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[GW2] School of Hard Knocks and Impressions

I think this two-week period in Guild Wars 2 is good. A lot of people are returning to school, and honestly a break is a good thing. Whether intended or not, I think ArenaNet has given many the break with the return of Super Adventure Box. There’s still plenty for the casual hardcore to do in the way of working on ascended weaponry, but there’s no push to keep beating back invasions.

Ascended Offense

Ascended weaponry is a good point between exotics and legendaries. It requires a substantial commitment, but nowhere on the order of chasing a legendary. The time-gating is rather light compared to getting that daily laurel for ascended trinkets. However, it is a commitment. It takes a commitment to get to crafting level 450, but players need to salvage exotics anyway for the Glob of Dark Matter (account bound exotic “glob”). It takes commitment to mine or chop a couple hundred tier 5 nodes (or buy from the trading post). And, the biggest hurdle I see, is it takes commitment to do more Guild Wars 2 content, specifically those that give empyreal fragments. Continue reading [GW2] School of Hard Knocks and Impressions

[GW2] Super Adventure Preview: School Loops

There is nothing that I can write that can compare with some other sites’ fundamental previews of today’s Super Adventure Box update for Guild Wars 2; so I want to head in another direction: What I got from Josh Foreman who guided the preview tour of Super Adventure Box: Back to School.

In one sense it’s “more of the same”. There’s a cute, Notchian world filled with harsh jumps and old school mechanics. The setting is different with World 2, Zone 1 having been previewed last Super Adventure Box, and World 2, Zone 2 being high in the clouds with the school of assassins. It is a nice change from the dark, canopy covered swamp of the later part of World 1. Still, World 2 is part of the Super Adventure Box as a whole. Players know approximately what they are going to get. Continue reading [GW2] Super Adventure Preview: School Loops

Rivalry

Economists classify goods on a public-private spectrum based on the extent to which they are rivalrous and exclusive. Exclusivity is based on how easily one can be prevented from enjoying a good, and rivalry is based on whether my enjoyment of the good prevents you from enjoying it. National defense is a classic public good: any number of citizens can benefit from it at once, and there is no way to keep someone from enjoying the benefits. Food is a classic private good: we cannot both eat the same bite of food, and there are a variety of ways for me to keep you from eating my food.

Different MMOs place their mobs at different points on the public-private spectrum. In the early days, mobs tended to be rivalrous but not exclusive: whoever got the last hit got the prize, no matter who dealt the most damage, tanked, etc. The reigning solution to the problem was tapping so that you could claim property rights on an enemy, but claiming a camp was a matter of social convention rather than game mechanics. If you tapped the mobs out from under someone, they were yours. Instanced enemies are exclusive. Guild Wars 2 took the unusual step of making mobs mostly non-rivalrous: until the enemy runs out of hp, we can all get all the benefit from it. There is still some rivalrousness in the race to tag enemies or get to the event boss before it falls, but everyone in the fight shares in the fight. [Update: commenters have noted that other MMOs have followed suit to varying extents.]

: Zubon

[GW2] Guild Recruitment

In case you are not taking advantage of the “guild” part of Guild Wars 2, my guild is recruiting. We could use some new blood to rejuvenate the nightly events and fill out the guild missions on the weekends. Events are scheduled, so if you are just interested in guesting for them, that works.

The guild is Assured Mutual Destruction [ICBM] of Isle of Janthir. Rather than repeat the link, you can see our advertising copy there. You can apply online or in-game with a message to Leohan.

If you are not participating in a guild, you are missing pieces of the game. Some content is exclusive to guild missions, and I recommend guild commendations for acquiring ascended accessories. And let me level with you: with two more people consistently attending, we can start completing Guild Challenges, and with a dozen more even the hardest guild missions would become manageable.

: Zubon

[GW2] Year One

My biggest fear when Guild Wars 2 was launching was not that it would flop. It is a different  MMO beast. ArenaNet has a clear vision of what kind of MMO they want it to be, and it is not much like World of Warcraft and its ilk. It is also a success. Over 3.5 million units have been sold, and that is not divulging their cash shop info, which they hint is very sustaining. (An expansion hitting retail or a Steam release would easily be on the cards if it wasn’t.)

No, my biggest fear was my own. What would become of my blogging? For months and months it had been about speculation and excitement. It had been about dreams and not reality. What would happen when that reality came? What kind of payment would I have for the piper? I was actually worried that some golden age was dimming with the release of Guild Wars 2.

Clearly, I had nothing to worry about. Continue reading [GW2] Year One

[GW2] Scarlet vs. Kerrigan

The reigning villain in Guild Wars 2 is Scarlet Briar, a cross between Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy with killer robots tossed in. And in her Playhouse, she gets a giant hammer, in case you did not think she was enough like Harley Quinn. And they case one of the Harley Quinns to voice her. I am rather fond of the character, and Tara Strong can only make things better.

After the Queen’s Pavilion put everyone in a huge zerg, that approach fails consistently in Clockwork Chaos. Players need to spread out to complete more events. Players tend to congeal into large groups and farm champions. Large groups spawn multiple Aetherblade champions, and champions’ survivability scales up with participation, so portals that should take a few minutes to clear take much longer. Invasion events rarely see Scarlet if:

  1. movement is difficult around the map (to get between portals)
  2. the map uses a lot of Z-axis (harder to get between portals, false paths lead players astray, bugs with spawning the enemies at different heights and around water)
  3. Aetherblades are the reinforcements in anything but the last wave (momentum stops as players farm Aetherblade champions).

I joked in chat that the last update was to remove champions. Two minutes later, patch notes said that champion spawns were being toned down. They still spawn enough to congeal zergs. Map chat gets fun and dramatic.

: Zubon

Tinker Metal Dice: Last Chance

Remember our buddy Tesh’s Kickstarter for metal gearpunk dice? It has gone ridiculously well, now past 2000% of its goal, so well that Tesh started making up new stretch goals and adding more tiers of dice to accommodate the need to have one of everything. You can still kick in $10 for the original idea, but some people went all the way up to $145 because they wanted one of everything, and for all I know some of those people paid even more to have more than one. There are now multiple shapes and colors and designs and…

You have a day (probably less by the time you read this) to join or increase your pledge. I’m figuring out if I need to add a few dice to play with finish options. I must not spend $145 on very fancy dice.

: Zubon

[GW2] Mastery of Scaling

For gamers, scaling seems easy. You know when we just ask for features like “why can’t you just add this feature?” And the developer hears “why can’t you sleep under your desk so you can spend every waking hour coding and rewriting tools?” Scaling is one of those things.

It’s just not the tech required, but the actual design. How much scaling? What about players that suck, and equally what about players with perfect stats/builds? The amount of variables can be mind-boggling. Most importantly, where is that sweet scaling spot to keep things fun?

Scaling has been one of Guild Wars 2 jewels since launch, but I feel that at launch it was a gem not well cut. The amount of moving variables seemed to be smaller than what one would dream for scaling. In Orr, events would simply add more undead balloons to pop instead of actually making it harder for a zerg of farmers. My eyes would glaze over as 20 bandits per wave would attack a windmill in the level 2-3 human area.

Throughout their first year ArenaNet has been adding more ways to scale. The most obvious change is scaling upwards to veteran and champion status enemies. With this latest update though, I feel ArenaNet’s scaling jewel is now very well cut. Guild Wars 2 has achieved mastery in scaling their content. Continue reading [GW2] Mastery of Scaling