Ask Nerdy Bookahs (March 3, 2013)

It’s time for another “Ask Nerdy Bookahs”. We have looked at the questions in the search terms that led people to our blog for which we know we do not have fitting entries and we’re trying to answer those questions now.

Where do you do bar brawl achievements in Guild Wars 2?

I hadn’t even seen that they were in the achievements tab. There is no bar brawl in the game, though. Not yet, at least. According to a recent interview with Colin Johanson, bar brawl will be a mini game that will be added at some point in the future. When exactly that will be, we don’t know. When it gets implemented, you will most likely find it in Divinity’s Reach.

When I was looking for information about bar brawl online, I also stumbled upon an old entry from ArenaNet from before the game was released. I know timetables and plans change, but seeing this blog entry now makes me feel very sad. I would absolutely love to have those activities in the game and this is one of the things that I miss in Guild Wars 2. The game feels “narrow” sometimes: It has lots of things to do when you want to fight with your character, like dungeons, fractals, sPvP, WvW, or dynamic events in the open world. But when it comes to fluff activities, there isn’t that much to do. We have keg brawl and costume brawling, but I would love to have more mini games like those mentioned in the blog post. There is also a forum post from a player that researched a little and he found places in the game hinting at possible locations for further activities. I guess, time will tell and show us which ones, if any, will be added apart from bar brawl.

As I mentioned, keg brawl is in the game already. I knew that, but I had never actually looked at it until recently when it was one of the categories for the daily achievement. Keg brawl is actually lots of fun! It’s instanced and kind of like PvP, but your character can’t be killed. Think of it more like a sports game. I got a few achievements in there, but nothing else. No glory, despite seeing the glory-XP bar at the bottom. And there don’t seem to be any other rewards for doing keg brawl. Well, except for having fun, of course, and a title (Kegmaster)!

Is there a way to see all the areas you have already cleared?

Not really. When you look at the world map, you can hover over the name of the region which will bring up a tooltip showing you what you have done there already. So you will be able to go through them one by one to see which areas you don’t have completed yet. Also, don’t forget that the WvW maps count towards your map completion as well.

What does BWE stand for in Guild Wars 2?

BWE stands for “Beta Weekend Event”. We’ve had several of those where people who had pre-purchased the game as well as people who had gotten beta keys from fan sites were allowed to play the game before release. It was the first time that the “general masses”, or rather, those who were looking forward to the game’s release very eagerly, got in contact with the game and could finally play it. They were closed events as not everybody could just play, but there was no NDA, so lots of people shared their experiences.

Can a human level in Ascalon?

Absolutely! All races are at peace or at least, they have a truce. Ascalon used to belong to charr, then to humans, and now it’s back in charr-hands. As charr and humans have a truce, humans can travel through the areas without fear of being killed by most other charr. There is the Flame Legion, however, who aren’t too friendly towards humans – or towards any of the playable races including charr belonging to the other legions.

Flame Legion is not a playable race, so you will not encounter any enemy players. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t feature PvP in the regular world anyway, so you will not meet any hostile players in Ascalon.

If you’re wondering how you can get to Ascalon as a non-charr, have a look at our guide.

How long should a norn stay in Wayfarer Foothills?

The region is meant for level 1 – 15 characters. So once you’re above 15, you can safely advance to the next region. If you don’t like Wayfarer Foothills or want to see another region faster than that, you can switch to the starter areas of the other races whenever you feel like it (see the link to our guide in the previous paragraph). There is no answer to the “should” part. If you want to stay there until level 80, you can absolutely do so. Once your character is higher than the intended level of the region, it will be downleveled to the appropriate level. The character will still earn experience points and will even get loot for his/her actual level. The only barrier you will encounter in the game is if you want to go to a region that’s higher than your actual level, as you will not get upleveled.

Should I sell collectible items or save them?

That depends on what you want to do with them. When you have crafting items like leather, ore, cloth, in your bag, you can click on the little wheel at the upper right corner and click “Deposit all Collectibles”. They will automatically get added to a special tab in your bank.

Those items are used for crafting, but if you don’t intend to craft you will not need those items and can safely sell them. If you do want to craft, look at what items your crafting profession requires. If you’re a tailor, you will probably not need most of the food items or wood. But, just to be safe, you can look at the item’s tooltip which will tell you which crafting professions they are used for. Also, if your crafting level is high enough already, you may consider selling the lower level collectibles for profit unless you want to actually craft low-level items. In most cases, unfortunately, buying low-level items directly from the Trading Post (or requesting them on the Trading Post) is much cheaper than crafting them yourself.

Seriously now, mesmer or warrior?

Before the release of Guild Wars 2, I had already asked myself whether I wanted the warrior or the mesmer profession for my main character. Oddly enough, I am not the only person wondering about this choice as I have regularly seen readers come to our blog because of the very same “dilemma”. The game has been out for several months now and I figured I would revisit this topic. Keep in mind that for me, the subjective measure of “fun” is the most crucial deciding factor and “min/maxing” or “doing the most damage” is a lot less important. So your mileage may vary, but perhaps I can still help you get a feeling for those two professions.

When a game hasn’t been released yet, I look at which classes/professions I have liked playing in other games to judge which class/profession I may like in the new game. My usual routine in MMOs is to choose such a character to play to max level first, but on my way there or after reaching max level, I realize that the character actually is not the one I want as my main and switch. In World of Warcraft, I had a warlock then switched to (frost) mage. In Warhammer Online, I had a Black Orc (though an odd choice for me at the time as I had never been a fan of melee or tanky characters until then) and then switched to shaman. In Lord of the Rings Online, I had a runekeeper and then switched to a warden (at that time, this choice was a lot less odd as I had since realized that I actually love playing tank classes). And in Guild Wars 2, I started with my mesmer and once she was at level 80, I switched to my warrior.

I don’t want to keep you in the dark, however, my favourite profession is the mesmer! My warrior had a short time of being my favourite but she quickly lost to the mesmer again. So, what is it about the mesmer then that makes her that much better? Let’s have a look at their playstyles.

With my mesmer, I primarily play with a staff and a sword/pistol combination. With the warrior, I usually play with a sword/axe and rifle combination. As you can see, both professions offer me the choice of playing close to or further away from the mobs. The difference here is that with the mesmer, I usually start at ranged with my staff and if the situation allows, I switch to the sword, teleport to the mob (“Illusionary Leap”) and hit in melee. With the warrior, I start by jumping towards the mob (“Savage Leap”) and if I find the situation too dangerous, I switch to the rifle and start kiting the mob.

The pistol in my mesmer’s off-hand may not be the best choice, but it is fun and stylish. I wish she could use a pistol in her main hand as well! On the other hand, I love going into melee every once in a while. It just feels more energetic and dynamic as a whole. Being a clothie, one would assume that the mesmer can’t survive in melee, but she can! “Flurry” is great for that as it gives her immunity to damage for a few seconds. “Magic Bullet” stuns the first target and dazes the second one for 2 seconds each. I play a condition-build and also have “Signet of Domination” equipped which, when used, stuns again for 2 seconds. And if all that doesn’t help and I need to get some distance, I switch to my staff, click “Phase Retreat” and teleport myself away from the mob. So far, I haven’t had much problems fighting against veterans, even with adds.

My warrior uses “Healing Signet” with my warrior which gives her passive health regeneration that manages to outheal poison. Very convenient if my skill to remove conditions (“Signet of Stamina”) is on cooldown. I love the signets with my warrior. They give me lots of passive goodies without having to worry about activating them all the time – unless I want to. But apart from that, there isn’t that much tricky gameplay with her. This is very likely due to my chosen weapons/build, but it is also because I miss the mesmer’s illusions. There is certainly less confusion (quite literally) for the enemies, and it feels lonely. I also regularly find myself thinking “kill it faaaaster” when there’s a dangerous situation (like a veteran with additional mobs coming in and my health going down faster than it regenerates) whereas with the mesmer, I just think “oh, this gets interesting now” and I find myself looking at which skills are still on cooldown and which skills I can use. E.g., can I heal, then stun/daze, then use damage avoidance until I can heal again? And if my own skills are on cooldown, I can destroy my illusions and use “Diversion” or “Distortion”.

Long story short, I enjoy the gameplay of the mesmer a lot more than that of the warrior, even though sometimes, especially in dungeons, it can get frustrating because switching to melee can get too dangerous. You really need to know what the mobs can and can’t do and you need to judge when to jump into the middle of the combat and when to stay away. The warrior, on the other hand, allows you to go crazy even in melee, but she feels less complex.

Guild Wars 2: Regions by level

I was curious where I could go with my level and found it a bit difficult to spot the level range on the map. I know I can always “downlevel” to zones below my level. That means that the “1-15″ does not tell you to leave Plains of Ashford once you’re level 16 or 17. You can stay there as long as you want because your level will be adjusted to the current area you are in. You will not be levelled up in PvE, though! I have already set foot into a high level area with Flummi and she didn’t feel comfortable at all in there. Neither did the poor guy in Kessex Hills with level 16 when he was surrounded by level 24 mobs. Sure, you can enter with level 15, but you should be aware of your surroundings as the mobs can be much higher in level than you are in some corners.

Region	Explorable zone	Level range
Ascalon	Plains of Ashford	1-15
Maguuma Jungle	Caledon Forest	1-15
Maguuma Jungle	Metrica Province	1-15
Shiverpeak Mountains	Wayfarer Foothills	1-15
Kryta	Queensdale	1-17
Ascalon	Diessa Plateau	15-25
Kryta	Kessex Hills	15-25
Maguuma Jungle	Brisban Wildlands	15-25
Shiverpeaks Mountains	Snowden Drifts	15-25
Kryta	Gendarran Fields	25-35
Shiverpeak Mountains	Lornar’s Pass	25-40
Ascalon	Fields of Ruin	30-40
Kryta	Harathi Hinterlands	35-45
Ascalon	Blazeridge Steppes	40-50
Shiverpeak Mountains	Dredgehaunt Cliffs	40-50
Kryta	Bloodtide Coast	45-55
Ascalon	Iron Marches	50-60
Shiverpeak Mountains	Timberline Falls	50-60
Maguuma Jungle	Sparkfly Fen	55-65
Ascalon	Fireheart Rise	60-70
Maguuma Jungle	Mount Maelstrom	60-70
Ruins of Orr	Straits of Devastation	70-75
Shiverpeak Mountains	Frostgorge Sound	70-80
Ruins of Orr	Malchor’s Leap	75-80
Ruins of Orr	Cursed Shore	80-80
Sea of Sorrows	Southsun Cove	80-80

I have mostly played through the starting areas so far (sylvari and asura) and ran through the human starter area to grab a few waypoints. I really loved Skrittsburgh in Brisban Wildlands, but haven’t seen or been to much other areas there. Looking at this list makes me realize how much I have missed already and I am only level 23. There’s definitely enough content to run through the zones again with another alt or two… and then there are dynamic events which means I probably haven’t seen everything anyway. Very nice! This game is making me want to explore and do nothing else and it rewards me with everything I need to reach max. level.

I got the names, regions and level range numbers from the official wiki, so I hope the information given here is correct. :)

Additionally, if you ever get lost, have a look at GW2 Cartographers. It’s an interactive map that shows all the areas and where you can find them!

GW2: Will it really lack endgame?

Update July 13, 2012: There’s an interview on Twitch.tv with Eric Flannum and Colin Johanson where they’re talking about endgame in Guild Wars 2. :)

I have seen several people talk about whether Guild Wars 2 has an endgame and whether it needs one. Some articles/discussions are a bit older, others are newer.

Let me toss in my opinion and thoughts as well. First, I should clarify what I mean when I say “endgame”, that is, which definition I am going to use here now. I will ignore the PvP part of “endgame” because the discussions usually do not revolve around the PvP part but they are instead concerned about the PvE part. ArenaNet also treats those two areas differently as structured PvP, for example, does not even let you play with a low level character and you immediately start with your character being max level and having access to everything (traits, gear,…). As I said, PvE is different. Let’s say “endgame” means “doing something differently than what you are doing while levelling up”. If that is the case, then I guess Guild Wars 2 really is lacking “endgame”.

What we have in the PvE area are dungeons (story and explorable mode), events/dynamic events and meta events. All of which can be done at low levels already. Events can be soloable (while scaling up when more players are around) or specifically designed for groups which make them very hard to solo. What Guild Wars 2 does not have is raids, at least not in the “traditional” sense as we know them from World of Warcraft or Star Wars: The Old Republic. Those raids are typically seen as “endgame”: You level up to max level, and once there, you collect proper equipment, join 9 to 39 other players (numbers are arbitrarily taking from what it took and now takes to raid in World of Warcraft) and head into an instanced area where your group can fight against certain boss monsters. Since those raids take place in instanced areas, only you and your group can fight. It is basically a very structured environment. It is “save” in a way that no random person can join whenever they feel like it. You – or the raid leader, at least – decide who gets to go with you, which classes you take, which equipment level you allow in your group – by not taking those with lower equipment with you – and which skill level those players that you take have. Typically, you are connected through voice-chat and can direct tactics and strategies that way. If this controlled environment is the only thing you want to experience as “endgame”, then Guild Wars 2 will be disappointing for you. It will not have raids. The closest it has is dungeons for a maximum of 5 players.

One complaint about MMOs that I have seen several times is that the game worlds’ importance in MMOs is constantly diminishing. Once players have reached the maximum level, they disappear from the general game world and spend their time idling in the cities instead while waiting for the dungeon finders to put them in dungeon groups or they’re waiting for raids to start where, again, they disappear into instanced areas. The areas outside get abandoned because players are focusing on the “endgame” which means they are either preparing for raids by farming dungeons for better gear or they are participating in raids where, again, they’re often farming gear (some play for the fun of it, of course ^^). In this aspect, Guild Wars 2 does things differently. For one, you can visit the lower level areas because you’re automatically down-leveled when entering them which will probably keep the whole world interesting even at max level. But that’s another topic. The other thing is that while there are dungeons (and structured PvP which is instanced as well) in Guild Wars 2, they are not required for getting the best gear. You either do them because they are fun or you don’t do them. At the same time, with the lack of instanced raids, we can hope that the game world will see a higher population.

Without raids and without the requirement of farming gear, what will players do at max level? Basically, it’s the same that you’re doing while leveling up: Dungeons, events, the personal storyline (until it’s finished, of course), etc. I would assume – this is guessing, after all, as the game is not released yet – that dungeons and events will be the main attraction for people in PvE at max level. In my opinion, events is where the potential for long-term motivation in PvE can be found. And this is where I say that the success all depends on the game’s design and it leads to a few questions that are left (mostly) unanswered so far:

How good will the scaling be? The Wiki says that the “regular” events scale for up to 10 players which would probably mean that a group of 20 players will rush through them easily. The more difficult events, however, scale up to 100 players. Let’s say we’ve got a good organized group (together with whoever else is in the area and joins). How many events will be trivial for organized groups and how easy will it be to find the more difficult encounters?

Will those events have a satisfying complexity? How about the general difficulty (tied in with the “scaling” above)? How about certain strategies? I have always found boss fights with the “tank and spank” strategy to be very boring. It would be equally boring if the fights in Guild Wars 2 were all about trying to stay alive yourself while dealing damage.

This is what I have mostly done when I played Guild Wars 2. I paid attention to myself and my needs, tried to stay alive and deal damage and if I used a combo it was by accident and usually not planned. ;) Then again, no matter how we look at it, we are all still new to the game and have not played PvE in the high level areas. I would guess that most of us have seen what combos are but at least in my case, I have not yet memorized every detail about it and until I have, I will not be able to use combos efficiently. But I certainly do hope – and expect to a certain extent – combos to be very helpful and maybe even required in some cases in order to be successful during events. This is one aspect where we can see professions interacting with each other. We do not have healers or tanks anymore and while I think this is a great change, it also means that we should see having to interact in other parts of combat or else we would just be lots of solo players all doing our own thing while seeing the boss’s hitpoints go lower and lower. And that would be boring. I want support and combos to be required and timing to be essential because that will be part of the challenge. That, and, of course, interesting boss mechanics that require us to do more than trying to stay alive while damaging the boss (like the Shadow Behemoth where you need to destroy portals that appear).

For me, the big question is: How do the events work at max level? How complex will the fights be in general and how much strategy will they require? It probably won’t be easy to find that balance between being too boring and being too difficult, especially as every player in the region will be able to join the fights and we will not always have that controlled environment where everybody listens to the raid leader and does exactly what they are told to do. If strategy is required and if they find this balance, then I am sure we are in for a treat and I, personally, will not miss those old raids at all. For me, interesting endgame in Guild Wars 2 is not “doing what we have not done at lower levels” but it is “being challenged in group-type settings”.

All things considered, I would answer my question with: “Yes, it does have endgame, but it is different from the endgame we know from games like World of Warcraft”. If you ask whether the endgame will be good in general and, also important, good enough to keep us interested in the game for a longer time, then I would say that it probably still is a bit too early to answer that one. We have not seen those areas yet to properly judge this aspect of the game and either praise or doom Guild Wars 2′s endgame. Soon, however, we will be.

Guild Wars: The end of the Hall of Monuments

On Wednesday, I finally reached 30 out of 50 points in the Hall of Monuments. So for me, this part is finished and I don’t think I’ll ever take a look at it again. Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea and that they gave us something as a reward in Guild Wars 2. However, it’s just not my usual playstyle. Especially when it comes to Guild Wars.

Let me elaborate… I think I have mentioned it before that when I started with Guild Wars, I used this game to get away from annoying people. Most of them were from World of Warcraft at that time. ;) There I was, happily fishing in the Barrens, when I would get a message from somebody asking me to join raid X or come to instance Z. I declined and they wanted to know what I was doing in the Barrens (I played Alliance, though not by free will). Most people I knew in the game were understanding, but some were confused by my choice: Why would I prefer such a boring task over going raiding? The answer is easy: Because I do. What Guild Wars offers me is great: The whole content is open to me without requiring playing with other people. The most important part here is: I can play with others, but I don’t have to!

When the Hall of Monuments was announced, I thought it was a great idea. But I soon realized that in order to get all 30 points, I would have to stop playing the way I did (trying out the different classes, for example) and start focusing on things that give me points. So instead of levelling all characters to 20 like I had originally intended, I now had to do something that gave me enough platinum to buy elite armor. It led to me quitting the game, more or less. Whenever I logged on and felt like doing something, I had the feeling that I was wasting my time and should rather do something that gives me HoM points (a bit like the raid and the fishing above, only that my own wish to get those HoM points equal the raid leader here ^^). This may sound whiny and complaining but it isn’t. What I want to say with this is that instead, bookahnerk started farming areas for platinum (and using the German out-of-game auction house) and he gave me whatever he could, so that I could buy the things I needed (like the elite armor) to get those HoM points. He has reached 30 quite some time ago, by the way, but after that, he helped me reach them as well. I still did things myself, of course, but he helped me out so much because he knows I really wanted those HoM points (I really wanted the Rockfur Raccoon!).

And last week, I was only missing two more points. I had everything I needed for the Vabbi armor, I just had to get my necromancer’s behind over there. On top of that, I needed one more elite armor, so we chose the cheapest one and bought that as well. Then the last thing I needed was three more hero armor pieces (I had farmed the first ones myself, by the way. Everything that had to be achieved by playing, I did myself!) and so, bookahnerk joined me and helped me play the last few missions through Eye of the North. Here I am now, with 30 HoM points and after reaching those, I have started playing the game again. Because now, I play because I want to and I can do whatever I want to do without feeling like I was wasting my time. Oh, and my future ranger will have that cute cuddly spider as a companion!

I really loved seeing the Great Destroyer! I had tried my best not to read too much about the story in Eye of the North and I tried not to connect the dots between this and what we know has happened and will happen until Guild Wars 2. Seeing all this now makes me even more excited about Guild Wars 2. I am really curious to see how the story will evolve and what we will do to advance it. Or, more likely, what the game designers will allows us to see and do that will further develop the story. ;)

On our way to the Central Transfer Chamber

The Great Destroyer

An image from the cut scene

Necromancer Elite Sunspear Armor

Necromancer Vabbi armor dyed orange