Guild Wars 2

Orr is both challenging and funny.
It’s challenging since advancement is difficult for the newly level capped player with gear and trait tree that make him kill slow and survive less, but this is the place to go.

Nevertheless, after an hour and a half of dying and making some progress, jumping into other groups events, I did get somewhat better gear, unlocked 3 more waypoints, and realized I still have lots of hours of play.

Why was it funny?
When I made it to 80, all I wanted was to unlock all the waypints near all the instance Entrances so I don’t keep groups waiting while I discover waypoints.
I tried to get from Fort Trinity to Conquest Marina and then to Rally waypoint via the sea. At the time I got near the Marina waypoint, I had like 15 sharks tailing me, only to get out of the water where there were 15 zombies waiting.
It looked like a mix of a funny cartoon and a bad zombie movie, such as if you could look at a toon mouse fleeing from a horde of cats, and then a transition to a horror movie where zombies spawn from all over.
At the thaught of this “brave” runaway I laughed so hard that I couldn’t open my eyes and I didn’t see I was stuck with what seemed like 20 zombies preparing for a meal.
I rallied at the Marine only to start fleeing from the sharks again.

So what if it’s a bit difficult at the moment? overcoming difficulties is fun, and it’s not like you had to work your way through a real life 4 year challenge. What’s the fuss about?
Rally, repair, and try again.

@Kiranslee
Not all games suit all people.

I found WoW not suitable for me. End game for me, being a horde on Neptulon was mainly:
1. sunday: log in, fly around Orgrimmar, looking for a raid group for like 3 hours during which time a total of 7 level 85’s logged int. Ask a GM to transfer my chars to a live server, getting denied, Posting a request in Blizz support for a transfer, stating that I’m not willing to pay to transfer if this transfer is required for this game to be somewhat fun, getting denied again since they can’t let me have this service for free.
2. monday – same, this time I’ll do some dailies, but… don’t want to since it’s exactly the same as yesterday. still, you want to do something besides flying around orgrimmar counting level 85’s who log in.
3. tuesday – well, no real new content, so it’s the same.
4. Finally, we won Tol Barad, since Allies are doing raids. But… there are less than 10 people so we can’t form a group. well, we’ll look for a raid, maybe there are people doing a raid since it’s the reset. However, I missed the weekly realm only raid since I tried Tol Barad. Maybe next week.

You’re right, it is a fun end game experience.

There were servers with people who were actually playing, but 6 level 85 chars * 20EU is 120EU on top of the mothly 13EU, which seem quite an exaguration when you already pay the monthly fee for having fun, and not having any. And the only reason I had 6 chars is that there were no people to do the end game content with, so I leveled some, but it wasn’t fun anymore, so like any other single player game, once you complete the duable content it’s game over.

As I said, not all games suit all people.

Also, I still remember from WoW how you wait for the weekly reset, form the group, only to find that 5/8 bosses are sooo boring, and the amounts of trash (most of the raids) needed to be killed in order to get there are vast and may in time be deal breakers.
But you must do all of it in order to get to the final boss, on which you’ll spend the rest of your week making progress in order to acheive the gear that will allow you to go through all this again in hc mode.

Except for the gear improvement, how is this a different experience than taking hard world events with tough champions?

It’s lacking 25 man instanced content. You’re right.

However, I made it to level 80 yesterday, and just tried to unlock the waypoints near Arah in order to avoid keeping people waiting for me to discover.

I tried to simply walk up there, and was constantly attacked by several monsters.
I ended riding a wave of people doing DEs on the way south just so I don’t get overwhelmed, found myself in an event to kill a priest (don’t remember it’s name) for a skill point with 30 or so other people. we failed the event timer, and lost a lot of money to repairs. This took altogather including the part I tried alone around 90 minutes, and I only made progress through 2 waypoints, needless to say I’m still very far from the instance.

I haven’t completed all maps, haven’t capped any of my crafting, have yet to experience pvp properly, and of course, try some alts for different combat experiences.

I have done only 2 instances since I was on a server with no story mode groups. This felt like being a horde on Neptulon before I quit WoW when I did /who and got 5 people as a reply, with Blizz not caring about the realm not being fun anymore, they wanted 20EU each char for the move.
On GW2, I don’t pay monthly, and I transferred for free to a server where within 2 hours of being on the server I already completed another one.

I think I need 3 more months just to make story and exp mode completed with around 80% of world map. There will be new content before that.

In WoW, if you only play 1 character, you end up with the same problem at wednesday night after you complete your weekly normal/hc raid and the LFR one.
other than those few hours, it’s just dungeons and pvp, without the dynamic events.

First thing I want to appologize for not being too involved during this weekend.
Apart from my family obligations, I manged to get to level 80 on my main, and wanted to clear the paths to the instances so I won’t keep people waiting if we’re gonna go to instances I haven’t done yet.

Anyways, now that I’m 80, I’ll be more than willing to help people run through the ones I did story mode, and would also like to complete some stories I haven’t done yet, so I’ll be online tonight at around 18:30 gmt, and I’ll try to form a group if one won’t exist.

@bri,
Thanks m8, I’m already in the guild.
I won’t be able to play for at least 10 hours from now, but when I do log, I’ll probably transfer to GH.

Here’s the deal:
I was questing for 1.5 hours yesterday in the CoF entrance area, spamming to get into the CoF story mode. There wasn’t even 1 other player looking for it. However, there were at least 10 parties for explore mode.

I’m really considering transfer, and even went to the server choice menu, when I was that blacktide is actuall full.
However, I find no other member in this thread who is also in blacktide, nor when I play, I can’t find people to go story mode instances.
The result is that at level 75, due to me not wishig to spend 3-4 hours spamming near instance entrances whenever I want to instance, I only completed ac story mode.

Glitch has recommended transferring to either Aurora Glade or Gunnar’s Hold, which according to this thread will at least group me up with some nice people.
The only reason I didn’t transfer already was that I saw that blacktide was full, and I thought that this is a result of the haloween.
Is it the situation on other servers, or that blacktide is the only server with no story mode groups?

I don’t want to commit to a guild since I have 2 babies, and can’t play at regular schedules. However, I’m always willing to jump in with someone who wants quest buddy or need of a story mode group (not that I have much to offer there, but when I do, I’d love to help with that).

Should I transfer?

I think, from my GW2 noob PoV, having played WoW for 4.5 years, that by endgame content people mean several things:
1. once you completed all the available challenging content for your chars, you’re expecting content that introduces new challenges. This concept often misread as “in order to make the future content more challenging, give me better gear and make that content impossible for certain levels of gear”.
2. I think this is more important for a vast range of people nowadays. Those who have put in many hours into the game want to see them benefit something over those who haven’t. I remember several people stopped playing WoW since acquiring flying mounts became easy for other players. They didn’t care they have mounts, they were bothered by other people having flying mounts 2.
Looking at that in GW2, this game is full of it, allowing players to play with each other regardless of level caps rather than making all wait to level 80 to play certain content.
The ones who like to see others work hard to get to some content would probably like so see explore mode dungeons restricted to level 80, like the heroic content in WoW.
If you like it or not really depends on what type of person you are.

Waypoint cost is indeed a major consideration to take before jumping around, when you have not made any significant cash from quests and crafting. This is probably a charactaristic of newly dinged level 80 (or close to 80) main chars of players who want to complete some events/hearts/vistas in order to complete maps.

However, the cost can be significantly reduced if you’re planning ahead.
A few methods I use include:
1. to travel to cities, use the mists portal to LA, and then portal to the city you want. it’s absloutly free.
2. use #1 to reduce costs of traveling to othe maps, by traveling to the nearest city, and then either exit the city at the gate to your zone, or portal to your zone. at times, this can reduce costs of portaling by half comparing to directly portaling to your desired zone.
3. if you’re low on money, then you probably can make some use of the geathering nodes (trees, food, ores) on the way by walking towards your designated area. if you don’t need the collectibles for crafting, you can sell them at trading posts. it takes up to 10 minutes to cross a zone if you’re going directly to the zone portal you’re aiming at, and stopping only for gathering.
4. some escort events (even the ones you already done) will take you towards your goal, and the the end of them you’ll get some cash, and while at it, you can loot/gather for some extra cash, and junk sales. This will prolong the journy, but will reduce the costs and will earn you cash.
5. plan your progress through a zone. start at the norther part of it, and “iron” east to west on your way south, clearing all vistas, skill points, hearts, etc. When you’ll get to the south part, you would have made some nice cash, as well as xp progress, and if you cleared the whole map, some more rewards, and have spend 0 copper traveling.

The key concept is planning your route.
Random waypoint traveling can cost a lot.

That’s my 2 cents for traveling cost reduction.
Sorry for the bad English

Thanks RAWR.

This has been helpful.

There is one extreme difficulty in this game, and it’s finding a group for story mode dungeons.
This, at times, is practically impossible.

Other than that, the game isn’t hard at all.
There are some champion fights that are harder than others, but with sufficient number of people (usually you don’t even need 5 people), are very doable with no real fuss.

If I want to server transfer, and I have mail with items I haven’t claimed and items up for sale on the TP, are these items trasferred as is, or should I collect them first?

Thanks.

Thanks Glitch.
I’ll check those servers out.
I’d like to join the operation union too, but other than posting on the forum, I didn’t find anything I can do there, nor where I can answer people’s questions.
I’ll read about it more thoroughly later.

cheers.

Name: Omerk
Main Character: Nitbel – guardian
Current Server: blacktide
Interested Activities: Casual PvE and some occasional PvP
Active: Most of the weekdays, not too much each day (have 2 young babies, which consume a lot more time than gearing up heroic raids in WoW).
Would I like to join the Project?: Sure, love to learn new stuff from people and love to share what I know.

I agree, especially when taking on lower level zones with waypoint fee scaled to your actual level.

By good server I mean one that has more than 1 story group per day, and in order to get yourself in one of these groups you wouldn’t have to be in a guild, or spend 3 hours spamming and waiting till your “excessive message” to go away, even when it shows up after only 3 messages.

I guess I’m referring to population oriented choice, but being a total noob, not sure it’s the right aspect to look for.

Thanks.

I’m currently on blacktide, and apart from the areas within reasonable radius from LA, there seem to be no people around, and even in the areas within the said radius, story mode groups seem scarce to don’t exist.
Explore mode groups also don’t come very easy, as I’d expect, but still they form within 20-30 mins max since spam start.

I’m aware that during Halloween, people focus on the holiday’s events, but still, this server seem very poor.

I think all (or most) of these suggestions have been discussed, but still, I wanted to provide my 2 cents, and maybe a new feature that haven’t been introduced/discussed yet.

1. reward players for boosting story mode groups. That means that for players who have completed story mode, there will be rewards (tokens/karma/loot/whatever) based on how many players they helped, divided by how many players helped. (if any player completing the story mode for first time awards 30 karma, then 2 players helping 3 others will receive 45 karma each, etc.).
2. scale difficulty downwards for groups with less than 5 people. This will help a lot, since most of the time you can find a group of 3 or 4 people, but not 5.
3. This one I think is the most helpful, and the most feasible, since it involves no change in dungeon rewards/difficulty, or any other change made to the dungeon progress itself, and this is the dungeon finder tool. The reason is that I can’t find a group to go TA story while in this map, since there are no 5 people who are now in the map waiting for that group, but I’m sure there are at least 50 people somewhere in my server that are willing to go there, but don’t want to spend the time spamming near the dungeon entrance.
4. not as efficient as the dungeon finder, but still, must be easy to implement, and will also help worldwide and this is a worldwide LFG chat channel. Imagine setting your status at LFG, and then seeing all the people in the world lfg’s messages. In order to prevent spamming, this can be filtered with specifying the type and content you’re looking for, i.e. lfg chat channel with filters for each dungeon/WvW/sPvP. Also, if you implement this, try to implement a gold spammers filter, since a worldwide channel will draw those tedious leaches.

Since it only happens in this game, I wouldn’t run to update/format/purchase new hardware.

This happens for tons of configurations, varying from low end to extremely high end machines. This happens also for both radeon and geforce based machines.

This also happens at various points in the game and the crash reports indicate different types of issues from audio through multi processor machines ending in graphic issues.

The pattern I clearly see (at least it seem to be the common to all problems) is that the game is trying to invoke a native os operation (such as calling an audio effect, or trying to render a texture), which the os doesn’t support (due to different hardware manufacturer implementation or whatever), and the game ‘assumes’ the request will be performed, and tries to keep running with the called functionality which doesn’t exist at the time of the crash.
At that point, the hardware is failing, and the result is the crashes.

It has nothing to do with the machine’s configuration or drivers.
It is a matter of Anet updating the game so it won’t ‘assume’ anything and will still be able to run even when the operation can’t complete.
The least they can do is update the game to crash to desktop rather than crashing the whole machine.

BTW, I also found that after starting the game, selecting the gw2.exe process in task manager, and setting it’s affinity to cores 0 and 1 (thus eliminating it’s muli core processing, keeping it at dual core), helps a lot to delay the next crash, but it won’t solve it.

I only had 1 5 hours session without crashes when I set the affinity to cores 0 and 1, and after the first dungeon run, exited the game and restarted it, again, with affinity set.
During this session, I had no crashes.

I hardly call this a solution, but it’s much better than a machine crash.

Rayti, it’s not your machine.
Mine is also a fresh installed one. Bios updated a week ago, graphic driver from either ms windows updates, or directly from nvidia.

There are tons of posts regarding this and the bsod issue. The common thing about all is only GW2. all of these people don’t experience any problems in other games.

A suggestion to fix this:
I’m a noob, and playing like one, and get almost no invites. only 4-5 times so far.

play like a noob when traveling the world, use your abilities wrong if at all, and see this stops.

Haven’t done too many, just a few.
Being a real noob myslef still carrying bad habits from 4.5 years of WoW, I find the people who have already done the dungeon very polite and patient.
I expected to be kicked after 3-4 mob groups, but no. People are really kind forgiving.

There was one group with a level 80 ranger who kept ordering me to tank and manage the pulls since I play guardian.
I was under the impression I was doing something wrong by rushing into a pack of mobs alone getting one shoted, and then seeing the group being mad for me not healing, since I’m also the healer, apparently, as well as the tank.

other than that, it’s a nice experience.

Bad news, it happened again after around 3 hours of play.
When I arrive home at the evening I’ll attach the crash log.

I wanted to share with people the steps I’ve taken which for the moment seem to make the crashes go away.

Background:
I have 2 machines at home capable of running gw2. Both are quite old, but both make the min requirements for the game.
On the older one (core dou 2, old radeon gpu, 2gb ram) this has never happened.
On the newer one, (quad i3, 8gb, gts 250), this has happened every time I played.

Both run win 7 sp1 64bit.

I assumed this has something to do with either the radeon vs nvidia or the quad vs the core duo.

On the newer machine I tried the following steps in this order:
1. right click the game exe file, and change compatibility to ‘win xp sp3’, as well as checking ‘disable desktop composition’. At this point, the BSOD’s stopped, but the black screen must hard reset didn’t.
2. uninstall avira antivirus and install microsoft security essentials. Now the frequency of pc freeze improved, but not solved.
3. In Nvidia control panel set the ‘use advanced 3d image settings’ to ‘single display performance’. This also improved the frequency but didn’t solve it altogather.
4. Again in Nvidia control panel, i changed the ‘antialiasing – mode’ to ‘application-controlled’.
After that, I didn’t experience the freezes again.

I’d like to thank the people who posted the suggestions for fixes:
crashfixes.com for the compatibility and antivirus suggestions: http://crashfixes.com/guild-wars-2-crash-error-lag-freeze-slow-connection-problem/
jhonson4 at guildwars2guru.com:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/topic/54676-screen-flickering-and-black-screen-crash/
and Matt from ANet:
https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/tech/Black-Screen-Issue-Nvidia

I hope this helps some of us who are experiencing this extremely annoying issue.