Guild Wars 2

5 days ago, Gaile posted “I believe we will have information about this next week.” So, by the end of the week you’ll have your answer.

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/support/forum/Do-your-posts-seem-to-disappear/first#post546985

The post above Gaile’s has a link to the previous thread on the subject that Gaile had previously responded to.

After like two months of waiting, we finally get a time frame…Thank you very much Gaile!

kKagari.6804:

Dude, I’m not angry. Definitely not at you either, you’ve been a great help. Gaile’s replies are ambiguous to say the least; they also indicate they have put no thought into the releasing the names at all, which concerns me. These ‘hints’ you refer to are not helping anyone, if anything, they add greater confusion to the community, this whole topic is testament to that.

Call me pedantic, paranoid, or whatever, but if Arenanet doesn’t have a definitive stance on releasing the names, then I will continue to see it as an issue. Assumptions deriving from their ‘hints’ are just troublesome.

Well, I’m glad to hear that. Your prior post seemed a little emotionally-charged, so sorry if I came off as rude.

Really, the best thing right now it to just…wait. We can’t speed up the releasing of names—that’s been made rather apparent by Anet’s lack of a “definitive stance” as you put it. And from the sounds of it, we’ll be well notified when they plan on releasing names, so it won’t just be something completely under the radar I don’t think. For now it’s just the waiting game.

I’ve just been playing other games to pass the time while waiting on names…GW2 isn’t going anywhere any time soon as far as I can tell.

You’re misinterpreting what was said.

“They need to make a GW2 account before the name reservations are cancelled.”
That means John Doe has to make a GW2 account prior to names being released in order to claim his reserved name. Once names are released, it’s possible for someone else to take that name before him.

Does that clear it up?

On another note, I really appreciate your replies Gaile. Hopefully you all can get everything sorted out and release the names soon…

GaileGray.9587:

I just want to point out something. If the name isn’t available, it’s because someone used it in Guild Wars within the last 8 months, maybe it using it still. So I’m sort of not seeing why you’d be so eager to nab someone else’s name. Why not come up with something else? I mean, after all, as we say, “This is my story.”

It’s not a matter of “nabbing someone else’s name.” It’s a matter of nabbing my name from my second GW account. If it was someone else’s name I wouldn’t care.

All I want to know is an estimation of how long I will have to wait. I’m not in any rush to play GW2.

@dotMCL: I’m not anything close to a fanboy, nice try though. I won’t get into all of my issues with Anet/GW2 here as that’d be off-topic and a waste of time. But sure, if you’d like to call me a fanboy, I guess I can be one so that you have some way to vent your anger.

Did you use that same password anywhere else? Was the password to your email associated with your game account as complex? Was THAT password used anywhere else? Do you maintain your computer to ensure you don’t have keyloggers or any malware? There’s no way that your account was hacked by no fault of your own. If Anet had any fault in the hacks, then ALL accounts would be compromised, not a select number of accounts.

Am I saying Anet’s response to the hacks has been stellar, perfect, top-notch? No, not at all. Certainly they could do a better job in that respect. But was it Anet’s fault in the first place that accounts were hacked? I’d argue no.

+1 Cord, same situation, and no ETA from Anet as to when it’ll get fixed.

I’ll just be perfectly blunt here and say that it is the CUSTOMERS’ fault, NOT Anet’s fault, that accounts are being hacked. If people were smart enough to use strong, unique passwords everywhere, this wouldn’t have happened. Period. I use unique passwords everywhere, and I have yet to even have one unauthorized access of my account. “asd123” or “123456” is not a strong password folks. Use uppercase, lowercase, numbers, and symbols, and have a length greater than 10 characters. And boom, whaddaya know, you don’t get hacked.

tl;dr: It’s not Anet’s fault, the people who were hacked are entirely to blame.

This is rather ridiculous really…Tuesday will be a month from launch and names are still reserved, and there is no ETA from Anet on when they will finally free up the names.

I’m doing the same exact thing as XYZ—log in, name is still reserved, close game, go play something else.

Agreed, agreed, agreed. At the very minimum Anet needs to specify which items are soulbound to which characters…though I’d prefer it if it turned accountbound rather than soulbound.

This is a genius idea, 100% support it.

+1 to this, fix this ASAP. The idea behind it was all well and noble, but in practice it just hurts the players.

…You quoted it yourself.

“Shortly after launch, we’ll free up all the unclaimed names for new Guild Wars 2 players to use.”

“Shortly” is a relative term. And, if you’d like official word from Anet, here you go.

This is a post by GaileGray:
“The quote above is accurate. We did not specify “headstart or launch day” and in the overall scope of things, it’s still early days. You’re welcome to continue to try for the name, but I cannot say for certain when it would become available.”

Ironically, the “quote above” she is referring to is the exact quote I posted at the beginning of this post. And based on the wording, it is easy to deduce that the names will remain reserved until further notice. When will that further notice be? Well, this blog post (linked within the one you linked to) might help to clear that up:

http://www.arena.net/blog/reserving-your-character-name-for-guild-wars-2
“After launch day (and after we work through support tickets filed on launch day), we’ll free up the millions of unclaimed names for new Guild Wars 2 players to use.”

So it’s easy to assume that after launch issues (which are mainly hacked accounts) are resolved (they are still on-going as far as I’m aware), only then will reserved names be freed up.

So, how’s that for “official word out from Anet”? I wasn’t trying to insult you when I said you weren’t informed, I was merely stating a fact; no need to get all defensive. I’m one of the however many people that are waiting for names to be freed up, as my second GW1 account has names that I want to use in GW2 but can’t until they are freed up, since you can only link 1 GW1 account to a GW2 account.

Hope my post is informative.

No problem. I’m not sure if support can help, but it’s worth a shot. Worst case scenario is you’ll have to wait for names to be unlocked.

aibaby.2307:

It was my understanding that name reservations required you to make a character with that Guild Wars 1 name that you have within a specific number of days after launch.

Ignore this post as this person isn’t informed on the subject.

GW1 names are still reserved for linked GW2 accounts. They will remain reserved until further notice, most likely until all of the issues with launch are fixed (hacked accounts and such).

Your best bet would be to contact support with your problem, they may be able to help.

Hylox.9746:

i think more skills is a great idea, but the keyboard is crammed enough as it is already! I think they should add more weapon skills and allow an elective mode for weapon skills like they did for the utility skills to make it more like guild wars 1. also make new weapon skills cost skill points like utility skills to purchase but still have to learn them in combat.

You misunderstand. I’m not saying to add all of these skills in so that you have 7 weapon skills. I’m talking about keeping a 5 max for weapon skills, but giving you 7 skills to choose from—so you will have 2 unused skills. Makes more sense now?

Paladin.5268:

You raise some interesting points that may give a little more diversity to the game, but keep in mind what you are suggesting is something that would take a good amount of time in terms of design, concept, balancing, QA testing, etc. This type of change would have a better chance of happening in say, a future expansion / upgrade, in which new features are introduced.

I like the direction of your suggestions here, so please do not take my response as negative, just wanted to share some knowledge and feasibility.

I appreciate the response. Of course I wasn’t suggesting this happen in a week or something—I realize something like this will take quite some time to get right, as well as a lot of time to just plan out and design. I just think something like this would do well for the health of the game in the long-term. It’ll definitely bring a lot more variety and customization to the game. While there are already difference between professions, and then differences between weapons within each profession, this would allow for differences within each weapon within each profession.

No one has any thoughts on this?

I’ll elaborate a little.

Right now, builds are extremely predictable simply by seeing their weapon. You already know half of their skillbar, and you have a pretty good guess of the other half just based on their weapon. If anyone would like to disagree you’re more than welcome to, but I have yet to come across someone where I had no idea what they were capable of. I see their weapon, and it’s extremely easy to deduce what to expect.

By adding in a few extra skills for each weapon, that will greatly increase build diversity and allow you to better tailor your character to your play style. Example: warrior hammer. I like the hammer skills, except for the 4th skill. I don’t want a pushback if I’m a melee character—I want to stay in their face and do as much damage as possible. If hammer had 2 other skills, I could replace that skill for something that I would actually use.
As it currently is, I am forced to choose to use a weapon in which I don’t use one of the skills, or I just have to use an entirely different weapon that I like less if I want to utilize all 5 skills. That isn’t a great decision either way. Either I miss out on a skill, or I miss out on the weapon I would rather use. What kind of choice is that?
Now, if hammer had two other skills to choose from, I wouldn’t have to decide between the lesser of two evils. I could use the weapon I prefer to use, and I could use all 5 skills. Now, if hammer was given two other skills, for example something like Bull’s Strike and Belly Smash from GW1 (for those of you that don’t know or don’t remember—Bull’s Strike knocks down a moving foe, and Belly Smash blinds adjacent foes if your target is knocked down). Now I can combo with the knockdowns hammer already has—I can drop the pushback and pick up Belly Smash and now I offer more utility to my team since I can blind foes! This is of course just an example, but I think it illustrates why adding extra skills will be beneficial.

Thoughts?

I’ll just be brief with this.

Right now, two-handed weapons decide all 5 of your skills, one-handed weapons decide the first 3, and off-hands decide the last 2.

Instead, I am suggesting the following:
-Two-handed weapons give you a choice of 7 skills
-One-handed weapons give you a choice of 4 skills
-Off-hands give you a choice of 3 skills
-Allow for the reordering of the first 5 slots of the skillbar

If people are wondering why this might be a good idea, or are unsure if this is a good idea, or think this is a bad idea, I will post back later as to why this is a great idea and will liven up the skill system. I think this is self-explanatory as to why this is a great idea, so I won’t go into that unless the need arises (well, and I have to go to class now so I don’t exactly have the time to explain).

There are countless threads about this already. Reserved names are still reserved, but they will be unlocked “soon.”

Based on how the original blog post worded it, I assume that as soon as launch issues with people not having their accounts due to being hacked or whatever the names will be released for everyone to take.

Game called “Guild Wars” and lacks a way for guilds to war each other? Makes no sense.

Please add GvG…

I doubt deleting GW1 characters would even solve that problem, Meret. From how they explained the reservation system, it sounds like it is a list compiled by people who signed on during a set period (January to July iirc), and the list was made there. So, I don’t believe that deleting your character would effect that list. The name would still be marked as “reserved” is my best guess.

I’m in the same boat—I’m waiting on a name from my second GW1 account, plus a name that someone else has reserved but isn’t using. Extremely frustrating as I refuse to create my character with a lesser name just to play—because at some point, that name will be opened up and I’ll be kicking myself for not waiting. Oh, and the name I’m waiting for will be my main character at that. So I don’t even feel like playing the game right now, as it’s basically just wasting time on an alt.

I too am disappointed by the lack of skill variety in GW2. I’d be perfectly content with having the 5 weapon skill slots reserved for weapon skills, but allowing us to choose them…but pigeon-holing us into skills based off of weapon type just dumbs it down. It destroys variety in skillsets and takes away from the strategy of skill builds.

Now, if there were a number of skills to choose from for the weapon skill slots—ANY sense of customization—I’d be perfectly fine with the skill system as it is. Maybe not even be able to pick all 5 slots, but at least SOMETHING.

Example.
Warrior hammer.
The 4th skill, staggering blow. What if I don’t want a knockback, but I want all the rest of the skills? Should I then be forced to pick a different weapon type so that I utilize all 5 skills? Or should I stick with hammer and only use 4 of the skills?
Let’s say that in stead of the 5 skills we are forced to use, we were given the option between 7 skills, two of which we had to use—the 1 and the 5 (the basic autoattack makes sense, as without it you can’t do anything if everything is on CD, and the 5 is the characteristic “big” skill for every weapon). That would give us slots 2-4 to customize and choose to our liking. So, I don’t like skill 4? Well, I’ve got 2 other options for that slot. Or I’d prefer to have skill 3 in the skill 2 slot? Well then I move it on over to the 2 slot!

I’m not asking for the hundreds and hundreds of skills from GW1—a large majority of those skills were barely used. What I’m asking for is some sense of customization when it comes to my skills, because the system that is currently in place is nothing close to that.

Oh, and while I’m at it, I might as well suggest that more elite skills be added in. There’s like what, 3 per profession? At least give us a little bit more variety than that…

tl;dr: I agree with you OP.

Glad to see that we finally get a staff response.

To echo what’s already been said plenty of times in this thread: can we get a rough estimate of when names will be opened? A week? Month? End of the year?

At the moment I’m not even playing the game really as I’m waiting on a name (two, actually)…so any kind of time estimate would be greatly appreciated.

I too am waiting for reserved names to be freed up.

Here’s the best info we’ve got:

“After launch day (and after we work through support tickets filed on launch day), we’ll free up the millions of unclaimed names for new Guild Wars 2 players to use.”
http://www.arena.net/blog/reserving-your-character-name-for-guild-wars-2

So from the looks of it, names will be freed once all support tickets relating to launch problems are solved. Until then, we just have to wait. :l

Stillhart.2731:

I thought they said previously they were reserving them for a month and then releasing them.

http://www.arena.net/blog/reserving-your-character-name-for-guild-wars-2

“After launch day (and after we work through support tickets filed on launch day), we’ll free up the millions of unclaimed names for new Guild Wars 2 players to use.”

So, they are to be freed up no sooner than 24 hours after launch (that has passed), and no sooner than completion of tickets filed during the launch period (still on-going). Based on the wording from the post, as soon as the support tickets are worked through, the names will be freed up.

fervor.6491:

Anet said it? Officially?

I don’t think it’s pointless at all.

I remember reading it somewhere. I’ll try to find it again.

Regardless, if you really care that much about your pet name(s), just rename your pets whenever you swap to whatever it is you want. If it matters that much to you, I’m sure you won’t mind taking the 5 seconds to change the name each time.

Edit: In any case, I’m sure that they’ll add this in time. They’ve got more pressing issues to resolve at the moment.

Anet has said they aren’t and won’t be saving pet names. That’s a lot of pointless data to save.

CalvinHobbes.3541:

slurry.5467:

Sardoni.8361:

It’s strange because the only names that were reserved were those people who linked their GW1 accounts to GW2 accounts. So if the name is still listed as reserved it means the GW1 player has a GW2 account.

I was under the impression that all you had to do was log into your GW1 account between January and June (or July?) in order to have those names reserved in GW2. And then linking accounts would allow you to claim the reserved name(s). So, basically there are people that still play GW1 (or have logged in at least once this year) that have the names reserved despite not having a GW2 account. Unless I’m remembering it incorrectly.

You would be correct. The cut off was July 31st. So as long as a person logged into their GW1 account before that date any character name would be reserved to their potential GW2 account. That reservation was scheduled for the 3 day head start and launch day but was apparently extended due to all the log in issues.

So then, basically those of us waiting for reserved names just have to wait patiently until Anet opens up the names. :l

Sardoni.8361:

It’s strange because the only names that were reserved were those people who linked their GW1 accounts to GW2 accounts. So if the name is still listed as reserved it means the GW1 player has a GW2 account.

I was under the impression that all you had to do was log into your GW1 account between January and June (or July?) in order to have those names reserved in GW2. And then linking accounts would allow you to claim the reserved name(s). So, basically there are people that still play GW1 (or have logged in at least once this year) that have the names reserved despite not having a GW2 account. Unless I’m remembering it incorrectly.

Search is working for me now.

Using chrome, search doesn’t work for me. It worked a few days ago though. Just noticed it stopped working yesterday or the day before.

Ykfox.3825:

Keep in mind, some of those names are prbably actually being used, so there’s no guarantee the names you want will ever open up, or even that you’ll get them.

If they’re being used, then it would come up with a message that “the name is already in use,” not that it’s reserved for a GW1 account. It’s two different messages.

Anyone have any idea on when the reserved names will be open? I’m holding off on making a character because there’s a name I want but is reserved.

I know that Anet has said reserved names will be open 24 hours after release, but they’re still reserved (I assume due to the account issues). So please don’t link to that blog post.

Mockingjay.8723:

You had to create your character with the reserved name either during the headstart or by the end of the public launch day on the 28th.

Blog post!

Except for the fact that names are still reserved due to issues. It’s been over a week from the 28th.

As of now names are still reserved, and I have yet to see anything regarding when they’ll lose their reserved status.