Thoughts on Thoughts

Asuran NPCs don’t heal other Asuran NPCs when they are down.  I’ve seen charr and humans do it, but asurans don’t.  One less krewe member to compete with or pay?  Kinda ruthless asuran are.  Do Norn or Sylvari NPCs heal other NPCs?  I haven’t been in the Shiverpeaks or The Grove too much so I don’t know.

A wet pancake sounds better than my LCD screen speakers, so I finally decided to plug in my nice head phones.  Oh auditory nirvana!  Did you know the mesmer wand cast has a sound and the energy bolt as it travels?  The music plus the sound effects…what I’ve been missing!  If you don’t have good speakers, plug in headphones when you play, it will be an amazing experience.  But turn off the back ground chatter in Divinity’s Reach…to much moaning.  What’s with that? 

Have you noticed the engineer and warrior shoot rifles differently?  Engineers shoot from the hip, a very “commando” style.  Add a monocle to the character and it’s pretty sweet.  The warrior shoots by aiming the rifle.  They will bring it up to eye level, aim and shoot.  Warriors are trained in arms, precision is important to them. Engineers are trying to just control their overpowered micro-cannon. Pretty awesome ANet gives that feel through the animations.  

Speaking of animations, the charr need a different dance ANet. Please!  Mauri dances are amazing but only when added to the loud voice accompaniment.  Without the shouting it just looks...stompy.

The only other MMO I've ever played was WoW and I came in during Wrath of the Lich King and left after Cataclysm.  To be honest, I'm glad I left it all, it had become a tedium, but I do miss one thing most - the machinima.  "Who's the Tank", "Balad of the Noob", Oxhorn's "Inventing Swear Words", any of Cranius' or Greyfoo's videos, "Blind" and WoW Credor vids were all amazingly entertaining and added a unique dimension to the game outside of the game.  GW2 needs machinima.  It needs the emotes that help make it and/or the tools to create it.  The creative opportunities are just plain limitless.

If you are feeling rather pluckish toward annoying kids, go to Taigan Groves, east of Hoelbrak.  Grab a snowball and start chuckin', it's theraputic.


There is a prison at the bottom of Rata Sum.  I do not want to spoil it but the prisoners are hilariously funny, from talking bears to invisible chickens to catching stupid.  Just go there, you'll be glad you did.

I have very little understanding of guild Wars lore.  It's taken some reading on the wikis to get a feel for it.  The I ran across Wooden Potatoes' You Tube videos.   These videos explain how Tyria's history created the situations that currently exist in the game.  They are easy to watch, quite coherent,  have many "Aha!" moments and gave me an excellent link to Tyria's past.  There are currently 5 videos with more on the way.  

One more lore plug - Project Tyria. by Alucardalina Claire.  The blog is a visual exposé of Tyrian landmarks and cities and their how they have changed over the past 250 years.  Each picture compares a screenshot from GW1 with one from GW2.  It is an amazing compilation that brings to life visually connects past and present Tyria.       


Grawl are the walking comic relief of Tyria.  Best grawl dynamic event is by Balthazar's old statue (Deadgod's Lair POI).  Some grawl are going to complete a ritual to honor Badazar.  Jumping grawl on the attack yelling "Badazar!"  I was in stitches.

Speaking of Grawl, where is the meme "Its so easy, even a Grawl can do it."

See you in Tyria!

Reason #6 Why I Love Engineers

Big Ol' Bomb

The drakes expression is just priceless.

Do you really need any other reason?

See you in Tyria!

Centaur Barbers or Having fun with glitches.

There is fun glitch in the cutscenes right now. Some characters have no hair. I'm talking Kojak bald. So as reason would dictate, I had a little fun with the scene.

Now if I can just get a shot of Thackery bald. Ho, ho that would be funny.

See you in Tyria!

 

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LEEROY BLUES and the amazing Afro.

I was up late and in a tired & goofy mood, the kind wherein you laugh at most everything especially if it's not normally funny. During this moment I got a crazy idea. I booted up GW2 and attempted to make the most bombastic character I could come up with. I started plunking around and remembered the afro hairstyle for the humans. Oh yeah! So an elementalist with an afro, a "Village People" mustache and horribly colored suit. Ladies and Gents, I present...

You know you love him.

After the starter area, I start running around Shaemoor attacking things and then victory dancing while saying, "Yes, I am all that!". It got so funny I had two lady elementalists follow me and laugh at with me as we removed an invading flock of harpies from the dam. Amidst all the goofiness I noticed the hair animations and i must say i'm pretty impressed. The afro sways, extends backward as I ran, bounces with jumps and stretches when I fell. Oh and when I say stretches, I'm talking Marge Simpson hair. Look at this!

Now when Leeroy busts out dancing he puts on some serious grooves! I kept thinking Dance-Dance Revolution for some reason as I watched him break it down in front of Dwana's statue. I think the outrageousness of it all just made me laugh hard.

I think it would be a good thing for everyone to have a "joke" character. Something that really is a total toon. They can be so much fun since they stick out like sore thumbs.

I'll leave with this final shot. I was experimenting with different camera angles for screen shots and I like how this one turned out.

P.S. yes I did run around yelling "LEEROY!" then diving into combat.

See you in Tyria!

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FLAMING SWORD of DEATH!!! or why I love elementalists.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have to give a heartfelt thanks to our brothers and sisters of the elemental persuasion.  I know they wear few articles of clothing, something about keeping in tune with their elemental nature or some hippie stuff like that, and sometimes they smell like burnt fur - sorry charr bros, its true and by Smolders left eye it stinks!  And it is funny to see a flaming lettuce head running for the water.  Why doesn't he just "attune" himself to water and put it out?  I don't know.  But in spite of all that small stuff you all are so important to me.  You know how to treat me right, you know with the combo fields and boons, but there is one thing above all that just really tells me you love me...

FLAMING SWORDS OF DEATH!!!!!!!

To savor the full awesomeness of this picture please click.

You all are AWESOME!!!! Right here bro, c'mon.  Gimme a hug.  I love you man, I do. /sniff.

Sincerely,

Expiatus

When Plastic Spiders Attack!

I'm working a late shift all week, 10:00pm to 6:00am.  Uhg is the best way to describe it.  Nevertheless, I get a moment or two to pop in and see what is going on in Tyria to celebrate Halloween.  Oh boy was I in for a treat!

Have daggers, will carve.

As I started wandering around Shaemoor with Zinjin, he's site seeing right now, I come across a pumpkin.  I can interact with it? Ok.  I hit "F" and Zinjin carves it with exquisite flipping  ninja like style.  Well that was fun and my sons got a kick out of it.  So I start wandering around toward the garrison so I can pick up a skill point or two in that area.  As I'm wading through the river area I spot some ore nodes on the map.  Off  I go to mine when I discover candy corn! 

Too much mining can contribute to tooth decay.

You can mine candy corn and it gives you candy.  If you eat the candy you get a 10% speed boost called sugar rush for about 5 seconds.  After the boon wears off, you get a sugar crash which reduces speed by 50%.  The debuff wears off in about 5 seconds or you can eat more candy to kick in another sugar rush.

Obviously creepy door that must be investigated. 

I get my two skill points, help out the Seraph and then I see an erie looking door in the middle of a field.  Spooky looking door, obviously in the wrong place, sure to have something sinister behind it...LET'S CHECK THIS OUT!  BUT, it vanishes before I can get to it.  Grrr.  So now I'm really curious as to what that door holds and then my keen eye boys spot one in the distance.  I run across the lumber yard, dive in to the water, swim as fast as I can all the time with one of my sons finger hover over the screen shot button.

plastic spider - "Made in Cantha"

I get to the door and open it.  The inside just looks like an odd spacey scene but before I can fully view it something jumps out at me.  A plastic spider attacks me!  Yes you read that correctly, a plastic spider.  Okay, having a large spider attack you is creepy enough, have a large toy spider is just shivers creepy!  For a 40 minute stint of play it was full of surprises, but can Anet offer more?  You bet they can!

Okay, what exactly is thick air?

Well, well, well.  Look who is hanging around the graveyard in Shaemoor, next to the Grenth priest no less.  I spoke with this spook but just got what you see in the screen shot.  The GW2 wiki lists some dialogue I did not see, reference here.  Maybe I need to be a higher level.  Either way I think I need to visit Lion's Arch and do some investigating.  Halloween is going to be fun in Tyria. 

I just want to make one final observation.  I was not driven/guided to any of these things I just wrote about.  No NPC said, "You must go here and talk to person X, blah, blah blah." in an effort to get me to do anything halloween related.  I just let my curiosity take over and it led to some fun moments.  :)

See you in Tyria!


Burning Charr is Burning

A Sunday funny courtesy of my 13 year old son.

Dance Dance Tyria

Oh the videos are rollin' out! Interestingly one of the things I remember most about GW1 was the dance videos. Watching 30, 40, 50, people dancing in unison to techno was amazing.  How is this done?  Have everyone type "/dance *" then hit enter about the same time; the world server will sync everyone up.  So lest continue the dance tradition with a few videos.

Starting off is Starfleet Dental's dance video. I have to say I'm very impressed with the editing. To switch scenes yet keep the foot work in sync without any gapping takes time and good eye. I would have picked different music but that is just personal taste.

Here is Gangnam Style by Censtudios.  I really enjoyed watching this dance video.  Good locations, lots of sweeping camera passes, and just enough effects in sync with the music beat to spice things up. 

Now just because it is cool, a trio of Asuran sync dancing created by Gold Bro Studios.  It is a simple, straight-up dance video with some good music.  As I said, it's not fancy but getting to see a triple dose of Asuran poppin' & lockin' is choice.

Next up is NoX Oil Dance! by the guild Norse Oil eXpedition.  Though the camera work is very simple, it's a great example of how organized group dancing in a formation can look great.  Oh, did I mention they organized the dance ad hoc during a stress test?  Good stuff.

I hope you enjoy the videos.  I'm going to keep my eyes open for more amazing ones and will post more as I find them.  If you see any, drop my a line or post the ady in the comments section. 

Now all we need is an intese, Charr rock video and all will be right in the world. 

Enjoy!

 

Unanswered GW2 Questions...

How do Charr take baths?

How do Norn women shave? Why DON'T some Norn men shave...

Do unattractive mesmers have a skill called "Inebriated Vision"? Do they learn it from the local tavern goers, Han Ekin or Bud Miller?

What happens when Sylvari drink Miracle-Gro?

Do the Charr Legions have to do random drug tests on war bands for catnip abuse?

Is a narcissists favorite class the Mesmer?

If you kill a Sylvari is it classified as homicide or herbicide?

How bad is charr morning hair?

Did the great camel spirit blesse Norn women with sufficient fatty deposits so they could endure harsh environments on little food and water?

If a zombie eats a Sylvari, is it eating vegitarian?

How does a moose drop a magical rifle? What is it doing with a rifle anyway? Hunting Norn?

What is the ground speed velocity of an unladen Moa bird?

 

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Because Nerdy Bookahs inspires me

I was reading Nerdy Bookahs and I just felt the need to promote some good wholesome Asura snark.

It took me a good 30 minutes to find a picture with that perfect near condesending look? I had to screen cap it from a video, but it works great.

 

I'd seen this one a long time ago and decided to recreate it.

 

Okay, not a snarky picture but I thought about what an Asuran paper lab ad might look like and came up with this.

 

I must say, those lil' buggers have really grown on me.

Enjoy!

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Asura progeny "Yo Mama" jokes.

If you didn't have a good enough reason to play an Asuran, you do now. 

 

And if I may offer a humble contribution - 

Yo mama's IQ is so low, when I told her "pi-r-squared" she replied, "No, they're round."

Look out Ash Legion!

Lion's Arch does not approve...