Temporarily, the crazy refugees of Southsun Cove have come up with possibly the most masochistic game in Tyria. Surrounded by hostile wildlife that is attacking each and every settlement (at least the omelet-free ones), the free peoples have decided to design a game around a small Succulent Crab, which seems like one of the favorite foods of the karka. A mad game of solo keepaway ensues with planks, fishing poles, mad karka hatchlings, and giant rolling karka. Life imitates art, and the insanity of this game bleeds through to the Guild Wars 2 player.  Welcome to Crab Toss. Continue reading →

There are many ways to view the Secret of Southsun update. The most objective is ArenaNet has added an hour or so of content, and then you are done. This is the worst way to experience Guild Wars 2. In another view, it’s easy to see that Southsun has become the de facto hotspot for some time. Ignoring the checklist-type content, this zone is alive with players now. Finally, Southsun has received a much needed injection of life, love, and polish.

Guild Wars 2 continues to use achievements to replace quests. For Secret of Southsun players are tasked to explore the updated areas, talk to a few key individuals, and find a bunch of samples around the island. I find it to be a poor guide especially given the dozens of achievements in the Secret of Southsun achievement category. The mail sent to all players tells them to get to Southsun to talk to the Inspector, but the real guide to the content is the achievements. I feel that if ArenaNet is going to continue to focus on achievements as the quest-like director for new content serious iteration needs to be done to make it a better means of communication.

Anyway, savvy players seemed to burn through the quest-like content pretty quickly. I would not suggest focusing on the achievements to such a narrowed degree. Might as well enjoy the passion fruit flowers on the way. Continue reading →

Before the mob’s attention is diverted to Southsun, the vocal players on the Guild Wars 2 forums appear to be unhappy with the ending of Flame & Frost. It distills down to “4 months and we just get a few bonfires”. That’s a lot of distillation, and even in the final hours of Flame & Frost, it is not very accurate. Still I think a big issue is the handling of the scope of Flame & Frost.

Flame & Frost revolved around the Molten Alliances assaults in two zones. In the norn starting zone, Wayfarer Foothills, the Molten Alliance took roughly the northeast corner quadrant, and in the second charr zone, Diessa Plateau they took a large chunk of the west-central side. This is where the action was. This was where the yellow sunbursts were yelling at me to go. It became such a focus to players, yet it really wasn’t a focus to the world. Continue reading →

Jeromai and I must be on similar wavelengths, even though I know I do not have anywhere the gumption required to solo a dungeon. He writes this morning on how in six days that was all it took for the community situated around the Molten Facility to distill down to “mostly tired, lazy or focused on getting as speedily to the end as possible”. I was thinking the exact same thing over the weekend where I ran it one more time and decided I was likely done with the dungeon (especially since our guild is unlocking guild challenges this week).

Six days, indeed. Continue reading →

My guild has started doing guild missions every day. Guild bounties are still the basis for things, but we have guild treks and guild rushes unlocked too. Yesterday we did a few bounties, wiping on the first bounty thanks to bear vs. 2-MULT, but I felt the main event was the Chicken Run guild rush in Fields of Ruin.

I had an absolute blast with my first ever guild rush. This, this is where I think guild missions should have started. Guild bounties are work. It seems I am cursed to randomly get Prisoner 1141 on almost every guild bounty, and that is a frustrating 15 minutes trying to tag down the speed demon, and communicate it. There is confusion in communication, especially since I did not have a mic ready for Raidcall. Don’t get me wrong. Guild bounties are a good challenge, but guild rushes are more about fun. Continue reading →

The Flame & Frost arc in Guild Wars 2 is capped off this month with May being split in to two parts. The first part revolves around the attack on the Molten Weapons Facilities (plural) with a 5-man dungeon and a finale to revolve around a celebration of burning stuff in the city streets. Then the second half of May is… absent Flame & Frost? The dungeon, being a dungeon and not soloable, is only available for the first half of May, and this has caused a little inferno of rage from many.

Regarding it being a dungeon, Jeromai covers the inclusivity aspect of the Guild Wars 2 activity du jour. He does it with science, and I tend to agree with my personal experience below. ArenaNet’s response is that they like people playing together. Regarding the time-limited aspect, while I do enjoy ArenaNet’s monthly focuses, two weeks just seems… scant. People have been crying for new fractals, zones, events, etc. since last year, and the biggest piece of story content this year is a dungeon that will go away. In fact it’s all going to go away on May 12^th it seems since players will no longer be able to earn achievements from previous chapters of Flame & Frost. May 16^th is when the city guards tell people to stop throwing stuff on the bonfires and go home. The war is won.

Anyway, the dungeon itself. Let’s talk about that. Continue reading →

The preview for the next monthly patch is up. There are a bunch of much-needed “beta” additions to PvP, a few additions to the WvW progression, and some additions to guild missions including a quaggan guild rush. All of these things will permanently raise the stock of Guild Wars 2.

With the exception of possibly the WvW progression, these are very noticeable, permanent additions to Guild Wars 2. I expect a year from now guilds will still be able to turn in to quaggan and race around Frostgorge Sound. I hope that spectator mode and custom arenas in sPvP will turn the tide for the PvP community. Did I miss something?

Molten Weapon Facilities, a new Living Story dungeon. The Guild Wars 2 Flame & Frost Retribution page talks about fighting alongside Rox and Braham against the combined forces of the dredge and Flame Legion with an epic boss battle. Sounds like a great reason to log in, right?

Except that apparently with the press previews, Molten Weapon Facilities is not permanent. It is limited to be available only a set amount of time. Continue reading →

Guild Wars 2 has vistas and jumping puzzles as Explorer content. And then, because zone design is hard, Guild Wars 2 has invisible walls. There are places where you can sprint up 60+ degree cliffs and places where you cannot reach despite seeing your character jump high enough to get to next platform. “I’ll just hop up this gentle slope. Or I can slide down the cliff and start over, that’s fun too.”

: Zubon