Guild Wars 2's Trading Post Lives

While Guild Wars 2 is clearly pretty brillo, its early days have been somewhat hampered by an apparent bug that fouls up groups being in the same place and has meant the in-game auction house, aka Trading Post, has been offline most of the time. The latter has surprisingly been no biggie, and in some regards has meant people could get on with the business of going out there into the world rather than feverishly trying to ensure they have all the best kit all the time. As an obsessive leather crafter (and in the game) though, I would have killed for the Trading Post to have been an easy source of rawhide, if only because it would have spared me wandering the lands and brutalising all the wildlife I could possibly stick my dagger into.

No matter, the Trading Post is apparently now fully functional as of last night, which means the Great Loot Hunt is very much on. Grouping remains troubled, sadly.

That problem, which sees players being splintered between different 'Overflow' servers in busy zones and unable to join each other, or being torn asunder if they are in the same place but one player starts on an instanced quest, remains unresolved as yet. "[We] still have capacity constraints causing issues with party and guild functionality," say ArenaNet in the latest update notes, "including symptoms such as party members not appearing on the map, parties not staying together as they travel between maps or into dungeons, and guild manipulation not working. We're working on a fix and will provide a further update tomorrow."

It's a real shame, that bug, and a critical handicap to an otherwise spectacular game. Not being able to play with friends during those crucial early days means my interest in playing has faded more rapidly than it otherwise would have done, and it remains to be seen whether I'll return once it's all resolved - I'll probably have been distracted by a feather, or perhaps a strange smell. Most players aren't as flighty as me, however, and I have little doubt that GW2 will prove a long-term success.