11-05-2004, 12:12 AM
My Guild Wars (GW) World Preview Event (WPE) Experience (4 - final)
The third day, no friends were on when I logged on, the sad fate of being at a different time zone. I was determined to find out about the bonus quest, so I hopped over to D'Allesio Seaboard, took the warrior and monk henchmen and entered the first mission...
...and I found it!
There was a village under attack and whenever the party saved a villager, we got a 2% health and energy storage boost. After I saved all five villagers, a named villager had something to say and when I clicked on him, he gave me the bonus quest. He wanted me to bring an offering to an altar, I had no idea where the altar was, so thorough exploration was in order. The offering was held in hand, taking over the weapon readied but I could drop it to use my weapon and then pick it up again after battle. There were four weapon setups F1 to F4, same weapon/shiled/item can be used in more than one setup, so I have the cold wand and shield setup, the chaos wand and +energy off hand item setup, the same chaos wand and same shield setup, etc.
I ran about with "alt" pressed and constantly looked around with the right mouse button, while I didn't spot the altar, I found two chests! I also noticed something about the behaviour of the henchmen, if I "call target" (ctrl + click), the henchmen would engage immediately, the warrior would charge the target, the monk would start to use her default range attack. If I didn't "call target", and use, say, "C" and cast Life Siphon, the henchmen would wait until the enemy was within their awareness range before they respond.
What's so important about this? Well, if I wanted the warrior to engage the enemy where the enemy was, I would call target. If I wanted the battle to be nearer to where I was, say to pull the enemy to a killing zone, I would not call target, I would hit the enemy with a spell to activate it and back off, as long as I time it right, the henchmen would follow me instead of engaging, and then I would either call target or let the henchmen engage by their own awareness when the enemy was in the killing zone.
Some control of henchmen behaviour is good in my book. It'll be better if ArenaNet can implement some henchman control options, say, set the monk to heal priority, res priority, self preserving priority, stay put, etc.
I didn't get far thanks to my l33t navigation skill (not) when a friend came online and asked me where and what I was doing, I explained and he was eager to join. So I used the world map to quit the mission and met up with him at the staging area. We had to progress much into the main quest before we found new area that we hadn't explored, it brought us a long way uphill and the path was filled with big meanies, but we prevailed. We placed the offering on the altar and was rewarded with the completion of the bonus quest, which gave us 1000 exp, woot! It seemed like the bonus quest could be completed without completing the main quest, but we finished off the remaining of the mission anyway.
I had to deal with real life matters so I logged off after that. When I was online again, no friends nor guild mates seemed to be available so I went solo (with warrior and monk henchmen) exploring the area around Farmer's Market, without quite noticing it (because there was no "mist wall), I stumbled upon the Cursed Lands. Boy it was fun there! The enemies were tough, mainly because there were in large group and their social AI made them helped each each other and attacked in a big group. My team got wiped out, I tried again with warrior, ranger and monk henchmen, made slight progress but got wiped again.
Before I could attempt again, a guild member became available and we formed a party. I led him to Captain Greywind, then to Farmer's Market, then we made our way to the Cursed Lands. I know the guild mate is good at strategic planning, so I was glad that he took charge. We still got wiped out though. Meh. We then formed a party with some random players and headed to the Cursed Lands again, made some progress and then got slaughtered. After a few more attempts we finally beaten all the enemies in the Cursed Lands, woohoo!
We proceeded to the next area connected to the Cursed Lands, a battle left only one player alive and two enemies, the player was not a monk and had used his Signet of Ressurection on me, unfortunately I was resurrected in a weakened state and I had no means to heal myself, I tried to run away to heal up but the enemies swarmed me and promptly killed me before I could do anything useful. Meh. The player could not kill either of the enemies alone, nor could the enemies kill him, we watched the battle for a while, encouraging the player, but finally we decided to admit defeat because even if the player could kill the enemies, he could not resurrect the team. It had been a very challenging adventure nevertheless. Fun fun fun.
More guild members were online then and we decided to do the missions together. Since I had been through the first two missions, I let the other lead so I won't spoil their first time experience. I did tell them about the bonus quest in the first mission, but we failed to saved all the villagers in our first attempt. Without all five villagers saved, we did not get the bonus quest, so we quitted and redid it until we got it. But I forgot the way to the altar (ehem, l33t navigation skill) and before I realised it, we were already at the place to end the main mission. My warning was a tad too slow and someone talked to the main mission ender, so we were taken to the cut scene and then to the staging area of the second mission.
In the remaining of Saturday and on Sunday, I did a few more of the coop missions with friends and guild mates: The Wilds, Bloodstone Fen and Aurora Glade. I did not try the final mission, Riverside Province, I would if I had more time. I also didn't find out the other bonus quests except the one in The Wilds. When there was no one available, I explored the area outside Divinity Coast and The Wilds. I remember finding out that the explorable areas were connected, so if I was to start from Northern Kryta Province, I could get to the explorable area outside Divinity Coast through the explorable area that led to Farmer's Market.
I think late Saturday night I reached the maximum level of 20, I looked at my skills and realised I did not use the Earth skills much, so I refunded the points from Earth and redistributed my attribute points to 6 in Blood, 6 in Energy Storage, 12 in Fire and 10 in Water, which used up all the points. The maximum level one can have in any one skill tree was 12.
On Sunday I tried some crafting and got a "flame eye" that gave me +1 to Fire, a set of level 19 gloves and boots. Raw material for crafting was not abundent, after four days of playing, I just obtained (from salvaging) enough cloth to make the gloves and boots, and the material merchant in Lion's Arch was constantly out of stock for cloth. I didn't have enough glistering dust for the "flame eye", I had to purchase from the material merchant, who only buy and sell material in quantity of ten. The asking price for ten glistering dust when I bought the material was 220, the prices fluctuates with supply and demand. After selling off some bones and woods, I had enough money to buy the dust as well as to craft the flame eye. I think raw material drop rate could use some tweaking.
There's a skill trainer at Riverside Province, I bought some more skills and of those I like Immolate and Blurred Vision (enemy has 50% to miss attack). I also use the skill charm to get myself 24 hour use of the Maelstrom skill, a projectile area effect spell that deals damage over time and interrupt casting when hit. Since most of Sunday was spent playing in party, my skill bar changed to mostly area effect spells, I replaced the instant recharge Flare with Immolate, Immolate takes longer to recharge but has the nice setting enemy on fire attribute, and since I was usually in a party of mostly casters, I took on the role of heavy hitter, big spell but slower bombard rate. Well, that and because I had all those new spells that I just could not resist using. :P
Party dynamic was something I enjoyed immensely. When the party warrior called a melee type enemy, I would use "T" and cast the Blurred Vision, if she called caster type, I used Maelstrom. If single pull, I used Life Siphon, Immolate and Water Trident, if multiple, I used Fireball, Maelstrom and Ice Spikes (AoE spells). Trolls in GW are actually quite clever, often they would ignore the warriors and charge the healers and casters, some enemies had smarter AI.
I have enjoyed the WPE immensely, both while in solo play and especially when playing with the guild mates with similar play style, it was such a blast. There are still rooms for improvement, but I can see myself buying this game and enjoying it with a bit of polish of the current state. Currently I am intersted in the PvE aspect of the game, but perhaps after I tried all the missions, explored all the areas, exhausted all the character builds and skill combinations, and went through the PvE with Beyond Naked (the are -life regen items!) characters, (which IMO is already worth the money) I may try the PvP. Or perhaps even sooner than that if the guild is into PvP, so watch out for a naked team with eye catching tabard! :P
The third day, no friends were on when I logged on, the sad fate of being at a different time zone. I was determined to find out about the bonus quest, so I hopped over to D'Allesio Seaboard, took the warrior and monk henchmen and entered the first mission...
...and I found it!
There was a village under attack and whenever the party saved a villager, we got a 2% health and energy storage boost. After I saved all five villagers, a named villager had something to say and when I clicked on him, he gave me the bonus quest. He wanted me to bring an offering to an altar, I had no idea where the altar was, so thorough exploration was in order. The offering was held in hand, taking over the weapon readied but I could drop it to use my weapon and then pick it up again after battle. There were four weapon setups F1 to F4, same weapon/shiled/item can be used in more than one setup, so I have the cold wand and shield setup, the chaos wand and +energy off hand item setup, the same chaos wand and same shield setup, etc.
I ran about with "alt" pressed and constantly looked around with the right mouse button, while I didn't spot the altar, I found two chests! I also noticed something about the behaviour of the henchmen, if I "call target" (ctrl + click), the henchmen would engage immediately, the warrior would charge the target, the monk would start to use her default range attack. If I didn't "call target", and use, say, "C" and cast Life Siphon, the henchmen would wait until the enemy was within their awareness range before they respond.
What's so important about this? Well, if I wanted the warrior to engage the enemy where the enemy was, I would call target. If I wanted the battle to be nearer to where I was, say to pull the enemy to a killing zone, I would not call target, I would hit the enemy with a spell to activate it and back off, as long as I time it right, the henchmen would follow me instead of engaging, and then I would either call target or let the henchmen engage by their own awareness when the enemy was in the killing zone.
Some control of henchmen behaviour is good in my book. It'll be better if ArenaNet can implement some henchman control options, say, set the monk to heal priority, res priority, self preserving priority, stay put, etc.
I didn't get far thanks to my l33t navigation skill (not) when a friend came online and asked me where and what I was doing, I explained and he was eager to join. So I used the world map to quit the mission and met up with him at the staging area. We had to progress much into the main quest before we found new area that we hadn't explored, it brought us a long way uphill and the path was filled with big meanies, but we prevailed. We placed the offering on the altar and was rewarded with the completion of the bonus quest, which gave us 1000 exp, woot! It seemed like the bonus quest could be completed without completing the main quest, but we finished off the remaining of the mission anyway.
I had to deal with real life matters so I logged off after that. When I was online again, no friends nor guild mates seemed to be available so I went solo (with warrior and monk henchmen) exploring the area around Farmer's Market, without quite noticing it (because there was no "mist wall), I stumbled upon the Cursed Lands. Boy it was fun there! The enemies were tough, mainly because there were in large group and their social AI made them helped each each other and attacked in a big group. My team got wiped out, I tried again with warrior, ranger and monk henchmen, made slight progress but got wiped again.
Before I could attempt again, a guild member became available and we formed a party. I led him to Captain Greywind, then to Farmer's Market, then we made our way to the Cursed Lands. I know the guild mate is good at strategic planning, so I was glad that he took charge. We still got wiped out though. Meh. We then formed a party with some random players and headed to the Cursed Lands again, made some progress and then got slaughtered. After a few more attempts we finally beaten all the enemies in the Cursed Lands, woohoo!
We proceeded to the next area connected to the Cursed Lands, a battle left only one player alive and two enemies, the player was not a monk and had used his Signet of Ressurection on me, unfortunately I was resurrected in a weakened state and I had no means to heal myself, I tried to run away to heal up but the enemies swarmed me and promptly killed me before I could do anything useful. Meh. The player could not kill either of the enemies alone, nor could the enemies kill him, we watched the battle for a while, encouraging the player, but finally we decided to admit defeat because even if the player could kill the enemies, he could not resurrect the team. It had been a very challenging adventure nevertheless. Fun fun fun.
More guild members were online then and we decided to do the missions together. Since I had been through the first two missions, I let the other lead so I won't spoil their first time experience. I did tell them about the bonus quest in the first mission, but we failed to saved all the villagers in our first attempt. Without all five villagers saved, we did not get the bonus quest, so we quitted and redid it until we got it. But I forgot the way to the altar (ehem, l33t navigation skill) and before I realised it, we were already at the place to end the main mission. My warning was a tad too slow and someone talked to the main mission ender, so we were taken to the cut scene and then to the staging area of the second mission.
In the remaining of Saturday and on Sunday, I did a few more of the coop missions with friends and guild mates: The Wilds, Bloodstone Fen and Aurora Glade. I did not try the final mission, Riverside Province, I would if I had more time. I also didn't find out the other bonus quests except the one in The Wilds. When there was no one available, I explored the area outside Divinity Coast and The Wilds. I remember finding out that the explorable areas were connected, so if I was to start from Northern Kryta Province, I could get to the explorable area outside Divinity Coast through the explorable area that led to Farmer's Market.
I think late Saturday night I reached the maximum level of 20, I looked at my skills and realised I did not use the Earth skills much, so I refunded the points from Earth and redistributed my attribute points to 6 in Blood, 6 in Energy Storage, 12 in Fire and 10 in Water, which used up all the points. The maximum level one can have in any one skill tree was 12.
On Sunday I tried some crafting and got a "flame eye" that gave me +1 to Fire, a set of level 19 gloves and boots. Raw material for crafting was not abundent, after four days of playing, I just obtained (from salvaging) enough cloth to make the gloves and boots, and the material merchant in Lion's Arch was constantly out of stock for cloth. I didn't have enough glistering dust for the "flame eye", I had to purchase from the material merchant, who only buy and sell material in quantity of ten. The asking price for ten glistering dust when I bought the material was 220, the prices fluctuates with supply and demand. After selling off some bones and woods, I had enough money to buy the dust as well as to craft the flame eye. I think raw material drop rate could use some tweaking.
There's a skill trainer at Riverside Province, I bought some more skills and of those I like Immolate and Blurred Vision (enemy has 50% to miss attack). I also use the skill charm to get myself 24 hour use of the Maelstrom skill, a projectile area effect spell that deals damage over time and interrupt casting when hit. Since most of Sunday was spent playing in party, my skill bar changed to mostly area effect spells, I replaced the instant recharge Flare with Immolate, Immolate takes longer to recharge but has the nice setting enemy on fire attribute, and since I was usually in a party of mostly casters, I took on the role of heavy hitter, big spell but slower bombard rate. Well, that and because I had all those new spells that I just could not resist using. :P
Party dynamic was something I enjoyed immensely. When the party warrior called a melee type enemy, I would use "T" and cast the Blurred Vision, if she called caster type, I used Maelstrom. If single pull, I used Life Siphon, Immolate and Water Trident, if multiple, I used Fireball, Maelstrom and Ice Spikes (AoE spells). Trolls in GW are actually quite clever, often they would ignore the warriors and charge the healers and casters, some enemies had smarter AI.
I have enjoyed the WPE immensely, both while in solo play and especially when playing with the guild mates with similar play style, it was such a blast. There are still rooms for improvement, but I can see myself buying this game and enjoying it with a bit of polish of the current state. Currently I am intersted in the PvE aspect of the game, but perhaps after I tried all the missions, explored all the areas, exhausted all the character builds and skill combinations, and went through the PvE with Beyond Naked (the are -life regen items!) characters, (which IMO is already worth the money) I may try the PvP. Or perhaps even sooner than that if the guild is into PvP, so watch out for a naked team with eye catching tabard! :P
- SoulEdge -
"*burp* too many pots, I need to pee..."
"*burp* too many pots, I need to pee..."