Yeah, Thomas Wolfe! What Do You Know, Anyway?

Guild Wars 2's Living World, Season One is back, kinda-sorta, and I'm not sure how I feel about it. There's no doubt whatsoever in my mind that the first season was far and away the best but there are so many contributing factors to that assessment it's very hard to be sure whether I'm basing it on the objective quality of the material or the subjective manner in which I experienced it.

For a start, Season One unfurled in something approximating real time. It was the era of GW2 when ArenaNet believed they could roll out new content, consistently, on a two week turnaround. 

It seems like hubris now but at the time it was meant to be the future of the genre. GW2 would blaze a trail of continuous development that would provide the players with all the entertainment they'd need. No biannual Expansions or quarterly Updates, just a never-ending, steady flow of quality stories, events and activities that lasted for a couple of weeks before disappearing forever, to be replaced immediately by the next episode.

There's a long and analytical post to be written about just how well those expectations were served over the course of the first season. This is not that post, for the very good reason that it would take hours of research, checking dates, reading patch notes, going over all the posts I wrote about each episode at the time. Hours and hours of preparation, followed by more hours working it up into readable form.

I'm not even sure this portal was from the new Season One. I just know it was bugged.

I don't have hours. I have about fifty minutes before I have to stop for the night. Consequently, I'm not going to discuss how very slowly Season One began, how impatient we were, how cynical and dismissive, or how over time many of us became invested and immersed in the admittedly confusing storyline.  

I'm going to leave any conversations over whether Scarlet Briar was the best villain GW2's ever seen or an excruciatingly embarassing Mary Sue for another day. The various highs and lows of the year-long epic (Or was it longer than that?) will have to wait.

Even if I did have time enough to dwell on all the subtle implications, to unpick the threads of intent and execution, to pass judgment on the success or failure of the original project before comparing and contrasting it with the current reiteration, topped, tailed and tidied as it is, this is only Episode One. It's too early for all that.

Take this as a First Impressions piece about the echoes of something that happened a decade ago, if you will. Because that's all we're getting: echoes.

It was good to see the naive, uncynical Rox again.

As anyone who's listened to their voice bouncing off distant mountains or reverberating from a deep well can attest, however, echoes can be very affecting. Also evocative, eerie and impressive. I found playing through the first few sections of the new Season One all of those, on occasion.

There's a huge nostalgia card being played here and it's all the more effective for the lack of hype it's received. It's not been a hard sell, big deal like WoW Classic, more "here's a cool thing you might enjoy". I fell into playing it this afternoon more out of a sense of duty than excitement but I was surprised how many buttons it pressed.

For a start, I wasn't expecting to see any of the original open-world content again. I always preferred the parts of the Living World that actually took place in the living world of Tyria, the bit where everything else happened.

It was always going to be relatively simple for ANet to revive the instanced content. I imagine the problem has always been how to string the relatively small number of instances together without the much more numerous open map events.

On the evidence of what I saw today, it seems to have been easier than you'd imagine. When you think about it, the things that happened in open maps tended to fall into two simple categories: extremely questlike content that doesn't impinge in any significant way on the events already running or massive zerg battles that dominate and disrupt everything else.

Those big zergs come later. In the early stages it's all fixing signposts and finding refugees' belongings in the snow. I did both of those things today and the memories came flooding back. I found myself thinking I'd like to get a few of my other characters out and run through the simple, satisfying steps just for the fun of it. Maybe even my free account, since Anet have very generously made the content available to absolutely everyone.

The two instances, Nolan Hatchery and Cragstead, those I was somewhat less enamored by. It's not that they're bad. They aren't. At the time, though, they felt considerably more challenging and they were released some distance apart. That's probably why I didn't notice at the time how incredibly similar they are.

They're not far off being the same instance, reskinned, to be honest. It's almost painfully obvious when you play through both one after the other. In each of them you follow an NPC (Rox, Braham) along a linear path, fighting wave after wave of regular and veteran mobs so as to retake territory and protect citizens (Or warpets in training in the case of the Hatchery). 

I like the colors of these achievements.

In both you have to hold a ring against mobs that spawn from portals and in both the whole thing ends with a Champion coming through a final portal placed at the extreme end of the map. It's not so much that it's a formula, more that it's formulaic.

I'm not complaining, even if it sounds as though I am. I know what came later. I'd take a hundred simple, formulaic instances like these over any of the supposed innovations that made the later Living World seasons such a royal pain.

In that sense the whole thing did feel very nostalgic indeed. Nostalgic for a simpler, less pretentious GW2. One where a bunch of veterans piling out of a portal felt like challenging content. And it did, too, back then. I can prove it.

Here's what I said about Nolan Hatchery, first time through, back in March 2013:

"The nursery instance was exactly the right degree of hard. I completed it without dying but I was downed a few times and it looked touch and go for a while."

This time around, playing my junior Elementalist, I was never in any serious danger. She wasn't downed even once, nor came close. I did have to swap in and out of Water to lay down healing fields and I used the Earth Elemental several times to tank but the whole thing felt calm and measured, never frenetic or threatening. 

When I was on the final Champion at the end of Cragstead, Mrs Bhagpuss came in with the puppy to ask me if I wanted scrambled egg on toast. I was perfectly comfortable having a conversation with her about it, looking back over my shoulder, while I carried on fighting. That is not Challenge Mode.

I even had time to take a screenshot of the final boss. Not that you can see him.

Which suits me. I can only hope the same applies when I get to the next stage of the episode, the Molten Weapons Facility. I have a clear memory of taking a very long time to beat it first time around, including a lot of deaths and an absolutely epic PUG, which I recorded in detail here on the blog at the time.

Re-reading that post confirms my memory of the exhausting, attritional afternoon I spent trying to finish the fight. What I had completely forgotten was that I'd not only already beaten it, but done so on the first attempt in another PUG on the very night it launched, when "no-one knew what to expect and we had no strats to follow". What's more, "Mrs Bhagpuss did the run on both of her accounts in PUGs during the first couple of days and had no more trouble than I did."

As I so often say, this is why I have a blog. So I can correct myself every time I remember things wrong. I have thought of that instance for years as nightmarishly difficult whereas in fact it seems I just had one nightmarishly difficult experience there. 

I'm very curious to see how it turns out this time. If it's unchanged from nine years ago it's going to be an absolute cakewalk. If it's been brought up to current group instance standards it will be a lot tougher than I'm used to any more. Been a long time since I did a serious PUG.

Something to look forward to!

Molten Weapons Facility Take 2: GW2

Ravious and Jeromai both posted recently about how long it takes players to travel from exploration to exploitation. Nothing like as long the two weeks the new Flame and Frost dungeon is scheduled to hang around it seems.

My experience has been somewhat different. I first ventured inside the Molten Alliance's lair beneath the Shiverpeaks an hour or so after the Vigil breached the gate. No-one knew what to expect and we had no strats to follow, let alone exploits to, well, exploit. We barreled through the whole thing without single death until we reached the bosses. My ranger was never even Downed. The boss fight did see a lot of us lying on the ground, but everyone got revived as necessary and we beat both bosses on the first attempt.

Mrs Bhagpuss did the run on both of her accounts in PUGs during the first couple of days and had no more trouble than I did. That left us needing just one more trip to finish up Flame and Frost on my second account. Not wanting to leave it right to the end I took my Elementalist out to Wayfarers Foothills last night to get it done. Mrs Bhagpuss came along with her Necromancer to see what she could get out of the chest.

Having read the posts linked above, and given the relative cakewalk the dungeon had been for a totally unpracticed and inexperienced PUG on the opening day, I was expecting to get the whole thing out of the way in half an hour or so. Two hours later my Ele stumbled out into the bitter Shiverpeaks wind dressed in nothing but her underwear, surprised and profusely grateful to have gotten out at all.

How did it come to this?

Back to the beginning. There weren't many people waiting outside when we arrived. My plan was to reply to the first LFM request, join up and follow whoever took the lead, let them do the work while we trundled along at the back and did we were told. Only problem with that plan? No-one Looking For More. There weren't any parties there at all.

Rather than stand around complaining about it in the traditional fashion we joined the only other person LFP, a Thief, and started recruiting. The problem with recruiting, of course, is the people you recruit tend to think you're going to lead them. Having done the dungeon precisely once, and not having understood much of what was going on even then, I made the point strongly as we acquired each new member that I wasn't in charge and anyone who thought they knew what they were doing was welcome to put on the Captain's hat. No-one took me up on the offer.

We had five people in no time. So fast in fact that I was still recruiting and had to have it pointed out to me that there were already five of us. We stepped inside the Dungeon and before anyone could even speak to Rox one person announced his doorbell was ringing and another let on that he had to see to his dog. As the Thief observed, better then than when we were on the final boss.

Our thief, on the way to do something thiefy

That turned out to be the only such interruption in what would be a long and difficult adventure. Well, unless you count the Asura Engineer who pulled a vanishing trick after a particularly bad pull about half an hour in, which I don't, since he'd said only one word since we arrived and the Ranger was able to call in a charming Charr Guardian from his guild to replace him in less than a minute.

It all started so well, too. The ambush was dispatched almost derisevely. We loped along behind Rox and her burrowing machine burning down anything that got in our way. Mrs Bhagpuss's Sylvari necro, blithely ignoring Rox's warnings about hot coals, set herself on fire in her eagerness to get her hands on the Azurite, but her leaves were barely singed.

Everyone's on fire. That's probably not a good thing.

We rounded the end of the tunnel to confront the Champion Ember. He's supposed to be the hardest of the three possible spawns but we dampened his fires without too much trouble. On to the Weapons Test Room we marched. Someone ran straight into the Safe Corner and we all followed but after a couple of minutes the Thief decided it was against the famous thiefly code of honor to do anything sneaky so she ran out into the middle to dance with the flames. The rest of the Test passed with everyone running about and dodging back into the corner as amused them most. Gaiety and abandon prevailed.

She's usually so demure, too

Things began to take a turn for the worse in the Cryogenic Chamber. I hadn't even noticed this on my first run, we went through it so fast. This time: full party wipe. I was in Water attunement, wielding the healer's staff Memory of The Sky. Much good it did us. It was at this point that the Engineer bailed, although since he said nothing and we'd been doing very well until this first set-back maybe he just disconnected. We gave him the requisite couple of minutes then called the Charr Guardian off the benches.

He needed all his feline patience because from the moment he joined us things went rapidly downhill. I struggle to explain why, because bringing him on board made the party considerably stronger as a unit, especially since he took on the role of leader most efficiently, something we'd been muddling through without until then. Nonetheless we managed to wipe again half way through rescuing the prisoners and much of the time two or even three players were Down. Rox did a great job reviving us.

We made it to the Platform, battered and bruised but still in good spirit. A brief discussion ensued over which Boss to kill first. Everyone who had an opinion agreed on the Berserker. It was at this point that the Ranger let slip he'd done the dungeon about twenty times already, something he'd very wisely kept to himself until then.

Great grouping with you Rox...

I'll gloss over the agonies of the Big Fight. The first attempt left all of us dead and the Berserker still at 90% health. Second and third attempts didn't go a lot better, although there was some marginal evidence of improvement. For the fourth attempt we switched tactics and went for the Mole, who everyone called The Robot. Things went much better. I think we wiped first time but I'm not sure. It's all a bit of a blur to be honest. Either way, in short enough order The Robot went down and the cut scene played.

That left The Berserker. He was a nightmare. My only other experience of him was that he offered a tough fight, but my earlier group had run him around, worn him down and taken him out on the first attempt. This time it didn't go that way.

Each time we tried we ended up with three people Down and two trying to kite to victory. One time it was me and the Ranger and in what seemed like several hours we got Berserker Bill to 50%. I'm pleased I got that one good run even though it did us no good in the end because other than that I spent most of the time lying down. At least it made it look like I was trying.

...and you too Frostbite!

At this point I have to say once again that I must be very lucky with PUGs. Far from the social cesspools most people seem to dip into, my experience has largely been sunshine and rainbows. The dungeon took three or four times longer than it should, something of which the Ranger who'd done it twenty times must have been all too well-aware. Despite this and even though in the end he and his Guardian guildie ended up tag-teaming the Berserker from half health to dead while the rest of us lay around offering nothing more useful than "You can do it!" encouragement from the floor, everyone kept good their sense of humor throughout. There was never a moment when I thought anyone was going to call it quits. We'd started and we were damn well going to finish.

The key to victory was probably when the Guardian/Ranger duo finally gave up trying to get the rest of us back on our feet. Indeed, I would say that in both groups it was trying to revive others that made the fight seem more difficult than it really was. Without the need to stop and make targets of themselves the two were able to find a rhythm, playing the Berserker between them, wearing him down steadily until he finally fell over and we all stood up.

Wanting to show willing I grabbed a bomb and placed it and in a few seconds we were all crushed together in the lift. Rather embarrassing in my Ele's case, given what she wasn't wearing. The Guardian linked the Tonic recipe he'd gotten from the chest so I guess he was happy he came, which was just as well as he'd had to do most of the heavy lifting. We said our goodbyes and I made a hasty trip to the Repairer.

Everyone find something else to look at!

So that's most likely it for the Molten Weapons Facility as far as I'm concerned. Speed runs remain notional, exploits theoretical and my interest in running any kind of dungeon in GW2 is as it ever was, marginal. The one thing it did make me realize is how very much I miss playing a proper healer in a dedicated healing role, with real healing abilities that I can target as needed. Frankly, the whole thing would have gone better and been more enjoyable with an old-fashioned Healer/Tank combo. Under GW2's Trinity-free combat model, all too often we just end up trying to cobble something similar together out of poor-quality, second-rate parts. I'm ready for the Trinity to make a comeback, as it surely will, if not in this particular game.

Was it fun? In a way, although I'm not sure "fun" is the right word. Completing something you set out to do do even though it turns out to be a lot harder than you expected is satisfying. Getting it done in good company, with good humor and a few jokes is even better. In the end, though, I can think of a lot of more fun ways to have fun. I hope ANet can, too.

Pardon Me But Your Tail's On Fire - A Trip to The Facility With Braham and Rox: GW2

Should have known better than to try and play an MMO on launch day. Just as I was reducing the size of my new Dwarven Cleric's nostrils in the Neverwinter character creator the screen froze and that was that for two hours. Eventually a new launcher installed itself and with my cleric restored I tore through the tutorial only to find the city of Neverwinter rubberbanding like Bouncing Boy at a Flubber convention.

Enough of that. Back GW2, which was having its own issues. The Molten Alliance was understandably reluctant to open its doors to thousands of loot-hungry adventurers and for a while no-one could get into the new dungeon. That got fixed in fairly short order and while I was standing gawping at the entrance in Wayfarer's Foothills someone popped me a group invite so in I went.

Spoilers follow, although not many because most of the time I wasn't all that clear on what was going on, what with taking screenshots, trying to clear bag space for the torrent of trivial loot and trying not to be set on fire.

To open proceedings Rox operated a tunneling machine she must have twocced from the Iron Legion to dig through the mountain into the Supervillain Lair weapons facility. Along the way we passed a bunch of rooms with mining nodes inside, all of which gave up Mithril and the new Azurite gems. These are on a 24-hour per account timer but their placement is such that they could probably be reached duo or even solo, allowing for a few deaths along the way.

That's as far as you'll be going without a full group because the rest of the dungeon is, well it's a dungeon. It was designed by the Holiday Content team not the dungeon team and since we completed it with a PUG, none of whom had done it before or seemed to know anything at all about it, I'd say it's probably not the most challenging of dungeons but it was challenging enough for my tastes.

There's a longish bit where we got to stand in as targets for a demented Dredge weapons tester. That was fun but it went on too long. Once you've dodged a couple of waves of fire you've dodged them all, I say. After that there was another long part where we freed prisoners, all of whom trundled along behind us adding little to the proceedings.

We made our way deeper into The Facility while many, many Molten Alliance drones tried and failed to stop our progress along the winding but linear route. It would be hard, probably impossible, to take a wrong turning of more than a few paces. There are no turnings. There are a few mild jumps to be made. The drop looked terrifying but no-one in our party fell. I imagine you can just waypoint back.

We met a Champion who had a small chest...let me rephrase that... we fought a Champion and when we defeated him we got to loot a small chest nearby. I guess that makes him some kind of a sub-boss. Finally we reached a massive platform above another sheer drop into darkness. The Molten Alliance have no concept of health and safety. They might as well be Asura. Would it have hurt them to put up a guard rail?

 At this point two comedy Bosses appear. One's a cat with an electrified waste-paper bin on each paw and the other is a mole dressed as Iron Man. Both blown up to gargantuan proportions, of course. No explanation how this has been done is forthcoming. I guess they feed them well down there in the mine.

They might look like a pair of pantomime villains but these two were rough. Until this point I hadn't even been downed but they soon sorted that out. There's supposedly some mechanic where you switch from one to the other as they hit various percentages of their hit points but no-one paid any attention to that. We just hared round and round, dodging and rolling and frantically reviving teammates. Rox and Braham went down early and stayed there. Fat lot of help they were.

We got the mole down. Actually it was more like up. He had a jetpack and it must have malfunctioned as he died because he shot off like a punctured balloon. With him out the way you'd think it would have gotten easier but Wastepaper Bin Paws got a second wind and it must have taken at least twice as long to finish him off.

He crumpled up at last and we got the requisite Huge Chest, which had some odd loot inside. I got a 400 skill recipe for Mushroom Loaf and an Insignia to make a piece of the new armor. I have crafters that can use both so I was happy enough but there were mutinous growls from some of the party.

Even then we weren't done. We had to grab some explosive charges and do some more jumping across bottomless pits to place them, then we had to leg it to the lift in 30 seconds before the whole place blew. We all made it, even Braham and Rox and the freed miners.

We emerged on Diessa Plateau, stood around blinking in the daylight wondering what had happened, then said our "thanks for the group" formalities and disbanded. The dungeon is only here for about two weeks and I need to do it at least once more to complete the meta achievement for Flame and Frost on my other account. I might well also need to do it a time or two with Mrs Bhagpuss for hers. That shouldn't be too arduous. It was fun, although I wouldn't want to make a habit of it.

A visit to see Rox interrogating the Molten Alliance prisoners down in the Black Citadel pokey followed. I recommend talking to all of them, especially the Veteran Dredge. There is More To This Than Meets The Eye. My money's been on The Consortium turning out to be the master villains of the piece for a while now and the conversation I had with the mole just adds to my suspicions.

The evening wrapped up with a trip to Hoelbrak to see Braham mouth off at Knut Whitebear again. From the way the conversation went I'm guessing Cragstead will be staying as a permanent settlement. I hope so. It would be weird if it just disappeared as though it had never been, although come to think of it that's how it arrived.

So that's Flame and Frost. I wonder what comes next?