Thursday, August 30, 2012

Majyst Was Hacked!

I'm not kidding. Only a week after we began playing and someone hacked his account, and others in the guild have reported getting emails saying that someone is trying to change their password! I can't believe it!
Also, yesterday we saw our first in-game gold spammer. I told everyone on the map how to report him. (Right click their name in chat, easy!)
Here is a short GW2 article on protecting your account. They have a link to a little cartoon that shows how to make a strong password.
The password reset feature is not available right now. I'm assuming that's because the GW2 team is working on making it secure. As soon as it's up, I'm going to change my password to something stronger than a drunken Norn!
Stay safe, Tyrians!

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

/em hugs her entire guild!

Cuge, Spiral & Dezi found each other in The Grove
and had a mad dance party!
I love my guild. I love my friends. I love the fact that I can spend endless hours with these amazing people I've never met face-to-face and they can make me laugh until it hurts. My cheeks ache with all the smiling I've been doing over the past few days since Headstart.

Here are some great things my guildies said and did lately.

Modra: the super-leveling machine made our first silver and sent it to Dezi right away so we could get our guild started!

Dezi: researched and queued everything up so our guild can get a bank as soon as possible. Also wrote hilarious guild MOTD, "Have fun, be friendly and wear a condom!"

Hartak: When seeing the crowds of people in the starting zones, "Get out of our game, people!"

Dezi, Spiral & Majyst together again!
Maj shows up wearing (no joke) Humiliation Pink.
Majyst: (with mild curiousity) "I think he's got a bomb". (pause) BOOM! (bodies flying everywhere!) "Good thing we don't work for the FBI."

Warmad & Pol: upon discovering that Armorsmiths can make boxes, made a bunch for everyone! Bag space FTW. :)

Modra: "What do I do with Soft Wood?"
Spiral: "Make it hard!"

Hartak: "That just happened."
Tab: (deadpan) "I can't believe I was there."
I love that my Rift guildies and my RoM guildies are getting along so famously!

Ejov: (whisper) "Is this Spiral from RoM?"
Me: OMG EJOV!!!!
Can't convey how happy I am that my friend has found me! Welcome to the guild, Ejov.

KB: "Mystic coin...woot?"
Me: "Woot!"
KB: "Woot! :D"

Everyone: sharing materials and weapons and armor and treasure and information. Our guild chat was full of "Who needs _____?" Mail flew back and forth like hungry seagulls--when it wasn't bugged.
Dezi: "I'm dead."
Spiral: "I'll save you! Oh. I'm dead."
Cuge: "I'll save you both! Oh. I'm dead too."
Majyst: "Let me show you how it's done. Oh."
WORST RESCUE MISSION EVER!  LOL
There are too many epic moments to list them all here. Suffice to say, I'm grateful and overjoyed that I have such a fabulous guild, full of generous, kind, funny, smart, gutter-minded people!
Love live The Clan of the Lost Minds! 


Monday, August 27, 2012

Quick Tips for GW2 Noobs

This is just one of the pages of
scribbled notes I have from headstart!
Once again, a short blog post cuz I wanna get in game! I have sooooo many screens and anecdotes to share with you but you'll have to wait until I can tear myself away from playing to sort through them all.

So in the meantime, here are some helpful tips:
 - to split a stack, hold down Alt and drag to an empty backpack spot
- to synchro-dance with another player of the same race, stand near each other, type /dance * (slash dance space asterisk), and press enter at the same time
- on your Friends screen (shortcut Y) you can right click and create a nickname for each person
- to draw on the map for party members, hold shift and left-click
- to ping the map for party members, use right-click
- you can link a POI (point of interest) in chat by opening your large map (M) and shift-left-click
- can't find a bank? Use your crafting station to access your bank and collections
- make good use of the custom keybinds! I bound Ctrl-M to open my mail, switched autorun to Numlock and R to reply to whispers, made Z my weapon set switch, and C my about-face
- use karma instead of gold to buy salvaging kits from certain vendors (hard to find, but they are out there!)
- custom emotes are /em, eg. "/em does a jig" will display in chat "Spiral Madheart does a jig."
- if some of your group are in overflow, right click their portrait and choose "Join In"

And some reminders:
- material nodes are available for all, so even if you see someone gathering, you can still take from that point
- same goes for loot: if a body sparkles, it's yours and only yours
- everything is cross-server, your toon names, your guilds, your guild chat
- you can have two crafting skills at a time, however you can switch to another and you won't lose your learned levels and can go back to it for a fee
- all heart quests NPCs are also vendors of karma stuff

Gotta run to Future Shop to get a new mouse. I busted yet another one. I'm either buying cheap-ass mice or just have an OP index finger! :D

Sunday, August 26, 2012

Meet Spiral Madheart

I'm too busy playing the game to want to blog about it but here are a few screens of the new and  much leafier Spiral Madheart! Yes, she's Slyvari and she makes a damn fine salad, don't you think? She is also Mesmer, which is getting more fun by the minute. I'm actually relishing shattering my poor hapless clones now. (evil grin)

Spiral Level 1 at the login screen Spiral in a cutscene

Saturday, August 25, 2012

Would You Like Fries With That?

Let's talk combos, people. No, not the fries & pop kind! No, not the pizza pretzel kind! I'm talking combos of the murder-death-kill kind.  :)

Initiator + Finisher = Combo!

The 9 initiators are classified according to element: dark, ethereal, fire, ice, light, lightning, poison, smoke, water.
The 4 finishers are classified according to type: blast, leap, projectile, whirl.
That means there are 36 possible combos in Guild Wars 2. Most combos are created through synergies between two different professions, but there are a few combos that can be triggered on your own or with a player of the same profession.

The GW2 Wiki has a handy chart showing the combos but not all the links are live yet, so you can't find out what the exact combo skill does, but you can deduce the effect from the description, eg. Healing Bolts would most likely heal people with bolts. Just guessing here.  ;)

But I found something even better than a dumb table of words. I found a super dooper awesome uber amazing fantooooooobulus visual combo generator!
I have provided some pics and instructions about it here for your entertainment and education. Aren't I nice? (Well, perhaps you should reserve your eager assent until you finish reading. It's possible I'll just confuse you with all this!)

The starting screen. Choose professions from the drop down menus.
I chose Mesmer and Thief.
Click on the Initiator heart icon. This will bring up pics with mouseover descriptions of the skills that Mesmer has that can act as Initiators, including the weapon needed, and element type. Choose wisely...or not!
Click the Finisher heart icon and choose.
You can see the Thief has a lot of finishers, but some are of the same type, eg. Projectiles.

Here you can see Mesmer's Chaos Storm (ethereal) plus Thief's Heartseeker (leap)
equals the combo Chaos Armor.
You can also go about this backwards, sideways or inside out. For example, you can choose two professions, then click the combo icon to bring up a big chart of the possible combos.
All the combos!
The ones that are lit up are the possible combos for
Necro + Warrior
Click one of those and then click the initiator and finisher icons to discover which skills you need to use to achieve that combo.
Or choose two professions, check out all the combos, then click the big double-headed black arrow below the plus sign to switch the professions from initiator to finisher. That way you can see what would happen if your Mesmer finishes a combo initiated by your friend, the Thief.

Here's a little more detail. Feel free to click away. I won't be offended. Much. :D

The 4 finishers (blast, leap, projectile, whirl) are available to almost all professions. The current exceptions are: necros don't have a leap, guardians don't have a projectile, engineers don't have a whirl, and rangers only have a blast through their drake pet. Some professions have a metric-poop-tonne of one type of finisher, like, oh, say, the damn Thief and their endless projectiles!
Basically what that means is that any class can finish a combo. Pretty sweet deal.
And finishers are easy to comprehend. Blasting something causes an AOE. Leaping through an initiator most often applies an armor to you, but sometimes a condition to your foe. Firing a projectile through an initiator applies an effect to the projectile. And whirling into an initiator causes bolts to be flung out. Maybe your friend, the Thief, has 254 different types of projectiles, but each one will finish the combo in the same way.

But the initiators are really where things get nutsy. The 9 initiators are linked to elements, and these seem to be all over the place. I mean obviously Elementalists can do fire, air, and water, plus they're the only one who can do lightning. Engineers are even more skilled and can do every initiator element except dark & ethereal. Dark can only be done by thieves and necros. Ethereal can only be done by necros and mesmers...oh, except if a thief steals a skill from one of those. Rangers can get their pets to do initiators, namely smoke and poison elements. Sheesh! I can't keep it all straight.

So that's why that combo thinga-majiggy is so brilliant. Go click your little heart out and you'll see what I'm trying to explain in clumsy words.
Pick your profession and learn your combos, memorize them, absorb them, breathe them, live them. That way, the next time you're standing next to a warrior eyeing up a band of nasty Svanir, you can smile sweetly and say, "Care to take a whirl through my ring of fire, big boy?" Hopefully, he'll grin fiercely and reply, "Light it up!"




Friday, August 24, 2012

Adapt or Die

Found this great Youtuber, SCChirp, who has created some stunning and informative videos on the basics of Guild Wars 2. Figured I should post it up here so folks have something to watch while we wait for launch.
I love his motto: "GW2 is different. Learn to adapt." I've been saying basically the same thing since I started learning about how unique GW2 is compared to other MMOs. When my friends and guildies have asked me about Guild Wars 2, I've been replying, "It's different" with various intonations indicating my pleasure or frustration at the current moment!

Different is not necessarily bad. Sure, it's been hard to feel like a noob again: learning new game mechanics, practicing my strafing, and dodging off cliffs. But the more I've played, the better it's gotten. In yesterday's stress test, I could take a brief -- very brief -- moment during combat to appreciate my skills and notice how the players are interacting with each other. Now that I'm a bit more experienced, I can revel in my awesome spell effects and contemplate more strategic moves , rather than just button-mashing and clenching my teeth and hoping I'm still standing when the smoke clears.

I have an abundance of admiration for the passion, dedication, and creativity of the Guild Wars 2 team. They've put their hearts and souls into this game. I know that GW2 will impress more gamers than it will disappoint.

In less than 24 hours I will be button-mashing "PLAY" with focused determination, holding my breath for that moment when the servers go live. Anticipation is half the fun, they say. Pffft. Playing is ALL the fun. I'll see you soon, Tyria!

Thursday, August 23, 2012

Damn Fine Fashion

I came across this amazing video on The Tubes of You today. It's a 10 minute show of all of the female cultural armor sets for all races, set to the glorious music of Jeremy Soule. They have a link there for the male armor sets as well.


I loved so many things about every racial set. The way the Sylvari's armor was made entirely of leaves and sticks and bark was just astounding. The little Asurans got helmets to protect their floppy soft ears. The Charr's armor was practical and insanely fierce. The Norns get to wear g-strings that were mostly under their savage gear. And a few of the humans' outfits were...well, you could say slutty or you could say super HAWT! I'll have to see if the guys get the same sexist treatment when I watch their vid next! Would love to see some tight pants and exposed abs. ;)

Maybe it was the soundtrack tugging at my heart strings, but this video made me love GW2 even more. I mean, the clothes are amazing. Freaking gorgeous! And they're unique and stylized and bizarre and complex and functional and sexy and race-appropriate and just beautiful. Big high fives and headbutts to the costume designers of the ANet team!

I've started a group Photobucket page for Vanity pictures of your GW2 outfits. Right now, it's just Spiral's human beta pics, but feel free to add your own! I think I've set up the permissions correctly so anyone can add, but send me a message or a comment here if it's not working.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

Okay I'm Fail, I Admit It


I did not realize that the GW2 human dance was Party Rock Anthem from LMFAO!! Wtf is wrong with me? I've only watched that video like 9 million times. I actually described this dance as, and I quote: "a mishmashed routine of hip-hop-two-step-jazz-hands"! LOL
But these fantabulous guys put it to music and it suddenly made sense to me. Well done, Censtudios!

*EDIT: Here's an even better video with all the dances!

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

Is Guild Wars 2 Ready?

These NPCs all just dropped dead simultaneously.
Went into the game today for a stress test. Started out being for only 4 hours and then it got extended for another hour, then another! They put up announcements in the game specifically asking players to test the BLTC, Currency Exchange and SPvP.

While it was nice to have more time to play, it was a little worrisome to think that the game is still needing so much testing at this stage. Plus, there were a bunch of bugs that we came across on our own: opening up your map in some areas caused your game to freeze up, sometimes so badly that you needed to restart your computer; certain combat skills were porting players to waypoints instead of into the fight, or else flat out killing them; NPCs were walking through the ground; Dezi disappeared for a while; and the infamous "dusty boobs" were still marring my human female's milky skin.
Dezi's hair, sceptre and cowbell, plus my Charr.

So is the game ready to be released? Are they rushing? Is this "not indicative of the game at release", as they say? I sure hope that these problems are getting fixed as I type. I pity the poor little employees slaving away over there in ANet's office, but it's crunch time, folks! You set a release date, there's no delaying now!

In spite of the bugginess, Dezi, Pol and I had a blast puttering around and playing with our skills. I made a Mesmer, as my recent readings had led me to believe I could enjoy that class. After playing it...I'm still not sure!! I don't know if I like Mesmer or not. I was actually kinda disturbed by the fact that I explode clones of myself. It was like killing a bit of my SOUL. <shiver>

Some positive things have shown up in this latest stress test, most notably the dance emotes! I was super excited to see a guy dancing when I first loading into the game. We ran around trying to find all the different races doing their dance.
We were slightly disappointed though. Apparently, the male and female dances are the same for each race, and most of the dances were not that distinctive or impressive. The Slyvari and Norn dances look like they are high on weed or drunk on ale (respectively), the Charr just stand and thump and growl, and the humans do a mishmashed routine of hip-hop-two-step-jazz-hands.
The best however, were the Asurans -- they do The Robot. Classic! Cannot beat that!
My First Dance Party! Dezi & I showing off our sweet dance moves!

I heard mention somewhere that there would be a dance trainer or vendor in-game and we might be able to buy new dance moves. That would be sweet.

Other little fixes:
- a red bar will show under your action bar icon if that spell is out of range for your current target (used to be the number was red)
- character creation screens now have names attached to all the colours.
- a small digital clock is now on your mini-map and can be changed to server or local time

Things I'm still waiting for:
- get rid of the fugly neon green outline on NPCs at mouseover!
- play a sound when someone whispers me
- the game to be released  :)

Monday, August 20, 2012

Making a Name for Yourself

Click me!
This cartoon about launch day naming frustrations was up on GW2 Guru today. I thought it was moderately funny but also kinda jitters-inducing. I have the intense desire to go log into GW1 again just to be sure my names are reserved. I'm still twitching about it, actually! Bit of OCD coming through here.
One of the commenters on that Guru post suggested to people to use The Hall of Monuments Reward Calculator to check if a name has been taken already. Smart! Of course, remember that in GW1, you had to have two names. That is how Spiral ended up with the last name Madheart actually. I was forced into it! But I am grateful because now she is distinguisable from other Spirals out there. Well, besides her distinctive purple hair, her saucy yet demure attitude, and her peculiar ability to be exactly where she shouldn't be any particular moment. :)
I decided a while back not to attempt to catch the one-word name of Spiral. I will be attempting for others though, but I'm not so dim as to post them up here!  :)

I was chatting with my 11-year-old nephew this weekend about how to name characters in online games. He was frustrated because he recently joined a game and "his" name was taken, and all he could think to do was add numbers after it to make it unique.
So we brainstormed together, mixing and matching names from his favourite books and movies, colours he loves, places he's been, and animals he thinks are cool. It was fun to observe him weaving an alternate identity for himself. We compared it to naming their puppy: you just "know" the right name when you say it. It fits. It feels right.
His mother (my sister) just shook her head at us. She doesn't "get" gamers. But as long as her kid doesn't give out his real name, her mom-radar is a mostly appeased. She appreciates that her son has a quote-unquote "adult" to turn to for gaming chit-chat and advice. I'm happy to have something in common with my nephew that makes it infinitely easier to connectwith him. Gosh, if he was into sports, I'd be lost!

Thursday, August 16, 2012

Why GW2 Could Suck

I watched a loooonnnngggg but interesting podcast from AltTabMe called "Why You Won't Like GW2".


They get a little carried away sometimes (foul language warning!) but in between there are some good conversations about the things in Guild Wars 2 that might upset some players, elicit ragequits, or even cause people to not want to play the game in the first place.
After listening through the whole thing and making notes, here are summary statements.

The three major areas of dissention are:
1. No Holy Trinity.
2. No raids.
3. No PvP servers.

The three most important things to remember:
1. GW2 IS NOT WOW.
2. Don't look for what's not there. Play the game in front of you.
3. The game is dynamic and you must be too.


For those of you who aren't masochists and would rather boil their own eyeballs in balsamic vinegar than watch that whole podcast (but of course are willing to read my eloquent prose), here are some points from me plus some handy timestamps! You're welcome. Use that vinegar on your salad that you can enjoy while you read.  :)

2:10 - It's too different. You will not like GW2 if you can't "unprogram your brain". It's not WOW!! Stop comparing. Just get the game, go in it with a fresh, open mind, and have fun. Don't make assumptions. The biggest reason people feel GW2 is not for them is cuz they're expecting something. Expect NOTHING, grasshopper! Be Zen and you will love it.

3:15 - The dodge. Oh gosh, the dodging. Sigh. Here it is. You are immune to attacks while dodging, it saves your life, therefore you MUST dodge! I must admit, my fingers have been getting all tangled up trying to do this. I actually practiced strafing the other day in a field just to learn how to play this darn game. If you're not a player of FPS games, you'll have to train your fingers to move and strike. This is for sure tougher for those stand-still classes like mage and tank. It's basically like kiting everything all the time. Two of my guildies recommended the Naga Razer mouse with side buttons to help. Go forth, ye with tons of money and purchase this god among mice. Me, I will be practicing the invaluable skill of the "circle strafe"! (I think it was like E+A, but don't quote me.)
Remember too that the dodge combat mechanic works both ways: you can dodge their attacks, but they can dodge yours too! Mobs will run out of your AOE. How rude! But really, it's only fair!

9:29 - Combat favours ranged. Yes, the game seems to favour ranged professions at first, but it's really just that the melee players must recognize the value of moving, kiting, dodging and backing away. Warriors and Guardians must think more like stabby-stabby rogues.
But the game gives you everything you need to utilize the fighting space around an enemy. I was playing an engineer and found that my skills worked very well together. I could use one skill to jump into range, blast a close-range shot, then another shot that blows me right back out of melee range. And of course, all Ellies love the Ride The Lightning skill! Combine that with Flaming Poop Retreat (not the real name!) and you can get in and out of melee range in a few seconds.

18:50 - There is too much hype. Gamers have been feeling burned by the super-hype-and-flop moves of recent games like Tera and SWTOR. They're suspicious of any game that has an insane cult of followers before release. In this case, GW2 hasn't blasted any crazy promo videos or pounded the Internet with banners proclaiming its greatness. It's the fans that are raising people's expectations, and anyone that questions the supreme awesomeness of GW2 is immediately pummeled to death in forums by fanboys and fangirls. Have we raised expectations TOO high? Will there be a ginormous launch and then poof? Who knows? Who cares?
This is my personal blog so I don't really have to be objective, and  you can tell I'm super  excited about the game. But I actually want to find things wrong with the game. I don't want to be so hyped up that I can't help but be disappointed. I need to maintain a healthy cynicism. That said, honestly, this game is just so DARN COOL.  :D

Another related phrase I hear often is: "I didn't play GW1, so I can't play this". Um, whatever? It's not a sequel. It's just  a name tag. I don't even know if it has anything to do with Guilds or Wars. They're using lore from the first game, and that's about it. You can jump right in and play, don't fret.  :)

27:00 - There are no mounts. Yeah, that does suck. But it's not going to stop me from playing the game. You don't need a mount for traveling in Guild Wars 2, but I like mounts cuz I'm vain. Just like the guys in the podcast, I want that "epic steed".

31:00 - Allied with everybody, no open world PvP. Tristan says: "We're all allied? What-what?" Some people might miss the PvP servers. I couldn't care less. Never played on a PvP server. Yay for no more bullies. Yay for let's be mature and help others, instead of look for some poor noob to gank.
I want to make an article entitled "The MMO Grows Up". That's how this game feels. We cooperate, we talk, we learn, we absorb, we adjust. We're mature gamers. We're not bratty kids or sulky teenagers. It's an MMO for grown-ups who still know how to have fun. :)
Bruce said in the podcast: "Once you give in and let yourself play, it's okay." Give in. That's exactly how it is. Like I said before, the gaming philosophy of GW2 is quite Zen. You've got to let go of what you think should happen. There is no should.

45:55 - No Holy Trinity. No healers, no tanks. If there is one reason people won't like Guild Wars 2, this is it. The healer/tank/DPS trio is gone. The podcast guys get quite vehement about the fact that there is no healer spec. It cannot be done. They have tried. And they said ANet actually nerfed one Guardian skill because they thought it over-powered the healing skill of that profession. This is the game-breaker for a lot of people. If they can't get it out of their heads that they are more than a healer or more than a tank, then they won't be able to be flexible enough to succeed in GW2. You must be self-reliant, yet cooperative. You must move. You must learn. You must adjust. You must be as dynamic as the world around you.
I guess the New Trinity is damage/control/support, yet you could be any one of those at any moment, and a different one in the next moment. I'm actually excited about this so-called flaw. Scared but excited.

50:24 - No addon support. Kind of a bummer cuz the customization would be nice, but the UI is pretty good already. There won't be auction helper, but there is a strange AH anyway, that I still haven't figured out completely. You don't need Gatherer for spawn times for plants, cuz each forage point is shareable. You don't need boss spawn timers, cuz bosses can't be camped. They spawn due to a DE (dynamic event) chain. It will be interesting to see what kind of third-party add-ons people feel are necessary.

1:03:04 - Endgame - No Raids. That's right. There are no instanced raids, no place to go with 20 people on-demand to attempt to kill a mechanic-heavy boss for hours on end. The "end game" zone is an island called Orr. This is the area where the "raid-like" DEs happen. Not much is known about endgame, so we could say that this is a flaw and a reason not to play, or we could say this IS a reason to play...to find out!

1:31:50 - Cash shop. People are worried it's going to be "pay to win". It is NOT like that. Never fear! ANet has made sure all cash shop items are for convenience or vanity.

The podcast really struggles to find valid things about GW2 that would cause it to not appeal to players. After about an hour, they got really nit-picky, like there's not enough bag space, and there's no player-to-player trading. Certainly not valid reasons for boycotting the most original game to be released in a decade. (IMO, of course!)

I apologize for this wall of text. I'm exhausted from writing it. Perhaps the boiling of the eyeballs was a good idea afterall? Meh. I spent so much time typing this damn thing, I'm leaving it up! So there! :P

Who Will You Be On Aug. 25?

So you're in the GW2 character creation screen and one of the first things you have to do is pick a class. Hmmmm, what to choose? So many great options! Throw fireballs or shoot pistols? Have a pet shark or ghostie versions of yourself?
Here are some helpful links and vids to ease your choice. Or you can just be like me and make one of each! :D

The Official GW2 rundown on professions. Hear it from the source.

The forums chime in on what profession they're choosing and why. A long read, but what else are we gonna do while we wait for Headstart Day?

A big poll on what profession people are choosing. The result was kinda interesting and is another testament to Arena Net's ability to make great classes.

My favourite Brits, the Yogscast, have a series of videos on the classes. This is the Ranger one.



Happy Jacks video channel has a series about all the professions as well, and also has some interesting links to being a healthy gamer. WUT? We don't have to eat Doritos and drink Dr. Pepper all the time?. My world is shattered. :D

 Good luck in your decision-making! I hope to see you (and all your alts) in game soon.

Thursday, August 9, 2012

30 Minutes in GW2...

...is better than 300 minutes in any other MMO! I had only a half hour to jump into the Guild Wars 2 stress test today but it was jam-packed with fun and adventure!
Agga Gemseeker, my Asuran, taking on bandits with her shotgun!
Of course, I spent a few minutes checking the Sylvari character creation to see if there were any changes. Not much to report, except it seems they've taken my feedback (and others too, I'm sure) and moved the body colour to the body tab, but they've neglected to remove it from the face tab. Bit confusing but I put in more feedback and hopefully it'll get fixed up.

I hopped onto my Asuran to wander around the human starting zone, Queensdale. I took a few steps down the hill and onto this bridge when I noticed two bandits kneeling in the middle of the span. I stopped to watch. A few seconds later, two barricades sprang up and a dynamic event (aka "quest") started right in front of me. Bandits started pouring in from everyone! Chaos and madness and laughter and fighting and teamwork and flame bolts and bullet spray and healing ensued! We took back our bridge and protected our land from the filthy bandits! Woot!

A few more steps down the road -- okay more than a few, she's an Asuran and has itty bitty legs! -- I heard a woman crying for help. I raced over to a windmill and those dasterdly bandits were there raping and pillaging. More dodging and leaping and rolling and strafing and firing of high-powered weapons ensued! I got a new skill that literally throws poor little Agga off her feet!
BLAM! BIFF! POW!!
Of course, we saved the windmill and the lovely woman ran around saying, "Thank goodness you showed up!" So sweet (if a bit repetitive).

Dezi was in the game briefly with me as well and we had a quick chat, mostly about how awesome this game is and how we're soooooo (many Os) excited about the release date coming up. As I was logging out, I said quickly in guild chat, "Gotta run!" I smiled as this message popped up: "No one hears you." I checked the guild screen and found out that Dezi had logged out, probably while I was busy peppering bandits with buckshot. Kinda funny that they let you know when you're talking to yourself!

A few more weeks and we're in to Tyria forever and ever. Totally pumped!

Thursday, August 2, 2012

A Brief Escape to Tyria

Today was a super busy day at work, UGH, and so I only had 15 minutes to log into GW2 for the stress test just before it closed at 7pm EST. I quickly scanned my available characters and where they were left after BWE3, and chose Vixyn because she was in the most beautiful zone, Caledon Forest. I needed some calm after my workday, and Caledon Forest is just the place.
Caledon Forest
I wandered around just listening to NPCs and absorbing the peaceful atmosphere. Birds chirped and fluttered, waterfalls burbled, sparkflies buzzed, Sylvari laughed. I wanted to lie down in the soft grass and just take deep breaths until my tension melted away. I walked into The Grove and swam in the deep, tanquil pools on the lower level, dodging the pouting salmon. I gazed up and up and up at the Pale Tree standing guard over her saplings.
Leanuit, a heartbroken Sylvari

I came upon a Warden and while admiring her complex leafy armor, a citizen came up and spoke.
Citizen: I brought you some leftover cinnamon bread. I felt your hunger.
Warden: What a senstive fern you are! I hope you have an interesting day.

Next I spoke with a lovely Sylvari named Leanuit. After some reluctance, she told me the story of a man who seduced her and betrayed her. He used her to gain access to the newborn sylvaris, then knocked her unconscious and fled with one of the saplings.
I wish I had had more time to discover where that story led, but sadly the server disconnected and I was shoved brusquely back into my own world.

I think I may go outside and absorb some real-world Caledon Forest in my backyard. :)