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This week in Guild Wars 2

Posted by on March 15, 2013 in | | 1 Response

Guild missions and the pecking-to-death of small guilds. ArenaNet talks a good line about wanting players to play with their friends, but the current structure of guild missions (that only high-activity and generally larger guilds are able to unlock) actively militates against that. When the guild missions were announced, I was really happy: I envisaged something our guild could do to provide more opportunities for guild members to work together that benefitted both the guild and the individual guild members. I was … less happy when they were actually released. The implementation didn’t live up to the rhetoric.

I was hoping that my own guild would be able to unlock at least the first tier of guild missions, but that depended on our average activity level remaining the same. Instead, we’re only managing half to two-thirds the influence gain we got before guild missions came in. More of our members are not representing us when they’re online — I don’t know for certain that they’ve joined larger guilds, but the circumstantial evidence is strong. We’ve even lost our only WvW commander to a bigger guild. It’s not a death-knell for our guild (yet), but it is a troubling development.

Another bit of bad news for me dropped this week: Google will be discontinuing their excellent RSS tool Google Reader. When I started doing this weekly column, I started using Google Reader to keep track of as many Guild Wars 2 feeds as I could (even after unsubscribing from dozens of dead blogs, I’m still following 81 separate RSS feeds in Reader). Google Reader isn’t the only tool I have for gathering links: I’m also following dozens of Twitter feeds, YouTube accounts, and Google+ accounts, but Reader is the easiest and most efficient of the streams for my purposes. I have until the end of June to find a replacement tool, so “it could be worse”, but I’ll miss the utility of Google Reader.

Official Guild Wars 2 news

  • GuildWars2.com — New Hoodies and Riding Clothes in the Gem Store Now! “Spring is right around the corner – it’s time to freshen your look! With our new town clothes like the new Hoodies and the new Riding Clothes, you’ll be on the cutting edge of Tyrian fashion. Check out what’s new in the Gem Store today!”
  • Arena.net — GAME INNOVATION. INDUSTRY LEADING ART. PROFESSIONAL GROWTH. “We’re ArenaNet — and we’ve created a studio that makes online worlds infused with innovation, hand-crafted detail, and creative passion. We’re not the only ones who share this passion; gamers have purchased over 3 million copies of Guild Wars 2 since launch, and the press has repeatedly called it the best MMO of 2012.”
  • Forbes — Has Guild Wars 2 Become Too Complicated? “When Guild Wars 2 (GW2) came out, I jumped into it enthusiastically and played for several weeks. But life happens, as it does, and I’ve been only able to venture into Tyria intermittently. When I did play, I noticed changes, but I didn’t spend much time examining them. So recently I returned to explore the wealth of new material. And I walked away with the question: Is too much of a good thing still too much?”
  • GuildWars2.com — World vs. World: The End of Culling. “If you’ve ever played World vs. World in a large group, you’ve probably noticed that there were some enemy players that you couldn’t see. That was an unfortunate side effect of a process called culling. I’m pleased to announce that in the upcoming patch on March 26, we’re going to turn culling off completely in WvW. This will make invisible enemies (except those using invisibility skills, of course) a thing of the past.” [Raphia: Actually, I've played WvW recently where even a single enemy being engaged by the other player on my team wasn't visible until after the fight was over.]
  • GW2Guru Guru’s [sPvP] State of the Game w/Tyler Bearce, Jonathan Sharp, and Karl McLain. “Grouch is joined by ArenaNet developers Jon Sharp, Tyler Bearce, and Karl McLain. He’s also joined by Nero from JBUO representing NA, and Xeph from Team Paradigm representing EU.”
  • Eurogamer.pt — Interview with Colin Johanson. [Raphia: This is an interview in English, with Portuguese subtitles.]

Fan articles and blog posts

  • Kill Ten Rats — Lore Thoughts on the Living Story. “Hitherby, Spoilers! The obvious route is never the one that ArenaNet seems to take in their storytelling. This can be both confusing and exciting. Much to the frustration of many lore delvers, whole threads are kept dangling while others are simply snipped, seemingly prematurely. Either way, some will likely never have their complete story told. Yet, ArenaNet keeps pressing forward.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — 3 Gold Per Minute. “Mystic Forge combining can make absurd amounts of money. Yesterday I ran out of skill points converting crafting materials from one tier to the next one up, at a rate of literally 3 gold per minute. That’s how long it took to buy materials, combine in the forge, and sell for a huge profit.”
  • Golden Griffon Trading — Dailies make me a bunnyslayer. “I’m loving the new categories of dailies, having more of a selection of things to do makes me more keen to get them done. However they do have a drastic impact on my play style.”
  • Twitter — @Lykk_. “In Guild Wars, titles were something you earned. You actually had to work for them. In #GuildWars2, they just happen. It’s a real shame.”
  • The Egg Baron — Impassible Barriers in Tyria. “Talking about the new castle in Wayfarer and its impassable gate has got me thinking about other barriers in Tyria and what might lie beyond them. I surveyed my map and made my way back to a lot of these places I remembered from previous adventures. I quickly discovered that a lot of these areas could be accessed through events I had yet to discover, by completing a jumping puzzle, or through a personal story path. Still the most interesting were those pathways that I couldn’t get past. These routes are blocked off presumably because the content behind these barriers has not yet been released. Today I would like to share with you some of these locations in Tyria and speculate as to what might lie beyond.”
  • Black Lions Profit — Lions Share: March 2013. “There’s big changes happening behind the scenes at Black Lions Profit, with lots of new plans and ideas slowly being set in place to help create a more active, content driven website. Our aim is to release more unique, quality gold making guides over the next couple of months whilst also providing all the tips, tricks and advice you have come to expect from our Guild Wars 2 blog and twitter account.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — Big Money from Smaller Profits. “In Guild Wars 2, making more than 20% of your initial investment is usually considered a good profit. That’s something hard to stomach for most players, especially because you have to wait while your investment (and 80% of the money coming back to you) sits on the trading post.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Junkies — Guild Missions: Has the Dust Settled? “Since the implementation of guild missions a couple of weeks ago, the Guild Wars 2 community has expressed a wide variety of, well, concern. A significant portion of small-to-medium guilds have not been able to even start the process of learning guild missions because of the high Influence requirements as well as the fact that the Art of War guild upgrades need to have been unlocked before a guild bounty can be unlocked.”
  • Golden Griffon Trading — Magic Snacks. “In my review of Almar’s Guides I voiced my disappointment in his guide on Magic Find foods. I was going to leave it at just that but then I realised that I should have offered an alternative to his guide. A quick google search later gave me a few pages that would be of some help but I decided I could do better than ‘some help’ and decided to write my own entry on the subject.”
  • Dulfy.net — The Gathering Storm Living Story event and achievement guide. “The Gathering Storm is an event and achievement introduced as the second installment of GW2 Living Story series.”
  • Under the Pale Tree — Legendary Completion. “Yes, I have completed my Legendary, that I wrote about wanting to get not too long ago. I made Kudzu, the longbow, for my Ranger, and along the way learned a lot of things! Not just things about how to make money quickly in-game, but also more about my playstyle on various professions, and also things to do when you just need to take a break from the work.”
  • Hunter’s Insight — Mounts Maelstrom. “I think there are a lot of assumptions when it comes to Guild Wars 2 and mounts. For instance people assume there isn’t a need for mounts in Guild Wars 2 because there are waypoints. Apparently that is the studio line on the subject as well.”
  • Massively — Flameseeker Chronicles: The eye of the storm in Guild Wars 2. “You might remember that Guild Wars 2 got a fairly sizable update not too long ago. You might also remember that we didn’t really touch on that update last week. I tend to think that such content needs some time to simmer before we can really dig into it here. The time has come, my friends! The storm has been well and truly gathered, so I believe it’s time to take a look at some of what came into the game at the end of February.”
  • Nerdy Bookahs — 2 years of Nerdy Bookahs! “It’s been two years since we started our Nerdy Bookahs blog. Two years ago, I was playing Rift and Lotro, Guild Wars 2 had still been far away in the future. As the name of the blog suggests, however, even at that time we were already pretty excited about Guild Wars 2. The blog’s name was “Nerdy Bookahs and their travel guide” in the beginning indicating that we do like checking out games and travelling from one MMO to the next to see what they’re like.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — Combat Mode 2.0 Preview. “If you ever saw the original Combat Mode mod for Guild Wars 2, I’d describe it as a tool that allows you to play the game similarly to Tera. Instead of having to hold the right mouse button down constantly the mod did it automatically, providing a reticule in the centre of the screen to act as your aim. The frustrating thing about the Combat Mode was the fact it put Guild Wars 2’s default combat system to shame and should have been adopted by ArenaNet instantly, as an alternative option for those who wanted it.”
  • Dulfy.net — GW2 Stylish Hoodies and riding clothes in the Gemstore. “Images of the new hoodies and riding clothes on the GW2 gemstore released on March 12, 2013. There is also a page to catalog the 31 days of sale on the GW2 gemstore which you can find here.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — Saving Gold to Farm Gold. “If you’re serious about making gold through farming, then you’re going to have food buffs up at all times, even in WvW. While gold find doesn’t get applied to player kills in WvW, the magic find does. Also, magic find and gold find are added to your monster kills in WvW so that alone is a good reason to have it on.”
  • Inventory Full — Go Play Outdoors! “For quite a while The Nosy Gamer has been publishing a league table of MMO log-ins garnered from X-Fire under the name of The Digital Dozen. I think I first came across it back when I took my blog-reading cues from VirginWorlds and I haven’t done that since before I started Inventory Full.”
  • The Guild Wars Chef — Week 11: Hearty red meat stew. “I like stews. They’re a good, strong winter food. It’s great if meat is expensive where you are, because you can use cheap cuts of meat and you can add a lot of bulk with vegetables. And they’re more versatile than people think! This recipe is for quite a basic stew, obviously using the vegetables given in the GW2 recipes.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Junkies — New 2-Team Tournament Map Rotation Announced. “ArenaNet is still adjusting how structured PvP tournaments work in Guild Wars 2. The latest change is a new map rotation.”
  • Kill Ten Rats — In Spite of Community Pressures. “Bhagpuss believes Guild Wars 2 is pretty lively from all the open world activities. I agree. I’ve been seeing more and more people running around the open world. There’s another stick-of-measurement to watch. Oh sure, we can all be beguiled by the entrancing smile of Colin as he says numbers are still rising post-launch…. Sigh. Oh. Right. Carry on then. There is also a lot to be said about community tools as an activity meter.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — My Legendary is Finished! “After 3 months my Kudzu is finally finished. At a total cost of 1000 gold and several hundred hours it’s creation is complete. While the road was bumpy; draining, repetitive and fun all the same time, it really was worth it.”
  • Why I Game —Snapshots From A New Front. “I blame culling. Or lag. Or guesting. Or improved loot in dragon chests and WvW. Or no-skill zerging. Whatever the new excuse is for why THERE ARE SO MANY PEOPLE around the place until we trip and fall over them. Snarkiness aside, I honestly think it’s a great problem to have – because the alternative, having done leveling around more deserted areas like Metrica Province and Fields of Ruin in dead timezone hours, gets boring pretty quickly.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Hub — 10 Tips for Obtaining a Legendary Weapon. “After completing my Legendary Weapon, I thought it would be useful to pass on any advice I’ve learnt along the way, to our readers. Below are 10 tips I’d readily advise people to follow.”
  • Massively — Guild Wars 2 composer Soule kickstarting symphony project. “Here’s an interesting Kickstarter wrinkle for you. Instead of funding the usual indie sandbox game, how would you feel about contributing to the first symphonic work from legendary game music maestro Jeremy Soule?”
  • Healing the masses — The End is Nigh. “For culling that is, the bane of every PvP’er who ventures into WvW has finally been banished by the handfull of Arenanet developers capable of delving matrix style into the code that is Guild Wars 2. This was one of my new years Wishes, in fact it was my number one as it really does ruin that epic feeling of WvW when you can barely see the people around you. It was a critical failure and ruined the fun of a lot of players. To be honest I am actually rather surprised to see this change that is going to be implemented with the March update as it was a big sweeping change on the game code and how character models are handled.”
  • Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — Confessions of an Instant Gratification Auctioneer. “I have this little problem. It begins when I place a few dozen or even hundred buy orders. Within minutes, I look at my gold count and feel the urge to cancel all the buy orders. This urge becomes stronger the more items I win through buy orders and the more money I get back from flipping in a single play session. Within an hour I’m itching to cancel everything and see what my gold is now up to.”
  • Gamebreaker.tv — ArenaNet Promises The End Of Guild Wars 2 Culling. “That’s the claim made by ArenaNet developer Habib Loew in the most recent GW2 blog post, fittingly titled “The End of Culling.” Loew reminds everyone that culling — meaning the client not reporting nearby characters — will be removed in the March patch. But the reason culling existed in the first place was to reduce bandwidth and help the game run more smoothly. So if all those characters are now going to be reported to the client, how will ArenaNet prevent the game from running like molasses?”
  • Inventory Full — Decisions, Decisions. “I spent most of yesterday trailing my many characters around Tyria opening up the necessary waypoints so that each of them could hop to any of the Big Chest events at an instant’s notice. I had a great time and while I was on auto-run I had time to come to a few decisions:”
  • Inventory Full — The Potterer’s Guide To The Frozen Maw.
  • Guild Wars 2 Trading Post — Flipping Tips for Unidentified Dyes. “If you have 15+ gold and want to know a fast way to earn 1-5 gold every day, then you can play the Unidentified Dye market. At the moment, I am trading at approximately (not giving away an exact number because then you will all freak out and use that amount) 12-14 silver and selling at 15-17 silver. No I’m not using 13 and 16 lol. Good try though!”
  • Inventory Full — The Potterer’s Guide To The Fire Elemental.
  • Gamebreaker.tv — No Big Patches For Guild Wars 2. “In a recent interview ArenaNet devs Tyler Bearce, Jonathan Sharp, and Karl McLain sat down with Guild Wars 2 Guru to talk about sPVP and the state of the game. A lot of talk flew around about leaderboards, spectator mode, and custom arenas, coming to Guild Wars 2. All of which are being tested internally and are coming “in the near future” But what about the implementation of these upcoming very important features? Well there’s a possibility Guild Wars 2 players wont be seeing any big patches coming soon.”

Videos and podcasts

Fanfic

Community Events

  • GW2 Guru — PAX East Q&A. “Hey everyone! PAX East is next weekend and we have an opportunity to participate in a group Q&A session with Jon Peters and Jonathan Sharp. We’re hoping to get another interview with them, but it’s not confirmed yet. So we might only be able to ask a few questions, or a lot of them. We just don’t know yet!”

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).

One Response

  1. This week in Guild Wars 2 « Quotulatiousness
    This week in Guild Wars 2 « Quotulatiousness March 15, 2013 at 17:34 |

    [...] weekly Guild Wars 2 community round-up at GuildMag is now online. The end of culling, ArenaNet’s relaunched website, interviews with developers [...]

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