All things GW

[i0niZ]

Im getting the game Monday, plenty of good reviews Im excited to see how she handles :).

[MrBear5587]

Well the game arrived, been playing it all morning and it pwns!

I'm only level 3 atm, and have a bit of an issue regarding the 2nd profession quest.

Firstly, I spoke to Armin Saberlin in the city, and said I wanted to be a Warrior. He then told me to go and speak to Warmaster Grast. I did this, and after doing a couple of mob killings for him, he then told me to go and see Duke Barradin, north of Green hills. I've found his estate, spoken to him and he sent me to kill some monster at his vineyards, and gave me a new spell to assist with this. I've killed this monster, returned to him and he gave me some XP. If I respeak to the duke, he tells me to see Warmaster Grast, and If i speak to warmaster grast he tells me to speak to Duke Barradin. And so on.. I have also gone and respoken to Armin Saberlin (who's blob is on the minimap when I highlight the 2nd profession quest) but he just tells me to see Warmaster Grast, so I can't seem to complete the quest adn sort my 2nd profession out :/

Any help would be great!

[piercehead]

You should try doing all the other 2ndary profession quests first anyway- you'll get the XP, and then don't choose to change your 2ndary when the dialogue comes up.

[Daybreak]

Not to resurrect an old thread, but I finally finished Elona's Reach after an incredible 12 tries, including one extremely fustrating near completion (group got wiped out within sight of the Ghostly hero with the last vision crystal). Now I'm left with Thirsty River. Has anyone ever managed to do all 3 bonuses for them?

Does anybody here still playing the game feel that difficulty ramps up immensely once you hit the Crystal Desert? It seems that the henchmen suddenly become too fragile, and hydras, sand elementals and drakes deal incredible amounts of damage..

[sin-ergy]

^ Not sure about the difficulty. Maybe they want to discourage soloing? Hard to say but yeah I agree the henchmen are ass later on. The bonuses for those missions are just plain nasty. I haven't got around to re-trying them. As always, you need a good balanced party.

[M1h4iL]

Not to resurrect an old thread, but I finally finished Elona's Reach after an incredible 12 tries, including one extremely fustrating near completion (group got wiped out within sight of the Ghostly hero with the last vision crystal). Now I'm left with Thirsty River. Has anyone ever managed to do all 3 bonuses for them?

Does anybody here still playing the game feel that difficulty ramps up immensely once you hit the Crystal Desert? It seems that the henchmen suddenly become too fragile, and hydras, sand elementals and drakes deal incredible amounts of damage..

586136705[/snapback]

Elonas was the hardest of the quests to get ascended imo, also tooke me 15 tries, and eventually after really gettign ****ed off at people aggroing any surrounding mobs, we finally finished it. The other 2 ascending missions were much easier and took no more than 3 tries. The secret is to get a really good group, like with 2 monks, nuker, tank and trapper, too much of one type and you have little chance of passing a mission. The difficulty does go up higher in crystal deserts, but I soon got used to it and missions to follow got harder, in a way but with a good group was quite easy. Underworld and Fissure of Woes can be difficult, once you die you cant respawn and it costs 1 plat to enter, and monsters there are really strong, but have good drops, thats where you get chaos axes and shadow shields/bows and a few more goodies :yes:

Heres a picture of elonas mission, it looks hopeless but the ranger carrying the crystal in the picture was healed by 2 monks, (and being the only target) and we completed it, it was a huge relief too...

[sin-ergy]

^ haha I think our party ended up doing the same thing. One person just grabbed the crystal and made a run for it while being healed. It's almost impossible to kill everything on the way!

[Daybreak]

Its actually possible to kill nearly everything, the team that I made the successful try on managed to nearly do that. Trick seems to be careful aggro management and pulling. With some timing, you can also sidestep most of the patrols. If more than one group of Forgotten engage you at a time though, its GG try again next time :(

[Chad.C]

After 1 million tries at Elonas Reach, finally got it..

Instead of talking the left crystal, we went right first. Aggro Management is so important. Once you have that locked down, its a walk in the park.

Having a good group is a huge essential thou. My group was great. So understanding and kept the team work up..

[dud]

^ haha I think our party ended up doing the same thing.? One person just grabbed the crystal and made a run for it while being healed.? It's almost impossible to kill everything on the way!

586137031[/snapback]

You know, since I got my warrior/ranger, between Troll Unguent, the healing seal, and sprint, some quests have become ridiculously easy.

I made my first female avatar today (and my wife made her seconmalei> one). Tiniest monk ever...even smaller than Gwen in pre-searing. My characters are 18 E/Mo, 15Me/Mo, and 14 W/R...still haven't maxed out any of them ye:D:D

[sin-ergy]

There was an update last night :) I love how they keep adding new quests.

[Daybreak]

Made my first journey into UW today with my guild.. Tough monsters for a warrior, especially the smite bugs. Amazingly enough, ranger trappers seem to do extremely well, my group had one trapper that managed to basically drop groups of bugs with just her traps.

Slightly off-topic, I got myself a new Geforce 6600GT card, but I can't still seem to run at 1280x1024 with the highest details (no AA whatsoever). Anyone has the same card? What's the highest resolution and details you can hit without taking a severe FPS hit?

[dud]

http://guildwar.com/news/gameupdates.html

The most welcome addition to me was how they changed collectors' interface. I would have all the items for a collector and forget which one I wanted them to craft for me. Now there's full descriptions. Also, spider webs no longer look like pink blobs in the inventory.

The new quest in the Eastern Frontier is nice too...adding low level content makes the game much, much more playable for me at low levels.

The new PvP reward system is nice too. You can buy lots of things with the points, and they are present for every character in your account.

I wish they would allow players to have six characters, though, then I could have one of each class. Still haven't played a ranger (for primary, anyway), but I hear necro soul reaping isn't so great.

[dud]

Slightly off-topic, I got myself a new Geforce 6600GT card, but I can't still seem to run at 1280x1024 with the highest details (no AA whatsoever). Anyone has the same card? What's the highest resolution and details you can hit without taking a severe FPS hit?

586142951[/snapback]

http://www.hothardware.com/viewarticle.cfm?articleid=605

This article indicates that it has similar DX9 performance to (sometimes better than) my 9800 pro, and I'm running at highest details like you are, except I'm @1280x960, since my monitor shape is a 4:3 ratio. Yours must be almost square if you're running 1280x1024.

Check and see if customized drivers like Omega Drivers help anything.

[hadiz]

http://guildwar.com/news/gameupdates.html

The most welcome addition to me was how they changed collectors' interface.  I would have all the items for a collector and forget which one I wanted them to craft for me.  Now there's full descriptions.  Also, spider webs no longer look like pink blobs in the inventory.

586142946[/snapback]

I like that as well, and the guide through the breach to piken square was very nice.

[lawtai]

The thirsty river mission took me forever to finish. That was probably the hardest out of the 3 for me to finish with my lvl 20 R/Mo. Always got stuck in bad groups. The doppleganger was rediculously easy though.

[Hidea]

Yea? more hard missions coming up for you then :D

[Powerworks]

I haven't played in over a month (got caught up in job), but I got stuck at the Jungle mission, forget he name of it now, but its the one where you listening to the the two horse(ish) men talk about how they navigate the jungle for a bonus mission...

Guild Wars is fun, that mission is a major pain.

[Raraku]

Wow, so I just finished reading this entire thread and am seriously contemplating buying this game. It's either this or WOW, I really don't know what to choose... I only have enough money for 1 game though so it has to be the right decision. I really loved Diablo 2, but feel that if I don't choose WOW I might be missing out on that "epic" MMORPG feel. I have played one other MMORPG before, SWG, for about a month 1/2, then got pretty bored.. hmmm.. anyone have any suggestions for me?

[dud]

edit: crap double post

Edited July 8, 2005 by Unwonted

[dud]

If SWG bored you, it's probably because, as you are a D2 fan, it requires a lot of grinding. Part of the epic feel of an MMO is the grind, because you get the realism of having to do mundane things as well as slaying dragons. I stress that this is not a bad thing, but it's a price you pay to live inside your character and your virtual world.

Once you have seen the entire world and know everything about it, you lose the connection in your mind that tells you "hey, this is fun to be here!" At that point, it becomes just another game, and the chores associated with MMOs will aggrevate and frustrate you in ways you never dreamed (as it did me).

The fun of Guild Wars is that they focused on making it a game that's fun to play at any point, wether you have time or not. By doing this, they had to sacrifice that epic feel and took your chores away, but they left the fun of doing quests and having wildly different toons and strategies that resemble nobody else's.

I reminisce about my good times in WoW, but I don't miss it. Once the world is explored and the quests are finished, it is no longer fun.

[Raraku]

So if you had to do a comparison of WOW and Guild Wars, or at the very least, say which one is "better" (as difficult as that may be because they're so different) which one would you choose?

I've now read through this entire thread and many other threads as well, and have read reviews on both games from both Gamespot and Gamespy... I still don't know what I'm going to choose. I think because of the money and the fact I really won't have much time to play in the upcoming school year I'm leaning towards GW, then maybe I'll try WOW next summer if I get a chance, but then I read in a review that there's a steep learning curve to GW and it will favour the "hardcore gamers" more than those that don't know too much about MMORPG's (like me, I have played Diablo 2, SWG, and Ragnarok for a very short period of time).

I really like your Sig, by the way. :)

Edit: I don't have any friends that are big into gaming right now either (well I have one but his comp sucks and he can't play this) from what I understand, playing with others is a big part of what makes this game super fun, and I'm concerned it will be hard to find good people online to make friends with, or a good guild to join, meaning I'll be running around on my own a lot and I'll grow bored because I have no one to play with...

Edited July 8, 2005 by Raraku

[Cyrilix]

So if you had to do a comparison of WOW and Guild Wars, or at the very least, say which one is "better" (as difficult as that may be because they're so different) which one would you choose?

I've now read through this entire thread and many other threads as well, and have read reviews on both games from both Gamespot and Gamespy... I still don't know what I'm going to choose. I think because of the money and the fact I really won't have much time to play in the upcoming school year I'm leaning towards GW, then maybe I'll try WOW next summer if I get a chance, but then I read in a review that there's a steep learning curve to GW and it will favour the "hardcore gamers" more than those that don't know too much about MMORPG's (like me, I have played Diablo 2, SWG, and Ragnarok for a very short period of time).

I really like your Sig, by the way. :)

Edit: I don't have any friends that are big into gaming right now either (well I have one but his comp sucks and he can't play this) from what I understand, playing with others is a big part of what makes this game super fun, and I'm concerned it will be hard to find good people online to make friends with, or a good guild to join, meaning I'll be running around on my own a lot and I'll grow bored because I have no one to play with...

586183822[/snapback]

I'd say GW learning curve for basics is about 2 hours.

To learn about the entire system and to get a good feel for all the skills, however, around 10-20 hours, depending on how good you are at getting the hang of things, but honestly, within 2 hours, you should be well on your way to smacking monsters...with a good level of efficiency.

[dud]

Thanks for the sig comment :D

Very, very different. I loved WoW; the ride to 60 was a blast. But at the top, you realize that every character is the same. There's only one to three valid character builds for each class in WoW, so everyone in a class is the same outside of gear.

And the instance runs...yeesh...I would spend nearly an hour looking for a group for Scholomance, Stratholme, or Upper Blackrock Spire, only to spend another 15 minutes flying there on a gryphon (part of the immersion factor--in Guild Wars you just warp to cities). Upon getting to the instance, you'd spend more time waiting for inconsiderate slowpokes or group newcomers ("GET TEH WAROLCK TO SUMMON ME PLZ!!!1! I HAEV TO REPARE MY ARMOR"), then do your three-to-five hour instance run.

That worked great when I was stationed in Korea, but now I'm in America and back with my wife, and her glares at 1:30 in the morning were getting scary (I love you baby! ;)). Compounded with the fact that I was 60 and the instance runs were monotonous, and I'm fairly certain WoW has no future. They haven't added any notable amount of content or fixed many classes or bugs since its release.

I used to argue with people who made the same complaints I make and dream up excuses for an incompetent Blizzard dev team. Compare it side by side with games like EQ2 or any other MMO, and you will see that your $13-15 USD every month put to good use.

But it's beside the point. GW is now my game. I like it, and I love the diversity of classes. I have four characters now with incredibly different play styles; it's like playing a different game every time. There is literally no unviable combination in the dual-class system.

And I have a life now, and I like my quests lasting no more than an hour. My wife even plays with me, and has a blast doing it. She actually developed interest because she doesn't like playing more than an hour or two at a time.

Maybe this clears it up for you...if you're planning on having no life, and you don't mind long instance runs, and the game's slow-moving development team...if you're just planning on hitting 60 and moving on to another game, WoW would be it. It really is a great game, and very immersing, but remember--its future is limited. Perhaps you'll like to have multiple characters, or you won't.

Just wanted to give you and anyone else an informed take on it.

PS: GW runs nicely on my brother-in-law's 2.4GHz pentium and a crappy GeForce FX5200.

[Raraku]

Thanks a lot for the reply again, Unwonted. It sounds like I'm going to go for GW, because even though I really would like to try WOW, I feel that I won't be able to give it the time necessary over the next 2 months to make it worth paying the monthly fees. It will always be there next summer, if I decide that I want to play it then (which I will, as long as I'm not in some sort of circumstance where I can't).

I'm also considering the fact that Diablo 2 was my first RPG and I was absolutely addicted to that game for a solid 2 months, and GW sounds a lot like D2 (though so does WOW in some ways). Still, most people seem to really like it and it is getting great reviews, close to being on par with WOW. Thus, I believe tomorrow I will go and buy GW, and give it a shot and just hope I like it a lot.

I was wondering, would it be possible to play with you sometime? Maybe once I get my character to a decent level, or do you have a low level character that you could play with me with? What about joining the unoffical Neowin guild, Cyrilix? Are you in a guild Unwonted?

Thanks again guys, look forward to playing with you hopefully once I get the game.