Guild Wars 2

Thalador.4218:

There’s a roaming Priory girl in Malchor’s Leap who goes from dark-skinned, short black hair to fair-skinned, waist-reaching brown hair on a daily basis, and vice versa.

@Stin: I’m offended those clothes are still not wearable by players. Female noblewomen NPCs have it, even the Orrian zombie ladies have it, but not the players. >.<

Same goes for Countess Anise’s attire (minus the pants)… Y u no make it available to us, ANet!?

It makes me very sad indeed.
What also makes me sad is that these gloves are not available. They’re perfect medium armor, and especially for rangers as they primarily use bows. Tell me you wouldn’t want these.
Found on Kian [Repairs] at Trainer’s Terrace in the Village of Shaemoor in Queensdale. She also has a nice top on that would be perfect for players into role playing.

All of these great clothes and armors already designed and in the game…yet off limits to players for absolutely no good reason. Honestly, I don’t know how many more illogical and saddening disappointments I can stand.

…le sigh…

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Toxic-PvP-skins-unstorable/3162904

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Toxic-PvP-skins-unstorable/3162904

Autumn Frazee says that the Toxic shoulders and gloves will have their PvP slots added with the Nov. 12th update.

And others curious of whether the Tybalt back skin and Catcher back skins will finally get their slots…that’s still a mystery.

Mel.8769:

StinVec.3621:

Also wanted to include some more screenshots.
Can view them here: http://stinvec.imgur.com if you would like.
I use FXAA PPI for enhanced anti-aliasing, color richness, bloom effect, sharpness, etc.
I also have side-by-side comparisons with ‘vanilla’ GW2 settings there.

Beautiful!!!!

Thanks, Mel.
My screenshots folder is getting to be over a gig in size. I really should start uploading more of them to my imgur gallery.

This world is such a beautiful place. I’ve spent the majority of my 2,442 hours just wandering around looking at everything and staring off into the distance over landscapes.

Gregori.5807:

@StinVec.. let me know what you find out. I am checking out FXAA PPI, ok, my wife is because I am a techno idiot.

My wife had the hard crash that required her to uninstall Sweet FX and reinstall it, which completely resolved her issue. I am having an issue where, in game, the game “stutters” as I call it but I think it is a computer issue due to other problems outside of game.

Here is a screenshot under my current SweetFX settings with no photoshop fancies that my wife can do:

:D Techie wife, so awesome.

Here was a discussion from about 6 months ago with some others on the application. Some more info there as well:

• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/8-months-and-zero-optimization/1904467
• https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/8-months-and-zero-optimization/1910878

It has some settings screenshots/file links there also for what settings I was using at the time. I switch up and tweak them frequently. If I am on my warrior I tend to adjust settings so I roam areas with almost a medieval tone to where things seem less saturated/cartoony and have a bit of a darker atmosphere or a less rich color to the environment. Sometimes I tweak it so it has that dirty western feel for one of my rangers. Sepia tone, scan line and noise adjustments are really great for this, especially to add a bit of a film grain quality as if in a western movie. If you want any more info that I can provide I’d be happy to discuss the app settings and stuff even via PM if you’d prefer.

Arcain.9106:

What a beautiful wor…kitten BEAR!!

Original Poster

That actually made me laugh out loud…a bit too loud, actually. Even got a “There’s something wrong with you” look from someone nearby.

Hmm…

I think I need to start paying more attention to the appearances of NPCs again, at least more than my current gawking at the awesome clothes that Sister Brenda and Lexi Price in Queensdale are wearing and wishing we could have them for our armors.

Doggie.3184:

headgear and aquatic headgear fall into different categories and don’t share any skins with eachother so I doubt you can have an underwater gas mask. The land air filtration mask is apparently the same appearance as the starter rebreather so that one wouldn’t matter much.

Dry Land Head Armor and Aquatic Head Armor are all called “Head Armor” in their descriptions. There being a difference between dry land and aquatic head armor, despite what they are referred to in their descriptions, is exactly my point and why I am asking for clarification.

Due to the nature of there being a difference between dry land and aquatic head armor, this specification should be mentioned on the release page if it can, in fact, only be applied to dry land head armor and not aquatic head armor.

Simply stating “any head armor” means it can go on any head armor…which includes aquatic head armor. I’m asking for clarification on if it is correctly written and can be applied to any head armor, which logically includes aquatic head armor, or if it is just poorly written and “any head armor” does not actually include aquatic head armor. If that is the case, it should be re-written to specify only being applicable to dry land head armor as it is wholly incorrect and misleading in its current form.

It also would make sense that this gas mask skin could be used on aquatic head armor due to their also introducing a dry land version of the starter aquatic head armor skin.
As it reads now it is a sort of “Here’s a dry land version of the aquatic head armor, and a new dry land head armor that can be used on your aquatic head armor” type of release.

Right now I am most pleased with my necro.

Glad to help out.

If you want it to be:
Check out my awesome youtube video!

You would type this into your signature box:
Check out my [url =http://www.youtube.com]awesome youtube video![/url]

But remove the space I put between “url” and the = sign as I put that space there just so I can show you what the coding is behind it.

You would type it as: blah blah [url =youtubevideolink]words to display as a link[/url]
But without the space between url & =

For the future, this would probably better fit as a question in the Tech Support, Players Helping Players or even the Forum and Website Bugs areas.

Sweet FX has come a long way to where you do not need to tweak any code/make changes in text files to get results and I believe it now has a GUI, though I still see many having issues with it running right/at all or finding it difficult to get the results they desire. I haven’t used Sweet FX for quite a while, but I have no real desire to switch from FXAA PPI as I’m very happy with its options and results. Also, having absolutely no game crash issues that I see others having with Sweet FX is nice. I’m not sure if one is better than the other in a broad or technical sense, but I find FXAA PPI to be very easy to adjust with clearly defined effects so it is easy to know what to tweak to get the results I desire. It really has a lot of options. I also have absolutely no performance loss with it unless I go real overboard on the bloom passes. I’ll check out what Sweet FX has been up to lately, though the guy/people behind FXAA PPI state Sweet FX will be integrated into it in the future anyway, along with DX10/11. They’re still working on it though.

Also wanted to include some more screenshots.
Can view them here: http://stinvec.imgur.com if you would like.
I use FXAA PPI for enhanced anti-aliasing, color richness, bloom effect, sharpness, etc.
I also have side-by-side comparisons with ‘vanilla’ GW2 settings there.

No problem, I’m glad it is now fixed.

I’ve seen cases of some users reporting that their drivers for their Radeons were automatically being updating to the newest beta drivers, despite their not choosing to update them. I don’t know how a video card can automatically have its drivers updated to a new beta driver set when it gets released without user authorization, but it seemed to be the case for some others.

Happy (non-blurry armor) gaming!

If you are using an AMD graphics card, check your settings in your Catalyst Control Center for.

• SmoothVision HD: Anti-Aliasing
• SmoothVision HD: Anisotropic Filtering

Check to make sure those two settings are set to ‘Use application settings’ instead of custom.

See if that helps correct the problem.

I had recently encountered that issue in another game to where everything was ‘x-ray’. I am unsure of which of those settings it was that corrected it though as I had both as custom and put both to ‘Application Controlled’ at the same time to correct it, though it was most likely the anisotropic filtering setting that fixed it.

Agent of Entropy is capped at 250 achievements points earned through completing it. At 2 achievement points per completion, you can complete it the first time and repeat it 124 additional times before you will no longer receive achievement points from repeating it. Viewing the achievement will show how many times it has been repeated.

As for why your number for how many times you’ve repeated it is no longer increasing, that I have no logical explanation for.

timmyf.1490:

DiogoSilva.7089:

One of the things that I didn’t like in the personal story instances, is the fact that content can be forever skipped. The fact that by choosing between a noble human or not, or all the personal story instances where I had to choose to go either to point A or point B. I hated that, because I felt that the story was more immersing when I could experience the whole of it, and not just part of it. In fact, having replayed the human’s story with three different characters made me enjoy it a lot more than with just one, because it made Divinity’s Reach feel richer and more layered in complexity. And even then, there have been instances that I didn’t have the opportunity to ver try, and that I’ll probably never see them ever, unless you somehow revamp that system and allow us to replay every single instance.

I think the idea in Guild Wars 2 is that you’d play the Personal Story of other players in order to see all the different story lines, etc. This is complicated by two things:

1) Unlike in Guild Wars 1 (where missions and most quests required other players – unless you wanted to risk it with henchmen… and prior to the introduction of Heroes), you had to party up with people to play content. This made the content more social. Because the PS can be completed almost in its entirety as a solo venture, there’s really no reason to attempt to party up with others. I’ve tried using LFG to find folks to play PS with me, but I’ve never once had anybody join.

2) The rewards for completing the PS of others are pretty low given the time investment…

I’d also like to point out that players are actually discouraged from helping others with their personal stories due to what most would consider a bug. If I am Vigil, and I help you out with your Whispers story, certain story chapters can actually cause me to no longer be Vigil and I will instead be forcibly changed to being in the Order of Whispers just because I helped you with your Whispers story chapter.

Why should my chosen Order, and all of my efforts and chosen paths in My Story, be overwritten and forever disjointed simply because I helped someone else with their Story Chapter of a different Order? My Story will then make absolutely no sense and any future chapters in My Story are related to the new Order I was forced into instead of the chapters I should have had with my chosen Order.

Many have reported this huge issue…without reply.

I recently happened across this Knut and Friends documentary on a baby white polar bear named Knut.

“This documentary shows the early life of polar bear Knut that had to be hand fed by Berlin zoo employee Thomas Dörflein after its mother Tosca refused the baby in 2006.”

It’s a very nice and touching documentary. I highly recommend it.

The GW2 Wiki for Knut Whitebear states:
“The name may be inspired by the polar bear Knut (5 December 2006 – 19 March 2011) from the Berlin Zoological Garden.”

So I must ask:

• Which member of ArenaNet was responsible for the naming of this character?
• If Knut Whitebear actually was named for Knut the white bear, what was it about the story of Knut that led them to choosing to name Knut Whitebear after it?

lordkrall.7241:

Vayne.8563:

I’m sorry how did the Living World impact the beauty of the world at all? The world isn’t any less beautiful due to the Living World.

They destroyed Kessex Hills with an ugly tower and corruption!!!!!!

(Sorry, I just had to, I actually like the changes..)

I am glad I have many images of the landscape of pre-ToN Kessex. I like the scale of the changes ToN brought to the landscape, but I really hope that we will see it returned to its gorgeous state once again down the road.

I almost started a Kessex Hills memorial thread at the start of ToN to see everyone’s old screenshots of the area, considering we may not see it as it was for several months.

Woot!

Glad it was one of those things that helped!

I’m sorry. I should have listed the local.dat deletion as the last resort option due to its removal causing settings loss. :\ I’ll be sure to list it last in the future, or to at least emphasize the ‘last resort’ nature of it when trying to fix an issue.

Glad you can get back to TP’ing!
Yeah, kinda giggled when I wrote that, sadly.

Has anyone else seen a response on this matter from ArenaNet someplace else? (here, twitter, reddit, etc. I don’t go to those other sites)

Release page still states “any piece of head armor” and would just like to know if “any head armor” also includes aquatic head armor.

Explicitly stating “any head armor” would logically mean “any head armor”, thus aquatic head armor would be included in this statement.

If it does not include aquatic head armor, then it should be reworded to specify “any dry land head armor”.

And the repair steps if you need them.

Check the game for errors and repair it

• Close your game completely.
• Next, make a copy of your Gw2 game shortcut and rename it “GW2 Repair” or to something that you will recognize it for being only for running a repair on your GW2 installation.
• Now, right-click this “Gw2 Repair” shortcut and click on “Properties”.
• On the “Shortcut” tab look in the “Target:” field, you should see:
  “C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2” or wherever you have Guild Wars 2 installed.
• After the closing quotation marks in this line put a space and then add -repair
  It will look like this but with your GW2 install location:
  “C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2” -repair
• Hit OK after making this change.
• Run this repair shortcut. Your game will run through a repair cycle and fix any damaged files it finds.
• After it runs through, start the game using the normal GW2 game shortcut (not the repair shortcut) and see if your TP can load up properly.

Hey, Treeline. Have you already tried doing the usual fixes for TP related issues?
i.e clearing gw2 cache, deleting local.dat, run as admin

Then there is repairing the client to see if that helps.
As well as the language swap solution that kyllaa usually mentions as possibly helping (switch to French and then back to English).

Here are those other possible fixes in case you’ve not tried them yet.

Run As Admin

• Close your game completely.
• Ensure your game is set to Run As Administrator in the shortcut’s Properties > Compatibility tab.

Delete the local.dat file
Deleting this file will also cause you to lose your saved game settings (graphics, stored login data, etc.) but may fix the problem. If you rely on your stored login info to log in, make sure you can recall what your login info is as the stored login info is also cleared.

The quickest way to do this is to:

• Ensure your game is completely closed.
• Hold your Windows Key and press ‘F’ to open your Windows Search.
• Search for “Local.dat”. 2 files will be found.
• Ignore the “Local.dat” file that is in the game installation folder.
• Delete the “Local.dat” file that resides at:
  “C:\Users\YourComputerUserName\AppData\Roaming\Guild Wars 2”
• Load up your game normally and see if the character can load properly.
• You will notice that your settings are reverted to default. You should reconfigure your game settings once again to your preference.

Clear the game cache
In addition to ‘Running As Administrator’ helping with many issues other than just the TP, most TP-specific issues are primarily related to some temporary GW2 files where removing them will allow them to be recreated and the TP to function properly again.

The quickest way to clear the GW2 Cache is to:

1. Ensure your game is completely closed.
2. Hold your “Windows Key” and press “F” to open Windows Search on your computer.
3. Search for “gw2cache”
4. It will find a folder called “gw2cache-{bunch-of-letters-and-numbers}” at:
   “C:\Users\YourComputerUserName\AppData\Local\Temp”
5. Delete this “gw2cache-{bunch-of-letters-and-numbers}” folder that is shown in the results.
6. Load up your game normally and your TP should now function properly.

If your search for “gw2cache” does not produce the folder I mentioned, then you will need to enable hidden files and folders in order to delete this cache folder.

Make hidden files visible and clear the game cache

1. Close your game completely.
2. Browse your My Computer to: “C:\Users\YourComputerUserName”
3. Then in the window menus, click on “Tools” then “Folder Options…”
4. In the window that pops up, click the “View” tab
5. Select to “Show hidden files, folders and drives” and click ‘OK’ (attached image #1)
6. You should now see a folder in your file listing called “AppData”, open this folder
7. Inside that folder open the “Local” folder
8. Inside that folder open the “Temp” folder
9. You should now see a folder called “gw2cache-{bunch-of-letters-and-numbers}”. Delete this gw2cache folder.
10. Load up your game normally and see if the issue is fixed.

—note—
By “window menus” I mean up at the top of the window where it says “File Edit View Tools Help”. If that bar does not display in your window for you along the top, then click the drop-down arrow next to the word “Organize” and then click on “Layout” and select “Menu bar” to enable showing of the menus (attached image #2).

Another way to do Steps 3, 4 and 5 to make hidden folders visible is:

• Click your Start menu and then open Control Panel
• In your Control Panel, if items are sorted by “Category” then select “Appearance and Personalization” on the right side, then in the second bottom area under “Folder Options” click on “Show hidden files and folders”. This will open the same options dialogue box shown in attached image #1.
• Otherwise, if Control Panel is sorted by Icons, simply click on “Folder Options” from the list to bring up the options dialogue box shown in attached image #1.

If your issue you are describing is that it will no longer target the nearest enemy if you have a champion enemy targeted, or if a champion enemy is on your screen then it will only target the champion instead of a nearest enemy, then:

This issue had been reported by others since the change to targeting was made last month.

Reported Functionality Issues (Hover on INFO for issue description)

• Controls – ‘Target Nearest’ Overridden By Champion Presence
  | INFO | Report Thread | Dev Response |

Pulled from the Tracker: Reported Bugs and Their Status [collaborative effort by players] sticky thread.

This issue had been reported by others since the change to targeting was made last month.

Reported Functionality Issues (Hover on INFO for issue description)

• Controls – ‘Target Nearest’ Overridden By Champion Presence
  | INFO | Report Thread | Dev Response |

Pulled from the Tracker: Reported Bugs and Their Status [collaborative effort by players] sticky thread.

This subsample armor texture issue has come up many times before. Basically, it seems that may have updated to the AMD beta driver set. AMD Beta drivers cause this problem on many of the Radeon cards from the HD5xxx to HD7xxx.

Fully uninstall and clean up any of your existing drivers and revert back to officially released drivers. This has been the only way to correct the problem for many others.

If you need links to the proper drivers or the clean up utility (or want to look at past threads on this issue) let me know.

If you would like an alternative to SweetFX (as others have also had crashing issues with sweetfx) check out my post here on the FXAA PPI with side-by-side shots and info. I’d be happy to help with any questions on it or advice for tweaks to getting certain appearance results.

thDOM.1527:

My main character is stucked on the loading screen. However, my other characters could load finely.

This has helped fix the problem for others that have had stuck characters in the past.

Delete the local.dat file
Deleting this file will also cause you to lose your saved game settings (graphics, stored login data, etc.) but may fix the problem. If you rely on your stored login info to log in, make sure you can recall what your login info is as the stored login info is also cleared.

The quickest way to do this is to:

• Ensure your game is completely closed.
• Hold your Windows Key and press ‘F’ to open your Windows Search.
• Search for “Local.dat”. 2 files will be found.
• Ignore the “Local.dat” file that is in the game installation folder.
• Delete the “Local.dat” file that resides at:
  “C:\Users\YourComputerUserName\AppData\Roaming\Guild Wars 2”
• Load up your game normally and see if the character can load properly.
• You will notice that your settings are reverted to default. You should reconfigure your game settings once again to your preference.

Server Error
502 – Web server received an invalid response while acting as a gateway or proxy server.
There is a problem with the page you are looking for, and it cannot be displayed. When the Web server (while acting as a gateway or proxy) contacted the upstream content server, it received an invalid response from the content server.

As Mikau said, it is nearly impossible to read the forums, let alone leave a comment.

If anyone manages to even get this thread to load, know that you are not alone in experiencing this issue and it is not on our end.

You may want to check your audio device configuration to ensure it is set to ‘Stereo’ and not set for ‘5.1/7.1 Surround Sound’.

Win7:

• Control Panel
• Sound
• Hit Configure button in the dialogue box.
• Select the appropriate Stereo or Headphones option.

Win XP:

• Control Panel
• Sounds and Audio Devices
• Volume Tab
• Lower “Speaker Settings” area
• Advanced button
• Then under the “Speaker Setup” drop-down menu, select “Stereo Headphones”.

Also check the “Exclusive Mode” setting for the device as perhaps another application launched before GW2 has been given exclusive access to the audio device which prevents GW2 sound from being sent to the device.

Also, if you are using a Logitech (or Razer) headset and are running the configuration software that came with it, also check to see if it is running in Surround Sound mode, or if you have enabled the “Surround Sound” button inside that software.

Quite weird.
Appears to be an internal view of a bull’s neck looking up toward their face…or is that a centaur?

Only thing I can suggest right now is:

First:

• Close your game completely.
• Ensure your game is set to Run As Administrator in the shortcut’s Properties > Compatibility tab.
• Ensure the ‘Read Only’ attribute is not set in the right-click > Properties for Gw2.exe, Gw2.tmp and Gw2.dat files in the installation directory.

Then: Check the game for errors and repair it

• Close your game completely.
• Next, make a copy of your Gw2 game shortcut and rename it “GW2 Repair” or to something that you will recognize it for being only for running a repair on your GW2 installation.
• Now, right-click this “Gw2 Repair” shortcut and click on “Properties”.
• On the “Shortcut” tab look in the “Target:” field, you should see:
  “C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2” or wherever you have Guild Wars 2 installed.
• After the closing quotation marks in this line put a space and then add -repair
  It will look like this but with your GW2 install location:
  “C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2” -repair
• Hit OK after making this change.
• Run this repair shortcut. Your game will run through a repair cycle and fix any damaged files it finds.
• After it runs through, start the game using the normal GW2 game shortcut (not the repair shortcut) and see if the issue persists.

Ah, Mumble Overlay. Yeah that causes several problems with the game. Sorry to hear of that as being the problem. :\

You may want to look at your power supply unit. If two video cards suddenly have overheating problems then it is possible that your power supply is going bad. If your power supply is not able to properly and reliably supply the amount of power being drawn by the video card, then the voltage regulators on the cards will have to constantly work to regulate the inconsistent voltage being given to the card. This extra work will increase heat on the cards and lead to overheating if the fan is unable to compensate for the extra heat.

@Hule

Clear the game cache
Most TP-specific issues are primarily related to some temporary GW2 files where removing them will allow them to be recreated and the TP to function properly again.

The quickest way to clear the GW2 Cache is to:

1. Ensure your game is completely closed.
2. Hold your “Windows Key” and press “F” to open Windows Search on your computer.
3. Search for “gw2cache”
4. It will find a folder called “gw2cache-{bunch-of-letters-and-numbers}” at:
   “C:\Users\YourComputerUserName\AppData\Local\Temp”
5. Delete this “gw2cache-{bunch-of-letters-and-numbers}” folder that is shown in the results.
6. Load up your game normally and your TP should now function properly.

If your search for “gw2cache” does not produce the folder I mentioned, then you will need to enable hidden files and folders in order to delete this cache folder.

Make hidden files visible and clear the game cache

1. Close your game completely.
2. Browse your My Computer to: “C:\Users\YourComputerUserName”
3. Then in the window menus, click on “Tools” then “Folder Options…”
4. In the window that pops up, click the “View” tab
5. Select to “Show hidden files, folders and drives” and click ‘OK’ (attached image #1)
6. You should now see a folder in your file listing called “AppData”, open this folder
7. Inside that folder open the “Local” folder
8. Inside that folder open the “Temp” folder
9. You should now see a folder called “gw2cache-{bunch-of-letters-and-numbers}”. Delete this gw2cache folder.
10. Load up your game normally and see if the issue is fixed.

—note—
By “window menus” I mean up at the top of the window where it says “File Edit View Tools Help”. If that bar does not display in your window for you along the top, then click the drop-down arrow next to the word “Organize” and then click on “Layout” and select “Menu bar” to enable showing of the menus (attached image #2).

Another way to do Steps 3, 4 and 5 to make hidden folders visible is:

• Click your Start menu and then open Control Panel
• In your Control Panel, if items are sorted by “Category” then select “Appearance and Personalization” on the right side, then in the second bottom area under “Folder Options” click on “Show hidden files and folders”. This will open the same options dialogue box shown in attached image #1.
• Otherwise, if Control Panel is sorted by Icons, simply click on “Folder Options” from the list to bring up the options dialogue box shown in attached image #1.

I feel that the armor weight restrictions and the cloth/leather/plate design limitations of armor are just left over elements that directly relate to the trinity. Had Anet chosen to fully remove the trinity from GW2, as they seem to believe they have, then these other elements of RPGs would also need to go as they only exist because of the trinity. These restrictions to armor types able to be worn by different classes, and the limitations on creative designs of armors, no longer apply or belong in a non-trinity mmorpg.

They’re Hulk Smash gloves!
Seriously, these gloves look like those toy Incredible Hulk hands that are huge…and are also green.

No problem. I hope the repair helps since clearing the game cache didn’t.

The only other thing that I know of that might help to fix issues like this (if it is not anti-virus/firewall related) is to delete the local.dat settings file so it can be re-created. Not sure if it will solve the problem, but it’s worth a shot.

If you want to give that a try, deleting this file will also cause you to lose your saved game settings (graphics, stored login data, etc.). If you rely on your stored login info to log in, make sure you can recall what your login info is as the stored login info is also cleared.

The quickest way to do this is to:

• Ensure your game is completely closed.
• Hold your Windows Key and press ‘F’ to open your Windows Search.
• Search for “Local.dat”. 2 files will be found.
• Ignore the “Local.dat” file that is in the game installation folder.
• Delete the “Local.dat” file that resides at:
  “C:\Users\YourComputerUserName\AppData\Roaming\Guild Wars 2”
• Load up your game normally and see if the issue is fixed.
• You will also notice that your settings are reverted to default. You will have to reconfigure your game settings once again to your preference.

If the game needs to download and replace a damaged file found in the gw2.dat archive during repair, and the game does not have the ability to modify the gw2 archive file and overwrite that damaged file, then it will try to re-download the entire gw2.dat archive file all over again.

Check to make sure that:

• Your game is set to Run As Administrator in the shortcut’s Properties > Compatibility tab.
• The ‘Read Only’ attribute is not set in the right-click > Properties for Gw2.exe, Gw2.tmp and Gw2.dat files in the installation directory.

This will help make sure the game can properly modify files within the archive so it won’t think it needs to re-download the entire game again.

First:

• Close your game completely.
• Ensure your game is set to Run As Administrator in the shortcut’s Properties > Compatibility tab.

Then:
Try Clearing the game cache
In addition to ‘Running As Administrator’ helping with many issues other than just the TP, most TP-specific issues are primarily related to some temporary GW2 files where removing them will allow them to be recreated and the TP to function properly again.

The quickest way to clear the GW2 Cache is to:

1. Ensure your game is completely closed.
2. Hold your “Windows Key” and press “F” to open Windows Search on your computer.
3. Search for “gw2cache”
4. It will find a folder called “gw2cache-{bunch-of-letters-and-numbers}” at:
   “C:\Users\YourComputerUserName\AppData\Local\Temp”
5. Delete this “gw2cache-{bunch-of-letters-and-numbers}” folder that is shown in the results.
6. Load up your game normally and your TP should now function properly.

If your search for “gw2cache” does not produce the folder I mentioned, then you will need to enable hidden files and folders in order to delete this cache folder.

Make hidden files visible and clear the game cache

1. Close your game completely.
2. Browse your My Computer to: “C:\Users\YourComputerUserName”
3. Then in the window menus, click on “Tools” then “Folder Options…”
4. In the window that pops up, click the “View” tab
5. Select to “Show hidden files, folders and drives” and click ‘OK’ (attached image #1)
6. You should now see a folder in your file listing called “AppData”, open this folder
7. Inside that folder open the “Local” folder
8. Inside that folder open the “Temp” folder
9. You should now see a folder called “gw2cache-{bunch-of-letters-and-numbers}”. Delete this gw2cache folder.
10. Load up your game normally and see if the issue is fixed.

—note—
By “window menus” I mean up at the top of the window where it says “File Edit View Tools Help”. If that bar does not display in your window for you along the top, then click the drop-down arrow next to the word “Organize” and then click on “Layout” and select “Menu bar” to enable showing of the menus (attached image #2).

Another way to do Steps 3, 4 and 5 to make hidden folders visible is:

• Click your Start menu and then open Control Panel
• In your Control Panel, if items are sorted by “Category” then select “Appearance and Personalization” on the right side, then in the second bottom area under “Folder Options” click on “Show hidden files and folders”. This will open the same options dialogue box shown in attached image #1.
• Otherwise, if Control Panel is sorted by Icons, simply click on “Folder Options” from the list to bring up the options dialogue box shown in attached image #1.

If the issue persists.
Check the game for errors and repair it

• Close your game completely.
• Next, make a copy of your Gw2 game shortcut and rename it “GW2 Repair” or to something that you will recognize it for being only for running a repair on your GW2 installation.
• Now, right-click this “Gw2 Repair” shortcut and click on “Properties”.
• On the “Shortcut” tab look in the “Target:” field, you should see:
  “C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2” or wherever you have Guild Wars 2 installed.
• After the closing quotation marks in this line put a space and then add -repair
  It will look like this but with your GW2 install location:
  “C:\Program Files (x86)\Guild Wars 2” -repair
• Hit OK after making this change.
• Run this repair shortcut. Your game will run through a repair cycle and fix any damaged files it finds.
• After it runs through, start the game using the normal GW2 game shortcut (not the repair shortcut) and see if the issue persists.

Melchior.2135:

And if my friend who’s walking by my side is loading the next zone substantially faster or slower than me, due to computer or network issues? What happens then? Does only one of us see this dynamic event in the transition area? Do we all get blocked there? Can players with crappy connections effectively camp zone transitions and block access?

This isn’t a very simple solution at all.

Actually, it’s quite easy to cover the issues you raised. I never stated that this was a completely thought-out idea and I’ve obviously not covered ever single possible issue or potential situation in just a few posts in a thread. Don’t be so quick to mark it off as not being simple. 2 minutes of thinking about the potential situations you described have produced several logical solutions. Thanks for offering those potential situations for consideration. If it’s worth doing then it’s worth actually putting thought into it to make sure it is done right and not saying it’s too hard or can’t be done and giving up.

If the ‘friend’ is in a party with you, and only one of you can load into the next zone which makes it full while the other would then be put into an overflow, this would be detected and would trigger this NPC event/cutscene for those in the party that are in the immediate vicinity/transition zone. Both you and your friend would be placed into the same overflow due to being in a party together and both would have the overflow buff.

If your ‘friend’ is not in a party with you then they are handled as if they are a stranger. If they go to an overflow and you don’t, and you were together, perhaps they should have been in your party. If they are not in your party then they are subject to their own loading scenario. If they are loading slowly but you are loading quickly, then yes, the local event would be able to be participated in by both of you, and anyone else in the transition area.

Also, other than stating “It can trigger a fight between NPCs that the player must then put an end to in order to move on”, I never said anything about blocking access to the next zone in this transition area for anyone other than the slow-loading player. Even still, my statement of ‘in order to move on’ does not mean blocking off the entire area, but more of a localized rooting of the slow-loading player. Maybe an NPC throws a bottle at the slow-loading player and puts them in combat (thus move more slowly) or dazes them. Or maybe an NPC runs up to them and roots them and opens a dialogue box that begs for them to stop the other NPC’s fighting. Just needs to delay the player for 5-15 seconds while the remaining parts of the next area get loaded up, not block them from moving on completely.

I would have much preferred a request to expand on the idea instead of jumping to extreme conclusions involving griefing and total dismissal of the entire idea. It was primarily just a way to delay the slow-loading player from speeding through the transition area, not a way of completely blocking them from progressing.

Shriketalon, I have read and re-read all you’ve put forth, and I’ve nearly come to tears due to the excitement felt from the fantastic ideas, and also from disappointment in the realization that I, and everyone else, will probably never get to play this game you’ve outlined. You perfectly describe the game I would play daily for well over a decade and love every exciting minute of it.

Thank you for compiling your incredible thoughts in this manner for us to share in.

My opinion.

Removing the trinity entails much more to be done with the game mechanics than simply tweaking individual class skills to appear to remove dedicated DPS, Tank and Heal roles.

I feel that the removal of the trinity in GW2 was only partially done. At launch it did seem to be enough to give an appearance of being a different type of game, but without also re-configuring or removing the elements of the game that were tied to the trinity (or even being groundbreaking and re-imagining them), they’ve only succeeded in creating a hybrid and incomplete system that only barely functions on the surface of only the most basic of combat situations. I’m an Open World PvE only player, though, so this suits me just fine.

Unfortunately, there are still many elements that remain in the game that are directly linked to the trinity system whose only purpose for being were due to the existence of the defined trinity roles. Armor weight types is one such element that has no justification without the trinity.

If ArenaNet really wanted to break the RPG mold and do away with the trinity system, they should have gone all the way and removed the other RPG elements that are directly tied to them as well. Without the trinity there is no logical reason or justification for different classes to still be forced to remain restricted in what armor weights they are ‘permitted’ to wear.

Some may say, “But, stats!” Well, armor stats in GW2 may seem to be tied to the armor weight type, but that facet of functionality in itself is also tied to the trinity system. Due to the lack of vertical progression (which I love), stats should not have been placed on armor in GW2 in the first place without also retaining the trinity. There is no reason for classes to have such widely varied base stats without the trinity system. Without the trinity, base stat values should have been the same across all classes. Slight tweaks to a character’s base stats should be defined based on the selections made during character creation (upbringing, focus, training, etc). After creation, stats should then be defined by the experience multiplier that comes from, well, more experience (aka leveling), but not just an increase in stats based on your ‘level’.

Without the armor weight restriction on classes, coupled with the fantastic level scaling that GW2 has, character “level” also becomes irrelevant. Stats should then increase dynamically based on what skills you use. Using skills from specific skill categories would boost certain stats based on frequency of their use (experience using them). You would really be leveling up your character’s experience with individual skills and not some overall stat modifier (character level). If you use one that focuses on honing your perception, then perception gradually increases with more use. Use a skill frequently that is defined as boosting your power, it’ll start boosting your power. It could also function similar to how the not-really-implemented aspect of your character personality on your Hero Panel seems to function where boosting one will slightly decrease an opposite stat. These personality stages would then actually serve a purpose for describing your character. When another player sees your name tag, they’ll also see your personality/training name and they can associate certain skill ratings with those personality titles (high power/low toughness, high this/low that, etc.).

This means that stats would not be associated with the armor worn by that class, and armor would actually only really serve an aesthetic purpose, as GW2’s horizontal progression touted the game as focusing on. This would also mean skin closet implementation from the very start…which is still not in the game 14 months later. It would also mean more focus on designing and releasing more appearance items more frequently. The appearances of armors would then not be restricted to being cloth/leather/plate as those three descriptors are directly related to the trinity and not so much on the caster/melee combat dynamic. Armor would not need to be designed to fit those three types. Players could wear a combination of clothing materials. Some leather boots with plate coverings, cloth leggings, a leather pirate shirt with some metal elements, some hand tattoos of magical symbols stretching up one arm with a full plate covering on the other, shoulders that blend in with the back items, and a helm…oh the helms, they could be so fantastic with a mixture of cloth/leather and metal elements.

I got pretty sidetracked on some of what I was trying to get across, but my main point is what I stated in my first sentence. GW2 did not get rid of the holy trinity. Removing the trinity entails much more to be done with the game mechanics than simply tweaking individual class skills to appear to remove dedicated DPS, Tank and Heal roles.

After doing some more digging, I found that apparently many have reported touchpad/button issues on Win8 with the Win8 drivers. They’ve also reported the issues being fixed by removing the Win8 drivers and installing the Win7 drivers. Even some Dell techs recommend using the Win7 drivers…which I actually found kind of funny/sad that they don’t even have faith in their own official Win8 drivers. Hopefully these will help and will fix the problem.

First:

• Download and save this 10/2012 touchpad/button driver installer.
  (Temporarily saving it to your desktop is a good place for quick access to it when you re-install the drivers.)
  http://www.dell.com/support/drivers/us/en/04/DriverDetails/Product/inspiron-15-3520?driverId=FW6F3&osCode=W764&fileId=3080882236

Then:

• Hold your Windows Key and press the ‘Pause|Break’ key to open system properties.
• Click on ‘Device Manager’ in the top left.
• Click the drop-down arrow next to “Mice and other pointing devices” (or just “Pointing Devices”)
• Right-click on the “Dell Touchpad Driver” and then click “Uninstall”.
• Click OK to confirm.
• Restart your laptop
• Once restarted, execute the driver installer package you downloaded.
• After installing these drivers, reboot your laptop once again and then see if the issue is fixed.

There have been two more recent driver packages released since these drivers were released, but the Win7 10/2012 are the drivers I see Dell techs referencing users to use. If those drivers do not help, perhaps one of the newer ones will.

If you want to give these a try after the 10/2012 drivers, here are the download links for them. Do the same uninstall, reboot, install, reboot steps as above, but with installing the one of the newer drivers to see if any help fix the issue.

02/2013 (then click on ‘Download File’)
8.1200.101.214,A03

04/2013 (then click on ‘Download File’ in the first panel listing)
8.1200.101.217,A04

As that laptop is available with Win7 or 8 as well as 32-bit and 64-bit, just to be sure, are you running the 64-bit or 32-bit version of Windows 7 or Windows 8 on it?

Holding the Windows Key and pressing the ‘Pause|Break’ key will open your system properties where it will say what version/bit you are using.

I found several models that have those specifications. There should be an inset sticker on the bottom of the laptop that says the model number. It’s likely an N5050 or another ‘N’ model.

Do you happen to have an external USB mouse to attach to a USB port to see if that functions properly? This could help narrow down the issue.
Or are you already using an external USB mouse instead of the touch pad to play?

I am so happy to finally see your issue get resolved, Leighwyn. I did a little dance for you when I saw this.

mtf.6371:

Hey thanks for the responses guys. I just tampered with my settings and found out that changing Shaders does indeed correct the problem. Actually StinVec my Shaders are usually set on high, and I have never noticed this effect before. Like you said, it may have been introduced with the recent update. I lowered my Shaders to medium and it corrected the problem, however I would prefer to have them on high since it doesn’t negatively affect anything else, and my character looks fine in the Hero menu and any time I equip a piece of armor before I begin moving. I’ll keep them on medium for now but I wonder if this is something that needs to be fixed.

That’s odd. The “plastic” lighting effect has always been an intended effect of having ‘shaders’ set to ‘high’ regardless of the character’s gender/species/armor. That’s the main thing setting shaders to high does.

In this last ToN update they changed how lighting affects sylvari and their body glow and reworked all of the alpha layers and a ton of other things as they intended to also remove this ‘plastic’ look from (some) cultural armor (many, many people are not happy with these unannounced and drastic changes to their dyes, glow and armor). This bug was also introduced to where shaders seem to have an issue with displaying properly on sylvari in accordance with which setting is selected for it.

Well, glad you can just put your shaders to medium for now to get rid of the plastic effects. I hope they sort out the issues with it as they continue to address sylvari effects.

No word can describe their appearance more appropriately than “ridiculous” does.

Also, it is not just these shoulders and the HoM shoulders, many shoulders have been up-scaled since the July update and all fit the term “ridiculous” perfectly.