Guild Wars 2

• More time to re-work the TP. It is still in a very primitive stage, where I cant filter
armors to show only the ones my toon can actually wear…

Very much this. Now that we have the account-wide wallet (so your richest character doesn’t need to be the one who does all the shopping anymore), there’s no reason we shouldn’t have more filters in the TP, like a “can equip” checkbox for armor & weapons. If it’s not an item the character’s class can equip, give us the option to not display it in search results.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

My thoughts on the three new gemstore armor sets Flamekissed, Flamewalker and Flamewrath:

The good

• Love the names. They made me super-excited to see the new armor sets in the PvP locker.

(emphasis added)

If you equip that first one, just watch out for Ash Legion and Vesta Scorchpath’s warband: ‘If any of you Flame kissers are reading this, we’re coming for you.’

And once again, His Royal Highness lordtroll floats in, makes some snide remark which doesn’t address anything of actual substance, then bails. ANet is a software company. These people are all programmers. Corporate IT assets, including personnel, get reassigned to different projects (both long and short term) all the time.

Have a nice day.

From the very first time I logged on in Ascalon City pre-searing, I have loved Guild Wars. The music, the graphics, the story & lore, the character classes, all of it. I played the original game for years and had only minimal problems with it, and most of those could be blamed on my ISP anyway. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have that excuse.

Yes, I understand that this is supposed to be a “new” game, playable by people who never touched the first game, and that’s fine. I understand that the first game had several years’ worth of bug-fixes, patching and updates, not to mention the expansions. We won’t even go into comparisons of content quality and so forth, because that’s opinion anyway and we all know what those are like; everyone has one.

Instead, let’s talk about product quality control. I understand that tech evolves, and the various rendering engines and software routines used in A don’t necessarily translate to B. However, the underlying issues those engines and routines were designed to handle still exist and you need to address them with the new tools. Stuff like graphical and audio bugs, broken GUI elements, reward distribution and so forth need to “just work.” When a broken interface gets in the player’s way, it doesn’t matter what the content’s quality is — the player is now frustrated by a user-interface problem that should be essentially transparent during normal use. Your supposedly-immersive software is constantly breaking the fourth wall, which the first game almost never did.

If you use control X expecting result Y and instead get result 73, that’s got nothing to do with being a “new game.” That’s a broken GUI element that should have never gotten past pre-release debugging and QC. When you select a block of text and click the BOLD button in your word processor, the result should not be to apply boldface to other randomly selected text elsewhere in the document. How long do you think such a bug could survive in the MS-Word team at Microsoft, or even among the unpaid open-source coders working on OpenOffice? A few days, maybe a week at most before someone caught it and stomped it flat? In Guild Wars 2, bugs like that and worse have persisted since beta. They’re no longer even bugs, at this point they have enough seniority to be features (try GW2, with its new and exciting “combat-mechanics randomizing” feature, you’ll love it!).

Add to this the complicating factor of the Living World, and its unnecessarily frenetic 2-week release schedule. That is simply not enough time to develop quality content, much less thoroughly beta-test it and work out the inevitable bugs. As a result, bugs are introduced to the already-huge .DAT file and they just stay there. Two weeks later, another raft of bugs is introduced. Yes, some of the bugs from the earlier round are eliminated simply by eliminating the temporary content they affected, but others are persistent and affect the game engine, the GUI or any one of several other persistent elements. So they accumulate on top of the bugs that have existed since launch and before. You should know this already, you have Occam’s Razor as an item in the game!

Please suspend the Living World, Living Story, or whatever you want to call it. Work on going through your bug tracker (oldest to newest, prioritize GUI, then audiovisual, then bugged skills, then whatever is left), until you have killed the majority of them very dead. Currently what you have are loads of GUI issues on a list that just keeps getting bigger, a bunch of skills/traits/items that don’t do what they’re supposed to do, masses of other unaddressed bugs, and a story that could maybe develop into something interesting if the framework it was presented in wasn’t bugged all to hell and back.

TL:DR

Stop chasing a moving target! Suspend the Living World release schedule long enough to clean out the bugs. Then decide if the story was going where you wanted it to go, consider player feedback, and then re-introduce the Living World on a slightly less hectic schedule so you have more time to debug before release. A game with fewer bugs, mechanics that work as advertised and skills that do what they should will make the majority of your player base far happier than another few lackluster episodes of “Scarlet and the Grind.”

I think they either kludged, screwed up or overcompensated when they fixed this bug.

Really, all of the long-standing bugs they can’t be bothered to fix, plus the new ones they introduce every two weeks, are gradually making this game unplayable. When it comes to keeping the playerbase happy, I really doubt that any kind of new gem store crap they can come up with will make up for a buggy GUI. Unplayable = nobody will play it. Where will their precious Black Lion RNG store be then?

The targeting hotkeys (Nearest Enemy, Next Enemy, Previous Enemy) don’t work as advertised. When in the open world and you hit Tab, Shift-Tab etc to target an enemy, why does the “next/nearest/previous enemy” key instead prioritize the nearest available non-hostile moa, deer, moose or whatever’s in range every single time?

If a given creature’s disposition is set to neutral when it spawns, and it will only aggro if attacked, that is not a valid enemy (or “foe” if you prefer) for those hotkeys to select. Yes it’s technically a potential target, but it is not an enemy/foe unless attacked. The “target enemy” keys should ignore anything that isn’t actually hostile to the player at the time the key is pressed. It shouldn’t assume “hey, that has the potential to become hostile so let’s just treat it as an enemy NOW.”

It’s not like the random whatever is any kind of threat, but it’s both a distraction and an unnecessarily wasted attack. Avoiding the bug by manually selecting a target is a usable workaround but it’s slower, which is why such hotkeys exist in the first place. I suppose I should be glad it doesn’t waste attacks on ambients and resource nodes too, but this is a really annoying bug. Please fix these hotkeys so that they ignore everything except actively hostile enemies.

“The Antitoxin Injected indicator is a representation of the amount of antitoxin that has been pumped into the heart of the tower by the heroes of Tyria and will update periodically.”

I hope this is actually the case and the continued existence of this ugly, festering albatross is entirely dependent upon lack of actual player input. If completion is in fact not artificially manipulated by ANet, then it starts looking a lot like an in-game public opinion poll:

• All in favor: complete the content.
• All opposed: don’t complete the content.

They’ve got to be closely monitoring the metrics on this thing (because if the “voting” aspect is legit it will impact their release schedule), so they know full well what percentage of the player base has actually done the content, how many repeat runners there are, number of players, how many just run an alt to the top and park there, number of deaths/downs, peak times etc.

Once the Zerg swarms have completely lost interest and moved on (which has pretty much already happened), they’ll know it. If the antitoxin target levels are never reached due to player indifference, they’ll know that too. Then it can just remain, indefinitely looming over Kessex, as a monument to how NOT to structure your game’s content.

Character: Kyoami
Server: Kaineng
Playstyle: Solo PvE
Playtime: US Eastern, third shift (overnight), mainly weekends
Role: Scholar maybe…learning PVP and dungeons might be fun. Not enough PC power or ISP speed to join the W3 zergling swarm.

@Cirian: Interesting notion, but Tengu can’t fly. Their appearance has evolved/mutated quite a lot in a couple hundred years, but they’re land-based creatures:

“Tengu lost the ability of flight some time in the distant past, but can use their almost human hands to wield all manner of weapons—when they want to.” (source)

Just you watch, the Skritt will end up being the key to defeating the Insane Yet Boring Villainess. They’re the only race other than Sylvari that apparently can’t be turned into Risen or Icebrood. You see risen chickens running around in Orr, for Grenth’s sake, but there’s nary a Skritt anywhere. Same with the Shiverpeaks, not a single Icebrood Skritt to be found. They’re small and only have collective intelligence, so that will somehow work in their favor: they’re no more than worthless and contemptible vermin to Scarlet, so she ignores them — at her peril.

Hey, it wouldn’t be any worse than the alleged “story” we’ve gotten so far.

Given the other pop culture references in this game series, I’d say the closest parallel is probably Xena & Gabrielle’s…complicated relationship. I mean really, the dark & serious one with the sultry voice and no-nonsense attitude with her somewhat possessive companion, the smart, cheerfully inquisitive (but a bit flighty) blonde? The first time I saw the two of them and heard the voice acting, I immediately thought Xena & Gabrielle. Honestly, I briefly wondered if Marjory was voiced by Lucy Lawless, it’s that close.

Just to add: what I suggest takes advantage of existing mechanisms within the game, so it shouldn’t necessarily be all that difficult to put into practice.

• Method of adding new playable content? Check, Living Story has that covered. Just add the Priory NPC to make it re-playable (and make it fit into their mission of historical archiving and research). Maybe a meta event to seek out some long-lost descendant of Durmand, who then fills this role?

• Way to temporarily turn your character into someone else? Check and then some. See Briarthorn Den, Xolotl, costume brawl, Moa Morph, Skritt Burglar, golem suits, etc.

• Rewards only on first completion? Check, see achievements & numerous champions.

• An existing precedent? That would be the bonus mission pack, which ANet has used before to roll out well-done and engaging “flashback” lore that didn’t necessarily make it into actual gameplay, but which was both fun and provided depth to the existing story.

It probably won’t happen, but honestly I think this would be the most engaging way to bring lore into the game, as well as maybe improving the currently random and haphazard feel of the LS events.

Personally, I love the Durmand Priory idea, and that would make perfect sense since Durmand himself was the source of quite a bit of lore in GW1. However, for a delivery mechanism I’m surprised that no one in this thread has mentioned the GW1 Bonus Mission Pack, which allowed you to actually play through the historical events referred to in the lore, as the historic participants themselves. You had to talk to Durmand in LA to access those missions, so why not put an NPC in the Priory library somewhere who serves the exact same function? It makes little sense to reinvent the wheel.

Instead of being some lame book or difficult-to-implement cutscene (or even worse yet another gem store ripoff), lore installments could be released periodically as instances via the Living Story mechanism, and those specific instances made persistent for replay simply by talking to a hypothetical Priory researcher in the library after the meta event completes (any rewards from the instance could be first-run only, or something). Frankly I’d rather see deeper in-game exposition of the lore put out via the LS format rather than new and apparently random content that has virtually no in-game backstory. Quit trying to cook up “new” content that frankly amounts to little more than the biweekly Bug Grind, and instead work on developing the rich, deep backstory that Tyrian/Canthan/Elonian history already provides.

This is a minor interface-polishing kind of thing. You only encounter it occasionally so it’s quickly forgotten (I only noticed it again because I bought an additional slot from the gem store), but the double-click behavior of character tiles on the main selection screen is inconsistent. Why isn’t there a double-click default for empty slots?

I double-click to load my existing characters all the time; I never use the “Play” button. Double-clicking an empty tile currently does nothing but select it. It should work the same way as filled slots do and default to “Create” without forcing you to also click the “Create” button (especially since it’s the only possible option).

I also have some new audio issues after the Sept 17 update, never had a bit of audio trouble before now. Occurs on all characters: sound effects for skills, pets, player/NPC quotes etc. drop out first, with ambient audio remaining (music, environment sounds). Eventually music then environment both drop out too, and the game is completely silent. Alt-Tab back to Windows and adjusting/testing volume also produces no audio. Whatever this bug is, it takes exclusive control of system audio APIs and doesn’t let go. I have “mute client when in background” set by default, and sometimes (not always) unchecking then checking it again will bring game & Windows audio back. Otherwise restarting the client (or full Windows reboot in one case) seems to be the only way to sort it out.

Server probably doesn’t matter, but I’m on Kaineng.

Tarnished Coast\Brisban Wildlands\Proxemics Lab: I waited there for a while thinking maybe I showed up between wave attacks or something, but no. Nothing ever showed up but a rabbit and two moas. Killing them doesn’t change the WP status.

(Edited to add: Vabbi server)

This was introduced with a recent patch or build because this did not happen before this past week. Doesn’t affect gameplay at all, it’s only a graphical bug.

When I shatter a clone or phantasm, it shatters as expected but recently its weapon (whatever I had equipped when I created the illusion) remains behind on screen for a few seconds before vanishing. It makes no difference which one of the four shatter skills is used. You can’t interact with the illusionary weapons in any way, they just hang there for 3-5 seconds and then vanish. The weapons this character uses are skinned with HoM rewards and that’s usually but not always what the “debris” looks like. Sometimes the underlying weapon (without the HoM skin) is left behind hanging in mid-air, surrounded by a pinkish Mesmer aura. I didn’t get a cap of that because it doesn’t happen as often, but I did get a cap with Fiery Dragon Swords: two in the character’s hands, and three left behind by shattered illusions.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:User_Teknomancer_shatter_remnants_bug.jpg

I was finally able to complete this mission Wednesday night, and the only problem I encountered was Tybalt’s movement rate being still extremely slow. None of the other issues listed above manifested, and the mission was challenging but not impossible. I’d say they fixed it, but if you can’t enter the instance then that can’t be true. Maybe this is a per-instance intermittent thing where if your instance loads the bug then you’re screwed, but otherwise it’s fine except for that slowpoke Charr? Very strange.

For all the pre-release fuss they made about the personal storylines, they don’t seem in much of a hurry to fix them when there’s a bug completely blocking all progress. I also added other people’s posts about this quest in my original one (linked up top). I think we just need to keep bumping posts about this mission until someone notices.

Bumping this thread, since I see that today’s game update didn’t fix this mission, which has apparently been completely broken since launch.

See also
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Down-the-Hatch-Broken/229480

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Did-Part-of-Your-Story-Get-Skipped-or-Changed-Post-here/214636

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Sylvari-Order-of-Whispers-Down-the-Hatch-broken-bugged/142646

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Down-the-Hatch-quest-not-finishing/124633

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Audio-Problems-with-all-storyline-conversations/122098

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Did-Part-of-Your-Story-Get-Skipped-or-Changed-Post-here/112232

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/thiefs-in-pve/48073

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Down-The-Hatch-Last-Batch-of-Pirates/36370

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Personal-Story-Skipped-Ahead/32131

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/bugs/Asura-Quest-Down-The-Hatch-bugged-and-unplayable/30533

One of the forum mods should probably merge all of the threads complaining about this mission (there are quite a few, search the forum for “Down the Hatch”). In the meantime here are my complaints, which also include points others have made:

Screenshot
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/File:User_Teknomancer_down_the_hatch_completion_bug.jpg

• Tybalt moves extremely slowly when leaving the drinking contest, and if you get even slightly ahead of him he will stop and not resume moving until you are actually behind him again. I know it says to “follow” him, but that’s ridiculous.

• The final pirate mob has an insane level of health regen, they heal damage as fast as you dish it out. This makes them way too overpowered for any solo Lv33 character. There are veteran trolls in the Shiverpeaks that don’t regen that fast.

• As soon as the final pirate mob aggro’s, the extremely powerful (and long-ranged) cannon turret next to the shack opens fire and makes that overpowered pirate mob even more overpowered. The turret takes out Tybalt and Demmi almost immediately, and you can’t focus on it if any of those super-regen pirates are nearby.

• If you wipe and continue, it is possible to pick off the pirates one at a time from a distance, but the cannon turret will probably still take you out several times more. The bugged pirates mill around under the shack/platform and will not charge if you stay at the absolute limit of your ranged attacks. Don’t get any closer because they will charge then, and at melee range with the turret and their regen, you stand no chance.

• With a constant barrage of ranged attacks and clone/phantasm Mind Wracks, I barely managed to take out all of the bugged pirates on the fourth or fifth wipe/continue. I heard Tybalt say “I’ll escort Demmi to the Lion’s Arch safehouse. Meet us there!” while the turret was still firing.

• The mission map showed a green “go here” star, but there was no corresponding quest marker on the ground. The mission instructions changed to “Defeat the last of the pirates so Demmi and Tybalt can flee to safety” at some point (I didn’t notice when), and it never changed. All enemy pirates were destroyed, and I even took out both turrets, thinking they might count as “pirates” (the one on the other end of the beach was just barely in greatsword range without leaving the instance).

• After checking the entire instance area, I discovered that there are still half a dozen non-hostile Jackdaws standing on the shore (South) near the ship along with your 3 drinking opponents on the ship itself. If these pirates are included in the defeat count, they’re just NPC’s so it’s not possible. The turret on that end of the instance may or may not be hostile, but if it is technically hostile it’s too far away to aggro without leaving the instance.

Not to get too RP-story-mode about this but really, this is an Order of Whispers rescue mission so it should absolutely be solo-able (what with being a “secret” society and all), but that’s impossible in its current state. If I thought I needed an army in order to rescue Demmi, I would have had this character (human mesmer) join the Vigil. The devs have said we’re supposed to be able to solo the entire game with certain exceptions, but there’s no reason for this mission to be one of those exceptions. It’s even more frustrating to actually manage to defeat all of those overpowered enemies, only to end up getting stuck in a broken instance that won’t allow you to continue your personal story. This mission really needs to be fixed.

PERSONAL: male, 40’s, lifelong gamer on consoles (mainly NES/SNES/PSX) and PC. My schedule is pretty erratic (I have a job and a life) so I’m interested in a very casual guild with no rules Nazis, self-important officers, “mandatory” events or other stupid BS. I also don’t want IRL stuff to filter in like politics, personal drama, biases and prejudice, etc. It’s a game, and games are where you go to get away from all of that garbage.

GAMING: I enjoy mainly “scholar” professions, and my main characters are a Human Mesmer and an Asuran Necromancer. Solo play is just fine by me and I see no reason to rush through the game, but sometimes I want some company, or I could use some extra help — and sometimes I want to just tag along and help someone else. I play almost exclusively PvE because I enjoy questing with the personal story, heart events, exploration and cooperation much more than battling other players. I’m not necessarily an RP’er but I don’t mind seeing it in game because it adds flavor, and I’m a bit of a lore geek from playing GW1 as a solo game.

Looking for a flexible Tarnished Coast guild of mature players who are interested in having fun and socializing. If this sounds like your guild, please message me here or in-game.