Guild Wars 2

Guhracie.3419:

storiessave.3807:

Sean.8274:

Who are the poorest players in the game? WvW Commanders!

Who will benefit most from the new color commander tags? WvW Commanders!

Lets make them spend 300g for each additional color they want. Makes sense. Let’s make the poorest people even poorer.

So much this.

Adding in a gold sink for a population that’s already perpetually poor…brilliant idea.

I was excited about this change until I heard it was 300g per color.

Have they announced that each color will be 300g yet? They’ve just announced that you will have to buy additional colors, not how much they will cost, as far as I know.

Funny. Lets put that into the last feature patch and the wardrobe.

“hey guys you can now have a wardrobe to hold all your skins! yup, for a measly 1200g (200g per armor slot) you can store all the armor you unlocked! We’ll toss in the weapon stuff for the initial first slot purchase. Isn’t that great!”

Once they start making us pay for fully functional features, it’s all downhill from there.

Elagos.6029:

Vayne.8563:

Pre mega server I did have to fight with the system to play with my friends. Many people on TC, Blackgate, and JQ had to fight with the system to play with their friends. Didn’t you see the complaint threads on the forums (there were many) about people not being able to play on their home server for days on end because it was full?

It was very frustrating to be on TC back then. And if those three busiest servers all had that problem, that means it was also a widespread problem. It affected a lot of people.

Did see em, but that was a different issue completely… but yeah, I guess the solution is to bugger it up for all instead of doing practical simple things like locking server from new accounts when population = x accounts, or block guesting to high pop servers when numbers = x, or hey, here is a thought, give home server accounts like yours preference on your home server… but hey, what do I know.

I really am glad you and many others enjoy the MS and its fixed many issues you had pre megaserver. I wasn’t on those servers and was not affected by it, but making an issue affect everyone instead of fixing it isn’t right. There are serious problems with megaserver, and as stated before, I’m not against it, but the issues many have raised need to be addressed.

Pretty much this. They basically turned the game into one big overflow, which didn’t solve anything but more people on the more barren maps.
Map completion (doing hearts) in some cases are now worse too. I was doing dredgehaunt and noticed many of the hearts that involve killing bad guys and tripping traps are map wide, so now i’m competing with 10 players to complete a heart than 5, that’s always fun. When are they going to get around to fixing that? “when it’s ready”

uberkingkong.8041:

munkiman.3068:

This won’t improve the ratio. The escalating prices of T6 hasn’t improved the ratio either. There are simply less people either willing or able to spend cash for gems for gold. A 300g sink for a commander tag is so minimal compared to every other item cost.

This is overkill, which is what anet seems to love to do. They either go way too far with something or become so conservative, it’ almost laughable. It certainly seems like a joke to toss that much goop at us for rewards. Mine as well laugh at this one, cause it’s a pretty epic fail. I mean really, we all just need to laugh at some of these decisions/changes.

You make no sense at all. This is minimal, than you go into this is overkill.

Most people that want/need T6 mats already have them, they have there legendary too. So it T6 mats don’t really make a big deal at all. The game is over a year old, people have that junk and just stash it and sell it. Now commander tags that something new. There’s a bunch of people with a massive surplus of gold. This sink will get rid of some of that. And those that don’t, that’s where you get enticed to buy gems and sell to improve gold to gem ratio.

Stop acting like this too much, the friggin thing is account bound. Yall stuck up on colors and forgot that its account bound. You got 8 toons, well thanks to anet all your toons get the tag and you saved 700 gold from buying a commander tag now. You got 5 toons and want to wait till the colors come out? Well thanks to anet all your toons get the colored tags and you saved 200 gold. You have 5 toons and you already have 3 tags, just buy another tag for 100g while it lasts and thank anet because you get color tag and all your toons get it AND you saved 100 gold AND you have 2 different colors.

I didn’t complete my thought (work interruption). It’s outrageous that we have to pay 1200g for full functionality of the tag. While 300g isn’t that much in the grand scheme of cost overall, it seems ridiculous to pay (1200g) for full functionality.

Tags should have been account bound from the get-go, everyone feels that. If they want to increase the cost of getting a tag and making them more relevant, then tack on 50 laurels and 5000 badges.

uberkingkong.8041:

The way I look at this gold sink is that the gold to gem ratio will get better. Theres a lot of unhappy people that don’t like the current ratio and this should help.

Also, if you have a commander tag already, you have the means and probably already have more than enough gold to buy another tag. There’s a bunch of people running around with tons of gold in there pocket, this is nothing so don’t act like its something. Don’t even pretend 300 gold is way outta your league either, and remember its ACCOUNT BOUND now, so 1 purchase of new color is for ALL your characters. Lastly, this is a way to get gold out of the game and people to convert gems to gold, so its a win win.

This won’t improve the ratio. The escalating prices of T6 hasn’t improved the ratio either. There are simply less people either willing or able to spend cash for gems for gold. A 300g sink for a commander tag is so minimal compared to every other item cost.

This is overkill, which is what anet seems to love to do. They either go way too far with something or become so conservative, it’ almost laughable. It certainly seems like a joke to toss that much goop at us for rewards. Mine as well laugh at this one, cause it’s a pretty epic fail. I mean really, we all just need to laugh at some of these decisions/changes.

Rouven.7409:

munkiman.3068:

According to the images posted about the change to tags, you can change your color anytime and the refund will most likely be in gold.

Didn’t see the images, that would be the most awesome, although I’m not sure where the number 4 comes from in that case, having bought 3 would make more sense.

Anyways, enough speculation from my side.

Edit: More food for thought
http://www.guildmag.com/command-tag-gamescom-2014/

Wow… you have to buy each color… crazy!

Rouven.7409:

munkiman.3068:

According to the images posted about the change to tags, you can change your color anytime and the refund will most likely be in gold.

Didn’t see the images, that would be the most awesome, although I’m not sure where the number 4 comes from in that case, having bought 3 would make more sense.

Anyways, enough speculation from my side.

Here is the tidbits, image for the tag is on the bottom.

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=34887

Rouven.7409:

Guhracie.3419:

Rouven.7409:

Would make more sense to give the option to pay the difference. Example exchange 2 tags, pay 100 gold – get another colour.

That aside I find this a bit unflexible, but perhaps they are scared about the amount of gold flowing back into the economy.

This hinges on the assumption that each color will also cost 300g. That information hasn’t been released that I’ve seen.

The interpretation seems clear to me, the commander tag costs 300g and you can chose the colour. Pretty much in a nutshell.
My assumption would be that the reason you need to have bought 4 tags for the refund is that you will not get a refund in gold, but rather another tag via email (maybe it’s open the tag, then chose the colour, easiest). So you keep blue and exchange the 3 other tags for one new one.

Edit: I would love to listen to the actual interview, but it says on the site they will load it up within the next few days.

According to the images posted about the change to tags, you can change your color anytime and the refund will most likely be in gold.

Elagos.6029:

Vayne.8563:

It is a polarizing topic. There’s no question about it. There are also no easy answers.

If Anet can get the algorythm working better, that might solve some, but not all of the problems, particularly for Europe.

But for me at least, the difference in the game is night and day with the megaserver. So again it becomes a question of how many people by percentage hate it, how many love it, how many are inconvenienced and how much of an inconvenience is it. I can’t answer any of those questions, but I’d say those are the questions we need answers to.

This, we need answers, or at least a glimmer of hope that they are looking into solutions

Unfortunately, the solution just doesn’t exist in it’s current form. Even if they improved the magical algorithm (which i’m pretty sure they have already), you’re still faced with not sorting people based on what they want. Some of the beauty of having choices on a player basis, is the player gets to decide. While overflows were inconvenient in some cases, for the most part, people decided where and with whom they were playing with.

In order to have the best of both, there would need to be a very large redesign of the games basic structure. The best we could hope for is we get a server based town and we keep clicking “Join in” when we leave that town to do large scale, server based events. There simply is no mind reading algorithm that can predetermine what people want to do. Although it still baffles me how many times a party gets split up.

There is still a sizable frustration with the communication ANet lacks with it’s community.

Vayne.8563:

Except that not everyone plays MMOs for a server community. Many people play MMOs for the guild community? Why? Because you have more control over your experience in a guild.

If you join an RP guild you’ll mostly be around RPers. If you join a casual guild it’s unlikely anyone will ask you to zerk or get out. If you join a speed clear guild you’ll find people who want to be efficient.

My guild is my community and there’s enough people on most of the time where I don’t need a server community. I believe that in the old days when less people were playing, server community was very important but with the influx of more and more players, it’s become less so. Once the console generation started coming in, and the people who came late to WoW the emphasis shifted.

So yes, my guild is my community. I’m pretty sure that’s more common these days than people depending on a server community.

Many people do play games for server based communities, if the game has server communities, but not all games do. Back in Guild Wars days, the only separation you had was guilds, but you also weren’t lumped with the masses outside of towns. I’ve met and played with more people in GW2 than i ever did in GW, this especially true since WvW is the game mode that brings that closer. I’d really like to say it’s improved my experience, yet really now, i feel more isolated, even if there are more people on the map. Especially true if you say something in map chat and get garbage back.

If a game implements a server based system and people build on that system, then suddenly it’s no longer a thing, then all the work, all the comradery you once had, seeing and communicating with familiar players, regularly, is gone. It would be something else entirely if they released the game as is now.

This is a polarizing topic and for good reason.

Elagos.6029:

Vayne.8563:

I’m saying the people who want to see more people are the majority. The people who want to scale up events. And the people who were on “dead” servers. And the people who work nights. And the people who are over seas. It’s not just people overseas. You need to read all the posts, not the ones you want.

Plenty of people play MMOs just to see other people. The percentage of people who play MMOs to not see people isn’t really all that high, I think. Oh there are some.

And if you’re not doing the top big quests, you don’t have that crowding anyway. You can go do anything and find people now. Before to see people you had to go to the places where people were.

This game, the entire dynamic event system, was really designed with people in mind. It wasn’t designed to have one person running around a zone solo. The entire game falls apart that way. You get the boring leveling complaints. Having people around, for a lot of people, make it interesting. Even some people who solo alot, like to see people.

I believe the people who want to be off on their own somewhere are probably a minority. The Oceanics was a comment on freedom. Two different ideas going on here.

I’ve seen this sort of thinking a few times in this thread…. So, I’m going to clear it up, mmo’s have nothing to do with seeing ‘plenty of people’. Mmo’s have nothing to do with how many random players you can squeeze into a zone.

The majority of gamers who play mmo’s DO NOT play to see plenty of people, they play to be with their communities. Thats what makes and breaks mmo’s, communities, communities which AN has decided to destroy.

If you’re playing an mmorpg just to see 100 other avatars running around a map, then you may as well be playing an offline single player game with 100 ai bots running around.

While you both have valid points, it still comes down to removing a feature of the game, one that was pretty valuable to a game mode they designed. One they released with, one that kept some of the toxic chat to a minimum, one that didn’t frustrate or confuse people. While i’m certain it was much harder to manage on the back end, it was still a pretty big part of various communities to have that separation.

I think if nothing else, they need to create a hub that is server based, either a new place in the Mists that doesn’t affect WvW or an existing city. Not that it would fully satisfy things for me, it would at least give us a way to gather our server together.

Rouven.7409:

What is the “chaos” part? When I hear “chaos” I think mesmer, bit more into purple maybe. Wild, swirling perhaps, what is chaos when it comes to a white shining skin?

Don’t get me wrong, I somewhat love the simplistic look.

These are from GW, the chaos axe is something people have been clamoring for since release. They dropped in FoW.

SkyFierce.2071:

once you got the recipe of crafting a thing, and if you have all raw material enough to craft one, you can just click craft at that item, and it auto make all parts and craft the item. So you don’t have to go back to craft every single part one by one.
I don’t mind the game makes me to watch the crafting process bar runs for crafting each part, for game playing time, but really hate to find out recipe of each part and craft each of them one by one.

This actually used to be in the game, but they took it out. I forget why though.

Vayne.8563:

munkiman.3068:

What i was saying is the majority don’t scale well at all. Besides once people find event that actually scales to champ spawns, anet nerfs it to vet status so they don’t drop the bags, leaving those vets as the same DPS sponge while not rewarding as well. That’s always a bonus.

There are actually people that enjoy being challenged and pick lower pop servers once they find out how trivial events become with 50+ players chewing through them. Now, they don’t have that option.

GW was a game that didn’t get destroyed by less people being around. But, i can agree with what you’re saying. Regardless of that, this solution was pretty game destroying for a good number of people that really wanted a community and a sense of server pride. Something which now can only exist in WvW, a game mode all about servers, completely stripped away from the rest of the game. Some pro…

Sure there are always people who enjoy being challenged but do you really think those people are some kind of majority…because I sure don’t.

I also think about it from the other point of view. I used to do events in the open world in zones that didn’t have a lot of people. Some of those events were really really annoying. Protecting 4 houses from krait before they destroyed them. 1 person would have had a tough time doing that. Even a couple of people. Not enjoyable to me at all.

Some of the events where you had a couple of centaurs come in and you then wait for the next couple of centaurs. Those events were meh..until you had a group and you had a steady stream of centaurs coming in. The event was much better with more people. It wasn’t harder alone…it was just more boring.

Even without champs, far more chances at getting a drop because you’re tagging far more mobs. You can’t really expect me to believe most people want less rewards…that they’re happy with the rewards from just the event itself.

More bags means more mats. More mats means more money. I’m pretty sure most people want more money in this game.

I personally like opening the bags with linen and stuff, or salvaging drops for hard wood, soft wood, iron…anything really. Even copper is useful.

Doing events on servers now provides more money than they did on slower servers. I’d say most people are happy about that bit.

It’s not that the majority enjoys being challenged or that content needs to be harder. It’s that the majority of events are trivialized (read boring) and that unless you’re running in full zerkers, tagging, you’re not going to get much from these events.

I’m not sure what game you’re playing, but most events don’t add mobs, they add hp to the current set of mobs and maybe increase their damage output slightly. People don’t get more loot when you toss more people at these events. Fix the events is the solution to boring and/or frustrating events, but that’s a much bigger issue and one that certainly is more pronounced tossing more players at them.

Most events are really not fun and certainly not anymore rewarding to me.

What i was saying is the majority don’t scale well at all. Besides once people find event that actually scales to champ spawns, anet nerfs it to vet status so they don’t drop the bags, leaving those vets as the same DPS sponge while not rewarding as well. That’s always a bonus.

There are actually people that enjoy being challenged and pick lower pop servers once they find out how trivial events become with 50+ players chewing through them. Now, they don’t have that option.

GW was a game that didn’t get destroyed by less people being around. But, i can agree with what you’re saying. Regardless of that, this solution was pretty game destroying for a good number of people that really wanted a community and a sense of server pride. Something which now can only exist in WvW, a game mode all about servers, completely stripped away from the rest of the game. Some pro…

Vayne.8563:

Yep, it’s absolutely a solution. Right now, no one can say they’re on their home server. No one knows how many people from their server are on their server. Which means everyone is basically on even footing in PvE.

That’s a solution for people who didn’t want to guest (there were some of those) and people who felt they owned their server and guesters were ruining it for them.

I’m much happier this way. I think it was a good move over all, because it creates less of kitten and them situation in PvE, which was happening more and more.

How is taking the option away to be on a lower pop server, while still having the ability to go to a higher one when desired, a positive solution? Some people had issues with guesting on winning servers, so take everyone options away. Some solution. It’s not anymore even footing than before either, since you have very little control over what shard your placed in.

More complication and less convenience , i just don’t see that being a positive thing.

Sadly, this is probably the easiest way to fix these pros for people that think they are pros. Realistically, now scaling is even more of an issue for everyone, instead of just high pop servers, not much of a pro there either. It’s actually more frustrating for players that try to get event completion, but have a hard time doing it since 50 people are steam rolling the popular events, which is only compounded by the now, static schedule for world events.

While it does “fix” guesting, they could have also done that, with the existing “Join in” option in the party menu.

I’m glad you like it, but i still think your in the minority. It may work better for solo veteran players, but it mostly complicates, frustrates and inconveniences almost everyone else.

Vayne.8563:

Amethyst Rose.4367:

lordkrall.7241:

You are making a bunch of rather massive errors here.

1: Not everyone on those 48 pages dislike it.
2: Not everyone comes up with valid arguments and mainly just say that it sucks.
3: Mostly the same people keep writing over and over and over and over and over again in the thread, rather than new people coming into the thread.

Most of the posters seem to be against megas, and the ones for megas basically just have one “pro” which is “Maps are no longer barren” which is a con to a lot of other players and not a problem before megas for a lot of servers. If you feel that most anti-mega people just say they suck then you clearly have not read this thread at all. There has been such a litany of complaints (which I won’t relist… you will have to actually read the thread this time) and countless suggestions of how things could be improved. Sure there are reposters, but there are more reposters on the pro-mega side than anti-mega.

It’s not the only Pro.

One of the big things that ruined the Marionette fight for a lot of people was not being able to get onto their home servers. They had the big word overflow on their minimap. There were quite a few complaint threads about it. Being on your home server was seen as superior to being on an overflow, even if you had tons of people from your server on that overflow.

People felt disenfranchised by guesters. Not one or two people. A lot of people. That’s all gone now. You dont’ have everyone guesting to the three busiest servers all the time, because there’s no need to. It solves problems for people already playing on those servers.

How is megaserver a solution to any of that? Now you’re always in an “overflow”. At least prior, there was a separation and you could feel a sense of server pride on success. There is a lot to be said for separating people into manageable numbers, over trying to toss a bunch of randoms into an organized group. Now, that is reserved for only the most dedicated guild groups that spend over an hour to setup, taxiing and organizing. Megaserver only convoluted the problems with prior overflows.

Guesting now does nothing, servers have no identity in PvE, so basically the pro here is what? People can still leach on “winning” shards accept now it’s not server based. Hardly a pro.

NewTrain.7549:

Vayne.8563:

You made an assumption about what the second quote meant mate. Instead of repeating the same stuff over and over again, why not address that point. Show me the quote where he contradicted the first quote. I’d like to see it.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jy7CcwnfUdU

PS: Fun fact, I found the video in a thread where you had like 30% of the posts.

While i’ve seen that interview, it’s interesting to note a few tidbits about it. I definitely don’t want to turn this into a megaserver discussion, but he did seem pretty clear the intent in design for the game was about the community (the world community on a macro level and the guild community on a micro one), so it was quite a shock to see them implement a megaserver system, then try to “sell it” over a twitch stream. So far we’ve gotten a sales pitch about how much better it will be and a second small bit on how they have a dedicated team working to improve the system. Both being extremely vague and shallow thoughts and not even much about the why involved with its release. 43 pages of feedback later, the majority not really happy with it. It’s an extremely polarizing topic, with very little direction. That’s a pretty huge issue to me, no solid direction, no this is our intent/direction we want to go with it. It feels more like a bandaid with tons of speculation about why it was even put in to begin with.

Second is, the big ideas they have for housing and guild halls. My personal take is that they release “something” and build it into the grand ideas they have for them over time. That they pick a very specific direction internally and work toward that, but in the meantime, create a simple version, one without all those amazing things they want to do with them. Between the clamor for GvG and guild spaces, putting out a couple maps that fit a guild hall concept (similar to a GW version), would be HUGE. It seems like they are shooting themselves in the foot with grand ideas when people really just want the basic concept, at least in the interim.

I really think the game lacks focus, lacks direction. Right now it feels like they are all over the place with concepts and grand ideas with very little in the way of execution of them. I get they want these grand releases, full of stuff no other MMO’s have and so on, but it seems to take a tremendous amount of man-power to release a few hours of playable content, when something like a basic GvG/guild hall system is really all that’s needed and has far more playability.

I truly don’t remember a time ANet has been very communicative, but i do remember them saying several times that they need to work on that. While i think that currently they do communicate more than they did with GW, it’s mostly shallow and vague. People need substance and a company can easily expect to hear rant or rave about changes, whether they tell us up front or not.

Something of note, like it might take 6 months to develop a map, is pretty disheartening news, since we could very well be looking at YEARS before we see any substantial expansion to the world, which is really what needs to happen. The living world is a fun idea and it does sound great, but in practice, it’s really not enough to keep players all that interested and seems to take a tremendous effort to implement a couple hours of playtime. This not to mention the level of bugs introduced each release.

One major point to talk about though, is the intro of the megaserver without any real feedback prior. It literally got dumped on the player base, and has 0 discussion since. That absolutely gets people riled up and i personally know several people that left (or only logs for story releases) because of it. I also really feel the China release has had a very large impact on how the rest of the world “feels” neglected. It might be a good move for money sake, but a bad one for reputation with the rest of the player base. They’ve really left us out, going from CDI’s and trying to engage us, to almost full radio silence.

Dorian Ordenda.1398:

Taimi looks a little nervous there. Hmmmm. Not a good sign.

She’s not nervous… Notice Scruffy in pieces on the ground. She’s shaken, her golem just got destroyed

GOSU.9574:

Putting a drop in this bucket that will never be read by the devs but anyways….

I just returned to the game about a week and a half ago after being gone for 8 months. This megaserver is a great boon, especially to those who are new or levelling an alt the old way. Gone are the dead maps where no one was doing events (Bloodtide Coast comes to mind). However….

Currently I am not sure Temple Events are linked to occur at the same time on the servers the way World Events are. Not sure exactly why but they can not be monitored for time/activity like world events, and this makes it very hard to get into a Temple Event unless you are right there staring it in the face when it starts.

Can we get something done about this?

As far as i can tell, this was a “fix” to contested waypoints in Orr, which had the counter of never knowing when “your server” or shard had them cleared.

Lethe.1640:

Poor Taimi looks terrified. The Inquest definitely came a-knockin’ now that she’s tampering with the waypoints.

Pretty sure she’s flipped out since it looks like scruffy is taking a dirt nap.

As stated numerous times, outside of any benefit to ANet, the big plus to megaserver is more people on the map. Which is obviously not always the best thing. the rest, IMO are minuses.

Heibi.4251:

munkiman.3068:

Labjax.2465:

Nilkemia.8507:

Wait…you can’t choose it’s stats when you make it?

I don’t know. I may be wrong about that part.

No, you can’t.

However, once you unlock the skin you can use it with your current back piece that has the stats you want.

I’m hoping they make it ascended and you can choose the stats like the tempered one.

While i didn’t find this fight particularly difficult, i do agree that they should be fairly simple/easy for most players. Just tell the story and have some good fights, here and there. If they keep the achievement stuff, make those hard or harder, but first run through should really just be about the story. Also, for sure, no more open world event stuff to progress through the story, it’s far to hard to manage these large scale events and keep them bug free. Have them be side events people can do outside of story progression.

If this is really a 3 part deal, do people see this becoming the first legendary item added to the game (exo, ascended, legendary)? This almost feels like a test for a pre-cursor scavenger hunt as well, only on a smaller level.

Labjax.2465:

Nilkemia.8507:

Wait…you can’t choose it’s stats when you make it?

I don’t know. I may be wrong about that part.

No, you can’t.

Vayne.8563:

Lostyus.4250:

Vayne.8563:

But there is harm. What if the people who opt for the main servers don’t get enough people on their main servers to make it worth it?

Then that would prove megaservers weren’t popular and that Anet had made a mistake.

And what if not enough people use those servers and they don’t end up having an enjoyable experience, but they take just enough people out of the mega servers to make them not viable?

You’re asking a company to put time and resources into doing something that might very well hurt players on both sides of the divide.

It’s a bad risk.

They actually mentioned (well one of the German guys did back in the beginning, wonder if he’s still employed) that megaserver wasn’t put in place to save money on server resources. No one has come forward to claim much else officially. But, i’d still bet the farm it has everything to do with codebase management and event control (i.e. certain servers having stuck or broken events and others not) and adding in the separate servers controlling the China content. I think what it came down to was a lot of extra work to keep everything separated/sorted and less buggy. Which really is a good thing, however, the game launched and continues to maintain a game mode specifically server community oriented and the impact of that has rippled down throughout the game.

A second problem was introduced at the same time, by consolidating the world events. It literally forced these events to implode, making them far less fun overall. I used to enjoy doing these events with 5 or 6 people, it was challenging enough and enjoyable enough to do regularly. Now i don’t even bother. But it did solve the fact that they actually get completed when they run, yet it’s like trying to fix a clock with a sledge hammer. My personally take is that they are even more broken than before.

I think it’s going to take a lot of work to “fix” this system, but i fear it will be too late if they actually do get it ironed out. As i can say from first hand experience, looking at our servers participation overall, we’ve lost a lot of players. Some due to WvW being stale and the rest to the frustration of having too many people, with too toxic a mix in chat and too many personal issues with megaserver to continue to play. From a personal perspective, ANet is between a rock and a hard place.

The balance of this games eco is actually horrible, it’s why people complain so much about rewards. While i get the global eco structure far out reaches “other games” it’s also caused a very real, very deep problem with GW2’s eco balance. Rewards are always based on value, and it’s kind of odd that the drop rate on something account bound is so heavy handed. (insects now, but others in the past). I’m glad we can buy stuff via the TP and that supply is high, but the way anet implements and balances the drop rates, makes me feel like this game is constantly in beta (at least in eco sense). Does the TP work as intended? Sure, it works great actually, it’s the rest of the game that’s suffering, based on the fact that ANet has to take into account, it’s a global TP system.

GW2 suffers from a lot of problems, really, look at the Mac community or, the bugs introduced that take months to fix, while they focus on adding more bugged content.

One of my personal tell-tale indicators of a failing game is the amount of “whining posts” on the forums (according to some). Yeah, sure we’d all love to know how the gw2 economy was designed and what choices they make for improvement, but i highly doubt John has those answers or that he/she would be willing to share (game breaking and all).

ANet is really not taking risks in the right places, they add new stuff, most of the stuff people actually want they lock behind RNG or gem prices. Overall i think the game is suffering from hard feelings and far too much “labor” and it’s killing the populations confidence in what anet can turn out, that makes them feel satisfied enough to come back.

I know John can’t speak on WvW rewards, but they really need to accelerate what comes out of there or risk losing that dwindling population.

TLDR: the global TP is so heavily considered when offering players with rewards, it’s actually hurting the game as a whole. When are we going to see rewards that mean something? Rewards players earn to add to their collections? Why can you buy legendaries? Probably the worst move ever? Why are the ambrite weapons so heavily handed to RNG and not actually earning them? These are bad choices, yet you keep doing it over and over. I’m pretty sure (based on past experiences) RNG is synonymous with GW2 in popularity. I didn’t expect a gw1 revamp, but this is silly…

I don’t expect John to answer, just some food for thought.

I’ve opened 30 and got one… I wasn’t really looking to get one either. I usually have crap for luck in this game.

Wanze.8410:

munkiman.3068:

Global econ and the players feel a john smith alone can’t handle it.

At least one of the John Smiths already confirmed that there are 2 John Smiths:

John Smith.4610:

RoyHarmon.5398:

John Smith.4610:

insanemaniac.2456:

John Smith.4610:

Actually 9 have sold in the last 24 hours.

omg specific market velocity info

i can feel the chains of your NDA loosening

I have two just in case the first one breaks :P

This was interesting when, at first glance, I read it as “DNA loosening.” And yes, of course you have two, since most eukaryotic DNA is double-stranded. But why all this concern over John Smith’s mitosis?

Well, why not?

When there’s two of me, one will leave to fix other games. Soon there will be no cartels in the gaming industry.
Alternatively, one could be evil and try to take over the world, just throwing that out as a possibility.

John Smith.4610:

A very likely possibility.

John Smith.4610:

John Smith.4610:

A very likely possibility.

Shut up!

Thanks i knew at least 2, but i thought maybe it was an army of john smiths, you know, like the matrix

John Smith.4610:

Psientist.6437:

Color me an impressed Tyrian.
I hope the color isn’t account bound because Wanze and John Smith deserve some of that color, in shades.
I haven’t made it through the first page and I had to post at least that sentiment.

My question:

Information releases that talk about changes to in game systems impact the market. The information concerning changes to the dye mechanic came in dribbles and the market reacted as any market would to incomplete information.

If it were up to you, would you have released all of the information concerning changes to the dye system at once?

Unfortunately, releasing problem isn’t a single variable problem. There is an unbelievable amount of work required to release information in an official/public way.

So, only two? well i thought i had it bad with 4 releasing all of EA’s digital/print assets. I hope they pay you partially in all the coffee and tea you can drink!

It’s kinda sad we can’t ask core questions without the cold shoulder , but i fully understand a broken economy from over zealous talking points. However:

Tell us about your struggles as an MMO economists: there are tidbits here and there on the forums, but i would assume the biggest challenge would be answering these threads., maybe moreso than actually balancing the econ

Also, how many on your team? Global econ and the players feel a john smith alone can’t handle it. Who knows, you might be a 2 person team tackling a global econ. or maybe you have 15 or 20, it’s a big job.

The wolves howl you can interrupt, even if they get a short burst off, it significantly reduces retaliation. Husk you can condi and avoid, they are pretty slow and shockwave thing takes forever to get off, giving you tons of time to evade. I found Salma annoying at first, but once i learned the mobs, it was pretty much a cake walk.

Wasn’kitten bug that some people didn’t get the gear box at the end? Pretty sure that’s why some got garbage and others got rare/exos…

Vayne.8563:

Phoenixlin.8624:

Dude just because your time zone sucks now the rest of the players are all suffering -_-

However, before long ago the megaservers, players suggested an underflow system, like the old overflow one. Instead of creating new maps when a map is full, it is suggested servers that have less than x many players in a map y should be merged into the same map at that moment. Of course suggestions were more detailed (and i didn’t remember most of them), but all of the offered ones were better than megacrap (at the worst case scenario, underflow system could be equally bad as megacrap =))

My time zone sucks. And everyone in Australia and New Zealand and Asia. And everyone in the US with a night job. Or who has insomnia. Or who plays early morning before work. And people on low pop servers, who didn’t even know about guesting.

And all the new players who buy the game on sale and play and don’t see anyone in mid level zones and leave.

Unless you think Anet made this decision for me and me alone and no one else. I’m pretty sure you don’t think that.

I’m sorry, but i really don’t think ANet did this for that purpose. I’m fully of the idea that there were technical reason with the launch of China. Those are very likely to be a synchronizing issue and the way they needed to configure the servers in China.

Regardless of the reasons or if this was some ultimate goal since release, it breaks the community apart, period. It’s made a pretty large number leave the game, people that were long term players that paid for gem store items. I’ve talked to plenty of people on our server (by plenty, i mean close to 1000), it’s introduced too many “problems” to solve one thing, more people on a map. Arguably, that’s not always a good thing either. In anyone’s scenario, how are world events becoming trivial a good thing for anyone? So the dozen or so events that actually were a challenge for lower pop servers and arguably “fun” are now spam 1 fests, which are boring. Maybe you’re right, maybe that’s what the data says and those people are in the minority, but we can’t possibly think breaking the social aspect is a positive thing. They haven’t responded since this is how it HAS to be. Not because they don’t have a solution, since there isn’t a solid one that would solve most of the issues people have with it.

It’s really hard to get new players in WvW, since once in game, it really doesn’t matter what server you’re on. Yes, it’s tough for the oceanic crew, but this really doesn’t “fix” it, it’s a minor band-aid, that will work for a short while for people into open world event participation. Then they realize how trivial and laggy these trivial bosses are and say “not worth it”. They really obviously didn’t plan for this, otherwise the Fire Ele would be a Tequatl event or at least tougher than it is now. Not that i think that’s a good solution.

Kohlteth.3715:

So where is the vine heading that is affecting Fort Marriner ? and why is it only THAT WP in LA that is doing it ? ( that I have found anyways )

http://i.imgur.com/2GBo51U.png

Not even close, there are quiet a few.

Rabe.2456:

onemantankwall.3641:

http://guildmag.com/magazine/issue9/interview.htm
It was said in an interview shortly prior to release. gw.dat image of Arah’s map that has a dragon corpse, but it doesn’t really match the release one and outside one wing (the other missing/covered), it doesn’t look like Zhaitan too much – on the map, it’s located SE of where the GL is.

dat map with dragon in it: http://i.imgur.com/AluWU.jpg
dat map without dragon: http://i.minus.com/jvAjEof21jMx4.jpg

There’s multiple changes between them, only the general layout remaining the same, and the latter seems to be the release one.

So it seems that Zhaitan’s corpse may have been removed – at least from the map itself.
And if u want farther proof google zhaitan carcass pre-launch, it was placed in beta but was actually redesigned then scrapped all together because zhaitan was actually too freakin big for the current map of arah that was released i would provide more but just got to work

There should be a 1o1 how to cite… Sauce: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/72448-zhaitans-remains/#entry2035923

Regarding the vines, does anybody know how fast they spread? It seems to take longer than a day.

cpg.7140:

The chaos crystal cavern is connected in terms of lore (although I can’t remember the specifics) with the Thaumanova Reactor and I suppose, therefore, dragon energy, so that’s likely the thinking behind it.

See my screenshot below.

I hate when they merge threads and we loose the discussion.

It seems like the vines heading to those places makes sense and ties in with the way Scarlets mobile portal device would function. Each of those have creatures that phase in like that. Portals/WP likely contain a pretty high concentration of magic, making good targets for magic consuming dragons.

There are only 4 places i can think of that creatures from all over “blink” in and out. Shattered Henge (next to tangle root), Crystal Chaos, thermanova and the Infinity Coil. I could be wrong on that, but they also “blink” in just like Scarlets army did during the invasions.

There is a whole theme on this mobile portal business. Could be connected.

Come to think of it, isn’t that how all steam creatures come in? With that big lighting flash thing?

narwhalsbend.7059:

Inculpatus cedo.9234:

Probably one of those creatures that_shaman uncovered. Cool!

What creatures might you be talking about?

He said he’s saving that one for last. Last time i posted a link to a spoiler i got a slap. Google that_shaman and look for his posts on reddit. He’s done 3 renders of the new models he found in the dat file.

Lommy.9163:

I don’t know if it’s just me, but all the WPs that were flickering yesterday have stopped…

Edit: Except Concordia.

If it’s like the others, you’ll be seeing a vine at them soon.

skullmount.1758:

onemantankwall.3641:

His body would hold the magic he absorbed just like glints body with the aspects hes literally a giant elder dragon loot sack waiting to be devoured or u can also compare it to the magic in jormags tooth unless its consumed its there to be claimed idk why anet let the body just fall without disposing of the body it creates a huge plot hole, ring of fire (where prim is) is right next to orr, mordy map hops with vines, the body is beyond easily accessible, if another dragon was to consume his magic (even if its just outta spite of each other, that dragon would be crazily unstoppable

Even the zephyrites have crazy mad power from glints body (whos only a champion) if ANYONE went after zhaitans power they would reach god status

True, I didn’t think of Glint’s body. But maybe Elder dragons are different?
Maybe that could partially explain Teq’s increased “power”, that he’s been feeding on Zhaitan’s corpse while he’s out there.

I’m sure you can find it somewhere, but i’m pretty sure this is the “excuse” for Teqs power increase.

Pixelpumpkin.4608:

munkiman.3068:

How about alot – instead of a lot… I skip most of the misspelled and horrible sentence structured posts most of the time on any forum. Not that i’m the best person at all to judge, but some people don’t even try.

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.ca/2010/04/alot-is-better-than-you-at-everything.html

Ha! I actually just started reading her stuff. That’s a good one!

proviticus.4183:

Lasica.5068:

proviticus.4183:

I’ve seen a lot of “mother kitten” this and “mother kitten” that, but seriously don’t these people realize they’re cats once they’re at a fertile age?

No they are mollys (or queens if in heat, nursing, or mothering).

I had never heard of this before. TIL. I shall accept people saying mother molly (?) or mother queen (?), but still think mother cat is the most appropriate

Not sure if you’re being silly, but you do know “kitten” is the censor replacement on these forums. I’m sure you can imagine what it’s censoring

How about alot – instead of a lot… I skip most of the misspelled and horrible sentence structured posts most of the time on any forum. Not that i’m the best person at all to judge, but some people don’t even try.

I posted the path here: https://dviw3bl0enbyw.cloudfront.net/uploads/forum_attachment/file/158157/Vine_map.jpg
It looks like it skips right to Fort Mariner.

Ronin.7381:

Also, Fort Marriner in LA is flickering.

Someone mentioned Concordia is now doing it too but we all know Concordia is DoA come Tuesday :P

If you go down from Fort Marriner, Bloodcoast Ward and Archen Foreland (Bloodtide Coast) are flickering as well, but then it looks like it goes straight to Concordia.

I’m pretty sure there is some logic behind the path, either ley lines or something else, but it does sort of skip around passed Kessex, unless i’m missing some.

Once you get out of Kessex, there really isn’t any defined path…

Earthworks has a vine now, both Cereboth Canyon and Darkwound defile are flickering. Odd that it’s going south, unless it’s actually headed through the dominion of winds? I’ve yet to see Delanian flicker.

Xar.6185:

Vayne.8563:

I’m not sure what you want them to say. First you identify problems, then you try to find solutions to problems. They you try to implement the solutions. There’s nothing to say until they actually figure out the best way to go forward from this point. It doesn’t take a day or two. It takes time.

I know what I want them to say.

For all we know they may not see the problems that are being described in this thread as issues that need fixing. I want them to acknowledge the issues as they see them.

Tweaking / refining the algorithm is fine, dandy and definitely needed but the problems with the megaserver, (from the point of view of some of the posters in this thread) go well beyond a better matching algorithm.

I want some acknowledgement that the good things the megaserver brought came at a cost, it isn’t all sunshine and roses. Or some reasoning that the good things the megaserver brought are worth the sacrifices made and that the problems being brought to light in this thread either are directly being worked on or that they aren’t really issues from their point of view.

I want to know that just about 3 months of feedback isn’t being ignored. Because that is the perception that silence gives. Ignore it, they’ll get used to it kind of mentality.

A generic we’re working on it could mean anything from algorithm refinement to hardware perfomance. They may not be working on what the perceived problems are.
It is just to vague.

This, pretty much.

It’s a much more toxic environment now. Work, time and money we’ve put into things to enhance our server communities are all in vain and this doesn’t even speak to the time an effort of the API developers. There is just so much that got tossed out the window with the intro of the megaserver and set world event schedule. The only thing i can think of is that their hands are tied and this is what we are all stuck with going forward. I’d really rather not believe they simply don’t care, or are too busy to address this glaring problem directly with us.

I could post a conversation one of our Radio DJ’s had with an anet employee that basically stated it’s not the best thing they could have done. So i’m really unsure where i personally go from here, i really don’t plan on playing as much as i did and i’m certainly not going to spend money in the gemstore on giveaways anymore. I actually don’t even know if it’s worth running a server community site at this point. It’s pretty sad to have to come to these realizations.

There isn’t a solution. I don’t know how they thought building a game mode that pits servers against each other and then lumping them together would be a good idea, even remotely. If the big concern was the early game population, then lump those maps together. It’s now a giant wound they are trying to cover with a band-aid.

Our participation within our server community is so low, that in fact, we’ve been bleeding players, even with the release of new content. It’s such a drastic change, so impacting and widespread, that they are actually losing players because of it. I’m sorry but that’s simply unacceptable to remain hush-hush about any intent or direction to fix things are, this should be the utmost priority. And in all seriousness, i don’t think people would be fully satisfied unless the system went back to how it was before.

Right now i think it’s really justified to feel like second class citizens, because, well, China.