Category: Guild Wars 2

It’s kind of a joke, with the 5000+ word patch notes, that Guild Wars 2 just received it’s small January update. It will pale in comparison to February and March. Is it a fraction of a campaign-size update season? I don’t know, but in my few hours last night the game felt a lot shinier.

I spent most of my time in Orr last night. Destroying the Orrian Balthazar went great, for once, and it was nice filling out my Obsidian Shards I need for Gift of Mastery. The Grenth priest event on the other hand was brutal. Polish was apparent across Orr. I heard a lot of players saying that given the changes they were planning on returning there instead of constantly running dungeons. I know the dungeons got a lot of updates as well, which hopefully will feel similar. Continue reading [GW2] Just A Small Patch

Continuing our Guild Wars 2 round tables, I chatted with Guild Wars 2 Hub’s Lewis B and Massively’s Elisabeth Cardy about something that’s been on my mind as I find myself spending more time in WvW. The balance of classes in WvW cannot be ignored. ArenaNet is talking about balancing area-of-effect (AoE) abilities, which some classes can do better than others. However, it also feels like there are two other abilities that have become critical to WvW, and unlike AoE abilities, these are class-based abilities. I’m talking about stealth (mesmer and thief) and Portal (only mesmer). What do you two think about these two very class-restricted abilities having such a great impact in WvW? Continue reading [GW2] Roundtable with GW2Hub and Massively

A great thing is in my presence. A beautiful thing that will, not for long, stand beside my desk. It is a sealed Guild Wars 2 Collector’s Edition signed by ArenaNet devs, and I have the sworn duty of giving it to a lucky soul according to my mad whims.

Continue reading [GW2] Signed Collector’s Edition Contest!

Even without the use of super helpful tools like GW2 Spidy, I am beginning to see plenty of patterns in the market. There is quite a distinction in trade and volume for the weekend as MMO weekend warriors have heavy impact on the market. There is plenty of money to be made by flipping items, and it really does require just a couple of minutes a day.

The surprising market, for me at least, is the money that can be made on intermediate crafting components.  Flipping raw materials is extremely difficult, and the final items seem to lose a lot of market value over their components. However, flipping the intermediate components like sword hilts or bow strings or sandal pieces is pretty profitable. Continue reading [GW2] Market Patterns

Each month ArenaNet has a nice web page detailing in easy-to-chew form what is to be expected from that month’s update. For the end of January, Guild Wars 2 is getting Flame and Frost: Prelude. The earth and sky are the enemy in this one, which have led to norn and charr refugees streaming in from Wayfarer Foothills and Diessa Plateau. With that in mind, the concept art wallpaper for this update looked like norn refugees. I am not sure where people got Cantha, although having a horse in Guild Wars 2 concept art is a tad interesting. No mounts anyway, says ArenaNet as they chalk up the errant horse to “art”. Continue reading [GW2] Flame and Frost Preview

I have plenty of goals in Guild Wars 2. Their importance is like some weird slurry of where the wants and pressure change the densities of each goal. Right now I really want a permanent trader contract, as unfeasible as it is, but I am working towards it mostly by playing the market. I can easily create my Ascended back piece now since I finally got some pink goo, but that would cost 5-10% of the amount of the trader contract. I also need to kill Zhaitan, finish the Vigil banner, get another character to chef mastery, finish 4 more crafting professions, etc. I have no doubt I will not even come close to a permanent trader contract before another batch of particles floats to the top of my chaotic slurry.

There is one thing I do almost every day regardless of my goals: the daily achievement. Usually I play how I want to, and then nearing the end of my gaming time I shift gears to efficiently complete the daily. This usually means tracking down another 2-3 events and 6-8 more enemy types. Psychochild comments that, at least with regard to events, it does not bode well how quickly I have turned the system in to a grind. I’ve thought a lot about his comments especially with the daily achievement in mind. Continue reading [GW2] The Daily Grind

I play the market in Guild Wars 2 in spurts. One of my goals is to get a permanent merchant contract eventually, which will set me back a cool 150-200 gold. In cash I have about 15% of what I need. So I’ve been dutifully playing the market every day trying to build that amount passively.

Compared to the so-called Black Lion barons, I am small potatoes. I would say at any given time I am only moving around 5 gold, though that amount is slowly building up. I would guess on that amount I make 30-50 silver per day. I am getting more comfortable with what I am doing as well as getting the feel of the market. I would be pretty happy making 1 gold per day off the market, and I think that is a reasonable goal. Continue reading [GW2] Black Lion PvP

Colin Johanson (whose name I can barely spell, and I apparently can’t stop talking about) released the much anticipated official blog post about plans for early 2013. The post is a whopping 2500+ words with some good information, some vague teasers, and focus on direction.  It’s still pretty high level, as ArenaNet really does not like talking about things that aren’t nailed, stapled, and Gorilla-glued to the floor. Still there is quite a bit of meat to discuss. Continue reading [GW2] 2013 From the Clouds

Game Director Colin Johanson recently stated that this year they are going to make their core game as strong as possible. He was specifically talking about bosses and creatures, but it made me wonder. Here was the game director saying that he wanted to refine the base. Colin could have just plugged all the wonderful new features and content. The big brass only have so many dev hours a day, and to send even a lone dev (the one that didn’t refill the coffee) at creatures that could be “working as intended” gives me pause. Perhaps I am too jaded from Guild Wars 1 as I expect what we got at launch to be it.

I love doing my daily achievement, but the one I always hate is sadly events. Hang on here, these are the hallmark of Guild Wars 2 PvE. I only need to do five events. Compared to 15 unique kills which is sometimes a puzzling pain or the grind of 60 kills this seems easy. Yet it seems like unless I am in a high event density area (Orr, dragon timers, or starting areas) it takes substantially longer to fill that bar than any other. Continue reading [GW2] Core Event Density

When a Reddit poster detailed his 5 year old son’s guide on how to play Guild Wars 2, I knew I had to share the way my two daughters (3 and 6) play the game. These are two gamer girls in training, and I want to share their “correct” way of playing Guild Wars 2. Without further ado…

It’s coming right for us!

It is impossible not to kill the little grey bunnies. We’ve tried, but our instincts tell us they were put there to die. Mommy does not like us killing defenseless little bunnies. We tell her they go red and attack us. We still make sure that Mommy knows when Daddy kills the bunnies though, even if he pretends to say it’s for life force.

Continue reading Guild Wars 2: Through A Child’s Eyes