Askgar

Pink Day in LA is a fan run event that took place in Guild Wars on 16th October 2010 to support breast cancer (it looks like it has also run in previous years but I cannot find any concrete information on that). Unfortunately I couldn’t attend the actual event so you may be wondering why I’m writing about it here, that is because despite it being a fan run event, the Arenanet team created a special blend of pink dye, and a special pink dye vendor that will be available until the end of October.

I find this amazing personally, a dev creating not just a special single item, but a dye which they have stated in a recent GW2 blog article (http://www.arena.net/blog/live-and-let-dye-kristen-perry-on-the-gw2-dye-system) is rather complicated to create. It actually drew me into the game to purchase some, despite not REALLY being into pink, I’ll find a use for it at some point.

Anyway, just a quick post with me bringing the dye to peoples attention, and saying how amazing it is for both the people organising the event, but also ANet for giving them MUCH more publicity and creating a special dye for their event.

With the recent release of information on skills and combat, and the elementalist class, I decided that I would write a brief piece on my current thoughts on the game directions.

Note: I wrote this article offline, and it was done mainly from memory, if there are any errors please point them out so I can correct them.

First though, some background, I was following the original guild wars from the first open event (I believe it was called something like E3 for Everyone) and I think it was back in 2004, around 6 years ago now.  I played in all of the beta weekend events (approximately one every month) until release and created my character on day -2 (the first day of the early access for being a pre-order customer).  I own a pre order pack for all 4 campaigns (the prophecies one was only available in America but luckily I snapped one up before the prices shot up) and I own the CE for the 3 major campaigns.  I also have various other GW paraphernalia so it is fair to say I am (or at least was) somewhat of a Guild Wars ‘fan boy’.

Currently I still play once a week but am quite burnt out of the game and haven’t actually played properly in a couple of months, mainly due to the lack of stable internet but also a lack of motivation.  My main character is a dervish, a class that won’t be returning in GW2 (more on that later), although I’ve played about half of the classes at least semi-seriously.

The first part of the Guild Wars 2 information I’d like to cover is the “open world” system, where you might see a dragon over the horizon, or get caught up in an attack on a town, or other “public” events.  From my experience of games this sounds very much like the Warhammer Online(WAR) public quests (PQ), although with rewards for all participants, and repercussions if you fail, as opposed to the PQ system where it resets a couple of minutes later.

Another system it reminded me of, especially the attacks on a town, is that of Tabula Rasa with the Bane randomly attacking human bases and taking them over if there is not a big enough defence, this system sounded great but the trouble was there were not enough people bothered enough to actually reclaim bases, causing many bases to permanently be bane occupied and therefore off-limits, unless you could get enough people together to actually reclaim the outpost (which would then only last until the next attack).

The system they are promising sounds like the events are dynamic and almost randomly generated (of course this seems unbelievable), but hopefully it will be less like the WAR PQ system where the quests just restart every 5 minutes, whether successful or not.  Also, if towns do get over run and there isn’t a large enough population to reclaim them, the game could get rather frustrating.

The new skill system sounds like it will offer much more flexibility, having 10 skills instead of 8, however 5 of these skills will be based on your current weapon set, or more precisely what you are currently holding in your hands, while the other 5 will be based on your choices, however 1 slot will be devoted to some sort of a self heal, and another slot devoted to an elite skill of some kind.  See the skills diagram below!

http://www.iloveguildwars.com/2010/04/29/10-skills-a-diagram/

They have also removed the secondary profession, instead giving you racial skills so instead of combinations such as R/Me and N/W we will now have E/Charr or E/Asura (that is presuming all races can be all classes), each race will have, as far as I understand it, an elite racial skill and some other normal skills.

Going back to the weapon skill system, as well as having your first 5 skills dependant on weapon combination (5 skills for 2-handed or 3 skills for main and 2 skills for offhand), you will also be able to pick things up (such as rocks, planks of wood, etc) and as you do the first 5 skills will change, for example allowing you to throw the rock.

Also, you will apparently be able to hit a tree type monster with an axe, a plank of wood or a branch may be knocked off and you could then pick that up and use it against the monster.  I am personally rather sceptical of this and will be amazed if it works as they have so far described it.

The combat system is apparently designed with combos in mind, both single person, and more importantly multi person combos, the main example provided to date is the elementalist’s firewall spell.  Once this has been cast any projectiles (arrows, bullets, etc.) that fire through it will “catch alight”, turning them into flaming projectiles.  This sounds like it will make combat much more dynamic, but I have to wonder is this going to work as smoothly in game as they describe it, or will it turn into a clunky horrible mess.

Another feature is the importance of positioning, there is a demonstration of a phoenix type spell on the Guild Wars 2 website which acts like a boomerang, it goes out and then comes back to the elementalist, however the player can move to get it to hit other creatures that may have moved, or may be in a different position, on the return.  (See the video on the GW2 website for a video which shows it much better).  This sounds excellent in theory but will this work well in game, or will people ignore it completely as a concept and use it as a 2 hits in a straight line weapon.

Finally, for now, are the weapons, they have announced a list of the different weapon types in the game and Scythe was not one of them, this essentially means there will be no Dervish class in the game directly, however it does not stop the core concept of the Dervish being moved into a new class, or even merged in with another class.  The weapon skill slots could easily allow a warrior to have different roles depending on the weapon combination they took, even switching mid battle if their other non-weapon skills could support multiple roles.

As more information is released, or I think of other things to say, I will add new posts on the topic but this is the end of my first major post on Guild Wars 2 information.  I’d love to hear other peoples thoughts on the information and the comments box is open for all (especially spammers given how much I purge each day).  If you want to send me a private message feel free to use the contact section of the website.

A very common topic for MMO players and something that tends to happen to us all… I’m on the path to burning out of Guild Wars.  I still play the game but I’m getting rather apathetic to it now.  My twice a week playing has finally caught up with me and I’m finding it very hard to get enthusiastic, except for trying out the occasional new thing which we haven’t done before, or only rarely done in the past.

I still enjoy chatting to all of the people in the Tuesday Noob Club but, unfortunately, Guild Wars doesn’t have the draw any more and I would much rather play other games.  Talking to other members of the Tuesday Noob Club I can tell that I am not the only one who is starting to feel this way, so much so that we’re swapping our Sunday night gathering to another game (we couldn’t exactly swap Tuesday could we).

I also realised that the so called “traditional” MMO (WoW, LoTRO, Everquest, etc.) doesn’t hold my interest either.  I had a comeback week for LoTRO and tried it out again, I played around for a bit, tried some quests and crafting and realised I found it SO dull that I just stopped playing again, I have no real interest to try a game like this again and I really hope that Guild Wars 2 doesn’t go this way.

So, where have I gone instead?  Well readers will have seen I’ve been playing DDO and I’m still enjoying that, I tend to play a couple of times a week and thanks to our previous Friday’s epic night (Tempest Spine, a 12 man raid, and The Pit, a 6 man epic instance), I got close to level 9 (around 7k off now).

My other game for now is Eve, I played it a few years ago and it never clicked but, for now at least, I’m getting into it.  I’m enjoying it a lot more and have been dropping in most nights, at the least to change skills, although often I’ve been running a mission or two.  I’ve been joining up with a couple of friends from Guild Wars/DDO to sometimes fleet up for missions which is very fun and a lot more enjoyable.

As a side note, when getting back into Eve I was determined to get the best deal on my game time so I researched and other than finding out that CCP cap the price resellers can charge for Time Codes to €29.99 or $34.99 for 60 days, I realised that buying a Time Code in US$ would work out much cheaper (around £5 cheaper for 60 days) and searched out a good, and quick, reseller.  I settled on Shattered Crystal and within 30 mins I’d received a call from the US to verify who I was (a simple procedure) and had the code ready to play.

If anyone is looking to buy more time for Eve I would appreciate if you could use my referral link (http://www.shatteredcrystal.com/code.php/eve_online/~84929#eve_time_codes_60_days_eve_game_time) for Shattered Crystal, it will save you money on buying in Euros direct from CCP and will earn me 10%, or $3.49, for each time code purchased.

UPDATE: I’m now recomending people don’t use Shattered Crystal after their ordering system seems to have been broken for a couple of days for me now, instead I’ll recommend Eve Time Code.  I ordered using paypal and within 5 minutes I had my code, they didn’t even phone and verify me (which seems a little odd).  Anyway, if you wish to use my referal link for ETC then it is http://www.evetimecode.com/index.php/~24526 . They only give 5% but at least it works…

Anyway, I’ll call it there for today, look out for posts on my thoughts on Eve and DDO in the future.

Had a less than pleasent day today, and a bad internet connection at the pub I’m staying in doesn’t help, so a very short one today.

Guild Wars

Tuesday comes and it is time for Guild Wars with the Tuesday Noob Club, unfortunately because of my terrible internet connection when I was able to be in Guild Wars my pings often were above 10k ms and as such, unplayable.  It also didn’t help that my voice connection was so flakey that people could barely hear me, and vice-versa.

The only thing I did in game today was to purchase a Celestial Tiger for someone in the guild who had asked me to get them one, I got it cheaper than expected so all was good… except the bad connection that is.

Facebook

I described the games I play on facebook yesterday and there is little point in me saying the same things again.  I did notice that one of the members of my “raid group” in Ghost Trappers had left, so I now need to recruit a new member, but other than that nothing changed.

Hopefully I will have a more interesting post tomorrow but I wouldn’t recommend anyone getting their hopes up.

Well, I’ve got my Guild Wars account back now, this time I’ve lost MOST of my armour, ALL of my materials and NO money (because I had none to take).  It’s put me almost back to square 1 in the game, and I will be relying on small gifts to get some new armour so that I can play again, however I feel strongly that I do not want handouts once I am back on my feet (although to anyone that offers then thank you, it means a lot that I have friends online that would do that for me), I have earnt everything I had once and I can do it once again, it may be painful but with the Tuesday Noob Club moving onto more “elite” missions (Fissure of Woe, Underworld, etc.) it should be quicker to earn back money, and as such get back some of my nicer items/armour.  The hardest thing to get back will be my mini Kuunavang but with Christmas coming up, and the special events from that I hope to eventually make enough money to buy a new one.

It feels horrible to be hacked but I will not let the hackers ruin my game and I will not let it affect my enjoyment, once I have a working laptop back I will get back into the game and earn my way back up.

I can understand how someone in my shoes, without a guild of friends to play with, who has everything taken from them, could just give up at this point, being left with no armour makes it VERY difficult to earn money back to buy a new set of armour and if I wasn’t getting help I don’t know if I’d bother.

Anyway, I still don’t have a reliable laptop to use and so can’t get online all the time but I will try as hard as I can to update when I can, luckily my phone appears to work reasonably with word press so I might be able to do small updates from that when I can’t get the laptop to work.  And that’s it for now…

Just a brief update… I only have 5 mins left at the net cafe but I currently have no usable laptop.  Both of my laptops, and my wife’s are currently broken, and only one of them looks like it will ever be fixed.  This means I have no internet access, except via my phone and as such no playing games.

At the same time, my Guild Wars account has been hacked… twice.  The first time someone got in, stole all of my money and my mini Kuunavang pet (my favourite and most valuable minipet).  I got my account back quickly that time after contacting NC Soft support (very good service, less than 24 hours) BUT a week later and I’m left in the exact same position… except this time they’d also hacked my PlayNC account and changed the details on that.

I would go into more details but I’ve only got 1 minute left… I will however say that I haven’t really missed the internet, I’ve missed chatting with friends in DDO and GW but the games themselves I don’t mind about.  I haven’t even touched my PS3 since the loss, showing me that I seem to have changed, I’m no longer a gamer, more I use games as a platform for social interaction with friends I’ve met via the internet.

Well, I know I don’t post a lot but that’s mainly due to a very busy and hectic summer with some less than expected events (for anyone that cares see my “other” blog http://poozle.livejournal.com/6257.html ).

Anyway, today’s post is to be on Guild Wars… again. Primarily my continuing rediscovery of the game and how much I am starting to enjoy it again.  Thanks to Van Hemlock (www.vanhemlock.com), and his Tuesday Noob Club, which I discovered by accident after being linked across from Massively (http://www.massively.com/), I started playing on a weekly basis, every Tuesday night, for a few hours.  Initially it was just a few of us but gradually over the months it grew and grew, with our most recent night attracting 12 people (a record for us I believe).

My role in the guild started out innocently enough, I joined and played for a couple of weeks and while there were still just 3 of us in the guild I was “promoted” to officer.  Gradually over the months as more people joined it became apparent we could do with a forum for organising our evenings, with some web space I already had I simply set up a forum and posted it up for use.  A special offer on domain names (2 years for less than £2), resulted in our domain name, and another recent offer resulted in me having enough web space and bandwidth for the guild to grow massively, and for the forum to still exist when GW2 is eventually released (at least it should be out in 2 years I hope…).  It now appears I’ve ended up becoming the webmaster of the guild and “second in command”, a role I fell into and never expected given how I initially found the guild.

Now the guild seems to be meeting up more and more regularly, in fact most nights there is at least one other person around and usually more, generally everyone is willing to help out if anyone ever gets suck and its turned into a nice little community, and dare I say it… a proper guild!

Despite this, even without other people there, I have started getting more into the “deeper” side of Guild Wars, the wiki builds for example, with my current obsession being a permasin, the idea is to keep shadow form up permanently to prevent anything damaging you with targatable damage.  I might do a post about this more in the future but this isn’t about my permasin.

I’ve also got into other sections of the game, such as dungoneering and vanquishing, which I can do solo although is a lot more fun with other guildies.  These two are very much the “end game” of Guild Wars, not the very top level of content but the sort of activities to do once the campaigns have been completed.  Dungeons are very much like mini raids from other MMOs, they take a reasonable amount of time (1hour – 3hours) and usually have a boss at the end that may require special tactics (like a flaming ball of fire…).  Vanquishing on the other hand is in a similar vain to “kill 10 rats” style quests, except it is kill all the enemies in this zone… in hard mode, depending on the zone it can range from 1 enemy (usually with a bugged combo of quests) up to 400+ (again, due to quest influence but this time ADDING mobs to the zone), which usually take around an hour or more to do.

On top of these sometimes I just log in to trade… although this usually doesn’t last long because I get really bored of standing in Kamadan US 1 shouting:

WTS Mini Bone Dragon Unded

I’ve been trying to sell that for weeks now with no luck… I get the feeling no one wants it, or at least no one wants to pay for it.  However what I do enjoy doing fits in well with the guild, selling peoples items that they would usually vendor for more money (lock picks primarily), I usually collect up 6 or 7 after each dungeon run and then quickly jump into Kamadan, sell them for 1.2k ish and hand the money back, almost 500gold extra than vendoring them.

The main reason I trade however, is to be able to buy minipets, my current collection has filled up a whole character’s inventory (45 slots) and is now moving onto another character, I’ve got a complete year 1-3 minis set, along with some of the extra minis, with my Mini Kuunavang being my favourite (and was my first I believe).  I’ve hit a minor stumbling block now with my primary source of income having been stopped with no sign of it being reinstated, the Xunlai Tournament House.

And finally, the last reason why I’ve started getting into Guild Wars more and more is Guild Wars 2, the teaser trailer was recently revealed and its looking awesome, there have been some slightly worrying pieces of news coming out of Arenanet (like multiple servers) and I can just hope that the game is as good as Guild Wars and I’ll be happy, and if the Tuesday Noob Club moves over (or at least establishes there) then I’ll be even happier.

Well, with the first day of being 22 drawing to an end and my promise of an updated blog via twitter.

Hopefully 22 will bring me the ability to actually use a blog when I start one…

I feel now is a good a time as any to start it off.

I’ll be using this blog mainly for discussion of my online life, leaving my personal life out of it, that blog lives elsewhere.  Although for context, I’m 22, just about to graduate with a degree in Computer Science and getting married next month.

Anyway, back on with the show.  My twitter, as mentioned above, is @askgar (you’ll notice a pattern in the names).  I can also be found in Guild Wars (main character name: Askgar Elzoop Jnr) and currently some F2P MMOs.  I have an “XBox Live” account (only used for DoW2 on the PC, I’m not an XBox user) as elzoop, and a Playstation Network account for my PS3 and PSP as Elzoop again.

Anyway,  I’ll go into more parts of my gaming life, and other ramblings in the future but I just made it, an active blog (for now) and its still the first day of me being 22… just.