March 28th, 2016

[Atravidua]

 

A Growing Family:

ATTENTION NEW GUILD MEMBERS!!  We would like to take this opportunity to say hello and welcome you to Sol!  *Guildie’s clap and scream*  *Thousands of balloons release*  *Explosions and sparklers*  *White doves performing acrobatics in perfect synchronization*  *Fruit punch*  As you can plainly see, we here at Sol spare no expense when welcoming new members.
As new members I know exactly what you’re thinking.  “This is the best guild ever.”  “Everyone is so nice and helpful.“  “Everskye is so cool.”  “The guild hall is amazing, I want to live here.”   Well not to worry, your thoughts are normal, completely understandable, and absolutely true.
Now that you’re fully fledged members you can take advantage of all Sol has to offer.  Explore our guild hall and all of its merchants.  Surf our website or Facebook page for info or just to do some good ol’ fashion officer stalking.  Join us for guild missions and flex adventures.  Get involved with the number of different charity events we help host.  Participate in the different contests we hold, like our monthly photo contest, for a chance to win gold and mucho fame.  Get a raid or fractal party together and murder things.  Jump into TS and meet other members.  If you’re on Sorrow’s Furnace server then make sure to join us in WvW, it’s amazing!  (If you’re not on SF server and would like to be, ask an officer how to transfer.)  Want help with annoying map comp?  Never been to a world boss?  Have no idea what Triple Trouble is?  No problem, we are here to help.
Make friends and become family, because that’s what being a member of Sol is really about... also killing things.  Yes, family and murder... the true essence of Sol.
~Everskye

 

Sol's Monthly Picture Contest:

Who here doesn't love some free gold?!  I thought so-- Wait, sir?  Sir, put your hand down, I'm trying to make a point.  Do you not want free gold?  Oh, you do?  Then why is your hand up?  *Sigh*  Yes, you can use the restroom.  Now, where was I?

A chance for 10-20 gold and all you have to do is take a screen shot in game.  Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to Sol's Monthly Picture Contest!  Every month we're giving you a theme and your job is to go out into the world and take a screen shot conveying that theme.  You'll post this in the thread for that months contest and your fellow guildmates will vote for their favorite.  Easy peasy!

Our first contest was last month with the theme of Your Favorite Places in Guild Wars 2.  We had some lovely entries from Tiva, Lyra, Braelly, Sparks, Entro, Sweets, Oritart, Everskye, Ashara, and Murdakei.  Thank you all for participating, we were so happy to see people having fun with this contest.  Congratulations to our winner, Storm!

March's contest is OH CRAP! Moments.  Basically, guildies are asked to get themselves in a situation where their enemies want them dead.  Sounds like a grand ol' time!  This contest will be in the voting process when this article launches.  I hope you're all out there supporting your guildmates, regardless of whether or not you entered the contest!

So far, it's been great fun seeing the creativity in our guild.  I can't wait to see how you all attempt April's theme!

~Atra

 

What's in the Guild Hall?:		The Great Grape Stomp of 2016:
Have you been to the Guild Hall?  It's quite beautiful and has a lot to offer.  Not just benefits to the guild, but also benefits for you as an individual.		Many in the guild will remember the wonderful event we took part in this past October, Pink Day in LA for breast cancer awareness.  We're now approaching another event with a similar endeavor.  Toga Party aims to raise awareness and support for those affected by Multiple Sclerosis through a huge event in Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2.  Just like Pink Day in LA, there will be games, prizes, trivia, and just an all around good time for a good cause.
Starting at the Tavern, a bartender gives you access to various enhancement.  These are 24hr buffs that can only be used one at a time, but can be switched out or refreshed whenever you deem necessary.  They also only conflict with each other and so can be used with all of your boosters, food, and wrenches.  Along with these enhancement, the Tavern is also the place that gives us a global WP reduction cost (as long as you're repping, of course).		What is one of the most important things you need for any Toga Party?  Wine, of course!  And not that cheap, icky box wine, nope nope.  In the lovely Guild Wars community, we make our own wine!  On March 13th, the Toga Party volunteers set out to Orr on an epic Grape Stomp, spreading the word on the event to come and gathering grapes for our wine.  (All the non-grape things gathered going toward funding the prizes, but grapes were the priority, I swear!)
Over at the Workshop, we have scribing stations and various gathering nodes.  The gathering nodes give you materials from all levels of gathering throughout Tyria and you can grab from them multiple times.  Scribing is a new crafting profession that came out with Heart of Thorns. It mostly crafts things used by the guild as a whole; decorations, WvW things, guild consumables, etc.  Anyone in the guild can scribe for us, but at higher levels it requires that you have certain guild permissions to make high level decorations.  The ranks with these permissions are Lord Architect and higher.  There isn't much personal gain from scribing so if you were to get to a point where you need to be this rank, chances are you're dedicated to the guild and we've either already promoted you to that rank or you're very close to being promoted.  Don't worry, we see you.		The trek around Orr was fun, doing map events with new people and stopping to gather every single thing.  But as with Quaggan Waddle for Pink Day, the real fun happened in Teamspeak.  If you're ever wanting bad puns or jokes that make you laugh just for how silly they are, this is your kind of event.   Our host for the event was Runa and she was one of the best parts of the Grape Stomp.  The first time we were put on-air for GWEN Radio, she lead us with an impression of one of The Knights Who Say NI from Monty Python and the Holy Grail.  The skit lasted a few minutes with her yammering on about shrubberies and various others in Teamspeak throwing in other notable quotes from the film about coconuts and swallows.  When we were brought on-air again later, she became Cartman from South Park.  Both impressions were impeccable and had us all laughing up a storm.
The War Room is made up entirely of things to benefit the guild in WvW.  We have buffs that are active when we have an objective claimed and tactical advantages we can activate when needed.  Everything that we've unlocked from here, aside from buffs and the ability to claim objectives, needs to be crafted by a scribe.  Scribes aren't only making beautiful decorations for our guild hall, they're also helping us crush our enemies.		The fun times in Teamspeak are sure to carry over to Toga Party on April 16th, so don't miss it!  At least come taste the wine, we've worked so hard on it.  (And some prizes too, if that's what you're into.)   ~Atra
Our Arena is a fun place to go with your friends and test builds or just have a good time dueling each other.  You can step into the ring on Blue, Red, or Green team.  There's also the option of Free-For-All fighting and another for Invulnerable fighters.  The Arena inspires creativity in it's variety of obstacles that can be placed in the Arena pretty much however we like.  We have walls, many turrets with different effects, team-colored torches, kill floors, the enabling and disabling of the ring-out barrier.  It's so customizable and the officers have talked at length about various mini-games we could make for everyone's enjoyment.
The Mine was a pain in our butt for the longest time, but we've finally gotten it fully upgraded and can now reap the rewards.  This is something mostly officers are especially happy to be done with as the only thing it does for us is give us aetherium.  Aetherium is a currency that accumulates automatically at a set pace.  It's needed for all upgrades in the guild hall (aside from maybe 2 or 3 small upgrades at the very beginning).
Finally, we have the Market.  Here you'll find merchants who sell things you can only get in a Guild Hall with Guild Commendations.  There's a mini merchant with exclusive guild miniatures; a trader who's wares change daily; a decorations merchant who sells things necessary for scribing; and the guild armorer and weaponsmith, both with the original guild armor/weapons and the new armor/weapons exclusive to Heart of Thorns that are dependent on the guild hall your guild owns.  If you're wanting to get more Guild Commendations, be sure to join us for Guild Missions!  Check the Message of the Day for times.  Fun Fact: there is literally no consequence to activating or re-activating missions whenever we want, so let an officer know if the times don't work for you.		A Toast to the Guild:   The guild has recently hit level 61!  To put this in perspective, the top level a guild can reach is level 64, and it took us only a few months to get here.  Some of the most difficult upgrades our guild recently achieved include reduced waypoint costs, a fully upgraded guild hall mine, and dragon banners (to name just a few).  This progress shows how our guild really came together and helped out.  The amount of materials needed to get us to level 61, and still continuing to climb, is extraordinary.  Countless times when someone was working on guild upgrades, they would ask in guild chat for a handful of items; ten minutes later we'd have more than enough of what was asked for.  The guild couldn't have gotten half as far as we have without our amazing, generous members.
Aside from all these parts of the guild hall that reward us, it's just generally a fun place to explore.  There are many hidden rooms and hallways.  Just go run around there sometime.  See if you can find your way into the secret waterfall place.		We raise a [Bottle of Experimental Ooze Booze] in thanks to the members who helped us get to where we are: Mistress Elemental, The Copper Newt, Ebony Star, Galasso, Eliste, Mel, angelwriter, Critical, Der Buck, Marcooz, reco, MithrilSole, Amy Cornelius, blinc, Southghost, Cherry Ace, Ari, Entro, Everskye, Osiris, Brandicitus, and any guildie who donated directly to an officer.  Your donations helped to make our guild and guild hall as awesome as it is, and we all thank you for it!!  Here's to getting our final three levels!
~Atra		~Lyra

 

 WvW - A Journey:

What is "World vs World"?  Here is the definition from Wiki: World versus World (also known as WvW) is a Player versus Player game mode where players from three different servers, or worlds, battle in the Mists. It features open-world combat on five large maps with up to several hundreds of players per map. In World versus World, players can besiege objectives such as Keeps and Towers with siege weapons, and battle over resources, to win rewards for their world and World Experience for themselves. Oh yes!  It's exactly what I wanted to do when I joined Guild Wars 2 so many years ago.  Saddened and depressed that the original Guild Wars was becoming a ghost town, I jumped in and purchased Guild Wars 2 in hopes that it would be just as good.  To my surprise, it was even better.

I instantly satisfied my desire to kick enemy ass thinking there was no way they would make things better and more exciting than Alliance Battles, Fort Aspenwood, or Jade Quarry.  But they did.  Plus, many more things to do than just speed up those damn turtles carrying jade on their backs. We got siege!  We got to defend keeps and towers!  We could actually upgrade things!  And not only that, but there were rewards!  I was so happy with WvW that I actually spent about 75% of my play time there.  I wasn't in a guild at first, but I often joined a guild because someone would see me guildless and dropped me an invite which I accepted almost every time. No, I never stayed long, because there was always something that didn't click with me.  Various reasons that I won't go into here, but I'm sure everyone has had those experiences.  That said, there was always a guild in WvW that I followed no matter who commanded.

[Sol] I remember learning so much while following Sol commanders, especially Insane.  It was like I was never really playing WvW the right way all this time!  I learned siege placement and how to defend towers as well as how to open field combat and how to make SM swiss cheese.  I learned a lot of ways to make it hell for the opposition either by running with a large zerg or small havoc group.  Then ANet announced they were changing things. Changing????  The changes, needles to say, were not all that great unless you flew in with your Tyrian passport to do some sightseeing in the Borderlands.  The upgrades to various objectives were now insta-upgrades.  No longer did we have to spend our hard earned coins to upgrade things, but it did it automatically.  There was no longer a need to slap them yaks into towers so things could upgrade quickly.  YAY...

Well, NOT!  That was half the fun and many complained about that aspect of WvW being taken away completely.  This has changed a bit, now objectives are upgraded depending on the number of yaks that have dumped supply in a particular objective.  A reason to continue slapping them yaks and still not having to spend your gold.  Yay? The Borderlands.  Yes.  The massive spread of land that we end up trying to glide across, much to our dismay, when we fall with a big, resounding splat.  Yes, the borderlands are gorgeous, and yes, the different tower lords are a wonderful addition... but can we talk about that break bar?  When they first rolled the new borderlands out, I swear, it took so long to break a lord's break bar.  I mean, a very... long... time.  I see now that this has somewhat changed as it no longer takes forever to down a tower lord.  The event, Skysplitter, is annoying.  It simply can't be done by one or two if there is a server zerg on the map.  Doesn't make sense if you have most of your towers and keeps on the borderland, it's all an aspect of who has the most numbers in this event.

Let's talk SM.  Good old Stonemist Castle.  Love it!  Can we talk "airship defense"?  Some say it's overpowered and ANet said they would look into lowering the damage.  I experienced it once; not as invaders to SM, but as defenders.  I think it was great!  Yet, somewhere inside my head I kept saying what ever happened to just defending SM the old fashioned way? Pushing on the enemy, building siege and fighting on lords?  What is this?  Machines taking over instead of using our human skill?  (Yes, yes...Asuran, Charr, Norn and Sylvari skill as well.) So, as you see, there are a lot of good and bad in the world of WvW in the last year.  Some are great, some leave us wanting more, while others should just be changed outright.  ANet has mentioned that they will 'look into it' for future WvW changes, but what does 'look into it' mean?  One thing they mentioned was making match-up information available ahead of time, yet in the same breath they said it was very complicated.  One important item we are all talking about is the new overhaul of WvW.

Mike O'Brien has stated the top priorities have been population balance and rewards. He said population balance will be looked at first.  From there, stability and skill balance, the decision on whether to fix or revert borderlands, and rewards and scoring.  Everything they work on for WvW will begin in April (or they might beta-test it first on Live servers in April).  Reset night has also been moved back to Friday, but an hour later than before.  Will they be able to fix the problem of unbalanced server and population?  Lag at the worst times?  Will there ever be a WvW reward track?  Or how about new stats, gear, and trinkets only available in WvW?  Why not a bonus reward for the winning server at the end of the week before reset?  WvW should give special rewards for those who win that week. Something like Badges of Honor for armor or weapon skins, backpieces, or special weapons.  WvW'ers are a special breed.  They have heart and are loyal to their server, going out there and giving their all whether they are a scout, a commander or a roamer.  Let us know what you think, it's time we started this conversation in the guild!

~Tiva

 

Toga Party Q&A with M A L I B U Barbie:

What exactly is Toga Party? The Toga Party is a yearly event that was created in Chahbek Village (Guild Wars 1) as part of a community initiative to bring players together back in 2007. In 2010, the event was taken to the next level as not only a fun get together, but as a charity event in support of Multiple Sclerosis. This year the event will be hosted in Serenity Temple - American Districts for Guild Wars 1 and on both NA and EU Divinity's Reach for Guild Wars 2. With a variety of events, including PVP, Costume Contests and Marathon Races! Don't forget the amazing real-life prize pool that you can be a part of if you don't $10 CDN or more to the charity that we are supporting!
Why did you start Toga Party? The Toga Party was originally created a joke event for fun. Chahbek Village was a random town that a few of us thought would be better named "Alex Trebek Village". While the town's name never changed, our jokes, quizzes and everything else Toga Party related back then, always referred back to the game of Jeopardy. As we moved on to 2010, speaking about Multiple Sclerosis was our main goal, but we always wanted to include our funny lore of our own take on this particular village. What is MS? http://www.gamergivingback.com/2013/04/what-is-multiple-sclerosis
How does it effect the body? There are a variety of ways that MS can effect the body. In my mom's case with relapsing MS, she is often tired, has sore muscles and her cognition can be off some days. MS has no outside symptoms that most people can pick up on, but in severe cases, people can lose their ability to walk, eat and eventually breathe...leading to death.
What is the goal of Toga Party? The goal of the Toga Party is to of course have fun, but also spread awareness about what MS is, raise money for research and support those both in and out of game who are currently battling this disease.
How long has Toga Party been going on? If I can do my math right, this will be the 6th year that we will be doing the Toga Party as a charity event, but 9 years as a community event. It is hard to believe that we have been doing this that long!
How was the 2015 Toga Party? With the support of our volunteers, the 2015 Toga Party was the best we had yet! We raised just over $5000 and were recognized by the MS Society of Canada for our work in online fundraising. In their eyes, we are changing the way that gamers are viewed as people. We are making a big difference not only in our own communities of Guild Wars 1 and 2, but also in the lives of those with MS. I cannot stress enough how an event like this cannot be successful without our many volunteers. ATT, TTS, Sol, MGW, The Henge of Denravi, Sorrow's Furnace, Tarnished Coast, Darkhaven communities as well as the many groups who support us on the European side, like Dragon Season, Nerdy Bookahs, GW 2 Community and the various guilds are all a huge part of what we do! Even individual players who step up and contribute their parts - are amazing!
What is the best part of Toga Party for you? The best part about Toga Party is seeing how my mom reacts to all the love that gamers pour out to those affected by MS. Hearing from players who have loved ones that also deal with this disease, gives me support and hope that we will make an impact on the road to finding a cure. So, if this is your first or sixth Toga Party, come out and show the love! Toga Party is on Saturday, April 16th at 12 Noon CDT in Divinity's Reach! (Also, feel free to donate to the Sol Guild bank! We're raising funds for a precursor weapon for Toga Party as one of the prizes. Barbie plans on making a legendary with the pre we donate! And... ALL Sol members are eligible to win any of the on-air prizes [at gw-en.com] and the in-game prizes! So get your donate on!)
~Angel