Guild Wars 2

Potato, tomato!

Zet.9130:

I’ll hazard a guess many people who are against afk farming hold that opinion because they don’t like it and think it’s wrong. Opinions aren’t facts.

They are facts because AFK farming is against ToS under automated play, which is what we’ve been saying all along.

Shiyo.3578:

I’ve never gotten mail from a gold spammer.

I don’t enjoy restrictions that do harm to me as a player to counter gold sellers.

Maybe the restriction is why you’ve never got mail from a gold seller?

Ellieanna.5027:

They won’t say, for very obvious reasons. If that information ended up in the hands of botters/macro users, it would be easier for them to avoid detection.

Agreed.

I bet the same people who write bot macros also write bot macro detection software. It’d make sense, financially.

Don’t use macros. Music ones are ok though.

Yeah, as the others have said, macros are allowed and just in case you’re have a slight doubt:

Chris Cleary.8017:

(Automation is still against the rules, unless you are using it to play music in-game)

Forum Bug is Buggy.

There is no accusation of cheating. It’s a bug by the game and the game admits it. It is unfortunate, but you can get your HoM achievements by re-logging into Guild Wars 1 and then back to Guild Wars 2 again.

Necro post.

virus.4370:

gws 1 isn’t on my new system..my old computer got shot 2 days ago..so i would have to re-install all of gws 1…-_-..so not cool

I have to re-download too. However, it shouldn’t be too daunting, most of the downloading files on GW1 are of the area you’re about to load into, at a time. So shouldn’t take too long.

Naix.8156:

penelopehannibal.8947:

misterman.1530:

Actually, “people who preorder are not competent consumers” is, unfortunately, an economic reality.

I’m afraid it’s not.

People will buy what they want to buy. There’s nothing incompetent about purchasing stuff. Someone buying something and it doesn’t quite work out to what they wanted isn’t something exclusive to pre-orders.

I can buy an O’Chicken Burger from a new restaurant called O’Donnel’s for instance. If it ends up not being what I expected, that’s not my fault as a consumer. It’s not me who was incompetent for purchasing something that looked like it would appeal to me.

It’s not buying the burger that makes you an incompetent consumer. Its the part where you pay for that burger, in full, a year or more in advance. The part where you rationalize how this type of consumer behavior is logical is the real icing on the cake here though.

Carry on though; Anet needs people like you.

Since when is buying something irrational?

Value is not absolute. You may think something holds less value, I may think something holds more value. That’s for each of us to make our own individual evaluations. Like I said earlier, I pre-purchased for the half-priced gems that I would only end up buying anyway at full price. If you think it’s more rational to buy the Expansion on Release date or later, and then buy gems at full price on top of that, well…

Carry on. Anet needs people like you!

Just log back into GW1 and then back into GW2 again.

misterman.1530:

Actually, “people who preorder are not competent consumers” is, unfortunately, an economic reality.

I’m afraid it’s not.

People will buy what they want to buy. There’s nothing incompetent about purchasing stuff. Someone buying something and it doesn’t quite work out to what they wanted isn’t something exclusive to pre-orders.

I can buy an O’Chicken Burger from a new restaurant called O’Donnel’s for instance. If it ends up not being what I expected, that’s not my fault as a consumer. It’s not me who was incompetent for purchasing something that looked like it would appeal to me.

misterman.1530:

You don’t have to be first for things. Really. But if you want it, again, that’s fine. I don’t.

Exactly. There is no need to be the first for things, only a want – and as long as there’s a want for something, companies will sell. But it was you who said:

misterman.1530:

Let’s face it, people who preorder are not competent consumers.

Was that a joke too?

Edit: P.S. I didn’t take the 10 year old girl thing as an insult, by the way.

DeanBB.4268:

You’d have to be sure of your guild to put something personal in it. I don’t think Anet would want to deal with “my stuff in their guild” after someone was kicked out, whether deserved or not.

This is a good point, of course the same can be said for someone who earned and farmed for in-game cash, and crafted many high end decorations as well, putting many hours into a guild hall only to be kicked.

Just a flesh wound.3589:

If companies know that hitches or walls can unexpectedly block progress then they should either not take money on promises or they should have a refund policy already in place if they do take money and then can’t deliver. Both of these are only common sense and it seems to be what ANet has also failed to have.

Actually though, from what Mo said, it sounded not like there was a hitch or wall in production, but an over promise in how much they could do in X amount of time. I’m actually more sympathetic to an unexpected design wall than I am to a promise followed by “Whoops. I guess we don’t know how to allocate resources after all. We’ve got to pull those Devs and put them on something else. My bad. Sux to be you if you paid for it and now you’re now getting it. Oh, well. Someone else will be happy with this other content paid for with your money.”

This can kind of happen to any company of any given field. Once.

If it happens more than once, however, then that says something about the company. And I hope ArenaNet will realise that for the next time, and over-deliver and under-promise, rather than the other way round.

I can’t see them surviving too well a second time of this ‘whoops’ – even with addicts like me still buying the game.

That said, I wasn’t in it for the Legendary Weapons. I was in it for the story more than anything.

sirsquishy.2619:

Bellatrixa.3546:

sirsquishy.2619:

Lets not derail this, the issue that this is about is being AFK while your pets + Auto-loot are active. Intentionally = Suspension, but what about unintentionally?

I’d like to think the GMs are savvy enough to know when someone’s doing it intentionally and when someone isn’t; I know as an ex-GM myself in a couple of other games that you’re generally given good guidelines on what is and isn’t acceptable behaviour so even if you don’t play the game yourself, you know what is and isn’t ‘normal’ player behaviour. From what Chris said, they’re generous with how long they give players to respond so I highly doubt most of the bans handed out so far are for people who have gone to the toilet etc. Of course, you always get guilty people who will protest their innocence, sometimes in the face of evidence that shows them not just red-handed, but red all over.

yea sure, But the GM’s in this game are not united across the subjects. Take Gem store reimbursements, I had 2 GM’s deny it, and a 3rd approve it after biting their heads off. Sure, that’s just one small example but its been like that for the last couple of years on pretty much every GM based action in my experience. We have GMs that care and listen to the customers and interact(even if the customer is NOT right), and we have GMs that are quick to do what they want and completely ignore you until you push back (and sometimes harder then you want to).

Until that changes, we cannot trust their judgements so blindly. which is why we need clarification that we can site as a source for when GM’s just ‘feel like it’ on their actions.

You forget that players have to report them first. If someone is intentionally AFK farming, the chances are, about 12 players have reported the same AFK farmer.°

If someone is mistakenly reported as an AFK farmer, they’ll probably only have been reported by one or two players at the most. Then a GM looks at it, and I’m sure they’re clever enough to distinguish the difference between the two.

(°I am by no means saying that actions are taken by multiple reports alone – each decision they do is still made after a human GM reviews the report, whether 1 person reports, or 1,000 people do)

TexZero.7910:

penelopehannibal.8947:

TexZero.7910:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

TexZero.7910:

You could start by working on the baseline economic problems that cause people to auto farm. That’d be nice. So it likely wont happen.

That’s just absurd. The “baseline economic problem” is that people want money. Period. You can’t fix that.

Or maybe just maybe there are people farming the materials there whose rate of acquisition are substandard compared to their usage. You know like leather/linen.

But you’re right it’s absurd that we have nice things.

What you’re suggesting won’t fix it. It’ll just migrate it to a new area. For instance, if they “fixed” the linen thing so it’d end up only being 50 copper a piece, the AFK farmers will just migrate somewhere else, such as gaining cotton, then we’re back to square one.

They’ll AFK farm for the highest priced item they can possibly get. They don’t care if it’s linen, gossamer or pink inflatable moas.

And why are they farming… ?

Fix the source of the problem and it will cease to exist.

Why exactly are players forced to “Farm” for drops when we have a lovely map event reward that could be tweaked into giving more. This will get people into the game playing the events to get loot. I know that’s like some foreign concept…especially here. Heaven forbid people are rewarded for the actions they take in game.

It doesn’t matter what you do, it’s not about farming to get something, it’s about ‘free’ money whilst they’re asleep. If everything cost 1 copper to get, they’ll still do it, because it’s still adding up 1 coppers whilst they’re asleep, and wake up to a lovely windfall in the morning.

If they gave a precursor for every event they successfully complete, they’ll still do it. Why? Because after they’ve woken up and got back to the game, they’ll participate in events as normal anyway. Then night time comes, they park their characters and farm for more coppers. It’s not about how much they’re gaining. It’s about gaining as much as they can whilst they’re not playing the game.

The only way to fix it in your way, is to make everything free.

Perhaps a little controversial, but I have been wondering why I haven’t seen any decorations for guild halls as exclusive gem store items yet.

Obviously, I wouldn’t expect someone to shell out gems on a single chair or table, but if there could be bundles of different decorations that fit into a common theme (like a Charr theme, a pirate theme, a Pact theme etc) would you buy them?

The themes could vary, from cultural themes to seasonal ones. For example, 700 gems might buy you:

Romantic Dinner for Two

- Dining Table with romantic table cloth
- 2 romantic chairs
- Cupid-esque water fountain
- Heart Shaped Candle

or

Pact Fleet Decorations Pack

- Floating Pact Fleet Ship
- War Room Tactician’s Table
- Bunk Beds for the troops
- Practice dummies

The only draw back I can think of is, you would be purchasing gem store items you wouldn’t personally own yourself.

However, as a plus side, it would give non-scribe players a chance to add their own things to the Guild Hall of their choice (other than trophies and basic vendor decorations).

Any thoughts?

misterman.1530:

I didn’t preorder HoT and sure as heck won’t preorder their next expansion. I waited until I read about the mess, weighed my options, and finally after a couple of balancing patches, coughed up the $$. Would do the same with another expansion.

This can be seen as sensible thinking.

misterman.1530:

Let’s face it, people who preorder are not competent consumers.

The only way you can convince me to preorder would be to offer something of immense value (permanent bank slot, legendary weapon, legendary armor set) not something cosmetic (My Little Pony backpack with sparkly fairy lights that have a constant glow affect). I don’t play a game to look pretty as I’m not a 10 year old girl.

This however…. I dunno what you think this statement proves, but I know what it tells me about you.

I’m almost 35 and I like sparkly things. Everyone pre-orders for a reason, and most of the time, it’s for some sort of dangled carrot.

In the case of HoT, there was no “My Little Pony backpack with sparkly fairy lights that have a constant glow effect” offered for pre-ordering.

It was the half-price gems that did it for me. And I liked getting a discount on gems that I would end up buying anyway. Does that make me an incompetent consumer, saving money by pre-ordering?

TexZero.7910:

Blood Red Arachnid.2493:

TexZero.7910:

You could start by working on the baseline economic problems that cause people to auto farm. That’d be nice. So it likely wont happen.

That’s just absurd. The “baseline economic problem” is that people want money. Period. You can’t fix that.

Or maybe just maybe there are people farming the materials there whose rate of acquisition are substandard compared to their usage. You know like leather/linen.

But you’re right it’s absurd that we have nice things.

What you’re suggesting won’t fix it. It’ll just migrate it to a new area. For instance, if they “fixed” the linen thing so it’d end up only being 50 copper a piece, the AFK farmers will just migrate somewhere else, such as gaining cotton, then we’re back to square one.

They’ll AFK farm for the highest priced item they can possibly get. They don’t care if it’s linen, gossamer or pink inflatable moas.

Sartharina.3542:

penelopehannibal.8947:

The thing is, ArenaNet have never added a new playable race to a game since GW1, so I doubt they will start doing now.

They’ve added 4 new playable races to the game since GW1. There is a great big hole in the world suitable for the starting zone of a new race, as well.

I should have said to ‘a’ game rather than ‘the’ game sorry. As in, it’s always been a new playable class then a race in their expansions.

The thing is, ArenaNet have never added a new playable race to a game since GW1, so I doubt they will start doing now.

Probably would have to be boomerangs with teeth, so warriors & necros can still viably use them, but yeah. This is a cool idea!

The answer is tonics. Allow tonics to let you use your normal weapons. That will still need some animation work though, but probably still a lot easier than adding a new city, new storyline (with three possible starts), two voice actors, and so on…

This though, is still work for little gain of course.

Chris Cleary.8017:

I’ll pitch in on this thread, as there seems to be some confusion about this situation.

The auto-cast feature was never intended to be used as an AFK farming mechanism, and usage of the auto-cast feature while AFK is fine as long as it is not used to facilitate unattended gameplay.

Mastery auto-loot also stopping players from being flagged afk seems like a bug instead of a feature, and I’ll be sure to bring it up today while we have a chat about this internally.

1) Using skill (1 or more) while AFK
2) AFKing in a place where it is beneficial for your character to be at
3) Unresponsive to interaction with GMs

If all 3 of these apply to what you are doing, you may get actioned for it.

How about adding this to the sticky on 3rd Party, Macros and Mulitboxing?

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Policy-3rd-Party-Programs-Multi-Boxing-Macros

sirsquishy.2619:

That is really the only option the player has right now to be sure they can safely go AFK in the game with out getting the boot from a GM. Just changing location (in PVE combat zones) or moving to a non-pathed area in your farming spot, is not enough as you may enter combat during your AFK session.

and that’s a bit over the top to place on the player.

This isn’t true. If you need to go AFK just go AFK. I’m sure the GMs (and most players who report) can distinguish the difference between the two.

I won’t report a player for being genuinely AFK. I will report a player for AFK farming though. The difference is definitely clear when you see it.

Esquilax.3491:

This basically proves they have zero mechanisms to detect actual 3rd party software and they rely purely on player reports to ban people for botting. Sad.

It doesn’t prove that at all.

Speaking of graphics, I wonder if they spotted or not, if you see the map grid lines we Mac Beta players see whilst in indoor areas like caves or the throne room? They’re one of the few minor irritations I have of the Mac Beta! >.<

Solocup.3069:

how about the auto loot mastery is ONLY active in dungeons,fractals,WvW,raids and disabled in open world. problem solved

The ‘fix’ needs to be a fix that doesn’t punish innocent players (in the case of your suggestion, virtually everyone else except the AFK farmers)

Giving suspensions to offending accounts should be a clear enough statement to players to discourage them from doing it.

Vayne.8563:

I guarantee you, just from knowing how Anet works, that the new expansion will nothing at all like HoT. Anet has always been hyper-reactive to crticism. Always.

I agree with this – ArenaNet also has a knack° for creating content and features we players wouldn’t even think of. The next expansion will have one or two surprises in store for us. We’ll speculate for months what they’ll be, suggest ideas for features/content. Then bam – something new we never actually suggested or thought of.

Gliding in Heart of Thorns is a good example of this.

(°sp? I’m from the UK, so good English isn’t my first language!)

Forum bug is buggy.

I just think it’s really sad that some people still need scientific and litigious explanations of something that should be plain, common sense. It should be really simple:

Don’t AFK farm. End of.

I’m sure everyone is intelligent enough to know what that means by now.

Dinks.2478:

lol no… if I need to run afk I am not going to just leave the map I am in. And if my minions decide to kill kitten while I am off doing whatever I had to do that isn’t my fault.

It takes two seconds to press escape > log out if there’s an emergency.

Parking yourself next to another AFK farmer ‘by coincidence’ for a few hours is no excuse, even if you’ve been kidnapped by aliens IRL.

Have you double-checked your key bindings in the options menu?

Currently in the process of building a Library of Whispers. Still need a few more walls yet, but you get the idea.

Cactus Brawler.7415:

I’m fairly sure more than few people would say Roleplayers are playing wrong, when is our ban?

Unless you’re using a macro to do one of your famous pick-pockets near the Ossan, you’re fine with that one hehehe

Cactus Brawler.7415:

Minion, pet or party member kills a mob while your answering a call of nature? Report and ban.

Heya!

Some of these are AFK for literally 8 hours during the night. That’s a long time to go answer nature’s call!

Even if someone does report someone who has literally just gone AFK for a poo, ArenaNet will know the difference between them and the abusers we’re currently against.

Choppenstein.6720:

I got a 168 hour ban and I wasn’t still for more than 30 seconds anywhere. I have a routine for cutting trees and I rarely stop. Still, by the time I got to my fourth character to hit Malchor’s and then Field of Ruin, my game was disconnected and I received a error message that flashed on and off (I was probably typing and clicked past it). Back at the login screen, I saw the full message and I also got it in email.

THIS IS A NOTICE OF ACCOUNT SUSPENSION

Display Name:**********.****
Violation: Unapproved Third Party Software

Only two things changed on my system in the last 24 hours. Windows Update and ArenaNet’s patch today. >:( I’ve been running around cutting trees like this for months, and I am very much At The Keyboard for ALL of it. Why am I being punished? Is it this patch that is causing the problem?

I cut down plenty of trees myself (it’s actually how I’m spotting and reporting most of the AFK farmers that I see) but I’m still in the game. I suspect your suspension is probably for an isolated reason – only by submitting a ticket directly to support can you get an answer and/or a chance for a review.

mauried.5608:

The fix to this problem is so obvious, but seems no one wants to talk about it.
No loot if a pet kills a monster.
Only loot if the player kills the monster, as measured by the DPS done to the monster by the player, compared to the dps done by the pets.
I wonder why no one will think this is a good idea?

Because it punishes innocent players too, since getting your pet to kill an enemy whilst not AFK is allowed.

Doggie.3184:

Ayrilana.1396:

Doggie.3184:

As long as he’s not using a 3rd party meowgram he’s fine. No one can prove that he’s actually AFK anyways so it’s not possible for it to break any rules. It’ll always be false flag unless 3rd party is detected. Reporting and accidentally suspending people won’t solve the issue, they have to alter the AFK timer and/or loot system.

Refer to the image. See the text “extended unattended play”? There is an idle timer that kicks players the the character screen after an hour or so. If this is circumvented by any means then the player is in the wrong.

And the idle timer doesn’t work correctly at the moment and needs fixed. Proving someone is actually AFK isn’t entirely possible. They could just be semi-idle, distracted, apathetic, extremely lazy, etc but still there in some manner.

They don’t need to prove it. They only need to determine it. ArenaNet’s game, ArenaNet’s decision, whether it’s based off proof or judgement.

15,580 hours, still no precursor. Don’t gamble.

Doggie.3184:

penelopehannibal.8947:

Doggie.3184:

It’s a false flag so he wasn’t exploiting or doing anything wrong. The person who reported him was abusing the system.

You’re basing this off one player’s side of the story. You don’t know the facts of the suspension at all, so best not to jump to conclusions. The OP could be 100% innocent, 100% guilty. Not for us to judge.

Just like it’s not up to the person who reported him to judge whether he is guilty or innocent, but if they see suspect behaviour, always best to report.

I’m basing it on the GM’s word as well as Anet’s in other posts.

Where did you see the GM’s word?

Doggie.3184:

It’s a false flag so he wasn’t exploiting or doing anything wrong. The person who reported him was abusing the system.

You’re basing this off one player’s side of the story. You don’t know the facts of the suspension at all, so best not to jump to conclusions. The OP could be 100% innocent, 100% guilty. Not for us to judge.

Just like it’s not up to the person who reported him to judge whether he is guilty or innocent, but if they see suspect behaviour, always best to report.

The first words I saw when I opened one of the ‘fact sheets’ there was this:

_"Some of the information and data in the material have been prepared based on assumptions. There can be no assurance that the assumptions used by NCSOFT are correct and even if they are, that the effect of such assumptions on NCSOFT’s business and results of operations will be as projected.

Therefore, NCSOFT will not be responsible for individual investment decisions based solely on this material."_

:D

More patches to come.

Is the Mac Client de-facto 64 bit too, or just Windows client?

Jon Olson.8439:

We can login and see some graphics. Physics is the next major step.

I love you. <3

Shovel Face.4512:

Where is this afk farm spot that I’ve seen people post about? Kinda interested considering I’m low on gold and have barely anytime to play now with school finals coming up. Any details would be much appreciated.

It’s against ToS, as discussed in the other four or five AFK farming topics.

If it shows to you as contested, then you’ve already got it. I think if you’re missing just a WP and nothing else from that map, it’s either in the underwater Quaggan cave, or in Scale Strand on the very east (as that area to uncover has only a WP associated with it).

I’d be more interested in how much real money I’ve spent on Gems.