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This week in Guild Wars 2

Posted by on February 22, 2013 in | | Leave a response

I had some thoughts about the new Guild Missions we’ll be getting in the February content update, but I think this post at Under the Pale Tree says much of what I was thinking … and rather more coherently than I’d managed.

Official Guild Wars 2 news

  • GuildWars2.com — Guild Wars 2 Community Meet and Greet in Seattle on March 1. “We’re having a meet and greet for Guild Wars 2 fans at the Tap House Grill in downtown Seattle, WA on Friday, March 1. If you’re in town for Emerald City Comicon or if you’re local to the Seattle area, stop on by — we’d love to see you there!”
  • On the official Guild Wars 2 forums, Stephane Lo Presti posted on the topic Achievements Bugged? [Merged]: “Our teams investigated the bug that occurred after Wednesday’s maintenance and is causing some Achievements to display incorrect numbers. We will be deploying a fix for this bug in the build for Flame and Frost: The Gathering Storm, coming at the end of this month. Thanks a lot for your patience!” [Raphia: H/T to Tilion for the link.]
  • GW2 Guru — Guild Wars 2: The Past, Present and Future. “Arenanet’s Chris Whiteside appeared on IGN‘s up at noon webshow to discuss Guild Wars 2, the launch, the current state of it, and the goals for the future.”
  • On the official Guild Wars 2 forums, Colin Johanson posted on the topic Update on Loot/Drops Investigation: “After reading reports in the loot issues thread, we spent more time investigating our rewards system. As I mentioned a few weeks ago, we verified that all loot tables are indeed working correctly in the game. Since then, we continued receiving reports that there seemed to be an issue, so we extended our search to all systems that created opportunities for you to get items from loot tables. Here we found an issue that we were able to verify was consistent across everyone who reported problems: The rules by which you qualify for credit for an event or for experience when killing a mob are different rules than those used to help determine if you qualify for loot. Some of these were set up to be unintentionally restrictive, and as such you could kill a creature with a lot of health (this was most noticeable on champions) and not qualify for loot, despite qualifying for all other credit.”
  • Twitter — @GuildWars2: “Gloopy the quaggan is sad (foo!), but wait… there’s hope! ow.ly/hQFAv ~RB2″
  • Dragon Season — Lunch with Colin Johanson. “What follows is a transcript of an interview that our UK members Sam (@tasha_darke), Andy (@Andypanda169) and Alistair (@Aeladriel) got from Guild Wars 2 designer Colin Johanson. It took place in a restaurant in London where ArenaNet kindly invited representatives from a few fan sites, including Dragon Season, to have lunch with the developer. We’d like to thank ArenaNet for the invitation and, of course, Colin Johanson for answering all the questions patiently, providing us with new bits of information for you to sink your teeth into. The interview was recorded but, due to high levels of background noise, not everything could be fully transcribed, so we had to rephrase some things – mostly the questions asked, not Colin’s responses.”
  • Dragon Season — Lunch with Colin Johanson (Part II). “Due to the interview turning out to be rather long. We decided to split the whole thing into two parts.”
  • YouTube — arenanetofficial: Guild Wars 2 – Guild Missions “Guild missions are a new, unlockable, gameplay type that your guild can earn through the guild tech tree.”
  • GuildWars2.com — Leah Rivera on New Guild Missions. “Do you like games? How about friends? What about games with friends? If you said yes to any of those, pull up a chair, because I think you’ll like what I have to tell you. I’m Leah Rivera, your friendly representative of the Guild Content team. My team and I have been working on a system to better support an important part of Guild Wars 2: guilds! So sit back and take a gander at what we have in store for you in February.”
  • Twitter — @GuildWars2. “Bag Slots and Bank Tabs are 20% off in the Gem Store through February 26! ~RB2″
  • YouTube — arenanetofficial: Arena Shake.
  • Nerdy Bookahs — Tweets from the Hamburg Community Lunch with Colin. “A few minutes ago, the community lunch with Colin that took place in Hamburg, ended. I’m pretty sure we’ll get more information from the interviews soon on the various fansites that were invited. But Ramon Domke already tweeted a few things. Those tweets are all in German, so I’m certain that there are people out there looking at the letters wondering if they’re missing out. But don’t worry, here is the English translation (with the German original next to it). All original tweets can be found on the official German Guild Wars 2 twitter account.”
  • GW2 Guru — Q&A with Colin Johanson, Part I. “As you all know, we had a chance to sit down with Colin this week. It just so happened that it took place in London, so our very own shanaeri rynale got to attend along with other community members from other fansites. First, we want to thank you for all the questions you guys submitted across all of the fansites. Because of you, we had a vast assortment of questions to ask Colin. Secondly, we’d like to thank ArenaNet and Colin for the invitation and the opportunity to make this all happen!”
  • On the official Guild Wars 2 forums, Bobby Stein posted on the topic I hate personal stories. Did I fail the game?: “Narrative Designer Scott McGough and I talked about this very topic some time ago. In short, Trahearne was intended to fill a very specific role that, in terms of both gameplay and story, the PC could not fill—an order-neutral character with extensive knowledge about Orr and the magic of undeath who could coordinate a global war effort and make the necessary plans, thus leaving the actual gameplay up to the player. Further, Trahearne’s character design was intentional in that he would be a reluctant hero who, through interacting with the player, evolved into someone who could step up to lead the Pact. This didn’t resonate well with some players for a variety of reasons. We’re comparing external feedback with our own, since we have plans for Trahearne and other existing characters in future live updates and expansion content. We won’t spoil what we’re discussing, other than to say we’re looking at many different options for his current implementation and beyond.” [Raphia: Hat tip to Tilion for the link.]

Recent GuildMag posts

  • Dynamically Spoken — Episode 9: The Storm Gathers. “On this episode of Dynamically Spoken, we delve deeper into the upcoming patch The Gathering Storm, with new information from the last seven days.”
  • Harbingers of Chaos, part 1. “The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a “Harbinger” as one that presages or foreshadows what is to come, and “Chaos” as a state of utter confusion. When a mesmer enters a fight we are truly “Harbingers of Chaos”, for when we appear disruption and chaos will soon follow, leaving our foes in a state of utter confusion. Good mesmers thrive on chaos. We create it. We control it. Chaos is our sword and our shield. Chaos is our shroud of mists allowing us a safe place from which to freely engage the enemy. Chaos confounds our foes and gives us control — and control is really the very essence of playing a mesmer in Guild Wars 2. “Control Freaks”, this is definitely the profession for you!”
  • Community Lunch with Colin Johanson. “On Wednesday I had the privilege of attending a community lunch with Guild Wars 2 game designer and sword-swinger extraordinaire Colin Johanson. At a secret location in London, we gathered around a table – representatives from all corners of the community – and awaited the arrival of the big man with the big smile. We’d been corralled by Aidan Taylor: Community Manager at NCSoft, and he plied us with drinks whilst we swapped WvW war stories and waited eagerly. Once Colin arrived (after having tactically placed myself directly opposite him at the table) we provided a pint of lager (he declined the traditional warm beer) and a fish finger sandwich (also a British delicacy), and then we all took a communal deep breath before the onslaught of questions began. What follows is a summary of what we managed to squeeze out of him:”
  • Our own Valiant is interviewed in the latest Chronicles of Tyria podcast.

Fan articles and blog posts

  • Relics of Orr — Armchair Developer: Personalizing the Home Instance. “MMOs are an odd beast in the gaming industry. More than any other game they are never truly finished and the players have far more agency when it comes to offering up ideas for changes to the core game. Inspired by this intriguing article at Gamasutra I decided to start a new section for Relics of Orr called “Armchair Developer”. Each post will be a design concept for new or improved features and content based on ArenaNet’s manifesto and focus on open world content. We will also accept guest submissions for this series.”
  • Golden Griffon Trading — But I don’t have much time.. (Part One). “To some playing the market can be seen as too time consuming at first glance. Not everyone can play every day so they’re reluctant to spend the bulk of their play time sat at the Trading Post. Your investments don’t need to be babysat however and there are a few approaches to trading that require very little time. Over the coming weeks I’ll be doing blog entries on a few of these approaches.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — Legendary Weapons: Should They Be Tradeable? “In the latest installment of the Last Whiskey Bar, Innuendo and I go toe to toe on whether legendary weapons should be tradeable. Innuendo is firmly in the ‘against’ camp and Lewis is in the ‘for’. Considering one of us has made a small fortune from the lucrative trade of selling on legendary weapons, this should be interesting.”
  • Golden Griffon Trading — Dailies make me a manipulative cow. “What dailies do to me. I have to admit that in a lot of ways I am a very lazy player, the daily achievements are easy enough to do yet still I don’t get them done every day I’m on, there’s always items to flip or RP to be had and I’m easily swayed by these distractions.”
  • Kill Ten Rats — Expansion Calculus. “That Korean Investment firm, KDB Daewoo Securities, is talking Guild Wars 2 expansion… again. They are really keen on it happening the second half of 2013. They probably use models, stock discussions, and neuromantic rituals to determine it among all the other NCSoft happenings for 2013. Let’s make this simpler.”
  • The Egg Baron — Fine Crafting Materials Revisited. “In the past on this blog I have explored the potential profits to be made promoting crafting materials in the Mystic Forge. I have articles discussing the specific promotion of rare materials, fine materials, common materials, and piles of dust. Today, however, I would like to revisit the promotion of fine materials. Originally I had dismissed promoting lower tier fine materials as being unprofitable. Thanks to Egg Baron reader ZoCks this assumption was challenged and I was proven wrong. There are in fact excellent profits to be made promoting some of the lower tiers. Today I will share with you my assumptions, my experiences, and the updates I made to my crafting materials promotion spreadsheet.”
  • Why I Game — Traditional Quests? Hell, No… “WoodenPotatoes makes an argument that Guild Wars 2 needs traditional quests to fill up a gap that dynamic events can’t cover, because the racial cities (and the world) somehow feel hollow. Personally, I think he’s conflated two issues together and grasped at the old standby of traditional quests to attempt to solve it. Point 1, which I heartily agree with, is that the racial cities are full of unexplored potential and as of right now, feel extremely empty and hollow.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — When do you reveal your secrets?
  • Healing the masses — Purty Pics of the Week. “Just in case you missed some of the pictures I thought I’d do a little recap”
  • Black Lions Profit — Trading Post preview update = Speculation time! “The next addition to the Flame & Frost series is a speculation gold mine, with the ability to preview items on the Trading Post there will be a lot of player’s searching for the perfect skins to complete their character. If you are willing to take a risk then I would highly recommend researching and investing your gold into unique weapon and armour skins.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — 7 Gold in an Hour is Bad? “I find it interesting that you do not get all of your gold in one shot when pulling from the trading post. If you have so many items coming in that they can’t all fit on the screen, then gold will also be withheld until you start emptying your trading post. My theory is that you can only have a certain number of sales waiting to be picked up at a time, or they count as individual items like anything else. Regardless, it’s a good problem to have!”
  • The Egg Baron — This Week in Guild Wars 2. “Every Friday, Raphia at GuildMag goes through all the community articles for the week and rounds them up into one giant article. Every week I like to go through this list and pick out my favourites to share with you guys. The articles I pick out tend to compliment the content that I have here on my blog. I also try to sneak in some Red Posts and news from Arena Net that I may have missed earlier in the week.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Junkies — Trading Post Previews Coming February 26th. “On February 26th, the second installment of Flame and Frost, our current world event, will begin. The new phase is aptly named “The Gathering Storm.” In Flame and Frost: The Gathering Storm, the battle hastens to Shiverpeaks, where the momentum from the first act breaks loose in a flurry of freezing winds. Along with new story to witness and take part in, we’ll be getting a new PvP map, the ability to choose daily missions, two-team instanced PvP, and guild missions.”
  • Inventory Full — Sunday In The Park. “Over many years, on many forums and in the comment threads of many long-suffering blogs, I have banged on about my belief that any MMO can be either sandbox or theme park depending on how you choose to approach it. For all that I hold this to be self-evident, however, I have little in the way of personal experience to offer to back it up. The plain fact remains that I don’t really know what a Theme Park is.”
  • The Guild Wars Chef — Week 7: (Eda’s) apple pie. “Two weeks ago, we made an apple-passion fruit pie. This week, we’re making a proper apple pie!” [Raphia: Hat-tip to Dragon Season for the link.]
  • Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — Fees and Doing it Right. “Got this email today and thought it would be worth a quick post.”
  • Massively — Flameseeker Chronicles: The storm clouds are gathering in Guild Wars 2. “I really wanted to talk with you about jumping puzzles this week, but jumping puzzles last forever and there’s been some super cool stuff coming out about Guild Wars 2‘s February patch. We can talk jumping puzzles some other time, and I dearly hope we will, but for now there’s an oncoming storm and new PvP stuff and guild missions and it’s all just so very exciting. Let’s get to it, shall we?”
  • Bio Break — Guild Wars 2: A night in Frostgorge Sound. “Last night I was feeling a Guild Wars 2 jonesing, so I decided to make it 100% about that game all evening. My engineer is currently plowing through the high-level zones in her madcap world completion quest, and that night’s focus was the frozen Frostgorge Sound. I really love the wintery areas in Guild Wars 2, but I think this zone takes the prize in that category. It’s just a beautiful place that features these giant breathtaking ice ships. When I first saw one of those ships (above) I kept thinking, “You really don’t see sights like these in any other MMO. You just don’t.””
  • The Egg Baron — Colin Johanson on Loot Drops. “Yesterday, Colin made a post on the forums concerning loot drops. Apparently, there has been a glitch in the code that has prevented players from being rewarded in certain cases. This has been obvious to many for a while now as champion level mobs don’t always drop loot even though Arena Net has stated that they should. The official word now is that this problem has been located and fixed.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — Guild Wars 2‘s Bleed Cap. “For those who don’t know, Guild Wars 2 has a bleed cap. As a player who loves conditions but begrudges the current system, I’m hoping ArenaNet eventually make changes to the restriction they’ve placed on an entire combat method.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — How to Make First 100 Gold. “Tom sent in this awesome tip on how he made his first 100 gold. Thanks Tom for being so generous and thorough in your information. You’re epic and will help a lot of people I’m sure. I managed to make 11 gold in an hour using your method, and I only played for about 10 minutes within that time. Oh, real quick, before I give this strategy of Tom’s away. Make sure that you use buy orders instead of buying things for full price. You won’t make very much or even lose money if you try to rush this method.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Junkies — Question Box Thingy: ArenaNet & Communication. “Despite the fact that we’re in the middle of ArenaNet’s latest adventure in bringing us different styles of world events and corresponding updates every other month or so, there was one update that didn’t make February’s cut, and well… let’s just say it’s a bit of an elephant in the room for many dedicated GW2 players. Yep, I’m talking about the big, exciting, promised WvW update. I don’t think the update being pushed back was nearly as drastic a matter as many folks on the official forums made it out to be, but it still was a disappointment for many.”
  • The Guild Wars Chef — Week 8: Front line stew. “This week, we’re making front line stew! It’s called a stew, but let’s face it, with those ingredients it’s a potato soup. At least, that’s what I made of it. Potato soup with lots of garlic. It’s a very short recipe, but the result is more fancy than you might expect: you can easily serve this as the starter if you have guests! It’s the roasted garlic that gives it just that little bit extra.”
  • Reddit — When the WvW ratings break. “This issue caught my attention when one player posted on the official forums about always facing and losing to the “green server”. While my knee-jerk response would have been to say the “green server” was their best possible opponent, a glance at http://mos.millenium.org/matchups#NA indicated that this was quite possibly not the case. The reasons have been quite thoughtfully articulated in this thread, and I’ve done my best to summarize them here.”
  • Kill Ten Rats — Calling Out Content. “This month five events had to be completed to finish a daily achievement regardless of the day of the week. A lot of people, like myself, flocked to zones packed with events, such as Queensdale. Yet, the increased population for people looking to knock out the daily achievement was not the best part. The best part was that people were creating a community culture centered around the storm chasing of events.”
  • The Egg Baron — Small changes in the Living Story. “It seems every Monday there are some small additions to the Living Story that is unfolding in Tyria. This week saw some small changes that I would like to update you on. All-in-all the Living Story is slowly moving forward. In less than a week the latest patch will go live, hopefully, bringing some life back into this story. If you haven’t checked out the Living Story yet be sure to see my initial review and my update from last week.”
  • Tumblr — Randomness Abound. “I was running through field killing grubs with a flamethrower earlier, and I was thinking, ‘Realistically, I think I’d ruin someone’s farm.’ Pfft, what realism am I talking about, this game has humanoid vegetables handling flamethrowers and turrets, bah, realism.”
  • Demajen — How Much Is Too Much? “In July last year, I sat down to think about my experiences in Funcom’s The Secret World and how it would draw parallels to my experience in the at-the-time upcoming MMO, Guild Wars 2. I wondered whether multiple professions with a more limited scope than TSW’s skill wheel would increase my fun through altoholism, or whether it would diminish my enjoyment through repetition of similar content across those eight professions. I thought about the timers on TSW’s repeatable missions, and compared them to the hidden timers on GW2′s events, and had to wonder: just how much repetition could I take?”
  • Lopez IRL — A Guide to Fractals of the Mists, With Condition Necromancer Tips. “The tips and strategies in this guide will be largely based around gameplay at lv. 30 and higher fractals. The same ideas should be applicable to lower-level fractals, but they won’t be as strict. I am absolutely avoiding exploits. They go against the spirit of fractals, as far as I’m concerned. Fractals of the Mists are supposed to be progression content, and progressing further without legitimate play is meaningless to me.”
  • Lopez IRL — A Condition Necromancer’s Guide to World vs. World. “One of the most exciting features in Guild Wars 2 for me is the world vs. world, and I’ve spent a bulk of my game time taking keeps and defeating players in the Eternal Battlegrounds and borderlands. Now, I think my experience from other games and Guild Wars 2 has given me enough knowledge to write a guide on world vs. world. This guide is entirely built around condition necromancer in world vs. world, not structured PvP.”
  • Lopez IRL — A Condition Necromancer’s Guide to PvE. “In Guild Wars 2, I decided to focus on both PvE and PvP content on my condition necromancer. I used this build to get to lv. 30 fractals within a week of their release. At this point, I feel like I’ve built up enough experience to write a guide, so here it is! This guide will mostly focus on dungeons, fractals, and small-scale event farming, mostly because all the other PvE content is relatively simple enough to not require a guide.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — Legendary Weapons For Engineers. “As an individual who loves engineers but dislikes the fact that weapon skins aren’t available for kits, its always been frustrating to stare at the same weapons you wield with no prospect of a legendary that ties into the skirmish, tinker-style of the profession, which is partly why I built a legendary weapon for my ranger.”
  • Malefic Incantations — Defying Explanation. “As a regular dungeon runner in GW2, the single place that is always a source of confusion for my party members is the Defiant buff unique to Champion and Legendary foes. On a near-daily basis, I find myself having to debunk wrong information about how Defiant works and explain why particular attempts to crowd control (or CC for short) a boss do or don’t work. This post aims to explain exactly how Defiant works, dispel myths, explain confusing situations, and point out various “cheater mobs” that don’t follow the rules.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — Skin Names and Huge Prices. “Aly wrote me a very interesting email that I’d like to share with everyone today”
  • Hunter’s Insight — Guild Missions and Stuff. “I’ve spent most of the past couple months relentlessly running dungeons. January’s update allowing people to run FotM together inspired a bit of a binge on that dungeon and at this point I’ve got a few ascended items, backpiece, two rings, and amulet. None are infused as of yet, but it struck me that I wasn’t sure I wanted to bother getting them infused.”
  • Under the Pale Tree — Guilds and the (de)merit system. “So, I run a guild. A decently sizable one, though it’s not massive. We’re generally a pretty casual group. And the more time goes on, the more frustrated I get with the guild system in Guild Wars 2. [TWIT] was created as a cross-server, international social guild. However, the way the game handles guilds has caused us to not be able to fully meet what we intended ourselves to be. The guild was formed in BWE3, when we were still all under the assumption that guesting would be in at launch, and that it would be fully universal.”

Videos and podcasts

Fanfic

  • Golden Griffon Trading — Francis’ Journal: The ‘Beauty’ of Nature. “Again I awoke feeling as though I was suffering a hangover, every inch of my being screamed out in agony. I had thought myself to be in good shape but this morning every single one of my muscles ached, how do the common folk endure these tortures to their bodies every day? At that point I would have murdered for a half-decent masseuse. Alas that lifestyle is still out of reach until I prove to father that I’ve ‘learned my lesson’”
  • Golden Griffon Trading — Travels in Tyria: The Queen’s Forest. “Words & screenshot by me, formatting and other artwork by the talented Fornax.”
  • Golden Griffon Trading — Are the nobility truly noble? “Words & screenshot by me, formatting and other artwork by the talented Fornax.”
  • Golden Griffon Trading — Francis’ Journal: Good Intentions, Bad Weather. “Today I ventured back into the Reach. I knew my old ‘friends’ wouldn’t want to see me but I craved the safety of the high, protective walls again. Besides, I finally have enough money saved up to stay in an inn where I won’t wake up with my throat slit and my meager possessions gone.”
  • FanFiction.net — Machinations of Terror. “This is a story set in the years just prior to present day (in game) Tyria. It follows the adventures of original characters based upon creations made in the Guild Wars 2 game by myself and a number of my friends. It is still a work in progress, but I hope it is enjoyable none the less. So follow these intrepid souls, as they seek to find their true calling in Tyria.” [Raphia: Link goes to the start of the story. Scroll down to find the latest chapter.]

Community Events

  • Weird Folio — European Tumblr Meet Up 2013. “Guild Wars 2 Players, Tumblr‘s, fellow Europeans, lend me your ears; I speak to you as a harbinger of the first EU Server Tumblr Meet-up. A small group of conspirators, including myself, are planing for an european Meet up quiete a while and if you are up to it we would love to invite you to Games, Fun and Excitement at Saturday the second of March. The time will be 18 o’clock CET and the venue is the upper City of Divinity’s Reach.”
  • Guild Wars Temple — Temple Timers in Tyria Contest. “I am happy to announce our first contest on Guild Wars Temple called the Temple Timers in Tyria Contest.”

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).

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