User talk:Gaile Gray/Archive Game-Related Topics/January 2008

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Hero Control

Sorry for the repost, I was unaware I was posting on an article about you, not your article.

IGN : Omigawa Of Darkness Gaile, has there been any talk at all of allowing heroes to use PvE-Only skills? If not, is there anything the community can do to push this on the stack of to-do? The best thing about Guild Wars, outside of the immensely skill-based PvP, is the fact that you can play with heroes. Sorry to say, but there are a lot of stupid people in parties out there. Heroes are only as good as the person controlling them. It's somewhat unfair that to get the advantage of PvE only skills, we need to find someone competent enough to use them. Heroes get PvE title bonuses (lightbringer, deldrimor rank, etc), why do they not get the ability to use those skills as well?

Gaile, if all this requires to come to action is a good argument, please let me know and I will write up an essay. The only problem in PvE right now (after your wonderous addition of titles, dungeons, and green weaponss) is the seemingly strict limit on hero skills. PvE only skills are powerful, that's why they're PvE-only. Because of our hero's lack of access to these, it not only shows that heroes are somewhat pointless, but it also shows a lack of customization in terms of creating fun team builds ; and that's perhaps the defining factor of guild wars. I hope that you see and read this, and look forward to a reply. -Omigawa

Pfft. I write essays as a part-time job and there's nothing I could do to convince them to let us make heroes more powerful than they already are. >>;;; Honestly the fact that I can't solo hard dungeons by myself is a good reason why I play TF2 a lot more than GW. :/ Vael Victus 15:40, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

While Anet's reasoning behind limiting the number of heroes in your party doesn't make sense to me, I can still understand the limit on PvE-only skills. You can only bring 3 PvE-only skills on your skill bar when you're in a PuG so it wouldn't really be fair to allow solo players to bring 12 PvE-only skills in total by giving them to their heroes. I guess they could keep the 3 PvE-only skills limit but allow us to give them to our heroes instead of our own character. That said I don't have any need for a bunch of overpowered PvE only skills in my H/H team anyway, if people want to button mash their way through the game with Ursanway PuGs then they can do so, I'd just like to be able to create a "real" team instead of half a team and 4 non-configurable henches. --Draikin 17:09, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'd really like a formation button on the interface. Like 'spread out' and 'bunch up' would be nice, especially against AoE spell users. 82.16.137.96 11:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

I heard back from the designers, and there are no plans to enable PvE-only skills for Heroes. -- Gaile 23:25, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Bukdek Byway Vanquish Exploit

I just met a player in Kaineng Center who offered to vanquish the Bukdek Byway in 1 minute for 1k. I was curious, so I asked him to vanquish it for me. After he did so, I asked him how it was done. He then told me that if you combine the quests Chasing Zenmai and The Drunken Master, you will only have to beat the master to get a vanquish marker for the area. I don't think you guys meant the vanquish to be this easy, so I'd thought I'd better report it. I also sent a report ticket to customer support about this. Nicky Silverstar 23:07, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

this has been known for a while (i think) and it may be a bug, but i personally don't think so.. It's like Zen Daijun.. If a canthan character completes the 15 atribute quest there, that character only have to slay a Pet in that zone later to complete the vanquish.. ^Teo^ 23:23, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

1k? I thought the gold was based on how many enemies you killed, and since that is one enemy, wouldn't that be like 4 gold? --Deathwing 23:24, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Nicky means that the player's... services... cost 1k, similar to a Droks Run or something, but instead to vanquish that area. -- Brains12 • Talk • 23:29, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

ah.. are you sure..? ^Teo^ 23:30, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Yeah this has been around for yonks. --Lemming 23:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

The same goes for Tahnakai temple, if you have the quest where you have to meet the Emperor and Vizu's ghost inside the temple, all you have to do if to kill 2~4 temple Guardians to vanquish the zone. Jaxom 02:34, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

It's not a bug and is allowed by the EULA as it's just using quests. — ク Eloc 貢 03:03, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

That does not sound like something we would intend. Whether it's worth the time and effort to amend is another subject. I will pass it along, and thanks. -- Gaile 03:51, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

I just got a reply and according to GM Peter, it is working as intended. It still seems weird to me, because there are enemies in the area, just not near the entrance of the area. The quests don't remove them all, just the ones nearest to the entrance. Nicky Silverstar 19:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Eastern Frontier and Old Ascalon

I don't know where else to put this but Gaile, can you please move this along to someone who can balance these areas in Hard Mode please? The grawl in these areas are absolutely ridicules. For someone like myself who has vanquished every single area in the game expect these two areas, and not to be able to kill 3 grawl who only use 3 skills is completely F'd up. These grawl monks use 3 skills, Healing Hands, Heal Other, and Heal Area, and they spam them constantly and NEVER run out of energy, ever. We have tried everything, Power Block mesmers, skill stealing mesmers, smite monks, various forms of daze, brute strength, degen, everything we can think of, yet we can't hardly kill a group of grawl if there is more than 1 monk, if there is more than 2 than it is impossible. This is completely unbalanced and I really can't think of anything in this game that has literally pissed me off more than this, it is so unbalanced, so completely useless that it boggles logic. Please, please have someone change these skills on the monks or at LEAST put a freakin energy limit other than 4,000 on them. This is by far the most blatant balancing issue in the entire PvE world. Please help.Old Man Of Ascalon 19:42, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Spinal shivers shivers of dread even? --Lemming 23:00, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Diversion? Antiarchangel 23:01, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

We had all users in the party bring diversion and it did not work. I thelped a bit, but did not work.76.185.138.221

Cast your diversion on the right thing. Really thou, both these areas aren't that hard, you can do it with 4 people. Now whats ridicoulous is Diessa Lowlands. Had to come all the way from ToA to vanquish it. Course I didn't have a imbagon on my team. Antiarchangel 23:06, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

I've vanquished these areas more than once, and I serioously don't see the problem. In fact, I completed Eastern Frontier on more than one character before there even were PvE-only skills, so if you can't complete them then you're doing something horribly wrong. As was suggested before- try bringing Diversion or some kind of interrupt. Power Block is horrible in Hard Mode, but there are plenty of options. My Mesmer is LV, so I know that it's not impossible. You just need to rethink your strategies a little. Hey, it's called Hard Mode for a reason. :) -- Elv 06:13, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, I know what Hard Mode is. I've vanquished every other area in the game and Have Legendary Guardian, I know what HM is. ThanksOld Man Of Ascalon 19:42, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

You will notice that it seems Gaile have not been able to provide any opinion on this. Interesting. Yseron

Gaile just spent nearly 24 hours in the event finale and is tired. ;) -- Gaile 09:00, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

So there are comments you cant help but answer, even when tired. More and more interesting :). Yseron

She's as addicted to the wiki as I am. "Dinner in like 30 seconds... let's see if anything of epic importance happened on wiki first..." Cursory glances, cursory answer or two, then "OSH- DINNER WAS FIFTEEN MINUTES AGO?" Only in this case it's sleep. Zzz. (Speaking of, it's rapidly approaching 4:30 am.) Armond 09:24, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Have you tried scourge healing, as well as other spells that are geared toward monks and healing......use their healing against them. 209.200.197.11 15:21, 2 January 2008 (UTC)<--- oops not logged in Med Luvin 15:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Keep a player next to the grawl healers, it stops them spamming heal area, bodyblock them into a corner. Thats how we managed to vanquish the area. Lithane 07:50, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Tyrian Alphabet

Gaile, what Alphabet is This? Genji 01:19, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

http://i131.photobucket.com/albums/p291/Genji40/gw035.jpg

it says "TYRIA" on there. Just some invented glyphs instead of real characters. poke | talk 01:20, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Poke is right, but it reminded me about this [1] its in swedish tho --Cursed Angel 01:25, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, Ment to say is this the Tyrian Alphabet? Genji 01:30, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

The runes in the screenshot are similar to runic (old Norse), but not identical. I'm interested in how the screenshot compares to the runes on sunspear/lightbringer bounties, which also reminded me of the runic alphabet. Armond 02:28, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

You know -- it just occurred to me that Matthew Medina from the Guild Wars Art Team is a great source for this sort of information. He knows a lot about the different alphabets in our game, and I think it'd be super-interesting to tap him for an answer on his page. :) Whatcha think? -- Gaile 05:34, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

That is a great Idea, but is there anyway to move this topic to his user talk page?Genji 00:01, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

There is, but since talk pages are for talking to specific people, and you asked Gaile the question here, you're better off just asking it again over there. You would feel a bit weird if somebody asked you a question by playing back a tape recording of a conversation they had with somebody else and then waiting for a response, wouldn't you? ;) Biscuits 00:04, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

Old-Norse is just what Swedes come up with after they visited Latin speaking regions of the world, letters were originally Latin modified to be easily carved into wood and stone. If Ascalon really was based on Kiev then alphabet would be Cyrillic, still based on Latin but a lot easier to read. Biz 09:43, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

I've started the topic on his talk page. -- Armond Warblade 09:51, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

GW 2 question

Would it be at all possible to ask those who are working on the GW1/GW2 HoM intergration aspect if the GW1 profession is going to be specific for GW 2 characters accessing that GW1 character's HoM.

Example- "is a GW1 warrior's HoM only going to be useful to a GW 2 warrior characters?"

I'd like to think the concept designers have already got this far with the HoM to at least now if there are going to be any restrictions on HoM interactions. As a player of the game I've looked at the HoM and come to my own conclusion since the HoM is character specific not account specific that it may be that for 'inheriting' armour it will be profession specific as the armour monument is the only true 'specific' part of the HoM. Minipets are generic. Hero's monument is generic. Titles are generic. Valor monument (even though I think it is lame - destroyer weapons only and GWEN specific only) is also generic. The Armour monument seems to be the only one that is specific to profession. Just my thoughts and a simple question User:House Of Furyan

Gaile has repeated her answer many times: they will not be releasing any more news on GW2 for a while, so it is likely that your question requires too much knowledge of aspects that have not been released yet... And I do believe it is quite possible that they would leave the creation of the bonus items for having a HoM until nearer to the end, as they may not even show up in Beta weekends and rely on the structure of everything else to be valid (i.e. if they decide later on to have profession specific armor and they were originally intending to have generic armor, or vice versa, they would not want to have to remake the bonus items/whatever as well--keep in mind this is just an example). -- Frozzen 01:46, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

We have no information to share on this subject. Thank you for understanding. -- Gaile 01:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

Good News about Wintersday Hats!

We've added both of the 2007 Wintersday hats to the Festival Hat Keeper, for a few days only. So if you were not able to attend the event (or if a random Grentchie stole your hat), stop by the Festival Hat Keeper and ask him to whip up the Wreath Crown or the Ice Crown. This offer will last until Noon Pacific (that's 20:00 or 8:00 PM GMT) on Tuesday, January 8th. Get a few additional details on the [official site]. -- Gaile 19:56, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

TY!!! I was on holiday and so I had lost the hats, but now i have got the opportunity to get them :) --Lumenil 21:38, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Three Questions/Topics

1) The Zaishen Chest has been around for a while now and the allusions to the "rare items that don't drop anywhere else" were made. Are these in fact the already discovered tonics or something we have yet to see like a new mini or weapon? Is it possible the rare loot is like Drago's third bow and will never drop?

2) Are there any plans to deal with the lack of players in the Jade Quarry? The problem is self feeding, people don't go there because no-one is there, no-one is there because people don't go there. Maybe if some kind of increased or unique rewards utilising an already existing element of the game will encourage more people to go there?

3) The Design a Weapon (DAW) skins are going to be released soon? Maybe they can be used to promote Jade Quarry matches... or could they be the super rare loot from the first question/topic I posted? 122.104.231.105 14:47, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Ultimately, JQ is a victim of circumstance. Factions is almost 2 years old and people have moved on :\. Secondly, check out Stoneherder's Flatbow. I got myself one the night they made the update. -elviondale (tahlk) 15:44, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Factions is still very widely played and many new players buy and play the campaign. Fort Aspenwood and Alliance Battles have just as much, if not more, players than any other part of Guild Wars. 122.104.231.105 16:28, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Here are some answers:

1. I don't have easy access to retrieval data for the Zaishen Chest, so I cannot say if all the possible prizes have been recovered. I think that Andrew Patrick or Isaiah Cartwright would have a better idea of what has been recovered and of what might be still undiscovered (if anything). I refer you to these two because Andrew in that zone every day and keeps up on the news, and Isaiah was instrumental in getting that chest added and he may be able to give a general answer to whether all items have been recovered at least once. (BTW, big kudos to Izzy for the chest idea!)
2. I do not think that we plan changes to JQ, but I can ask about it.
3. The addition of the DAW items will likely take place starting this month. It will be handled mostly by John Hargrove, our excellent "items specialist." He and I were talking about doing something more than simply "ta da, they're all added," and we mentioned possibly increasing the fun by adding a few over time, but those decisions are entirely up to John, so we'll see how that happens. I do think he said that January would be the likely time to add at least a first batch of those items. -- Gaile 20:13, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Concerning question 2, I am not 122.104.231.105. Yseron

PS: To all the Legendary Saviors Of Gaile Gray who did not yet understand why I sometimes refer to this game design flaw (JQ),I am only waiting for a sincere word or two on this concern and Gaile Gray safety is not in danger althought she is supposed to already have asked about JQ for at least 3 times. Maybe emotes are so over-used these days that if you dont put smileys at every word people think you're on the brink of war. Yseron

Troll Lord Belar 20:51, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

Hello. Still dont know if you're fine or not Bely ? Yseron

British English in GW

Why does Guild Wars support different languages from English, but only offers players American English? It seems simple to run a basic British spell check through the in game text and change all the words from American English to British English and offer it as an additional package to people from outside the US (I believe more countries use British English, or a variant of it, than countries that use American English). I know you yourself know the importance of correct grammar, punctuation and even spelling because of the field you work in. So many American developed games which use American English in their international versions contribute to poor spelling of people of countries outside the US. I know the American English doesn't prevent people from other English speaking countries to understand the game, but it does make them more familiar with American spelling instead of allowing them an option to use their own. 122.104.231.105 16:36, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm British myself, and American spellings do annoy me, but does it really matter that much? Localisation is a lot of work, and I doubt it's as simple as running a spell check. --Santax (talk · contribs) 18:36, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

The same question could be asked concerning Spanish, which has many variants, or French, where the French in France is different than the French in Canada or Haiti. It is not a matter simply of a spell check -- there are changes in form, syntax, grammar, and more. For example, consider the distinctions between singular and plural in this instance: British: "The BBC are..." American: "NBC News is..." (There may be a changing trend in the plural use in Britain these days, but it's still very present.)

Guild Wars is localized into separate and distinct languages -- at great cost and consideration, I might add. However, I'm afraid that we are not able to "localize" into regional or other types of variants of the selected languages. And I think it goes without saying that since we are an American development studio, we will use American English, as does just about every other developer, with all due respect to the many who speak different forms of English (or any other language into which we localize our game.) -- Gaile 19:48, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I dont see a problem with just keeping american, i speak Australian English (British English?) and have absolutely no problem, as gaile said, its an american studio do you really care about Color instead of Colour ? its not that big of a deal, and American english is so prevalent i cant believe you actually noticed i cant recall any situation where i have noticed the different spelling of a word 58.168.33.226 09:53, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I have no problem, except with the word "mom", which makes me want to scream RT | Talk 09:58, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Have to agree with you there, the word "mom" makes me want to stab people with pointy objects! Aside from that though, I have to agree with everyone else. It doesn't really matter. I would like Firefox however to change its spellchecker to British English, getting bored of it correcting me. -- Salome 21:09, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Personally I'd rather see support for a few additional languages rather than putting time and effort into supporting a variant of an already supported language. I'm a British English speaker myself, and sure, some of the American stuff makes me cringe, but I can understand it just fine and it really doesn't bother me. It's like asking British English subtitles for USA-made movies- pointless. Do we really want to start supporting local variants? If ANet starts with British English, pretty soon other people will ask to see their own variant language in game as well. I'd prefer it if they spent that time on supporting one or two additional languages and added a few new districts, but if that's too time-consuming then I can get over it thinking about how it allowed the devs to spend more time on GW2 instead. -- Elv 20:09, 7 January 2008 (UTC)

About firefox and british english; they have dictionaries for all the variants of english on their addons page. :) — Galil 12:31, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

"Repairing data archive"

WTF IS THIS!!!! This is like the 7th time its happened to me... theres NOTHING on wiki about this message that causes guildwars to "repair data?" for like 1 hour so you cant play. q1: what is it q2: why does it happen q3: if its YOUR fault... can i get the 100 fame that I couldv'e earned in that hour... seriously. as compensation, it'd be great. (microsoft gave us a free game because there xbl servers were EXTREMELY laggy... anet didnt even expand the damn event!) --'ÑöẊĭƑý 23:49, 5 January 2008 (UTC)

I assume that as the data archive is said to be corrupt it is very likely to be the product of a problem localised on your machine (it's happened to me once). I would recommend 1) Cleaning your drive of obselete programs and data then 2) defragmenting your drive and 3) performing a full scan on your hard drive to make sure its as healthy as can be. Good luck! I better make it clear I'm just another player offering advice, if it isnt a localised problem hopefully someone will correct me :) Evil Geek 00:11, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

I had the same issue for months. I asked about it, even ran some pretty high-end programs at the advice of one of the co-founders, and still could not identify the issue. It turned out it was a problem on my personal computer, specifically with the power supply. I know that may sound unconnected, but it assuredly was, for after a new power supply, I have never had the issue again. -- Gaile 00:41, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

On another tangent, a wiki page about this might be handy :). It used to happen to me quite a lot, but hasn't for a long time. I still have no idea what caused it though. --Lemming 00:44, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Consider what changes you made to your personal system that corrected it. Because the data archive is just fine, thanks. ;) Seriously, I was ready to consider that we had a game issue, but it was 100% system based, which is precisely what the technologically-knowledgeable folks at the office suggested to me from the get-go.

A wiki page is a fine idea, if you want to start one. -- Gaile 00:48, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Ok I have started a preliminary page here: Repairing data archive. Though I am sure it could do with some additions and rewording :) --Lemming 01:08, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

May I lend a tip? Click Start-->Click My Computer-->Click on the windows drive (usally c:)-->Click Properties-->Tools-->In Error Checking Click Check Now.

Or.

Click start-->run (make sure your the administator). And type in chkdsk /r it will ask to type y twice. Then restart your computer. (it will be a LONG time). When its done it should spit out a report. If it shows more then 60KB in bad sectors get a repair!

(of coarse this is IF you are running windows XP)...

I had the problem and it turned out to be bad sectors (a failing hard drive). Do you hear odd ticking then Guild Wars lagging all of a sudden?

Try that. 68.151.27.108 05:12, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Guy is smart. -- Armond Warblade 08:06, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

Ive also had that problem... it started off with my guildwars crashing at totally random times. no error message showed. game just shut down. when i restarted i had to repair archive. this could happen several times a week and it pissed me off. later i figured that the game was crashing cause my graphics card was overheating. since then i always play with an open case, guild wars never crashed for me again. and i never had to repair archive ever since (have to mention that my card is kinda old) ;) -ArcticWind 12:12, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it might be helpful to have some sort of "Player Tips" page on the wiki for things like this. ArcticWind reminds me that my various computers have had overheating problems over the years, and overheating can cause odd symptoms. For instance, about ten years ago (I remember because it was during the StarCraft beta test) my computer started rebooting, sometimes every few minutes. A computer repair shop said contact Microsoft. Microsoft said it wasn't their OS. I postulated it was overheating, but the techies said no, the symptoms didn't fit an overheating profile. Yet I had recently purchased new hardware, and the conclusion I came to was that the shop overclocked the processor and that things really were overheating. I took the front off the case, pointed a room fan towards the opening, and the crashing stopped.

And I just remembered that beyond the power supply-related "Repairing data archives" issue that I had some months ago, two weeks ago I got tossed out of Guild Wars a few times. Knowing it wasn't the game (and yeah, I do know that :) ) I opened the case and found a lovely chunk of kitty fur on the fan for the graphics card. The fan was utterly frozen and the card was blazing hot! (George the Cat apologized profusely, but said the winter shedding isn't his fault.) When I have computer problems, one of the first things I look at is potential overheating. -- Gaile 18:43, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Starting Quest Bots

sorry i dont know if this has been mentioned yet....shing jea monastery international 1, u will see a ton of bots streaming towards ludo, then running outside to earn a monastery credit, all movement paths exactly the same...--220.245.178.133 03:42, 6 January 2008 (UTC)

not agian! X_X I confirm this. Just another reason why there needs to be heavier/quicker bans. But a GM can only do so much in a day ;) 68.151.27.108 06:12, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

Yes, you are right, SJM is teeming with bots. I just spent a few minutes there, in the International District, reporting 100 bots (using 2 accounts, since there is a 50-report limit). If you guys want to help out, do the same, so that the Support Team can start with a long list of potential bots, research those, look carefully at all the criteria (which I think is about 20+ parameters) and then make a "block/not block" decision. I don't think too many of those I reported will be consider real players. :-/ -- Gaile 07:11, 8 January 2008 (UTC)

And their almost all Elementalists in my experience. I dont know what their doing really. Newby quests for money then deposit and delete maybe?Ajc2123

That doesnt matter, the whole account gets banned. But I think the bots are related to the free trials handed out. They dont have a expirey date so that can be exploited till the next one is handed out. I ask for a time limit on those...as seriously the code in the email lasts FOREVER till you use it! 68.151.27.108 02:24, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

The question is why one would use a trial account for botting, seeing as you can't trade or drop items with a trial account anyway. :S — Galil 12:45, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Testing, finding, spamming Etc. 68.151.27.108 17:49, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

The New Monster ^^

whats this new dzabel land gaurdian?i know its in nf,but could ya tell us its profession,monster type,explorable its found in?and is it a boss or normal foe,im just excited ,its like stonehearder flatbow all over again^^.and plz tell us if there are other hidden monsters yet to be seen :P.

If there were any "hidden monsters" that the Team knew about, they would be implemented already. The fact that Dzabel and the Stonehearder Bow weren't implemented until way after release was because the Team didn't know they weren't there. At least, that's what I'm thinking. -- Brains12 • Talk • 20:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Wait a minute! Didn't Gaile say that the Design-a-Weapon skins would be released after the holiday? Perhaps this new monster drops one of them!? OMG, time to go farm!!! Kokuou 21:30, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

she did, however this was a bug, and it may not even carry any green weapon at all...--Cursed Angel 22:33, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

But, but, but... :( Kokuou 22:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) *whistles innocently and awaits the first discovery of the new boss* -- Gaile 23:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh come on. I have to go to bed now, have college from 8am till 6pm and after drama rehearsals. Do u think I can concentrate on all that knowing that there is something undiscovered yet? :P -MageMontu 23:21, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

And also, it's not "new", it's technically as old as Nightfall, it just wasn't there. Drago 23:22, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

That's just your opinion because it says 'bug' in the update. If they say it's new than it's more likely that it was put in earlier this week and just wasn't spawning correctly. It's also possible they just added it today and the line of text was only used for a hint. -- Clobimon Craiggy 23:36, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

Okay, so since it really does look like an old boss and he doesn't drop a new skin, is Gaile referring to some other boss that was added during the update? *cue mysterious music* Kokuou 00:58, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

mmmm I think she knows something. Let's chase her around until she tells us :P --MageMontu 06:48, 11 January 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) No discoveries yet, hmm? -- Gaile 06:29, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Dzabel Land Guardian ^^ - anja 06:30, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

*gasp!* That looks very, very Heket-y to me. Please, let's not tell Froggie, he'll be so incensed and I'll have to hear about it for weeks. ;) -- Gaile 06:34, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Observe the power of wikis! That article was put up on the same day as the update that fixed it, specifically 21:49, 10 January 2008 UTC. :D — Galil 07:03, 14 January 2008 (UTC)

Question about Player Assistance Tool

Hello Gaile,

I have a question about a tool I am currently writing and that assist players playing GW. This tool would allow players to control their heroes' skill usage by intercepting key presses in-game and turning them into mouse clicks, so that their heroes' skills would be activated semi-manually. Basically, the program would add

• control keys to control hero skills and
• the ability to use the Shift key, Alt key, etc., to create many more hotkeys,

both of which the GW client currently lacks.

I have the basic concept figured out, so I could start writing the program at any time. What I would need from ANet was a clarification whether or not such a tool would be considered cheating or botting or anything else forbidden by the EULA. Thank you for your time. RolandOfGilead 13:42, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Think of hero battles. Yseron (90.28.86.84 14:37, 13 January 2008 (UTC) that may not be any more 90.28.86.84 in less than an hour )

Edit: Gaile, you might as well want to post in the corresponding Guru thread, thank you. RolandOfGilead 14:54, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

This issue is a hard one, it is not simply modifying the interface, it is changing it altogheter. Let's take an example, Texmod is a program that changes the UI, it is just changing textures, it is not using scripting to provide an unfair advantage. This would be, using a script to change the game to your advantage. RT | Talk 15:08, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

But it does sound great if it would become implanted in the game--Fox007 17:31, 13 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, there, Roland. I thank you again for getting in touch about this, and I have good news and... good news! The tool that you describe is perfectly acceptable, as it does not in any way give a player any sort of tactical or strategic advantage, but simply allows him/her to customize the gameplay experience. (As you know, any mod, utility, or tool that gives someone an advantage is not acceptable, but this is a customization tool that does not play the game for someone, does not automate a process that a player should undertake, and therefore, it appears to be Ok.)

The additional good news is that the design team liked your idea so much, they're incorporating some level of Hero hotkey support into the game this very week! You may want to take a peek at that update before you start work in earnest, but it's entirely possible that you have a broader set of options in the tool that you described. In any regard, we thank you for an excellent idea, and for your courtesy in getting in touch to check on it! :) -- Gaile 04:02, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

All I can say is... Wow! --Ravious 14:10, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Ditto --Fox007 16:13, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Awesome! Any other game I would have expected a cool "Thats not allowed", or even just a "thats not allowed, but we won't ban you for it", but Anet not only allows us to use this stuff, but actually uses it to improve the gameplay!! And on that kind of time frame? I am really impressed, and look forward to trying it out. Thanks Anet!! (and Roland of course) Ashes Of Doom 17:41, 16 January 2008 (UTC)

Wow. Just browsing your talk page with no intention to comment on anything, but I certainly feel that this deserves something. =P That's great! Thank you (&Dev Team) so much for taking such an interest on it and acting on it so quickly! *applause* Job well done. =D Bigrat2 Talk 04:30, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Where can I sign for the 'ARENANET IS ThE GREATEAST THING EVER'campaign? Rhydeble 19:05, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

That was quick from "good idea" to implementation. :) Now, if I could figure out a hotkey to scatter/spread out the cheerios (h/h) I would be pleased. Clobimon Craiggy 20:07, 17 January 2008 (UTC)

Favor of the Gods

Hey Gaile, I was just wondering.. 15 minutes ago the Favor of the Gods was reset. Was this intentional? Not that it matters so much how long we have it (for me personally at least ^^), but I enjoyed going to Temple of Ages to check how long we had favor because of the double sunspear and lightbringer points event, last I saw was +32K minutes... Anyway keep up the good work and hope to see you soon ingame again ;-) grtz -- (Tribina / talk) 15:37, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I was hoping for 1month favor. :D Death Sligher 15:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I can't see why a-net would deliberately remove favor, probably an oversight in the coding that can't cope with this sort of epic grinding. Lord of all tyria 15:45, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I have a sneaking suspicion that the variable for minutes of Favor is a 16-bit number, thus every time it exceeds 65535 (2^16-1) minutes, it overflows to zero; and at zero minutes remaining, the game reports that the world loses the favor of the gods, and the whole cycle begins again. Somehow I suspect the programmers could not have foreseen there ever being so many minutes of favor available. There's a relatively easy solution (recompile the code with a 32-bit number for favor; strict overkill for most cases, but it will ironclad garantuee against overflows! Clan Yumemiru 15:50, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

That was my initial thought as well Clan Yumemiru, although the minutes couldn't possibly have been more than 34-35k, thus nowhere near the artificial roof of bits and bytes in tables. Also, I recall we had a huge amount of favour coming out of the last SS/LB-bonus weekend a few months ago ... it didn't break then, why now? Matt 16:01, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Matt, I wish I could give you an answer. Either there is an artificial cap with a forced overflow (which would be disturbing) or there's a transient error floating around - apart from the 2^16 theory I can't think of anything else. An official answer would be welcome - it would certainly clarify matters. Clan Yumemiru 16:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

to answer the original question, wasn't it so that some other world gained 20 achievments so they gained favor? or am i reading the question wrong? ah well.. bleuh ^Teo^ 16:52, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

No Teo all favor is connected to each other so evryone how would get a title (either Europe or America) would add some favor --Fox007 16:55, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I think it needs to be fixed either way. We as players earned that month or so of continuous favour, so it should be there. If the reset was intentional then it's going to lead to my disappointment with ANet. If unintentional... fix plskthx. :) -- Elv 16:57, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, I think it's a good thing it got reset, though it probably was a coding mistake. Think about what would happen to the ecto prices after a month of non-stop favor:P --Elemonk Nibo 16:59, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Not all that much, really, since it's been very stable lately. Sure, there'd be a few more people farming, but I highly doubt people would run to UW or FoW en masse for their shinies. On the contrary- no one would be in a hurry because there would be favour for a looooong time yet. Considering the price of ecto two years ago and its price now, the drop of it is only natural. It would eventually recover (look at the price of a Sapphire three months ago and its price today, for instance) although it might not go back to exactly what it is now. Personally I don't care, there'll always be other things of value, especially if some new 'ecto sink' reaches the game. The release of some new skins from DaW Contest, for instance, might just help the recovery.

Theoretic babblings aside, the favour was earned fairly, without glitches or exploits. A LOT of people spend a LOT of time grinding their titles, it's not fair if ANet steals their hard-earned 3 or 6 minutes of favour. They can roll back or reset in the case of a glitch/bug/exploit, but when things have been played fairly, I don't think they should be meddling. -- Elv 17:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It's very well possible that the favor resetted at 2.147.483.647 seconds. This is 32.8K minutes. For those wondering, why at that amount? 2.147.483.647 is the maximum of a generic integer in most programming languages. So update and change this favor integer to a UInt64 please :-). (Qanar | talk) 17:07, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

It's at least 35k [2] Arduinna 17:16, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I've seen it at 38k+ although I didn't screenie that. -- Elv 17:17, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Talk:Weekend_events#Sunspear.2FLightbringer_weekend for more conversation regarding the semantics of numbers. Also note that I posted the 2^16 theory first ^_^ -elviondale (tahlk) 17:43, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm not really an expert at this, but could it be 15 bit, because 65535 is really too much, but 15 bit would be 37767 and that sound like the moment it disappeared. --Elemonk Nibo 17:47, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Actually 2^15 is 32768 *grins* And Elviondale, you beat me out by 13 minutes ^_^ I think we both came to the same conclusion at the moment Favor suddenly disappeared - I just needed some more time to get out of the mission I was playing at the moment to get my thoughts out on the wiki! ^_^ Clan Yumemiru 18:14, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Damn I need to think before i say somehing:P you're right, ofcourse --Elemonk Nibo 18:19, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) I've sent an email to inquire about this situation. Will let you know what I find out (and that may be tomorrow, since this is Sunday). Thanks for the report. (Did anyone submit a support ticket?) -- Gaile 20:03, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Half the playerbase probably did by now. xD -- Elv 20:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Oh, dear! :( :( Oh, well, I've sent out a message to the teams, and hopefully they'll be able to provide some info soon, including into to the players who submit the reports.-- Gaile 20:08, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I've asked around in my alliance, several people are worried. I'm told favour's been reset TWICE. Given at the rate it's been recovering today, I can easily believe that some 70k minutes were gathered this weekend already. I'm going to see if I can get some more coherent answers out of my alliance. :) -- Elv 20:13, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

No need for worry, I'm sure. We'll look into this and figure out what happened. -- Gaile 20:15, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

I guess for the sake of the support team's sanity I'll relay that message to everyone. I'm sure that a fix can be put in place a lot quicker if those poor souls don't have to go through endless amounts of similar reports. :) -- Elv 20:18, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

What's guild wars written in anyways? C++? Antiarchangel 20:21, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

Well like many of us in here, we didn't want to spam even more the persons in charge support mailboxes sending tons of reports always saying that favor was "reseted". I found in my screenies folder the status of favor, when Favor was at 28k at 10:35am GMT+1 on Sunday (France). Looks like a coding issue (variable reset ?) but all that favor was well earned and it showed the interest of people in such event, would be too bad if it was lost, that was fun to see almost 1 month of favor free ! :P Davor Belegnaur 20:09, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

The bug itself might be pretty difficult to fix. However, if when the favor gets low, they reset it to high (to refund the favor lost), that would "patch" the problem. I mean, how likely is it that we have the same problem again? I'm pretty sure most of us who wanted to max SS/LB have done so this time, so it won't accumulate as fast next time. PS: please fix this for GW2 though :) Alaris 00:51, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) This problem was a result of a code ceiling, as some had surmised. We never anticipated that players would gain so much favor in one concerted time. We've fixed the code so that such a reset will not happen again but because the favor numbers were again already very high, we did not add to them additional favor that was part of the reset numbers. -- Gaile 16:50, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Gaile! Does that mean that we won't get back the favor that players earned before the reset? I'm just not sure, because favor has been at 28,000-some minutes for a couple days now, so it seems like it's being held there by something other than player efforts to earn titles. Thanks for the official word, either way! Kokuou 18:27, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Thx for your reply Gaile, -- (Tribina / talk) 10:32, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

Thank your for the reply Gaile :) Davor Belegnaur 12:06, 26 January 2008 (UTC)

Reporting Scammers?

Just as a curiosity, how can you report a scammer? Somone tried to run me, and stole 6k off of 7 people. 6k is nothing to me, but I'm curious as to how i can report him. For reference, the character name is "il grande lorenzo". I dont know about the pages of any other A-net staff members, and none of my friends online know how to do so. --Warwick (Talk) (Contr.) 21:00, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Well, Anet has always said that this is a player dispute, and should be sorted out by the players involved - there's no "contract" binding the alleged actually carrying out what he said he would carry out. There are some cases that should go to support (in extreme cases where there are special cirumstances, but there's nothing much they can do. But that's just speaking as a non ANet employee of course.-- Brains12 • Talk • 21:42, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

Assuming that all 7 people reported him, they'd look into it. If he scammed one team, he probably scammed more than just the 7 mentioned here, and he might get more reports against him. There ARE rules about ruining another player's experience (don't recall the phrasing of the rules off by heart I'm afraid), and I think I recall Gaile saying- on this page, too- that this kind of griefing can in fact result in a ban. (Don't smite me for misquoting, Gaile. Just correct me where wrong. ^^) It's probably worth reporting him anyway, and certainly worth trying to get his other victims to do the same. -- Elv 22:37, 21 January 2008 (UTC)

I vote you report him or her. It's not as if reporting will result in an insta-ban, that's not how we operate. But we do have long memories, and someone who engaged in repeated scamming of this sort will likely amass a number of reports, and that will often result in a block... perhaps even an outright ban. I think you may get a "cookie cutter response," but don't let that make you believe that the report hasn't been recorded and will not result in action, if warranted.

I'm all for not letting people get by with spoiling the game experience for others: From spamming to griefing to botting to gold selling. I spent about an hour this weekend and took care of nearly 50 bots and about half a dozen gold sellers. It felt pretty good. :) -- Gaile 05:05, 22 January 2008 (UTC)

Any Information on GW2 Character Slots?

Hi, I hope this is really in the right place but anyway... was sitting staring at all my character login screen on my account and a question struck me: Will character slots be universal? Has Anet had any discussion on limiting game originated character slots? (ie, if I deleted all my non-useful Guild Wars character when Guild Wars 2 comes out, will I be able to use those spaces for brand spanking new Guild Wars 2 characters?) House Of Furyan 03:34, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I've read somewhere, and correct me if I'm wrong, is that character slots will not be transferable to GW2. Renin 03:49, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I hope thats not the case, otherwise what are we supposed to do with them if you don't play Guild Wars after we add the Guild Wars 2 key to our accounts? Lot of scrolling to get to our Guild Wars 2 charactersHouse Of Furyan 04:26, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Sales, they'll make you buy GW2 character slots. It's how they're going to extract money from us. In a business point of view, that's the way to go since GW2 will also be a retail-once-free-forever model. With how the new character selection set up will be, there have been no new information either. All we can ever do is hope, wait and see if GW2 will really be wonderful. Of course don't ever EVER put your expectation so high that you'll be disappointed with the end result. Renin 04:31, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

I'm fairly sure GW2 will have a different game client... -- Frozzen 04:32, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

This has been said time and time again but GW2 will be a completly new game. Thus starting afresh. You're charecter slots will not transfer. I'm even doubtful if it will be the same game client. -- Salome 11:10, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Considering the HoM is character based I'm sure the GW2 game client will have to incorporate Guild Wars in same ways, otherwise, how's that supposed to work? I suppose its unrealistic to expect character slots to be account based instead of game based - well, maybe character slots purchased through the store would be, but no those allocated through campaign purchase. Anyway, was just a question. House Of Furyan 21:51, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Considering the HoM is stored server side, they just need to have both clients capable of accessing the HoM data. I'd be astounded if the same client was used for GW2. - HeWhoIsPale 21:55, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

Very true House Of Furyan 21:59, 23 January 2008 (UTC)

(Reset indent) Guild Wars 2 is a completely separate game. Character slots will not be transferable, and characters will not move between the two games. -- Gaile 00:58, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply :D 118.92.35.136 02:32, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

I Know this probably hasnt been decided yet, but just in case, do you know if there is going to be anything different you will get if you have invested more into the game, IE buying extra Char. Slots ? 121.218.188.59 08:53, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Hopefully we get the same kinds of things as in GW1" extra char slots, various unlocks, and possibly minipacks like the BMP. -- Alaris 19:22, 24 January 2008 (UTC)

Redirected Conversations

Armor Glitch in Storage

← moved to User talk:Mike Zadorojny/Guild Wars Art issues

Festival Hat Maker

← moved to Talk:Festival hat maker

A Small Request

← moved to User talk:Mike Zadorojny/Guild Wars Miscellaneous Bugs

Question about Mini Polar Bear

← moved to Talk:Miniature Polar Bear

Rift Warden and Shard Collector Just Disappear?

← moved to Talk:Wintersday 2007

Economics, et al

← moved to Talk:Miniature Polar Bear

Comments about Wintersday

← moved to Talk:Wintersday 2007

Seven heroes, why not?

← moved to Talk:Hero

Hero Battles

← moved to User talk:Andrew Patrick

Wanted to get your attention drawn to

← moved to Talk:Guild_Wars_2

Who Won?

← moved to Talk:Wintersday 2007

Mistake in removing wintersday

← moved to Talk:Wintersday 2007

GW2 HoM Inheritance

← moved to Talk:Hall of Monuments

Everlasting Beetle Juice Tonic

← moved to Talk:Zaishen Chest

Unable to Re-acquire Quest

← moved to User talk:Mike Zadorojny/Guild Wars Quest Bugs

The Jade Quarry

← moved to Talk:The Jade Quarry

Pet Evolution

← moved to Talk:Animal companion

/report updates

← moved to Talk:Report

Reporting Goldsellers

← moved to Talk:Report

Factions Starting Bots -- They're Back!

← moved to Talk:Report

/report - leeching

← moved to Talk:Report

Canthan New Year

← moved to Talk:Canthan New Year 2008

Festive Hats

← moved to Talk:Festival hat

Canthan New Year (2)

← moved to Talk:Canthan New Year 2008