Guild Wars Reporter

Guild Wars Reporter


Guild Wars Reporter Episode 130 - Guild “Stuff” 2

November 28, 2014



The Canadians have taken over! While Celeste prepares for the Festival of ALLTHEFOODS, AKA Thanksgiving, non-Americans Allona and Hunter discuss all the GW2 news. Seeds! Labyrinth! “Stuff!” (There are apparently also spoilers … to last week’s LW episode … LAST WEEK!)


Audio Version


What We Did This Week

 


Hunter



  • Silverwastes, and the labyrinth
  • dungeons/fractal
  • leveling low level characters for the first time in ages, level 20 xp scrolls for the lot of them.
  • Started working on a legendary for the first time in a while.

Allona



  • Forgot to mention last week: I finally got Artificer to 500!
  • Ran AC (Ascalonian Catacombs) with Romo’s guild … all three paths! Learned several new things.
  • Fungeons with MoCK on Saturday; ran HotW (Honour of the Waves) path 2 (The Plunderer) and then Fractals.
  • More Silverwasting. Played in the Labyrinth. Turns out I am pretty good at it.

 


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Report from Lion’s Arch

 


Seeds of Truth trailer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb31EADk9eA

Hunter



  • Flashbacks, caithe wearing different armour, T1 sylvari cultural.  various first born sylvari, just how do you pronounce faolain anyway. (A: Fowe-lane) H: ok correcty pants  A: \o/
  • Scenes of the asura first contact where they initially experimented on sylvari, things we previously mostly knew of from books and outside the game sources.
  • Centaurs involved somehow.

Allona



  • It sure looks like Caithe is planting something in the Grove at one point. Which makes me wonder if her secret is that she found the cave ronan discovered
  • The Asura scenes are pretty heart-wrenching, even in the brief moments we have of them. I think those are going to be some hard scenes to watch or play through.
  • What’s up with that symbol on the rock?!

 


Points of Interest episode 11

http://dulfy.net/2014/11/21/gw2-points-of-interest-ep11-livestream-notes/



  • Peter Fries – Shameless Killer of Quaggan, Teddy Nguyen – Principal Game Designer, Rubi Bayer – Host
  • The working name for Teragriffs was Stabby-Cats
  • The new name for the Ambrite Pistol is “bee gun†not Apidae
  • Peter talked about the dialogue he worked on … and all the NPC he killed.

    • A: which was the Master of Sun. The one whose death made me swear out loud Monty Python style


  • No wonder Canach sounds so amazing; John DiMaggio acts him!
  • Teddy talked about designing the Labyrinth and how they wanted to make the player feel unsettled; and about some of the audio design for it.

    • A: I love audio design so I really enjoyed this part!


  • Peter mentioned how players thought their characters were too mean to Canach, but he then reminds us what our characters went through with him and that it is not super likely that we would feel too kindly towards him.

    • H: Then they should stop making canach so damn likable.


  • Hugh Norfolk returns for PvP 101 and goes over reward tracks and how to unlock them. Unranked arenas are good for people who are learning, practicing, or trying new builds without the pressure of the ranked arenas (A: sort of like EotM for WvW I guess). He shows us the PvP build panel, amulets are ‘one piece to rule them all’ and replace all trinkets … same with armour runes and weapon sigils. Hugh suggests going in to make a build to even try it out for PvE since everything is so streamlined.

 


Ready Up episode 26

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bwNzyZWgc0&list=UUP_FgMqOxp_VsM0UfrL-DxA



  • A whole lot of pvp changes coming up with various blog posts about it, and the championships are coming up as well but for us PvEers…. bank and trading post in heart of the mists. That’s the important thing obviously.

 


Black Lion Stuff

  • Mine-r-Tron added to the gem store! “I’m excited to offer our latest and greatest talking-golem gathering tool: Mine-r-Tron, the most enthusiastic gathering golem yet! This little vocal assistant can’t wait to mine ore of every type for you.†(1000 gems)

    • A: I love that the post is by Evon Gnashblade!


  • Mini Chickenado is back by popular demand. (some gems … very accurate)

 


AaA

 


“Being Egged Onâ€

Splendiferous Celesteâ„¢


I was merrily walking through Divinity’s Reach the other day, waving at all the admirers. When I happened to bump into the Lovely Allonaâ„¢. Truth be told, I think she was drawn to my ruggedly handsome looks, and my sparkling hero smile. Many are! 


Anyway, we got to chatting. She had been puzzled by happenings in the West of Tyria and was desperately pleading with me to bestow my insight into the vast and complex affairs that have taken root there. In my heroic wisdom, I felt it necessary to also share these revelations with you, War of the Guilds Reporter, and your wonderful audience. For safety reasons, I must only mention a fraction of what I know on the subject. Too much of my knowledge would likely bring about a swath of brain maladies to rival even that of Zhaitan’s infectious plague! Therefore, I will be brief, and thus heroically compassionate, in my dispensation.


Many moons ago, the pacifist centaur, Ventari, wrote down his philosophies for life on to tablets that, later, became the basis for The Pale Tree and her children, the Sylvari’s beliefs. It is also said that The Pale Tree is a champion of the Elder Dragon, Mordremoth, but one “corrupted” from its master’s yolk by the early influence of said tablet’s teachings, and Ventari’s friendship with the Shining Blade human, Ronan.


History records, after being separated from his patrol during the Krytan civil war, Ronan “…stumbled upon a guarded cavern filled with mysterious seeds.” Returning home to his village he found destroyed and his people murdered by the Mursaat. It is upon their graves that he planted this found seed.


So the Pale Tree was raised by the care of Ronan, influenced by the beliefs of Ventari, and grew from ground fertilized by the dead bodies and restless spirits of humans buried beneath. That, alone, raises intriguing possibilities, but I digress…


At present, The Master of Peace, has been traveling through Ventari’s old stomping grounds on a mission to bring a dragon’s egg somewhere. Unfortunately, he perished and the egg was stolen by the Sylvari, Caithe. But why would Caithe, or any Sylvari for that matter, want to steal the egg? Unless the egg was not seen as an egg to them, but rather… a seed — a seed that could be planted in the ground, like another Elder Dragon egg was, and one day mature in to another Pale Tree!


Yes! I know, your mind is blown! Blame the Lovely Allonaâ„¢ for asking. Now, I must continue walking and waving to my adoring fans throughout Divinity’s Reach.


Excelsior!


Hero of Shaemoor,


Caledon Oakenshield


 


Allona’s tip of the week: So you think you can dance? You can synchronize similar dance moves with other players without buying those cool dance books from the gem store. Type /dance followed by a space and an asterisk ( *). Ex “/dance *”. Everyone needs to hit enter around the same time, but the “space asterisk†gives a buffer. You can use the same method to synchronize any emote!


Hunter’s tip of the week: The alpha and the Omega. You can place buy orders for all the armour in the Alpha Crafter collection and as long as the pieces you buy are blue (not green)  you can sell them again for a profit. Often the order price is far lower than the sell listing price.


 


Tales of Tyria

 


Silverwastes and “Stuffâ€

http://massively.joystiq.com/2014/11/25/flameseeker-chronicles-navigating-guild-wars-2s-tangled-paths/


I’ve griped so long and loudly about GW2’s open world reward structure that it’s sincerely a pleasure to be enthusiastic about it. The Silverwastes feels like the culmination of every lesson ArenaNet could have learned from previous farm-heavy content, to the point that I had a little trouble describing it to another player. Is it like the first incarnation of the Queen’s Pavilion? Well, a little. Is it similar to World vs World or Edge of the Mists? Kind of! There’s a dash of Tower of Nightmares and some Mad King’s Labyrinth and a bit of Southsun, but the strongest comparison I can draw is to Cursed Shore in Orr.



  • A: I felt this was important to point out because it really hit home for me.

Although I’m bound by blood oath not to discuss any specifics (it’s a Necromancer thing), I can say with certainty that, yes, ArenaNet is working on stuff. It is working very hard on stuff. There is no internal catastrophe or barren office lurking behind the studio’s policy of limited communication as some fans have feared. There are a lot of highly organized developers there doing things I was mostly not allowed to see up close because there are probably nuclear fallout shelters less secure than ANet HQ. But it’s safe to say that they didn’t pull together hundreds of people and tell them to look very busy and enthusiastic and excited about their game just because I happened to be in the vicinity.



  • A: STUFF! Gosh, I wonder what STUFF could be?!

 


Story is important, okay

http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-11-25-game-industry-coming-around-on-story-hoyer


Hoyer said when she started in the industry, one of the most surprisingly frequent questions she heard was “Why is narrative important in video games?” These days the question comes up less and less, and has been largely replaced by “How can we better tell narrative in games than what we’re doing now?” Hoyer attributes that perhaps subtle change in the degree of importance story in games is afforded to fan reaction, with an assist from the economic realities facing large-scale development.



  • A: I find it interesting that this conversation is gaining traction so recently.
  • H: I heard some criticism saying that pacman has no story and look how successful it is, which is true for some basic bare bones games, but if you asked me today if I want to play pacman or dragon age, pitfall or new vegas, centipede or GTA, I think we know which I’d play.

 


Lion’s Arch Exploratory Report 25!

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/2n3vg5/lions_arch_exploratory_report_25_snowden_drifts/


Hello,


After the destruction of Lion’s Arch, the Council decided to form a branch of the Lionguard that specializes in recon and information gathering in order to better prepare for future threats. The Lion’s Arch Exploratory Brigade was formed. These are their reports.


As you may have seen from our previous reports, the Order of Whispers is in no shortage of hidden bases throughout Tyria. Snowden Drifts is no exception. At Snowdrift Haven Waypoint, you can find a small pathway on the northern side of it. This leads to a door. Inside said door is a small Order of Whispers Outpost. This base is one of the more commonly known ones because of the back entrance. Inside the base there’s another door which leads outside to the bottom of the mountain the Haven is on. An event spawns at this door where you embark on a mission with a squad of Order of Whisper Agents. It’s a nice, slightly secret base and event in the Zone.


Imgur Guide: http://imgur.com/a/uAMQP


List of Reports


Exploratory Library


Request a Report


Today’s recommended reading:The Legion’s of the Charr



  • A: Have I mentioned how much I love these?

 


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