Mesmerising!

Okay, so I withdraw my previous statement. Arenanet are still capable of trolling. The good kind though.


It's also a good feeling when I found I was almost completely off the mark about how the GW2 Mesmer really works. The class is designed to never fight fairly, there is always meant to be something between the mesmer and anything trying to tear them to pieces, be it illusions, conditions or a myriad of other baffling concoctions.

The Reddit AmA Jon Peters hosted was quite enlightening, here are a few of my favourite scraps of information that were teased out:

Mesmer? Mesmer.

Okay, it's confirmed, the Mesmer is the eighth class and Arenanet are not the creators of the biggest troll attempt in modern gaming.

So, before Wednesday rolls around I want to make a few guesses based on that gorgeous (but context-less) trailer.

We see the Mesmer placing AoE spells that either buff or debuff. Kind of a combination of the Necromancer's wells and the original GW1 Mesmer; focused on afflictions and boons. There appear to be more 'utility' type abilities like the teleportation gates too. (It'd be great if we knew just how far apart those gates can be placed.)

But by far my favourite part of the trailer is the doppelgängers. I thought that the eighth class would probably involve pets of some kind - the reason they were working so hard on the Ranger's pets but I hadn't guessed clones. I have a suspicion that this is the Mesmer's unique ability, and allows the Mesmer to equip three different weapon sets, one for themselves and one for each clone. The Mesmer isn't seen to swap weapons in the trailer, so I think they're limited to just one like the Elementalist.

Cross-class combos are going to be a little strange with this class, as the only immediate benefit I can see is massively increased firepower from the clones being directed through a fire wall / poison cloud etc. Then again, the ability to teleport through gates on top of an Elementalist's own teleport skills would increase the range of something like churning earth massively.

Not being much of a PvP player, I'm probably missing the point, but the Mesmer looks to be a harassment and support class, though this is probably but a single aspect of the variety Anet has crammed into every one of their classes.

So, there we go, a brief few guesses that will no doubt be torn to shreds tomorrow.

The Black Sheep of Guild Wars 2

With asura week last month, we were made aware of the unsavoury activities of the Inquest, an asuran super-krewe with dubious morals and ethics willing to burn out young prodigies purely for the progression of science, knowledge, and most importantly: power. In fact, it seems every one of the playable races has an 'evil' or at least morally grey faction.

What’s in a name? - How to Name Your GW2 Characters

Coming up with names for a Tyrian character isn’t all that easy, but with a few pointers, you should be able to craft something that sounds just about right.

Norn are easy as long as you can keep their general theme in mind, with Scandinavian sounding names, maybe throwing in a title to make them sound more intimidating or glorious. Norn are all about forging their own legacy, so they’ll need a name just as impressive as the feats they’re bound to achieve.

M

Ulgrin Olgansson

Naltan the Wary

F

Cuvrad Ulstarn

Glasta the Unscarred

Dilva Gostildottir

M/F

Lonsa Trailwalker

(None of these are genuine Scandinavian names, I just cobbled them together)

Sylvari probably have the some of the easiest names, seeing as they don’t actually need surnames at all. The one name they take however, is Gaelic, or at least sounds as if it is. These names are usually lyrical and involve more vowels than usual, especially ‘ae’ and ‘ih’ sounds. (Anyone actually capable of speaking Gaelic is welcome to correct me on this.)

M

Artan

Duer

Tremain

F

Bidelia

Allene

Eolande

Maili

M/F

Delaine

(These are all Gaelic/Irish names)

Asura have short, one or two syllable names that make extensive use of double letters, with males taking sharp sounding consonants at their end while females taking softer vowel sounds like –i and -a. There’s a little bit of lore about surnames too. Normally they don’t take them; instead opting for more descriptive terms like their job, krewe name (a sort of Asuran taskforce) or even an honorific; these can result in self-important and often overblown titles that feed their inner (and rather substantial) egomaniac. There are a few who, upon encountering other races with surnames, and regularly interacting with them choose to adopt a surname themselves which, while odd by Asura standards is easily overlooked.

M

Heesor, 3^rd Member of the Council for Repurposed Golemancy

Yennk

Truuln

Kaalt

F

Selvaa, Engineer of Repair Crewe #34c

Kiilva

Fallvi

(There isn’t a real-world equivalent for the Asura’s naming scheme, so these were all made up on the fly)

Charr usually have short, brutal and to the point names  and sometimes include a fire motif. There are a few exceptions (Almorra Soulkeeper, leader of the Vigil for one) but as a general rule, that’s how it works. The surname is composed of two words contracted together, one of which is dictated by their warband. All members of the warband will have that word in the same position of their surname; the best known example is Pyre Fierceshot’s warband, who use the surnames Fierceblade, Fiercetongue, Fierceclaw, Fierceheart, Fiercereign, and Fiercejustice respectively.

M

Golvak Direburn

Tangral Scaldridge

Degnar Flashstrike

F

Relva Shadepacer

Kordil Shardeater

(Charr names take a lot of effort to make them sound good. Consider introducing metalworking themed and words with an imposing feel to them to round them out; Doomforge is an awesome name, after all.)

Humans are probably the easiest of all, after all, we know our own naming conditions and with names like Dougal and Logan floating about it isn’t all that difficult to give a Krytan an appropriate name. Most of the nations in Tyria have a real-world analogue, so no matter your human’s ancestry, there should be something appropriate:

Orr = Arabian

Elona = African

Cantha = Asian

Ascalon & Kryta = Western European

(These are easy enough to cobble together with a well-placed Google search, so I won’t post examples.)

So there we have it: a quick guide to creating a name appropriate for any of the five playable races. I’d love to see where this guide gets people, so feel free to post your character names below.

The Guildskipper's Lament

I’ll admit it; I’m not the most active of MMO players. I’ll love blasting through content for about a month... Then drop out. This is one of the reasons I’ve stopped playing subscription games, and also one of the reasons I keep coming back to Guild Wars. It’s kind of refreshing to see all your stuff back where you left it. Kind of like booting up any old save of an RPG you long abandoned.

Obviously this kind of burst-driven activity makes me the first to be removed from a guild roster when the culling season begins. (I’m currently fortunate enough to belong to a guild without said culling tactics, an absolute blessing for me.)

Let me give you a short summary of my experience with guilds in GW.

Guild 1 member: Want to join?

Me: Sure.

Joins guild, plays for a month or so, leaves.

4 months later:

Me: Oh, cool, I’ve still got my cape!

Finds He’s now guild leader with a nigh empty hall and the guild roster is empty, bar one other person who hasn’t logged on for 11 months

Me: Well, crud.

Guild 2 leader: Want to join this guild I founded?

Me: Sure.

Joins, is active for a month, but suddenly, without a word, the leader leaves. PMs Leader.

Me: So why did you leave?

Guild 2 ex-leader: lol bored, in a better guild now. [I’m paraphrasing]

Eventually ends up as leader while people leave. Adds Message of the Day explaining what happened (Since our glorious leader hadn’t) and watches as the guild falls apart.

Guild 3 Leader: Interested in joining?

Me: Sure.

Plays for a month, completing the majority of Nightfall and making friends with most of the alliance during the Dragon Festival.

Logs in 1 month after, cape is gone.

Me: -_-

Fortunately, it’s at this point that I PM one of the guys I knew in the alliance. I hadn’t actually realised he was the leader of his guild; I just knew that he was a nice guy.  So, finally, I got set up in a great guild that supports my play style.

I follow every trickle of news regarding GW2 I can, hoping against hope that this will be the game that finally breaks me of my habit of constantly flitting about. So, when that droplet of news about the guild system fell out of the PAX pipeline, I just sat there for a few seconds. The ability to join several guilds on the same character is something I hadn’t even considered.

Assuming that the alliance I belong to transfers to GW2, they will give me a nice home base to return to whenever I decide I want to play. It also means that I get to socialise with groups that satisfy my various interests, be it a crafting-focussed guild, a guild that specialises in dungeon runs or even somewhere I can chat about game lore.

So, is this a good thing? Well, for me it most certainly is! I always find my interests spreading further apart and it would be very nice to be a part of a system that actually encourages my diversity and can keep up with it.

This has been Chronicler Redthorn, and I like multiple guilds!