Thinking Outside The Super Adventure Box : GW2

It's here. Everyone loves it. Dulfy knows all about it already. Does she never sleep? Me, I took a quick look inside and enjoyed it more than I expected. I might even go back.

The best part? I can skip the whole thing and still not miss out on the goodies!  ANet didn't just consider the dexterity-impaired among us by including Infantile Mode, complete with the magnificently-named "Baby's First Super Adventure" achievement, they went that extra, extra mile and made it so you don't have to go in the box at all.

When I stumbled out of the Box very late last night (alright, early this morning) and lurched over to Moto, the Asuran "genius" responsible for the whole thing I noticed an option in his dialog I'd overlooked on the way in; something about an "extra-curricular assignment". So I asked him about that.


Late though it was I set off to search Metrica Province for manifestations and it wasn't long before I found them. Twinkling spheres hanging in the air, filled with baubles.

It seemed for a while we'd be running around gathering these things by the armful. That turned out to be a bug, possibly. I woke up to a small patch and it seems someone gave the servers a hefty thump with an Asuran spanner overnight and now everything's working as intended. I haven't found any more spheres floating free, anyway.

What happens is that Chests spawn in fixed locations all over Tyria. Okay, I'm taking "all over Tyria" on trust. I can confirm they spawn all over Metrica Province and Wayfarer's Foothills. There's no need to run around blind, trusting to luck you might trip over one; they're all clearly marked on the map.

When you find one and open it out pop the same things you'd find inside the SAB: bunnies, monkeys, toads, snakes (the only snakes on Tyria as far as I know.). Bop them hard and they pop, leaving twinkling spheres filled with yummy bauble goodness. Blue spheres have a single bauble inside, green ones five and gold ones ten.

Don't hang about, though. Whereas last night the baubles hung there indefinitely, leading me to believe they were a harvestable since I came across them in situ sans chest, now they pop like soap bubbles in short order. Loot 'em or lose 'em.

The Super Adventure Box is with us for a month. The Mystic Forge consumables and Continue Coins cost one Bauble Bubble, which is a full stack of regular baubles (that's 250, the same as a full stack of anything in Tyria). The Super Adventure Box O'Fun costs three Bubble Baubles. The weapon skins cost 50 BBs - 12,500 Baubles! Plus a gold piece but who cares about that?

After an hour of Infantile Mode last night I had 36 baubles and even one Bauble Bubble looked out of reach. In a few minutes this morning, most of which I spent taking screenshots, I'd added a hundred to that tally. Mrs Bhagpuss stayed up late and has five Bubble Baubles already. From an unattractive grind doing something in which I have very little interest, the whole thing has turned into, yes, fun!

Well done ANet is all I can say. Pitched perfectly. Shoehorning a retro-platformer into a high-fantasy MMO without breaking the lore takes some doing. Making it worthwhile even for people whose hearts don't beat faster for either retro graphics or platform gameplay is exceptional. And Bonus credit for that Consortium rep who strides over to pitch Moto for the commercial exploitation rights.


Now if they'd just add some skins that Engineers could use...