Regarding the bots issue in GW2... You'll find that probably around 95% of them are accounts that have been purchased with stolen credit card details, not actually hacked accounts. Because a lot of GW1 and 2 accounts are linked, people bought gold in GW1 to get the unlocks in GW2, handing over CC details to "dodgy" websites. Said CC gets used to buy multiple GW2 accounts, and the bost get a few weeks use out of them before moving on to the next set of fraudulently obtained/used details.

Sorry that you appear to have been hacked in GW2. But the wrong and wrong is in fact right and right. Nobody is haxxoring GW2 accounts. People have either: 1. Bought Gold from a shady website / visited a shady website; or 2. Used repeat log-in details. GW2 provide you will all of the tools to make your account safe. Not their fault if you chose not to use them. I play both GW2 and TOR, and take full advantage of the security measures in each game, using authenticators, IP linking etc where possible. Different solutions to a problem, and both acceptable to me.

It is a Group Finder problem. Unless they fixed it and didn't update the patch notes, when you queue a full group of 4 people for a Random FP (to get the comms) it doesn't work. So, to circumvent BioWare's failure at producing a fix, guilds have taken it upon themselves to "fix" it by queueing up 3 people in a group and 1 separately. The group of 3 then repeatedly kick the 4th member till it's their guildie.

Should they be nerfed? No. Why should they nerf old content? Gear should make it simpler and that's enough. Should they be accessible via Group Finder? Maybe. But they would have to introduce a gear check of some sorts. I would hate to be you, sitting there in full Columi queueing up for Hard Mode EV when you get grouped with a few fresh 50's in Greens and poorly modded Oranges. You won't complete the Ops, and without voice comms some fights are harder on Hard/Nightmare (Soa, Pillars, Fabricator in KP). Similarly, I can't see Denova going on Group Finder any time soon as there's too much communication needed between the tanks that you just can't type! Open your eyes, and don't rely on clicking a button and going AFK. I don't have enough fingers to count the number of LFM messages posted on fleet for hard mode KP and EV, and also Story Denova.

Re-read post title please. I assume their patch to fix possible issues with the probes completely broke them

It might only be "4 flippin hours" but the question is valid - why do both go down? I like to browse the forums in the morning at work (maintenance is pretty much always 8am UK time), and I occasionally forget it's a Tuesday EDIT - the post I replied to has disappeared :/

I can see why it would be turned off by default for Operations as you're then locked out for a week for maybe only killing Soa etc. I haven't played around with the Group Finder yet - is the option/tick box pretty obvious?

I'm an end-game tank for my guild, and i'm just looking for the best way to progress my defensive stats. My headline numbers right now are: HP: 23,449 (with class buff and stim) Armor Rating: 8509 Damage Reduction: 53.07% Defense Chance: 12.73% Shield Chance: 51.41% Shield Absorbtion: 51.81% The general rule of thumb before was to get everything to 50%. But what next? Threat isn't a problem for me, so I don't need more Aim. I already do reasonable DPS (800 - 900). One thing healers have complained about is that I seem to take more "large hits" than our Assassin tank in the Zorn & Toth Hard Mode fight, but that's a side issue. My gear consists of Full Supercommando Rakata, with the exception of an Augmented Head, Black Hole Mk1 Implants and Ears, and Campaign Legs. The Head has total stats of: +108 Aim +129 End +69 Shield Rating +12 Power +10 Absorb Rating +20 Defense It's basically Rakata mods with the Shield Augment. My relics are the Experimental Shield Overcharger and the Columi (I know) relic of the Shrouded Crusader for the Shield boost. My question basically comes as I have a few (75) BH comms, and can start getting BH gear from the vendor. My Rakata Boots have been upgraded with the mods from the boots that drop from Kephess, so the BH MK1 boots aren't an upgrade. I have Campaign Legs, so no upgrade there. The Gloves, Head and Shield all look like minimal upgrades at best. The Belt & Bracers are also a bit shoddy looking, but maybe i'm looking at the wrong stats!

Firstly, the server's aren't merging. In it's current format it looks like targeted optional free transfers. The dead server complaint is centre stage right now, but there are many issues that have been eclipsed by it, such as: 1. Lack of end-game content - No new Raid/FP means the same end-game content for at least another 2 months or so. Many guilds have already cleared everything. (understandable, but a blow) 2. Only 8-man Ranked Warzones (was mooted for 1.2) 3. No Dual-spec (again, was mooted for 1.2) 4. Crafting imbalances. Some are useless now, some even more so after 1.3 with Augment tables. 5. Cost of Legacy items (I know why they're expensive, and why) 6. LFD tool will probably be "not as expected" I'll stop there

I used to play an online football management game (FML), developed by Sports Interactive and published by Sega. The Devs were very vocal with the community, and set dates etc etc. If something slipped once the community would forgive them. But then it happened again, and again, and again and therefore both SI and Sega were getting flamed. I believe the call came from Sega to "shut up shop" on the forums and never say anything. They went from one extreme to the other, and it just made things worse. Needless to say the game collapsed after 18 months. Not sure what will happen here.

I'll go by the Irish definition They're late!! In all seriousness, I still believe in the 4-6 week test cycle, so still aiming for sometime around 17th July, which would be 3-4 weeks after the start of "US Summer".

"According to meteorologists, summer extends for the whole months of June, July, and August in the northern hemisphere and the whole months of December, January, and February in the southern hemisphere" "The meteorological reckoning of seasons is used in Austria, Denmark and the former USSR; it is also used by many in the United Kingdom, where summer is thought of as extending from mid-May to mid-August." "However, according to the Irish Calendar summer begins 1 May and ends 1 August." "In North America, summer is often the period from the summer solstice (usually June 20 or 21 in the Northern Hemisphere) to the autumn equinox.[6][7][8][9] Unofficially, the U.S. summer season is commonly regarded as beginning on Memorial Day weekend (the last weekend in May) and ending on Labor Day weekend (the first weekend in September), more closely in line with the meteorological definition." The only place in the entire world from what I can gather that regards summer as being the 21st of June is NA, and they don't even use that definition.

Isn't 21st of June Mid-summer? Highest point of the sun etc etc??

Patch 1.3 isn't just Transfers. It's about polishing what's already there, expanding things and intorducing Ranked Warzones. We all know how problematic they were last time, so 6 weeks doens't seem unreasonable to me. 4 at a push, but any less and i'd be worried that they aren't listening to feedback. The Legacy stuff should just be Live-ready straight away, but other elements such as LFG will be problematic I reckon. [EDIT] Thought i'd add that I am still hopeful that Transfers are pre-1.3!

What's worse is you get the same kit every time one of your alts reaches Chapter 2!

Well, "Early Summer" to me is June. Mid summer would be July, and late summer August. Given that 1.3 isn't going on to PTR for "a few weeks" (we'll say week ending 8th at the arliest) I can't see 1.3 hitting Live before mid to late August (6 weeks of testing), especially if (as expected) Server Transfers are part of this patch.

I believe he may be. Put it this way, say you went to a football match that had a kick-off time of 3pm, amd it kicked off 15 minutes before you got there, wouldn't you be annoyed?

Explain your tactic then, and people can help. If you have an over-abundance of melee (as my guild do) the best way to combat it is to have all melee run out of Fearful range 1 - 2% before the jump phases. Only the tanks will get fearful, and they just have to make sure that it's dropped off before they start spamming attacks after a tank swap/jump.

The question here is why do we even have to rip out mods and swap them around (excluding augmented Orange gear). To make my Rakata set "better" (Powertech, Supercommando) I really need to replace the mods in the Chest (and possibly legs) with the ones from Gloves. It shouldn't work like that. I assume that Campaign gear will be a similar story. Black Hole implants / ear and Belt are all an upgrade on Rakata ('cause Rakata belt has no shield stats, only defense), however the Bracer's aren't really an upgrade.

For PvE you've got to consider the Ranged v Melee DPS as well. Which would you prefer, and which would your group prefer. This game is notoriously harsh to melee DPS.

Our (WIP) strategy is to kepp everyone where they are - Tanks, DPS and Healers. As we are primarily Melee DPS (all bar 1 at present) this means that melee need to move out of Fearful range around the debuff time. After jump, tank tauints the other Boss, so the Bosses swap sides, nobody else. This just makes things cleaner in terms of keeping the tanks up (no healer swapping). The problem we have with this strategy is that people will have to tab-target to the other boss (or use Focus Target) after the jump. We've had the unfortunate experience of people forgetting this then nuking themselves (if they got Fearful), meaning we lose our combat res to a silly miskate. Only tried this encounter for a few hours, but that's our experience so far.

I currently play Bounty Hunter, and would be playing Sentinel if I swapped factions. If I stay on the same server i'll be leveling an Inquisitor of some type. The server I had in mind is unlikely to be included in any server transfers as it's population is already "Heavy" most of the time. I guess i'll just do both for now, creating both characters and splitting my leveling time between them. Not idea, but seems like the safest bet

I'm a one-character type of guy. I hate alts, and leveling them. I had one lvl 60 in vanilla WoW, and one lvl 20 in Guild Wars. With TOR's over-emphasis on alts, I am about to embark on my first adventure to max level with a second toon. I play on the Rogue Moon EU server, and to say it's a ghost town is an understatement. You're lucky to find 15 people on any one planet, even during peak times. So... with BioWare offering targeted transfers soon, it appears I have a choice. Do I 1) stick it out and create a second toon on Rogue Moon, hoping they offer my server a transfer, and benefit from the legacy system or 2) do I re-roll on a fresh server that has a high enough population that it won't be selected as a target for the server migrations? Disbenefit if I re-roll is that I am PvE focussed, and am part of (officer/joint guild-master) a small but successful guild. They wouldn't like it if I turned up twice a week to raid then went off to another server. Benefit if I re-roll is having plenty of people to group with and actually complete the things I want to do.

Re: Tank swapping positions on 1st boss - it's just how we roll - saves DPS swapping targets and possibly over-aggroing on the "wrong" boss, pulling them together. Of course, this only works in Story Mode where Fearful isn't as big a deal. If EC is anything to go by, the BioWare will be making things harder in terms of end-game content which is good. It does seem though that they don't like off-tanks. 3 of the 4 bosses require 2 full tanks, and 1 only needs a single tank. I really like this spec, and the theory behind it, and would use it if I was only doing KP/EV.

Good to know it works well in KP and EV (didn't really have much doubt as they are pretty easy now). The problems I have in EC are the first 2 bosses. Okay, for Zorn & Toth I guess that Jet Charge isn't really required as you can quite easily just pick up the other boss and run over with him instead of jumping across, but for Firebrand and Stormcaller you're risking the the AoE when you inevitably have to stand on the floor during the tank swap stage as you may no longer have the "buff" that prevents it. Vorath should be a walk in the park regardless of spec, but Kephess hits really, really hard - and often. I think the mitigation you're losing could make this spec unsuitable for this fight. This opinion is based on my guild running EC Story Mode with myself (MT) in full SC Rakata gear, Black Hole Implants and an Augmented Earpiece giving me just over 50% for Shield Chance & Absorb when in 31/8/2 spec. Obviously if you're in full Campaign gear Story Mode would be easier, but that's unlikely for me.