LucidMagic.net

Yeah. By Sunday the vendors seemed to have been bugged -- they were selling black dye for 267gp, silver for 120ish, red for 40, and other crafting items were seemingly high as well -- 27gp for a stack of 10 bones.  

You and me Render... we seriously gotta team up

Hook up eh? Stop by my guild forum board at www.magussyndicate.com, assuming that you are interested in joining a guild -- 14 members strong during the WPE, some were interested during the beta -- we are 17 now.

So your telling me your able to kill a Snow Dragon and Griffon seperate for a total of 1k exp?

Correct, those two sidequests yield 1,000 exp for the monster encounter alone. The Ice Dragon (drake actually) dropped 17 hides, almost as many scales, and a rare storm artifact energy +9. Just an FYI.

If I had my map handy, then I could tell you exactly where to go, but alas, it is lost to the servers of Guild Wars now. The main direction after entering the Alpine Tableu explore area was North to get to the next coop missions.

I must really have missed a lot damnit. I just did a toturial and went straight to lions arch,

There are about 7 missions to get to Lions Arch, all of which must be started via a lvl 1 (maybe 15, didnt try it) cahracter. I suggest a level one. But after getting to the Wilds Map with my lvl 13 Elementalist, its impossible to get into a group except when I am able to summon guildmates... so there really isnt a rush.

Denravi -- city adjacent to the last mission also had some semi-elite skills in that 'city' in addition to lvl 20+ armor.

There was also a skill trainer in the solo region off Lion's Arch. Sage Lands I think it is called)

While ArenaNet boasts that the levels hardly make a difference, (they simply add more strategy) you, and perhaps others, were painfully misled. I was.

Don't get me wrong, certainly you gain SOME power as you progress, but as my tale eventually gets to the point of, Levels do, in truth, add stupendous power.

During the beta I had my guild create new characters -- for the purpose of friendly competition (who can reach lvl 20 fastest?) and to try out new classes, and be better skilled.

Sunday night we unknowingly placed ourselves in the crucible. Aside from our weapons and armor being less than satisfactory, (we all had equipped a full set of our lvls10+ armor at the time) we quickly realized that when playing against another guild who had all lvl 20 henchmen/players (with their fine plate armor) we were at a critical disadvantage.

The opposing guild had only 2 real players (2 warriors, plus 4 henchmen) against my guild's 6 players, plus a monk and warrior Henchman. They should have had the difficulties that henchmen naturally have -- getting stuck, being stupid, not healing -- we quickly lost our Guild Hall to them, regardless of our guild skill and cooperative efforts. While we have not had our heads served to us on a platter, we were hardly a match. For the sake of credibility, we had made it to the 6th PvP map a few hours prior, but deleted our old (lvl 20) characters and transfered the items to the new ones -- so it wouldnt be whiped next month.

Point is, albeit lengthy and not-to-the-point, Different levels make a world of difference, hugely because of the armor you are able to equip, the weapons being weilded, the skills used (none of us had access to Denravi), the energy you gain, and the amount of hitpoints you aquire

Forgot to mention, the game name is supposedly running along the lines of

ElderScrolls IV: Oblivion
Began developement sometime in 2003.

Another depressing setback has occured with results equivilent to a tremor in my heart ( a bit cheesy... but it needs the drama). Guild Wars has been set back to a release date of roughly early 2005 (jan, feb). While it has not been bluntly stated, the officials over at ANet have said that the game 'will be done when its ready' and that they do not want to rush the developement process.

Some good news has emerged however, and it is that you can preorder Guild Wars in approximately 2 weeks or less at your local neighborhood retailer. The benefits of preordering are that you get to participate in the 'beta' every weekend until the game comes out, your character name is reserved, you get a spiffy in-game item (dependent on retailer) and you get a couple more things of space filler. GREAT NEWS eh?    

The event quite a few of you have been waiting for is near -- it is the Guild Wars open beta event which is scheduled to last 3 days during Oct. 29-31! Also, you will be able to preorder it some time in September. For the full coverage go here

Just found this new article/forum combo that says guild wars will possibly be delayed to winter 2004/1st half 2005 instead of the original time frame of fall 2004.

"NCsoft has released their latest Investor Relations Report. Here is a brief quote: "In case of 'Guild Wars'..., original commercial launch schedule was 4Q, 2004 but could be delayed to 1st half, 2005..." So far, no official word from ArenaNet.

Gaile Gray has responded about the possibility of Guild Wars being delayed. Here is a small quote from her: "Might the window that was published in this week's financial report be accurate? Well, I guess it could be. Might Guild Wars release in the 2nd Half of this year? Yes, it might release then, too. It's sort of a big question mark right now."

Its just speculation -- nothing official from Arenanet -- so keep that in mind.
 

I tried downloading the recommended 'download client' to help speed things up -- went from an average of 4kb/sec to 7 -- regardless, I still have roughly 30 hours to go.

UPDATE
After much anticipation... I have successfully downloaded it -- I will get back to ya'll once I mess around with it a bit

With a cable internet connection I was downloading it at about 6- kb per second... are all the mirrors foreign or is it just me that has this unusual DL time?

While I only have the 3rd edition rules (not 3.5) I was unable to find any record of a spell entitled "Spell Mantle" or any other spell that remotely has the same effects as the spell mantle series does. On a further investigation, I checked the game manuals for Icewind Dale I and II, in addition to the Baldurs Gate manuals. Once again, there were no such spells that had any related effects. I find it highly unlikely that they would add that particular spell(s) to the 3.5 edition ruleset -- when playing TableTop DND, such a spell would be impractical anyways due to there being a medly of other magic resist spells.

Quick Note: Aside from the Epic Level Handbook, the only other book I am lacking is "Tome and Blood". After being a DM/Wizard for a considerable time period however, I have the majority of the Epic spells memorized -- there is no reference to mantles in said description.  If it exists, then perhaps it is in "Tome and Blood" instead?

Regardless, I was also under the impression that spell mantles were unable to negate the damage effects of any epic spell.

Gave it a 7 -- as doofer pointed out there are several features currently unavailable. The darker color scheme the forum had before also looked quite nice. But since there are plenty of new posts that are created daily, there is always plenty to read up on.

All I can say is: wow. The banner looks amazing, and your response was ludicrously quick. Thanks again. If you don't mind me asking, what program did you use to create it? Microsoft Paint just doesn't seem comparable.

Sorry to disappoint, but currently that feature is not available (I doubt it ever will be actually). Given the amount of information of high level detail that the Guild Wars environment has, it is inpropable that hosting you own server would be possible, despite the amazing technology implemented to allow even the slowest internets access to this game. Even in Neverwinter Nights though, a game who has outdated graphics and particle effects (still a great game though   ) still suffers from lag spikes and can only house a small and perhaps moderate amount of players depending on the host's internet connection.

As far as scripting goes, this also would be highly unlikely, if even considered. At the moment there is not going to be a toolset for any type of editing whether it be items to monsters, to landscapes. The closest thing comparable to editing of any sorts would be the fact that you can craft items using tens of raw materials. Guild Wars is setting new trends in the MMORPG market hopefully, but its likeness to Neverwinter Nights is entirely nonexistent except in the case of character classes -- which have also been heavily modified.

Do not mourn  It is too late for me... I think it is quite safe to say that my soul has been temporarily leased to Guild Wars despite the game not even being out yet. Perhaps if WoW becomes monthly payment-free and gets a graffics overhaul(higher polygon count, realistic textures, and detailed particle effects) I will consider giving it a chance. Also, it looks to me like it is just another level treadmill -- if I am wrong correct me plz. Final note, I just couldn't get into Warcraft III, so I seriously doubt that I will enjoy a game based off of its history and characters.