GW:EN: Abbreviated Review

Sigh, I really have to get around to finishing off my review post one of these days. I mean, it's only been two months since release, so I'm sure there are still people amongst my miniscule readership who need to know what I think about it before making their purchasing decisions. Oh god, I'm delusional now.

Anyhow, the abridged version goes like this: GW:EN provides some nice PvE options while continuing some bad trends of previous editions but it offer nothing for PvP.

Update:

Two months. It's been a month since I wrote this and never bothered to post it. I'm bad at this...

GW:EN Sneak Peak: Sloth is a Sin

As a follow-up to this Sinful dirge, I missed this during the event, but when I was going over the Assassin skill lists (I am a very, very sick person.) I noticed this huge update:

Fox Fangs: reduced activation time to .5 seconds.

Jungle Strike: reduced activation time to .5 seconds.

That leaves you with Fox Fangs as an off-hand attack that costs 5en, recharges in 8 seconds, swings in a half, and can't be blocked. The text could read “you present your opponent with an ornately wrapped gift box” after that, I'd still be thrilled. Fox Fangs could use, I think, a slightly lower recharge time. As a general rule, I think conditional off-hands, the ones that let you skip the leads, need long recharges – on the order of 12 to 15 seconds – while non-conditional off-hands, the ones that require a lead attack, like Fox Fangs, need to be the quickly recharging one. That way you're rewarded, somewhat, for not taking the shortcut by being able to at least try to pop off that first part of your combo more often (While conditionals pay for freeing up that skill slot by being cumbersome if you can't meet the condition.). It would suck in the extreme to have your combo screwed up because of whiffing on Fox Fangs, which is there because of the numbers, not the effect, so since it can't hit without a lead in the first place, I think it needs to keep pace with those leads, so it's always available as a bridge to what you really want to hit. I can't conscience setting it down on the lower end of lead times – 2 seconds now for Unsuspecting, and 1 for Jagged – so I'd set it somewhere in the 4~6 second range. Jungle is similarly too hot to cooldown at 10recharge and I'd, again, set it lower.

But, that's a minor, fiddly detail. Because, man, that 1/2 cast is exactly how you get people to use leads and the non-conditional off-hands that are linked to them. Instead of grabbing Black Lotus and calling it a day. The reason is that you get from your lead to your dual almost as fast as you can get to your dual by skipping your off-hand.

That's important because when you are a melee attacker, whether it's a Sin or a Warrior or even an IW Mesmer, you know that even while you're zeroing in on your target the clock is ticking until you'll be shutdown. Until the Blind hits you. Until the ward or Aegis goes up. Until they activate their stance or start to kite away, snaring you and laughing while you chug after them, or whatever else your opponent has built into their plan to deal with people getting in their faces and raging. You don't know exactly what it will be. Just that it's coming. And that you only have the briefest of windows of opportunity to get the dirty work done. The killing work. It's especially true with Sin because once you start missing your hits, then your combos and your damage totals are blown.

Conditional off-hands are so valuable to a Sin because they give them a leg up when racing the clock. It's the same reason that an IAS is bolted to their bar – each and every second counts because they'll only get a few of them. Skipping that lead attack means they need to spend one swing less getting to the heavy dual attacks where the money shots and falling bodies are. That's one more swing before the defender's gate swings shut.

The new Fox Fangs or Jungle Strike will only take a half second, no matter whether you're Flailing or BoAed or in Tiger Stance or just swinging normally. That's a full half second off the speed of your swing when you're boosted by an IAS. You'll complete a three-hit combo in about 2.5 seconds instead of 3. Not quite as good as the 2 seconds you need to jump from Black Lotus to Horns of the Ox but closer. And maybe equal since you'll be adding a third hit and whatever effects from that lead attack (This, of course, depends on whether or not the effects of any of those lead attacks are worth it. At a glance...they aren't. But that's a separate, balance not mechanical, issue. Still, I wouldn't mind giving something like Black Mantis Thrust to Fox Fangs/Jungle Strike to Trampling Ox a whirl. You need a hex and Shadow Prison is counterproductive, so...Shadow Shroud? Maybe. Still needs some bamfing power, though...). The anti-blocking provision of Fox Fangs means you don't have to worry, temporarily, about some of the more common counters, like wards or an Aegis.

A nice change, in other words, and one that I'd take even further, if I could. If I was going to rewrite some of these skills to make lead chains more attractive, that's how I'd go. Wild Strike seems to be another off-hand that would be ripe for a 1/2cast swing speed, although that makes it extremely powerful, then. Repeating Strike, too, if there was some way to tie it to a lead and not an off-hand. But, more than that, I'd extend it to lead attacks, as well. Disrupting Stab, for example, I'd add a 1/2 swing, cut the recharge, and take out the skill disabling – just make it a straight interrupt. That way you could outpace the Black and Golden chains of the world in terms of raw number of combos but also race them in the time it takes to pull those combos off.

It's all about the speed, it's all about getting those combos churning over as quickly as possible, though, and a skill like Fox Fangs gives non-conditional chains a way to compete against the conditional chains in the only place it matters; on the face of the stopwatch.

GW:EN Sneak Peak: Hexes Still Problematic

As I see it, hexes, the bugaboo of the meta when I last left the game, are still a problem. The thing is you can't use them by themselves, there aren't too many hexes that can make an impact, let alone survive, standing alone. Even skills like Expose Defenses are there to fuel a Sin's combo, it's the fact that they do something while doing so that makes them so good. But when you start getting a lot of hexes together, when you overload on them, all the little ones you don't care about become extremely troublesome and allow the big, heavy ones you do care about to stick long enough to matter.

The problem, I think, stems from lack of effective removal. Teams trying to remove hexes can't race teams trying to put on hexes. Not unless they sell out on extreme measures that leave them weak against other strategies. And that's because hex removal is designed to race against the big, heavy hexes that take a while to do their damage. To be viable those need to stick for at least a few clock cycles, not get blasted as soon as they arrive. Hexes like Migraine and Backfire or Empathy,for example, that tell over time. And while you wouldn't expect them to stick if that was your only hex and your opponent had even something as basic as Remove Hex (Love the new shortened casting time, by the way. Monk spells need to be pretty damned good to justify another more than a casting time of 1 second. And the most basic single hex removal just doesn't cut it – but, again, Remove had that lengthy cast time to give hexes a bit of a chance to do some damage before they were gone so you weren't just wasting your energy.). But that's not how hexes get used, realistically. There's a lengthy recharge on most hex removal to give the hexer a chance to get their good stuff on and around for a little while before the removal recharges and gets blasted away.

The problem is skills like Conjure Phantasm and Life Siphon (Phantasm more than Siphon because it's in a prime hexing attribute). Low cost hexes with recharges that mean even if they get removed, you're able to apply them before the removal is finished recharging. They're just too quick and trying to remove them is a losing battle from the start, almost requiring more drastic measures like wasting your elite slot on Divert or Expel instead of something that will help you against teams that aren't hexing (Nothing against Divert or Expel, of course, both exist as helpful safety valves against hex-dominated play. But when they get to become staples of the metagame, I don't feel it's a healthy state.). And it's even more problematic because those are the skills being used to cover the import hexes that are really killing the other team. Those money hexes are being buried under a flurry of the inexpensive stuff that makes fighting them off prohibitively expensive and unreliable.

So, hex removal needs to be balanced not against the premier ships of the line but the small cutters that are wrecking havoc with the shipping lanes. Single removal has to consistently fight off a skill like Conjure Phantasm or Life Siphon, that's the balance point. They have to make it at least a stalemate with the hexer trying to keep those up. Someone standing there with just Remove, say, should be able to pluck off a Phantasm just as soon as it lands. Hexers can still thrive in such a scenario because they can still overwhelm removal with multiple hexes but it means they have to expend more time and energy on making sure their valuable hexes are covered.

To that end, if removal is going to speed up, I think hexes should speed up, too. The focus should be on active skills. Skills that reward players who are moving, thinking, acting, and not sitting back to push buttons. Changes to hexes like Blurred Vision which now has a shorter duration but a shorter recharge as well, are to the good. It floats in and out of combat, requiring more effort to maintain it but also becoming more flexible since you can switch targets more quickly. You don't have to wait 30 seconds for it to recharge anymore, once you figure out that it's really the second Warrior with the axe that's the problem and not the Hammer guy you've been prioritizing. As the battle swirls, as tactics shift, a skill like the new Blurred Vision rewards players better than slower, bulkier ones. Even as it rewards defenders who can tie up more of an opponent's efforts into maintaining that effect instead of putting it down and concentrating on covering it up.

Got that? Faster, shorter, more active. On both sides.

The basic idea is that a dedicated hexer shouldn't be able to keep three or four opponents swapped with hexes. Not all by themselves. They should be limited by costs and, more importantly, recharges to being able to two or three at most. And only that by being completely unmolested. When you start adding things like interruption and disruption into the mix – when you have someone chasing them up and down the map trying to get rage all over their face – they shouldn't be nearly as efficient. Balancing both hexes and removal to reward more skilled play is what it will take to get to that point.

GW:EN Sneak Peak: They Got One Right?

I expend a lot of energy criticizing the makers of Guild Wars. For the things they've done. For the things they've failed to do. Partly because, as I always have, I want the game to be as close to perfection as it can possibly be. Partly because it turns out to be a lot easier to point out a flaw than to suggest a solution. Let alone praise a success. Well, if I can, I'd like to point out one case out of the many where the developers have gotten something wonderfully right. I don't do it nearly enough but that's only because they do it so often.

What I'm talking about in this case is an NPC I stumbled upon while browsing through the Great Temple of Balthazar, Tolkano. For those who haven't been playing the game since, oh, July or so, he's the Tournament Rewards vendor. To play in the automated tournaments you need tokens, which you can buy from Tolkano for 1k Faction a piece (I believe you need 5 for GvG. I could care less how many you need for Hero Battles but I suspect it's significantly less.). More importantly, when you play you earn tournament points which you can redeem at Tolkano for cash and prizes. Well, mostly prizes.

You can buy Golden Flames (consumables providing you with 3k Faction) which you can presumably trade. But more importantly, you can buy new skins for your armor and weapons with your hard earned points.

Since this, aesthetic, non-functional, rewards for PvP play, is something that I've been pounding the table about for years now, let me just say it's about time. This is the sort of thing which can be used to draw players into the PvP scene. A way of marking out prestige and importance for those who diligently play. A carrot to those who don't.

But, here's the maddening thing about the makers of Guild Wars. And the real reason I criticize so much. They come up with a concept so right, so pure and wonderful and amazingly transformative that it's hard to imagine the game without it. And then they go and muck up the execution. It's like they create a beautiful painting working for days, for months, to get the shading just right on the Ross-like trees, and then an hour before they're due to exhibit they take a can of paint and splash it all over the canvas. So close and yet so far.

Because, of course, there are a few problems with this rewards system. The first, is rather quibbling of me, but it's that these rewards are restricted to those who participate in the tournaments. From speaking to some of my hardcore PvP friends, the general consensus is that the tournaments are awful and not really worth the time. But even if they were, they're not something that novice players, players new to the PvP scene are going to be able to compete at. These nifty skins for armor and cool-looking items aren't just a way of rewarding the faithful. They're a way of luring the uninitiated in. Of hooking the, of getting them to say “just one more match, just one more fight, and I'll have my nifty geegaw to impress everyone with.” By tying the rewards to success in the tournaments, you've put them out of the reach of most of the people playing the game. Which is why I'd rather these rewards were tied to straight faction rather than tournament rewards but, at a minimum, there should be brackets of cheaply and quickly obtained upgrades. More tiers, in other words. The high-end stuff, the most desirably skins, keep those available only to players who live and die by the daily tournaments, sure, but there should be some items that are easily within reach of those just dipping a toe in – those quick rewards, those early carrots, will push them to go farther than they might have otherwise.

The second is much more fundamental. And that's that the rewards aren't unlocked, they're created. As I understand it when you pick a reward it skins an item already in your inventory. You can fiddle around with that item, say, if you have a Celestial Axe you can create a Celestial Axe of Fortitude. But if you delete that character or switch to another one, you can't recreate it again. Not without spending more points. Same for armor. It's tied to the character rather than the account. Unbelievable. Just so foolishly counterintuitive when PvP characters should be disposable, picked up and dropped with ease. Spending your points at Tolkano should unlock those new skins and looks for you to use not only with that character but any future one, however much you like. These are PvP only items which can't be traded or sold, after all, if that's the worry (Although I did have someone tell me there's some trick you can do with equiping your heroes, who are constant for any of your PvP characters and using that to swap over your fancy weapons. Either way, you still can't take those weapons and sell them to someone not on your account.).

It's just mindbottling how they can finally put in such an elegant, simple system that makes the game so much better. And then fuck it up so completely.

GW:EN Sneak Peak: Figuring Out Hard Mode

My first forays into Hard Mode were spectacular failures. That's because I was expecting something new, something different, rather than the same mobs and spawns on steroids. It's the same places, the same faces, they just hit (and run and cast) much faster. As such, the name of the game is mitigation. Prot Spirit has long been my best friend. Now we're talking about moving in together. Haven't quite pieced together what's going to work best but that's the key, I think. Prot, Shelter, whatever works, just make sure the damage totals don't get too high, and clean up what slips through, then grind the enemy to dust with whatever offense is best suited for that area. I imagine some kind of proactive disruption is going to be similarly important, though.

GW:EN Sneak Peak: The Realization

I think it's finally hit me just what bothers me so about the expansion. Why I spend so much time going “Well, that's great, that's awesome, but...”. It's the same thing I always worried about, the same fear that drove so many of my suggestions and activities. And that's the game's various facets becoming unglued. The separation of the game into one piece for PvE, one piece for PvP, and dozens of shards and splinters beyond. That's not the Guild Wars I was promised. That's not the Guild Wars I spent so long wanting to play. And it's certainly not the one I worked so hard to build interest in.

GW:EN is a PvE expansion, there's really no other way to look at it. The PvP changes are said to be coming, but they're coming through changes independent of that box. They'll fix the Arenas, the Comp Missions, tweak the skills, and give everyone a +40AL mount with perma-Sprint. One of these days. But they're finally gone and separated the two halves, not just in experience and purpose, but execution as well.

The game I signed up for was one perfectly suited to a casual player, like myself. Someone who might have an hour to spend with the game or a day. Who might want to plunge headfirst into competitive play on the weekends while sneaking in a few minutes here and there while they should be working. And the game was supposed to support that with a variety of things, of gameplay methods to play and try and sample and become enthralled or disenchanted with. But there would always be something else to do when you got bored. A quick way to get your fix when you didn't have the time to really invest in your preferred activities. If you liked to run missions and became stuck at a certain plot point, you could always head to the Arenas and blow off some steam. If you were waiting for your guild to get it together, you could always go farm in some EA. It was a world of possibilities. Connected, interwoven with one another into a grand tapestry of enjoyment. Not everyone had to play the same way, not everyone would want to. There'd be something for everyone and always something to lead them out of their box and into someplace new.

But now? The sides have been drawn up. People have long picked one side or the other and the developers have responded in kind. Instead of facilitating, encouraging them to come out of their shells and embrace the frightening new, they've only been given what they've wanted. Not what they've needed to keep the factions from hardening. Guild Wars: Eye of the North is the last expansion. The last game that will ever be released to hold the line. It should be a celebration, a relevation, a breath of fresh air into a game that's become stale with age. But one that has all its old charms even as it fades away to make room for something better. Instead, it's an offkey dirge. A eulogy told by a passing stranger who had no connection to the deceased. Only a passing sense, a brief understanding, of just what it was that made the dead so worthy of being lauded in the first place.

GW:EN Sneak Peak: The Sad State of PvP

I'm still struck by how little has changed in my absence. Lots of tweaks and improvements on the PvE side of things, but I'm talking about the PvP scene at the moment. There were the usual score of new teams and tags that I'd never seen before when I pulled up obs mode. But no new builds. Nothing truly amazing or interesting that I saw in my admittedly brief voyeurism. A change here, an improvement there – CripSlash Warriors now carry Conjures by default instead of merely trending that way – but there's nothing I saw being run today that would surprise me if I had encountered in April. And I don't think any of the new GW:EN skills are really going to change that. It's just...sad, really. Makes me wonder what happened to all the vibrancy, all the energy we were hoped would come from the tournaments and the rebalances and more. And looking around the community, scoping out the forums and the wikis and the chats and more, makes me wonder just where all the players have gone.

But, when I thought about it, it's really not so hard to understand. Imagine, if you will, that someone's just picked up the game. Just plucked a copy off the shelf, at a discount, with no knowledge, no understanding of all the history she held in her hands. That player runs through the game, completes the campaign and is standing around wondering what to do next. If she wants to continue to PvE there's plenty of options. A new campaign, rerunning the old campaign to complete all the bonuses, hard mode, the endgames of the Fissure or the Domain, titles to grind, fancy armor to buy. A wealth of possibilities stretching out before her to explore, depending on her tastes. But for PvP?

Well, she could go to the Arena. And if she can put up with everyone leaving because they won't get to 10 wins and people moping the floor with her because she's using strats optimized for the completed campaign, lacking the skills and special abilities to put together something competitive, she might just persevere and find out she likes to PvP. Might develop enough to play in other game types. But who's going to play with her? A random, unadorned player? One who hardly understands what she's doing? Who needs her hand held the entire way? Who's going to pick her for their Halls team? Who's going to look past the fact that she doesn't have a rank, needs to unlock a skill or three, and is going to ask the annoying, basic questions to see that she has potential?

Who's going to pick her for her AB team, for that matter? Even for TA? I don't even want to talk about what she'll go through trying to find a guild to play with in GvG. All the struggle and hardship she'll endure just to land a spot on a mediocre team. What, exactly, is supposed to lead her into the wider world of competitive play? There aren't fun, consequence free formats that aren't bogged down by problems with leechers and leavers. There aren't even pre-mades anymore (Which would be so easy to implement with the template system, streaming, and the new, official wiki.) giving her a starting point, a place to build from, a glimpse, an explanation of what works and what doesn't in PvP. There's nothing for her. Except to slam her head against the wall in the Random Arenas or spamming for a group, a guild, someone to play with in one lobby or another.

That, right there, is why the PvP scene is dead. Why the game feels hollow. And why I'm not going to be playing again for a while.

GW:EN Sneak Peak: Sins Still Suck

From my brief excursions into PvP, I see that Shadow Prison Sins are still the order of the day. They rule the field in the Hero Battles, for one, but that one elite is still being used to the exclusion of every other one. And that template of Sin is still being played to the detriment of the game itself.

What surprises me is how little they've changed in the months I've been away – I quit playing some time in March, maybe May?, and there have been at least a few rebalancing attempts since then. BoA having been nerfed into oblivion, Tiger's Stance seems to be the order of the day. Nerf that and it'll become Flurry (Which, if I remember correctly, only affects the base damage of an attack, not the bonus damage. Which means with those wimpy 7~17 daggers that it does absolutely nothing while letting you go ginsu.), maybe. Nerf that and something else will be found to power out those attacks. No, the heart of the Shadow Prison template is pernicious and it's two-fold.

The first is Shadow Prison itself which is a comb enabling snare and a prot-foiling teleport. You don't have to run to your target, giving the defenders a chance to outguess you, only click a button and you're there ready to deal damage. And the snare means your target won't be able to kite away while you uncan your combo. An IAS like BoA or Tiger's Stance just helps them crack open that window of opportunity.

Second, is the sick synergy with a skill like Black Lotus Strike. Which is worse than Golden Lotus ever was. At least with Lotus you weren't feeding off of debuffing the enemy and making your job easier. But Lotus Strike not only allows you to skip right to the duals and off-hands you really want to lay down, it gives you all the energy you need to do so. Assassins, more than any other class, are limited by their maximum energy. For most characters what you care about is your recharge or your regeneration but for Sins it's all about spending their store in one, fantastic burst – they always have enough energy it's just a question of when they have it which is important in a class that revolves around timing and precision so much. And the energy gain from a Lotus skill lets them ignore that restriction. Using Black Lotus they throw not one, but two limiting mechanics out the window. Both the chaining of their combos and the peculiar shape of their energy pool.

The sick thing about this is how degenerative it becomes. Early Sin builds focused on compressing those chains to the absolute minimum to pack in some utility. The cool stuff, the interesting skills from Shadows and Deadly which allowed you to get off that shortened chain and broadened the game's horizons, that was the focus. These days? Lotus Strike means you can chain together four, five attacks easily. And the design fight is to squeeze those few bits of utility on your bar that fuel your mega-combo. What should be a class of skill, of clock-work certainty, and rewarding to play has become about mashing your buttons best.

Then, of course, you throw in things like Expose Defenses and the IASes which superpower those effects and you have a beast. Able to split, able to withstand punishment, able to dish it out. And one that crowds out every other way of playing the Assassin. Competitively, anyway.

But it all comes back to Shadow Prison and Black Lotus Strike. Those are what you need to fix in order to fix the archetype. It doesn't have to cease being viable, it just has to cease being the only way to play. And, guess what? In all the time I've been away they hardly been touched. A minor tweak to the duration on Prison, mostly, it seems, to dissuade its use in secondaries. But Black Lotus? What I'd argue is the root cause of much of this silliness (I mean, I'd set SP to 15en and give it a 33% snare but that's only because I want it out of the damn game. If you want it playable, then it's pretty fine where it is. Strong, but acceptable.)? As far as I can tell, hasn't been changed at all.

Instead, we get improvements to lead attacks and new off-hands seemingly designed to lure players into using them. As I said in during my liveblogging, bluntly, it's not going to work. It doesn't matter how good the lead attacks are. Not when the duals are the class of the line. As long as players can skip straight to the duals whether it's through Black, Golden, Fallen, or anything else, then they're going to ignore those off-hands that require a lead in favor of those that don't. They need to make the most of that small, limited window of opportunity they have to deal damage. They need to get as much use out of every skill slot as they can. Dinking around with lead attacks when you could be hitting harder, with more impressive effects, is not as desirable, not as effective. Not when there are ways around that speed bump.

If I Made GW:EN, Part 2

Now that's what I'm talking about. A mini-game that takes some real, hardcore Warrioration. Just picture it. You're flying along, bashing through your foes, when all of a sudden the signal is made and, then, whoever can frensig themselves to death first, wins.

GW:EN Sneak Peak: Dungeon Reviews

In Guild Wars: Eye of the North, the designers have done away with the traditional mission structure. Instead, replacing it with a mix of repeatable, instanced storyline quests and mostly optional, underground areas to raid, called dungeons. While some have quests or reasons to exist in the overall plot, most are just there for players to crawl through, hunting for rewards and a memorable boss fight. I think it's an excellent change, one which allows for a lot more freedom on both sides of the player/creator divide.

Once the game is released there are going to be a promised 18 dungeons. Of the ones available during the preview, I saw five. Battledepths is home of the Dwarven Low King, an apparent hub the storyline will revolve around. Raven's Point contains another of the warp gates used to travel to the Far Shiverpeaks as well as the Shrine of the Raven and its associated blessing. Frostmaw's Burrows is the lair of the giant Wurm, Frostmaw. Darkrime Delves, the den of a fierce group of Jotun giant. And the Sepulchre of Dragimmar which houses the Anvil of the Great Dwarf and a tough fight past the Remnant of Antiquities to get to it.

When I ran the Raven, it was instanced. Part of the primary quest cycle, with a repeatable quest making it seem a lot like the missions of old. You had to fight your way to a shrine, gain the form that let you use the skills of the Raven, and then use that to travel further into the dungeon and shut down a monster spewing gate – it was a mission in everything but name. From Factions on, those places have been explorable even without the benefit of running a mission and although I didn't go back to check, I believe the same would hold true of the Raven dungeon as well. Battledepths, I only entered to turn in a quest reward to advance the primary plot. While it wasn't labeled as such on the map, it had all the hallmarks of every other dungeon – underground, mini-map on the world view, Dwarf rep bonuses instead of Norn. There was a master quest to defend the place that I passed on which would no doubt have led me further into its depth and transformed it into a full fledged dungeon the way some quests would transform outposts into missions in Nightfall. The other three were standalone dungeons, you'd be given a quest nearby to explore the various levels of the place, all of which led to a final boss encounter on the final floor. Dungeons being multi-leveled places, like a string of EAs, each connected by a portal. Traveling through is a one-way trip which doesn't remove DP but will remove all your buffs and blessings, as well as recharge your rezsigs. And although you'll carry your DP through the various levels, each dungeon offer the Dwarven title track blessing, which would give you a bonus for every 25th kill. With each bonus was a small morale boost, something like 8% each time, that along with the plentiful killed would allow you to wipe out some of the DP you'd accrue.

Those bosses weren't strictly “bosses” in the game's terms. Like the highend foes at the end of each campaign or a place like the Deeps, they lacked the auras and you couldn't cap from them. But defeating them would spawn a chest with some goodies inside, complete with a nifty graphic, transforming the icon on your map (And giving you some points towards a title track, too.). I was mostly underwhelmed with the rewards that sprung from my chest which were a handful of Diamonds instead of some nifty gold or green items. In the end, that's probably more valuable – I don't know what Diamonds, a crafting material, go for these days but I figure it's a k or two – because of the random nature of those weapons but given how hard they were to get, it was a letdown. The healthy rewards from the associated quests, though, more than made up for it. And the rewards are probably randomized, so trying again or with someone else might yield better results.

A more serious complaint is that although the dungeons showed up on my map with a special icon, I couldn't instant travel to them. Instead, whenever I wanted to visit one, I had to hike across a zone to get there. Which makes a bit of sense, but if I was going to make these dungeon raids a habit would get to be old, fast. A small lobby or some nearby stagging point – a vestibule at the first level of each dungeon, free from harm, like the lobby of a mission - where I could map to and then start my crawl would be much appreciated. That convenience is the biggest loss of doing away with the mission structure, I think.

I spent some time delving into the three optional dungeons, raiding them not only for treasure but to sample the experience. Since each was but a mere dungeon crawl leading up to a final boss, it makes it easy to compare them.

Of the three, the Frostmaw one was probably the best designed. Getting there was a bit too long but the fight at the end was a worthy one. You had to hunt down smaller worms, which were hidden in the ground and would pop up, slaughtering enough of them to cause the Worm to appear, surrounded by a pack of large, nasty worms to rain down pain on your party. It's surprising, it's novel, it's epic, and it really feels like it deserves to be at the end of a five level trip to get there. My criticism that the trip to get there was a bit too repetitive for my tastes. Other dungeons had puzzles or tricks to solve, giving you something else to do besides flood the place with corpses. But with Frostmaw, you had to go through four levels, killing the difficult monsters while dealing with the occasional pop-up from the dungeon's worm infestation. In a not exactly thrilling reversal, on the last floor you have to hunt down those pop-ups and then kill the difficult monsters. And although there's some variation in the layout and the monster types between levels, I feel like one or two floors could have been eliminated without losing anything from the experience – you enter the dungeon, get surprised by the worms, and slog your way to the bottom, and have that huge boss fight, you don't need to keep repeating the middle steps over and over. But, then, my preference in the design of such things is towards smaller, faster, and more convenient packages of experience. I like my dungeons, apparently, how I like my missions, able to be done within the space of an hour or so, when I have the free time. A prepared group who knew the way might well have made better time but I went in blind, clueless, and by myself. There should be a mix of large and small dungeons, though, to provide a variety of experiences to choose from. Some people will enjoy a crawl that will take up their entire evening, after all, that's just not for me. Frostmaw's at the upper limits of what I can comfortably tolerate and, even then, by the end I was getting bored with it and constantly hoping that the next fight would be the last one.

The Sepulchre was short and sweet, although I was stymied by the end boss. Getting there only takes going through one level but it's one you'll have to backtrack across as you try to find the levers to open different gates in the correct order, a bit of a cliché but it didn't feel too long or too forced, to me. Not that I was in a hurry to run through it again after failing, but that's a different story. Compared with the overly long Frostmaw, which the Sepulchre is probably only slightly less lengthy overall, it just felt right. And, like Frostmaw, it's a nicely designed boss battle. The Remnant of Antiquities is an Elementalist boss, one who packs a lot of water spells like Deep Freeze and Frozen Burst and Shatterstone. He also has a special ability which causes an environmental snare, and one that will create a ward-wide area of death every so often, dealing 140 damage and causing bleeding good for another 40. And he's located on a small island area, across a narrow bridge, perfectly designed for his snares and AoEs to cause the most problems. The difficulty, though, is pitched just a little too high for my tastes. It's a bit too hard for someone with a DPed pack straight off the AI short bus. Running out of the death wards that pop up and positioning to avoid clumping up are important against a boss like that. Henchies don't do positioning well (And I was too busy scrambling trying to keep everyone alive and micro-controlling their knockdowns to chain them together to bother with the flags. Wouldn't have helped with the non-Heroes, anyway.). But even if I was with a group that knew how to spread out to avoid the AoE, it would still have been tough. It's the environmental constraints, that channel you into that AoE kill zone in that small area and the suicide run across the bridge to get there (The range on the death wards is insane.). And the Remnants stats and level are really high, making him do immense amounts of damage and wipe out a party. I feel the damage knob just needs to be cranked down from a 9 - dude can one-hit even a fully morale boosted caster with 60AL if he lands both hits from a Shatterstone, meaning I was constantly scrambling for the hex removal or a RoF to throw up, and instant-death if you're DPed, forcing me to keep up PS on myself and the other Monk constantly – to an 8 or a 7, that's all. A full team headed into the party prepared to deal with him – carrying elemental defenses and a load of caster shutdown, say – are probably going to find him a walkover, though. It's a careful balancing act. However, the problem with a tough boss at the end like that is that players can get through all the easier bits leading up to him and then run into a brick wall. Which is exactly what I did. With no way of recovering my DP, I got weaker with every wipe. With that DP, the boss hits even harder and your team can't last long enough to deal damage to him before being finished off. With the boss regenerating away any damage, I had no choice but to just run from the nearby rezshrine to get right back into the fight and preserve the small sliver of his health I'd managed to chip off, hopefully to add to it, but mostly to prevent him from getting back to full health. Imagine doing that ten or fifteen times before realizing it's a fight you just can't win, because that's about what I did. It's a frustrating moment and one the designers need to work to avoid.

The worst dungeon of the three was probably the last one I tried, the Jotun one. The puzzle involved to get to the boss wasn't much interesting at all. You had to blow up some clearly marked walls, kill a boss, hunt down a few keys, and then you were on to the boss battle. The quest description was a bit misleading, as well. Heading to the boss's lair, it was all too easy and I was expecting something more. So when the quest log told me I need to “find a way to kill the (boss)”, I took it as a clue that there was some other objective I needed to fulfill before taking on the boss. That my foe would be invulnerable or something until I found the switch or the blessing or the MacGuffin elsewhere on the map. But, nope, there's nothing to the fight but walking in there and paving the ground with your enemy's blood, although you can spend a lot of time running around figuring that out. The Jotun boss itself, Havok Soulwail, is also pretty unmemorable. It's nothing but a high-level Jotun Warrior. No special abilities, no unique tricks. And considering how many Jotun you'll slay getting to that point, it's almost a letdown how easy that fight is. Especially if you can pull the roaming guards in that room away, which is exactly what I did. If the Remnant was too hard, then the Soulwail was too easy. I just expected more from a fight that took so much to get to. Again, it might have been that I was particularly well set-up to deal with that fight, though, since I'd come to loathe the Jotun and consider them the worst foe to encounter and build my team accordingly. And there should definitely be a scale of toughness for these dungeons, just as there should be a spectrum of lengths to suit individual tastes. There need to be introductory dungeons, ones that inexperience and tentative players can enjoy just as much as the hardcore will consider them beneath them while moving on to something bigger and better. This dungeon, though, fell on the weak side of that curve for me and could easily be made a bit better.

Overall, I was impressed by the various dungeons. Not only the design of the encounters, which is by and large well done, but the visual design itself is impressive. All of them are cold, underground caves, but each has its own distinct look and flavor. Along with its own unique pattern of monsters and threats to overcome. There's some commonality, some similarities, but you could be blindfolded and lead into a random dungeon and immediately tell which one it is.

My worry, though, is whether or not these dungeons are really worth it. The same problem happens with the missions, of course, because there's very little reason to rerun them once the plot is done. With dungeons you can always head back for another shot at the chest at the end. It seems a lot more likely to create ongoing opportunities for groups and players to play them through. But with so many dungeons available, I'm sure that eventually players will figure out which dungeons are the most lucrative – the right combination of length and difficulty balanced against the rewards which makes plowing through them again and again an efficient way to spend ones time. Which would leave a few dungeons as the place to be while the rest languish, unattended. Instead of a better situation where the players interested in the raiding are evenly distributed amongst the dungeons and it's a matter of personal preference.

GW:EN SNeak Peak: Live Thread 13, Into the Wee Hours

Lucky number 13. And the last liveblogging of the Sneak Peak for Eye of the North because the Sneak Peak is almost over.

Whew, almost fell asleep there. Almost screwed up on my time zone conversions, too, my alarm was set after the final curtain. Would suck to stay up all this time and then miss out at the very end, wouldn't it?

I went by the district list and it seems like the party's at Gunnar's instead of the Eye of the North. Lots of folks dancing by the fire. Plenty of minipets and collector's item bonuses on display. Seems there's a big trade in map pieces. I actually have all four, although I never found the guy to give them to, and a few extras besides. No copies of the ones people seem to most be looking for, though. People are talking about GW2 and meeting back up on release and varoius and sundry things. It's a festive atmosphere. The other big topic of conversation is bragging about how many consumables - the Grail of Might, of course, being the big one - they've crafted.

Bored with the chat, I check out a few obs matches - nothing too notable and I'm too tired to jot more than that down. Then, make sure I get into district one.

Before the night's over, I check over my progress one last time. I started the weekend with a mere 150odd XP. Just enough to get to lv20. Only 35 skill points. And AL 30 armor. Now that the weekend's over, I'm up to 300k XP even with 44 skill points. And bought myself a brand new suit of armor - no runes yet except for a few Vitae but I did buy up a lot of the new skills. 60 of them, in fact. I found 10 of the PvE only skills during the weekend, as well. Didn't manage to get all the skills the way I wanted to, but only because I got picky about how I was going to buy them.

Racked up 11.2k Norn title track points, good enough for the third rank. Just missed the second rank of the Dwarves with 3.6k. For the Vanguard I have but a palty 600 points. I also got 35 Mastery points towards the Eye of the North mastery track, whatever that is. Not quite sure of what those are but looks like a way of doing the whole Protector/Defender track without having to count up missions.

I completed one of the main primary quests. A whole bunch of quests. Ran through three mission quests. And three dungeons, as well. Got my butt handed to me in the Norn tournaments. But handed that butt back in spades during the Dwarven boxing.

Didn't get to do much PvPing, though. Not a big deal since getting geared up for PvP would have taken a while and I'd really would have needed much better grounding before playing around with the new skill. Didn't get to watch all that much PvP, either. Just a few obs mode matches.

Talked to some folks. Caught up with some old friends. Couldn't connect with some others. To all the ones I missed, sorry. You know where I am if you want to get in touch. And just becase I'm not talking doesn't mean anything's wrong.

All in all, I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the way the weekend went. I got a lot done. Got a good sample of all the things I wanted to sample. A feel for the expansion.

As I've said before, I think my initial impulse stands. GW:EN is a great game but I just don't have the time for it. I'll probably pick it up some time or another. But not right away. Although, I'm going to sleep on it and see how I feel about it tomorrow. I doubt my opinion will change much, though.

And that's it. The weekend's over. Kinda a letdown, really. One minute everyone's dancing by the fire. The next, the game hangs and disconnects. I'm dumped unceremoniously to the login screen. Trying to go back in initially loads me to Gunar's again but then switches me to the Monestary and the Factions tutorial. That's that, then. I was kinda hoping for an event like Gwen coming to roast us all or the devs showing up. If they did, I missed them.

Well, the Sneak Peak's over. And so's my brief sojourn back into the wonderful world of Guild Wars. I'll have some thoughts and conclusion which I'll hopefully get around to posting tomorrow. But for now, I'm exhausted. It was a fun ride, but I'm glad it's over and I can move on to other things. I've uninstalled the game for good measure. And, now, I'm going to wrap this up and get some much needed sleep.

So, yeah, I'm probably not going to be playing much again. Little busy at the moment. This weekend was something like a vacation, a gift from me to me. I've promised myself if I finish my script before the month is over that I can reinstall it again and maybe run a mission or something every now and again. If not, I'll be back in time for Wintersday and the snowball fights.

I'll see you then.

GW:EN Sneak Peak: Live Thread 12, One Big Giant

Once more unto the breach. I'm still annoyed at that boss fight. Spent all that time marching through that dungeon only to fail at the very end with absolutely no way to prevent that failure (Except, of course, for not dying in the march to the boss, of course, but you try keeping all your suicidal henchies alive in that dungeon and see how well you do. The Remnant's frost attack hit everyone for 140 and bleeding every ten or so seconds, and his Shatterstone hit people with 60AL for 300+ on each hit. And I don't even want to talk about what his Deep Freeze does when you're all bunched up.). No one to blame for myself but I'd have liked a chance.

Well, to cool off for a bit, I marched some other characters to the Eye of the North and bought up as many skills as I could. If you'll recall, one of my goals heading into this weekend was to grab all 100 of the new skills. I didn't quite make it there. But not because I lack the gold. I managed to scrounge up enough to, just barely, afford them all. And not because of a lack of skill points, I have more than enough to plunk down on all of them. No, I left a few proffession unlocked because I want specific character to have them. And they need to get there, get a few more points, and so forth. So, I'm left missing the Necromancer, Warrior, Dervish, and Assassin skills for now. But if and when I pick up the box, it won't be too hard to get them.

Next, I headed to the Nameless Isle to work with some of my new skills. Mostly worked with the Sin stuff since I had one already rolled up.

I was intrigued by the Signet of ?. Which lets you get an early Deep Wound. Tried out the various lead attacks and didn't find any all that appealing to start off that chain. But dropping Impale would be worth it. I also took the revamped Shadow Prison/Expose Defenses for a spin and found it to be still perfectly serviceable. Used Tiger Stance, too, and that worked as well as advertised.

After that, I spent some time Dwarven Boxing. Just to let off some steam.

Now? Well, there are about six hours left until 12PST when the event should end. I'm hoping to run at least one more dungeon. Maybe catch an obs match or two. And then find out if there's any sort of event or party as the event closes. This'll be the last release for GW, so I'm hoping to be there for something cool. I'm also pretty exhausted at this point, so I don't know if I'll be able to make it.

So, I want to find another dungeon. There's Raven's Point near Olaf's where I did the Gate Too Far quest. I'm going to assume there's something in there even without that quest. But I've already seen that place. But there is another place where I entered an instance that might be obscuring some content. Bjora Marches, where I used the Bear form for Blood Washes Blood. I haven't explored in there and there's no place else to explore, so I'm gong to see if I can't find a dungeon there.

I could go from Gunnar's or I could go from Sif's. I pick Sif's since I know the way already.

The trip to Bjora is pretty uneventful. I'm trying out a mad idea with my henchies here. I've switched out one of my SF Ele for something a little different. An E/N set up with a bunch of AoE Necro hexes. Mostly anit-melee stuff like Shadow of Fear and Enfeebling Blood and the like. Why not go with a primary Necro you ask? Well, I don't have any runes so there's no advantage there. And with the Elementalist, I should have a better energy pool and management to power out those expensive hexes. I don't know if it'll work but I'm sick of the Fire Eles and looking for a change. It's not doing horribly so far.

Up in the top left corner of the zone are some green dots. I investigate and, sure enough, there's a quest pointing me to a nearby dungeon. A dungeon that promises Jotun. This...could get interesting. The quest has greater rewards than the one leading to the annoying Remnant of Antiquities which means it's probably considered harder - as short as that place was and as near the main plotline, I figure it's a starter dungeon. But, then again, the rewards for the Wurm dungeon were greater yet and the place was larger and I did that just fine. So, what the hell. Why not? Into the Darkrime Delves.

I seem to be on the trail of a great Jotun. I can live with that.

Aw, hell. Bats again.

In the next chamber are some Jotun fighting some Stone Summit Dwarves. I'm not sure who to hate more, so I decide to hate on everyone.

The watchwords here are avoiding early deaths. There's going to be a boss. It's going to be a Jotun. It's going to be fierce. I want to avoid picking up a lot of DP that will put me in a hole. Mhenlo is not cooperatingwith me, though.

Found the level map. Looks like some powder keg action. Along with some locked doors.

Big Jotun Warrior is guarding the boss key in a room with Dryders. He goes down easily enough, though.

Now I have to find the Dungeon key.

DP check. I'm at +9. One of my Heroes is at +2. The others are at under one death's worth in the hole. I suspect Mhenlo is heavily DPed, though. It's like the enemies know he's the LoD/Infuse. Except he doesn't infuse. And he's pretty shitty with the LoD, too. So, he's perma ProtSpirited now.

Chasing down the dungeon key takes me to a far-off corner of the map. It's behind some ice jets but it's really not a challenge to get.

Neither is getting to the door to the next level. Took a few more deaths so my DP is a bit higher than I'd like. I'm at full morale myself but no one else is.

Completely lost now. What the heck am I supposed to be doing here?

Oh, missing the portal somehow - no pip on the mini-map to guide me, however. It was right there in the locked room but I ran past it a few times. On to level 2.

Which is huge. This is, again, going to take awhile. Still taking the kind of chippy incidental deaths I'd like to avoid. Haven't come close to wiping but the DPs slowly but surely building up.

Only a couple hours to go in the sneak peak now. I'm getting really sleepy.

Finally made it to the portal, but it's locked. I need the key held by a boss to the south, I guess. And, of course, he's surrounded by Jotun. Tough fight. Lots of deaths on my part which is bad. But once the boss is alone, he's dead meat.

With my wonderful new key, it's on to the next level and, apparently, that boss's mother. *wimper*

It's a pretty easy path to the boss, though. Unfortunately, I'm well DPed up by the time I get there.

But, apparently, walking up and smashing face isn't good enough to her. Quest log says I need to find some way to kill her, so after a wipe, I head south looking for one. There's a room with a mini-boss and a level map. And that's it. Huh. Oh well, back to clearing out the minions.

The end boss is Havok Soulwail and when they say giant, they aren't kidding. Topless so I hope it's a he instead of a giantess. Doesn't seem to have any special tricks, though. At least none I've seen so far. Just big and hits like a ton of bricks.

That was a lot easier than the last boss battle, that's for sure. I get another Diamond for my troubles.

Well, sir, that's about all the dungeon running I think I can stand for one night. I think it's time for a quick caffine break and then we'll be back to close this sucker out.

GW:EN Sneak Peak: Live Thread 11, The Failure

Back after a little trip into the real world to check on things. You'll forgive me for getting political with it , I hope, but when something's important to you, it needs saying.

Dinner was an unremarkable noodle bowl from a Japanese place. Desert, on the other hand, was the last of my mother's white peach cobble which I had forgotten I still had. Delicious, of course.

Anyhow, back to the game. There are only a few more hours left in the weekend and, well, I could spend it watching PvP stuff or grinding out some more plat to get all the skills. But, at the moment, I want to play for myself.

My options at the moment include running some more quests. I've collected quite a few, especially around Olaf's place that, if follow, I believe would reward me with permanent versions of the Bear/Wolf/Raven forms I was exposed to. On the other hand, I could head back to the Dwarves and that defense master quest and see if there's anything more there. But, really, I have a hankering for another dungeon crawl or three. I know there's one nearby Sif's thanks to that boss hunting quest, so I'm going for that one.

I picked up the first rank of the Dwarf title track, Delver, while hunting down that Wurm, by the way. It gives me the global blessing/enchantment Stout-Hearted. Whenever I use a skill against a Destroyer, you steal 6 health or something. That's pretty nice actually. Not so much for me, but it also applies to all my Heroes. Still, I'm not expecting to run into any destroyers so I'm flying the Slayer flag.

Checking the boss quest's green arrow, it's pointing me into the one corner of Drakkar Lake I've yet to explore. How much you want to bet there's a portal to the dungeon there?

And, yep, it's a sucker's bet because there it is. With some helpful NPCs outside to give me a quest. Talking to them also reveals some info about the dungeon. Looks like there's going to be a door/key quest of some kind.

Inside. Well, it's a cave. And there are Dryders trying to kill me.

Yep, it's a gate puzzle. I hate those. But I just found a map which should make it pretty easy to solve.

Ah, more of those Stalagmites that look like crystal devourers with their heads in the ground. Stupid Frozen Soil. Also, they have those towers that throw snowballs and spout ice jets. Annoying.

Still hunting for the right switches to open the right doors. Found the last boss in my quest, though.

There's a giant floating spectral face in the wall. It's freaking me out.

Okay, for the record, here's how I went. First, open the red doors of Strength. Head right into the eastern door and grab the area map. Then backtrack and head north through the other door. At the top of the map, just past a rezshrine you can open the green doors of Fellowship. Head west, and open up the blue doors, then backtrack, go through the rightmost red door again, and hit the other blue switch - the blue doors will be open but there'll be an enchantment or something stopping you until you get all the switches. The last green switch is to the north, just past the blue doors of Duty and the ramp to the next level.

Down, down, down, into the next level of this dungeon lair. I hope this place doesn't have too many because, yeesch, crisscrossing that map took a while.

This level has a big red Skull. I guess I know where I'm headed. Now to figure out how to get there. Labled Remnant of Antiquities.

Just a little dogleg it is. The Remnant is a big nasty elemental. Lv29. He has a special ability Called Diamondshard Mist, creates an environmental affect that's a snare. There's also some nasty effect that just causes bleeding and 140 damage in a ward sized area, Diamondshard Grave (Pretty rough when you have some DP). Makes crossing the bridge murder. But the recharge on Diamonshard? 5 seconds. synced with with the Power Return my AI is packing. Now if I could just survive all the Ice Spikes and Deep Freezes. They hit hard enough to one shot my DPed henchies.

Man, I just can't put a dent in him. Even if I wasn't DPed to high heaven by now, I'm not doing enough damage to be anywhere close to finishing him off before I'm wiped. He's perma regening, too. I don't think I've gotten more than 5% off his health. This is ridiculous.

Yeah, I give up. There's no way I can beat this guy with what I have. I'd need to bring some kind of shutdown, caster-hate, that sort of thing. But, as for right now? I'm fucking pissed and I need a break.

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.

GW:EN Sneak Peak: Live Thread 9, Lazy Morning

Commence to jiggling people, we're back. I had some thoughts jotted down to flesh out into full fledged posts but, eh, I'm feeling lazy. There's only one day left in the preview and I want to get rolling on it. I'll save those for tomorrow - or never - when I intened to post on the aftermath.

So, today, I wanted to check out some PvP action. Not play it myself because I'm horribly rusty, but scope out some obs mode. See what people were doing with the new skills. Looks like last night while I was in PvE heaven, there was a Monthly Championship. Rebel Rising vs some Korean team I'm going to call #12 because that's what they're ranked, on the Isle of the Dead. As I understand it, the new GW:EN skills were disallowed so I'm only going to check out the championship. Let's give her a watch.

Rebel Rising [rawr]
W/E - Eviscerate, Conjure Axe
D/A - Melandru's Derv with Disrupting Dagger?
P/W - Defensive Anthem, Spear attacks, WY, and I'm going to guess Shield's Up.
Me/Rt - Hex Eater Vortex, and a lot of Dom stuff - Diversion, interrupts, etc.
E/Mo - BSurge air
Mo/E - Shield of Deflection prot
Mo/E - LoD/Infuse
E/Mo - Shield of Regen water runner

Korean [Korean]
A/W - Shadow Prison
D/W - Melandru's derv
N/E - Corrupt Enchantments?!? Seriously? Wards with.
Me/Rt - Migraine hexer with Humsig
A/W - Shadow Prison
E/Mo - Sheield of Regen, water with a lot of Monk stuff
Mo/E - Shield of Defelection with...Divine Spirit? Seriously?
Mo/A - LoD/Infuse

I guess Tiger's Stance is the new BoA? Makes sense. The Korean meta has to be really screwed up because that is some janky shit #12 is running. [rawr] on the other hand look to be in a pretty sweet setup. I'd guess it's the latest version of a balanced build. The only thing I don't like, really, is the Parapants. I'd sub it out for a Ranger with some interrupts, but that's just me.

Came into the room a few minutes into the match. [rawr] is taking it to them. They're getting a lot of kills and pushing #12 back to their base. Secured a morale boost with #12 on the defensive, trying to break out of their base. Looks like this could be a slaughter but, no, the Koreans are going to split.

8~9 minutes in they've worked off a lot of the base NPCs, all [rawr] has left is the core guarding the Lord. And they're got a pair of Sins in their base to harrass the Rebel runner. Meanwhile, at #12's base, they've been stuck defending it but they haven't lost many NPCs. The split is really paying off for them. [rawr] has to respond and the now the main team can't kill anything, #12 is just running them around on the many paths of the Isle of the Dead, while their Sins go to work.

Nearing VoD, which is at 18 minutes now, making for quicker matches. Not sure how I feel about that. By this point, #12 has gone full out split. They've got a four person team with the Sins and their E/Mo and the Mes, I think, constantly trying to slip into [rawr]'s base. They can't get to the Lord but they are really killing off the people [rawr]'s sending back.

I'm still not so sure about the new VoD mechanic but, I'm seeing it in action. [rawr] seems to be able to pound #12 whenever they get them in a fight. But #12's splitting has taken out a lot of [rawr]'s NPCs. I'd have to say it's even heading into VoD and the score chart, for what it's worth, agrees with me.

[rawr]'s able to take out the NPCs and #12 is crumbling. Yeah, this one's over. Just a matter of a time before they kill off enough to take out the Lord. Congratulations to [rawr]. Good match.

Yea, no new skills there. And I'm itching to get some playing in myself. Nobody on the list for the GvG is ranked above 70 and I don't rankSo, we'll close the obs mode for now

Ran Defending the Eye of the North again. Mostly on a whim. This time, though, I beat it hands down. And I attribute this to three factors. First, I switched all my Eles to pack Meteor Shower. I had to go micro and tell them when to cast it, but it was a big help. Second, I had them pack wards as well. Especially Ward of Stability. The centaur around the Eye of the North have this Trample ability which is an AoE touch range knockdown. It was really giving me fits last night on the narrow confines of the ramp. With Stability up, nothing got interrupted at a crucial time. Like the long casting of a Meteor Shower, say. And finally, I decided not to fight on the ramp at all. As soon as the map loaded, I ran off to the side onto the ice. Picking off the groups cost me the NPC allies because they ignore the henchie flags and would rush right in to aggro everythign but I was able to just roam around the perimiter and handle the groups one at a time instead of altogether as I'd had to on the ramp. Also, fighting on the ice slowed me down, but it snared the centaurs, too. And since my plan was to sit in my wards and hammer them with SF and Meteor Shower, that didn't exactly bother me. So, for that I get some funny money, a Powerstone, and a new skill.

Ebon Escape. Spell. 5en, 1/4cast, 10recharge. Shadow Step to target other ally. you and that ally are healed for 40 health. Vanguard.

You can apparently rerun the Gate Too Far semi mission as many times as you like. It's only 2.5k XP and 500 Norn points so it's not really worth it.
Nope, I was wrong. You can. If you go to the Scrying Pool in the Eye of the North you can look at all the old cuscenes and you can also add any of the mission quests to your log. If I have the time, I'll run Blood Washing again because I want that Healing Light, dammit. Not because it's a useful skill or anything but I'm going to get at least one elite capped this weekend or so help me...

Then, I hunted down the Low King of the dwarves to turn in my primary quest. He was in a place called Battledepths which, aside from beign a cool name was off to the west from the Eye of the North. It's an underground cave place. Looks very cool, different from Sorrow's Furnace but still reminiscent. But being underground it means my map is all screwed up which sucks.

Although I'm still getting my Norn rep bonus (which is +63hp now. I guess it's 54+(3xNorn) health. Which is weird.) but the bounties here are for Dwarf points. Work just like the Norn bounties except you don't have to fight a Norn to get them and, hopefully, there'll be some different bonuses. I'm pretty close to my first rank so I smell cookies.

On second thought, I just ran the numbers and I'm not getting my Norn bonus in here. Must not be "Norn lands". Forgot I had installed a few Vitae runes I'd salvaged.

Annnnd, that sucks. If you wipe in the Battledepths you get returned to outpost. How'd I wipe? Deep Freeze spike along with hardhitting Dervishes, combined with the henchies tendency to cluster up. I didn't get killed but there's not much I can do by myself. I really need to slot a rez here. The Dervs use Vow of Silence, too, which is really screwing up my offense.

New enemy. Chromatic Drakes. A reskin of the old Drake model, of course, but the interesting thing is their special ability. They're eles but they have somethign called "Elemental Shift" which attunes them to a different element. Interesting. They, of course, die before it becomes important.

I investigate a barrel and an ooze monster pops out. This really is a dungeon crawl.

And there's the King. He's holding a cutscene for me which I gratefully accept. My Dwarf hero, sadly bereft of a nickname, is called on the carpet by his leige. The game forces me to stick up for him and say he was invaluable. Just one problem. He's never been in my party. He's about as useless as Norgu to me.

Not much else to see here, I guess. There's a quest to get Destroyer Cores, so I guess there's a reason to rerun a Gate Too Far, after all. And a master instanced quest with another eye-popping reward. A nearby portal leads to....Varajar Falls. That's by Olaf's bungalo and there's a Dwarven merchant and material crafter nearby but I've no real reason to be here.

I see a little skill icon has popped up. Looks like a big eye. Sadly, it's not the Eye of Sauron casting its baleful gaze upon me, but a little reminder that I should head to the Eye of the North and do something with the tapestry I just got, I suppose.

Sounds like as good a point to break as any.

GW:EN Sneak Peak: Live Thread 8, Back in the Saddle

Okay, I'm done punching the walls and blasting speed metal. Disconnects piss me off something fierce.

Did a little checking around and it seems I've been on a sissiphan quest looking for a mission. There aren't any in GW:EN. Just these dungeon things in the underground. I passed by one when I didn't follow the master Wurm quest. So, I have before me two options, both of which will probably take up the rest of the night or until I fall over unconscious which will be soon the way things are going. The first is to head for that Qurm quest and also find the Sepulchre of Whatever, which is also a dungeon and finish off some quests for some big XP. The other is to follow along the primary quest, the one that screwed up on me the last time around and try to finish off the Norn Alliance quest. This Blood Washes Blood quest is one half of that. I'm not sure what exactly it takes to finish off the other branch but it's probably equally involved.

Either way I need to get back to Jaga Moraine. I'll decide along the way.

Damn, looks like I can run with the K-Dawg again. He's not by the perch. On the other hand, a little exploring around and I find some jars of healing salve. Dropping them is like a Heal Area, +300hp to everyone in range. I'm toting one around with me for now.

Least I don't have to deal with the funky shadows by the altar again. Just have to stand around and wait for it to light. And with Yogi in tow, we're matching towards the marches. Fingers crossed this time...

And we've loaded successfully. Whew. First impression of the new zone is that the sky is dark, the rocks are jagged, I'm in enemy territory. And it's time to get some ass and kick some ass. Looks like we're hunting another Norn form to transform into.

Ah, killing Charr by the bucket load. Like old times.

The Charr use a lot of fire stuff. The Warriors Conjure, the mages Fire Storm, the Rangers Kindle Arrows. If I was actually preparing for this instead of just flying by the seat of my pants, I'd be ready for that sort of thing.

Another map piece. I wave good-bye to another inventory space.

At the shrine dealy now. Tough boss fight. Massed fire eles. Went down to one Hero - the E/Me - with a burnt rezsig and the Bearagon and me, alone against the boss. My prot fu is strong, though, and we whooped him, recharged the sig and we're good to go.

Two more bosses around the shrine, too. A Barrage Ranger using Ignite Arrows, gg. And an Axe Warrior with something I didn't catch because I was running for my life before he ground me into paste. Neither as touch as the Mind Burn guy.

The bear form has the same problems as the wolf form. I'm one of two healers and taking me out of the picture is bad juju. Nice and fun, though. Feels really powerful. I especially like the shout that weakens enemies and gives everyone on your team perma-orders. So now I'm bursting through the gates, slaughtering Charr. In the center, I'm getting slaughtered myself but there's a rezpad right outside so I don't care. And, finally, there's a Monk boss - and the reason I'm having some problems with the killing of stuff. He's got Healing Light which is pretty meh, but I ain't proud so I'll take it. Aw, hell, something rezzed him.

Oh, I see, these Flameshielders are dual classed, too. Ele/Mon it seems. Nice.

Ha, these Charr Warrior guys were rank flashing. Tigers. That's awesome.

Quest finished and it's another cutscene. Robs me of Healing Light since I wasn't able to cap before the Charr all went dead. I shall console myself with another tasty beverage. Return of the mysteriously vanishing Heroes, too, by the way. Mr. Dwarf thinks the Norn are the craziest people.

Finishing the quest has warped me to Gunnar's manse. Quick stat check, I'm a half a dozen skill points up and at 7k Norn points - almost to rank 3, 800 Dwarf, and a mere 350 Vanguard. And I'm in the black from after buying my armor. A few changes, I'm ditching Devonna for Talon, the Guardian henchie, hopefully he can stay alive and tank a little better since he's sword not axe. I'll miss the KDs though. And I'm ditching Holy Veil in favor of... You Move Like a Dwarf! Yes, I'm using a PvE only skill. I haven't gotten much use out of Veil, really, and I figure a ranged KD will be fun and, worse comes to worse, will help me run away if needed.

Again, I hate the pathing in Gunnar's Hold. Always bumping into something to stop my auto run, and all the vendors are a pain to reach. Also, I'm really getting tired of the voice comments. Cute once or twice but everyone says the same damn thing.

Norn Storyteller isn't handing out any more goodies. It's not that I'm sniffinc g at an extra 60 health, that's a full Hale/Hearty staff for everyone in the party. But rank 1 was 54 health, so I only went up 6 health for getting 3k in points, that just doesn't sit right.

Roy Boy has another tournament for me. Good fight promoter he is. I must say I am tempted to break some more faces. But, no, another time, Killroy. Another time.

The next leg of the Northern Allies quest requires me to travel to Olafstead, in distant Olafistanm right on the border of Whocomesupwiththesenamesabibia. The portal leading to there is in the Southwestern corner of Norrheart. Time to get my travel on.

Ah screw this. I'm just running for it.

You know what? This game really needs an SMS feature. I want it so I could write this post without having to tab out. But just imagc ine you could send someone a message on their cellphone "dood raid n 5 minutes where are u?" Or vice versa. This will happen someday. Mark my words.

And I just auto-ran right into the Jotun boss group I'd been so worried about in a narrow mountain pass. Crushed 'em, so it's all to the good.

My favorite guild name, I Swear She Was Eighteen [Gwen], just won the halls. Ah, statutory rape, you never cease to amuse. It's even creepier now that we've actually met the grown up Gwen.

New zone, Varajar Falls. It's, um, the Shiverpeaks. What do you want from me, poetry? There's trees and stuff.

Why, yes, I have been drinking, why do you ask?

Looks like I've got a ways to go to find Olaf.

There were a lot of centaur here. Now there are a lot of dead centaur.

Olaf's palatial townhouse is up a big huge winding ramp. That's going to look totaly hot on GTV Cribs.

Neat little touch. In the row of henchies, Zho and Aidan, the two Rangers, are off to the side, sitting down next to each other. Beyond that, there's jack all here except for Olaf. I grab the quest and looks like I'm going to becoming like unto the raven soon. And then it's back out the way I came.

At the shrine it's Olaf Olafson. And his sister, his daughter, his sister Olrun Olafsdotter. And a bunch of flunkies. I was just kinding about Olafistan before but this is getting ridiculous. And, of course, it's a trap. All the Norn turn hostile but I'm a practice hand at slaughtering them thanks to the dozens of rezshrines and the like along the way here. Or rather, it's a bit more than your average trap as after I turn the Norn back to a lovely shade of green, a bunch of Destroyers charge into the fray and I have my first real encounter with them. Tough suckers but they go down just like everything else.

Afterwards, it's a cutscene. Blah blah blah, Shithead, who's didn't magically appear out of thin air since he was in my party, says to the Dwarf, who did materialize from the the ethers, there's a gate we have to shut or open or dance around it with mayflowers, I don't know, I wasn't really paying attention. I was hypnotized by the row of tiny sharp teeth in his cavernous mouth right below his huge, soulles eyes. The Asura are like humanoid paranhas, I knew it! Hot Mama then proceeds to be hot and we've got plot motion.

I have to say, the male Norn model with the beard growing out of his chest looks ridiculous. Like some kind of neckless muppet. Olaf doesn't look as bad as the Nornbear Unveiled did but he's still freaky looking. The rest? Well, they give new meaning to the word bear, alright.

Then I collect the rewards and it's on to another instanced zone - a Gate Too Far. I'm underground in an Underworld/Tombs looking "dungeon". Olafette Hotdotter has stayed outside and, instead, I'm accompanied by her father, who's shirtless and making me uncomfortable, and a pair of Norn, one of each gender. The girl has a mask on so she's probably a butterface. Oh, who am I kidding, she and the guy are probably an item and he'd sqaush me like a bug if I tried to climb that mountain of a woman.

My quest log says I need to kill stuff. Sounds good to me. New mob type, Stalagmites, which are like transparent Devorers. I hate them already, they're spirit shitters. Including Frozen Soil and Winter. Those are going to hurt. Winter because it hurts my damage, these critters are all probably hardened against cold damage. And Frozen because it means no combat rezzing. QZ, too, that's going to wreck my e-management.

I forgot how much easier having four Warriors makes things. Olaf and his pals are awesome tanks and heavy hitters, too.

Onto the shrine which is just sitting there in an empty room. You know what that means, right? Yep, it's a trap. Destroyers and some kind of Tremor beast pop up and try to kill me. I try to kill them. I am slightly more successful. There are several waves but it's never really in doubt. I get a pair of gold daggers for my trouble, though. Max enchanting mod but otherwise unremarkable. Intersting shield skin, Enameled, dropped for me, too.

The raven form give me some health and a 20% block chance, that's nice. The usual smattering of skills, too. Nothing really amazing although there's some nice stuff. I'm supposed to be protecting myself from tremor knockdowns with it but, um, I'm a backliner, I'm nowhere near close enough to get caught by that.

Yeah, see, that's why I shouldn't be dicking aroudn with forms. I just lost the hot Norn girl. Although she got rezzed up, that's interesting. Yeah, these things just hit way to hard to leave it up to a lone Monk. Raven forms not that much fun anyway so I'm going to ignore it for now. Defeated a bunch of Termors and a door opened up with a portal inside. I guess I'm suppoed to go through it?

Okay, I am so completely lost right now. I have no idea where to go and ther are no Destroyers anywhere around here. Well, there's a portal, I'm taking it.

Phew, okay, here's some Destroyers in this level. Not much of a challenge getting to the main chamber with the gate. Pantystain says some stuff and tries to endear himself to me by being sacrastic, it's not working. His race has a skill calle Technobabble. He's so uncool he raises the average temperature of the room. Finishing off the quest involves smashing the gate.

With that, I'm back at Olaf's, a bunch of XP richer. And I've earned enough rep points to get to Norn rank 3, Slayer of Nightmares. Speaking of Nightmares, I think that's as good a point as any to call it a night.

GW:EN Sneak Peak: Live Thread 7, Hunting For a Mission

Welcome back to the thread that never ends. I know last time I said I was going to be heading on into Jaga Moraine to follow the primary quests but while I was eating my pizza, it occured to me that I should traipse back through Drakkar first. You see, I realized that there are six boss warning totems in Sif's pad. But the quest she gave me to hunt them down only involves three of them. I know two of them are in Drakkar because I killed them before, the third is named the Lady of the Lake, where do you think she is? I'm guessing, if I finish that quest - which I want to since it's worth 15k - then there'll be a follow-up. And it's likely gong to be hunting those last three bosses in Moraine. I have a few other quests in Drakkar, too, so I'm going to finish those up and then press on.

Okay, so I know where the first boss, Nulfastu is, he's in the rabbit cave. The second one, a Centaur Ranger is roughly northeast of the lake. The third, the Lady, I figure is somewhere in between on the lake itself. There's no outpost nearby so I'm going to have to fight my way from Sif's chic little split level. That's okay because my other quest is to kill some of the Jotun in the cave just to the west of it. That'll lead me to the lake and I can swing down past the wimpy centaurs and finish off the shadow surprise group.

There's something new. I didn't mention it before but after the cutscene to end off the Nornbear chase, there was a little flash not unlike what you get at the end of mission. Except it was a quest. Now, in the quest area is a little marker commemorating my victory over the Nornbear. Slick.

Alrigh, got the gang back together, not going to switch anything up since it worked last time. Put us on the zone diet and here we go.

Oops, looks like I was wrong, the Jotun I have to kill is due south from Sif's country chalet, but that's even better since it'll lead me right to the centaur guy.

My rank 2 Norn title is good for a 60hp bonus, by the by. I'll have to check with the storyteller if there's more to it because that just doesn't seem worth it.

Woo, that's a lot of Jotun. They're listening to the boss I've been sent to slaughter make a compelling argument vis a vis the smashing of things. It's a mixed bunch, besides the boss, there's two of each kind of Jotun except the Necros. The ones that really scare me are the Warriors, the Skullsmashers. They're hammer guys with Earthshaker, Irresistible, Yeti Smash, and that Giant Smash, it's just knocklocking hell. The others are a pair of Mesmers, the Mindbreakers and Bladeturners, one devoted to caster shutdown, nailing me with Arcane Conundrum and Guilt/Shame , the other for melee shutdown, tagging Devona, who's my only banger with things like ineptitude. Then there's a Necro one, the Bloodcurdler, who's also annoying and lays down wells but he's the lowest on the "I hate 'em" list. And he's the one who's not there. Oh well, we're right by a rezpad so enough typing, let's get to killing.

Yeah, got slaughtered. Took out two of them, though, and managed to split the pack up so it should be smooth sailing now. And by smooth sailing I mean a tough fight with my guys going down left and right, especially Mhenlo, who's so DPed as to be one-hit by the Jotun Warrior boss who hits like a freight train. Sheesh. I preprot him as possible but the stomps and KDs always seem to leave me helpless at just the wrong time. But we finished him off and that quest will net me a smooth plat, 100 rep points with the Dwarves, and a skill. Not bad. On to the bossly trio.

And just a short jaunt down the mountain is the Centaur Ranger boss himself. Easy prey.

Now I have to find the Lady boss. She's the one I didn't see before and I'm guessing is by the lake. On closer inspection there's some kind of huge Pleisiosaur buried underneath the ice there. Packs of elementals with coordinated Ice Spikes on the ice just aren't fair, just for the record. Found her, dead center in the middle of the lake. She's a Wisp or blue colored Djinn. Must be a Dervish. Yeah, a dead Derv. Som elementals nearby and I think a stray Wisp group patrolled in - they move quick across that ice - so tougher than it should have been but no contest.

Snerk. Time to flex my valor muscle description says, in the bunny cave. I'm wise to the rabbit's tricks this time and I try to stay on the bridge and outside of the circle of doom but, no, you have to go down and trigger things. It's a tough fight, hardest of the three, but a lucritive one. He's a Mesmer boss, elit is Lyssa's Aura so, no.

I've made easier 15ks, but not by much. Time to cash in, dump inventory, and move on.

New skills. Kinda a matched pair:

Dwarven Stability. Enchanment Spell. 5en, 1/4csat, 30recharge. For 20 seconds, your stances last 30% longer. If you activated this skill while drunk, you cannot be knocked down. Dwarf.

You Move Like a Dwarf! Shout. 10en, 10recharge. Target foe is knocked down and takes 32 damage. When that foe gets up, it is crippled for 7 seconds. Norn.

And, as I expected, there's another quest for the rest of the bosses in the next zone. I love it when a plan comes together.

So, moving on to Jaga Moraine. First impression. I see tall mountains in the distance and a trail, an icy path twisting its way towards them. Looks a lot like Drakkar, to be honest.

Well, I'm hunting for three bosses, another boss, and a Norn.

There's an interesting enemy. Berserking Bison. And Minotaur and Aurochs. Big herds of them just running about the middle of the zone.

There's Krak, the Stone Summit boss I have to kill off for a quest. Annnnd, now he's dead. Well, that was easy.

Heading through a mountain pass there's a sign warning of avalanches. You know what one of the the mobs around here are named? Avalanche. My ears are perked up and alert for designed awesomeness. But nothing immediately happens.

And now I see the green arrow leading me to the NPC I need to talk with. I'm going to look around for those bosses a bit more first, though.

Found one of the bosses now. White Out, apparently a super version of an Avalanche, he's up a little mountain path and....giant snowball of doom! Run, run! I play Indian Jones in the Temple of Doom and barely manage to avoid getting squashed. That was pretty neat, actually. It's an ele boss and a nasty one. Those Deep Freeze spikes hurt. Plus a nasty Shatterstone.

A little further on is a group of festive Norns. And a quest for 10k XP, 750 points, a 2plat. Master one, apparently, to hunt some Wurms in the next zone over. We'll take a pass for now.

Interesting collector here. He's looking for 35 of whatever geegaw it is and in return he'll give me some gauntlets. Looks like an interesting skin, could be somthing to this.

Right nearby is the next boss on the list, a Necromancer who summons some nasties. His spot is a little overlook of some cloudy mountain peaks. Pretty.

Now, the next boss my log says is not in Moraine but someplace called the Sepulchre of Dragrimmar. Haven't seen that yet but it's probably close by, oh well, time to backtrack and talk to that quest NPC.

There's the perch and there's Roy boy. Yo Killroy, what's up? Oh, you gots a quest for me? Wanna kill some stuff. As the acceptance option sez "You're insane, Killroy. I love it."

Bah, lagged out in the middle of a monster pack. Quest failed, going to have to restart it, sometime. For now, time to advance the plot. Looks like I gotta head south to talk to a Bear about a girl. The NPC Norn comes with me. He's a Paragon. A Bear Paragon. I shall call him a Bearagon. We head throgh the gates into this littel area around an altar surrounded by shadow critters.

There's a little bit here with some special higher level shadows trying to put out a flame. The skill they use is a spell so my interrupter makes short work of them. Then it's a cutscene. Heroes not in the part make an appearence which is nice since I don't have to lug them with me but a little weird since they just apear out of nowhere. As for the cutscene, well, there's something about calling a bear. He fails to say "hey Boo-boo." And then let's just say Jora is still my kind of girl.

Next up is another instanced quest to wash some blood with blood which, I have to say, only gets things more in my experience. But first I have to lead a bear by the horn or something.

New zone, the Bjora Marches. First impressions? None. Because GW fucked up on me. Unable to find the mission I requested, err=19 and I'm kicked to the login screen. Ef. Uck.

I'm taking this as a sign I need a break. I'll be back.