Playing GW2 together well... some thoughts...

So, Yes I've been thinking a fair bit about GW2, looking into a few bits and pieces, and have come up with an idea that i think will make the sweetest plan for playing together.

Just a few pieces of knowledge to throw out there to help piece it all together.

1 - Everyone gets their own personal story. This is completed by the individual and is varied by race, profession, character creation choices and other choices in game (some that branch far from each other). You can however, have others come help you on your personal story.

2 - no matter what race you are you can travel to the four other capitals after completing the tutorial.

The idea I have is that we each pick a character that we will use only for use with the guild. This may be any race or class, but it may be an idea to coordinate this, so we dont have 3 rangers or something. If these are all different races and classes it would add to an interesting experience.

The other advantage of taking this approach would be that we can each take turns to do some of our story. If I'm away one week, you guys progress and help me out a bit more the following week. If Mick needs to crash out, but others are keen to keep playing, we can - just focus on someone else's story.

If we wanted to just play when the 4 of us are on, then we could always crack out other characters when we only have 2 or 3 and do whatever...

anyways... just some ideas...

the minuses

2 things about GW2 that i'm not entirely enthralled about... they have their pluses, but i'm not so sure i love em

1 - Farewell to Talyorca and the Moral Boost

Because everything in GW2 contains both text and audio there will no longer be the beautiful moments where we laugh at mick for mispronouncing something. Just to hear some audio this week than talked about Ebonhawk (a town), i would have pronounced it differently... This isnt the big one, but its worth mentioning.

2 - Hey! Check out that Ele... I mean Necro... I mean Mesmer...

In GW2 there are only 3 categories of armor - scholar, adventurer and soldier. So a Warrior and a Guardian can look identical (maybe different facial/body features) in what they wear. I really liked being able to see someone coming and know straight up what class it was. Especially with a persistent world i want to be able to know straight away who im fighting with. I guess i'll work it out quickly by the gun, or the shadow step or the minions... but still...

Well there you have it.

I think they are going for flexibility with the armor, and really the audio thing is quite amazing... but i thought i'd mention em...

Putting the RP back in MMORPG

Whilst it's a little long, please stick with me and read this, as there's an important question at the end.

One of the exciting things about guild wars 2 is the renewed focus on the role playing aspect within the game. Whilst, compared to many other games like WoW, GW1 wasnt too bad in this area, GW2 is going to really focus on it.

It all starts from the beginning when we're asked a number of questions. If you dont care, you can just make it random and move on, but if you do you can shape your story the way you like. For a human you are first asked about social class. You can choose to be noble, a commoner or a street rat. Then we will be asked about our biggest regret - the options being a dead sister, growing up never knowing your parents or never joining the circus. There may be other options or questions added down the line. You are also asked some questions they are calling "racial sympathy questions", which show whether you like, hate or are indifferent about other races such as hyleks, grawl etc.

The next bit is really to do with personality. you get to divide 100% of your personality between charm, dignity and ferocity. This apparently even changes appearance slightly. As the game goes on, these points change depending on the decisions you make. They are really pushing the story - you save a village and they'll remember you, people will show up in your home base (like HoM but your home) and thank you, or give you stuff??? who knows where they'll take it...

So... one thing I was wondering about is how much you guys care about this stuff. I was looking at starting another blog to be about the story of my character(s). So, I would write as if it's a journal of their journey through gw2. Before I pick a name for the blog, I wanted to know if any of you were interested in doing this too - then we could use the same site. I'll probably just do it with one character.

Please dont put shit on me if you dont like the idea, or slam me about thinking about gw2 too much. I'm over it. Just a simple, no thanks will suffice. Thanks

the hero panel in GW2

just checking out this page in GW2wiki

looks cool...

1st tab is pretty standard - what the i key does and what the k key does (in parts).

2nd is all your traits -its interesting - they are saying that its all missions and events in GW2, but traits will be achieved through a list of things you need to achieve - closest to quests by the sounds of things.

3rd is your story. they've tried introducing this a little in EotN with the books. They really want to make GW2 much more of an RPG if you want it to be... I know Ziggy will be keen on this.

the 4th tab - achievements - looks like it will contain everything about titles etc. I particularly like the example of the slayer title - which records the various types of creatures you slay. By the looks of things, if you are friends with someone, they will have access to all this info too.

well... i imagine no one will read this, but whatever...

enjoy

character names for GW2

I have started an idea list for names... I just want cool names, none of this throw together stuff...

You know my bowie related one...

Was thinking something like "Flehmm Forestcough" for a Charr (as it kinda like some of the charr names).

My idea for a norn name is based around their scandanavian-ness... And that would be to come up with a name entirely from names of Ikea furniture!!

other than that... I was thinking about plants that i love and sylvaria, and as for asura... not sure... they all have names like Blimm and Rojj... Actually I think i just came up with an idea based on the word "Klink" hmmm....

materials and crafting

they are worth a bomb, so i imagine what i'm saying here is a little null and void... but there's a few things i'm looking for over the coming months, that i imagine you guys will all be after too.

amber chunks

jadeite shards

sapphires

rubys

globs of ectoplasm (yeah right)

obsidian shards

diamonds

onyx gemstones

i'm trying to farm some of these bad boys, but it aint easy. these are all the stuff needed for some of the elite armor and destroyer weapons (well the hard stuff anyways). Having just a few of these bad boys could save you a fair bit of coin in the scheme of things.

One more note of armor - if you are aiming for elite armor you dont need to buy all 5 pieces to be able to display it - you only need the bottom 4 (shoes, pants, body, gloves), not the headgear. It's not huge, but will save you a few materials and possibly 15 plat (again depends on the armor). I imagine particularly for you warrior types the helmets are cool as, so it might be worth doing it just so you look awesome.

Last thing to note, that is somewhat related is some info that had been popping up in a few articles. Each character in guild wars 2 will also pick a crafting ability. So, instead of going to weapons makers (for example) you will possibly be able to do it yourself. I reckon a blog article will come out in the coming months about this. I think it would be the sort of thing that we should talk about before choosing so we can have a few bases covered. I have no idea how it will work, but it might be good to be able to spread the love.

some thoughts on... you guessed it... gw2

So, I was talking to Mick the other day, and it looks like I was just making stuff up, or something.

There are 5 starter cities - one for each race. You only have access to your own city at first. Once you get to somewhere around level 30, all races meet at another city. "Lion's Arch" - it better not be a pain in the butt this time!! From there you travel north and into the lost city of Orr, and into the end game.

Once you get to Lion's Arch, you can travel through the other lands into the home cities of other races.

I guess the main thing this highlights is that if we want to play together, we will need to all be the same race. I'm not sure yet what I want to be, but I'm happy to have two characters going at once. I was thinking it might be cool to have us all have one type (say human) and then all have different types that we can join together later, so I might be asura, copland - charr, caine - norn and mick - rollerbeetle. roflcopter.

the new's / blog has been silent since releasing the hall of monuments info. i was hoping that there would have been another profession announced by now. Oh well, you'll hear from me when it happens. I'm guessing tomorrow, but who knows.

The good thing about hall of monuments rewards is that you can add them after gw2 comes out. So... in particular to mini pets... once you get more... you will still be rewarded for them.

Last thing...

Release date? I'm thinking just before the big school holidays in the states. Mind you... they seem to have put the breaks on... 7 weeks between prof announcements - if that continues... then... they wont have announced them all til April!! gee!! Then who knows...

anyways... that's a random rant...

I'm on a dye-it

this article is worth reading for several reasons

1 - it has a good sense of humour

2 - it's quite technical and really interesting

3 - it shows some of the awesome, flexible colour combinations that will be available in GW2

4 - the hair on that warrior is wicked!

5 - the last shot of the 5 girls in undyed armour... have a look at the last one!!! i'm pretty sure that's a mesmer!! wooo!

the other heavy armour class

name this class?

thoughts?

kotaku review of demo

this write up of the demo is very cool. Best one I've looked at. worth a read

I love this bit

I decided to dedicate the rest of my time to simpler pursuits. Grabbing a bag of feed, I fed a nearby cow, which caused someone to say, "The cow thanks you. I thank you. Beef-eaters everywhere thank you." Cute!

I pick up a watering can and water crops, causing them to spring to life. Watering the cows does nothing. Watering fellow players doesn't do anything either, but I spend a good five minutes doing it anyway.

I spent my last few minutes with the game wandering over to a city wall infested with harpies. There was a mission there to defeat them, but I just wanted to explore this beautiful new world, reach great heights, and then jump off.

I survived the fall, but have great hopes for magnificent falling deaths in the future.

leveling up

If you’re a casual gamer who plays for a few hours here and there, why should you feel like it’s going to take you a decade to finish your character?

this article explains how the leveling system will work in GW2. Basically, once you hit a certain level it doesn't keep getting longer and longer til you level up, but stays around the same. i like it.

wiki - you've done it again

guild wars 2 wiki is by far the most concise and well presented list of current known info about GW2

reading the articles on Warrior and Ranger might be on interest to you guys. Includes a lot of info discovered by people trialling the demo.

warrior demo at gameson

ranger demo at gamescon

Necromancer!!

so, gw2 anounced the 4th class today - necromancers!

They are definitely a little different that the necros of old. I think some of us will find this very attractive.

For starters, they have a thing called life force, and once it reaches a certain point it gives you a very tasty advantage. When you die, you dont die!! You activate death shroud and become a ghoul that can keep attacking. When you run out of life force, you die, but if you get a kill whilst in this death shroud state - you re-enter your body... BAM!

OK, so onto some clips. This first one highlights a new condition that only necros can inflict. It's called "fear". Fear causes the bad guy to run directly away from the nerco for a short period of time. In this clip below we see the necro making some sort of well, and then using doom (the fear inflicting skill, he makes the bad guy run straight back into the well! Imagine using this with mark of pain, or combining with other classes - running into a wall of fire, a barrage or a meteor shower!!

Minions, i think will be a bit different kettle of fish. Each type of minions activates an extra skill, that when you use it, kills the minion(s) but does something awesome. So, by the looks of things - bone minions and putrid explosion are linked. So basically they attack for a while and then explode! Bombs on legs, yeah baby! Here's that clip.

Although there are a couple more clips on the site, the coolest in my opinion is grasping death. Where skeleton hands come up from the earth and grab at the bad guys! Just check this clip its funky!

Thinking, one of use might join the dark side with this sweet selection of skills and options. Thoughts???

yeah i'm a nerd

www.gw2fans.com

forums etc... come on and we'll speculate about the upcoming classes together

I'm predicting

necro, mesmer, some sort of engineer, and some sort of monk/warrior

GW2 Dye system...

so, this looks fantastic... look at ALL the options!!

the first videos

a compilation from gw2 fans.

and the fourth class is...

necromancer

this strange music clip shows a necro in the demo (filmed yesterday)

they only had 4 classes to choose from

first 5 skills

so, rereading some stuff...

you know how i said the first 5 skills are determined by weapons that are being held... well eles have some flexibility on that one. they can choose one of the 4 atunements (fire, earth, water, air, dur)... and that will change their skill set! awesome flexibility.

It also looks like a warrior (or anyone really) could change weapons between fights (or even during if they have the right traits), and change their skills too! nice to see some flex!

an example of this for rangers can be seen in the clip below for spread shot - she first holds a sword and torch, and then runs back and uses a bow.