#trying to think of what would a gw2 player make their character look like

[rizardofether]

Wanted to talk about my character Ketter again since it seems I only made one short post about him alongside introducing some other recent characters when I made him back in 2021 apparently.

Ketter is a GW2 player who ended up in the world of the game as him main character, Ketter. He had geared Ketter up with one of the strongest virtuoso builds so he's pretty powerful when he pops in at the beginning of the personal story.

Ketter finds that there is a commander character following the story, Rhixak, my main commander, meaning he's in my main timeline, but working in the background. He joins the Pact and supports them secretly, pretending to be just a slightly stronger than average Pact member.

Ketter struggles to hide himself to not affect the story and important characters while helping them secretly, but so far I haven't thought of any specific scenarios since I keep coming up with new character ideas and hopping into those instead. Need to brainstorm something at some point hopefully..

[system-architect]

i've been getting heavily back into gw2 RP lately and i've noticed an increasing amount of gw2 rp events popping up, so i wanna give some unsolicited advice that has helped me grow as a roleplayer + have More Fun roleplaying, in the hopes it helps spark that in other folks too:

1 - follow the "yes, and" rule of improv! RP is all improv! "yes, and" basically means accepting/listening to what your improv partner has said, and then building on it. in a roleplay setting, this can mean having yourself + your character consider and internalize what the other person has said, and then building off of it with their own dialogue/reaction/proposal/etc. it does not mean agreeing with the other character, it means trying to not let the scene die right there even if your character would ordinarily do something like just walk off or ignore the other person.

you sometimes have to force your character to be ever-so-slightly ooc in order to do "yes, and", but it is SUPER worth it. RP is often like you and your partner laying out a series of little tom and jerry mousetraps full of lore and character development and conflict for the other person to step in. try ur best to both step in them and also keep laying them out for the other person, and you will have fun!

2 - fully allow your character to be stupid, embarrassing, make incorrect assumptions, get into trouble, get in over their head, be outmatched, have too much confidence, bite off more than they can chew, and generally fail at things. you can still have a "cool" character in spite of all of these things-- but failure can be fun, and helps make interactions more realistic

2a - relatedly, at all costs, avoid seeing RP as a 'game' that can be 'won' by either character or player. this one should be obvious, but a lot of people behave like this reflexively especially if they're worried about the 'coolness' or 'power level' of their character becoming compromised, so it's good to be aware of. this can kill people's desire to RP with you very very quickly

3 - be aware that your character will, or should!!, grow and change over time as you write and rp them more. if you're sitting there thinking through your next emote and you get a wild idea in your head, or you look at what you just hit enter on and thought "wow, they're acting kind of different, is this too OOC"... consider for a second if it's just a new, unexpected Thing about your character surfacing due to the rp! seeing your little brain guy evolve from a couple paragraph backstory pitch into a fully fleshed out person full of surprises is part of the fun! embrace it! ...and if it IS too much, you can always try to fix it in future rps haha

4 - last, but not least... COMMUNICATE! get to know your partner and their visions for their characters, and their inspirations, the types of stories they like, and so on. make sure you have a firm idea of the sorts of boundaries you want to lay out in your RP-- are either of you cool with injuries, your characters knowing secret backstory details about each other, romance/flirting, lore bending/breaking, and so on! don't be afraid to ask them in party chat before you hit send on something if it feels like it pushes a line, and absolutely bring up any cool ideas you get, too!

[koko-online]

On GW2's narratives

I maintain that the reason GW2's stories always fall flat (though some more than others cough SotO cough) is that we have almost no villains.

What parts of the story do people remember most fondly? LW1, PoF, and LW4 almost universally. Y'know, the parts that came to life because of Scarlet Briar, Balthazar, and Palawa Joko. I´d also add the tearjerker at the end of EoD and saying goodbye to Aurene, but that's not relevant to the point I'm going to make.

Remember in like 8th grade English class, when your teacher talked about conflicts in storytelling? It was probably something like this.

GW2 has opted almost universally for the bottom-right quadrant : Person vs. Nature. There's nothing wrong with that type of conflict. The dragons are a force of nature more than independent living things, and the Kryptis and Titans are about the same after all was said and done with them.

But those kinds of stories are almost antithetical to the power fantasy that most MMORPGs, including GW2, rely on. The only time in the history of this game where anything felt actively hostile was in HoT's open world. So we're just left there reacting to a quasi-mindless threat with no motivations, goals, or real personality, who we know for sure we're going to defeat because it's a video game designed to be beaten with minimal effort. If we wanted to call the antagonistic forces a "natural disaster", they would be the equivalent of a pretty mild rainshower. Not exactly a compelling story.

Before I move into villains, I want to address why Society and Self would also make uninteresting conflicts in this case. In both cases, it requires ANET to define our character's personality, goals, and convictions more than they already have. This leaves players feeling disconnected from any sort of potential narrative roleplay. Additionally, in the former's case, it would require ANET to make a profound political message, which I don´t think they are capable of.

That leaves us with Person vs. Person. Here's where villains come in.

Villain-centric stories are almost a cheat code for MMORPGs. Look at Lilith from FFXI, Shiro Tagachi and Khilbron from GW1, the Lich King from WoW, Emet Selch (everyone's favourite sexy grampa) and Zenos from FFXIV.

They allow you to tell a full and complete character-driven story without writing our characters for us or having to write them as cartoons so that they stand out (literally every one of our main party members in GW2). You're forced to define your character in comparison or contrast to the villain's aims, means, and/or convictions.

We found out later that Scarlet Briar was an agent of Modremoth, but at the time, we thought she was some batshit genius! We saw and reacted to the shit she was doing through the lens of trying to understand her. It made the world feel big and fragile and mysterious.

We met Balthazar as he deceived us, and we had to reckon with a god's view of life vs. our own.

Palawa Joko, I mean, nuff said, he's the best character writing we've ever had in this game and he was taken out of GW1. And he was played half for laughs!

When we don´t have strong antagonist writing, we're left with just a beige sea of allies who have no real philosophical underpinnings. Of course they're against the threat, it's killing them, what else? I don´t even know any of the SotO characters names because I can´t care about them. They're faceless randoms who simply act as agents of Isgarren. Okay. Who cares?

I am 1000000% certain that the writing team at ANET follows my inane tumblr blog closely, so please, take my advice and give us a mirror.

[ascalonianlightbringer]

Mesmers are my favorite class (both in GW1 and GW2, though they're quite different in each game!) and I've always especially enjoyed the more damage-oriented mesmers. I loved playing Domination Magic-focused GW1 mesmers with Backfire, Empathy, Power Spike, Energy Surge, Cry of Frustration, etc (I actually learned how to play GW1 on a Domination mesmer, which was ... a steep learning curve, but a blast once I got the hang of it). In GW2, before the Mirage specialization got nerfed to hell, I loved my Condition Damage mesmer/Mirage, and Power builds + greatsword are always really fun on core mesmers and chronomancers.

(I can't speak to Virtuoso—I've heard great things but I can't bring myself to give up my emotional support clones.)

My main, Gwen Velazquez, originally went from a very damage-oriented core mesmer to a sword-based Power chronomancer—fun in groups, but squishy in solo play unless she manages to kill everything first.

However. My family has played the GW games together since Prophecies and my mother's main is an even squishier Power elementalist who does huge amounts of damage but often dies. So I was trying to think of ways Gwen could help my mother's character survive—and then, after all these years of ArenaNet nerfing the originally superb support/defense chronomancer into oblivion, they buffed the defensively-oriented chronomancer back into effectiveness. This was months ago now, but I was working on my dissertation and only recently got the chance to really try playing Gwen as a chronomancer built around defense and support rather than strike damage.

Holy shit, it's so fun.

Yeah, it takes her a lot longer to kill things, but now she can afford to pick fights with much harder foes all by herself. She's gone from glass cannon to regularly soloing champions if I'm even somewhat paying attention to what she's doing (and chronomancer is a complicated enough class that I'm usually paying attention).

Another player showed up to one of the champion fights I was soloing and advised me to stop using ranged attacks (all that Gwen has now) because those also would reflect back to me, and I didn't have the heart to say it made zero difference because it wasn't getting through Gwen's blocks and she hadn't even needed to heal yet. She's using scepter/shield + staff and it's just like block, block, dodge, block, set down her AOEs, get a chaos aura by teleporting out, oh look her blocks are back and she's got her healing and stability mantras for emergencies.

I gather that the rifle chrono is even better, but defense with a Chaos/Inspiration/Chronomancer build actually being good again makes the scepter/shield+staff chrono feel incredible. Love playing a light armor chaos mage as an unkillable god.

[icebrooding]

Honestly even though I didn’t have the same negative reaction that much of the online gw2 community did, I do kinda appreciate some of the learnings for story they outlined in the retrospective 😅

I agree completely. I personally loved Secrets of the Obscure, I rate it very highly while acknowledging that it definitely had flaws. Handling as many new characters and lore topics was going to be difficult, and I understand the frustration of people who felt that things felt a bit underwhelming or glossed over, I really do. I feel it myself.

Personally, however, I think those things affected me less because I've always been rather focused towards story, and digging as much out of it as I can in a rather aggressive way, in almost everything I enjoy, and that allows me a different (not necessarily deeper) level of enjoyment. Sometimes I may come to conclusions or thoughts that may not be there actually, or may not have been the intent, but the enjoyable thing is that art is subjective, and if nothing comes out to specifically say 'this reading is wrong', I can satisfy myself with those interpretations.

Why else do you think I can sit here and write essays on 'here's why X character makes me think they're like Y based on one throwaway line or an implication in a piece of lore in a book I found on the overworld' :P

This is definitely how SotO appealed to me, because there was a lot there that I could dig into personally and get my mental cogs ticking. But on the same note, I get why people want more concrete answers, more time spent on developing new threads. I would have loved SotO to be longer, myself, because I truly enjoyed the world and characters it brought to the table. That's what Wildflowers will be for--

Gameplay, I think could have definitely been improved. While I wasn't particularly fussed with the first or last Nayos release, the middle one is where I felt the impact hardest. But I do enjoy things like Rift Hunting, Convergences, etc, I just pace my time. I know that's easier for me though since I only started playing in '22.

I appreciate the transparency on this front, in all honesty. I've only dabbled into game dev myself in times long past (I feel old, but I'm really not), and can understand the need to push out an excuse for why x or y didn't turn out as expected, but I can respect flat-out saying 'we tried to do too much, and we failed to achieve what we set out to'.

And with the certain extreme-level volatile reactions in other sections of this player base, I think recognising that treating the places where SotO tripped over itself as something not done maliciously is important. Not saying that criticism isn't deserved, but I have seen some genuinely horrific things said that make me feel ashamed to be part of this community.

All in all, I'm going to hold my faith in the next expansion and am greatly looking forward to it, and seeing how these lessons take. I've stuck through way worse in other MMOs, so one expac that struggled to handle everything it set out to do is barely a blip on my radar.

And I feel this is the best moment to bring up my general blog's attitude: it's no secret how horribly negative this playerbase can be, to the point I've had to turn off map chat a number of times because the negativity is so constant it is genuinely bad for my mental health. I have fairly severe depression, I do not need to sit here and wallow in even more negativity. I think too much of the world as it is right now thrives off of negativity and hating things and not being happy, so when I talk about story beats or characters, etc, I always try to do so in a positive way. I'm just here to enjoy something that's come to mean a lot to me, not to sit here and hear for the eightieth time about why X is a shit character or Y is the worst thing that ever happened or Z blah blah blah.

[hedjblogr]

26 - 32, + 37 <3 - moonlit-grove (ps- if it's too many you can pick and choose your favorites)

26. Are there any players you look up to?

auhh mostly just people in my friends group for being good at various things. i try not to do the whole looking up to other players thing in a parasocial/idol sense because well let's just say don't meet your heroes

27. First memorable friend you made through guild wars?

i mostly tend to make friends out of game and join them in it but like, y'all in the CATS guild are pretty swell :> so i think that'd be you then heehee

28. Do you play with sound on or off?

i usually play with sound on! other people's projectiles off because of the dreamer, music on sometimes but usually i'm listening to my own

29. Do you stream GW2? If so where can I watch you?

i have considered streaming it but i don't do like, raids or any high level content so i don't know that anyone would be interested. if you were to watch me though i would be on youtube or twitch as hedjeroo

30. Are you obsessed with in game fashion?

YES YES YES YES Y E S i'm not gonna post all my fashion stuff here but god yes i'm so low on transmutation charges please help me

31. Do you have a favourite dye?

sand shark and daybreak are GORGEOUS, i also really like bloodstone violet and arcane, and growth, and antique gold

i would commit murders for the aurene dyes tho

32. Whats the best glider skin in your opinion?

dON'T MAKE ME CHOOSE

but i really like the dragon firework, i have it on multiple characters

the cute demon wings have such a cute little flappy flappy tho

and i use the forged glider a lot

37. What are the top three tips you would give someone just starting to play?

- keep hold of your materials starting out and salvage everything you're not going to use, you will need those materials later and you will thank past you for keeping them

- map complete is your friend, it gets you all the things a growing player needs

- take your time! this is not a hardcore must-get-to-endgame mmo, it's an explorative experience with a lot of lore and goodies hidden all around the world in little nooks and crannies, so seek out secrets and enjoy the levelling process!

[commander-isekai]

Commander Isekai - commander from an another world

A/N:

Hi all! This my tongue-in-cheek fic about a commander, who’s actually a human player from the real world, and who now lives through the game, but armed with previous knowledge about it. They aren’t happy just to follow along a story, so things will get different quickly enough. Hence their name is commander Kai, as a pun from the isekai genre. I’ve been inspired by similar fics done about other games, and I thought gw2 could be a fun one too.

Chapter One:

The Second Awakening or how I found myself in a video game world

Sometimes, all you can remember is falling. It was the only sensation I could comprehend. The world around me was a blurry, like a messy watercolor painting. If there were any noises, I couldn't hear them. I just fell.

A painfully bright light drilled into my eyes.

I woke up with a great thump, as I landed into a large pile of dry leaves. They managed to soften my landing to a degree, but I was aching from all over, like if I had rolled downhill like a cheese in a cheese-wheeling competition, determined to win the first place no matter how crumbly my state would be at the finish line.

"This fucking sucks.." I groaned, tossing my arm out and trying to find my glasses, or my phone, but only grasped more leaves. I hoped I hadn’t broken either one during my fall.

"Are you alright, Valiant?" I heard a concerned voice ask, "the awakening can be sometimes rough, but you'll find your bearings soon enough."

Oh no, had I fallen asleep outside? I had a bad habit of dozing off, but the embarrassment of sleeping outside and this kind person having to wake me up made me wish I could knock myself out permanently rather than face them.

"Yeah yeah, I'm sorry about this, just give me a minute..." I tried to form coherent sentences while pushing my hair away, but my hand gathered only more leaves? and no hair??

I pulled my hand in front of my face and yelped in surprise when I saw that it was bright lavender, a color that my regular human hands should not be, and that I was grasping purple and pink ferns instead of my regular colored human hair.

"Wh-what the hell is going on?" I looked at myself and the person helping me, and only then I realized they weren't human either, but a pea-green person who seemed to be made out of plant material and flowers. Behind them, I could see a shimmering lake and a small village, with more denizens similar to them and me.

As I gasped upon the scene, the two braincells inside my skull finally hit a nerve and made the connection that I had been missing:

A) Somehow, I was in Caledon Forest. Like, the starting zone in Guild Wars 2, an MMO I used to play lot back in the day until I got too busy with my life and other video games.

B) Also somehow, I wasn't a human anymore. I was a walking, talking, internally-panicking sylvari.

C) Last but not least, I could see everything clearly without glasses. This fact stressed me out the most. Had my vision somehow been fixed when I fell? I did like my old glasses, and really hoped they were in one piece somewhere.

"Are you feeling enough well to stand?" the sylvari that must be a mender asked me, offering a hand that I gladly took as I wobbled onto my feet like a newborn calf.

“I think I am?” I answered hesitantly, not certain if I’d stay upright after she’d let go of me.

" I am mender Lorean. What's your name?" the sylvari asked me.

" Um, Kai" I said, as the first name in my mind was the name of my commander character, "short of Cainneach, but just Kai is fine."

It didn't feel right to introduce myself with my given human name, as it was definitely not a sylvari name, and that would have revealed me being something else than your regular baby sprout. I really wasn't married to that name anyway, so Kai came out naturally. I had already used Kai as a all-around nickname, so I settled into it like putting on a new, yet surprisingly comfortable shirt.

"Alright, Valiant Kai", seeing as I could hold on my own against the gravity, Lorean let go of my hand, and explained: "Now, it can take some time to get used to the world outside the Dream. You shouldn't wander off too far from the Grove, at least not until you're experienced enough. You should find anything you need inside the city, and the mentors will help you along. Caithe also asked me to tell you that she wants to speak with you, when you are ready."

The mender that helped me did not seem to comment on my errantic behaviour - they must have seen a wild variety of saplings in their time.

"Wait, why do you keep calling me a valiant?" I asked, trying to wrap my head around what I could remember about Caithe. The total sum was not much - an assassin with a troubled past: a guild of heroes that basically cut ties after a failed dragon killing quest and ex-girlfriend who's in the lead of the bad Nightmare sylvari. That'd be a lot for anyone.

"Caithe told me, about how you joined forces with her to defeat the a large nightmare beast in the Dream. That must be a sign of a great Wyld Hunt", Lorean explained, and asked curiously: "don't you remember the Dream?"

Oh right. The Dream, or the tutorial part with the big dragon monster. I somehow completely skipped that in this new, 4D-supported version of Tyria. At least I did not remember experiencing anything resembling fighting a giant dragon to death, not after waking up here. I had an inkling that telling so would only raise more questions, and I had plenty of those myself.

  "Oh yes, it's all coming back to me", I lied with a practiced straight face, "I must have just hit my head hard when I awoke, that's all.  I'll be on my way now, thanks!" 

I waved and nearly dashed to an exit before Lorean could respond. They were being just nice, sure, but I needed a moment for myself with no one else right now, or I would explode on the spot.

'''

Not far from the village, but enough far that no one would hopefully bother me, I made my way to the large pond, to really take in all the changes.

"Oh no, the fireflies are actually that big", I grimaced when I saw a group of the flying creatures gather around one of the light-giving plants, "That's going to take some time getting used to."

I sat down next to the water's edge, and I could finally take a look at my new features. They were nothing like what I'd been used to - instead of soft skin, my face was hard, bark-like texture. My hair was like plant's leaf, yet sturdier - it hurt when I tried to pull it. My form was different too, almost like I had had a second puberty without knowing it - my limbs were taller than what I had been used to, and I felt my presentation was more masculine than what it had been when I was human.

The more I sat and contemplated my situation, everything around me seemed to make no sense. I was stuck in an unfamiliar body, in the role of the main character of a video game, and while I did not remember every detail of what happened in the story, I knew it wouldn't take long for things to get hairy. Why I was here? Why did I look like this?  No matter how I tried to rationalize it, I had no answers, and I was only left with piling up frustration, and tears began to form in the corners of my eyes.

“Hey, are you alright?” A new voice dragged me out of my depths. It belonged to a blue sylvari with a mushroom-capped head, and whose leaf-like outfit seemed to grow naturally as a part of their body.

“I don’t know, it’s just - a lot of stuff to process. The whole awakening, and everything”, I told them as honestly as I could.

“You seemed to be a little more lost than the other sprouts - and I do not mean that in a judgmental way”, the sylvari said and hold out something: “here, take this, it will help.”

“Oh, thank you”, I accepted the carved bowl that seemed to be made out of a giant nut, and the gentle smell of pumpkin soup overwhelmed me. Gods, I realized only now how starved I felt, like I had not eaten properly for days.

“I don’t have any money, or gold-” I tried to say, but the other sylvari cut in quickly:

“Do not worry about it! I hope you have a pleasant evening!” 

The sylvari took off, and I was too mesmerized by their kindness towards a random stranger like me that it did not even occur to me to ask their name. The soup, still warm in my hands was a temptation too great to resist, and I wasted no time devouring it.

Maybe this world isn’t too bad after all, if people are gifting food freely to others like that, I thought to myself, earlier anguish almost completely forgotten.

[orrianreaper]

sorry im going through all ur pages and saw the ask meme thing u reblogged (/post/190372681581/) djkhjkgh. if you're still up for doing it i'd love to know about paara!

There’s no need to apologise, I’m always up for talking more about my OC’s! xD Thank you for asking about my little Centurion!

Full Name:

Centurion Paara Ghostburn

Gender and Sexuality:

Female, and I’d say she’s possibly something along the lines of Demisexual, although I’ve nothing set in stone for her really.

Pronouns:

She/her.

Ethnicity/Species:

Asura.

Birthplace and Birthdate:

Rata Sum, 1301 AE. (If i’ve done my maths right anyway)

Guilty Pleasures:

Golem tournaments, honey roasted meats, any sort of kits that let you make little mechanical miniatures of things. She has one which is based on the charr tanks / dunerollers!

Phobias:

I’m not sure if she really has any specific phobias, she’s pretty hardy and doesn’t tend to get caught up in fears very much.

What They Would Be Famous For:

For stopping the overrunning of a Charr outpost from becoming a full-on massacre.  For being an Asuran Legionnaire within the Iron Legion, even having recently been promoted to Centurion by Smodur himself. For being a member of Reverie’s Vengeance, the Commander’s personal guild, which means being a key player in the deaths of the Elder Dragons thus far. For her studies and advancements regarding foefire ghosts for her Legion. She’s fairly impressive.

What They Would Get Arrested For:

Probably for starting some kind of fight with some Charr who made an arsey comment about an Asura leading a Warband. Or blowing something up, she does that a lot as well.

OC You Ship Them With:

I don’t romantically ship Paara with anyone currently, however she does have a platonic soulmate in the form of her second-in-command Ghosttorn (first name still pending.). They’ve got a very fun relationship, they love each other a lot despite the grief they give each other. Who better to call you on your shit than your bestie?

OC Most Likely To Murder Them:

If she calls him Fluffy one more time it might be Meri honestly. But in terms of actual murder, the only OC example I can currently think of is Ovidius Suneater pre-redemption. Ovidius was a childhood friend of Merianus who was inducted into the Flame Legion and became a high ranking Shaman, in order to try and get to Meri, Ovidius staged attacks of Reverie’s Vengeance. In particular, he attacked the Ghost Warband’s workstation, since the Black Citadel is a lot closer to Flame than anything else. Paara and her Ghost warband did Not take well to having Flame on their asses, that’s for sure.

Favorite Movie/Book Genre:

Probably action films, lots of explosions and gadgets even if she’d nitpick how impossible some of the devices are. She probably has a big soft spot for anything with a group or team of heroes as well, over solo protagonists.

Least Favorite Movie/Book Cliche:

Hmm, I’m not sure on this one. 

Talents and/or Powers:

Paara was a spectrologist prior to joining the Legions, meaning she studied Ghosts, so she has a very large amount of experience with the undead and spectral creatures of many kinds. She’s also a talented Engineer, able to repair almost anything she comes across given the time, with the usual armoury of abilities on her belt that Engineers have.

On top of that, she’s plenty combat experienced and hardy as a result, having shifted to being a Holosmith in more recent years as the appeal of the sword and light projections really suited her front-line preferences. 

For Reverie’s Vengeance, Paara is essentially the Smart Guy of the group, and she’s more than happy about this.

Why Someone Might Love Them:

Paara’s brand of snark and self-confidence can be very appealing, she knows who she is and what she wants and isn’t afraid to be blunt about it. She likes to have fun and crack jokes, but she’s a fiercely determined person who will get what she wants or die trying. She won over the Gladium who now make up her own warband by that force of will and genuine talent. 

And she does genuinely care about people, again it was her Warband that taught her to put the merits of people over just technology, she’s a good team player and does her best to listen to others’ suggestions at every turn. She’s good at letting people feel heard. She’s heroic, she’s got self-sacrifice in spades and is always acting, never waiting.

Why Someone Might Hate Them:

Her self-assurance can easily come off as arrogance and narcissism. Her short temper can make her volatile, she can seem to flippant about serious matters with her propensity to snap out snarky comments. 

How They Change:

Before Paara joined the Legions she always had an obsession with them, since she was a child she loved their technology. However  it wasn’t until she started her efforts to join them that she slowly began to look at more of Charr society than just their war machines, and it was through her trials of trying to convince a Tribune to let her in that she learned to value what a Warband can actually be, what they can actually mean. She went from dismissing it, to the point she’s fiercely protective of all of her Ghosts and values them highly.

She’s also become more confident about her place in the Iron Legion with time, if someone wants to question why they should take any orders from some asura, she’ll snap that they should be taking their orders from a Centurion. It’s a bit of an ego growth, but also a confidence in who she is and that she’s happy where she is. She belongs in the Iron Legion, and god help anyone who wants to try and fight her on that.

Why You Love Them:

I love Paara for a load of reasons. She was my first Asura character, and my first Engineer, and Engie was the first class after Necro that I actively really enjoyed playing at the time. She’s one of my oldest gw2 characters, and she’s become such a cocky little badass that I can’t not love her. She’s got a fun, passionate temperament, and the reckless nature she has just makes her so much fun. I also find it hilarious my most Charr-like characters is instead a min-height bulky asura, and not either of my charr who actually grew up in the Legions, because that would make too much sense.

[brax-was-here]

About Mr. Negativety in Guild Wars 2...

and I’m sure this goes for any online game where you create your own character(s).

It annoys me to no end that someone feels the need to go out of their way to negatively comment on another players character, whether it be name, looks, colors, whatever. These people need to mind their own damn business and not worry about what someone’s character, someone they don’t even know. 

EX: As 98.525% of you know, I have a Scarlet Briar homage character, which I’ve been playing in GW2 regularly. Though this is for all intents of purposes Ceara after what happens in the AU story I’m writing. (The “Ceara” name is apparently a no-no name according to the character creator and that makes me sad.) And most of the time, when someone comments, it’s a positive thing.  “Nice cosplay” (this kind of annoys me as I realize that its not really Scarlet Briar, and that makes me sad,) “Holy crap! You look just like Scarlet!” (same thing) “Guys, Scarlet Briar is standing behind me. What do I do?” “Don’t look at her and maybe she won’t kill you.” But I had my first run in with Mr. Negativety. “Can’t you  make an original character.” “you’re lame.” “you’re characters lame.” “Get a life.” For the most part, I ignored the player, but it got me thinking why in Tyria would someone have to go out of their way to try to bring someone down just because they are playing a character they enjoy? If you don’t like the character, then move along, move along. 

[felidae-charr]

A Reflective Anniversary

As many of us know, GW2 is coming up on its seventh birthday.

It’s made me do a lot of thinking about what GW2 as a game means to me. This game isn’t what it used to be. It’s seen a lot of changes, both in the staffing at ArenaNet that direct the game, and the game itself. Some of those changes have been pretty fantastic. Others seem to have been pretty catastrophic.

All in all, it’s gotten me thinking. Thinking about how I even came to play GW2. How I came to run a Tumblr blog with over eight hundred followers - which is still a huge number for me! All the people I met by doing those two things and all of the events I’ve attended in-game. (I still so fondly remember TREU meetups, I think is what they were.)

I remember picking up GW2 at the behest of a friend on Perfect World International. He and I were good friends and spent a lot of time on PWI together, doing the dumb shit that terrible free game had to offer, but he had been a big fan of GW1 and was very excited for GW2 to come out. Curious, I took a look at it. I think some of the first videos I ever saw of it were... gosh, I don’t remember. Part of me wants to say it might have been a Yogscast video.

I fell in love with Charr. I adored them. They were, beyond any shadow of a doubt, the selling point of GW2 for me. A beast race done properly. And I remember making Felidae Soulshield on the very first open beta, and having no idea what class to play. I had always normally played rangers, or archers, or other ranged classes. For Felidae though, I wanted something different. She was definitely a melee character. A supportive one, maybe? So a guardian.

And Felidae Soulshield has existed ever since. A big stronk lioncat who I have always loved the design of and have never even though of giving a makeover kit to. With the beta of GW2 came other things - specifically, this Tumblr blog! I posted about all kinds of things, from dabbling in PvP to looking at the cost of cultural armours and how they looked. Hell if I can really remember precisely what it was I posted about. Slowly but surely, I found other GW2 bloggers and the community was very small, especially the Charr portion of it, but everybody was friendly and we had nothing but love for the game to share.

As time went by, I made two very specific Sylvari characters: Aindryas, and Rasiel. Aindryas was, I think, my most well-known and I tried to dabble in roleplay with him. From what I heard in years following, a lot of people thought he looked incredibly nice and admired him at a distance. A few people came and roleplayed though, and we hung out. There was the usual roleplay drama because isn’t that always how roleplay winds up going, but it was fun. Aindryas and Rasiel also made me appreciate the Sylvari as a race a lot more, and Rasiel would also re-introduce me (albeit temporarily) to the world of PvP once I got him to level 80 and worked out a pretty bomb-ass Condi Thief build, back before Runes of Perplexity got hit with the nerfbat and buried in the grave. (Fuck, I miss that build.)

Some of the closest friends I’ve ever had were made in this game. Had is an operative word there, as none of us speak any more at all and it seems like we’re all on god-awful terms. But regardless of how things seem to have turned out, for many years, these people were a big and important part of my life and I would never try to claim they weren’t. I cared about them and I loved them, and I would never have met these people if I hadn’t picked up GW2 one day because somebody told me to go look at it.

Perhaps that’s why the state of GW2 today hurts me so much to see. Of any MMORPG I have ever played, it is this one that lead me to my closest of friends. It’s this one where I tried new things. It was this one where I felt a part of a community, and where I felt like that community was worth being part of. Full of friendly faces, and people who had amazingly good discussions, and generally free of snobbery. GW2 used to have an identity. And these days, I think it doesn’t have that any more.

It doesn’t have the identity of being the open-ended and flexible MMORPG with a fairly tight community. Now it has gained the reputation for being a top trending MMORPG that almost never updates with real content, and where all of those in-game rewards you used to be able to earn got either shoehorned behind raid content or otherwise put into the gem store. Now it’s known as the game where only “filthy casuals” play it, because all the “hardcore elite” got told to leave if they weren’t happy with the state of the game and so leave is precisely what they did. Now it’s just a husk and a shadow of what it used to be, where there are still plenty of players, but there’s also no shortage of people who will admit that half the playing of GW2 involves making your own games in GW2, because the game certainly isn’t giving you content any more.

Now GW2 is the game that added the ability to sit in a chair... and then sold chairs to its players, because anything that makes a quick buck, right?

I’m not even angry. I’m just tired. I’m sad. I keep logging into GW2 and I’m still playing the game - now and then. I finally finished Save the Queen just last week! A pre-cursor! But it feels hollow. Pre-cursors used to give me such excitement. Shit, I finished Bolt this year after years of staring at it and telling myself I’d get around to it, and... well I mean, it’s just Bolt. I’m slowly, tiny bit by tiny bit, working my way towards Astralia for my Viper Renegade, who I also finally have in full ascended accessories (my second ever character, out of 60, to be full ascended in accessories.) These things should be achievements to me. And I am happy and proud of myself! But... what does it matter, anyway? It’s not the achievement it used to be. Finding new builds feels worthless in a world where metas have become so predominately important (and look, I’m not saying that raids were bad for GW2, but they brought with them a more intense scrutiny towards “meta builds” than we had ever had previously) and where PvP and WvW are such poor jokes even ArenaNet forgets to turn on content for them.

It’s an anniversary, yes. It’s a birthday of the game. But I just don’t know I could call it happy, because when I reflect on what I remember this game for being and how fond it was to me back then, the game seems so shallow by comparison. The particular focus on gem store conveniences and chairs and rewards you can’t earn in game ever even when there’s no good reason not to be able to... GW2 lost its spirit somewhere along the way, I think. It was never a perfect game, and it was never going to be a perfect game, but the truth is if you put a big red button in front of me that said “GW2 (and community) pre-HoT” I’d probably smash it in a heartbeat.

Or, maybe I’m just a nostalgic idiot. 

[whiskeyworen]

30 Day Guild Wars Challenge - Day 16-30 (on time!)

Day 16 — What do you listen to while playing?

Damned near anything. I sometimes have Zero Punctuation running on my phone while I play, or Extra Credits. I also have a few strictly music channels like xKiko Music or Chilled Cow, as well as a few playlists of straight up music based on my mood at the time (metal, techno, 90s hard rock, etc) Day 17 — Your favorite GW2 related YouTube video? Well, while I’m fond of the funny videos Noxxi the Noxxian puts out, and there’s this one REALLY good Initial D parody with roller beetles... I gotta give it to this one.

Day 18 — Worst thing about GW2? The lack of ability to solo dungeons. Elitism in Raids. Legendary crafting being locked behind ‘you have to do PvP’ or ‘you have to do Fractals and find THIS item’ doors. I understand the logic, but it means I might never get a Legendary without begging for someone to tolerate me and my non-meta characters. Day 19 — Best thing about GW2? In direct opposition to what I just said, the Teamwork and friendliness in PvE and WvWvW. Yes, there’s rivalry, but it’s not nearly as bloodthirsty as other games I’ve played. And if you need help, usually there’s people on the maps that will help you for no reason (other than getting loot from whatever is trying to kill ya! XD ) Day 20 — How did you come up with your main’s name? Depends on which Main you mean; my self-insert uses a name that is a triple-retranslated version of my name. I ran my name through one language, then ran THAT through another, and then finally a third, before choosing the final name from a list of suggestions at the end. The Danae sisters were partially based off some old story characters I had, though I tweaked the names. Kaleb and Maeva are my OLDEST story characters and have been reincarnated about 7 times over the course of my story-writing life. Kaleb was and is my face image in certain places. Day 21 — Your favourite profession? Torn between Scourge, Firebrand and Holosmith. Scourge is just playing unmitigated DEATH all the time. Firebrand is an upgrade to my old ‘burning bulwark’ Guardian build, which means if I was burning enemies before, I’m vaporizing them now. And the Holosmith has an Elite skill which summons a frickin’ Gundam Beam Rifle that can scorch the land and knocks everything down. (Be still my heart). Day 22 — Your minis. Twisted Watchwork thingies, like the Mender, or the Branded Riftstalker. That thing just looks goddamned neat. Day 23 — The longest you’ve gone without playing? I think about 3-6 months. It was somewhere between LV2 and before HoT started. I was having a bad time and needed time away from the game. When I came back, I fell back in HARD and I haven’t fallen out since. Day 24 — Your favorite glitch screenshot. Three part glitch; Draconis Mons, I was using the thermal vents to bounce around. Jumped into one and... I missed the landing, shot THROUGH the wall (dying the moment I hit) and continued going for a long time... Like, really far outside the map.

So very far outside the map. And was surprised there’s actually LAND structure that far away from the playable zones.

As you can see below, I went way the HELL out there. The spot on the map where I am is where Inertia dropped out and I started falling. I flew THAT far.

Day 25 — Who do you play with? Refer to earlier questions of ‘I have no friends in game, and my friends’ list is full of inactive players’. X’D Day 26 — List your characters and their levels. Slane Veq Vaela Toma Kaleb Fenoir Maeva Corolis Dhangalor Caelia Redgrip Karma Shadowcreeper Zevvras Awd Cyrus Sigismund Tenna Danae Miriya Danae Sonnya Danae Corvus Corvidae Moryggan Deraleth Verula Faithbreaker All level 80. Day 27 — Your titles. Been there, Done that. The Executioner. The Sunbringer. The Magnanimous. Dark Traveler. there’s a lot. Day 28 — Your favorite boss? Probably Tequatl. It feels like a really good boss fight, and I’m glad they experimented with it. Shatterer definitely benefited from it. I’d like to see some more variation though; like have the Shatterer not always sweep in from the left and wipe out that hill (which was an adjustment cuz campers). Give him a few different entrances. Just for variety. Day 29 — Something you worked really hard to get. The Goddamned. Sky. Scale. Legendaries be damned, the Sky Scale was nearly two weeks of pain in my butt. I got it BEFORE the time patch. So I HAD to wait the full 24 hours. Plus I didn’t have a lot of Charged Quartz saved up, so I had to make all that crap. Day 30 — Your main? I would say Cyrus Sigismund, since he’s my Self-insert character... but I’d be lying. It’s split between the Danae sisters, based on what I need that day. If I wanna goof around, I take Tenna the Holosmith. If I wanna make sure I’m gonna win but don’t wanna attract too many mobs, I take Sonnya the Firebrand. If I don’t care about Mobs and just wanna inflict as much as I can on EVERYTHING in sight, I use Miriya the Scourge. That said, those three are also my favorites.

[zydrateacademy]

Current Activities - Conan Exiles #4

So I just posted my latest story “Assassination at the Summit”, and while I am proud of its contents, it has some background information. Basically starting at  "Her outside clanmates had been navigating..." was practically written in a blind fury. I’ve calmed down now but this is my blog and I feel like ranting. First off, the character depicted in that story, Dey Yin, is an actual player. She’s an excellent writer and I strive to reach to her level of para-posting, as they give excellent opportunities to reply and react and I want to offer the same to other players when they interact with me. Also, she loves the story.

I am happy with the results as there was some effort put into it. Even in my blind fury, the last few parts turned out well. I’ve also been trying to work on my verb tense. Either I missed that class in school or over a decade of roleplaying has completely rewritten how my brain perceives verb tense. You might notice that my tenses swap between past and present, sometimes within the same line. This is why writers have editors, people. Anyway it was mostly a background plot, like many of my stories are. Basically I like to lay some groundwork before I claim things. I do not simply want to claim to be a whiskey baroness, I want to actually show it. I want people to see, through a narrative, the effort put in importing a whiskey from the outside world. The server is too small for specific events to surround these kinds of things, so I compensate by writing short stories instead. Quick aside; I actually did host an RP event with my character announcing the existence of her clan. It went very well with around ~9 attendees.

Whiskey and fun were had by all. Anyway.  I spoke of this plot in-character with others and another player on the server, someone I’ve been trying to arrange RP with for... years, I think, across a few MMO’s. We’ve met on an ERP gathering website (ya’ll know the one) but our interactions could never quite get sexual. They’re a good writer and roleplayer and they definitely value quality over fluff. I can respect that. We had some meetups in GW2 but maybe we just don’t make characters that gel well because we just couldn’t quite get to the fluffy stuff. Anyway she happens to follow me on CE. Fair enough. No prompting, she just saw that I was playing a lot and figured she’d hop on the ship. She’s doing well on the server, has a whole clan, etc. Good for her. But upon hearing about this plot of mine, her character offers some... assistance. Instead of being a simple assassination, she wants it to be poison. She insists, having an IC personal stake against Khitan generals. Fair enough, but then she hands Livia an actual quest. Get three specific items. The items in question are in fact part of the several artifacts you need to remove your bracelet and “win” the game (which deletes your save file by the way). Not the whole thing, just three of them. The scourgestone was probably the easiest, and I had some IC help from a guy. It was all great fun. Admittedly I was salty at first, adding extra steps to a straightforward plotline. Then I got to writing it out and I enjoyed the idea of dungeon delving being written into it. It started to feel like an actual epic on the likes of Beowulf, Clash of the Titans, and indeed, actual Conan books and lore. Sword and sorcery. I’m not claiming to write as well as any of those (though I’m pretty sure the Conan movies didn’t have any writers, holy shit), but it started to FEEL like an epic RPG story. I didn’t have it completely written out but it had about three full paragraphs worth. Might have eked out an extra two before... bullshit happens. The salt starts to come back when the player drags their feet about getting the last item for the poison crafting. They are focusing on their clan base and that looks fine and all, but a boss hunt only needed to be asked in global “anyone want to help?”, 3-4 people would have done fine and we had 3 at any given moment, each of us with powerful weapons and armor. We could have gotten it at any time. Again, fair on them to a certain extent. I’m sure they have a job and when they were online, she was likely wrangling her clanmates and building assignments. I get that, but... again, we could have had this wrapped up in 15 minutes at any given point. Eventually my character tries to meet with another newbie on the server (as she does) but finds them already at this person’s clan base. Figure it’d be a good time for Livia to check in on the poison and see when we can go hunting but... Well. Let me give you quick context on this person’s character. John Mulaney has a comedy set talking about his father and how straight-laced he tends to be. He recalls a story (true or not, who can tell?) where John himself and some siblings (I think? Other kids?) were screaming for McDonalds. The father pulls into the drive through, orders a single black coffee, and drives away. John states something to the effect of “in retrospect, that was the funniest thing I’ve seen in my entire life”. Well, this person’s character is basically that guy. But a woman. Livia already has stated that she’s got quite the stick up her ass. Anyway they’ve traded barbs as you might expect, Livia being more of a carefree roll-with-punches and make-money kind of woman. Livia drops an offhanded line about “Maybe I’ll just get my people to slit the general’s throat and save me a headache [in dealing with this character]”. All we get in response is “So be it” and are then soon banned from her stronghold. That’s when I lowkey lose it. I don’t explode, I don’t rant, I don’t PM them. In fact, there’s almost no OOC communication between me and this person and I think it worked against us. She never once asked me permission to force a poison subplot in my story. The character just “strongly insisted” and Livia was like “fine, let’s make the thing” and I went off to get two of the three items THAT DAY. A week goes by, then that bullshit happens. What a waste of my time. I keep thinking back to a roleplaying guide I posted on this server’s website. It’s the same one I’ve copied and pasted across many MMO’s I’ve roleplayed on. There’s a section in there that talks about IC drama having no affect on OOC, or it shouldn’t. I’ve spent many years separating IC and OOC, often times whispering people after an OOC argument of like “That was fun, thanks for the RP!” That kind of thing.  Unfortunately, this whole thing did have OOC consequences. The entire plot and story was essentially a gift to the player for being active, friendly, fun to interact with and being a good writer. I wanted to give the player and character something they would appreciate, but instead was delayed by a player insisting on adding a step. And then never stepped forward. It wasted my time and theirs and got in the way of that RP. Thus, I feel like my anger while perhaps not entirely justified, still makes sense in this context. My time was wasted, and now I’m possibly barred from RP with that person and their clan, or at least by going to their base. Not a single word OOCly was spoken between us throughout this. I remember PMing them the paragraph that featured them, asking if there was anything that needed to be changed. They said no, it was fine for the context and remaining an enigma. Fair enough.  That was it. She never asked me permission to bullrush into our plot, nor did I outwardly refuse it. I thought nothing of it, and indeed as I mentioned earlier I did have some fun writing out dungeon adventures and Livia’s general hatred of the jungle biome. There was fun stuff there, class adventuring that I don’t write nearly enough about. Then it was all just negated because the other character absolutely refused to meet mine halfway in terms of diplomacy. Livia tried. I tried. So starting from “Her outside clanmates had been navigating the unknown country...” in that story, it was actually a rush job in fuming rage, so much rage my chest actually hurt for a few minutes. I do think it turned out well but I do believe I could have padded more with describing the architecture, culture, the nuances of Livia’s clan navigating the cities, dodging police and bribing informants. There’s a lot I could have done there but the story could have been done a week ago and instead I was left hanging because one player bullrushed into my plot and didn’t want to go kill a boss. I’m angry. I’m annoyed. Heavy sigh. Now, I still have two more stories to write. I have asked and received a new patron item (you can get some cosmetics if you donate to the server), a glowing polearm.

It looks very badass, especially at night. Actually hurts if you look at it too long. It’s great. I have it named “Imbued Polearm” and I have no idea why or how Livia would be in possession of it. I just saw someone having glowing purple daggers and thought “...I still haven’t requested a weapon decal for my patron perks. I want that a lot.” Was thinking of a Ymir ritual but white and blue is his motif so I’m not sure that’d work. Derketo is the goddess of sex, not weapons, and would sooner imbue Livia was a penis to properly spread seed long before she’d give her followers a badass weapon. Next story will be a little easier to write. I discovered with some proper dying the reptile armor does not look half bad at all. The aforementioned guy friend says it looks better on females than males, and I believe it;

Not sure why Tumblr blows that way the fuck up but there you go. Due to quality loss, it does look decent in-game. Definitely a “demon dragon slayer” type story to be had there. Was brainstorming that an alpha got tired of some adventurer killing all their babies at the spawning grounds... Next time Livia goes hunting she’d be in for quite the surprise.

All that and I didn’t even get into my clan growing and even having someone build me a proper stronghold.

Currently can house 6 clanmates with a master bedroom for myself. I plan on adding another floor to make way for 4 more rooms as I tend to get members when Livia goes save newly exiled players from the river. It’s actually in that building the above party screenshot took place. (There’s currently two spare rooms, I believe. Hint hint, come join us.)

[noelclover]

Off the Cuff

This is kind of a mini rant about gaming, gamers, game devs and game journalists. Basically, a ranty thingamajig about gaming.

It’s 3 AM, I’m allowed me rights to rant.

I remember being screwed over by PC Gamer. I remember when Diablo 3 was coming out and buying a magazine for the review article which gave it a pretty high score but conveniently forgot to mention any worries their staff who played the game had until quite a bit after the article. We’re talking ass-end of the magazine, past the hardware and ad bits.

Now this is, of course, an exaggeration. PC Gamer Malaysia did not bend me over and go in dry, and I was going to buy Diablo 3 anyway, but it didn’t change the fact that I felt mislead. Why? Because the article which talked about the game itself didn’t address the issues the magazine later brought up. And mind you, they brought it up way past all other articles which I think most people care about.

So I don’t really have a reservoir of faith for game reviewers, and the whole protecting of Dean Takahashi fiasco didn’t help. The fact that game developers and publishers advertise their games and fund reviewers, can threaten to exclude a magazine certainly doesn’t help. It feels like a cesspool of corruption, and I cannot help but question the ethics of game journalists.

This is not to say of course, that game journalists are the only evil or bad people around and stuff, we’ve got developers and publishers now becoming the corporations that they would have eventually become, which is to say really greedy folks who care only about the bottom line and not about the quality of the product they sell. Note: I understand that that is a corporations goal and I do not think that that is a bad thing. A corporation is there to generate wealth and income for the people who invested in it. This is how things work and it’s fine.

But we’ve gotten to a state where companies are tremendously relaxed, or antagonistic to their fan/playerbase. An example of this would be with Diablo 3 and Jay Wilson, the guy who directed it or something. There were concerns on how the game was brighter than before, and the guy booted the game up and basically said “BEHOLD IT IS A GREEN FIELD IT’S BRIGHT NOT DARK NERDDDDSSSSSSSSSSS” and made fun of the people who brought it up as though that was what they meant. To the people who felt that it looked a bit too cartoony (it does, for the record. It really looks like a reskinned WoW, which puts me off a bit but I treat D3 as D3, not as D2, much like how I treat D2 as D2, not as D1.) he made Whimsyshire, which in contrast to the wink devs gave players in D2′s rather memorable Cow level, felt like an insult. Another example would, I think, be that of Destiny and how they allegedly cut out a lot of content and decided to sell it at two thirds the price of a full game, how they said they strongly believed that the price they asked for was reasonable despite it allegedly lacking content, and of course, how they wanted players who cared about emotes to repurchase basically all of Destiny. I think they backtracked on it and sold it separately later and I’m not sure how exactly it all panned out, but I don’t care and that isn’t the point. The point is that they tried to, so it’s here as an example. Note that ANet did this with Guild Wars 2′s first expansion Heart of Thorns, an expansion I did not and will not purchase because they decided it was a smart thing to have me buy the base game again.

While I get that business is always about trying to toe the line and have people buy your stuff while maximizing profit, I feel that it’s a bit much now. Especially with loot boxes.

(Yes, it may be publishers rather than developers, but they’ve a funny relationship at this point and I’m pointing in a general direction. I fully acknowledge this.)

So with this, I might make it seem like player criticisms of games are always justified, but of course, that is not the case. It is at times justified and at times we simply have trolls and white knights clashing, causing over reactions which meet with other over reactions. There is no appeasing your audience, and that is true for everything, even games.

I’ve seen people talk about how Diablo 3 was best when it had it’s auction house (despite the AH feeling like something that was meant to sort of fix the terrible drops/droprates), how having self sufficiency and tactics for dungeon running in GW2 was shit, how FF14 not being FF11 or the initial FF14 (which was slow as all hell from what I saw on YT) was a disaster. I’ve seen people who start ranting about the good ol’ days when the games were ivory tower messes (I am still someone who believes that skill should be developed and endings earned. Possibly because Youtube exists for those who just want to watch, and because I’m just old school and believe in rewarding skill, even in single player games, but I don’t believe in fucking over the kid who rolled his character and spent 10 hours on it only to find that it’s not viable), who just shit on a game because it didn’t meet some imagined perfection. I’ve seen players who think that just because they paid for a game or helped fund it a game should somehow be made in their vision.

Toxic folk lead to a sort of push back from certain devs and reviewers, so sometimes these reactions can be justified. But when they start overreacting to everything, start being corrupt, throw about their ethics, isn’t it justified for the players to call them out?

It’s frustrating to see games get all political when they’re games, things people play to take a break from reality, a hobby they go to to enjoy so that they won’t go absolutely nuts and kill themselves over the frustrations and disappointments in life.

[xaeneron]

On Path of Fire

I haven’t done one of these in a while (or rather I wrote them and then forgot to post them lel), so maybe I’ll actually post this one for the new GW2 expansion after spending the week running around.

Overall, I found the expansion to be pretty solid; the maps are beautiful, the mounts are hilarious and well-implemented, the story was interesting and decently paced, and I’m still experimenting with the new elite specs.  Massive spoilers below the cut!

Questions on anything I wrote, thoughts of your own?  Feel free to boop me; I know I wrote a lot.  

But really, don’t say I didn’t warn you.  There are a LOT of bullet points beneath that cut.  xD

On the maps

Obligatory: they are huge.  It’s fitting since they were designed against HoT’s verticality and more geared towards the use of mounts, so it’s more of an observation, less of a complaint.  There’s a lot of detail and a lot of little things here and there, and it’s incredibly fun to see what you can get away with using mounts to get around the terrain.

That being said I do miss the verticality of HoT maps.  Maybe a combination of both pls? :3

I kind of wish there were more large obvious meta events, but I haven’t gotten to see all of the sort of meta events that go on in the PoF zones. I do think the large metas add replay value, but again a balance is a good thing.

We spur-of-the-moment yolo’ed the Ruptured Heart meta with 11 people.  It was actually pretty fun.  Also so many cannonades ;-;

Hearts feel like they take just a little bit too long.  Some of them are amusing, but when trekking through zones doing map comp (or redoing hearts to get collection items) they drag on a bit.  Guild chatter about hearts was fantastic though:

“These nobles are useless.  What should I do with the chamber pot, throw it off the side or throw it at one of them?”

“I’m throwing flowers at people and making them happy?”

“Matchmaker heart best heart.”

Bounties are hilariously fun?  Sometimes you get unfortunate bullshit combinations of modifiers (anti-stacking fleas + pls stack in the bubble to actually be able to hit the boss mob, I’m looking at you), but overall they’re quite fun.  We spent a good few hours trekking through all five zones murdering things and getting murdered.

These actually look super promising for replayability; our goal/challenge as a group has always been to optimize and work together, so it should be fun to go track down bounties and see what kind of dumb shenanigans we can get up to.

I actually find these really fun in small groups of 5-10.  Zergs sound...unfun.  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The caffeinated skritt is...kind of annoying.  Mostly because it doesn’t operate like the treasure mushroom in HoT and you have to be on the class you want the collection item on, and the maps are so large someone could trigger a chest and no one would be the wiser.

A tip though for people wanting to complete multiple collections: you only need to loot the last bag it drops.  If you’re wandering around with friends and they’re nice enough to chill at the bag, you can reload with other characters and grab the bag again for another collection item (until it despawns).  I have no idea if this was intended, but I burned a few TP to friends on this for the lulz.

I had a lot of GW1 feels running through these maps, especially going down to the Desolation and Vabbi.  I appreciate that these places still exist but have changed with the years, and it’s nice to see what happened.  

Although Vabbi is one weird-ass place now.

BUUUUUUT Zomoros’ lair was hilarious.

I haven’t explored for the sake of exploring in a very long time and it was really, really nice.

CHOYA PINATA.

On the elite specializations

I haven’t actually gotten to try all of them yet, but I’m also not super enthused about all of them (Spellbreaker, I’m looking at you).  Also a gentle reminder that my opinions are mainly based on my background as a PvE player and moreso as a raider.  Also they’re just initial opinions.  Opinions change.  

I started with thief (duh), and proceeded to do the entire story with Daredevil.  I’m not particularly a fan of Deadeye; I appreciate the archetype but I don’t really see rifle having a place with a game designed more around active response in combat.  Also as someone who still can’t shake the seaweed salad dance, rifle just feels really static and dull to me.  But we’ll see.  Maybe I’ll have to make the Predator hue. D/D Deadeye also felt strange, so idk.  But we’ll keep fiddling with it.

Mirage still feels kind of odd but I need to get poor Naois the spec since he’s actually specced for condi, unlike Eet.  It seems like an upgrade to condi mesmer, and the triple blink is hilarious.

I really hope Scourge ends up with some sort of place.  Initial benchmarks look hilarious (but then, so did Soulbeast/Weaver/Firebrand ones), but I took out Richter again for Scourge and I’m actually really happy to play him again.  It’s been so long ;-;

My brother told me, “do yourself a favor and put down a sand shade near some enemies, then press F4.”  I tried it.  I laughed pretty hard.

Weaver is so much button-pressing but it’s really fun?  I’m still getting the hang of it but I do like it a lot.  At least it’s more challenging than condi tempest. *grumbles eternally*

Soulbeast looks promising, although I hope it doesn’t lead to another “let’s use condi ranger/thief on absolutely everything” situation again.  The new pets are also...interesting.  

Although when it comes to ranger I’m a druid at heart, so we’ll see.  Not that I’m usually conscripted for DPS roles anyway

Firebrand looks silly.  And broken.  I’m all for alternative sources of quickness (and alacrity in the case of other specs), but I don’t really want to see raid meta go to 2x PS 2x druid 2x chrono 2x firebrand (or something like that) with only 2 flex spots.  That doesn’t sound fun at all.

Also I’m guessing Firebrand will be the first to get the nerfbat.  The damage numbers people are getting are bonkers.

And hey look, they got the nerfbat.  Down to 33-35k.  At least that’s better than 50k? Ugh.

Renegade feels pretty decent.  Revenant has always been in a weird “built around elite specs” class, and that hasn’t changed.  I’m not sure how I feel about condi rev being more of a thing and less of a meme, but ayyy

Holosmith seems like it would be a lot more relevant if the transform wasn’t currently borked.  Scaling damage to a level 76 fine weapon is...sad.  If it’s fixed power Holosmith could be something legit?  Maybe?  Overall though I like the theme and look of it.  Also lol lightsaber.

Spellbreaker I...idk.  Thematically I like it a lot; I was a big fan of mesmer and shut down mechanics in GW1 and I like the idea of Spellbreaker, but from a mostly PvE perspective, it’s just kind of...eh? WvW and PvP I see it being incredibly useful but with limited boons to nom in PvE it doesn’t really look particularly great (especially with condi berserker getting tuned through the roof).

On mounts

I keep dyeing them funny colors.  Yes Quill’s are all some shade of yellow.

I honestly think they were well done.  I was never a supporter of adding them to the game (not against, but not for them either), but now that they’re here, I’m pretty okay with them.  

I like that each mount is useful in some specific capacity - raptor for flat open stretches, springer for verticality, skimmer for no touchy floor, jackal for portals and evasion through high mob density areas, and griffon for the absolute lulz of flying.  

I keep getting the “mount doesn’t render so your character model is riding away sunk in the ground while your camera remains in place” bug (I think it’s attached to trying to mount up before things are completely loaded), and while it’s funny, it’s kind of frustrating.

Mount swapping is a bit awkward, although binding each mount to its own key helps a lot.

I appreciate that the starting mount (the raptor) is still relevant even when you pick up the other three (four), as it’s definitely the fastest mount on flat ground and it’s improved leap is hilariously long.

Also it’s a giant scaly puppy so I have no problems with this.

The springer is hilarious.  And super terrain-breaking.  High cliff?  No problem, bunny hop.  Core and HoT map comp probably just got much, much simpler.  Also JPs that don’t have mount restrictions.

The skimmer is adorable, and riding it around is strangely...calming?  idk.  Also as one of my guildies put it: “maybe this is Anet’s answer to underwater combat: glide right over it.”  rip.

Of the four core mounts I think the jackal (blink doge) is my favorite.  It has a gorgeous design and the blink/portals are super cool.  Although the blink can get a bit titchy if you’re trigger happy with the jump button.

Of course I have the griffon.

IT’S SO FLUFFY.

I think it handles a little strangely (esp when you can’t dismount quickly, although you can divebomb), but it’s pretty solid.  And adorable.

250g was entirely worth it.

Also that Tahlkora cameo hit me right in the feels.

On the story

I’d get here eventually!  Eventually...;-;

All salad-shaped biases aside, the male sylvari VO is still my favorite and no one can convince me otherwise.  There was a good amount of sass, seriousness, and everything inbetween.  Ive is one to take everything with a “hahahaha you’re kidding what am I doing here help,” so overall the voice acting and dialogue fit him fairly well.

I’m a little disappointed by the lack of race-specific dialogue.  Humans don’t seem to have any special dialogue with or concerning Balthazar, and everyone else doesn’t really have a chance to comment as an outsider.  I know it’s more work and I still enjoyed the story as is, but it would have been a nice touch.

Like Ive would literally not give a shit about half of the things brought up.  Not because he doesn’t care about others, but because he has no clue what anyone is talking about.

This was particularly funny with Joko in the Domain of the Lost, because his whole tirade about the PC not knowing who he is could quickly be shut down with “I’m a salad, I have no idea who the fuck you are.”

The “decisions” were interesting, although unsurprisingly they had very little impact on the game as a whole (maybe in the future?  Doubt it).  I did appreciate that depending on the order the “decide on Amnoon’s independence” steps are done in, the dialogue changes.

I admit that I’ve gotten a little less partial to Taimi as she’s edged closer to Deus Ex Machina territory, but her dialogue and conversations (both with the PC and with others like Phlunt later on) are quite funny.

I wish there were more Vlast/Gleam before he died.  It’s sad that he showed up and just...died, but I can understand why they chose that path as well.  

Although some of that was my own fault; the chapter with the Exalted and Vlast’s upbringing I got supremely distracted by the jumping puzzle and spinning around on my new skimmer.

Still.  More Vlast!

RYTLOCK.  RYTLOCK WHY.  Nice job breaking it hero.  Surely you would know better than to accept help in the Mists from a random shackled man who CONVENIENTLY knows how to relight your magic sword.  Sigh.

I thought a lot about the Herald of Balthazar after finding the notes in Night of Fires.  I went back to it after talking to my brother and came to a very similar conclusion as a theorizer on the GW2 subreddit.  If that theory is true, that makes me very sad.

Pls say it’s true I like gut-punch feels.

Speaking of gut-punch feels, The Departing was amazing.  It was super disorienting not having access to the inventory or the minimap, but it was a very well-done instance and I enjoyed it immensely.  I appreciated that they stuck to the “you lost your name and purpose” thing to the point of replacing your character name (including in the hero panel) with Lost Spirit.

Balthazar murdering the PC was pretty neat. 

Also Aurene showing up exactly on time was both cliche and NO BALTHAZAR BAD STAY AWAY FROM BABY DRAGON. 

This, like a few other story missions later on, is super awkward to do as a group.  It’s supposed to be rather personal, and so the not-instance owners are reduced to buffing wisps (like later on in the thrall party instance, not-instance owners are just awakened thralls), and idk I was lucky I was instance owner but that seems rather :|

Ive had a lot of feels hearing everyone’s voices again.  Also the feels of him not exactly remembering everything and having to follow his purpose through his own memories and not quite remembering everything.  Including Trahearne.  

Also tfw the story mission is essentially Full Circle (as a sub-section of Closure) with a bit of bonus Balthazar.

Joko is being very obviously set up as a “you left me in a cage I swear vengeance rahhhhhh” villain.  Or Anet is going to pull a fast one and he will never show up again, which would be hilarious.

Bonus feels for everyone else surviving and Ive being the only one dead (think Eet).

Backtracking slightly, I’ve never liked Kormir.  I still don’t like Kormir.  And the human gods are miserably terrible people.  At this point there’s not much questioning as to whether or not they exist, but with the extent of their influence, their decision to just kind of peace is...rather appropriately god-like, for better or for worse.

Seriously though, gods pls.  I can see some of the logic of “world will be destroyed anyway if god attempts to fight god,” but surely there are other things that need be maintained.  

Also I like how Kormir notes that Balthazar had been stripped of his powers, and yet he still curbstomps the PC (unless it was entirely the imprisonment in the Mists that just locked his powers away, but Kormir’s dialogue suggests otherwise).

I would kill for a library like that.  Seriously.  So jelly.

The “let’s disguise ourselves as the Archon and go and convince Palawa Joko’s army to fight for us” part was so incredibly stupid that of course it worked.  We spent the entire time laughing at how incredulous it was.

The battle at Kodash Bazaar was actually kind of awesome?  There was stuff everywhere and my only inclination for the first part of the instance was “go hit things.”  

It was incredibly weird to just have Sohothin for the entire instance.  Yes I’m aware I could have dropped it.  But it was hilarious in a Caladbolg sort of way.  With less idiotic knockback, and more 300s cooldown skills.  

AURENE.  Balthazar stop hurting my dragon >:(

Also because he just yolo killed her other brother before she had a chance to meet him in person?  rip.

Although now that I think about it, how would that meeting even go?  Talking to the Exalted indicates that Vlast was isolated and not well-acclimated to the world around him, so by the time they realized he should be interacting with other races it was too late for him to form any empathy for anyone.  His dialogue seems to imply that his motivation was simply the fulfillment of a goal; he seemed far more interested in fulfilling his legacy as Glint’s son than the reason why she needed him and Aurene to do anything in particular.  He doesn’t really have a reason for what he’s doing, he just does.

Aurene is implied to have an empathic link with Vlast similar to her connection to the PC, but idk, it just seems like any actual meeting between the two of them would just be incredibly awkward.

I very much enjoyed both the penultimate and ultimate fight against Balthazar.  Also because if you turned around, you could see Kralkatorrik’s massive face just chilling in the sky because oh shit angry elder dragon.  It was...quite something.

I understand the PC’s current caution about killing elder dragons because of magic imbalance, and I also understand the need to stop Balthazar from being a total moron.  I also understand that there’s not much you can do to stop a mad god besides killing him (since those with the means to imprison him decided to float on).  But uh.  I’m not sure what anyone expected would happen if you kill the god who absorbed two dragons’ worth of magic with another dragon just chilling nearby.  Surely Kralkatorrik absorbing everything and flying off into the sunset while extending the Brand wasn’t a surprise.  

Seriously though what did you think was going to happen.

Baby dragon absorb magik and is not quite so baby anymore.  Aurene come back I miss you already ;-;

I commend you if you actually read all of that.  xD

Overall, a solid expansion with quite a bit of content.  We’ll see how replayable it ends up being as time goes on, but I am still quite amused by it and have plenty to do as it stands.  The story was fairly solid (although sometimes strange with questionable logic, as always), and I’m looking forward to where they take it with LWS4.  

[candrawithwip]

So like, god knows how much I loved World of Warcraft when I was younger. I remember coming in during the third expansion and being mystified by everything that came beforehand. I know that people will say “nostalgia this nostalgia that” but it’s not just that, I assure you. It’s why vanilla servers were a thing and why they eventually released WoW classic. There were things in the game that help to define what it was that gradually disappeared and it kind of hurt.

I haven’t ever seen another game like WoW: not an MMO really. Skyrim kind of hit on it as did Wildstar and Neverwinter, but it wasn’t quite there. I think that perhaps the closest I’ve ever gotten to feeling similarily about game was maybe with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. There were plans to make an MMO I guess but that was promptly shelved when the company went bankrupt.

I suppose there’s also FFXIV which is, undoubtedly beautiful but... there’s something about it that really makes it difficult for me to slip past that part with the water zombies and the harpy/siren wind boss? It’s kind of like my solo DPS hits a wall and just slides down to the floor very slowly and painfully. I’m like “I’ll get past it this time!!” but I neved do and it’s not because it’s hard, I just kind of lose interest.

I’ve always been somewhat of a lone-wolf outside of group content, so feeling as though I’m just not doing enough even when I’m doing basic quest stuff gets particularily frustrating. I know this sounds kind of... hypocritical and bias, but even though WoW was much the same in that regard it also felt different. See, WoW was sloppy. I’m not sure why, but trying to face off against harder enemies felt less like punching a brick wall, and it felt more like an actual fight was taking place.

FFXIV has this odd sort of air to it, where my character’s abilities seem as though they should be doing so much more than they actually are. There’s all these red sparks flying and explosions, but for all the fanfare and force you’re apparently dishing out, you end up just kind of slapping the enemy with a reasonable amount of force: nothing substantial or grand but you know... pow pow. You end up fighting on level against like a salamander or something, even though you’re fully decked out in decent gear and appropriately leveled. It’s like for all I try I cannot for the life of me get ahead of the curve.

WoW on the other hand was much harsher. You could go a short distance from one zone to another and either get nuked in the face, or become a total badass. Those early areas you felt like you were really progressing, even if in a general sense you weren’t that far ahead. You’re struggling with something but five levels later, your new low level friend thinks you’re a god. It’s... I guess it feels more substantial? That your hard work really did get you somewhere even if you’re only a little ways ahead of where you were? That’s not unique though. In fact, I’ve felt much more satisfied with my impact in games like Blade & Soul, Neverwinter, Trove, GW2 and Wildstar. I mean with action combat becoming more and common that’s to be expected more or less.

No. I think what really made WoW special was the isolation you felt at times. The world was... dark and dangerous. You could screw yourself over pretty easily, but unlike with FFXIV it seemed easier to backpedal and get the hell out of there if you needed to. There were all these things that were so distinct and they weren’t just structures they were monuments; the little things and the weird things.

It felt like everywhere you went there was just something peculiar, and when you looked at it you knew there was a story; big or small. You weren’t required or asked to care. Hell, sometimes you weren’t even aware of what you stumbled across. You were just left asking “What the hell happened here?” or “What the hell is that?”

You’d stumble across some huge cratar full of powerful enemies in an otherwise unnasuming area, or find a specific vale in a normal canyon that was set ablaze and full of enemies you hadn’t encountered before. You’d pick up an ornament and some ghost lion would materialize and attack you. You’d walk by a hill and look up to see some castle, sitting atop a hill and sometimes hear a wolf howl loudly echo through the forest from that direction. You would find rare mobs, and know that they were special just from the way they looked. Sure now you can look it up, but it’s been a long time since I’ve been curious enough to ask what was happening and why it was there.

I think maybe the last time I felt that way was when I was questing in FFXIV and the weather suddenly got all weird and dark, indicating that some rare mob had spawned within the zone. You just knew that something weird was happening and you weren’t entirely aware of what it was. Sometimes GW2 would manage it, and show you something odd and unnassuming that nobody really understood yet but it damn well people excited to look.

See, the reason WoW is different now: the reason I don’t feel this way about a lot of modern games is because they take out all those extra steps. They explain what the giant crater is and why it’s there, or why there’s some weird creature hanging about and what it is, or they make those weird creepy things less imposing. It mellows things out, and not really in a good way. It’s so amazing to feel like you’re interacting with a world as you would in real life. If you want to do something beyond yourself you have to strap up and ask questions, find some other people who are willing to face the challenge with you. It encourages you to ask, and search, and if you don’t you’re not left behind or punished, you just... miss out on some pretty amazing shit.

It’s the difference between setting someone loose in an unexplored egyptian pyramid or burial tomb, versus giving them the tour and pointing out every little thing of interest. In real life you’re not allowed to do that because it’s dangerous, but in video games you can do whatever you like! You can put yourself in a crazy dangerous situation and it’s fine! I don’t think a developer should be a tour guide. I think they should be the people unlocking that back door into some weird ass place, handing you a sword and a map, and saying “So this is how you get by, and the rest? Oh, the rest is up to you.” They should be that omniscient figure that when asked “What the hell is that?” will they just raise their eyebrows and give a knowing smirk because they know... they know and they’re not telling you.

Games are just so big. It’s not like a book where you’re heading down a straight path. There are stories and places and things that just exist in the world around you that aren’t particularily important, but sometimes they are important and you would have no idea if they were unless you looked. That is why it’s kind of scary, and vague.

It feels like every time you go looking into something odd or imposing that you either make a cool little discovery, or something totally insane or unpredictable comes and wrecks your miserable face. It makes you... scared? Unsure? There is no guarantee that the next area is somewhere you’re meant to go yet, or whether that one weird thing is something you’re supposed to be touching. You see some giant weird creature that’s kind of frankensteined together meandering down a path and you think “Shit. Can I take that or will it literally kill the shit hell out of me?” and you just don’t know, because they’re very intentionally letting you find out on your own. I mean it used to be like that anyway...

The unnasuming portals, or paths, or weird areas: there is some huge arrow pointing down at them. There’s a map that’s already filled in so you know where everything is at, and there’s a quest to go here and there because they don’t want you to miss anything but... where is the fun in that? They build an elevator up to the peak of mount everest and even though they let you do it the old fashioned way too, they always let you see the same things.

I get it; you want everyone to be able to experience everything, but it doesn’t feel the same. Those weird dungeons or strange castles with insanely hard to kill shit inside? You’re invited in, and it’s a bit more difficult, but they lead you to the door and hand you a backpack and some applejuice and say “Isn’t this neat?” and that’s just not as fun.

There’s always the argument that they want the less skilled players to experience something too, or they hear players complaining about how hard something is but you know what? That doesn’t mean we really want there to be changes, or if we do perhaps we just want small ones. We don’t want it all to be easy, we just complain when we’re frustrated and that doesn’t always happen because of difficulty. Challenges are fun, but they need to exist in such a way that you know what you’re supposed to do and that it’s simply a matter of doing it. It’s fine so long as there isn’t some element of “chance” or “luck” to it. It’s entirely possible for anyone to do if given time, and that’s what early WoW was for the most part give or take. If you wanted to travel, sometimes you just had to get on your horse and go. If you wanted to be teleported you would have to ask. If you wanted to find something you had to look for it (or at least look it up).

I started playing WoW when I was 12 years old, and let me assure you that I never felt discouraged. I got into group content at level 40 something and failed so miserably I was kicked from the group, but I was like “Well okay. I did something wrong. What did I do?” So I looked, and I learned, and I got better. When someone would come through with some amazing looking mount or gear and I would find out it was from some raid somewhere, I wouldn’t be discouraged by the fact that it was going to be really hard to get good enough to do that content myself. I though “Well shit! If I want to see what’s in there I have to keep getting better!” and like... I really did want to see what was in there because even though there were videos, doing it yourself was totally different.

Then suddenly it seemed like everything opened up. They added dungeon finder and LFR and at first I was excited, but then after all said and done I just sat there thinking “well... that was that... should I go get better gear so I can do that again but like... harder? Why? So I can get a cool mount? What will I do with it? Where will I go? Will I just wait for the next expansion then? What comes after that? Will I just sit and twist my thumbs waiting for something new and cool to come along before I’m given a full tour right after I hit max level?

Sure it was fun. There was always something but those distant goals were just... arbitrary. We all got to see the same things and go to the same places. It wasn’t an adventure, it was a business venture: there was the challenge and there were the goals, but at some point I started questioning why I should even care. Sure there was the story, as always, but the story became as accessible as a book on a library counter. If the story is served to me as a consice linear narrative where none of the pages were stuck together or difficult to read, why would I bother reading the ~advanced~ copy that is more or less the same, but uses bigger words. The story is the same regardless and I’ve read it back to front.

What else does it say when I miss the ridiculous difficulty I was posed with as a 12 year old child who had no idea what I was doing? I’m ready now, I have my bootstraps pulled up but there’s no adventure to go on. There’s no awe-inspiring dragon I can only see in person if I climb a mountain and get the ancient sword and also learn how to play the harpsichord with my feet. I’m just standing here like... “Well I guess I’ll just walk down this neatly hedged path.”

That’s why I don’t go back to WoW. It’s because I know that no matter how cool something looks, it’ll just be some tree or sign I pass by and nothing to stick around for after I’ve seen it from every angle. I just keep... looking. Waiting for something to let me have an adventure again, but with my friends, because adventures are everywhere in Skyrim and Outer Worlds. They just aren’t where I want them to be and with who I want to have them with.

[eldritchsurveys]

405.

(and now for something completely different~)

1. When did you start playing? >> Oof... I did check this in-game a few weeks ago but I’ve forgotten what it said. Something like 3 years, I believe... which sounds right, I’m pretty sure I started playing not too long after I moved here.

2. What was your first characters race/class (profession)? >> Sylvari Elementalist.

3. How many characters do you have? >> Right now, I have 7 (the max number I can have on my account): Dire Ulysses (Norn Dragonhunter), Mordred Son Of None (Human Herald), Grimnir Borsson (Norn Necromancer, working on Reaper), Andrew Hozier Byrne (Sylvari Ranger), Lady Chthonos (Human Mesmer), Little Stevie Vai (Asura Warrior), and Jeremiah Sand (Sylvari Thief).

4. Whats your favourite race? >> Sylvari.

5. Whats your least favourite race? >> Charr, obviously, since that’s the only race I can’t ever get myself to play. (It’s the aesthetics, man. I immediately like the personality of just about every charr NPC that exists, but I personally can’t look like that.)

6. What do you prefer PvE or PVP? >> I only play PvE.

7. Have you spent IRL money on the gem shop? >> I sure have. Dat bank space............

8. Whats your favourite zone? >> Aesthetics-wise it’s probably the Crystal Oasis. I say “aesthetics-wise” because navigation-wise the entire Crystal Desert gives me a headache (not nearly as bad as HoT zones, of course, but). I also like places like Mount Maelstrom and Caledon Forest for visual interest.

9. Whats your favourite city? >> The Grove, probably. Hoelbrak a close second.

10. Whats your favourite PVP map? >> ---

11. Whats a piece of gear you always transmute because you love the look of it so much? >> I keep forgetting transmutation exists. I should play around with that on my main toons now that I’ve reached the point where I’m not swapping out gear every five minutes.

12. How many achievement points do you have? >> 2032.

13. Is it okay to ask to RP with you? >> I’d prefer not to.

14. Is your guild open to new members? >> ---

15. Have you ever been really angry at the game? why? >> At the game, no. At myself for being bad at something in it? Yeah.

16. Do you enjoy jumping puzzles? >> I... sometimes do. I got really frustrated at the Vexa’s Lab one earlier today because that timer it runs on was stressing me out. I made it, though! Eventually. It was hell. But the fact that JPs exist in this game as something non-combat-related to do is actually really cool and I appreciate that.

17. Whats your best guild wars experience? >> I don’t know, really. Nothing stands out.

18. Do you have a favourite character from the lore? >> Canach!!!

19. Is there a class you like the idea of but the gameplay doesn’t match up for you? >> Elementalist. I just... don’t make me do all that bar-switching, I can’t handle it.

20. How far have you made it in SAB (Super Adventure Box) if you had the chance to play it? >> Never done that.

21. Favourite weapon skin? >> I don’t have one yet.

22. Do you have a legendary? Which one or ones? >> I sure don’t! One day.

23. Whats your favourite legendary? >> I kind of latched onto the idea of having Bifrost because... of the name... lmao. I don’t actually know which one I’ll do first, though.

24. Is there a race you hate with a passion? >> Fucking dredge! God damn.

25. What class do you hate to face in PVP? >> ---

26. Are there any players you look up to? >> No.

27. First memorable friend you made through guild wars? >> ---

28. Do you play with sound on or off? >> Sound on, usually, although sometimes I’ll listen to my Spotify instead, especially if I’m just running around doing maps or something.

29. Do you stream GW2? If so where can I watch you? >> No.

30. Are you obsessed with in game fashion? >> Not obsessed, but I do think Fashion Wars is a great thing and I’d like to try my hand at it eventually.

31. Do you have a favourite dye? >> No... the Glint dyes are real nice though.

32. Whats the best glider skin in your opinion? >> I like the uh... I forget the name of it, but it’s like... electromagnetic something-or-other. I use that one a lot.

33. Have you ever had to block someone? >> Nope. Knock on wood.

34. Weirdest map chat experience? >> I haven’t had any weird mapchat experiences.

35. Do you have 100% map completion on any of your characters? >> On Dire Ulysses, yeah. He was going to be my main but then I made a necro and was like “oh god this is so much less stressful to play than fucking guardian...” So, I guess I’ll probably do map completion on him too, eventually.

36. What type of player are you? Hardcore, Casual, Semi-hardcore, Barely online. >> Definitely Casual. I enjoy the collection aspect of the game and discovering new things and moving at my own slow and steady pace. I just started doing Living World episodes a week ago, for example, lmao. Almost done with Season Two! Fuck Glint’s Lair!

37. What are the top three tips you would give someone just starting to play? >> Definitely the most important tip I’d give is to find what you enjoy and do that. Don’t worry about what other people are doing or how “progressed” in the game they are, and don’t get too overwhelmed by the amount of content. Just... start working through the zones, do the Story, find your footing. It took me a long time to get into GW2 and for a while I even gave it up -- don’t be afraid to take a break and maybe come back to it in a few months (or a year+, lmao). Go as slow or as quickly as you like. It’s a hobby, not a career. Two gameplay-related tips I would also throw in is that if you see a bunch of people whaling on some scary-lookin creature.... jump the fuck in (even if you’re like level 3, just run in, hit 1 a few times, and scuttle to safety. you’ll get XP and loot along with everyone else, maybe even an achievement depending on what it was, and it’s great); and do the PvE dailies! I know getting Daily Completist is kind of hard if you’re low-level and/or don’t have the expansion maps, but on the times you can get it, it’s great to get 2 gold just for doing some easy shit. Also, you get loot chests for doing any of them, so do as many as you can.

38. Best memory in guild wars? >> Isn’t this like the other question...

39. Do you stick to one character mostly or are you an altoholic? >> I do most stuff on Grimnir, but I do love having alts -- especially low-level ones, for some reason. I guess it just feels kind of relaxing to do low-level stuff, especially after days of stressing out on expansion maps and LW shit.

40. What bothers you the most about the game if anything? >> Honestly, nothing worth mentioning. I like that this game suits my kind of playstyle -- there’s stuff in the game that I don’t feel capable of doing, or don’t enjoy doing, but I don’t have to do them to progress in any way. So I can ignore those things. I do find it difficult to find groups that I can keep up with, but, hey. That’s gaming, I guess. Maybe one day I’ll get all my maps cleared and learn them well enough that I can lead some groups for other slow people like myself. :p