3 year anniversary giveaway: Fluff items

Click here for the German paragraph / Klickt hier, um die Instruktionen auf Deutsch zu lesen.

You can win a fluff item pack for Guild Wars 2! We won’t spoil the fun and say what is in the pack, but think dyes and minis here. All you have to do in order to be eligible to win is leave a comment below and answer the following question: How many level 80 asura does Paeroka have? Hint: Read the previous post to find the answer. This fluff item giveaway is open for all GW2 players. There are no restrictions in sending items across the pond. ;)

As usual, the rules are as follows
1. The winner will be randomly chosen out of all correct answers in the comment section. Both German and English answers will be considered.
2. The Giveaway is open for comments/participants until March 12, 2014, 6pm Berlin Time.
3. One entry 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. :)
4. Leave your account name (name.1234 – NOT the email address you use to log in to the game) and we will contact you in the game if you have won.
5. The winner will be contacted in game. Please reply until March 19, 2014. If you do not reply within that time frame, we will choose another winner.
6. No debating about the outcome!

Last but not least, go here for a chance to win 800 gems!

Ihr könnt hier ein kleines Paket mit Items gewinnen. Was genau in dem Paket ist, verraten wir nicht, um die Überraschung nicht zu verderben. Denkt aber in Richtung Farben und Minis. ;) Alles, was ihr tun müsst, um eine Chance auf den Gewinn zu haben, ist die folgende Frage zu beantworten: Wie viele Level 80 Asura hat Paeroka? Ein kleiner Tipp: Lest den vorherigen Eintrag. Er ist zwar auf Englisch, aber ihr solltet die Stelle trotzdem finden können. ;) Dieser Item-Giveaway ist für alle offen, egal ob EU- oder US-Account. Items können an jeden Spieler geschickt werden. :)

Wie immer gilt es, einige Regeln zu beachten
1. Der Gewinner wird aus allen richtigen Antworten in den Kommentaren zufällig ausgewählt. Sowohl deutsche als auch englische Antworten werden berücksichtigt werden.
2. Ihr könnt bis zum 12. März 2014, 18 Uhr deutsche Zeit teilnehmen.
3. Pro Person nur ein Eintrag (IP-Adressen werden bei jedem Kommentar automatisch von WordPress erfasst)! Wir erlauben es uns, Kommentare nicht zu berücksichtigen, wenn wir denken, dass ihr gegen diese Regel verstoßt und mehrfach teilnehmt. Bleibt bitte fair! :)
4. Wenn ihr kommentiert, hinterlasst bitte euren Accountnamen (Name.1234 – NICHT die E-Mail-Adresse, mit der ihr euch im Spiel einloggt) und wir werden euch, wenn ihr gewinnt, im Spiel kontaktieren.
5. Der Gewinner wird im Spiel kontaktiert werden. Antwortet bitte bis spätestens 19. März 2014. Wenn ihr innerhalb dieser Zeit nicht antwortet, werden wir einen anderen Gewinner auslosen.
6. Es gibt keine Diskussionen über das Ergebnis!

Und zum Schluss noch der Link zu unserem 800 Edelstein-Giveaway!

3 years of Nerdy Bookahs – and 2 giveaways!

It’s that time of the year to get all nostalgic again. Nerdy Bookahs is celebrating its 3 year anniversary on March 12. As we have recently “expanded” and added a German blog, we are also going to host a giveaway in each blog. If you don’t care about my nostalgia and only care about the giveaway, click on the images. Otherwise, read on and click on the images afterwards. ;)

Back in August 2010, I had made the decision to start blogging about games. I knew I wanted it to be in English. Reaching more people was one of the reasons, but not in order to gain more page views. I’ve just always enjoyed the heterogenity that comes with people from different parts of the world. And I knew I could not reach all of you if I wrote in German. The other reason was that I wanted to practice my written English skills. During my studies, I’d done a lot of reading of English scientific papers, but not that much writing or speaking. I also knew I wasn’t and still am not in it for any money. No ads, no trying to get as many hits as possible in a month. This is for fun only. At some point, bookahnerk wanted to join the fun as well and we decided that it would make more sense to have one blog together. He does not write much here, but he’s quite often reading my blog posts before I publish them and gives me feedback. He is also in charge of the good videos on our YouTube channel. ;) And recently, we decided to have two blogs, after all! Why not have a German branch of Nerdy Bookahs! We’ve switched roles for that part and bookahnerk is responsible for publishing posts while I take on the editor role. When it comes to nice-looking videos, nothing has changed. That is his domain. ;)

Oddly enough, while Guild Wars 2 had been on my radar from the beginning, Rift had been, too. And just when Rift launched in March 2011, Nerdy Bookahs launched as well! This is a coincidence, but I still quite like it. :) It had also been the time where I’d been studying for my university diploma. I succeeded and started my work at a university a few months later (I like universities too much. They won’t get rid of me easily). Hated the job I got, looked for another one, found one in April last year and couldn’t be happier. So much about my private life in the background. ;) But all of this has happened in those three years and it’s nice to look back at this as well.

Gaming-wise, when we started Nerdy Bookahs, I was still playing Lord of the Rings Online, had found Rift but soon realized that I do not want to play games with monthly subs anymore and was looking forward to playing Guild Wars 2. By now, I am playing Guild Wars 2 and since Rift went f2p, I’ve been playing this game again as well. I got my warrior in Rift to level 54 and only need 6 more levels to reach the current level cap. In Guild Wars 2, I have gotten 3 asura to level 80 (mesmer, warrior, guardian) and added one level 80 sylvari ranger and one level 80 charr engineer to the mix. I have a love-hate relationship with my asura elementalist and just can’t warm up to the other professions, unfortunately. I would love if ArenaNet could release a profession close to the GW1 dervish. I never got her to max level, but I still loved that style! ;)

Some of you have been around for the last three years. Thank you for that! And even more visited at some point in between, of course. I always love receiving comments with your thoughts as that is what I love about blogging the most. And now that I managed switch from talking about our blog to you, our readers, let us continue with the giveaway: We’re going to have two, actually! One will be here and will be open for EU and US GW2 players. The second one is only open for owners of a EU GW2 account (because the code is only valid for those. Sorry!) and can be found in bookahnerk’s blog. Click the images above to jump to the blog posts.

First impressions of “Escape from Lion’s Arch”

I already did this for Origins of Madness. A post about my first impressions that is lacking in words, but rich in pictures. I think it just tells a lot more than I could say or write down here.

Just a few notes: I miss the marionette fight. It wasn’t perfect, but it had some great moments. The platforms allowed for small-scale fights that required a certain and very definite strategy (kite him into his own miiiiines!).

I haven’t talked to that many NPCs yet, but I did notice poor Evon Gnashblade. I still like him, but I have a soft spot for charr. :) What I did see was quite nice and full of flavour. I have also heard lots of others talk about various NPCs and cheer whenever they found them safe in Tyria.

A last look at Lion’s Arch

I know I have already released a post with a screenshot gallery for Lion’s Arch, but for quite some time, I’ve felt it doesn’t do the city enough justice. You can see my character in quite a few of those pictures and I actually don’t like that at all (and am still waiting for the 1st person view. I know it exists already, they just need to make it available for the general player base!). Other than that, I felt that some areas were missing.

Anyway, now or never, I guess? At least, in its current version. We only know that something will happen and Lion’s Arch will not be accessible after tomorrow’s patch. The future of LA is unknown.

Some of the new screenshots still show my character, but this isn’t because I was too incompetent, but instead I felt that some parts of Lion’s Arch are just too pretty to not be featured here, just because I could not take a screenshot of it without my character in it. Did I already say I can’t wait for that 1st person view? ;) When you’re on the ground, /sleep and camera movement can get rid of your character, but that emote does not work under water. So yeah, in those screenshots you can definitely see my asura.

But now, I present to you: Lion’s Arch 1.1 (with the already rebuilt area around the lighthouse which was destroyed during the Karka attack).

Foostival 2014 – coming to a place close(r) to you

You may have already heard about the Foostival that took place last year and maybe you have also already seen the hints and messages about Foostival 2014.  But if you haven’t, I am here to bring you up-to-date on what has been released so far.

So, in case you haven’t heard of any of that before and are now wondering what a “Foostival” is, watch the video below. In short, Foostival 2013 took place in France. Several French fansites had organized this event for players to get together and have some fun! They even managed to drag the French community manager there. :)

For Foostival 2014, the French organizers reached out to other European fansites and invited them to host a Foostival of their own. Unfortunately, while several fansites were interested, finding enough people to organize it and then finding fitting revenues were the most common problems which means that some countries cannot participate. But hopefully next year, guys! However, we are proud to say that Foostival will be organized by fansites from these countries: France, Germany, Romania and Spain are participating! So far, we know that the French Foostival will be in Paris again, just like last year. The German one will take place in one of the most beautiful cities that Germany has, in Hamburg!

Fansites saying Hello Europe – or something like that:

And a look behind the scenes – make sure to turn on the English captions for subtitles.

A few videos have appeared on YouTube. The first three show you some in-game fun:

More details will appear on the official Foostival channels in the days leading up to the Foostival, so be sure to watch those closely: Facebook page, Twitter and Google+