I played TSW during the Beta and just purchased the full game. When I start the game it takes me to the character creation and dimension select screen, but I do not see my Beta character there. I am using the same username and password to log in that I used in the Beta. When I go to my account at the TSW website, it shows me a bunch of items that I have that I believe I earned during the Beta and preceeding online events, such as Templar clothing as I chose Templar in the online web-based game.

Thanks for any advice.

I have to agree here based on what I have seen with GW2. I have been on two different servers in multiple tiers in GW2, and it is not uncommon to have two sides gang up on the third side. This doesn't require some nefarious consipracy although there are sometimes wilfull alliances or a deliberate policy of  targeting one enemy over the other. What usually happens is one side just happens to be weak and everyone just naturally goes after the weaker side rather than take on the heavy hitters. Some servers are just horribly outmanned at different times of the day, but viable at other times. It really is a fustercluck.

Two sides matched by time zone/population would be a lot better. If one side was weaker than the other it is possible recruitment or limiting the number of bodies to balance as WoW does could make up the difference. But when one side is weaker than the other two and the other two are ganking your side to the point no one wants to do WvW  RVR or whatever, then good luck getting recruits.

Throw in death penalty BS and having to run miles looking for fights a la GW2 and getting people to participate in WvW can be a nightmare.

Take a lot of what you see here with a grain of salt. I just checked the price of a full Berserker Daraconic set on the TP, and it is 24.6 g, not 10 gold. You wont get a full set of any exotic gear for that kind of money. I'm not aware of any berserker items you can get for karma.

Then you need at least 2 ,  3 or more exotic weapons  depending on your play style. Crafted Berserker greatsword is 4.5g right now.

Then you have to factor in the cost of runes, which can be outrageous for the more popular ones. Figure anywhere from 1g to 10g per rune for anything that isn't crap.  Then sigils for your weapons at 1 to 4g on average or more.

Rings, earrings and neckpieces are also extremely expensive.

So anyone tellign you you can get a full set of exotics for 10g, 15g or any other ridiclously low number isn't being honest. Expect to spend minimum 50 to 100g or more  for a full set of exotic armor, jewels and weapons with the runes and sigils you want. Less for every item you can buy with karma, laurels, WVW badges, dungeon tokens or other currencies.

There is a tradition of free speech in the West and while some may try to justify censorship as Anet's right, censorship has always been viewed as cowardly at best and dishonest or sleazy at worst. Trying to stifle free debate is not going to keep players from learning the truth or spreading the truth about the game; it can only lead to an angry backlash particularly among those who have been gratuitously banned for even the mildest criticisms or questions.

That's odd, because I have noticed the opposite: drops seem to be dminishing and I am not getting good loot. I got the same item 3 times for completing high level zones, but at least it was useful to my class.

Dye drops have definitely been nerfed to the ground. I finished Mount Maelstrom, Frostgorge and enough WvW to get me from 59 to 80 and then finished Straights of Devastation. In all this i got a grand total of 6 dyes, all crap.

[mod edit] No one is exaggerating the problem. Botters are definitely an epidemic on my server, which is Yak's Bend. Go to the ridges along Trionic lattice In Frostgorge and there are 17 bots there most of them multiple accounts related to each other. There are about 5 more on the road just to the north killing the moas and mooses.It is almost impossible to farm there because they kill most mobs before you cna get to them. At both ends of the Penitent Path there are so many bots  that they instantly obliterate most mobs before you can tag them. It is very hard to get loot there.

Botters are like other players in that they can pull mobs on you, and sometimes do if you're playing in their area.

Botters don't have to infest every single area of the server to be a major problem, just the ones most people are playing in now.

The remark from the developer was snide and condescending. Hourly updates? That's completely ridiculous. This from a company that had been silent about the issue for weeks and done nothing substantial to deal with it other than the DR crap, it's a pretty brazen statement, considering how angry they have made many players over this and many other issues.

I've seen and reported 4 bots (in a train)  in the human starting area on blackgate the other day. All 4 were rangers. Is there a reason why they like to use ranger for botting? Is it because of the pets?

Rangers have an ability called "search and rescue" where the pet can be used to automatically seek out and rez downed players. You'll notice many ranger bot gangs running together and periodically spaming this ability.  If one of them gets killed, the others can auto-rez him with this ability. The bears are also pretty tanky and a signifcant percentage of mobs will tend to go for the rangers' pets over the rangers themselves unless directly targeted, so the bear serves as a partial aggro magnet/shield.

Your experiences in the game aren't universal. You aren't speaking for anyone other than yourself.  There might be a problem with botting, but a few opinions on this forum isn't enough to convince me.

Anet has acknowledged the problem and claims to be fighting it. Is that evidence enough for you?

Anet is "losing" the fight against bots because it isn't fighting it. All they have done is institute the diminishing returns crap which is really aimed at legit players and declared it an anti-bot measure. Most of those botters are paying customers, just like you. Except they buy multiple accounts whereas you probably only own one. Who is more important to Anet? Cracking down on botters means cracking down on a huge revenue stream.

While I am sure some botters use hacked acxcounts, the majority I see seem to be legit multi-accounts with brazenly obvious botter names like "Guardian A, Guardian B" or "LoveAO and LoveBB" unless hackers pay for name changes on their hacked accounts. Look at the rapidity with which they banned hundreds if not thousands of players for "offensive" names. How hard is it to tackle botters? Obvious botters are obvious.

If they wanted to get rid of botters all they have to do is hire a few people to go to the areas they congregate, observe for the 3 seconds it takes to pick out the obvious ones or the 10 minutes for the more complex ones and start banning accounts. In a single day on my server they could easily corral 500 hundred botters like this, all of them obvious and beyond dispute. This will create the same "chiling effect" in the botter community that their uber-banning of bad names did in the legit community. All they have to do is make botting a financially risky procedure and only the daring with money to gamble will attempt it. As it is it is clearly a risk-free venture. It might not eliminate the problem, but it will reduce it dramatically.

It doesn't require user reports as these botters have been operating 24/7 for weeks with nothing being done about it.

The whole "there is already a thread on this" has always been a way for moderators to censor uncomfortable subjects. At best it amounts to forcing everyone to discuss the issue in a topic that is buried hundreds of pages back and will never be seen by anyone. If there is another running discussion on the issue tthey should close the thread and provide a link to that thread, not delete the thread. Somehow I doubt  if he was singing Anet's praises and gloating over how  the Precious was the most amazing thing to ever exist they wouldn't have told him to take his fawning to an existing thread.

"Use the search function" is also a good one for anyone who has ever tried to actually use the search function on a web site. The odds that you will get anything less than  5000 entries that have nothing to do with the search terms are nil. Okay, someone will now run off to Anet forums to prove me wrong using search terms that match an existing thread identically. The point is your ability to find relevant info is only as good as your search terms and the site's search function, and most of the time, using the search function on a web site is useless. I use Google to search for stuff here, for example, and even then it's hit or miss.

I find snotty, obsequious fanboi defenses of game companies and their self-serving, authoritarian approaches to dealing with their customers revolting. The fact so many defend every bogus thing these companies do is the reason the industry is so broken and dysfunctional. No one holds their feet over the fire for their failures and stupidity.

Originally posted by xpiher

 

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DR isn't suppose to hit players if they change areas. If it does, its bugged. ANET is working on it. Deal with it for now.

 

Oz has spoken. I feel so reassured now. Yet Oz hasn't given any specifics as to how his anti-player mechanic is supposed to work.

You deal with it.

Originally posted by eggy08

https://forum-en.guildwars2.com/forum/info/news/Update-Notes-October-7th-2012

"We’ve relaxed our anti-exploiting system for loot and events."

/thread

Which means what, exactly? You can go an hour now before Dr sets in vs a half hour before? They need to do away with the DR crap or at least be honest about when it sets in.

Originally posted by BadSpock

Sounds like patch today fixed some bugs with DR triggering too early/soon.

But this is life - and it is also war.

War against bots, spammers, hackers, cheaters...

The innocent always suffer in war.

If YOU can't farm the same dungeon or DE chain over and over legitimately, but at the same time if an automated BOT or gold farmer working with compromised accounts is stopped because of it - I'm all for it.

That whole "those who give up freedom for security deserve neither" or whatever quote is unrealistic, niave bullshit.

 

This makes as much sense as destroying villages to save them from communism. Ruining the game for everybody to tackle botters is idiotic and self-defeating, assuming that is their actual agenda and not limiting players ability to acquire mats. As should be obvious none of this is dissuading botters who are all still over the place. Most of these obvious botters are painfully obvious, and Anet could easily hire someone for $10 an hour to go through all the areas they tend to congregate and ban them. if in doubt, leave them be. They certainly showed no reluctance banning people for "bad" names and other trivial offenses. It might not catch the more sophisticated botters, but the real dumb ones with multiple accounts teleporting around with names like "Guardian A, Guardian B etc," you can spot from a mile away.

But as someone speculated on the official forums, botters are paid players too, better ones than normal in fact as they tend to buy multiple accounts. They have to be allowed to profit before Anet brings down the hammer or they will not buy more accounts and Anet will lose money. They already have your money so you don't matter.

Originally posted by AlBQuirky

 

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Let me point out, since you think I want to AoE bunnies... Orr is NOT hard. Orr IS annoying. If I want to spend 60 minutes going from one waypoint to another, fighting every step of the way, this is the place. I don't. As my thread title stated, "I am tired of fighting."

Precisely. Orr is not hard or challenging, it is just frustrating and tedious. There is a diference. I rarely die in Orr, it's just that every battle is a frustrating chore dealing with zombie swarms, the randomly-triggered respawnathons and cc. It is more like work than playing a game, which is why I call it (Ch)Orr. The area is ugly and I find the whole "zombie apocalypse" theme played and repuslive. Most of the DEs are just zergfests or aoe meatgrinders.

The only thing challenging abour Orr is trying to kill some zombies at Penitent Path before they are instantly obliterated by aoe from all the bots there. It is like trying to spear a piece of carrot in a food processor without hitting the spinning blades and before the carrot is reduced to mush. It requires perfect timing. Now THAT is a challenge.

Everything the OP says about Orr is true. It is a very frustrating, unrewarding zone. I am someone who tends to be a PVPer in games and generally likes combat and a challenge. But Orr is not a challenge, it is a (B)Orring (Ch)Orr where cheap gimmickry and zombie swarms are used in lieu of sophisticated and genuninely interesting combat.

The main problem with mobs in Orr (and elsewhere in the game) is the massive amounts of crowd control you have to deal with. Many mobs have not one but TWO forms of cc which totally kills the feeling of fluidity in a fight, particularly when you are being swarmed. Instead of fast-paced, dynamic combat where you feel like you are in control and skillfully using your abilities, you feel like a passive punching bag being knocked down, reeled in and stunned constantly until finally you give up and run only to find you are crippled and slowed. Earth elementals have a 30 SECOND CRIPPLE. This is just ridiculous.

The other rnight in Malchor's Leap I went to defend that base in the sw where you have to protect the guys rebuilding the trebuchets. The mobs that attack the base tend to have the reel-in ability, so when a group of mobs attacked and I was alone in that part of the fight, they immediately reeled me in and then took turns tossing me back and forth like a beach ball for a full ten seconds easily.  This wasn't combat, it was zombie volleyball with me as the ball.

Some might find this kind of "combat" fun, but I find it frustrating and demoralizing, partocularly when I am just trying to get to the Orichalcum and ancient wood nodes. Anyone can fill a zone with wall-to-wall zombies with mutliple ccs and say "look, hard mode!" but it really isn't that hard, just tedious, frustrating and unfun.

I have a ranger and a warrior so I know there is a huge difference in your ability to get through Orr easily between classes. It is a helluva lot easier as a warrior, as we have two anti-cc abilities, a cc-breaker and a 30 second long run speed increase on a 1-minute timer. The ranger pet on the other hand is an aggro magnet from hell.  Stop when you see a group of zombies ahead and your pet runs 50 feet ahead of you to aggro them or he runs off at 45 degree oblique angles to aggro mobs while you are running in a straight line. This can get old real fast and I don't bring my ranger to Orr anymore except to farm DEs.

On the plus side mobs do tend to go for your pet rather than you, a point which can be used to your advantage. Always keep your pet on passive WHILE TRAVELLING or he will get bogged down in fighting everything that moves. I know passive mode sucks as pets are often unresponsive to the attack command which you have to spam sometimes, but it is still easier than being dragged into fights by your pet. Always start fights by sending your pet in first.  I see so many rangers start fights by shooting first which aggros the mob onto you and then your pet has to hit a moving target which they suck at doing. Give your pet a chance to grab aggro and use his cc ability against the mob. I highly recommend the wolf for his excellent dps and knockdown and cripple abilities as well as aoe fear on the (dysfunctional) F2 button . Keep a tanky pet like a bear or Moa on reserve for pulling aggro off multiple mobs. I run with axe and warhorn for the run speed increase and aoe attack.

If you see zombies ahead you can send that tanky pet ahead to attack one or two and draw aggro and cc, then run through while your pet is engaged and then hit the "follow" button or whatever it's called to get him to follow you. If your pet gets too far behind or gets stuck in cc switch pets and a new one will be at your side to repeat the process.

I am an ex-hunter who was driven away by this kind of crap years ago and I see Blizzard is sitll playing it's time-honored game of "overbuffing" the hunter class followed by overnerfing it, just in time for the expansion. We are again being assured by the hunter fanboi sites that Blizzard will get it right eventually, as if they ever do.

How many times can people fall for the same lies? I will never buy another Blizzard product again because of the naked contempt they have for their players. I'll continue to be another ex-WoW hunter among the hundreds I meet in other MMOs.