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Guild Wars Game Update Notes: April 2007

Beyond the usual round of tweaks to spells we saw, as I predicted, a selection of second year birthday minipets, a rash of new titles and the previously mentioned Hard Mode. The latter change is toggleable and brings with it a raft of welcome feature for those that want the challenge. I have updated the minipets and titles pages to detail these new additions to the game.

Hard mode
First of, this is for veterans of the game, literally as well and metaphorically as you cannot access it until you have completed a campaign with at least one character, opening up the mode across your account.

The good news is that in all areas, any henchmen rise to level 20 to give you a fighting chance. You also get more experience for kills, more gold dropped, enhanced drop rates and new treasures like Tomes (which unlocked skills) and Lockpicks…

The bad news is that the mobs not only scale up in response, they get smarter, have more skills and are 50% meaner and a whole lot harder to kill!

I believe that, as well as finally being able to max the Sunspear title, you can gain new related skills in the rank, assumedly in a similar way to Lightbringer skills.

Going back to Lockpicking, which incidentally I suggested to NCSoft a year back , these are great. As well as opening any chest (in hard mode) they have a chance of being reusable - if you are Lucky it doesn't break AND you get 250 points towards you Luck title, which improves your chances of being Lucky with the keys as you rise in ranks… Even if it breaks you get 25 points towards your Unlucky. As the keys can be bought at merchants in means you can now improve your Luck titles year round and not just at festivals.

Guild Wars Game Update Notes: March 2007

Eye of the North expansion
We finally got plenty of details on the next release of GuildWars, Eye of the North, an expansion (not standalone) set back in the northern wilds of Tyria and setting the groundwork towards GuildWars 2.

There's no news of a collections edition yet, but here's the breakdown of announced features:

Guild Wars 2
This month we heard the first announcements and details of GuildWars 2, with a planned release date a few years off - early 2010 being likely. A public beta being released sometime next year (2008) and I, for one, would love to get on that!

Confusingly, some reviews sites are calling the 'Eye of the North expansion' GW2, which is frankly annoying. GW2 is a whole new game set hundreds of years in the future - though existing players will be rewarded with the opportunity to carry forward certain titles and treasures - like minipets - being passed on to their descendants via the Hall of Monuments (to be introducted with the above expansion): … where players' accomplishments are memorialized and eventually inherited by their Guild Wars 2 characters, unlocking exclusive items and bonuses in Guild Wars 2.

For Guild Wars 2 I'm taking it as read that that interface will be similar and the graphics greatly notched up - support for Windows Vista and DirectX 10 having been mentioned. Skills too should remain essentially similar. Personally I'd rather see the existing GW evolve, but what the hey.

One of the outstanding features will be the introduction of the z-axis - allowing for jumping, climbing, swimming and even flying. Be interesting to see a buffed up warrior fried by a levitating caster or hovering dragon, eh! OK, that would unbalance the game, but the idea tickled me.

Playable races include Humans, Charr, Norns (read half-giant shapeshifting Vikings), Asurians (read cute pixy gnomes) and Sylvarians (read tree nymphs).

Beyond that, there are trying to marry instancing (as it is now) with persistant worlds (as World of Warcraft etc) with the allowance for PvP battles and wars. Should prove interesting!

On uncapped levelling (mentioned in discussions but not finalised), I'd prefer it to build to level 20, then move laterally, perhaps via titles…

For instance your skill level is capped at 20, but your player level is uncapped. You gain no extra health, energy or fighting benefits after ascending to level 20, but you can get status as you progressing further. i.e. you are now at level 173 and at 175 you rise in Experience Ranks to [5] Baron. As a Baron you are entitled to buy [these minipets] [these enhancements to your guild / lands] [this set of armour] [ride a horse] …

Thus the enhanced levels offer status without overtly affected the game and battle mechanisms. To prevent abuse by bot farmers etc benefits should either be none transferable, or only transferable to those of equal or higher rank.

I'm sure that such a ranking system find uses in any large scale PvP battles too, perhaps for rallying purposes, for instance.

Personaly I'd love to be able to have a guildhall style feudal town I could build up and enhance as I progressed in the game. Beyond that, more storage and a trade mechanism that gets rid of the ruddy incessant WTS spam flooding Chat… O.o

Guild Wars Game Update Notes: February 2007

Looking ahead…
Based on a little intuition, vague hints spread around by senior NC staff in interviews and a common pattern of releases, I confidently predict that we'll see new campaign released worldwide on April 27th - if so, along with another 90+ Elites, that's when any new titles like Guardian of Tyria (using a mooted Hard mode) will be made available. I also suspect that the Collector's Edition will have some sort of (green) Ogre minipet in it!

[ As it turned out, we got the Hard Mode and new titles in April, but the campaign - actually an expansion - is looking to be a September release.

Cantha New Year
The offical stance of the Cantha New Year Celebrations can be found on the Guild Wars site. This is my stance…

The other things I'll look at as they unfold, but of prime interest, I believe, will the Imperial Chef recipes - and the scramble to find all the necessary ingredients. The linkj tells you who, what, where, but some of you won't like it. Read the list as see why!

Updates 14^th February, 2007
Several welcome updates applied to do, including novel new ways of listing your skill and the ability to have mini-pets in towns, subject to a maximum of 20 at any one time, per district.Also, they revised the 'Gain Olias' and 'Gain Zenmai' quest to run from Nightfall so players aren't forced to buy Prophecies and Factions to get these Heroes.

Cantha 3 in 1 Weekend:

I can't comment on Heroes' Ascent as I haven't tried it yet, but the Elite mission promotion is, at best, a shambles, at worst, well I'd say hugely damaging for the game as a whole…

First the overview:
At it's core it is a promotional tool, partly to entice (new) Nightfall players to buy Factions, partly, I assume, to encourage players to expand into more challenging missions - which is where everything falls flat on it's face…

For a start, the link on GuildWars.com, just refreshes the same page. Besides web design issues, why on earth add a link if there is no target for the link? It leaves the player (rightly, I believe), thinking there is or should be more information, but they couldn't be bothered sorting it!

Secondly, hardly anyone had a clue where or how to gain free access to the Elite missions in The Deep and Urgoz's Warren. As it happens, you talk to Eurayle or Vash in Keineng Center - they are located near Imperial Agent Hanjo.

Finally, seeing a lot of new players going for an elite mission is rather painful - and I'm not talking about 'Noobs' in teams. They go, expecting some dynamic mission, and instead face torrents of abuse and ridicule from 'pro' players - mostly of whom are anything put professional!


Now to the meat of the point:
Fix the ----ed mission, Anet!
Fix the ----ed drop rate too, it seems!
In you haven't done the mission, this will amaze you, if you have, I'm sure you feel my pain… You battle tooth and nail so far in, reach the gate to the next area - and restart the mission because:

1. You realise you have to get up on the bridge to operate the switch (and get any drops) - but can't access it because the teleport to the bridge above does not work as you'd expect
2. Eventually you realise it can only be done with a necromancer skill like 'Necrotic Traversal' or 'Consume Corpse' - both of which are only available from the original Prophecies campaign.
3. You did remember it? Please tell me you did… Go back to 1.
4. The necromancer leaves / get's permanently disconnected, go back to 1.
5. You try again, get ready to cast the spell - but another necromancer exploited all the corpses first / the corpses rotted before you could exploit them. Go back to 1.
6. You finally make it all the way though - and the greens go to other players.
   Go to 1 !

OK, you can't blame Arenanet for player fault but, personally, I have issues with a mission for a game that cannot be completed without buying an expansion or finding someone that has it…
(And no, the trick with resurrect doesn't work, they fixed that!

Also, for a double rate drop, it seems more like they halved it! One or twice I have seen four or so gold items drop but a number of times it's been just two or three, even up to defeating Urgoz. A lot of others are seeing the same, so it's not just me. Ah well.

Here's pretty much everything they had to say on the event at GuildWars' website :

Weekend Plans: 3-for-1 Fun 6 February 2007
This weekend, you have the opportunity to test Heroes' Ascent with an 8v8 party size configuration and share your comments throughout the coming week. In addition, PvE players will enjoy a weekend's offering of free access to Canthan Elite Mission and a doubling of the drop rate for rare items in those missions! Join us this weekend, starting at Noon PST on Friday, February 9.

Canthan New Year's Festival

This at least gets a decent covering and explanation on the official see. If you remember the Dragon Festival last year, expect more of the same fun.

Read more here: Guild Wars Cantha New Year.

Guild Wars Game Update Notes: January 2007

Change include:

If a player has the Lightbringer title track selected, that player’s Heroes now gain the benefits provided by this title.
That could be good, aye

Screenshots are now saved as JPG files.
About ruddy time, it was ridiculous to use huge .bmp's for so long!

The 'evade' mechanic has been removed from the game. All skills that used this mechanic have been changed to use 'block' instead.
Less confusing, I think. I'm in favour of this.

Elemental:
Eruption: increased damage to 10..40. This spell now causes Blindness on each pulse.
Immolate: decreased recharge time to 3 seconds.
Actually the list is rather long, but the above two caught my attention most. As many predicted, 'Searing Flames' got nerfed a bit but I can live with the changes. Mesmers came off well, as did Monks. Ritualist had a huge list of changes! As ever you are guaranteed to hear lots of moaning about this build or that has been beggered up but overall I didn't see anything to get het up about.

December 2006

*Blinks*
Darn I must rememember to update this page!

For now, just a footnote on the recently added Domain of Anguish: It's tough! Actually it's ruddy mental, even with a pro team it can take hours to do a mission, complete a run. One lost conection, one Error 07 and that's you night wasted. Start over… True, this can apply to a few other areas but, fun aside, one of the main reasons is to get the gemstones to trade for an Armbrace of Truth, to trade for gold weapons etc. But you need 60 in total (down from 100), 15 of each type. The going rate for the likes of a Stygian Gemstone is 20k, putting the gold Tormented items at 1.2 million gold each. Typically the bracers sell for 1,000k and nn Ectos.

Other might argue the toss on this, but if you do a run every night - and manage to get a gem to drop in your name (improved drop rate my censored) - and/or if you manage to complete the quests - you are looking at at leasts two solid weeks to ultimately get a gold weapon!

The mind just boggles!

Guild Wars News and updates : November 2006:

Locations:
Finally getting my act together with the format, images and links for Bosses, Greens and Elite skill locations. Eventually I'll add grabs of the bosses too, but for now take a look at the Ranger's Strike as One captures


Hero's
Depending on time, I'll try and add a section of recruiting and optimising Nightfall Heroes. Basically, to get the best out of them, treat them like you treat your own characters. For instance:

Take Olias…
Turn him into a Minion Master (he makes a really good one, by the way)
Give give a good Staff, ideally something like Ghial's (from Factions)
Upgrade his armour (via the Shadow Nexus Challenge mission)
And spare no expense on the runes - especially the Superior Death Magic for his Scar pattern.

Inscriptions
Added a page on the various weapon, shield and focus item inscriptions that are new with Nightfall.


Nightfall quest rewards
Added a page on Battle Commendations, Trade Contracts and other Quest items. New players should pay particular attention to the value of the Vabbian 'trade contracts'

October 2006:

New forum section added

I'll see how it goes, but from now of you can buy, sell or trade upgrades, green items and mini-pets via the comfort of the forum to (hopefully) save sitting around all day in Droks and such announcing your deals…



Nightfall

Out tomorrow (October 27th) and I dare say I'll pick up mine pre-ordered copy like everyone else. Loads of sites cover this already, but I will be looking at it from various angles myself, notable the new Elites spells, of which I believe will number about 55 or so, all told, I believe.

Incidentally, the new green Minipet with the Collectors edition of Nightfall - Varesh is pathetic. It is so small you can barely make out the detail. Blah! I've seen prices in trade everywhere from 40k to a staggering 100k plus 20 ectos and really I don't think it's worth more than 5-10k, green or not! Spoke to a few others who are similarly disappointed…
For shame NCSoft!



A look at the updates updates

There's been a huge numbers of updates today, both in terms of cosmetic, design, addings and tweaks. Some of course have gone down like a lead balloon with the farming community, but that's what happens when you overfarm an area, eh

One of my favourites is that you characters can now change their secondary professions whenever they are standing in a town or outpost. Saves jumping to the skill changings and back all the time.

One that's long overdue and I especially like is that you can now save and load templates containing Skill Bar setup, attributes, and professions. Basically you can, for example, set up your Monk smiter, healer, bonder, 55hp and save them with appropriate names. After that, reskilling is a 2 second job to load the temple. Sweet!

On the dye from, besides a new skin, white and brown dye colors are now available as loot drops. Also, newly crafted armor now starts out gray. If you dye it to another color and then later want to restore it to its original appearance, just dye it gray. Vendors will now sell gray dye instead of dye remover. One really nice improvement is the dye mixing and preview window - you can mix up to 4 colours and see what it will look like before committing them.

Had this happen a few times - certain situations that caused players to get stuck and not be able to move have been fixed, and a new command "/stuck" has been introduced to help players free their characters if they become stuck.

Also, while forming a party, you can now control+click on your Skill Bar to announce your skill setup to your party members.


New, stackable runes…

Rune of Vitae: stackable - adds +10 health
Yes, this IS stackable. i.e, you can use the non-stackle 'Rune of Superior Vigor' and 4 of these for a total of +90 health.

Rune of Attunement: stackable - adds +2 energy
Yes, this IS stackable. i.e, at the cost of other runes, you can use up to five of these for +10 energy. All depends on your build, I guess.


Other new runes / upgrades
Some of these are, I believe, limited to being found in Elona (Nightfall) but are interesting, to say the least. In addition to the head and haft type upgrades you can now have an 'Inscription' which can allow a third option to customisation. It's not complete, but here's a list of the new runes.

Guild Wars Nightfall announcement, July 2006

Already in Beta and ready for a PvP preview this month is 'Guild Wars Nightfall'. All being well, we can expect to see the next major addition to Guild Wars, sometime around Fall, or perhaps in the run up to Christmas. Like Factions, it will be standalone, or you can merge it with existing accounts, letting you hop between continents, this one apparently being a version on North Africa - rather like the desert in Prophecies, I guess…

As has been pointed out in several forums mind, storage still needs more space and, more importantly, one would hope, we won't get cheated out of slots (we paid for) for merging accounts, hmmm!

The Guild Wars Nightfall PVP Preview event will kick off on Friday, July 28 at 12:01am PDT and will continue through Sunday, July 30 at 11:59pm PST.

According to NCSoft's press release, there will be two new professions introduced, the Dervish and the Paragon…

… The Dervish

and the Paragon…

The Dervish is a scythe wielding holy warrior
As far as I can tell (from an exclusive at GameSpot) it is a frontline version of the 55hp monks. You only get light armour, but this can be offset by your agility (presumably one of the attributes) and defensive enchantments and skills.


The Paragon, guardian angel of the Elonian people.
The Paragon is essentially a spear wielding healer come cheerleader, They get chants and shouts to bolster nearby party members and help them resist hexes and the like. (Still prefer my Bard suggestion mind).


Look for more floodlit dances and maybe another mini-pet in a Collectors Edition box, eh!

Storage update, July 2006

Updated storage
I'm rather smug about this as it was one of the suggestions I sent to NCSoft for game improvement. True, it may well have been a co-incinence, but I prefer to think not, especially as it closely matches my ideas. As my idea extended to extra's tabs for weapons and armour etc I suspect subsequent game additions will have their own upgrades. One good way of improving unit sales, eh. Anyway…

If you don't already own Factions it's worth buying just for this enhancement. See the Xunlai Representative [Storage Upgrades] in 'Keineng Center' or 'Shing Jea Monestary', pay 50g and see the Upgraded Storage. I know many of you, like me, will have (had) a character slot taken up by someone just storing materials etc. Now you simply drag and drop the 34 common and rare crafting materials to STorage. (Up to 250 of each item).

PvP characters gain access to the crafting material storage once any roleplaying character on the account purchases it.