This week in Guild Wars 2

Written by  //  July 13, 2012  //  Community  //  1 Comment

After I flapped my virtual gums so much last week, Dutch asked that I restrain myself a bit in future … after all, you don’t read this column for my meanderings, you read it to find out what the wise, erudite, and well-informed have been saying, writing, and posting to blogs, websites, and YouTube in our community.

To make a short story an appropriate length, here’s what we sincerely believe is the most comprehensive round-up of community activity available on any Guild Wars 2 fan site:

Official Guild Wars 2 news

Recent GuildMag posts

  • Guild Wars 2: Original Game Soundtrack on Sale. “One of the things that make Guild Wars 2 epic is its beautifully composed soundtrack by Jeremy Soule, and as of today you can purchase a limited deluxe compilation set consisting of four disks of previously unreleased music for $29,99. Head over to the DirectSong store and sign up for your order there! And as an added bonus, all orders will be signed by Jeremy Soule himself as well so this is one of those must-have collectibles for your collection!”
  • Age of Deceit – Chapter 9 & 10. “The Canthan diplomats left the tent one by one. Only their leader, Ambassador Baigon, remained inside. The stocky, middle-aged Canthan had a black beard around his smiling mouth with a small, braided goatee hanging from his chin. Baigon reached out with his hand to grab Kanaxai’s who towered above him by two heads’ height. The two men then shook hands.”
  • Can Guild Wars 2 be an eSport? “The term “eSport” has been a very overused buzzword for a while. With various multiplayer games throwing the term around, it’s become something of a term most players will just roll their eyes at. What the hell is an eSport anyway? How do we define an eSport? It’s complicated, and everyone’s opinion differs on the details. I’m not worried too much about that right now though. All this blog post will consider is the following: Can Guild Wars 2 be an eSport?”
  • The Dragons of Cantha. “While Tyria has been inhabited by drakes, dinosaurs and hydras for as long as we have been recording their presence, until the rise of the elder dragons the land most associated with dragons was Cantha, to the point where that empire was also known by the moniker Empire of the Dragon. In fact, with the exception of Glint and her children, that land was at one time believed to be the only place where true living dragons could be found, although bone dragons have been associated with Orrian undead since the Cataclysm. (With the revelation of just what had been sleeping beneath Orr for all this time, however, one has to wonder if bone dragons such as the infamous Rotscale were ever truly alive, or whether they were constructs of Zhaitan all along.)”
  • Guild Wars 2 Beta Key Contest #2. “Great news! For the upcoming Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event we’ve been given 50 beta keys by ArenaNet and NCSoft to give away to our community. Last time we went the creative route, asking for you to complete a bar joke. This time around, we’ll be doing three smaller contests here in this post, within our next episode of Dynamically Spoken and on Twitter.”

Fan articles and blog posts

  • Flame Throwing — Something seems off. “I’ve double checked my math here at least three times. Spurred on by a comment about Firearms being vastly superior to Explosives for the Pistol, I set about to some mathing. At this stage of the game, the numbers point to Explosives for increased Pistol damage. I know that should be backwards, it’s called Firearms, right?”
  • Boons & Conditions — A Guide to Bleeding in Guild Wars 2. “Bleeding is a condition that is not well understood. It stacks intensity, but does that mean if I apply a 10 second bleed and a 5 second bleed that I get 2 stacks of bleed for 10 seconds? Do I get 2 for 5 seconds? Do I get 2 for 5 seconds and then 1 for 5 seconds? Halp! Bleeding is unique in that it stacks in intensity and tracks each application of bleed individually. This means that the number of bleeds you see on the boons and condition tracker is telling you how many applications are currently in effect and also how long before all of the bleeds have run their course. Does that make bleeding a viable option to doing damage in PvP? To the Math-Fu!”
  • Reddit — An Attack on Randomness in Guild Wars 2 (Warning – LONG). “Generally, in an argument centered around RNG, randomness is said by its supporters to introduce dynamism in games that would otherwise be solved; and its detractors say that randomness promotes luck over skill. This has been the central argument of the debate for a long time now.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Gold Guide — Playing the Guild Wars 2 economy means understanding supply and demand. “If you want to maintain a market presence for any one thing it is crucial that you understand it’s supply and demand. Ultimately your goal is to maximize your profits while maintaining enough stock to keep the demand there. That means not putting too much out there and flooding it, but also never putting too little so that people either stop trying to buy what you are selling, or even worse, go to someone else. The difficult part in all this is finding that luxurious middle ground. Making this even harder is the fact that the middle ground is always changing. The whole point of Guild Wars 2 Gold Guide is to teach you the finer points of the economics of Guild Wars 2. So as you can tell today we are going to break down supply and demand for you a bit so you can better understand it as it pertains to the game.”
  • Divinity’s Reach — Tin Foil Hat Edition: Asura and Sylvari. “Many sites have created “Tin Foil Hat” columns that provide some theory, guesses, and general speculation of the future of various games. I have always found them quite fun and interesting to read, so I have decided to create a series devoted to it. In this first edition at Divinity’s Reach, I wanted to begin to establish the discussion here if Asura and Sylvari will be playable in BWE 3.” [Raphia: This article was posted before the announcement that the Asura and Sylvari were going to be playable in BWE3]
  • Dragon Season — Guild Wars 2 does it different. “Following the relatively recent storm of information of every kind (videos, blog posts, articles, forum posts) which fell like a refreshing rain upon our news-thirsty heads, springing from the first two ‘open’ beta weekends of Guild Wars 2, one thing became apparent beyond any doubt and (pre-)assumption of disbelief: ArenaNet did not just make wild claims with their ‘design manifesto’ it’s expressed more than 2 years ago already. Their game, almost complete now, proves that they deliver the marvelous or even heretic things they’ve promised us.”
  • Distilled Willpower — 5 Early Tips for the Guild Wars 2 Gamer. “Here’s just some quick little tips which I’ve discovered over the past few beta weekends and stress tests. They aren’t ways to become a super-all-powerful Golemancer Necrodemon, but they will help you make a little more coin, experience a little more of the game, and find your way around easier.”
  • Nerdy Bookahs — GW2: Will it really lack endgame? “Let me toss in my opinion and thoughts as well. First, I should clarify what I mean when I say “endgame”, that is, which definition I am going to use here now. I will ignore the PvP part of “endgame” because the discussions usually do not revolve around the PvP part but they are instead concerned about the PvE part. ArenaNet also treats those two areas differently as structured PvP, for example, does not even let you play with a low level character and you immediately start with your character being max level and having access to everything (traits, gear,…). As I said, PvE is different. Let’s say “endgame” means “doing something differently than what you are doing while levelling up”. If that is the case, then I guess Guild Wars 2 really is lacking “endgame”.”
  • Divinity’s Reach — Longevity. “Longevity. It’s perhaps one of the strongest indicators of a “successful” MMO. In many past themepark MMO’s this has involved a rather repetitive, gear progression treadmill. In both PvP and PvE, with each new major raid/season, players were forced to farm for hours to stay competitive. To state the obvious, Guild Wars 2 does not have this treadmill, at least not in the same form. There is a plateau of power at the end-game. This means, that you will not be forced to farm to keep up with the newest content. However, you will be able to grind, craft, and work your way into gear that looks aesthetically different and generally more pleasing, if you want.”
  • Guild Wars Insider — Playing with the Elements: Elite Skills for Elite Elementalists. “If there’s one thing that Elementalists do really well, it’s cause mass destruction. Most of the time, our standard attunements are enough. On occasion (or rather, every 3 minutes) we like to do something special. We like to show our enemies that we respect them enough to give no hope of victory or even survival. It’s times like these that we use our Elite Skills.”
  • Boons & Conditions — The Guardians Gambit: sPvP Condition Removal Shout Guardian. “This week, we will be focusing on a very simple, but very strong, guardian shouting build. This build can be altered to be more effective in PvE, but we are going to be focusing on the sPvP usage.”
  • Kill Ten Rats — Within Reach. “With this Author Exchange, we’ve paired with Guild Wars 2 Hub to bring you an original editorial from outside of our regular authorship. The Author Exchange is intended to bridge the gap between existing Guild Wars 2 communities and websites to bring a new set of opinions, ideas and content to readerships that might not necessarily know one another. In this Author Exchange Lewis B from Guild Wars 2 Hub brings you an editorial on how he will miss the buzz and excitement of the Guild Wars 2 beta.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — Humbled Humanity. “As the first in a new feature we’re calling Author Exchange, we’ve paired with Kill Ten Rats to bring you an original editorial from outside of our regular authorship. Our Author Exchange program is intended to bridge the gap between existing Guild Wars 2 communities and journalists to bring a new set of opinions, ideas and content to readerships that might not necessarily know one another.”
  • Under the Pale Tree — The Pale Tree Climbing Expedition! “The Pale Tree is massive. It is described as “towering like a skyscraper over the landscape“, with the lower levels of the Tree being the city of the Grove. The pods that sylvari grow in and are born from are high enough from the ground that a fall from them can be fatal.”
  • Massively — Flameseeker Chronicles: Bigger on the inside. “I think that storytelling is where we see one of the most significant changes between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. It isn’t that the original story sucked, necessarily; it’s just that it was woefully single-dimensional and unchanging. Each Guild Wars campaign has slightly different starting quests for each profession, but you’re eventually caught up by the current, and everyone goes whooshing along to the culmination. Factions spiced things up a little by allowing you to choose whether you wanted to befriend the Kurzicks or Luxons first (although there wasn’t really any permanence to that choice, as you could still effectively follow both routes — and had to, eventually, if you wanted to unlock the associated Protector and Guardian titles). Nightfall got a little more daring by making you choose between companions and ultimately story paths. Even better, you had to finish the campaign before you could undo the illusion of permanence.”
  • Hunter’s Insight — Guild Wars 2 Lore Resources. “I could just cheat. There is one Guild Wars wiki article that succinctly summarizes pretty much all the lore aside from the actual Guild Wars storylines. Here it is. I suspect though that anyone interested in lore is interested in details. They are interested in making Tyria feel like a world. Making Tyria feel like it has history, secrets, cultures and peoples.”
  • GW2 WvW — WvW Basics. “Hi, Mayo here. I’m going to explain a lot of what I know about WvW. If you read this carefully you will be able to play WvW effectively and dominate your opponents. “
  • The Feral Engineer — Future Engineer Weapons. “So it’s been awhile since I’ve posted one of my wild ideas for Engineer. Before the release date was announced I decided to browse some forums and I ended up coming across some people talking about what weapons they would like to see added to current classes. The only issue I had reading these were very few of the posters went into detail they would just say “Give Ranger staves “as an example and not mention what skills they would gain. So below are a few weapons I feel fit the Engineer lose-wise and would not make us some flavor of the month overpowered profession.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Gold Guide — Guild Wars 2 gathering guide. “Gathering in Guild Wars 2 is going to be a primary way to make gold. This is pretty much a guarantee since crafting materials are a demand in every MMO to be released in the last ten years. So how does gathering work in Guild Wars 2? I am going to break down the large amount of information that is available for gathering. It will also be included as a basic information for the Guild Wars 2 Gold Guide when I am ready to release that.”
  • Divinity’s Reach — If you can’t guess what this title is, you don’t follow GW2 enough… “So, I may have seen this coming…no big deal….#egoboosted. And yes, read that again, I did just use a hashtag. It just has that much awesomeness attached to it. Okay, I promise I’ll stop now. Forgive me. I think I should just put a disclaimer above all posts, “Sorry for unending swag“, I mean…”Don’t read further if you can’t handle pompous, little prats”.”
  • GW2 WvW — When the Honeymoon is Over. “A couple of years ago I was fortunate enough to marry my best friend. We spent all of our time prior to the wedding planning things, registering for gifts, and planning the honeymoon. All of that preparation time completely absorbed everything that was going on in life, and was the single focus for months on end. It all went by in the blink of an eye, and was honestly some of the most fun I’ve had. When it was over, I was left with the return to “real life” as the honeymoon was over.”
  • Divinity’s Reach — Are Thieves in Trouble? “While most people are in agreement that the two defining characteristics of thieves is mobility and burst, there are definitely some complaints growing in the community, specifically about initiative, steal, and squishiness. I’ll start out by saying, I actually enjoy the initiative system. I believe it adds a sense of what the profession is about through a unique mechanic. We are now capable of repeating a skill more than once, and that can be extremely powerful, if used right. That being said, it is extremely hard to balance. Changing a skill by a single initiative can change something that was godly, to something that is almost never used.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Gold Guide — Bags are, and will always be, the most stable market in Guild Wars 2. “So what should you be selling in Guild Wars 2? That question is tough to answer without having the game itself to reference and point you in the correct direction, but there are a few items that we already know will sell. Certain items in the game will not only sell, but they have to sell. One of the most important must-sell items that is in Guild Wars 2 are bags. If you were asking the question “What should I sell to make easy money?” My answer for you would be bags.”
  • Divinity’s Reach — Secondary Features. “So, sometimes for the sake of a launch date (and the sanity of the playerbase), some features must be shelved temporarily. After all, many secondary features are not essential to the game, and can be easily patched in post-launch. If you haven’t been able to tell, I often like to play “game designer”. I’m about to present a hypothetical situation, in which out of several options, you (as the head of ArenaNet) must choose which to release post-launch, and which you would place greater weight and finalize before launch. You may only choose one feature. Which would you choose?”
  • The Feral Engineer — Gun Wars, Part Deux. “I recently got into a discussion on my last post regarding. The comments of “individual play styles” and “bringing other skills to compensate for the weaknesses of the weapons” got me thinking. Yes, in my last post I stated that in PvP, Rifles are superior than Pistols but Pistols are superior in PvE. And my last post bypassed any other skills because it was a 1v1 comparison of the two without outside forces. Generally speaking, outside forces skew things a bit because you generally have to take things to make up for the weaknesses of the weapons.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Journal — Guild Wars 2 Live Chat with Eric Flannum and Colin Johanson. “Endgame Content in Guild Wars 2“
  • Massively — ArenaNet devs talk legendary weapons, endgame, and more. “Have you always wanted to wield a unicorn bow and shoot trails of rainbows? (We know you have; don’t lie to us.) If you have, ArenaNet developers Eric Flannum and Colin Johanson have confirmed today that Guild Wars 2 is the game for you.”
  • ninjalooter.de — Guild Wars 2 Character Tool. [Raphia: Another character planning tool with both English and German interfaces.]
  • Divinity’s Reach — Twitch TV Review. “What a packed twenty minutes of interesting new information. In case you missed it, Eric Flannum and the always-smiling Colin Johanson were on Twitch several hours ago talking about the “end-game.” This is pretty substantial, because up to now, they haven’t really addressed this concern in any major way.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Journal — Guild Wars 2 Beta Key Giveaway BWE3. “ArenaNet and NCsoft have given us another 50 Guild Wars 2 beta keys for Beta Weekend #3 – if you have not pre-purchased the game yet, here is your chance to play it between July 20th-22nd (valid for this event only).”
  • GW2 WvW — The Asura Problem. “This week, for The Structure, we’re going to venture off the beaten path a little bit. It haven’t seen this talked about for awhile, but it’s probably going to resurface and be debated again since the asura are in BWE3. “It” is the “asura problem”. This is going to be a good deal shorter than most articles as personal stuff has restricted some of my time lately, but it’ll still be worth reading.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Gold Guide — Guild Wars 2 overflow servers explained and why they are great for those wanting to make gold. “If you are a fanatic of Guild Wars 2 you’ve probably heard by now about their overflow server system. Basically what it does is put on you on a different “overflow server” if your normal server is currently full. This is great for everyone, but for people who are there to make gold this is fantastic. What this does is eliminate the need to worry about a server when you do decide to play. Let me elaborate a bit. One of the worst things for a gold maker is to log in to a game and have to sit in a queue waiting to get into the game. This is completely dead time that could have been used for farming, selling or crafting. Dead time is completely eliminated with the implementation of the overflow servers.”
  • Gamersbook — Guild Wars 2 Beta Giveaway. “Once again, we have partnered up with the awesome people from ArenaNet and NCSoft. This time we are giving away 100 Guild Wars 2 Beta Keys for Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event 3 which is scheduled to start on July 20, 2012 and will last till July 22, 2012.”
  • Dragon Season — Beta Key Giveaway Contest. “We are happy to announce that ArenaNet and NCsoft have entrusted us with 50 Beta Keys for the upcoming Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event. The event will take place during the weekend of 7/20/2012 to 7/22/2012 and as you’re already aware of, this will be the first time that we get to play as an Asura or Sylvari.”
  • TalkTyria.net — Final Beta Event Key Giveaway. “Speaking of memories; we’ve got a deal for you. ANet has graciously granted us some keys for this last weekend event. To win a key, we ask that fans submit a favorite screenshot from Guild Wars 1 as a way to pay homage to game that spawned this wonderful franchise! You’ve got til Sunday Night, 8pm eastern (DST) time to get your submissions in. We’ll send keys out during the day Monday.”
  • GWOnline.net — Win a Guild Wars 2 BWE3 Beta Key. “If you are looking for a Beta key for Guild Wars 2 BWE3 then you could be in luck. We have keys to give away and we’re making it very simple to be in with a chance to win one. All you need to do is fire a comment into this forum thread and winners will then be randomly selected and sent their keys via PM. It’s that simple!”
  • GW2 WvW — “The Guild Wars 2 Profession Workshop”. “We have some exciting news and a grand project we’ll be undertaking in the coming weeks and months. Thanks to Temperhoof and his grandiose plan, and some colloboration from the community, we hope to be able to bring this into fruition.”
  • Under the Pale Tree — No beta key? No problem! “As the lovely folks over at ArenaNet are awesome, they’ve been giving various fansites beta keys for the final BWE that’s happening July 20-22. And we’ve got 25 of them to give away here at Under the Pale Tree!”
  • Boons & Conditions — Beta Weekend Giveaway 6. “We still have beta keys for the last weekend event happening on July 20-22. This contest (#6) will stay open until Sunday at noon PDF (-7 GMT).”
  • Chronicles of Tyria — Want a BWE3 beta code? We have 25 of them! – CONTEST. “Tyrians! Chronicles of Tyria has the privilege of distributing 25 Beta Codes for Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event 3! These codes are not for any stress tests that may happen. Only for the BWE3, which will happen next week, from July 20 to July 22nd.”
  • Distilled Willpower — The Movement of Gems. “A couple of days ago a few of us were having a chat about the Gem Store system. I hadn’t quite grasped (and I’m still not sure I do 100%) how it will all work, but thanks to a little twitteducation I learned that whenever you’re buying your gems from the Black Lion Trading Company (hereby referred to as “The House”) you’re buying gems which a player has previously sold to The House at some point. This isn’t a closed system, as players have the ability to buy gems from ArenaNet for real-world money, and gems are then destroyed when they are traded for items in the gem store (though that is up for debate).”

Videos and podcasts

Fanfic

  • Chronicles of Tyria — Chapter 2: Initiation. “I quickly realized that begging didn’t help. It just gave Bastel pleasure, so I stopped. An unfamiliar anger started to burn within me. It felt like it was eating at my insides, threatening to consume me. At first, I hated it. Then I embraced it. I carried me through each day, as the fantasy of ripping Bastel limb from limb grew brighter.”
  • Chronicles of Tyria — Alucardalina Claire. “My name is Alucardalina Claire, a human elementalist specializing in fire. I was originally born in Ascalon…. I think, but these years I come from a place called Divinity’s Reach- A beautiful human town. There, I am treated as a noble. I have dreams of an Ascalon where Prince Rurik still lived, a place where I grew up. I can no longer tell these dreams from reality. If I truly did live in a land the gods did not abandon, I have lived for several years. My only guess is that the gods kept me alive for a reason, and I can’t let them down.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — Diary Of – Entry 11: We Surface. “Slowly watching the cage doors open, the adventurer who slipped over the edge has moved out of sight. I can hear him shouting for help as the lumbering giant Drakes move for him, but I daren’t move closer to the edge for fear of falling.”
  • Chronicles of Tyria — Queensdale’s Bandit and Centaur Problem. “Tyria was a changed land. I remembered when Ascalon was home to the humans and when striders roamed the flower topped hills. Dwarves still dwelled in the underground and shiverpeaks and I was still a young teen. That’s about all I remember though, and not even much of it. Upon the awakening of the elder dragons I had lost most of my memory. I woke up in the home of a kind family in Divinity Reach’s Salma district, no recollection of anything more than the beautiful Ascalon I had grown up in. My body remained youthful and my facade was unchanged. It was as if the past was just a pleasant dream I couldn’t let go of. My new family had me believing it was one as well and told me not to mention these things to to the townsfolk, lest they think my mind had left. Amnesia is a terrible affliction.”

Community Events

No community events were submitted this week.

This section is intended to help you to publicize your guild or alliance event, and as long as your event is open to the whole Guild Wars/Guild Wars 2 community, we’ll list it here. Send us the details at community@guildmag.com and we’ll get it out to the fan community (given that we only do a weekly wrap-up, try to send the information at least a week in advance).