LeCreaux.3087

I was a "hardcore" PvP player in another MMO for 18 years. About a million player kills, tons of achievements, cosmetics, mounts, etc. I didn't lose love for that game, but I guess I outgrew the antics of its community. And you can't play one without at least tolerating the other. I'm very happy so far with GW2. Out in the open world most players do help out, in stark contrast to other games. I'm specifically not playing hardcore anything. Doing zone completions, trying out classes, making up my own specs. Very casual friendly. Achievements for the most part are account-wide, as well as most currencies and materials if you deposit them in account storage. There are a few things that are not casual friendly and in my opinion not necessary. Lot of bag space and build space slots are not account-wide and have to be unlocked with gems for each character. I'm not a fan of transmutation stones, one for every item in every gear set on every character. I'll gladly buy account-wide outfits and mounts as often as they make ones I like, and I don't mind buying additional character slots, but these transmutation stones are specifically not friendly to players with a bunch of characters.

It needs to be something you can simply steer in and out of like a jet stream. Then it would be useful for navigation. Right now it's like being grabbed by a bird and you have to fight to escape from it.

I only played GW2 for a few months its first year and just started playing again last week with the Collection Ultimate. My “main” character is 80 in a mix of exotic and ascended gear but I don’t have a clue what I’m doing yet. Just finished Living World 1 and it’s had me doing stuff in all the low level zones and out in PvP and in some “public” instances — which I didn’t even know existed. I’m playing right next to brand new and leveling players but my “effective” level is the same as theirs. That’s how this game works if I remember correctly.

I've got grandkids, one will be a teenager next year, and that right there is a teaching opportunity. One of the hard things we have to learn ourselves, and everyone does, is that few things are easy to get. Some are hard to keep. And some are impossible to obtain even though you see other people with them. I think it's fine to have such things in the game. Example, my father wanted a very specific sports car his entire life but never obtained it. He had little models of it and talked about it since I was a kid. He had friends with them. But it wasn't to be. In contrast I also wanted a very specific six-figure, twin-turbo, high performance vehicle my whole life. I'd see teenagers driving them to high school, their parents just gave them one as a toy. Finally in my late 50s I justified buying one myself. My son now wants it from me badly, as does my son-in-law, and I'm sure my grandson will also. But I won't even let them drive it. They haven't put in the life points yet to buy their own and that's how life works.

I went through sort of a similar issue and they worked it out. I bought and played what I thought was the EOD “Collection Ultimate” for 3 days before realizing it was not. I put in a ticket, we did some back and forth negotiating, and we came to an agreeable resolution. I paid for the content I had already progressed in and they refunded about 60%. I don’t know how they decided on that amount but it was fair to me. Then I immediately purchased the EoD “Collection Ultimate” and made triple-dog sure it was the right thing on every screen. It still took an hour or so to get the activation code while they “reviewed my purchase attempt”. I guess they have a system. But it all worked out in the end.

Done! Had to repurchase the "Collection Ultimate" at the original $100 price and was effectively billed an additional $40 for the non-refundable Living World stories and anything that I used from the "Complete Collection". Plus I bought two $25 gem cards while waiting for the 4000 gems that never arrived. Overall very satisfied with the prompt response from Customer Support. I put the ticket in very late last night and saw actions on it at 2am and 3am, they apparently work 24 hours. Even though I ended up spending approximately $190 (after the partial refund) I think I got agreeable value.

In the end I chose the partial refund -- they said the story parts are non-refundable. Yes, I do want the cosmetics so I just purchased the "Collection Ultimate" for the cosmetics. It was not easy to do. The in-game shop only offers the "Complete Collection" so you have to use the website to order the "Collection Ultimate". Their website errored at login with Safari on my MacBook. It errored at purchase on Google Chrome. It only successfully worked all the way to purchase on Firefox. Then I got an email from support saying they're "Reviewing the purchase attempt". I don't understand why this is so difficult. I've now spent $250 trying to get the $99 package -- minus the partial refund whenever that arrives. At least the support section is promptly working on it.

They're telling me in the ticket that there are two $99.99 "Collections". One is called "Complete Collection" and the other is called "Collection Ultimate". They're almost identical. One has all the Living Worlds and a bunch of account addons. The other has a bunch of cosmetic things and 4000 gems. Apparently I received the "Complete Collection" even though I wasn't aware it even existed. I bought the "Collection Ultimate", or at least that's the button I pressed on the web page. I have no idea how buying the "Ultimate" gave me the "Complete" but it appears I'm stuck with it. They can refund some of it and remove some things that I've already started doing, but that sounds like it will break things. I don't know how that got messed up. But people need to be aware that they are selling two different packages with almost the same name, almost the same items, identical price. But NOT on the same web page, NOT on the same "Compare" chart. I don't know why they would do that or how buying one gave me the other.

It's been 72 hours since I bought the "Collection Ultimate" on the website for $99.99. Was billed $108.25. But it's looking like I only got the "Collection Standard". All the expansions were unlocked immediately and I started playing. But I didn't notice right away that I didn't get an extra character slot, never got the 4000 gems, boat skin, identity repair kit, etc. Got tired of waiting for 72 hours and paid another $50.00 for two gem cards. Now I'm out $158.25. It's been over 72 hours and I put in a ticket -- and just now realized what's going on. I was only given the basic $50 collection.