The Holy Trinity of 'Gates of Maguuma'

After more of a week of letting the new update sink in and playing the different features some more, it’s time for a reassessment. Has ‘Gates of Maguuma’ lived up to the hype? Or were there more bad aspects, hidden in the update, that outweigh the good? That’s why I thought that after more than a week it’s time to give a personal top 3 of the best features this update has to offer. Get ready for the holy trinity of Gates of Maguuma!

Number one and two were fixed in my mind rather quickly but number three required some more pondering. What feature made me smile the most, next to number one and two? I ended up with the music and more specific the Dry Top soundtrack. This soundtrack is basically the debut of composer Maclaine Diemer. He’s the successor of the much famed (for his music anyways) Jeremy Soule who’s responsible for the Guild Wars 2 soundtrack at launch. The soundtrack was composed with a live orchestra in Berlin and as far as I’m concerned Diemer is a worthy successor of Soule judging by this soundtrack. I wouldn’t immediately call it epic but this map doesn’t need an epic soundtrack. Epic soundtracks are more fitted for boss fights, like a dragon, anyways. No, this soundtrack is more calm, lonely, almost sad which really fits the map with it’s quiet and deserted desert and it’s dusty deathly cliffs with almost no sign of life, safe the little town of Prosperity which also has a secluded and deserted feel about it with the abandoned mine among other things. Well done Maclaine Diemer and I’m curious what music you have in store for us in the future.

Number two is the story in this first episode of the Living Story. Now, I have already said quite a lot about the story section of Gates of Maguuma in my review of the update, so I won’t be saying much new. First reason why I enjoyed the story so much is because Arenanet clearly listened to the community and the remarks on season one. Season one had a lot of its shortcomings like easy and lazy storytelling with the returning different alliances Scarlet used to reach her goal. But also the characters weren’t fleshed out enough which caused them to be boring and the players couldn’t connect and invest in the characters. Also the lack of use of the guild wars lore was a real shame. Guild Wars has one of the riches lore out there in the mmo universe and not using them sufficiently was disappointing to say the least. So the writers had their work cut out for them but they managed to address all these issues. No more boring alliances and more dialogue with gives the characters more substance. This makes characters like Taimi really shine in this update. Also the lore looks like it’s being put more in the forefront, pleasing the GW1 veterans.

The story itself looks promising as well. Of course this is only the first episode and a lot more has to happen. But they manage to reuse one of the more popular story elements of season 1: the Zephyrites by crashing them in the new zone and also set up some mysteries among the Zephyrites. They also manage to blend in Mordremoth’s story and his rising powers, which seem to be increasing next update, with the Sylvari Aerin. Now, I understand some people call Aerin Scarlet 2.0 but I don’t really agree. For one, Aerin is already dead, so he’s nowhere near the character Scarlet was. Also, it was clearly mentioned that Aerin showed very similar behavior to Scarlet but this is because of long-term story purposes concerning Mordremoth’s rising corruption influence. I just think some people got such a bad aftertaste after the Scarlet centered season 1, that every appearance of a Sylvari in the Living Story raises a red flag. The teaser trailer for the second episode looks very promising as well, so I’m curious to see how the story progresses.

    

Number one in this holy trinity of Gates of Maguuma is the new zone and more specific how the new zone looks. Even after more than a week, the beauty of this map hasn’t worn down on me. I love how the sand dunes look and how the desert flows over in steep cliffs which give a Grand Canyon feel. Whenever I climb on top of one of those cliffs, I linger to enjoy the scenery. The vista in the West of the current zone is a worthwhile mention as well, if you want to enjoy the beauty of Dry Top. Also the mechanic of the sandstorm, that blows over Dry Top everyone 40 minutes, really makes this zone come alive. It makes you wonder if we’ll get blizzards when we start to venture further in the Shiverpeaks. This all makes it even more of a shame that we had to wait this long before we got a new map. Map building is one of their strongest features, yet they don’t use it enough. The next update also looks very promising in this area. It looks like we’ll be getting more sand dunes, cliffs and Zephyrite Sanctum wrecks. But it also looks like they’re mixing it up with Asuran architecture, cave networks and what looks like an oasis zone. I for one can’t wait. What about you? See you for the review of the 15 July update: Entangled.