First thing you need to do is create a character.  Creating a character sets the most basic, fundamental things that you can do in the game.  Select PvP character from the New Character Screen.

Next, you’ll be given an opportunity to select the campaign your PvP character came from.  This only matters if you care about things like skills, appearance and effectiveness.  Since you’re in PvP you obviously don’t care about any of them.

The following screen is where you can change your character’s “Profession.” A profession is merely a guideline, and no thought needs to go into this area either.  A warrior can nuke just as well as any elementalist.  Just make sure you like what you see.  Now we have the gender screen.  You can either be male or female, but since we all know girls don’t play video games, picking female just makes you a liar. You’re ALMOST done creating your character!

Second to last screen, and time to pick out the clothes.  Unless you’re in denial about some deep seated feelings toward guys, we all know you’re going to skip past this screen.

Finally.  The name.  Name is the single MOST IMPORTANT part of the character creation. You need to pick a name that lets the entire world know just how 1337 you really are.  The best names are those that insult everyone possible.  Due to ArenaNet’s stringent standards, you can’t pick a really good name like “Kick Fmly Jewelz” but it still has room for at least one more “I Pwnz Ur Buttz” or “A F K L O L”.

Now that you have a character in play, pick a bunch of attributes to spread your skills around.  If you don’t see whatever skill you want, just switch to a different secondary profession.  A Monk carrying hammer skills and a staff is JUST right.

By this time, you might have noticed some little speech bubbles coming from other players.  This is called “Local Chat” and can be seen by everyone in the district.  Some key elements of local chat are that everyone can see it and it is best used to get your political views heard by lots of people at once.  Please use this time to talk about how George W. Bush conspired with Obama to cause 9/11. Everyone will appreciate your views and respond accordingly. If you see a phrase such as “You have been reported.” don’t worry.  It’s just the in game announcement system telling everyone on the server that you are awesome and they all need to come hear you out.

Time for your first PvP match!  Go to the Luxon Diplomat and tell him you want to go fight in Jade Quarry.  This will take you to an outpost that lets you join a random team to fight and win!

Upon arrival, you must immediately hit the “Enter Battle” button.  This will put you with the rest of your team.  It can take up to 15 minutes because the cowardly Kurzicks don’t fight very often.  Go get a drink, and watch a TV show. The game will wait until you get back.

When you get into the fight the first thing you want to do is run toward the Purple portal.  This gives you the best chance of showing those evil Kurzicks what you can do!  If you see a large Juggernaut, make sure to hit him with everything you’ve got.  In order to win, you have to take these big guys down.  Don’t worry if someone’s yelling that you’re going the wrong way as that just means they’re playing wrong.

Note that in order for your team to win, you need to kill as many things as possible.  The best way to accomplish this is to run straight into a shrine full of blue dots.  They will protect you on the rampage through the red dots.  In Guild Wars, red dots are considered enemies.  If you see a red dot and can’t attack it, it’s because you’re using the wrong skill.  Try another one!

If you’re in need of more PvP experience, you can just click Enter Battle and walk away.  This frees you up to do other things, such as watching TV or flaming people on the interwebs.  When you come back in half an hour, the mission will be over and  your character will be ready to do it again.  Do this two or three times, just to make sure that the experience is actually added. To check, open your character screen and look at the XP bar.  If you hit 2,000 XP you should see rewards called Zaishen keys show up in your inventory.

Have fun and happy PvPing!

Last Saturday (the 21st) I went to an arcade near work that specialized in BattleMech pods.  Inside each pod had a full set of controls for a ‘Mech and was well equipped to do just about anything you could do in the game “MechWarrior.”

I spoke with uglyman, the owner and proprietor of the shop, who said that the pods were a little dated but still worked well.  I ran a few games in Pods 1 and 5, where I had my butt royally handed to me, but it was fun.  Pod 5 did give me a little trouble with the joystick slowly moving itself up when it was left in the centered position, but that was easy to remedy by pulling it back down.

I used a mix of ‘Mechs starting with the Mad Cat Mk. II.  The first rounds were a horrible obliteration of my ‘Mech, but after a while I found just the right combination of missles and lasers.  It’s one thing to play against Rookie ‘Mechs on the computer but quite another to play against humans in the pods.

If you’re in the Seattle (specifically Kirkland) area and want to give it a go ’round the site for uglyman’s location is The Airlock.  Click on the images below to see my scores and the battle details.  Pay attention to number 2, when I had a kill 30 seconds in and 2 seconds from round end .

PS: I’ve been trying to get this post out for the last week! One of these days I’ll get on a semi-decent schedules. Read more

According to the WordPress Development Blog, there’s a minor security risk in WP 2.1.1 that allows users to view the trashed entries of other users.  Upgrading  is easy, just go to “Tools -> Upgrade” in you WP admin section!

There have been hundreds, if not thousands of articles about the new iPad released from Apple.  As an owner of an iPhone and a geek to boot, I see the iPad as a new toy to play with but nothing more.  However if we take a closer look at the iPad it may be better than it seems…but not for the reasons you think.

Read more

Over the next few days, I’m going to migrate what little I have in Joomla over to WordPress.  Joomla is a GREAT system for static or rarely changing information, but I want a system that lets me have a conversation with my readers.  Thanks for your patience!