Friday, May 23, 2014

Let Them Eat Grumble Cake : GW2

For something that was expected, and no doubt intended, to be a pleasant, relaxing palate-cleanser before the increasingly eagerly-awaited (at least in some corners) Living Story Season Two, the Festival of the Four Winds/Queen's Gauntlet double-header has turned out be a right old controversy generator. Little blame for that can be laid at the gangplank of the Zephyrites. No, it all seems to be Queen Jennah's fault. Again.

Really, she doesn't have much luck with her celebrations. Last time she sent out the Balloonateers to ferry all-comers to Divinity's Reach, her robots went Westworld and Scarlet Briar tried to kill her. At least that time the entertainment she laid on went down tolerably well with the masses, or as we should more properly call them, the zergs.

This time round Scarlet's safely sidelined, six under we assume, although decades of super-villain training tells me never to believe it even if you saw the body buried. Which, come to think of it, we never did, did we? Suspicions aside, she's certainly not around to throw her unfeasibly large mannequin into the works, her aether pirates have found easier plunder who knows where (are they still hanging out in Edge of the Mists? I never go there. I wouldn't know) and all the rest of her motley mash-ups have vanished back down whatever holes they came came from; literally in the case of the Dredge.

Ironic foreshadowing.

No doubt about it then, there's no-one to blame for two of the most unpopular decisions of recent times but Queen Jennah. First she demotes all the Champions in Queensdale to veteran status, thereby closing down the popular Queensdale Champion Train. Then, and you can almost hear her ironic, if regal, laughter, she sends all the Gauntlet Champions on a training course to learn each other's tricks.

Consequence: no more fun times for The People. The forums ring with recriminations. Syp and Ravious offer more considered analyses. Jeromai may be the lone voice striking up in Queen Jennah's defence.

You Zephyrites have some questions to answer too. Call yourself traders? This is a load of old tat!

Meanwhile the Charr stands alone. Never liked the Gauntlet anyway. Was dull, still is. Only thing that's changed is it used to be dull and profitable and now its just dull. Well I imagine it is. Only spent ten minutes there. Better things to do. As for the Queensdale Train, never did it, won't miss it. All the same, makes you think.

It's all very well being blase about these things when they don't affect you but once royalty get the idea they can just lop off any head that doesn't please them you have to wonder whose head might be next. I hope Rytlock's paying attention. Don't we have some kind of treaty? Shouldn't he be calling in the Human ambassador about now and asking what the hell Jennah thinks she's playing at?

Bread and circuses, Your Majesty, if you want you keep the crown on your head. Not bread and water.

1 comment:

  1. Indeed, which is why I keep stressing that there are no exclusive rewards for choosing or not choosing to do the controversial content.

    A lot of protesting invokes the "free to play my way" argument - but griefers and verbal abusers can use that argument too. How dare Anet disallow me from doing what I want and cursing everyone out on mapchat?

    The irony is that champion trains aren't completely removed. Cursed Shore, Frostgorge Sound, Edge of the Mists. A ton of ignored mid-level maps with champions that could easily be used to set up a new train. But the champion train goers don't seem to have enough initiative to shift from their comfortable routine in a level 1-15 zone.

    Labyrinthine Cliffs actually has a number of invokable event chains that can be completed quickly for leveling and XP purposes. I seem to remember a small train forming there the last time Bazaar of the Four Winds hit too. Did anyone figure it out or think to click on the artifacts or set it up? Doesn't seem like it yet.

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