August 2012

Harathi Hinterlands? I Just Don’t Like You. #GW2 #GuildWars2

stargrace August 31, 2012 2Comments

We all have our favorite zones. Those places we just want to visit over and over again no matter how many times we’ve been there before. We look forward to them, share stories about them, and think fondly of all the memories we’ve created for our characters in those places.

Harathi Hinterlands, is NOT one of these zones for me. In fact so far it’s the zone I like the least amount, and one that frustrated me to no end.

In the zone there is a constant war going on involving many, many, many centaur. When wars go on, gate points become contested and prevent you from gating. Mobs spawn and rampage and pummel you to death. The vista you were trying to get to for the last hour becomes a dangerous place to hang out.

I think these dynamic war events are really neat – but – if you don’t have a lot of people in the section of the map you happen to be hanging out in, they’re also incredibly painful. This was the problem with most of my evening last night as it became too late for the majority of gamers to be up on a Thursday. It’s hard to get things done when there are 100 rampaging angry centaur beating you to the ground with their hooves.

As such, it took me far longer to complete this zone than any of the others. It also seems like the mentoring system is a bit borked because at some points I would be fighting level 46 centaur, but the game had me boosted DOWN to 42. Ouch. This does not make for happy times.

With a lot of deaths I made my way to level 45, completed the zone, and happily left. I’ve now uncovered 20% of the map, and Velours (my Asura Guardian) is glad that she can move on.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Caudecus’s Manor (Story Mode) #GW2 #GuildWars2

stargrace August 31, 2012 0Comment

When I wasn’t getting thrown over ledges, I spent the better part of yesterday determined that I would finally find my way into a dungeon. The problem was that most of the time I found a group (which was an adventure in itself) we would end up in different instances, on different servers. Finally last night it looked like this problem was solved, and when someone mentioned in Harathi Highlands that they were looking for a few more, I eagerly volunteered.

I was level 41, and had never been to a dungeon before so I was really looking forward to it. At 30, the first story mode dungeon opens up. At 35 you open up exploration mode. The same goes for 40 and 45. My first dungeon was Caudecus’s Manor, which is the level 40 story mode. Hard to tell in the screen shot, but we did have a 71 auto mentored down, and they had been there before which was a handy thing. They were able to tell us the mechanics of the bosses and help us out with a few tips and tricks. I don’t want to spoil the dungeon at all but there ARE some new bits of information that you’ll want to keep in mind when doing these dungeons.

Number one: Always revive your group mates DURING battle. If someone has fallen, get them up asap, don’t try to continue the fight with people down.

Number two: Designate someone to tag mobs so that you can all focus your efforts.

Number three: Don’t just run off without your group, take your time, make sure everyone is ready before moving on. This is important because you never know what’s just around the corner, and unlike other MMOs you’re not going to be able to simply one shot it.

Number four: Dodge. Dodge. Dodge. Dodge. If you are not used to double tapping to move out of incoming damage, or to help reduce damage, learn fast. You can use the V key as an alternate. It’s so important in dungeons, I can’t stress this enough.

I also learned that dungeons reward an insane amount of experience. 20,000 in fact. I dinged while there, got some neat loot, and had a great time. The dungeon itself was unexpected and fun.

Finishing up Harathi Highlands (which I’ll go into more detail in another post) brought me to 45. Not a bad night at all.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Quote of the Day #GW2 #GuildWars2

stargrace August 30, 2012 2Comments

Welcome To the Order of Whispers #GW2 #GuildWars2

stargrace August 29, 2012 0Comment

Almost level 35, and still completely enthralled with GW2. Of course, it hasn’t even been out a week yet, so that should be expected. I’ve still done hardly any adventuring, most of my experience is coming from crafting (the majority) with a few discovery bits thrown in. I decided that since I had “completed” Rata Sum, I would “complete” Lion’s Arch. That is to say obtain the vistas, points of interest, and gates. Today I plan on doing the same for Divinity’s Reach.

When I reached 30 my personal story suddenly started getting a lot more interesting. I see how all of the races are going to meet up and what they’re going to mean to Tyria. I love that.

There are still some major issues going on with the game. Number one, the auction house (trade post) still isn’t active yet. Despite this being an annoyance, I’m also pleased. I am leveling quite quickly, and if I were able to just purchase the materials I needed instead of having to actively go out and harvest them, I bet I’d level even faster. I don’t want that. Since you can also trade gems for gold and then use that gold to purchase items, it seems like once that trade post opens there may be a lot of folks keen to move up through the game via that method. More power to them, but I’m enjoying the fact that we all have to work together and talk and make new friends in order to trade goods at the moment. Yesterday I made a bargain with a few people I met in zone, my iron ore for their silver at a 3:1 ratio (because iron is quite plentiful). I even traded for some gems, and while you have to rely on the trust system because there’s no way to trade (you have to send things through the mail) it worked pretty well.

Number two of course would have to be the security issues. A lot of friends are being hacked or getting emails stating that their passwords have been requested a change. I also got this email a few days ago, but haven’t had any issues with security. I have two NCSoft accounts, one is my master account (Aion, Lineage II etc), and then the other is for GW1/GW2. Both have different emails, and different passwords. Both of those emails have a two step authentication process (and different passwords), so if someone wants to get into my game account by requesting a password change, they’ll also have to get into my email account and bypass that. It’s not foolproof and I really hope ArenaNet adds more security options, but so far it has worked for me. I’m once more eternally grateful for KeePass, because there’s no way I’d be able to remember all these passwords otherwise.

The third major issue I see is a combination of smaller bugs and glitches still kicking around in the game. Guild issues with joining and representing. To solve most of these I gate to a pvp battleground, for some reason guild stuff works better there. Overflow still has some glitches, as does meeting up with your friends to play together. These (imo) are relatively minor, and they haven’t affected my personal game play yet because I’ve been doing my own thing (aside from guild events).

The combination of GW2 and WoW is working out well. One has a sub, one doesn’t. They’re both fantasy genre but I love fantasy so why not. Plus, there’s the amazing Combat Wombats, who I just can’t speak highly enough of. I hope everyone else has had as good a time in game as I have, and if not, I hope it gets better. As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Ding, Level 30 #GW2 #GuildWars2

stargrace August 28, 2012 2Comments

It was a complete accident that I leveled from 27-30, because it was all through crafting. I’m just a hair away from 200 in cooking, and I’m around 150 in jeweler. One of the major complaints I hear from a lot of people in-game is that they’re too low to progress to the next area or to work on their personal story quest. I, have never had this issue. It’s a bit odd to hear of a game that ‘forces’ a player into crafting or harvesting, but if you’re not a fan of grinding events you’ll want to do both of those things.

The level 1-15 zone is good for crafting up to 75, so I made it a point not to leave until I had reached 75 in each craft. This meant that I didn’t leave the starter zone until I was almost level 20, well above what I needed to begin the second zone. Once in the second zone I did the same thing, I completed the map, then worked on my story, and then raised my crafting until it was into the next tier.

Also keep in mind that there is more than one zone for you to explore. There’s nothing stopping you from taking your Asura over to the Norn starting area and completing their map. In fact you’ll probably want to, sooner or later. Or at least do it with an alt so that you get the achievements for completing the zones.

How to tell I’m REALLY enjoying a game? I stop playing alts. This is practically unheard of for me, any one of my long time readers will know that I am constantly flip flopping from character to character, working on multiple things at once. Not true in GW2. I’ve stuck with my Asura Guardian the entire time so far. It’s almost scary.

So now I’m sitting at level 30, still not completed the JC I need to do before I move on, and the zone I was questing in is 15-25, so I’m 5 levels above the recommended levels, again. It’s fantastic. Since the game auto levels you down as you meander your way through each zone you will always be level appropriate. It’s an incredibly smooth transition, you probably won’t even notice it, which is exactly as it should be.

Leveling too fast? I don’t think so, it’s not that I’m leveling quickly and missing anything, because I’m not, it’s that I have had a LOT of time to play and have been taking full advantage of that.

I did spend some money and buy $50 worth of gems. I upgraded my account to the digital collectors edition and I bought some lockbox keys. For a game with 0 subscription what so ever I’m incredibly pleased. I don’t have to worry about unlocking gear. Or levels. Or anything else. I can simply play the game. The entire game. That being said, I DO want to support AreaNet, I do want the developers to make money. Of course I’m going to spend a little here and there to show them that I appreciate their hard efforts, more than just the box cost of the game. So many other games I play are “free to play” with both subscriptions and stores and weird tiers of unlocking that it’s a pleasure to play an MMO that is so simple in its design. Buy a box. Play the game. The end.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!