I Am A Camera

Graphically, Chimeraland is an odd duck. Sometimes it looks as though I'm playing a game from a decade or more ago, other times it's breathtaking. I'd love to see what it looks like on a tablet but Google Play tells me it's "not available for your device". I get that a lot. Maybe I should upgrade.

Sometimes, it's not my fault, or my kit. This week's patch fixed the problem I was having with the in-game screenshot function, which wasn't saving locally despite telling me it was. I'd been using FRAPS, which I still find amazingly straightforward and reliable, but the native "View" has a lot more options in terms of filters and framing so I've mostly swapped over to that.

Using either is somewhat fiddly, at least if you don't want the UI in shot. There's no single-press "Hide UI" key. You have to go through a menu, as you do for just about everything in the game. It's inconvenient but inconvenience has its upsides. Chimeraland is one of those games where I have to force myself to stop taking screenshots, so anything that makes me think twice before snapping is probably a good thing.

The problem, not that it is a problem, is that there's something strange, amusing, weird, striking or gorgeous to see every few moments. The whole world (Which is HUGE, by the way...) teems with bizarre creatures, many of which look like they've been inspired by my childhood favorite, Foldees, two animals melded together. I just this minute realized that's why the game's called what it is...

Some of the chimeras are normal-size, some are big, some are gigantic!  There's a heirarchy - giant, grand, noble... I haven't got the order straight in my mind, yet. I've watched plenty of fights, where players try to take the monsters down, but I'm not even clear on what happens if they succeed. I thought it was about loot but half the gameplay seems to revolve around catching creatures and feeding them to others. I haven't ventured into the eugenics of it all but it's coming.

For now, I'm quite happy exploring and taking pictures of everything I see. I'm a sucker for luscious, brightly-colored foliage in video games and for lens flare. Seriously, lens flare's like a drug to me. And who doesn't like a technicolor sunset? Chimeraland is top of the range on all of those.

Then there are the houses. I'm very pleased what I've built so far. My riverside home is tasteful and understated, or so I like to think. It's also a lot better-looking than most of the eyesores nearby. As I travel the lands, however, I'm constantly reminded of just what a shack it really is. That's not my house, below, by the way. I can only wish it was.

Chimeraland has a very interesting progression system for housing. It's not quite like anything I remember seeing before. You can't just settle down to mining and treefelling, storing up stacks of materials to build the castles of your dreams. You have to follow a plan, of a kind.

Housing levels up just like you do and each level has a cap for how many blocks you can place. Leveling up requires you to have a certain set of materials, increasing in both quantity and quality each time, plus enough "build points" invested in the structure you've already created. My housing's at level eight now and leveling further is becoming decidely non-trivial. I have a lot of work ahead of me if I'm going to build my dream home. 

I'm determined to keep at it. Chimeraland might not have the best housing system I've seen but it's up there. It manages to combine the free build flexibility I loved in Landmark with the hand-holding simplicity of snap-together parts that made Valheim's housing so addictive. 

I can also see, as the days tick by, how much more there might be to come. Just last night I started to notice splashes of color in the neighborhood, homes that were drab wood and plain stone suddenly coming to life with bright painted finishes. Every housing level opens up new options and possibilites.

The initial "this is so easy!" rush has faded. My character is level 25 now and according to the tool tips the server I'm on has a level cap of 44. I have no idea if that's the current max level or if different servers have different rulesets. 

I'll have to find that out at some point but for now it doesn't really matter. I have no immediate plans to push into whatever the endgame might be. I'm a lot more interested in seeing the world, working on my house and collecting more pets and companions (Or "Assistants", as I think they're called in the game.)

I also want to make a few more characters. I don't even know how many you're allowed. Even though the advice at character creation assures you it won't make any difference which race you pick or which continent you choose, I can't help feeling that can't be true. Every hill will have something new to see on the other side and every character will experience the world slightly differently.

For an explorer, that is the endgame.

We Are Explorers

On the subject of repetition, which came up in conversation around here the other day, why not let's go yet another round with Dr. Richard Bartle and his famous four archetypes? I had other plans for the morning but then I read Rowan's post Revisiting Bartle and now look where we are!

On the subject of repetition, this is another great opportunity to out myself as having a really poor memory. I could claim that as an excuse for repeating myself but honestly I usually know when I'm doing that. I have selective forgetfulness only I'm not always the one making the selection.

It's facts I forget. I forget facts a lot. At school I wasn't great at the subjects that required learning long lists of dates or formulas. (This is "Getting to Know You Week" in Blaugust, right?). I was much better at the ones where you were tasked with analyzing information and drawing conclusions but best of all at those that solicited opinions. (Anyone surprised? Thought not.)

I've read Bartle's original paper more than once. There's a strong possibility I've at least glanced through it every time I've posted on the topic or done the test, which has been a few times now. Even so, I didn't recognize the definition of Explorer quoted by Rowan as having been taken verbatim from that original paper.

 

Here's how it's defined there:

ii) Explorers delight in having the game expose its internal machinations to them. They try progressively esoteric actions in wild, out-of-the-way places, looking for interesting features (ie. bugs) and figuring out how things work. Scoring points may be necessary to enter some next phase of exploration, but it's tedious, and anyone with half a brain can do it. Killing is quicker, and might be a constructive exercise in its own right, but it causes too much hassle in the long run if the deceased return to seek retribution. Socialising can be informative as a source of new ideas to try out, but most of what people say is irrelevant or old hat. The real fun comes only from discovery, and making the most complete set of maps in existence.

Explorers say things like:

        "Hmm..."
        "You mean you don't know the shortest route from <obscure
         room 1> to <obscure room 2>?"
        "I haven't tried that one, what's it do?"
        "Why is it that if you carry the uranium you get radiation
         sickness, and if you put it in a bag you still get it, but if
         you put it in a bag and drop it then wait 20 seconds and pick it
         up again, you don't?"

Both the definition and the examples are fully valid exemplars of what I would consider to be Explorer archetype behavior. I have literally typed "Hmm..." into guild chat on more occasions than I could possibly recall and I frequently ask questions about game mechanics in open chat channels, usually with no expectation of a meaningful reply.

I am most definitely an Explorer. I've tested that way every time I've taken it. I took it again this morning and things came out much as they always do:

The Bartle Test of Gamer Psychology

You are 87% Explorer

 

You are also:

60% Achiever

40% Socialiser

13% Killer

This result may be abbreviated as EASK

I think that's quite fair. I don't quibble with the results. I quibble with the definitions. Rowan really put his finger on the problem when he wrote

"It is worth noting that he [Bartle] was talking about (and possibly promoting) a specific type of game: Multi-User Dungeons. While MMORPGs share many traits with MUDs, they are not the same. And few MMO players have ever played a MUD."

In all the times I've posted about the Bartle Test and the Archetypes I can't remember talking about that specific point. Of course, that might be my memory failing but it might also be a good example of what's so important about repetition. Only by coming back to a topic over and over again can new understanding be achieved.

 

Here's the thing: as virtual worlds, MUDs exist as a series of "rooms" which players perceive by way of written descriptions. As games they are primarily text-based and players interact with them by typed commands. As social spaces they are text-based chat rooms. (I speak here with all the authority of someone who has never played one for more than a few minutes out of curiosity. I'm sure someone, most probably Wilhelm, will correct me if I've gotten any of that grossly wrong). 

Although some MUDs may have used iconography to add a visual element, MUDs were not and are not primarily a visual medium. Mmorpgs are. 

Even before the move to 3D, which happened very quickly, the first mmorpgs were extremely visually rich environments. I played Ultima Online for a couple of months back around the turn of the millennium and although it couldn't and didn't have the visceral impact on me that EverQuest did, it was still visually absorbing enough to sweep me up and take me in.

They say the pictures are better in your head (Who are they? Where and when did they say that? About what?) and it's true, to an extent. I didn't play MUDs in the 80s and 90s but I did play a lot of single-player text-based adventure games and it was entirely possible for me to "feel like I was there" at times.

After I'd played Eye of the Beholder 2, though, text-based descriptions just didn't cut it for me any more. And when I found myself lost in the dark in the East Commonlands woods with wolves howling and magical explosions lighting up the night... well, there was no going back to purely written description.

 

If the visual and sonic experience was so intense two decades ago with the primitive technology of the late '90s, how much more overwhelming and all-embracing must it be today, with ray tracing and full motion body capture and sweeping orchestral scores in concert-hall quality audio fidelity? It's not even the difference between an MCU blockbuster and a Keaton black and white comedy - it's Avengers: Endgame versus a faded daguerrotype from the 1850s.

In the bookshop where I work we sell almost no books on video games but the few we do have are massive, expensive coffee-table books dedicated to the sheer gorgeousness of the graphics. Some of them shelve in the art department next to the Matisses and Rothkos. We have books in the architecture section about the cities in games. It can only be a matter of time before publishers start adding game worlds to their travel photography lists.

When I identify as an "Explorer" archetype, this is what I'm picturing. Vast oceans and mountains, real and surreal landscapes, medieval villages and futuristic cities. Strange creatures, stranger people, wild fashions and fantastic devices. Towers that spiral away into the cloud-streaming skies and tunnels that disappear into the deep bismuth caverns of the mountains. I'm not thinking about whether or not my character gets sick from taking something out of a bag.

Yes, I do explore the mechanics of the games and yes I do get a sense of satisfaction from knowing where things are and how to get to them but that's a minor chord in a sweeping symphony. Mostly I explore to see things. 

 

As we've discussed many times, and of course it bears repeating because repetition is so important, graphics are not gameplay. Neither do graphics equal immersion. As Wilhem points out in the post linked earlier, EverQuest didn't even have particularly impressive graphics for 1999 and yet it was almost unbearably immersive. 

The same "picures in your head" trope can apply to graphical mmorpgs as it can for text-based MUDs. It's possible to look past the linoleum textures and blocky character models to see the truth of the world they show with your inner eye. The early mmorpgs may represent some kind of halfway house between what Bartle was describing and where we are now.

When I glide through the jungles at the heart of Maguuma in Guild Wars 2, spiraling upwards on thermals, soaring over sky islands fashioned from roots and flowers or when I stand in the busy market square in Bless Unleashed, surrounded by the buzz and chatter of festival day, marveling at the dust in the air, the grain in the wood, there's almost no part of my mind that's engaged in making stuff up to fill in the gaps. The vibrant, complex visual worlds we explore in modern-day mmorpgs are there, ready and waiting to be explored in just the way places we might be visit in our own world wait to be discovered. Or that's how it feels.

When I think of the Explorer archetype in the light of my own experience, the time I've spent playing mmorpgs, that's what comes to mind. All the sights I've seen, all the screenshots I've taken, all the places I've, yes, explored. 

I can't say for sure whether I would have felt that way about the described rooms in the MUDs of Dr. Richard Bartle's day but from my analogous experience in text adventures back then I doubt it. I can remember the plots and characters from some of those games but it's only with the advent of graphical adventure games that I can remember what anything looked like. Which, of course, not to repeat myself, could say more about my memory than it does about the games. 

I'm fairly sure much the same could be said about the Socializer and Achiever archetypes. The magnitudes by which the possibilities for both of these have expanded over the decades since the test was devised renders the original definitions as distant and divorced from present experience as graphical improvements do the Explorer.

Socializing in modern mmorpgs hasn't just altered in the means but in the purpose. Bartle's definition begins "Socialisers are interested in people, and what they have to say. The game is merely a backdrop, a common ground where things happen to players" and goes on at some length to describe meaningful, intimate, complex social relationships. Socialization in modern mmorpgs frequently means drama over DPS meters or drive-by invites to mega-guilds where almost no-one ever speaks.

While socialization has arguably withered and dried out, Achieving has grown to become the tail that wags the dragon. Bartle's definition only mentions "levels" and "points" as marks of achievement. Just about any mmorpg in the 2020s attaches "achievements" to every aspect of the game, including Exploring, Socializing and Killing. 

There's not much you can do in an mmorpg these days that doesn't flag up an Achievement. It's hardly surprising that my secondary archetype is now Achieving (60%). It used to be Socializing but who needs to do that any more, amirite?

 

Perhaps the only original archetype that hasn't really changed is the Killer. Or maybe that's because Dr Bartle took a pretty jaundiced view of the sociotype to begin with. Here's how he imagined Killers talking:

"Killers says things like:

        "Ha!"
        "Coward!"
        "Die!"
        "Die! Die! Die!"

(Killers are people of few words)."

It's a good joke but I suspect even in the mid-90s some self-described "Killers" might have taken exception to it. I'm absolutely certain today's PvP and RvR aficionados would exhibit a self-disproving eloquence to dispute that take on their craft.

It's been said many times before (Go repetition!) that the Bartle Archetypes need revising. There have been several attempts to update or create new ones but somehow they never seem to gain much traction. Bartle's four stick. 

And that's fine. They're clear, simple, easy to remember. They have the authority of close observation and academic rigor. It's just a pity that, when it comes to mmorpgs, they were probably never all that close to reality in the first place and whatever congruence they did have recedes further into the past with every passing day.

Up There

Telwyn has a post up today about dungeon exploring in World of Warcraft Classic. And by exploring he means clambering about to reach places you probably weren't meant to go. It's something I like to do in any MMORPG that has an art department worthy of the name. There are usually things worth seeing if you're willing to poke your nose where it doesn't belong.

How practical it is to explore inside instances and dungeons varies enormously, not only according to which game you're playing but also often which class, race or level your character happens to be. Indeed, level can often be the limiting factor.  

In many games I've never really had any clear picture of the architecture or interior design of dungeons until long after I've outlevelled them. It's hard to admire the finer details of dado rails or crystal chandeliers when a horde of angry goblins are doing their best to set you on fire.

If you're playing a game where the dungeons are all instanced - most games since about 2004 - sometimes there's the option to wander around afterwards, taking in the sights, providing there's no respawn. Mostly, though, you'll be with other people who don't share your predilection for tapestries and caryatid columns and you'll have to leave when they're ready, which will be as soon as the last boss dies.

 

Thankfully, as Telwyn also points out, there are plenty of outdoor locations to explore. When we think of exploration in open world games the mind tends to flood with vistas of distant mountain ranges and rugged sea cliffs but you can explore the world indoors just as handily as out. Most MMORPGs, no matter the setting or time period, come fully equipped with camps, farmhouses, temples, industrial complexes, ruins and structures of all kinds.

Every time I do one of the Bartle test variants on some website or other my Explorer quotient comes out on top but I sometimes think it's more about the theory than the practice. Yes, I find myself drawn most strongly to those responses that reflect curiosity and inquisitiveness, and yet I wonder whether I'm not really more of an armchair explorer, even when I'm literally sitting in an armchair.

My forays into the wilderness tend to be sporadic. I'll take a session opening a map or exploring a zone only to return to my regular progress-based activities for the rest of the week. I do have a tendency to run anywhere and everywhere in a new game, often pushing far beyond the point where I'm able to engage with the content by any means other than the screenshot key. Once I'm set, though, and my initial drive to see what's over every next hill has dissipated, it's mostly the progression mechanics that keep me logging in. 

Exploring in MMORPGs tends to be something that requires inner motivation to sustain. As Telwyn says, while there's often an amusing detail to be found, anything with gameplay value tends to be very rare.

 

Some MMORPGs make much more of an effort to reward random exploration than others. These days, finding certain locations or ticking off every point of interest in an area often leads to an actual Achievement, not just the sense of one.

I remember Rift designers having a particular propensity for scattering collectibles in the most obscure spots and from what I've read Star Wars: the Old Republic's datacrons are even harder to find - and reach. Going back to dungeons, EverQuest II, a game where housing is more important than most, has a habit of hiding acquirable house items in plain sight as part of the furnishings.

None of these experiences really prepared me for playing Genshin Impact, which doesn't follow any of the rules I'm familiar with. It is, famously or infamously, a game that owes much of its design and arguably its very existence to Breath of the Wild. As I understand it, BotW is itself an outstanding example of the "open world" genre of non-massively multiplayer games, a genre where, at least according to some complaints I've seen, players can feel obligated to explore everything just so as not to miss out on anything worthwhile.

I can imagine how that could become wearing, eventually. I certainly lost patience with the similar convention in games like Baldur's Gate and Divinity: Original Sin, where no room was considered fully furnished without a dozen or so boxes, barrels, chests or sideboards, every one of which had to be opened, just in case.

 

For now, though, I'm finding the prospect of something worthwhile around every corner highly motivating. It very much helps that GI has by far the best climbing mechanics I've ever enjoyed in any game. The animations are subtle and satisfying and my character seems to understand concepts such as height, depth, inertia and incline. There's rarely any need to do more than point her at the obstacle and let her do her thing and yet it feels entirely as though I'm in full control.

That would be lovely but it wouldn't make a game of it. The endurance resource does that. Managing your energy makes climbing cliff faces an exercise in timing and judgment. Is that a ledge up there? Is it wide enough and flat enough to rest on or will I find myself clinging to the slope, unable to go on? Does that overhang hang over too far? Will I be able to sidle along to the side and slide past?

Get it wrong on a sheer face and you'll fall to your death, to be replaced instantly by another member of your team, who'll be able to revive you, always assuming you've remembered to pack an omelette or a steak. But then there you'll be, back at the bottom where you began, trying to decide if it's worth the time to do the climb again.

I spent most of a session doing just that last night. I started out trying to gather a certain resource and ended up climbing the highest peak in a range just because I thought I could. And I was right. What's more, when I pulled myself up over the rim I found not only an astoundingly lovely view but a ring of statues, a fountain and a mysterious puzzle. 

 

I solved the puzzle on the second try and received a multi-part quest. It felt exceptionally satisfying to have undertaken the climb for the pure elation of the thing and then to be so fulsomely rewarded for my effort. Much more satisfying than had I known the quest was there and climbed up specifically to get it.

This is why I'm trying not to read much in detail about the game. I generally don't in the early stages of a game I'm enjoying. It's a conceit that's hard to maintain for long. There's always a tipping point, when being uninformed flips from exciting to frustrating. So far, no sign of that happening in Genshin Impact.

Given the extensive work miHoYo must have put into the open world environments, I do find some of their design decisions regarding the domains, GI's instanced dungeons, of which there are many, counter-intuitive to say the least. The domains I've seen so far have been attractive enough as scenery but they've also felt linear and undifferentiated in comparison to what's outside. 

The rooms very obviously exist only to be cleared in a specific order. Unlike the richly decorated and lore-filled exterior buildings, the domains seem characterless and utilitarian. When you complete the final objective a timer begins, allowing you around a quarter of an hour before the instance closes but as yet I've not been able to find any reason to stick around more than a moment or two.

 

There are, occasionally, a few resources or materials to be gathered, in keeping with the setting but there don't appear to be any special collectibles or items. I might have made more of an effort to find out if I was missing something  if it wasn't for the fact that climbing skills appear not to work at all inside domains. That really puts a damper on the idea of going exploring there.

It's entirely possible I'm missing something, of course. That's the downside of not looking stuff up at the start. It's more than likely I'll find out in time that I should have been using those fifteen minutes to track down some vital component or other. If so, I'll come back for it then.

For now I'll stick to outdoor exploration. It's a great big open world out there and I want to see every last wonder it's hiding.

Over, Under, Sideways, Down : GW2

Over the years, one of the regular criticisms I've heard about GW2 is how the very concept of "Map Completion" undermines any genuine sense of exploration. How can it be a game for true explorers, the argument goes, if every Point of Interest is marked on the map - literally?

The truth, of course, is that map completion isn't for Explorers at all - it's for Achievers. Those people who love ticking things off a list and getting a badge at the end to say they ticked them all.

If Explorers complete maps it's by default. Sheer nosiness leads them into every last crevice, cave and corner and if those little boxes tick themselves along the way. well that's how serendipity works. I came across an excellent example of this yesterday in Crystal Oasis.

I hadn't set out to explore anything. I was actually looking for one of the new ranger pets. For Path of Fire I've been trying to look up as little as possible out of game and although I've had my eyes open for them since day one, so far I have only spotted one of the Juveniles, the Jacaranda.

Then one day, while I was following the storyline on my Elementalist (something else I hadn't planned on doing but which just somehow happened while I was meaning to do something else) I caught sight of the Juvenile Sand Lion as I was running past. I made a mental note of where it was and a couple of days later, when I next logged my druid in, I took him over to get it.

Should have taken me a couple of minutes. Turned out to be more like three hours. First I got caught up in some events, then I saw a chest up a cliff in a cave, then I noticed the huge "haven't been killed in a while" bonuses on the mobs in the caves so I farmed them, then I began bunny-hopping up some nearby cliffs to see where they went...

An hour or so later, as I found myself flapping along on my griffin, I spotted something below me that looked hauntingly familiar. Swooping down, I landed on a rope and bamboo bridge that looked for all the world like something out of The Bazaar of the Four Winds, the long-lost, much-missed home of the Zephyrites.

At this point I got all excited. Was this where the remnants of the Zephyrite airship fleet ended up after the debacle in Dry Top? It's always been clear that not all the ships came down there but we've had no news of where they might have gone.

First I climbed to the very, very top of the bamboo structures, poking into every nook, using my griffin, my glider and my bunny to get as high as I could. I saw paper lanterns and familiar platforms. This had to be Zephyrite work.

Nothing I found explained how it might have come to be there so I descended again to see if there were clues at ground level. Which is where I discovered not only clues, but NPCs talking about the mysterious people who'd built these structures and how they'd left en masse in a flotilla of airships, never to be seen again. I also learned how the abandoned town had become a home for refugees fleeing the conflict in the South.

And finally, right at the bottom, beside the road, I found a Heart, one of the pieces of busy-work that GW2 uses as a quest substitute. Also one of the things required for Map Completion, marked on the map, pointed to by NPC Scouts and pinged to your attention by the UI whenever you get close.

What's more, I'd been in the town before: several times. With my both druid and my elementalist. What I had never done during any of those visits was what Telwyn so astutely recommends we should all do when we come to a place we've never been before: look up.

Thus it was that I came to discover the original home of the Zephyrites, before they took the winds in their unfeasible wooden craft. It was an evening of discovery, excitement and above all exploration. Yes, I left with a box ticked but the session was anything but a box-ticking exercise.

That's how GW2 works best for explorers: if you come at it sideways. Or from above. Or below. Any damn way but by following the map.

And then I went and got my pet!

Three more to find (I think). Might have them by Wintersday at this rate.

Archetypal Behavior

And we're back. We had the best holiday for a long time and we're pretty good at going on holiday so that's saying quite a lot.

The whole of the Iberian peninsula was in the grip of a ferocious heatwave. There were huge forest fires all over the place, some extremely serious. Temperatures broke records. The nightly news was filled with multicolored maps and spiraling numbers.

We spent a lot of time in the mountains, in forests or by lakes. We avoided cities, staying in small, dusty towns and villages. We drank a lot of water and sat in the shade.

As we traveled we marveled at how many new wonders still remain to be discovered even in places you've criss-crossed so many times before. Also, how readily those old fantasy tropes become real.

We took to parceling up the landscape by race. We passed through wood-elf country into the lands where humans and elves intermingled. Half-elven hinterlands slipped into dwarven stonelands. In the peaks the evidence of giants and rock trolls lay all around us.

Little wonder these images are so prevalent or that they come so easily to mind. In times when it took days to travel from town to town, under the hammer of the sun, surrounded by birdsong and the drone of insects, every new horizon must have shimmered with strangeness and change. They still do.

We drove along dirt tracks to a Visigoth church, whose stones were piled close to a millennia and a half ago, to find it filled with music, the keyholder sheltering from the sun, playing his guitar in the dim, dirt-floored interior, waiting on the off-chance anyone should happen by. We stumbled across pocket castles not much bigger than cottages and craned our necks looking up at sprawling fortifications half the length of a city.

I had good intentions of posting at least once or twice while we were away but technology frustrated those hopes once again. Wi-fi has improved in availability since the days it was listed as an occasional luxury but it has yet to improve significantly in any practical sense. Most days I counted myself lucky if I was able to keep a connection long enough to book ahead for the next night.

I didn't do myself any favors, either. I took three internet-capable devices with me - my Teclast dual-OS 10" tablet, my aging Android 7" and my ancient iPod Touch, now almost a decade old.

I forgot the charging cable for the Teclast and it wouldn't charge from any of the several other cables I did have. The 7" died completely three days into the trip. In the end I relied mostly on the iPod touch, which performed stolidly. One up to Steve Jobs.

It seems that a mobile (cell) phone is expected these days if you plan on staying in anything less well-equipped than a three-star hotel. The Rural Hotels, private apartments and rooms above bars I was picking all expect you to call them by phone when you arrive so the owner can pop on their sandals, put down the pruning shears and trot round from their home several streets away to hand you the key, after which you never see them again.

Mrs Bhagpuss had her iPhone so that shouldn't have been a problem - except that her network, O2, has a known bug wherein it adds spurious extra digits to any non-UK number. I, of course, don't own a mobile at all.

We couldn't phone anyone, anywhere, ever. That led to some shenanigans. We eventually got in to every room I'd booked although there were times I thought we might not. Always depend on the kindness of strangers. Still, I'm taking a mobile next time and I'm buying a local sim card to put in it when I get there.

We agreed that we made for the very model of the Explorer Archetype throughout, with a fair portion of Achiever thrown in (we took a lot of video and photographs and ticked off a lot of culturo-historic Points of Interest). The repeated performance of the Ritual of the Keys gave us a decent smattering of Socializer cred. The only Bartle box we didn't tick was Killer - unless you count the thousand tiny insect bodies smeared across the front of our car.

Due to a peculiarity of this year's working schedule it's less than three months until we go away again. I can hardly wait!

Keeping Up With Current Events : GW2

When it comes to publicity for GW2's PvE offer it's The Living Story or Raids that ArenaNet's P.R. department turn to every time. Dungeons are long forgotten and Fractals, popular though they are, haven't really got the same cachet with a wider gaming audience.

For my money, though, the real core PvE content over the last nine months or so has been something so unheralded, so unpublicized, so secret even, that not only does it not merit a single puff piece from the publicity department, it doesn't even get much more than a single line in the patch notes.

Sometimes, as in last week's big skill balance patch, it doesn't even get that. I'm talking about the ongoing sequence of "Current Events" that so far has included a lengthy series of skirmishes and full-scale battles with bandits, a whole slew of cross-map zerg events and a lot of odd little sidebars and scavenger hunts.

As I look back at my progress through the winter and autumn to last summer, it's not the strung-out chapters of LS3 that remind themselves to me; it's taking sides in the tri-partite race to gather ley energy, or chasing a running figure from map to map alongside fifty other excited players, or jaunting across Tyria with my Rift Stabilizer in hand. Those are the experiences I'll be referring to in years to come, not the stuttering storyline with its ponderous gravitas, occasional chuckles and predictably irritating set pieces.

Almost without exception the Current Events have been well conceived and well implemented.  You don't always need to own Heart of Thorns to enjoy them, either, although sometimes they venture into maps that do require that access. By and large, though, they provide repeatable content that deepens and broadens the original game.

Trahearne's Memorial. I give it a week before some Asuran progeny puts a traffic cone on his head.

The current Current Event is one that does demand ownership of GW2's only expansion to date, which is not unreasonable given that it wraps up one of the trailing threads from HoT's main storyline. At the end of the Heart of Thorns personal story your character was left with a seemingly useless item, the broken sword Caladbolg, an unwieldy name for an unwieldy weapon.

It had belonged to of one of the NPC characters, the ever-unpopular Trahearne, but with him gone no-one really knew what to do with it. Although you could equip it, as a Rare quality weapon, certainly no-one who could get it would ever want to.

I threw mine in the bank along with all the other relics of past events that I like to mouse over once in a while. More practically-minded players salvaged theirs for crafting resources. Some, I'm sure, simply destroyed the useless thing to save space.

Well, now Caladbolg's time has come. With no foreshadowing or pre-amble and not even as much as a cryptic hint in the update notes, when you log in a character who finished the HoT personal story a letter arrives in the mail. That begins a lengthy and extremely enjoyable scavenger hunt, the details of which I won't document here because Dulfy has done it already. What would we do without her?

I spent some of Friday evening and most of Saturday afternoon finding the necessary fifteen shards and motes. It involved porting back and forth all over Tyria as well as to and from my home instance, the Lab in Rata Sum on this occasion, since the only character who ever finished the storyline in Heart of Thorns was my Asuran Druid.

The whole thing took longer than it might have done because that character had never even set foot in some of the maps he was asked to visit. When Ridhais, the Sylvari who purported to be able to repair (or "heal") the weapon opened a map for me to show me the nearest waypoint, as often as not all I saw was a blank wash of watercolored blur.

Pssst! Dog! This way!

That just made the whole thing more fun. All of the motes were in secluded, tranquil locations. Several of them were in hidden, secret spots, at least two of which I had never seen before even after four years and seventeen max level characters.

I used Dulfy's guide so I knew exactly where to go and even if I hadn't, the aforementioned in-game hints included a pop-up map with the nearest waypoint highlighted. A true explorer archetype might turn up their nose at such a catered tour but for me it was perfect. If Bartle had thought to add a "Sightseer" archetype I'd probably score 100%.

If this current event had limited itself only to a trip around this well-chosen selection of obscure visual delights it would already have been the highlight for me of this year's GW2 offering so far. The visit to the Nolan strawberry farm, of which I was, until yesterday, quite shamefully ignorant, was enough on its own to beat the entire last episode of Living Story for sheer satisfaction.

You can never have too many shafts of sunlight. Or free strawberries.

It's also well worth emphasizing that, although several of the stops on this trip around Tyria's most beautiful hidden treasures do also feature POI's or Hero Challenges flagged on the main map and required for map completion, several of the most impressive do not. The hidden cavern in The Grove, like Ayna's strawberry farm, have no reward other than the sheer thrill of discovering them. (Well, and the strawberries, of course).

With its foregrounded emphasis on map completion GW2 has always taken criticism for offering "Exploring by Numbers" but that's an interpretation only an Achiever archetype could place on what has to be one of the most intricately detailed, deeply rewarding imaginary spaces available for virtual exploration. If you aren't finding uncharted wonders you just aren't looking.

For the life of the game so far the best-kept secrets of ANet's formidable art team have been just that - secret. While this opens a few up to a wider audience it's merely a taster. There are so many more to discover if you take the time to find them.

Sometimes I roleplay Calvin and Hobbes, sometimes I roleplay William Brown. Mostly, though, I can't maintain that level of complexity and ironic detachment.

As I said, if this was all the Current Event had to offer it would have been plenty but there was more. A lot more. Once all the components had been collected there were not one but three boss fights to complete. When I read that on Dulfy my heart did sink a little.

ANet's idea of a solo boss fight for a storyline is generally a twenty minute war of attrition that leaves casual players angry, frustrated and with a thumping headache. The rightly vilified final fight of the latest LS3 chapter is a sadly typical example.

Whichever team is responsible for Current Events, however, shares absolutely none of the Living Story developers' penchant for grim, claustrophobic misery. Each of the five fights (it transpires you have to battle the first two bosses twice) was fast, fun and didn't outstay its welcome. Every one took place in a large, open space that allowed for full use of the Dodge mechanic.

See what happens when you give me room to breathe?

Best of all, there was no "clever" mechanic, transformation or trick required to win. All you have to do is play your character using the skills of the class in the intended manner, just as you would in any other part of the wider game. So very refreshing. If only whoever designed these encounters could be put in charge of all the solo instanced combat scenarios in the game, how much happier the broad mass of the playing public might be.

So, we have a lengthy, entertaining event that culminates in several enjoyable and satisfying fights. Could it get better than that? Why, yes it could!

If there's one thing that GW2 has taken consistent flak for over the years it's the inadequacy of the reward for the effort required. A few bags of crafting mats and, if you're really lucky, a Rare quality item that will go straight to salvage and that's your lot. Maybe, once in a while, if the RNG gods are in a really good mood, you might get an Exotic.

Look at my sword, Dog. Look! This way! Don't eat that!

Not this time. The reforged Cadalbolg, when you complete the full sequence, comes back to you as an Ascended weapon. Ascended is the top of the tree when it comes to loot in GW2 and few people have as much as they'd like. Getting anything Ascended as a reward is a guaranteed dopamine hit.

Of course, you'd want it to be something you can use. How fortunate, then, that at the end of the final fight five NPCs appear to offer you a choice of weapons - Longsword, Scepter, Shield, Sword or Dagger.

Even though the NPCs warn you to choose wisely, naturally, in the aftermath of such a heated battle there are going to be players who click on the wrong thing. That's not speculation - someone was wailing on the forums about having done exactly that within a matter of hours.

Okay, Dog. Fun's over. Come on. Come here! Don't make me come get you...
Alright, I'm coming to get you.

Well, the exemplary team behind it all had thought of that, just as they'd thought of all those players who would have destroyed the original, broken Caladbolg they'd need to get the whole thing started. Those players were able to get another Caladbolg from Miyani at The mystic Forge, while everyone who completes the event gets a letter the next day inviting them to meet with The Pale Tree.

With that meeting out of the way, Ridhais takes up residence in the player's home instance, where he will swap your weapon for a different one as often as you like provided you come up with a thousand Unbound Magic each time to power the process. It's an elegant safety net for a problem that good design has in any case largely prevented from happening at all.

Like all the somewhat inaccurately labelled "Current Event" content, this is now a permanent part of
the game, at least as far as anything in an MMO is ever permanent. It's also good enough in just about every way that I feel motivated for the first time ever to finish up the HoT storyline on other characters just so I can do it again. I could very much use those extra Ascended items and I would very much enjoy another afternoon going through the steps it takes to get them.

I have no idea how many developers and designers it requires to create and curate this Current Event content but whoever they are they put the rest of the game to shame. How I'd love to play the version of GW2 these people would make if they were in charge of the whole thing.

For now I'll just keep scanning the patch notes each time, hoping for the one line that hints of something unusual. That's where all the fun is going to be.