Guild Wars 2

Yumiko Ishida.3769:

From what I’m getting from this, most of it is inside our own country, The US?

ALSO this: http://www.forbes.com/sites/bruceupbin/2014/06/18/were-aswarm-in-denial-of-service-attacks-and-its-getting-worse/

See also this: http://news.techworld.com/security/3531040/wave-of-100gbps-mega-ddos-attacks-hits-record-level-in-2014/

According to various sources I’m watching, some of the attacks currently are well over 25ogbps…that is enough to destroy almost any provider on the planet. It’s ugly out there right now. Banks are getting hit, Tier 1 providers like L3 are getting pounded, tier 2 providers are randomly getting pushed offline; at any given point 25% of them could be down…it’s a nightmare…and again; it’s not anything that L3 or Anet can fix; all they can try to do is try hold the gates closed against the barbarians.

Pretty much the whole internet infrastructure is under attack right now. It looks like there’s a pretty massive botnet storm that started about 29 hours ago, and is growing exponentially. You can see a live action map here. This map is showing 1% of all attacks currently ongoing. Any higher percentage and the map disappears under the attacks.

http://map.ipviking.com/

(ipviking is a security firm that has some really spooky hooks into the internet architecture, but for now, the important thing is that you can see, in real time, what attacks are happening. Level 3 is under attack, but so is every other Tier 1 provider in the US and Europe. )

In other words; there’s not much Anet can do.

But everyone else should go run your virus protection, and download the freeware version of malwarebytes and run it too. These bots only work because people don’t keep their systems clean.

LordCody.6245:

word is that the ddos attacks are being directed on level 3

Well, if you look at this map: http://maps.level3.com/default/#.U8dCGvldV8E, which is the locations of the various L3 farms, and you compare it to the traffic spikes on the ipviking map; there does seem to be a lot of attacks focused on areas where those servers are.

That said; Anet is hardly the biggest, or most important client using L3. It operates a Tier 1 network providing core transport, IP, voice, video, and content delivery for most of the medium to large Internet carriers in North America, Latin America, Europe, and selected cities in Asia. Level 3 is also the largest competitive local exchange carrier (CLEC) and the 2nd largest provider of fiber optic internet access (based on coverage area) in the United States, according to the Wikipedia.

Thus, Level 3 being a target, especially from a massive botnet, seems pretty likely. I’m not sure there’s anything Anet can do about it, honestly.

Man, if you want to see something that looks like WarGames, right after the computer decides to simulate nuking everything, pause the map (upper right corner of the window) and walk leave it paused for 5-10 minutes, then unpause it. It’s like fireworks, with soupçon of global doom.

I’ve posted this in another couple of threads, so I hope I don’t get in trouble for posting it again…but, the net is under attack right now with a big ol’ botnet raging about like a CGI Godzilla. Here is the map from IPViking that shows live action tracing global attacks: http://map.ipviking.com/
The botnet dropped a couple of days ago, coincidentally and unfortunately for Anet, at about the same time as the patch. The path went from China to Israel to Turkey to Eastern Europe to Western Europe, then North America. Traffic has blown up in North America, probably as people are turning on systems after dinner, and the botnet gets to doing it’s thing…whatever it’s thing is. From what I’ve gathered in a quick glean of security sites, nobody has announced a payload, nobody has taken responsibility, and I’m not sure if a sample has been captured.

As to the kid on twitter who is claiming responsibility; I will bet a single malt scotch twice his age, that he is a big braggypants. If you check his timelines, his tweets always happen after a cluster appears on the map. I think he’s watching the live map and taking credit when hits happen.

Oh, sorry! I should have realized that that map might be disconcerting if you don’t know where the data is coming from. The map is a project of Norse Corp, a security company, which is doing some crazy voodoo with “dark net” data. The corporate front door is here: http://www.norse-corp.com/ (I am not affiliated with them at all, I just think their tools are amazeballs.)

I know we all want to play, and are annoyed by the lag and disco and rubberbanding; but before we light torches and demand the sacrifice of a tender IT intern on the Holy Alter of Annoya, I think you guys might want to take a look at the current state of network attacks. IPViking has a real time map that shows a pretty good estimation of where attacks are coming from, and where they are going; and from all appearances, it looks like a new botnet hit at about the same time as the new release did. http://map.ipviking.com/

There’s been an extraordinary amount of traffic from China that is DDOS looking. Not long after, huge spikes in zombie traffic from GoDaddy in Arizona started pounding on infrastructure in the midwest and southwest.

In just the last hour or so, the traffic from the US is beginning to really spike, probably as people turn on their systems after dinner, and the bots get to work. There’s been more than 5,000 targets in the last 15 minutes.

It’s amazing to watch; if only it weren’t so spooky.

Yeah, but your guildies may not be using the same ISP you are, or traveling through the same backbone. With a distributed attack like this, the effects will be localized to the bit of structure being punished at that time. As I said in other threads, I do think there is a problem at the Anet/Level 3 server point…but I think the trouble they are having extends beyond their corporate sphere. I think we’re seeing a big botnet release.

And, while tempting to blame stomping a quaggan, it’s important to remember that correlation is not causation.

It is probably some from column A, and some from column B, but most from Column C: which is that the US internet infrastructure is getting hammered right now from China and Korea. IPViking has a real time map here: http://map.ipviking.com/ You can see the attack clusters. It’s astonishing.

It’s not just Anet, the whole country is under a massive bot attack right now. See here for a live map of the action. It’s totally trippy. http://map.ipviking.com (Edited to clean up the link.)

Edit: The patch last night seems to have fixed the 5:11 error for me.

Brother Grimm, whom are you addressing? Gerby didn’t say anything at all about memory leaks. You’ve got another topic like that in this forum from a couple of hours ago where you’re going off on some user, but there’s no clue as to what you’re responding to. I’m pretty sure Anet doesn’t need you to defend them from customers who are honestly posting problems that they experience.

I too have this problem, starting right after I loaded the patch. My husband is also seeing it.

Flushing dns works briefly, but if I try to change zones or enter an instance, it crashes again with the159:101 error. Problematic characters in Gendarran, Lion’s Arch, and Divinity. I had a character in the LCliffs, which worked fine until I did the event race thingy, and now that character is bugged too.

I have done the -repair, but no files are problematic. I’ve tried launching with the port parameter, and it in conjuction with flushdns will let me access a character, as long as that character doesn’t go anywhere or do anything.

I have the same problem in multiple zones with multiple characters. It’s especially problematic when changing zones. I’ve had luck flushing my dns, and then I can access the character, but as soon as I change zones, or change characters, the system fails with the 511315919101 error. I’ve put a support ticket in, but haven’t heard back. In the meantime; see if this helps:

Close the GW2 app/launcher if open
Open a command prompt (Control Panel/Accessories)
type: ipconfig/ dnsflush

Change your GW2 shortcut have /clientport 80 at the end of the shortcut, after the quotation mark at the end of .exe".

It worked for me to get in the game. It has not worked for me to be able to move between zones, but your mileage may vary.

Well, what they said was they couldn’t offer gems or exchange…which is fine, I don’t want gems, I want the riding broom…for which I have already paid gems.

That’s the thing; this is a premium item, purchased with gems, which were purchased with cash.

If Anet can just randomly decide to remove premium, paid-for items out your inventory, then there is no point in buying items with gems.

It’s like, there are some cool skins in the store now, and I thought about buying them, but if Anet can just take them away anytime they want, then there’s no point is spending the $10 or whatever the dollar equivalent of 800 gems is.

That’s the thing here; this was a premium item, for which I paid, and Anet either accidentally via a bug, or intentionally, removed it. All I’m asking for is that they restore the item I’ve paid for. Or at the very least, give me an explanation of why they think it’s ok to charge for an item, but them remove it from inventory whenever they feel like it.

Back in the day, when the witch costume and riding broom went on sale I bought them (was gifted them). When the new April patch rolled, my costume was put in wardrobe…cool, but my riding broom turned into a “toy broom”, which is a brawl toy thing. I do not want a toy broom, I want the broom that was paid for. I do not want an exchange, except that you can have this silly toy broom back, and return my riding broom.

I submitted a ticket (582133 ), waited for about two weeks before I got a message today that said:

_"While we understand you would like to get a replacement for the Riding Broom, we are not able to offer gems or exchange for this particular type of item.

I am sorry that we could not fulfill you request in this situation, but please let us know if you have any other questions we can address."_

I do not think support understood my issue, which is to say;
1.) I paid for a premium item.
2.) You took my premium item away and replaced it with an item of no value to me.
3.)That premium item is still for sale in the gem store.
4.) I should not have to rebuy my premium item to have it, since I’ve already paid for it once.
5.) Anet should return my Riding Broom.

How do I appeal a support decision?

Hiya: Ticket number: 582133 was originally filed 10 days ago. I’ve gotten many Bot responses, and finally one that said the ticket was updated…but that’s all it said. I can’t find anyplace on the site to see the status of existing tickets. Right now I have about 10 responses from support, but they’re all “We’re forwarding this to…” or “has been updated, please stand by”, but no real information. Is there someplace where I can log on and see the status of a reported issue? Thanks.

Mezmerelda. (Although, to be fair, I think I may be a bad mezmer, so I haven’t played her much, I’m reading the forums to try and figure out why I suck at it. )

Well, this weekend was a learning exercise in

1.) what a zerg really looks like without culling
2.) Why one carries siege plans around with one
3.) SF Zerg + Arrow Cart equals Loot Pinata!
4.) Holy mother of all things perilous, the map seems big when you can’t keep anything long enough to build WP.
5.) SF Portal bombs are shocking the first couple of times you see them; and I really think those should be restricted to only the people in a mezmer’s party, or only allow Xnumber of people through. Portal bombing ikittenllion people is game-breaking, and while not an infraction of the rules, it is certainly skating the line of cheating, it seems to me.

That said; I had a blast defending against the SFZerg. We beat you back from a number of keeps, even after you had the walls down and were headed to Lords room. Taking stuff back from you, if you’d had time to build siege, was a much harder trick. Your server does a great job of building and manning defense.

And who knew anything could make HoD’s zergs look small? HoD was flying under the radar taking stuff this weekend; running around with groups numbering less than 20, flipping stuff. Well played, stealth HoD zerg.

And a big shoutout to some really good commanders on the NSP side this weekend. And some outstanding players. Holding off a zerg in a tower with no walls, with less than 10 people was one of the most epic fights I’ve ever played in any game.

We few, we happy few; though we feel outnumbered and out-manned, I remind you of Henry V at Agincourt. Victory is not out of our grasp, we just have to adjust our tactics.

Noroz.9527:

Good morning, GoM and HoD!
’twas a productive night indeed!

Wow. You were on the march last night when I went to bed, that’s impressive. Good work!

In the last couple of days, I’ve seen some really impressive stuff from by XOXO and AS; you know those times when you’re playing a game, and someone does something and you say out loud “Whoa! I didn’t know they could do that! Awesome!” Good times holding off zergs and taking map points with much smaller contingencies than should have been possible.

This is a brilliant bit of added content. Well done, Anet!

I have had a blast this weekend. Yes, the HoD zerg is astonishing…and watching it roll towards you is a thing of red nightmares. Fortunately, we were able to beat it back way more often than I would have thought possible.

Good fun all around, thanks everyone!

I had a blast playing tag with everyone this afternoon. The back and forth was good fun.

These have been awesome matches. I love GoM and HoD. I haven’t had this much fun in a long time. Thanks, y’all.

On another topic; good fights last night, everyone. I got squashed in a HoD/GoM sandwich; and provided many tokens with my willingness to keep dying in the line of battle. I appreciate those of you who were kind enough to die before you could kill me, your sacrifice did not go unremarked. (Mostly the remark was “Holy mother of all things surprising, how did I live through that?”)

Good fun gang, thanks!

I’m willing to believe that someone initially put down too much siege trying to be helpful. However, a helpful person would not have put down stacks of one type of siege, which is what we had last night.

I’ve done the jumping puzzles a couple of times, and have gotten a variety of siege plans, but even if you used a statistically unlikely figure, like assuming you get 1 ballista every single time you complete each of the four puzzles; it would take 10 days of puzzle completion to get as many ballistas as were placed in the keep, in areas where they would not be useful.

While I absolutely believe that there is a character who may have “over-decorated” the keep without realizing the cap, (I didn’t know about the cap until the last couple of days), I do not believe that person is the person responsible for the ballista stacking we’re seeing currently.

Whomever is doing the ballista stacking is doing it deliberately.

Yeah, I didn’t realize this was a problem until last night when I logged into EB (NSP), and there were ballistas stacked on top of ballistas in areas where they would do absolutely no good. No defensive siege anywhere where it might have been useful. Subsequently, no way to build useful siege.

As to spawning, I know someone was watching them; and I periodically checked, and they were still there hours after I first saw them, and someone said they had been there for hours already. So, with nobody refreshing them, they were not despawning. Perhaps an EB bug, perhaps a ballista bug, I do not know. What I do know is that I’ve never before seen this tactic, and I think it really sucks.

Yeah; I don’t have the blue top hat, but I’ve read on what the top hat lets commanders do…and it’s pretty much…wear a top hat. I absolutely agree that the game needs a few things to really improve WvW:

1. Server specific voice communications. Having a server vent-type channel would really solve a ton of problems.

2.) Raid management tools.

3.) Some sort of reward for people who aren’t zerging, but are defending.

4.) Ability to see allies on the entire map. Instead of just seeing the people close to you, the map should display where everyone on the map is; it would be a lot easier to coordinate small group raids if you could see where everyone was.

I’m sure there’s more, but those are the four that pop to the front of my brain instantly. WuvWuv needs Dev Luv.

Wait; there’s a limit to how much siege you can build? That’s crazy pants. (And now I have to go find another thread where I said I didn’t think that could happen. Apparently, I was wrong. )

If there’s a limit, and there’s no way to destroy siege, then that’s a really large design flaw that easily allows for griefing. That should probably be looked at from the devs, unless there’s been a statement somewhere of why they did it that way.

All that said; good fun last night gang. I wish I’d knew why Rob and crew were taking time off; and I hope they come back soon.

I think Witless may be on to something with using analytics to match servers of equal size and equal time zones; although I think implementing by time would add a level of complexity that might be too difficult.

I can’t remember…was it WoW that had something like “battlegroups”, where a the battlegrounds were server-neutral…you fought for one side or the other; but Team A could be from half a dozen servers, and so could Team B.

I think something similar would end up load balancing the best. You would have to be able to join in as a guild, or have a way to enter and join your guild; there would have to be tweaks to party/raid/zerg management; and I’m not sure how to manage things like big raiding guilds because that level of data architecture is above my pay grade; but it seems to me that creating server-agnostic battlegrounds; such that when you go into WvW, you could be playing with people from any of the servers, with a pop cap that opens another instance.

It seems to me, and this is off the top of my head; that something like that would allow the lower tier folks who, because of rank, have never even seen an experience like those regularly enjoyed by the people on the top tiers, experience the game the way the game was designed.

I’m sorry, perhaps I don’t understand. Are you saying that building siege on another server limits the amount of siege you can build? Because, I don’t think that’s the case. (I could be wrong.) Perhaps because I play on a very small pop server, I’ve just never run in to it.

As to time to build: There’s a few things that impact that; what sort of siege (regular or super), what type of siege (rams take less than golems), and how many people remembered to get supply, and how many people are building at one time.

With a dedicated group; everyone with supply, you can throw up siege in seconds. If however, you’ve only got a couple of people building, and nobody remembered to get supply before you started…well…that’s a long slow build.

Perhaps I’m not addressing your concern; but I’m not sure I understand what problem you’re seeing.

Re: JP smacktalk – I, for one, really suck at jumping puzzles, so when I get knocked off, it makes me sad. There was a long time where, at least in JP, there was a sort of truce; everyone just sort of waved and went on their way.

As someone with zero power, decision making, or massive raiding guild; and thereby unlikely to actually be able to change how things work: I would like to put forward the idea that we not camp JP, and leave those areas as dance party, fightclub, and general truce areas.

I know, it’s crazy, but it just might work.

I agree that for lower tier WvW, 25 is just too high of a threshold. I think 15 might still be too high, but it would, I think, address what Anet was trying to solve.

But the ability for a single person to be able to contest a waypoint, by cloaking and daggering a wall is absurd, and I agree that the threshold for WP contesting should be significantly higher than that.

That said; if wishes were ponies; I wish that we had an ability to see where all the other team players are from the map view. I think it was WoW that had something similar; so that you could tell where teammates were; so you could glance at the map and know where you could help the most.

I also wish that the game had some sort of internal voice communication hook/server; it’s almost impossible to run/fight/type at the same time.

Great fun last night gang! Even though I saw the sky more than a few times; running in to large groups from other teams; I had a great time in the random 1v1, 1v2 encounters when I was out getting POIs and vistas. (I died a lot then too. I die a lot. It’s what I do. Heh.)

The tactics I saw from teams on the other servers looked tight, I think we’ll all three teams be evenly matched, and I’m looking forward to a week of fun. Yay!

Wait. We’re not going to have Sekz on NSP anymore? Now I’m sad.

Speaking of zergs and BP; I was running around with a seriously underleveled (sub20) engineer, just grabbing pois and vistas. I was getting the vista in the ruins when I noticed a big ol’ group of BP headed right for me. They surrounded me, and one person took a shot, but then stopped. They let me finish getting the vista, let me actually watch the cut scene, then as soon as I stopped with the scene; I waved, and was an ex-engineer in seconds. It was funny, and it was sweet, and it is a nice memory to have of BP as NSP moves to fight new battles.

I really, really like the idea of WvW servers that are independent of the PVE server.

Yeah, siege isn’t that expensive, even my lvl 16 “I’m just out here to get POIs and try to do the jumping puzzle” engineer carries a couple of arrow carts. My two main WvW characters; the level 80 necro usually has at least one of everything, including a golem, and my lvl 60ish guard usually has a pretty good assortment, but I haven’t had a golem drop from the JP, so none of those. And I’m running solo most of the time; because there isn’t a lot of grouping in NSP if you’re not in one of the bigger raiding guilds. But I’ve been able to hold forts by myself, just by having siege ready to meet the opposing zerg that is flipping stuff.

tl;dr: Siege cost isn’t a problem. Golems are pricey, but you’d be silly to run one without a big group support anyway; so most of those that you see are either JP drops, or raiding guilds.

Significantly bigger issues are culling and AOE caps, like Braxxus mentioned.

I just started doing wvw probably around Christmas. Since then, our team has always been red. I’ve been able to get in and get some pois and whatnot on the blue and green maps, but I totally understand the frustration of people who feel like a major game goal is denied because of the way that ANet has structured the WvW rankings.

For example; NSP, AR, and BP have been together for what seems like forever. I’ve begun to recognize folks on the other server, and wave at them before their zerg runs over me like a shiny, shimmering army of death. As teams go, we’re actually pretty well matched; hence the reason we’re together all the time, like a mormon trio…eternally bound for better or worse. I wouldn’t mind keeping our happy family together, but kitten I’d like to have a different color flag now and then, so I could get those last few POIs. And yes, I realize that depends on our server’s ability to perform; but Anet shouldn’t have made such a huge personal character milestone depend on your server, ya know? Especially since you can’t guest in WvW and the only way to change servers is to pay a fee; which essentially, for low tier servers means that the only way to you may be able to achieve world completion is to pay a fee to Anet, and lose a couple of weeks away from your real guild and friends. I just think it was a poor game design decision, and I wish they would rethink it.

Lukian Darkblade.8012:

Hello,
I am the leader of a small guild on Ferguson’s Crossing. We have been there since the 3 day head start and have all the upgrades but are just completely tired of being so outnumbered in WvW. It’s making people start to hate Guild Wars. We have been looking at this Tier and it looks like you guys have the most balance in WvW. I know that leaving means we will lose all of our influence and upgrades for the guild but like I said, we are just tired of being rolled over in WvW. All I ask is which server do you think would be a good fit for our guild in this Tier?

Thanks!

Come to NSP, we need the numbers.

The last couple of nights have been such a blast! The Anvil and Borlis crews have been great fun to match up with, as well as being scholars and gentlemen/ladies on the jumping puzzles. I love when we can all bow and wave at each other, and at least to me, nobody has been a weenie and pushed me off the jumps. (For which I’m grateful, cause I suck at jumping puzzles. Heh.)

I have been part of our zerg, stomping through their turf, and been completely stomped by theirs when I’ve accidentally run into the middle of their zergs, and I laughed the whole time. I love that when I’ve died, it’s because I’ve been outplayed by folks that seem to be having as much fun as I am.

What I’m saying is that, even though we’re “enemies” on the field of battle, I salute you guys, and am glad to be facing off against you. You’ve been great fun. Thanks!

I have a lot of “kills” in my WvW achievement tab, but for every 200 kills, I have less than 20 badges. Necro AOE is not the quick way to fame and fortune, I can tell you. It helps my team out, because I can target healing and condition removal and fields where it’s needed, but I don’t push out nearly enough damage to be a threat to anyone who’s not an idiot that stands in the circle.

The whole point of cloth wearing caster classes is that they ARE not up-close, face-rolling, melee classes. Taking AOE from casters would be like telling warriors they could only equip wooden spoons, and that their primary shout would now scold their opponents. It’s absurd.

That said; that comment in the livestream has started to set off a firestorm; and were I in charge of Anet’s messaging, I would get someone out in front of this before it causes players to just move on to the next thing, rather than waiting for the nerf bat. From a public relations standpoint; that was a singularly stupid thing to say if they weren’t going to have specifics to hand to the community to keep the rage and panic at bay.

Ubi.4136:

I don’t know whether the new rank system has anything to do with the pending nerf bat action, but I play a staff necro with wells for utility skills, see lots of numbers and rarely get drops. I have been keeping track via the WvW achievement and counting my badges, and I average 1 badge per ~30 kills (and 3 regular drops, mostly trophies). I am starting to think that the 5% dmg to a target to get credit doesn’t apply to condition damage, which is really all I do.

This. I have a lot of “kills” in my WvW achievement tab, but for every 200 kills, I have less than 20 badges. AOE is not the quick way to fame and fortune, I can tell you. It helps my team out, because I can target healing and condition removal and fields where it’s needed, but I don’t push out nearly enough damage to be a threat to anyone who’s not an idiot that stands in the circle.

The whole point of cloth wearing caster classes is that they ARE not up-close, face-rolling, melee classes. Taking AOE from casters would be like telling warriors they could only equip wooden spoons, and that their primary shout would now scold their opponents. It’s absurd.

That said; that comment in the livestream has started to set off a firestorm; and were I in charge of Anet’s messaging, I would get someone out in front of this before it causes players to just move on to the next thing, rather than waiting for the nerf bat. From a public relations standpoint; that was a singularly stupid thing to say if they weren’t going to have specifics to hand to the community to keep the rage and panic at bay.

So, MEOW left NSP, but Os is staying, yes? Anyone know status on the ROFL and LOOT crews? I saw a lot of them late at night before the recent stomping; but I haven’t seen either tag in the last week or so. I’m wondering if they moved too. (I hope not, I loved the ROFL guys, they were always good for a zerg.)