New podcast every 7.5 days

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By ShaunNox on September 14, 2011

 

It’s been a busy month in the world of Guild Wars 2 podcasts, with 4 new efforts emerging. Feast your ears upon the voices of fellow fans!

  • August 8th: Guild Wars Reporter posts its first Guild Wars 2 podcast, covering dungeons, PAX Prime, engineers and underwater combat, then speculating on the final profession.
  • August 13th: The Lonely Asura‘s first episode begins with an in-character skit, then continue with a conventional conversational podcast. There’s a huge cast of hosts on this one. You can hear their hearts thumping as talk of races turned into talk of racism.
  • August 30th: Guild Wars Insider welcomes Tigerfeet in their inaugural episode, covering a massive amount of news with high quality audio and a funny host.
  • September 1st: GuildCast returns after almost 2 months for episode 49, with Rubi’s experience at PAX and the new sylvari as the centrepiece.
  • September 7th: Tales of Tyria, from the producer of the 80-episode-strong Tales of Heroes, puts out a call for co-hosts and guests.

My favourite podcast, Relics of Orr, is on hiatus. It burnt out after 42 episodes, but there’s still life beneath the ashes, waiting for the moment to wriggle and unfurl its fresh new leaves.

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Asura Ranger by k-atrina

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By ShaunNox on August 25, 2011

Jus’ ‘coz…


Asura Ranger by *k-atrina on deviantART

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Move over Mindclaw

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By ShaunNox on August 9, 2011

I made a new page for Halucien, a sylvari mesmer, after seeing the sylvari redesign. I’m not just going with the masses on this one… I genuinely like the idea of a fragile,  root-y illusion spinner. Sorry Mindclaw and Thorn!

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Release date poll trends

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By ShaunNox on July 13, 2011

When will the game get released? It’s the question that’s been asked every 3 months in a Guild Wars 2 Guru forum poll. I’ve collected the data with minimal fudgery (the timeframes offered as poll options have changed with each poll) and presented it as a proportional, stacked area chart over time.

Conclusion:

In the first poll, opinion was scattered as we had very little information on the game. As time progressed, few people believed it was 3 months away, but many believed it was 9 months to 1 year away.

April’s poll this year showed people were optimistic, with a rise in 3-month and 6-month predictions.

The current polling period is almost complete, and it shows a decline in 6-month predictions, in favour of 9-months and 1-year. So we’re over the hump and back to what we thought before – but now with a few extra 1-year-ers.

Personally, I have a feeling it will be Q2 2012 – so at this point in time, I’m following the trend amongst forumgoers. We’ve got a long way to go yet.

Then again, I’m not a statistician, and I don’t work at ArenaNet.

 

 

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Keyword Questions

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By ShaunNox on July 3, 2011

sylvari redesign

It was a joke. And now it’s my #1 search query.

any ideas when gw2 comes out

We know Guild Wars 2 is in closed beta for testing. ArenaNet are adamant about their “iterative” design philosophy, which means that they constantly revisit old work and improve it. I hope there will be a release date announcement at PAX this year, possibly along with open beta invitations, and that the release date will be early-mid 2012.

war in kryta “running around”

Yep, that’s how I feel about it too.

arenanet logo minecraft

I should take a good screenshot of it (better than this WIP), if the server is ever online again. I am looking for a new server to hang out with my Guild Wars buddies. I feel reluctant to invest time in a server where I know no-one, and the reliability is unknown.

australian guild wars

I know there’s plenty of Aussie players out there, but sometimes it seems I’m the only one carrying the torch, at least in the blogosphere. I sway between relaunching auGW.net or just letting it die, depending on my mood.

can i block guild wars on my network

Blasphemy!

hewhat takes off conjure phantasm skill in guild wars

Um, what?

people dont like to not know what youre doing

Oh, come on, now you’re not making any sense at all.

say how you’re doing

Fine thanks.

what are the major lifestyle differences between gay and straight people

Aside from the gender of my partner, my day-to-day life is much the same as everyone else’s. I am more concerned with how society and the law treats me and my boyfriend, compared to my straight brother and his girlfriend.

what is the worst class in guild wars

This is a tough one. If you look at all 10 classes, then it’s the Assassin. I just don’t like shadowstepping, chain skills and imbalanced skills (e.g. Shadow Form).

If you look at the original 6 classes only… I would have to say Monk. They heal and protect, but they can hardly fight. I am extremely happy to see them gone in Guild Wars 2.

when will the last guild wars 2 profesion be reveiled

I think Gamescom 2011.

why redesign norn

Because they’re just tall humans with an attitude problem. Boring!

why has ryan stopped relics of orr

I think it is a fair and reasonable reaction to the circumstances. Ryan and the Relics of Orr podcast crew have produced 43 episodes over the course of the past year, as big an investment of time and effort as any other fansite. You might have thought there would be some kind of a reward or recognition. When such reward doesn’t eventuate, it makes the whole endeavour seem a waste of time. Of course things weren’t enitrely peachy up until that point, all it took was one big event to take the wind out of the show’s sails.

I think you’ll learn more in the next day or two. Keep an eye on the Relics website.

how do i spell conjure phantasm (actually this is a list of typos)

Congure Phantasm

Condure Fantasm

Condure Phantasem

Conjure Phaantasm

Conjurer Phantosm

Conjour Phantasm

Conjure Fantasm

Conjure Pahstasm

Conjured Phantasm

Conjure Fantasim

Conjur Phantasm

Conjure Phantasm

Conjure Phan Tasm

Conjure Phanstasm

Conjure Phantasmm

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Mesmer thread is over 5000

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By ShaunNox on July 2, 2011

… and from my research it seems to be the third-largest thread on Guild Wars 2 Guru. Thanks to everyone for sharing their theories, hopes and shameless adoration of mesmers!

We’ve endured a year of elementalists, warriors, rangers, necromancers, guardians, thieves and engineers – our time will come ^_^

» http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/mesmer-t7765.html

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Pretty Ghosts

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By ShaunNox on July 1, 2011

Today I present high-resolution screenshots of ghost mesmers in the Ascalon Catacombs, from GameReactor.eu and Gamers.at.

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Conjure Fansite?

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By ShaunNox on June 29, 2011

I’ve put my podcast idea on hold. Ryan, the host of Relics of Orr, has stopped producing his podcast. To avoid similar burnout, I will wait until the game is released, and I start casting Chaos Storm on rabbits, before launching a podcast. It’s the sensible thing to do.

In the mean time, I have this cute little blog, where I post frenzied bursts of mesmer-related goodness. Post frequency and length is directly proportional to hype. I’ve gotten more excited about NPC mesmer skills than all of ranger, necromancer, guardian and thief combined.

Mesmer fanboyism is my badge of honor in this community. It’s the banner I carry into battle. I think it’ll carry on beyond Guild Wars 2 release, so I’m starting to plan things.

Last week I came across ThiefCraft. Established April 2011, it’s a WordPress-based website dedicated to the thief profession. It’s got a list of skills, videos and screenshots, and plans to do gameplay guides post-release.

What a great idea!

Ryan once mentioned ShadowPriest to me, a community based around that class in World of Warcraft. At the time I had just shut down Quaggan (and everything else) and vowed never to do it again. I’m not really a forum person. My adventures in Guild Wars 2 Guru are restricted to the Mesmer thread and Vorsakan’s skill thread. So… what was I saying? Oh yeah.

It’s the classiest, most complex profession, so there will be demand for screenshots and guides. There are hundreds of fan art pieces. All of this is going to explode when the game comes out.

I thought about other website names… but I really, really like Conjure Phantasm. So much so that I recently changed the logo and slogan, as seen above.

The font, TrashHand, has been on the internet since forever. I’ll tweak it, clean it up a bit. I would like to introduce a graphical element, like a ghostly skull, somewhere amidst the typography. I like messy handwritten fonts because they convey a rough, I’m-not-trying-to-prove-anything feel. This stuff isn’t polished and professional; it’s personal.

What would a mesmer fansite entail?

I’d start it small. Redesign the WordPress theme to allow:

  • “News” separate from “Blog”
  • Image galleries
  • Pages

I’d look into the new WordPress custom content types, to investigate their potential with user-submitted content, such as character biographies and recommended builds, and smaller content, such as information on skills and traits.

Actually I feel more confident of Drupal’s ability to handle this kind of community interaction. So maybe I’ll start from there.

Beyond all that, I have a couple of wacky ideas.

I’m letting this one simmer until the profession reveal.

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[Video] Ghost Mesmer Skills

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By ShaunNox on June 29, 2011

I made this video. Some further details to add to my previous post, Mesmers of the Catacombs:

  • It’s not Energy Surge, it’s Ray of Judgement, a new guardian skill that the old ghost monks (who look like mesmers) are using. It strikes and blinds foes, while healing and removing a condition off allies (haven’t ArenaNet learned from Smiter’s Boon?)
  • Energy Shield reflects projectiles (thanks for the link, Amannelle!), and we can see Rytlock’s pistol shot, a thrown axe, and an elementalist get their skills reflected back at them – all within 2 seconds. However, it seems they don’t reflect all the time, as Vassar still gets hit easily by the engineer’s gun.
  • Mesmers Daze foes, which prevents them from using skills, and we can confirm the Blackout skill causes this – see the bubbles around the target’s head, matching the effect seen in the warrior skill video.
  • You can get a sense of the movement of the Conjured Phantasms now.
  • Chaos Storm is a large, heavy damage area-of-effect spell. Every second it inflicts random condition(s); the engineer gets Blind, Blind (Eir Stegalkin, next to him, gets Vulnerability), then Chilled + Vulnerability at the same time.
  • Vassar uses a skill which inflicts Crippled, though its animation is barely detectable. Imagined Burden?

What do you think of these skills? Would you be happy using them as a mesmer? What other skills would you like to see? Leave a comment.

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