Guild Wars 2

lakdav.3694:

Swoo.5079:

I would like to know exactly what the people that haves PCs that can’t play with megaserver were doing during the Living Story.

Because this is no different than Living Story on patch day in every single map.

There were also some comments about most people being in big guild and communities.

They aren’t. Most people solo and play with a couple of friends.
And with the megaserver it means those people have no need to join a big guild or community.

First of all, avoiding living story worlds events of the zergy kind was a totally viable way to play the rest of the game if your PC couldnt handle it. Megaservers are unavoidable.

Second, you present a proof of your claim that “Most people solo and play with a couple of friends.” Preferably a statistic chart published by Anet itself no older than a month.

Third, Its not just unnecessary to joing guilds and communities with the megaservers, it is also pointless, since the Megaservers in their current state simply dont support the whole “community” aspect. Also, the game is called Guild Wars 2.

1) That is fine but doesn’t cover all the people that are reporting problems, especially loading times.

2) I’ll present the statistic about most people not being in big guilds/communities immediately after people present statistic proving that most people are in big guilds/communities.

What I know is that Megaservers are an answer to those that complained about seeing deserted zones. If they were in deserted zones, they are playing solo or with 1-2 friends/guildies, otherwise it wouldn’t be deserted.

3) I could go and say that Guild Wars was an historical lore event and blah blah but the truth is that the game is called Guild Wars 2 because there was a Guild Wars made by the same people and it was a successful product.

It is fun that you point Guild but not the clear absent Wars between Guilds from the title.

Again, the truth is that Guild Wars started as a game focused in PvP with a “mandatory” introductory PvE (amply protested by hard core PvPers) and as the time passed it became mainly a PvE game.

One of the most important aspects of GW2 design was the following:

“With traditional MMOs you can choose to solo or you can find a good guild or party to play with. With GW2 there’s a third option too: you can just naturally play with all the people around you. I personally spend a big chunk of my time in traditional MMOs soloing, but when I play GW2 I always find myself naturally working with everyone around me to accomplish world objectives, and before long we find ourselves saying, “Hey, there’s a bunch of us here; let’s see if we can take down the swamp boss together,” without ever having bothered to form a party.

Of course GW2 has great support for parties, but they just don’t feel as necessary as they do in other MMOs, because your interests are always aligned with all other nearby players anyway. When someone kills a monster, not just that player’s party but everyone who was seriously involved in the fight gets 100% of the XP and loot for the kill. When an event is happening in the world – when the bandits are terrorizing a village – everyone in the area has the same motivation, and when the event ends, everyone gets rewarded."

And the mega server just reinforces that.

We can’t criticize Anet for breaking certain aspects of their manifesto and then criticize them when they keep them.

I would like to know exactly what the people that haves PCs that can’t play with megaserver were doing during the Living Story.

Because this is no different than Living Story on patch day in every single map.

There were also some comments about most people being in big guild and communities.

They aren’t. Most people solo and play with a couple of friends.
And with the megaserver it means those people have no need to join a big guild or community.

nachtnyx.7860:

MrRuin.9740:

I think the expectations of more people on maps is greatly exaggerated. Sure, there will, but what will they be doing and on what maps? With the scheduling of bosses?
Maps with world bosses will be more populated, with people congregated around the boss spawn point at spawn time.
Other maps and areas will for sure have a few more people in them, but I highly doubt the ‘population explosion’ in already dead areas and maps that people seem to think is going to happen will actually come to be, when it will actually instead be a timed afk and stand around in one place at boss time. And the population will appear huge, in those areas at those specific times.
This does not solve the overall problem at all. Dead areas are dead because there’s no reason to be there. A ‘Megaserver’ does not address this in any way. There’s still no reason to be in many maps or areas. *
All the Megaserver does is provide a nice illusion that the game is full and heavily populated, at pre-determined times and places.

Bold emphasis is my own. This was far too on point not to quote.

Instead of having 51 Brisban Wildlands you will end up with 2 (1 US and 1 EU) and the 1-2 players of each Brisban Wildlands will become 25-50 players in each copy of it.
————————————————————————————————————————————————————-
It seems to me the really big PvE servers will be able to keep their “own” version of most maps permanently on and the small-medium servers will end coupled with them.

It seems that in the end we will have something very close to GW1 districts but without any name or the ability to travel there unless you have a friend in those maps.

I would speculate that a server like Desolation will always have their own copy of Malchor’s Leap and Cursed Shores for example, so it should be possible to map the resource nodes (we might just end with desolation and fissure of woe and some other server with the exact same nodes since they share the same map).

And if instead of 51 cursed shores we have 20 cursed shores, the chance for the temples being open is higher.

It will be interesting to see which servers end up being “married” to each other.

I’m still not going to play dungeons and fractals while it is all about to either rush them and stack in a corner or spend hours killing hit point bags that drop no reward.

The entire armor breaking system could just be removed these days and nerfing the overall rewards of dynamic events just because of champion trains in certain areas are popular seems silly.

Just reduce the rewards in those areas.

The Elixir X allows the Engineer to get the Necromancer Elite Skill Plague, http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plague .

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

emikochan.8504:

5 races instead of 1 definitely makes a difference to the amount of new armours.

Sylvari/human/norn armors are pretty much the same (only a different size for norn).
The only races where the armor looks different is for Asura and Charr.
And Asura only use the male models, and most charr armors look horrible and are plagued by clipping issues. Because they literally took armor that was designed for a humanoid body, and slapped it on the charr body.

emikochan.8504:

Since if you multiply the amount of new armours by the races you end up with a similar amount of total work done.

I’m sorry, but no. Just because gw2 has more of the same armors available to multiple races does not mean the game has more content overall.

It doesn’t mean it has less content either.

The only thing PvE wise that GW1 has that GW2 doesn’t is the Missions. Personal Story is superior to primary quests but it is inferior to Missions.

Secondary quests are completely blown out by Dynamic Events.

GW2 zones not only are way bigger than GW1 zones, they also have much more content and they have a Z-axis.

Skill wise, GW1 has a greater number but they aren’t more diverse than GW2 skills, that have multiple uses.

You had GW1 skills like “does +xx damage”. And then another that “does +xx damage” but instead of costing energy cost adrenaline.

Or “heal xx” and then another that “heal yy” where yy<<xx but cast faster and recharge faster.

It took years for some skills to actually be useful and considered in builds.

Traits is way more complex than attributes.

During a map you will have way more skills to use with swap weapon in GW2 than in GW1.

Etc, etc.

Could GW2 have an expansion by now?
Sure.

Does the Living Story prevents an expansion or divert resources from an expansion?
No.

The Living Story is paid by microtransactions. An expansion is an Investment by NCSoft.

Clexzor.6351:

This game need an expansion 3-6 months ago….the game is coming to and end….as soon you will have some competition that will pretty much kill this game except for the hardcore folks who will stick around.

By competition you mean games that will have a subscription fee?
Which games are going to “kill” GW2?

Majic.4801:

But now most of it is gone. New players will never see it, existing players who missed it have missed it forever, and players who enjoyed it and would like to experience it again will never be able to do so.

New players have the release content to play that they haven’t played yet since they are… new players.

Existing players that missed it, weren’t actually playing at the time those things happened or were doing something else. And if at a point the content wasn’t staying for long, the last few releases have stayed for at least a month.

Some of things aren’t repeatable but others will return.

There is of course the fact that there will be some other Living Story running at some point.

Windu The Forbidden One.6045:

Swoo.5079:

GW2 is way bigger than Prophecies was at release.

Interestingly people like to throw around tons of numbers
Those are called facts, it’s what people tend to use in arguments
but they don’t like to throw number of professions and number of races.
gw1 had more professions… not at release no, but gw2 is not at release, it’s been out for over a year
They also don’t like to talk about crafting.
Because it’s boring as kitten
GW1 added very few in terms of free content.
And that’s why the content added in gw1 vastly superior. Free =/= better
People just don’t understand that GW1 basically had a tiny Live Team while GW2 has a decently sized live team.
Indeed, gw2 has a lot more developers working on it. So why are we getting less?

Guild Wars 2 at release has indeed more content than Guild Wars 1 at release. But in the end, gw1 got tons more content and guild wars 2 is not at release anymore.

And Guild Wars 2 isn’t at the end yet.

GW1 also took less time to develop than GW2, so I don’t see why it is surprising that a GW2 expansion will take more time than a GW1 expansion.

Private instanced zones is a complete different beast than persistent zones – that is why MMORPGs take longer to develop than Single player games.

GW2 is way bigger than Prophecies was at release.

Interestingly people like to throw around tons of numbers but they don’t like to throw number of professions and number of races.

They also don’t like to talk about crafting.

The only free zone updates I remember are Sorrows Furnace and Domain of Anguish.

GW1 added very few in terms of free content.

People just don’t understand that GW1 basically had a tiny Live Team while GW2 has a decently sized live team while the rest of studio is still bigger than during GW1.

Not for the open world.
For instanced content, heroes could easily be used.
Anet could even use current zones and have a vanquish mode where they transform the zone instance you have to vanquish or what not.

It would be nice to fight smarter AI mobs that is possible in an instance situation with a proper team.

But that doesn’t seem to be the direction of the game.

TChalla.7146:

Deimos Tel Arin.7391:

TChalla.7146:

I’d like to see a list of MMORPGs that get their money solely from the box price and expansions. No subscription fee and no cash shop. And before it’s said, the original Guild Wars added a cash shop, so it doesn’t count. Besides, nobody can even say for sure it could be called a MMORPG.

the original guild wars 1 is never marketed as a MMORPG.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guild_Wars
“it was marketed as competitive online role-playing game.”

as for your request, no, that is not feasible at all.

it is not possible to sustain a MMORPG alone with just from starter box and expansion boxes.

the cash shop is required in order to sustain the game.

That’s pretty much the way I see it too. However, there are certain individuals that think it can be done. “The cash shop is the devil!!! Let me buy an expansion!!!”

People like to bash the Living Story, but if during this year and so there was no Living Story, people would be bashing the game for lack of any new content at all.

chemiclord.3978:

They have no plans for a boxed expansion set… no. Then again, they’ve ALWAYS been lukewarm at best on a traditional expansion model for GW2 anyway.

They didn’t say they have no plans for expansion in the conference call anyway.
They said that at the moment they aren’t ready to talk about it and are debating how such an expansion would be released.

Basically NCSoft is saying what Anet has been saying for the last couple of months when they changed their stance “from unlikely” to “we are working on other projects in the background”.

Let me remind everyone that for a while NCSoft in their conference calls was talking about GW2 expansion plans while Anet was trying to focus on the Living Story and so dismissing any plans for expansion, even though straight after release they were talking about expansions.

I guess then Anet saw the cash shop revenue and decided that they could have a big Live Team.

Again, if all that those 350 Anet people are doing is what we see in the Live Game, they would be a bunch of unproductive lazy guys.

Behellagh.1468:

Swoo.5079:

Behellagh.1468:

EverythingXen.1835:

As an NCSoft property, those profits need to be considerably higher to avoid shuttering and closure.

I hope the upcoming Asian release picks up the slack.

There are no profits listed, these are income numbers, ie sales. So bringing in 1/6th of NCSOFT’s total income isn’t enough to avoid shuttering. Then what about Aion, Blade & Soul and Lineage II which is bringing in less sales than GW2?

What about Guild Wars 1?

I’m not sure profits or lack of them is the only reason NCSoft close games.
Asian culture is a bit different than our western culture – it isn’t all about profits (they are surely important) but also about loyalty and commitment.
If an Asian company think/believes you aren’t doing your best, they will stop doing business with you, even if you bring profits.

They didn’t shutter Guild Wars 1, it’s still alive and well. It’s just it’s income is now lumped into the “other” category when GW2 came out.

No, no.
It must have been shuttered – NCSoft would never allow such a tiny game survive. What you see when you start the GW1 client is a product of your imagination. :P

morrolan.9608:

Swoo.5079:

Are official numbers enough for you or do you prefer unofficial studies from entities that pop up from thin air?

There’s no break up there to do a like for like analysis, plus there’s the issue of currency conversion. If the numbers are dramatically wrong why hasn’t there been any sort of response?

And besides the numbers quoted by the OP wouldn’t put GW2 into the top 10 anyway so there probably isn’t any conflict.

Because it is just a study with no legal value.

The Chinese government doesn’t let the RMB to change its value much against the dollar – for the last 12 months the CNY/USD low:0.16007, high:0.16575.

That doesn’t explain the difference between $1.7Bn that Crossfire+LoL generated in the study vs the $3.3Bn that Tencent generated in their online games – they have to have another 14 games all selling $100M.

But there is more discrepancies.
Lineage 1 is not a free to play game (unless I’m quite mistaken). But according to that study it generated $251M of microtransactions revenue. But in NCSoft report Lineage 1 generated $271M total revenue, including subscriptions.

Behellagh.1468:

EverythingXen.1835:

As an NCSoft property, those profits need to be considerably higher to avoid shuttering and closure.

I hope the upcoming Asian release picks up the slack.

There are no profits listed, these are income numbers, ie sales. So bringing in 1/6th of NCSOFT’s total income isn’t enough to avoid shuttering. Then what about Aion, Blade & Soul and Lineage II which is bringing in less sales than GW2?

What about Guild Wars 1?

I’m not sure profits or lack of them is the only reason NCSoft close games.
Asian culture is a bit different than our western culture – it isn’t all about profits (they are surely important) but also about loyalty and commitment.
If an Asian company think/believes you aren’t doing your best, they will stop doing business with you, even if you bring profits.

morrolan.9608:

Swoo.5079:

I have no idea how they got the numbers nor did they disclose to do so.
Mean while someone told me the following.

Like I said provide a cite then.

http://www.tencent.com/en-us/content/ir/rp/2013/attachments/201301.pdf

Just look at Tencent numbers.

Just for the first half the year their Games had revenues of $1.7Bn.
The study says lol and crossfire made $1.7Bn in one year.
Where is the other $1.5Bn of Tencent games revenue?

“Revenues from our VAS business increased by 1% to RMB10,752 million for the second quarter of 2013 from the first
quarter of 2013. Online games revenues increased by 2% to RMB7,594 million, despite weaker seasonality in China as a
result of school examinations. This mainly reflected revenue growth from our major titles, such as DnF and LoL, in China
as well as higher contribution from international markets. Social networks revenues decreased by 1% to RMB3,158
million. This primarily reflected a decrease in subscription revenues, partly offset by an increase in item-based sales
within applications on our open platforms.”

Are official numbers enough for you or do you prefer unofficial studies from entities that pop up from thin air?

morrolan.9608:

Swoo.5079:

morrolan.9608:

And yet other surveys shows GW2 is well behind even SWTOR in cash shop sales.

That survey is as good as looking into Raptr or XFire hours and see that GW2 has more hours played than SWTOR.

It was estimated sales, do you know how they got the numbers then? I haven’t seen anyone dispute them.

I have no idea how they got the numbers nor did they disclose to do so.
Mean while someone told me the following.

“The same “top 10 F2P sales” chart has been missing out 3 out of the top 5 heavy or full cashshop reliant Chinese MMO giants because superfailatresearch.com were and probably still are not aware of these games existence or scale. The same chart that mistook Lineage for a 100% F2P game. The same chart where they seriously said 213 Million of WoWs 2013 sales where from the cashshop when the total sales were at 804 Million because they had vastly overestimated total sales thinking WoW would make 170 – 210 Million every MONTH throughout 2013. The chart that claimed LoL and Crossfire at ridiculously low 1.7 Billion per anum and makes you wonder where Tencent keeps hiding the at least three dozen sources of the remaining 3.3 Billion online game revenues from 2013 each making less than 121 Million so they wouldnt be listed on the chart."
Its only a credible source if its suits your personal agenda or argument for or against whatever game or system you desire to defend or undermine. Now brace yourself for for the “its the best we can get even if its may be at best misleading and incorrect” and “its spot on because i said so and correlates with all the other data a.k.a whatever I want to hear” excuses."

And looking at the Terence claim alone seems to confirm something dodgy with that study.

Swoo.5079:

Swoo.5079:

morrolan.9608:

And yet other surveys shows GW2 is well behind even SWTOR in cash shop sales.

That survey is as good as looking into Raptr or XFire hours and see that GW2 has more hours played than SWTOR.

GW2 revenue numbers are official.

SWTOR cash shop numbers come from an estimation by a company with no reputation and no mention of how the data was collected.
Meanwhile EA revenue reports do not even show total revenue numbers for SWTOR much less a breakdown in cash shop vs subs but somehow we should believe that EA provides those numbers to a 3rd party.

Swoo.5079:

morrolan.9608:

And yet other surveys shows GW2 is well behind even SWTOR in cash shop sales.

That survey is as good as looking into Raptr or XFire hours and see that GW2 has more hours played than SWTOR.

GW2 revenue numbers are official.

SWTOR cash shop numbers come from an estimation by a company with no reputation. Meanwhile EA revenue reports do not even show total revenue numbers for SWTOR but somehow we should believe that EA provide those numbers to a 3rd party.

morrolan.9608:

And yet other surveys shows GW2 is well behind even SWTOR in cash shop sales.

That survey is as good as looking into Raptr or XFire hours and see that GW2 has more hours played than SWTOR.

GW2 revenue numbers are official.

SWTOR cash shop numbers come from an estimation by company with no reputation. Meanwhile EA revenue reports do not even show total revenue numbers for SWTOR but somehow we should believe that EA provide those numbers to a 3rd party.

Posting on behalf of someone else that is unable to post in the forums.
Ticket #294377
The account has been suspended since 1/25/14 without resolution.
Can you take a look? Thanks.

EDIT: I’ve heard it was restored.
So thanks.

LordByron.8369:

The lies that everyone is speedrunning in fullzerkers with any profession…

Most groups require a DEFENSIVE support, (LFG check looking for guardian)
Most Group will require offensive support either (LF Warrior)

Few players can play every content without said support since it becomes slower AND harder.

The issue is fotm 50 with 2 guardians is easier than AC with 0 guardians.
Any dungeon with a dps warrior is 10-40% faster.

Ele fgs without a guardian means horrible death in most parties…(you die during the first fiery rush being unable to evade….Attacks like cleaves etc will kill ele in few seconds without a guardian).

Gear is not an issue professions are….yet we are a test server for eastern launch….so our progression is worthless for anet….

Notice how players warning are never considered…..really few were in favor of zerk nerfs, same with ascended equipment….CDI = damage control.

P.S. please don t come with “i can playwithout a guardin i m so pro”… mostly because you can t reliably pug without a guardian unless you can solo the content in zerker….at that point you are not an issue Worth considering in balancing.

Zerker is passive offense. Toughness and vitality is passive defense.

They are both mindless.

Passive defense is useless because there are attacks you must avoid (dodge, block. reflect) regardless of how much vit or toughness you have (with a few exceptions).

This makes passive defense useless – a good player doesn’t need it and a bad player will hardly benefit from it.

In sPvP and WvW on the other hand, zerker gear is not dominant.

Why?

Because in sPvP and WvW the “mobs” (read other players) can actually dodge the zerker hits and the zerker cannot simply rely on the active defense to avoid all the damage since they don’t come in “must avoid” and “can ignore” packets but come instead of continuous “decent damage” packets.

I was actually happy when Anet started introducing ascended gear (not happy about ascended gear itself) because they only introduced some stat combos and ignored others, so it felt like they were admitting some stat combos were just useless.

Of course the PvE problem is far beyond zerker stats, which is the stat combo that give the most in PvE since all the support one needs come from skills/traits and not from stats.

Astralporing.1957:

Vayne.8563:

Do you know that Mike O’Brien wasn’t responsible for the horizontal progression and leveling system in Guild Wars 1.

No, we don’t know what he was (or wasn’t) responsible for. The same for other devs. All we know is that Mike O’Brian had clearly stated several times since GW2 started that he considered GW1 horizontal progression and levelling systems to be bad, and that he prefers vertical progression. Hard to say whether those were his original thoughts, or if he changed his mind at some point after GW1.

Was that before or after they soiled their pants and band aided ascended items into the game?

Ichishi.9613:

Well the 2 out of 3 founders that left were responsible for horizontal progression and leveling system in gw1.

And that is why TERA has horizontal progression and a low level cap system? (Patrick Wyatt is Chief Operations Officer for En Masse).
We will have to wait and see how the Zombie MMORPG for consoles from Jeff Strain works out. State of Decay a single player game is available for the Xbox360.

Dante.1508:

Atlas.9704:

christiniae.7834:

And yes, I did want GW1 with better graphics! I miss that game but I can’t go back.

You can’t physically log back into GW1? Or is this more of an emotional thing due to completing the stories and such?

The one thing that stops me logging into GW1 in 2013 isn’t the graphics or the jumping, its the lack of populations, people moved on, not just to Guildwars 2 and to pass the really hard content playing Guildwars 1 entails you need a population, henchmen don’t cut it, sorry.

Would i like a Guildwars 1 with Guildwars 2 graphics and some mechanics added, hell yes, i don’t even care about jumping honestly.

The things most people forget here is the times, when GW1 sold 3-6 million copies it was going head to head with WoW at a time when WoW was super popular, it was the juggernaut at the time, and Guildwars 1 was the only real MMO of the day that was competing with it..

With Guildwars 2 it popped at a relatively dead period of the MMO genre, even WoW had had it’s time, so obviously everyone and their dog was hyped for it, it was the biggest hyped MMO..

Still 7 times the Guildwars 1 accounts, nope not a hope, last i read GW2 had 3mill accounts, GW1 doubled that at least.

What?
You can’t do a piece of content in GW1 with only heroes?
All PvE is doable with 7 heroes, even Urgoz and the Deep.
And of course GW1 accounts are so cheap you can get a second one just for the extra 3 heroes in Urgoz/Deep.
HM DoA, Urgoz, Deep and Underworld might be a bit hard but still doable.

GW1 sold over 7 million boxes, not 7 million unique accounts.
Just in my house I have some 30 boxes.
4 boxes for my main account +2 collectors editions later on for the dances
4 boxes for my girl account +2 collectors editions later on for the dances
4 boxes for my 2nd account
4 boxes for my girl 2nd account
4 boxes for the account to hold the Guild Leader position
4 boxes for the kid
4 boxes for the 2nd kid

Yeah, 32 boxes, 4 players.

If those 7 million boxes represent 1 player that bought Prophecies box+Factions Box+Nightfall Box+GWEN box, it translate to 1.75 million players.

Now there are things I miss from GW1: Guild Halls, Heroes, Missions, the frontline-midline-backline style of combat (not so much the healing, but stuff like Aegis and shout chains, fighting mobs that fought like a group).

There are also things I dislike in GW2 like the ascended weapons, the all skin transmutation process ($/€10 for a single use armor skin, paying 100g for cultural armor that is only rare and require more CS items to be used), the way one needs a new armor set for each stats combo, the way the crafted rare 80s look better than the crafted exotic 80s.

But there are also strong positives like the individual combat (I prefer GW1 team combat, but at the individual level, GW2 is superior), the open world, the dynamic events.

Eurhetemec.9052:

Swoo.5079:

It is true that it is possible to acquire more ectos, coin and tier6 materials today, so crafting the armor is easier, but the question remains why this change was given so little attention by Arenanet communication, leaving the player base free to all kind of speculations.

It is easier, but we’re still looking at @4.5g per piece for armour, and a player is unlikely to arrive at 80 with more than 8-10g if new. For people who don’t play for multiple hours per day (i.e. more than two) acquiring cash is also quite challenging, and anything much more than 1g a day is unlikely (even that may be high), unless they sell absolutely everything they find (which may be an advisable course, but one the game tries to direct you away from, I feel).

I suspect the goal here is to force people into dungeons, because it seems like that is by far the most expeditious route to Exotic armour now, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence that this happened at the same time as the LFG system, which should make that MUCH easier for casual players to get into.

That said, if I wanted to run dungeons for loot, I sure as hell would not be playing GW2.

That is a problem with the game.

Arenanet keeps trying to lure people into certain content via increased rewards but once it is successful and the rest of the activities are a desert they nerf those activities and buff others. Ad infinitum.

I wonder if they test player reaction to content without rewards.

Does anyone doubt that the large majority of the MMORPG players only do raids because of the loot?

And even then most don’t care until they have stuff like LFR and still many don’t care?

If a designer has to load a certain piece of content with rewards to attract players, maybe, just maybe, that content sucks.

Waldir.2571:

Nice narration of the events but I think you are over thinking it. Karma was scarce at the start and they fixed it, nothing to do with it after a while so they fixed it, too abundant after that so they fixed it. That’s all I guess. Its about fixes.

I’m not entirely sure how turning 1 million karma in some 30g + loadstones and obsidian shards is nothing.

I bet for casuals that is substantial money.

It all started with the 20th of August 2013 update and the following line:

“The amount of karma granted from consumable karma items has been increased. Karma boosts no longer affect the amount of karma gained from consumable items.”

It was weird because Arenanet had been following a very clear policy of communicating and explaining any changes to currency changes and its effects in the game economy.

Colin Johanson, the game director, immediately assumed Arenanet lack of communication and measures were swiftly implemented to not only revert the changes for a few days but also to reimburse players that used their karma the moment they saw the changes.

Awesome communication and reaction by Arenanet.

Interestingly a few days later the Karma rewards for daily and monthlies were reduced considerably, again with no warning.

Players were expecting the over 9000 karma per daily to be reduced to 6000 Karma per daily. But over 9000 (or 4200 pre buffed) to 600! That is 6% (buffed) and 14% (pre buffed) of the previous amount. The monthly was changed likewise. Dungeons also had their karma gains removed.

To this date (as far as I’m aware) no explanation or comment was made on this change.

But lets look at the story of Karma in the game.

Karma started as a currency that couldn’t be traded, representing personal time investment of the players in the game.

It also allowed players to gear up as they leveled and completed Dynamic Events – with no quests (aside the personal story) to give rewards, Karma/Heart/Renown vendors stepped in and exchanged the players Karma for useful rewards.

Then the first players arrived to Orr and found out the Exotic Armor vendors sold that armor for 42K a piece, while players that hoarded all the Karma they gained would be lucky to have enough for 1 or 2 pieces.

So to fully equip a single character, players would have to complete over 700 dynamic events in Orr.

This was during the first couple of weeks of the game and players complained about the grind required to reach max equipment.

So Arenanet introduced the jugs of liquid karma as part of the dailies and monthlies reward – this cut the time required to purchase an exotic armor piece considerably – now doing a monthly and the 30 dailies would give a player enough to buy 4 pieces, probably the 6 if he used boosts that could then increase the gain by up to 70% (karma booster, karma banner, +15% guild bonus). Note stuff like ice creams, karmic infusion and +10% banners were only introduced later.

This also had the benefit of allowing players to distribute their karma to alts or using alts to help main characters.

By this time getting exotic armor was fairly easy and many players were starting to leave the game due to “having nothing to work for and who cares about legendary weapons since there are already a few out” and so Arenanet released ascended items.

Karma became quite useless unless you wanted a legendary, so Arenanet released the Lost Orrian Jewelry Box.

This allowed players to effectively convert Karma into Gold and some rare drop materials.

More karma modifiers were introduced and with the achievement karma bonus it was possible to reach 104% Karma gain and pretty much get a never ending amount of money from Lost Orrian Jewelry boxes.

This explain why the boosts had to stop working. It doesn’t explain why Arenanet decided to include drips of liquid karma in boss boxes just before nerfing the karma and then removing them once the karma was nerfed.

It also doesn’t explain why the karma gain from dailies, monthlies and dungeons were severely reduced.

In fact, with the new wallet that made Karma account wide, what is the point of having karma containers in the first place, other than wearing the mouse button?

Especially because now there are even more ascended items to “bridge the gap between exotic and legendary items”.

There is no explanation why increasing the cost or reducing the amount of karma lost orrian jewelry boxes isn’t a better measure than affecting new players or casual players with several alts.

It is true that it is possible to acquire more ectos, coin and tier6 materials today, so crafting the armor is easier, but the question remains why this change was given so little attention by Arenanet communication, leaving the player base free to all kind of speculations.

Which mythical game has dozens of people in every single area?

In which mythical game are you leveling and you have a dozen players by you doing the same quests in a cooperative way?

Every day I play, even in remote areas I’ll always have a few moments where I’m playing alongside a few other players, doing an event or killing a champion – that is more cooperative play per day than I have in months of other MMORPGs while leveling.

My Norn mesmer is currently playing in Snowden Drifts and I often see people.
It has been a long time since I’ve been in an area that I played 1 or 2 hours and I hadn’t seen a few players during that time.
Of course is nowhere Invasion or champions train activity…

Frosty and Frosty Law Firm.4981:

If this suggestion actually gets anywhere, we might as well remove the multiplayer element of GW2 altogether.

Please not this argument again.

This argument was used in GW1 about the increase of 4 to 7 heroes per player.

Obviously players that were using 3 heroes and 4 henchmen kept using 3 heroes and 4 henchmen until they could use 7 heroes, which improved their game experience without detracting from the players that like to play with only players experience.

Likewise, people that dislike dungeons or doing dungeons with other players will just not do them.

There are several arguments against heroes/hennchmen in GW2 but this one isn’t one of them.

Everyone knows that with the updated champion rewards it is more rewarding to fail or extend an event that keep spawning champions and get their bags than succeed the event.

Arenanet recently removed the karma gains if you fail the event.
With the other karma nerfs it might be that this become a deterrent but it seems unlikely.

Why not reward the bags of the champions associated with events on event completion instead as when they die?

How would this work?
Well if the event created 10 champions, one would get 10 bags on a successful event and maybe half or even less than that on a failed event.

Maybe one can tie this to the participation level.

It would also have the additional benefit of getting rid of situations where one has to stop hitting the objective champion and go bash some other secondary champion to get their loot (vide aether blade champions during scarlet invasions).

One could even extend this system further and make every event have a chance of rewarding some material, loot bag, karma container or luck container to counter a bit the efficiency of exclusively farm events with champions, world bosses or dungeons.

Otherwise it seems it is always a circle of “people not doing dungeons, let increase dungeon rewards! Wait now people aren’t playing in the open world, lets increase the open world rewards! Wair, now people only farm Orr! Lets nerf Orr rewards. Wait, now people only farm world bosses. Lets limit the world bosses rewards! Wait people aren’t playing dungeons anymore! Lets increase dungeon rewards and next week reduce them again!”.

Companies that sell physical items, that require resources to build for every item, generally don’t, although some will do.

Companies that don’t sell physical items will generally do.

Even the humble bundles do that.

The sillier thing is that I can upgrade my second account, that cost me less than half, to deluxe and get it.

It would be just a nice gesture like with what they did with karma or giving some gemstore items to people that spent money in it.

It is a big concern?
Not really.

Upgrade to the Deluxe Edition.

You will even get the complete Deluxe Edition, opposed to my pre-ordered one that didn’t came with a 18 slot bag or a armor skin.

Do you guys still had/have any doubts that Ascended items were a panic reaction?
They started with items with no visuals and a couple of back pieces.

They had 400K+ concurrent users at launch and then after a month they had less than half.

People that left kept saying “there is no endgame, I got all the items I want”, etc.

Did those players made alts or legendary items?
No.

And now part of the player base that chose GW2 because of it being alt friendly and no gear treadmill are stuck with this mistake.

GW2 is so much more unfriendly to multiple character players than GW1 that is unbelievable.

The way armor works, the ascended gated stuff, the multiple gemstore items that are character bound or are just skins for a single character, etc.

But Arenanet has done similar mistakes before like the PvE-only skills in GW1 that required absurd amounts of grind to get decent effects.

I will just wait until someone slaps his forehead and decides to make it friendlier. In GW1 it was John Stumme.

Sunlyte.3768:

Swoo.5079:

1st) The frame rates also show minimum frame rates, which would be much lower, like 1 fps if the game ran out of memory.

First of all, FPS benchmarks are a very general overview of what’s going on. They show the rendering performance by monitoring the hand off from the game engine to the system’s output (directx), which would not include system lag. This is easily evident in benchmarking a dual GPU setup that has stuttering issues (a very common issue with multi-gpu systems). The benchmarks will have you believing all is well as the stutters, which can last 1-2 seconds or more, do not affect the frame rate figures – the frames are counted BEFORE the system lag is encountered.

Swoo.5079:

2nd) I’ve checked GW2 with 4GB and 8GB ram and there saw no difference. having a faster HDD or SDD reduce load times considerable though.

Total BS. You didn’t check anything and even if you did, your anecdotal commentary holds no water. GW2 client can in fact use up to 4GB of physical memory. If your total memory is 4GB then you’re not maximizing performance. I highly doubt you play the game without experiencing lag if you only have 4GB. A 4GB windows 7 system is sluggish in general, even with a good SSD.

Swoo.5079:

3rd) If you read the article in the link you will see that they aren’t only using synthetic benchmarks (the BF3 multiplayer is a good indication of this since there is no canned benchmarks).

The fact that you’re citing unrelated articles to make your case for you shows that you do not know what you’re talking about on this topic. I don’t know why you are so hell-bent on misleading people into believing that there is no benefit to having 8GB of system memory or more when there clearly is.

Swoo.5079:

And the synthetic benchmarks just mirrored the real world one.
Note that the 4GB configuration was just 1 stick meaning it was running single channel vs dual channel.

None of those games you listed are MMO type games – they are all first-person games designed for one player or a small number of multiple players. Their engines are optimized for speed rather than maximum aesthetics, and furthermore you’re still relying on FPS numbers alone to perpetuate the “4GB is enough” myth.

If you’re too cheap to buy more than 4GB then that’s fine, but GW2 will use up to 4GB if your system has more than 4GB of physical memory and it will run better – this is a FACT not some weak attempt at drawing parallels between GW2 and frame rate benchmarks of other games.

1st) The OP is not running a multi GPU configuration – micro stuttering in modern single GPU configurations like the 7850 is a non problem.

2nd) The OP already has 8GB RAM and you recommended him to get 16GB RAM to improve performance.

Sorry but GW2 will not going to use 8GB RAM.

3rd) While GW2 may use up to 4GB RAM, it will rarely do so. If 4GB ram wasn’t enough for a WIn7 64-bit system, we would have loads of threads pointing to “run out of virtual memory” warnings.

4th) Developers know 4GB RAM is a common configuration (probably 2-3GB for 32-bit systems are still reasonably common) so they take measures for the game to run with less than 4GB just for itself.

5th) You said not even 8GB RAM was enough, so please no “4GB is enough myth” shenanigans.

6th) I didn’t say 4GB RAM was enough for games and you should never buy more than that. I said 8GB RAM is enough for games.

It is not my fault a large majority of games will run just fine with 4GB RAM though.

7th) No, a 4GB Win7 system isn’t sluggish in general. I have one on my left that is used everyday and the difference to this one with 8GB is not noticeable.

8th) A 64bits Win7 with only 2GB RAM is sluggish. A 32bits Win7 with only 1GB RAM is sluggish.

9th) If you don’t like the results I linked to, feel free to provide tests that show that 16GB or 32GB RAM provide benefits for gaming because as it stands now I provided hard numbers and you provided not quantifiable opinions.

Behellagh.1468:

You didn’t say if you used it or not (FarCry 3 64-bit client).

But my point still stands. Unless the game being tested + 64-bit OS is actively needing more than 4GB then you won’t see a performance shift from 4GB to 8GB.

All that more system memory buys you is the ability to run more 32-bit apps at the same time without the apps fighting over who gets system memory.

First, I’m not the person doing the tests. It is a hardware site.

Second my point is that you don’t have games that actively require 8GB RAM and especially GW2 doesn’t require 8GB RAM.

I’m not talking about the future – now, in September 2013 going from 8GB to 16GB or 32GB RAM is useless for gaming. If you buying new, 8GB RAM is probably a better choice than 4GB RAM, but still don’t expect much difference, unless you go crazy with mods (that will probably hammer your graphics card RAM first anyway).

The OP already has 8GB RAM so the suggestion to get more RAM to solve is GW2 performance problems is a bad one.

That is the only point I’m addressing – currently games do not require even 8GB RAM to run perfectly.

Behellagh.1468:

Since I’m assuming all those games are 32-bit clients, if Large Address Aware then they can only use up to 4GB of memory and if not LLA then only 2GB. Doesn’t mean they got anywhere close to those limits during the tests either so I’m not surprised the test was a wash.

FarCry 3 has a 64-bit client.

On the other hand, GW2 is 32-bits, so…

8GB RAM is atm more than enough to play games and even has a decent reserve.

Sunlyte.3768:

Your benchmark links are not related to GW2 and they only focus on frame rates. The game can be slowed for reasons other than frame rendering performance, especially with large groups of players in a single area, and these would not show up on synthetic tests like the ones you provided.

1st) The frame rates also show minimum frame rates, which would be much lower, like 1 fps if the game ran out of memory.

2nd) I’ve checked GW2 with 4GB and 8GB ram and there saw no difference. having a faster HDD or SDD reduce load times considerable though.

3rd) If you read the article in the link you will see that they aren’t only using synthetic benchmarks (the BF3 multiplayer is a good indication of this since there is no canned benchmarks).

Test System: Intel Core i5-4670K, Asus Z87 Gryphon, Sapphire Radeon HD7870 2GB, Corsair 2×4GB or 1×4GB DDR3-1600, Sapphire Radeon HD 7870 2GB, Windows 8

We ran six benchmarks, all at a resolution of 1920×1080, and all averaging three 60-second runs through the actual gaming world, not built-in benchmarks. We used either one or two sticks of Corsair DDR3 RAM running at DDR3-1600 (9-9-9-24) settings. Thus, the 4GB system not only has a memory deficit, it was also running in single-channel mode (resulting from the use of just one stick of RAM). These two factors should have at least had some effect, right? Not so, according to our data.

Here’s what we tested, followed by the results:

(1) Deus Ex: Human Revolution (Hengsha Landing Pad) – Maximum Settings/FXAA
(2) Battlefield 3 (Swordbreaker Single-Player) – Ultra Settings/4xAA
(3) Battlefield 3 (Caspian Border Multi-Player) – Ultra Settings/4xAA
(4) Far Cry 3 (Village) – Ultra Settings/4xAA
(5) Hitman: Absolution (Chinatown) – Ultra Settings/4xAA
(6) Tomb Raider (Village) – Ultimate Settings/FXAA

And the synthetic benchmarks just mirrored the real world one.
Note that the 4GB configuration was just 1 stick meaning it was running single channel vs dual channel.

Sunlyte.3768:

Afya.5842:

You are right about current AMD CPU being crap. But I just can’t agree with your recommendation of 16GB of ram. Take a look at your process manger and check it yourself. 8GB is enough for GW2 and 99% of the stuff out there. The 32GB memory in your rig is absolutely wasted if you don’t heavy photoshop or ramdisk.

Regarding server cpu, note that they don’t support overclocking so if you are going to overclock a desktop cpu, it’s gonna outperformer the server counterpart.

You’re citing outdated info. Unlike older versions of Windows, Windows 7 and up will make far more efficient use of memory if it’s available – meaning that it will actually use available memory rather than attempt to keep memory free.

Much of the “lag” spikes people notice can be attributed to loading textures from virtual memory (swap) or from having to hit the disk and swap stuff from memory to the hard drive. Even an SSD will become a bottleneck in this scenario because the interface to an SSD is still MB/s while memory is well into the GB/s range.

CPU overclocking doesn’t provide much in the way of enhanced performance but it does introduce stability issues. If you want to overclock then obviously a Xeon wouldn’t be the best choice…but if you want a stable, fast system then a Xeon is a great choice.

There is no reason to limit yourself to 8GB believing it’s enough when in reality, 16 GB or 32 GB would make your system a lot more responsive in general, and ensure that the game can keep all of its assets in memory.

Nah, 16GB or 32GB will do nothing for GW2 and the large majority of games and other programs.

And the moment you have to load textures from the main memory instead of the GPU memory you are already screwed, since the main memory bandwidth is so much lower than the GPU memory (we are talking 25GB/s for DDR3 1600 vs over 150GB/s for $200 class GPUs) and if you are loading from hard drive or SSD the game will simply freeze for a sec (or more).

For some tests.
http://www.thetechbuyersguru.com/RAMgaming.php

Xae Isareth.1364:

Swoo.5079:

Unfortunately some parts of GW2 seems to be skewed towards players that only have a couple of characters.

The legendary weapons, the gem store skins and unbreakable tools, etc.

The gem store skins and un breakable tools I understand, they want you to spend more money. Other gear I understand because it benefits the economy and gearing different characters is quite enjoyable. But Legendaries?

For me it ends up being not buying any skins or tools since I would only get ~1/10 of the usage, opposed to the several costumes I bought in GW1.

But I guess they are doing the most profitable one.

Unfortunately some parts of GW2 seems to be skewed towards players that only have a couple of characters.

The legendary weapons, the gem store skins and unbreakable tools, etc.

Don’t see why not.
Opposed to physical items, digital items have no material cost, only development costs.

Especially since if I had a standard edition and upgraded to deluxe I would get the items.
Otherwise they are sending a message you better wait before buying anything.

I see it a bit like the humble bundles, where after I payed and beat the average, I also get all the games added meanwhile?

If Anet wants to screw people they can just change the drop rate table, no need to use MF.

Likewise Anet might just adjust drop rates, adjust how MF increases the chance to get items, etc.

Selfish things in cooperative games are never a good idea.

Is she working as intended?
It seems a substantial buff she received.

All the krait poison damage around there seem quite high, but the champion one seems out of control – 2 pulses inside the red circle = dying.

Now, sure it would be easy to get out of the way if I wasn’t being immobilized or knocked or pulled by the 2 veterans and normal mob she summons straight away.

And not only she spams her red circle in a small platform that lead to a nice fall if you aren’t careful, but after 10 seconds in combat there are like 10 kraits around including some veterans.

Small platform, big aoe circles that deal a ton of damage, ton of conditions spammed, tons of summoned minions, erm.

Ok, it is a group event but five random people lasted around 20 seconds.

We talking about timberline falls – it isn’t as if you will see zergs roving around the land.

Does her chest drop guaranteed exotics or something, because before her buff, it was just a “meh chest”.

Red Falcon.8257:

Swoo.5079:

Shame they allow skipping.
More rewards for the ability of running and ignoring the challenges.

GW1 was a lot about running too.
Running requires skill if the whole track is filled with knockdowns, slowdowns, oneshots and whatnot.
It’s still a mini-game that many (me included) enjoy a lot.

Phira got a point btw.
In GW1 we required a lot of things, yet it wasn’t any less fun.
I actually find it odd that nobody says his build in LFGs.
For example “Guardian LFG”.
Yes but a GS glass cannon that wants to be carried, a consecration spammer, AH boon spammer, pure of voice, RHS/Support, or what else?
“Guardian” can mean a corpse I need to carry on my shoulder or a great team member.

We should really reinstate that policy that you need to explain what you do, at least the team leader can make a balanced team instead of stacking 2 condition necros and 1 ranger that overwrite each other, 1 signet warrior, and then me, the poor guy who needs to carry these four corpses.

Yes, GW2 suffers from the same problem GW1 suffer.
Mob drops aren’t worth the time to kill them, so people kill the least amount possible.

And people run because it is easier to run while obtaining the same rewards.

Also what are you doing running with PUGs?
Can’t find 4 regulars to play with?

Shame they allow skipping.
More rewards for the ability of running and ignoring the challenges.

At least one can gain enough influence to start working for the other guild activities.
Then if one decide so and actually expand its group of friends and invite them to the guild, you will be in a much better position.

Shield #4 isn’t a block.
And shield#4 allows you to do damage if you are reflecting projectiles.