Why is there no loot pickup key?

Tell me I'm just blind and I missed it

If not, why on earth isn't there one? For that matter, why do they even bother have you pick up gold, when it is automatically distributed anyway?

I have no clue, do you mean the alt key let's you see all loot on the ground I think, and I do agree with the gold thing.

Couldn't agree more with what youd said

I find it amusing that people in the team rush to pick up the gold, I usually leave it there cause it's guaranteed someone will eagerly pick it up.

Or they could also let you cycle through loot on the ground, just like tab cycles through targets. And a pickup key or something would be most helpful

There used to be one (it was ";"), but it was removed in an attempt to slow down botters.

Correct me if im wrong, but if someone would want to make a bot to pick up loot... wouldnt he still jsut be able to do it with a slight detour or something (i dont know how you program a bot exactly), but i dont think removing the key will stop them...

I'd love to see one...

And with that also make a switch skill list key so i can change between a PvE skill list and a PvP skill list...

No flame intended, but it just sounds silly. Because botters might use it, so they remove it? Then if people were to kill other people using knives and guns, would the government put a ban on selling those items?
Again no flame intended, just want that looting item key.

OT, no flames intended.

Many governments have.

They removed it because farming bots *did* use it. They are serious about making the game hard to write bots for. They excplicitly asked the alpha teams to try to write bots, so they could counter them.

Yes, farming bots are still possible, but writting them can be quite hard depending on what information is send over the line.

And yes, almost all goverments ban guns and combat knives. Please don't start a discussion whether this is a good thing or not.

I'll bet those same bots used hotkeys for their skills....better take those away. Probably used tab for targeting and space for attacking -- uh oh, lose those as well. Let's just do away with all hotkeys because someone might write a bot to use it.

Furthermore, how many times do I have to hear that this game isn't about loot? You can't have it both ways.....either it's about loot and we have to prevent all the bots or it's not about loot and who cares if someone uses a bot. I side on the latter and I want the ; back from 4 months ago (maybe longer).

If you remove the item targeting, the terrorists win!

Lol, crack me up. A loot pickup button is unnecessary - it requires all the pathing and so on the movement requires, probably some way of deciding an efficient order to pick things up etc... and it aids botting. Items aren't meant to be a dominant force in the game, but at the same time they are worth working for, which makes botting tempting for those prone to it. I agree that the whole "non-grind" mentality is hypocritical when you force grind to unlock skills and items; it should rather be looked at as "less-grind" - there is still grind, but it is much less arduous - and they don't want folks circumventing the grind they have put in. Really, if it were to be 0 grind you'd be able to start PvPing with any item you want, any skill you want and so on, and the PvE portion would be entirely a fun tutorial. Obviously Arenanet DOES want some grind involved, for whatever reason (that even they expect grind? That it makes the game playable longer, and thus allows them time to write the next expansion? That deep down people will still be a bit better based on the time invested, and even the developers have trouble letting go of that?).

I was one of the first to argue (back when they first unlocked skills in the BWE) that that should be an option at all times for PvP, and was yelled down about it (though there was about 30-40% that also agreed, IIRC), but it is true - if you want a no-grind game, allow unlocking of skills for PvP; otherwise it is a grind game, just with less grind. You have to pick where you stand arenanet -if you are truly "Skill, not time played" then drop the grind from PvP. If you aren't, admit it, and make claims about how it brings skill to the fore, and that while gear matters, it isn't the final word - but don't lie. It's wrong to say it doesn't reward time played - it clearly does.

I don't object to the current system - I even like it; I only object to the conflict between the stated maxim and the reality of the game. It is less grindy, but at a level I can enjoy - a nice balance between grind and skill. And it is true that you can in theory unlock everything and have it about skill alone, but to do so requires more grind than I am likely to put in. Hunting down the skills for professions I am less likely to play is a lot of work, and thus I am less likely to try them, as I don't have them unlocked. Granted, we've a ways to go before the next expansion, but I could picture many people not having every possible item/skill unlocked with many hours of play. I don't mind knowing that even with hundreds of hours of play I will not have all skills and items unlocked (and I am sure I won't, as you don't unlock things in PvP and many of my hours will be spent there) and I have been enjoying the grind. I am a strong supporter of the anti-hacking that arenanet has pledged itself to - but I do think they should make a slight change to the way they talk about it unless they plan on unlocking PvP fully - as there still is grind.

Removing the "target loot" key means that someone writing a script has to rely on some sort of image recognition, to control the cursor to find an item and then to select it, before it can be picked up. That's orders of complexity greater than "Did an enemy die? Press ; and space". That hotkey and several other features have been changed in order to make the task of scripting a hack or a bot for guildwars a lot more difficult.

Is it annoying and punitative to the those of us who aren't using bots? Sure, but bots were being used and were becoming a problem. Because, no matter what the press releases say, items and equipment are important in Guild Wars. So's money. Botting and hacking are problems that need to be dealt with even though they'll never be fully eliminated. They've always been and I, for one, would rather see the developers attempting *something* rather than throwing us all to the wolves.

To use Granamyr's rather hyperbolic metaphor, we've "let the terrorists win" (And, by the way, really nice of you to equate the the mechanics of a video game to the reactions against life-threatening and altering events. Great sense of perspective there.) by curtailing and limiting our civil liberties. Planes take longer to board, borders take longer to cross, you'll need a passport soon just to hop from America to Canada or Mexico, and dozens of other steps. All of which inconveiniance and impose on the average citizen who'd have a much easier time of things were they done away with. However, doing so also would make it a lot easier for those who aren't the average citizen and who might wish the country and the average citizen harm. To safeguard against them, to make us all safer, we've made things as difficult as possible for those people along with everyone else. It would be nice if we didn't have to do so, of course, but unlike Granamyr we have to deal with reality and not wishful thinking.

To put it this way, take off speed limits on the roads and people will get to wherever they're going a lot faster. But there's going to be a lot more crashes and accidents which are, in the long run, a lot more costly than taking a few more minutes to arrive someplace. Sometimes, as with the "loot all items" key, there need to be restrictions put in place. Individual liberties balanced against the "greater good" or societal needs.

Yes. One must not be caught in the "all or nothing" trap. One needs to balance needs. Pressing '1' to use a skill helps bots as well as real players, but the need for real players to be able to use a skill quickly outweighs the desire to make botting more difficult. The opposite is true for the "target nearest item" key, which was nice but hardly necessary or really a big deal for real players, but a huge deal for bots.

Yes, actually, you can. Why everyone loves the logical fallacy of the false dilemma so much, I've never understood. You've presented two extremes and said it must be one or the other. In fact, both sides of your "it's either X or Y" are false, it is not true that "it's about the loot", and it is not true that it doesn't matter; the truth lies between those two extremes.

My GOD! You have to point-and-click on loot?!

Someone call Amnesty International.

I'd rather take a couple of seconds to click on loot than watch Botfest 2005.

does it say Quiet traveller under your name???
but i could not agree more, while it would be nice to have a pick up loot key like in lineage 2 it is not nice having retarded bots get in your way and ruin the game. you should think of this as exercise for you eyes and fingers, you know, to make up for the lack of exercise because you are play guildwars 24/7

It is inconvenient, however. Certainly one can simply click the mouse to pick things up. Yet I have my optical mouse mapped to my keyboard, and by using target hotkeys rarely if ever need to touch the mouse... except to pick up items on the ground. If there were a way to tab through ground items, this game could be played entirely from the keyboard. Which is helpful for those who use a mouse constantly during their day gig, as it helps relieve wrist strain and curbs the potential for carpal tunnel syndrome. Seriously.

I wish you could tell the Henchmen to pick up gold... at least then they would be a bit more useful LOL.

I really hate to tell you, dream, but most people that argue this point dont even understand what a logical fallacy IS, much less do they realize they're making the same argument as "Could an ominpotent being make a rock so large he could not lift it?"

Alternatively, they actually think the latter is a perfectly valid argument.

Granamyr: You don't need to remove all features that together makes it easy to write a farming bot. Just one of them, and it is no longer easy.

Farmer bot writers aren't terrorists, their goal aren't to ruin the game, but to make profit on it. Ruining the game is just a side-effect.

Sausaletus Rex: It still depends on what is send through the wire, presumably not an image.

Aiwahead: I don't see how this classic teological paradox relies on the fallacy of the excluded middle, could you please explain?