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.

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).

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.

Guild Wars 2: The Ranger

[ETA new info x3; shoulda waited before posting, but, well, Ranger is usually my favorite profession, so...]

So, I'm a little surprised; the ranger doesn't have access to guns. However, they have access to more hand-to-hand and/or thrown weapons than I would've guessed. So there's that.

The article could use a bit more detail (it feels a little rushed, frankly) on how pets work, but it sounds as if basically by being a ranger, you can have a pet without compromising your other skills, having access to up to three pets and those pets having access to skills of their own. I hope that's truly the case; one of the more frustrating parts of playing a ranger in GW1 is trying to put together an effective skill bar that makes it worth taking the pet but still allows you personally to do much of anything except shoot things. I've got a bar I like with a couple variations on Xylia, especially now that I've got Heal as One (which gives a self+pet heal and lets the pet steal health with attacks for a while), but having more freedom is something I'm looking forward to.

I'm less happy about this:

Guild Wars 2: Combat Isn't Everything

With the introduction of the branching personal storyline and the existence of world events—some of which can be triggered by non-combat activities—the quest and goal system for Guild Wars 2 seems to have been covered fairly well, however much I might want for a lot more details that I imagine I'm simply going to have to wait until the game is released to find out. But most games, Guild Wars included (where I'm currently standing on a ring trying to increase my Lucky and Unlucky points), have a non-combat feature or two. Guild Wars 2 is planning on having a few more than usual.

Guild Wars 2: Profession Speculation (Part 3: Non-Scholars)

I've got several possibilities for medium-armor types, but I actually only have one solid idea for the second soldier class, so I'm going to combine them into one note.