User:Crazy Odin

About Me
Take your best guess! It's more fun that way! People generally call me "Odin", since all my characters have that last name.

Why have I started editing GWW now after keeping my account on here for months? It's about darned time I put my Guild Wars knowledge back into the wiki I've relied upon so much. Before, I was just less confident about editing wikis in general. This |||is||| the first time I've contributed to a wiki...

I fully intend to make every edit meaningful, or at the least reword stuff that isn't written well. I play PvE in all campaigns, and do Alliance Battles, and I feel that it should be easier for new players to learn the game. Beginners don't farm, and they don't do high-level PvP. Too much of chat is filled with people discussing those activities, and not enough is filled with tips for avoiding frustrating beginner mistakes.

More recently, I've been making simple fixes such as adding related skills and correcting inaccuracies.

I don't farm. While I am willing to use farming builds and farming techniques, I am utterly unwilling to do so for a long enough period of time to actually make money or earn a title. I have no problem with you farming or me coming along for a run, but don't expect me to get rich/l33t from it. Perhaps I'll make a userbox for this someday...

I am a primarily PvE player. Do not bash my understanding of PvP, since I'm obviously a "n00b" and don't need to be reminded.

Guilds
I am currently a member of Pent Up God [Pent]. However, I still remain friends with many members of the [AGED] alliance, and am founder of the House of Dion guild forum. This gets complicated sometimes... 'specially since they are Luxon and Kurzick.

If you want to say hi to me, or are looking for a casual PvE/PvX guild (I know several), either contact me in-game as Cocidus Odin or leave a note on my user talk page. Please explain who you are if I have not met you before, unfortunately game gold sellers also randomly contact people and I don't want to get confused.

While this page is not always up-to-date, I will probably remain either in Pent or an [AGED] member guild for the foreseeable future.

Ideas for Guild Wars
Many better-educated people have ideas for how they would balance specific skills and the game as a whole. I'm going to avoid that and get to the stuff they are overlooking. Please note that my inferences MAY BE WRONG and definitely do not apply to everybody everywhere.


 * Why Anet appears to suck: They don't have enough developers to do everything people want them to!

Average Guild Wars critic's day: 0 to 8 hours of work, 4+ hours of farming or PvP practice, 2-4 hours critiquing builds, virtually no sleep. Average Arenanet employee's day: 8-10 hours working on GW2, 2-4 hours working on GW1, 5 minutes wondering where the day went before collapsing on a cheap sofa. Neither estimate includes sleep, eating, or commuting to and from ArenaNet's headquarters.

In short: Us players have FAR more time to play, test, break, and complain about Guild Wars than the developers ever will.

Now that NCSoft is no longer marketing new GW1 campaigns, they probably don't have the revenue to pay for extra developers and skill balancers. This isn't WoW, and there's no paid-subscription cash cow to fund a small army of developers and testers and PR folks and Cultist Milthuran's personal wardrobe assistant.

What we should do about this: There isn't much anyone can do except wait until GW2 is ready. I think they're doing a very good job of doing the best they can, under these circumstances. If it wasn't for the other players and Anet's tenacity as a developer, I'd have left this game a year ago. Do I like balanced skills and well-thought-out changes? Yes, I do. Do I reserve the right to make builds as I see fit, relying on what I have and not what someone else can grind and farm to? Yes, I do, and so do you.


 * Now here's how I'd keep the number of skills under control, while allowing (in theory) an unlimited number of expansions:

All skills and professions are core. Other game mechanics, PvE-only skills, PvP maps, and armor styles are campaign-specific.

Using GW1 as an example: Ritualist Minion Bombers exist everywhere, but Reputation Points only exist in Eye of the North and Junundu only exist in Nightfall.

Why make every profession core? So we don't have newbies standing around Ascalon City wondering what the heck a "P/Rt" is and why it has a dagger symbol on its health bar.

Why is this good? Nobody NEEDS to buy every campaign to make a good build, but there's still quite a few reasons to "collect them all". Want to do Alliance Battles or use Ether Nightmare against a mob of Destroyers? Better have Factions...

Here's a liability: Older campaigns may go "out-of-date" as players move into newer ones. Then again, this happens already--try getting an all-human party for Unwaking Waters or something in the Maguuma Jungle.

Userboxes
More Userboxes coming whenever I find the time and motivation to add them.