#8 Personal Story

Each character has their own personal story.

The general idea behind this (imho) is to enhance your immersion and experience in the game world, giving you reasons to do the things you do. These reasons are in addition to those given for the general quests, events and other happenings in the world that have a story as well, but that are more often associated with the general lore and history of Tyria. Your personal story line, makes the game more, well, personal.

When you first create your character, one set of questions deals with your Biography. Your responses to these questions determine your background and they are associated with your Race, Character Type/Profession (Soldier - Warrior/Guardian, Adventurer - Engineer/Ranger/Thief, or Scholar - Elementalist/Mesmer/Necromancer), and your personality (Charming/Dignified/Ferocious). This background will determine the path that your personal story starts on and subsequently determine the responses available for you to choose from during conversations with various NPCs.

Ok, so you can find all this out from the link provided above to the Wiki. How does it actually feel in game?

 

The personal story segments are 'instanced' and so are done on a solo basis. There are cut scene conversations interspersed with response selections on your part. The written story and voice acting are not as consistently superior as SW:TOR frankly, but are still entertaining and informative if you choose to engage in them. Often, for hard core players, racing to get to level cap, these types of 'distractions' are ignored (at least on the first character). Not sure why I threw that in there, but there it is. In any case the cut scenes are skippable. Naturally, you get experience for pursuing your personal story and it can be a significant portion of the game. Personally, I find it entertaining and a diversionary aspect of the game. Your personal story segments will start out in your capital city (presumably, Sigurd's did), and then you will have follow-ups out in the various zones as you work through them. If you are going to experience your personal story, I would suggest you pursue it as you go, so that you are not only performing level appropriate story segments, but they will tie in with other events / story line occurring within your current zone.

Let's ask Sigurd how this is all working out for him.

Sigurd experiencing one of his personal story segments, which, in this case, is a historical perspective (indicated by the black and white visuals even though this isn't Kansas).

Well, during the personal story, I do get the chance to interact with the various characters of note in the Guild Wars story. I get to display my 'Stallone' style of method acting and pronunciation (which is totally in character for a Norn - Editor). I do have one complaint on my most recent story episode.

I am supposed to help out Wolf clan to tidy up a bit of a mess, in that I must kill the mad wolf (for his own good naturally) with the aid of Eir Stegalkin (Norn Ranger) and her pet Wolf, Garm. I was given a choice earlier to either be provided with a supior weapon or the aid of Eir, and I selected Eir. I mean, she's totally all that, right? She's way up there in terms of experience, strength, etc. and she should be able to handle this wolf with one hand tied behind her back. Besides, she's a ranger and has a pet to help as well. Nope.

I've died four times now and her only comment is 'Be careful!'. Yeah. Really not helpful. Maybe in another level or two?

...or not. Hopefully in a post or two I will meet with success!

Ciao!

#7 Hoelbrak, Norn Capital City

Shortly after you've entered Wayfarer Foothills, you will receive a directive to go to Hoelbrak to continue your personal (Norn) story.

The first time that you travel to Hoelbrak from Wayfarer Foothills, you will travel through a portal (seen in the background above). In addition to the waypoints, if you are traveling by foot from one 'zone' to another, you will pass through portals. Either way, you will encounter a loading screen as you move from place to place.

You may have noticed a number in parenthesis after your quest title, and as you may have guessed, this is the quest 'level'. Generally these will coincide with your current level, but there are certain times or areas where this may vary significanlty. As I ran through the starting area for a while prior to going to Hoelbrak, I was level 6 when I decided it was time to catch up on my Personal Story quest. Ok, so this is going to be a walk in the park. Not necessarily. You see, Guild Wars 2 'downgrades' your stats to be level appropriate to the area/quest you are currently in. So, if you are a level 80, and you enter a starting area, you will be downgraded to a level 3, or whatever is appropriate. This makes questing with friends who are not the same level as you non-trivial and a lot more enjoyable. By the same token, don't expect to go gathering resources uncontested as a level 80. You will only be a level 80 in a level 80 zone. (It should be noted that you do retain all of the weapon and other skills that you have earned.)

Like everything in Guild Wars 2, Hoelbrak is stunning. Nestled in the Northern Shiverpeak Mountains, a gentle snow is falling, fires are burning, and lots of citizens are going about their business, having random conversations, adding to the atmosphere and immersion into the world. One does get a bit tired of hearing the "This is a bad time to be traveling' greeting that is universally heard. Considering that's all you're doing in this game, you'd think something like 'Good luck in your travels' would be more appropriate. 

Way-points are scattered around the city, and as soon as you discover any of them, you will no longer need to walk through the portal, you can just use the way-point system both within the city, and from whatever zone you may be in.

In addition to pusuing your personal story, the capital cities are central locations for all types of merchants, craftmasters, guild... um... setup persons, the bank and Trading Post.

Sigurd has elected to go into Weaponsmithing and Armorsmithing. These are items that a Guardian can use. Weaponsmiths can create melee weapons used by a number of disciplines (Axes, Daggers, Swords, Maces, Shields, Spears, etc) and Armorsmiths can create the heavy armor used by Warriors and Guardians, along with boxes (containers you can use for inventory, just like bags that tailors make). You can learn only two crafting disciplines (and cooking is a crafting discipline, NOT a secondary craft that everyone can learn as in other MMOs).

Next post I'll go into the personal story just a bit and perhaps crafting. Feel free to suggest topics that you would like to see discussed, either by leaving a comment or for those of you who know who I am, you know how to contact me by text or email.

Ciao!

#6 Waypoints and Merchants and Events (Oh my!)

Once you've downed the worm Issormir, BAM, you're ported back to the starting area, BAM, you're level two, and BAM you get a new quest to talk with a nearby NPC (indicated by a green star over his head and on your minimap).

Talking with Scount Agnaar (if you're Norn) will give you some good explanations / advice / directions.

Follow his advice and check your map. Simply gorgeous isn't it?

A couple of items worth mentioning...

Waypoints

There are no mounts in Guild Wars 2. You travel by foot or by waypoint. Waypoints are scattered generously throughout the world. Very generously. You have to explore an area to activate a waypoint, but guess what you get when you find one? Yes! You get XP for that! You literally get XP for everything you do in Tryia. You do have to pay to use the system, but it's a relatively small amount.

Merchants

There are always merchants around that will sell you items you may need, and who will buy your junk and other items you may not need. Oh look, no health or mana potions. That's because there are none in this game (to the best of my knowledge). Every profession gets a self heal so you don't need, or at least you need to learn to live without, health potions. Mana isn't used in the game either. There is no skill resource to use up, only cool-downs (well, ok, the Thief is an exception). Once you get a few copper, there are a couple of things you'll want to pick up from the merchant. This leads me to...

Gathering Resources

Anyone can gather any resource right from the outset. There are no gathering 'professions' (again this makes sense right?). Some resources will drop from kills, and others are scattered throughout the world. You will be able to see these resource 'nodes' on your minimap. What you will need, however, are the tools to gather the various types of resources, so when you have enough copper coins, you will want to purchase the gathering tools even if you won't be pursuing a craft, as you can sell the raw materials on the Trading Post to other players who are. Note that the tools are used up as you gather, so eventually you will need to purchase new tools. Also, you will need a better grade tool to gather higher level resources. Oh, and don't worry if you arrive at a node and another player is already harvesting it, you can harvest it too. Same with kills. Sweet.

Another incredibly cool thing about resource gathering (or 'collectables' as Guild Wars 2 calls them) is that if you open your inventory and right click on the item, you will notice the fist menu entry is 'Deposit collectible'. What's this, you say? OMG, yes, you can deposit these types of items directly into your bank. From anywhere, any time. So your collectables need not be taking up valuable bag slots as you quest! Woot!

Events

As you are roaming around the countryside, you will occasionally be notified of an 'Event' occurring nearby. These may be associated with a 'Heart' quest or not. You may choose to engage in the event or not. If you do, naturally, you get XP for that. One thing I find refreshing about 'questing' in Tyria, is that, say you are out and about exploring the countryside and killing wombats as you go. You stumble upon a 'heart' quest, or Point of Interest, in which the NPC seeks your help in killing wombats. The wombats you've already killed before you received your directive, go towards accomplishing your task. Same thing if the NPC wants wombat gizzards. You will have already been getting wombat gizzards as you're killing them. All too often, I've been out on one quest killing some mob, then have to go back out and kill the same mob over again because now I have a new quest. Guild Wars 2 eliminates that tedium.

Mail

I needed to stick this in here real quick. In Tyria, the mail comes to you. Yes, yet another quality of life improvement. There are no mailboxes in Tyria, instead your mail is delivered straight to you. What is the mail used for? Yes, communicating and sending items to friends, but you also receive quest rewards via the mail. And as a sneak preview on a topic I'll talk about later, you do not mail items to your alts, instead, the items are available from your bank. That's right, all of your characters have access to the same bank, with the exception of any bound items you've placed there (you can see them, you just can't use them from different characters).

So, at this point you have most of the knowledge you'll need to roam around the starting area which should take you to level 7 or 9 depending on how much exploring, events or crafting you do. I know, we haven't talked about Vistas or Achievements so go research those on your own. Consider it homework. Fun homework. The main thing you'll want to be focused on though is discovering and learning how to use your skills. Switch out your items often as you get different ones so that you 'learn' the associated weapon skills.

We didn't quite get to Hoelbrak or talk about your personal story this time around, so maybe we'll cover that in the next post.

Ciao!

#5 Into Tyria

Yay, we're creating a character and running amok with him! Well, as much as one can at level 1.

So, as I mentioned in a previous post, the character creation process consists of choosing a world (if this is your first character), then race, then profession, etc. (check here if you want the full process). Once you have completed creating your character, you will view a brief set up cutscene. Oh, and as Sigurd is a Norn Guardian, this blog is written from that viewpoint. Meet Sigurd...

By the way, you take screen shots by using the 'PrtScn' key (includes the UI), or 'Shift'+'PrtSc' for shots without the UI. You can take 'High Resolution' screenshots as well, but you need to do this through the menu system which I have been unalbe to find. The screenshots will end up in your 'Documents\Guild Wars 2\Screens' folder.

Upon completing the cutscene, you will find yourself in the starting area of the Shiverpeak Mountains, called Wayfarer Foothills. You are in a restricted subzone while you complete your inital quest / tutorial. There are other players here, and they can / probably will help you. Or not. There's a lot of standing around while everyone mulls over the interface. Just be sure that if you do this, stand in a safe place. Unlike in some other MMOs, if you stop and go AFK out in the middle of the wilderness, you're likely to die. Even in a starting area. The spot you've picked may look peaceful and idyllic at the moment, but if one of Guild Wars 2 events occurs (more on these a little later), you can be easily overrun by stampeding Centaurs or some such.

Oh look, you are actually wearing some armor, instead of starting out in just a thong or tattered underwear. How very practical.

Again, I'm not going to go into every detail (like explaining the specifics of the UI) but I will point out things that differ significantly from other games you may be used to playing (and certainly from the MMOs that I have been playing). The skill bar for instance. It is interesting to note that your first 5 skill slots relate to your main hand / off hand items. Different skills for different items. Be sure to read the tool tips carefully to learn what each skill does and be aware that if you pick up and equip a different type of item, your skills will change! Additionally, you don't start out with access to all the skills for that item. The first will be immediately available, and the remainder will become accessable as you use the item. Note here that only 3 skills will become available because I only have a one-hand item equipped.

In addition to general UI exploration, this is a good time to review the character window, called the (H)ero window. You get a good view of your character, along with all the items that he/she has equipped.

Graphics are pretty sweet. I have an NVidia 460 GTX OC and it's very smooth. They are stylized for the personal story segments and very high quality for the rest of the play experience. Tyria is breathtakingly beautiful.

Once you've killed to your hearts content turn in your task to Ido the Tanner and you will be tasked with facing Issormir (a mini boss right off the bat!) and minions. Here you see other players assisting in the task.

Next post we'll start traipsing through Wayfarer Foothils, and head over to Hoelbrak (the Norn capital city) to continue our personal story.

Ciao!

#4 What's it all about?

What is Guild Wars 2 all about? It's the continuation of Guild Wars 1. (ok smartass, what's it really all about).

Here's an intro video (ooooooh, video)( and those are kitties by the way, not cows)...

Looks pretty cool huh? Yeah, well those are level cap characters you just watched. You will be battling salamanders and bed bugs with a rusty spoon to start out with.

There is some great lore associated with Guild Wars. I recommend you read up on it for background and immersion. The strategy guide has an excellent section on it, or head over to the Lore section of the Wiki. 

We'll presume you have a PC, have purchased the game (somehow) and installed it. You will be asked to create an ArenaNet account (unless you've played Guild Wars 1), etc. For a video (oh yeah!) on basic gameplay, view the official Guild Wars 2 Game Play video. Oh wait, I can embed that one too. Hang on.... Or not. Never mind. You have to follow the link for that one. That video is embedded in the official on-line 'Manual'. Be sure to read through all of the remaining sections. It will step you through the character creation process, the interface, basic combat, your personal story, and competive combat.

Let's create a character shall we? Sure. But hang on just a sec, there are a couple of things you'll want to consider.

First and foremost, you'll need to select a 'World'. What is different about this in Guild Wars 2 is that once you select a world, you cannot create any characters on any other World. Yup. So if you want to play with friends, find out what World they selected if they've already created a character, or let your friends know what World you have selected for your character(s). At the outset you are limited to five (5) character slots. It should be noted that World transfers are available and currently free until the populations across Worlds come to some kind of equilibrium. Then the transfers will be fee based. 
Your first two tasks are to choose a race and a profession. Any race can be any profession, so you might want to choose  your profession first (in your mind, you can't do this during character creation), and then whatever you deem to be an appropriate race. Other MMOs describe professions as classes, but if you stop and think about it, the term Profession makes a lot of sense. You are trained in your profession and you can elect to pursue any profession. Perhaps you can think of yourself as a mercenary.

Available races (listed in ascending weirdness. Maybe.):

• Human (Why are there always humans?)
• Norn (Big, dumb humans. Well, dumber.)
• Sylvari (Plant people. They look like humans with leaves.)
• Charr (Feral Kitties!)
• Asura (Umm... ?... Dobby the house elf comes to mind.)

Note that unlike many other MMOs, there are no 'factions' or sides that war or are antagonistic towards each other. Everybody just gets along. All five races are friendly with each other, so you won't have your buddies segregated to one faction with you on the other unable to play or communicate with each other. This is way cool when you stop and think about it. What? So where does the 'Guild Wars' part of Guild Wars come in? Ah. Allow me to digress in a subsequent post about PvE, sPvP, and WvWvW that exists in Guild Wars 2 or, for a preview, check out this link. Let me just briefly say that whether you enjoy PvE or PvP or both, you can have your cake and eat it too as far as always being able to play with friends regardless.

Just so you know, characters of each race will start in a separate region of the world of Tyria. And while yes, it is possible for a brand new character of one race to travel to the starting area of another, if you do so, you will be missing out on your 'personal story'. My recommendation for friends who wish to play together from the start, is to select the same race. You can still choose to be different professions. In fact, I recommend it.

Available Professions:

• Warrior
• Guardian
• Engineer
• Thief
• Elementalist
• Ranger
• Necromancer
• Mesmer

One last item for you to ponder before I leave for the night. The classic roles of 'Tank', 'DPS', and 'Healer' don't apply in Guild Wars 2. Each profession can do all three to some extent. One of the advantages of this is that any group with any profession mix is viable. Yes, one or two may be tasked with healing or group buffs / support, or tanking or whatever, but it is not critical that you have a dedicated role. You can switch from one to another as easily as swapping out weapons. As I will cover soon, your skills depend largely on the weapons you wield (that's an oversimplication, but mostly true).

So, I'm going to take a break while you are considering all of this. In the next post I'll actually create a character and work through the in-game tutorial in which you play solo while learning some of the basic mechanics.

Ciao!

#3 General Resources

Wow, Sigurd, why you make my eyes bleed. Two whole posts and no pictures. There weren't even any links to pictures in that last post. A numbered list, yes, but no pictures. *Sigh*

Here's one...

This is the retail box. As of this writing, Arenanet has suspended sales of digital copies from their web site. Never fear, just go to Amazon, your local Gamestop, or whatever and you can pick up a copy. The standard edition is currently $60.

UPDATE: As of this morning, Digital Sales from the official site have been resumed.

So, Guild Wars 2 resources. First, let me list the official online stuff, kinda self evident...

• Guild Wars 2 official site
• Guild Wars 2 official wiki
• Official Strategy Guide (Digital Version)

This stuff should get you started. Lots of good introductory information on the main site, with the wiki offering much more depth and volume. The wiki is also a great online reference once you have started playing the game and want to look up details as you go. Other online resources...

• Web Sites
• Guild Wars Insider
• Guild Wars 2 on IGN
• Curse Gaming's GW2 Database
• Guild Head
• Podcasts
• Tales of Tyria (also has some great links)
• Tyria After Dark (from Gaming After Dark)
• Guild Wars Reporter (from MMO Reporter)
• Youtube videos
• Too numerous to list. Holy crap people really don't have enough to do with their lives, do they.

Seriously just enter 'Guild Wars 2', or something more specific, in your favorite search engine.

Oh, and last but not least, what you need to play GW2:

• A PC (no, it's not available for Mac or for consoles)
• The game (duh, see above)



Disclaimer: By the way, I am in no way associated with Guild Wars 2, Arenanet, NCSoft or any of it's affiliates, blah, blah, blah, registered trademarks are property of whoever owns them, blah, blah, blah.

What's next? I don't know. Maybe I'll actually start talking about the game. Oh, and another picture!

Ciao!

#2 This may not be the blog you're looking for

Well, I hear you ask, who are you, and what qualifies you to write a blog about Guild Wars 2?

Nothing. This is the internets. This is America. Who needs to be qualified? In fact, I'm going to list 6 reasons why you might consider me ill qualified to write a blog.

1. I am a VERY casual player (< 10 hours per week).
2. I'm 50+ years old (OMG!).
3. I'm NOT hardcore (I've been playing World of Warcraft for 8 years and have only one (1) character at level cap).
4. I'm playing SW: TOR and loving it (the story, voice acting and cut-scenes are awesome), but moreover, I don't have a problem with it going free to play.
5. I never played Guild Wars 1.
6. [Insert your reason here]

So, again, why am I doing this and who IS my target audience?

I'm doing this mainly for fun. If it turns out not to be fun, I'll stop. I also have been wanting to give blogging a shot to see how it works and what it's all about. At some point, I want to have a consulting business and I want to be familiar with the online tools that are available to help support it. Whatever. 

Target audience? I plan to invite a couple of friends to read this purely for entertainment purposes. If someone wants to join me in my travels, that's great, but that's not the point. I have no intention of seeking other readers.

Enough for now.

Next up, resources and what you need to get started in Guild Wars 2.

UPDATE: 9/22/2012 - I've shortened my list as this post sounded a bit too whiney which was not my intention. Just wanted to make it clear that I am an extremely casual player.

Ciao!

#1 Hello. My name is Sigurd. And I'm an altoholic.

So, first off, I've decided NOT to write from the viewpoint of Sigurd himself. Being a Norn, he is neither insightful, nor eloquent, and being rather fond of drink (as you will see), prone to bouts of memory loss. Not that I am much better, but I'm interested in writing about my experiences in Tyria as an MMO player. Wow, what a terrific segue into the main body of this first post; My purpose in writing this blog, and it's perspective. In a subsequent post I will introduce myself, my experiences as a player of PC games, and MMOs in particular.

Guild Wars 2 is one of the latest 'AAA' MMO offerings on the market. It calls itself 'Free to Play', but this is a common misnomer. The game itself is currently $60 for the Standard Edition, but has no ongoing subscription fee (ala World of Warcraft, Rift, or [until the fall], Star Wars: The Old Republic). Many MMOs are going this route in order to be able to garner a higher population of gamers by the seemingly low cost over the lifetime of the game. In lieu of the subscription fee, these MMOs offer 'micro-transactions' (the charging of real money to purchase virtual goods) to cover the cost of ongoing support and development.

Here's the thing. I do not intend for this blog to explain every nuance of Guild Wars 2, MMOs in general, or state of the industry, nor do I have any desire to argue the merits of one MMO versus another. There are a lot of great games out there to choose from, play what you want, and for goodness sake, don't spread hate against a game simply because it does not support your play-style. That's just ignunt as Sigurd would say. The purpose of this blog is subject to change, but at the outset, I am simply interested in chronicling my (Sigurd's) experiences in the World of Tyria. So let it begin.

Ciao!