Guild Wars 2

It’s not going to be a one day event, so relax. You’ll be able to catch it later.

I do have hours to play, but I understand “real” content takes time. I mean SAB was real content that not everyone cared about, but certain people (like my wife) love.

Games take time to produce content…a lot of time. A year down the road, there’ll be a lot more stuff….right now they’re working on stuff like the LFG tool, custom arenas and observation mode for PvP (which was big in Guild Wars 1).

Stuff will come in time. In the mean time, people are right. One new game isn’t going to keep you busy for thousands of hours. Find more stuff to do.

Yeah, it hasn’t exactly been captivating stuff. Way too much press for what they’ve given us. It would have been much better with no build up at all.

Kasama.8941:

I don’t farm nearly enough to make the price of this worth it. I can get 25 Orichalcum Mining Picks for 1 gold, that’s 2,500 uses. More then enough to last me a long time. Also, drawing more attention to yourself in WvW while you’re gathering a node, is a bad idea.

Unless you have a bunch of friends stealthed nearby and use it as a lure.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Vayne.8563:

Okay let’s say you’re right. Anet makes an annoucement. Some people read it, some people don’t.

A bunch of guys who love to grief people tell other people about it, just to see them gt banned. You can’t say that wouldn’t happen, because it can. There are always people out there ready to do stuff to kitten other people off.

I can see where you’re coming from (and it’s not the first time you’ve made the argument), but I don’t see it being implemented. The potential for griefing alone at that point is pretty big.

You’re absolutely right!

If not all players are informed, then it opens the door for abuse. However, if you’ve seen my argument before, you also know that my solution was simple.

Player logs in, a screen pops up with the announcement (justified annoyance factor in this case as consequences are high), and the player must press, “OK” to continue.

If players choose to skip the text and press “OK” then that is their choice, however it guarantees all players will see the official message. No forum posts, no Twitter, no Facebook…right on the main login screen overtop your character. You can’t do anything else without closing the dialogue box.

Okay…I see what you’re saying. It’s my belief the biggest percentage of players will skip that screen anyway, but at least if they get banned then, it will be because they skipped a screen.

Then if they exploit, well, that’s fine.

Doesn’t really change what I said in the other thread though. An exploit can exist for X amount of time before the company even learns about it. So this system will encourage anyone who learns about it before Anet to hurry up and exploit the exploit as fast as they can, until the message comes up, because they know it’s a free pass.

How do you deal with the fact that the company might be too late to stop the exploit, and those who do exploit will remain unpunished?

Okay let’s say you’re right. Anet makes an annoucement. Some people read it, some people don’t.

A bunch of guys who love to grief people tell other people about it, just to see them gt banned. You can’t say that wouldn’t happen, because it can. There are always people out there ready to do stuff to kitten other people off.

I can see where you’re coming from (and it’s not the first time you’ve made the argument), but I don’t see it being implemented. The potential for griefing alone at that point is pretty big.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

I still can’t tell whether I think the developers are actually interested in following the philosophy of GW1 and trying to make their games better to prove that it can work – or if they are simply making their games more like generic MMO’s to sell copies and count their money.

If they are indeed doing the first, no matter how much I think they released the game too early or have major flaws in combat, I support them.

If, however, it is the second, then I don’t really give a kitten what happens to GW2.

This is a really really interesting post.

I’m not so sure there are only two options here. Maybe they are neither trying to be like Guild Wars 1 or like WoW.

They don’t need to be making it like GW1, simply that they are actually trying to make a better game, similar to when they made GW1, they were trying to make a better game. I’m not convinced they are.

A lot of fanboys tell me that they are trying to make a game to make everyone happy. That doesn’t equate to making a better game, it just equates to making a game that will get everyone to buy it regardless of whether they will like it for long. IMO, of course.

Trying to make a game where different demographics of players have something to do, is not quite the same as trying to keep everyone happy. I guess you think they should make a game that just keeps players that like what you like happy, and I guess that’s fair enough.

I know that not everyone plays like me, so they have to make stuff for other people too. Because it’s a big ambitious game and it needs people to play it. That won’t happen if they don’t support different demographics.

How well they’re doing depends on who you ask. I think that abandoning some of the stuff that people had problems with in Guild Wars 1 (even people who played it later), isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

Right so if all the bottle behave one way but one bottle behaves completely differently and you keep drinking it for like an hour till you max out a title, how can you possibly not know that’s an exploit?

I should mention, I don’t particularly agree with the ban for the alcohol title exploit anyway…but you have to be pretty naive to not see it’s an exploit.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Vayne.8563:

My personal experience says no one would be hurt by my doing it, which is something I’d definitely filter an exploit for. Since it couldn’t hurt anyone else, it’s probably fair to do. When it could affect other people, I start thinking in terms of exploits.

So you wouldn’t consider it an exploit because no one got hurt? Yet, ANet just plugged an exploit that allowed players to gain “Thirst Slayer” by using a bugged bottle.

So, since we’ve established that, “not hurting anyone” isn’t valid criteria for describing an exploit, would killing 20 rats in a group be one? Is this part of the game, or a bug?

Okay first, if I saw 20 rats in a cave and I killed them, I wouldn’t stay around and keep killing them. That’s just silly. There’s no rush to get indiscrimant slayer, this stuff is everywhere. You’ll get it anyway.

The alcohol in the game is not freely available to everyone. You had to be on a certain path. Alcohol is sold. I certainly knew not to exploit the alcohol one. Other people did too.

And it still seems to me that people that didn’t exploit it hard core could probably send an email to support and get their accounts back. Those that sat and repeated an instance over and over without finishing it, how could they NOT know they were exploiting?

Palador.2170:

Vayne.8563:

Since this is unheard of for computer games (except for maybe the old dial-up hint lines before the Internet was big), I think it would be a bad thing for Anet to do.

It’s not entirely unheard of. There’s a game or two out there that are hybrid subscription/F2P models. If you’re not subscribed, you don’t get actual customer support for the game. It’s ugly, but it’s out there.

But you’re paying a sub for the game, you’re not paying separately for support right? In that case the support is including as a single benefit you get from subscribing, not the sole benefit.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

Vayne.8563:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

You’re running along and notice a group of 20 rats in some cave. You realize that if you stick around and stomp a few, you can quickly get your daily, and lifetime indiscriminate achievements.

Is this an exploit, or part of the game? Why?

If I were stomping on rats in a cave, I wouldn’t think of it as an exploit, because there are rats in a cave. However, I also know that doing what I’m doing, whether an exploit or not, isn’t hurting anyone. Furthermore this example is self-limiting. Once you get your achievement, you get no more advantage to continuing to do it.

The same criteria applied to the drinking of overly-available wine, and that one turned out to be a ticket to banland.

The difference is that merchants sell wine. I know it’s not freely available. Rats are everywhere. If I kill rats, I kill rats.

The wine thing is something I would have seen as an exploit, because it’s obvious to me anyway, what you needed to do to get the drinking title. I’ve bought and drank drinks. Now if I found a way to do that completely free, when I know I’m supposed to buy it, sure, I’d have thought that was an exploit.

As opposed to rats which are always free to kill, in which I’m not doing anything out of the ordinary.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Vayne.8563:

The tone of your continual posts about exploits, not the first one, seems to say that you think Anet is being particularly unfair. Since they’re following what has become the industry standard in procedure, Anet is not being more unfair than any other company.

And yes, if a single person gets banned wrongly but it saves the games economy so a few hundred thousand people aren’t hurt, yeah, I’d say that’s acceptable collateral damage. This is a game, not someone’s livelihood. If it’s a borderline case and they contact support it probably wouldn’t be perma-banned anyway, unless they REALLY exploited it. And if they did, yeah it’s a lesson learned.

If everyone one of my life’s lessons learned was being banned from a game I’d be a happy, happy man.

So you’re saying that because it’s industry standard, it means it’s the best system?

I’m simply saying, as a player, I want the tools to be able to protect myself from account ban. I don’t want to exploit at all, but I have nothing available to be able to determine what is, or isn’t an exploit. I am left to determine that myself, and only once I’m banned might I be able to deduce what I did.

However, because ANet won’t release details about exploits, you’re left banned, accused, convicted, and never knowing why.

Also, I’m concerned that you’re ok with innocent players who payed hard earned money getting banned.

I’m not okay with innocent players paying hard earned money to getting banned. I said it was acceptable collateral damage, considering the fact that in the past exploits of destroyed entire games. So if a few dozen people get hurt by that, and let’s put this into perspective, they’ve lost a couple of bucks, it’s not life threatening, it’s better than 3 million people who bought the game having the game rug jerked out from under them. Not that I’m not sympathetic to the few who are wrongly banned, but it really is a lesson.

Basically if you have to ask the question,. just don’t do it. It’s that simple. And whether this policy is best practice or not, it’s surely at this point the only practice I’ve seen. I know you’ve suggested other things in your umpteeth threads on this topic, and I can see you’re obsessing over it, but you know, it’s really not that hard.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Vayne.8563:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Vayne.8563:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Here is a question for those who claim exploiting is obvious to spot.

You’re running along and notice a group of 20 rats in some cave. You realize that if you stick around and stomp a few, you can quickly get your daily, and lifetime indiscriminate achievements.

Is this an exploit, or part of the game? Why?

If you were banned a few days later for an exploit, yet were never told what the exploit was, would you assume it was due to the rats, or something else?

I’ve never seen Anet ban people for an exploit that doesn’t affect the in game economy or direct competition such as PvP or WvW. Plenty of people stop rats in caves for their daily and their achievement.

Do you know someone banned for this? I certainly haven’t heard of anyone.

I didn’t ask if anyone has ever seen anyone banned for this. I asked if you would consider this an exploit or not?

Please give it another read and let me know what you think.

If I were stomping on rats in a cave, I wouldn’t think of it as an exploit, because there are rats in a cave. However, I also know that doing what I’m doing, whether an exploit or not, isn’t hurting anyone. Furthermore this example is self-limiting. Once you get your achievement, you get no more advantage to continuing to do it.

But if I went into a cave, started stomping rats and they kept dropping gold items, yes, I’d know that was an exploit and I’d stop and report it.

Interesting.

So based on your personal experience in the game, you wouldn’t consider this an exploit. And furthermore, you’re convinced it’s not an exploit because you can’t exploit it indefinitely.

See how easy it is for you to brush off and justify actions because it fits with what you feel is reasonable? See how you had to exaggerate the example to make sure it was black and white enough for your own personal line?

My personal experience says no one would be hurt by my doing it, which is something I’d definitely filter an exploit for. Since it couldn’t hurt anyone else, it’s probably fair to do. When it could affect other people, I start thinking in terms of exploits.

slugburp.5431:

Vayne.8563:

Lalangamena.3694:

agree with the OP.

thief and elementalist are pain to level up on lower levels, they are very squishy, but don’t do more damage than the rest, most of tier1 utilities are crap.

warrior and guardian are very easy, have good utility on the start.

necro feels quite easy to me, maybe because I learned to play…. (my current leveling project)

I had far more trouble leveling my warrior than my ele.

uh okay? you’re in the minority

Definitely a possibility though I know other people who share my experience and in fact have even seen posts about it.

Jaxon.5392:

Those that weren’t heavily into the game around 1 year in just prior to the factions release have no right to talk about GW1 IMO. That was the golden age of the game where it was beautifully balanced, build variety was varied, about the time you saw the rise of WM with their standard 4 warrior, 2 crip shot ranger, 2 monk GvG build. That time. That period in the game was the pinnacle of GW1.
If you weren’t heavily invested into GW1 then you do not understand the comments by those that are comparing GW1 to GW2.

Those who say people have no right to talk about something, have no right to talk about it themselves.

Guild Wars 1 has been going about six years since factions and far more people have experienced it post Factions than prior to it. Does that make them all wrong and those other people who were there at the beginning right?

I’ll bet you I can find people who started the game and hated it right away. They never experienced Factions. Does it make them wrong?

Yes, the gold age of the great game. It was amazing. It wonderful. It was so good that no one can possibly have an opinion about it if they came a bit later.

Well, I came a bit later and I have an opinion about it, But more to the point, if the game got worse because of balance issues, that means it was probably not designed well in the first place. Good game design would assume that the ability to balance the game as it grows would have been taken into account.

Of course, Prophecies is Anet’s first game. They learned from that experience. That’s why they didn’t repeat it (in my opinion).

The tone of your continual posts about exploits, not the first one, seems to say that you think Anet is being particularly unfair. Since they’re following what has become the industry standard in procedure, Anet is not being more unfair than any other company.

And yes, if a single person gets banned wrongly but it saves the games economy so a few hundred thousand people aren’t hurt, yeah, I’d say that’s acceptable collateral damage. This is a game, not someone’s livelihood. If it’s a borderline case and they contact support it probably wouldn’t be perma-banned anyway, unless they REALLY exploited it. And if they did, yeah it’s a lesson learned.

If everyone one of my life’s lessons learned was being banned from a game I’d be a happy, happy man.

I think if they implemented something like this, they’d lose a lot of business. It’s a bad, bad look for a company to do that. Generally companies who do are companies that have a tight hold over you. Microsoft can do it, because there’s very little competition. Companies where everyone does it, well they aren’t competing.

Since this is unheard of for computer games (except for maybe the old dial-up hint lines before the Internet was big), I think it would be a bad thing for Anet to do.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Vayne.8563:

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Here is a question for those who claim exploiting is obvious to spot.

You’re running along and notice a group of 20 rats in some cave. You realize that if you stick around and stomp a few, you can quickly get your daily, and lifetime indiscriminate achievements.

Is this an exploit, or part of the game? Why?

If you were banned a few days later for an exploit, yet were never told what the exploit was, would you assume it was due to the rats, or something else?

I’ve never seen Anet ban people for an exploit that doesn’t affect the in game economy or direct competition such as PvP or WvW. Plenty of people stop rats in caves for their daily and their achievement.

Do you know someone banned for this? I certainly haven’t heard of anyone.

I didn’t ask if anyone has ever seen anyone banned for this. I asked if you would consider this an exploit or not?

Please give it another read and let me know what you think.

If I were stomping on rats in a cave, I wouldn’t think of it as an exploit, because there are rats in a cave. However, I also know that doing what I’m doing, whether an exploit or not, isn’t hurting anyone. Furthermore this example is self-limiting. Once you get your achievement, you get no more advantage to continuing to do it.

But if I went into a cave, started stomping rats and they kept dropping gold items, yes, I’d know that was an exploit and I’d stop and report it.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Vayne.8563:

Oh please! Are you really saying that someone who comes along, looks at a vendor, sees ten of one type of thing for 2 gold and sees 1 of the same thing for 2 s, doesn’t know that there’s an error somewhere?

Okay let’s say you bought the thing for 2 silver. That doesn’t earn you a ban. But if you bought 500 of them and used the mystic forge to get better stuff, which they you then listed on the trading post…obviously that’s a bug in the game, or typo.

Those who bought a dozen of them weren’t banned. Only the worst offenders are banned, and if they know exactly what they’re doing.

Add to the mix that people who sent in mails to support had their accounts unbanned as long as they agreed to a roll back.

We can argue specific examples, but its pointless. What we need to remember is the following:

1. MMOs are complex

2. Not everyone has the same experience with specific game mechanics, or MMOs

3. No information is provided by ANet, leaving it in the players hands to decide what is, and isn’t an exploit

4. Not everyone wants to exploit, and many don’t want to get banned

5. Not everything is black and white.

All five of your points are true. They also don’t change these facts.

1. Every MMO out there takes exploting seriously and none of them talk about it for very obvious reasons. No reason to give people ideas about other types of exploits.

2. Leaving exploiting unpunished is bad for the game. It encourages people to try and say they didn’t know. It has in other games in the past completely destroyed in game economies and caused inflation problems to the point where honest players couldn’t play the game at all.

3. If someone really did something accidentally a bit, I’ve seen no evidence that Anet has perma-banned them. People are perma-banned for SERIOUSLY exploiting. Will the occasional person be unfairly banned. Maybe. Without those bans, could the entire game economy be ruined for everyone. Sure. Given that situation, I’d feel bad for the person wrongly banned but I’d still think the company is doing the right thing.

4. Anet has set the bar for what an exploit is pretty kitten high. Plenty of people exploited a bit and didn’t get banned. You’re making it sound like OMG all these poor innocent people got banned. Ever walk into a prison? Everyone didn’t do it. What are the odds?

In general, keeping people from exploiting is a positive thing for an MMO to do, not a negative thing.

Crazylegsmurphy.6430:

Here is a question for those who claim exploiting is obvious to spot.

You’re running along and notice a group of 20 rats in some cave. You realize that if you stick around and stomp a few, you can quickly get your daily, and lifetime indiscriminate achievements.

Is this an exploit, or part of the game? Why?

If you were banned a few days later for an exploit, yet were never told what the exploit was, would you assume it was due to the rats, or something else?

I’ve never seen Anet ban people for an exploit that doesn’t affect the in game economy or direct competition such as PvP or WvW. Plenty of people stop rats in caves for their daily and their achievement.

Do you know someone banned for this? I certainly haven’t heard of anyone.

killcannon.2576:

Vayne.8563:

killcannon.2576:

Lopez.7369:

Tarnished Coast has successfully completed the event nearly every time I tried it in the past three weeks. The Balthazar waypoint is rarely contested on my server.

When it does fail, it’s entirely because of the two issues I listed: people letting the NPCs get flanked or people pulling AOE to the NPCs by standing on them.

People just need to better understand how to keep the NPCs alive. That means failure is because of poor execution, which should result in a failed event.

Congrats. Because “if it’s not broke here, it’s not broken anywhere”. If you check the bugs area of the forums you would see that events get bugged out on different servers. The event does the exact same thing on Devonas Rest, seen the npc group go from 75 to fail with no mobs around and npcs not under attack.

Which doesn’t mean because someone fails it that it is bugged. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. It’s certainly possible.

But the OP has come in saying that something happened which he perceives as a bug that requires a fix and others are saying it’s not a bug.

Thanks for that I guess? I’m not seeing anywhere in the op post that he doesn’t think it should fail for appropriate reasons. Everyone besides the op post is saying that though, so maybe address them?

I’m addressing you because you’re calling people out for saying stuff is bugged on different servers, which while true, has nothing to do with the fact that we don’t really know that it’s bugged on the OPs server. And if it’s not bugged, it doesn’t need to be fixed.

What you want to call people out, but you don’t like it when people call you out?

killcannon.2576:

Lopez.7369:

Tarnished Coast has successfully completed the event nearly every time I tried it in the past three weeks. The Balthazar waypoint is rarely contested on my server.

When it does fail, it’s entirely because of the two issues I listed: people letting the NPCs get flanked or people pulling AOE to the NPCs by standing on them.

People just need to better understand how to keep the NPCs alive. That means failure is because of poor execution, which should result in a failed event.

Congrats. Because “if it’s not broke here, it’s not broken anywhere”. If you check the bugs area of the forums you would see that events get bugged out on different servers. The event does the exact same thing on Devonas Rest, seen the npc group go from 75 to fail with no mobs around and npcs not under attack.

Which doesn’t mean because someone fails it that it is bugged. Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. It’s certainly possible.

But the OP has come in saying that something happened which he perceives as a bug that requires a fix and others are saying it’s not a bug.

laokoko.7403:

Because mmorpg developers make player kill 1000000 rats before player can kill a dragon.

Colin Johanson
“Most MMOs these days make you grind and do really repetitive, boring content over and over again. There are moments of fun, but then you’re back swinging your sword over and over again, chasing around a moth or an ogre that’s standing around in the world doing nothing. That’s the part of the genre we think players are done with. We want to make something that’s better than that.”

You in the right thread?

OmniPotentes.4817:

That cool molten effect can be seen from miles away in WvW. Good luck mining….enjoy the effect and the repair costs.

Sounds to me like a good way to set up ambushes. Thanks for the heads up.

Oh please! Are you really saying that someone who comes along, looks at a vendor, sees ten of one type of thing for 2 gold and sees 1 of the same thing for 2 s, doesn’t know that there’s an error somewhere?

Okay let’s say you bought the thing for 2 silver. That doesn’t earn you a ban. But if you bought 500 of them and used the mystic forge to get better stuff, which they you then listed on the trading post…obviously that’s a bug in the game, or typo.

Those who bought a dozen of them weren’t banned. Only the worst offenders are banned, and if they know exactly what they’re doing.

Add to the mix that people who sent in mails to support had their accounts unbanned as long as they agreed to a roll back.

Lalangamena.3694:

agree with the OP.

thief and elementalist are pain to level up on lower levels, they are very squishy, but don’t do more damage than the rest, most of tier1 utilities are crap.

warrior and guardian are very easy, have good utility on the start.

necro feels quite easy to me, maybe because I learned to play…. (my current leveling project)

I had far more trouble leveling my warrior than my ele.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Vayne.8563:

Nuka Cola.8520:

Yes, there are LOTS of things more important than making ascended rings sellable and one of them would be a completely new dungeon to keep pve players busy and new game mode in pvp to occupy that crowd. But why and who came up with an idea of releasing an ascended (or any equipable weapon/accessory) item that you can’t do anything with but merch for a pathetic amount of money? This is ascended level items, no whites/blues… Even freaking green items have more use combining in mystic toilet for rares which then you sell or salvage for ectos, like seriously…

Out of curiosity what are your suggestions for dealing with this, that won’t seen huge numbers of people into the fractals to farm them and ignore the rest of the game?

But people already ARE in fotm (look at gw2lfg) for months… Haven’t you seen dozens of threads people complaining about ‘all dungeons are dead, everyone is doing fractals’? Currently as many or more are spamming cof path 1, why? for money and its quick. fotm isn’t quick, so those who like quick runs won’t be doing it for sure. Not only that but you have to remember that you can only do so many dailies per day and not 200 cof p1 runs IF you wanted to. And i will never understand how could anyone consider pve zones lively (since last couple of patches) when all you see is people camping world events, this is not lively world, this is a boring way of making money with something that demands no effort.

Tarnished Coast, is the only server I know, is busy in every zone I’m in, in almost any time of day, so to me, yeah the world is busy. Your mileage may vary on other servers.

No, everyone is not in the fractals, because I get dungeon groups every day, and yeah, there have been quite a few new players logging into the game. I see them all the time.

I used to do fractals a lot, I have over 250 of them behind me, but I don’t do them as much any more. I run more dungeons.

It’s a balancing act. When they came out they were new and shiny and that’s what people did. Now, not so much…except for the very small percentage of players who I’d class as hard core.

In my guild of 80, we do far more dungeon runs than fractal runs these days.

There’s been a bit of division in the leader board discussion, centering around dailies and monthlies and they points they add to your achievement points.

I think that there are a few flaws in the leaderboards as they stand now. For example, SPvP has it’s own leader board, yet it’s a completely separate part of the game. So someone who just PVe’s will never get on the SPvP leader board, but in addition, won’t necessarily get as high as they could on the Achievement Point leaderboard, because they won’t get the achievement points from SPvPing.

To make leader boards fun for people Anet needs to implement a range of them so people really can “play the way they want to play”.

Why not have a leader board just based on achievement points, another without it. A leader board based on just PvE achievements, and not WvW achievements. Hell, why not a leader board based on WvW achievements and nothing else? It’s just parsing data and a website.

I think the leader boards are fun for some people, but the way they’re laid out now are annoying as many people as not.

And there should also be a way to opt out of the leader boards, for people who don’t want to deal with that at all.

The Pve one doesn’t reset, it updates regularly but it’s based on your achievement points, which including points you’ve earned for dailies and monthlies since launch.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Yes, there are LOTS of things more important than making ascended rings sellable and one of them would be a completely new dungeon to keep pve players busy and new game mode in pvp to occupy that crowd. But why and who came up with an idea of releasing an ascended (or any equipable weapon/accessory) item that you can’t do anything with but merch for a pathetic amount of money? This is ascended level items, no whites/blues… Even freaking green items have more use combining in mystic toilet for rares which then you sell or salvage for ectos, like seriously…

Out of curiosity what are your suggestions for dealing with this, that won’t seen huge numbers of people into the fractals to farm them and ignore the rest of the game?

In Guild Wars 1, there were actually some “legal” exploits. Like you could finish all of Prophecies, while skipping half the game. You could actually get a run from Beacons Perch to Droks. Hell, people used to sell the run. They’d run you and you’d get max armor early but if you leveled there or you were already high enough level, you could also complete the game from there, skipping all the missions in the Maguuma Jungle and all the missions in the Crystal Desert, and even one of the missions in the Southern Shiverpeaks if you wanted to.

There were people running people through dungeons and outposts in Guild Wars 1 too. The last mission in Factions was a very popular run. People had a “trick” method of doing it where it took less than a minute to finish the mission. It involved using an elementalist mesmer and one of the special skills you got for the mission, combined with a couple of spells that allowed you to duplicate that special skill. It made the last mission in Factions, the climactic battle, totally pointless.

Running, Shiro, 1k normal mode, 2k hard mode.

And you could get max armor in Nightfall long before you should have been able to by catching a “ferry” to Consolate Docks by someone who had the quest active “The Time is Nigh”. People would abandon that quest and retake it and ferry people again and again as a source of income. In fact, running builds were often much discussed in Guild Wars 1.

No one ever got banned for that stuff in Guild Wars 1, it was considered part of the game.

I get all the dueling I need, right here on the forums, thank you.

Nuka Cola.8520:

Vayne.8563:

Are you saying you don’t otherwise make money in the fractals? Because generally speaking, the fractals are the most profitable thing I do without selling rings.

read above posts. i want to do something with those rings that isn’t merching for 4.5silver.

I get that, and I don’t even disagree. The problem is that if you make it so profitable that those rings are worth real money, everyone will be in the fractals and no one will be in the world (again). There’s more to balancing a game than just having a way to make money, or more money.

Right now, because of open world bosses and dailies, there are more people in the open world than there used to be. This seems to be a good thing as there are far less people saying no one is playing the game, because they can see people. There are other reasons too, particularly for those starting the game more recently.

I get what you want, I’m just not sure that Anet wants to make the ring thing that much of a source of income. Every time they do something like that, traffic patterns change.

I’m convinced that less people left the game in November than people think, though obviously some have, because a large percentage of the player base was hiding in fractals.

Why do people do anything? Why do they grief? Why do they commit crimes? Why do they cheat on spouses?

The short answer is that people do it for different reasons. Some people like the thrill of being “bad”. Some people like to “get over”…to get something other people can’t get. Or to have some kind of advantage. Some people don’t realize they’re exploiting. Some don’t care, because they get bored with a game.

There’s not just one reason why people exploit (though I realize you were probably asking it rhetorically and just making a plea for people to stop).

And yeah, this will get locked.

Are you saying you don’t otherwise make money in the fractals? Because generally speaking, the fractals are the most profitable thing I do without selling rings.

It may not work in WvW. Try it on your server instead…or use the /unblock character name command.

I’m on the leaderboard, and I agree. I don’t think dailies and monthlies should count. It’s not much fun to know that I’m on there simply because I’m playing longer.

I thoroughly understand that once the dailies and monthlies are removed, I am unlikely to be in the top 1000, but fair is fair.

IndigoSundown.5419:

Vayne.8563:

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

What makes you think they’re not fixing it? I just think they’re not fixing it fast enough. It’s the whole patience thing. It takes time for MMOs to shake the kinks out. Time often measured in years, not months.

The days are gone when mmos can take that time.

Actually, more MMOs are probably damaged by doing things too quickly than doing them too slowly. Rift annoyed the hell out of me by changing things, getting them wrong and changing them again two days later. That’s not any more fun than waiting, believe me.

I agree about both GW2 and Rift, but in the modern age it seems patience is a thing of the past.

I think there are a percentage of people who play these games who are impatient, and a percentage of people who’ve been down this road before. For example, I was less patient with other MMOs, until I started realizing that all MMOs are basically the same at launch. Once I realized that, I became more patient, because being less patient, I was only hurting myself. It’s not like the entire industry will change because I’m impatient.

I think the patient people don’t post as much. Of course, casual players and late comers don’t run out of content as fast and they don’t need to be as patient. Plenty of people playing who haven’t beaten all the dungeons yet, haven’t done fractals yet, don’t have 100% world completion yet, etc. Even I haven’t done all the jumping puzzles yet, and I like them.

In the end, there will be a group of people who think everything should have been fixed pre-release, all the features like LFG tool should have been there at launch, there should be enough content to keep them busy for years…and those people will complain loudly. Or people who, rightly, might not like the change in an MMOs direction, because they feel they’ve bought a different game.

The question is are we listening to a vocal minority or a majority. Time will tell.

There are some good tricks to get through Claw Island. Knowing where to go and what to do you can seriously decrease the number of guys you’re fighting at one time. Judicious pulling of mobs to separate them can help too.

Theoldman.6483:

neither, but the Mesmer’s teleport is useful for other purposes. Both end up with to many minions/clones. Yes I tried non minion builds.
However its my thing in these games to try and max level every class/profession/race/alignment etc. with two GW2 exceptions, I have no desire to level the engineer or char (oh no! blasphemy).

Combine them into one and make a charr engineer, then you only have to do it once. lol

@ the OP…I think my dislike of necro comes from me wanting to use minions, which I did in Guild Wars 1. It really doesn’t feel the same at all…and that may not be fair to the game, since it is a different game.

On paper, minions look better in Guild Wars 2, since you don’t need a corpse to exploit to get one and they don’t have built in health degen, but I don’t know…I just can’t seem to find a minion build I like.

clay.7849:

I still can’t tell whether I think the developers are actually interested in following the philosophy of GW1 and trying to make their games better to prove that it can work – or if they are simply making their games more like generic MMO’s to sell copies and count their money.

If they are indeed doing the first, no matter how much I think they released the game too early or have major flaws in combat, I support them.

If, however, it is the second, then I don’t really give a kitten what happens to GW2.

This is a really really interesting post.

I’m not so sure there are only two options here. Maybe they are neither trying to be like Guild Wars 1 or like WoW.

Conner.4702:

dinominator.9862:

ShiningSquirrel.3751:

Vorch.2985:

@ShiningSquirrel

Some members never comeback or leave for months at a time. An active and lively guild is important for most guilds I’ve been in. Otherwise, you’re just a random group of people.

Read my post again. If you have a guild of 400+ people and don’t even know who they are, they are nothing but a random group of people.
Guilds should be made up of friends or people you like to play with, not random people invited by spamming chat. If you feel you have to delete someone who has not been on for a few months, then they where not your friend, and you really did not know them, so why where they even in the guild in the first place? just to fill a spot?

Forget +1, how can I +1000000 this post???

And I am going to have to -1000000 his post due to the extremely narrowminded viewpoint on what a guild is. Guilds come in many forms, but the most important function they have is forming a community. This can be big or small. Tight knit or not. As such someone who isn’t actively part can be seen as a detriment to that community.

I find it hard to see how someone who is absent entirely is a detriment to a community. The only thing I can think of is that if a guild has a limited number of slots and they’re running out, having non-participating members could be seen as a detriment.

I can even see if someone is repping other guilds all the time and not yours that that might be seen as a detriment.

But not showing up is like you don’t exist at all. Every single person in the world not in your guild, then, would be a detriment.

I prefer the mesmer. I find it has more viable builds at end game, and the AI on necro minions is pretty bad. In fact, I’d probably like them both if I found minions to be more useful.

On top of that, it’s generally easier at end game for a mesmer to get into a party.

I have level 80s of both professions. I finally found a build I like and enjoy playing on my necro…but I have several on my mesmer.

You can get the title Distinction in Applied Jumping by finishing the SAB achievements.

The temple opens up from time to time on my server, so I guess someone knows how to do it.

The temple quests were all made harder. A lot of people were actually asking for harder open world PvP, so I guess we should be careful about what we ask for.

morrolan.9608:

Vayne.8563:

What makes you think they’re not fixing it? I just think they’re not fixing it fast enough. It’s the whole patience thing. It takes time for MMOs to shake the kinks out. Time often measured in years, not months.

The days are gone when mmos can take that time.

Actually, more MMOs are probably damaged by doing things too quickly than doing them too slowly. Rift annoyed the hell out of me by changing things, getting them wrong and changing them again two days later. That’s not any more fun than waiting, believe me.

I support the game (though I suspect that doesn’t come as a shock to those who have seen my posts lol).

I don’t, however, unconditionally support any game. So far, I think Anet has done well with updates, but there are a few trends I don’t like that I’m keeping an eye on.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

Guild Wars 1 sold 7 million copies over 7 years or a million copies a year.

Wrong on so many levels…

On average…I was averaging it out. Why must you take everything literally? That’s how things actually get averaged out over time.

Of course it sold more during the periods when the games came out. I wasn’t trying to say otherwise. Sometimes I think your the biggest challenge to your understanding is that you don’t look at what the author of something is actually saying, you just look at words. That’s not really how this whole communication thing works.

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

clay.7849:

Vayne.8563:

Nick.6972:

Most of the classes/skills in GW2 are not balanced too, GW1 wasn’t balanced, but at least it offered more diversity, hell, how hard was it to increase the Shadow Form CD to 1 minute as it was back in 2007?

There is such a huge difference in the type of imbalance we’re talking about here. The way Guild Wars 1 was set up, there was just no possible way to balance it. I mean, you think 4 zerker warriors and a mesmer are anything like a perma-sin, or a rank 8 ursan? Totally different level of unbalanced.

Imagine if you told Guild Wars 2 players today that a character could make himself immune to damage permanently. Or that a single player, like an imbagon paragon could mitigate 90% of the parties incoming damage with almost 100% up time. People would think you were mad.

Yes, this game has some balance issues, but they’re nowhere near as bad as the stuff that came up in Guild Wars 1.

Balance became a problem after they introduced new skills and classes, which GW2 has neither done and which you yourself agree they should not do without balancing things first.

The fact is that GW1 WAS balanced early in the game. It was much more balanced in the first year of prophecies than GW2 is now in its first year.

The problem is that they’re GOING to introduce more. NO MMO is going to leave skills untouched forever. So starting here, where it can be balanced is the smart thing to do long term.

In a perfect world people don’t get bored of the same skills. In this world they do. Therefore, for the long term health of the game, starting this way is smarter. As more skills come out, the game becomes deeper.

I’m must saying that the introduction of new skills created imbalance in GW1. It is my opinion that the balance in the game now is way off compared to Prophecies. Actually, I think the balance is way off in general. Not between professions, but between making something other than direct damage the best and only route to winning.

I agree that they will need to add more skills to keep people happy. Doing that responsibly would be appreciated. But, fixing team combat now would be nice first.

What makes you think they’re not fixing it? I just think they’re not fixing it fast enough. It’s the whole patience thing. It takes time for MMOs to shake the kinks out. Time often measured in years, not months.

Sorry, but I don’t really have years of patience for a company that has progressively made its product worse and worse with every expansion or new product, in my opinion.

Well, I don’t personally think it is worse with every patch. Now if you do, you shouldn’t have patience. I think that’s pretty obvious.

But I think generally the game is going in the right direct (in my opinion, though you are entitled to yours).