And... I'm a bit irritated again

[Edited/Updated 25 Feb]

Okay, so, this week is Guild Wars 2 norn week. The Monday article is basically about a) norn aren't just big humans and b) here's some things that might make you want to play one.

The picture included was, of course, full of boob:

Oh, right, Guild Wars 2

So, I realized the other day I haven't posted for a couple months.

Part of this is I really haven't had much to talk about. Until a few weeks ago, there wasn't anything new coming out of ANet about Guild Wars 2, so that topic sort of exhausted itself. It's not that I'm not still looking forward to the game, but there wasn't much to comment on. I could've mentioned going through Dark Cloud II (aka Dark Chronicle outside the U.S.) or my progress in Guild Wars, but, er, I didn't.

Let's rectify that with a long, rambling post about Guild Wars 2.

"Samus is a Girl"

I was skimming through TV Tropes list of tropes and came across Samus is a Girl (warning: link clicking can lead to sudden loss of time). It's one I knew about already, but I was already thinking about gender issues thanks to a book I was reading that was set in the 50s-70s time period following the career of a woman, which had a lot of focus on how hard it was for her to convince people she was competent and/or should be promoted, simply because she didn't have a Y chromosone. (Yes, this is related to gaming.... read on.)

Hall of Monuments: Overview

So, as I mentioned earlier, if you're a Guild Wars 1 player who intends to buy Guild Wars 2, and you've got the Eye of the North expansion as well as all of the campaigns, you will be able to get some item rewards in GW2 based on filling up your GW1 Hall of Monuments to a certain extent. But you may not be sure about how to tackle doing this. If you need some tips, I think I can help.

Hall of Monuments: Resilience

[Confused? Start here.]

Resilience translates to "elite armor set" (all pieces excepting head armor, which is optional). There's 8 HoM points available: one for any armor, one for three different armors, two for getting five different armors, one for getting seven, and one each for (either) Kurzick/Luxon armor, Vabbian armor, and Obsidian armor. This is a monument where money is very necessary regardless of how many points you go for. Your goal here is 4-6 points.

Hall of Monuments: Devotion

[Confused? Start here.]

Devotion offers a total of 8 HoM points: one for putting any miniature in, one for putting any "rare" (gold) miniature in, one for putting any "unique" (green) miniature in, two for adding 20 different miniatures total, and one each for getting to 30, 40, and 50 different miniatures displayed.

Hall of Monuments: Valor

[Confused? Start here.]

The Valor monument tracks certain sets of weapons: Tormented (available in Nightfall), Destroyer (craftable in EotN), and Oppressor (available by playing through the War in Kryta content). There are a total of 8 HoM points available: one for any single weapon, one each for a Tormented, Destroyer, or Oppressor weapon, one for installing a total of five different weapons, two points for getting to 11 total, and one more for getting to 15 total. Your goal here is 3-5 points.

Hall of Monuments: Fellowship

[Confused? Start here.]

Fellowship offers a total of 8 HoM points: one for putting any upgraded hero in, one for putting any ranger pet in, one for putting a "rare" ranger pet in, two for adding five total statues, and one each for 10, 20, and 30 total statues. You would need to get all the heroes upgraded and all the rare ranger pets to maximize your points here, but your goal is 4-6 points.

Hall of Monuments: Honor

[Confused? Start here.]

I'm going to touch on the HoM synergy topic a bit in this post, but it's mainly about the Honor monument itself.

Hall of Monuments Synergies

[Confused? Start here.]

There's a number of different combinations of things you can do to simultaneously work on earning multiple points towards your Hall of Monuments. They're similar to the synergies possible between multiple titles (themselves useful for HoM points, of course), so you may already be familiar with these, but it might be worth reading through just in case.

Earning Money for the HoM and/or Profit

[Confused? Start here.]

If you've read the other posts, you know that various Hall of Monuments progress can take a fair amount of money: for miniatures, for elite armor, for certain titles, and possibly for weapons and hero armor upgrades. You may be wondering "just where am I going to get all that money?"

GW2: What I don't like to hear

[Edited 22 Oct.]
It occurred to me today, as I looked at the latest PC Gamer article, that GW2 had until recently only released news I was either felt fully positive to, or neutrally to with a "let's see how they actually do this" sort of feel. Now it feels like it's going downhill.

I've already mentioned how much I don't like the inflexibility of dungeon team sizes despite the flexibility of other places and the already included robust scaling system. What I forgot to mention is that I also don't like the way you'd have to run the same dungeon 7 times to get a full armor set out of it (first time in 'story mode' gives you a weapon, then one armor per run, which feels like it's tilting to WoW repetitiveness).

Now I'm starting to feel really uneasy about the microtransactions.

Or.... not (GW2)

Before I get bitchy, I should note that PC Gamer did a pretty good cover story on GW2 in their latest issue, which they've now put online. For the rest of this week, they're publishing supplementary material online as well. Which is where today's quote comes from:

From the roles you’ll assume, to the dungeons you’ll brave, to the NPCs you’ll interact with, ArenaNet’s flexible design diminishes barriers in an effort to empower players to play how they want to play.

Unless, of course, you want to play dungeons with anything less than a full group (or, Heaven forbid, solo). Then the barrier is still there.

Guild Wars 2: Two good things, one less so

A few things from the Guild Wars 2 front: dye, dungeons, and the Hall of Monuments (which is also news on the Guild Wars 1 front).

Faux Open Letter

Dear Designers of the Domain of Anguish,

I get that you want "elite" areas in your game. I do. Here's my problem: you basically made the Domain of Anguish, which is contained in the expansion in which Dervishes were released, impossible for a Dervish to run thanks to the fact that your ridiculously overpowered Mesmers that can do twice as much damage as my mesmer ever possibly could with Shatter Enchantment can simultaneously remove my enchantments (the central mechanic of the Dervish, I remind you) and and deal approximately half my HP in damage per enchantment removed. This isn't just ridiculous. I need a whole new word for what it is.

I hate you and die in a fire.

Love,

Me

(PS: I don't hate you and you shouldn't die in a fire. But if you do this in GW2, I am going to be very, very angry with you.)

Guild Wars 2: Wishlist, further comments

Some more post-demo thoughts:

Guild Wars 2: Info from gamescom demos

I'm gonna summarize what I've learned from the official GW2 demos (both what tiny amount I can understand in German and what I saw in the demos visually) and the vast wealth of info from fans and media alike. Many props to the fine people at Guild Wars 2 Guru who have provided a great deal of the info and pointers to info sources that I'm basing this post on. I also will be, of course, putting in my opinions on what I've learned.

Guild Wars 2: Need Moar Info

So, there's this GW2 forum I hang out on. A lot of people are asking "What are you going to play?" The answer I have is, "Don't know. Ask again when we know the rest of professions." [Blather follows:]

Guild Wars 2: Ghosts of Ascalon (spoiler-free)

So, for those of my imaginary readers who aren't either Guild Wars players or just aren't keeping up on the Guild Wars 2 news, here's the sitch: They're releasing books. The first one officially came out this past Tuesday (I've had my copy since Saturday, though) and it's really pretty good.

Mah Elite Armor, Part 4

I mentioned in passing our "main" native Canthans were nearish the end of their campaign, which we finished up the last mission of last night. They're not quite done done, as they need to go back and get the Master's award on two missions (one of which is a big PITA to get), and there's a few lingering quests (some of which we're deliberately putting off, as there's two competing factions and we're currently only working on the title for one of them, though we'll go back and do them eventually), but close enough. But that means they got their elite armor, yay!