Nao.K

I'm listening to this song currently. It's a masterpiece by Yuki Kajiura from an anime "Swords Art Online". http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_LdiGrbG_Q

No, I wouldn't suggest playing the previous series of this mmo. ^^ I never touched GW1 before since it was really old game. I heard GW2 takes place several hundred years from GW1 so there isn't any significant story connection. GW2 has a fresh story, but history based on the previous series. I read the lore of the previous series from here: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Lore It shares history details like how the Lion Arch was formed and how the Kingdom of Ascalon became ruin. It answers to little curiousity on why the spiritual-looking mobs are called "Ascalonian Villagers", etc. It's overall not that important to understand the story in GW2.

Guild Wars II is a MMO that was released around a month ago. It's certainly one of the great mmo around. If you plan to play Guild Wars II in the near future, be sure to keep a clear mind because it's not like any other MMOs you played. I listed some of it's prominent game designs and features of Guild Wars II. ------------------------------------------------------------ 1. Scaled down players' level to the map. This feature was introduced in GW2 to negate the flaws of previously-made MMOs. The production team feels that it'll help lower and higher level players to engage in activities together. Higher level players will be scaled down to the field level. So if a Lv50 player goes back to a Lv10 field to help his friend there, his level will be scaled down to Lv10 temporary. This was also introduced in order to avoid high level player "1-hit-kill" monsters in lower level fields. There are pros and cons to this design. Higher level players will not feel stronger nor superior. There's nothing set in between low and high level players. In various MMO, players gain motivation to level-up so that they can compete with friends. Games are like sports. The reason you undergo training is to be more skillful and stronger than other players. In this mmo, everyone is regarded as equal no matter you're Lv1 or maxed. This causes the lack of rewards for the effort you placed in to be a high level. 2. Overpowered and imba equipments are non-existent. There are still graded equipments. However, it doesn't matter whether you hold a common, uncommon or rare equipment. You will fare the same towards monsters no matter which equipment. The differences between each grade are only few unnoticable points. The production team wants to emphasize all players being equal. It's good since another player with better equipments will not kill the mobs faster than you which takes away the fun. The bad point is that players may not feel motivated to get better graded equipments. This game doesn't allow players to peak at each other equipments too. If you equipped a rare piece of equipment, you can't share nor brag it around because no one can check your stats. This is the same "con" as the first point above. The lack of rewards to the players who made efforts. 3. Individual players have personalised loots and exp from kills. If you played a mmo before, have you ever felt the boss monster you camp'ed was kill-steal by another player? Have you felt that your loots were snatched away by another player? This game removes all of that. Everyone have their personalised loots and exp from kills. This means when both of you are killing the same monster, both of you acquire the full amount of exp. Both of you get your personalised loots too. Therefore, there will not be any ninja-looting. This design is overall positive. The negative portion is that there won't be any feelings of competiting with other players. The reason why other MMOs designed it in such a way is so that it gives more opportunities for players to compete. It's a game afterall. If you acquire something which another player couldn't acquire, you feel special. If everyone acquire the loot, there won't be any prestige nor feel special about it. It's really does have pros and cons in this design. 4. There are no mini-quests. It's replaced with dynamic events. Yes, there won't be any boring mini-quests where you have to fetch stuffs to npc. Instead, they have the improved version of it called the "Dynamic Events". It's the best game feature that makes GW2 special. These events occur randomly in the world map. When it happens, players who're in the map can participate it together. There're many varieties of it. It makes quests seems very fun and engaging. 5. War is between World vs World instead of Guild vs Guild. In World vs World, everyone is scaled to the same level. Players are teleported to a map specially designed to war against players in another server. It's a positive feature that makes solo-players have an opportunity to take part in war even though they're not associated with any guilds. You'll be playing among players in the same server, not the same guild. It's a pro and con design again. It makes many players don't play with guilds because we can easily play with random strangers in the map. Guilds are basically meaningless in this game other than chatting. Guilds have no prestige in GW2. There's no such things as "dominating guilds" or "popular guilds". Every guild is the same no matter the size. This will led to another couple of flaws. 1) Players rather play solo. 2) There're no competitions, rivals and dramas between guilds. 6. End-game is all about exploring. Once you completed the main storyline, the end-game is mostly about exploring and completing maps. It's fun considering GW2 is a high-graphic game. The maps are beautiful. I personally take hours to enjoy sight seeing every corner of the city. Besides this, I personally like exploring the dunguen raids. The dunguen raids in GW2 is different from typical MMOs. Players will walk through the story and mini-quests before reaching the final boss. It's more fun than waiting for a boss to spawn. The problem with GW2 end-game is that once you experienced every corner of the game, you may start to feel less attached. In most MMOs, players in end-games take their time improving their equipments and participate in wars to increase their reputation of their guild. This game doesn't offer that. This relates to point number 2: There're no such things as overpowered or imba equipments. Many players don't find it worth to make efforts in improving their equipments in end-game. It won't make players feel stronger nor special. In MMO, it's part of the human nature to desire feeling special than the rest of the players. The only way to feel special in GW2, is to do dunguen raids and get new looking equipments. But then, those equipments have the similar stats as any other equipments. GW2 takes away the mean for players to compete with "stats" and equipments. This made GW2 end-game less appealing than other MMOs. ------------------------------------------------------------ I listed down some important features of GW2 that players should know before touching this game. It's a great game overall. I recommend players to give it a try at least. It has no subscription fee. You can treat it like buying a PS3 or xbox game. It's a non-addictive game which you can play for a couple hours per day without fearing of being pulled into too much. GW2 gives unique experiences that are different from typical MMO which everyone should feel.

Rant: I've been playing a mmorpg called guild wars 2. I've been touching it less by each day because it lacks addictive features. The rewards feels less satisfactory. The new concept of mmo lacks competition between players and ownself. It's still a fun open world game with great gameplay. It would've been better if this game is a virtual reality like SAO or ://Hack Sign.

I have some favourite food. My tongue changes taste from time to time. ^^ I'm craving for the green curry garlic chicken these days. I like the taste when it melt in my mouth. The tender white meat and skin is very nice to chew too.

Thanks for the warm welcome. @Lindsay, thx for liking my old alias. ^^ After AN/TDFN, I went to few places/games using it. I had few people said it's complicated name and one online game found it offensive because they said it has similar tone as "Nazi". A GM gave a warning for no reason and asked me to change it. Therefore, I didn't wanted to use that alias anymore. After hearing you complimented my old alias, it made me feel happy that I once used it. Hehe. My 3 names that made that alias came from a religion name. My current user and the ones I used on FB came from my real name too. It's a direct translation from my religion name. I gotten into Japanese culture deeply few years after primary school. I took Japanese language lessons during my diploma too. When I discovered my dad has a Japanese line several years ago, it made me want to form my own Japanese name. When I learnt I can change my National IC name, I sent a request to change it and my parents help with the deed poll. Another reason why I wanted to adapt this name is prepare me for the future because once I get stabilised, I will likely to stay and work in Japan since their architecture design firms are much wider and have more opportunities to express my designs.

I've some hobbies that I spent on these days. 1) Online gaming. I've been into GW2 mmo. It's different than other mmo because of the game-play concept. 2) Surfing those local news and forums. It's sometimes interesting to hear different perceptions and happenings. 3) Japanese animes. I watched few series per month. 4) Korean dramas. Korean is quite active in dramas and they give high quality plots. I'm not into K-pop music but their dramas made me on the seat all the time. 5) Meddling with my violin. I started a couple years back. I'm not very active in it. Few times per week, I spent few hours on learning it. 6) Active in creative-thinking and puzzles. I spent time on puzzles sometimes. The excitement of solving one made me feel happy. 7) Listening to certain genre music. I like certain genres of music. It's usually music than has an epic-feel to it. Some with orchestra and choir. I like those songs that produced by Yuki Kajiura, Sound Horizon and ost from Nier.

@Xin, I recently bookmarked that same song too. ^^ It gave a great vibe. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kc-Zj1qL9JY I'm currently hooked to this song. It's one of the epic ost I heard.

I was surprised to see AN forum is back. Thx Ciara for informing me. ^^ I'm known as K.nas in the past. I've started using Nao.K as my username in other forums and accounts for several years so I feel more comfortable to be called this. It's nice to be here again. See you guys around.