Lurker's Lair

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smells like a new forum lurk

Another sick day. Been having trouble getting outta bed lately because of it.

* lurk *

Well, I watched Arenanet's livestream today of the new expansion of Guild Wars 2 coming out in February next year, End of Dragons. Not everyone was impressed (some people are really hard to please) but I'm mainly in GW2 for PvE exploration and the story, and I must say from what little they showed it looks very impressive. Gorgeous visuals! I'm contemplating pre-ordering it because Cantha was my favorite place to go to in GW1, and I feel it will be so again in GW2. Just the regular edition though, which will be $30. I should get a move on with the current story content, I have about half a year to get through it now. There's a beta event 17-21 August so we can have a first look. I'm looking forward to it! What do you think?

dragon bashing lurk

I haven't had the chance to look at stuff yet, but I did talk to a friend and one thing that seems interesting is we'll apparently have co-op mounts, fishing, and boats.

I'll see about the trailer stuff whenever I get the time, hopefully soon, but I've been dealing with a lot of crap lately thanks to being borderline sick pretty much 24/7 this whole month. Whatever's going around is really bad, but lately I've been getting a little better, so hopefully it's about over with.

* lurk *

Darkened Angel wrote:one thing that seems interesting is we'll apparently have co-op mounts, fishing, and boats.

You get mastery lines for using those mounts and boats (called skiffs) and for fishing, and you can use those skiffs to fish from but you can also fish from shore, and not just in Cantha but everywhere in Tyria. One of the co-op mounts is the siege turtle, one player will be the shooter and the other the driver. The classes (do they still call them professions? I don't remember) will get a new specialization, they showed the one for the mesmer who will be using a dagger, and another one will be a pistol-wielding necromancer, apparently (they just showed a silhouette for that). The livestream chat also speculated about having a lot of underwater combat, since the resident dragon is a sea dragon, and they had a wallpaper for it shown underwater as well. Anyway I'm looking forward to the beta three weeks from now.

professional lurk

Bubbles was the only dragon left, so yeah. That makes sense. Dunno what its official name is, but that's what fans call it.

* lurk *

I might as well add a link to the GW2 wiki page for EoD here: https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2:_End_of_Dragons has all the currently available info. Probably more efficient than trying to extract it from the livestream.

[edit] And here's what we know about "Bubbles": https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deep_sea_dragon

wikilurk

Another busy day. I've been having sleep issues, which really sucks right now because I got a treatment next week.

* lurk *

It's just been work, work, work lately, but now I finally have three weeks off! Travelling is possible but a pain in the ass right now with all that covid shit still going around, you just don't know if a country you go to suddenly gets an outbreak, or even a heatwave, forest fire or flood! The countries I would consider going to are either not accessible yet or booked solid for the rest of the year, so meh. I'll just stay at home I suppose. Instead I'll go to Tyria with the beta of the new expansion next Tuesday, that'll do me for the first week.

virtual excursion lurk

I don't do beta events, but a friend of mine has been looking at it, and we both kinda like the virtuoso elite spec for the mesmer. To me, based on the info I saw, it's more power-based, which is my kinda thing because I hate doing condition setups. I prefer being able to just do raw damage.

At the same time, I'm kinda bummed at the guardian's new elite option. I'll probably still get it on mine just to have it unlocked and everything, but I'm gonna stick with dragonhunter because I like having the longbow for when I need to do ranged attacks.

I'm also getting back into Sims 3 more again. This time I figured out the most ingenius idea, which honestly, I wish I thought of way back. I'm building a super sim, and afterwards, a super plumbot, both of which will have all skills maxed. Once done, I'll save them to the library, at which point, I'll have a premade sim and plumbot with all skills maxed, so I don't have to spend time training sims anymore that I want to have the skills, which will save a ton of time in the future.

* lurk *

Darkened Angel wrote:I'm kinda bummed at the guardian's new elite option. I'll probably still get it on mine just to have it unlocked and everything, but I'm gonna stick with dragonhunter because I like having the longbow for when I need to do ranged attacks.

My main is a guardian so I'll be sure to unlock the new elite too. The appeal depends on the skills and abilities really, so that's something I need to try out before passing judgment. I wasn't too crazy about the longbow but at least you have a good ranged option with it, although it dilutes the feel of the class. They seem to be making them all jacks-of-all-trades now, which kinda defeats the point of having professions at all. Maybe they do it because most players are playing solo and stick to a single main character? In GW1 I played them all regularly but in GW2 I rarely play anything other than guardian anymore, even though I have one of each profession. Somehow the game's just too big to focus on more than your main.

elitist lurk

Yeah, that's the case for me. I'm mostly a solo act, and I rarely do anything with my other chars. I plan to, eventually, but it's really slow going.

I just hope the rest that we'll see down the line is more appealing.

* lurk *

It's just too bad the beta is only about the new elite specializations. As far as I understand there will be no new map areas to roam around in as in previous betas, not even Shing Jea Island, let alone any other content. Of course a beta is meant to give the devs some data to play with, not to give us a preview of the whole thing, but still. Disappointing. 

skillful lurk

The expansion's already been delayed, so I'm guessing what they want right now is info on balance concerns with the new elites. They can still be working on map stuff and all that without being affected by anything there, then just come back and see how the beta went so they know what to adjust, if anything.

A future beta will most likely include expansion content, using the siege turtle and probably a new style of map meta boss using a system they haven't done yet.

I don't do beta events myself because I know things will inevitably be changed before release anyways.

* lurk *

Long time no see.

Sorry for my absense peeps. It was out of my hands. The thing that happend was, I lost my internet end last August. Telia dismantled the old telephone network my connection was using. It's taken until now to het a new working connection. First time I'm using it right now. It's a mobile WIFI. Had a bit of a problem getting it to work -- the SIM card just didn't want to stay in the router. But I got it solved after talking to support

Feels good to be back. I'll get back to my stories as soon as possible.

Wotan wrote:Long time no see.

Sorry for my absense peeps. It was out of my hands. The thing that happend was, I lost my internet end last August. Telia dismantled the old telephone network my connection was using. It's taken until now to het a new working connection. First time I'm using it right now. It's a mobile WIFI. Had a bit of a problem getting it to work -- the SIM card just didn't want to stay in the router. But I got it solved after talking to support

Feels good to be back. I'll get back to my stories as soon as possible.

Wow! It's been almost a year! I'm really glad to see you back on! It's so annoying when somebody drops off the grid and you can't get in touch with them to verify what happened, you start to think the worst, so, PHEW! You must have the worst internet service ever to have taken so long, even considering the difficulties of the past year and a half. Anyway, welcome back Wotan!   

happy lurk

I can't really fault my host for my problems. It was Telia who discontinued their service (my host is Telenor) and thus I lost internet without notice. I really had no idea what happened. 
A couple of days later I visited my old job, from which I had quuit the month before. I needed help and I could borrow a phone and a computer to do my much needed bank business and call my host. I tried to get a new connection via fiber but when I finally got it it didn't work -- no idea why. 
Security issues meant I couldn't get the help I needed since I don't have a smartphone or had internet and could use the mobile bankID required.
I had to personally visit a shop and get my WIFI. That was the 30th last month. The routers were out of stock and I just got it this week. Didn't try to set it up the first day since it was raining when I visited the post office -- didn't want to risk any moisture possibly causing damage, though the risk is minimal you never know.
Anyway, got it up and running today. Had isues with the SIM card fitting in the router, but after talking to support (thank god I had mom's phone to call them with) I got it working.

*Phew lurk*

You can hardly do without a smartphone nowadays, they're way too useful. I never leave home without my keys and my phone, everything else is optional. Do you have a smartphone now?

inquisitive lurk

Only phone I have is mom's. And I don't even know the phonenumber that goes to it. But I just use a phone to make necessary calls, such as to support or similar.

Sounds worse than when we had Comcast and later, DSL here.

Comcast was fine, at least for a while, and then suddenly our internet is dropping every 5-10 minutes for just long enough to make something like online gaming impossible. They had to " fix " the issue like 20 times, and it'd only be stable for a few days and then get bad again.

We got so fed up with that, we switched to DSL, which like that, was fine for a while, but then got to where if we knew that so much as a breeze went by, we'd lose connection briefly. This isn't even counting the initial BS we had to get through after 1st setting it up which was all kinds of weird on its own.

Now, we're on something else, and some time ago, our connection was decaying bad enough again that it was becoming a major concern, but not only did we get it fixed, we also got upgraded to a new thing, and thankfully, it's been stable since then. I just hope it lasts this time.

With the internet being as vital as it is nowadays for day to day stuff, you'd think these kinda issues would be resolved more efficiently and more adequately prevented. It sucks when all it takes is one little thing and suddenly you're cut off for who knows how long. Anyways, yeah, it's good to see you back and that's all it was, all things considered.

* lurk *

Wotan wrote:Only phone I have is mom's. And I don't even know the phonenumber that goes to it. But I just use a phone to make necessary calls, such as to support or similar.

Please send me her phone number!!  My god Wotan, it is so wonderful to see you!  I had such fears with COVID and all.  I searched all over your Facebook and anywhere else I could.  I am so thankful you are back and you’re ok!  Today is a great day!  Welcome home!

Darkened Angel wrote:I don't do beta events, but a friend of mine has been looking at it, and we both kinda like the virtuoso elite spec for the mesmer. To me, based on the info I saw, it's more power-based, which is my kinda thing because I hate doing condition setups. I prefer being able to just do raw damage.

At the same time, I'm kinda bummed at the guardian's new elite option. I'll probably still get it on mine just to have it unlocked and everything, but I'm gonna stick with dragonhunter because I like having the longbow for when I need to do ranged attacks.

I'm also getting back into Sims 3 more again. This time I figured out the most ingenius idea, which honestly, I wish I thought of way back. I'm building a super sim, and afterwards, a super plumbot, both of which will have all skills maxed. Once done, I'll save them to the library, at which point, I'll have a premade sim and plumbot with all skills maxed, so I don't have to spend time training sims anymore that I want to have the skills, which will save a ton of time in the future.

* lurk *

Use NRAAS (I think that was the name for Sims3)

My D&D group's last session ended with us naming our new guild since one of the chars now owns the guild hall of the guys we took out the time before. The problem is, the one that does is really ditzy, and well, let's just say our emblem is kinda tacky, IMO.

On the plus side, we got several rations worth of seafood thanks to a later encounter with giant monsters at a shipwreck we looted, along with an enchanted millstone we hauled back to camp for the mill another char wants to build somewhere.

I'm also pretty much set on what spells to take when I hit the next level, because what I have in mind means we can pretty much stay on an indefinite camp virtually anywhere without concern for food, water, or shelter. I've been focused on some crazy awesome utility stuff and I'm slowly broadening the range of options. I can already clean and repair gear for increasing resell value when we loot things, along with buffing the party in combat. I've also got good synergy with our party's fighter because of the particular setup we have going.

* lurk *

First story update since my absence.

* Getting back in the 'chair'... lurk *

I've been having a weird week, and apparently it's gonna end with insomnia.

* lurk *

I just learned that Adobe has discontinued support for Flash player. That leaves me to wonder, how do you imbed Youtube vids on the site these days? 
I gotta learn that before I'm able to rekindle my historic thread


* New things to learn lurk *