Enlightened Resistance of Tyria

Enlightened Resistance of Tyria        

I've retired my old Guild Wars 2 build site, Tales of the Mists and am created a new one with the new trait system and rune and sigil reworks. It's called Enlightened Resistance of Tyria! Go check it out :D

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What’s New in the Final Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event

(From ArenaNet's Blog)

The final Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event is nearly here. From Friday, July 20 to Sunday, July 22, hundreds of thousands of players from Europe and North America will experience the beta version of Guild Wars 2 one last time before the game launches on August 28.
As you can imagine, this is an exciting time for everyone here at the studio. Guild Wars 2 launches in a matter of weeks, and with playable asura and sylvari characters and a lot of other cool content, this last Beta Weekend Event will be our biggest yet. Let’s take a look at what we’re all so excited about.

Create an Asura or Sylvari Character

Beta players will be able to create asura and sylvari characters for the first time this weekend, exploring each race’s fantastical home region, and experiencing the unique storyline options available to these races.

Lore and Continuity Writer Ree Soesbee, who was intimately involved with the creation of the sylvari, has high hopes for the debut of Tyria’s enigmatic race of humanoid plants.

“I hope players come away from this weekend with a better sense of the sylvari as a race—their personalities, quirks, interests, and setting,” Ree says. “I hope they’ll love the sylvari voices—the PC ones, in particular, are amazing!—and getting to see the Grove and soak in all its wonders. Personally, I look forward to hearing how players respond to the somewhat inhuman visual choices available for sylvari PCs—something that our artists worked very hard to create. It’s difficult to balance beautiful and not-quite-human!”

Players will also be able to create asuran characters for the first time this beta weekend.

Matt Barrett, the concept artist largely responsible for creating the asuran architecture, is confident that beta players will enjoy exploring Metrica Province and monolithic Rata Sum or matching wits with the treacherous Inquest. “Making the visually and culturally distinctive world of the asura was a huge, complex job, and I think players will be as intrigued by the asura as I was,” Matt says. “My challenge for beta players is to really explore the breadth and depth of their unique civilization and make the most of your chance to uncover the secrets of the asura.”

Brand-New Map – Brisban Wildlands


This brand-new map, recommended for players level 17-20, makes its debut this weekend.

“Brisban Wildlands is a remote jungle adjacent to the lands of the asura, sylvari, and humans. For decades the only inhabitants have been a few asura labs too secretive or volatile to occupy space near Rata Sum, and an ever-multiplying population of skritt. Protected by the secluded jungle, the skritt built the city of Skrittsburgh, and have attained an order of civility little seen in other areas of Tyria.

“Unfortunately, it wasn’t long before outlaws began taking advantage of Brisban’s isolated location. The Inquest, Nightmare Court, and human bandits now flood the area, preying on skritt and disrupting lab operations. Worse still, each of these groups seem to have their own dark intentions—plots that could be catastrophic if left unchecked.

“The need for heroes is so great that many sylvari have been led to the jungle on their wyld hunts. Recognizing their common goals, the Peacemakers, wyld hunt valiants, and Seraph have pooled their resources in an attempt to keep Brisban Wildlands from falling to criminals.” 

-Kim Kirsch, Game Designer

Get Ready to Keg Brawl!


Introducing the first minigame activity playable in a beta weekend—the wildly popular, incredibly macho norn pastime known as Keg Brawl!

Activities like Keg Brawl are fun minigames that are available in many Tyrian cities. In the great norn settlement of Hoelbrak, players can speak to the Brewer NPC in the northwest corner to begin the game.

In Keg Brawl, two teams attempt to score points by toting a full keg of ale across an icy lake and turning it in to the Ale Collector that belongs to their team. Participants are free to tackle, pummel, kick, and otherwise rough up competing players in order to seize control of the keg.

Keg Brawl—you’ll never look at a keg of ale the same way again!

Kick Back and Enjoy the Vista

There’s so much to see in Tyria that sometimes you just want to pull over to the side of the proverbial road and admire the view. For this Beta Weekend Event, we’re introducing vistas, a new feature for sightseers, explorers, and those who just enjoy drinking in the view.

“Many of you have already spent some time exploring the world of Tyria battling through bandits, ghosts, and even other players. But how often did you get the chance to just sit back and look at the handcrafted beauty of the game? In the upcoming beta weekend, you’ll have the chance to do just that with our new vista feature.

“Vistas are a new addition to our map completion progress. We’ve placed visual cues of these hidden locations throughout the world. Once you have located and navigated to the vista, simply interact with it to activate a sweeping panoramic cinematic of the area.

“But don’t take my word for it; check out this vista from Hoelbrak below. Enjoy!”

-Crystal Reid, Level Designer

New PvP Map – Legacy of the Foefire

We’re introducing a brand-new player-versus-player map this weekend that we call “Legacy of the Foefire,” which draws some inspiration from the lore and design of the original Guild Wars. As with all PvP maps, players will battle over three capture points, but this new map includes NPC guards and team “guild lords,” powerful NPCs that are worth a lot of points… if you can manage to kill them.

“I think fans of Guild Wars will particularly appreciate the background of Foefire,” Game Designer Jonathan Sharp says. “And I think they’ll find the map layout reminiscent of some classic Guild Wars maps.”

More World vs. World


WvW isn’t just about spectacular sieges or brutal clashes between armies of players; there’s plenty for the small team or single player to do.

This beta weekend we’re introducing objectives for solo players called sentries. As you can imagine from the name, sentries are solitary NPC guards located on a capture point that are worth points if you can take them out. But be warned—sentries are no pushovers!

Reminder: Beta Info Will Be Deleted

Before this final Beta Weekend Event (and before Guild Wars 2 launches on August 28) we’ll delete all existing beta information. Every beta character and all information or items associated with them will be deleted. However, we will be preserving your beta account’s contact list so you can easily connect with your fellow beta gamers during Headstart Access or after launch.

Gem Store is Open for Business!


During the beta weekend, we’ll test our secure Gem Store billing system in a live environment, which means you can purchase gems with your credit card or through PayPal.
As we mentioned earlier, we’re wiping all our beta data before launch—including items purchased this weekend—but we’ll keep a record of how many gems you’ve purchased during beta events. When Guild Wars 2 launches on August 28, you’ll receive those gems back on your account.

Guild Wars 2 Beta Livestream on Twitch TV


Throughout the beta weekend, ArenaNet devs will be livestreaming GW2 gameplay on Twitch TV. From combat tips to PvP match commentary, our developers will give you a deeper insight into the game and will take your questions in the chat channel during each stream.
For more information, check out Twitch TV’s Guild Wars 2 channel.

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Tales of the Mists: Week in Review (7/9 - 7/13 2012)

Tale of the Mists Weekly Update

This week, Ren and I tackled on Signet themed builds, plus we have 6 additional builds to view. I also updated 3 builds.

Signet Challenge:

• [21] Elementalist: Staff "Signet" Build |PVE
• [22] Ranger: Greatsword & Dual Axe (Darius and Draven in One) "Signet" Build |PVE
• [24] Warrior: Dual Sword & Dual Axe "Raging Dual-ist" Signet Build |PVE
• [25] Thief: Dagger/Pistol & Sword/Pistol Signet Build |PVE
• [26] Mesmer: Illusionary Signets Build |PVE
• [27] Necromancer: Dagger/Warhorn & Axe/Dagger - Signet Build |PVE
• [29] Guardian: Zealously Radiant Greatsword Vanquisher (Signet) Build | PVE

New Builds:

• [20] Guardian: Spirit of Restorative Resolve - Mace/Focus & Staff (Heal/Support) Build |PVE
• [23] Necromancer: Staff & Scepter/Focus "Spectral Mark Mage" Build |WvWvW and PVE
• [28] Warrior: Sword/Shield & Mace/Shield - DolYOLKED Build |WvWvW and PVE
• [30] Thief: Assassin Cross (Dungeon Edition) - Dual Dagger & Sword/Dagger |WvWvW, PVE and Dungeon
• [31] Ranger:  Long Bow/Short Bow "In My Pet I Trust" |PVE
• [32] Elementalist: Theme - "Long Live the Beifongs!" |PVE

Updated Builds:

• [5] Mesmer: Greatsword & Staff - Phantasmic 2-Handed Illusion Shatterer | WvWvW and PVE
• [6] Mesmer: Theme: Loki, Glamorous of all Jotunheim
• [19] Warrior: Theme - Thor's Might of Mjolnir

And as always, you can leave feedback or submit a build through any of the links on the "Contact Me" tab page :)

Have a great weekend! 

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Now Playing: Guild Wars 2 - Asura race

(Click "Read more >>" to see the video)
Kevin VanOrd from GameSpot and Mike Zadorojny from ArenaNet show off the Asura race in Guild Wars 2.

Some cool highlights I enjoyed after watching the video.

• new map implementation 'vistas'
• "/dance" function was shown.
• Oola's Skill Point Challenge
• An epic jump puzzle - entrance / sky
• Aurora's Remain's - ghosts of the Shining Blade and White Mantle still fighting!
• Skrittsburg - home hub for the Skritt!

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Play Asura and Sylvari in the July 20-22 Beta Weekend Event!

From ArenaNet's Blog

BY DAVID CAMPBELL JULY 9TH, 2012

For our final Beta Weekend Event (July 20-22), we’re making the asura and sylvari races available to beta players for the first time. Players will be able to create characters from any of the five main races of Tyria—human, norn, charr, asura, and sylvari—and begin their Guild Wars 2 experience in any of the five radically different home regions.

For asura players, this means beginning your tale in Metrica Province, a vivid, exotic jungle area full of high-tech laboratories, quirky golems, and competing krewes of mad scientists. Nearby, the massive monoliths of the asuran capital Rata Sum hum with technomagical power. These diminutive geniuses may seem cute at first glance, but never underestimate an asura…

Sylvari players begin their story in the Grove, a luminous living city nestled in the shade of the Pale Tree, the “mother” of every member of this young race of plant humanoids. The sylvari are an enigmatic race of chivalrous explorers who are driven by an insatiable curiosity and guided by a collective Dream.

If you’ve played in previous beta events, you know that each playable race has its own distinct regions, signature city, and personal storyline options. But above all, each race in Guild Wars 2 has its own identity, and the asura and sylvari perfectly illustrate this.

We can’t wait to see players drinking in the mystical atmosphere of the Grove or stopping alchemagical experiments running amok in Metrica Province during our last Beta Weekend Event before launch. If you want to reserve a spot in the beta, pre-purchase your copy of Guild Wars 2 today.

We’ll see you in-game on July 20-22! Excelsior!

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Guild Wars 2 Biography Template for Microsoft Excel

Download link here


With Guild Wars 2 nearing release, people are starting to focus on what kind of characters to make. One of the essential aspects to character creation in Guild Wars 2, is the in game biography. With the use of Microsoft Excel, I created an easy to use template so anyone can keep a record of their character's biography information. This is really useful for those who are planning to make plenty of character at release.



There are 4 different templates, Character Box (CB), which are separated according to the Profession Group:

Soldier: Guardian, Warrior
Adventurer: Engineer, Thief, Ranger
Scholar: Elementalist, Mesmer, Necromancer

This was done because of the formula length restriction on the drop boxes that I encountered earlier. Also,  the Ranger profession has its own CB because its profession choice is dependent on which race you choose.

The zip contains the original workbook file and an Excel 97-2003 version and a Read Me Notepad file.

And just to be safe I scanned the worksheet and zip file

So feel free to download it and give it a go. And I hope this will help everyone out there :)

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Guild Wars 2 Has A Release Date!

I'm a little late on posting this here as I'm more active on my tumblr at the moment XD.

Anyways, if you haven't heard, one of 2012's most anticipated MMORPGs, Guild Wars 2 has a release date. That date is Tuesday, August 28, 2012. However, those who have pre-purchased the game will have early access beginning on Saturday, August 25, 2012. I highly suggest pre-purchasing the game if you intent on playing it from the get go.

ArenaNet also confirmed their next and final BWE which will held from July 20-22, 2012.

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Help Us Stress Our Servers on June 27

From ArenaNet's Blog:

We were very pleased with how our servers performed during our second Beta Weekend Event, but we want to gather additional data on how they operate under load before the next one.

That’s where you come in.

All players who have pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 are invited to participate in our upcoming stress test. This four-hour test event will run on


Wednesday, June 27th, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. PDT (GMT-7).

We won’t wipe characters for this event, so if you played in our previous betas, you can pick up right where you left off. All we need you to do is log in and have fun—leave the stress to us!

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Is it Fun? Colin Johanson on How ArenaNet Measures Success

Read full article here...

To begin this blog post, let me pose a question: How do you measure the success of an MMO?

Historically, it’s been easy to point to success with traditional MMOs: subscription numbers were the ultimate means a company used to measure how well a game was doing, and customers typically looked at those same numbers as well to gauge the success of the game. The number of concurrent users—how many players are online at a given time—was also important, but that number was usually hidden from users, since it typically painted a less rosy picture of a game’s health when compared to the number of active subscriptions.

Now let me pose a second question: If the success of a subscription-based MMO is measured by the number of people paying a monthly fee, how does that impact game design decisions?

The answer can be found in the mechanics and choices made in subscription-based MMOs, which keep customers actively playing by chasing something in the game through processes that take as long as possible. In other words, designers of traditional MMOs create content systems that take more time to keep people playing longer. If this is your business motivation and model so you keep getting paid, it makes sense and is an incredibly smart thing to do, and you need to support it.

When your game systems are designed to achieve the prime motivation of a subscription-based MMO, you run the risk of sacrificing quality to get as much content in as possible to fill that time. You get leveling systems that take insane amounts of grind to gain a level, loot drop systems that require doing a dungeon with a tiny chance the item you want can drop at the end, raid systems that need huge numbers of people online simultaneously to organize and play, thousands of wash/repeat item-collection or kill-mob quests or dailies with flavor text support, the best stat gear requiring crazy amounts of time to earn, etc.

But what if your business model isn’t based on a subscription? What if your content-design motivations aren’t driven by the need to create mechanics that keep people playing as long as possible? When looking at content design for Guild Wars 2, we’ve tried to ask the question: What if the development of the game was based on…wait for it…fun?
...


his metric of success impacted a lot of our early content-related design decisions for Guild Wars 2. Some examples include:

• Fun impacts loot collection. The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don’t need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it’s not required to play the game. We don’t need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don’t are just as powerful and get to have fun too.
• Fun impacts decisions. Every time you finish a dungeon you get tokens you can trade in for reward items that you want, rather than having a small chance of getting it as a drop, because it’s more fun to always get rewarded for finishing with something you want to have!
• Fun impacts development. Explorable dungeons have multiple paths you can take and random events. Because of this you don’t feel like you need to play the same dungeon over and over again if you want to chase the prestigious rewards at the end, but can instead mix up that experience to keep it fresh and fun.
• Fun impacts customization. The event and personal story systems allow you to get a sense of customization from your characters. Playing through the game, each character can experience completely different content, and the world can always stay fresh and new in the pursuit of new story lines, and an ever-changing dynamic event world. It means going back to a place you’ve already been with a character can be fun, and it means making a new character on an entirely different personal story chain can be fun as well.
• Fun impacts gameplay. The pursuit of fun in content led us to make many gameplay decisions, including:Everyone who helps kill a creature gets experience and loot, so you’re not competing with other players; everyone gets rewarded for events with karma they can spend to buy rewards they want, rather than get a random roll of stuff they might not want; content scales in difficulty, so if more people show up, there is still stuff for you to do; everyone is able to revive one another, so you view other players as assets that can help you achieve your goals, rather than people who might get in your way; everyone can harvest resource nodes and get the rewards in the world together, rather than racing other people to them who might steal it from you. All of these things are just more fun!

...

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Announcing the Next Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend

For full article read here

To sum it up:


Beta Weekend Event 2 will begin on Friday, June 8th, at noon PDT (GMT-7) and will run until Sunday, June 10th, at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7).


Marked on calendar. Good thing that's a free weekend!

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Guild Wars 2: The Avengers Theme Builds

As a fan of Marvel and Avengers and today's release of the movie "The Avengers", I took a moment to make some fun Guild Wars 2 builds. Don't take them too seriously, but I did make them in mind of their viability. I couldn't think of one for Mr. Hulk Smash, as in weapon set since he uses anything to smash things, but I did have thought of him being in the warrior class, hehe.

And yes, go watch The Avengers!

Loki
Thor
Captain America
Hawk Eye
Black Widow
Iron Man

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Guild Wars 2 Builds - Mesmer: 2-Hands Greatsword/Staff Illusion Spammer for PVE

Click here for detailed guide

I tried out the Mesmer profession last Beta weekend test, and had lots of fun using the Greatsword and Staff. I hope to test out in the next beta weekend in sPVP and WvWvW. This build revolves on spamming your Illusions/Clones, let them do damage and then use your shatter skills...

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Guild Wars 2 Builds - Necromancer: Scepter/Dagger - Staff, Dirty AOE for sPVP | WvWvW | PVE

Click here for detailed guide

One aspect I loved about the Necromancer profession that carried over from Guild Wars 1, is the ability to apply conditions (debuffs) on enemies and spread them. It's like another way to deal damage aside from a direct damage route. This build is solely for that purpose, apply and stack conditions to multiple foes. You will be using Scepter/Dagger skills along with the Marks from the Staff set and Wells and Corruptions from your utility skills to get the job done...

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Guild Wars 2 Builds - Thief: Miss Fortune Shock and Awe Range Build

Click here for detailed guide

This is a fun build for PVP/PVE. It's in honor for one of my favorite League of Legends Champions, Miss Fortune. As melee thieves deal massive damage, I believe a ranged thief can still hit as hard. Main weapons of course are Dual Pistols (Shock and Awe hehe) and Short Bow to spam the AOE conditions.

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