GW2 Useful Tips for Level 80's

Here are a few useful things I have found that may help you to get more out of the game. Feel free to add anything else in the comments, I am probably missing a lot of useful info!

1. The only thing that seems to be going up in value consistently, albeit slowly, is the gold value of gems. If you have spare gold (or even silver) I suggest you buy some. You don't have to go crazy and buy nothing "fun" just don't let the gold stagnate in you bag if you aren't using it, you will need some gems at some point!

2. Globs of Ectoplasm - These are needed for level 80 exotic crafting, most recipes need 5 per item. They do not drop from any mobs, the only way to "create" them is to salvage level 68-80 rares or higher, that's Yellow items. Remember to use the highest level salvage kit to give yourself the best chance of getting a Glob I would recommend the Mystic Salvage Kit (see below). You will get between 0 and 3 Globs for each 68-80 rare that you salvage. Remember sometime you will get none so there is no guarantee. If you don't like the gamble they sell on the Trading Post for around 15-16 Silver at the moment.

3 .Mystic Salvage Kit - I recommend you make and use these rather than the kits you can buy from vendors. You need 1 of each of the coloured salvage kits from the vendors (1 blue, 1 green and 1 yellow) plus 3 Mystic Stones. You can get the mystic stones from the gem store or as part of you reward from the daily if your lucky but that's quite rare and you need 3. Remember that you can trade gold for gems (see tip 1.). Buy the stones and throw 3 stones and the 3 single salvage kits into the Mystic Forge and voila a 250 charge salvage kit with the same likelihood of rare components (Globs) as the Yellow top level vendor kit.

4. Orichalcum Ore, Ancient Logs and Omnomberries - Here is a link it seems to be well maintained. I don't know if all servers have the same spawn points for the nodes, but this is what I have been using for Gunnar's Hold.

5. Gossamer Scraps - Tricky one, I have experimented a couple of times with the Mystic Forge recipe of 250 silk scraps, 1 gossamer scrap, 5 of the top level dust and 5 Philosophers stones, but, its not produced more than 16 gossamer scraps and to be quite honest it's much cheaper just to buy the gossamer scraps on the Trading Post. I have also tried to farm "Rags" from trolls but even with the Mystic Salvage Kit I'm not getting a good return on the time spent.

6. Mystic Weapons - What are the Mystic Coins you get as a reward for your daily/monthly? nice exotic weapons with lightning auras, reminiscent of the mongoose enchant look if you ask me. recipe example for

1 Eldrich Scroll bought from the vendor Miyani next to the Mystic Forge in Lion's Arch
30 or 50 Mystic Coins depends on which weapon you want, which is determined by.........
5 Component A (eg. you want the greatsword 5 Orichalcum greatsword hilts)
5 Component B (eg. you want the greatsword 5 Orichalcum greatsword blades)

Throw the four things above into the Mystic Forge and... Mystic Claymore ....very nice for showing off!

7. Dragon Events - Here is another link select your server and you can see when the dragon events are next due. it seems to rely on us updating it once the events end which appears to be reasonably accurate at the moment. I would go 10 minutes early, you know, just in case.

8. Heart of the Mists - Oh yes, you probably know but just in case, never port back to Lion's Arch. It's a waste of silver. do this for free!

Press H
Select the PvP tab (at the bottom on the left)
Select "Go to the heart of the mists" (top left)
After you port right in front of you is a gate to Lion's Arch

That's all for now, I'll post again when I have more tips. I hope some of this was useful to you.

Busy, but Lonely in GW2

Klepsacovic has posted something that is just about what I have been thinking this week. I have found it reasonably easy to set myself targets and fill my play time with finding and killing dragons, getting my exotic gear up together playing the trading post to make some gold, finishing the personal story, gathering top level mats and generally just exploring (still only half the map complete). I think the reason I'm not missing raiding is that there are a few other ways to progress your character which have a good level of complexity and take a good deal of time.

What I am missing is Guild Chat (both idle chit-chat and enthusiastic theory), groups with people I trust for dungeons and people to help and to help me. I guess that's called a guild! So I mentioned in my reply to Klepsacovic's post that I may look for a large guild to join as it seems I wont have to abandon my little six one man band totally due to the multi-guild thing. I'm interested to know if it's just a coincidence or there are more of you feeling a bit ...lonely?

Guild Wars 2 Impressions

Ok, I've played for 5 days, which is a story in itself, here goes...

The game arrive on Friday 24th from Amazon UK without a 1 day head start. I did quite a bit of anxious research and in the end bought a 1 day head start key for £1.50 from an on-line store called Gamesrocket (German I believe) which seemed to combine with my boxed game account ok so I started playing on Bank Holiday Monday which was a big relief.

It's good. It's very good. So far my general impressions is that its every bit as involved as WoW, Rift, and SWTOR and without the subscription fee that quite an achievement. I did play Aion for a while which was F2P but in order to access things like the Auction House you basically have to pay the equivalent of a sub so I felt kind of cheated. Now, the AH isn't working on GW2 so far, but I am willing to wait a week more to see if that feature is part and parcel of the business model and how good it is.

I have started a tiny guild with four of my old mates from WoW, which is really nice as we all seem to be a little more mature in our approach and in no particular rush to get to level cap so we are enjoying idle chit-chat and the crafting system as much as the game itself. One thing I have noticed is that, except for one or two personal quests ("Rumors of Trouble" Norn level 11 quest that means you) we have not really needed to help each other or play together. Its kind of a new experience being in the same chat room as your mates but playing extensively alone.

Overall I like the game a lot and can see that the cover price is more than justified. It's not feeling like a grind at all, it's really fun. Lets see what the next 50 levels has to offer...

Yay... GW2 Despatched!

Just got back from work and was quite surprised to see that Amazon has dispatched my pre-order/purchase standard edition of GW2. It says it will arrive tomorrow so at least I will get to register and install before the 28th. I still can't find much with reference to the 1 day head start and if that is pre-order or pre-purchase, or indeed, what the difference is. Well I'm not complaining I'm very excited and will continue to read as much useful and useless information over the weekend. Good luck to those of you that are starting tomorrow and see (some of you) soon!

Oh, I Really Hope Not..

I was working reading older blog posts at work today and I read this from Tobold's blog posted in the comments at the end of May...

"MMO players have a career. They get into it, they play for a few years, burnout, spend another couple of years looking for a new MMO that will do it for them again, and then they wander off and play other games"

Oh dear god I really hope not. It's true that I do sense great pessimism in the force and I can feel that pessimism myself but surely GW2 will be refreshing enough? Won't it?

Fresh Start or Hold on to the Past?

I got a bit nostalgic for the WoW days last night. Started looking up who was still playing out of the players I spent so much time with. I looked at the couple of videos of my old guild that are still knocking about on youtube etc. I didn't go as far as contemplating pre-ordering MoP, although it's possible I may if GW2 doesn't turn out to be what I hope it will...

Why was I Ginger in Caverns of Time?

So today I sent an e-mail to one of my closest ex-WoW guildies (whom I did dabble in SWTOR with earlier this year) asking if he is considering GW2. After I sent the e-mail I started to wonder is that the sensible thing to do. I'll try and tell you why.

The reason I am worried are the answers to these questions;
What do I hope GW2 will mean to me?
What experience do I want?
Who do I want to meet?
How do I want to play GW2, and for how long?

So here are the brief version of the conclusions I came to;
I want GW2 to be an exciting voyage of discovery.
The experience I want is the same as it was playing WoW for the first time.
I want to meet a new version of the interesting and intelligent people I met in WoW and join a guild of friendly, like-minded players.
I want to play GW2 casually but with commitment when I have the time, and for a few years if possible, anything less than 3 months would be dissapointing (again).

Now, I think the answers to the above, for me, are that Ideally all my memories and experience of WoW (and the others that came after Rift, Aion, SWTOR) could be deleted so that it's all new and I would be much more likely to achieve all of those goals. I know, it's not going to happen, but perhaps I can help my self by not carrying over all the preconceived idea from the last 5 years of MMO gaming and should that mean the people as too?

Don't get me wrong, I would love to play with my old WoW guild mates again but am I worsening the likelihood of GW2 being the scratch to me itch?

Guild Wars 2 - Ordered

Well, I could resist no longer, pre-ordered a couple of copies of GW2 for me and the other half. As I missed the beta's and am not really bothered about a 3-day head start I was pleasantly surprised to find Amazon has the Standard Box version for pre-order for £35, much more reasonable than £50 for the Standard Digital version on the official Guild Wars site. Any idea why that is?

Now, lets get back to scouring the tinterwebs for and possible scrap of information to feed my child like anticipation...

SWTOR going F2P

Exactly http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/08/01/the-old-republic-and-the-revenge-of-the-payment-model/#more-118412 . Couldn't have put it better myself

JRPGs

I was feeling a little nostalgic this week for the PS1 JRPGs which I loved so much back in the day. Of course Final Fantasy VII is the daddy and I played VIII, X and X-2 (cant remember why I missed IX) but I enjoyed Xenogears just as much, if not more.

I did some research to see if I caould get those babies running on my PC and it is possible with ePSXe or the like but that looks like so much hassle. Anyhoo, I was happy to see that Xenoblade Chronicles came out for the Wii a couple of years ago and may very well scratch that particular itch that has been niggling away for a while. Also it will be something more interesting to do with the Wii than using it a s a bookend and watching it collect dust.

Ohhh also, if you don't have a Wii/bookend you might like to check out The Last Remnant which is available on Steam.

Aion

Well, I have been playing Aion for a few weeks. It is a decent Diku, engaging from the start and a good size. Personally I'm not so keen on the "always on PVP" as getting pwn'ed whist trying to kill 10 kobolds and having to re-spawn a few minutes travel from the quest you were on is a little annoying. It has great visuals and I do like that there are 1, 2 and 6 man instances and the FTP model and in-game economy are well conceived. Shame it is such a grinder but really worth a play if you are looking for a gap filler if, like me, you are waiting for;

The Secret World
Guild Wars 2
Firefall

I hope one of those has the magic......

Also I cant seem to shake my addiction to Altitude for over a year now, specially the football map. Perhaps the simple things are really the best?

Those Little Boxes

The pictures of little plastic boxes in the header of this blog are the ones on which I have spent thousands of hours over the vast majority of my life. Still got them all in the loft too. my prized possessions, love them to bits. Yes, I know there weren't any MMO's for the older ones but, well, I like the idea that they have all played a big part in my gaming life.

I wonder what an MMO on the 2600 would look like? 10 Pac-Men chasing after the same blue ghost? A Space Invaders where players moan at each other for shooting holes in the shields in the wrong place?

I turned the C64 on a couple of years ago. Never as good as the memories. Still works though. With a weight on the tape deck in the right place. Except for the joysticks, all broken from too much Daily Thompson's Decathlon.

Have a good weekend.

The WoW Hangover

We have all played it, well, almost all of us. It’s why many of us are currently feeling in an unfortunate state of prolonged limbo and experiencing various levels of disappointment and disillusion with the MMO genre.

I’d like to think that there will be game to come along with the ability to “turn back time” and give me that 2007 feeling (when I started playing WoW). I’m starting to realize that is not likely, but I have not given up just yet.

Is it the genre that has changed or is it me that has different expectations from this type of game? Is it my demograph moving on or another one moving in? Is it the designers and publishers doing it all wrong, or the players playing it all wrong? Was it a one in a million all the stars aligned sort of luck thing with WoW that cannot happen again? All of these questions have been asked and answered on the fine blogs linked on my blog roll, but I suspect it’s a bit of all of the above. I’d like to discuss those questions over the next few posts.

I’m playing SW:TOR at the moment, but my significant other isn’t, she has moved on from the whole shebang and happily pursues other interests that don’t require an internet connection. Maybe that’s why it’s doesn’t feel quite the same to me any more. I enjoyed playing with her immensely. I would tank and she would heal, we would shout at each other a lot and on occasion really not speak to each other for a day or so. Do I really miss that? .....Yup, sure do.

I think it’s because it was the excitement we shared when either of us discovered something new. The very first healing spell or green quest reward all the way up to running around all powerful at level cap and finishing current raid content when its valid, exactly how it was supposed to be played. Great senses of discovery and achievement are hard to come by IRL for less than a tenner a month.

Lots of virtual “friends” whom I genuinely believe are good and honest people and I miss them dearly (except one who is playing SW:TOR with me at the moment, I don’t miss him at all). I think you naturally find the people you are supposed to play with, it worked in the playground, works in MMOs.

It feels to me like a prolonged hangover from the mother of all parties that lasted several years. I hope the hangover doesn’t last quite a long as the party did. Anyone found a miracle cure for this hangover, Hair of the dog doesn’t seem to be working, or is it the wrong dog?

Introduction

After spending more than 30 years playing games and a decent proportion of the last decade playing various MMOs and more recently reading the myriad of interesting opinions to be found via this media, I have undertaken to provide my own thoughts for your perusal and comment. It is my intention to add to the wealth of views, judgments, attitudes and ideas that have provoked hours of contemplation and reflection amongst us all (as well as provide you with something to read in place of what you should be doing).