Bring Out Your Dead

The final ranking of halls in the guild vote was:

1. Hunter’s Isle
2. Wizard’s Isle
3. Frozen Isle

So we’re now the proud owners of Hunter’s Isle. Enjoy the moonlight views and lush jungle landscapes while wearing your brand new capes. 🙂

We now have a Celestial Sigil courtesy of Violet (Thank You!).

We’re going to be having a vote to determine which hall (out of 8) that we’ll call our own.

You can preview all the halls by talking to the Canthan Ferry Captain on the boat in Lion’s Arch. I’m also including some pictures and a brief description of each hall here for anyone who wants to vote and who doesn’t plan on having a character in Lion’s Arch in the next few days. You can find some more pictures of most of the halls at Guild Wars Guru (they’re missing 2: Nomad’s and Burning).

Your vote is going to be a ranking of all the halls as follows:

On one line, list all the halls in order from most preferred to least preferred, separated by a greater than ‘>’ sign. If you can’t decide between two or more halls at a particular level, separate them with an equals ‘=’ sign.

Here’s an example (using the order of the halls in the Captain’s list – this is not my vote and not a suggested vote!):

warrior>hunter>wizard=frozen>nomad=druid>dead>burning

This would indicate that the person voting prefers the Warrior’s Isle over the Hunter’s Isle, then either the Wizard’s Isle or the Frozen Isle, then either the Nomad’s Isle or the Druid’s Isle, then the Isle of the Dead, and the Burning Isle last.

After I have all the votes (you can send them in-game to me, or if I’m not available, one of the Officers), I’ll be running them through a calculation that produces the winning hall on the basis of what makes the group as a whole the happiest (I’ll be using the Condorcet voting system for anyone who is interested).

The Halls:
(The pictures below are in the same order as the list, 2 pictures for each hall)

Burning Isle – Lava environment, small central raised platform surrounded by small semicircle and outer wall.

Isle of the Dead – Catacombs environment, narrow hallway that leads to enclosed central chamber.

Druid’s Isle – Jungle environment, but uses mostly the bare areas, bowl shaped with narrow entrances

Frozen Isle – Shiverpeaks (mountain) environment, wide open and flat, surrounded by “icy ground” that slows movement by 70%

Hunter’s Isle – Kryta (tropical) environment, lots of stairs and bridges, and a long entryway overlooked by walls

Nomad’s Isle – Desert environment, open area enclosed by cliff and surrounded by quicksand that slows movement by 15% and drains energy when attacking or using skills

Warrior’s Isle – The Hall from the Beta Weekend Events.

Wizard’s Isle – Pre-searing environment, compact center with a partial circle area with good visibiltiy around it.

If you have any questions, find me in game or leave a message in the comments here.

Most of the feedback I’ve gotten so far agreed with my sentiment that it was nice to be able to see the back of our characters, and that having a cape wasn’t a big priority. I might be tempted to just abandon the cape idea altogether except for one thing – they’ve made the cape a requirement for getting a Guild Hall. I really want to get a hall, both for having a place to meet and relax, and for eventually being able to participate in the GvG part of the game. The other requirement for obtaining a hall is a Celestial Sigil, which only appear in the game (one at a time) for the team that wins each round of the Hall of Heroes. The demand for Sigils is large, and the supply is small (and not helped by certain teams hoarding the Sigils that they win). The current going rate for a Sigil seems to be in the 25,000g to 30,000g range. I expect that the price will float back down towards reality over the course of the next 2-3 months, so my current thought is to wait until the Sigils are readily available and then get both the cape and the hall at the same time.

Let me know your thoughts, either in the comments here or in game.

Penny Arcade has been following Guild Wars off and on for many months now, and they’ve finally got the game. I got quite a laugh out of the first post they made about the game, so I thought I’d share it here:

I had intended to discuss Guild Wars in more detail today, but it’s starting to become clear to me that I don’t know shit about it.

It’s not for lack of playing it, either. I think I heard it had a twenty level cap on characters, and assumed that a few sittings later I would be some kind of Guild Wars genius. This has not been borne out. What’s more, I have the sneaking suspicion that the entire area I’m in – the verdant forests that surround Ascalon City – is the equivalent of a training area. But I’m in full-on obsessive-compulsive mode now, and I can’t resist quests or the attendant rewards for their successful completion. Levels in Guild Wars are, as they are in all games which use the terminology, a general indication of character power – but Guild Wars play comes down more to what skills you have and how/when you use them, and thus far I’ve earned skills from quests as opposed to raw leveling. That’s different. So, I guess I’ve learned some things. Just the same, I haven’t gone into weapon or armor upgrades, customization, their take on crafting, basically most of the non-combat aspects of the game, simply because I am too busy puncturing lizard men.

IGN has posted a review, with Guild Wars getting a 9.8 overall.

Also, note that I’ve added a new Official Links list on the right that contains the reborn Ladder and a handy page of changes that ArenaNet has made to the game.