Danikat.8537

Are there map currencies which only come from nodes and not from events? As far as I remember they all come from both. If I'm farming a map currency I usually start with the nodes, just because it's something I can do solo without needing to know timings or how the events work (it's likely to be a map I haven't been back to in a while) but if I see events starting up or someone organising a group I'll join in and that usually gets me more of the currency than the nodes.

> @"kharmin.7683" said: > > @"Redfeather.6401" said: > > > @"kharmin.7683" said: > > > > @"Redfeather.6401" said: > > > > I really wish stuff would be tuned down to not require 250 of this and 250 of that and 100 of these things are are made up of 100 of these smaller things. The game has so much stuff to collect and unlock but so, so many things are so grindy I can't even bother to collect most skins in game. If I look at eso's stickerbook system that is something that keeps me playing a long time without feeling burnt out. > > > > > > You can blame the crowd that completes content as fast as possible and then complains about there being nothing to do. > > Is that really the cause. Because other mmorpgs don't have this problem. > > How many of those others are free to play models with no sub, optional or otherwise? How many of those other MMOs have a more significant, and regular, revenue stream to allow for a constant flow of content? > > EDIT: and how many of those have the same horizontal progression model that GW2 has? Sure, it's easy to always have something to do in other MMOs when players have to constantly replace/upgrade gear. That and they might not require you to collect a bunch of materials or tokens, but they require you to get that new gear as a random drop. I don't play most other MMOs but I know people in Elder Scrolls Online were less likely to complain about having nothing to do (although it absolutely does happen) but far more likely to complain about having to spend their time playing the same dungeon/s over and over and over again hoping to finally get the drops they need for their build. I've heard it's the same in World of Warcraft and probably other MMOs as well. ESO recently introduced a system which is basically the GW2 wardrobe but for stat sets (they have hundreds of different item sets) which immediately lead to concerns that soon it would be impossible to find groups for dungeons because once someone has got all the set pieces they'd never go back. Apparently none of them actually want to be doing that content or would choose to play it because they enjoy it, they're just stuck spending their time hoping for a drop. (I say 'they' rather than 'we' because I could never be bothered with that, I just stick with inferior crafted sets so I don't have to waste my time grinding drops.) Although it's relatively new, so most players haven't gotten everything yet and are still stuck spending their time grinding dungeons. (And have frequently asked for a token system so that after some number of dungeon runs you can just buy the piece/s which just aren't dropping for you.) In terms of time spend it might be fairly similar but of the two I'd prefer to spend my time on a system where at least I know I've made some progress because I've collected some of the tokens, rather than the one where if I don't get the drop I need it feels like I've wasted my time trying, and might not get it next time either, or the time after that, or the time after that...

I hope it's ok to bump this up, I found a new one today: Tevildo. Ok it's from Tolkien, maybe it's not surprising it's taken. But Tevildo, Prince of Cats is a fairly minor character who only appears in an early version of the Lay of Leithian before being written out to make room for Sauron. And yet, not only was Tevildo taken, but also his more obscure true name; Tiberth. His full name, Tiberth Bridhon Miaugion is too long, but I managed to get Tiberth Miaugion. Also while it might have annoyed me it might please Christopher Tolkien, who wrote in the footnotes to Beren and Luthien that he "clearly deserves to be remembered" in spite of being written out of the story.

> @"Fuchslein.8639" said: > Where does the statement GW2 would be a side MMO come from? Have honestly never heard of it. Has Anet really advertised GW2 as a side project and thus play it less oo? As far as I know Anet have never described GW2 as a 'side MMO' or marketed it that way. (It's a term I've only heard in the last few years so it might not have been around with the game was first released, although I could have just missed it.) But it _was_ advertised as an MMO for people who don't like MMOs. The exact wording, from the Design Manifesto is "So if you love MMORPGs, you should check out Guild Wars 2. But if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2. Because, like Guild Wars before it, GW2 doesn’t fall into the traps of traditional MMORPGs. It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill; it doesn’t make you spend hours preparing to have fun rather than just having fun; and of course, it doesn’t have a monthly fee." Pretty much what's been said here: you don't have to do any of the long-term goals if you don't want to, they're certainly not required to progress through the game, so you don't have to spend tons of time on GW2 if you don't want to. Even if you take a long break (months or years) when you come back chances are all you need to do before being ready to jump into new content is check your traits and skills in case they've changed and take some time to remind yourself how the game works. That's very different from many older MMOs (and even some newer ones) where you'd have to catch up on all the new levels and gear and whatever else, and you'll have to somehow find enough other players at the same point you are, or people willing to put their own progression on hold to help you, in order to do that.

I don't buy gems that often, about once a month at most, but there's only been once when it didn't work. I tried using both my debit cards, and Paypal and kept getting the same error message each time. I had to contact Support and they sorted it out, then the transaction went through. I'm not sure what exactly the problem was, but as far as I could see none of the failed attempts reached my bank. They didn't show up on statements or cause me any issues with the cards. (Which is mildly surprising considering I once had a card locked for "suspicious activity" consisting of booking a flight and a hotel room and then using my card in a foreign city.)

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said: > Does it matter? > Some players will always treat it as a 'side MMO', others will never treat it so. > Some will switch from one way to the other. > /shrug I don't think it matters what other players choose to do, but I do think it matters what options are available. Before I discovered Guild Wars 1 I'd decided MMOs weren't for me, because they took up too much time and ideally needed a regular schedule. Before GW1 the main MMO I'd played was Ultima Online which is not quite a sandbox game but it's a lot more dependant on player driven activity (or was, I have no idea how it's changed since then) so to do anything you ideally need to be part of a community and that means playing at around the same time on a regular basis so people get to know you and you can meet up to do things together. I'd tried Everquest and Runescape as well and although they're more 'themepark' MMOs with designated activities they still demanded a lot of time and playing with the same people regularly. Even though I love Warcraft 1 & 2 I'd decided not to get World of Warcraft for the same reason. So it came as a surprise to find an MMO which did fit with my erratic free time and being unwilling to commit to focusing on just 1 game. If GW2 had changed like the OP implies so that's no longer possible and you have to spend a lot of time to achieve anything, or even just to keep up with everyone else, then I'd have to give up on playing it. It's the same reason I don't like subscription games. I have no way of knowing at the start of a month if I'll be playing every day or barely logging in at all. I don't want to have to play that in advance even if I could and I _really_ don't want to feel like I have to play a game whether I feel like it or not because otherwise I'd be wasting the money I paid for permission to log in.

> @"AliamRationem.5172" said: > I agree that GW2 doesn't fit the "grindy" standard as far as MMOs go. Certainly, there is a ton of content and it's entirely possible some of it won't be your cup of tea. Still, the fact remains that there is very little gear grind. Compare to something like WoW, for instance, where gear is acquired by running the same content repeatedly to acquire better gear in order to progress through the same content on a higher level of difficulty. A process you repeat with every raid release, which are pretty frequent in that game. That's what they call a "gear treadmill" and it doesn't really exist in GW2. > > Now, if you want to unlock all of the mounts including the griffon, roller beetle, and skyscale, craft legendary weapons, play through the entire story, and complete all of the annual festival achievements, and max out your masteries? Yeah, that's a mountain of stuff to do, gold/materials to burn, etc. But there isn't really any clock ticking here. The next content release doesn't invalidate your current rewards, forcing you to grind up new ones. That's a good explaination. I'd also add that you don't need a lot of the long-term goals. You'll never find an area of the game you can't play because you don't have legendary equipment and even ascended is only required for higher tier Fractals, which are just repeats of the lower tier ones. I think you can play every Fractal map with just a couple of ascended rings (which can be bought with laurels). More importantly though Fractals is largely self-contained, there's rarely a reason to do it if you don't want to, and the things which will send you there are other optional goals like making legendaries. It's the same with the mounts. There's a few achievements which need the griffon, roller beetle or skyscale but you can skip them if you want to. You'll never find a living world episode or something you can't do because you haven't got those mounts. (The jackal is largely optional too, I know the PoF story doesn't require it, but it is necessary for map completion.) That's very different to games which require you to get better gear or level up to enter an area, where if you don't feel like doing whatever's necessary for the gear or levels your only option is to miss out on the new content. Of course if you skip all the optional content in GW2 you'll be left with much less to do, but it means everyone can choose the things which interest them or which do seem worth their time and skip the stuff which isn't.

Besides being a bit gross I don't imagine it would be popular if someone paid for a total makeover kit and then found out the hair style/beard/horns etc. they'd paid for keep changing and they actually have no way to control how their character looks. Especially if it's just for an overly complicated way to add new crafting materials.

I've never played just 1 game at a time, I think that would lead to me getting bored with that game very quicky. My only other MMO is Elder Scrolls Online and I spent a lot less time on it than I do on GW2 but I'm always playing other things. Along with those two I'm currently playing Skyward Sword and Breath of the Wild, and I've just bought Valheim. Less frequently I'm also playing Fire Emblem 3 Houses and Baldur's Gate. (Plus Pokemon Go, but I don't really count that because I only play it when I can't play other things.) I haven't ever found myself faced with 'ridiculous grind' in GW2. There's lots of medium/long term goals, but those aren't ever things you need so they can be done a bit at a time, as and when you feel like it. And if you don't feel like it you can skip it. There's many, many achievements, collections and even areas of the game (like higher tier Fractals) I haven't done because it doesn't interest me. Instead I focus on the things I do like doing, and if I don't feel like playing at all I do something else.

I agree that it's a mistake to assume most people won't get new weapon skins. Maybe they won't make the entire set but they might well get the ones they like at least. To me new weapon skins are more interesting than new titles. I tend to pick a title to fit each character and then forget about it, whereas I'm always changing skins around and looking for new ones. We might get new legendaries with the next expansion (I don't know, but it's a possibility) but even then they're basically weapon skins, and like any skins they'll appeal to some people and not others.

I agree with letting them take the lead. The right pace really depends on them, how they like to approach games, what they want to do, how much experience they have with different kinds of RPGs and so on. If you try to push them into playing the way you think they should it would be very easy to either make them feel rushed and overwhelmed (and then totally lost when you're not around to give directions) or bored and frustrated with how slow you make it. I had a few friends who started playing back in 2020 and they were very different. One guy, before he even bought the game had worked out that he'd want to use the level 80 boost and get the raptor, but then make a new character to play properly and by the end of his first day had builds worked out for both characters and was researching where to get more hero points. Someone else took over a week to get beyond Caledon Forest, didn't put points into specialisations when she first unlocked them because she was still getting used to her skills and didn't want to complicate things and insisted on keeping several useless items from events because she liked them. The others fell somewhere in between those two, but with their own preferences - one wanted to hunt down every world boss as soon as possible, the other was focused on the story and so on. Personally I'd encourage them to start out without the level boost and see how it goes, knowing they can always use it later on if they want to. But other than that I'd let them take the lead and just be on hand to offer advice or help them if they're struggling. Maybe make a new character to play with them if you want to. Also I think you might be surprised by the number of people on the starter maps (and the intermediate ones). You usually won't see massive crowds unless there's a world boss or it's the daily event map or something, but it's hardly deserted.

Oh, you mean the legendary sword! I had to read that 3 times before I realised you weren't asking them to change the position of the actual in-game sunrise. (Which of course made less sense.) I agree this would make the weapon look much better. I really couldn't see the appeal of Sunrise (or Twilight) for a very long time, until purely by chance when I was loading into the Mad King's Labyrinth one day my camera got stuck on the door frame so it was much, much lower and more zoomed in than usual and there happened to be a large norn in front of me with Sunrise on his back. All of a sudden I saw the actual sky texture on the blade and realised that's what it was supposed to look like - not the blurry orange smudge I normally saw. Even so I've never been tempted to make it because I know if I did 99% of the time what I'd see is just a blurry orange blade and I'd have to stop what I was doing and change the camera angle to properly appreciate it, which is pretty impractical.

That's not a macro, and yes those are allowed since they're already built into the game. You can see a full list of them here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Chat_command A chat macro would be something where you push a couple of buttons and it automatically selects a chat channel and types or pastes a message then sends it. E.g. you type Ctrl+O and you've just posted full instructions for fighting the Octovines in Tarir into map chat. (There is no way to program that through GW2, you'd have to use a separate program.) I think in that case it depends on what you're using them for. It's possible to save text somewhere else on your computer and copy and paste it into chat and commanders, guild leaders and others will use that to give instructions during events, to save having to type it all out every time. I doubt Anet would mind if you further automate the process so you don't have to tab out to retrieve the text you want to copy, because that's a trivial difference. If you were using it to spam map chat with something then you'd probably get into trouble, but more for the spam than the message itself.

> @"Bellbirds.1679" said: > > @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said: > > Probably aren't going to offer the size of the QA Team or Devs that might work on a particular bug. > > The Known Issue Tracker automation broke some time ago; doesn't seem like there's anyone available to hand-curate it presently. > > Bugs are prioritized, and only so much resource to go around. What you might find important may not be to others. > > Also, some bugs will never be fixed as fixing them only creates more bugs. > > > > It would be nice if it worked and was accurate, but it's certainly not game-breaking for me. Can learn mostly what's going on from the Support forums. > > In that case I really think they should assign someone to hand-curate it. It would be a great improvement imo. I was assigned an almost identical tasks as part of my work not that long ago. It lasted less than a month before being dropped for being a huge waste of time. There's no one person who is involved in identifying and fixing all the problems, so I was constantly having to ask around to find out who was working on it and then chase them for updates so I could update the tracker. After a few weeks (when it was never completely up to date) we agreed it would be better to spend that time on actually fixing things instead of trying to record what was being fixed. (It was another few months after that before most of the people I was doing this for noticed it wasn't being updated any more, so it clearly wasn't that important for them either.) It's possible Anet have a better internal system for keeping track of who is doing what than my employer (it certainly wouldn't be difficult), but if not I suspect they're in a similar situation - having to weigh up the benefits of dedicating a chunk of someone's time to keeping track of what work is being done vs. using it to actually do the work.

> @"Joote.4081" said: > I have to ask. Has anyone ever got anything useful out of a BL chest? What do you mean by useful? Thankfully they're designed so there's nothing you need in them, and the vast majority of items can either be obtained in-game or bought from the TP or gem store. It's only 2-3 items in the uncommon category which you have to get from chests (or with statuettes, but those only come from chests). You'll never get something which makes your character stronger or gives you new content or anything like that, only cosmetics and convenience items. So in that sense it's impossible to get anything useful. I have sometimes gotten skins I like and will use, but not often enough to make me want to buy keys. I only ever use ones I get for free (mainly because I don't gamble with real money - if I'm going to pay for something I want to know exactly what I'm getting and what it will cost) and most of the time opening a chest makes me think I'm glad I didn't pay for it because if I had it would be even more disappointing. I think the best thing I've gotten recently was the unicorn griffon skin, which I was happy with because I kind of liked it but not enough to pay 1,600 gems for it.

I'd like to be able to turn off the damage numbers, not so much because they're in the way but because I never pay attention to them. I've got other things to think about during combat and I'm not concerned about exactly how much damage each hit is doing so it's irrelevant information to me and being able to remove it would cut down slightly on the visual clutter. Over the years I've gotten used to just not noticing them, but the option to turn them off completely would still be an improvement. When Anet added the option to hide parts of the UI in/out of combat I was hoping they'd take it further (including breaking down some of the categories we currently have so I can hide the bits I don't want and keep the bits I do) but so far nothing else has been done with it. > @"Ayumi Spender.1082" said: > And? That's not bad. I would say this is an RPG/MMO staple to at least see your damage, but I don't know if there's any out there that don't at least show the number/damage you do. Elder Scrolls online has the option to turn them off, and I think they're off by default. One of the things that game does well is let players customise what they do and don't want to see in the UI, even without resorting to addons. (Although there are some weird anomalies, like not being able to hide the compass.)

I mainly play solo because my free time is erratic and unpredictable so it's impossible for me to commit to being online at a set time every day/week to go through things with a group and impractical to try to do it on an ad-hoc basis as I'm often not sure how long I'll have. What I choose to do is even more erratic, I might log in with a specific goal in mind and then get completely side-tracked and end up doing something I didn't even know was an option or had forgotten about. I enjoy doing that and wouldn't want to avoid it or have to persuade everyone else (like "hey I know we came to do map completion, but this world boss is starting up, can we do that first?") so it's just easier for me to play solo. But that means I like encountering other players because it means I'm not totally alone and I get to play with other people without the longer commitment. We might do a whole meta-event together, or it might be just one fight, or maybe one of us resurrects the other after a fall, or offers advice via map chat. It's the benefits of the social side of the game without being restricted to finding and sticking with an established group. Of course the way the game is designed helps a lot with that, the fact everyone gets their own loot and XP even if you're not in a party with them, so you never have to worry about kill/loot stealing, no one can attack other players in PvE, a lot of events scale up to the number of players and so on. In several other MMOs it would not be practical to play the way I do because it would mean missing a lot and/or annoying a lot of people. (Also if I want to play solo I can play a single-player game. If I want to be _really_ unsociable I can play Breath of the Wild where I can go for hours without seeing a non-enemy NPC, there's no companions and my character doesn't talk.)

I find it interesting that I've often heard the opposite, although more often outside of this forum. People saying they tried GW2 and found it too complicated because the active combat system means you have to move and dodge even while attacking, professions don't have a clear designated role in parties, new skills aren't necessarily stronger than older ones and the down-levelling systems and limited vertical progression means if you're struggling with something you can't just leave it and come back later when it's guaranteed to be easy. Of course the fact that it relies more on player skill than character level or stats means there will be a lot of variation. I've periodically seen new players on this forum who say they've been playing for a month or less, but they're asking about the details of skill coefficents and damange calculations and other details which are so far above my understanding of the game after playing for years that I can't even understand the question. Assuming they're able to put the theory into practice I suspect they'll find the starter maps far easier than I did when I was new (or even easier than I find them now) and they'll probably be the type of people who can solo dungeons, something I've always found impossible. But if you're finding the early game too easy there is the option of skipping ahead to harder content. The game won't stop you. A level 2 character can go into a level 80 map if they know where to find one. Of course that goes to the opposite extreme, everything will one-shot you and you'll barely be able to scratch an enemy, but all the stuff in between is similarly available. You could take a level 10 character into the level 15-25 maps, or whatever you think is appropriate.

> @"Nightcore.5621" said: > I have opned 1000s Never seen a 5 slot Have you ever gotten anything from the uncommon, rare or super rare drop categories? Any of the mount skins, exclusive armour or weapon skins (like the Seven Reapers pauldrons or the cloud chair/glider in the current chest)? Any whole black lion claim tickets? Home instance nodes? If so then you've gotten a 5th slot at some point because that's the only way to get those items. The first 2 slots are always a black lion statuette and whatever this chests themed guaranteed drop is (currently blue dye.) The 3rd and 4th slots are always random items from the 'common' category - the dye packs, wardrobe unlocks, crafting materials and other random consumables. The only way to get anything better, like the items which players are usually hoping for when they open black lion chests (the mount skins and unique armour/weapon/glider skins not available any other way) is to get a 5th slot. If you open lots of chests in quick succession you might not see it because it only shows up on the interface briefly and as soon as you use another key or close the window it's gone, but even if you don't see it in the window you can tell it's happened because that item will be in your inventory or unlocked in the wardrobe. (And if you have never gotten anything beyond the common items my question is why open thousands of chests? Why pay for keys or spend time farming them if you never get anything but the basic items, when there's more reliable and often cheaper ways to get the ones you want?)

> @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said: > It's almost always the 'Module:' line, if that's included. > > Otherwise, you have to go through the body of the 'Crash Details' to look for 3rd-party programs that may be causing issues, or other things that might be amiss. So it's a matter of knowing what should be there, or what is normal for the game and then looking for anything which isn't? How do you learn that, other than comparing a lot of crash reports? To me the name 'module' doesn't suggest anything wrong, so without knowing that only shows up when there's a problem with it I don't know how you'd identify it as the cause as opposed to just another of many, many details in the list.

It's just a way of choosing the skin. It used to be a bit more meaningful before the wardrobe was introduced, because there's no other way of getting those skins and they're soulbound, so getting them onto a character who didn't choose them was quite difficult. But it was still just a unique skin. It's not the only biography choice which has little/no impact on the game, one of the racial ones is just flavour as well, like sylvari choosing which cycle they were born into or norn choosing which Spirit influenced them as a child. It gives you some very small changes to dialogue occasionally and changes an NPC in your home instance, but that's all. If you're not interested in lore or role-playing then those choices are irrelevant, if you are then they give you an idea of the kind of things which are important in Tyrian societies and might influence how other people see your character, but they don't actually affect the gameplay. > @"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said: > No, they are left with 1 skin out of 1000s unlocked. One of the first things I did when the wardrobe was introduced was spend an evening making and deleting tons of characters to unlock all the starter skins. The second thing I did was change my engineers backpack to something other than the Universal Multitool Pack she'd been using since day 1. Before that I'd kept it on her at all times just because I couldn't get it back if I lost it.

> @"BunjiKugashira.9754" said: > I played ESO for a while and the "optional" sub was anything but. It was like playing GW2 on a free to play account. Sure, it's possible, but you are barred from so much convenience and especially inventory management becomes so bothersome, that it's really not fun to play. Hiding all that convenience behind an optional sub was really the main reason I quit ESO after a while. > > I like spending my time and money on things that I get to keep and I loathe buying temporary things. In that sense I'm like a dragon sitting on his hoard, lol. Subs offer temporary bonuses that expire as soon as the sub runs out and to me it always feels like something is taken away from me. I hate it. > > Should GW2 ever introduce a subscription model, even an optional one, I would likely quit the game. I play ESO without subscribing and for me it works, but it's definitely more hassle than I'd like it to be. It helps that I'm a fairly casual player, I never wanted or expected to have best-in-slot equipment so I don't feel the need to save lots of drops just in case they're useful, which leaves me plenty of storage space for materials. I also don't want to do daily writs on multiple characters (I don't even do them once every day) so I can have a dedicated crafter who holds a lot of materials in his inventory. I'm also willing to wait for a free trial to do things like dying costumes or adding items to my house. I make it work because I love the Elder Scrolls series and I think this is still my best chance to see all of Tamriel (and maybe Akavir one day), but I don't like that it feels like a compromise, or like I'm fighting the developers to be able to play the game. Like you I prefer to buy things and then have them ready for whenever I want them rather than having a time limit before they're taken away or I have to pay again. I buy all the story DLC and the expansions in ESO and I much prefer doing that to getting it through a subscription because then I don't feel rushed to complete it. I can take my time, or do little bits whenever I feel like. With a subscription I always feel like since I've paid for it I have to do it now or I'm wasting the money, and then I don't enjoy it as much because I feel like I'm forcing myself. I don't think it's a coincidence at all that GW2 has remained my main MMO and the one I spend the most time and money on. It's not entirely because of the lack of subscription, there's other differences too, but it's a big part of it. It feels much more like the game is willing to accommodate me - I can buy things when it's convenient for me and then they're ready to use whenever rather than running out before I'm ready.

Oh, I didn't know that. I always thought it was character specific, like bag upgrades, and therefore not worth the price. It does seem more useful knowing it's account-wide.

> @"Kiba.9743" said: > I don't think there is a happy medium for this request. If I was playing with a friend who was flying through the content and completing all my hearts, vistas, POIs, etc. I would be annoyed, because it is taking away from me enjoying content. Therefore I would purposefully not play with my friend. I think it is more valuable for each player to enjoy and complete maps at their own pace than have someone with a different play speed finish everything for them. I do not doubt some people would prefer that, especially the ones that only care about getting to 80, but generally after 80 there are still many maps to complete. So I don't find a request like this reasonable or perhaps a request that would speak to a majority. But this is just my assumption. That's my thinking too. If I started a new game and a friend offered to help me get started but then I found out anything they completed also showed up as completed for me I'd want to stop playing with them and do it solo. I don't play games to get them over with as quickly as possible, I play them to, well, play. I don't want someone to complete content for me or let me skip it because that just means I have less to do. Early on it also adds the problem that you never learn how to play. If I see a vista at the top of a cliff and I'm not sure how to get up there having someone else do it for me (especially via a method that won't be available to me for a long time, like using the skyscale) teaches me nothing, except maybe giving me the false impression that it's impossible to complete base game maps without late-game mounts. I never find the cave around the corner that leads to a path up the cliff to the vista, I don't know that's a possibility. Later on I'm playing on my own doing my story or whatever and it's directing me to a place I can't obviously reach. Based on what I've learned so far this is content I cannot complete until I get to level 80 and get the skyscale. So now I have to give up on my story and find another way to gain XP because most of the game is unplayable until the maximum level. Thankfully that didn't happen to me, but I do know similar things have happened to people in my guild. Their early experience is anything moderately difficult to reach is achieved by a level 80 player doing it on a mount then creating a portal for other people to get up. As far as they know that's how the game works, so they assume anything which isn't obviously accessible is impossible solo at low levels.

I saw them there last night (about 11 hours ago). Try using a different character to check, the gem store does hide some things which you won't be able to use, like items you've already got the maximum of.