Bookahneer’s Geekwatch: Joining Talk Tyria and GuildMag

Welcome to today’s Bookahneer’s Geekwatch! The place about miscellaneous interesting news related to Guild Wars 2 – and on occasion, other games.

As some of you may know, I am occasionally writing for Talk Tyria and GuildMag as well. This Geekwatch isn’t about Guild Wars 2 per se, but about those two fan sites that are both looking for new members to fill various positions.

If you’re interested in joining Talk Tyria, head over to this post for more information. I, myself, am a “contributing writer” there and I’m trying to write a post every other month (from now on, mostly about asura if they let me ^^). Next to my job and my own blog and my hobbies, it’s not always possible to write that many other posts and Talk Tyria gives me this flexibility. Guest posts for Talk Tyria are possible as well, by the way!

GuildMag is also looking for writers, but primarily, we’d need somebody who can do design work. Check out the post if you’re interested in that or look for which other positions are open.

What had kept me from applying there at first were the requirements (the English skill being close to a native level was one, for example). In the end, the GuildMag bunch is great and I feel very comfortable there. I think what’s more important than fitting all those requirements 100% is if you’re a reliable person who loves the game and who loves writing/designing, etc. A person that knows what they’re getting into and that does’t just leave a month later again. ;)

That’s the good thing – and the bad thing – of having your own blog: You can just decide to not do anything for a while if you feel too lazy/are too busy. But getting into such a project like Talk Tyria or GuildMag means that there are other people waiting for you to do your part and you can’t just leave for a month without telling anybody. On the other hand, it’s a great motivator to have other people around and I really love that there’s always somebody willing to give me feedback for an idea.

Crosspost from TT: Sylvari – The Elves of Guild Wars 2!

This is another crosspost from Talk Tyria. If you want to add a comment, please add it there. Thank you. :)

The sylvari, together with the asura, are the races we haven’t yet gotten to play either in the closed beta or during the first beta weekend event. They both were playable during some gaming conventions (like GamesCom 2011), so we know they exist in a playable state, at least! But of course, not having been able to play them myself, I am very curious about them. I know I will love asura. There’s just no doubt about that. But what about the sylvari?

For me, they come close to what elves represent in other fantasy games. Think of your standard fantasy settings and now think of how many games include some kind of elves: Lord of the Rings Online, World of Warcraft, Everquest, Rift,… the list goes on. Elves are usually the fragile, elegant, gracious, wise and oooooold race. The sylvari are all of that with one exception; They are a very young race with the oldest sylvari being 25 years old. I’d assume that sylvari will most likely be the race to play when you’re usually an elf-lover because of their looks. But from their personality and their background, they’re rather unique.

They are a tree’s interpretation of humans. (Kristen Perry in Talk Tyria’s lore interview)

Let’s take a look at the sylvari: They can have elf-like ears (pointed, that is, in case you didn’t know). You can find a video showing the early sylvari character customization here (it starts at around 3:30). Their ears are pointed because they’re leaf-shaped. Which, oddly enough, is what Tolkien had in mind for his elves (see Wiki entry above). But it’s not that easy. Sylvari aren’t simply “the elves”. You have to look a bit closer to see the differences between elves (or humans) and sylvari. They are, in fact, plants that were built after humans because the Pale Tree, out of which they were “born”, knows what humans look like and modelled the sylvari after them. ArenaNet had published a blog post about Kristen Perry’s redesign of the sylvari (they did actually look very much like regular elves before).

Crosspost from Talk Tyria. Asura: Cute and cuddly or heartless and selfish?

Disclaimer: This is a crosspost from my posting over at Talk Tyria. I’m crossposting it here so those following the blog can see it (and so I have all my postings in one central place ^^). If you want to comment/share your thoughts, please head over to Talk Tyria. That’s also the reason I disabled comments to this posting here. It’s a Talk Tyria posting, so comments should go over there. :)

Asura are the smallest of the playable races in Guild Wars 2. They’re the cute* race. Fuzzy, cuddly… wait – are those pointy teeth? And what’s with this maniac grin? Is… is that a golem running towards me? In other words: They are everything but cuddly and cute, that is for sure. I wonder what it will be like playing an asura…

 

“You give a new meaning to the term “counter-intelligence.”
(Vekk in Guild Wars)