Guild Wars 2

Kessex Hills and Tailoring #GW2 #GuildWars2

stargrace February 5, 2013 No Comments

My mesmer inched her way to level 23 last night, mostly due to some crafting and some exploration of Kessex Hills. I’ve been working on my story quest which is absolutely hilarious. I got sent to the place where these robots were being made that hypnotized a bunch of carnies, and then I had to defeat both the carnies and the robots.

Crafting has been slow. I’ve taken up tailoring on the mesmer and instead of the incredible painful process of collecting cloth for each tier I’ve been purchasing it from the market. Since I do already have a level 80 character I’ve had a bit of coin stashed away. Had, of course. I went broke last night reaching 193 in the skill. Thankfully there are loads of guides available, so I’ve been following one to make the best use of my materials.

I don’t really enjoy leveling up all over again, but I do think the mesmer is a better personal fit for me than the guardian. Not that there’s anything wrong with the guardian, but a caster suits my playstyle a bit more. Of course re-doing content is never fun, but I’m confident that in time I’ll have two (maybe more) level 80 characters and at least have a choice on what I want to play.

I do have all 5 character slots taken up, maybe I’ll try some of the other alts as well. It seems a lot of my friends have started playing the mesmer, and while there isn’t an enormous selection of character classes having a variety for dungeon runs is always a good idea!

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

We’re Joining the Circus #GW2

stargrace January 12, 2013 No Comments

Despite the fact that I spend most of my game time playing Wurm Online, I do still venture forth with other games, and lately that means my time has been spent in Guild Wars 2, playing my Mesmer. My guardian is great sitting at level 80 but the class seems a bit simple for my tastes. The mesmer is much more tender, and can easily die if I’m not paying close attention to the encounter.

So myself and my Charr partner in crime, Hampooj, set out to work on my personal story. My mesmer was level 16 and her personal story was level 4, I had left it far behind. Now I’m pretty much caught up, and almost level 20.

My latest adventures had me joining the circus. Yep, that’s right, I even had to be interviewed for it and while the performers all agreed that I had numerous talents, I couldn’t help but wonder if we were talking about the same person.

I had fun getting back into things and following the story line. Once I had caught up on my personal quest Hampooj and I went back to Queensdale where we’re about 75% through zone completion. I’m also working on tailoring and making armor which is incredibly slow and I never seem to have quite enough supplies. Since I’ve already got a max level jeweler and cook it’s just ‘normal’ for me to continue and try to get the rest of my crafters to 400 as well. I’m sure if I wasn’t constantly broke I’d have raised them a few more levels by now.

I’m not sure how many (if any) of my friends from Combat Wombat are still playing, but it’s nice to be in game again regularly. I still have dreams of one day owning my legendary, but it’s a good ways off.

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

Happiness, Sparkles, and Puppy Dog Tails #GW2 #GuildWars2

stargrace January 2, 2013 No Comments

Lion’s Arch, in all of its holiday glory.

I logged in today to explore some of the Winter events before they vanish for this year. I got a handful of neat items including a 15 slot backpack which went straight to use, and a few items for my alts. I didn’t want to feel rushed into doing the new dungeon or opening presents around the land, so I continued leveling my mesmer and naturally stumbled into these events as I went along.

One thing I discovered was that you can now add rare craft items to your collection slots in the bank that you couldn’t add before. This includes things like shards and spheres, as well as mystic coins and even corn candy from Halloween  I must have emptied out about 15-20 slots of space from my bank happily adding everything to collections.

I even managed to craft myself a pair of fluffy ‘giving’ shoes, that have an elf-shoe like graphic. Cute. Plus who can resist that toy bag that you wear on your back (that one I handed off to an alt as I’m wearing the Halloween book item still).

The holiday events should be winding down in pretty much everyone’s game of choice within the next week or two I imagine. I hope you all had a safe and happy holiday, and I want to thank everyone who participated in this years Gamers Secret Santa, I’ve seen a lot of pictures of gifts up on twitter and I think it was a fantastic way for people to remember that no matter what game we’re playing, we’ve still got things in common.

Halloween in Guild Wars 2 #GW2

stargrace October 28, 2012 2 Comments

I love in-game holiday events, so when friends in Combat Wombat started talking about the Guild Wars 2 Halloween events, I decided I should log in and peek around. Aside from the horrible mad clock tower (great design, but I just can’t complete it no matter how hard I try) I had a fun time, and right now I’m waiting in Lion’s Arch for the final event that is supposed to happen in 2 hours or so. I’m hoping the servers stay alive, and the lag isn’t too bad, and that the event goes off without a hitch. We’ll see how that turns out.

I really enjoyed the scavenger hunt, and the item I got from it was actually an upgrade. I spent a lot of time playing as a villager or lunatic in one of the events too, and that was great. I had less fun in the pvp rumble type zone, but it could be just because I wasn’t on a winning team. Losing over and over is no fun for anyone. The labyrinth was also great fun, and I spent a few hours  gathering trick-or-treat bags and candy corn for achievements. I’m only missing the clockwork tower one now, and any that have yet to release. I gave up on the tower after an hour of bouncing up and around charr and norn getting stuck on every little nook and cranny that I couldn’t even see.

I did try to obtain the mad king chests to get appearance gear, and I did spend 900 gems unlocking my saved up Lion’s chests to try to get items to trade in for those mad king chests. I didn’t get anything useful, and I didn’t get any of the halloween appearance gear even after doing combines in the mythical forge 10x. After that I gave up.

Anyone else have any luck? Let me know in comments! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

It’s Fixed, It’s Really Fixed! #GW2 #GuildWars2

stargrace October 7, 2012 2 Comments

Malchor’s Leap. The broken zone that caused the completionist in me to scream in pain every time I thought about Guild Wars 2. See, there was this single skillpoint that I just couldn’t get. Actually, very few people could. The NPC would move slightly each time you defeated it (it’s not really an NPC so much as it is a bow laying on the ground) and after a time or two it would vanish completely into the geometry of the zone. There it would stay, stuck, until the server restarted and it would rest in the proper place. I tried to log in right after a server restart in order to get this final skill point I needed for zone completion, but alas, it eluded me. For weeks.

I found it hard to move on to the Cursed Shore, a level 80 zone right next door and next on my list of ‘places to be’ for my story quests. I kept being lured back to Malchor’s Leap. Finally, this week the glitch was fixed, and I was able to log in and complete the zone. My little Asura is pictured above, cheering.

I understand that games have bugs and glitches and things go wrong but this one was a personal annoyance because it stood in the way of not only a large reward, but finishing something I really wanted to complete so I could (in my mind) move on. I’m glad I was finally able to.

More people are reaching 80 and I’m curious about how they’re spending their time. Completing the map? Playing alts? Crafting? PvP? There’s always lots to do, but which is your preference? I admit, since MOP came out (has it only been two weeks?) GW2 has become a less frequent visit for me – but I knew that it would since I’m comforted by the fact that I’m not ‘wasting’ money monthly if I don’t log in. Even if I were to never log in again, I’ve gotten more than my $60 worth out of the game so far (don’t worry, I’ll be logging in plenty, I’m a nomadic gamer remember).

I’m still not certain if I want to play an alt. I’ve been trying to harvest supplies for other crafters but I’ve found that if your character is above the level range of items you need to salvage (ie: leather and cloth in specific) it’s better to play an alt so they’re getting the actual items you need. Having looted gear scale to the players level is both a blessing and a curse, depending.

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