Guild Wars 2

From what I understood is that leveling from crafting was nerfed from 10 levels per profession to 7 levels per profession, because too many people were calling it “pay to win”, “Unfair”, etc. And now you want it buffed back to where it was? Or remove it all together? Crafting to level, even as is, is a good thing. especially for people with alts. Its a fantastic gold sink, it allows people to “PHIW” and not be forced into doing something.

krneki.2495:

I am playing EotM and im getting quite a lot of levels.
But anyway how much is 2500 gems in gold??

2500 gems is about 246 gold.

http://www.gw2spidy.com/

Of course this is subject to change, this is the current conversion rate

We will get the skin as soon as mounts and dueling and open world PvP are introduced to this game. :P

This just in: Black Lion scraps and tickets have double the drop rate.
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/double-black-lion-claim-ticket-chances/

Ok course its still a chance. But with the monetization of the keys in order to get one of these scraps/tickets for a skin, it just a different way to get them. If people want to farm gold to get the skins. Great! If people want to do key runs to get scraps/tickets. Great! If people want to buy keys to get scraps/tickets. Great!
Overall though, buying keys to get the skins is a terrible investment, unless yo udon’t mind spending the money to support the game. I don’t feel that this is in anyway wrong, or misleading, or a bad idea. It offers people various ways to get the items they want.

JasmineLong.6514:

pdavis.8031:

Wait….what? The Spider queen is OP and needs a nerf? I thought that all the bosses were too easy and needed an upgrade?

I’m calling troll on this one. Either that or the group the OP was with either didn’t know the mechanics, had 0 DPS or were AFK. Its not too hard, just takes a bit more skill then stacking in a corner and spamming 1,2,3,4,5….

Nooooo, spider queen is too hard. I had my team wipe on it recently, true story brah.

The only times I’ve wiped are with inexperienced pugs or AFKers. I am ok with inexperienced pugs, they gotta learn somehow, but AFKers? Not so much.

Wait….what? The Spider queen is OP and needs a nerf? I thought that all the bosses were too easy and needed an upgrade?

I’m calling troll on this one. Either that or the group the OP was with either didn’t know the mechanics, had 0 DPS or were AFK. Its not too hard, just takes a bit more skill then stacking in a corner and spamming 1,2,3,4,5….

krneki.2495:

Are you sure that amount of exp is the same in each level.

Your right I misspoke. Its not the same amount (number) of EXP needed per level. But the experienced gained from events and such is the same percentage.

“Experience gains are based upon percentages of the amount of experience to level. For example, a level 16 player completing a level 16 event with a gold reward gives 616 XP out of the 8790 XP needed to reach level 17 or roughly 7%. Likewise, a level 26 player completing a level 26 event with a gold reward gives 1043 of the 14900 XP needed to reach 27 which is also 7%. Thus as long as you are playing content designed for your level, leveling will progress at a somewhat constant rate.”

From the wiki (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Experience)

Of course this factors on doing the level appropriate content. It is a slightly lower percentage if you are a higher level doing lower level content. But my main point is that leveling is fairly consistant in that it takes the same amount of time, doing level appropriate content, when leveling from say 25-26 as it does from 79-80.

Also the first 15 levels is a bit different, but still allows for a consitant leveling rate.

mtpelion.4562:

I believe Gaile mentioned something about the copyrighted name policy a while back. I’ll see if I can find it, but the gist of it was that copyrighted names are changed at the request of the copyright owner.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/Question-about-Trademark-Names

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/account/My-Username

I found a couple. Basically, if the copyright owner doesn’t care, then neither does ArenaNet.

Excellent post! That actually makes alot of sense. Although I can’t see Marvel, or anyone else, getting up in arms about a player name in an RPG, I would think doing so would cast them in a very bad light.

khani.4786:

pdavis.8031:

That is a good question. I’d be curious to see the answer as well. However, while “Captain America” and “Sailor Moon” may be copyrighted or tradmarked, “Princess Snow White” is a little fuzzy. The story of Snow White has been around for a couple of hundred years, and Disney holds a trademark, which from what I understand, only really applies to the Disney verison of the story and characters (i.e. the names of the dwarves, Prince Charming, etc.) So while it may be perfectly fine to use the name Snow White, as long as it’s not directly in reference to the Disney verison, the other names would be in violation of the naming terms.

Also I personally believe that they included that as more of a legal safeguard more than anything. So if someone from Marvel were to come on, see the name Captain America, and complain, they can force a name change. But aren’t really concerned as long as the name isn’t offensive or vulgar.

And that makes sense, but what’s the point of having that legal safeguard there? When a name that does violate their naming policy gets reported….why is it “ignored” and these names get to continue on being as they are?

As to not clog up the system I only ever report a name I see that goes against their policy once. If I’ve reported it once and it is still there days/months later…not my problem. I did my part by reporting it once, no sense it making multiple reports.

The legal safeguard is there so they can have all their bases covered. So if there is a complaint from a company about copyright or trademark violations, they can point to the fact that it says in their policy that such names are not allowed, and force a name change on the player for being in violation, while keeping themselves free from blame. Many companies have the same type of legal jargon in their policies to cover their bases, although in many cases such things are not strictly enforced.

Neko Dudley.2495:

You probably do not need a new PC. I’m using an old AMD A6 and doing just fine. That said, if you are using 32 bit windows then you need to upgrade to 64 first, then get more RAM. Before you buy ram, read the motherboard manual to make sure you are buying the right kind. You may have to look online for the mb-manual. You can usually find identifying information on the motherboard, or you can google search the serial number.

While upgrading to a 64bit version of windows and new RAM may be a great idea, it all depends on his motherboard and if it supports 64bit. If it’s an older x86 motherboard, upgrading to a 64bit OS won’t do anything, unless his motherboard supports more than 4GB of RAM. So unless he has more information on what kind of motherboard, how much memory it can support, etc. there isn’t much that we can do to assist.

khani.4786:

I want to know:

Should I continue to report names that violate the GW2 Naming Policy (https://www.guildwars2.com/en/legal/guild-wars-2-naming-policy/) since it seems from the most recent post on Facebook that at least some Anet folks don’t care about people who violate this policy. (e.g. Captain America, Sailor Moon, Princess Snow White, etc)

This is not in reference to people “cosplaying” or creating a certain look. This question is only in reference to the names they choose

This is the facebook post I am referencing: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152393507864209.1073741843.114036714208&type=1

That is a good question. I’d be curious to see the answer as well. However, while “Captain America” and “Sailor Moon” may be copyrighted or tradmarked, “Princess Snow White” is a little fuzzy. The story of Snow White has been around for a couple of hundred years, and Disney holds a trademark, which from what I understand, only really applies to the Disney verison of the story and characters (i.e. the names of the dwarves, Prince Charming, etc.) So while it may be perfectly fine to use the name Snow White, as long as it’s not directly in reference to the Disney verison, the other names would be in violation of the naming terms.

Also I personally believe that they included that as more of a legal safeguard more than anything. So if someone from Marvel were to come on, see the name Captain America, and complain, they can force a name change. But aren’t really concerned as long as the name isn’t offensive or vulgar.

Blaeys.3102:

Unfortunately, this is a player created problem. ArenaNet cannot say anything without everyone interpreting it as a “promise” and then lambasting them if they have to change course for any reason.

What I would most like to see from ArenaNet is some kind of general communication about short term plans for the different aspects of the game.

From a purely selfish POV, I would like to hear anything they can tell us (knowing that they are not making “promises”) related to ongoing plans for guild missions, dungeons, new traits/utilities, spvp and WvW, none of which have gotten a lot of airtime lately. Will those aspects get the same attention we are currently seeing for open world and living story instances in the foreseeable future?

These may seem like small issues, but I know alot of people play the game specifically because of those areas and are probably starting to feel like nothing is being done (when it most probably is).

I created this thread (https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Questions-about-GW2-for-devs/first#post4266691) for just that purpose. Maybe if we can get enough respectful posts and questions, maybe Anet will be more inclined to respond? At least heres hoping.

Dwaynas Avatar.1562:

John Smith.4610:

The gold/gem rates have very little to do with gold inflation inside the game.

Ok, I’m not the best at economics, so please explain me what of the following is wrong:

Game Inflation:
More Money in the game, so players have more gold to spend on items,
but Item quantity stay the same -> prices go up.

Players want things in the gemstore, but don’t want to spend real money -> they convert gold to gems (Gem is kind of an item).

The more gold the players have, the more they are willing to spend on gems
-> gemprices go up.

So in my opinion the gemprices reflect inflation to a high degree (maybe not totally because it depends also on the gemstore itself, if it has good offers people want the things more and the prices go up, if it has bad offers people don’t convert much, so prices are stable (history shows: gemprices never really fall ), but for the most part
I think it does.

Hopefully you can explain it to me more

From what I understand, the reason for the price increase on items, (I’m sure you are refering to T6 mats and precursers) is not because of inflation, and more people having more money, is that these items are in much higher demand. More people have been leveling their crafting to 500, making legendaries, and ascended. As more people are willing to pay a higher price, these prices will naturally rise.

As far as gold > gem, and gem > gold prices is concerned. There is a set amount of gems that are added to and drawn from when people either buy gems and convert to gold, or use gold to buy gems. The more people use gold to buy gems, it does remove gold from the game, but increases the the price for gems. The more people use RL money to buy gems, and convert to gold, the price goes down. The reason we are seeing higher prices in the gold to gem conversion side, is that more people are buying gems with gold, creating an “imbalance” (if you will) of the gold to gem price.

hope this helps

Atlas.9704:

John Smith.4610:

Step 3 don’t skimp on the extras, advanced statistics and programming. You want to know SQL and python (for now), but you’re way better off with a more fundamental programming education and that means c to c++ to c#, then branching to sql and python.

I apologize for the off topic question, but how difficult is python to learn?
I’ve dealt with C++, played around with C#, and currently working with classic ASP and ASP.NET.
I have been told that if I know C# I should be able to grasp basics. I didn’t know how accurate that was.

Having played around with Python I found it VERY easy to learn. It reminded me alot of GWbasic. Plus being able to import predefined “modules” is awesome and amazing! For example if you are trying to create an RNG type string you could just use “import random” and define the range of random numbers it can choose from. I think it would look something like “import random (100)” and it should generate a random number between 0 and 100.

It’s been awhile since I delved into it, but for much of the simple stuff it wasn’t complicated at all.

Python: “Hello world” = print “Hello world”

C#: “Hello world” = // Hello1.cs
public class Hello1
{
public static void Main()
{
System.Console.WriteLine(“Hello, World!”);
}
}

C++: “Hello World” =
#include <iostream>

int main()
{
std::cout << “Hello World!”;
}

Vinchinzo.4892:

i played gw2 a year a go on my pc was everything okay
now when i return to play gw2 on same pc
when i play gw2 it’s lagging
in every grop event in everything
or in WvW lagging i cant play it anymore so annyoing
so plz tell me how to fix it

here’s my pc
tel® Core™ i5 CPU 760 @ 2.80GHz
cpu speed 2.8 GHz
RAM 3.6gb
graphic card GeForce GTS 450
Required You Have
Icon Pixel Shader version 5.0
Icon Vertex Shader version 5.0
Icon Dedicated Video RAM 1.0 GB

How do you have 3.6GB of ram!? shouldn’t it be at least 4GB?

After being a part of, and witnessing, the great success of the questions about the economy thread in the BLTC forums, I’ve decided to try to do the same thing here. We all have questions about the game. Myself, and I am sure there are others, would like to see some answers to those questions. So I’ve created this thread in the spirit of the JS Q&A thread (as it’s being called).

Please feel free to ask your questions. Note that some of the players may be able to answer some of those questions, as it will give the Devs the opportunity to just quote the post instead of answering directly. As there will be some questions that may start a heated discussion, please stay respectful towards each other and let your question be answered instead of starting a debate.

Although some may have valid complaints, please keep in mind to pose your questions in a respectful manner, and not as an excuse to QQ over something. Lets all keep it civil and simple and hopefully the Devs may respond accordingly.

To start some of the questions I have are:
What typs of things are taken into account when designing open world content for the Living Story? Do you account for the massive “Zerg” or try to keep it more structured around a smaller number of players?

Many people feel that the game population is dwindling. Although I understand why you cannot release the actual numbers, would you be able to comment on how you feel the games population is doing?

When introducing new gem store items, what factors are you taking into consideration on what items are being released? For example, a new type of armor skin. Are you basing say, the assassins outfit, on what the player based has asked for? Or just figured it would be something cool to add, and let those designing the skins have fun?

Also it looks like they started something like that with the Dolyak Express threads, but sadly that kind of died out so…..

Beldin.5498:

John Smith for President ^^

Err .. i mean something like the thread that Wanze started where John answers some
random questions would be nice to have also in other forums.

I agree, however, the BLTC sub forums appears to be far less QQ than much of the other forums, especially the WvW forums. Opening up that type of thread here I feel would quickly turn into a QQ rant/ugly discussion thread quickly. But it could be interesting if it was done in the same respectful manner as the JS Q and A thread…

TPMN.1483:

From what I can tell with DR:
<Character DR>
day 1:
If I perform dungeons (different paths) and multiple I am not affected by DR
(Rares/exotics drop – MF 240%)

Day2:
If I repeat day 1- blues/greens exclusively will drop.

It generally takes 2-3 days of not playing that character at all (forget doing different stuff map completions etc) before DR resets so I start getting Rares/Exotics at all.
The whole character is bugged and drops from everything is lower than it should be.

Account DR:
Where the whole account suffers from DR regardless of what you do.
- This one seems to require doing the same thing all the time (regardless of character): eg doing fractals every day will result in diminishing returns.
Generally from experience it seems to require several days offline or doing something else to reset for a long period of time.

I agree with the poster that DR seems to be a heavy handed and implements too quickly (affecting chests, drops and all rewards). There are many styles of play where individuals will specialise in one aspect (such as Dungeons or Fractals) once they have completed the other content that they enjoy (eg PvE – 100% mapping etc).

Thanks,

I am not too sure about that. I’ve run the same dungeon paths on consecutive days without any noticable DR. Same EXP, money, and loot was sometimes better on a second or third day. Also with fractals. I used to run fractals daily as well. Sometimes 2-3 a day, and didn’t experience DR with those. Again, sometimes getting an ascended drop on later consecutive days. Of course I would do my next highest personal level, then go back and do 10 levels lower for the karma, and never noticed a change.

I think some people are confusing DR with bad RNG. If you take a few days off, go back to a farming area and spend an hour there, with RNG you could get poor drops, but attribute it to DR. I have a few farming areas for T6 mats I like to go to on a daily basis. I recently went to one of those places and after spending an hour there, I wasn’t getting much mats at all, T6 or otherwise. The next day went back to those same places and 95% of mobs killed drop a T5 mat. The third day, a few T5s and several T6s. So it would seem that I was experiencing DR in reverse :P Either way don’t confuse DR with RNG as far as drops. It could be you were just having a bad RNG day and thought it was DR taking effect.

Also from what I understood was that DR didn’t kick in until you were farming an area for at least 2 hours or so. But that of course is based on personal observations and not what it may actually be.

While the Pact was able to defeat Zhaitan, I think that its going to take more then the Pact to take on Mordremoth. The Pact isn’t tied to any nation, or race, either so they would need the Pact to help organize. It makes sense to bring the world leaders together to figure out what needs to be done.

krneki.2495:

I would play the content of the game but if i use the normal way i probably never get to lvl 80 lol.
So is it posible to transfer 2500 gems to coins and the leveling up by crafting??

If you play “the normal way” You’ll level fairly quickly. It doesn’t require more EXP as you get to higher levela to level up. The amount of EXP that is required to get from level 3-4 is the same amount of EXP needed to get from 79-80. Of course it all depends on how much you are able to play. Even as a casual player, maybe 2-3 hours a day, when I do get a chance to play, I have gotten to level 80 in about a month or so just strictly PvE and exploring.

You can skip that with crafting, but it will hurt you in the end. If you are trying to get to level 80 to do the “end game content” (i.e dungeons, new map, LS etc.) You’ll find yourself woefully unprepared, and ill equipped, to do those things and will have a really hard time. Explore and do map completions, dailies, and harvesting EVERY node you can find, and you’ll find you can level up rather quickly. And while doing so you’ll learn your profession, the strengths and weakness, and master the combat mechanics. Do some dungeons along the way, and you’ll be level 80 before you know it.

Teofa Tsavo.9863:

pdavis.8031:

And why should we have an expansion? Because GW1 had them? Because it will add a bunch of content that would be zerged through in a matter of days, and then more QQing about nothing to do. Granted they could have done some of the open world stuff differently, but this was mostly an experiment. To see the best way to implement open world story, and keep it permenant, as well as instanced. I wouldn’t go so far to say it was a fail, but it could have been done better. Also with so many people logging on the first day, all the events were way over crowded, and laggy. After a few weeks, im sure they will calm down, and actually be easier to do.

You do know that the open world content for this chapter is mostly old content with minor add ons? Stuff like adding another totem or piles of rubble to very old content is not, to me, new content.

were you expexting major overhauls of the open world in previous areas? Along the lines of the Tower of Nightmares? Stuff that people are already complaining about and should be removed already? I agree that it could have been done better, amd again feel this was a trial run. Learn what worked, what didnt, and do better next time.

draugris.9872:

pdavis.8031:

Not my rules of ethics, ArenaNets Code of Conduct that users agree to when using the forums.
“•Do not spam. This includes bumping threads or making posts that lack content.”

No i´am sorry but no,

he wrote in his initial post

Due to the rash of necroposting on this subforum, anybody caught posting in a dead thread will be subject to infractions and possible suspensions from this point forward

This tells nothing about the lack of content. It just says if you post something in an old thread you will get infracted.

Don´t you get what this is all about ? They could have easily decided that they auto close old threads without any drama or the need to threaten people. But this is not what they want, what they want is to make people uncertain whether they can post or not and many won´t because they don´t want infractions. Goal achieved, less posts, less complaints, Anet happy.

This is just a lousy attempt to shut people up.

In general providers of forums want to keep information about one topic in one place, for better readability and to keep the boards clean. Anet wants the exact opposite. Hey if a thread about ta topic is 30 day old, please open another thread about the same topic and if that gets thirty days old, rinse repeat. This make absolutely no sense if you want to keep your users informed and information to be accessible. But if you want what Anet wants it makes perfect sense.

Again I am going disagree.
“•Do not spam. This includes bumping threads or making posts that lack content.”

Bumping a thread to call attention that X Y or Z hasnt been implemented is what Mark was refering to. Again, bumping threads is against the Code of Conduct. And only Anet reserves the right to interpret and apply what that means. Why they dont auto close, or lock threads after 30 days is for them to decide.

It seems that much of this community is bent on hating Anet no matter what they do. They issue a warning about bumping threads (which is already outlined in the code of conduct) and people claim its an attempt to shut them up. They come out and say they are working on things but are not at liberty to discuss them. The community is outraged and say they arent working on anything. If this is the attitude of the community, I for one am not surprised they post at all. While it may appear to be “bad business”, even the best customer service eventually just stops responding to threats and rants and insults.

So, just for kicks I looked up how fast our characters run.

So 1 unit =/= 1 inch (wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Range)
And we run at 294 units per second while out of combat (wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Movement_speed)
We are essentially running at 16.70 MPH (294/12= 24.5 feet per second (www.calculateme.com/Speed/FeetperSecond/ToMilesperHour.html)

With a speed buff of 33% it would be 391 units per second/32.5 feet per second/22.15mph

ASP.8093:

pdavis.8031:

I think that a human female warrior would totally win because she can “Outrun a Centaur!!”

The Tamini aren’t exactly breaking any land speed records, though. Their run is more of a jolly bouncy canter.

True, but we have yet to see them at a full gallop. However, if we figure they move at the same average speed of a horse, than even at a canter its 10-17mph. About 30~50mph at full gallop. (Depending on a variety of factors and breed). Although in game mechanically it is shown as much slower. Now if a human female warrior can “run faster than a centaur” we can figure she’ll go at minimum 12-19mph at a fast run, with bursts of up to 35mph with full speed buffs under ideal conditions.
www.ultimatehorsesite.com/info/horsespeedmph.htm

Jonny.6013:

Much shorter loading times for me and slightly improved in game performance on higher settings. Jonny is happy.

Agreed. Im liking this update

Jim Hunter.6821:

Ranger is incredibly fun for roaming. You’ll see a lot of evade bunker regen rangers but I prefer power ranger. Most people are dead before they can get in spitting distance and camps easily flip in under a minute. With the upcoming changes they are going to be devastating as roamers.

Heh…..power ranger…hehe

And why should we have an expansion? Because GW1 had them? Because it will add a bunch of content that would be zerged through in a matter of days, and then more QQing about nothing to do. Granted they could have done some of the open world stuff differently, but this was mostly an experiment. To see the best way to implement open world story, and keep it permenant, as well as instanced. I wouldn’t go so far to say it was a fail, but it could have been done better. Also with so many people logging on the first day, all the events were way over crowded, and laggy. After a few weeks, im sure they will calm down, and actually be easier to do.

Ok pre update: idle in LA at forge and Rata Sum on lowest settings, ~21 FPS
post update: same locations, on medium settings ~19 FPS.

I don’t know if that was the driver, or that my machine can actually handle medium settings,, but a ~2FPS loss is acceptable for me otherwise I didnt notice any major changes graphically with the driver update. Also it was driver update 340.5 I think.

@the device

Just for kicks: https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Are-necros-op-now/page/5#post2314579

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/balance/Fix-deathshroud-first/page/2#post4257900

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/professions/necromancer/Necromancer-op

Again your missing the point. At some point or another almost every profession has had the claim that it was OP and need of a nerf. While the percieved OP of any class is a matter of opinion, and in most, if not all, cases it was proven that it is not OP at all. I wasnt setting out to prove, or disprove, the OPness of any class, just to comment that the balance of the professions is generally a claim that some classes are more OP than others, and those classes should be fixed to bring it on the level of the others.

TheDevice.2751:

necros cant possibly be op in any way… only infect was invited to gamescom (the only necro that is ever invited to anything just because they need a staple necro there somewhere).

Engi’s are kittened….

The thing is.. Every single class has a high skill cap or is overpowered, except for the necromancer and maybe ranger.

Necro has no skill cap whatsoever. Engis have like 5 weapons they can pull out of their kitten with like 8-12 second max cdr on each of their weapon skills. They can do so much. Stealth? Np. Load the floor with a million bombs after a 4 second immobilize on enemy? Np. Nades? Sure why the hell not. Invulnerable? Yeah.. oh and invuln rez/stomp of course.

How are necro’s overpowered? I’d reallly like to listen to it. I mean give it your best shot really I’d like to hear what you could come up with. Dat lich form 3k auto attack? on a 3 minute cooldown? so broke. Plus lich locks you out of any support from utilities and doesnt offer any armor.

But lets hear it if anyone can think of something.

While I dont agree with the OPness of any of the professions (except maybe theif) as far as necros, and the forums, death shroud makes a necro OP. Along with the amount of condition spamming, and fantasic condition cleansing. In fact theres a thread about it now.

Basically I was being sarcastic, because I see OP threads on every profession and how they need to be nerfed because someone cant kill them in PvP or WvW.

Pinkamena Diane Pie.8054:

pdavis.8031:

See more at: http://www.bbb.org/western-washington/business-reviews/computer-software-publishers-and-developers/arenanet-in-bellevue-wa-22017235/complaints#sthash.peTalPtf.dpuf"

Strange, the complaint dated 04/16/2014 they claim the guy’s PC is too new to run window 7 on 32 bit.

First time I’ve heard of such a thing!

Its not that they claimed it was too new. They showed that his PC was x64 but he was running x86 windows (32 bit), and therin was the crux of his issue. So he was running a 32 bit OS on a 64bit machine. If you have a 64bit machine, you should always run a 64bit OS. Anything else will cause issues. My guess is he built his new machine with a 64bit motherboard, and installed windows 7, but being a noob installed a 32bit version instead.

@danicat

Oh I agree completely. But whatever the limitaions were, hardware or otherwise, they were still something we were accustomed to. And games have been built to allow for those things which is great. Even so the continuous quest chains, or tasks in general, are more difficult for “older” gamers as life takes pecadence and we get older.

Also I fondly remember the level codes, and the fears of getting them tossed out. Gauntlet was another one of those games. Although we did crack the code, so we could choose which character, level, how much gold, life, keys and bombs you wanted at will :P aaaah good times.

That was a good article! However, I would like to comment on the “Casual” aspect that was mentioned several times.

It would appear that “older” gamers in general make up the largest portion of players. This is the 30-40 year olds. The generation that started playing video games on the original NES and SEGA systems when they were new. (I am also of this generation of gamers) We started our online gaming with Ultima Online and Everquest. We moved to WoW and possibly Guild Wars as time wore on. But now, we, generally, have families, jobs, commitments and obligations. We just can’t spend +8hours on a game at a time anymore. Gaming compaies are recognizing this, and making their games much more casual. Yeah, there might be a large quest chain, or other event that requires long time commitments, but now we can stop in the middle and pick it up later. That NEVER used to be an option. How many remember leaving the Nintendo on overnight, hoping to God that it wouldn’t crash, so we can pick it up after school the next day at the same spot? As games were made to be more and more casual, to cater to the largest concentration of gamers, us “old timers”, the younger generation of gamers grew up with that. They find it difficult to think that if you were in the middle of a quest, you can’t just turn it off, or you would lose all progress and have to start over. They grew up with the ability to save at any time, anywhere. They never knew the pain of finally making it past the hover bike level on battle toads, leaving the game on because you had to go to bed, only to find that it crashed (or your mom turned it off) when you went to play it again.

Games have turned casual because a large portion of their players just don’t have the time to commit to a long quest chain, and the younger generation of players would think that it is too hard, because they are used to not having to do those things.

Just a thought

GuildWarsPlayer.5608:

Update to the latest driver and you will be pleased. Just thought I would share.

OOOOOO

I saw that update last night, but generally those updates don’t apply to my card so I generally ignore them. I have Nvidia GEforce 9800M GS. I’ll check it out. Thanks!!

Heres my breakdown of GW2 proffesion balance, as seen in the forums:

Warrior: OP
Guardian: OP
Necromancer (condi and terror): OP
Mesmer: OP
Elementalist: OP
Engineer (nades): OP
Ranger (condi): OP
Thief: OP

Am I missing anything?

I also found this quote on the BBB site. from Anet regarding a server change mid tournament complaint. I feel that it directly applies to communication about whats to come, and what is being worked on.

“There is a genuine need to keep some things “discoverable” by players, that is, to not tell all the details every time. In one sense, this allows players a better game experience. In another, not giving extremely detailed information prevents someone from capitalizing on a system in a way that negatively impacts other players."

See more at: http://www.bbb.org/western-washington/business-reviews/computer-software-publishers-and-developers/arenanet-in-bellevue-wa-22017235/complaints#sthash.peTalPtf.dpuf"

Straegen.2938:

While many users will never be happy, ANet should have come out with a roadmap that doesn’t have dates on it. Players should be able to look forward to changes even if they don’t know when those changes will drop.

Although in theory, a roadmap with no dates seem like it would be a good idea, I think it would be more of a cause of frustration than anything. I imagine the scene would go something like this.

Anet: “Heres a heads up of what we are are working on for WvW. Theres no dates, because things change, but it should give you something to look forward to.”
Players: “YAY!!! Finally thanks!!!”

Fast forward 6 months

Players: “Why haven’t we seen X,Y, or Z yet!? Anet sucks. They just threw this roadmap out as a way to shut us up, and still nothing is being done. Devs you need to respond NOW!!! Oh wait…there are no Devs. This was a roadmap of lies!! It was just to distract us from their money grubbing schemes in PvE and the gem store. QQ, rage, vent”

While I agree the WvW community needs more communication, I believe that the main reason they don’t reveal whats to come is mainly due to the game ever evolving and changing. I am sure that there have been many projects that were ready to go live, but were scrapped for whatever reason. Think Duke Nukem Forever. Everytime it was almost ready to go live, it was scrapped because they wanted to stay on top of whatever new game engine, or hardware came out. So essentially they had to rewrite the ENTIRE game to fit with all the new shineys, and by the time they were done, another new shiney came out.

Also when certain features, or updates are revealed too early, the community does get exicted, and eagerly awaits, but if it gets pushed back, or scrapped or tweaked, they are even more disappointed, because “thats not what they promised!” The greater anticipation of something, the greater the disappointment when, for whatever reason, it doesn’t come to pass.

I really liked The Plated Sniper Rifle skin. It shares the same skin as The Hunter, but is no longer available as it was a PvP weapon.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/PvP_Plated_Sniper_Rifle

After going through my wardrobe the other day, I thought I had either salvaged The hunter, or tossed it in the toilet at some point and almost had a heart attack. Then found out it was the PvP rifle skin. :P

I thought it was a great mechanic! I loved the savanger hunt idea. I didn’t know what it was going to be until AFTER I upgraded them, and saw the website. But thats what makes it interesting. I almost wish I hadn’t looked at Dulfy to see what it was supposed to be.

I thought there was already a minimum value on undercutting? That minimum value is 1c.

Avit.3165:

pdavis.8031:

Edit: Also the fact that he posted about the necro threads, and those doing the necroing, shows that the Anet is in fact reading the forums, even if they don’t respond.

Shows, that Mark Katzbach read the forums, but he is not developer.

A generalization. I tend to use the term “dev” loosly. Dev =/= Anet employee.

Xillllix.3485:

pdavis.8031:

Again, if there is a an older thread about a topic you still wish to discuss, just start a new thread. Copy and Paste the thing if you want. If there is a thread talking about an update that was never realized more than 30 days ago. Don’t necro the thread to say “It’s been X months since they told us this was coming! WTH is it!?” Just start a new one with the OP as “It’s been X months since they told us this was coming! WTH is it!?”. It’s not that difficult to understand.

When did responding to an old thread became unacceptable? On what rules of ethics are you basing yourself upon to come to such a view?

Not my rules of ethics, ArenaNets Code of Conduct that users agree to when using the forums.
“•Do not spam. This includes bumping threads or making posts that lack content.”

Also: “ArenaNet has the sole right to interpret and apply this Code of Conduct to any specific circumstance and situation, and its judgment is final.”

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/rules

Mark has said that people are bumping (aka necroing) old threads, and doing so strictly to draw attention to them. They aren’t adding to the discussion, or providing anything new to the conversation. Of course if you feel you have something relevant, and new to add to an old conversation, I would think you are free to do that. But bumping and necroing old threads just for attention or as Mark said “Trying to prove a point” is against the Code of Conduct, and is being actively enforced so it can stop.

Darklight.5047:

pdavis.8031:

Again duels are fine, in the mists. There is a mechanic specifically designed for just that. Just not in PvE anywhere.

Maybe I missed it, but afaik there is no option to 1v1 duel people in the mists.

You have to start or join a custom arena.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Custom_Arena
If you go to the browser, you’ll find several of them listed as 1v1 dueling. And thats what I, and others, are refering to. I know my guild has one just for 1v1, and PvP training.

TheFamster.7806:

Guys what the devs are saying is that “Shut the hell up. You don’t buy more gems anyway. Its free to play game and we know there aren’t any alternatives so keep QQing while we make more money on RNG skins and boosters. If you guys keep talking, you will get banned and we will close the forum down”.
This will continue until a new game comes out and then they will add stuff like colored commander tag
Its exactly the same as South Park cable company episode

Yeah not really. If you bothered to read Marks response on the matter, he in fact says quite the opposite.
“Joining a conversation and bumping long-dead threads with developer posts in them as an attention-seeking tactic are two entirely different things. A few people decided to start digging through the forum and bumping old topics, not to contribute to conversations there or post new and insightful comments to breathe new life into the topic, but to be disruptive and to try and “prove a point”. Since asking nicely rarely seems to work with the people engaging in this behavior, I made the sticky post explicitly telling everybody to stop, under threat of infraction, suspension and ultimately banning. If there’s a topic you actually wish to discuss, then please open a thread (if an active one does not currently exist) and do so. This is not a new limitation on what you can talk about, just a request to stop the disruptive necroposting.”

Again, if there is a an older thread about a topic you still wish to discuss, just start a new thread. Copy and Paste the thing if you want. If there is a thread talking about an update that was never realized more than 30 days ago. Don’t necro the thread to say “It’s been X months since they told us this was coming! WTH is it!?” Just start a new one with the OP as “It’s been X months since they told us this was coming! WTH is it!?”. It’s not that difficult to understand.

Edit: Also the fact that he posted about the necro threads, and those doing the necroing, shows that the Anet is in fact reading the forums, even if they don’t respond.

Edit: Fixed for clarification.

fellyn.5083:

They don’t need one-on-one trading. They just need to have a C.O.D. option for the mail. That would sort that problem out. If such a feature is even needed at all.

As for the other two… don’t need it don’t want it.

Wouldn’t a COD feature be the same as p2p trading??

Darklight.5047:

pdavis.8031:

1) Dueling and the reasons for NOT having them are covered in multiple threads, with new ones popping up every other week. As stated, the very concept of the game doesn’t allow for it. Also it would create a very toxic and annoying atmosphere that no one wants. If you want to duel, go to the mists.

2) No. The TP is not only secure and fast, but is a MAJOR gold sink which help tremendously in keeping the economy in check. As far as scamming, there will be complaints, and Anet will have to devote resources to deal with each one. Even if its just to reply with a general, “sorry not our problem” lette. (and before anyone starts on the economy is broken, go read John Smiths, the games economist, comments on the matter.)

3) An inspect will just be another reason for elitists to feel more superior. It won’t serve any purpose other than that. If someone is curious they can ask you to link it it chat. There literally is no good thing that can come out of having gear inspection. Period.

4) gear progression. That would imply a very heavy grind. This game is about horizontal progression. Do you remember the outrage over ascended? It was too much of a grind, it was vertical progression, it was going to ruin the game etc. But the game would require a complete over haul. Everything, with the exception of high level fractals, can be done with exotic level armor. There is no need for a gear grind/gear progression. It doesnt fit into how this game is built.

1) Please describe said atmosphere
2) I guess I’ll have to agree with that.
3) Someone convinced me of that, as did you.
4) I feel this is relevant:

“A lot of people seem to fear that gear progression brings the world-of-warcraft-model of having to get gear with better stats all the time. But image the WoW with gear that stays mostly the same as far as stats go: you get gear that shows your ingame achievements through looks, while not requiring others to do it to because otherwise they can’t complete all the content.”

I’m talking about getting more and more prestigious gear. Whether that entails stat-increase is for the mods to decide (though it seems like they have decided pro-stat-increase)

Yeah saw your responses that popped up as I was writing that :P

As far as 1) toxic and annoying atmosphere. In several MMOs that ive played that allow dueling, chat is filled with “who wants to duel me?” Spam. Of course there is the option to decline when an invite comes, but trolls will be trolls, and do, and will, harass people for not accepting a duel. Calling people out in chat for not dueling, constant tells about dueling, following them, initiating duel requests every few seconds, etc. Of course there can be measure taken to avoid those things, but giving people the mechanics to harass others would go down hill quickly. Again duels are fine, in the mists. There is a mechanic specifically designed for just that. Just not in PvE anywhere.

1) Dueling and the reasons for NOT having them are covered in multiple threads, with new ones popping up every other week. As stated, the very concept of the game doesn’t allow for it. Also it would create a very toxic and annoying atmosphere that no one wants. If you want to duel, go to the mists.

2) No. The TP is not only secure and fast, but is a MAJOR gold sink which help tremendously in keeping the economy in check. As far as scamming, there will be complaints, and Anet will have to devote resources to deal with each one. Even if its just to reply with a general, “sorry not our problem” lette. (and before anyone starts on the economy is broken, go read John Smiths, the games economist, comments on the matter.)

3) An inspect will just be another reason for elitists to feel more superior. It won’t serve any purpose other than that. If someone is curious they can ask you to link it it chat. There literally is no good thing that can come out of having gear inspection. Period.

4) gear progression. That would imply a very heavy grind. This game is about horizontal progression. Do you remember the outrage over ascended? It was too much of a grind, it was vertical progression, it was going to ruin the game etc. But the game would require a complete over haul. Everything, with the exception of high level fractals, can be done with exotic level armor. There is no need for a gear grind/gear progression. It doesnt fit into how this game is built.

I think that a human female warrior would totally win because she can “Outrun a Centaur!!”

phys.7689:

pdavis.8031:

Also I heartily agree with Mark when he said that the toxic and ranting posts are not endearing the devs to comment. As we have seen in the case of Marks posting on the matter. Being straight up called a liar, that everything he said is just PR crap, and that he and the others aren’t really doing anything at all. I don’t know ANYONE who would want to respond to such things, when they know that ANYTHING you say is going to be taken way out of context, that you will only be met with more anger and frustration, because you legitimently can’t speak on whats in development (see: Non-disclosure. A legally binding contract that basically says you cannot speak, write, email, or otherwise communicate on projects that are under development until so released, generally in writing, by the company to do so.). But all that will be seen as a “weak” excuse for not appeasing the masses, or telling them the specifics of what they want to hear.

NDA isnt magical mouth binding, its that you cant say what the company doesnt want to say, usually companies have a lot they want to say. If you dont want to have to continue to appease your customers, you probably shouldnt make an MMO. If you dont like customers asking you questions, how do you expect to be in business

Once again how is it that almost every other company gains more than they lose by communicating intent to customers? You act like this is the only way to do things when its far from the standard business practice

Yes NDA is not magical mouth binding. But it would appear in this case, the information about future/current development that the forums are asking about, and the devs are unable to comment on, fall under the pervue of NDA for whatever reason. John Smith gets asked about that all the time, and of course he respondes that he is unable, as much as he would like to, comment on it. So it would stand to reason that when Mark says he cannot talk about what is in development, he is bound by the NDA from doing so. To think otherwise is just stupid. From what I’ve seen, devs like questions, and respond when they are able and tell you if they cannot.

Of course customer communication on whats going on is the standard business practice, and I see Anet doing that with their blog updates, POIs, interviews etc. quite often. Just because they don’t do it in 1 sub-forum doesn’t mean they aren’t doing it. They usually will talk about whats coming in the blog, in detail, before launch. Remeber the blogs about the April feature patch? They told us EVERYTHING well in advance before that patch went live.

Also I believe another reason that Anet gets so tight lipped about whats coming is the NCSoft fiasco when NCSoft announced an expansion for GW2 was in the works and was coming.

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/12/ncsoft-sales-down-from-last-quarter-up-from-last-year/

“NCsoft’s Nah Seong Chan says the company is “preparing an expansion pack” but has yet to decide when it might launch. Very interesting news indeed as ArenaNet said as recently as March that it was not working on an expansion."

But then had to retract that statement: “In regards to your recent post on a Guild Wars 2 expansion, there is a slight misunderstanding when interpreting the answer from the NCsoft earnings call. We are considering an expansion, but we are taking a wait-and-see stance. We are evaluating the performance of the game and deciding on when would be the best time to launch an expansion. But right now, our living story approach is very successful in keeping players engaged with new and exciting content. Launching boxed expansions are a great way to package content, but if we can do this on a more regular basis, something we’ve been doing since launch, it provides players with new content to explore and experience every time they log into the game.”

http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/05/14/ncsoft-clarifies-stance-on-guild-wars-2-expansion/