On October 20th 2012, gamers from around the globe can show just how powerful an online gaming community really is.
Back for another year of fighting Breast Cancer, Gamer’s Giving Back and the Gaming World Entertainment Network is proud to once again host Pink Day in LA, an online event bringing the Guild Wars community together to raise Breast Cancer awareness and donations for the Canadian Cancer Society.
And by LA, we mean Lion’s Arch!
The best way to get in on the action is to be sure to tune into the Gaming World Entertainment Network as a lot of great prizes will be given out over the course of the 6-hour event. You can even listen directly on the GW-EN website!
Back when I played another popular MMO, I remember moving the entire 25GB+ folder to an external hard drive and playing it from other computers around the house without reinstalling the game. After coming across this Reddit posting today by Neurogasm I decided to give it another go, this time with Guild Wars 2.
In the posting, Neuro reported that while the game was generally playable, he had these few comments overall:
The game did take a minute to load in heavily populated areas.
The auction house worked fine.
Crafting took some slowing down (I experienced delays while clicking the qty arrows) so I accidentally crafted more items than I wanted at times.
The mystic forge worked fine.
Combat was ok but I was only able to really do heart tasks and not take part in any large group activities.
I suspect that the video card, if upgraded, would boost the performance off of the flash drive but that will never happen.
I tried my hand at running the game from a flash drive with a USB 3.0 connection and got significantly better results. One thing I noticed was that combat was the slowest process, but I didn’t die at all. It was just a few steps below running the game normally. While I did have a good time with my 3.0 connection, I would suggest installing the game properly whenever possible.
Warning spoilers ahead! This week Wormwood and I discuss our joys and frustrations with the personal story and share a couple of interesting events that we discovered in the world. Enjoy!
We here at Guild Wars Insider have tested Guild Wars 2 on Windows 8 in two different setups: One with an ATi/AMD graphics card and one using the GPU-on-chip Intel HD graphics. Both Windows 8 machines ran Guild Wars 2 with zero complaint right out of the box. We also noticed no discernible performance hit from switching over to Windows 8 from Windows 7. When Microsoft’s new operating system is dropped on October 26th, you can upgrade knowing that problems will be few and far between.
Keep in mind, though, that Guild Wars 2 will NOT run on devices such as the upcoming Microsoft Surface with Windows RT tablet. For those that don’t know, Windows RT is a version of Windows 8 that runs on ARM processors, the type found in your smartphone, or current iPad or Android tablet. Personal computers use a processor architecture called x86 that will run standard Windows 8 and Windows 8 Pro.
For those of you looking to purchase one of the upcoming x86-based Windows 8 tablets such as the Microsoft Surface Pro or the Samsung ATIV Smart PC Pro, we can confirm that Guild Wars 2 will be playable on those devices. Our machine with the Intel HD Graphics integrated GPU averaged frame rates in the mid-20′s on low settings at 1280×720, and the Intel HD Graphics 4000 in both of those devices is significantly more powerful. For those looking at other x86 tablets, we would suggest staying away from ones with Intel Atom processors and opt for ones with at least a Pentium G Series or a Core i3 and up.
Contrary to what some might think, the graveyard zerg is not a tactic. The repeated runs from a waypoint after dying to continue chipping away at a boss is really about players cheesing the encounter.
Despite the repair costs associated with it, the graveyard zerg is such a no-brainer that players never get around to looking at real dungeon tactics like coordination and teamwork. Sure, it works – eventually – but taking down difficult challenges as part of a coordinated team is so much more satisfying, no?
So how can other players serve our nefarious necromantic purposes better? For starters, start thinking like a puppet master and take off your DPS blinkers! Why get our hands dirty when we can have others help get the job done with a little “support”? We’ve looked at our control abilities previously; this week, we’ll run through what we can do in support of our minions teammates in my little GW2 dungeon guide for necromancers, so that no one in your 5-man squad has to resort to cheese.
If you have been wondering, “Whats for dinner?”, there is a great player created page on the official Guild Wars Wiki that will help you in your decision. Acromir has compiled a comprehensive list of useful food that is sorted by level and categorized by specific buffs received by the player.
The page has all foods listed on the Chef wiki page that provide a significant buff. It is interesting to see how groups of foods provide different effects; such as: pizzas are good for increasing condition duration and damage, while salads are great for swiftness.
Halloween is around the corner and whispers on the autumn wind are beginning to be heard throughout Tyria. As the leaves begin to change color, more information is being released on the upcoming events. The most disturbing rumor is the return of the Mad King! It is just an old folktale, but we are asked if dare to find out the source of the strange energies that are rising under the autumn moon.
500 years ago, a tyrannical Krytan king was slain by his own people, those who had suffered greatly during his reign of lunacy. It is said that this king’s body was chopped into pieces, and his spirit was banished to the Underworld, but that he can return to the mortal realm for just one day a year: on Halloween.
In case you weren’t aware, there is an open source project named GW2Spidy which documents and reports on the prices and item volumes found in Guild Wars 2′s Trading Post. Well, they just took it to another level by releasing a Public API that allows you to access the data that they have collected. While still being developed for additional features, here is a list of things that it can currently do:
Pretty good start, don’t you think? In addition to what is listed above, the coder behind the project had to offer this little coming soon advert to his reddit post.
The first next major feature for GW2Spidy will be the possibility to login and maintain a personal favorite/watchlist and of course the follow up feature will be an RSS Feed and/or some other ways of recieving notifications when your selected items drop below a certain price
To read more on the project, go visit its site on Github.com
We here at Guild Wars Insider never cease to be amazed at some of the crazy, hilarious, and wonderful things that people put up on the web. In today’s video round up we start off with a Good Guy moment where a player in WvW runs to the enemy castle and sets off a ton of fireworks:
Once again, I’ve thought it prudent to pull together some of the best threads from the Official forums for us thieves, as a sort of side dish to Thief Thursday. This week, we’ve got complaints, data and a bit of fun.
After the nerf of Pistol Whip by 15%, many Thieves seem worried that we are becoming the punching bag or scapegoat for class nerfs. I’m not sure that this is true, but it has sparked an interesting discussion of Backstab as a kind of line in the sand. There are people on either side of the issue throughout this six page thread, but it is worth a read and a think.
Speaking of the nerf to Pistol Whip, someone actually went out and did the testing, proving that the auto-attack for the Sword now does more damage than the dual skill. Now, I think that this is okay, since you’ve still got the Daze associated with Pistol Whip, not to mention the often ignored evade, but it is nice to see some raw data behind this debate.
Didn’t even think of this utility. Granted, I don’t play a ton of sPvP, but this is a good case for you that do to consider having Shadow Trap on your utility bar.
On October 20th 2012, gamers from around the globe can show just how powerful an online gaming community really is.
