Guild Wars 2

@Mungrul – Who were you on Quake3World?

Gaming Background: Wolfenstein 3D, DooM and Quake series of FPS’s. Also loved the old SSI games like Curse of the Azure Bonds and Death Knights of Krynn. I participated heavily in the Quake 3 community in particular as a model skinner/texture artist for mods and the like. Also served as a moderator for the Quake3World forums back when id Software cared what happened there.

Quake 3 would be the last FPS I’d ever play with any seriousness. I got hooked on Everquest and that was my first stint into MMO’s. Six years in that game, five in WoW and two in the original Guild Wars (which I still play lightly). I also have about a month in on Lineage II, but that game stopped being fun right after level 30.

Feelings on GW2: I love this game despite some of its failings, faults and problems. There can come a point where my tolerance for some of the broken and flailing things not being addressed will send me elsewhere. That limit hasn’t been reached yet. I survived Everquest man. It’s going to take a lot more than recent events here to make me switch mistresses.

To All of Us,

It’s time once again to be reminded to be civil to your fellow players. Specifically in-game where it’s easy to be anonymous, simple to disappear in a sea of overflow servers and transfers. The people you’re playing with want to do the same content as you, want to succeed like you. They might be as tired of farming certain content than you, maybe even more than you. Or maybe they’re doing it for the first time. They might be a hardcore player, or they might be a father of three who works two jobs and has only the next hour to get a dungeon in, or some dynamic events.

So bearing this all in mind, it’s important to teach those who don’t know so they can teach others. Speaking for myself, if I’m taught something, I learn it and I share it with others. If I have somebody insult me because I don’t eat, sleep and defecate this game and I didn’t happen to know a fun fact about a certain bit of content, I give them a piece of my mind, rather doing what they want. I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one like this. Nobody likes being berated when trying to learn content…old or new.

Lately, I’ve noticed a lot of people both in /map and in groups I’ve been in, who just can’t communicate effectively. They either don’t explain what they’re trying to do, or they insult the rest of the participants in the event/group. You can’t complain about the quality of players, if you’re unwilling to teach. You can’t berate people because guess what? There was a time not long ago you didn’t know something and likely? You screwed up too.

So, be a little more patient with each other, community. This was supposed to be the ‘better community’ with the self-absorbed pricks from WoW, EQ and every other MMO left to stare at their DPS parsers and suffer strokes because somebody stood in the fire for a nanosecond. And for those who just don’t ever seem to learn, pay attention or want to be carried? Just smile and remember their names and know to avoid them in the future.

Signed,

One of you who thought this needed to be said.

tl;dr – Stop being jerks to each other in groups/events and teach people who don’t know. Things go smoother that way.

At least on Sorrow’s Furnace I don’t have any problems finding groups or finding people in the same areas I’m in. Found plenty of folks doing events in Frostforge Sound as early as 6am on Saturday. Had two groups for Ascalon Catacombs by 9am and logged off at 10 having not looked at, played or bothered with a fractal dungeon.

Some of the newbie zones might be empty but that’s pretty normal considering most are probably concentrating on their high level characters. I kind of think the OP is just hitting a panic button because the holiday might have people doing other things than playing GW2. /shrug

Yeah I wasn’t interested in anything in the sale either. Another character slot? I wouls have bought that.

I have no problems at all finding people whatever time of day it is on Sorrow’s Furnace. Sometimes some of the newbie areas are a little sparse but I found plenty of people in Kessex Hills last night, for example.

This was nowhere near the reaming the Sleeper event was. It also wasn’t as bad as very early Everquest with Mayong Mistmoore warping all over Mistmoore and one-shotting players (to be fair, that might have been beta…too long ago to remember). This also didn’t trump Gates of Ahn’qiraj but you know, I’d say it’s about the same level of brain-melting issues.

I’m encouraged they’re going to do something about the loot problem with the phase 3 boss. Even if it’s not a precursor, or if it’s just some small trinket to say “We’re sorry” I’m good with that. Taking responsibility for this horrible content launch goes a long way.

What won’t be OK is if the developers don’t learn from this going forward. I’ve been thinking about this and while I think the idea of one time events is nice on paper, it’s not really fair to a world-wide player base.

Suggestions

1. This ‘weekend’ event could have been made a week long affair no problem and cycled the events for everybody to participate in. Worried about people farming precursors on Ancient Karka? No problem. Use diminishing returns to make sure that people can’t loot farm it effectively.

2. Events like this need large scale testing to accurately predict what’s going to happen on roll-out. No amount of in-house testing could have simulated all the people trying to do these events. It’s time for a public test server IMO.

3. Having live GM’s running around to address issues with events would also make things go smoother. Somebody to reset spawns, fix people not getting loot, etc. right when it happens, rather than dealing with it days later would probably have taken the sting out of it a bit.

On the third point (since EQ was mentioned more than once). I remember going to Vex Thal on the day after Sony patched for I think it was DX9? Whatever they did had mobs that one-hit players aggroing through the floor, through the ceiling, etc. warping in on us and wiping our raid. A live GM got our corpses out and gave us the loot from the boss we killed before the insanity ensued. That’s the kind of quality support I’d love to see in GW2.

Thank you for looking into this matter, ANet. That’s all anybody can ask.

This also happened to me. Clipped through the floor, got DC’d…came back and could not see the chest to get loot when I finally managed to run back. Normally, I’d just shrug and write it off, but this is a one-time event and some nice things dropped. I fought through the whole event chain. I deserve something. Everybody this happened to deserves something.

I think it largely depends on which fractal you get. They aren’t all easy I don’t care what anybody says. They’re challenging and they should be. My group wiped a good bit and it’s because there wasn’t coordination. I suggest going with friends you’ve played with before and be prepared to die a few times.

I’m indifferent to the stay dead business; I’d personally prefer just a very long respawn timer, but I understand why the implemented the no rez mechanic.

Renegadeimp.8439:

You dont need to see it at all. The fact that its happening is proof enough.

They have said from day 1. No power creep in GW2. Its happening right now. People bought this game on the promise from the devs that it would be different from other MMO’s.

No power creep and no grind.

Both of those things are in the game. As ive said before, its a blatant bait and switch tactic. One other MMO tried this same thing 7 years ago, and died.

I think we’ll have to agree to disagree there. I believe in seeing things, before making sweeping judgments. I sincerely feel people are blowing the whole armor thing way out of proportion, but only time will tell.

As for the grind? Well…I know what they said, but realistically I don’t think there’s a way to make money, or karma that isn’t grindy so I took that part of it with a grain of salt. Leveling isn’t grindy. But getting geared up the way you want is a bit.

You do understand what they said from day 1 of development, through beta, their manifesto and on release differs 100% from what we have now in game right?

I think it’s premature to make that statement, for one thing. We haven’t seen the in-game effects of Ascended gear in game yet because nobody has it in vast quantities yet. You know, the whole intermediary tier of gear? Not a ‘you must have this to win’ tier of gear. I might be on the Going against the manifesto boat, if/when we see a severe negative impact.

If you mean the no-grinding part, I’d have to concede that point. To acquire wealth, you have to grind. Whether its hunting nodes, farming events, etc.

By and large I agree with the OP. This is a great game overall. It has its problems and it will have its growing pains but I’ve yet to encounter anything that will make me want to quit this game forever. I might revisit that statement if we’re seeing some of the issues we’re seeing now, by this time next year. For now, I’m content to play through while kinks are being worked out of the system.

On the point of the devs turning this into a gear grind, I think this is one part people failing to read, one part people falling into the herd panic mentality and three parts overreaction. Ascended gear is meant, as stated as an intermediary step between exotics and legendaries. You will not need Ascended gear to be competitive in PvP and you will only need it for certain foes. I do think they should give us the ability to upgrade current armor sets, so long as they’re of rare quality or better, to accept infusions, but that’s just my personal take on the matter.

People just need to wait and see. This game is still in its infancy and expecting everything to be perfect/beautiful/great is a lot to ask, especially for a game of this size. Just have to wait and see how all the new stuff being implemented effects the game.

EDIT: I do think that getting Karma in the end game is more than a little grindy, but I don’t know if that’s avoidable. There’s also only so many interesting things you can get with Karma anyway.

This is a great idea as far as fluff ideas go. Would love to see re-customization implemented once more pressing bugs have been squashed.

Trahearne is the C-3PO of Guild Wars 2. He always has something to say, but never anything of particular importance. It doesn’t help that I find Sylvari in general mildly annoying but Trahearne takes the cake.

He isn’t the hero the story tries to sell him as and he sure as heck doesn’t inspire me. If there had been an option to trade his life for Tybalt’s, or any of the mentors really, I’d opt to sacrifice the talking plant every time.

You know what would be amazing? If people flipping relaxed and waited to see first hand how it’s implemented, rather than going into a Cheetos-spewing nerd rage over how this is a broken promise. As another poster said, it’s a way to close the gap between exotics and legendaries. I wouldn’t exactly call that a gear treadmill.

I saw a suggestion somewhere else I thought made a lot of sense though. Let players infuse their current armor, providing it’s of say…rare quality or better. We could infuse our current armor in GW1 with a visit to the Seer, we should be able to do something like that now. This would definitely go a long way I think to appease people concerned about the ‘gear treadmill.’

I don’t think the price should be lowered, but I do think it deserves an exotic buff. It’s important to have things that represent long-term commitments to earn, but at least make it worth earning them.

Wow. I want absolutely none of these classes people are talking about. I especially don’t want a bard or a monk. I’d rather see the return of some of the GW1 classes. Ritualist would be my #1 choice, though I’d rather see a re-imagining of the class, as so it isn’t just an engineer with spirits. A ritualist that could summon spirits that move to attack for instance would be interesting. Weapon enhancing spells would also make them group friendly.

Fading Lotus is my level 80 Necromancer, wearing Profane armor.

Fishing would be awesome, yes and would make a lot of sense with all the fish you see swimming around.

For me, it’s a general lack of interest in PvP in general. I PvP’d heavily in Everquest and WoW; it (PvP) simply no longer brings anything captivating to the table when it comes to gameplay. I find nothing challenging about killing other players enmasse and I honestly could care less about the world bonuses. I may do sPvP or if they do true Guild vs. Guild I may do that but WvW I’m only going to end up doing for map completion. Conversely, I love the heck out of the PvE and am quite content with that.

You know, come to think of it, I noticed that too and sometimes it takes a while for the entities to reload. Not sure if it bothers me that much though; less rendered people, less lag. But that’s weird! I really pay attention to it.

First I want to say amen to ZaiTh’s post. Having done the Coldain quests back in the day, I can totally relate to this. I also did keying for Plane of Sky and Vex Thal. Painful experiences I’d never want to repeat again in my lifetime.

Having said that, I won’t be doing a legendary simply for the fact that farming materials, hoping the mystic forge is nice and camping the trade window is not heroic, or legendary in any way, shape or form. I am not a farmer. I’m not fond of tradeskills (but I do both for sake of completion). I want to play my character and make that character a hero.

For people who want to farm, doing it that way would be fine. I feel however, I’d rather earn a legendary through a ‘story’ event — something you could only do after you’ve completed your personal story. In this way, you could do it alone or with friends. Such a ‘side-story’ would be both fitting of the storytelling feel this game has and allow the player to be immersed in a unique chain of events, depending on on what legendary weapon they wanted.

Yeah I’ve done the one in Lion’s Arch. That one reminded me of Goonies. Loved it. As to where to go… head to Mount Maelstrom. It's queued by a dynamic event.

Yeah. I completely agree Shred. I was silently wishing for Vistas just to get panning shots. Great ‘special’ zone!

I love the look and feel of the Orrian zones. Artistically speaking, they set a great atmosphere. The Risen however, are as stated ad nauseum, annoying. I mean, I understand why there’s so many. It’s a fallen city. Millions of people died there, so of course there’d be tons of them running around.

However, story reasons aside, I fully agree something has to be done to make the Orrian zones less like a chore and more like a fun place to be Level 80. My necromancer is soon to be my next level 80 and having slogged through Orr once already on my elementalist, I’m not exactly excited about the prospect.

No spoilers here, but as a guy that doesn’t really like jumping puzzles, I liked this jumping puzzle. I like, for the mild annoyance of being a jumping puzzle that it actually had a theme and a point. Hats off to whoever designed that one. Had a lot of fun with it.

For me, it’s envisioning what the character is. I have some female characters, some male. My elementalist and my necro are human females, my ranger is a human male, my engineer is a male asuran. Sure, I like looking at a cute little female character, but it’s not exclusively a sexualized thing for me. I approach character creation like a writer, rather than a gamer; something this game in particular fosters in me because of its concentration on storytelling.

@Wreave – I was given an infraction because of my original title for the post. While I don’t necessarily agree with the moderator, I respect his or her decision and let it be at that. It’s not a big deal. More important was the message was heard by those who needed to hear it.

Colin:

Thank you for responding to this. By both the tone of this thread and the Gamespy article, the community is very concerned about the botting issue especially and keeping us all abreast of what’s going on goes a long way.

I think Ponzu had a great point about having GMs lurking in bot-heavy places like Cursed Shore, etc. where they can proactively catch them in the act. I know last night I must have reported at least ten in 30 minutes, while karma grinding.

I tried a few times. I spent maybe 20 minutes on it, then moved on. Probably too difficult for me, since I dislike jumping puzzles anyway, but yeah. Leave some hard content in.

@Dibrom – I see what you mean now. Funnily enough I’m leveling a necro now. The class had to grow on me but yeah, there’s some problems with it.

@SamTheGuardian – I don’t disagree with you, or the author. I just didn’t feel it’s as tremendous of a problem, but now that you put it that way, yeah…maybe I’m just getting numb to it. I really hope the devs aren’t leaving us to drown.

I’m 100% with the OP. I’m not even going to bother doing a legendary, because I honestly can’t be bothered to collect/buy a bunch of materials to make something. I hate crafting. I find nothing about it entertaining, because in order to make the legendary, you have to make a bunch of junk that you might/might not be able to sell in order to get to 400. I find farming mats also equally boring.

Taking part in an event, however or a series of events, to get a legendary? Much more heroic than…farming nodes.

I’d personally rather they fix problems immediately. I think what you’re missing here is the Halloween event is going on and they’re probably patching bugs/exploits with it.

My necromancer’s flesh golem likes to pick fights with yellow conned mobs too. Poor dredge miner guy was minding his own business, slaving for the Man (er, dredge-man?) and POW. Flesh Golem punched him in the face.

I honestly don’t think it’s incompetence. These guys aren’t the rest of NCSoft and everything I’ve seen and read makes me still believe that, but I think we, the community that has bought this game and put faith in their words, should be kept better informed. Developing solutions isn’t always fast, but a ‘yes, we know it’s getting bad, but we’re working on it’ would be nice.

Player A, who has no interest in open PvP is mining a node. Player B, who likes to PvP attacks Player A. In an open PvP GW2, this would be pretty common place. You could make the argument that it could be kept to one server, but as it’s been stated elsewhere, that’s not what ANet had in mind for this game.

This is why I think Guild vs Guild would really address the ‘I want open PvP’ by letting people who want that sort of play have it with other like-minded guilds. Everquest had a /declare (I think that’s what it was?) that you could declare war on another guild, while leaving players who could give a kitten about PvP out of it.

Not really a bad experience. I’ve been griefed in both EQ and in WoW on red servers. I handled being corpse camped by either switching characters or finding something else to do. I’ve also been involved in some fun open world PvP (more in EQ than WoW) between guilds.

I think open PvP between guilds would be fine too. But people who don’t want to be bothered with it? Let them be. Level locking is fine too, but some people just aren’t interested and shouldn’t be forced to be interested.

Honestly , I can’t say I see anything wrong with this article.

I think the writer of the article is blowing it way out of proportion. Not the problem itself, because it is a big problem, but that it’s like the world-ender of game problems.
I think ANet should also be keeping us abreast more as to what else is being done.

Respond to this recent Gamespy article. I think the writer of it was kind of sensationalizing the problem. I also believe ANet is due some criticism on the handling of the bot and racist jerk problems, but this writer makes it sound like there’s going to be a planetary collapse if these problems aren’t addressed in some meaningful way.

Anyway, article link: http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/guild-wars-2/1226506p1.html

okaygo.5473:

The playerbase wants to know, why no open world pvp?

Given the previous responses, it’s evident you are not representing the player base, or even one tenth of the player base. You represent a very vocal minority that seems to believe that open world PvP is fun.

Without repeating the other points people made, I’d just like to portray what open world PvP really is. It’s not two high level characters fighting anywhere, any time. It’s one or more high level characters, camping low level characters for the fun of it. It’s these same high level players calling people ‘care bears’ because they find this sort of gameplay uninteresting and frustrating.

Go play sPvP if you truly want the challenge of fighting other players. Otherwise, you’re coming across as another griefer wanting to grief.

Redrumickey.9672:

Train were one of the best thing in EQ ! ! ! Broke up all that down time well camping and was good for a laugh.

Some of the Holy Pony trains I could make in Mistmoor or Unrest were the stuff of legends. Having said that, trains are funny when you know they’re coming. They tend to be a lot less humorous when it’s some imbecile who doesn’t feel like being considerate and navigating their train around the unexpected.

If I see them coming and they look injured or trying to escape and not some self-entitled uber trying to get to the next karma farm, I’ll do what I can to help. I like wrecking trains. Both my elementalist and my necro are great at it. Don’t see it comng all the time though … don’t like that so much!

Yeah I was wondering about that too. I hope they do something with that, because I’ve completed the personal story and there’s been no ‘real’ outcome from that choice.

GreenZap.1352:

isn’t there enough “whitey-hair” already in the game? How about giving us some “non-caucasian” types of hair like you know maybe a normal small afro (not the plastic fake afro that you can buy in a toy store thats in the game). And cornrows maybe not only for asura but for humans?
I’d like to see dreadlocks that actually looks and behaves like real dreadlocks as well. How about a real buzzcut? Curly hair and so on and so on.
There is enough “caucasian-esque” hair in the game already.

Best idea ever.

The problem with Risen is that more than a few of them run faster than you, so kiting isn’t always effective. On the slower ones, that’s a good tactic. And it doesn’t get better when you get closer to Cursed Shore. My suggestion is to make sure that your gear is the best you can get/afford for your level and I would strongly suggest that gear have a lot of +vitality.

Once you’re geared up how you prefer, really try to fight with good tactics. Sometimes kiting is OK, sometimes, especially in the higher level zones, it’ll get you killed with adds. As a level 80 elementalist in Cursed Shore, I more often than not, solo my way through, often fighting 3 or 4 at once. I use both elementals we get and I use staff. Sometimes I kite, sometimes I stand and burn everything down.

Incidentally, the gear suggested by the above poster are great choices, though I personally find the greatsword to be utterly and completely useless. But that’s a preference, not a fact. Elementalists might need some tuning, but our class is definitely not helpless — take a hard look at each spec and build to your play style. That’ll help too.

My present build incorporates the use of both the elite and non-elite elementals. With 10 points into earth, I get fast glyphs I almost always have an elemental to throw at something, while I’m fighting. That said, I exclusively summon the minor earth elemental for its toughness and swap between Earth and Fire elemental, with the elite summon. Air is practically worthless in terms of both damage output and survivability and water, as stated above, is situationally useful.

I don’t PvP at all, no interest in it but I’d imagine that any kind of elemental would be worthless in those kinds of situations.

springelf.9236:

Most games these days cater to solo players. Game is too easy, exp is shared…so ppl dont bother. I miss games like EQ, where you had to group. A mix of solo play and group play would have been nice.

You mean, you couldn’t do a quest without a group? You couldn’t walk around certain zones without being in a group? You couldn’t go to the little gnome’s room, without a group? Yeah. No thanks. I will drop this game like it was made of plutonium if they ever go to the Everquest 1 model.

As for me, I think they got it right, just the way they did it. I honestly enjoy playing by myself and have no need or desire for a group to do simple quests or events. When I feel like a ‘group’ experience, I go do a dungeon. I also like being able to help random people, without the commitment of a group. Help get that skillpoint, or help in an event then be on my merry.

I don’t think this is anti-social behavior. I simply like playing at my own pace, without somebody whining that I’m going too fast, or too slow, etc. I do sometimes nab friends to do things with in a group, just because I want to, not because I need to do so.

I just buy exotic armor on the trading post and call it a day. I personally look for anything with ‘Carrion’ in it then rune it up how it suits me. I haven’t been much of a fan on the karma vendor armor itemization. I like to be able to live through something hitting me more than once.

I play exclusively with staff in PvE and I find great success with this, though I have dabbled with scepter and dagger and find that all right. I prefer to keep as much distance between myself and enemies as possible.

Basically, it comes down to play style. Do you like to be close in and blast away, or do you like to kite and control your enemies?

The difficulty of playing this class is why it’s my favorite. I just ignore the whiners and keep on keeping on. Elementalists need a little love from Anet, yes. But people go on like the class is fundamentally broken and it’s not. Damage mitigation needs to be looked at and our overall damage output I think needs a very modest bump, but this is not a broken class.