Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.
.Something I haven’t seen in guides: is there reason to prefer one pet type over another? I have seen that some do slashing damage and some piercing, but other than that, I have not found anything saying that a bear is more effective than a flamingo is more effective than an iguana is more effective than a rabbit? While I love the idea of rampaging around with a bunny or lawn decoration, I’d hate to be missing out on special moa powers.
: Zubon
Having met GW’s Norns and LoL’s newest champion, I notice that Jora and Sejuani have about the same costumes, certainly in terms of square millimeters covered. The Norn men are similarly attired, so I presume they have human-looking skin that is actually warmth-preserving hide? They turn into bears, so I can see why you might not want to be encased in metal when you hulk-out. Sejuani must be hide-bound as well, because she is a mounted champion with no pants. She has big furry boots but no chaps. I might go for “maybe their shaggy boars are soft rather than prickly,” but she has a saddle. Any stories about how your legs felt the day after you rode a horse in just bikini bottoms? Not a gentle ride, mind you, since this is a war mount going full out, and she has no reins (and both hands full anyway), so she is steering a raging boar with her legs while also clinging on to anchor herself while swinging her flail. The big WoW shoulderpads that are presumably stapled to her bare shoulders are a nice touch.
Looking at the other snow-themed champions, Nunu (little boy) is in a full parka; Anivia is a bird; Frostfire Annie (little girl) gets a knee-length dress; Freljord Ashe (female) is just as covered as Ashe (mostly, with bare thighs and upper chest); Arctic Warfare Caitlyn (female) gets full marks for snug wool; Frost Queen Janna (female) is about as covered as Janna (bikini with some trailing cloth); Freljord Rammus is an armadillo; Volibear is a bear; and I don’t think most of the holiday skins (Snowmerdinger, Reindeer Kog’Mow, Festive Maokai, Candy Cane Miss Fortune, Silent Night Sona, Earnest Elf Tristana) count. I’m sure there are more examples, but I’m tired of looking through champion skins.
TV Tropes has several hundred examples of chainmail bikinis and their variants in fiction (and some in real life). Sejuani seemed especially noticeable as someone wearing almost nothing (1) while going into combat (2) in the frozen north (3) riding on a saddle. Or is the idea that she actually wears clothing in the snow, but the Summoner’s Rift feels like the balmy tropics to her (but she really likes the furry boots)?
I’m thinking of putting together a variation on the Bechdel test for video games. For human-like player characters and major NPCs, take the number of male characters showing more than 20% of the skin below their necks and divide by the number of female characters covering more than 20% of the skin below their necks. This has the added bonus of automatically factoring in how many games have important male characters outnumber important female characters 3-to-1.
: Zubon
But I totally want Sejuani tanking and Ashe as our AD carry when I’m playing Anivia. Easy double-damage on E, woo!
This is a double-reputation weekend for Eye of the North, so I switched campaigns. The whole time I was thinking, “You know, he sounds like…” Check IMDB: “Holy crap, that is Brain!”
: Zubon
Is there any way to get the Guild Wars hero monks to focus their efforts on you? I’m repeatedly facing the problem that my entire party of heroes is at full health while I am dying. The enemies are frequently focus-firing me down at 250+ DPS while my monks are making sure my flamingo is topped off. The wiki says, “Heroes will pick the ally with the least health as target,” but that doesn’t seem to work for me, and they really don’t care that I have -(7+) health degredation.
Also, any comments on that monster AI vs players? Some fights, they really do just shoot me. I can then get resurrected, at which point all the enemies will drop their current targets, and focus fire me while the healers top off the flamingo. Or I will start a fight and have 6 hexes and conditions on me in less than a second.
: Zubon
This could just be my time or place, but Guild wars does not feel particularly vibrant. It really does feel like a single-player game, with the capacity for becoming a small-group game if I find people I already know. The main chatter I hear is trade spam in Kamadan. There are people around elsewhere, but beyond the Eye of the North, they blend with the NPCs. I don’t see any reason they would want to interact with a newbie, and if they are interacting with each other, they are in a different channel. Maybe Embark Beach is where the action is.
The instanced exploration areas have a more severe version of the same effect. Like launching a game in a MOBA, once you’re in there, you’re cut off. This is your own little chunk of world. I like having my own zone, but you might pause and realize that you have not seen another player in an hour. It does not feel dynamic.
Guild Wars is a sort of accidental MMO, a something else that acquired more MMO elements over time. It was not built with the World of Warcraft feeling of soloing alone together. When you’re soloing, you’re not really “together” in any sense.
: ZUbon
That is all.
: Zubon
Many games have challenges and achievements for making things harder, like beating a boss without using any potions or cutting down the mightiest tree in the forest with a herring. Early the the Guild Wars Nightfall primary quest chain, the Master’s rewards are mostly for intentionally delaying and acting against your interests during wartime. You are in disguise and headed to a rendezvous with a traitor general, being guided through the swamps by her lieutenant … so why not slip away at hunt down some cobra=headed velociraptors? You are leading an assault on the enemy base, where time is of the essence as reinforcements are arriving and artillery fire is raining down … so why not take your time and scour the corners for enemies who are not engaging? You are sneaking a group of monks through enemy territory, with a primary objective of avoiding notice from the troops garrisoned there … with a special bonus for visiting every guard post and slaughtering the troops.
As a player, your meta-game knowledge tells you that time is not of the essence unless there is a timer in the corner of your screen, and enemies only react as scripted. I slipped away from the lieutenant as the dialogue for the boss fight with the traitorous general was starting. It merrily followed me into the swamps as I searched the corners for rinkhal monitors. She was threatening to destroy me and all that I love while I was fighting giant insects several blocks away.
That’s the other thing you Guild Wars has been training me to do: avoid winning too quickly. Once you reach your objective, everything resets, so you cannot complete the bonus objectives, or if you are in an explorable area, you will need to re-clear areas to complete other quests. While questing, let crises pile up so that you can clear them all at once, and when fighting the war, stop to smell the roses. Well, don’t stop, because you’ll need to hunt down those roses in the corners of the map while clearing another dozen spawns of trash mobs.
: Zubon
Steam has encouraged people to use their wishlist function by occasionally giving away the top 10 items on folks’ wishlists. This is a good tactic. This year, they had the added wisdom to do so in early December. Stock those wishlists for holiday gift-giving, and oh, come and visit every day for your chance to win (and to see what you could get your friends at a great discount, nudge nudge). It’s a great marketing tactic.
And it works, because Ethic got me Guild Wars Trilogy. Thanks! I may have some comments on the game sometime. Because you know I would review Casablanca as if it had just come out.
: Zubon
Star Wars The Old Republic has priced their collector’s edition at $150. I just do not see the value here. Perhaps because the figurine/statue thing is not something I give a rat’s ass about. I’m still not even sure I want to play this game and this is coming from someone that buys and plays every mainstream MMO. Heck I even have the Age of Conan collector’s edition somewhere around here. With that said, I would have probably foolishly purchased the SWTOR-CE at a price point of $79.95 based on my past history. I really like soundtracks and art books (Guild Wars gets me every time). Thank you Bioware for putting more money into my motorcycle parts fund.
I guess I finally have reached a point where I can see through the hype a little bit and have no problem waiting for a chance to actually try before I buy. However if this was Guild Wars 2 I’d be frothing at the mouth to throw money at them and I barely ever play Guild Wars 1. They know how to turn me into a customer.
I really don’t have anything else to say other than this: If you bought the CE, enjoy it! If you didn’t, enjoy your money!
– Ethic
Note to self: Use bullet points next time.
It’s a tough decision to decide what to write about first for the ArenaNet Community Open House (#GW2Fanday). My head is exploding with ideas and thoughts. I chose to start with Guild Wars for a couple reasons, one of which is that I have some neat screenshots to share (taken by the steady-handed Matthew Moore). Let me start with an anecdote.
Randy Price (Senior V.P. at ArenaNet) and I were chatting over food and libations to other times, now moot in memory, when the subject of John Stumme was brought up. Much to my surprise, Price raved about what Stumme had done with the Guild Wars Live Team for a couple minutes. It wasn’t surprising to me that Stumme and the Live Team deserved such praise. It was surprising to see one of the heads of ArenaNet so honestly and unabashedly talk about the meteoric rise of one of the employees. It wasn’t even humble (see also our libations), and I asked Price if I could quote him when he said he believed that the Live Team was so efficient and hard-working that they were producing on the level of a couple dozen-man development team.
“Absolutely.”