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The Elusive Wintersday Mini Polar Bear

I know that the Mini Polar Bear is 'a very rare drop' and I should know after trying and trying and trying for the little devil, however; it does annoy me that to those that it does drop ~ all they seem to see is a four figure Ecto's as a price for the said elusive item. It is not the profiteering of such fortune that 'gets my Grenth' so to speak, but the arrogance that most players seem to agree that, for such a rare item; the asking price seems to be 'in line with current price guides' and no more said.

I would therefore like to ask, with this current profiteering in mind, if Anet would consider a higher drop rate next Wintersday or a Mini Polar Bear quest similar to that which I enjoyed when creating The Black Moa Chick. Not only would this give a sense of self satisfaction to the player in general, but also bring price guides back into some realm of reality.

Failing that, would Anet consider the drop of the mini pet concerned already customised to the player who is lucky enough to receive one.

Hoping you had a great Wintersday and enjoyed the festival just as much as I did.

Kind regards,

The Cheeky Wizard  :) --Cheeky Wizard 23:10, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

not everything should be easy to get imo InfestedHydralisk 23:27, 2 January 2010 (UTC)

Hello, Cheeky. I think this suggestion would best be placed on Linsey's page, if you don't mind. Thanks. -- Gaile 04:31, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Have you ever seen the price of a Mini Panda? I'm fairly certain that it clears 5 figures. ··· Danny Pew Pew 05:25, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing me in the right direction Gaile, however Linsey M's page has once again been locked because it has become so large. I'm sure everyone will understand the reasons why and I will wait for a quieter period to put my suggestion forward and please accept my apologies if I posted on the wrong page :)

Thanks also to InfestedHydralisk & Danny for your comments too. It's always good to get feedback on an idea whether favourable or not  :) Have a great New Year to you both :) --Cheeky Wizard 07:45, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I am sorry -- I did not realize the page was locked. I appreciate your generous response to my request, and I'll look forward to the discussion that takes place when time and circumstances allow. -- Gaile 07:54, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

@ infested thats not the point.The point is you don't farm for a mini polar bear you farm for a small chance of stacks of ecto Lilondra 12:43, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I farmed just for the mini, to put it in my HoM and flaunt it around pretending I was rich enough to buy it. *sigh* Two Wintersdays down with no results... I'm glad there were no new quests to take away from my bear running. ^_^ Rose Of Kali 13:16, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

yeah but thats how much people are willing to offer for the mini pet, just because they offer alot doesnt mean they should raise the drop rate InfestedHydralisk 17:24, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Infested, there should be minis in the game that are as rare as the polar bear, just for the fun of trying to actually getting one. If there is going to be something that rare in the game, people will offer crazy amounts of money to get it, but since buying it at those prices is not the only way to get it, I don't think it really matters how much money they offer for that item. Personally, if I were to get one, I wouldn't sell it, having that much money would kinda ruin the game for me, because then I could just get whatever I wanted and wouldn't have to work towards anything except titles. (Satanael | talk) 17:56, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

@ Cheeky Wizard, in the meantime you can post this suggestion in Feedback. --Silver Edge 19:42, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

Thanks to you all for your comments and I've also done as Silver Edge suggested and posted this on the Feedback section. It seems that my suggestion here appears unpopular on the whole but after reading players comments in General Chat (Lions Arch European District), there is still a cry for a better drop rate from those who think they have wasted their two weeks farming for the impossible. Not every player of course is capable of farming Ecto's and I'm sure those who did are now so rich, they don't even have to log on anymore. I should know, both of my Ecto farmers in the guild haven't been on line for around seven months or so. I will of course still find an appropriate time to try and bring this suggestion to Linsey. I for one appreciate that there is another eleven and a half months until the next full Wintersday event and I am prepared to be patient and await any outcome or decision made. Until then I have still enjoyed the Wintersday event and I'm already looking forward to the next event which of course will be the Canthan New Year. Once again, many thanks to those who have commented and will of course look forward to seeing you in game  :)--Cheeky Wizard 16:08, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Dishonourable Status

Hi Gaile, I was wondering if the dev team has considered upping the penalty for dishonourable status by say, an hour or two hours, because the amount of leavers in RA has made it almost unplayable. It's nearly a 50/50 chance to have a leaver on your team, sometimes more, sometimes less, just depends on the day. But the point is it has totally gotten out of control. I think we need a MUCH harsher dishonourable timer to deal with this. -174.112.239.236 21:59, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

There would be a funny thing to do like making 2 categories, one for regular players and another one for people who tend to leave easely. That way if you fear to punish false positives, you still allow leavers to play...but with other leavers. If you tell me that it will give laughable teams of leavers fighting against other teams of leavers that's precisely what i had in mind:) Yseron - 90.9.250.77 22:08, 3 January 2010 (UTC)

One idea I had was to impose dishonourable status on a player if they leave with a full team, but players who leave a team that is missing 1 or more players would not be punished. Since a lot of people out and out refuse to resign even when they're 3vs4, their teammates could decide to leave without punishment since the match is imbalanced. However, the person to CAUSE the imbalance would be punished immediately with an hour + dishonourable status. I think this would help alleviate the problem in RA. -174.112.239.236 00:30, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

whats also mostly annoying is that there are players that are at the start of the match zomg no monk QQ /resign /donothing which is quite annoying. InfestedHydralisk 01:14, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Make dishonorable duration scale up based on the amount of time spent in dishonorable (or times acquired it) in the last week and even more so for the last 24 hours. Ofc, the times are subject to tweaking, but that's the basic idea. Rose Of Kali 01:55, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

^ Was about to suggest Rose's idea as I read the section. --Kyoshi (Talk) 19:41, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Hey guys, I forgot to ask you when this was posted: Did any of you make this a formal suggestion via the Feedback process? I think it's a good idea to do that. -- Gaile 01:32, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Will do. Thx for reminding. Rose Of Kali 01:40, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Feedback:User/Rose Of Kali/Scaling Dishonorable duration. Rose Of Kali 04:23, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for setting up that page, Rose. -- Gaile 19:52, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Bots in Snowball Arena and Rollerbeetle racing

Dear Gaile Gray,

I would like to bring this topic to your attention, because I have the feeling it has been going under the radar for way too long.

To keep a long story short, I have very good reasons to believe that certain guilds and individuals are "botting" Snowball Arena's. Some of those players have also botted Rollerbeetle racing in the past, but that's already done. In the linked to the guru thread posted below, I have posted several reasons (skim through my post) why I believe people are botting it. -Botlike behaviour-

On top of that, a quick search on google let's us know there is a Snowball bot for sale on eBay, and I'll PM you the link if you want. Tough, I don't want to tackle all "bot-users" in general. I could care less about people having AI farm PvP for them. The issue I have is that these individuals steal our rewards. Just last year, I got 105'th orso in Rollerbeetle racing. I got kicked out of top 100 in the last few hours, and by who? The same people who are now also botting Snowball Arena.

You, aswell as any other player, know I can not obviously post any proof here, as I have no acces to their input logs, but I can guarantee you they are using bots. Tough, due to the flaming that went on in the thread (By both my guild -I asked them not to- and the "botters in question"), some of my posts have been deleted for some reason, they were not offensive in the least bit.

One of them contained what was for me the "proof" that bots were playing for them. I did a little experiment with certain players I thought were botting. I know for a fact they have acces to bots that can read the code to see if an incomming snowball is going to KD them. I then threw several snowballs at those players, and ONLY the KD'ing ones got dodge. (Drop and Dodge (DnD), it's a hard trick to pull off -You drop the relic, strafe left and right at full speed, and then pick it up again) I wouldn't think it was suspicious, if it wasn't for the fact that EVERY regular snowball got IGNORED, whereas EVERY snowball under Hidden Rock got DnD'd. I tried atleast 20 different snowballs. I tried putting up hidden rock outside of their visual range (So there was no way of them knowing I had hidden rock on, or not), and somehow they dodged the next snowball. I did the same thing (go outside of their range), but did NOT put up hidden rock. I threw a snowball, and they didn't even bother to dodge. (They just tanked it)

This gives me MORE THAN ENOUGH reason to believe, aside from the super fast picking up, that they are using a program (bot) which reads the packets comming in from the server, and that replies said packets with pre-scripted actions.

I can PM you the name of individuals and guilds in question.

Here's the Guildwars Guru thread for additional information:

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/bots-in-snowball-arena-and-t10420180.html 84.194.84.228 16:04, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

"You, aswell as any other player, know I can not obviously post any proof here, as I have no acces to their input logs, but I can guarantee you they are using bots." Hmm, so you realize that you have no proof, and yet you still came here to try and convince gaile that you deserve a mini greased lightning, I honestly dodn't see why, but fair enough, 104th place is close enough to be annoyed about it, but I am very easily convinced that there are at least 103 people who are better at the game then you. Tidas 16:40, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Tidas, please do not harass other users. This user/IP is just trying to help and to stop bots. There is no need for your unwarranted displacement. -- Lacky 16:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Point made I guess, withdrawing claws. Tidas 16:54, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Botting is an issue everywhere in the game, there's no reason to assume the OP is making it up. Botting for farming in PvE, interrupt bots in PvP/GvG, so it only makes sense people would bot festivals too specially with such rewards, and on multiple accounts to boot.--Sensei 16:58, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I don't really want the Greased Lightning, as I said. I just want a CHANCE at getting one. As it stands right now, I WOULD have gotten one, if it wasn't for bot players. So with atleast one more rollerbeetle festival comming, I just want to make sure I have a fair chance at getting those. For 2 years, or even 3, it's the same people getting atleast 5+ spots in top 100. And again, if I was allowed to post links here, I WOULD send you the link to bot the actual bot, or the eBay page, just to proove they ARE real, and not something I'm making up. I couldn't care less about 1 missed greased lightning (or some rewards points), I care that other people are stealing them from me...84.194.84.228 17:44, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

I am aware of the widespread botting that happens in-game, I just struggle to believe that there are people botting in the snowball fights where the payback is fairly low, besides, I was under the impression most of the top 100 in roller beetle were pro syncers rather than bots. Tidas 19:26, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

The rewards are actually quite "juicy" for the snowball tournament. You get a lot of reward points to blow on zkeys, along with lots of gamer title points for each win. I am baffled by people with r11 gamer, but they do exist... Rose Of Kali 19:35, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, srry for my bad editing, not too experienced with wiki code, but the rewards are quite astounding. The guilds I'm talking about always end 1st or 2nd when they play with their bots turned on. (I have also had it where they only have 1-2 people with it, and then we usually beat em) It's 70 zkeys PER PERSON if you end first. Knowing they enter atleast 2 tourneys a day, that's 140 zkeys per day, you do the further math over the course of the winter's day event.84.194.84.228 19:50, 4 January 2010 (UTC)

Dye trader in beacon's perch

Lots of people would love a dye trader in beacon's perch. So i'm the first to suggest it here on wiki. We want a dye trader! ~Droknars forge running community, 12:16, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

It's a fine suggestion. Please post on the Suggestions page. See Wiki instructions if you need help on that. :) -- Gaile 04:06, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

Hall of Monument update ?

Hello Gaile, yesterday in Ventrilo, I was talking with friends. My friend got an Everlasting Cerebral Tonic. We were all excited for him, yada, yada. But, the topic came of "The Monument of Devotion" aka the miniature monument. We talked about why can't tonic be up there seeing "In all things, there is a time for work and a time for play, for small pleasures A time for one to look back upon bright days and delicate treasures Never lost and never weary. " tonics could be considered one of these things. and seeing with all the new tonics and even including the old ones, why can't Everlasting Tonics not be dedicated to our HoM's? Vince 74.75.91.253 20:17, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Giving even more to extremely lucky/rich players is a proper thing to do, I agree. Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ аІiсә ѕνәи Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ 20:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, as much as I agree with "making more lucky/rich players more rich" how would that affect this game economy than what it already HAS with the fact that they are released ? Half of the already lucky/talented players for the two recent art contest can't even "dedicate" their monument to winning a contest. Even before ANet has brought out more tonics, they should have allowed (everlasting) tonics to be dedicated. Vince 74.75.91.253 21:01, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm not talking about economy. I can allow the argument from the standpoint of a lucky person or a talented person who won a contest. However the e-peens of the rich are already plenty big. The reward for having a lot of money should be having a lot of money, period. It's bad enough people can buy/afk their way to max ranks in their sleep and now they're going to get some kinda "woo look at me" prize in GW2.

Yeah, it would be nice and cozy and fun if we could dedicate things like tonics, however this opens the door to the aforementioned stuff. Maybe it could work if code was added that only allowed spoils out of your own container to be dedicated. That would be even better for your friend since he's genuinely lucky and the awesomeness of that can't be diminished by rich people. Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ аІiсә ѕνәи Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ 21:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

I would like to admit, but not let it stand in the way of this arguement, I (luckily) won the henchman contest. I am not nor do I want it to take into perspective of my standpoint. It is pointless to have an "e-peen" in this game because, due to the fact this game has been out for almost four years and that everyone and their friend's have some sort of "leet" item in this game, whether it is a mini, armor set, weapon, or anything that makes the individual player feel "special" or unique from the other players. To the wealthy players in this game, it is sad that they are able to get all these things that were rewarded lucky/skilled, and unfortunately, neither you, me or any other player in the game can choose what a rich player would do with their money. Speaking of special items as mentioned earlier, I would also would enjoy seeing the "Valor" monument be grossly expanded to allow the casual player to put in a weapon they like. Although, I do believe their must be a requirement for the weapon. Whether it is a green, gold, or white, I would like to see it be implemented as well. 74.75.91.253 21:51, 5 January 2010 (UTC)

You mean almost five years the game has been out, right? And I think they've already said they won't be making any new changes to the HoM. (Satanael | talk) 00:45, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I confess that I am not up-to-date on plans for the Hall of Monuments as far as whether there will be further development. Like Satanael, I believed that there would not be changes, but I cannot say that with certainty. Since this is a suggestion, I would encourage you to place it the Feedback:Suggestions section. If you are asking for my opinion, I think the HoM already has a lot of different options. If you take all the suggestions for dedications as a whole, players would end up being to dedicate every single item in their inventory. I mean, where does it end? :) -- Gaile 21:11, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

The sky is the limit.... ow wait we have spaceships....

My guess.... if you provide us spaceships.... then it'll never end :). So please don't give us spaceships. -- Qaletaqa Hania 21:40, 6 January 2010 (UTC)

My opinion is still that all those rewards from contest need to be dedicated to these person so that rich people cant buy stuff people won with a contest. Since its great to get such items, but alot of people fall for the high prices people offer them. 100armbraces for a mini candycorn guard. :( 84.80.151.136 16:46, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it is somewhat too late for this game, but I really hope rewards like that are customized to the winner's account (not just one character) in GW2. Making it a customized /bonus command item would be great, as each character can have their own copy instead of having to pass it through storage when switching characters, and it still can't be sold. Rose Of Kali 22:33, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

^ That is a good suggestion. Rose you should make a suggestion page for that so it doesn't get lost when this gets archived. -- Qaletaqa Hania 22:43, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

Done. :) Feedback:User/Rose Of Kali/Binding exclusive items to the account for GW1 and Feedback:User/Rose Of Kali/Binding exclusive rewards to the account for GW2. Feel free to comment. Rose Of Kali 20:59, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

Griefing in PvP

I know this was answered a while ago, but i can't seem to find the official response so i thought i'd drop you a line. I just wanted to know the official stance on griefing in pvp and if it's a reportable offense. basically i'd run aura of the lich echo'd and then illusion of weakness. kinda like what ppl would do against gunther in the start. or running suicide builds in pvp. it's not leeching, just messing around.

i remember a while ago you said playing foolishly isn't against the rules, but then it was added to the eula then removed and stuff. just wanted an official reminder. thanks --adrin 00:14, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Say whut? We amended the UA to add "don't play foolishly" and then removed it? You're sure? Details please! :D

I don't think this is a support issue, per say. Could I ask you to ask a Live Team member about the situation? Support takes their guidance from the Live Team for this sort of thing, so you'll be getting the first-line response if you contact one of the other Live Team members. Thanks. -- Gaile 00:17, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

holy cow that was fast lol. i was asking you in support since sometimes people say oh i'm gunna report you and stuff and if it's really a reportable offense, i want to avoid being in that situation. --adrin 00:29, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

I found Engaging in PvP match manipulation, disrupting a PvP match by not actively playing in good faith, or any other form of PvP griefing, exploitation, or abuse in the conduct and breaches, but it isn't in the amended yellow text. just a little confused--adrin 00:32, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Understood. As I said, if such a report were made, the Support team would probably discuss with me. I would discuss with the Live Team to learn their preferences for how Support would handle such a situation, once proved. So discuss, relay, discuss, act, etc. But I still think it would just be faster to ask a Live Team member: "Hey, is griefing another player going to get me actioned?" And, noting the bits you yourself quoted, I think you really already have your answer, which is, "Yep, it just might." :) -- Gaile 00:51, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

• pouts* lol thanks for the response. --adrin 01:09, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

So it all depends on whether or not they like you, when it comes down to it Adrin. It's how the world works, through favoritism, nobody is unbiased. -- Tha Reckoning File:User Tha Reckoning Sig2.jpg 01:13, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Yes, of course. We take a poll and say "How many people know this person, who likes him, does he play well, does he dress fashionably, and most importantly, does he floss and brush daily." And then, and only then, do we decide whether to take action on a breach of the Rules of Conduct.

Riiiiiigt. -- Gaile 01:15, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Don't try and fool us GG, we know it's much less civil than all that. -- Tha Reckoning File:User Tha Reckoning Sig2.jpg 01:16, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

i do floss daily in fact. the crest glide floss is so awesome. wow this is the oddest contrib i think ive made ;-P --adrin 01:26, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

That's... good to know, adrin. ;) -- Gaile 01:32, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

you do floss your floss dont you? InfestedHydralisk 01:41, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Well the best thing you could do it, floss your floss before you floss but dont floss to hard when you floss, because using floss to much makes the floss weaker and weak floss is bad. So floss with good and expensive floss. 62.133.217.40 10:05, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

floss? 77.60.239.138 13:53, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

I guess this really begs the question of whether or not it is a violation of the EULA to floss in PvP. Adrin, did you see anything about that in your searches? :-D AnClar 18:27, 14 January 2010 (UTC)

FC Unyeilding Aura + Contemplation of Purity anyone? ^darkur face is gross_chaos 00:23, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

On a semi-related not, i know people who've gotten temporary suspensions and fame rollbacks for ranking people after matches in tombs. Dunno if CSRs still hand out punishments for screens of people ranking after matches, but I know they did at one point. So I dunno if that answers your question about punishments for griefing.--TahiriVeila 03:55, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure Anet has denied doing that every time someone accused them of it.What is 100% true is that the EUlA can be summarised by "Don't ever use nigger in all chat,or any gw related chat for that matter".Anything else is proly totally fine (I'm exaggerating I know its not that bad) Lilondra 19:54, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

@Tahiri -- no you don't. You may know people who say they were given a suspension or a fame rollback, but you don't really know anyone who was given either punishment because we do not take action for using the rank emote. Now, if said person were also engaging in offensive behavior, like harassing someone else in a really excessive manner, using continued bad language, etc., he may be given a suspension, sure. But that suspension would be related to a mark for Inappropriate Behavior, which is never tied simply to use of an emote!

Too, the Support Team does not and cannot roll back rank. So please, let's let these two rumours die a well-deserved death. -- Gaile 21:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

@Lilondra -- Thanks for acknowledging the UA is not that bad. I was a little alarmed when I first started reading your post. :) -- Gaile 21:48, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Sorry,Reverted my post because a) I don't find that word offensive b) I thought orry did it (bad revisioning) and c) I don't find that word offensive in that context.I'm not a Rascist at all (in fact I get furious whenever I see "Filip Dewinter,local rascist" speak but I believe in freedom of Speech and how words are as bad as you want them to be) Lilondra 06:55, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

I would say it's not your place to decide whether it's offensive or not. Also, it's spelled "racist." elix Omni 07:31, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

But I do get to decide what I find offensive,or how I talk for that matter.And thanks for the spelling correction albeit totally unrelated. Lilondra 07:54, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

That's completely subjective. I would fin offensive being called 'Hispaniard' when I'm Spanish, but even more being called a smoker, when I don't smoke and think all smokers should vanish from earth. MithTalk 14:51, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

PvP bots

THis is a video on youtube displaying a bot for inturrupting in pvp, thought maybe it should be brought to youer attention if it wasn't already. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E78pO9SM2aE --Orry 23:33, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I like the cape trim in the video even thought i don't know if the video is fake in some way or another. But one sure thing is it remind me of the rank emotes that were following the already always perfect interrupts on Miss Eva Devine in alliance battles...more than one year ago. Bots have been around for really quite some time. But Anet work like this: tell them that someone have a tendency to interrupt anything in a suspicious way and you are automatically classified as the average pve scrub player, while the botter is shown as an exemple of what a skilled player should be. I'm surprised the botters don't have yet an NPC named after them. Yseron - 86.64.70.44 13:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

As I have said previously, the team is aware of the bot complaints. I'm not brushing you off, but it is a known issue. Thanks. -- Gaile 01:51, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

Botting in PvP and Festival Events

Guru Thread discussing current bot issues. --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 74.75.91.253 (talk).

We are aware of the various community discussions about bots, and the concerns that players have about their use. I'll see if there's any info to provide on this subject. -- Gaile 21:59, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Thoughts on account security

Hi Gaile. Since you mentioned the new security system that one wintersday in LA, I'd like to talk a bit about account security here, as experienced by me and our guild in the last 12 months. Maybe you can use this to get something productive out of it for all of us. In the surveyed time our guild (40 members) lost 6 accounts to hacker attacks. We managed to regain control of all of them, but it cost us dearly to rebuild 4 of those accounts at least to minimal playable strength. The other two decided to quit GW altogether. Two of those hacks ocurred this month, after the new system was in place, which kind of boosts our statistic to a new all-time high. Every time something like this happened, I sat down for some hours, discussing and thinking about it. The following is what I was able to filter out as far as ideas go.

• changing email adresses - Though there is a way of changing your login email adress, it is a bit complicated and as far as I'm told, you need an ncsoft account for it to work. Over here - meaning Germany - using online stores like ncsoft is a thing only internet routiniers do. For the common people it's seen as a big security risk, the fear of misuse of bank account data is rather high. Long-time players often have them still set to long expired email accounts.

This process could surely be simplyfied. I for instance have a special "onlinegames-only" email adress that has it's very own high security password which is never used in any game or internet platform, which I created when I started GW. Most users however use their everyday mail adress that often has a weak password. Changing your email adress once or twice a year would render stolen account data completely useless maybe even before someone starts attacking the account.

• passwords - Sure, all of us know, the best passwords sound much like "hdrwej67en". In reality, people prefer something along the lines of "kitty", "mynameisbob" or "ilikegw". (Right now, the image in my head displays several users changing their passwords, cursing me for guessing them.) Since those passwords are somewhat easy to guess, let alone to calculate, we in our guild are now introducing a monthly ingame festival, the "change your password day". As I thought of it, I immediately had to think about the order of whispers and how they never really party in GW.. at least once a year they sure could be allowed a special day to remember players to keep their secrets secret, couldn't they? ;) It's just an idea, but maybe something like that would encourage ppl more than the "use safe passwords" message on the login screen.
• reporting on the issue - I for one know that customer support can't do a single thing when you get hacked. But they can keep track of the ammount of hacks, IF they are informed. If people are encouraged more to report hacked accounts to support, maybe things would move quicker.
• emergency measures - GW already supports a system to report players that play unfair, leech, etc. The thing our guild was wishing for when that one officer got hacked and everyone was being kicked out or promoted while the leader was offline, was a suspension vote or hacked vote. Like, if 3 officers (of a 40 members guild) report another officer, he is demoted instantly and the demoting vote is recorded in the guild history for leader view. This could help in some other cases, too - and save guilds and player motivation. I barely managed to hold things together that time because I spent huge amounts of gold, reinviting players quicker than the hacker could kick them out again, until he got frustrated. As a result, he deleted all but one character on the account out of anger - but our guild survived, more or less intact. Some members never came back.

Well, it is not much, but I only wanted to display some thinking that really should work without the danger of misuse. Maybe you know someone that may get some ideas from reading through this. Or maybe you'd like to talk a bit about it personally. However, I'm here. :) Yours, Golgarit Raven 20:31, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Sounds good to me,But people with secure paswords shouldent be MADE to change thier password on this idea,because why am i gueseing that their pasword will be 'Ilikepasswordday' (Frankly,its just an idea) But other than Mass Password change slowing servers/w-e to a halt,sounds good to me --Neil2250 21:36, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Having a secure password is easy. Remembering said password is the hard part for some people. ThrainFile:User Thrain Sig.pngcontribs 21:39, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Guild Wars twitter already mentioned it. Maybe good to inform about the statement of ncsoft on the website here: http://us.ncsoft.com/en/playsmart/security-post.html Didis 23:08, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Canthan New Year 2010

Hey Gaile, a happy New Year to you, just a quick question about the Canthan New year. Can you find out please or do you know whether it will be taking place on the weekend of the 12th of February? Since the Chinese New Year is on the 14th of February which happens to be on a Sunday. Hope your well Gaile, take care.--Logistics14 02:16, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Wait, it's going to be on Valentine's Day? Damn it. I guess those of us with significant others can forget about the celebration this year :/ Karate Jesus 03:43, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I'm going to be in Quebec :( --TahiriVeila 03:50, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Sad day. Doesn't your gf live in New York or something random? Seriously, just get married. Living together makes things easier :D. Karate Jesus 03:51, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

To be frank, I think that it will be on the day since its far to good an opportunity to finish it all up on that weekend for GW etc. --Logistics14 04:23, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

We're both at school together silly. And we're going on a ski trip with Brown's ski club (three day weekend due to president's day or washington's birthday or w/e it is). Booze, sex, nightclubs, and skiing, i'n a happy, happy boy :) --TahiriVeila 04:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

February 14th is on a Sunday, not Saturday. --Silver Edge 04:50, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

You are indeed correct, my mistake, fixed. Still a perfect time for the event however I believe.--Logistics14 05:01, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Well, some of us don't think so....because we have wives/gf's. Just saying.....Valentine's weekend is a bad call :/ Karate Jesus 17:10, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I am also in the same position but Valentines day is only a Sunday so you can still enjoy the event during Friday and some of Saturday, unless your doing the weekend thing with your wife/gf of course.--Logistics14 17:33, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Saturday will be the Valentine's date day (everyone knows it's always the Saturday of Valentine's week). Sunday will be the day that people take their moms to lunch (also pretty common, but maybe just in the South). The weekend will be full either way :/ Karate Jesus 17:36, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I agree it is bad timing and including myself I will celebrate Valentines day on a Sunday, thankfully my wife likes GW so shes understanding, lucky me.--Logistics14 17:42, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

so its GW > relationship? InfestedHydralisk 17:54, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

@Logistics14 perchance it's possible to enjoy "some" of the event, but since the finale will certainly be running on the Sunday, those of us with SO's will certainly miss that :( And some of us have sufficently "new" SO's that we like to make a full weekend of Valentine's Day XD relationship very definitely > GW --BramStoker (talk, contribs) 19:51, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

@BramStoker, tottaly agree with you there, however I have been with my partner for quite a number of years already. Still I got no doubt I will be dragooned someplace for Valentines day I might even be the person who does the dragooning as it where.--Logistics14 20:27, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

I have never seen the word "dragoon" used as a verb before. Well done, sir. +1 internets for you. However, you get -5 internets for not knowing how to indent, so I guess it equaled out in the end. Karate Jesus 20:34, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Dont use wiki pages very often so I only remember the basics, hows this for indent skills:)--Logistics14 20:46, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Indenting is an art, not a skill. In any event I don't care when the event is as I have no SO or anything but in the interest of those that do I hope that they will move it out a little. They have the Wintersday party a week after Christmas as it is to busy then so who knows what they are planning around Valantines as is not that huge of a Holiday.-- Natalie Black 04:03, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

DLL forcing allowed or not?

→ moved from User talk:Regina Buenaobra

After the January 7th update Graphics.dll won't load which allowed me to view other peoples armor in game in all its glory and so I have found a .dll forcing program that works to fix the issue. I know ArenaNet does not support mods but is using a .dll forcing tool against the rules? Gaile and Emily stated mods are allowed at your own risk as long as they are not bots or something that gives you an unfair advantage. I don't want to use the forcing until I get a confirmation that it is still acceptable to force the Graphics.dll file. Thanks.-- Natalie Black 05:00, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

This would be better directed at Gaile. I can guarantee the response will be the usual one, however. ··· Danny Pew Pew 23:02, 16 January 2010 (UTC)

Moved it, now Gaile can you help answer my question on the subject? Thanks! -- Natalie Black 03:53, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

Of course, if this program of yours enables the bots to run again then the ANet solution against bots has failed and should imo be restored to how it was when another fix is found. According to the rules you're "allowed" to use that program unless you use it for botting and other unfair advantages. The fact that the DLL can still be forced should be an important issue for ANet. -- Karasu (talk) 00:22, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Injecting .dlls is still child's play, its been done with many games for years. This 'change' does nothing to stop the slightly smarter people from botting. 82.34.128.4 00:42, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

I might be wrong, but I have a strange feeling they did more than just prevent it from being loaded. ··· Danny Pew Pew 02:55, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

Karasu, you've clearly never read the part of the EULA where they strictly prohibit the use of any third-party programs. Modifying the client, as injecting a dll does, could easily end up in a ban. ··· Danny Pew Pew 02:55, 18 January 2010 (UTC)

As I recall the whole discussion about using TeXMod etc: "Directly modifying the Guild Wars program files through any third party tools is completely unsupported by ArenaNet and NCSoft.". Also - if what you say were true, then the high-resolution hack was illegal. -- Karasu (talk) 11:09, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I will check into the use of this tool to see if we have a specific response to offer concerning its use. -- Gaile 21:57, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Rift Warden

Hello, I noticed that the Wintersday festival has started. One thing though is I don't see the Rift Warden anywhere to be able to do those quests to enable a player the possibility of opening a Wintersday Chest. Guru and a few people have said that it was going to be re-run during this Redux. Is he going to appear? --The preceding unsigned comment was added by 72.82.200.103 (talk).

See Talk:Wintersday 2009 Redux, they are expected to appear later, just as they did in the actual Wintersday event. Also, please sign your comments and place new topics at the end of the page. -- FreedomBound 18:11, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

The Rift Wardens are in place tonight, as designed. -- Gaile 05:52, 31 January 2010 (UTC)

125 Candy Cane Shards For Hat

hey Gaile, im a little upset you see, i was one of the first people to notify u about the whole i didint get my hat thing and well it go sorted out and you told me that there was gonna be a guy there collecting shards for hats. This is perfectly fine, but i was out all the weekend and didit get a chance to get on and i went to go and get my hats the other day and i couldt becuase i dnt have 125x2=250 candy cane shards for the hats!!! the thing that gets me is that ive only got the leftovers i had from when i went to the 3 festivals last time and didint get a hat becuase of the glitch.... Whatever am i gonna do??? Thanks User:Benny4LYF

You should have planned ahead to use the collector. All collectors to date were asking a stack of whatever it is they wanted per hat. This time it is fair to ask half price, as there are two hats, so still a total of a stack of shards. This should have been no surprise. Moreover, they repeated the entire week of quests to let people gather the shards again. Ask guildies for leftovers or buy some, there are some people selling these, still. Rose Of Kali 21:33, 11 February 2010 (UTC)

Hidden/Renamed Area?

Ok.rewind to the start of GW proth. when the manuscripts where released,i noticed while on page 76, at the catorgary of Trolls.It said this.

"Sightings: The Wilds, Silverwood, Forest of True Sight

Breeds:Jungle Troll, Mountain Troll, Fen Troll

Known Warchiefs: Grook Plugalug"

What is "The Forest of True Sight"? and was it re-named or is an un-implimented area?

P.S ... i like the oldschool :P (Its before Certain Things Made me not care for the rest of it :/ )

-Neil2250 17:52, 12 February 2010 (UTC)

It's like the Vabbian Arena, Bombardment , Broken Tower , Competition Arenas (outpost) My fav outpost !!! I WANT IT BACK !!, Desert Sands , Hero Battles , Kurzick Settlement , Kyhlo , Luxon Settlement , Sacred Temples, Scarred Earth (arena), Team Arenas (outpost), The Beachhead , The Crossing, Gladiator's Arena (1v1) , and there is also another secret outpost near elite zaishen, you can see it by using Mapping mods --Shalgoesjapan 10:44, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

That doesent help,and its called Zashien Marketplace,i think --Neil2250 15:35, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

The Manuscripts was finalized for print a couple of months before release of the game. Yes, there was some (hopefully minor) discrepancies between the manual and the final details of the game, such as a few location names. I was just casually thinking, wouldn't it be cool if some of those names crept into Guild Wars 2? I don't know that they would or could -- there may be reasons that they were changed in the first place -- but I could see some folks rather liking that. :) -- Gaile 20:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Something that would be particularly cool would be for the Ahmtur Arena to be worked back into gameplay, either through introduction into the RA/CA rotation or by reintroducing Hero Battles and replacing The Crossing with this map.--TahiriVeila 20:57, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Logon Page Security Announcements

Hi Gaile, just a thought about the security announcements on the logon page. They've been there a while now, and they certainly catch my attention each time I logon, but they're undated, and of course I'm ignoring them now assuming that they're ones I've already acted on (I mean each time I logon it says "Please change your password today!"). We all really hope there won't be another security exposure, but if you needed to reissue either of the security messages again, they could be overlooked. I can see that it's worth keeping the messages on the page for the benefit of new players, but how's about adding a date to the messages? Kirbett 10:35, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Good suggestion. I will pass this along to the Live Team. If space allows, a date in the header would be helpful. At the least, a date in or below the message would be of some level of usefulness. Thanks! -- Gaile 20:11, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

I wanted to point out that we are now dating our Messages of the Day, which is what we call the messages that you see on the right on the Log-In Screen. Thanks again for a very helpful suggestion, Kirbett. -- Gaile 03:56, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

Req8 weapon better than req9 ?

Hey Gaile, I hope that i'm at the right place ; Is it true that you have more chances to land a critical hit if you have a req.8 or req.7 weapon , instead of a q9, even if you have the same attributes ? --90.35.22.251 20:40, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

That is ridiculous. elix Omni 20:47, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

only reason people buy req 8 martial weapons is to brag, no real benefit cause who runs 8 points in their martial weapon? 68.94.181.169 20:58, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

There's is no added chance to achieve a critical hit with a lower requirement weapon, but the ability to redistribute Attribute points isn't just bragging rights... purely. --Oiseau 21:01, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

I would agree with Oiseau. The ability to expand how APs are applied isn't trivial. As to your question, 90, I think that's another bit of GW mythology but I'll see if anyone knows differently about it. (Logically, how would it be possible? Are people speculating some sort of odd bug?) :) -- Gaile 00:29, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Test it with Wild Blow. InfestedHydralisk 01:38, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Nevermind about that, I just read the title. InfestedHydralisk 01:39, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

The only thing a req8 item does is enabling the full base property(and just that one) while having rank 8 in that attribute instead having 50% or 25% of it. It doesn't do anything else. That may have some use for shields and foci, but for weapons it isn't of much use, since for martial weapons you likely have at least 9..12 if you want to make any damage at all, and for casters... well, casters don't attack with their weapons much, they are usually... you know, casting and stuff. MithTalk 15:32, 5 May 2010 (UTC)

Low weapon requirements increasing chance for critical hit - I've heard this myth many times even back in 2005, no idea where this came from, maybe it's the sellers in towns who do false advertising but I can't recall hearing that from sellers. But it's certainly false and it's easy to prove.--178.42.189.208 00:02, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

My only view on Req8 over any req9 goes like this: It's much better to have a build that is 12, 10, 8 than a build that is 12, 9, 9. Say... take this for example.

Monk / Warrior
Divine Favor	11 (10+1)
Healing Prayers	15 (12+1+2)
Tactics	8
Peace and Harmony Patient Spirit Dwayna's Kiss Dismiss Condition Blank Balanced Stance Shield Bash Deny Hexes

So in this way you can receive the full shield bonus instead of half. →[ »Halogod (talk)« ]← 00:57, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Q8 & Q9 just means less to spec in that particular attribute so you can dispense points elsewhere and still get the benefit the weapon offers, nothing more. There's no evidence in 5 years of GW that Q's that low have anything to do with the math and code that produces critical hits in this game. Or as said above, its "car sales bs" to push a buyer.--*Yasmin Parvaneh* 18:40, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Game Login Screen Messages

Hey Gaile. Not 100% where to ask this, so I thought may as well make it you since your are the Support Liaison, and you might be able to forward it on to the appropriate people.

I noticed that there's a bug with the login screen where not all the messages appear to all players. Now, I know that I'm no expert on the matter, but wouldn't it just be a simple case of removing all the code for the messages, and remaking the message(s)? That should surely make it appear to everyone then, wouldn't it?

Thanks for your consideration. -- Lacky 11:35, 6 April 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, Lacky -- this page moves quickly sometimes and I missed this little note. I don't know of any issue with visibility of in-game messages (I assume on the join screen?) and I've not heard of it from others. I'd love to get a few screenshots of this situation so that I can quantify the issue when I route it to the Live Team. If this is happening to you, or is happening to someone you know, if would be great if you could please contact support and let them know, sending screenshots of the two log-in screens so they can see what's no appearing for the other individual. Thanks a lot. -- Gaile 23:47, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

The login messages I am referring to happens to a number of players, not just myself. The page about it is here: Login screen announcements. In particular the "I have a new key!" announcement message. It says that not all messages will appear for some players for reasons unknown, which brings me back to my original question of, wouldn't removing the code and then remaking the message(s) make it work? -- Lacky 23:50, 30 April 2010 (UTC)

That 'i have a key' bug actualy helps me in some unknown way, for some reason it only diserpiers when ive either logged off or dont have internet connection, very handy in how randomly it works, fyi.--Neil2250 , Render Lord 14:43, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

I understand what the situation is now. A report of this situation should be on the Bug Reports page. If it is not, please list it. Our QA Team reviews those reports frequently, and they will get this issue into the queue, or let you know it already is in the queue. Thanks. -- Gaile 04:06, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Thank you Gaile. I shall see what I can do. EDIT: Alright, I have posted a bug report here. -- Lacky 23:11, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

Thanks a bunch, Lacky. :) -- Gaile 22:41, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Making Suggestions?

Hi Gaile! How are you today? ^_^ I'm here with a quick question for you regarding making suggestions to ANet. I understand there is a feedback section where ideas, suggestions, etc can be posted, and I have already posted on it. However, I have heard from various sources that ANet rarely checks these pages; do you know if there is a better way for me to suggest the concept? I, as well as others have been working on this concept specifically for a campaign or expansion for GW2, and I had been told that perhaps I should ask you. :) Thank you very much for your time, and I sincerely hope you have a wonderful day! --GreatWallStr 14:17, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Psst, give her pie, that does the trick <3 --Neil2250 20:42, 18 June 2010 (UTC)

Hi GreatWallStr -- I think the Suggestions section is still the best place to put your ideas. I realize that you may not see a lot of responses or feedback on that page, but that shouldn't be discouraging. I know from my forum involvement in the past, I read a lot of threads but I responded to far fewer than I read (because of time constraints). I feel that may be the case for the designers now. So the suggestions page really is the spot for your ideas at the present time. If we develop another means of accepting suggestions, we'll get the word out and you can use whatever alternative means are offered to submit those ideas. -- Gaile 19:38, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

Pssst - Neil -- I'm more a cake than a pie kinda person. ;) -- Gaile 19:38, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

1079 AE?

Hey Gaile! How ya doin'? I have a question regarding the date of War in Kryta. (I know that this is more of a lore question but Linsey's page is locked :*( ) So when is War in Kryta going on? The best guesstimate I've heard is 1079 AE (coming from that 1079 AE D'Alessio Seaboard area that was removed) Could you confirm or refute this as correct? Thanks!Satrec Pylonag 15:18, 19 June 2010 (UTC)

That's correct.  :) -- Gaile 19:13, 22 June 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for answering that Gaile! That clears up quite a bit. =D Satrec Pylonag 01:52, 25 June 2010 (UTC)

No More Ranger?

Gaile I have noticed that different professions are using bows now, so this means that there will be no ranger because everyone else is using bows. Now is it me or arnt bows like ur favourite wep and arnt they like among the most used item? So why get rid of rangers who specialise in nature magic when i have already thought of a ranger sylvari. I think that nature magic and a nature species go well together. My real question is, whos idea was it to get rid of the ranger? User:Austin1

Who ever said thier getting rid of it? Zzz. every fantasy game needs a ranger class or it fails.GW2 will have rangers. they're much much stronger than the warrior rangers seen in the trailer.the warrior rangers main reason for bows is pulling.Assasins are bound to have bows because they mostly have them in other fantasy games, but much like the warrior, it will be much weaker than the rangers skills and weapons.Also.see Pets--Neil2250 07:34, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

There won't be any Assassins. elix Omni 07:42, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

So who does Stealth, a proffesion-used skill, belong to? --Neil2250 07:45, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

A profession that doesn't break the game. elix Omni 08:13, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

i somehow dout a warrior could stealth.--Neil2250 08:15, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

He means that Assassins ruined the game, they have Shadow Form, Palm Strike, Shadow stepping and they are in almost EVERY speed clear. Their attacks are chains which are mostly 1-2-3 spamming and don't require much skill. But yeah, they could return to GW2, but they would have to be reworked entirely. And I'd rather not have stealth because stealth could cause a lot of balancing issues. Reaper of Scythes** 14:54, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

They have already announced stealth ._. --Neil2250 14:57, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) Yet I don't know of an instance, in my limited experience with WoW, in which the Rogue class imbalanced anything. A stealth class can be properly done. --Kyoshi (Talk) 15:00, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Source for stealth? I haven't read that anywhere. (Or can't remember). Reaper of Scythes** 15:05, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, I'm not even seeing it anywhere on GW2W. --Kyoshi (Talk) 15:08, 26 June 2010 (UTC)

Who ever said that assassis will be back but without those skillz that are unstopable? They say thatthere will be less skills so maybe sins won't have magic like Shadow Form. Maybe you need a staff for that. :) -- User:Austin1

(Reset indent) I hope everyone has heard the wonderful news that the Ranger will return. *happy dance* -- Gaile 18:55, 1 August 2010 (UTC)

Rangers Back!

Im over joyed to hear there back, uh but as i was watching their vids, Hunters call is brutal User:Austin1

"It's a brand new day, and the sun is high / All the birds are singing 'cause you're gonna die" --Kyoshi (Talk) 14:40, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

I mean, honestly, how could we not have Rangers? :) -- Gaile 19:56, 23 July 2010 (UTC)

Codex Arena and its inactivity.

Dear Gaile Gray,

Due to several reasons, Codex Arena is inactive about 60-70% of the day. I wonder if Anet is aware of this problem, and is willing to devote minor resources to push this format in the right direction.

Right now, the format is -barely- active from about 16:00-22:00 GMT+1 where you get about an average of 2-3 resets in between matches. However, during any time outside of this zone there is 0 teams playing. I'm not exaggerating, I'm not lying, there litteraly is 0 teams playing, and thus people who are willing to play have no way of playing as they won't be able to go in. Even if they finally manage to get an opponent (asking friends or something), as soon as you start beating them for more than 2-3 consecutive times, they will simply leave as well because there is no reward for them playing. So this means that you almost have to pay someone to keep going in, just so you can actually play the format...

So there lies my next question:

Multi-acounting isn't against the rules, and neither is partying up with yourself (as many PvE-players use this to form virtual 7 man hero teams -Leave on the second acount so that the heroes get assigned to the first player so he has 6 heroes), but what about partying up against yourself? If this is the only way you can actually get opponents, how else would Anet expect people to play the game?

Or another variant:

What about paying 3 people to go afk, and a fourth person (party leader) to keep re-entering so that you can atleast keep getting matches. As soon as a "real" team enters the format, they will face you too, so you will still have to play in order to get wins. (Or they will just beat you and break your consecutive run) Remember that all this is only the result of pure inactivity, and not an abusing mentality from the community. It simply is the only way to accumulate points (If for example you need R3 for HoM). People from America, Australia and Asia would have to play during the morning, or in the middle of the night solely to be in the "active hours" of this format, and even then you still get alot of "No opposing party"s.

More on the actual inactivity of the format:

Has Anet already got several ideas in mind, or are they still looking for ways to fix the format? I'm just going to post some ideas which I believe would "fix" the format so that it would be a bit more active, and people wouldn't have to re-adjust their intire life-schedule solely to gain some matches/points in this format.

Some of the main issues there are now:

• Inactivity. This results in people not being able to gain points in the title track, and thus not getting any reward whatsoever for playing this format. The balthazar faction is hardly worth it, and there is far better options available.
• The Codex change breaks consecutive runs. Because the codex changes every 6 hours, and you get so many NoP's, it simply isn't worth entering anywhere past 3-4 hours past the Codex change. (So 2-3 hours before the next change) By the time you actually reach 15-20 wins, the codex will change and kick you out again. That is if you can even get opposing teams...
• Meta Specific skills dominate the format when available.

To fix most of the issues, the following options I believe should be concidered:

• Promote playing the format through AT's and/or other reward systems. Every 10/20 consecutives, a chest spawns which gives a zkey and a random gold item. (Similar to HoH chest minus the Ghostly Hero) Concidering getting 10-20 consecutives takes about 0.5-1 Hour this seems a very solid reward without outclassing any other options. (HoH gives a chest every 12 minutes to 8 people)
• Introduce a laddersystem of some sort where either guilds, or individual players get their amount of wins and losses recorded. (Similar to PvE challenges) The top 10 guilds/players each month get xx codex points for their achievements. Ladder resets every month.
• Whenever the codex changes you keep the amount of consecutives given that your party does NOT disband. (As long as all 4 players re-enter, without anyone leaving the party, within 5 minutes your streak continues where it ended)
• Assign 1 or 2 people from the Test Krewe to codex changes. For example:

• Holy Veil should always be available for monks, as hex removal is mandatory when hexes are meta.
• Insidious Parasite should recieve a small global nerf, as the skill gets abused in just about every hexway in every format. (It was a problem skill in TA, HB and now in Codex)
• Multiple healer teams (Rit and Monk) should be looked at.

• Add some of the old Hero-Battles maps. No changes required. This would promote other builds than 4v4, and would put a natural demper on the current hexway metas. At the same time, it promotes more than one-dimensional play which should attract more people to the format. The Hero Battle maps were fine, it was the heroes that always were the problem. There is no reason not to re-use them. This would also give the format a severe boost in fun-factor, solely because the HB maps promote split-play and mini-scrimmages.

I hope some of these changes get implemented, because the format has alot of potential and it would be a shame to see this format left to rot pretty much like the old Hero Battles and Team Arenas...Rendier 23:02, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

The suggestions would be better suited to a user feedback space, since Gaile is a support liaison, not a developer or dev liaison. --Kyoshi (Talk) 23:54, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Playing against your alter-ego account would fall under "match fixing," which would violate the EULA. At best, ANet won't be able to officially sanction such competition; at worst, it could result in suspension or ban (unless you're talking about a couple of matches to see how things go). 76.200.182.66 00:08, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I think this does rightfully belong in the Suggestions portal. But briefly, if we block guilds for creating smurfs to play against -- and we assuredly do -- why would we sanction people creating individual smurf accounts to "compete" against themselves? -- Gaile 04:21, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I played quite a lot of codex when it first came out, but my interest waned as the meta settled.

Due to the restricted number of skills, a single healer would very often be unable to fulfill the roles expected of them. This meant that in order to reliably win a team would have to run highly defensive spike builds. On several ocasions i ran Mo/P, with heals and merciless spear for spike assist.

PUGs with no Vent are unable to run such a build to much success, losing to the guild vented teams. This is very frustrating, so people quit joining PUGs. This leaves only the guild teams, with very few opponents.

Maybe having certain "core skills" for healers would help, as suggested above, might help, but im not sure. PUGS had some success in TA too, but only because they had RA teams to "prey" upon.

Getting CA busy seems impossible to me. Guild teams will always use Vent, and PUGs will not. PUGs cannot win, so will stop playing. Guilds will run out of opponents, so will stop playing.Sepia 02:15, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Guild Wars 2... Made for n00bs?

A bold statement, but I think it might be true. Arenanet have given us 5 skills, 5 skills we can't change whatsoever for each weapon. I'm not one to complain much, but 5 skills really is a little to weak. "Here are your skills now go play with them for the next 2 years."

We aren't given any choice in the matter of what skills are slotted, unless you use a different profession or add different traits to your utility slots. I'm not asking for a lot of choice, just 10 - 15 skills per weapon. So we can have some variety amongst our build and characters.

Guild Wars 2 has lots to offer, dynamic events, personal story line, massive world, awesome graphics and 5 skills for the rest of our characters life. I understand that the dual profession mechanism was dropped to make balancing easier for them and accepted the fact that monks have mysteriously disappeared or were eaten by raptors.

Seriously 5 skills is too weak. In the new interview they also said that they want to keep things simple. They want more new players and p-layers who haven't played MMORPG's before to play GW2, but what about the old player base? Are we being swept aside to make place for people they hope would leave games like WoW?

Please Gaile if you could maybe find out more about this or at least give them the feedback from this. Sou1Co11ector

In addition to making it easier to balance, the fact that you can have multiple weapon sets does give you at least 10 skills (Elementalists technically have 20 with their attunement system). --Kyoshi (Talk) 00:04, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

I am not talking about swapping weapons here, I am talking about actual skills, that I can choose myself. Let's say I don't like playing with anything but my axes and my sword and shield. I really don't want to play with the same BUILD for 2 years plus or maybe forever. I want a choice when it comes to the skills I can slot for my weapon. Yes I know we can slot traits, that's not the issue, the weapon skills are the issue.

The secondary profession system was dropped in favour of balancing, I therefor see no reason why they can't add an extra 5 or 10 skills at most to each weapon. This would allow for some customization of characters and the builds they use. Mainly so that my warrior with axe is different from your warrior with an axe. Just some choice with skills is all I ask. Sou1Co11ector

Your warrior with axe can be different to my warrior with axe. You can bring a second axe, a shield or a warhorn to change part of the 5 weapon-based skills, the healing skill, the elite skill and the 3 remaining skills. Instead being able to choose all 8 skills, we choose 3 freely, 1 limited to elites, 1 limited to self-healing, and 5 depending on weapon, but we still choose them. You don't go using axe just because you only like how axes 'look and feel', you choose a weapon depending on what you want to do. If you want mobility and range in melee, you choose axes, since you can charge and jump around to enemies with them, and even throw them. If you want more raw damage and control over enemy movement, you go with hammer, if you are interested in taking enemies quickly one by one, while having a nice defense, you go with sword and shield, and so on. MithTalk 20:38, 2 September 2010 (UTC)

The issue is not the traits, elites, healing skill or weapons and off-hands... It's weapon skill choice I have a problem with. All I'm asking for is a little choice in what my axe or sword can do. Sure the warrior gets skill chaining and a burst skill, but will this truly give me what I need or allow me what I want to do? We have so many choices available to us in GW2, but the fact that we have NO CHOICE in skills for our weapons feels like a let down. This is something that I think could make or break the game. Sou1Co11ector

@Mith. Bringing a second axe, warhorn or shield to 'change part of the weapon-based skills' is not choosing your skills. Essentially they are skill sets for that combination of weapons, and while there are alot of different weapons (+ combinations), all weapon skills are pre-set. Which is the problem, for while you say 'you dont go using axe just because of look and feel', some people LIKE playing just with one or two weapons (which ones will be your favorite will only be determined when playing) in a game, they like the weapons. I myself hate having 30 different weapons, (although I keep most) I rarely use different weapons when I got a liking to certain weapons. Now, while I use only a handful of weapons, the limited skill sets will make the game repetitive at some point in time in the game. Doing 3000000 of the same sword combos would really get boring. Some people just want variety in skills, to make your character feel 'fresh' again. The impact of traits to customize your skills effectiveness is nice, but it still is the same skill, animation, button to be pressed.... Thats how I feel about it. 10-15 Different skills per weapon that can be customized would make it more interesting. I am also not asking for 200 different skills per weapon, just a bit of difference! --ChameleonDevil 08:42, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

In case you haven't noticed, every sword warrior in Guild Wars that is not retarded brings Sever Artery + Gash, mostly with Sun and Moon Slash, every Axe Warrior brings Dismember(or Eviscerate) with Executioner's Strike(or Body Blow, which is the same skill) with Disrupting Chop(or Agonizing Chop which is also the same skill). This isn't to remove choice, it is to stop people from bringing retarded builds. You never had choice, you just had the illusion of choice. Misery 09:34, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

So every retard that wants to go out solo or in a dynamic event with 10s of other players, and try his own retarded build is now dissallowed because we 'had the illusion of choice'. Not every person bothers with Speed Clears or optimized builds for farming, they want to enjoy the game their way, even if my build is so retarded, and I enjoy playing with it, I want the option to use it. Do you want to tell me that those 10s of other players that run the best build can't make up for a small percentage of retards participating in public events? --ChameleonDevil 09:57, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

@Misery your opinion of what a good warrior is, is flawed. To say that EVERY axe warrior uses the same build is stupid, because if he didn't he isn't a good axe warrior in your opinion? Please the choice I have in GW is to either use a cookie cutter build made by someone else who decides what a warrior/ele/derv/sin should be like and if you don't use their build they don't want you or I can make my own build, my way from my experience in my profession. Your comments on retarded builds... You are the guys not giving anyone a choice, how dare I say this? You force people to use builds only you deem to be of use, if it isn't on PvX in the current meta you can get lost, right? Since my main character is a warrior I am NOT ALLOWED to go to the UW with a team, since I do not fit into the SC builds, even if I find a build to allow my warrior to play a part, you all just say no, he's not a sin and that build will take 5 minutes longer to complete the SC with. Give ME a choice, you can use your cookie cutter idiot proof build if you want to, I prefer to make my own. Sou1Co11ector

You forget that gw2 will not play like gw1, it will play like any other MMO. In another mmo you use the same skills pretty much forever until you lvl up and get more skills, which you will still be using forever, and have no other ways of switch your skills. At least gw2 will let you switch your skills set with your weapon. If you want to play with an axe all the time thats your choice, but you will miss out on alot if you do. Plus we still haven't seen what the game can do so why complain now, they have the game mechanics pretty much made already, so it's not liek there going to change it now. --74.14.120.56 12:49, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

My statements are accurate ^^ Misery 13:18, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

I believe in raising the issue before the game is done, rather than raising the issue after it has been finalized and we can't change a damn thing anymore or attempt to have it changed at least. You still have a choice in other MMO's to change your skills on your skills bar, which atm we don't have in GW2, that is my main issue. We can only change the healing skill, traits and our elite skill. Never mind I am wasting my time writing anything further here, because it is like talking to a brick wall... Sou1Co11ector

"We can only change the healing skill, utility skills, weapon sets (switching between two sets in combat), traits, and our elite skill." fixed. — Gares 14:36, 3 September 2010 (UTC)

At the end, even with all those choices, people went for the 'meta' in GW1, and that's completely normal, since it was all numbers. The best possible combination is the best possible combination, so most people went for it. People changed builds just to do a little different things. In GW2, to do the different things, you choose a different weapon, and we don't have just sword, axe and hammer. We have all of this. I say we are not getting less choices, but MORE. MithTalk 09:35, 6 September 2010 (UTC)

FoW Endboss

Do you perhaps know if there is going to be an endboss in FoW? It would be awesome that FoW got his own boss too, because FoW is a lot easier then UW. 83.163.95.32 15:38, 12 September 2010 (UTC)

but pve is too hard--Silven 13:23, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

I think that's a splendid idea, but have you put it in on the Suggestions Portal? Those ideas really do get read, and I hope that you will share yours there! -- Gaile 19:54, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

There goes the FoW Speedclears Necromankas 17:21, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

I'd be ecstatic to kill menzies. --BriarThe Spider 19:27, 6 November 2010 (UTC)

Norn Pub Drinking

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/frickin-norn-pub-drunken-compromise-t10458093.html they have spoken. is it possible to enable this? Lithril 21:21, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Why not make it a formal proposal in your feedback space?  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 21:42, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

To create the page with the proper templates added, go to Feedback:Getting started, and type your wiki name as is into Step 2. G R E E N E R 22:03, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Though I still think it's awesome :P --The Holy Dragons 16:00, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

New costumes

I hav a question gaile, i was thinking of getting god costumes (including dhuum, and abbadon- which i think a guy called kekai? had concept art of) has this been considered by the GW team? if it hasnt i would like to no ANET's response.

Some of those costumes would be awesome! And some of them would be scary! :) You can post this suggestion on the Suggestion Portal and the devs will see it. -- Gaile 04:52, 25 November 2010 (UTC)

Lore-related question

I apologize in advance if this isn't the right place to ask about this, but there's been a question in my alliance as to how the Mouvelian Calendar corresponds to the Gregorian calendar. As I understand it, Wintersday is the first day of the new year (1 Zephyr) and game-wise it falls on Jan. 1. Can it be assumed then that 1 Zephyr will always be Jan. 1, and that there are five days (probably before Wintersday) that do not exist lore-wise as a result of Tyria's 360-day year? It'd be great if I could get some sort of resolution regarding this to relay to my allies. Thanks! Jink 03:46, 13 December 2010 (UTC)

Hi Jink. I'm curious about this, too, and I've sent off an email to see if we both can learn more. I'll let you know when I hear back. -- Gaile 19:58, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for looking into it! Jink 15:40, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Ok, so here's what I learned from Jeff Grubb: "Historically, there have been 360 day calendars, and time has quickly drifted off. The older civilizations inserted inter-calendar days, weeks, and months – days which belonged to no month, but were put in by the priests and leaders to rejigger the timekeeping to keep it in line with the celestial events (solstices, rising of certain stars, etc). Interestingly enough, since they controlled the time-keeping records, they would sometimes manipulate the number of days in the month or year to their own advantage (imagine paying your monthly bills if your creditors got to decide when the first of the month was)."

So as you have noted, the calendars do not align perfectly. But be assured through some arcane magicks that you and I may never fully understand, Wintersday will always be on what is "our" January 1st. :) -- Gaile 22:08, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

Thank you very much, and Merry Christmas! Jink 22:38, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

My pleasure, Jink, and Merry Christmas to you, as well! -- Gaile 00:54, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I've actually done some research on the calendar before - even without what Jeff said, I could prove that it isn't perfectly lined up for multiple reasons: Even in Cantha, the new year begins with the spring equinox, which means either Wintersday and the CNY would be on the same day in game (which isn't the case as LA and Kamadan get redecorated), or Cantha has a different time for spring which is only realistic if its in the southern hemisphere thus would mean that, in lore, between Wintersday and the CNY there is a high chance of there being a 6 month (180 day) difference and if there was a lining up between gregorian and the various in-game calendars, then CNY should be roughly placed at the Dragon Festival. Unless Cantha isn't in the southern hemisphere and/or the decorations for CNY and DF in LA and Kamadan are not canon. Though the altering to line up with celestial events would put another reason to the difference...

I must say thank you Gaile for asking Jeff! Very interesting to know. -- Konig/talk 15:20, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

I hate to say it, but I have to ask one more little thing: Does Wintersday fall on Zephyr 1 (and thus equating Zephyr 1 with Jan 1)? Thanks! Jink 18:17, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

What I'd like to know is what the distance (date wise) between Wintersday and Canthan New Year is. Or how it is determined what day the CNY is on in lore. -- Konig/talk 18:25, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

Hmmmm... so two more questions for which I can try to find an answer:

• Does Wintersday fall on Zephyr 1?
• How is CNY determined via the lore (or what is the distance between Wintersday and CNY).

But I have a couple for you: You mention "southern hemisphere." But how do we know Tyria is round? :) Is Tyria on earth, another planet, another plane of existence...? Another one: What if the length of a day in Tyria is somewhat different than the length of a day in our world? We know varying day lengths are true relative to every planet in our own solar system, and that extrapolates to variables in any other solar system. So... what do you think? :) -- Gaile 20:27, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

And even if Tyria is round, why couldn't Shing Jea and Lion's Arch be located in the southern hemisphere? (Is there anything indicating which half of the globe the are in?) BTW, on earth, Asian lunar new year comes about a month before spring starts, at the vernal equinox; CNY is consistent with that timing. Wintersday coincides with the western Earth calendar Jan 1, which is closer to mid-winter. I don't see anything pointing to LA and SJM being in different hemispheres.  — Tennessee Ernie Ford (TEF) 20:44, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

"But how do we know Tyria is round?" Various images of GW2 contain globes (such as in the royal palace and in that Beetletun mansion). Also there are constant references to Tyria with words that refer to a round world - not a flat one. There's also a day/night cycle which means there's a rotation of the sun and moon (whether it's the sun/moon revolving around Tyria or vice versa as in reality is unknown to players atm); furthermore the existence of seasons and dialogue referring to shorter days during Wintersday imply an axis should it be round. True, it isn't definite, as the globes could be a simple "humans think it's round" as well as the terms, but it seems highly likely to be the case. They made a fully working orrery after all!

Regarding the length of days: I've constantly been curious how long a day and night is. I've yet to see any in-game reference to them except that they exist and that there is a midnight (Battle for LA occurs at midnight) and that days are shorter during Wintersday (can't seem to find who it was on the wiki... must not be up, but I saw an NPC note that it's the season where days grow shorter - some wording like that). I rather expect the lengths to be different than earth. If I were to look at numbers Anet uses, especially the calendar, there is a preference for flat numbers (360 over 365; seasons in 4 perfectly equal segments, etc.), so I'd expect the days and nights to be more even than our own 23 hours 56 minutes 4.1 seconds.

@T.E.F.: I gave my reasons for why Tyria and Shing Jea are in opposing hemispheres - if they weren't, and if if the calendars (Canthan and Mouvelian) aren't lying (i.e., CNY and Wintersday being on Day 1 of the year - Zephyr 1), then they'd overlap. And Tyria and Elona has some minor celebration of the two Canthan holidays, even if it's a mere few decorations and NPCs. Either there's in-game events that's not canon and at least one calendar lies, or they're in different hemispheres. Or spring merely starts at a different time in Cantha than in Tyria/Elona. If in-game holidays were more in line to reality based on where they should logically be placed in lore, Wintersday would actually be around mid March - the spring equinox (first day of spring). That, or spring "starts" sooner in Tyria than on Earth in terms of how long since snow has began falling. Though Wintersday acts more like Groundhog day... And, of course, this is wanted to be clarified with Jeff by Jink, but Wintersday is supposed to be the new year of Tyria, which would mean, based on the calendars, the beginning of spring - thus spring equinox. Another point to the different hemispheres is that there's nothing that relates the two continents' calendars (Mouvelian and Canthan) as having their seasons at the same time, from what I could find at least. Though I suspect the timeline is a bit off of I'm right about Cantha.

tl;dr: Tyria is weird. Also, I've made a bit of research on this in more detail before here (the thread has been closed due to it being a random-topic thread and having reached a large size). -- Konig/talk 21:38, 24 December 2010 (UTC)

That reminds me of One Piece's world, separated in parts and with many different species, and with different rules and and there, and the old Sosaria from the Ultima saga of videogames. Sorsaria even split in several worlds. Seems like they were actually separate worlds, that were made as one with magic, as if someone ripped and twisted space to make a single world, like when you make a bedspread with cloth remants, and after a certain disaster, whatever was those worlds together disappeared, and boom! Space went back to normal and they no longer were connected. You can even get to visit one of those other worlds and all. MithTalk 01:42, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Not to be a pest, but any official word on this? Jink 21:36, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

You're not being a pest, Jink, but what's the open question? (Or rather, the open question that I would be able to answer.) I've provided all the information that Jeff Grubb gave me for the original query, and I think the rest needs to stay in the "I wonder if..." or the "I have a theory about..." category. Remember, there are books to write, and stories to tell in Guild Wars 2! :) I really don't feel comfortable interrupting the designers to ask about details that may well be covered in something that we simply have not yet seen. -- Gaile 02:01, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, my question got lost in the all the talk up there. Does Wintersday fall on Zephyr 1 (and thus on Jan. 1)? The original information doesn't explicitly state that Wintersday, Zephyr 1, and Jan. 1 all occur on the same day, though it's certainly implied. Sorry for being nitpciky, but my alliance wants that "Word of God" without any ambiguity. Jink 18:04, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Transferring names to GW2

Hi Gaile, I'm a little new at this editing thing, and I just have a quick question....I have been wondering about it ever since I heard tht you will be able to reserve your charater's name for gw2...I am wondering how exactly tht will work ? anything you can tell me would be nice , and if you can't say much as of rite now I'll understand. thanks. Ur friend the captain. My charater in game is *The Captain Of The Army* I'm the only one, so you may add me if u like, wouldn't mind having you as my friend. Ttyl. :) Take care.Captain of the army 22:00, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

A quick look at GW2 FAQ says that the names are reserved through your Hall of Monuments. My best guess is that if you at least get your character to his/her HoM, your name is guaranteed to be reserved. I was not able to find more information directly on character names. You can also read the Hall of Monuments FAQ which gives you more information on how your HoM ties GW1 with GW2. G R E E N E R 22:13, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

That's a good and helpful answer, Greener, but I can't help but think there may be more to the "name reservation" concept than the HoM. I don't doubt that the HoM will provide a means of name reservation; what I'm unclear about is whether that's the only means for players to carry over their names. I mean, it makes sense, because the HoM also carries over the various attainments, such as titles, special armour sets, miniatures, etc. But if it is, then people need GW:EN. And if people need GW:EN, then they ought to jump on the 1/2 price sale right now, because it ends tomorrow! (And no, I don't get a commission for GW:EN copies sold. :) It just occurred to me in conjunction with this question.)

I'm going to fire off an email to Live Team and GW2 Team leaders and ask them (1) if they have more information about name reservations, and (2) if we can and wish to provide that info now. If they give me the go-ahead, and if there's more to say at this time, I'll post it here. -- Gaile 06:06, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Gaile :3 --The Holy Dragons 06:55, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks alot Gail.Captain of the army 18:03, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Hey there. I just had a really interesting conversation with a couple of GW2 team members. They tell me that the name reservations system is still under wraps and there really isn't anything new, or any further details to offer, at the present time. I'll pass along your question to the Community Team in the event they want to have a team member include news on this topic in an upcoming blog. -- Gaile 23:26, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

TY Gaile ;) --The Holy Dragons 15:57, 13 January 2011 (UTC)