Much of the Living World updates in Guild Wars 2 are designed so that characters of all levels can join. Bazaar of the Four Winds is no different, and this guide is written for those just buying Guild Wars 2 now.
The Core
If you play normally, you will run across Zephyr Sanctum Kite Baskets located throughout the world. Looting these advances an achievement and gives the new crafting supply, quartz, and a rare chance at some other goodies. Enemies will rarely drop Kite Fortunes, which can be cracked for a short buff and Fortune Scraps.  Fortune Scraps can be amassed to buy the exclusive skins at the new zone.
What Will I Miss?
If you do ignore this Living World update, it is believed that in early August the small zone Labyrinthine Cliffs will become unavailable. This will also make the Sanctum Sprint minigame, a Mario-Kart-parkour-type race, unavailable. You will also miss the rewards for the meta-achievement to get a personal quartz resource node.
What is Going On?
Most of the update centers around the new, small zone called Labyrinthine Cliffs, which hosts the trade gathering, the Bazaar of the Four Winds. This year is especially notable because the near-mythical airship, the Zephyr Sanctum, has decided to dock at the Bazaar. The peoples of Tyria (your continent) are excited to learn the secrets of the nomadic zen-like humans, the Zephyrites, who are very skilled at wind magic. None of this lore directly relates to the stories, spoilers, or issues in the core game.
What Can I Get?
The most common item is the new resource: quartz, which has resource nodes to mine throughout the Labyrinthine Cliffs. Currently the only use of quartz is to create Celestial gear, which raises all attributes equally. Quartz is tradable on the Trading Post. While it is uncertain the future extent that quartz will be used, past Living World updates have brought about event-limited resources (snowflakes, azurite), which only create a specific type of gear. The recipes (search “celestial recipeâ€) used to create quartz-specific gear are obtainable as random rewards, but are best obtained through the trading post.
The other notable items are the event-exclusive back items and head pieces that depict the wind, sun, or lightning crystals and power of the Zephyrites. These can be obtained by getting Fortune Scraps from Kite Fortunes.  Kite Fortunes can be found as enemy loot, at kite baskets in most of the zones, and can also be purchased through the Gem Store.
Getting to Labyrinthine Cliffs
First you need to get to the city of Lion’s Arch. You can either get there through an Asura Gate to Lion’s Arch in your race’s capital city. The entrance to your race’s capital city is through the zone interface (clear portal) right around where you started post-tutorial, and the Asura Gate is a purple portal found on your maps. Alternatively, click the Structured PvP icon (crossed swords) on your menu bar. This will take you to the Heart of the Mists, which has a portal directly to Lion’s Arch. (The first time you do this, skip straight ahead through the structured PvP tutorial area and up the stairs to the Asura Gate. You can return to the tutorial at any time from the Heart of the Mists.) You can use this trick anywhere in the game as long as you are not in combat.
In Lion’s Arch, look on the map for a ship icon, which leads to the Labyrinthine Cliffs Transport Facilitator who will transport you to the Labyrinthine Cliffs. Once there, you will now have a waypoint to Labyrinthine Cliffs so that you can map warp there from anywhere in the world for small fee.
Can I Reasonably Complete the Meta-Achievement?
The meta-achievement is ArenaNet’s take on a quest hub that would “complete†the Living World event. The Bazaar of the Four Winds portion requires that you complete 16 achievements in that category, with the reward being a personal quartz resource node in your home instance, which can be mined once a day for quartz. Two achievements from the Hard/Very Hard tiers must be obtained, such as Grandmasters of Om and Kites over Caledon. Check out the achievement guides at the official wiki and Dulfy’s.Â
Easy (6):
Strangers from the Sky, Voyage to the Bazaar, Ascent to Zephyr Sanctum, Diverse Trader, Sanctum Sprint, Kookoochoo the Incredulous
Medium (8):
Lessons from the Sky, Best. Dive. Ever., Like Clockwork, Poor Man’s Kite (level 9 area), Parachute Pilferer, Crystal Obsessed, Crowd Favorite, Pickup Completionist
Hard (4):
Grandmasters of Om, Kites over Caledon (level 7 jumping puzzle), Speedy Sprinter, Sanctum Sprinter
Very Hard (6)*:
Learn to Kite, Kites of the Night (level 43 open-world dungeon), Kites of Iron (level 61 jumping puzzle), Kite Bombing (level 37 jumping puzzle), Colossal Kites (dungeon), World vs. Kite (World vs. World jumping puzzle).
*For returning players some of these will be much easier to obtain if you have a higher level character or are familiar with dungeons and WvW.
Feel free to ask any questions below, and I will try and answer.
–Ravious
I guess a good quantity of players will get the dailly acount quartz node for the home instance. I am sure I will try get that 16 achievements for it. I will too try get all recipes, if I don’t get all recipe drops I will buy them in the TP.
Take note that the quartz crystals can be sold in the TP. I will try store the max quantity of crystals farming the chests that spawn in the open world, that drop from mobs and from trading normal resources for chests. I guess some “merchant” players are doing the same just for sell quartz in TP for profit later, the quartz price will problably surge next months.
Looking the stats for the celestial gear, it is possible see it is a better substitute for the farming/magical find gear and the condition gear* people use.
Sincerelly, any new player now better get all 16 achievements asap for gain the node inside the instance home. Stop everything else. Later they will have a constant flux of quartz if they do it.
I am not sure if a future event will make gain that node possible again (however, I think it is problably each year when the bazaar returns – if the bazaar returns each year – that can happen). But evidently Anet wants make the instanced home more usable and IMHO we will see more events giving us rewards for put inside the instance homes.
*While pratically everyone uses zerker gear, some classes work better with condition gear, for example: engineer and necromancer (I play both, so I can quote both classes as working better with condition gear, I am not sure about other classes like mesmer and my elementalist is simply going zerker glass cannon)
I’m just not that into jumping puzzles and mini-games.
This is fantastic! Thank you! Now I just need to find time to play while moving twice in one week…