Guild Wars 2

You don’t need to waste a slot in WvW to get to Lion’s Arch for free. You can go there through the mists, just open the pvp tab.

I haven’t tested this out yet, though it seems like there are definitely bugs/issues with the new system, as it sounds like people are having issues that they shouldn’t be having as much if the new system does what was explained in the OP.

That being said, I have a question. Does the system prioritize downed/dead allies more so than living allies? If not, that’d probably be a good idea to have in the system.

I think the TIME game of the year title is more than enough publicity and recognition for the game, heh. Anything else is just gravy.

Robert Hrouda.1327:

If it is any consolation I am on scale 22 and have accrued over1600 fractal tokens and not yet gotten a ring either. It is RNG with the Jade Maw.

We are exploring alternatives to the current system.

This. Is. Awesome!

Away /recieved

(Was in Southsun Cove on the day of the event though, just after it ended.)

How many people actually got precursors from the chest they mailed out? I haven’t heard of anyone as of yet, but I know tonsa people got precursors from the ancient karka. I smell a blatant nerf to the loot?

From what Colin said on the state of the game video, each month the main patch will have a single theme. December is the least active month for ArenaNet due to holidays – they only have roughly 70% of their team. December’s patch will be themed on balance changes; so I presume we can expect the most balance changed in both quantity and amount of impact than any other post-release patch up ’till this point.

January and February are both going to be the biggest patches as of yet to GW2. Colin went as far as to say that the two patches combined will be the size of an expansion. We know one of the patches, February if I recall, will be heavily WvW oriented – adding much more progression and presumably fixes to major issues, like culling. We also know one of the months, either January or February, will be SPvP-oriented, adding numerous major features to SPvP primarily for the benefit of eSports, but also to everyone.

2 exotics; one i salvaged w/ black lion kit and got 0 ectos [was <1g on TP] and 1 I sold on TP for around 1.8g. 2 rares; got 2-3 ectos from both[not each] I think. And ofc the bag and the ring. Overall, a good haul IMO. Especially since I never specifically participated in the 1-time event.

Guys, they already said the script will take several hours to run. If in, say, 12 hours (or when they make an announcement saying the script finished), you still don’t have one, then start worrying. Until then, just be patient.

Pray For Kosmos.5849:

Shifti.5908:

Derptrix.9320:

Aza.2105:

Mark Katzbach.9084:

Hey everybody, as these are coming through your game mail, make sure your mailbox isn’t full. It’s actually good practice anyway to empty your mailbox if you don’t have unclaimed loot in there.

My email is empty, and I never received a thing.

This so far.

Couldn’t even log in on the evening of the event…no chest yet.

if you didnt do the event, you wont get a chest bro

Not true. I did not participate in any content and received the chest.

I am in a similar boat. I didn’t do the event as I wasn’t aware it was happening at the time it was. But I was in southsun cove on the day of the event. And I got a chest in the mail when I got on today.

Azunai.1065:

no its weaponstats right now postpatch

and in addition the patch did not fix the skill lockout bug if you use eg glyphe of elementals

no element will spawn and skill will be unusable till you relog

Skill lockout is a different bug, so yeah, the patch didn’t address that.
And yeah, I doubled checked and you’re definitely right – it is weapon stats now. Were weapon stats also removed prior to this patch?

Azunai.1065:

Not sure if its ment like this, but if you enter Mistform you lose your Weaponstats

which can be around 2000 health and therefore killing yourself instantly?

It was your traits, not your weapon stats. And this bug was just fixed with the latest patch release ~5-10 mins ago.

Lordryux.9785:

no im bieng serious if i could take a screenie i would and i only PVE on my ele its on 60s after i switch my traits to cantrip mastery thats when im going D/D

Use the ability and look at the CD time. Make sure you have CD numbers displayed on your ability. General Options → checkmark Show Skill Recharge. It’s 75s; the tooltip lies.

Lordryux.9785:

cantrip mastery works just fine for me . o.o when i use it mistform goes down to 60s cooldown.

It works in SPvP. Outside of SPvP, it says 60s CD on the tooltip but is actually 75s CD still.

JonPeters.5630:

Yeah, thanks for this report I put in a fix for this a few minutes ago that will go live as soon as we have a build that pushes content. 12/14 at the latest.

Jon

Still bugged with the latest patch. No patch notes yet but it did fix RTL/transformation trait bugs.

This was -just- fixed in the latest build.

OldRodKS.9758:

Hmmm… this may be what hit me last night. I was doing AC runs with guildies and I got low health at one point so I mist-formed to wait for heal to pop up and instantly downed, even though I wasn’t being attacked directly.

Wonder if it’s because I was below 3K health and mist-form stripped that 3K from me? I’ll have to test this out…

Yup, that’s exactly why. The on-transform trait removal bug is quite frustrating, I hope they hotfix it soon.

As someone who wasn’t planning to main ele but completely fell in love with it on BWE1, I completely concur with everything you said. If they could address these factors, the elementalist would be a vastly improved profession.

Our underwater weapon is extremely unfriendly to condition damage builds and overall does not have enough active defense, which is what ele is all about. Especially considering we can’t use some of our cantrips underwater, this really makes underwater combat a pain.

The upcoming December patch is going to be themed towards profession balance. At least one of the patches in the first three months of 2013 will be themed towards WvW and SPvP. They have been talking a lot about improving progression in WvW, as well as fixing culling, and improving situations where servers are heavily outmanned. I expect to see this stuff get addressed in that patch.
That isn’t to say one of the next 9 months of the year won’t also be themed as WvW.

NO! The difficulty Southsun Cove reminds me of what we saw in some of the early beta weekend events prior to the massive difficulty drop in BWE2/3[can’t remember which]. I love it, as do the majority of peoples I’ve talked to about it.
It’s not like they’re anywhere near impossible. Soloing a vet karka as an ele is very doable, though takes a bit of skill and patience.

What we need is more of a reason to go to Southsun Cove. The vets should give a bit better loot, the time spent vs reward is not really worth it. The mob variety is also lacking, though Karka are pretty dang cool. We need, amongst other things, more dynamic events.

A difficulty nerf is not the way to solve this.

If I remember correctly, it was disabled due to issues related to hacking Contact support if you have forgotten your password.

Dailies reset at 5PM PST.

I’m definitely aware of this, though some classes are generally more/less pessimistic than others.

FYI, your thread title is a double negative. It may as well say, “Is GuildWars 2 really just 1 game?”

Yeah, they 2-shot me usually but sometimes 1-shot me. It’s annoying because even after popping defensive abilities and using up both my dodges, I can only recover 1-3 golem parts before either dieing or, if I’m lucky, getting out alive. They definitely deserve a nerf, the event isn’t as fun as it could be. If they killed you in 3-4 shots I’d be okay with that.

Apparently some people’s workplace is blocking pastehtml.com, so I added an alternative link; see OP.

felivear.1536:

@Timebomb – that is blocked by my works proxy.
@Fuz – says that doesn’t exist.

Alternative link: http://jsbin.com/utoges/1/

Already done. https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Chris-Whitesite-AMA-11-26-2012-Transcript/first

Update; Replaced original pastebin link w/ much nicer, more easily readable HTML page that I just finished creating for you all. Enjoy.

http://pastehtml.com/view/cjqpwkikn.html
Edit 2: Link not working? Is it blocked? Here’s an alternative: http://jsbin.com/utoges/1/
Edit: Replaced pastebin link w/ pastehtml link as I just finished prettying up the nice, easily readable HTML version of this transcript.

Aand he’s done. Decent AMA overall; he got off a couple hours earlier than he said, but that just means he was smart enough to not respond to peoples while half asleep. Hopefully we start seeing these AMAs occur on a more constant basis. I wish he would have answered more of the community questions; he only got through one section :/. Eh, he did good nevertheless.

If you’re having issues with an nVidia card, I’d suggest you try using the beta driver. If you’re already using the beta driver and having issues… revert back to the stable driver, heh.

Also, see if enabling/disabling VSync does anything for you, namely helps with the tears.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

TimeBomb.3427:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

snip

It does not make combat easier nor does it give you an edge. It makes one single keypress equivalent to holding down (or not holding down) right click. It often makes combat more difficult as it takes away some control from your character, thus why I stopped using it. Some people, especially people with arthritis, carpel tunnel, etc, find it makes the game less painful to play.

ArenaNet has said they’re not okay with one button doing something that would normally only be possible with multiple buttons. They’ve never said anything about the difference between key down vs key press. Thus it’s arguably a bit in the gray area, but there are no records of anyone getting banned for it, presumably because ArenaNet doesn’t feel it is ban-worthy.

In terms of things that modify graphics without modifying the client, those are even more blatantly not against the policy for obvious reasons. Modifying graphics via modifying the client is definitely gray area, though Guild Wars 1 has an official wiki page dedicated to a popular program that does just that.

It’s pretty much all gray area. Claiming someone will get banned for it is often incorrect (outside of blatantly botting and what-not etc). Claiming someone won’t get banned for it is, at best, an educated assumption. In the end, it’s up to the user to decide if they want to dabble with it or not.

The key holding is the camera, which he is using as the aim tool. Then that key that should be held down normally, is instead assigned to dodge. So he has one button doing two different things for him. He has the right mouse button being held down permanently to control the aim of the camera, along with it also being used for dodging.

Like you said, Anet is not okay with one button doing something that would normally only be possible with multiple buttons. Which is exactly what this mod is doing. It is automatically holding down your mouse button and allowing you to use that same button for another action (dodge in his case).

My apologies, I may not have been perfectly clear. ArenaNet is not okay with one button PRESS executing something that would normally take multiple button presses.

That being said, I never liked the fact that CombatMode added extra hotkeys; I thought that was the most gray area thing about the tool. I programmed a much simpler tool that also holds down right click with a single button press… but that’s it. No extra hotkeys, can’t sensibly use the hotkey you use for toggling right click nor can you use right click when it’s being held down.
I got all the bugs out but lost interest when I found that it often limited my control mid-combat; never released it due to some slightly messy source code.
I felt that it was less gray area than CombatMode, but that doesn’t deter from there being no records of anyone being banned or reprimanded for using CombatMode.

Lifelike.5862:

someone should really ask about temporary weapons such as engineer kits, and whether or not they intend to fix the problem of losing weapon stats and/or poor scaling (elementalist summons, engie kits, turrets, banners)

It’s one of the questions in the list of community questions that Chris seems to have forgotten about :/.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

snip

It does not make combat easier nor does it give you an edge. It makes one single keypress equivalent to holding down (or not holding down) right click. It often makes combat more difficult as it takes away some control from your character, thus why I stopped using it. Some people, especially people with arthritis, carpel tunnel, etc, find it makes the game less painful to play.

ArenaNet has said they’re not okay with one button doing something that would normally only be possible with multiple buttons. They’ve never said anything about the difference between key down vs key press. Thus it’s arguably a bit in the gray area, but there are no records of anyone getting banned for it, presumably because ArenaNet doesn’t feel it is ban-worthy.

In terms of things that modify graphics without modifying the client, those are even more blatantly not against the policy for obvious reasons. Modifying graphics via modifying the client is definitely gray area, though Guild Wars 1 has an official wiki page dedicated to a popular program that does just that.

It’s pretty much all gray area. Claiming someone will get banned for it is often incorrect (outside of blatantly botting and what-not etc). Claiming someone won’t get banned for it is, at best, an educated assumption. In the end, it’s up to the user to decide if they want to dabble with it or not.

tkalamba.2541:

“Hi Time,
We are still finalizing the design on both your question and your suggestion. If we were to discuss it it would likely change and therefore be misleading info. I think that moving forward we should be more communicative about our design once we have a good idea of our plans before it is executed upon. This is just an off the cuff idea but i can certainly see its value.
chris”

I see they atleast acknowledged the question I had brought up earlier, I’d be interested to see how this gets implemented. I’m fine with either option, but assume creating ascended gear for every rune and sigil would be such a waste of time.

thanks for posting Timebomb

No problem, I’m quite glad he gave an honest response. For anyone who didn’t see, here’s the original question I posted:

Hi Chris. Here’s another question that has recently come up on the forums:

How are runes/sigils going to be handled with ascended armor and weapons? While ascended accessories include the gem, it appears that that solution would not work very well for weapons or armor due to the massive variety of viable runes and sigils that are available for weapons and armor.

Can you tell us: Will we be allowed to put in our own runes/sigils into ascended armor/weapons? Or will it be included in some manner like ascended accessories?

If you don’t know or can’t release that info yet, a quick heads up would still be nice.

Thanks a lot Chris!

I’ve also recently asked:

Has the impact a level cap raise would have on level 80 legendary items been discussed at all? If so, could we have any insight as to how that may be handled? New legendary items, raise in level requirement for legendary items, the ability to somehow transmute a level 80 legendary to a level XX, or…?

SpyderArachnid.5619:

TimeBomb.3427:

While I’ve gone through these documents before, going through them again, this is the only section that talks about third party programs being used by players:

You may not use any third-party program (such as a “bot”) in order to automate gameplay functions, including playing, chatting, interacting, or gathering gold or items within Guild Wars 2. You may not assist, relay, or store gold or items for other players who are using these processes.

You seemed to have missed this entire section then if you’ve gone through them before.

You acknowledge that You may not, without signed written consent from a legally authorized representative of NCsoft, do any of the following:

© Use, or provide others with, any software related to the Game, including any automation software (a.k.a. “bot”) or software designed to change or modify operation of the Game;
(d) Use, or provide others with, any “hack,” “cheat,” “exploit” or “mod”;
(e) Use, or provide others with, any service related to the Game, including but not limited to:

(i) any service that interacts with the Software

I think that is pretty clear.

Ah, the second time I went through it, I was searching for the word “third”, in regards to third party program/software. I disagree that it’s clear. In fact, it’s quite vague IMO, and many other people agreed, thus the uproar and confusion that caused Gaile to create the third party program policy.

Apparently many players and Gaile Gray (whom is the head of customer support or something along those lines? I forget) thought it wasn’t clear enough.
“Change or modify the operation of the game” is vague. What is and isn’t a hack/cheat/exploit/mod can be considered quite vague in some scenarios.

Remember, they can choose to not enforce the vague mess that is present in the policy and instead enforce Gaile’s policy. Due to the fact that there are many third party applications, ex. Combat Mode and SSAA injectors, being used without any known bans, I’d argue that they’re moreso doing the latter than the former.

Also note that they have said that they are interested in eventually working with the community to create “apps” for GW2, though it was literally that vague and we haven’t heard anything more in regards to that as of yet.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

TimeBomb.3427:

BioFringe.7945:

TimeBomb.3427:

As does the fact that no one has ever been banned for using Combat Mode.

How do you know this for a fact? Seriously, just curious as to the nature of your source as I’m sure this information hasn’t been published for public knowledge.

The addon became popular in large due to Reddit. If someone got banned, then multiple people would have gotten banned – it would be on Reddit. Not to mention that threads about mods or Combat Mode would be much more aggressively closed/deleted if they were mass banning Combat Mode users.

Spyder, policies do change. Gaile’s addon policy wasn’t put up on release, it was put up post-release. Around the time combat mode started becoming somewhat popular. Coincidence? You decide.

I’m talking about the Policy for Third-Party Programs. It hasn’t changed. Whether Gaile, Charles, Colin, Mike, etc has their own take on it, the policy itself is still there and hasn’t changed. I trust the Policy itself. Doesn’t matter who tells me different, the Policy hasn’t changed yet. If what they say is the definite answer on this, then the Policy will be changed to reflect that. So far, it hasn’t been.

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-rules-of-conduct/
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-user-agreement/

Just a refresher for you if you were unsure. I doesn’t matter what any of them say, as these haven’t changed. Thus, the mod is not allowed.

You are correct up until the last sentence. ArenaNet/NCSoft can enforce the rules of conduct/user agreement, but aren’t legally required to enforce it, at least in certain areas. In other words, if the the rules of conduct did say you’ll get banned for using third party programs, then while ArenaNet/NCSoft very much so has the right to reprimand you for violating it, they are not legally required to do so.

While I’ve gone through these documents before, going through them again, this is the only section that talks about third party programs being used by players:

You may not use any third-party program (such as a “bot”) in order to automate gameplay functions, including playing, chatting, interacting, or gathering gold or items within Guild Wars 2. You may not assist, relay, or store gold or items for other players who are using these processes.

This is obviously somewhat vague and Combat Mode does not appear to violate it, thus the clarification from Gaile in her policy. Her policy is, as she said, not a legal document, but I’m sure that they can reprimand you for violating it and, if necessary, legally fall back to a vague “We can ban you for any reason” type of statement in a legal document that you already agreed to.

Chris said he’s planning to do this AMA for a few more hours or so, and he’s working on setting up a PvP AMA.
I’m sure we’ll have writeups about this AMA once he finishes. Not really worth doing one until he is. This would include both full Q/A transcripts and a synopsis of important notes. I know I’ll be trying to write up a synopsis if I have time.

BioFringe.7945:

TimeBomb.3427:

As does the fact that no one has ever been banned for using Combat Mode.

How do you know this for a fact? Seriously, just curious as to the nature of your source as I’m sure this information hasn’t been published for public knowledge.

The addon became popular in large due to Reddit. If someone got banned, then multiple people would have gotten banned – it would be on Reddit. Not to mention that threads about mods or Combat Mode would be much more aggressively closed/deleted if they were mass banning Combat Mode users.

Spyder, policies do change. Gaile’s addon policy wasn’t put up on release, it was put up post-release. Around the time combat mode started becoming somewhat popular. Coincidence? You decide.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

TimeBomb.3427:

It was from a customer support person. I don’t know the specific differences between customer support, game master, and community coordinator, but I do know that Gaile Gray and her policy outweigh all of them. Just read the top comments of that Reddit thread.

I don’t really get what you are missing here. The mod alters the game. Simple as that. It is clearly stated that anything that alters the game is a third-party program and is not allowed. Just because Gaile Gray didn’t say it specifically, doesn’t mean they are all liars and don’t know what they are talking about.

There is more than one person who works for Anet that can speak on this matter you know.

I edited the post you quoted to further clarify. I’m not missing anything. Some of the staff peoples chiming in on this issue are missing certain information from other staff members. I’m quite aware that Gaile isn’t the only employee of AN, but her word does reign over the majority of others in the customer support department.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

TimeBomb.3427:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

TimeBomb.3427:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Zanthrax.6538:

yea absolutely, I definitely disagree with advantageous mods being banned that should definitely happen. but even something like UI mods would be nice…i mean the game places such a high value on cosmetic items i’d love to cosmetically change my UI to fit my theme.

That combat mod that was popular few months back is an interesting one…i personally don’t believe it gives anyone an advantage simply because it uses everything you can do in game. Kinda just saves the holding of right click down really.

I mean ultimately if the broader community didn’t really want it then for sure i understand but there was some conflict among customers and even anet staff thats all between their responses etc.

The Combat Mod was easily bannable because it did things for you. Like you said, you didn’t have to hold down the right mouse button. As well, it changed the combat to be action-y and allowed you to aim while using hotkeys.

Thus, it altered the gameplay and provided a slight advantage over those that didn’t use it. So it is considered a bannable program.

You are wrong. Combat Mode does not violate the addon policy Gaile posted nor has anyone that has used or is using it ever claimed to have been banned.

Not wrong at all. I will even provide you with a credible source where Anet states that it is a violation of the policy.

Indeed, as Cheiron said, this programm can be assimilated as a third party one, and therefore is not allowed on our game.

Please note that utilisation of third party software can lead to a definitive suspension of your account.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Will-I-get-banned-for-using-Combat-Mode-1-0/first

This is a community coordinator giving a response, presumably based on what they were taught during their training. I promise you, Gaile Gray and her policy outweighs this person. As does the fact that no one has ever been banned for using Combat Mode. You and that community coordinator are still wrong.

Read the second quote I put up there. It is directly from a GM, since you think Community Coordinators are liars and don’t speak for Anet.

It was from a customer support person. I don’t know the specific differences between customer support, game master, and community coordinator, but I do know that Gaile Gray and her policy outweigh all of them. Just read the top comments of that Reddit thread. I’m not calling anyone a liar, but I will say that ArenaNet has always had an issue between forum responses and general support wherein it appears that some information isn’t synchronized amongst staff. In the end, Gaile’s word reigns over theirs.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

TimeBomb.3427:

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Zanthrax.6538:

yea absolutely, I definitely disagree with advantageous mods being banned that should definitely happen. but even something like UI mods would be nice…i mean the game places such a high value on cosmetic items i’d love to cosmetically change my UI to fit my theme.

That combat mod that was popular few months back is an interesting one…i personally don’t believe it gives anyone an advantage simply because it uses everything you can do in game. Kinda just saves the holding of right click down really.

I mean ultimately if the broader community didn’t really want it then for sure i understand but there was some conflict among customers and even anet staff thats all between their responses etc.

The Combat Mod was easily bannable because it did things for you. Like you said, you didn’t have to hold down the right mouse button. As well, it changed the combat to be action-y and allowed you to aim while using hotkeys.

Thus, it altered the gameplay and provided a slight advantage over those that didn’t use it. So it is considered a bannable program.

You are wrong. Combat Mode does not violate the addon policy Gaile posted nor has anyone that has used or is using it ever claimed to have been banned.

Not wrong at all. I will even provide you with a credible source where Anet states that it is a violation of the policy.

Indeed, as Cheiron said, this programm can be assimilated as a third party one, and therefore is not allowed on our game.

Please note that utilisation of third party software can lead to a definitive suspension of your account.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Will-I-get-banned-for-using-Combat-Mode-1-0/first

This is a community coordinator giving a response, presumably based on what they were taught during their training. I promise you, Gaile Gray and her policy outweighs this person. As does the fact that no one has ever been banned for using Combat Mode. You and that community coordinator are still wrong.

SpyderArachnid.5619:

Zanthrax.6538:

yea absolutely, I definitely disagree with advantageous mods being banned that should definitely happen. but even something like UI mods would be nice…i mean the game places such a high value on cosmetic items i’d love to cosmetically change my UI to fit my theme.

That combat mod that was popular few months back is an interesting one…i personally don’t believe it gives anyone an advantage simply because it uses everything you can do in game. Kinda just saves the holding of right click down really.

I mean ultimately if the broader community didn’t really want it then for sure i understand but there was some conflict among customers and even anet staff thats all between their responses etc.

The Combat Mod was easily bannable because it did things for you. Like you said, you didn’t have to hold down the right mouse button. As well, it changed the combat to be action-y and allowed you to aim while using hotkeys.

Thus, it altered the gameplay and provided a slight advantage over those that didn’t use it. So it is considered a bannable program.

You are wrong. Combat Mode does not violate the addon policy Gaile posted nor has anyone that has used or is using it ever claimed to have been banned.

Gaile Gray outweighs any of the community coordinators. Similarly, so does the third party program policy. Period.

You should have posted this in the tech support forum. Also make sure to give your exact driver version; I hear the beta NVidia drivers work better than the stable ones.

Tolmos.8395:

I appreciate you posting this. I had not seen it. I know most people won’t care, but as a software developer I was always interested in some of the design and coding aspects of large scale, high budget AAA MMO projects.

Really neat getting to see this.

Ditto. I plan to set aside a block of time later tonight to watch this.

Ditton.3149:

TimeBomb.3427:

Karizee.8076:

snip

FYI the AMA is not happening in this thread, it’s happening on Reddit. Chris won’t see/respond to your questions unless you post them on the Reddit thread.

the guy just didnt format it correctly…the bold is Chris’ answer..this was a question he answered already

Ah, thanks for the clarification.

This is the official third party program policy: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Policy-Third-Party-Programs/first#post354869

This is the most you’re getting. They won’t say anything more specific; they won’t vet specific applications.