Farmer's Handbook: Kessex Hills - Basic Crafting Materials

The Farmer's Handbook is a column dedicated to guide you to drop locations of crafting materials that can be obtained across the world of Guild Wars 2.

     Welcome back to another edition of Farmer's Handbook! This time we take a look at the centaur-contested land, Kessex Hills. As usual, this will be split into two parts. One for basic crafting materials and another for fine crafting materials.

     In this article, we'll be focusing on the basic crafting materials you can find in Kessex Hills. This map is primarily populated by centaurs due to several areas in the map that are constantly under attack by them as well as a large underwater area of krait, a mining site for bandits as well as a dreary swamp of the undead.

Guild Wars 2 Beta for Mac OS X out now!

     For those Apple Guild Wars fans that have been locked out of the game since it is only for the PC. Good news, the beta is now up for OS X for those that have purchased the game. According to the post all you need is an active account and you can hop right in. Here are the minimum and recommended specifications to run it.

Talking Tyria: Redefining the Endgame

Talking Tyria is our editorial column that discusses the varying opinions around Guild Wars 2.

     One of the more controversial topics in Guild Wars 2 is how Arena Net handles the endgame. To give a quick definition for those not too versed in MMO lingo, the endgame is defined as progression once you hit the level cap. This is the point where you no longer improve your character stats/skills based on gaining experience and levels from quests or killing mobs. What you do once you reach this point defines what the endgame is for a particular game. Some typical endgame content that we have been accustomed with MMO's are either PVE-oriented item progression (which means we have to group up and tackle dungeons or raids to kill bosses that drop these items) or PVP-oriented (where there are several modes where we can fight against other players). Arena Net seems to be choosing a different design strategy at approaching this, like many of the game's other features, and it is causing quite a divide between players as to whether or not it is the correct decision. Basically, this one statement defines the endgame of Guild Wars 2. The endgame starts at level one.

Krytan Cartographer: Queensdale Treasure Chest Locations

Krytan Cartographer showcases articles dedicated to showing unique and interesting locations in the world of Guild Wars 2. This will cover map completion, challenging vistas, treasure chest locations and much more.

     Treasure chests are handled slightly differently in Guild Wars 2. Instead of random spawns, chests are found in a specific spot and just has a daily timer attached to it. These chests are also usually guarded by a veteran mob. In this case, think of these like public dungeons where everyone can band together if you happen to be in the same area.

That said, let get started with the human starting area. Queensdale has three treasure chest spawn locations.

Farmer's Handbook: Queensdale - Fine Crafting Materials

The Farmer's Handbook is a column dedicated to guide you to drop locations of crafting materials that can be obtained across the world of Guild Wars 2.

     This is the second part to the Farmer's Handbook for Queensdale. In this article, we'll be focusing on good farming locations for fine crafting materials. To quickly define this, these are the items with a blue text that are used in various crafting recipes and are usually tied to a particular statistic e.g. blood is used for power, claws for precision, etc. So without further ado, here are the locations.

Digital sales for Guild Wars 2 is now available (again)

     The digital edition was previously brought down in a statement from Arena Net to preserve the experience of the current playerbase. However, in today's news, it seems that the company is now quite confident in expanding the population once again. Digital sales for Guild Wars 2 is now back on sale at their official website. This is true for both the regular and digital deluxe edition and are priced at $59.99 and $79.99 respectively. So if you still have any friends that missed this the first time around, it's time to remind them to get out their credit cards before this goes down again.

     Arena Net has also released the official launch trailer for the game entitled Our Time Is Now. Check out  the video and links after the break.

Talking Tyria: How dynamic should events be?

Talking Tyria is our editorial column that discusses the varying opinions around Guild Wars 2.

     One of the main draws of Guild Wars 2 is the dynamic event system. This was put in place to replace the more traditional talk to NPC quest mechanic. There has been a lot of previews before the game was released and the developers promised a system where in what you do or don't do affects the world around you. There has been quite some speculation and skepticism before and now that the game is finally here, it seems that there are two different points of view about the implementation of the system.

State of the Game Update for September 7

     There are some significant changes incoming as found in the recent state of the game update released by Arena Net. The company now shows which areas they are targeting next and it seems that some of the main issues since the launch will be addressed tonight. Check past the break as we see what we can expect in tonight's update.

Self-Help Site for Guild Wars 2 is up; Account Password Reset also Available

     Following the release of the technical support forums, the development team has recently opened the self-help section in their website. Here everyone would find a list of questions, answers and guides that tackle common problems regarding accessing the game. The site also includes a section for general announcements. Here are some highlights to the announcement for today:

• The Trading Post is currently down for maintenance
• Guild invites may only be received intermittently. Additionally, some players who were in guilds have been kicked and cannot be reinvited. We're investigating. 

     While problems regarding the trading post is nothing new at this point, people being kicked from guilds is a particularly new issue. Let's hope this gets resolved over the next few days.

     In other somewhat related news, everyone can now reset their password by following a link in the self-help site. This feature was previously disabled to prevent hackers from obtaining login information from leaked email addresses for various Guild Wars 2 fansites.

Source: Guild Wars 2 Support Site

Farmer's Handbook: Queensdale - Basic Crafting Materials

The Farmer's Handbook is a column dedicated to guide you to drop locations of crafting materials that can be obtained across the world of Guild Wars 2.

     Welcome to the first post of the Farmer's Handbook. As mentioned in the introduction post, we'll be splitting the guide into two main sections for each map. This section will be covering the basic crafting materials namely ores, wood, cloth, leather and crops.

     In this article, we'll be focusing on the Human starting area Queensdale. This map is populated by a good variety of enemies though you'd find that bandits and centaurs are quite common.

Dolyak Escort Rewards in WvW Halted for Review

     Dolyak escorts are events in World vs. World where you walk along a dolyak carrying supplies to a pre-determined destination, such as a fort or tower, for delivery. Normally, you get rewarded with experience, coin and what not once you have successfully escorted the Dolyak to its destination, fending off any invaders that come your way. However, in practice, invaders don't usually get to some of the dolyaks since the paths are nested within rows of defensive lines. This can be a strategic choice as you want to keep your supply lines safe, but this translates to escort quests being more of a formality and area for easy rewards. Seems that Arena Net may think that this is the case too.

Introducing the Farmer's Handbook!

     We have yet another column addition to the site. We'd like to present, the Farmer's Handbook! These articles will focus on guides, maps and resources about obtaining crafting materials from the world of Guild Wars 2. These articles will cover excellent spots to farm materials so you can get your hands on your crafted gear quicker. The format will be one article per map and material rarity so in essence there will be two articles per map. One will be covering the standard materials such as ores, wood and crops, while the other will cover the less common materials such as fangs, scales, totems, etc.

The next post will be up tomorrow so be sure to check back by then!

Arena Net opens up the Technical Support section of the Official Forums

     The team at Arena Net has been pulling punches left and right in terms of rolling out updates and fixes for the past days following the launch. This time around, they have brought up the Technical Support section of the official forums. The team brought down the whole forums right after the beta tests ended and this is the first time to see it again in some form. The team has mentioned that they will be opening up other sections on the forum once everything has settled. Also, the Arena Net Community Team Lead Regina Buenaobra has an interview over at Massively that address some of the issues and updates that the team has been tackling on for the past couple of days. There are still some issues with the game, but the constant updates and relatively quick turnarounds by the team suggests good times for the game's future.

Source: Guild Wars 2 Forums, Massively

Trading post is available, for real and probably for good this time

     It seems that yesterday's update was actually true. After checking it for myself, the trading post is now available and based on how it is performing, it seems that it is pretty much here to stay. The trading post has been sporadically available for testing purposes but was, for the most part, unavailable since the launch. Aside from the availability, it looks like Arena Net has found a way to optimize the trading post since the interface is now very responsive. This is a lot different from how it was in the beta as well as the testing done over the last week. So what are you waiting for, it's time to bring out all that stuff you've been farming and finally get some coin for it.

So you want to look pretty: A Transmutation Guide

     The Guild Wars franchise always had placed an importance in aesthetics. In normal words, the game gives importance to looking good, cool or even rad (a term from a different era, I'm not old don't judge me). The sequel is no exception and the game has integrated a system that further expands the player choice in terms of customizing how they look. This is called the transmutation system. I have recently tried this system and I'm putting up this small guide/journal of my experience with it.

State of the Game Update for September 3, 2012

     The Arena Net team has been providing a daily status update about several issues that are cropping up for players via the Guild Wars 2 wiki site. Today's update had some information about the trading post and some bug fixes. Jump past the break for the updates.

The Guild Wars 2 Review: Putting It All Together

     I have been following the development of Guild Wars 2 since the time it was first announced. And ever since then, I kept scavenging for every little piece of information I can get my hands on. I have found that every time I learn something new or if a new preview is up, I always say to myself (and to others of course), if the team can pull off what they say, this will be a really great game. Five years later, the game has finally launched and it is now time to see if the dev team did indeed deliver. So, without further ado, let's wrap up this review series.

Players Banned due to abuse of Karma Weapons Exploit

     A number of players were banned from Guild Wars 2 due to the abuse of an exploit found via a Karma Weapons vendor. The exploit involved obtaining high level weapons for a fraction of the intended karma cost. These weapons are then salvaged or tossed into the forge get high level materials or better quality gear. Based on feedback from the community, it seems that the people banned were those that really abused the system e.g. buying 1000+ copies of the weapon as opposed to those that bought just one or two. Though it may be best to just delete all items and weapons associated with this just to be on the safe side.

Talking Tyria: No more Guild Wars 2 Digital Sales (for now)

Talking Tyria is our editorial column that discusses the varying opinions around Guild Wars 2.

     Arena Net has recently released a statement via their Facebook page, as well as other social channels, that it is discontinuing digital sales until further notice. Check out the original quote as well as our editorial after the break.

Introducing Talking Tyria!

     We'd like to introduce a new column to the site called Talking Tyria. These articles will focus on the varying opinions of things related to Guild Wars 2. Be it current skill sets or developer decisions, we'll be covering opinions on a wide variety of topics. Check back later for our first Talking Tyria article.