GW:EN Sneak Preview: Live Thread 10, Hall of Disappointment

Well, I'm pissed. Not about anything with the game at the moment, but I just went downstair to check on some laundry and it seems my basement's been flooded. It has, by the way, been raining almost all week so it's not surprising. And it's not a big flood just seems some water has gotten in there - from where, I can't tell. So a few things got wet. But among them are the carpets and rugs I just put down there for safekeeping for my recently moved brother. At least one of them is a ruined mass of wet, smelly fibers. So, yeah, my break turned into mucking out the basement, mopping up the floor, and trying to dry everything as best I can. So, I'm ready to have some fun.

Checking the obs mode, still nobody I recognize and/or is around the top 25 so we'll give it a pass again. I suppose I could check out the Hero Battles but, uh, no.

So, looks like it's back to the PvE for me. I've said it before but, at this point, I'm not rushing out to buy this game at release. That said, the campaign looks to be a pretty good one so far. Only seeing a little bit of it but it promises to be interesing and mildly engaging. And the dungeon structure promises some interesting twists as well. Doing away with the mission structure leaves me wondering just what I'm supposed to do with myself because I'd become so accustomed to being led by the hand, but this way, the quests are even more integrated into the game and it's a lot more freewheeling. At the moment, there's only one real path to follow but if this were the actual game and, say, I got dropped right as I was starting Blood Washes Blood, instead of having to retrace my steps I could go bash Charr or make rude comments about the Asura. Or follow a sidequest. Or explore a dungeon. Or play some mini-games. Lots of options. Lots of promise. But given how quickly I blasted through the Norn path, I'm a little worried about how much there is to do here. I realize it's a preview weekend and content is limited but there don't seem to be too many quests and things to do, really, besides follow the plot along. What's there is well designed but it's the old complaint about Prophesies, when I get done with it, what then? If the other paths are of similar length, then, well, it's not long before you're on to the endgame and thinking about running through on hard mode and that's just not my kind of game.

Anyhow, when we left off, I'd tracked the Dwarf King to his layer and he gave me a tapestry. Since I just was hauling rugs around, that thing has to weigh a ton and I don't know how it takes up just as much space in my pack as a pair of brass knuckles but that's video game physics for you. The game was also telling me ever so politely to get my butt back to the Eye of the North.

So, I go there and check out the Hall of the Monument. It's something I've been avoiding except for plot purposes because if you think I'm down on GW:EN, you should hear the bile I have to spew about GW2. But if only to free up the valuable inventory space, I'm going to check it out.

Okay, so I've looked around the place and here's the deal. The Hall of the Monuments is a place where you can store your achievements and pass them along to your account in GW2. There are five different kind of achievements that you can send into the future. You start off with the one for title tracks and the like. And the other four take a tapestry to unlock - one from the Norn track, presumably one from the Dwarf and Vanguard, too, and one mystery one that's probably for beating the game. So what are the other kinds of achievements? Pets and armor and heroes and maxed titles and just about everything else I don't care about. Let's put it up front. I'm a casual player who doesn't know when to quit. An Achiever/Explorer. I'm in the game to experience it, not to beat it. And I'd rather spend a few hours in the Tombs getting my ass handed to me with a bunch of friends because we'd be laughing and cracking jokes and talking about what was working and what wasn't, instead of grinding out a couple hundred fame with people I couldn't stand. That's me. That's how I like to play the game. I could care less about whether my titles or maxed or my heroes have bitching armor or I've wasted enough time to craft obsidian armor. I just. Don't. Care. It does not appeal to me and I don't really like the people it does seem geared to appeal to.

Talking to Gwen gets me another tapestry. That solves that mystery. Yeah, I could still care less about the Hall of Monuments, game.

But the Scrying Pool has a quest sign but there's nothing new there. Looks like it lets you see all the old cutscenes which is a nice feature. Wish there was an option so your could string them all together and watch a little GW movie. And you can also regain the quests for all the old, plot important instanced missions like A Gate Too Far, Curse of the Nornbear, and Blood Washes Blood. Presumably others in the future, too. That's let you replay those quasi-missions whenver you want. Nice touch.

Well, my choices at the moment are to head back to the Dwarves for their defense master quest. Or to head up north and into a dungeon for the Wurm killing master quest. Since I want to replay Blood Washes Blood - I want to cap Healing Light because....I really don't know why but I'm doing it - I think the choice is obvious. I grab that quest and put on my worm killing boots (Which, since I'm a Monk look suspiciously like sandals and will no doubt leave my feet all gross and covered with worm guts.). To Sif's!

I have a quest to turn in which gets me a new skill.

Don't Trip! Shout. 10en, 20recharge. For 3 seconds, party members within earshot cannot be knocked down. Dwarf.

As I thought, the skill prompting me back to the Eye of the North is gone now that I've hung the tapestries (I went with pets and heroes for the simple reason that they were the ones on the left.). seems odd that an ancient mystical force cares about my decorating, though.

Oops, I was wrong, once I stepped outside it came back. I checked all over the place,
there was nothing there to interest me. Must be about something that the preview doesn't include.

I have 9k Norn points, so I'm not going to waste much time fighting. It's straight to the north and the portal for me. I will, of course, stomp anything in my way but I am feeling strangely mercifuL today.

Has ZB always been a 3/4 cast? I don't remember it like that. I thought it was feeling slow but I figured it was just me.

Now arriving at Frostmaw Burrows. First level, plenty of stuff to kill. Another cool name, by the way. It's a snwy place, very ice and cold and blue. And I just saw a snowball roll past. Eep.

Looks l;ike I've got a Norn escort although they don't show up as allies. First Frost Seige Worm encounter (cool looking skin, by the way.) and they don't last so it doesn't much matter. except, huh, they auto rezzed and ran right back to me. Interesting.

Second level, lady's hosiery and deadly wurms. The quest NPC tells me I need to do something with rats, but the log says I need to kill baby wurms to get the big one to appear. Glitch somewhere.

One of my Norn followers is a Bearagon. And he's using Crip Anthem. While we're fighitng a wurm which doesn't move. Gee fing gee.

Now, when I said baby wurms earlier. I didn't know it mean lv28 freaking giant fucking baby wurms of death! Ouch. And now there's Jotun in the next room. And, holy crap, bats. KD master, enchantment stripping, Daze causing bats. They're not tough, really, but they swung down from the ceiling in a group of, like, 20.

Floor three, childrens department and implements of doom. My DP is really high right now. Well, not mine because I know how to stay out of AoE but my henchies are hurting. If it wasn't for the Dwarf bounty bonuses, they'd be 60ed. And there are a lot of those Deep Freezing elementals around here, red bars going down everywhere. Fortunately, my undying Norn helpers are being awesome for me.

Forth floor and I'm out of jokes. Just how many floors does this place have, anyway?

Damn I hate Mhenlo. Whole damn team is degening to death so what does he do? Cast Healing Touch on himself. Then, after everyone's dead? LoD. Brilliant.

And now I'm 60ed, too. Great. This level has a bunch of those degen Mandragore and Seige Worms. It's a tough slog since I'm so DPed up. Just too many bars flying down at once. Almost to the next level, though.

Now there's a bunch of Jotun standing in my way. Perfect. And afterwards, another lv28 Frostmaw spawn. He's a boss so I get a morale boost but I'm still hurting bad.

Another map piece. I've got four now, but unfortunately two of them are the same piece. Still don't know where the guy is, either.

5th level now. If this isn't the last one, I quit.


And this level is, uh, empty. I guess I have to hunt down worm poppers and skill them to get the boss.

Found the sucker. He's the biggest worm yet. lv29 and surround by a couple of his lv28 spawn and Seige Worms. This could get ugly. Uses Dark Apostacy, too.

Cleared out all the minions around Frosty though it took a few wipe to get here. Fortunately, Frostmaw doesn't seem to regenerate at all. Unfortunately, his spawn do.

Whew. That was tough. There's a little chest opening graphic and then I can turn the quest in. 10kXP, 2plat, and 750 Norn. A chest pops up afterwards and I get a pair of Diamonds for the trouble of opening it. The countdown to the next mission is long enough to run back to the door, which is locked. So guess I can't fight my way back out.

Boy, that was a slog. Dungeon was just a little too long, if you ask me. Could easily have done without floor 3 or 4. The fight against the boss was nicely done but having to go through four floors of the same thing was torturous. If there'd been a bit more variety or something else to do on those floors, then, sure. But it was just a long dungeon crawl to get to that boss, beating up variations on the same packs of mobs over and over again.

I'm warped back outside next to the Norn outside. You can pick up the quest again, making the whole thing repeatable.

Walking South to the Blood Washes Blood area, there's a herd of White Moa birds running around.

Bum rushed through the mission, grabbed my crappy elite. Now, I need to grab some food. Be back later.