Well then! You’d think after such a recent Guild Wars 2 community projects update it’d be some time before our next installment, but alas! This is one fandom that doesn’t rest. Over the course of the past few weeks I’ve been keeping an eye out and bookmarking any and every site of interest I’ve come across. The collection’s gotten large enough to warrant a new post!
Though i don’t normally go for themes, I decided this week we’d focus on tools of the trade. Most of these sites offer interactive apps or functions that allow you to dig through and find exactly what you’re looking for; from previewing high level armor, finding those pesky chests, or playing around with possible builds.
If you’ve thought about needing it, someone has, apparently, already made it happen!
So let’s take a look at these gems!
What’s new with the Guild Wars 2 community
Guild Wars 2 Spidy (Live trading post listings, statistics, and economic tracker)
Playing the global market in an MMO has always been a fun, albiet risky at times, way to make money. While the in-game economy is still trying to sort itself out a bit, people have been quick to learn a few tactics to get rich fast or take advantage of short-lived market booms. GW2 Spidy is a great site that tracks the flucuations of the economy from item prices, gem exchange rates, and availablity.
New Krytan Digital Flash Cards
If linguistics is your thing, this handy tool allows you to learn New Krytan (or old Ascalonian!) using a visual memorization method There are few different options and difficulty settings to choose from (learn by letter or entire words). While learning the in-game languages isn’t necessary by any means, there are lots of easter eggs hidden throughout the world in the various texts, signage, and the like!
Nooo, vistas… whyyyy
Guild Wars 2 Cartographer // Guild Wars 2 Vistas (interactive maps)
Exploration and completionism go hand in hand for Tyrians this time around. If you’re like me, you might have a love/hate relationship with map completion, but thankfully, these guys are around to help. Both have interactive maps that allow you to look for help based on the zone you’re in. Guild Wars 2 Vistas links directly to an embedded Youtube video that shows you how to find each vista right there on the site. Guild War 2 Cartographer includes fully explored maps with locations for all points of interests, vistas, chests, skill points, dungeons, and hearts. It’s a WIP, and aims to include merchants, ranger pets, and trainers in the near future.
Playing around with builds and skills is nothing new to Guild Wars players. While GW2 offers a slightly more complex canvas when it comes to building your character, there’s still room for tons of experimentation and alterations. Both sites offer guides and calculators to play with. GW2 Build’s is slightly more complete, allowing you to choose profession, weapons, skills, traits, and accessories (level 80) to get an idea of what your basic final stats will be (sans armor). GW2 Codex’s generator has smoother function and is a bit sexier to look at. It also includes underwater skills, but doesn’t include accessories. Codex allows you to save skills while Build requires registration to do so. Both are worthwhile sites to check out, though, so choose your favorite!
Heeeyyyyyyyy sexy ladeeehhh (or gentlemans)
Guild Wars 2 Armor (previewer)
If you’re hoping to decide on which set of exotic armor to focus on, look no further; Guild Wars 2 Armor’s got ya covered. The site allows you to filter based on race, gender, profession, and armor type. It then gives screenshot previews of the entire set, along with details on the stats you can choose from! And speaking of armor…
Karma Vendor Armor Image
This awesome chart of karma vendor armor is brought to us by reddit user Imaginos9. Gives us a nice un-dyed preview of each set and where you can collect those pieces (zones). The downside is the preview is all-female and they don’t actually specify WHICH karma vendor (I’m assuming you have to hit them all up for each piece). Hopefully we’ll get a gallery of all the males in these fancy threads as well, but for now it still gives us a nice idea of what options there are if you’re looking for a specific style!
Remember you can always get low / cheap items and transmute them onto your better stat armor!
Community Chatter Box
Blogosphere & More: This time around I’m focusing on blogs dedicating to crafting. Guild Wars 2 wiz has a 1-400 guide for every craft up at this time (and is in the progress of putting together dungeon and map guides as well). This imgur gallery has screenshots of 36 types of food and their buffs. For more cooking goodness, check out this food ingredient location guide as well.
Guru Frenzy: A few of the first legendaries are finally popping up! Take a look at these epic weapons. A few veteran players talk about what they miss most about Guild Wars. The diminishing returns controversy heats up all over the net. Poster’s weigh in on the current state of the game, now that’s it’s been out over a month. And what’s a day on the forums without some WvW drama? Talk on Henge of Denravi’s W3 dominance and the HoD/SBI/JQ (top 3) server match-up!
Reddit Watch: First ever weekly “Stupid Question” thread has answers to your must asenine of curiosities. A little talk on GW2 not having that addicting factor to it. One redditor thinks underwater combat just isn’t fun. And discussion on Anet’s stance on WvW’s night capping.
Got a great community, site, blog, or interactive tool you want the world to know about? Let TalkTyria know about your project!
About the author: Izari’s one of those obsessive fan types who’s been playing Guild Wars since the first beta weekend in 2004. She’s been blogging about video games since 2005 and is thrilled to have fellow fans to write for and with about this series in particular. She can be found on twitter and may or may not think she’s the avatar. Deal with it.
The post Guild Wars 2 Community Projects Update – Episode 4 – Tools of the Trade! appeared first on IzzieBytes.
