Guild Wars 2

Yes, we need some fish recipes to discover. We’ve got clams, if we had fillets we could make cioppino.

Not sure how I feel about a whole new harvesting tool for fish though. Best just to keep it like red meat and poultry. Sheesh, the next thing you know, people are going to be asking for pork. Hmmm, BBQ ribs would be nice with that coleslaw I make…

I like the change. I’m getting stuff dropped now that I used to buy off a karma vendor in some remote area after completing the heart quest. Of course I’m cooking for fun and to supply myself with food, not to level. I’m not having any trouble getting most crafting materials just by playing, especially now that the TP is up reliably. I do think the butter drops are a little out of control though.

How many of an item are available at 1C over the vendor price? more than 100? Well then that’s what the item is worth. Freeing storage space to make room for better stuff and not having to take time to vendor it is worth more than the extra 15%.

Instead of complaining about it, just vendor your stuff and take advantage of the cheap goods. If everyone starts vendoring their stuff, supply will disappear, the demand will still be there, and the price will go up. Then more people will sell on the TP instead of at the vendors, supply will go up, prices will go down, and the cycle starts again. That’s how free markets work.

You will never argue people into inflating their prices because you’ve calculated out that they’re losing money by not vendoring it. Everyone sells their goods for what they perceive them to be worth, all things (time, storage, etc.) considered. The fact that you perceive them to be worth more doesn’t change anything.

Actually, if I dump stuff on the TP below what I could get from the vendor because I don’t want to stop what I’m doing to go find one, I don’t feel that I’m getting screwed. I’m still getting more money than if I destroyed it and I have room in my bags to pick up better stuff.

My time and my storage space is worth more than the 10c extra I’d get from the vendor.

Just a quick comment about “no cast bars” on the enemies. Enemies do telegraph their attacks, you just have to pay attention and it takes some practice to recognize it. Guild Wars is a lot more actiony than your typical WoW-like.

I’m finding the combos fun and effective. If you can learn to recognize certain field types you can choose your attacks to get an extra bonus, like leaping through a fire field to get a fire shield.

There’s really a lot more to the combat than it seems at first glance.

I’m not rich, but I’ve never felt like I couldn’t make enough money. I blew a bunch of money and Karma cooking for fun (instead of leveling it efficiently) and I still had the money for my tier train ups, harvesting tools, salvage kits, dungeon repairs, and guild bling.

I just do events, do the dailies, sell my extra common materials (yeah they’re cheap on the TP but they cost me next to nothing to harvest), sell any blues I find to a vendor, sell the greens on the TP, and consider carefully what I salvage (I need leather and cloth, so weapons and such get sold).

If you’re a 400 cook, you might consider buying up those cheap materials and making some dyes. Those always sell for me. Farming mobs outside of the events really doesn’t work that well because the mobs aren’t dense enough. Learn where the dense humanoid events happen, slot for AOE damage, and reap a bunch of those little bags. The events in the Norn areas are pretty good – Dredge and Svanir. I think some of the centaur assaults in the human lands are good too, but I haven’t spent a lot of time there.

Oh and as far as end game? Well I’ve played 120 hours or so and only have 35% map completion. Have you found all three hidden jumping puzzles in Lion’s Arch yet? Scaling down is a good thing here, because you can experience the starter areas without one-shotting stuff, (although you will still have an advantage because of your traits and utility skills) and the rewards scale up to you.

You continue to earn skill points after 80, so you could play with the mystic forge recipes, which have components that cost skill points. The tournament PvP is always fresh because people can change up their builds at will, so it’s a lot about the meta game. At least in GW1 as soon as a flavor of the month came along, there were folks playing builds to counter it. There’s lots of variation in the dungeons also because of the different modes.

Because GW2 is much more about exploration than the WoW-likes, you sort of make your own end game based on what appeals to you. I believe that new events are going to be added after the load issues get sorted, so it might be worth revisiting certain areas.