Apprentice Event / Tour

ROFL Zeph! I would throw something at you but you're too darned huggable!

WOOT! Raisa and Leigh have closed on the house and have internet!! We can start this!

First attempt will be Friday evening Feb 20th at 6pm eastern time (that's 3pm for Strixy, Zeph & Elon and Sat morning at 8am for Plum).

We'll adjust the time as we figure out what's best but remember, these runs are for the Apprentices so we'll be adapting the time for what they need, not for us adults.

We may adjust it to 7pm eastern time depending on what time Elon can be online since she's out west. 3pm her time may be too quick after school so we'll play it by ear.

Adults, please remember to bring support or low level characters as we want the Apprentices to get as much xp as possible. I will be on my Ele running a healing build.

I know y'all are tired of hearing it but I want to make sure it gets drilled in - THIS IS FOR THE APPRENTICES... The adults are welcome to come along, get your map completion, help out, be monster bait, etc but we're not focusing this around the adults.

So let's get Uncle Warden and Grandpa Myron's Tours For Tots started! woohoo!

Cool! I'll hop on as soon as I get home (4:30pm).

I'll help since in between and I need map comp on my Warrior for Eternity and Frostfang and Bolt

Looks like all we need to know is where to start.
I have no idea which maps who needs so I suppose it is up to youngsters to come up with a place and I'll be there.

I suggest doing the starting areas first. Just as a warm up. And they're easily accessible I also will gladly help with this

Agreed... we'll start with Queensdale first. So we'll meet in DR and forth and conquer from there!

the last thing i wanna do is babysit warden n myron but count me in ill help stop the young uns wearing the old fogeys out

*sigh* So, my cousin decided to pick today to stop by my house for a visit. That means he'll probably want to grab dinner as soon as I get home. I'll most likely have to catch the next one of these runs.    You all have fun though!

Scratch that. My cousin changed his plans tonight, so I'm available for this again. I'll hop on on as soon as I get home!!!

lol ok Zeph...

First off I like to thank everyone that came out to help with the Apprentice Tour last night. It was a blast and I enjoyed running around with everyone. Thank you again to Warden for such an awesome idea!

Now, let's talk about what happened, how we did it, and toss around ideas to make it better.

First, the time. We're going to change start time to 7pm eastern time. That's 4pm west coast time which will give Elon more time to get home from school and join us. We'll also be limiting this to 2 hrs each week. We'll be stopping at the closest safe spot about 9pm eastern time. We don't want to either keep the Apprentices away from their bed or the table. That means we won't be able to do a full map each week but that's ok, we'll finish it when we finish it!

Second, please watch your damage. There were several times where someone would burst kill a critter before anyone else got a hit in on it. Please control that. Remember that everyone needs to get a hit in to get credit for the heart. I know that Warden, Zeph and a few others were running low level weapons to prevent that from happening. I had my Ele build so focused on healing that Chris had to run back and kill a mosquito that was attacking me at one point... So scale your weapons back so the damage is low. Let everyone get a hit in please. You may want to put one of your normal weapons in one slot and a low level weapon in the other so that you can switch if we get in trouble but use the low damage stuff as much as possible.

Also keep an eye on everyone. We don't want to run off and leave a guildie laying there dead which happened at least once last night. I know it's harder to do when we're using a squad instead of all of us being on one party. So next week we'll remember to party up before we head out and keep an eye on each other.

Overall I think it went very well and again, I want to thank everyone that helped. Warden and I appreciate it and I know the Apprentices do too. It will get better as we get the process down just like the guild missions have.

Now, let's toss out ideas and make this even better going forward! What did y'all think? Ideas? Suggestions? Comments?

I agree with Myron, that was a lot of fun, thank you all.

As far as gear goes, I kept my normal armor but used a couple of lvl 10 weapons, staff and GS on my Guardian.
Level 10 because if I need keep a group at bay I can and my armor because..well, dieing ain't much of living.

The time change seems good, but I'm fine with whatever.
Can we party up and still be in a squad? I have no idea. But I hate leaving people behind, dead, downed or fighting, not a good feeling when it happens to me.

I'm not sure exactly what we can do to make the run any better, smarter people than me can decide that, it could go more smoothly but I think that will come with time. No complaints from me though, except that thing that Strix did NOT do.

To answer your question Warden, yes you can be in a party and in a squad. So we'll form up parties and a squad next Friday.

Let's hear from some of the other folks. And Leigh, please ask the boys what they think. We most certainly want their input on this!

So I talked to the boys...they both said they had fun and Ryan said he leveled a lot. I appreciate having an end time. It isn't the biggest deal since it's a Friday, but sometimes I have to deal with grouchy boys the next morning.

As always, please let me know if the boys need better direction or supervision when they play. I hope to join you with one of my rarely played toons some night as well

I had fun. And I think it went well, aside from the hiccup you mentioned. My suggestion is for us adults to keep a different mindset next time: to remember that the intent of this event was to make guiding and protecting the apprentices the primary focus, with our personal map completion a distant secondary one. In other words, don't go into this thinking it's a great time to get your own mapping done. That way, you won't be disappointed. But if it happens naturally; great! See, I found it hectic at first because I didn't really have the time to finish the hearts for myself. But once I abandoned that train of thought, I was able to relax and enjoy the event for what it was.

So, the next time I'm just going to bring my ranger (who has everything mapped but WvW) and run with 3 spirits chasing after me, giving buffs to everyone.

Good points Zeph. Adults that come along will be getting the advantage of opening up all the waypoints, skill points and vistas and can always come back to finish up any hearts they don't get. Once we leave the starter areas our jobs will be much more of a protective role.

Abby and I were a little disappointed that we had to miss this, so we are definitely going to try and join the next one. It's good for me too, because sometimes I miss out on opportunities to be able to play in game with her. Or maybe she prefers that, I don't know lol.

Any ideas as to where the next run will start, because I really don't want to folks to point and laugh..more than they normally do.

That was a lot of fun guys! Thank you warden and myron for doing this event!

Here is a screenie from the night!

OH !! I love it!! Thanks Strix!

Warden, we'll pick up at the way point we stopped at in Queensdale so we can finish that up. From there I'm thinking we'll do the other starter areas outside the Grove, Black Citadel, etc. and work all the starter areas before moving on up into the higher level areas. That will be more relaxed and give us all time to "mesh" and work out any problems or come up with better ideas for this as we go.

I would love to be in on these except I'm falling back into my work schedule, which means I start my work shifts at either 4pm or 5pm Pacific. So if I could join in while I'm at work, I'd constantly be late.

OK folks, I'm going to cancel the Tour for Friday evening, April 17th. Sam and his lovely wife are coming in to town so we're going out to dinner. We'll pick it back up next week, April 24th.

Myron

Thanks for the heads up, Myron! I would've missed it anyway. :/