Guild Wars 2

Want to win a free commissioned portrait of your character? Take a look, the grand prize has been updated!

I’ll do some yelling.

How to Enter:
You can enter in one of two ways:

• Email your screenshots to pow.zorav@gmail.com
  1: Subject line should read: “Powertrip Screenshot Contest 2015”
  2: Include your account name (NAME.XXXX)
  3: Label each screenshot with the category you’re submitted it to or include, clearly, in the body of the email which photos go to what.
  4: Attach the files or provide links to imgur/flickr/some other image hosting site.
• Register on our forums and post in our contest thread here.

Rules:

• All screenshots must be taken in the Guild Wars 2 core game- screenshots from beta events will not be accepted.
• Screenshots from cutscenes will not be accepted (unless they’re glitching out in some amusing manner) – exceptions can be made.
• Screenshots must be taken by you. You can’t ask a friend to take a picture of you doing something awesome and submit it. We’ll know. We’re magic.
• Graphic injectors and manipulation programs (such as SweetFX or Photoshop) are allowed, but these should only be used for colour correction, smoothing, levels, cropping, etc. Entries with content actually added to the shot will be disqualified.
• Screenshots must be at least 500×500
• One screen per category (max of 4).
• Contest is open to everyone, NA or EU.
• We heavily recommend captioning photos! While the judges won’t see names while ranking shots, they will be able to read your commentaries.
• All screenshots must be submitted by end of day July 14th, 2015, by the time the it hits UTC?12:00 (aka, as long as it’s July 14th somewhere in the world, your screenshot is good).

To see the entries so far, take a look at POW’s forums here!

The winners of the contest will be determined by a panel of judges appointed by POW’s officers. The judges will review each of the posted screenshots and rank them based off of creativity and originality. Winning entries will be posted to Imgur and lavished with all the praise we can muster.

Disclaimer:
There’s no purchase or donation necessary to participate or to win. Any monetary thing that you provide will not improve one’s chances of winning.

Screenshots that are deemed offensive or otherwise distasteful will be moderated or removed from our entries as we see fit. We will contact you if this is the case.

As for claiming a prize, a mail will be sent to all winners requesting a response for activity / accepting of prizes. All prizes in each category will be mailed out together. Once the mails go out, each person has one week to respond. Prizes are not transferable (but you can do it yourself) and cash alternatives are not available unless otherwise specified.

For answers to any questions you might have, feel free to contact us:
Zorav (NaviNation.2680 or pow.zorav@gmail.com)
Varr (AkioFallstar.5460 or varr.business@gmail.com or @KaedeVarr)

Or, of course, post below!

National Camera Day comes around on the 29th of June every year, and to celebrate this year Powertrip [POW] decided to hold a screenshot contest so you can show off your skills and win fancy prizes to boot!

This contest is more about how you take the screenshot (National Camera Day!) and less what the actual subject is. Timing, lighting, and angle will do a lot more to impress the judges than having the fanciest armour or the flashiest weaponry. This is an opportunity to showcase not just how beautiful Tyria can be, but how well you can show us just how beautiful Tyria can be.

Duration:
Entries must be submitted by July 14, 2015. Don’t worry about timezones, if it’s July 14 somewhere in the world, you’re still good.

Prizes:

• “Best in Show” Grand Prize: 500 gems (83.75 converted gold value – we will send a gold version if you wish to get something else, at a maximum of 75 gold).
  In addition, you will win a free commissioned portrait of your Guild Wars 2 character by Magic_Pen_Asura who has generously agreed to provide their services.
  If you’d like to see a sample of her work, click here.
• 1st Place Rewards (Per Category)
  1: First person: Gallant Weapon (of your choice)
  2: Selfies: 3 Bolts of Damask + 50 ecto
  3: Landscape: 100 Ancient Wood Planks + 75 Globs of Ectoplasm
  4: HoT Expansion: 1 Stack of Heavy Thorned Bags + 1 Stacks of Heavy Bag of Supplies + 75 Globs of Ectoplasm
• 2nd Place Rewards: 12.5 gold + 30 Globs of Ectoplasm
• 3rd Place Rewards: 5 gold + 50 Crystalline Dust

Categories:
Category 1: First Person View
Show us anything in Tyria taken in first person! For more information, click here.

Category 2: Landscapes
There are some beautiful, awe-inspiring, and just plain weird landscapes in Tyria, and we want to see them. For more information, click here.

Category 3: Selfies
It can be argued that the selfie is the lowest form of photography, but this is where you make it work for you. For more information, click here.

Category 4: Heart of Thorns
Show us what makes you think of the coming expansion. This is a special category, so be creative- the subject can be anything that makes people think of Heart of Thorns. For more information, click here.

Firstly, you said “fairly new” so I’m going to use that as an excuse to say welcome to Guild Wars 2!

Secondly, sounds like a lot of fun! I’m much too swamped to take part myself, but I think it’s a great idea.

If you’re interested in further stories set in Tyria, you can check out sites like Chronicles of Tyria (http://www.chroniclesoftyria.com) (shameless self plug) and The Razington Scouts (https://ranzingtonscouts.wordpress.com)

If you’re looking for more people to join, yell and I can help you network a little by putting you in touch with some of the more write-y aspects of the community beyond the forum.

Congratulations! Video’s neat too.

I’ll spread the word (via Twitter and in game)!

Best of luck.

As soon as I’m not entirely broke, I’ll be back!

Still no word from my artist “contacts”, but it seems you’ve figured it out without me.

Well, I haven’t gotten an answer yet from my artist contacts (Oooh, doesn’t that sound all dramatic?) but I’ll let you know if I do.

And yes, there is a degree of self interest involved here, seeing as I’d love to commission something as soon as I’ve scrounged together some cash/time/etc.

I know one or two of the artists who do work around here. I’ll ask them privately ingame or what not to see if they know and get back to you in a few days if you’ve not worked it out by then.

If I weren’t completely broke in game (as in, I have 47s left) I’d be asking for your rates (which you should probably be putting up anyway) because your work looks fantastic.

Secondly, I’m pretty sure there’s no violation of any TOS. There have been other folks doing the same thing and I’ve seen no complaints.

Going to disagree with Runeblade on this one. Alex is pretty good with words and I’m enjoying reading Koda’s Breath. It’s a refreshing take on a few old concepts and I’m expecting more twists ahead.

And yes, using this as an excuse for a semi-shameless plug because I also write at Chronicles of Tyria (http://www.chroniclesoftyria.com/author/varr/).

Yeah, I’ve got two artists pending as well.

I’ve been waiting nearly four months, and I paid them partially in advance.

That is fantastic!

If you give us a sort of idea of what sort of prices you’re looking for I’d be very interesting in sending you an email.

Because, you know, I don’t have enough things to throw my money at.

Sorry, I’m going to pass but I’d strongly encourage anyone with an interest in writing to do this. It sounds fun!

I’ve got too many writing projects on my plate right now though. Best of luck!

So they added something rare in the game… something -very- difficult to get.

And because you want it and haven’t gotten it yet/don’t have a high chance of getting one to complete a collection that -you- specifically care about… you want the company that you’ve been spending money on to refund you?

That’s a little like demanding a refund on your car a month after you bought it because they just released cup holders you can’t afford.

And yes, I know the analogy isn’t perfect. I suppose a better one would have had to do with a car’s paint job and them releasing a new colour.

It’s late. Sue me.

I had this too. I thought it had something to do with my outfit.

It only seemed to happen when I spawned in the centre, where I would spawn as a villager with my full skill set and naturally had a distinct advantage over Courtiers.

Once I believe it happened because I was channelling my mantra as the game started (force of habit), so it might be possible to do it on purpose but that certainly wasn’t my intent and I doubt it’s the intent of most.

Also, I realise I only blacked out half the names in this. I also realise I am a pretty ballerina. With lightning.

Wait, what? That’s where you went with this conversation, that EotM should be entirely removed? While I vehemently disagree with you in that regard, Aeolus, that isn’t exactly the point of this thread.

Personally I think the idea of some kind of “alarm” trap would not be such a bad idea, but I doubt it would be a serious game changer – it’d be practically impossible to tell if a yak/single player/zerg walked over it. Still, potentially interesting idea.

It would essentially augment the role that good scouting parties do now – I’d be okay with this.

I like!

Very nice work there.

Oh, that is awesome.

Blinking for hilarity. I approve.

What Tuomir said.

This discussion has been had in General several times, with plenty of reasons on both sides of the debate.

Do you have a streaming schedule lined up?

Looking forward to taking a look, time allowing.

Just bumping this thread to see how things are going.

Just bumping this thread to see if things are still happening/how they’re coming along.

Looking forward to it.

…The more I read the more I feel like I should put up at least a snippet or so here and there.

Thank you for your hard work and enthusiasm.

Best of luck for the future!

Everyone should dedicate their next stomp to Mr. Sharp.

Oh, I really like “Life and Death”.

Nice work all around.

Ziet er goed uit.

Ik moet toch mijn Nederlands oefenen. Ben benieuwed!

Not a bad read there!

And Calliope, 5+ is usually seen as the minimum for some levels, but in my experience things are based on word count and I rarely see anything below 1500 (around 3 pages) past a certain grade/level.

Unless I did something wrong you should have already received something.

I very much appreciate the offer and I may well take you up on it someday.

On a somewhat related note, you have a PM from me.

Mine aren’t nearly done yet, and being a semi-perfectionist I’m constantly making little changes and edits.

I’m taking part in a little GW2 related writing contest at the moment, and I’ve started essentially writing a prequel to my main story for it – depending on how I do I’ll post it up here after the contest ends in Oct.

Otherwise I may just post the introduction of the actual story here sometime. Need to proofread. And then proofread. And then proofread. And then- …I think I might have a problem.

Guh, all this talk of stories makes me want to post parts of mine up somewhere…

I don’t think they can make it dyeable, even if they wanted to since it’s in a trinket slot. Seems like that might require a significant overhaul.

There be that gallows humour.

I like it, but I have just one question – why do cherry trees remind him of her?

Did she hang herself from a cherry tree? Was her name Cherry?

I just mean that it makes sense that they don’t want to flood the gemstore with multiple sets of new armour in too rapid a succession. Since they just released (technically) two armour sets it kind of makes sense that the rest might not be right around the corner.

I do understand what you mean though and sympathise. Still, if you wanted glorious armour set badly enough, I can imagine some people would PvP just to get it.

Well we did just get the PvP armours as Kaldrys said. Not the same as a gemstore set, but…

Maybe not dyeable, but offer various colours of the same model? Like get a couple of different versions in the store?

I really like the design, but it won’t really fit with many of my characters either.

Rentapest.6503:

Alternatively, introduce a balance system to prevent “outnumbered” from happening in the first place! Like only allow people to join if there are enough equal numbered enemies on the map.

For example, if Red has 50, Blue has 40 and Green has 30. Then only players from Blue and Green may join the map until you have around 50 on each team.

Which means at times people will simply not be able to play. Many times I play in timezones that are dead times for most of my opponent. Will my guild simply not be allowed in because we’re in an odd timezone?

Lots of people will have this issue, so this is not a solution.

The race is over two decades old at the time of the personal story – twenty years is plenty of time for a backstory, and the personal story doesn’t have to feature in the backstory at all.

My stories for example tend to run parallel or take place before the personal/living story. A backstory can simply take the character, the world, and work from there. It might have nothing to do with the personal/living story at all.

Besides, who knows exactly how much time actually passes between you starting a character and starting your personal story? For example, I have plenty of characters that haven’t done any of their personal story (or only enough to get their first keys) suggesting that they had many, many adventures all over the place.

Apologies for the delay, here are some references:

I would like a headshot with a transparent background. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p229/Celleron/Tatiannacopy_zps21bf47f6.jpg
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p229/Celleron/gw821_zpsba420d36.jpg
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p229/Celleron/gw823_zpsa5e0f674.jpg
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p229/Celleron/gw824_zpsba7b09b5.jpg
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p229/Celleron/gw825_zps1353e194.jpg

I have several segments/one-shots written up and am currently working on two longer pieces. I haven’t posted any yet, but I may do so over the coming weeks. If so I’ll link them here.

I would like to reserve this spot for later today when I can supply some references/screenshots.

Very nice work.

That… that is actually several kinds of awesome.

Well done! Very inspirational stuff!

“Better”? I’m sorry, I don’t understand what you mean.

All kidding aside, I understand that there’s always room for improvement and perfection is a direction rather than a goal and all that jazz. Admirable you want to improve, but don’t sell yourself short.

I’ll be keeping an eye out.

I’ll take a colour portrait for 52G under the same conditions as Agate, though seeing as it’s a portrait I doubt any serious disagreement will arise.

Assuming you accept, I’ll send 26G over.

Very impressive! Wonderful use of colours and excellent shading on the skin tones!

Will you be taking commissions? Either way I’m glad you shared!

So much yes.

That’s fantastic!

I’d actually like to ask about that – are you only accepting USD as opposed to IGG for the full colour options?

Regardless, my request is below – I’ll take a full colour if it’s in IGG, otherwise I’ll take just a sketch.

…I sound so cheap doing that.

Form: See Above
Style Type: See Above
Reference:
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p229/Celleron/KaedeVarr2copy_zpse89227ae.jpg
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p229/Celleron/kaede_zps9290a730.jpg
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p229/Celleron/KaedeVarrcopy_zpsabf67cc6.jpg
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p229/Celleron/Face1copy_zps7593d8e3.jpg
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p229/Celleron/Face2copy_zps173e242a.jpg
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p229/Celleron/KaedeVarr1copy_zpsa57f8c6f.jpg
http://i129.photobucket.com/albums/p229/Celleron/KaedeVarrChaoscopy_zpsb254c735.jpg
Just ignore the text I have on a few of them – they’re for another commission I have going on at the moment.
Profession: Mesmer
Any other important info about your character?: Kaede is a deeply vain and arrogant noble who has a particular love for combat. She’s contemptuous to most and while she does technically have a “tragic” backstory it’s mostly #firstworldproblems and she just uses it as an excuse to get away with the stuff she does.
Favorite color(s)?: Black, deep purple
Payment method (gold/PayPal): Gold (see above)

Wonderful looking work!

I’d like to reserve a spot as well for when I have access to some screenshots later today.