Sigil Contest

I was hoping to win a sigil of my very own to start a contest like this but every time I've made it to the hall I've disconnected or it's dropped for someone else and I've yet to get my hands on one. But, I've managed to pry one out of the hands of someone else. And so, Guild Wars Guru is proud to unveil our latest contest, the iQ Test. The prize? A Celestial Sigil.

To enter you'll need to identify the locations of three screenshots taken by members of the Idiot Savants guild (Their tag? [iQ]). The winner will be the person who most correctly and precisely identifies the most locations. Also, in the event of a tie there are three optional bonus questions which will be used to narrow the field. If there's still more than one winner after all that, we'll pick a name out of a hat. You can find the complete details here. Send your entries to [email protected] by next Friday, June 10th.

Thanks once again to the fine folks at Idiot Savants, who've donated a sigil from their many Tombs runs to the cause. They've certainly managed to come across more than a few and I've been given vague reassurances that there might be further sigil giveaways in the future.

Please note that we don't want to see the answers to our iQ test publicly revealed until after it's over. Please let everyone have a fair chance to get it right and refrain from posting guesses or otherwise giving out the answers here and elsewhere on our boards or I, for one, am going to be very displeased. The "ban you and your entire family" kind of displeased. If you're unsure about a question then let us know but try to be discrete and use Private Messages, if at all possible.

UPDATE

There will now be 3 winners each recieving a Celestial Sigil. Runners-up will recieve a consolation prize of a rune each.

how much tactics does the monk have....

If someone gives me 15 unidentified yellow Ettin's Pauldron's then I'll give them the answers. Just kidding of course.

It's PvE so the attribute distribution changes all the time.

so then how are you suppose dto figure the damages!

ohhhhhh .... hahahaha .... sorry. I thought you meant the monks in the screenshot. I didn't realize you were talking about the bonus question. I think you can assume the monk has whatever tactics is required to use the sheild. Let me double check with Saus to make sure.

Some other questions... Does the lobby area before missions count as a seperate area then the mission? Also, do all of the Arena areas count, or is it just the competitive arena area to the south of Lions Arch and the Team Arena at Droknar's Forge (not counting earlier level arenas). One more question. Do pre-searing areas count that are inside post-searing areas? Like Green hills county is inside Old Ascalon in post-searing, so does it count? Also, do the sardalec sanitarium and ashford abbey count as 2 different areas?

One last question... Does the flame elementalist in Bonus Question #2 have a BASE Fire Magic rank of 8, or a total Fire Magic rank of 8?

Okay, one more last question... Do you have to say specifically where it is in the area? Or do you just need to know the area?

that's easy, a monk, a monk, and a ranger... ;p

My understanding of this was the more specific the better. The more specific entries will take poll position over the less specific.

I'd like to know this too please. I assumed it was a base 8 BEFORE taking into account extra gear but i'd like a confirmation on this one pretty please (with cherries on top).

Ah, the Tactics req was an oversight. That should have been taken out. The idea of the question is supposedly just what you could observe yourself if you were the Elementalist/Mesmer and I've toyed back and forth with more or less detail and I believe I included reqs and stats for the Monk so that people didn't think it was a Strength shield and they were under req or something. Consider it that there's no req on the shield and whatever the Mo/W's using the net effect is that they get +10AL from it and I'll change the wording accordingly.

The question comes from the fact we were originally going to have just one screenshot but the idea was raised that random guessing would give too great a chance of winning. I counted all the places where people could take screenshots and come up with a distinct answer - opening up their maps to see the area name and the like - and decided that 3 screens was a good number so that instead of a 1 in 100 chance (that's just an example number, by the way) of people guessing right it was a 1 in 1000000 chance. What we're asking there is for you to duplicate my work. How many places could we have taken a screenshot from in order to create an iteration of this contest? Any place that you could take a screenshot and come up with a different answer counts as a location. Any map in the game, any place you have to load to get to, counts in my book and it's my book that holds the right answer. Lobbies, missions, towns, outposts, explorable areas, guild halls, and anything else you can think of.

As for the Pre to Post Searing, that's a sticky issue but I'm going to say that things like Green Hill is the same as Old Ascalon. It's similar to the Ashford Abbey -> Sardelaac or Regent Valley -> Regent River Basin, which I considered as the same places, and slightly different as an amalgamation of two areas but not enough to warrant it being a different place. So, Green Hills/Lakeside and Old Ascalon count for one place as do Regent Valley and Regent River Basin and Pre and Post-Searing Ascalon City.

The Elementalist/Mesmer has spent exactly 37 attribute points on their Fire Magic rank. :P

All you need is the location of the screenshot. At a bare minimum, we're looking for the name that's shown when you open up the map. The more detailed you are, however, the better because we'll give the sigil to the person who says "The statue of Balthazar near the portal to Lakeside in Green Hills County, right by where you find the Warrior trainer who'll give you Sever Artery and Gash" instead of the one who says "Green Hills County". We want to see the answers be authoritative or entertaining somehow - if you want to take a screen of yourself or a vid cap of you journey to each location or whatever, we like that better than just "Green Hills County", too. But if no one else comes up with "Green Hills County" then that's still the correct answer and you'll win, there's just no extra credit in case more than one person comes up with the correct answer.

It would be soooo much easier if you had just said "count all pre-searing areas as completely seperate areas" or "don't count pre-searing areas at all"....
Some people will probably miss that question just by confusion over whether certain pre-searing areas count or not and for how many areas they count as <_<

Oh well I'm not going to get it anyway so I don't care too much.

It is a bonus question so you don't have to get it right or even answer it to potentially win.

do we have to be really precise on the "where was this screenshot taken" questions or will a general direction suffice?

Already answered above.
hope that helps

who the hell wuld kno this. can you say guild wars geek?

The same people that want a sigil.

What about the different kinds of guild halls? Do all guild halls count as 1 area? Also, what about all of the different areas in the Tombs? Do they all count as seperate? Should I count each guild hall for 2, 1 for the lobby version and 1 for the battle? How about the tombs area? 1 for the lobby and one for the undead fight? These are my last questions.

Wish it was a real IQ test like, general knowledge BEYOND guild wars. I don't even know what it looks like where I'm STANDIN let alone remember what it looks like where I've been.

Hate it that you have to be a gamer nerd to be good at this

The thing is that an IQ isn't just a score you get from answering questions like 'a blip is a blop and a blup is a blip yet a blop isn't a blup while being a blip, does this make sense ?'. Oftentimes people who fail these have good photographic memories, space orientation aptitudes and mathematical capabilities. If you can't remember where you were a while back then whopdidoo you fail that question and move on. You don't have to be a 'gamer nerd' to anwer the questions. If you open your eyes and stay off the chat once in a while, you'll see it's quite easy.

I am actually looking forward to the contest ending so I can actually find out where these places are - i been searching for hours daily along with another guildie of mine and we have had no luck yet lol

Screen 1 is especially vexing lol.

Sorry but I have my reasons for playin this game and I guess I'm just not THAT into it to remember screenshots. I mean, those look like they could be anywhere to me.
I raise the issue about the IQ thing only cos I was talking the other day about how runes and rares in the market are controlled by the grinders. I was suggestion maybe some quests that involved logic and were really really tough, and the rewards could maybe be a minor rune of your choice.. or something.

And there's no need to get touchy

You should be able to narrow down the location based on the tileset and then start checking out places. I think there are enough unique details in each screenshot to figure them out or at least get close.
It would probably take you more time to complete the uber quest and get your rune than it does to just go kill some ettins and get a rare armor drop. If you do a search for farming on the boards I'm sure you'll find lots of information on where to get rare items. You just have to know where to look for them and I'm pretty sure nobody has been trying to keep it a secret. (It doesn't take that long either)

In general the contest was meant for guilds that were unable to win in the hall of heroes. The general idea being that between everyone in the guild they would be able to figure out where the screenshots were taken. Either, someone would know off the top of their head or people could run around in some of the explorable areas that are close to figure it out.

Also, you don't necessarily have to get all of them correct to win.

I know the guru folks appreciate your feedback and I'm sure they will take it into consideration if they decide to run another contest in the future. Finally, I apologize for my less mature fellow guildmates who have a tendency to get snippity. Hope they didn't offend you in anyway.

Just a reminder that the contest will end Friday night so be sure and get your entries in before then. I've looked through the entries so far and I can tell you that no one's walked away with that sigil yet. No one's gotten everything right so far although a few have come tantalizingly close so there's still a fighting chance.

In any event, the response has been positive enough and iQ generous enough that we've decided to have not one but three winners. That's right, we'll pick the 3 best entries and they'll each get a sigil. Furthermore anyone who was considered for the sigil and didn't quite get it thanks to the optional portion of things, any runners-up, will recieve a rune of their chosing from my personal stores (I have a few Superiors, a bunch of Majors, and various un-IDed Minors laying around and, in a pinch, I can probably find what I don't have easily enough). As before, we'll contact and announce the various winners by Monday.

In short, yes. Lobbies and the maps they connect to count as different areas and although each character's only going to have one Guild Hall on their map since each Guild versus Guild battle map can be called a different name (Isle of the Dead, Warrior Isle, Wizard's Isle, etc) I considered the Guild Hall instances that connect to them as separate. Of course, you can also get to each of those lobbies by touring the islands before you have a guild, too. Same thing for Tombs and Arenas, although there's only one pip on the map I think the various Arena and Tombs maps are separate and recognizably different enough to be counted separately. Tombs, especially, as each map in there has a name, (And, yes, I counted the lobby and the PvE map to start with as two places - a tough call as they're pretty hard to tell apart but I think there'd be enough clues from one to the other to make a decent stab at it.) while the various Arena maps no longer do. However, they used to when there was an Amnoon Arena and a Crag and so on. I only counted each Arena map once, though, not twice for Competitive and Team.

Well you say that but its obviously not, ive found screenshot 2 but even if you examine the tiles that narrows it down to maybe just half of the map.
I just feel that this contest is gonna be won by the people that spend the most time searching for it. It is quite fun but id like next time that the test be different

Although thats not to say i dont know the answers

You found Screenshot 2 - wow nice one hehe

Last post on this cos it's off topic and unfair to the contest.
Just want to say, not neccessarily. I found a Superior Vigor on my first farm run to Riverside Province.. but since then I've farmed there and other places for AGES and come up with absolute zero. Besides, what I was talking about was having the rewards actually DESERVED. Farming is too easy for some idiot to go do then charge people the earth. Also, people like myself can't sit at the computer for hours on end concentrating on something. I have nasty joint and muscle problems and it's painfull sitting here to farm farm farm cos everything's too expensive. I just wish there were alternate ways. I don't care if they were hard. Seems the only way to get stuff is to farm. Either for the item or for the money. It's quite frustrating for me.

None of my buisness but why are you even playing the game if your not willing to put the time into it that it takes. . . and if your looking for some easy way out why dont you make like half the lame people who do and get on ebay one way your outa money and one way your out mabey a hr. Either way you should be playing the game to enjoy it and enjoy whom you play it with thats the point of this game not to run around by yourself and look for something becasue you want to make money off it.You remind me of the people who used to play Diablo 2 and would buy everything right down to their character becasue they didnt want to invest time and energy into something. If the games not fun to you dont play it.

Because this game was advertised as a game where 'having to put the time in' was not neccessary.

Peace,
-CxE

I take it that was sarcastic i have manged though to find the others, i think

What was sarcastic? If you mean my comment i was being sincere.

I have had a ton of trouble with Question 2 - of course not saying i have not found it now

That isnt really true... I did the entire contest by myself within just a few hours. It just takes more than the average thinking.

I'm prolly the only one on here who hasn't solved it lol. Me and a friend in my guild went searching for the places. Spent a long time, looked in missions all zones and couldn't find the first one. Didn't look for the second one [Due to not being able to find the first] But I found the third spot just by adventuring. Though it was frustrating looking so hard on the first one and not being able to find it, I still agree with the contest. It's a good thing they're doing. If it were easy, then the sigil would be meaningless, everyone would tie for first. And it's not about the prize. They're trying to get people to pay more attention to the hard work that's been put into this game's lore. I'm don't normally talk like this, but I'd hate to see GW become another D2. People mindlessly going through the same missions, killing the same bosses to find uber items, paying no attention to the story, or knowing why they're there. I'm not gonna win [Those damn skyboxes don't match I tell ya!] But whoever does will have earned it I'm sure. Maybe whoever spends the most time looking for it deserves to win? Just my thoughts

You calling me stupid

I have a quick question. On bonus question 2, it says APPROXITMATLY how much damge it will do. Should I take this literaly or do you want an exact number?

Also, is the monk getting hit from the front? I need to know that so I know if the shield blocks any damage or not.

Is this contest still open? lol.... I recognize them all....I just have to go back there and find out what that specific area is called if this contest is still open

Today is the last day.

Also, could som1 give me the definition of lobbies, towns, outposts, and missions and maps? I'm confused as to which is what.

Devts-Waver: Read the threads, Saus explained:

ok what time does the winners get announced today? Can you show the people who entered and what they got right please?

I've been told the guru staff will be going through the entries tonight after the cutoff to begin determining winners. I'm pretty sure the turnaround will be pretty fast. In addition, I beleive Saus will be putting together a montage of the winning entries for everyone to view.