We've moved!

I have finally decided to go over to Wordpress! It just offers more customization options than this does (even though I like that you can put links as words instead of just links on here). I'm sure I'll figure that out eventually over there.

Anyway, the new address is: http://thecentaurssatchel.wordpress.com/

I will still leave this blog open since I link to my guides here. I also might link to old blogs for reference.

The new blog is still a work in progress so it's a little sparse at the moment. I will spruce it up a bit in time!

Thanks so much for sticking with me in this process and see you over on WordPress! :D

New Name!

I have decided to change the name of my blog!

I actually intended for The Wars of Guilds to be a temporary name. I was just waiting to come up with something better, and i think I have! I just hope it isn't already taken hehe.

I wanted a name that reflected Guild Wars and adventure. I originally went with The Adventurer's Knapsack, but a friend on Twitter (Sharn Vendeta) suggested this one and I felt it was more Guild Wars-y. It also has enough adventure in it and I've already started a fan fiction type story for it as well. So thank you so much, Sharn. This is a fantastic idea! It's a lot more inspiring than the previous one :)

I didn't want the name to be too specific to any class or race since I plan to play a few of each of them. I don't plan to stick to a specific one.

Also, I am possibly planning to move this blog over to WordPress. I haven't decided yet, but I will let everyone know when I make the switch.

Anonymous survey for a school project

I'm doing this project for school on harassment of female gamers.

The below survey has questions for both males and females. It's very short! I promise it will only take maybe 5 minutes, probably less.

Click here to take survey

If you  have a story of harassment you would like to share, please contact me on here or on Twitter. If you can, DM me. I'd like to keep it anonymous, but if you have no problem sharing who you are.

I would also like to find any males willing to admit to harassing a female online. Or did you ever have an experience where you were accused of harassing a female but you thought you were just being nice? I will keep this completely anonymous since this is going to be a project for school.

Twitter is the best way to contact me. I can send you my email through a DM. Or if you want, I think I can contact you on here. I just don't want to give my email out.

Anyway, I'll look around for a survey, but in the meantime, if I can get some responses for this, that would be awesome. I need it by this Saturday the 7th. I'll find a survey poll thing by tomorrow afternoon.

Also, please share this with as many people as you can!

Thanks!

Community and Guild Wars 2

Since everyone else is writing about the community, I figured I would chime in here.

I have only been an integral part of the Guild Wars Community for a relatively short time compared to a vast majority of you. That might cause you to not take what I have to say as seriously as others, but please listen as I feel that I can offer some valid insight being a "newcomer".

While I have not been in this community as long as most people, I have been a part of the gaming community for quite some time. I was previously part of the EverQuest 2 community and I had a bit more involvement in that one than I did in the previous EQ community which is 1, at least offline. I think the reason I was more involved in that community was because I was a guild leader and I felt more obligated to get involved offline. I frequented the game forums and followed certain people on Twitter and Facebook. I didn't get too involved in events since the game is rather huge. At this time, the game was actually split into two games and I was part of the Free-to-Play part of the community. For the most part, that community was very pleasant. A lot of us knew each other and would talk in game and we all knew who were good guilds and who were not so good guilds. It had it's dark side as well, but I think that happens with most communities, regardless of how many good people there are in there. I just never felt very integrated into that community, though. I played the game, I had my guild we were a pretty tight-knit group of people and that's all we really needed for a while. Eventually, the game grew stale for me and others and we parted ways. That led me to the Guild Wars 1 and more into the Guild Wars 2 community.

I came from EQ2 kind of bored and needing something different. I wasn't really expecting to get integrated into the community since I didn't know much about it. My boyfriend and I started our characters (he had played the game previously but quit when he felt he couldn't go much further) and at first, we just went at it as a duo. We tried to join a guild at first but they turned out to be kind of lame. Some people would be turned off by this, but he had already been in the game before and assured me that not everyone was like that. We then left to start our own guild but it was just the two of us since we didn't really want to be guild leaders again so soon after EQ2 (although I did all of the leading, he just had the officer title heh). This worked out for a month or so but it got lonely and the content was becoming more challenging for us.

Then I heard about this event that was going to happen soon called Pink Day in LA, hosted by the Gaming World Entertainment Network, or GWEN for short. All I knew about it at the time was that it was some online radio station run by gamers. I thought that was kind of neat so I decided to check out this event coming up.

So the day of the event came and I went on the website and started streaming the radio station. I didn't really know what to expect but I went in with an open mind and I was blown away. I only planned on spending an hour at the party and I think I ended up staying for the whole thing and then some. I had a BLAST!  It was the most fun I have ever had in a video game and I think I told that to several people that day, too. I didn't know you could have so much fun at a player run event because I had never been to a really good one like this.

I also ended up joining one of the guilds that was helping out by hosting a district. Freaks of Society, in case you are interested. I started talking to Salmon Avenger and Darth Chain and Gaven McCloud and I got along really well with all of them. At first, I wanted to maintain my guild because I thought some of my guildies from EQ2 would come over, but at that point, I didn't really want to be a guild leader anymore and just wanted to follow. We both left the guild and ended up joining FoS. One of the best decisions we have ever made.

So you might be thinking, "Well that's a nice story, but what's the point of all this?".

The point I'm trying to make with this long diatribe is that this is the best community I have ever experienced. It welcomed me with open arms and I have never been happier in a community as I am in this one. I also want people to realize this and to not be turned off by the negative Nancys in our midst.

I think Mr. Kerstein said it best on his blog post:

Our ultimate goal is to create an environment that is respectful, welcoming, inclusive and friendly. We want to create a global community where people will feel at home, and an environment that will foster both creativity and collaboration. source

For me, I have already experienced this. Not only with the GWEN folks and my own guild and alliance, but with the writers and community managers themselves. These are some of the nicest and most passionate people I have ever met. And unlike other games, they actually talk to their fans...any fans, not just those who are heavily involved in the community (GWEN Dj's, etc.). They treat you like a person, not just a dollar sign or a number.

Shouldn't we give them the same treatment? Shouldn't we treat them like they treat us? Also, shouldn't we show others who are interested in the game what an awesome community we are?

We should.

I know you can't stop every troll or every flamer and you can't make everyone happy. Our community management team does a fantastic job at keeping their cool, though. Martin and Regina and Stephane are my personal heroes and they are the reason I want to be a community manager one day. I'm not just saying this to "suck up" either. I truly mean it. They are the type of CM's that I hope to be one day. I really admire what they do. They are like the CM trifecta haha.

I admire all of the CM's, but those three hold a special place in my heart since I have seen the most interaction from them and have had the most interaction with them (at least with Regina).

My personal opinion regarding the official forums is that I can see them as a good thing. Every community is going to have their niches and smaller communities. I still plan to be on the main forums and frequent the forum I mod for and the forum I write for. I already do something like this and I'm constantly bouncing around to different communities. I am friends with everyone and I don't feel like I have to constrict myself to one forum or one site, except for ones that I spend a lot of time on, which would be the writing and moderating forums I'm on. Even then, I'm not on those as much as I'm on Twitter and that's where most of the action happens anyway.

I wouldn't look at this as splitting the community apart or even focusing it. It's just another aspect to make the community better. I plan to use the main forums mainly for a source of news or information or to recruit for a guild. I plan to stay at my other two forums since I am already integrated in those communities. You don't have to choose, you can have more than one option.

Let's just keep all of this in mind and try to make this the best gaming community ever!

Canthan New Year (picture heavy!)

Sorry this is so delayed, I've been busy in real life (school is kicking into high gear!) and then my birthday rolled around (on the 11th) and I got some new video games (Skyward Sword!) and yeah...that's where I've been. I've been meaning to write this for a while, but have just now got around to it.

But better late than never, right?

So Canthan New Year began on the 2nd of February and ended on the 5th.

I would have logged on at the beginning of the event, Thursday, but I was surprisingly busy that weekend. Highly unusual for me, actually. I usually have at least Thursday and Friday free to game or do whatever, but that weekend things just kept coming up. Enough of about my personal life, though. You want to hear about my escapades in the game!

So since I only had a limited amount of time, I just started doing quests to get fortunes so I could get my Celestial Dragon mini pet. I wanted this thing more than anything else! I love dragons, my name is Dragonof Chaos, it had to be mine!  I had been reading all weekend how people were getting multiple pets and I figured I would be lucky enough like them, right? Ha! I have terrible luck when it comes to those things.

However, I was lucky enough after multiple fortunes to finally get my own pet! I tried to get one of my friends a pet since he had worse luck than me, but my luck had run out. More on that later. First, pictures!

Oh hai guys! 

The main event of this was the finale where you feed the celestial dragon and it comes and blesses you (if it's pleased with the meal you prepare) with gifty things and the Lion's Mask. The shot above was from one of the ones I caught (I actually caught a couple of them but was intent on getting my mini). I took a LOT of screen shots of this event. You will probably see in others that my chat is filled with screen shot spam. I can't even tell you a number because I am afraid to count them. Just trust me when I say a lot.

At some point, a bunch of little Kuuna's arrive and they all have a party!

They make several circles around the area before they disappear. It's an awesome experience!

Fireworks and Dragons, can you think of anything better? :)

So after that, I took a little break from questing for my mini pet and did some sight seeing. Here is Kamaden (in one of the Asian districts so I could get some clear screen shots).

Posing with the dragon..I think I'm more terrifying (don't let him hear me say that!).

I thought this was really cool. It was all glowy and red on the ground in this area. I loved it.

Dragon Season group pic! 

Tilion (or other DS people) feel free to snag these if you want!

Got a few angles. I'm nothing if not thorough :)

Getting down with the guildy, Rit style!

I didn't even realized I had snagged such a fantastic shot until now. 

More gratuitous dragon shots...you'd think I like dragons or something...

Here you can see where it actually explodes in all the little Kuunas. 

I have tons and tons more dragon screenshots, but these are really the best of them :) The rest of my screens are going to be of Shing Jea and the decorations. Most of the screenshots take place in Shing Jea unless otherwise noted.

Hey my guildies/alliance! :)

This and the following pictures are from the Shing Jea Boardwalk and surrounding areas (it's a huge area!)

Some of the boardwalk games

Fantastic views!

Fireworks over Shing Jea :)

More posing with more dragons.

Fierce! Happy Canthan New Year and Year of the Dragon!

That about wraps it up! I feel bad that I didn't have a lot of time to do much else. I wanted to try the Rollerbeetle Racing, too. It just didn't work out this year. I hope they bring this event and all it's fun into Guild Wars 2 for next year! I will definitely take advantage of it then. I just wish I had more time to experience this one as well. 

Also, I ended up with an extra undedicated mini dragon! (Long story short, Tilion and I bought it for a friend who didn't have one yet and by the time we could give it to him, he had one) So what does one do with an extra mini dragon?!  Why, they have a contest, of course! 

I am co-hosting an Art and Literature contest with Dragon Season! The deadline is in 10 days (the 29th) and the details are here! If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me! You can usually find me on Twitter @moosefaces or you can reply here. I frequent both these places. Or you can find me at that link as well. I am a mod there as well. Good luck!

A very Happy Year of the Dragon to you!