Author: Ravious

I laughed. I cried. I drank a lot of bourbon, and eventually I painfully whittled the huge amount of entries to five winners. Believe me it was really hard. So many good ideas that I hope ArenaNet can process into actual gem store items. First, two notables… Tesh with the Bird’s Eye Balloon and Red Vagabond’s DelMonte Python. I do hope some form of these could make it in to Guild Wars 2. Tesh’s idea is a must have for many websites and postcard makers, and Red Vagabond’s idea would make the best minipet ever. They were the last two chopped, but I applaud their entries.

#5 Geikamir’s Glitter Jump – It’s going to happen. People will congregate in a city, waiting, and wishing something would entertain them. They will be soooo boooored. All of the sudden, some mad sylvari runs by them all aglow with glitter. This is a great idea for a impulse buy item, which I feel are necessary for a good microtransaction store. It livens things up, it draws attention, and it sounds fun.

#4 Reggie’s Map to the Stars – I liked Reggie’s idea because it was funny, but I really liked some of the ideas that could be drawn from it. A map that can only be traded to other players could bring a sort of Red Paperclip trading game, where the purchaser will eventually get back a “completed” map where each player kind of made their mark. Getting NPC asura to talk about it would be hilarious. Continue reading [GW2] The Late Fool’s Contest Winners!

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day in Guild Wars 2 fandom. The beta client went out for players to download the 12 gb or so before this Friday. ArenaNet also put up a blog post explaining how to choose and transfer to and from servers. It’s pretty simple.

Players choose a home-world. Their account (and all characters) are linked to that home-world. Players can transfer to another home-world for 1,800 gems once every 7 days. Players can also go play on other worlds as guests (not available this beta weekend), but they lose some of the rights of citizenship (such as World v. World access). Continue reading [GW2] Planting Server Roots

Over the weekend I had a revelation in gaming. I played Journey on the PlayStation 3 (PS3). For those that have a PS3, the $15 for the game is more than worth it. It’s the story of your journey to the holy mountain. It’s rather gameplay light, and it is more about the experience. Given the amazing Metacritic score, I know I am not alone in believing it is an experience worth playing.

There is one catch to the game. As players go along they are occasionally joined by another player. Creative Director of thatgamecompany, Jenova Chen, likens Journey’s cooperative style to hiking. A player might notice another player behind and make sure the other player stays behind. A player might just let the other player pass, or the player might wait up so they can walk the holy path together. While players can unlock content gates for each other, it’s not like Portal 2’s cooperative mode where the two players have to be in constant communication to move forward.

Out of this simple canvas, magic happened. Each time I met a new red-robed pilgrim, there was a connection. Sometimes we played around not caring about moving forward. Other times we helped guide each other over the next hill. Of my two favorite moments, one I can’t share for spoiler reasons, I had a companion go up ahead, and something bad appeared to happen. I hunkered down, refusing to move for quite some time. Eventually I saw a bling in the distance as my companion was communicating with me via our one communicating button. He was waiting for me… right at the end of the level. He could have just moved on, but instead he had waited to make sure I would be okay. Experiences like that stand out in the noise of games where most human allies act like bots.

Why am I discussing Journey so much with a Guild Wars 2 tag? Continue reading [GW2] Hiking the Cooperative Journey

Now that the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event (BWE) has been announced for April 27-29, I decided to make a small guide for those coming in to a fresh Tyrian world.

1. Welcome to IN MEDIAS RES, SOLDIER!

I have seen a lot of comments about the opening scene in Guild Wars 2. Basically for 2 of the 3 racial starting areas we’ve seen, it is chaos. Ghosts popping out of nowhere in the charr area, centaurs running amok throughout a human starting area, and norn standing around their forest picking their ears while players hunt. Don’t fret! Players are practically given god mode in the opening area. There will be plenty of time and safety to fiddle with dye colors and key bindings after the opening scene. Press “W”+Mouse 1 should get you through the area. Try and learn what you can during this time, but you will get a chance to go more “at your own pace” afterwards.

2. Always Be Movin’

That is the golden rule for Guild Wars 2 combat. Don’t stop moving! Seriously, I don’t care whether you are a rifle-toting warrior or a greatsword-wielding ranger; don’t stop. If you find yourself in a red circle, then move faster. A stationary soldier is a dead soldier. Your #1 skill for each weapon will be an auto-attack so you can concentrate on moving while your character will keep trying to swing away. Make sure to use Mouse 2, or whatever, to face the enemy while you are circle-strafing. If you don’t like auto-attack then CTRL+click the skill to disable it. Be prepared to press “1” a lot after that. I would also suggest keybinding dodge instead of double-tapping movement or mouse-clicking the button.

Continue reading 10 Helpful Hints for the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event

Guild Wars 2 is on sale today. Best way to buy it, in my opinion, is definitely just going with the digital offerings from the linked site. The Collector’s Edition appears nearly all sold out in Europe, and I don’t know how long before GameStop and BestBuy close out that SKU.

It’s an interesting tactic because it is the first time I bought a game… actually purchased, and I won’t get to play it for awhile. ArenaNet promises that there will be a Beta Weekend Event at the end of April, but this is not the actual game. This is a beta test. Doing a bit of research for this post, I found it interesting that Diablo 3 (considered a rival to Guild Wars 2 by some) was also up for pre-purchase. Except there was very little incentive to pre-purchase Diablo 3. Pre-purchasing Guild Wars 2 ensures beta access and a 3-day head start. The head start alone is worth it, in my opinion.  Continue reading [GW2] Market Power!

For better or worse, the only Guild Wars 2 Collector’s Edition retailer in the U.S., GameStop, has the Collector’s Edition in their system, and they are ready to start selling it now. I went to my local GameStop to pre-order the pre-purchase, which will be available April 10, 2012. Here’s why: Continue reading [GW2] GameStop Pre-Sellurchasing CE Today!

Unlike the excellent article by Elisabeth over at Massively detailing the first personal story arc for charr characters in Guild Wars 2, my thoughts are going to have heavy spoilers. Be Warned: Hitherby Spoilers!

I rolled a human thief, and the first story arc is based on the socio-economic origins of the character. I played a street rat last beta, and a commoner was going to be the flavor of the weekend. It seemed people were getting sick of the nobles. The first story arc runs through half of Queensdale and a bit of Divinity’s Reach, especially the home instance, and the first arc follows the first ten levels. Continue reading [GW2] A In-Depth Look at the Commoner Story Arc