Author: Ravious

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Ghosts of Ascalon Review

I was really lucky, in a way, to have forgotten my license on a tequila run because of the bookstore right next to the ABC.  As a karmic request to the universe for my lack of dinner margaritas I asked that if it could provide an early stocking of the first Guild Wars novel, Ghosts of Ascalon (for official release July 27).  My hopes sank when I did not find it in the new sci-fi/fantasy section.  I decided on my way out of the bookstore to pass all the Star Wars, Magic the Gathering, and Dungeons and Dragons novels.  The amazing cover art of this book jumped right out at me on the top shelf of that section.  With Ghosts of Ascalon in hand, the need for a watermelon margarita evaporated (I found out later the book did not have the same effect on my wife); I had a book to consume!

Ghosts of Ascalon is the first of three planned novels for the Guild Wars universe.  The novels are meant to help tie the events between Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2.  Ghosts of Ascalon takes place approximately a year before Guild Wars 2.  It follows the story of unlikely hero, Dougal Keane, a human with ties to the major human cities and the fallen, ghost-ridden Ascalon City, who leads a racially diverse group of adventurers to Ascalon City to retrieve a powerful artifact, the Claw of the Khan-Ur.  The retrieval will ultimately set the tentative peace between the bitter enemies, the humans and charr, we will see in Guild Wars 2.

Continue reading Ghosts of Ascalon Review

Guild Wars – Battle for Lion’s Arch

The final-ish part of the War in Kryta chapter of Guild Wars Beyond dropped awhile go, but I didn’t have the time or sheer will to complete it until last night.  The Battle for Lion’s Arch might be one of the most intense instances in Guild Wars.  The road to this mini-mission (a quest with its own instance) can be long and frustrating, but the end result is very much worth it.  Even the rewards along the way are pretty nice.

Continue reading Guild Wars – Battle for Lion’s Arch

Guild Wars 2 – Ranger

Today the third seminal class for Guild Wars 2 was officially released. The ranger profession joins with the elementalist and warrior to round out the icons of the adventurer, scholar, and soldier groups. I was kind of hoping for one of the fringe classes to be released, like the necromancer, but it makes sense to have the three (out of eight) professions released now that will likely be the most popular to new Guild Wars players.

The ranger seems to stay most true out of the three to the original Guild Wars profession concept. They are masters of the bow, utilize traps, and retain their spirit calling abilities. The official site’s article mostly discusses the ranger’s emphasis on pets. In Guild Wars, except for a few specific builds the ranger’s pet mostly takes a back seat to all the other skills available. There was even less importance on the type of pet that a player chose if they had to bring a pet along.  In Guild Wars 2, though, it seems that the ranger will be an honest-to-jah pet class.  In the IGN interview ArenaNet even bluntly states “players who want range without a pet are better off playing another profession.”

Continue reading Guild Wars 2 – Ranger

No More Healers

I don’t have much time for blogging this half of the week, but there is a nice fundamentals-article at Guild Wars 2 about death and healing.  They will be using a Borderlands style near-death status where players will be weakened when down on the ground in appropriately named Downed Mode, but if they can kill off an enemy in time they stand back up with renewed vigor.  Alternatively, allies can help the player back up to her feet.  “Death,” which happens after failing at Downed Mode can still be countered on the battlefield with rez skills.  Otherwise the death penalty is going to be gold to pay the warp fee to go to the nearest known waypoint.  It’s going to be really interesting to see how players act in a large herd when an unpartied ally goes down.

The other bit is on the replacement of the “holy trinity” with focus on Damage, Support, and Control.  I think their main goal in this vernacular gymnastics is to get away from all the prejudice involved with Tank-Heal-DPS roles.  For starters there will be no healer class.  The monk is dead.  Thank you, ArenaNet.  It only took 6 years for you guys to listen to me.  I kid, a little… instead the “holy trinity” becomes inherent to each profession.  I love utility classes that respond to the battlefield instead of having a set role the whole time.  My favorite class in an MMO, the Captain in Lord of the Rings Online can do Damage, Support, and Control.  The problem is he can’t fill the role of any one of them to the degree that is sometimes required.  The Captain’s “balance” is in the fact that, for example, when he helps Support, the Minstrel can focus a little more on Damage.

At Kotaku, ArenaNet dev favorite Izzy says:

“All the healing that happens in the game – the main meat of healing is your personal heal skill. You are in charge of your health. Other people can help you and support you say by pulling a creature off of you, or provide minor healing, but nothing as effective as you do yourself. “
It’s interesting that they are taking the risk v. reward away from groups, and putting it back on the player.  If the player goes agro/DPS crazy then they may very well pay the consequences.  It’s on them instead of forcing a healer to “do better.”  With only two official classes, Elementalist and Warrior, and two unofficial classes, Necromancer and Ranger, out of the 8 total, it’s still hard to get a clear picture of how this will all work.  Hopefully the flow and feel of the game will be a lot more apparent in just over a month when fans play Guild Wars 2 at Gamescom and PAX.

–Ravious
if challenge had a taste, you’d be quite delicious

…Was This T-Shirt

The subject of this post is a part of a well-known joke, as much as one can call a bloody, mush of hamburger on the ground in the barest form of a beaten horse a joke.  The joke goes that vacationers go to paradise and bring back as a small token of affection a gift to the chumps left behind in the form of a t-shirt emblazoned with “My parents / kids / ex-friends / I went to [paradise] and all I got was this t-shirt.”  Transcending the joke, the t-shirt acts as an achievement notification to others.  Clearly, someone went to the place on the t-shirt, and now the foreign object is being worn for all to see.  MMOs have a similar article in the form of exclusive appearance items.

Continue reading …Was This T-Shirt

The Black Norn

There has been an interesting thread over at Guild Wars 2 Guru on whether we will be able to play as a dark-skinned norn in Guild Wars 2.  The norn race in Guild Wars 1 were introduced in the Eye of the North expansion as being a race of giant humanoids living in the Far Shiverpeak mountains.  They were based off a real world Norse-type mythology with a splash of Celtic tattoos.  Now, in Guild Wars 2, which is 250 years later could there be non-light skinned norn?  I am not talking about norns with rockin’ beach tans.  I mean has their melanin caught up with the climates some may live in?

My unofficial answer: the shift-eyed asura already have ways to recombobulate DNA and shift for humans in the time of Guild Wars 1.  No reason a fair-skinned norn would not want to hire the Anatomical Engineer’s services because he is sick of being sunburned.  I know where I would get my inspiration for a black norn.  But, this is all kind of shirking the big issue.  Should character-based online games allow players of any skin color to replicate their skin (and hair!) color in game for any race (and by race we really mean species)? 

Continue reading The Black Norn

Little Pieces – Guild Wars 2

As I write this it seems to be the start of the weekly Guild Wars 2 news hour when the press embargo drops around the internet on a specific topic.  I’m not sure if the community was just slow this time, or a few sites jumped the 2 o’clock gun, but this week we seem to be getting some news on the little pieces: achievements, feats, and activities.  Onlinewelten seemed to have received the best response (or maybe asked the best questions), but IGN and JeuxVideo.com also got a piece of the pie.  Commentary after the break. Continue reading Little Pieces – Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars on the Front

The Dragon Festival is coming this holiday weekend in Guild Wars.  Massively has a pretty comprehensive overview of the whole thing.  I love that the re-occurring festival is actually a reenactment of the first one, where one of Abaddon’s generals, The Fury, tried to assassinate the Emperor during the Dragon Festival.  Now they hire actors to recreate the quests, and use large pinwheels to recreate rifts from beyond.  I have very little time to attend this year’s festivities, but you can bet I am going to get in my 25o Victory Tokens because this year’s mask is “is inspired by the great dragons of legend.” A Zhaitan mask would be pretty awesome.

With the aftershock of E3, there has not been much in the way of Guild Wars 2 news.  There was a pretty cool article for lore nerds, like me, about the alphabets of Tyria, and how they will be a larger lore puzzle than in Guild Wars 1.  I don’t know what we are getting this week, but we are promised an upcoming article on Guild Wars 2 extensive voice work.  Going to be interesting to see what they have to say above and beyond their voice actor video based on the trailers.

Otherwise, Guild Wars has been at the top of my gaming charts.  I have been happily assassinating the remnants of the mursaat race and various White Mantle allies in the War in Kryta updates.  We seem to be getting close to a culmination, and I am very interested to see where they take the Guild Wars Beyond campaign. I am also coming extremely close to beating all the missions in the Prophecies campaign on Hard Mode.  My goal is to hit 20 max titles by the time they announce the Halls of Monuments rewards for Guild Wars 2.  Going to be a tough one on my end though.

–Ravious
were the stuff of legend