is then never brought up again within the rest of the meta story.

Hyping this up is the equivalent of what we got with that PC personality conversation system in the personal story.

Thanks you.

I was trying to figure out the way they were going with this system. My original assumption was they were not dyeable from what I could see from recorded beta footage. Was wondering if they were just going to sell skins, drop in game, or eventually make them so you could change their color. However I am leaning on the idea they are just going to selling the unique skins via the micro-store. Especially now they are making more room in the upgrade section of the gem store.

I have a quick question for people who are playing the beta is the glider dyeable? Or is it a static color you cannot change? Sorry I tried to search through google and use the GW2 forums search tool but nothing came up.

ColinJohanson.2394:

Lord.4270:

Hi,

We are a guild of 3 guys . We love WWW.
With Guild halls , we will have to do guild missions.

So why we have to do puzzle jump and things like this , when in this game we just love killing people on the battlefield !

Why can t we play as we want .. ??

HoT will include a solution for this for both guilds that are WvW, and PvP oriented that want to build and expand their Guild Halls and need the favor generated by guild missions. Same goes for guilds that have a mix of players interested in all three. More info down the road a bit on how this will work once we’ve got it a little more solid on our end.

Edited to add: Everyone will have to do the actual mission to capture the guild hall once per hall though no matter what. If your group online is too small, you’ll need to invite friends (or pay/beg/sing-songs-to-woo peeps in Lion’s Arch!) to come with you and help you claim the guild hall to own one. Or you could always grow your guild

You know if I remember correctly your team said the same thing about guild missions. Especially before your edit. When it was released we found out that the system actually kind of left smaller guilds in the dust. So ever since then I personally despise guild missions. It was kind of like when you guys said Final Rest staff drop was not bugged and had us looking for it like a bunch of fools until you fixed the drop rate. Or the time when you guys released the Fractured update and reset our level due to a fractal leaderboard that still has never come out. Or how about those choose your own fractal weapon skin boxes that were also promised with the update and never came out. Maybe you want to tease us about Polymock some more considering we know it’s been shelf-ed (kind of like SAB atm). Instead of telling us the truth, you turn to PR spinning of “nothing is off the table” BS. Also your CDI project is still a joke especially after what happened with the commander tag system. Izzy really talked about how he felt that most of our dialogue was warranted in that particular CDI project. Yet when we got that update less then a tenth of our complaints got resolved.

You know what would have helped before you added guild missions or guild halls? A guild alliance system. However I guess no one can be bothered with that and once again the community has to fill in that gap like we did before the LFG tool took a year to build. I guess this one will take 8 years before you get the message.

I am not surprised actually. In all honesty they never cared about veteran players. The only thing Arena Net cares about is player turn over. It used to be we get stand alone expansion that were probably worth the purchase alone. Guess what I am doing about this one? Waiting for the review now. After seeing everything that happened recently with all the pre-order, season pass, and dlc scams. I am hold off on HoT till I see a review of how much content is really in this expansion. As well as find out they made a better fight for the end game. Considering how the zhaitan fight was in the core game of GW2

Since I doubt it will be anything like standalone campaigns we got with Factions or Nightfall for the original GW1. Plus you do realize if they keep this up an expansion for every dragon will be way over anything we ever payed for in GW1.

JonPeters.5630:

A couple notes on Dragonhunter. We went with this name because we felt it was evocative of the medieval witch hunters. Guardians consider themselves protectors of the innocent. Followers of their faith be it in honor, valor, etc. The origin of the dragonhunter is a more subtle nuanced version of this. Guardians fight for justice and the dragonhunter faction believes justice is the eradication of dragons and their minions. I understand this is a lot more high concept than Mesmer but at the end of the day we felt like we wanted to try and push a more mature theme here. I hope this helps explain our thinking. We had other generic names in mind but felt like it was important to have a mix of spec names that are generic fantasy, more Tyrian fantasy, and more high concept. This one falls more in the third category.

Thanks,

Jon

I took a look at what you posted, and you know popped in my head with that post? Don Quixote. That made me laugh so much. Also next to remembering that you guys gave Tara Strong the voice direction for Scarlet being a British Harley Quinn character archetype. I mean it’s still bad enough you still can’t write for your favorite nuance race that always hogs the spotlight. I wonder how long before Canach writing starts become loaded with overbearing cliches and stereotypes.

As far as my opinion is concerned on the issue is that I am already a bit biased right out of the gate (name wise). Since day one when they announced the “Elder Dragons” would be the main antagonist of GW2, I was already rolling my eyes. Mainly because Arena Net were setting themselves to somewhat walk away from the “typical fantasy tropes.” Even now these “Elder Dragons” still don’t feel like a compelling or unique antagonist. It’s like when they said they had to dumb down the human lore in GW2 because they wanted all the races to have equal footing. Take a wild guess which race take took more of the spotlight then they deserved; on top of the terrible writing that continued even into the post launch content.

Anyways the sad part you have to realize it’s that this name is “official” now. They are probably already using it in the story in the lore in some way to justify this name. Which will probably stick from now on. Especially if they had any of their payed for voice actors mention this specialization by name even once.

Hey, but you know what? At least the Guardian can be better then the Rangers in one department now. When this specialization class comes out they will be the second long bow class that won’t have to rely on idiotic pet AI behavior from screwing them over.

Yeah, Arena Net have always been the company that has struggled with communication. I remember that was an issue even with Guild Wars 1. In all honestly since GW2 launch it has not gotten better, but has actually gotten worse.

There is a bit I would like to expand on what was in that blog. It’s both communication and trust that are another real issue. Arena Net for some apparent reason believes they are putting out the same quality work as Blizzard or Valve. So they use that as a basis on how they communicate with their fans directly (which is very little). Therein lies the problem. Both Blizzard and Valve built their empire on the quality of their work which has shown throughout the years (minus a few in the recent years). That alone builds some massive trust. Compared to Guild Wars 2 which has had as many positives as negatives, with all that content they have delivered on. So trust is negated because the quality of work is not there yet. While the game looks nice; some of the game mechanics can be questionable, repetitive, buggy, or simply bland. Nevertheless they will always believe in the glass being half full.

It was one of things I had to learn for SAB tribulation mode and it saved my behind quite a few times. It should take you a bit farther then a normal jump would. Unless they really changed that function since SAB Back to School update was out.

On a more positive note though; I would like to thank whoever its updating some of the SAB mini’s. I notice my super assassin mini has gotten some extra love (animation and sounds) over the last year.

Wolfheart.1879:

Shaaba.5672:

Another example of community outcry was the changes to the gem exchange. The complaints were immediate and passionate and they made adjustments as quickly as they could.

And not at all related to the fact that the gaming sites picked up on it. As I recall somewhat vividly, i remember reading the statement Anet gave us saying they were going to change it. On those gaming sites. A clear hour or more before they deigned to post it here on these forums.

While the cynic in me would argue that they only made such a quick U-turn because they were getting bad press, and not the outcry of the playerbase (they alread have some of our money), perhaps that view is a little too harsh. Certainly I feel that given they told the sites before the players with the concerns, their first priority in communication then was damage control and preserving their reputation to prospective players, with reassuring their actual playerbase second.

Here, SAB, and indeed so many other of the bigger concerns and points of contention get a lot less attention, and certainly less posts from Anet. Certainly part of it is their refusal, for good or ill, to reveal plans and upcoming things too ahead of time, but I also feel, as a disheartened player, they aren’t as forthcoming or responsive because it is a purely internal gripe between Anet and the concerns and debates aren’t as visible to the prospective players and wider gaming communities and sites.

Continuing on about what you stated about the gem conversion screw up during last years Halloween. It was Crystin Cox lame excuse to the community that also got it to be reverted in the end. Which was “it was to confusing for players.” The same excuse the was use for the development of the NPE project. Everything that has been put in the gem store that has been a massive screw up has gone through managements approval, and whether it was communicated with the player base before it’s release.

- The recipe for the Dragon’s Revelry Starcake being stuck behind a paywall. This was the first stat altering food item that put into a universally loathed such lame RNG system. Not only that but it did not actually drop for the first few weeks until they latter fixed it.

- Flamekiss light cultural armor fiasco. Again something that could have easily been stopped by revealing the day before it came into the store. Instead it went live and looked what that turned into in the end. Sure they gave out refunds after the fact, but the re-skin eventually became flamekiss light feather armor. Which supposedly had to take a couple of months to make.

- The SAB Infinite Coin. I think we all know why this went wrong because the current state of affairs. Yet it got green lighted because it would possibly be re-occurring content. Even though the latter turned into an absurdly long hiatus.

-Watchwork Pick. Even if this was a test on adding in a extra gathering bonus to the infinite pick, then it should have been revealed way before it was released. Why should anyone buy any another type of infinite pick now? Beyond it the unique animations, sound, and style that adds nothing beyond a cosmetic purpose.

Arena Net has been terrible at communicating with payer base since GW1. It was a bit more excusable back then because it was their first game. However for GW2 it’s even more abominable compared to it’s predecessor. Even beyond the micro-store (Final Rest original abysmal drop rate, Fractal leaderboards, or Fractal weapon skin boxes anyone?). Unless they want to sell you something. Even that is not a strict guarantee with the given example above. It’s like everyday they sit there and chant: “loose lips sinks ships.”

TheRandomGuy.7246:

Less teamwork required =/= good.

I think unfortunately it’s fall back because dungeons never got fully revitalized after what happened with the Aether Path. So group effort for something like this is meaningless in their eyes. Also I have a feeling that HoT will be like the Factions campaign, where they focused on merging one aspect of the game instead of making it fully rounded. With Factions they tried to blend in their well received PvP system with their flawed PvE system.

HoT will instead have their efforts in trying to force the group mentality throughout the entire thing. Which could turn out to be a really bad thing, if there are certain mistakes that are made. Just like how Factions was not well received when it first came out. I suspect history might repeat itself with HoT. Only if HoT focuses it’s efforts on certain aspects, and throws out other convention completely out the window.

Orpheal.8263:

A question that jumps my mind also first:

Has the Zhaitan Battle anyhow been improved within these works?

According to WP there was a video interview where Colin Johnson said there would be no update to the Zhaitan fight. Simply because of flawed developer logic of: “people want new things more then they want things to be fixed that were broken and rushed during launch of the game.” I never found this interview. However Angry Joe’s interview was kind of exactly what I expected out of CJ. As in there was a PR person always pulling his strings.

Joe: Is there going to be a better end fight for the game beyond the one button mashing we did to bring down Zhaitan.

CJ: Oh, but it looked coooooooooooool though.

Joe: Sure.

CJ: Well gosh; you know we have learned from our mistakes by the content we did for season 1 and 2. Which you can’t criticize Joe, because it was so mildly entertaining you did not even participate in any of it. However thanks for the positive review on the original game, only now to learn how that fight really ended. We got great sales bonus because of that Joe. Cha-Ching.

Jesse Cox: Yeah…… this is why I thought this whole trip was pointless. Good thing I am not going to a video on it at all, because this is pointless market pandering.

Some of that was a changed a bit, due to my current bias on the game. Nevertheless you can see the real interview here: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sG5oUKqbIVM). The question occurs around 7:51 mark.