Author: Ravious

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[P101] Pirate 101 Sneak Peek Event

For fans of Wizard 101, the spiritual-ish sequel Pirate 101 is dropping later this month. Currently it is in closed beta, and if you pre-purchase the game you can start playing October 8. The rest of us rabble including crown users and “free” players have to wait a week later. Anyway, if you want to try the game out early they are having a 6 hour sneak peek event.

I won’t be able to attend the event (work), but this is an MMO I am looking forward to playing with my young gradeschooler. I liked the style and simplicity of Wizard 101, and in a fantastic actual play of beta Pirate 101 I saw of longtime MMO blogger and ‘caster, Beau Hindman, I was pretty impressed with the additions and maintained style.

–Ravious

[GW2] High-Sodium Minipet Packs

I’ve dropped a bit of extra money on Guild Wars 2 for character slots and bank slots. I haven’t really needed any of that yet, but I also felt like ArenaNet earned more support from me. I was having a grand ol’ time. When gems were much cheaper on the exchange, or when I had some extra gems left over, I bought mini packs from the gem store. I wanted to collect a complete set, which was one of my accomplished goals in Guild Wars 1. I set out to do so at the cost of having worse gear, worse crafting, etc. and only now do I finally understand the minipet collection game. In the spirit of a unique college friend, boy, do I feel salty. Continue reading [GW2] High-Sodium Minipet Packs

[GW2] Weekend Resonance

These are my tales and thoughts from the weekend of playing Guild Wars 2. Everything from the achiever drive to possibly new content to momentum in the end game is on the butcher’s block.

100%

My immediate goal is to get 100% world completion on a single character. I am a zone or so over halfway. Not only do I eventually (years) want to get a legendary, but since my main character has the most momentum, this is a great time to get that achievement completed.

Last night on my level 80, I completed the charr starter zone Plains of Ashford. Never did it feel like a waste of time to check off some achievement that the achiever portion of my brain told me I had to, or it would itch. I was getting materials for future crafting, which would help alts rocket up to higher levels. I was completing my daily, which netted me a mystic coin and a repair canister. Every dozen kills would net me an item around my level. Each event was giving me a silver and some change. Sure, this was not going to net me as much gold as running Orr for the same amount of time, but I was not making some copper per hour pittance either. Continue reading [GW2] Weekend Resonance

Quote of the Day

At Bio Break:

A lament I’ve often heard over the past few years from MMO vets of the early generation of titles is that people don’t talk to each other in game any more.  They say that with a sorrowful tone, recounting days when MMOs had such slow, gradual gameplay that they were often a colorful overlay for a chat window.  People talked more back then.  They bonded more.  Communities meant more.  Now?  Now it’s just a bunch of helter-skelter madmen running amok with no interest in any social connections.

Pardon me, but that’s a load of horse apples.

When I talked to a stranger in the open world in a conventional MMO, that was breaking the ice. When I talk to a stranger in Guild Wars 2, we have already communicated plenty through interacting gameplay. Further verbal communication just reinforces our prior non-verbal communication. A subtle difference that changes things in drastic ways.

–Ravious

[GW2] Quiet Places

I think more and more players are beginning to find rhythm with Guild Wars 2. This means that launch concurrency is dropping, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact it’s quite good.

Last night I was in the Straits of Devastation with a friend that was helping me explore the zone. We picked up another player along the way who enjoyed hanging out with us along the southern and western skill points. With launch concurrency it would’ve been hot-pocket zergs at every skill point and event cluster. Instead it was a really challenging and fun zone.

We found a champion risen pirate. Champions are built for around five players to take down. We were three. It was an epic boss fight. The elementalist trying to support and take down adds. The engineer going through tons of kits trying to bat out flames, whether that was adds, player’s downed, or an uncontrolled champion. I kept as much pressure on the champion as I could with my condition-based necromancer, juggling between champion control and bleeds as best as I could while playing peek-a-boo around the corner. At the least moment when it was clearly going to be down to the wire a charr warrior leaps in and helps us pummel the boss to the ground. This could not have happened with a hot-pocket zerg where the champion risen pirate would become ashes in a few seconds. Continue reading [GW2] Quiet Places

Dear Bookah

I threw my arms wide and the lab’s defenses deactivated before me, making this rough place for science. I transferred my belongings from the college at Rata Sum and tried to live here instead. It was steamy at night and the jungle cries bounced through my force windows. To gain infinite renown, I must first venture even deeper into Metrica, where the interfering signals are blocked altogether. Only then will I understand them, when I stand in the heart of things and they flow into me, uncorrupted.  Continue reading Dear Bookah

[GW2] Weekend Money

I’ve been following The Guild Wars 2 Trading Post fan-blog, written by Markco, for awhile. The posts are not rocket science, but they are great ideas for entering the world of trade in Guild Wars 2. Anybody interested in toeing the markets, or those already swimming in the deep end, should take a look at this blog for some great thoughts and suggestions. While not all of his ideas “work” all the time (e.g., up-forging materials only works for gossamer, which costs more than 15 times the cost of the previous cloth tier, silk), he does try and emphasize using his ideas only as training wheels. Here’s some of the things I did over the weekend regarding the Trading Post.

Flipping Velocity

The easiest thing to do is find a market discrepancy and flip. I did this all weekend instead of letting gold sit in my pocket. I did this with dye, although sigils, rares, and exotics are all good markets. I watched for a comfortable buy at price, and made a dozen or so buy orders. Then when I would receive the items, I’d turn them around at the sell price I knew would sell in a reasonable amount of time. 85% of the sell price had to be above the buy price. I would say roughly keeping 10-15 buy/sell orders going at a time I made about a gold. Continue reading [GW2] Weekend Money

[GW2] Stories That Should Be Told

There are interesting views about stories stemming from open world PvE in Guild Wars 2. Tobold disavows using “themepark” to prefer the slightly broader rendition of the term “guided gameplay”. Guild Wars 2 is guided gameplay, but I’ve always felt it edge much closer to a “sandbox” form because it always wasn’t clear what I would get in each play session. I liken Guild Wars 2 with events and very cooperative multiplayer PvE to more of a zoo. Never know what the animals are going to do.

Jeromai has a Spink-stamped Quote of the Day regarding the stories that stem from Guild Wars 2. Spinks notes that Jeromai’s anecdotes might be more interesting than a lot of sandbox stories. That’s the thing. The best sandbox stories, sometimes spanning month’s of work and play, are among the best MMO stories, but they gloss over those hours and hours of scanning, waiting, or running “guided” content to pass the time. Continue reading [GW2] Stories That Should Be Told

Dear Bookah

I made my own little pilgrimage. My savant cave a small laboratory on the outskirts of Rata Sum. There, I met Zojja. We sparred intellects in the golem arena and tried to connect to one another. Although she knew I hadn’t come in search of any advice, she still spiralled in panic at the thought of Inquest being involved in any part of our progression through this province. Intelligence had made her amoral; like us, she had already passed beyond any conceivable boundary of feeling.

I quote directly: “A motley lot with little to recommend them. I have now spent three days in their company that is, I fear, enough for any asura that walks Tyria. Despite their tedious inclination to quote scripture, they seem to me the most mindless of all the inhabitants on the surface of this world. Indeed, in this case, the very gravity of that term – without mind – seems to find its very apex.” It appears to me that Drojjenny too found those who wandered the jungle to be adrift in a prison of the mind, or lack thereof. Did he include himself in that, I wonder?