The Lost Shores

With the release of the first main content release for Guild Wars 2; this blog gets an update. I'm ready, back from a much-needed break from blogging due to the transfer from work into the third year of university. Now that the blog is back going, I will get as many updates out as possible; the pictures from the previous group of posts will be altered (as promised) along with the addition of the twitter link on the right over the next week things should be back in order. Enough of "my story" and onto the main content of the post; The Lost Shores.

Back for More

Since the release of Guild Wars 2, there has been slow updates coming to this blog. I will be sorting this problem by bringing more and more updates here when I get the time. Guild Wars 2 really is as good as people were saying and it appears to have managed to live up to the hype in many ways, as you can see, the Metacritic score of 93 shows that it is great game in the eyes of the critics. I have read a great deal of the reviews and have generally seen a wide love for the game, however there does appear to be some complaints when it comes to the skills and combat. When looking over the combat and skills systems; it is clear that there are not many different ways it could be done differently which would generally increase quality.

Changes Are Coming

Now that the game is out; it seems that there needs to be some sort of community update on here linking different people together with useful links and news. To do this I have come up with a group of ideas and changes that could be made to improve the community aspects of this blog. What do you guys think? I will be altering the links on the right of the blog as soon as I get time, linking to many of the community projects so people have a centre point for everything the community are getting up to. Maybe add a forum or another form of community gathering as the blog *hopefully* grows.

Guild Wars Lore Joins Twitter

Guild Wars Lore has a Facebook and Google+ page, both of which need to get a little more attention I feel. Up till now, Twitter hasn't had it's own Guild Wars Lore page, but today; that has changed! Feel free to pop over to the Guild Wars Lore Twitter Page and give it a follow for news and updates. There will also be a new link coming on the right of the page soon.

The Countdown: The Official Release

Many of us have been playing for three days now and the final group of people have logged into Guild Wars 2 today. I have created my Norn Warrior "Rhaen Cheris" on "Desolation (EU)" and have been rather casual with my experience with the game. I have generally been exploring Tyria and have touched on many of the elements I felt that I didn't play enough during the beta events and stress tests, this has led to a surprise with the amount of depth in the reward system within structured player vs player.

The Countdown: Release

The Countdown: 1 Day

Less than a day from the release of Guild Wars 2 (for people who have pre-purchased the game) and the excitement rises still. ArenaNet have held another two stress tests which I have managed to completely miss, they were both only an hour long (with minimal extensions). In these tests the epic castle of "Ebonhawke" to the south of Ascalon was accessible, this wasn't an announced addition so was very easy to miss since the stress tests were so short. On the Guild Wars 2 website's news section; ArenaNet have also gave us an update on linking accounts, if you have a Guild Wars 1 account and have not linked it with your Guild Wars 2 account; you are now able to link the accounts using this link: Your Account. With that out of the way, lets get to today's topic - No Subscription Fee, the main and final element of Guild Wars 2 in this countdown.

The Countdown: 2 Days

Only two more days left before we'll be in Tyria! ArenaNet have posted another two posts over on the Guild Wars 2 website. The first detailing how ArenaNet have improved and optimised the performance of the game so far, as well as their plans to improve the performance further after the game has released since they will be able to use the data they receive from players during the opening weeks of the game's release. The other post is regarding the Hall of Monuments, how we get it and other details, read that here. Moving onto today's topic - Personal Story.

The Countdown: 3 Days

With what seems like the final stress test before release over (after being extended by two hours); the long wait for release it coming very nicely to a close. I played for the main four hours, played a good bit of structured player vs player and world vs world. I also made a few new characters. The stress test seemed very near release; the culling of textures and objects was fixed, there was next to no connection issues or lag, the "report bug" button was gone and we were getting our "Hero's Band" accessory in the mail for each character. There were still a few issues however, certain skills in the world vs world maps would teleport the player to the centre of the map, in the water and on many people's cases; the performance could still be improved. All in all, the release is looking good! Right, onto todays topic - The Mystic Forge.

The Countdown: 4 Days

Just four days until the pre-purchase head start release of Guild Wars 2 and the excitement levels are beginning to rise. I cannot wait to be traversing the full map of Tyria, enjoying the new areas never seen in betas and stress tests, feeling the thrill of the huge battles that take place in the world vs world areas and pushing my tactical skills in structured player vs player. Enough of that, we wouldn't want to get too excited. Onto today's topic - World vs World.

The Countdown: 5 Days

Today there is big news; yet ANOTHER stress test will be taking place today. It's another four hour test so we have some time to get some testing done and personally, I've just built a new computer build with a new motherboard, processor, RAM and SSD which I would like to test with the game.

"We will be conducting a stress test tomorrow Tuesday, August 21 from 12:00 Noon PACIFIC Time to 4:00 PM PACIFIC Time.

We will be actively working on the game during the event, so you might experience connectivity problems or discover features that are not working as designed.

Any issues you experience are a result of the rigorous conditions of the stress test, and are in no way representative of the state of the game at launch.

By participating in this stress test, you’re helping us make Guild Wars 2 a better game. Thanks for your cooperation—we’ll see you in-game!"

Again, the characters from beta weekend three and the other stress tests will be kept for this stress test. See you guys in game and lets get onto today's topic - Guilds!

The Countdown: 6 Days

Six days left until the release of Guild Wars 2 and now we are under a week away from the pre-purchase head start. ArenaNet have also released a news post on the Guild Wars 2 website's news section detailing the exact times that the servers will go live based on the Pacific Time they always seem to use called "The Final Countdown". My brother and I have made a plan based on these times on the current time in the UK; the UK is currently in BST (British Summer Time) which is GMT + 1, this means that the servers should be up for 8am. We have decided to get an early night on the friday to get up early on the saturday before the game's release to get on the servers "up to 3 hours prior" to the release time (based on ArenaNet's predictions). Anyway, without further ado; onto today's topic - the skill system.

The Countdown: 7 Days

After a rather hectic and event-filled weekend; I've managed to lose so much time that I was unable to update the blog, apologies! Anyway, getting back on topic, there is not long now until the release of Guild Wars 2. There doesn't appear to have been much news other than a few photos and updates about an ArenaNet bike ride and their visit to GamesCom on the Guild Wars 2 Facebook page. Let's get to today's topic; Huge Bosses!

The Countdown: 8 Days

Here we are, as promised; the second countdown post at eight days until the head start release of Guild Wars 2. Yesterday there was another four hour stress test that I managed to completely missed, I was sat on my computer looking up news, updating this blog and talking to friends and somehow managed to miss the whole thing. I only realised today through the Facebook page that there was a stress test.

The Countdown: 9 Days

Yesterday (again), it was nine days before the release of Guild Wars 2. Everything appears to get getting closer and closer and before we know it we will be enjoying our home instances, exploring the stretches of each map within Tyria, storming stonemist castle in world vs world and carefully selecting which weapon/utility skills for structured player vs player. In this post we will delve into the topic the leveling curve, or the lack of a leveling curve in Guild Wars 2.

The Countdown: 10 Days

Yesterday left our countdown at ten days. Only ten more days until the final release of Guild Wars 2. I wanted to write this up yesterday but I was tied up with a group of things, however I didn't want to leave readers without the entire final ten days before release. I thought that I would post up the top ten features of Guild Wars 2 that I am most looking forward to, going into detail about each feature along with why I believe they are great features. I will try to get either ten and nine posted today and continue from there or get nine and eight done tomorrow to get in time with the countdown. So here we go, starting with Dynamic Events (DEs), one of the key features of Guild Wars 2.

Another Stress Test Today (10th of August)

ArenaNet have posted yet another announcement regarding a stress test today via their Facebook Profile. This stress test will be from 4pm to 8pm PDT. Which is 00:00 - 04:00 (or 12am to 4am) in the UK. I won't say this will be the last time since I thought the last one would be! Let's get back on and enjoy another 4 hours of Guild Wars 2 before release.

"Thank you for all your help in today’s Stress Test!

We will be conducting a Stress Test on Friday, August 10 from 4:00 PM PACIFIC Time to 8:00 PM PACIFIC Time.

REMEMBER: We will be actively working on the game during the event, so you might experience connectivity problems or discover features that are not working as designed. Any issues you experience are a result of the rigorous conditions of the stress test, and are in no way representative of the state of the game at launch. By participating in this stress test, you’re helping us make Guild Wars 2 a better game. Thanks for your cooperation—we’ll see you in-game!

Additional notes:

* Stress Tests are open to those who have PRE-PURCHASED the game.

* Characters will not be wiped for tomorrow's Stress Test.

~RB"

Stress Test Today (9th of August)

Yesterday ArenaNet announced that there will in-fact be another stress test and that it is today! They announced it via their Facebook Profile. Here in the UK it will be running from 20:00 - 00:00 (or 8pm - 12am). Let's get back on the game for what seems to be the final time before release, remember to get your client up-to-date before the event starts.

"We will be conducting a stress test on Thursday, August 9 from 12:00 Noon PACIFIC Time to 4:00 PM PACIFIC Time.

The stress test is open to anyone who has pre-purchased Guild Wars 2.

We will be actively working on the game during the event, so you might experience connectivity problems or discover features that are not working as designed. Any issues you experience are a result of the rigorous conditions of the stress test, and are in no way representative of the state of the game at launch. By participating in this stress test, you’re helping us make Guild Wars 2 a better game. Thanks for your cooperation—we’ll see you in-game! ~RB2"

Lore: The Birth of the World

"Remnants of the past lay scattered within forgotten lands, reminding those living of what their world has endured over the past thousand years. Those who seek to preserve this history know full well the power of this knowledge. An understanding of the past breeds an understanding of the present, as it is not uncommon in this world for long forgotten evils to arise once more and terrorize those that have ceased to remember."

A Solution to the Heart Event Problem

Through playing the beta events and listening to the feedback (especially through a recent video posted by WoodenPotatoes) it had come to my attention that there was a general problem with the Heart Event system in Guild Wars 2. I will start here by explaining the problem at hand along with several solution ideas I have read/heard filtering around the community before giving a suggestion myself.

New Mini-Series

I thought, since this is a "Guild Wars Lore" blog about the lore of Guild Wars; that I would start up a new mini series. This series will consist of blogs detailing specific elements of the game, I thought it would be enjoyable for me to learn all the smaller elements of the game as well as the chance to get the readers involved. I'll be posting potential topics for this series on the Guild Wars Lore Facebook and Google+ pages and I'll sit back and let the community/readers decide. This could take a while to get running since this blog is fresh, but I'm working on it. Look out for "Lore:" posts for the start of the new mini-series.

Hall of Monuments

I'm sure we all know what the Hall of Monuments is by now, but for those of you that don't; it's a system where all of your achievements in the form of story completion, gathering of mini-pets, obtaining and armouring of heroes and the acquiring of titles you (may have) got while playing the original Guild Wars will all give you cosmetic items or titles in Guild Wars 2. I write this now due to a recent blog post by ArenaNet showing off some of the items you'll be able to get as Hall of Monuments rewards. There are links at the end of this post to the blog post and a YouTube video by ArenaNet showing off some of the items in-game in case you haven't been able to see them.

I have been playing a great deal of Guild Wars in an attempt to build up as many HoM points as possible before the release of Guild Wars 2, and with only 23 days left (with 3 day head start) till the game is released; I'm feeling rather rushed. You can see how many points you have built up over the course of your Guild Wars game time by heading over to the Guild Wars 2 Hall of Monuments Calculator.

Social Networking

Here we are, in the era of social networking and up to now I have simply been posting the story of Andru Rhaelis with a selection of news posts on here without building any sort of community or getting any interaction with readers. Let's change that, let's get some interaction and a community going. I've got a Guild Wars Lore page on both Facebook and Google+ running, this will hopefully be where the reader interaction will come from. You may have noticed the new Facebook and Google+ links on the right hand side of the blog, these (of course) link to the Guild Wars Lore pages on the corresponding social network. So if you like this blog, view it a fair amount or simply would like to hear updates on what has been posted and what will be coming soon, like, +1, follow and enjoy!

Final Beta Weekend Event: Impressions

Now that all of the Guild Wars 2 beta weekend events are over; I thought I would collect my thoughts together within a single post. This will outline what I generally enjoyed about the beta, I'll be breaking down my thoughts into the three distinct sections of the game; Player vs Environment (PvE), Structured Player vs Player (PvP) and World vs World (WvW). This will allow me to collect my thought and feelings more specifically regarding the core elements and design.

A Kingdom in Despair: Fort Ranik

The ground beneath my feet began to rumble, quietly at first, so quite that you wondered whether you heard it at all. It gathered volume all too soon however, until it was almost deafening. Immense crystals began to fall from the vast blue sky, they looked beautiful from a distance, like blue-green rain. When they began to crash down it was all too apparent that rain, and whatever foul sorcery conjured this, was completely incommensurable. Where rain brought life for crops, these brought only death, chaotic, meaningless, and seemingly without end. The walls of Ascalon, walls that had stood for hundreds of human lifetimes, started to crumble and crack like old dry paper.

A Kingdom in Despair: The Searing

"The last day dawns on the Kingdom of Ascalon. It arrives with no fanfare, no tolling of alarms. Those who will remember, will speak fondly of the warm morning breeze. People carry on with their daily lives, unaware that in a short while . . . Everything they have ever known will come to an end."

Andru Rhaelis

I am Andru Rhaelis, son of Kaileb Rhaelis of Ascalon. I was born in Rin, the capital city of Ascalon but moved to Ascalon City as I grew up. At 16 years of age I joined the Ascalon army, they needed all the help they could get with the heat of the Guild Wars constantly hitting our lands with full force. One of my main tasks was to patrol Ascalon City and the Great Northern Wall to keep any threat from breaching the wall. My parents didn't like the choice I had made and it was worse for them when my twin sister and only other sibling Lania followed in my footsteps and joined the defence force of Ascalon. It was from that point forward that I swore to protect my sister.

The Final Wait

The beta is over and the wait begins, now comes the days where the withdraw from the game starts to feel as if something is missing. Looking on the bright side; we have only 32 days left till the release of the game so it wont be long until we are back in Divinitys Reach checking the trading post for Masterwork items, stood playing with the dyes you have unlocked through unidentified dye loot drops and enjoying the true variety and alive feeling of dynamic events.

The Beta is Almost Here

The wait is almost over, it is a matter of hours before the start of the final Guild War 2 beta weekend event and I'm sure there are there are thousands, hundreds of thousands of players who have their Beta keys. They'll have the client ready, fully updated and be counting down the seconds before the event. Let's have a great time this weekend and attempt to pick up on all of the final issues in order to get the game in the best shape possible before it's release on the 28th (25th for us pre-purchase people).

Lack of Graphics

This post is regarding the major lack of pictures I have used in the blog so far, I want to bring it to life with rich content which will allow readers to engage further with what they are reading. I feel, as a start I will set a rule that every blog post will HAVE to have a picture with a template border I will create for the next blog post. I aim to go back through all of the current posts and add the picture to all of them.

Changes Since Beta Weekend 2

Yesterday, ArenaNet posted a blog containing the new additions and changes since the second beta weekend event. Here is a quick list of the major changes:

• The ability to play as both Asura and Sylvari,
• New explorable map area named "Brisban Wildlands",
• The first mini-game within beta "Keg Brawl",
• All new game element "Vistas",
• New PvP map "Legacy of the Foefire",
• Changes, such as turrets added to World Vs World, and
• Fully open Gem Store (Gems will be refreshed at release).

There is also a reminder that all character data will be deleted before and after this beta. ArenaNet will be streaming gameplay from their channel on Twitch.tv (links below). A final addition I would like to add is that the client that will be used for this beta will be updated further to become the full game so do NOT delete the beta client after this beta as you will have to re-download many of the same files for the full release of the game.

Links;

ArenaNet blog post "What’s New in the Final Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event",
ArenaNet's Twitch.tv channel

Lore: Tyria's History

The old gods had decided it was time. Almost three thousand years before our hero was born, they opened the rift; a magical gate allowing a race of intelligent serpents to reach the lands of Tyria. The serpents were given the task of guiding the many races of the land through this transition of time while the gods continued to create the world. The serpents, now protectors of the land allowed the races of Tyria to enjoy a life without worry. They thrived under the protection of the serpents and learned much valuable knowledge.

The Final Beta Weekend Event Before Release

The Final Beta Weekend has been announced while I was on holiday, it was a good job I had a decent 3G connection, a smartphone and an obsession with checking the official ArenaNet Guild Wars 2 blog on a daily basis. Not only was I happily surprised to hear how close the beta was; I was also massively excited by the announcement that we could play as all five races for the first time within the final beta, what a send-off!

Away on Holiday

Here I am, back from a week's holiday and ready to get on with filling this space with content for all to read. I plan to get all of the lead-up content written and published here before the end of the week, hopefully sooner. I will start by writing the backstory for the character I have created which will contain a (hopefully lore correct) story of the coming of age of "Andru Rhaelis", his introduction to combat and motivation for participating in the story to follow. I'll then be reading around the history of Guild Wars and I'll get a post written on here containing an explanation of the lead-up to the start of the game. Once I've set the scene, so to speak; I will get stuck into the start of the game and the part of the story that sets the ball rolling in Guild Wars, which is the Searing of Ascalon.

And so it Begins

The first areas of the game have been started, information regarding the start of the game for the my character "Andru Rhaelis" has begun. Finally I am able to start getting this blog going. Hopefully it will be a success and people will be able to read the whole Guild Wars story from Prophesies to Eye of the North (And Beyond). Dependant on the success of this blog; I may even start Guild Wars 2 with the same character, this will also allow me to create a personal story for the character within Guild Wars 2.

Apologies for the Delay

Hello again and sorry for the delay in starting the blog. I don't want to give some group of bad excuses but I have been very busy and haven't managed to play Guild Wars and therefore haven't been able to collect the required information in order to post anything on here at all. However, since the release of Guild Wars 2 has been announced as the 28th of August; I have a time limit on this project. The rush begins now, I have till the 25th of August (due to the pre-order 3 day head-start bonus) to get Guild Wars and all it's expansion campaigns done while paying special attention to the story and lore elements.

The Plan for this Blog

Since ArenaNet announced that they were developing a sequel to the Guild Wars franchise; I have been excited to find out what they might add to the MMORPG genre and how they would alter the base concepts to make their game different to other games in the genre. They have written blog posts containing quotes such as "game companies don’t have to just keep making the same games over and over" and "It doesn’t suck your life away and force you onto a grinding treadmill" both of which have killed current MMOs for me, especially World of Warcraft. I have been reading the blogposts, watching the videos and generally browsing for new information regarding the game and am now really looking forward to the release of Guild Wars 2. I have been generally learning about all of the different aspects of Guild Wars 2 so that I will be ready and nicely hyped for the release of the game.