Guild Wars 2

The Wombats do Fractals

stargrace December 2, 2017 No Comments

I had never done a fractal in Guild Wars 2 before because it’s really hard to join up with people when I never know what my schedule will be like. Thankfully @Pixel_One_ has loads of experience with all things GW2, and she organized a night for the Combat Wombats to get together. There was only the three of us (myself, @pixel_one_ and @scopique) because @arislyn met up with some account difficulties, but that didn’t stop us!

Fractals are like mini instances. Shorter than your average one, and they scale in difficulty. We started off at level 1. The first zone involved some tribal folk being held captive by this bone guy, and we had to smush his adds while tossing boulders at him to break him out of the invulnerable shell he had. Then we had to run through the zone like Indiana Jones, dodging flaming boulders. The final fight had another flame themed boss – and most people left without looting the chest – whewps!

We decided to do one more, this one involving a crazy Asura and their zone of endless jumping. We defeated harpy after harpy while balancing delicately through the skies, or rather falling to our deaths once or twice. We had some electric beams to run and try not to get hit by instead of the flaming boulders, and our boss fight seemed pretty simple in comparison to the first fractal, we had to fight four robots that came to life one at a time, then fight them all together while trying to dodge electricity from their boss.

Another chest of fun and it was a great end to the evening. I enjoyed myself quite a bit, fractals don’t take a huge amount of time, and the lower level ones at least are not exceptionally painful, even though there were only three of us. Hopefully this becomes a weekly event for the Combat Wombats, and if you’d like to get in on it you just have to let one of us know. It was nice returning to GW2 for a bit. I had wandered off not too long after Path of Fire released through no fault of the game, my attention span just doesn’t last that long.

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

Crafting, and Legendaries..

stargrace September 28, 2017 2 Comments

There has been some discussion lately on twitter regarding legendaries and ascended bits and crafting – and it inspired me to maybe go after my own. I don’t own any of the legendaries, and the only ascended stuff I even know about is the vendor sold stuff at the laurel merchant along with the PVP merchant. I didn’t know there was crafted stuff (side note, the website gw2efficiency.com is amazing).

It’s inspiring to watch other people go after these huge items – but when I look at what’s involved, it’s also completely daunting. Still.. I could use a big in-game project, no?

Have you gone after any legendaries or ascended items before? Was it as daunting a task as it sounds? Let me know in comments, and as always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Choya are Adorable

stargrace September 24, 2017 No Comments

Choya are the CUTEST things I have ever seen.

Yesterday I mentioned that I was having some stability issues that caused me to lose a bunch of progress (an entire instance worth) and it put me in enough of a mood that I decided to just log out for a little bit. My time is pretty limited so I can only play when the little guy is down for a nap twice a day (and even then he tends to wake up after an hour) so if I can’t get something completed within that time I usually have to abandon it. I had just gotten the final boss down to the 10% mark when I was dropped back to Crystal Oasis. I do plan on going back there today some time, but it wasn’t a nice experience.

A few of my friends have been working towards their bunny mount – it looks so awesome! I still need one more point in my raptor before I can go for that one, but I know I’ll get there eventually. On one hand having so little time to play is a great way to make sure the content stretches out a little bit, but on the other hand I want to experience all the things! The story has really captivated me this time around, probably because I’m actually paying attention and it doesn’t hurt that the voice overs are fantastic.

Honestly, I think ArenaNet has done an amazing job (from what I have experienced so far) and should be proud of themselves. Sure, there have been some issues, but they’ve been working all weekend at making game play smooth for everyone, and they’ve been addressing the issues as they crop up. I remember from my days at Carbine / NCSOFT just how stressful a game release is and just how much work goes into something like that. Experiencing it first hand takes away a lot of the bitterness I might otherwise feel at having issues crop up. They happen, and I know the company is on it. How long it takes to solve is not something anyone can control.

I haven’t had time to play anything else, though I am eager to get back to Cook, Serve, Delicious – as well as Divinity Original Sin 2. Isn’t it a great time to be a gamer? So many fantastic releases this year.

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

I’ve been Mounted! (Er, I’ve got my Mount?)

stargrace September 23, 2017 No Comments

The release of PoF went pretty smooth – initially. I love their method of releasing an expansion, which doesn’t include any downtime other than logging out so you can patch a new build. I think this is a feature that a lot of gamers forget about, especially since some other AAA titles still have 8+ hours of downtime on expansion days. One more win for ArenaNet.

I logged in with my Asura Guardian and began the story – as you can see by the screenshot above she received her first mount, an awesome raptor. Don’t forget you can dye your mount so even though it may look like everyone else there’s at least a tiny bit of individuality. I wonder how long before we start seeing skins for them in the gem store.

I don’t want to give the story away, so I’ll keep things fairly brief and generic.

This expansion is absolutely beautiful. I mean Guild Wars 2 always looks pretty fantastic to me, but this one is over the top. Maybe it’s because after looking at nothing but plants for a few months I’m just happy to be back in civilization, but the setting is just amazing. The voice acting has been top notch, and I’m fully invested in my story.

Now, that doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It’s not. Today (Saturday) there seem to be quite a few instances of people dropping during important instances fights (I was doing The Sacrificed and dropped during the boss fight, it spit me out into Crystal Oasis and now I have to do the entire story again) and a lot of other technical issues that people are having, including map completion not offering rewards. So no, things are not perfect – but it’s OK, no one is expecting perfection. I know players just want to get in game, and when things prevent them from doing that, or cause lost progress, well, the not so nice side comes out.

Anyway. I’m having a blast. I don’t get a lot of time to play because I’m limited to times my son is asleep, but I’ve done some progression and I’m content to take my time. If you’ve been looking to get back into the world, now is a great time.

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

Just One More Sleep!

stargrace September 21, 2017 No Comments

Just one more sleep and we’ll finally be able to play GW2’s latest expansion – and hopefully unlock some mounts. One thing I’m really excited about is map completion – with mounts. Not just in the new zones, but in all of the old zones that I haven’t finished yet. I do have 65% map completion, but this should help me out a bit by making it go faster and being a little more fun. Of course it doesn’t help me complete heart missions any faster, but that’s alright.

Pictured above, my adorable asura guardian with her awesome backpack. Isn’t she completely threatening and cute all at once? I think so.

I completed dailies today but didn’t get a chance to do much more than that before I had to get back to real life things. Still, at least it was a bit of progress. I also spent almost all of the gold I had left buying recipes that I didn’t own. For some reason the completionist in me wants to own ALL THE THINGS. I also started on living story 2 – yes, I’m that far behind.

I completed my main story and living story one was auto completed (although I was playing for most of that) and I haven’t actually done any content since then. When HoT released I flip flopped between both of my accounts and really got no progress done on either of them, and then the difficulty level of HoT just left me with little reason to log in any more.

Nothing has changed in that regard, Auric Basin is still just smashing me to the ground, but in the meantime there’s still things I can work on, and that’s fine for now. We’ll see how PoF goes tomorrow. I’m wishing ArenaNet a nice smooth launch – and I’m looking forward to the hype, and seeing all the excited players in game.

With my left over gems (after buying season 2 unlocks) I purchased the storage increase item that lets you add 250 to your stacks (of 250 by default). I hoard all the things, and it’s REALLY nice to have a bit more wiggle room. What I’ll actually use these supplies for (or IF I’ll actually use these supplies) I have no idea, but I like knowing they’re there.

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