Up Above The Roofs And Houses : GW2

I was on Reddit last night reading the leaked/faked (delete as applicable) upcoming patch notes that supposedly reveal details of ANet's plans for server merges and other "fixes" for World vs World's many problems, when quite by chance I came across a thread entitled "Thank you ANet, for polishing Black Citadel. It's beautiful."

Putting aside my mental image of a team of ANet developers in community service fatigues hanging from the girders of The black Citadel on bucket-chairs wielding mops and dusters, I read on to learn that, as a direct result of the addition of gliding to Core Tyria, someone had taken the time and trouble to "polish up, rework the newly accessible areas a bit" and sort out "invisible walls, low res props without collision, etc that needed fixing".

The Black Citadel has always been my favorite Tyrian city. I've sung its praises before, more than once. Over the years I've poked my whiskers into its many back alleys and wild places. But I've never seen it from the air.

This evening I spent an hour exploring the old place. Honestly, I couldn't with any certainty say what parts were or weren't newly accessible. The place always was a maze. For example, I'd have said the whole perimeter of the Great Imperial Smelter would have been unreachable without a glider but as I made my way back on foot from the far side I found myself next to a vendor and next to him was a ramp going up, so maybe you always could take that tour.

It's also not impossible that you might have been able to jump down onto the jury-rigged, flat, riveted rooftop of the Gladium Canton, although I rather doubt it. In places the collision is still touch and go - I fell through what looked like a sheet of solid boiler plate steel while I was gawping at the sunset.

I purely love rooftops. There's a famous romance to the world above the houses that's been celebrated in many a book and film from Mary Poppins to Rooftoppers. As a teenager I used to take every chance I could get to climb out of a window or up a wall and sit on a roof ridge or a parapet.

I'm getting a tad past that now but my characters aren't. The roof over Gladium is a joy, although it's also an architectural disaster. I really hope no Asura "geniuses" ever happen to see it, but for atmospherics and mood it can't be beat.

There were two places I managed to reach that I'm certain weren't on the tourist trail before gliding came to Tyria. To the South of the Gladium Canton there's a sector from which the map's fog never clears because no-one was ever meant to go there.

It was scenery. Now it's a picnic spot. There's not much there except trees and grass but it makes a great staging post to swoop down on that tricky vista.

Most satisfying of all, though, was the flight I took from the ledge of the Asura Gate to Lion's Arch all the way across to the ruins of the Great Northern Wall. Those fragments of archway have taunted me for years, granite ghosts of a past that won't fade. Landing on their ledges and sitting in their shade made an old Charr feel the war was finally over.

So, yes, thank you Justin of ANet, for going above and beyond the call of duty and adding yet another paragraph to the palimpsest of The Black Citadel, the greatest city in Tyria. May her steel always shine and her roadways never rust.

Black Citadel Friday : GW2

This is the greatest city in the world. And it's only going to get greater.

 Charr Citizen - Black Citadel

I count myself exceedingly fortunate that my first character in beta was a Charr. Nothing prepared me for the sheer impact of The Black Citadel. It hit like a fist.

The smoke-filled skies stink of sulphur and Armageddon. The polluted air shrieks and groans with the tortured cries of steel.

Every sunrise, every sunset, burns with apocalyptic fire. And it's always sunset or sunrise in The Black Citadel.

The iron walkways echo with the heavy tread of war. The legions spar and banter in the streets while citizens growl and curse. In the fretted shade of the Gladium Canton the lesser races sweat and trade. 

The craft halls of the Factorium whir with the spinning of looms as the smiths' hammers pound. Beyond the plated walls the scholars of the Priory pore over ancient scrolls among the vine-clad ruins of Old Ascalon.

This is The Black Citadel.

It stands.

It will stand.

It must. 

A fit from the House of Phoebe for #intpipomo 2015

Now We Are Six : GW2

All last weekend there was a special offer on additional character slots in GW2. I kept casting sideways glances at it. I checked the gold-to-gems conversion rate every hour or three. I uhmmed and ahhhed and slept on it and put off making a decision and then the offer went away.

Usually that's a strategy that works well for me. Gone, forgotten. Not this time. A couple of posts back, Isey asked in the comments whether GW2 would now be better from a new player's perspective and I wondered that as well. Syp stirred the pot by quoting an excellent analysis of the situation by Verene at Under A Pale Tree. Verene has a second, detailed post that really nails just how badly this aspect of the revisions to the leveling game would seem to have been handled.

Still, it's one thing to look at a new pair of shoes but the only way to know how well they fit is to put them on and walk around for a while, so yesterday I got my credit card out and gave ANet the first money they've had from me since I bought my second account a few weeks after launch. If it turns out that, as I expect, I absolutely despise the way they've re-arranged the traits then I guess it'll be the exact opposite of sending a message to that effect by Voting With Your Wallet but leaving that aside, so far I'd say it's money very well spent.

It's been months, months! since I leveled my last GW2 character and I really didn't realize just how very much I've missed it. This is the MMO that makes by far the best fist of holding my attention at max level and I thought I was quite content bimbling around with my gang of 80s, but it turns out I was wrong. The moment I finished knocking Duke Barridin's statue into rubble and stepped out onto the riveted metal plate floor at the entrance to Black Citadel it felt like I'd just bought an amazing, exciting, brand new game. To quote Commander Siegerazer, "This is what I live for!".

My plan to make a Charr Engineer fell through yet again due to operator error: I bought the new slot on the same account where my Asura Engineer lives. I already have two rangers on that account; two engineers would be enough evidence to get any doctor to sign section papers, so I made a Charr Guardian instead, on the grounds that I don't have any heavy armor classes on that account, plus my other Guardian is a Sylvari (that'd make a great bumper sticker).

Character creation remains completely unchanged since launch as far as I remember. I'd forgotten just how ugly you can make a Charr look - shattered horns, broken teeth, wrinkled, sagging, aged skin, patchy fur, milky blinded eyes... Not that I went that route, but it was nice to have the option  I'm betting you can't make a female Human or even a Norn that looks ancient, battered and weary the way you can a female Charr.


As I've often commented, for my tastes GW2 characters rarely improve in appearance from the look you can give them at character creation and the starting armor for a Heavy-wearing Charr, dyed a natural copper color, looks as good as just about anything in the game. Even the very first set of 40 copper vendor armor looks fantastic, as does the lowest crafted and dropped gear. I realize that those of us who prefer it have the option of transmuting the look via the wardrobe, but it makes for a poor motivator if eighty levels later you'd pay money to look like you'd were still level one.

The Tutorial's clearly not been converted to Megaserverdom because I was the only one there. It scales perfectly though and I was through in under five minutes and out onto Plains of Ashford. Before I'd even got my bearings some charr farmer was yelling that his cows had escaped so I grabbed a cattle prod to round them up and that was me off and running.

Plans of Ashford isn't on the Megaserver either but there were half a dozen young Charr roaming Gunbreach Hills and Lake Feritas. After an encounter with the Rampaging Skale which led to my Guardian making a tactical withdrawal ("regenerates health" - oh yes, so he does) I decided to run to the bank in Black Citadel to see if there was anything I might use (don't say the T word...) which brings me to the first major issue with the GW2 approach when it comes to starting a new character.

It is flat-out impossible not to twink a new character on an existing account. The best you can do is exercise will-power by not spending or allocating the resources you've been given automatically. Not taking advantage of all the goodies in the bank was easy enough - I'd long since thrown out everything under 80. I looked askance at the Experience Scrolls and Tomes of Knowledge stacked up in there. There were enough to bump my little Guardian instantly to Level 31, which would have let her get straight to the Traits but would miss the entire point of how long and hard the road might feel, getting there.

Those stayed where they were but when it comes to gold, crafting mats, Karma, World Ability Points, Laurels, Wardrobe Skins or just about anything else it's much harder for a fresh recruit to remain virtuous when she has unfettered access to everything the grizzled vets have earned.

If you were sufficiently determined (or demented) there are work-arounds for a cleanish start. You could put all your cash, items and mats in a personal guild bank and disband the new character from that guild, for example. You could keep count of how many WvW ranks your level-up had personally earned, make a note of how much mana she was granted from each Heart, do all the dailies only on that character and count the Laurels and so on. You'd last about two hours before you cracked, I reckon. Less if you actually wanted to play one of your other characters.

So, the new character experience of a player with an established account is by necessity going to be very unrepresentative of the experience a genuine new purchaser of the game will have, even discounting the inevitable inability of the vet to forget what he or she knows. I did seriously consider buying a third account for this experiment, which, short of deleting every character on an existing one, is the only way I can think of to get a genuine fresh start. It might still come to that - god knows it's tempting... but for now I am going to go the "new character on old account" route, report on that and do my best to imagine what it would feel like for a real new starter. 

On that note, whooooahhhhh! Black Citadel! I can't rationally explain why, but the moment I started up that ramp as a fresh level two recruit the entire city hit me as strongly all over again as it did back in beta. It's not like I haven't been there recently, either. I've passed through plenty of times on various characters just last week. I often bank and craft among the Charr. For some inexplicable reason, though, playing a new character made me see it entirely anew. The city is magnificent, the experience wonderful.

That's how I came to spend almost two hours on Black Citadel map completion, something that I can now attest is possibly the slowest possible way to get from level 2 to level 3. Worth every second though, even if I did have to watch a YouTube video for the final two POIs (and watch it four times before I got the final one). And that's with having completed BC on two previous characters, not to mention having done a guide on the Vistas!

Anyone who hasn't fallen in love with GW2 after Black Citadel map completion is probably too jaded to rise from their chaise-longue to sugar their absinthe. It's my favorite place in Tyria and one of my favorite imaginary places anywhere. I had to force myself not to take more screenshots. Not very successfully. Despite, as I said, having already done the full map twice I saw several areas I swear I have never seen before.

That done, I went to the Guardian Trainer to look at what lies ahead. There you can, in an extremely annoying and unintuitive way, browse every trait, Fine, Masterwork and Rare. These are called Adept, Master and Grandmaster in your character's Trait panel, which would risk confusing a new player if he could actually see it, a problem handily solved by having the Trait panel locked until level 30.

I literally shook my head in despair at this point. Not only are new players now intended to wait thirty levels before they can begin acquiring Traits (most of which, according to Verene's analysis, will be out of their reach in any practical sense for far longer than that) but they aren't even permitted to know what's coming. What in the name of the gods that don't exist do they think they are playing at?

Moreover, how, exactly, is a genuine new player going to have any idea that he even can gain Traits through doing content? The Trainer doesn't explain it. He just has all the traits listed as buyable books. The Trait panel, which does explain it, is locked. Surely a new player will visit his trainer out of curiosity (there are plenty of them, clearly flagged), see that Traits cost ten silver and two skill points at the low end and go thirty levels assuming that's the only way to get them.

Of course new players can go to the wiki or any number of outside sources to find out how it works, see what's in store, even play around with builds on trait builders, but what kind of substitute is that for seeing them in game on your actual character? No kind, that's what kind!

I'll save commenting in detail about the asinine choices ANet have made for the ways and means that the traits can be unlocked when those options are eventually revealed. Verene has already made those points anyway (although that's sure not going to stop me weighing in if changes haven't been made by the time I get that panel opened up). For now I'll just settle for saying that locking that Trait panel is idiotic and inexcusable.

To recover from that unpleasant surprise I headed out to Plains of Ashfield to wash away the bad taste with Flame Legion blood. In moments all thoughts of traits were forgotten. I had a rip-roaring time tearing through events and hearts while filling out my dailies without even trying. In under an hour I'd completed the north-west corner of the map, acquired several new weapons and upgrades, dinged five and had more fun than I've had in GW2 for about a year.

As I write this I'm impatient to get back in and carry on. I had to stop last night to go defend the Honor of the Yak which was being severely tarnished by assaults from FA and HoD but really what I wanted to do was carry on leveling, something I plan on spending as much of today doing as I can. Of course, even before the revamp Traits didn't appear until Level 10 so it's too early to see any practical impact from the change. I can say for certain, though, that no matter how hard devs may try to break it, leveling up remains the most fun you can have in an MMO. Any MMO.

All Back To Mine: GW2

Never mind the soul-searching. Bugger Achievements. There was only one reason I spent the entire weekend ticking those sixteen boxes and it wasn't so I could call myself a Bazaar Ambassador (not that a title wouldn't have been nice). It was all to get a really, truly, honest-to-betsy mineable node for my Personal Instance. 

Ah yes, my Personal Instance. You remember those? All we Tyrians have one. Back in the Dreamtime, before the dawning of the First Beta Weekend, we imagined it might be something like a home, the sort of thing they have in other worlds, a place where you can hang a few pictures, throw down a rug, have a few friends round for a quick game of Belcher's Bluff.

Didn't turn out that way, more's the pity. There are so many Charr milling around in the Hero's Canton in Black Citadel my Ranger has to sleep under a blanket of stars out in Plains of Ashford just to get some peace and quiet. Personal? Hardly!

No, Personal Instances in GW2 turned out quite the disappointment. While every other sandpark MMO was running up curtains and laying out paint charts Anet stared fixedly in the other direction, pretending not to notice. After they squashed the possibility of a proper expansion that seemed like the end of any hope for housing, until out of a clear blue sky (literally) came the good skyship Zephyr Sanctum and with it the unthinkable promise of something you might actually be able to place in your house Personal Instance.

Rigging was climbed, cliffs were scaled, races were run, baskets were gathered. Many, many silver coins ended up in the coffers of whichever shady crew runs the Waypoint scam service. Finally I had it: my very own Gift of Quartz.

Odd phrasing, that. "Delivered to your home instance". I'd imagined placing it myself, somewhere where the light would show it off to its best advantage, a place of honor worthy of the very first permanent, placeable addition to my home. But no, wishful thinking again. Placeability remains but a cub's dream. It was going to be delivered and, sadly, not by a Charr in workman's overalls but by magic. Blink and you missed it.

No choice where it went, either. Couldn't even find it until I checked the map and saw it had grown a mining node.It sure is pretty. But what's it for, apart from making the place look just that tiniest bit more lived-in?

Well, you can mine it once per day per account. It appears in the Personal Instances of all your characters but as soon as any one of them mines it out for the day, that's it. Standard pull, three crystals. I'm guessing, like any node, you can get bonus pulls, the chances for which will increase if your server is grinding the faces of the weak into the dust  in World vs World but still, don't count on getting many more than 25-30 crystals a week.

What are they for, these crystals? Luckily I found quite a few recipes as I was grinding  adventuring these last few days, so I can answer that. They make Celestial armor and jewellery, which has "all stats". Dulfy has the full info, as always. Having heard some less than enthusiastic comments in Lion's Arch map chat I took the trouble to test the temperature of opinion on this new armor by visiting the official forums. Lukewarm.

Which is a shame, because this stuff is going to take some making. Each piece doesn't just require the usual batch of Ectos, Gossamer and so on; it also needs five Charged Quartz Crystals and each of those eats up 25 of the ordinary kind; 125 in total.

How do you charge a crystal? You might well ask. Dozens of people were asking the same in labyrinthine Cliffs yesterday. You go to a Place of Power, that's how, and yes, a lot of people were asking about that, too. A Place of Power is one of those spots where you can Commune. Unsophisticated folk like adventurers call them Skill Points. Go to one of those, use it the way you normally would and even if it's one you've already sucked the energy out of before you get an option to charge your crystals.


Now at the moment, naturally, the uncharged crystals are plentiful in the extreme and 125 on the TP would run you a rather trivial 60 silver. In a couple of weeks, though, when the Bazaar closes, the supply will dry up. 25-30 per account per week, remember. It'll take over a month just to collect enough for one piece. Anyone interested in a full set probably should be putting in heavy "buy" orders right now.

Or maybe not. Look at Candy Corn. Not been able to get that since last October yet there's still in excess of a quarter of a million corns on the TP. Okay, let's trust the market. Let's assume no shortages or price-gouging. There's still another little obstacle we haven't considered. You can only charge one Charged Quartz Crystal per day per account. And unlike the regular crystals they're account-bound not tradeable.

Someone certainly doesn't want this stuff flooding the market, although given the general lack of enthusiasm there probably wasn't much chance of that happening anyway. Not being a min-maxer, I rather like the look of the stats on the Celestial so I'll probably be chipping away at a set. It'll give me something to do over the long winter months, not to mention making a dent in my Ecto mountain.

Whether I'll feel like visiting my Personal Instance every day just to mine three crystals I rather doubt. It's hardly what a home is for. Still, I suppose it's a start...

Tixx On Tour : GW2

Tour Schedule

10am PST, 12/15—The Grove
10am PST, 12/16—Divinity’s Reach
10am PST, 12/17—The Black Citadel
10am PST, 12/18—Hoelbrak
10am PST, 12/19—Rata Sum
10am PST, 12/20—Lion’s Arch

Your reviewer caught Tixx's first show at The Grove:  Full Review here.

Your reviewer and one of The Dolls catch a few moments after the show

For the second show at Divinity's Reach two nights ago promoter Tixx pulled out a totally new set. Toxx emceed main stage action from fresh act The Princess Dolls. Real screamers, these girls! Plenty of costume changes kept things moving and a mid-set face-off between the Dolls and Tixx regulars The Ventari saw the crowd taking sides. No love lost there, or is it all just play-acting?

Despite a full scale invasion from Tixx's crazed skritt fanbase that had bouncers literally throwing the little rats off stage and ongoing technical problems with some of the special effects (are those turrets really worth the trouble?) Tixx's superior new material shone. By curtain-down Toxx, clearly in a "tired and emotional" state once again, had to be forcibly removed from the stage. A triumph.

Toxx busts out those moves!

Last night at The Black Citadel things didn't go quite so smoothly. Tixx mixed numbers from the first two shows with variable success. Some sequences didn't gel and the whole show felt bitty. Toxx was particularly off-key for much of the set, missing several cues, coming over like a James Brown wannabe with all her false exits and pretend collapses. The turrets malfunctioned yet again and the whole performance was dogged by technical problems throughout.

The show was saved by the late surprise guest appearance of The Toy Soldiers, a Charr ennsemble with an astounding sound. Things never stopped popping the whole time they were onstage. Toxx finished the show in her (fortunately) inimitable style, unveiling a spectacular new dance routine right at the end that brought things to a truly explosive close. Overall rating chaotic but cool!

The Toy Soldiers - these guys rock!

Just two more out-of-town warm-ups to go. Toxx's airship hall has vast capacity so no need to book in advance, just roll up at Hoelbrak tonight (wear something warm!) or Rata Sum tomorrow. After that catch Tixx at his Wintersday residency in Lion's Arch where we hear he'll have the whole crew performing the full repertoire for the entire season.

Let's hope those technical problems are all ironed out by then. That's what these provincial junkets are really all about, or is that just too cynical?

Whatever! See you in LA!

This Land Is Our Land: GW2

Way back in April when we picked Yak's Bend as our server for the first Guild Wars 2 beta weekend, we didn't just pull a name out of a hat. Yak's Bend is where the world begins to open out in the original game, the point at which, after days of desperate struggle, hard-fought every yard through Charr hordes that never stop coming, at last you find a moment to catch your breath.

See this bend? This bend is mine.

Two abiding memories from the first run through the original Guild Wars are my complete shock on the fall of Ascalon and my immense sense of relief on reaching Yak's Bend. I played GW1 from launch but buying it was a late and somewhat spontaneous decision. I'd read little about it and had no foreknowledge of the plot. I loved pre-Searing Ascalon from the moment I arrived there and had no idea it would be snatched away from me so soon.

Come Guild Wars 2, I was always going to play a Charr. From the moment I realized, years after wading hip-deep through Charr blood with Prince Rurik, they were cats not demons as I'd thought, I was forced to re-evaluate and from that moment on there was no choice. Still, I didn't imagine I'd get what I'd always wanted; Ascalon back.

The orange is nice but I preferred it how you had it before

There are people, crazy people, who stay in pre-Searing Ascalon until they're fully grown. These are the Iron Men and Women of Guild Wars, ennobled with a title: Legendary Defender of Ascalon. Here's what they went through to earn that name. When players unfamiliar with the elder game question the design ethos behind GW2's Legendary Weapons, behavior like this is a factor they may not have taken into account.

Read it and weep, human.

I tried it once. I got to level 12 before I came to my senses. Life is quite literally too short. I gave up any hope of living in the eternal summer of pre-searing Ascalon. How ironic, then, that the door to that lost past should be re-opened by the same Charr who slammed it shut in my face all those years ago.

Go North-East from Lion's Arch and there, between the Shiverpeak and Blazeridge mountain ranges lies Ascalon. From Black Citadel, the great Charr capital built on the ruins of the human city of Rin, east through the Plains of Ashford to Blazeridge Steppes and north across the Diessa Plateau through the Iron Marches to Fireheart Rise, the Charr hold it all.

Being a cow doesn't give you a pass on training

Um, over here?

Every step is filled with wonder. The high summer idyll of the pre-Searing has ripened into an eternal Autumn, the fall after The Fall. The colors burnish with copper and gold, red poppies flag against the sunburned grasslands, white clouds mass the bluing sky. Ascalon is a land patched by farms, ribboned with ruins, haunted by ghosts figurative and literal. Its lakes are blue and deep, its caves dark and beckoning. There's treasure everywhere.

Out of these golden lands rise the cobalt holdings of the Charr. With all the dwarves gone Charr engineering stands unchallenged (quiet now, that Asura at the back...). Rather than scars or blisters, these massive edifices fit the land like giant puffballs, muted bluetones melding into the umber, soft curves blending into rolling hills, jagged edges natural as thornbriar.

This beautiful country has its dangers. Ghosts and devourers rise from the ground, bandits and revolutionaries bar the paths, ogres and harpies cleave to their own wild ways and may the gods that don't exist have mercy if you cross them. The Dredge, the Grawl, the Skritt pursue their own oblique agendas. Still, these are lands that can be explored with pleasure, if with care.

You can laugh now but in fifty years they'll be listed

Some must fight so all can live, as they say, but maybe not right now. Unlike Orr and the south, across Ascalon there is time to stop and take a look around between battles, to lie down in the long grass once in a while and rest.

Even the dragon, The Shatterer, had the good sense to set the mark of his Lordship on these lands with a scar instead, like Zhaitan, of flinging all to chaos. The Brand runs livid in the purples of a bruise across the back of Ascalon, but the Branded, unlike the Risen, keep to their rut.

Could have sworn I heard an Asura...

At the southern limit of the Charr's influence, Ascalon's, maybe Tyria's, loveliest city waits. Ebonhawke, thick-walled fortress with its wide streets going down to grass feels old as its honey stone. Saved the brash assertion of Rata Sum or the wild imagining of Lion's Arch, Ebonhawke stands more solid, evokes more empathy than either.

Does no-one in Ebonhawke own a scythe?

To the far North autumn gives way to winter as it must. Despite thick fur, Charr are cats and do not like the cold. The Norn may have the snow and welcome. As for the Baelfire, let the Flame Legion skulk among the cinders there, planning their plans. Few would envy them. No, the Charr fought for the heart of Ascalon, and now they have it, revel in it and will hold it long.

Had Guild Wars 2 been only Ascalon and only Charr I would have been more than satisfied. I am more than satisfied.

Running Up That Hill : GW2

Animation. No, not Tom and Jerry nor yet UPA. The way your character moves. People do go on about it. Can't play because of how the barbarian's elbow sticks out when he swings his sword or the mage turns her toes in when she throws a fireball.

I never really got that. I tend to spend more time looking at hotbars than at my characters when they are actually doing something and anyway there are usually so many explosions, special effects, spurting arteries, flying body-parts, huge numbers and speech-bubbles flying about it's all I can do to work out where my character is, let alone notice whether the articulation of his imaginary joints is authentic.

Blase as I may be about the fine points of swordplay and finger-waggling, though I do take notice of how my characters run. There's a lot of traveling in most MMOs, much of it done the hard way - on foot. Watching a half-elf hopping along like a hiker with a pebble in his Dr. Scholls or a dwarf rolling like a toddler with something he really doesn't want to tell you about going on back in the caboose can be distracting to say the least.

YouTube in slightly better quality here.

In GW2 I have the opposite problem. I could watch my Charr run for hours. I do watch my Charr run for hours. It's one of the reasons I'm getting so little done.

Off he goes on all fours, bounding across the iron platforms of the Black Citadel out into the eternal autumn of Ascalon. Beautiful, beautiful world. Beautiful, beautiful charr.

Turn off the UI, turn up the sound and prowl. Listen to the pad of  tiger feet on metal, in the dirt. Leave pawprints in the snow and hear the soft crunch fade. Be the cat.

Other races are available. Why?