Guild Wars 2

I’m guessing no, as well. But I asked here because I’d rather have a definite answer.

I think non-members should at least be rewarded Commendations+standard Dynamic Event rewards, and maybe save the extra coin/item rewards for members.

morrolan.9608:

So non members do not get the opportunity to get the ascended earrings?

Hopefully this isn’t the case.

They can still by bought through laurels, but that is much more costly in both time (40 laurels) and money (50 ecto).

I’m not sure if this has been brought up in the last 14 pages of this, but it’s something that really stands out to me about this Guild Mission system versus the “old” game philosophy.
It was in the Manifesto video, and I believe detailed more in pre-release blogs/interviws. The discussion what is essentially the “having fun” part of the game compared to the “preparing to have fun” part of (other) games. This was largely about the open nature of Dynamic Events giving big, fun tasks all the time, but the 5-player party size for dungeons is another aspect of the same thing. Making it easier to just jump right into the fun part without hours of preparing to have fun.

Other MMOs have raids, which are notorious for taking hours to prepare, are planned days/weeks ahead of time, and people are expected to adhere to a schedule. Getting 5 people together is a fairly simple task, getting 30 (or more) is not, it’s the dull task of preparing to have fun.

Guild Missions violate this core principle at both ends.

The process of unlocking these missions, especially the influence, is a massive “preparation to have fun”. Sure, we get influence for a lot of the things we are already doing, but why make us wait to have fun with Guild Missions? We are stuck doing the same things we’ve already been doing for 6 months to unlock the new thing we want to do.

The preparation and planning of a Guild Mission, especially the higher tier ones, is going beyond what a 30-man raid would require. You need more players, and have to deal with splitting those players up into teams for different zones. It’s an absolute planning disaster. Getting the players organized/available all at once, and at a time when it can be inclusive to as much of your friends/guild as possible, is a chore.

Why go to do much trouble designing great dungeons that are made for 5 players, make a big deal about them not being raids that take hours to set up, and then do a 180 six months later and add in the exact thing you were avoiding?

Thanks. I do recall seeing some discussion on it, but not which info was guesswork or any type of official statement. Unfortunately the forums search doesn’t make it easy to find that. And as you said, it’s likely buried in a merged mega-thread.

We know that Guild Missions will take place in the open world, so that anyone around can participate and get rewarded, but exactly what rewards do they get? If I participate in another guild’s mission, do I get the same Commendations, coin, and loot rewards as that guild’s members?

It’s slowly chugging along, with errors here and there. Still a lot better than patch day with most other games I’ve played. Usually involved hours of downtime, so it’s hard to actually complain about this.

Glad to have patch notes to read through while I wait, though. Thanks for getting those posted up before the patch got pushed out.

edit: It’s actually going pretty fast now. Speed fluctuates, but it’s hitting 50-75% of my bandwidth.

I had an even stranger incident a little while ago. I had my warrior’s Throw Axe just pick a random target instead of what I had targeted. I was holding down the right mouse button as I was fighting, so it wasn’t a right-click issue, and my selected target never changed. I was standing in front of the grawl I was attacking, facing it, and my Throw Axe randomly targeted a neutral deer standing off on the lef edge of my screen.

This isn’t the first time in the last few days that I’ve had issues with Throw Axe causing unintended aggro, but in this case I know for a fact that my target did not change, and that there is no reason for that deer to have been hit. It wasn’t even standing in-line with the grawl to get it if the axe missed the intended target.

Most of my targetting issues do come from the right-click problem, or from using ground-targeted skills by left-clicking the target area. The targeted-skill left cick is understandable and worked around by using the skill number key to activate the skill, but the right-click issue needs to be fixed. Right-click targetting is reduntant and pointless. We do not need the same function on both primary mouse buttons, especially when camera panning is also stuck with the right button. An option to disable this on the right button, or to select which button to use for it, is a must.

The Claw event just ran again, and afterwards the leftover Frigid Breath was gone.

Sampo.9678:

The complains about small guilds not being able to get influence fast is bs.
do CoF p1 every day.. it takes 10 minutes and you get 100 influence
spvp together with 1 guildmate for 1 hour gets you around 300 influence.
Yes it’s still gonna take a few days but so is everything else
You can’t get 30 laurels in 1 day either..
If you want max everything right the first day you play go play a private server of runescape or something

The AoW5 barrier itself isn’t really the problem, it’s fact that AoW5 is the initial barrier. Anet considers unlocking them to be some sort of progession, and we can be fairly sure that the first step in this “progression” will be the smallest. Just how much influence is the next thing going to cost us?

The largest guild I’ve ever been in (this was in GW1) had about 50 members…and our close-knit leadership ended up kicking about 30 of those because we got tired of having so many random people we didn’t know causing all sorts of issues and drama. My current GW2 guild has 18 members, and there are about 5 of us that play together frequently, while the others play a lot less often. I’m quite happy with this, and (until seeing this ridiculous bit of info) saw no reason to have it any other way.

According to an interview just a few days ago, the Bounty missions were to be the “the one that you can get right off the bat”. If requiring AoW t5 is “right off the bat”, I’m afraid to ask what the other unlocks are going to require. It’s already been stated that “it’s literally going to take months for your guild to build up enough influence to unlock all of them”, so I can only assume this timeframe is the intended one for large guilds that already have AoW T5 and a stash of influence.

The full interview can be found here http://dragonseason.com/Front/tabid/124/EntryId/210/Lunch-with-Colin-Johanson-Part-I.aspx

Area – Frostgorge Sound – Frostwalk Tundra
Meta Event – Breaking the Claw of Jormag (event not active)
World – Yak’s Bend

During the event to the kill the Claw, there is an effect called “Frigid Breath” placed on anyone approaching the dragon while he is not stunned. During the 2nd phase of the battle, after he is been grounded for good, this effect extends from the Claw all the way up the slope, nearly to the spawn area for the Pact’s explosive-carrying golems.

Walking into the area where this effect occurs is currently causing it to be applied, even though the event is not active. It is only applied once when crossing this “border”, and lasts only a few seconds. This only happens when crossing the boundry one way, entering that area. Crossing the boundry back out does nothing, and staying in the area does not re-apply it.

For those of you on Yak’s Bend, or guesting here, the boundry point is near the current (Friday Feb 22) Orichalcum node location just west of the Pact flak cannons used in the meta event.

Meteor Shower is already doing damage during the channeling time, and it’s pretty easy to judge where it needs to be as the wave approaches. MS also has a nice advantage of each meteor counting as it’s own hit, and coming down in different locations. Each one of those can hit up to 5 targets, and the spacing just makes it better. But yes, that is just one example skill, and its recharge puts in in-line with things like Whirling Axe or Barrage.

I’d say that ele and guardian have the upper hands in quick recharging, pulsing, AoEs. Lava Font and symbols (especially traited) are just great for tagging. Thief’s Cluster Bomb and engi’s Flamethrower are decent, but I think they still fall behind quite a bit. There are a lot of AoE options, but it’s hard to beat Lava Font’s short recharge and pulsing damage.

Verdauga.2694:

Farming wise mrstealth, as you stated you dont do that.
Edit; now youre saying you do farm, not just for arguments sake i hope?

Im an ele. I hope you arent going to tell me thats a determining factor?

Weird that the group i run with are getting similar loot, isnt it?

I never stated that I don’t farm. I said that it wasn’t something done all that often, in relation to the many, many hours spent playing. And that is referring only to the times I was there specifically for that purpose, not the hours spent there doing map completion on my own characters or helping friends with theirs. Those hours were not spent standing idle in the zone, or running around avoiding mobs.

I dare say that we were getting even more kill credit roaming around killing and doing events than the horde of people standing at Penient battling with each other for kill/loot credit. It’s already been established that there is a problem in the requirement to qualify for a loot drop, even more so in high HP enemies (champs, vets, or mobs upscaled due to the nubmer of players at an event).

As for your profession…yes. An ele, and some others, have access to a wide assortment of AoE skills. They are quite literally a “mob tagging machine” compared to other more single-target focused professions. In a situation like Pen/Shelt, getting damage on more mobs means more chances at loot. If a warrior only manages to hit 1-2 mobs in a wave, he only has the chance for loot from those mobs. If an ele drops a large DoT/AoE like Meteor Shower, it’s possible to tag the entire wave and get a chance for every mob to drop something.

I think some simple math is in order.

Let’s use the Mystic Forge as a baseline for just how rare an exotic should be. Consensus seems to be that the Forge has a 10-20% chance to give an exotic if you put in 4 high level rares. Using the low end of that figure, on average, 10 sets/tries will give you 1 exotic. That is 40 rares to get 1 exotic. This isn’t taking into account getting a single rare back from the other 9 tries, or the other 10% in that range, but it’s a rough picture of what is going on. Account for returned rares, I think should be 32 required. At the far end of that spectrum (20% chance and accounting the returned rares) it would be 16 rares input for a single exotic.

This sets the precedent of how rare exotics are in relation to rare items. 40 rares for 1 exotic, using the most generous calculation. Assuming this precedent represents the intended rarity of exotics, they should be dropping at a rate of 1 exotic per 40 rares. Meaning that, on average, for every 40 rares you get, you will get 1 exotic.

I know I’ve had a lot more than 40 rare drops, so where are my exotics?

Verdauga.2694:

I mean kitten they’re exotics, they shouldnt just fall out of the sky because you arent dedicated enough to actually go out and work for them.

Telling me I’ve not put any effort/dedication is beyond ridiculous. This is entering “can’t tell if serious” territory.

I think 2000+ hours is more than enough dedication. I understand the purpose of MF. Sure, people using +100%MF or more will get double the exo drops, but you shouldn’t have to use to that get any drop, period. If the only way to get an exotic, ever, is to have to pack around another 13-16 slots worth of “useless” gear, and spend hours each day farming the same 2 events, something is seriously broken. They aren’t rare named exotics, they aren’t precursors. It’s gear that can be crafted, there is no reason for the drop rate to be so pathetic. In the time I get enough materials to craft many sets of full exotic gear, I think it’s reasonable for a few exotic things to just drop in the same timeframe.

The limiting factors for crafting a set of exotic armor would be the 30 ecto and 30 T6 fine material requirement. If exotics are supposed to be so epic and rare, why can I get these items so much more readily?

I don’t think they should “fall out of the sky”, but there is something really screwed up when they just aren’t dropping at all in that much time.

Edit: Just a bit more info for the sake of being thorough

There have been quite a few times where I’ve spent a several hour session in Orr, with probably around +80-100% MF between a set of jewelry, a single weapon, and food/boosters/banners. I think the last time I spent about 3 hours in Cursed Shore, I made a decent bit of gold and materials, 16-18k karma, and a few rares. That’s fairly typical of what I would have gotten just playing anywhere else in that time without the MF, minus the karma from Orr’s quickly resetting/higher reward events. I could run around Frostgorge Sound killing trolls, icebrood, and arctodus for an hour and get a rare or two.

Verdauga.2694:

Imho if you arent actually working to get these drops, you probably wont. So stop complaining. Its not arena nets fault you arent meeting the requirements they set, which arent actually that hard to meet.

What requirements? All you should have to do is kill things, which doesn’t seem to work out well for a lot of us. I’ve got over 2000 hours played, and I think I got one exotic drop a long time ago, but there is a high probability I am recalling a chest drop. I’m fairly sure I would have taken a screenshot of an exotic drop. I had one during the halloween event from a chest, and 1-2 from other chests.

A good portion of my time has been spent leveling alts, but that still leaves a lot of time playing level 80 chars, in zones with mobs high enough level to drop level 80 loot(which is now anywhere thanks to a recent update). I’ve not spent all that much time standing around Penitent Tunnel like some sort of loot-crazed farmbot, but I’ve killed a lot of mobs in my time. If I have to waste hours and hours doing that to get an exotic drop, then forget it.

The 3 friends I play with daily have pretty much the same results. One of them isn’t all that far behind me in hours played, but should have more hours logged on a single character/in high-level areas. Between the 4 of us, I’d say the total count of exotic drops (excluding chests, which would only add a couple for each of us) would be 5 at best, most likely less. That’s a very pathetic chance considering all of us have played since beta.

I wish pve gave us a kill count other than the 1000-capped achievement list, but wvw is gracious enough to give us this. In over 4500 kills in wvw I have recieved 0 exotic drops, and I would guess a maximum of 4-5 rare drops, although I’m fairly sure that number is more like 2-3. That’s around a 0.1% chance of getting a rare, using the more generous estimate. A single rare in a thousand kills. I think that might be acceptable drop rate for exotics, but for rares? No. Not even close.

To be fair, the drop rate of rares in pve does seem to be much better than in wvw. Everyone can usually walk out of a dungeon with at least one, with same time investment in active play outside of a dungeon giving similar results. If I spend an hour roaming around Cursed Shore, killing most mobs I encountered, and doing any events I run across, I’ll probably see a rare drop. But an exotic drop, I don’t expect that to happen any time soon.

I saw a mesmer last night in Eternal Battlegrounds that kept standing right up against the outer wall of Stonemist, I believe with her back to the wall. The mesmer was alone, and didn’t seem to be doing much of anything. She hit the wall cannons a few times, but seemed more interested in just standing on the edge of the base.

I was on my necro, and was able hit her with the AoE of my staff’s mark skills. She attempted to flee a couple times, using clones as a distraction, and find a new place to ‘hide’ along the wall’s base. I’m not easily fooled by clone vs human behavior/movement, so keeping on the real mesmer wasn’t a problem. After she tried hiding in about three different spots (all on the wall’s base) I got her downed and finished off with a cannon.

I can’t be sure what her intentions were, but it was a bit suspicious. It’s possible that her plan was to destroy the cannons, although I don’t see why, as her server was on the defensive and under assault (we were taking their keep) at the time.

Gele.2048:

i SUPORT THIS topic duels inspect and gvg its MUST BE in this game !!!

GvG would be nice, although not really needed with the current spvp setup unless it was a larger-scale battle system.

Inspecting gear would just lead to ridiculous elitism, and provide nothing of use. A good player in blue/green gear is still better than an idiot in exotics, and inspect can’t show you player skill.

Duels are something else that’s unneeded and quite pointless in GW2 (it’s a team game, not Street Fighter), but would be something I know a lot of people would use. It would just have to be a special arena/town, because we don’t need random chest thumpers going around challenging everyone to duels and being a general nuisance. I really don’t care if this is added or not, but I do care that it’s not added to the open world.

From my experiences in GW1 (you could do a 1v1 by guest inviting to a guild and starting a GvG scrimmage with just the two players), 1v1 challenges seem to get thrown around a lot when someone gets mad, gets made to look like a moron, or disagrees with someone else. They seemed to think that killing my video game character with their video game character will suddenly make them look smarter or make me agree with them…or maybe that I would just shut up in shame. Perhaps I should have accepted some of the childish challengers just to prove to them how little their duel would have changed the situation…

While it might be nice to have a guild vs guild pvp similar to GW1’s, it’s not needed at all. We have sPvP tournaments that are essentially the same thing. A GvG guild is going to have thier primary team of players for competition, and that isn’t really any different than signing a team up for a tournament. Just get some friends/guildmates, and do that. The only difference in GW2 is that you don’t have to be in the same guild to do it, but I would guess that a lot of teams are in a guild together.

You can prove that your pvp team of friends/guildmates is better. Guilds exist as a social aspect, so no guild can be better than another. It would be like trying to say your Mumble server is better than someone else’s Mumble server. There is simply no ground for a guild to be “better” on. The only way to have a true “my guild is better” pvp match, would be to have the full guild in it. This is just not viable because the matches would have to balance teams. Your 122-player guild would be in a 100vs100 matchup, leaving out a portion of the population, and removing the aspect of the “whole guild” being better and replacing it with the “chosen team” being better.

If you want open world pvp (ganking/griefing) in the pve world, there are some great games for that. EVE Online is probably the best example of this type of game done right. In GW2 it would just end up with high level players ganking level 3s in the starting zones, and that isn’t a fun fight for anyone. It’s pathetic amusement for someone that can’t win a fight versus an equal opponent. You can get close enough to this in WvW by fighting upscaled players. While you’re at it, take your whole guild into WvW and try to prove they are better than an entire server of other players.

This event is still broken, and I know it’s been this way for at least a couple months. I just completed it (on Yak’s Bend) with 6 Leionnaire Boneflayers. It makes the event quite easy having 5 extra NPCs, but it’s a bit annoying when they all start saying the same line, slighty out of sync.

There is at least on other spot where a char NPC gets several clones. It’s at one of the charr forts along the west side of Blazeridge Steppes. I think it’s the one at Kinar Fort Waypoint.

AcidicVision.5498:

If dailies are changing the way you play, then you are doing it wrong. They are something that should be completed as you are playing. If you have to aggro and dodge low level moa in a field because you can’t manage to dodge ten times in a dungeon or high level events with your guild while just playing the game…you are doing many things wrong.

This. There isn’t much else to say to it.

As a few others, and myself, mentioned, the daily healer is about the only thing that you might not simply come across in a short bit of normal play. And that’s only if your normal daily play is limited to a small area/single zone with few other players or NPCs. If you really have to go somewhere else to get your 10 revives, pick a location where your need for dead NPCs does not interfer with other players’ tasks. If you chose to do this in a reknown heart area, that is your fault for picking a stupid location.

critickitten.1498:

goldenwinga.5417:

oh, and how many would let the player die so you could revive them for that daily?

Considering that the daily counts both dead and downed as successful revivals….no, I probably wouldn’t, and any person who would allow you to die rather than get the achievement while you’re downed is basically useless anyways. I’d use a waypoint immediately just to deny them the free rez.

If someone did that to me, where they were obviously waiting for me to die instead of attacking the mob or attempting to revive, I would definitely waypoint to res.

If they were waiting for me to get downed in a fight so they could “help” me(and their daily healer count), I would probably do my best to get the mob(s) to attack them, let them get downed, then defeated, and sit or dance on their dead body.

It’s annoying if a passer-by doesn’t stop to revive, but people sitting there like a vultures waiting for you to die is just pathetic. And I’m sure this does happen in game. The other nonsense people do to get dogdger/healer done is proof of how stupid people can be in going out of their way to get something they would complete anyway by simply playing.

If I have any reason to kill a mob, whether it be for a heart/event or wanting something it drops, I’m going to kill it. If someone is polite and I have no specific reason to kill the mob, I might go on my way. Your goals of not killing a mob are outside the normal gameplay objectives and I do not (nor should I have to) care about them.

If you’re already going out of your way to do something like healer/dodger, pick a location where your goals don’t interfer with other players’ objectives. Using a reknown heart area where “your” mobs are part of the heart completion tasks is a very poor choice. Expecting someone to not kill a mob when the game has given them the task to kill it is ridiculous.

For dodger, if you have to go out of your normal gameplay then something is very wrong. Even if dodging isn’t part of your usual play, it’s far too easy to get it done anywhere in the game with a few minutes of “normal” gameplay. Your decision to ignore a prominent combat mechanic is not my problem.

Healer/res is a little different, since you may not encounter may other players or dead NPCs in some regions(especially if your play time is limited). You may have to go out of your way to get this one done. Since you’re already going “out of your way”, please chose an area where your reviving goals will not interfer with the tasks given to other players by the game. (example: not a heart where the mobs killing “your” NPCs are part of the heart tasks)

Another for the growing list.

I just lost my 100% glow using a Self-style Hair Kit to change my female sylvari’s hair style and color. That kit doesn’t event have options for the glow, but still completely removed it.

I’ve already submitted a ticket and requested a gem refund. I’m not sure what good that will do if/when this is fixed. I assume the glow change was “saved” as if I had actually done it, so I doubt this being fixed later will restore my glow. And the kit I used lacks the options to get it back. I did bring this point up in my ticket, but I don’t expect to be refunded the 200 gems(sale price) plus more in order to buy the Total Makeover kit that will most likely be required to fix this.

Update edit:
I got up this morning and found a response from support that was sent just an hour or two after I submitted the ticket. I was refunded gems, enough to get 2 Total Makeover Kits, actually. I had purchased 2 of those back in January for another character (made some changes then still wasn’t happy with it), but the kit that caused today’s problem was the hair-only kit. Given the nature of the problem, and the limits of the hair kit, I think enough gems to cover a Total Makeover Kit is appropriate(that’s what it will take to correct the problem once the bug is fixed).

As the GM told said in the response email, I will be keeping an eye on the forums and patch notes for a fix. I’ll pick up a kit when I know it’s safe to restore my glow. The quick response and refund are much appreciated. It won’t fix my missing glow yet, but I’ll be able to fix it later without having to spend more cash/gold because of this bug.

AcidicVision.5498:

So I really feel no sympathy or guilt for crossing a player that is trying to boost it. They are the ones trying to do some strange work while others are just playing the game as designed.

No one should be hesitant to help, rather players of that nature should be hesitant to be doing something silly to boost a daily item since they could be getting in the way of players that are just playing to play.

My advise if someone loses their temper over you killing a mob or stopping enemies in an event from killing npcs, just /laugh and /wave then move along.

This is what it comes down to for me, and is pretty close to what I did. You can’t expect others to stop playing the game normally because you want to go against the objectives for your own goals.

This was at a level 6 heart event, and the only other options for finishing it were trashing centaur carts/weapons, gathering some trinkets, or reviving fallen Seraph. The players there are level 5-7 (I was 7, and outside of my race’s home area), and probably still wanting some combat over run-around tasks, with some still needing kills for weapon skill unlocks.

Rather than start a new thread, I’ll put this here since it’s very much related.

Had an interesting run-in with someone (level 80) trying to get the healer/res daily on the Seraph NPCs near the garrison in Queensdale. Unfortunately for this person, the centaur that kill them are the main source of completing that area’s reknown heart. I saw the person ask another player not to kill them once, but they continued, probably confused as to why someone was telling him to not complete his heart objective. After that, the person wanting the Seraph to die started calling that player, and anyone else killing centaur in the spot they had “claimed” for their ressurecting zone, a troll. I continued my heart completion as I normally would have, and hung around for a minute afterward helping the other players this person was berating.

I guess at that point, I was trolling a little(I was done, but still in the area), but this fool calling anyone killing “their” centuar a troll was just inexcusable. I even took the time to point out a location where several NPC spawn (and respawn quickly) already dead. They had the gold map completion star, so I know they could easily go there. But they claimed there were “trolls there as well”. I’m not really sure how that works with NPCs that spawn as dead and ready for a res. Ended up with me being ignored, even after attempting to direct the person to a much more suitable area. Oh well, they stopped berating all the low levels there and left, plus I got a laugh out of it.

Moral of the story…some of the new daily goals are really bringing out the worst in people. I’m not blaming the game/Anet in any way, but it’s sad when it becomes necessary to design content around some players’ need to be jerks and berate others for simply playing a game in the intended fashion.

I’ve had this once or twice, and at least a couple other times where I noticed gw2.exe still running in the task manager long after the game had been closed. The still-running .exe eating up 1-2GB of RAM could definitely cause some performance issues, especially if you’re trying to play another resource-heavy game.

There have been no changes to my PC other than OS updates (win 7 x64) and installing a few other games on Steam.

I’ve noticed for a long time that the actual evasion of a dodge/roll is delayed from the animation. I can be visibly in the middle of the dodge, but still get hit. This is most noticable with attacks that knockback or knockdown, as there is some assurance that I didn’t just dodge too late. Had I not dodged in time, the character would not have started the dodge animation. A good place to see this is the first phase of the Claw of Jormag fight, when the Claw sends out cascading ice walls that push everyone down the hill.

I’m not certain if this always happens, but in many cases where the dodge is ‘interrupted’ by the CC effect, no endurance is spent. The spending of endurance and actual start of the “evade” effect is not until some time into the animation. I can’t find any evidence of this being a network lag issue, as any tracert/pings to the IPs my game is connecting to or the GW2 website (fairly sure it’s hosted from the same location) show no problems and latency of 60-70ms.

This is an issue I’ve seen mentioned a few times, but I’ve not found a topic dedicated to it. I’ve heard the same complaints from friends/guildmates, as well.

The screenshot below was taken pressing both the “dodge” and screenshot" keys almost simultaneously. The two points of interest are the character, which is clearly in the middle of the dodge/roll, and the endurance/energy bar, which is full. The endurance was spent just after this point in the animation, but any attack at that point or prior will not be evaded.

Lady Vireo.5189:

I do think it’s worthwhile to discuss the problem of Orientalism in context of fantasy games, just like it’s worthwhile to talk about sexism, racism, prejudice against the GLBT community or any other real-life issue. Computer games do reflect real-life attitudes and they do influence people’s opinions about real life. If a game is sexist, I don’t give it a free pass just because it’s not about real women in a real culture. If a game were to endorse one race oppressing another, I’d call it racism, it doesn’t matter if the people are fantasy races instead of real human ethnic groups.

I think someone who’s real life opinions of a race/culture/etc are effected by a fantasy video game about completely fictional locations and cultures probably shouldn’t be playing fantasy video games. I understand that Cantha was designed with Asian influences, but I know there is not any real eastern country with an army of pirates riding around on giant turtles with canons strapped to their backs. The influences in Cantha aren’t even modern day influences, so it’s hard to label them as falsely representing current Asian cultures.

I think sexism (and prejudice against GLBT) are more of “black and white” issues. They are more readily comparable to real-world issues, because male/female is a line that crosses all cultures and all times. I understand why people might be more likely to find sexism in a game (or other entertainment media) offensive, but unless the game is falsely portraying a specific race/culture/person, I still don’t see any issue.

Looking at both Guild Wars games, there are already examples of oppression/racism, and I’ve not heard of anyone being offended by them. In GW2 the centaur and krait both oppress members of just about any other race to use them as slaves. Given the chance, either of these would oppress the entire population. In GW1 the tengu were opressed by the empire and forced to live in a small camp in Kaineng City, and tengu everywhere had to deal with prejudice. Humans are certainly involved in both instances here, being on both sides of the issue. The key difference is that centaur, krait, and tengu are non-human fantasy races/species. Is that really any different than Krytans, Canthans, Elonians being fantasy races?

It all comes down to personal perception. For me, I understand that it’s a game and that none of it is real or representative of anything that is real. While I would not be offended myself, I think it’s reasonable for people to be offend by a game that portrayed a real-life military/policitcal conflict. This has been a real issue with at least one recent military shooter game’s portrayal of conflicts between the US and forces from foreign nations/terrorist groups. The people offended by this have the right to voice their opinions, but they don’t have the right to demand the game be changed or removed from stores.

ThiBash.5634:

Lady Vireo.5189:

Ratphink.4751:

People really need to read some Edward Said’s work on Orientalism (and I mean an actual book/essay, not a Wikipedia Article) and realize that representing the East, especially from a Western point of view, is not easy and can be very problematic. Cantha is very much included in this, despite however much you guys want to think it is flawless.

I’m very familiar with Said and his theories of Orientalism. I have read a bit of his own work and definitely a lot of the literature to which his critique applies. (I’m a lit major and soon-to-be grad student. ;P) I agree it’s very important to bring this into the discussion.

So basically, you’re saying we cannot add it to the game because we don’t have a proper understanding of the Asian culture?

Did you ever check how Asians portray us? Even if you leave out the North Korean view of the western people, you can hardly state that they portray us in a proper, politically correct way.

And the same goes for the western cultures portrayed in Guild Wars 2. You can hardly state that it’s done properly.

And who cares? it’s NOT REAL.

I don’t think Orientalism can really be applied to a fantasy game. It’s not a representation of Asia, it’s an artificial world with stylistic and mythological influences from these Asian cultures. The fact that Guild Wars is set in the made up world of Tyria instead being set on Earth changes a lot. If this were a Call of Duty game, where it there is a real-world setting, then such representations become as issue, as they can be compared directly to their real-world counterparts.

Rebound.3409:

“GW1 did just fine adding in Asian visual themes into a game with western gameplay/mechanics. That trend should continue with GW2.”

Finally ^

That’s the point I was making all along. GW1 did great without the gameplay that typically appeals to the eastern market. I think the Asian playerbase mostly died out after release. I know there were some events/promos/competitions in that market early on, but don’t recall anything like that beyond the first year or so. I think the game just did not continue doing well in that market for the same reasons that most Asian MMOs don’t do well in the US. Asian devs could try making games with a more western visual style, but it wouldn’t do them any good because the gameplay still wouldn’t appeal to us. I’m sure some of their home/Asian market might like the change in scenery, though. Just like us westerners enjoyed the visuals of Cantha. And if a westerner does get upset over a Greek-looking monument being placed in a zone resembling the American deserts, they should let it be and not worry about appeasing people outside the target market.

The only change I’m aware of due to cultural reasons was the removal of a panda NPC that was in the pre-release preview weekend of Factions. It was removed due to a law in China regarding any depiction of a dead animal on the endangered species list. This obviously became less of an issue later on, as about a year ago (Feb 9 2012) the panda was made available as a ranger pet in GW1.

Rebound.3409:

“As for GW1, yes it did mix visual styles from eastern and western influences, but it did not have the gameplay influences of eastern games.”

Whoever said anything about gameplay changes? This talk is purely about esthetics and story that was already made in GW1 and just needs to fit the current lore of GW2….so again ANet did it right in GW1..why would they have to cut it out in GW2?

You keep introducing a feature (gameplay influences or possibly mechanics) that GW1 never had and nobody wants everyone agrees with you. The talk is about aesthetics/lore.

All we want is for ANet to make in GW2 what they did in GW1. That means on a basic scale updated graphics of the other continents to transition from GW1 to GW2 and a lore that ties to GW1…period. As for the rest..the same mechanics used in GW2 and so on, which we already know.

Again, the reason I mentioned gameplay/mechanics was only to point out that GW2 (and GW1) is not primarily marketed to eastern/Asian players. The removal of the Canthan district of Divinity’s Reach was a move to appease the eastern/Asian players. It really does not make sense to make a massive change to appeal to a market that your game already isn’t focused on.

If, key word here is if, NC wanted to make a serious attempt to draw in the eastern market, the gameplay/mechanics I mentioned would have to be a part of that. Then it would make sense to also alter visual styles to appease that market.

GW1 did just fine adding in Asian visual themes into a game with western gameplay/mechanics. That trend should continue with GW2.

Rebound.3409:

@mrstealth: It’s already grindy considering the only 4 attractions this game has endgame are FoTM, WvW, for real sadomasochists Orr and AC to grind money. This game offers nothing atm other then the above listed (2 small and easy dungeons, 1 boring map and an excuse of a RvR system which fails in a lot of parts to make ppl actually put effort and dedication in what they do).

Yes i understand all to well what u say above..but that doesn’t mean we have to cut diversity all together. I am talking about Asiatic-themed continents not the mechanics behind them. I just want to explore/enjoy different themes in 1 game, also available for story. If you can’t offer someone diversity in an MMO, that mmo will die eventually..take it however u want.

What’s the difference if they add Cantha to the game? A few maps with different textures to match asiatic culture and a story that has meaning and ties to GW1. I don’t see the “overly grinding part”..atleast not as much as it is now.

The game mechanics/system are already there and already limits “by their nature” the tipical “chinese-grinding” mmos. Even if they do or don’t add new things, the grinding system remains the same…BUT it’s worst not to add then to add if u want to keep buyers happy and paying.

“You can’t please everyone, and trying to do it just ends up pleasing no one.”
That would be valid if GW1 didn’t exist GW1 proved this wrong. It combined not 2, but 3 completely different cultures into 1 game. I don’t know of anyone ever saying something bad about that…and they all had the same level of grinding in them. If u went to Cantha that didn’t mean u needed to grind 10x more because it was asiatic themed… that’s just silly.

I think you missed the point I was making. I was not meaning that game mechanics would (or should) change, the point was that GW2 is already focused on the western market, so making visual changes to appease the Asian market doesn’t really make sense. The reason I brought up gameplay at all was to point out that GW2 is not the type of MMO that has typically sold well in Asian markets. If NC wanted better sales in the eastern markets, they would have to make huge changes to gameplay. But this is not something likely to happen, so why go to such lengths because some people from this market didn’t like the architectural style?

I understand NC wanting to make the game more globally appealing, but the west and east MMO markets are just too different to make a single game that fits well into both. And leaving out Cantha is a decision that attempts to appease a minority of the game’s market, at the cost of displeasing the majority.

As for GW1, yes it did mix visual styles from eastern and western influences, but it did not have the gameplay influences of eastern games.

I think Cantha should be added to GW2, with the same visual styles originally intended. It shouldn’t be a huge concern that some players outside of the focused market aren’t happy with it.

Rebound.3409:

….Is NCsoft really going to go against their customers desires on this?

The only thing we’ve heard about customers being against this was the beta feedback from the Asian markets about the Divinity’s Reach Canthan District mixing Chinese and Korean architecture. I don’t have sales and player statistics to look at, but how much of GW2’s playerbase is actually in either of these countries? GW2 is a western MMO made by an American company (that just happens to be owned by a Korean company), and it’s very different from any Asian MMO I’ve seen.

A lot of (all that I know of) succesful eastern MMOs have been very grindy games. Games that make GW2, or any other western MMO, look like a single player RPG you just speed through. There is nothing wrong with that, but it’s just not the type of game that does well in the western market. Likewise, eastern MMOs focus on aspects like stories and lore, rather than grind (even if some grind is still present), and don’t do very well in Asian markets. I don’t think there is a mid-ground that will satisfy both markets, so NC needs to pick one before they drive us both away.

I don’t want to see GW2 turn into an overly “culturally sensitive” game that is too generic to stand out, too grindy for western markets, and not grindy enough for Asian markets. You can’t please everyone, and trying to do it just ends up pleasing no one.

Culling isn’t hurting my guild, since it’s just a small group of friends that have more in common that just GW2, but it is killing my desire to do WvW. And it’s not just in WvW, the culling in PvE since Jan 28 has been horrible on both players and mobs.

During the little WvW I have done this week, I didn’t notice any skill use lag that many others have, but I did have several enemy players instantly teleport back to their original location after using pull skills on them. More severe lag issues were likely not noticable because I was playing during a quiet time of the day and no large groups were on that map from any team.

Sarys.6520:

Josh Foreman.8250:

I certainly encourage anyone to express your desire for a Cantha region in GW2 in a positive and friendly way. It could be years away, but it’s worth asking for.

What about an nostalgic and musical way ?
This is my attempt : http://youtu.be/gTSBZstMZss

Very nice, and I would love to hear any future work you do on that.

I always liked the music that plays (usually) in the Imperial guild hall. I’m fairly certian it’s not on any of the soundtracks. I have the full soundtrack and the collector’s edition one, both with bonus tracks, and didn’t find it in anywhere.

iCryptik.1496:

Yarrr, ’da problem ’wit this argument ’fer reflection is not every class has reflection available ’ta them, leaving them at a severe disadvantage.

Only guardian, mesmer, and thief have reflects that are not linked to a certain weapon (or pet for a ranger). Guardian has a single utility, thief has a single elite, while mesmer two utilties and two traits that grant reflection to focus skills and Distortion. These three professions also have longer reflect durations available, compared to most others.

Several of the other professions’ reflects also require them to stand still. You might damage or deter the attacker from using any more gears/fruit/etc for the duration, but you are still going to be in the same spot when you defense is gone.

There are defenses against stunlocking consumables, but almost every one of them is underpowered compared to the consumable. Even with equipping every defense possible (honestly, who runs around wvw like this?), the consumable user still has the advantage.

I loved the explorable areas of Cantha, minus the city. I don’t think I ever found someone that enjoyed those areas. Echovald Forest had some of my favorite maps in the game, and I always loved the architecture on Shing Jea Island.

To me, and just about everyone I played with, the storyline was the weakest part of Factions. It just felt like a kungkittenB-movie, largely due to the cutscenes. I guess the actual story wasn’t bad, just the way it was acted out in those scenes. The joke among our group was seeing Shiro as “Master Betty” from the move Kung Pow.

Power.2957:

Can’t be bothered to reply to the people who think stun breaks aren’t enough, so I won’t- game too hard.

@penatbater: Absolutely, and I don’t even spam gears. That crap’s too expensive. Gear = for people who try and run away :P

Multiple stunbreaks (for those that run around with multiples) coupled with dodging might let you get away, if the person isn’t intersted in chasing you. If you’re able to outrun them, you could safely escape. If they can outrun you by having more abilties for swiftness or teleport skills, then even using every stun break you have is not going to save you. And this is just for fleeing them.

You should be able to kill them, but they already have a massive advantage of being able to stunlock you. Your ability to break/avoid the stuns is going to be done in the first 5 seconds. At that point, your options are 1)flee (if even possible) and 2) die.

Playing the game of justifying it because someone might have 3 stunbreaks or might have reflect skill doesn’t work. Especially when even with those they are still at a disadvantage.

Drysdale.3826:

To reiterate, reply, and bump this thread. For all the people saying use stun breakers to avoid this.

1. Not all professions have access to the multiple stun breakers.

2. You can’t spam stun breakers like they can spam spiky fruit. Not a viable option.

Sorry.

It’s best to just ingore the trolls/ignorant people that post non-sense like that. Same people that answer every post about something overpowered with ‘learn to dodge’. Just like dodging, stunbreaks are a very limited ability. You can’t break every stun, and you can’t dodge every attack.

Ultravalefor.5038:

Congrats you just increased the number of people who are going to troll with this item by a LOT.

Seriously, what makes you think that “oh hey that’s an unfair item, I should make sure people stop using it by telling the whole GW2 forum WvW community about it!” is a good strategy? People probably already went out and bought their 250 stack before their eyes got to the end of your post.

Learn to PM a dev, will you?
-facepalm-

Actually, making others aware of the problem, at the cost of informing a few more would-be abusers, is a pretty good way of getting the proper attention to it. Active/hot topics here will get the attention of multiple devs. Especially when the problem is easily fixed by making these things unusable in wvw.

Thanks, PurebladeProductions. That mostly solves the mystery of this golem. All that’s left is whatever bug caused it to not explode and stay in the map for many hours. Perhaps the player logging/waypointing out before it exploded?

I don’t understand why something like this would even be added to the game. Even in pve, there is nothing but abuse to be seen for an item that can stunlock enemies and do fairly high damage with no cooldown. Items that are “for fun” should have only visual effects, not real combat value.

Before the most recent Tequatl event (just a few minute ago), someone said it’s been there all night. Can someone confirm whether or not the Fancy Winter Outfit skill summon has the “Transformed” status on it?

I’m assuming the outfit summon is this toy soldier golem, and not the floating cube one. This could just be a bugged summon that never exploded.

Edit:
Found a video showing that same toy golem being summoned, but it wasn’t targeted to see whether or not the “Transformed” effect was on it.

After killing Tequatl a while ago, I noticed this thing standing around the Hylek/Asura turrets. It’s a small golem dressed up like a toy soldlier, and carrying a rifle. The status info when targeted suggests that it’s a tonic (says “Transformation”), but it does not appear to be an actual player. There is no context menu when right-clicking the target portrait, no guild tag, and it was not effected by attempts to stealth it.

I couldn’t find any mention of this thing on wiki or the forums. I even double checked dulfy.net’s listing of Wintersday tonics/minis. I got sidetracked before posting this, but the golem is still in the same spot over an hour after I first noticed it. I seems to have not moved at all. A player should have been kicked for inactivity by now.

I’ll attach a screenshot, but if anyone wants to see it themselves, it’s near the “Splintered Coast Waypoint” in Sparkfly Fen on Yak’s Bend. I’ve never seen this before, and would like to know what it actually is.

The whole idea of someone actually being offended/bothered by the architecture and NPC names in Cantha just seems completely absurd to me. I find it hard to believe that no one in X Asian culture/language has a name originating from Y Asian culture/language. I’m not saying it has to be something common, but to see it in a game and think “this is an outrage, it could never happen in the real world” is pushing it, in my opinion. Should I be offended if I see an NPC with a clearly English name talking to one with a cleary French name? What if I change my language options, and now have both of these NPCs speaking Spanish?

If Cantha is added with only a singular cultural influence, these same people will likely be offended because their culture was not the chosen one. Maybe the answer is to make individual towns/zones/districts have their own cultural styles. Cantha already had this with the architectural differences between Shing Jea, Kainging, Echovald, and Jade Sea. Even under a unified Emperial banner, it can be expected for each region’s population to retain some of their own distinct styles.

In the end, my (perhaps harsh) view is that some people are just determined to be offended by just about everything, and will go to great lengths to make sure everyone else knows this. I can understand this for real-world situtations, or in even in fictional ones where the setting is intended to represent the real world. But in a game set in a purely fictional world, with dragons and magic everywhere, it just seems silly to insist on such cultural “accuracy”.

I think anyone taking offense to Cantha needs to step back and look at a few things

1 – Tyria is not Earth, it is a completley fictional world that takes thematic influences from the real world
2 – Cantha is not your, or any other, nation/culture, it is a nation in Guild Wars that resembles various regions of Asia
3 – The names/styles of NPCs/locations are not Japanese/Chinese/etc, they are Canthan
4 – Guild Wars 2 is a video game, it is not intended to acurrately respresent anything from the real world, even if influenced by it. If a Mayan-ish temple looks nice next to a German-ish castle, so be it.

I think they should just make them all unusable in wvw. Food, Sharpening Stones, etc aren’t really a problem, but the consumable bundle items, gemstore strength/armor boosters (I think these work in wvw), and additional stat boosting consumables need to go. The regular nourishment items are readily available on the TP or from crafting, but a lot of the consumable items are rather obscure. I only knew about the GiaB about 2 weeks before the update, and I’ve never seen the Gear mentioned in this thread.

I had some strange behavior with the Corruption effect applied by the Shades. I know that 25 stacks of it causes you to be instantly downed, and that the “Entered Grenth’s Realm” buff makes it gain stacks faster. I had not done this event for a while before the recent changes, but I think the Corruption is removed when you are downed and rally, as well as wearing off in 60 sec.

Today, I had several instances of being insta-downed with only a few stacks of it on me. I had the buff to damage Shades, and was fighting a few. I had been fighting there for a while already, but this is when the problems started I was using ranged attacks on my engineer, so avoiding most of their attacks was easy. With only couple stacks of Corruption, I was instantly downed from near full HP, with nothing showing in my combat log that would have killed me. I was revived before being defeated, and before I could even get back the buff, I was instantly downed again. Combat log only showed 4-5 hits of 0 damage from Shades. This happened once or twice more, till I got downed while surrounded and ended up defeated.

After being defeated, I waypointed out and ran back. When I got back to the fight I pushed a few Shades away from Keeper Jonez and headed for the side room to get the buff again. There were a few shades almost on top of the ring/vortex, but I ran into it right by them. I’m not sure if I even managed to get the buff on me, but I was again hit by those 3-4 Shades for 0 damage and instantly downed. I had just ran back from a waypoint, so there is no way I had 25 stacks of Corruption. In fact, I had no stacks of Corruption, but the game was acting as if I had 25 stacks.

You can mix from different temples and piece together a matching set with some stats, or get 4-5 pieces of the same stat. There are only a few stat choices (3, think) between the temples. You will have a lot more stat options with crafted or dungeon sets.

There isn’t a best stat for necro (or any profession), what it really depends on is the build you are using. You said you wanted AoE/damage, so some focus on power/precision will be needed, and the Temple sets don’t offer much there outside of mixing power/toughess/vitality and condition/precision/toughness sets.

A couple more bad instances of culling today.

The Champ Risen Abomination just outside of Caer Shadowfain (end of Plinx chain) was up, and I saw a couple people asking for more to kill it. I was in the camp, standing by the wall closest to the event. I hopped up onto the wall to check the situation before jumping into the fight, and what I saw was the champ running around obviously aggro’d onto players but attacking “nothing”. There were only 4 other players there, but I had to jump off the wall and get very close to see them.

The second was in Frostgorge again, near the WP/Heart area northeast of where the Claw event is. I was running south from the WP, back to the road, and jump down from one of the short icy hills. I landed in a ‘clear’ area, but less then a second after I landed a few culled enemies appeared. I continued running from them, and more culled mobs appeared rather close to me as I ran towards the road. This was not the usual load-in/pop-in distance, they were appearing barely outside of attack range. The Claw even was not up when the above happened, and I had seen no large groups of players in the area. There is no reason for those mobs to have been culled.

I’ve seen the same thing with allies several times today. The most noticable was after Tequatl was killed in Sparkfly. Culling would sometimes be noticable with a large number of players, especially when they all rush to the chest, but this effected every player that moved more than (I’m guessing) 1500 units away. As I ran back towards the WP, players were appearing right in my face, instead of the normal several thousand units.

These are new changes since the 1/28 update. Culling has always been there, but it was very minimal in pve. My PC can comfortably run GW2 at max settings, so there is no need for this overly-aggressive culling. Even with a low end PC, having enemies appear already in aggro range (and even already attacking) is not an acceptable trade-off for game performance.