Giveaway No. 2: Two GW2 Charrlies

Update: This Giveaway has ended. Please be patient while we’re going to decide who’s going to be added to both drawing pots and drawing the winners. We will make a post announcing both winners later today!

Here is our second part of the post-GamesCom giveaway. We got two Charrlie plushies which is really great. Unfortunately – or fortunately for you, depending on how you’re looking at it – we already have two. If you look at the picture on the left, you can see that my own Charrlie did not want to accept the newcomers! Thus, we are looking for new owners for those two (the packaged ones, of course).

Please read the following rules carefully to see what you need to do in order to enter our giveaway and have a chance of winning one!

1. We want you to comment and present us a scenery screenshot – that you took yourself, of course. Preferrably from Guild Wars (1 or 2). If you can’t give us either, then any screenshot of any MMO will do. As with our previous giveaway, we would hate to exclude a new Guild Wars 2 fan, so that’s why we give everybody the chance to enter. While we love Guild Wars, we will give every screenshot an equal chance!
With “scenery” we mean that we do not want to see the UI or the chat. We want to see something of the game world (a sunset on the beach would be a classic).

2. Leave a valid email address when commenting. It will only be used by us for contacting the winner and nothing else! The best way to do that is to enter said email address into the “email” field. We can see that address but nobody else will be able to see it (if you instead put it into the body of your comment, everybody will see it)!

3. From all screenshots, we will choose the ones we like the most (no definite number. If there are lots of great entries, then we’ll choose lots) and out of that pool, we will randomly draw the winner of the first Charrlie plushie.
ALL other entries (best + rest minus first winner) will then be put into the random drawing of Charrlie no. 2.
That means that if we really like your screenshot, you’ve got a higher chance of winning a plushie.

4. The winners will be contacted by email. Please reply within 7 days and give us your real life address, so we can send the plushie to you. Do NOT leave it in the comment field! If you do not reply within 7 days, we will choose another winner.

5. One entry (and one screenshot!) per person (IP addresses are always logged by wordpress.com when somebody comments)! We reserve the right to exclude entries when we think you’re trying to cheat by entering multiple times. Stay fair, please. :)

6. No debating about the outcome! We will draw randomly and everybody who presents us a scenery screenshot has a chance of winning. :)

7. The Giveaway is open for comments/participants until Saturday, August 25, 2012, 9am Berlin Time (this should give you the time for your time zone).

8. Last but not least, a word of warning: We usually prefer digital giveaways, because you can be sure that the winner receives their prize. Obviously, we will send the t-shirt via snail mail as the t-shirt doesn’t fit through the internet. We really hope you will receive your t-shirt and the post behaves, but we can’t guarantee it. I doubt it really has to be said, but there you go. As you can tell, we do not trust the post system too much. ;)

Last but not least, if you’re wondering where or how to upload the picture, read the following instruction (written by Tilion from DragonSeason):
1) Go to http://tinypic.com/ and select Browse.
2) Find your picture from your PC at the pop-up window. Once you select it, click Upload Now.
3) Fill in the CAPTCHA code that will appear on your screen and click once more Upload Now.
4) Once you’re through with that, copy the Direct Link for Layouts that has been given to you and come back here and leave a comment.

Guild Wars 2 at GamesCom 2012

You may remember that we have already written a report on ArenaNet’s booth last year, so of course, we’re going to write another one this year. Last year, we went to GamesCom on two days, Thursday and Saturday, which means that our experiences and observations came from two different days. Saturday is usually the busiest day, but we decided against going there again on a Saturday this year. It was simply too crowded for my liking. And there is no way I am going to do that again. While I don’t panic when I’m within a crowd, it’s not a pleasant feeling either. So we only went on Thursday this year which was just crowded enough to not make me feel uncomfortable.

It feels a bit weird to be writing this report as this year, there wasn’t much to see about the game. Last year, there were several demo stations at their PvE booth and a few more at their PvP booth. But this time, there was not a single demo station available. Our friend, who had also come with us last year, remarked that he was very surprised to hear that as he would have expected them to have a zillion demo stations around, so they could show off their game. The booth that we got to see, however, was a really good concept and a place that all three of us enjoyed.

10:10

We arrived at the booth shortly past 10am. As some of you may know, on Wednesday and Thursday, ArenaNet had announced a password on Twitter and after saying it to one of the staff members, you got a code for an in-game item (a Guild Wars 2 dragon t-shirt). Maybe they were hoping that not too many people would come to get their code. The contrary happened, of course. At around 10.30am on Thursday, they were already out of the codes they had wanted to give out during the morning. We had gotten ours shortly before that and decided to just stay at the lounge and enjoy the scenery. The booth was pretty and the design almost literally screamed “ArenaNet”: It fit perfectly. In the middle of the busy, loud and slowly crowding GamesCom, there was this little oasis with plants, white pebble stones, comfortable stools and a waterfall – or at least, something close to it. Everything was inviting you to stay, relax a bit and converse with the people around you.

We decided it was too early for that as we wanted to see other booths first, so we left and went on to explore GamesCom. As this report is about ArenaNet, I will skip forward to when we returned to their booth.

13:45

In the meantime, ArenaNet had announced that they would give away 100 codes every hour. We were curious and went back to the booth only to see that it was crowded outside and relatively full inside. They had closed the two entrances to the booth already and it looked like about 100 people were inside. Those 100 would be getting the codes at 2pm. Outside there were – roughly estimating – about 300 more people. If you have never been to something like GamesCom, let me tell you that people do queue for the weirdest things for hours. If you ask me queuing for three hours just for an in-game item belonging to a game that is coming out in just 7 days, is not too surprising. But it’s always hard to anticipate what is going to happen and how popular exactly something will be. There were no demo stations, after all, and apart from the two screens showing the trailers, you could not really do or see anything while waiting.

We had actually wanted to meet somebody there at 2 but instead found her outside the convention halls. We could not have gone inside to sit down anyway. At that point, it was disappointing to see that their concept was basically ruined. If you click on the video above, you can see it yourself. Apart from the crowd wanting codes (and I don’t blame them), the neighbours of ArenaNet were really loud (music, shouting, etc.). If you ask me, GamesCom is always too loud with too many games literally screaming for your attention. However, I doubt that ArenaNet had any say in who would be next to them and how loud they would be. We left again after watching them giving the codes away inside, letting those people out and letting the next group in.

18:30

At around 6.30pm, we returned for the last time. At that point, not that many people were left, especially as they had stopped offering codes. But in general, a lot of visitors had already left (it was open from 10am to 8pm that day). The ArenaNet booth wasn’t empty, though, but we could finally grab some seats, sit down, enjoy the scenery of the booth and talk to Stéphane (one of the two French Community Managers) and Ramon (the new German Community Manager). Finally, we felt that we got to enjoy the booth in the way that ArenaNet had intended. Of course, it wasn’t their fault in the morning as we had just not been in the mood to sit down only minutes after arriving. Anyway, we had a great talk about Guild Wars 2 and MMOs in general with Stéphane. An hour later, it was time to go, so we would not have to leave with the rest of the GamesCom visitors and get stuck on the parking lot.

What we had been able to see during our three visits was that once again, even without demo stations and developers present, ArenaNet’s and NCsoft’s staff members were there and they did not just stand around in a corner watching their fans. They were in the middle, interacting, talking, answering questions (as far as they could, I would assume ^^) and were a part of it. If they had not worn their special Guild Wars 2 t-shirts, you wouldn’t have known they weren’t just fans like everybody else.

21:00

In the evening, we were invited to their Meet&Greet. At first, we decided to just sit down in a corner and watch. My feet were aching (and I even got an inflammation in my left foot. Aaah, the sacrifices I endure for online games… ^^), so I was happy to sit. But it was a bit boring. I didn’t mind the company – that is, my boyfriend and a friend, but I can see them so often and talking to others would have been nice as well. Unfortunately, I am too shy to just go to people and ask them who they are. Fortunately, Kronos from Onlinewelten, whom I had met during EU Fan Day in Brighton, spotted me and came over. Just a few minutes later, we were in their corner of the room (where lots of other people from Onlinewelten were sitting) and I was talking to his girlfriend about basically everything but Guild Wars 2, with the exception of the shape of our future sylvaris’ ears. Very important decision, of course.

ArenaNet was very generous as they had a raffle where they gave away 4 Collector’s Editions, 2 cardboard standups, several keyboards and computer mice. Sadly, neither of us won anything. That wasn’t bad at all, though, as we had not gone there for the loot and, more importantly, somebody else from the Onlinewelten community had won one of the CEs and seeing his shocked face together with him mumbling “I have never won anything…!” was priceless. :)

I also finally got to talk a bit with Ramon. Only a few minutes, but that’s okay because the community managers were very busy with all of us around, trying to talk to everybody and, of course, organizing the event. But yeah, we’ve got a very nice new German Community Manager!

Another highlight of the evening was that one guy, also a proud winner of a Collector’s Edition, who came to us to tell us that he loves our blog. I was walking on clouds and because of that, forgot to ask for his name. Oh well, in case you read this, feel free to contact us and tell us who you are! ;) It’s always great to get feedback from readers and hear that what you are doing is liked by others.

This was just a short summary of the evening. I don’t think it’d be interesting to repeat every little detail because most of what happened was conversations with other people. We once again got to know other German fans of the game and/or writers for fansites and it’s always great to do that if you ask me. As I said earlier to Stéphane, I have the tendency to jump in and out of games and get bored with them quickly once I understand the rules. What keeps me in a game is the community, the people I get to know and the friendships that form in the long run. Guild Wars 2 may just be a game but it manages to connect people from all over the world and that is something fantastic. Being at gatherings like this always shows me exactly what it is that I love most about ArenaNet: Their care for the community and their constant effort to provide an environment where it’s easy for us to connect and get to know each other better.

Last but not least, if you have managed to read until now, let me give you a little hint: We brought something back with us (not the game!) and we do not intend to keep it… ;)

Blog Carnival: Memories of waiting for Guild Wars 2

This entry is part of Guild Mag’s 4th Blog Carnival. Just because I’m hosting this blog carnival over at GuildMag doesn’t mean I’m not participating this time. ;) So far, the blog carnivals have always been written by both of us together and we’re going to keep this tradition especially with this topic now.

2006-2008

The first Bookahneer

As we have previously written, we do not exactly remember when we first heard about Guild Wars 2. What we do remember is that we have not been waiting for the whole 5 years since its first announcement. In 2007, we were still actively playing World of Warcraft. Its first expansion, “Burning Crusade” was released on January 16, 2007. We drove to a city nearby to be there for their midnight sale. Of course, after returning home, all I could do was install the game, create my blood elf and then I went straight to bed because I was too tired… but I digress. This was the one expansion where both of us were playing actively in raid groups doing the game’s endgame content. At the end of 2006, I had bought my first Guild Wars campaign (Nightfall). After bookahnerk had seen me play, he soon bought the game for himself as well. We both enjoyed it, but played the game differently than World of Warcraft, for example. I, especially, have always used Guild Wars as my “get away from random strangers and annoying people”-game as the instanced areas in Guild Wars means I will not run into other players.

So, in 2007, we were happily playing World of Warcraft and Guild Wars. But we were not – yet – looking forward to Guild Wars 2. Another game had been on our radar: Warhammer Online. It got released in September 2008, but long before that, we were reading every little news bit that we could find. Bookahnerk had shown me Syp’s Waaagh Blog. This was the first time I noticed gaming blogs in the internet! Back then, I had already wondered if I could do the same.

As Warhammer Online had not managed to meet our expectations, we returned to World of Warcraft for a bit while searching for a new MMO to call our “home”. It was probably at this point that our attention got drawn to Guild Wars 2. All we do remember is that we had known that ArenaNet were working on Guild Wars 2 and that Eye of the North had been the last piece for Guild Wars.

2009

In 2009, the first Guild Wars 2 trailer got released at GamesCom. We clearly remember seeing it as we had been watching the stream. In fact, we had been looking forward to GamesCom and the possible news about the game for days and were excited when it finally started! We also remember that we were both thinking about driving to Cologne to visit GamesCom. We decided against doing it, though, as it was just more comfortable to watch the gaming streams instead.

Other than that, I spent my time playing Lord of the Rings Online and even got myself a lifetime subscription. Bookahnerk was still involved in World of Warcraft, but he, too, started playing Lotro. As pretty as the game was (and still is), we knew we were waiting for something… better. Or, just different from the usual standard that MMOs had become already at that point.

2010

In 2010, we finally went to GamesCom, and that was also the start of my short-lived blog (don’t mind the layout, I’m using it now to test the layouts before we activate them here on this blog). So, no, Carvious, you’re not the only one who started blogging because of Guild Wars 2! :) If you go through this blog, you can see that I wasn’t taking it “seriously”. I posted a few entries but something was missing.

2011

The new Bookahneer

On March 12, 2011, we started “Nerdy Bookahs and their travel-guide” – this very blog here. Even though almost all entries are written and posted by me, we are two people working on this blog. Bookahnerk’s strengths obviously aren’t writing the actual articles, but he’s the guy working behind the scenes, reading through my entries, giving me feedback, doing some layout stuff, making the videos for our YouTube channel, etc.

From the beginning, our blog had been intended to be about Guild Wars 2 sooner or later, but we added the “and their travel-guide” bit because we knew we’d be around in lots of different games until Guild Wars 2 releases and we’d want to write about these games as well. We still do and probably will in the future, but the focus on Guild Wars 2 has been increasing steadily over the last few months.

Of course, we were at GamesCom again in 2011. Our first stop, just as in 2010, was at the NCsoft booth. This time, however, we also met our first fellow Guild Wars 2 fans. For all the years I have been online, this has always been a part of the fascination for me: Getting to know people online and then, sooner or later, also meeting them offline. It’s just a really great part of the internet that you get the chance to meet people from all over the world that you simply wouldn’t have met otherwise. What GamesCom 2011 also brought us was the realization that the folks at ArenaNet (well, the community managers, at least) apparently read what the blogosphere has to say about the game and the company as our report about ArenaNet got retweeted by them.

2012

Group Picture at the EUFan Day in Brighton

Let’s skip ahead to 2012. In March, we got a message from Aidan, the European community manager, inviting us to the EU Fan Day in Brighton. Bookahnerk told me to go and silly me, I’d been very close to declining the invitation because I don’t exactly love flying and I am very shy around strangers – yes, even though I love meeting people that I got to know online. It doesn’t make sense! ;) But I went, as you probably know and even though it was basically just a stay of 30 hours, I enjoyed myself a lot and got to meet lots of great people! When we started this blog, we never expected to be invited to something like this just a year later. Now, we are both proud members of the Dragon Season guild and I joined GuildMag as a writer.

In short, thank you, ArenaNet, for not just making a – hopefully awesome – game, but also for caring about the community and making it possible to meet new people and form new friendships! Let’s hope the next years will be as great as the time leading up to the game’s release! The last few years have been lots of fun and we’re curious what the next years will bring.

Guild Wars 2: A FAQ for new players

You may already know the first version of this FAQ. I decided to rewrite it, update it and put newer screenshots in. So here is the new version. A very special thank you goes to Tasha Darke for reading through it all. I was hoping for a few bits of corrected grammar but she gave me very valuable feedback on top of that!

This FAQ is mostly for those who have just recently heard of Guild Wars 2 and now want to know more. If you have been following the game for years or even just months, if you have pre-purchased the game and if you have already played it, you are welcome to read it as well, but you will find a lot of information that you already know.

Since the game is still in development a lot of things are subject to change (yes, believe it or not, ArenaNet is handling the Beta Weekend Events like a real beta and is still changing things around). Also, new information comes out every now and then which might outdate what you can read here. If you notice any of that – or just errors that I’ve made – please comment (with sources if possible).

I am going to use the same categories that I have used for my “Rift vs. Lotro vs. WoW” posting already.

If you only want a very short overview, the following will hopefully be enough. There are lots of links leading you further down my posting if you want more information!

Before we start, we need to get two questions out of the way (as suggested by Pyzlnar on Reddit):
“Yes, you can jump!” – and no, this game is not an Asian-grinder and it is not made by an Asian company. It’s made by ArenaNet who is located in Seattle, Washington, USA (though they do belong to NCSoft but they only work as a publisher here while ArenaNet is the developer and thus, actually makes the game). Guild Wars 2 will also feature an open world and will not be heavily instanced like Guild Wars 1 is. Again, thank you, Pyzlnar, for these suggestions. You were right, they’re clearly missing and should be the first two points in any GW2 FAQ. ;)

OMG! When’s the beta? How do I get in?
If you have pre-purchased the game, you are automatically invited to all beta weekend events planned to take place roughly once a month until release. Do not confuse it with a preorder, though. Pre-purchasing means you pay the game in full! Beta keys are also available through giveaways and competitions from a variety of fan and gaming websites.
Wait, what?

How much does the game cost? Which extra security against hacked accounts do they offer?
You will have to buy the game itself but there will be no monthly fees. Without monthly fees, the follow-up costs are basically voluntary as there will be a real money shop (called “gem store”), but stuff you buy there will not give you more power and thus, won’t be required for the gameplay. Gems, the shop’s currency, can be bought in the game’s auction house (here called the Trading Post) for in game gold. Nothing is known yet about security like authenticators. There will very likely be system for account restorations in case you were hacked.
More on costs and security

What can I play and how do I play? – Races, professions and combat mechanics
You will be able to choose from 5 races: Norn, human, asura, charr and sylvari. Each race can be each of the 8 professions (often also called “classes”) in the game: Engineer, Thief, Guardian, Warrior, Elementalist, Necromancer, Ranger and Mesmer.

There is no holy trinity anymore! “Holy trinity” refers to characters that tank (the foes focus on the tank and leave the other players alone), characters that heal and characters that deal damage. In Guild Wars 2, every profession is self-sufficient up to a certain point and you will be able to play with any combination of professions without having to wait for “another healer” or “a tank”. Professions can interact with each other through their skills and support others.
More about races and professions

What does the game look like?
In short: Gorgeous, artsy, picturesque if you ask me. As with all games’ graphics, this is very subjective. Have a look at the various screenshots you can find online and decide for yourself if you like it.
Pictures and videos outsourced to below in order to keep the part up here short.

What’s there to fight against (PvE)?
First things first, there will be no regular raids in this game as you may know them from WoW or SWTOR! Instead, dynamic events in the open world that scale for up to 100 players. There will be several dungeons to play which will each have a story mode and the more difficult explorable mode. There will be no standard quests for playing either. The closest you will get to regular quests will be your personal storyline.
More about PvE

Who’s there to fight (PvP)?
There are 2 modes of PvP – Structured and World vs World.
Structured PvP, also known as Conquest, is somewhat similar to battlegrounds (WoW) or warzones (SWTOR) except everybody will be max level and have all weaponry and armor available to them straight out of character creation. So no gear advantages. 2 Teams (hot join or premade) fight it out on different maps for Glory, a currency which can be spent on better looking equipment and other (as yet unannounced) rewards.
World vs. world vs. world (frequently abbreviated to WvW) is the second mode. Three worlds (servers) will fight against each other for guild recognition and bonuses which affect the entire world. Players cannot fight players from the same server,as there are no factions, and while characters are buffed to have the basic stats as a level 80 character, gear and traits are not levelled (but you do earn experience in WvW which means that you can level your character in WvW). Servers will rotate every two weeks.
More about PvP

Grouping and socialization
In Guild Wars 2, you will be able to join more than one guild with one single character (I assume you will be able to create more than one character. So don’t misunderstand this sentence ^^). If you want to read our opinion about it, go here. If you don’t, well that’s just as well. ;)
Grouping will be in the game but it will not be forced on you like it is in other games. For example, you can attack a mob that another player is currently fighting. As you both contribute to the kill, you will both get the same amount of experience points and loot that you would have gotten if you had fought the mob on your own! In other words: Kill-stealing will not be possible!
More about Grouping and Socialization

I want to be on my own sometimes (- or: What can do I solo?)
The first thing that comes to my mind is the personal storyline. When creating your character, you get asked a few questions and can choose between different answers. That determines the starting point of your personal story. Other choices later on will further determine how your story evolves. You can bring a friend along to your storyline. But it will essentially be your story.

Guild Wars 2 will also have achievements. So that’s something you can do. You can also roam the world on your own or play a lone wolf in WvW – though I’m not sure how viable the latter is, apart from escorting the odd caravan. ;)
More about stuff to do solo

Crafting
There are 8 crafting skills to choose from and you can have two at a time: Weaponsmith, Huntsman, Artificer, Armorsmith, Leatherworker, Tailor, Jeweler and Cook.
Every character can gather all resources provided you have the correct gathering tool equipped which can be bought from merchants for gold or karma. A resource node can be used by several players, so it is not possible to steal such a node from under another player’s nose.
More about crafting

Fluff
There will be mini-pets just as in Guild Wars 1. Activities have also been announced but there haven’t been any recent details on them. “Bar brawl” was one of the activities mentioned, for example.

You will also have a home instance which is an entire district in the capital city of your character’s race. The home instance automatically changes with your personal story but you can’t change anything yourself (like putting furniture in).

Also, you will be able to change the way your armor looks. And there will be 400 different dyes in the game. Each piece of armor has 1 to 3 areas that can be dyed.
More about fluff

That was the short version. Its bigger brother will follow now, which also includes links for further reading. Most of the information can be found on ArenaNet’s blog or in the official wiki for Guild Wars 2.

Criticizing Guild Wars 2

DISCLAIMER: If you want to criticize my post, feel free to do so (constructively, of course). However, if you want to do so, please READ it. Especially point 4 and its subject line: I complain about their marketing strategy. I do NOT complain about the skimpy armor. I even say so in the text. Read it, then complain about the actual content and not about what you THINK I wrote. Thank you. :)

First things first, as a regular or even casual reader of our blog, you’re well aware of the fact that I’m a huge fan of the game. But let’s be honest: the game isn’t perfect and I know it never will be a perfect game. Why? Several reasons. For one, no game is ever perfect. They’re too complex to get them bug-free and especially MMORPGs evolve and get content added, mechanics changed, etc. All of that means plenty of risks for adding new bugs. But even when not looking at bugs, there just can’t be a perfect game out there simply because there are too many players who all like and dislike different aspects. Some won’t accept a game without PVP in every region, others need their weekly raid evenings, and so on. That means that we will always have people argue about a game and its (lack of) perfection. And it also means that the probability of a game company developing a game in exactly the way that I want is very slim/non-existing.

Guild Wars 2 is still in beta, so bugs are to be expected. In general, I am always very careful when criticizing games in beta. It is a work in progress, after all, and I wouldn’t want to hurt a game’s – and company’s – reputation by writing something too negative about the game before it’s even been released. On the other hand, if we never speak up and say what we dislike, how are the developers supposed to know what the players think of something? There’s a reason companies have beta tests and ask for feedback.

Having said all that (should my intros be shorter, I wonder…), I’m now going to list a few things about Guild Wars 2 that I know will annoy me – more or less strongly – and that will probably make the game less perfect for me – but not “bad”! That’s a big and important difference.

1) Mystic Chests
Syp over at Massively wrote a good piece about lockboxes in MMOs. To be honest, I was shocked when I saw my first lockbox in Guild Wars 2. I’ve always found it cheap when games had those and it was disappointing to see it appear in this game. While there may not be any “advantage” in there, I still think it’s a terrible way to earn money. What annoys me is the whole gambling part: You never know if spending money on yet another key will result in you getting that special item from the lockbox.

If you ask me, it’s abusing a weakness of us humans when it comes to calculating probabilities. Some spend 50 times 1 dollar trying to get a specific reward and end up empty-handed instead of just buying it for 35 dollars, for example… mostly because there is the probability (albeit a very, very low one) that they might get it on their first try and end up having spent only 1 dollar. And then they spend another dollar, and another and another and at some point, they think that now they have to finally get it, right? And they have already invested so much money that quitting would mean they have simply lost their investment without earning anything.

Bookahnerk has also found an interesting comment about this system on Reddit, where a poster mentioned Lunia and that in this game, you drop keys and need to buy the boxes from the shop. It sounds less tempting this way. After all, you don’t have the “item” wrapped in a box in your inventory already. You only have a key. And if you ever feel like getting a box to use this key, it’s fine. And if not, no harm done because there’s no item rotting in your inventory, just a key. Yes, I’m aware of the fact that it’s technically exactly the same thing. But the perception is a different one. And I’m pretty certain that there’d be less temptation to buy boxes whereas if you have lockboxes drop in your game, your players will probably buy more keys from the shop than they would buy boxes for the dropped keys. We’re curious and can’t calculate probabilities correctly (well, I’m sure a lot of people can but from personal experience, I’d say that this is the minority). In other words: It’s an easy way to earn money. But from where I stand, it’s cheap and dirty.

However, this is me criticizing something I haven’t seen the full scope of so far. We do not yet know enough about what will be in the lockboxes (exclusive items or not), if they will have keys drop in the game, if the lockboxes have a (e.g.) 90% chance of including another key (I think I read somewhere that a player found a key inside together with an item), if we’ll be able to sell the items we find in the lockboxes, etc. I’m just saying I really dislike this general concept, but I am curious how they will handle it specifically.

2) Voice of female norn

Norn are supposed to be really tall. And with that, naturally, comes a deeper voice than we would expect from the average human. If I hear the voice without looking at the screen, it fits and it sounds like a wonderful choice, but once I see the norn’s doll-like face, I’m not so sure anymore. It just doesn’t fit to hear her with such a low voice. But maybe this isn’t a problem with the voice at all but rather with the next point…

3) Idealized female characters

I’ve mentioned it before, to which Kadomi had reacted as well. ArenaNet’s stance can be found in this interview:

“Univers-Virtuels: So, at the moment the humans are very young and it’s not possible to make it older as a character, or it will be possible to turn off the make up for woman?
Kristen: I’m not sure, we have some variety in there, but largely we want an idealized beautiful base face, so I think the humans are probably going to remain within a certain spectrum.”

I was happy to see that they have added one face that makes the character look a bit older. Then you can further customize it by changing the look of the nose, mouth, chin, etc. But that is only for the human and it’s only one face. The others still have that certain doll-like look. It’s especially annoying for norn because they’re tough! It seems weird to have them appear with a doll-face. I also don’t like the sound of “idealized beautiful base face”. Yes, this idealization is what we’re seeing in women’s magazines every day. This is what’s called one of the reasons for the rise of eating disorders (in women and men)… I understand that they want to add beautiful faces. I would assume that more people choose those faces than faces that the general public wouldn’t call “pretty”, “beautiful” or something like that. I just do not get why they refuse to add some more regular faces. Especially as the question above was aiming at faces “without that much make-up”. Either way, I will go for the regular face they have added because I find it more believable (ah yes, I know we’re in a fantasy setting, so theoretically everything is possible and thus, believable. But still…). On the other hand, we can see that you can go for some extremes when creating your characters. I’m not sure they would call the nose that you can see in the screenshot “idealized beauty”. But at least, we can reenact Cyrano de Bergerac. ;)

I will most likely play asura and charr as my main characters, so it won’t bother me that much. And I do like having a pretty doll character – but I would really love to have more variety. What is the harm in having an older face (one with wrinkles or just more defined facial features)? After all, they are in the game for the male characters. They have added one face for the female humans, though. So there is still hope we could maybe see something like that for the norn as well. Something that makes them more equal to the choices we have for male characters.

4) Armor and ArenaNet’s marketing strategy

As mentioned above, Kadomi wrote about the faces but in the same entry, she also addresses the “armor issue” which goes hand in hand with the idealized faces (and she says it much better than I will here, so if you’re interested in this topic, go read her blog post about it). Why do they present the female characters in suspenders? A word, by the way, that I only learned now thanks to Guild Wars 2 – that is, the English term for it, of course. What does it tell you about a game that teaches me the English terms of “sexy underwear” (“Reizwäsche” in German, by the way… in case you were wondering). I’m not happy with them presenting this as the typical clothing for some of their classes (mesmer and elementalist most of all) as this is what the characters look like when creating them.

After playing for a bit, I did get to see cloth armor that wasn’t as revealing and they have a system in place that makes it possible for me to merge the better stats of an item onto a piece of clothing that I like. So I’m not annoyed that they have revealing armor in the game. I am annoyed, however, that they presented us only this sexy underwear as armor. And even though there was a large outcry (not just from me, I might add!) in their fanbase, they did not add pictures of different armor in order to show us that when they said we would have choices, they didn’t just mean “a choice between a bra or bikini top”.

5) No scenery screenshots
This is something that makes me grind my teeth and scratch my head. I just don’t get this decision at all. ArenaNet doesn’t want us to take screenshots of the scenery without featuring our own character because they want us to get attached to our character. I love looking at screenshots of the game’s world but I am not interested in looking at some person’s character at the same time. This doesn’t interest me at all. Also, I do get attached to my character and if I want to take a screenshot of “me in Lion’s Arch”, I will do so. But if I want to take a screenshot of “this nice windmill”, then please let me do that without having “me in front of this nice windmill that you can’t see because my dear character is blocking the view”. There is a workaround, by the way. You can either /sleep or /sit and then work with the camera angle to get a screenshot without your character on it. I used /sit for my screenshots and unfortunately, my charr’s horns can be seen in a few of them. Oh well. Most of the time, it works just fine but why do we have to resort to such a workaround in the first place? Guild Wars 1 allowed us to zoom in and I haven’t heard anybody complain about the game and its design because we can do that.

While this workaround is fine for taking screenshots, video makers need to ability to move around without having their own character centered all the time. Machinimas probably won’t work in Guild Wars 2 and that’s just really, really sad if you ask me. There’s a not too old discussion about this on GuildWars2Guru.

And that’s it for today. All in all, it’s not a “list of things gone horribly wrong” or something like that. It’s just some things that bug me and that I wanted to get out of my system. I have to say, however, that the inability of taking screenshots or making videos without having my character in the center is the biggest issue I have here. The other parts probably won’t spoil my general fun in the game (especially the marketing – who cares about that in a year, right?) but taking pretty screenshots is what I really enjoy. I have a ton of screenshots from all sorts of MMOs I’ve ever played or tried out stored on an external hard drive and I’ve taken 640 screenshots in Guild Wars 2 so far and that was after only playing for 4 days! And most of those screenshots are from Lion’s Arch… I can’t wait for doing the same in Hoelbrak, Divinity’s Reach, Black Citadel,… (but next time, I will choose a character without horns! Asura would be perfect… *hint*)