The snow is melting, Winterday events are over in Tyria. I must admit I breathed a sigh of relief. I won't miss tattered and grimy articles of clothing clogging up my bag space. On the other hand, I should have farmed more of the various snowflake varieties. I'm sure the prices will skyrocket the minute Tixx and her crew leave town. No matter, the Wintersday versions of Orichalcum trinkets/jewelry didn't sell for much higher than their everyday counter parts.
Big thanks to Etheral Guardians on Sanctum of Rall. They put out a guild spread in Divinity's Reach. It was nice holiday fun and I'd never seen the items in the world before. They clearly have some influence to burn. Players came around to eat, drink and mess with fireworks. There was also a harvesting buff banner placed nearby. Mythias the Angel presided over the offering. I chatted with folks in local for a bit, claimed a buff then ran off to do some harvesting.
I may join a PVE focused guild when my Mesmer reaches her mid 30s and is ready to do instances. For now however, I'm going solo, representing our family guild of alts. My Guardian is still in the monster sized guild she started in, which for me, is a bit too impersonal. It's a nice guild with helpful people but my personal tastes lean toward smaller, more intimate social settings. Consequently, I'm often doing my own thing on her too.
The lovely thing about GW2 is that it doesn't matter if I'm in a guild or not. Guild membership does have its perks, depending on how your guild spends its influence. However, they're not very necessary in the early part of the game. And even when I'm flying solo in GW2, I never feel alone.
Game mechanics have encourage players to behave more like a community out in the world. We don't have to fight over harvesting nodes or loot. Everyone can resurrect fallen players. The more activity there is in a zone the more likely events will escalate to the next level. Down ranking means high level characters can't run through zones, one-shotting mobs low level players may need or razing the harvestable resources. This eliminates creating annoyance and animosity across player levels. Combined, these elements foster better behavior and a feeling of citizenship.
Our household has 6 copies of GW2 at this point. This includes my two nephews. They don't live in my household but I fund their gaming since I'm the one who started their obsession. *smile* With the exception of my son and I, who tend to lavish our attention on a single character, the others are altoholics. And of them, only two actually get all of their alts to max. I suppose we can't count the 6 year old I've infected already with the MMO bug, who leaves alts around like cookie crumbs.
With all the alt junkies and the limited amount of gear that's actually locked to a single character with a soulbound mechanic, I figured a family guild and bank would be helpful. I started an alt guild with a gaming friend from my former guild, Casualties of War. We put our alts in it and tried to remember to represent every once in a while to earn influence but the going was very slow. Even when I do remember to flip my main over to earn some,the influence only trickles in.
I rarely do alt in MMOs that I expect to level up to maximum. World of Warcraft remains the big exception because of the length of time I played. I had two characters in EQ2 but only one was for adventuring. I had two characters in Rift, where the second one was specifically to level with a friend who came to play well after launch. Even then, I redid the cleric and flipped back to my original toward the end since she was already geared for T2. The friend I made my second run through Rift with came to try GW2 over the holidays. Creating a character to use for that purpose reminded me of two things.
My first hurdle was deciding on a new class between the three I had in mind to try, Mesmer, Engineer and Necromancer. I had a hard time choosing between them during beta until I tried the Guardian who quickly stole my heart. Once again, I created one of each with the intention of playing until level 5 to help decide. It was hard decsion. I enjoyed them all for different reasons. I kept flipping back and forth between them but still couldn't make up my mind. When two of them hit level 8, I didn't want to go any further so I simply picked the Mesmer.
I have a Victorian styled holiday dress... Victorian styled holiday dress!!! They got me at the dress. That combined with the awesome gear dye system is pure heaven. If I did nothing more than prance around in this until Wintersday is over I'd be fine. I did however, test out more than just the Gem store.
I know I can't do jumping puzzles worth a damn but I still gave it a few goes. I didn't make it very far but that's okay. I came. I tried. I fell. And fell, and fell again, until I moved on to other things.
Next up was slaughtering mobs in Tixx. Now this is something I'm capable of doing. The first time I was in a group where none of us had done it before. Initially, we assed it up a bit figuring out what to do and where to go until we noticed the map was giving us indicators. After that it was just a mad dash to complete objectives and get loot. Luckily someone had at least heard about the achievement to be gained by staying after the boss kill and wrecking the joint. I found this list after the fact, for you achievement lovers. I made sure to alert other groups I was in and stayed with whoever after to help anyone who wanted to obtain it.
I repeated the instance a few times when it was in the Grove and Divinity's Reach but not since. I'm short on time and still do my farming routes. I need way more snowflakes than I've obtained so I can cook up the holiday recipes. I'm not sure if I'll bother trying to unlock the holiday jewelry recipes.
These days, I spend the vast majority of my harvesting and chasing down dragons. I’m very pleased with the returns I’m getting for the portfolio of crafted items I’m focused on selling, and nothing breaks up farming runs like dancing with dragons.
There are 3 dragons as world bosses in GW2. You can read about them here. They are part of dynamic events, are hella fun and drop decent loot to use, sell or salvage. These continue the “come as you are” activity I’ve enjoyed most about playing GW2. I don’t need a group. I don’t have to be available on specific days at pre-set times. More importantly, I’m not obligated to stay for prolonged periods of time to complete the activity. I simply work them into my gaming session as possible.
My fastest and most profitable selling items are the Exotic accessories jewelers create using exquisite jewels and Orichalcum components. Depending on the stats, exotic accessories sell for upwards of 2.5 gold, where the items with healing stats sell for the least amount. The items themselves are easy enough to harvest for with the exception of one item that can only be salvaged (Ectoplasm) for and the rarest type of ore (Orichalcum).
Each time the servers reset the location of Orichalcum nodes change. You can search for a player made map on the web or run through the level 70 to 80 zones and note the new locations yourself. Since I’m out farming anyway, I do the later by taking a screenshot of each location. I also do this for Omnomberries which are another less abundant resource needed for my best sellers. I mine ore like crazy, so having ore and the gems necessary to create the items isn't a problem. The real limiting factor for me, is acquiring enough Globs of Ectoplasm.
Neccessary Evil
Ectoplasm is the one component that can’t be crafted or harvested. The only way to obtain it is by salvaging level 68+ gear that is rare or higher in quality. Players running the high level dungeons and farming level 80 world bosses for chest loot have a higher probability of having spare items to burn for salvaging. I suspect the largest groups of players with available Ectoplasm are those that leveled crafting professions that produce gear. I’m not among that group, leaving me to obtain them via my low salvaging opportunities and/or purchase them from the Trading Post.
Looking to expand my crafting repertoire, I decided it was time to make a date with Zommoros and the Mystic Forge. I had a ton of Mystic Coins in the bank and more Skill Points than I could shake a stick it. Aside: what the hell does that phrase mean? Is there a limit to the number of things you can shake a stick at??? Anywho, I was all dressed up in Skill Points and coins with no place to go.
A visit to GW2 Spidy and live research on the Trading Post showed that cooking trays and feasts sell for a decent profit. Depending on the type of food, the tray can go for double the profit of having sold the same 10 items individually. In case I hadn’t mentioned, cooking is one of my primary crafting professions. It’s like a tick. If cooking is available in a game I MUST COOK. Even though it’s generally among the lowest in overall profitability, I mentally and emotionally enjoy doing it. Besides, GW2 cooking is the best cooking has ever been done in any MMO EVER. I reached level 400 without looking up a single recipe. I've been at max for a couple of months at least and I'm still discovering new items. With cooking, I have no idea how many more recipes there are to be discovered and I love that about it.
Losing steam or not, Tyria is much too beautiful to abandon. Rift feels a bit old school after the open questing style and more active combat in GW2. It might feel better in a static group or guild. Soloing felt very lackluster. I suspect other games would now feel ancient in comparison to what I’ve quickly become accustomed to as far as questing is concerned. I missed playing GW2 while I was out of town last week. Just before leaving, I was determined to find “my something” to do at max level in GW2.
In my post raiding life, crafting is what I like to do as end game. Unfortunately, the profitability of the LARGE AMOUNT of recipes I labored to discover in GW2, sell for less than the materials needed to create them. Silly desperate constant under cutting sellers notwithstanding, I decided to take another look. I mean seriously, with that many freaking recipes at my disposal there must be some money-makers in the bunch. With the help of GW2 Spidy and a spreadsheet, I found several winners.
GW2 Spidy is a browser-based tool that aggregates the sales taking place on the Trading Post and provides min/max selling price, average profitability per item, etc. It’s like the NASDAQ of the GW2 economy. Using the information on this site and validating prices on the live market, I identified profitable items for my professions.
GW2 Spidy Home Page
I listed the items I identified on the Trading Post. Using the “What I’ve sold” option data, I recorded my actual sales into a spreadsheet. After a few days, I averaged my actual sales per item and ranked them based on profitability. These rankings help me to decide which items to create first when I’m short on materials, as well as providing a focused list for farming. Granted, I farm everything within a reasonable distance when I’m in a zone but this list of items takes precedence. Within 5 days, I was able to double the modest amount of gold I have deposited in the bank. “Ah, sweet sweet loot. All mine!”
Snippet of some transaction history
I’m not rich by any means. Players who are doing repeated dungeon runs or are in active WvW teams are bringing in more. However, this allows me to have my own end game, based around an activity that I enjoy and it is done 100% in my own time and fashion. Sure, I could farm and sell all the materials and possibly make more gold. But the gold itself isn't the point for me. The point was to fashion a viable end game for myself in GW2 as I have in other games.
Word of caution when using the GW2 Spidy Margin data. I find the calculations flawed in that they assume the cost of purchasing everything from the Trading Post, and for many items, don't let you choose that you've harvested it yourself. You can easily deduct those cost from the handy list of costs displayed on the individual item sheets. However, this means that you can't accurately sort your Watchlist by margin. *Sad panda face*
Since my crazy nights and weekends of hardcore raiding in WOW, my end game is about creating a business of sorts out of crafting and/or player housing. I’ve found that post WOW, if a game can’t provide either of those options, as in has a busted crafting design/market and lacks player housing, I’m generally gone a couple of months after hitting max level.
Tyria is gorgeous. I’m still not tired of wandering leisurely through the zones and discovering new nooks-n-crannies. The difference now, is that I have a focus for myself that keeps me entertained and invigorated in between content patches.
I've lost a good bit of steam in GW2 after hitting max level and completing my selected crafting professions. I've done about half of the PVE instances and a few Fractals. Unfortunately, I'm finding my biggest obstacle to enjoying the content is time. Either I'm not willing or unable to spend 2 hours in a single session completing one piece of content. I enjoy the GW2 dungeons but I don't have the time to wait for a group to form and then finish the run. With the primary come-as-you-are-for-as-long-as-you-can content completed, also know as leveling, I'm feeling like a fish out of water.
Clearly, my tastes and lifestyle have changed. I left hardcore raiding several years ago and since that time, I've played games that I've enjoyed but few have stayed the long course since World of Warcraft. I can't be kept happy with a gear grind. I just don't give a damn about having the best of the best, if it requires a massive time sink. What does sustain me and get me to grind is decent crafting that has a profitable consumer market and player housing. I understand the shortage of games with player housing. What I don't understand, is how so many games get the crafting and economy mix wrong.
Beyond the gear carrot, player housing, crafting and a vibrant economy are the other sticky activities for MMO players. How is it that AAA fantasy games I've played since WOW have gotten it wrong? I found Warhammer crafting just a touch above useless except for making consumables for yourself, and even then not great. Rift's is further up the scale than Warhammer but honestly, not by a whole lot. You could craft or not and be just fine, which is cool for non-crafters but leaves a hole in the post leveling activity for many others.