Back when I made this post I didn't have a lot of information on Legendary Weapons, so here's a few more notes to fill in some gaps:
-All legendary weapons are made from two "Gifts" + Bloodstone Shard + a specific exotic weapon.
-The Bloodstone Shard is, ironically, probably the easiest to get as it only requires 200 skill points.
-Many of the gifts are created from max level craft skills but are reportedly bind on account, which should mean that having tradeskills on multiple characters won't hinder creating the legendary for one particular character.
-The gifts also have some pretty obsurd requirements themselves (Gift of Metal reportedly requires 250 of orihalcum, mithril, darksteel, and platinum ingots), and each weapon requires at least one Gift that in turn requires a material bought from several hundred (500 apparently? I could verify this but I'm not logged into the game right now) of a certain explorable mode dungeon's token--so I was partially wrong about explorable mode dungeons not being endgame.
-It's not yet clear how exactly the required exotic weapons are made.
-It's not clear how much of the process requires stuff that is soulbound or if the weapons themself are souldbound. Obviously many of the crafting materials are not soulbound, however I'm aware that the explorable mode dungeon tokens (Tears of Ascalon et al.) are soulbound for sure.
Here's the current list of legendaries being tossed around the internet:
Frostfang (Axe): Gift of Frostfang(Jeweler) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Tooth of Frostfang of Rage
Incinerator (Dagger): Gift of Incinerator(Cook) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Spark of Rage
Sunrise (Greatsword): Gift of Sunrise(Armorsmith) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Dawn of Rage
Twilight (Greatsword): Gift of Twilight(Armorsmith) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Dusk or Rage
Juggernaught (Hammer): Gift of Juggernaught(Jeweler) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + The Colossus of Rage
The Moot (Mace): Gift of The Moot(Armorsmith) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + The Energizer of Rage
The Flameseeker Prophecies (Shield): Gift of The Flameseeker
Prophecies(Armorsmith) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard +
The Seeker of Rage
Bolt (Sword): Gift of Bolt(Artificer) + Gift of Metal(Weaponsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Zap of Rage
Maw of the Deep (Spear): Gift of Maw of the Deep(Leatherworker) + Gift of Metal(Weamonsmith) + Bloodstone Shard + Maw of Rage
Kudzu (Longbow): Gift of Kudzu(Leatherworker) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Leaf of Kudzu of Rage
The Dreamer (Shortbow): Gift of The Dreamer(Jeweler) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + The Lover of Rage
Predator (Rifle): Gift of Predator(Tailor) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + The Hunter of Rage
Quip (Pistol): Gift of Quip(Armorsmith) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Chaos Gun of Rage
Dragons Maw Torch: Gift of Dragon Maw(Unknown) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Dragons Claw of Rage
Howler (Warhorn): Gift of Howler(Leatherworker) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Howl of Rage
Frenzy (Speargun): Gift of Frenzy(Cook) + Gift of Wood(Huntsman) + Bloodstone Shard + Rage of Rage
The Minstrel (Focus): Gift of The Minstrel(Jeweler) + Gift of Energy(Artificer) + Bloodstone Shard + The Bard of Rage
Meteorlogicus (Scepter): Gift of Meteorlogicus(Armorsmith) + Gift of Energy(Artificer) + Bloodstone Shard + Storm or Rage
The Bifrost (Staff): Gift of The Bifrost(Cook) + Gift of Energy(Artificer) + Bloodstone Shard + The Legend of Rage
Kraitkin (Trident): Gift of Kraitkin(Leatherworker) + Gift of Energy(Artificer) + Bloodstone Shard + Venom of Rage.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Saturday, September 8, 2012
Guilds War
I want to write a bit about the paradigm shift of player community interaction in Guild Wars 2, and as someone who has had an administrative hand in guild and groups in nearly a dozen MMOs I have some advice for people trying to build a Guild Wars 2 guild. The "paradigm shift" I speak of is the fact that a single player (or, more specifically, their account) can be a member of multiple guilds. This isn't new to MMOs, except perhaps to one as "mainstream" as Guild Wars 2. Final Fantasy XI had linkshells, which was that game's equivalent of guilds, and you could have as many as you had inventory spaces for (since they...literally took up inventory space).
The thing I'm looking for and hope develops in Guild Wars 2 is the compartmentalization that occurred in FFXI. By either design or the game's social evolution, individual linkshells had very specific specializations. Players had their social LS, their ENM (endgame) LS, perhaps a Dynamis LS if their ENM one didn't also do Dynamis (or they might have had a separate LS just for Dynamis with the same members). I'm not yet committed to a guild (or circle of guilds) and so I'm trying to collect solid guilds, but whenever I see a recruitment message that touts that they intend to be super duper active in everything, PvE, sPvP, WvWvW, endgame, leveling, et al. all at once it's an immediate turn off. This is an old school mentality that comes from WoW-style MMOs where your guild was really your only social circle, so by necessity guilds had to do everything to attract members.
Anyways, to get back to that advice I referred to in the first paragraph. If you want to build a successful guild, start by doing what nobody else is doing: specialize. Pick the thing you like doing most, whether it be PvE, sPvP, or WvWvW and get the word out that your guild does nothing but that. Let's use sPvP as an example. Get the word out that your guild eats, drinks, and farts sPvP and discusses and engages in it ad nauseam. In time, wise players looking to play with others focused on sPvP and improve and talk sPvP will like the idea of joining a guild that does nothing but that. Players who would like to sPvP more but are stuck in ho-hum guilds where only one or two other people are sort of vaguely into it will eagerly jump on board as well. So far I've found guilds that sort of casually only do WvWvW and PvE, but I'd still like to find guilds actively committed to only doing them. I still haven't found a guild full of die-hard sPvPers which is frustrating because I want to do it more but can only take soloing through the server browser in small chunks, and thus I don't have anyone to talk PvP theorycrafting with at all.
"Representing" guilds is an issue that throws a kink into my desire for specialized guilds, as representing a guild for influence does encourage a certain amount of guild loyalty. Right now guilds really want you to represent them for influence, though I think this'll probably die off over time as guilds finish all the upgrades they want. Right now a lot of guilds are very adamant (or at least passive aggressive) about it; early on there's a lot of incentive for guild leaders to persistently ask their members to either exclusively or semi-exclusively represent them. I just had an officer from my WvWvW guild send me faux-sad tells asking why I wasn't representing. I had to explain to him that when I was in WvWvW, grouping with members from the guild, or particularly starved for conversation, I always represent the guild, and furthermore that in a game like Guild Wars 2 where you have a neigh-infinite choice of guilds a player is only holding themself back by sticking to one. As a guild leader there's two ways to ensure a steady flow of influence: either recruit like mad just for sheer numbers, which will maybe give a short term boost unless you can create a truly steady large community (which can happen, shout out to All Shall Perish), or do as I advised above. Like I said before, guilds used to be the only social circle a player has. Now you need to create the need or incentive for a player to choose your guild over others and right now I believe specialization is the best way to do that.
Fortunately for me, guilds are a very accessory part of GW2, so I've not urgently needed one for anything and have had the luxury of not being desperate to shoehorn my way into an existing community. I actually made my own tiny guild to invite a few friends I know who play and to dump small bits of influence into when things are dry in other guilds. Since I don't feel attached to any of them yet, I'd rather my influence be my own right now.
The thing I'm looking for and hope develops in Guild Wars 2 is the compartmentalization that occurred in FFXI. By either design or the game's social evolution, individual linkshells had very specific specializations. Players had their social LS, their ENM (endgame) LS, perhaps a Dynamis LS if their ENM one didn't also do Dynamis (or they might have had a separate LS just for Dynamis with the same members). I'm not yet committed to a guild (or circle of guilds) and so I'm trying to collect solid guilds, but whenever I see a recruitment message that touts that they intend to be super duper active in everything, PvE, sPvP, WvWvW, endgame, leveling, et al. all at once it's an immediate turn off. This is an old school mentality that comes from WoW-style MMOs where your guild was really your only social circle, so by necessity guilds had to do everything to attract members.
Anyways, to get back to that advice I referred to in the first paragraph. If you want to build a successful guild, start by doing what nobody else is doing: specialize. Pick the thing you like doing most, whether it be PvE, sPvP, or WvWvW and get the word out that your guild does nothing but that. Let's use sPvP as an example. Get the word out that your guild eats, drinks, and farts sPvP and discusses and engages in it ad nauseam. In time, wise players looking to play with others focused on sPvP and improve and talk sPvP will like the idea of joining a guild that does nothing but that. Players who would like to sPvP more but are stuck in ho-hum guilds where only one or two other people are sort of vaguely into it will eagerly jump on board as well. So far I've found guilds that sort of casually only do WvWvW and PvE, but I'd still like to find guilds actively committed to only doing them. I still haven't found a guild full of die-hard sPvPers which is frustrating because I want to do it more but can only take soloing through the server browser in small chunks, and thus I don't have anyone to talk PvP theorycrafting with at all.
"Representing" guilds is an issue that throws a kink into my desire for specialized guilds, as representing a guild for influence does encourage a certain amount of guild loyalty. Right now guilds really want you to represent them for influence, though I think this'll probably die off over time as guilds finish all the upgrades they want. Right now a lot of guilds are very adamant (or at least passive aggressive) about it; early on there's a lot of incentive for guild leaders to persistently ask their members to either exclusively or semi-exclusively represent them. I just had an officer from my WvWvW guild send me faux-sad tells asking why I wasn't representing. I had to explain to him that when I was in WvWvW, grouping with members from the guild, or particularly starved for conversation, I always represent the guild, and furthermore that in a game like Guild Wars 2 where you have a neigh-infinite choice of guilds a player is only holding themself back by sticking to one. As a guild leader there's two ways to ensure a steady flow of influence: either recruit like mad just for sheer numbers, which will maybe give a short term boost unless you can create a truly steady large community (which can happen, shout out to All Shall Perish), or do as I advised above. Like I said before, guilds used to be the only social circle a player has. Now you need to create the need or incentive for a player to choose your guild over others and right now I believe specialization is the best way to do that.
Fortunately for me, guilds are a very accessory part of GW2, so I've not urgently needed one for anything and have had the luxury of not being desperate to shoehorn my way into an existing community. I actually made my own tiny guild to invite a few friends I know who play and to dump small bits of influence into when things are dry in other guilds. Since I don't feel attached to any of them yet, I'd rather my influence be my own right now.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
Guild Wars 2 Endgame: Karma Weapons and Armor and Legendary Weapons; also I bitch about Necromancer a lil bit
I've got a ton to write about and now I've finally got a good reason to get around to it. Two days ago my Necromancer, Desyrel, hit 80. Since then I've mostly been working on map completion and crafting while slowly collecting information on what comprises the endgame. Here's what I've learned so far:
-Explorable mode dungeons give tokens for corresponding sets of armor and weapons. The armor sets are all level appropriate to the explorable mode dungeon it corresponds to. The weapons are all several levels higher, starting at level 60 weapons from Ascalon Catacombs and then finally reaching level 80 at Twilight Arbor and up. Unless you are going for the asthetics, explorable mode dungeons are not really "endgame". So far I've finished Ascalon Catacombs and Honor of the Waves on exploration mode once each.
-The most readily available sets of level 80 gear are the Tier 3 cultural armor sets and the faction armor sets available from either the Order of Whispers, Durmond Priory, or Vigil depending on which you chose during the story; any of these sets are available for purchase with gold. I compared the Sylvari cultural set and Whisperer set last night and found they had the same stat values, however the Whisperer set was both cheaper and had slightly higher armor values.
-From what else I've been able to gather, the big armor items come from karma vendors that spawn at the ends of strings of events in the Orrian zones. These armor sets are referred to as the God Temple sets (this refers to said events)--there are evidently 6 sets amongst each armor class corresponding to one of the human gods.
--At this time I don't know which god corresponds with which set but I do know the names of the sets. The names of the armor pieces are Light/Medium/Heavy Arcon/Armageddon/Aurora/Mortal/Rubicon/Whispering X. If you want a sneak peak at the stats head on over to GW2DB and simply search for "light", "medium", or "heavy" and they all pop up in the item list (they're all ironically amongst the few items in the game that simply have the title of the armor class right in the equipment name).
--They all have rather hefty karma costs, as in 60k+ per piece.
-Karma "cultural" weapons are also available at similar karma costs to the armor pieces above from karma vendors in the race capitals.
-The super duper big ticket weapons are the legendary weapons. I don't know much about these aside from the fact that they require a max level crafting profession, some absurd amount of skill points (reportedly 200, remember that once you hit 80 you continue "leveling up" and getting skill points this way), and supposedly involve a lot of bind on account stuff to keep it from turning into a market game.
-All of the above, as far as I know (except explorable modes obviously), are doable solo. There's evidently no strict need for an endgame PvE guild.
Also, I've written and just now updated a fairly popular Necromancer Minion Master build. Check that bad boy out.
Right now I'm working on a zone a day for map completion and finishing up jewelcrafting and the story on my Necromancer while trying to decide which character I want to play second.
Necromancer is fun to a point but I feel that overall it's a weak class. I feel like it provides very little utility that isn't available to other classes, or at least I haven't completely found Necro's niche. I think that niche may be something like condition removal but that's only useful in some situations. Necro also feels pretty week in PvP; it can be VERY tanky in the right build and situation but often lacks the oomph to nail home kills on a consistent basis.
Death Shroud as a mechanic is very weak. All the abilities in Death Shroud are very marginally useful and while in Death Shroud you have no access to your slot skills. It's basically only incredibly useful as a tanking mechanic--and naturally in a game where tanks aren't a central mechanic I feel this further dilutes Necromancer's overall usefulness. It really needs some kind of tweak somehow.
-Explorable mode dungeons give tokens for corresponding sets of armor and weapons. The armor sets are all level appropriate to the explorable mode dungeon it corresponds to. The weapons are all several levels higher, starting at level 60 weapons from Ascalon Catacombs and then finally reaching level 80 at Twilight Arbor and up. Unless you are going for the asthetics, explorable mode dungeons are not really "endgame". So far I've finished Ascalon Catacombs and Honor of the Waves on exploration mode once each.
-The most readily available sets of level 80 gear are the Tier 3 cultural armor sets and the faction armor sets available from either the Order of Whispers, Durmond Priory, or Vigil depending on which you chose during the story; any of these sets are available for purchase with gold. I compared the Sylvari cultural set and Whisperer set last night and found they had the same stat values, however the Whisperer set was both cheaper and had slightly higher armor values.
-From what else I've been able to gather, the big armor items come from karma vendors that spawn at the ends of strings of events in the Orrian zones. These armor sets are referred to as the God Temple sets (this refers to said events)--there are evidently 6 sets amongst each armor class corresponding to one of the human gods.
--At this time I don't know which god corresponds with which set but I do know the names of the sets. The names of the armor pieces are Light/Medium/Heavy Arcon/Armageddon/Aurora/Mortal/Rubicon/Whispering X. If you want a sneak peak at the stats head on over to GW2DB and simply search for "light", "medium", or "heavy" and they all pop up in the item list (they're all ironically amongst the few items in the game that simply have the title of the armor class right in the equipment name).
--They all have rather hefty karma costs, as in 60k+ per piece.
-Karma "cultural" weapons are also available at similar karma costs to the armor pieces above from karma vendors in the race capitals.
-The super duper big ticket weapons are the legendary weapons. I don't know much about these aside from the fact that they require a max level crafting profession, some absurd amount of skill points (reportedly 200, remember that once you hit 80 you continue "leveling up" and getting skill points this way), and supposedly involve a lot of bind on account stuff to keep it from turning into a market game.
-All of the above, as far as I know (except explorable modes obviously), are doable solo. There's evidently no strict need for an endgame PvE guild.
Also, I've written and just now updated a fairly popular Necromancer Minion Master build. Check that bad boy out.
Right now I'm working on a zone a day for map completion and finishing up jewelcrafting and the story on my Necromancer while trying to decide which character I want to play second.
Necromancer is fun to a point but I feel that overall it's a weak class. I feel like it provides very little utility that isn't available to other classes, or at least I haven't completely found Necro's niche. I think that niche may be something like condition removal but that's only useful in some situations. Necro also feels pretty week in PvP; it can be VERY tanky in the right build and situation but often lacks the oomph to nail home kills on a consistent basis.
Death Shroud as a mechanic is very weak. All the abilities in Death Shroud are very marginally useful and while in Death Shroud you have no access to your slot skills. It's basically only incredibly useful as a tanking mechanic--and naturally in a game where tanks aren't a central mechanic I feel this further dilutes Necromancer's overall usefulness. It really needs some kind of tweak somehow.
Monday, August 27, 2012
What day is it?
I spent all of today thinking it was still Sunday. Such is the sleep-deprived gaming haze I've been living the last several days courtesy of Guild Wars 2.
The game is amazing, though far from flawless. Took my Thief up to 15 before I decided I needed a break and starting leveling my Necromancer instead, and I just kept going. Very close to 30 now.
There's so much I could write about that I'm having trouble calling into words because I'm pretty sleepy right now. I've been sleeping in 3-4 hour spurts every so often ever since Friday night. The new release, unemployment, wonky sleeping pattern, and generally being awake at night instead of daytime has created a perfect storm of temporal dissonance.
I did indeed make it onto Jade Quarry after putting it at the top of a list of servers I was shooting for based on a combination of GW2Guilds.org and the Asura Labs server poll for a high number of sPvP and WvWvW focused guilds. And it really shows, Jade Quarry is very rarely not utterly destroying the two other servers it's matched up against in WvWvW. Tentatively joined a guild called Elite Obsession that described itself as aiming for "competitive WvWvW", but I was slightly dismayed at the paltry 25-30 members. The guild leader said his goal is to have 100 members by Friday, which will be great if he can deliver. Plus since you can have multiple guilds (something that I haven't seen since FFXI) there's no harm in giving them a shot.
The game is amazing, though far from flawless. Took my Thief up to 15 before I decided I needed a break and starting leveling my Necromancer instead, and I just kept going. Very close to 30 now.
There's so much I could write about that I'm having trouble calling into words because I'm pretty sleepy right now. I've been sleeping in 3-4 hour spurts every so often ever since Friday night. The new release, unemployment, wonky sleeping pattern, and generally being awake at night instead of daytime has created a perfect storm of temporal dissonance.
I did indeed make it onto Jade Quarry after putting it at the top of a list of servers I was shooting for based on a combination of GW2Guilds.org and the Asura Labs server poll for a high number of sPvP and WvWvW focused guilds. And it really shows, Jade Quarry is very rarely not utterly destroying the two other servers it's matched up against in WvWvW. Tentatively joined a guild called Elite Obsession that described itself as aiming for "competitive WvWvW", but I was slightly dismayed at the paltry 25-30 members. The guild leader said his goal is to have 100 members by Friday, which will be great if he can deliver. Plus since you can have multiple guilds (something that I haven't seen since FFXI) there's no harm in giving them a shot.
Monday, August 20, 2012
Guild Wars 2 Character Planning
Finally sat down and read through all the skills on the Wiki to get at least a cursory understanding of the flavor of the abilities of the game. Did a little preliminary character planning as well, figured out what class/race/name combos I want to go with. Reusing a lot of names I used in SWTOR but I ditched a few I thought were lackluster and replaced others.
I really like a lot of the skills on Guardians, but at the same time I would like to start by playing a class archtype I'm less familiar with and tentatively settled on Thief after having also considered Ranger. Going to start with a Thief, Guardian, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Warrior. Aside from having decided to start with a Thief first, I've enjoyed playing tanky archtypes in PvP in the past so Guardian is a natural choice and Necromancer was lots of fun in GW1. The latter two are classes that Taugrim's done a lot of writing on so far so there will be a little less guesswork when I have time to play those classes. I'll add Engineer, Ranger, and Elementalist characters as I get a chance to.
I picked races whose abilities (though irrelevant I realize) complement certain classes at least thematically. I've got at least one of every race for the purposes of experiencing some of the differing stories but am planning to go with only one each of Asurans and Charr since I like their aesthetic the least. In the end my race choices are perhaps a little to stereotypical, but eh.
Meanwhile, I've still been half-heartedly trying to get HoM points but I'm past trying to force myself to continue for difficult statues at this point. Been trying to get through at least the first disc of Xenogears before Saturday too.
Brandon and I used to have an inside joke referring to Xenogears: Xenobeers, a game staring Gen from SaGa Frontier as he drinks and swash-buckles his away across the world/galaxy/universe.
Also, I'm now formally consigning this blog to Guild Wars 2 for the foreseeable future. As such I'll be adding a bunch of helpful links to the eponymous section of the blog.
I really like a lot of the skills on Guardians, but at the same time I would like to start by playing a class archtype I'm less familiar with and tentatively settled on Thief after having also considered Ranger. Going to start with a Thief, Guardian, Necromancer, Mesmer, and Warrior. Aside from having decided to start with a Thief first, I've enjoyed playing tanky archtypes in PvP in the past so Guardian is a natural choice and Necromancer was lots of fun in GW1. The latter two are classes that Taugrim's done a lot of writing on so far so there will be a little less guesswork when I have time to play those classes. I'll add Engineer, Ranger, and Elementalist characters as I get a chance to.
I picked races whose abilities (though irrelevant I realize) complement certain classes at least thematically. I've got at least one of every race for the purposes of experiencing some of the differing stories but am planning to go with only one each of Asurans and Charr since I like their aesthetic the least. In the end my race choices are perhaps a little to stereotypical, but eh.
Meanwhile, I've still been half-heartedly trying to get HoM points but I'm past trying to force myself to continue for difficult statues at this point. Been trying to get through at least the first disc of Xenogears before Saturday too.
Brandon and I used to have an inside joke referring to Xenogears: Xenobeers, a game staring Gen from SaGa Frontier as he drinks and swash-buckles his away across the world/galaxy/universe.
Also, I'm now formally consigning this blog to Guild Wars 2 for the foreseeable future. As such I'll be adding a bunch of helpful links to the eponymous section of the blog.
Jee Dubya Wun
So a few days back someone brought the Hall of Monuments Rewards to my attention, so being as I have tons of free time till next weekend I managed to do the impossible and get back into Guild Wars 1. Kind of.
The first thing that struck me booting up GW again was the name scheme, which brings back a lot of memories. At the time, when my good friend Nick, aka Spinky IV or Spinaci [Olive Garden] (OG REPRESENT), talked me into trying Guild Wars I had only played two other MMOs up to that point--FFXI and LotRO.
I'd spent my 2 year career in Final Fantasy XI as a bearded male hume called Kurohyou, which was my best attempt at translating "Pantera" to Japanese--I realized much later that "kuro" is actually black, but just "Hyou" would have been kinda lame anyways. Since all my GW characters all shared the surname Pantera, I ended up naming my Elementalist Nero for my old FFXI character.
During the Lord of the Rings Online beta I'd used the name Pantera, but shortly after release I was forced to change the name (the first twist of the dagger that wrecked my interest in that game). In my flustered state the only name I could come up with was the alias one of the creators of EliteMUD (which I'd spent a few years of my youth playing), Kurrelgyre. I ended up giving this name to my Warrior in Guild Wars. In retrospect this seems like a weird decision, or at least one I wouldn't have made now; since I'd used the name Kurrelgyre begrudgingly it's odd that I'd give it to my "main"--I was a WAR main in FFXI and it became my most played character in GW (and my first character in WoW, incidentally, though in every case they're much different from Warrior in FFXI).
Many of my other characters' names were references to my MMO past as well. Tek, Valencia, and Gravios were names of my mule alts in FFXI (Gravios was a further reference to a dragon in Monster Hunter). Desyrel was an alias I used in LotRO, and was the first seed of what would eventually grow to be my current general MMO naming scheme. Coming up on a lack of ideas, I named two after myself and my grandfather, then randomly went with Miang for one, likely with Xenogears in mind (which is interesting providence considering I've been replaying through Xenogears on emulator to pass time lately as well). Named one for Fargo, where I'd been living most of my life up until a year ago.
I nearly forgot how unilaterally awesome Guild Wars was/is though. It's an excellent prototype for what a game with horizontal scaling would look like. Even if I didn't love GW's PvP (which I do), there's plenty of PvE content on various levels that manages to be both challenging and rewarding, even it's as basic as pimping out a horde of Heroes.
Anyways, I'm shooting for 30/50 even though it's probably a little impractical. I managed to get 7+/50 pretty quick just on HoM statues I basically already had (which was enough to get the legacy armor pieces), but the item rewards end at 30 so I'm trying to get as far as I realistically can in a week. A lot of the statues are extremely difficult to get on short notice, so I'm aiming for as much of the low hanging fruit ones as I already have progress towards.
The first thing that struck me booting up GW again was the name scheme, which brings back a lot of memories. At the time, when my good friend Nick, aka Spinky IV or Spinaci [Olive Garden] (OG REPRESENT), talked me into trying Guild Wars I had only played two other MMOs up to that point--FFXI and LotRO.
I'd spent my 2 year career in Final Fantasy XI as a bearded male hume called Kurohyou, which was my best attempt at translating "Pantera" to Japanese--I realized much later that "kuro" is actually black, but just "Hyou" would have been kinda lame anyways. Since all my GW characters all shared the surname Pantera, I ended up naming my Elementalist Nero for my old FFXI character.
During the Lord of the Rings Online beta I'd used the name Pantera, but shortly after release I was forced to change the name (the first twist of the dagger that wrecked my interest in that game). In my flustered state the only name I could come up with was the alias one of the creators of EliteMUD (which I'd spent a few years of my youth playing), Kurrelgyre. I ended up giving this name to my Warrior in Guild Wars. In retrospect this seems like a weird decision, or at least one I wouldn't have made now; since I'd used the name Kurrelgyre begrudgingly it's odd that I'd give it to my "main"--I was a WAR main in FFXI and it became my most played character in GW (and my first character in WoW, incidentally, though in every case they're much different from Warrior in FFXI).
Many of my other characters' names were references to my MMO past as well. Tek, Valencia, and Gravios were names of my mule alts in FFXI (Gravios was a further reference to a dragon in Monster Hunter). Desyrel was an alias I used in LotRO, and was the first seed of what would eventually grow to be my current general MMO naming scheme. Coming up on a lack of ideas, I named two after myself and my grandfather, then randomly went with Miang for one, likely with Xenogears in mind (which is interesting providence considering I've been replaying through Xenogears on emulator to pass time lately as well). Named one for Fargo, where I'd been living most of my life up until a year ago.
I nearly forgot how unilaterally awesome Guild Wars was/is though. It's an excellent prototype for what a game with horizontal scaling would look like. Even if I didn't love GW's PvP (which I do), there's plenty of PvE content on various levels that manages to be both challenging and rewarding, even it's as basic as pimping out a horde of Heroes.
Anyways, I'm shooting for 30/50 even though it's probably a little impractical. I managed to get 7+/50 pretty quick just on HoM statues I basically already had (which was enough to get the legacy armor pieces), but the item rewards end at 30 so I'm trying to get as far as I realistically can in a week. A lot of the statues are extremely difficult to get on short notice, so I'm aiming for as much of the low hanging fruit ones as I already have progress towards.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Jee Dubya Too
After toying with the idea for a few days, I've decided to pick up Guild Wars 2. Bought the game a few days back. This is despite not having followed it at all through development and beta testing and knowing very little about the game proper. I'm nervous about diving in not knowing much about the game's mechanics, but I'm hoping that it'll add some to the charm so I've been trying to stay at least a little in the dark.
I played the original Guild Wars and absolutely loved it, so I have faith that its sequel will deliver. I played it briefly in that nebulous period between FFXI and WoW. It's been ages now since I played it; I have this strange problem with Guild Wars where I can't get back into it whenever I try to go back. I'm not a big PvPer but of the MMOs I've played it was Guild Wars that had the PvP I enjoyed the most.
My primary concern right now is that I don't know anyone else who's planning on playing it, and this has proven to hamper my experience with other MMOs in the past. I'm fretting slightly over how much I should balance my attention between PvE or PvP too, being as GW was traditionally more of a PvP focused game (which is great, IMO MMOs need to pick one to focus on) and myself not having a strong taste for PvP. But who knows, I've played smatterings of PvP whether it be in the original GW, WoW, and SWTOR et al. in addition to arena style PvP a la MOBAs (LoL, HoN, Dota 2) and found some enjoyment.
I've been following Taugrim's amazing MMO blog more closely as GW2 approaches. I've used his guides as references for SWTOR before and it's quality stuff. He's generally more focused on PvP gameplay so I'm letting it be my introduction to GW2's PvP.
I'll mayhaps convert this blog to a Guild Wars 2 focus coming up in a few weeks; we'll see how things roll along.
I played the original Guild Wars and absolutely loved it, so I have faith that its sequel will deliver. I played it briefly in that nebulous period between FFXI and WoW. It's been ages now since I played it; I have this strange problem with Guild Wars where I can't get back into it whenever I try to go back. I'm not a big PvPer but of the MMOs I've played it was Guild Wars that had the PvP I enjoyed the most.
My primary concern right now is that I don't know anyone else who's planning on playing it, and this has proven to hamper my experience with other MMOs in the past. I'm fretting slightly over how much I should balance my attention between PvE or PvP too, being as GW was traditionally more of a PvP focused game (which is great, IMO MMOs need to pick one to focus on) and myself not having a strong taste for PvP. But who knows, I've played smatterings of PvP whether it be in the original GW, WoW, and SWTOR et al. in addition to arena style PvP a la MOBAs (LoL, HoN, Dota 2) and found some enjoyment.
I've been following Taugrim's amazing MMO blog more closely as GW2 approaches. I've used his guides as references for SWTOR before and it's quality stuff. He's generally more focused on PvP gameplay so I'm letting it be my introduction to GW2's PvP.
I'll mayhaps convert this blog to a Guild Wars 2 focus coming up in a few weeks; we'll see how things roll along.
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