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Inquiring Mind Wants to Know
24 days ago
With various press outlets revealing their involvement in the upcoming Guild Wars 2 press beta, and an NDA lifting on the 20th, I thought it’d be fun to compile a few of the things I’ll be hoping get cleared up.
How is the ranger shaping up?
I really really REALLY want the Guild Wars 2 ranger to be oozing with awesome, but from what I’ve experienced so far the pet weighs down this class with a massive anchor. Have ArenaNet solved these issues to make man and beast run as one? Here’s hoping, but I’m not holding my breath.
Go mesmer go!
I fell in love with the mesmer from the first videos that got leaked, but after reading some of the editorials over at Mesmer.me, I can’t help but wonder if maybe I’m getting my hopes up over another lacklustre pet-centric profession. More videos and first hand opinions please.
Guilds, guilds, guilds
I’m busy getting my guild’s website ready for the launch of Guild Wars 2, and also mentally preparing how best to “play” the new challenges brought up by the multi-guild system. I would love to see what tools I get to play with, or what’s missing from Guild Wars 2 itself. Also, since there will be no guild halls at release, where the guild meet up point will be.
Skills
Work on GW Templates is coming along swimmingly, and I’m starting to look forward to what can be done for Guild Wars 2. That means gathering as much information about skills and traits as possible.
Around the world
How are servers shaping up, and what decisions have been made to accomodate international guilds. MYST already had a few members in Asia and the Americas in Guild Wars, now some have emigrated from Europe to more exotic climbs. Can we all still play together? Fingers crossed.
Trade, glorious trade
I’m a trade junkie. No two ways about it. In Rift, I play the artifacts market obsessively – in Guild Wars it was all about mods. So what tools will Guild Wars 2 provide to those of us who like the sound of a busy market and how much space will be granted to the inner packrat? Will I have to pre-order 2 copies for myself?
World vs World vs World
I got to play some Conquest at Gamescom and loved it as a competative mode that was accessible. But I really want to find out what WvW has in store beyond ArenaNet’s latest blog post. I keep hearing whispers of Dark Age of Camelot but I never played that game. The closest I’ve played was Aion with it’s forts. Which for me was a lagfest at best and a client crash at worst. Will the servers be able to smoothly handle that much fighting in one area? Also how is directing the battle going to work? Will there be a guild of commanders, are voice communications required and will players really be able to avoid PvE all together and just WvW to 80?
Those are just a few of the questions I’m hoping will be answered on Monday or Tuesday next week. I’d love to hear what you’re itching to find out. Remember and enjoy this moment – this is the calm before the storm. Come Monday, the gates of hell will open and the hype train will be on full steam.
The Monk That Grenth Forgot – Part 3
02 weeks ago
This post is a follow on from The Monk That Grenth Forgot – Part 2 and Part 1
It’s been a while since I wrote anything about what I’ve been up to in Guild Wars and figured it was time to rectify that issue. 7 months ago I was making progress on my mental self-set challenge of trying to achieve God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals on a character that had accumulated 0 deaths, and was sat at 14/30 titles. Over those months, I have dipped in and out of playing Guild Wars itself. Mostly, not playing it in fact. Partly because I was doing real world things like revamping my guild’s website in preparation for Guild Wars 2 and dealing with being promoted, but mostly because when I did have time to play games others were more appealing. I don’t see it as anything that Guild Wars did wrong, just something that happens when you’ve been playing the same game for 6 years and trodden the same mud over and over again.
Some time in December, I picked up the game again and started regularly logging in. During the holiday break, I decided to work a bit on my survivor character, loaded up the Zaishen vanquishes and bounties that would have been helpful and went for it. I did pretty well to be fair – a large chunk of reputation was gained in the Norn and Asuran titles, I’m now down to the last 5 or so vanquishes in Tyria, and the last 10 or so in Cantha. I made the mistake of trying to vanquish Nebo Terrace in Prophecies having started War in Kryta accidentally some time ago, and was surprised to find the extra mass of White Mantle and assorted bosses having cleared the entire rest of the area. Swearing occurred, and lots of it. Still, clearing that area went fine until I encountered masses of minions and after having to hot foot it a couple of times to save my bacon, decided that I’d have to take a specialised anti-minion build for that area.
I’ve always maintained through this entire challenge that anyone can get 30/30 without dying as long as they are patient, careful and attentive. I failed in all 3 categories while vanquishing Rhea’s Crater. I’d love to say I got stomped by some horrible combination of things outside my control, but in actuality I did the most stupid thing in the world. The heroes were taking down the final group of the vanquish and I went in search of the final piece of map to uncover in an area seemingly clear of enemies. As the vanquish completed animation flashed up on my screen, 3 Oni appeared near my monk. The heroes were out of range and I panicked. I could have protected myself, unflagged them and been fine. Instead I mashed a load of random buttons and watched my monk die. I should have known better, especially in Factions. And I broke my golden rules for the challenge.
So that’s where I’ve left my monk now. She’s still on 14/30 with 1 death and several titles close to completion, but I haven’t really decided what to do with her. I already have one GWAMM with Tasha, I got 50/50 in the HoM 10 days ago and am now in the process of gathering items of use to people building up their Hall for the inevitable panic when a firm release date does get announced for Guild Wars 2. Is it worth allowing myself the one relapse to complete the challenge, or is that it done? I’d love your input on this, so comment away.
Something else I realised the other day that’s been playing on my mind – when Guild Wars’ servers eventually do close down for the final time, I’ll lose the place I first met my husband back in 2007. Wonder if I can get a model made of Kamadan!
Year of the Dragon
21 month ago
So I’m guessing you’ve heard the news, wooped some, pinched yourself and wanted to hug Mike O’Brien until his eyes pop. I’m right there with you. Although I had to hold in the excitement for 8 hours or so as I had demo’s of my own to give.
I could do what many commentators will do and speculate on what this means on where they are in the development schedule & what’s left, but really, there’s no point. Other than knowing we’re on the home straight and that Guild Wars 2 will be in our hands in 99 days at a minimum or 342 days at a maximum, there’s nothing else I wish to try to infer from this news.
I’m excited. I’m also looking at the checklist of stuff I wanted to do before launch and wincing. GW Templates is still in development, and I’m hoping to get it out of test in the next month. All the features are in, its a question of entering the masses of information about Guild Wars skills. Then there’s the additional features I want for the guild’s website. And then seeing what stuff can be offered for Guild Wars 2.
99 days is enough right?
ICT: The Next Generation
2There’s been quite a lot of discussion in the UK news lately regarding ICT in schools in the UK and a lack of IT literate job seekers. As someone who now works as a programmer and knew she wanted to work in technology (though not this career) at a young age, I can say that around 5% of my ICT classes have been of use to me in a professional capacity. Most of the useful bits was making a turtle draw shapes on the screen as a very basic precursor to graphics. The rest of it was learning how Word, Excel and Powerpoint worked. Course I’ve had to relearn that a few times over since the versions of those products have changed.
The Education Secretary has decided that the solution to this problem is an Open Source approach to ICT, where businesses and universities get involved in designing a computer science and programming curriculum in schools. Great idea, but ultimately flawed. Enough kids don’t care about ICT as it is and not everyone needs to learn programming to do their job. For many, I expect knowing the basic office products is enough. And industry already says that graduates lack the skills to be employed – will a pot luck approach to introductory CS improve that?
There’s also the issue of what language? What kind of programming? If you put 4 industry “experts” in a room and ask their opinions, you’ll get 5 replies.
The best advice I can give to anyone who wants to learn programming is choose something that you want to make and learn the skills to express your idea. If that’s a website, head over to W3 schools and devour all you can on HTML and CSS to start, PHP and Javascript/JQuery next. If that’s something desktop based you can pretty much choose your weapon from C++, C# and Java. There are other languages, and if you do end up in industry you will learn them. But everyone has to start somewhere and those 3 are well documented and used a lot.
Something clearly does need to change in the way we teach ICT to the next generation, but expecting consistently good results from an open source approach is misguided. If you want to get involved in programming, do it if your school teaches you or not. You won’t be wasting your time. My inbox is always open.
Busy Bee
01 month ago
I’ve been a bit quiet the last few weeks, not just because of the holiday season. I’ve been a bit of a busy bee.
After the work I did on the Mystic Spiral [MYST] website, I realised that all of our old articles documenting various farming builds would be better in WordPress than in phpbb3. But I couldn’t find something that would display the various templates, and seeing as I’m anxious to learn and improve my web dev skills, I decided to dive right in.
It’s a little ways off being ready for release to the general populous, but I couldn’t resist giving a sneak peek to the new GW Template plugin. 
The Road Ahead
42 months ago
So the 8th profession has been revealed and it’s a good ‘un! I’ve been struggling to find a profession to call my own in Guild Wars 2 and luckily the mesmer is ticking all my boxes. So here’s what I think I’ll be playing at release:
Human female mesmer – Tasha or Tasha Darke. Pirate clothes are a must.
Asuran male elementalist – Nyxx (first time I’ll be playing a male character!)
Norn female guardian – Still working on a name. Current favourite is Varda Morke (roughly translated from Old Nordic as “guard against the dark”). Suggestions welcome.
Charr female thief – still unnamed. Considering bringing back “Kimera”, the name of my warrior in Guild Wars.
After that, it gets a bit trickier to choose professions. Still, with the 8th reveal out of the way and beta news before the year’s end, there’s a sense of being on the home stretch. Here’s hoping.
Girly Detour
2
As a slight detour from my usual topics, I’ve got to share “special effect” nail polishes. Love ‘em. Last week I was wearing Rimmel “Crack Your Colour” in Black Grafitti over bog standard 99p white (aka zebra nails) and got so many comments. Today, I’m sporting the following:
This is Rimmel “Lycra PRO” in 406 Purple Addict (which is a gorgeous colour on its own) covered with Barry M’s Nail Effects 321 (gold). Applying it is a doddle – 2-3 coats of the base colour, leave to dry fully, apply one messy thickish coat of the crackle, leave to dry, and seal in with clear (going over the tips of the nails to seal it in). Crackle layers work better if you’re deliberately applying it badly.
Anyway, normal service resuming now.
All I Want For Christmas
32 months ago
So today is the first of December, which means that it is officially no longer too early to think about Christmas. Which, for my family, means the present lists have to be drawn up and handed out. I thought I’d share the overflow of stuff I actually would like (as opposed to the stuff that’s appropriate to wish for).
Chat functions to be added to the Steam API
The Steam API allows developers to access all kinds of information about an account, but there’s nothing that gets anyone vaguely near chat. I’d love to be able to get Steam group chat through a browser on my guild’s website, even if I have to do all the legwork to make it happen.
Spambots to all rot in silicone hell
MYST’s website gets a lot of attention from spammers. I’d rather I didn’t have to spend time and energy stopping them from registering on our forum and clearing up the ones that get through. Simples.
Some artistic talent
Some of my best friends are artists, and I envy their abilities and the relative ease at which they produce masterpieces. While I’m just about ok using a pencil and paper, I can’t even produce a decent looking set of icons. Bleh.
The world economy to pick up
My husband has been struggling to find work since moving to the UK, despite applying to several hundred jobs. There’s just no work around that’s suitable for him, or anyone prepared to hire a graduate. I always feel terrible that I can’t do more to help (although he’s started writing a fantasy novel recently), and know it’s a problem that many are suffering from.
A better upload speed
I live between a main town centre and a BT research lab, but my maximum upload speed is 480kbps. That means I have only just enough upload speed to stream the radio for Split Infinity. I’d love to be able to do live video streaming from my home, for which I need a lot more upload. We’re not even in an area that can get cable. An upgrade to Fibre to the Cabinet has been on the cards for the last 18 months I’ve been here, but hasn’t happened.
Guild Wars 2 to release in 2012
I’m not asking for a release date, or whining that the game isn’t out. But heck, most people reading this would like to have Guild Wars 2 in their hands now. I’m really looking forward to getting together with my guild and friends to play and make a great many more, whilst enjoying a genre defining game.
Got something similar you want to add? Comment below!
2000 Days
13 months ago
Mystic Spiral [MYST] hits another milestone today. It’s been years in the making but we’re finally getting rid of our current forum and making way for an actual website.
It’s almost like the 21st Century or something.
I’ve spent the last few weeks putting together a prototype site that combines WordPress and PhpBB3 to make a unified content management system and forum. Having spent most of that time re-skinning the site to create a seamless look, I can say 2 things: I know a lot more about CSS now than when I started and I’m no graphic designer. While I’m proud of what has come out of my swearing programming sessions I’m expecting cries of “it’s ugly” once it launches. I won’t disagree, but then there’s a reason why I’m a developer.
Functionality wise though, I’m in heaven. There are a million more directions to go in with the new site than the old. I explored some of them in a previous post, which will shape up to be phase 2 aka a dynamic guild roster. I also spied the Steam API a week or two ago which has got my pulse racing. For now though, the new site gets information like voice server details out of a buried thread in a forum and onto a separate page. Events have their own section and are Google calendar powered. If Guild Wars 2 launched tomorrow, we’d have something to work with and I’d spend less time maintaining a forum and more time with my guildies – ultimately the aim in changing format.
The next 2 weeks while we get everything migrated are likely to be hectic. Like all of this venture, it’s new territory for me which inevitably means long hours, lots of swearing and consumption of beverages that may not be healthy to me (coffee or vodka). I’m also celebrating my +1 day and have tickets to see Within Temptation in that time frame, so don’t expect to hear much from me on my blog. Twitter should be as active as ever though.
In one way it’s unfortunate everything’s conspired to happen at once, but I enjoy being busy. Since coming back from Gamescom I’ve had at least 3 viable community projects going through my head, and a blog post for Talk Tyria I must have revised at least 5 times. Its hard not to pick up one of these items and run with it, but I’m determined to get the site migrated. For once in my life, I will be a finisher.
You can take a look at the format we’ll be migrating to here. Our proper domain will be updated sometime before the 20th if all goes to plan.
Wish us luck!
PS: It’s also 2000 days since we were founded!
Seriously…
6What happened yesterday with regards to the “news” about Guild Wars 2 maybe coming on a console was a load of crap. It seems to be a reoccurring theme of late – small piece of maybe news gets twisted in some person’s head, rabid population explodes, community manager has to put it in perspective.
I could write a big long piece here about how I’m disappointed in some people who call themselves “fans” (which isn’t a good word to call oneself in my opinion, look at the etymology for why) or journalists but what’s the point? The people who are causing the image of Guild Wars 2 harm and would benefit from having their actions examined won’t read this.
Thing is knowing these people are actively trashing a game I’ve willingly dedicated a lot of my spare time to doesn’t make me want to continue doing so. It is a given I will play the game for all the flaws I consider it to have and will support my friends and guild mates on their adventures through it. But when it comes to the wider community, trying to do something beneficial when I know it will get shit on just seems like a waste of time and unnecessary stress. Some people may not view that as a loss to the community but if I’m feeling it, how long till others start feeling it too? And more importantly, how long before those who are employed by ArenaNet to deal with the community get fed up of putting their real work on hold to put out fires and decide they’d be better off looking for new jobs?