Forced Entry into the Academy

Yesterday someone "Forced" my N/R12 to enter the academy in Pre. I was standing in Ascalon City and got an invite from a level 3. I assumed they needed the Res Sig and accepted. Next thing I know a timer is running to enter a mission! I couldn't immediately figure out what the mission was but I knew I didn't want to be part of it so I clicked the button to "Leave" the party but the timer was sill running! Before I could figure out what was happening and how to deal with it, I found myself standing in the Academy and not happy at all!

It was at this time that I found out once you enter the academy, you CANNOT get out except to go to post! I logged out and back in and was still in the academy, I tried typing /Resign and died but the mission just restarted. I could not even map travel! I was FUMING at this point!

This character was my Pre Only character and I had no intention of ever taking him to post. Originally, I wanted to keep someone in pre in case something changed or if other people I knew needed help in pre. Later I began to try to see how much power I could accumulate. I had reached level 12, gotten over 20k gold, tamed a bear, gotten some incredible weapon drops, and I even used this character to receive my Mini-Kuunavang from Factions CE!

All of that was flushed down the toilet. Months of hard work totally wasted because the game is designed such that another player can FORCE me to enter the academy and I have no option for approving it, aborting it, or leaving once I'm in!

I would like to recommend that an update to the academy process be made so that I have to approve if the party leader enters, I would also like to be able to abort the timer, and if I get dragged it, I would like to be able to get the hell out again. It's absolutely stupid that this happened to me. There should have been safeguards in place to prevent it from happening. I had to delete that character and reroll him and it will probably be months before I'm even close to where I was. And I'll NEVER be able to regain my Pre-Mini-Kuunavang...

yeah....pretty sure you cant tame bears.

And another (im not trying to flame by the way) but ANet shouldnt make large changes to the skeleton of pre-searing just because you didnt ask "what do you need help with?"

you even said yourself that you "assumed" he needed the res sig. Your assumptions are never ANet's problems...ive found out the hard way...along with many other people.

I assumed that smite would never get nerfed, and the whole Mo/W gvg team build wth fast casting skills to trigger zealots fire in large scale owning groups would never get nerfed...but alas....

You shouldve (before accepting) asked if it was for Across the Wall or Rez sig, the only 2 I can think of that require another player, but yes, you SHOULD be able to "Leave Party", or map travel out of Party, even for the Academy mission. There should be a way to leave/abort ANY mission, in pre or post. BTW, why didnt you drop all your lvl 12s stuff into storage?

maybe the fact that there is no storage vault in presear has something to do with it.

bears can be tame.... and yep theres no storage in pre......
Xunlai Storage Agent where are u...;(

try ihtting f12 and enter next time.. or even alt+f4 sorry you got forced into that man, sucks :|

lol storage in pre-sear
that wud be wierd
lv1 with perf weps and stuff
even tho it can be done soon as u leave pre-sear
it wud be handy for it cuse u always run outta room in pre
they shud make stoarage box for pre-sear only and once u leave pre u can take stuff out but not put stuff in
like a box trade but only 1way

Why did you delete your Kuunavang? That was extremely dumb. You could have just continued through, acessed your storage once you reached Ascalon, you did after all have over 20k on the character.

I think the best way to solve it is to simply make th transport into the academy a 1-person affair only, much like the boatman in Perdition Rock. Even if you're grouped, only the one who requested to go would go.

To the OP, you didn't delete all that nice stuff, did you? You stowed it before scrapping the character, right?

You did accept someone elses invitation, and with that the right to let them move you onto another area.

I think this is a feature that could use some improving though, just because you join someones party doesn't mean you want to do what they are interested in, and even then, they may try to pull a fast one on you. Maybe you don't want to join a mission or challenge.

Throwing players into something they are not interested, or prepared for, is bad for both positions, the person who wants to do the mission or challenge is going to be out of a member who leaves once he realizes it isn't what he wanted, and the person who didn't want to join is thrown into a situation they arn't interested in.

This can also tie in the the old "are you ready" problem, people may start when you are not ready, thus leaving a player unfit or unequipted for the challenge.

For this, they can simply add a accept feature to enterance into the Academy, Missions, Challenges, and other party inclusive decisions. It can work the same as a cinematic skip feature, unless everyone selects that they are ready to continue, the party cannot proceed. And as an added feature, they can also make some sort of indication on the players name in the party menu as to whether they have or have not accepted the mission or otherwise so players know who is not attending, and in the case that certain player is AFK or disfuctional, or not interested, they can remove him and continue with other options.

This by itself is a minor heartache, but with a broad spectrum improvement, this and many other difficulties can be remedied, and probably should be.

ya got kidnapped

this is why i dont accept randomly....

I've gotten a bear and my friend's gotten a bear in pre searing. It's possible, just harder. Sorry about that happening to you man, you should have map travelled out of there.

Xunlai Storage Agents in pre would make funny seens.

Ha ha char I'm going to pwn you with the ALMIGHTY FIERY DRAGON SWORD.

Man it's max damage and it has 12 swordsmanship (he doesn't know it req. 12 swordmanship, not giving you 12 swordsmanship)

I guess I wasn't clear on that point. Naturally I emptied my packs into my post sear storage. But that stuff WAS in pre and I have no way to get it back into pre. That's what really annoys me.

And, yes, in fact, you CAN tame bear in pre. I already retamed one on my new character.




The reason I did not continue playing that character is because I already have 2 N/R20's in post and don't need a third. I had that one in pre because I never intended to take him to post. I wanted a powerful character in pre.

Yes, in retrospect, I agree that I SHOULD have determined the nature of the invite. But I also should not have been able to have been kidnapped like that. I believe this is an oversight that should be corrected. If not, we could have people doing that to high level people just for fun, just because they can and have nothing better to do than piss people off.

Generally people don't accept random invites...it's your fault that you did. Although, a safety measure could be added...but I don't think they WANT you to stay in pre for very long, on any character, so don't count on it.

I would argue the opposite. I've seen them put in patches to correct problems with people in pre that manage to reach level 15. If what you say is true, why would they waste their time? They wouldn't.

They also would not put all the Charr there for you to kill unless they intended for you to go there and hunt them and gain higher levels and decent drops.

Obviously they are OK with people staying in Pre as long as they like and will try to make the game enjoyable for everyone by correcting problems with the system.

It was a good suggestion earlier (Forget who made it) to add a mechanism for everyone to indicate they are ready before a mission starts. This would benefit everyone in all parts of the world. It could be as simple as a "Ready" button after each persons name in the party window. Maybe it would be red "Not Ready" initially until the owners of each character click it to Green "Ready". When everyone's button is Green "Ready" the mission can start...

He didn't delete the Kuunavang, but he very well could've been the only person to have a mini kunnie in pre. And since there's no storage in pre, he can never take his kunnie back there. Basically he wanted to have a maxed out toon in pre that could help out anyone he knew, and it would be cool to show off a mini in pre too.

Plenty of people got their kuunies in pre.

There are even a good few of the other minipets around (because of pre only chars like his).

Wow, that sucks.

You really should of asked before accepting, but i suppose they could add a saftely measure.

Brother Gilburt

Some 11 year old did this to me as well as I did a few quests with him and then it was off to post and I didn't get all my skills at level 3.Don't trust 11 year olds in this game.

You should've thought to press the X in the top right of your screen