Guild Wars, and My Life as a King

Shortly after Guild Wars came out, I created a Ranger/Warrior build that ended up becoming pretty popular since it was somewhat unorthodox. It was specifically used in farming loot from high level monsters in a few areas of the game. One type of monster in particular, the Grawl, became the primary candidate of farming with this build.

In Guild Wars now, each year for a character’s birthday, they are awarded a Miniature of a monster or character from the game. When I first heard about this, I quickly searched for a Grawl, and found there was indeed a Miniature version, but not available through birthday presents. It was a special promo obtainable at PAX (as well as a few other places, magazines, etc.). It was also pretty expensive, since they are pretty rare.

My goal since returning to Guild Wars has been to get myself a Miniature Grawl, and over the weekend, my goal was achieved. It seemed only fitting that Re Zon have one of these, since my entire livelihood in the game has been based upon continually slaying those poor Grawl. Fortunately, despite all of the nerfs/skill changes, the build is still plenty doable, and I was able to save up the money/items I needed fairly quickly. Woot!



Guild Wars is still hording nearly all of my game time, but I have been making time for Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: My Life as a King. I mainly play this after dinner when my wife can watch. I have to say that it definitely has exceeded my expectations – there is a lot more depth than I thought there would be - a story within a story. It’s also a lot prettier than I thought it would actually be, considering it’s a downloaded game.



There’s also (the very evil) Add-Ons you can purchase. So far, I’ve only purchased the additional 3 races (Yuke, Selkie, and Lilty) to add to the initial race (Clavat). It simply isn’t a Crystal Chronicles game without all of the races. Also available for purchase are new buildings, additional dungeons to send your adventurers to, different outfits for Leo, the king, and Chime, his hoochie chancellor.

I have to say that it is almost necessary to use the Nunchuck with this game, as moving Leo around with just Wii Remote is unbearable. I breathed a deep sigh of relief when I tried the Nunchuck and saw how much of a difference it made.

-Zon

Short and Sweet

This is just the quickest of updates, just to get something down on paper. I have been extremely busy as of late, I hope to relay some of those adventures here soon. I was unable to sleep this morning and decided that it was a sign to be productive. The site has been on my mind, especially as of late. I want to discuss so very many things that it has prevented me from writing anything at all. I plan to do some serious cataloging this morning. First the stack of comics on my pool table, then on to my arsenal of video games. The plan is to get around to my DVD and book collection at some point.

Hope to have more to add later today.

duB

Back to Tyria

I have recently been playing Guild Wars on the PC – this game and I go way back (to 2005), where I spent a great deal of my time as part of the GWO community, and met some really great people. Some of those people still play, though some don’t – but most of them are still active on the forums because of the community that was built there. We were a part of it from the very beginning, and shared a lot of laughs while goofing off on the forums instead of working at work. More recently, while browsing those forums (mostly in the Off Topic Forum), I was asked by an old pal, Aretelio, to give the game another shot. Not really being interested, I still gave it a go anyway, and discovered that my year and a half break was just long enough for me to be excited about playing again. There were my characters, just as I left them, patiently waiting for me to log them into the world to hack some monsters. I’ve rejoined the guild I was in (Veritus Invictus), and am in the process of helping to build activity back up again.

I give Guild Wars’ developers a great deal of credit - there are still weekly updates, events every weekend, new content at no charge, and still no monthly subscription fee. They also go out of their way to listen to the community at large, implementing changes in the game, and heading off scams and exploits, from information found on fan sites.

I purchased the expansion, Eye of the North, last week. I’m really impressed with how it’s not just ‘more of the same’ like I thought it would be. They’ve added in an array of new items, titles, buffs and upgrades, as well as customizable Heroes, and I honestly feel like I’m playing a brand new game. The Eye of the North also happens to introduce new races that will playable in the upcoming sequel to Guild Wars, as well as the ability to preserve certain things about your characters, their names and titles, for example. Presently, I don’t have any intention of buying the other two ‘stand alone’ campaigns, but we’ll see what happens after I have thoroughly played Eye of the North.

-Zon


PS – I strongly recommend seeing Iron Man – you are not required to be a fan of Iron Man to understand or enjoy the movie, and I give it my highest recommendation.