Gates of Maguuma!

We had to show a lot of patience these last two months but we’re finally here, the start of the second season of the Living Story:  Gates of Maguuma! Arenanet held true to their words and delivered an entirely new map chockfull of events, enemies and much more. We also got the first, rather lengthy episode of the second season of the Living Story and also a revamped ‘Story Journal’ to ease the transition to the second season. To top it off, we got new and harder achievements as well as new rewards. But the question we have to ask ourselves, knowing our notoriously critical community all too well, is: Was it enough?

The New Story Journal!

First off, we have the reorganization of the story journal. To its core the story journal is now the merging of the living world story and the personal story. The name ‘Living World Story’ still is in use and the idea of an ever changing world is also still in check. But in practice, with the reorganization of the story journal, the living story has become the personal story or vice versa, however you like it.

How does it work? If you go to your hero panel, you’ll find the story journal where you can find the summary of your personal story, which you probably haven’t checked since you beat the personal story ages ago. The personal story is still there but it’s joined with a living world story section. Each episode of season 2 and beyond will be added to this living world story section in the same way you progressed through the personal story. During the window, which can be 2 weeks or more as confirmed on the ‘Story journal behind the scenes’ stream,  the latest episode of the living world is released and you need to log in once to make the episode permanent. What does this mean? This means that by logging in once, you can play that episode whenever you want and replay it whenever you want.

When you miss this window you have to cough up 200 gems to unlock it. But as you might expect, the minute a free-to-play mmo asks cash for content, the community is up in arms. But is that justified? How hard can it be to log in once to unlock that episode? It’s also a clever way on Arenanet’s part to keep the benefit of temporary content. As long as the content is temporary the player is forced to regularly log in to play the content. They lost that effect with the permanent content coming our way but regained it by forcing the player to log in to unlock the new content. Also, 200 gems are not hard at all if you convert gold. For the moment 200 gems is about 20 gold (but the exchange rate is rising rather fast), which takes almost no effort at all to farm. Add to that, that by paying 200 gold you’re only paying to have the opportunity to get the rewards and the achievements. If you only want to experience the story you can group up with someone who has unlocked the episode and you will be able to play the content free, even though you missed the window. You won’t be able to get rewards or complete achievements however. As far as season one is concerned, it will not be available right away. It definitely is in Arenanet’s plans but it needs some serious re-imagination as season one wasn’t designed to be like season 2. Also the re-playability of the personal story will be for a later time because of the different choices you had to make, which heavily influenced your personal story.

But there are also downsides to this restructuration. The first one is a clever trick from Arenanet. There’s no way to buy just 200 gems with real money. The lowest amount you can get is 800 gems. So if you want to unlock the latest episode of the living story, it’ll cost you 10 $/€ instead of 2,5 $/€. The second downside is more directed to the future. This system doesn’t seem to cost-friendly to future players. Imagine a new player who joins the game midway the third season. That player will have to cough up a considerate amount of money to play the past content. A counterargument to this however, is that if the player only wants to catch up with the story, which is probably his main goal, he/she can just group up with someone who has it all unlocked.

The addition of the story journal is the proof that Arenanet does listen to its community. The community asked for permanent content and with the new story journal, that’s what it got. It might cost 200 gems to get the content if you missed the window, but really, how difficult can it be to log in for a few seconds? It also might be a prelude to an expansion. With this restructuration it looks easier to add a new big personal story. I for one applaud and welcome it as a nice addition to the game.

Gates of Maguuma!

Off with the technical mumbo-jumbo and on with the first episode of the Living Story: Gates of Maguuma. Over the course of the first season the Living Story endured quite some justified critique. The narrative felt too easy-going, slow-paced and didn’t have enough depth. Also the characters weren’t fleshed out enough with Scarlet topping the lot. And the rich Guild Wars 1 lore was barely used and more often ignored.

So the Guild Wars 2 team had their work cut out for them but based on this first episode they seem to be on the right track. The episode is quite lengthy compared to season 1 and filled with lots of dialogue which gives more depth to the story and the characters. Also this first episode seems to be using more of the Guild Wars lore and successfully connecting it to the current narrative.

Disturbance in Brisban Wildlands

We start of the action with a letter of the Elusive ‘E’. We still have no clue who this ‘E’ character is or why she’s guiding our actions. The community has taken multiple stabs at the identity of ‘E’. From Ellen Kiel to Evon Gnashblade, to even going back to GW1 lore with Evennia. But none of those has any real foundation to make a case for the identity of ‘E’. What we can expect however is that we’ll see more involvement of ‘E’ and we will eventually learn the identity of ‘E’ during the course of the second season. It’s one of the better guarded story secrets of GW2 and I’m curious to see who ‘E’ will turn out to be.

But for now, ‘E’ sends us to ‘Tangle Root’ to investigate a disturbance in the Brisban Wildlands. You can get to Tangle Root from either the North, through Aurora’s Remains or the East, through the Toxal Bog. Either way you choose, if you’re timing is a little unlucky you’ll find the access to Tangle Root closed off by vines. You’ll have to clear it by completing a small event. Even though it’s good idea, this event does feel kind of trivial as the event is quite easy and with a couple of players you can complete it very fast, possibly making the event more of an annoyance then an added value in the future.

What the event does do is bring us face to face with the Elder Dragonic Corruption of Mordremoth. During the event you come across Jungle Tendrils, small and large. Also there are Overgrown Husks, and Overgrown Wolfs, which can be considered as Mordremoth minions we’ll see more and more as the story continues.

After we clear the event we reach Tangle Root to find out that ‘E’ sends the same message to Kasmeer, Marjory Delaqua, Braham, Rox and Taimi. Together you wind up at a small Seraph camp who deals with black market traders. The group offers their help and surprise, surprise, you find out that Marjory’s sister, Belinda Delaqua is part of this Seraph encampment. We knew we could expect her to play a part after she was introduced at the end of season 1. Many people believe Belinda is destined to die in the story because of the way she was introduced. I’m not so sure about that, as that would be the same way of easy-going story telling we got last season and I expect Anet learned from their mistakes in season 1. But for now an introduction to the character of Belinda Delaqua is all we get. She doesn’t play a part in the rest of this first episode but I’m sure we’ll see her return as an important secondary character.

Your conversation is cut short, however, as the Inquest launch an assault on the encampment. Together with the group and the Seraph you’ll manage to slay the waves of Inquest assassins to ultimately face off against a Veteran Experimental Mark I Golem with a rather annoying bunch of Golemites which can make quick work of you if you don’t move. Just run circles around the boss, while attacking and you’ll be fine.

After you’ve shown the Inquest who’s boss, you say your goodbye’s to Belinda and learn from Kass that there are some difficulties between her and Belinda. We also get some more background on the Delaqua family, especially the mother. This tells me that the background of Marjory and Kasmeer will play a part in the future of the Living Story. After that you’re ready for the new zone. Onwards to the Maguuma Wastes!

Fallen Hopes

Upon arrival in the new map ‘Dry Top’, you’re confronted with the ruins of the former majestic Zephyr Sanctum. As you could see in the trailer they released just a week earlier (source), the Zephyr Sanctum was sabotaged from the inside. Therefor it’s almost somewhat of a shame that they didn’t incorporate the exploding Sanctum in the intro cutscene upon entering the map for the first time. Some people are complaining that they destroyed one of the best things of the first season by crashing the Zephyrites. I don’t really agree. It’s important for the narrative to keep us sharp and surprise us and I must say that I didn’t expect them to crash the Zephyr Sanctum. Also, this doesn’t mean the Zephyrites are gone, it actually means the opposite. The Zephyrites clearly have a big role to play in this second season. Also the jumping, dashing and rolling mechanic which characterized the Zephyr Sanctum has remained and even been incorporated in the new map.

Of course, the good Samaritans our little band heroes are, we offer up our help to the Zephyrites and investigate the cause of the crash. During our investigation we get some dialogues that show the evolving, maturing relationship between Kass and Jory. Both of them show worry for each other when in battle, despite both of them being formable fighters.

Eventually we find a Zephyrite corned by some Inquest. After pummeling the Inquest into oblivion we interrogate their victim before she succumbs to her wounds. She tells us the leader of the Zephyrites, the Master of Peace, whom we encountered during the Festival of the Four Winds, is in danger. When asked why, the Zephyrite says she doesn’t know but Kass remarks that the Zephyrite was lying. Now, the Zephyrites always were a mysterious people but now they also got a more sinister touch. Maybe the Zephyrites aren’t as peaceful as they’re cracked up to be. All we know is that they’re desperate to guard something but whether that ‘something’ will be good or bad for us, remains to be seen. My best guess would be that it has something to do with Glint. The first time the Zephyrites landed in the Labyrinthine Cliffs, there were only hints at a connection between the Zephyrites and Glint. The second time they landed, they confirmed that connection by clearly referencing Glint. Now they’re just pushing the connection in our face so blatantly that it must mean it plays a huge part in this second season of the Living Story. The Zephyrites are the successors of the Dwarven Brotherhood of the Dragon. They are protecting Glint’s legacy and that legacy is most likely the cause for the Zephyrites secretive behavior. But what does that legacy entail? We don’t know yet but the most recurring idea in the community is that it’s Glint’s offspring. Although it’s definitely possible, I’m leaning more to the option of Glint’s body. After Glint died the Zephyrites sought out her body and garnered the power of the elements out of it aka the jumping, dashing and rolling crystal mechanic. A dragon’s body is a great source of magic and would be a highly desired source of power to factions like the Inquest. Also there’s a dialogue in this update that references Glint’s body as a powerful source of magic that cannot fall in the wrong hands (source).

Also I’d like to mention that the fights you do here against the Inquest can be tricky at times. You encounter quite some veterans and a lot of the time you don’t have a lot of space to move around in. This means that one rash dodge could send you off the cliffs. Also if the enemy starts to field target you, it’s difficult to find a save spot.

Anyways, as we continue our investigation in Dry Top we encounter more and more bodies. We find out that these Zephyrites didn’t die from the crash but were stabbed. This turns our investigation into a hunt for a killer. As we hunt for clues and find them, we deduct that the culprit is a Sylvari and to be even more precise, our culprit is a Soundless. This points once again to a possible narrative that has a big following in the community, namely the connection between Sylvari and Mordremoth. Now, what are the Soundless Sylvari? To be brief, they’re similar to the Nightmare Court expect for the fact that they’re not inherently evil. Just like the Nightmare Court, the Soundless refuse to follow the Pale Tree and reject their Wyld Hunt. The Soundless were always present in GW2 but never on the forefront, which seems to have changed as of now. As we conclude our investigation we figure that the Master of Peace would most likely flee to the nearest town. And on that note we decide to continue our hunt for the murderous Sylvari Soundless in the little mine town Prosperity…

Cornered

After you’ve asked around in Prosperity, you end up in the West of Dry Top in Spurbend Canyon. You decide to explore and quickly encounter the Soundless Sylvari you were looking for: Aerin. Aerin comes over very confused and deranged, not coincidentally like Scarlet…but less. Aerin decides to fight you and you beat him down to 50% of his health at which point Aerin decides to run. Subsequently the gang starts a wild goose chase fighting Tendrils, Overgrown Husks and Wolfs along the way. Eventually you hunt Aerin down to a large crevice where you see Aerin has found the Master of Peace. At this point Aerin is more and more showing extreme Scarlet behavior. He mentions such things as ‘I’ve seen the bigger picture and you’re in my way’. Sounds very much like the same being that influenced Scarlet also has a hold on Aerin. Is this Mordremoth, who would be most people’s first guess or is there something else pulling the strings? You fight Aerin one last time but this time you have to use the element crystals to beat him. Now the crystals are not only a movement mechanic but a fighting mechanic as well. A really fun addition if you ask me. By adding the crystals as a fighting mechanic you keep combat exciting and challenging at the same time. Eventually, Aerin falls and you save the Master of Peace. The leader of the Zephyrites confirms it was Aerin who blew up Zephyr Sanctum and he did it to gain great power. Now is this again a reference to a possible magic source in the form of Glint’s body or Glint’s offspring? Time will tell but the Master of Peace does remain very mysterious and refuses to come back with us and says his journey has yet begun. Apparently the Master of Peace is on a quest to some sort of ‘McGuffin’. What that is and what it means for the story is something for a later episode as the gang returns to Prosperity looking for a reason behind Aerin’s madness.

Prosperity’s Mysterious Room

After asking around town if anyone knows something more about Aerin, you indeed find out that there was a Sylvari hanging around town for a while. But this Sylvari wasn’t Aerin, it was a pig-tailed redhead female Sylvari everyone choose to stay away from. Sound familiar yet? Yeah, you guessed it, none other than Scarlet Briar stayed in Prosperity for a long while. Now, some people might be dreading Scarlet coming back to the story after we finally got rid of her last season but I don’t mind it. Even though Scarlet wasn’t the most fleshed out character, she was crucial to the story, so you can’t expect her to just disappear from the story. Despite her death she still has a large impact on the story and the writers took this opportunity to give her character some more depth.

After you force entrance to Scarlet’s room, you search her room for anything interesting. Especially Taimi is very intrigued by this room. I must say Taimi is probably my favorite character. She’s funny, adorable, interesting backstory and cool with Scruffy as her armor suite. When she was introduced, she kind of came out of nowhere but thank god for whoever did it, because Taimi really livens up our gang of heroes. Anyway, Taimi insists on exploring Scarlet’s room, despite the others not seeing the point of that. What’s interesting about Taimi is, that she always saw Scarlet in a different light then the others. Taimi doesn’t see Scarlet as an Evil madman but a misunderstood genius.

Kasmeer stumbles on the first interesting find, a book called ‘The Nature of Dragons’. It’s indeed a very interesting find, since the book talks about the undeniable connection between nature and Elder Dragons. To me, this points again to a possible connection between Mordremoth and Sylvari and the Pale Tree. That connection becomes even clearer when Marjory find a drawing on the wall. In the drawing the Pale Tree stands in the middle of chaos, so the Pale tree will probably become an important factor to the story. Also some people are claiming that the drawing is very similar to the Realm of Torment and that this could mean we’ll be seeing the Realm of Torment sooner or later. I would think if the Realm of Torment would play a part, it’ll rather be later then sooner. Even though the drawing is indeed similar, to introduce the Realm of Torment now would feel forced and shoe-horned in. If they plan to go the Realm of Torment, it has to be a slow buildup to it, like at the end of season 3 for example. But to be quite honest I don’t think we’ll be seeing the Realm of Torment. I just don’t see it fit with the current story line.

We also find the remnants of a steam creature in Scarlet’s room. If you linger after the instance is done, you can find a Scarlet hologram that tells her entire story from when she was a young student. Scarlet says she created the steam creatures. They were her first experiments before she switched to Aether.  But the steam creatures became independent managing to sustain and multiply themselves without Scarlet.

Finally Rox find Scarlet’s diary before she switches over to her hologram log. In her diary she talks about the first leyline she found right here in Dry Top. It was her first step that set her on a crash course that would lead to her death and the awakening of Mordremoth.

While Taimi chooses to stay behind and delve some more into Scarlet’s clutter, we start our search for this leyline Scarlet found. What did Scarlet discover at that leyline and what implication does it have? Questions we’ll sadly have to wait to see answered in two weeks as the first episode ends here.

So as you can see by the text above, quite a lengthy episode, this is a significant improvement on the first season. We also get a lot more dialogue with lots of information and lore, which draws you more in the story. The character’s and their interpersonal relationships develop while we get some answers and some more questions to ponder on in the meantime. So all in all a very good start to the second season. The writers seem to have learned from season 1 and hopefully they can continue this throughout the entire season.

Dry Top!

With the start of the second season of the Living Story, you would almost forget we have a new map. Finally, almost 2 years after South Sun, we get a permanent new map. If you think about it, that’s a long period without new zones so they had to make this one good.

And good it is! The new map is called ‘Dry Top’. Dry Top also existed in GW1 but you never had a reason to go there except for your own curiosity. It situated West of Brisban Wildlands in the Maguuma Wastes. It’s a desert area with steep cliffs and canyons because of the effect of the Orrian flood.

Visually they nailed the map. It’s stunning to look at the sand dunes, the cliffs, the wrecks of the Zephyr Sanctum and the quaint little town of Prosperity (what’s in a name, right?). Personally Guild wars 2 is still visually the most beautiful mmo out there. It’s not as outdated as WoW, not as grim and dark as ESO and not as kiddy and cartoony as Wildstar. Visually, GW2 is in the sweet spot between those games to me.

Now, you might offer up the critique it’s a rather small map and I would agree with you but it’s not as small as you think. This is a very vertical map. Just like the Labyrinthine Cliffs, you can’t only walk to every corner of the map but you can also climb pretty much every cliff you set your eyes on using the element crystals. This adds an extra dimension to the map and is an example of exquisite map design on Anet’s part. Well done!

Also I don’t believe this map is complete yet. If rumors are to be believed we just got a portion of the Dry Top map. In future episode we’ll see more parts of the entire Dry Top map opened up for us. There are two reasons to support this claim. First, on the world map the name of the map, ‘Dry Top’ isn’t in the center of the current map. If you look at the other map the name of the map is always in the center of the map. Second, the current Dry Top map has an irregular shape. There are parts missing in the upper left and bottom left of the current map. If you look at other map, they’ve always been rectangular. How big the entire Dry Top map will turn out to be, I don’t know but there’s definitely more to come.

With a new map there are also new Points of interests, vistas and skill points. No ‘hearts’ though but I can’t say I mind. ‘Hearts’ became tedious over time and added little to the game. But the same can be said about the skill point the added. It’s a ‘commune with a source of power’ skill point instead of the more fun skill point where you have to fight something. The two vistas’ they added aren’t as exciting as I hoped as well. I always loved the platform element the vista’s added to the game, even though they can be frustrating at times. One of the vista’s doesn’t require jumping skills at all to get it and the second vista, you have to use the element crystals and isn’t hard either. Let’s hope as the map opens up further, we’ll get more challenging skill point and vistas.

But this doesn’t mean they forgot the jumping puzzle aficionados. They added a challenging jumping puzzle where you have to climb Zephyr Sanctum wreckage all the way to the top. Now, the jumping puzzle rookie I am, I cheated my way to the top using a Mesmer portal. ^^ Thx to whoever supplied me with that portal.

With new map also come new enemies and events. Next to the Modremoth minions, we also have dust mites, skales, drakes, wind riders, cocoala’s, devourers and… Inquest. The story behind the presence of the Inquest is that they’re searching Dry Top for valuable artifacts. They might also be interested in whatever the Zephyrites are hiding. You can also find some challenging champions around if you look around.

All in all a great map with lots to see and lot’s to do. They really put hard work in this map and it shows. Let’s just hope we get more of this.

New Achievements and New Rewards!

And last but not least we also have new achievements and new rewards. The way achievements work, has been reimagined with this patch. First off, meta-achievements are no more. Second, achievements have been redesigned to be harder and cater to the hardcore community. Also as stated earlier, these new achievements will only be available if you have unlocked the episode. Even if you group up with someone who has the episode unlocked you will have to have it unlocked yourself to get to the achievements and rewards. I haven’t played a lot of these achievements but they do seem harder. For example, the achievement where you have to stand still in the quick sand for 15 secs seems hard because the quick eats your health very fast. But I imagine it’s doable if you have someone healing you.

As for the rewards, they have their own mechanic. You get 40 minutes to help out the Zephyrites as much as you can. The more you help the bigger the reward tier you reach. There are three tiers and each tier offers better rewards. After those 40 minutes, a sandstorm floods the map and blows your tier back to zero. After the sandstorm subsides, you can try again. The rewards themselves don’t seem that noteworthy. You can get new crafting materials and the usual blues and greens. The main reward you can get however is a new armor set: nomad. You can buy recipes to craft nomad’s equipment with toughness as major stat and vitality and healing power as secondary stats. So a very tanky build indeed with almost no damage output. Although this stat combo doesn’t really interest, except maybe for an alt, it’s exciting to have new stat combos. It keeps the game refreshing and diverse.

So that’s about it for the Gates of Maguuma. Turned out to be a very lengthy post and if you have read the entire thing, I both applaud and thank you. This was a very successful start of the second season of the Living Story if you ask me. A breathtaking new map with lots to do and an exciting first episode of the story. Next week I’ll write a post about the top three things I liked about this update. Share your thoughts about this update if you like, I’m eager to hear it. Enjoy the update and I’ll see you next time.