Tell us about the things you figured out about Guild Wars

I hope this thread will help people understand better about how GW works and better work with it.
Pointless, ironic, joking and utterly annoying posts are not welcomed.

1. Guild Wars is using your system's regional settings to route you around the servers, rather than your physical location nor IP address; so if your system is using german as primary language and location, GW will not route you to US servers even if you are in US physically, resulting a big lag during game play and update.

2. Stackable item might be using 1 byte to store its quantity in order to save database space, that's why you can only stack 250 item in one stack (255 max)

3. The basic technical architecture of GW is probably based on 3D online chat rooms, the required distance to perform a specific action are only at graphic level and when doing skill range check, technically you can open your storage anywhere in town, that's why the coordinates of your character was never saved ( which means if you log out and log in, your location would be a general spawn location rather than where you were before logout), Switching district is more like switch rooms, and warp to another town is more like going to another channel, similarly, the items used in town are more like privileged emote with an item check script.

4. Dance is not really an emote "action", rather an emote "state", other emotes like /cheer performs only once and you can't see it if you miss it, but if you are /dance or /flute, others are able to see it even if they comes in town an hour after you typed the emote command. There is another possibility, maybe all the emotes are emote state, and some are scripted so it will change the "state" to normal, but some don't have it.

It's been stated before and most people know but:
Guild Wars has no Y-axis, that's why you can trap under a bridge and people walking over the bridge will trigger it, etc.

Since the spellcasting range is just beyond the edge of the aggro circle, you can use that to your advantage. If you encounter an impossible to pull boss (Fahralon the Zealous) you can longbow him until he stops chasing and Meteor Shower/Searing Flames him and he won't do anything.

It is possible to separate a creature from his mob by pulling him far from his group. After a certain point, they "unlink" and you can hammer him without fear.

The maximum size for Gw.dat is around 2.7 GB. If it's larger than that, you need to reinstall.

A tank that does no damage is about as useful as an ink pen made of jello. The Nightfall aggro change makes that even more obvious.

In addition to the bridge-trapping technique (which is useful for those bridge-spawning Wurms in ToPK), you can also melee through the Z-axis. Example: In the Riverside Province mission, walk up to the doors on the watchtowers, push "c" and attack. You will be attacking the Watchman. This works for enemies above you, but not below. It has the added bonus of making you "obstructed" for projectiles.

Wait mine is 3 GB, whats wrong with that?

This is incorrect.

I have two accounts, one on US servers, one on Euro. I get routed based solely on account setting, never on local system settings.

I tried changing Windows settings around, but it doesn't affect anything. US based account will always connect to US servers, Euro based account will always connect to Euro servers.

Last official size for gw.dat was around 3.4 gigs.

There was a bug that allowed the file to grow beyond 4 gigs, but this was fixed months ago. If you have very old installation, then the only way to fix extremly large file (4.5 gigs+) is to delete the gw.dat and re-download, or re-install and update again. But this is an old problem that isn't an issue anymore.

Mine is 4.1gb. Having no problems or lag.

I've been on all 3 campaigns and practically been everywhere... so is that normal?

Not true. The game has a working Y-Axis within its three-dimensional engine, but the engine triggers some things on the x-axis alone. Traps and player contact is done on the x-axis alone, which was probably something that cut down on time when the game was being produced, and ended up never getting changed. The Y-Axis in the game is used primarily for movement. You will move higher on the Y-Axis throughout the game, but triggers such as "bumping" in to characters and setting off traps will happen on the X-Axis. Furthermore, Arrows and projectiles use Y/X for trajectory, and any variables (walls/ceilings) in the way will still effect them.

Therefore you can trap people from underneath them, but you can not shoot an arrow through the floor.

But you can still aggro enemies when they're four stories above or beneath you (see Ring of Fire). And be affected by Spiky Coral when you're on a bridge above it.

Can't complain, though. Guild Wars' engine just wasn't made to support this.

yes it is, since GW would not load that part either way, the older files will just sit there and does not affect the system performance, given that you have enough hard drive space.

You might be right, I don't have more evidence to support my claim. But my native language is Chinese, GW automatically routed me to Chinese beta servers and download update there(which is obviously very slow and files are older version as well), I contacted the tech support of Anet a few times and got the answer I wrote above, so my best guess is either GW is using a different method for asian regions than european regions, or the game itself is more compatible.

yes about the file size, it is no problem at all if you have a larger file than others. you just were around before the time they changed some optiomalisation of the dat file, basicly the dat file holds everything about guildwars on your pc, and on your file it has a few old files in it too, maybe gw does not use those anymore but it does not hurt for them to be there.

so the only reason i would see for you to reinstall your game, would be if you lack space on your hard disk...
then you might save a few 100s of megabyte by reinstalling.

Saphrium, perhaps it's the Guildwars in-game language setting that was affecting how you connected?
I periodically play in German, and still connect to the same IP for Guildhall, LA and KC as with English. (Quick test).

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Keeping your .dat under 4gb would also be essential if you're running on a fat32 partition. I had to do a convert as mine kept expanding itself over the limit. (Resulting in fatal stop errors / critical errors).

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Seing as XY is the 2d pane, Z is the axis that GW lacks, not Y. This is why you attack things/trigger traps regardless of how far they are above or below you.

In game language doesn't seem to affect the server routing, it is merely a local text replacement, I have tried to change the in-game language then warp to another instance or town, didn't seem to affect the performance. However I did not try to change in game language then log out and log back in, I might try it later to see if it affects the game performance.

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Usually x-axis is the horizontal axis(line), y-axis is the vertical axis(an image), and z-axis is the depth axis(three dimensional object). I am guessing this based on "z buffering" in rendering optimization. Correct me if I am wrong.

..That a req 12 WEAPON Is just as good As a req 8/9 weapon!!!

Thats what I learnt.

Cos you can't get a weapons full damage use out of it til you specialise in the its corresponding attribute of 12 anyway. just because it says '15-22 dmg (req 9) doesnt mean you get full 100% out of your weapon if you place the corresponding attribute at 9- if you do that your only getting 77.1%. You only get 100% if you put your attribute of swordmanship in at 12...And 104% at 13, 107% at 14, etc.

http://www.guildwarsguru.com/content...nics-id674.php

edit:: The amount of people I've traded with that have said ''No required 9+ is too high, it doesnt do as much damage'' is a bit ridiculous =S

Thats what I figured out/learnt ^^ I just wish most people in game selling/buying weapons understood it too!

It still affects the price though as a req9 weapon is rarer then, say a req 13. Same with gold and purple weapons, both could have the same stats but the goldie will sell easier/fetch more as it's more sought after.

First off, GW has a working X and Y axis, and there is nothing wrong with it.
Secondly, GW does not have a Z buffer, or a Z-axis, that is why the "rubber-band" effect takes place. See some FPS games...For example, the reason you cannot jump or swim, or side is somewhat related to the Z-axis.

The official size right now is confirmed to be 3.4-3.6. Keep in mind, updates such as wintersday, or canthan new year adds more content, and that is not erased afterwards.

I thought Z and X made up the 2d plane, and Y was the vertical...?

Y stands for 'up', I learnt that much from maths... I hope I'm right.

I figured out that Illusionary Weaponry has the most unique mechanic out of all other skills, as its the only skill that removes the 'hit/miss' component altogether, while still allowing you to make attacks.

The problem is, x, y, and z axises can all be defined differently in any mathematic system.
X, Z are often described as the flat axises while Y is the "elevation" axis in navigation and global positioning.
X, Y are the flat axises in mathematic equations. The Z axis is the 3 dimensional axis (and thus "up").
In planes, the z axis can be used to describe the rotation of the object in space.

So really, it doesn't really matter what we call it. The names are interchangeable. Its just a matter of convention of the system that you are talking about at the time. Granted, as more of a math oriented person, I tend to think of the z axis as the "up" axis that we are commenting on now.

yes, you guys are all correct about the axis, however in this case we are talking about game programming, x, y, and z have specific definitions.

This is my understanding:
To display a graphic on your computer and to let it show up on your screen, it needs a pair of axis to define the rendering graphic, since the image displayed to you is flat, horizontal axis will be x, and vertical will be y(to find a specific point on a picture, you can use x, y coordinates to determine it's location); to display items from distance, a item has to change size, shape according to viewer's perception, that "depth perception" if I may name it this way, is called z axis, by using z axis, items can be displayed as if it was far away or close up(more primitive example is might and magic 6 or doom as they resize image to imitate z axis)

It is definitely a unique attribute for illusion weaponary, one thing to note is, IW is still a damage skill, which can be countered by reversal of fortune or life sheath, one type of skill that is completely ignoring all rules is life stealing.

I remember wikipedia compared GW with many collector card games, which I think is a very precise description, only GW is real time and card games are turn based. (Sounds like C&C revolution all over again).

Games are usually seen from the top (think the early FF games from the nes, for example). So they're called X and Y. In 3D, they added another layer, going upwards. Which is Z.

This is rpg games ofcourse.

Re: XYZ

Mathemicians typically use
Engineers typically use
Hence the confusion... in my experience games typically refer to the axis's in the engineering fashion.