Guild Wars 2: The Lost Shores - GRAND FINALE

Tension was thick in the morning hours leading up to the Lionguard's final strike against the karka threat. Only yesterday adventurers had fought alongside Inspector Ellen Kiel to wrestle the shoreline of Southsun Cove from the karka, securing a beach front and pushing through to establish roads further inland. While the Consortium investigated nearby ruins and collected karka egg specimens, the Lionsguard proceeded to establish a forward base on the edge of the Scoured Plains.

Adventurers woke to find a new design of catapult, along with asura cannons constructed along the front lines, their sights focused on the karka hive where the Ancient Karka that had been terrorising Lions Arch slumbered. Yesterday the hive had been blocked off to all adventures by an indestructible webbing, taunting us with the points of interest and rich orichalcum veins within. Now it appeared the Lionsguard were making plans to break through that impenetrable wall and take the fight directly to the karka's home.

Adventurers from all over Tyria gathered in those last moments leading up to the final battle, converging on Canach's Folly to witness the grand finale, summoned by a mass-delivered letter from Inspector Kiel. Upon arrival at the forward camp they found a group of demolitionists just itching to get into that hive and blow it into the mists. Kicking off the final push, the Lionguard fire the cannons, ripping a hole in the webbing. Adventurers and demolitionists alike swarmed through the gap, overwhelming the young karka. Enraged by our attack, veteran egg-layers rose up from the depths of the hive, led by their champions.

The fight was severe and bloody, and many lost their lives, but after much effort, the demolitionists placed their charges, ending at the top with a grand battle confronting another champion karka and several veteran egg-layers.

Our mission complete we escaped from the hive, racing across the Seashell Hills and back to the safety of Canach's Folly and the asura cannons. There we met with Inspector Ellen Keil, who was preparing to use the cannons against the karka still remaining in the hive, triggering the explosives in the process, except her plans are foiled at the last moment. The Ancient Karka was never in the hive. We were now required to force it back into sight of the cannons so that the Lionsguard could finish what we started.

We found the Ancient Karka in the Driftglass Plains, stubbornly refusing to budge an inch. The tree we felled changed its mind though, but not the way we had hoped. Instead of heading towards the hive, the creature retreated further away and proceeded to summon waves of veteran karka to fight back.

Wave after wave of karka attacked us, and for the next hour we fought tooth and nail to keep the upper hand. When victory seemed close, we were confronted with a wave of veteran egg-layers, followed by a champion karka. Suffering through the severe latency issues we were dealt at this point, the adventurers struggled to win the fight against the karka and drive the boss back towards the Scoured Plains.

At the end of the hour long battle, we made headway, chasing the Ancient Karka into a region full of geothermal fissures. Ripping the webbing off the fissures, we used their pressure to launch boulders at the Ancient Karka, driving down its will to fight on.

The creature at last gave up the fight, retreating into the Scoured Plains, but it was not over yet. Regaining courage, the beast summoned more veteran karka, along with egg-layers and their babies. The battle was fierce, and the adventurers were pushed back onto the bridge to Captain's Retreat, but after much toil and pain, we succeeded, only to be confronted by three champion karka. The battle raged on, and eventually we forced the Ancient Karka back into the Seashell Hills.

The battle was not over yet though, we still had to drive the Ancient Karka back into the hive where the trap we'd set waited for it. We achieved this by destroying gas nodes around the area that had been blocked by karka webbing. Each exploding node forced the creature further and further back, until it retreated within the confines of the hive.

Sensing her eminent victory, Inspector Kiel ordered the Lionsguard to charge the cannons, preparing to fire again. It was up to the adventurers to keep the Ancient Karka busy until the cannons were ready to fire once more.

The creature fled to the top of the hive, and we followed, free to run up the path previously cleared of young and veteran karka. At the top we found the Ancient Karka hiding amongst the webbing, which had covered the previously placed explosives, leaving us with no other option but to destroy the webbing in order to reset the trap for him. With the webbing destroyed, the karka fled back down to the bottom of the hive, using a rolling move to crush all opposition in its way, but little did the karka know, but that was where we wanted it.

Cornered, we at last launched an all out offensive on the Ancient Karka itself, paying it back for all the terror it had unleashed, for the citizens of Tyria it had murdered and the damage it had done to Lions Arch. The creature was helpless against our fury and it fell to our blades, weakening. The time had come, the cannons were charged, the explosives set, ready to blow. Inspector Ellen Kiel gave the final command, and the cannons fired, striking the Ancient Karka and explosives. The ground beneath it ruptured, revealing the lava below, and the creature was swallowed whole, consumed by the fires.

Making one last effort, the Ancient Karka rose up again, emerging from the lava to struggle onto the land, but its burns were severe, its wounds fatal. The karka took its last breath and died, the adventurers and Lionsguard standing triumphant before it. Victory was ours.

Having defeated the karka threat once and for all, the adventurers were rewarded with an enormous event chest containing unique and exotic treasures. Every adventurer was given a 20-slot karka themed bag, an exotic earring that gave +25 to all stats as well as +5% magic find, two random exotic items, and a handful of other, lesser rarity, random items.

Satisfied with the outcome of the three-hour long event, latency issues forgiven, the adventurers returned to Canach's Folly, which now stands as a Lionsguard outpost, to stay until the remaining karka are found and the island is freed of their terror for good. Players left happy, thankful that the final day of the event had not been a complete disaster like the second day had been. Now all that remains is to explore every inch of the island, complete the jumping puzzles, gather the karka shells used to create newly added items, and explore the very depths of the Fractals of the Mists. Already there are reports of players reaching difficulty level 4 or 5, and who knows what awaits them as the dungeon continues to get even more dangerous. Read More →

Guild Wars 2: The Lost Shores - DAY TWO

The second day of the weekend-long Lost Shores event has started and unfortunately not all is well in the world of Tyria. Day One quest chains were still bugged out, even after a supposed bug fix patch was released in the early hours of the morning, and adventurers were growing even more frustrated with their inability to experience the story ArenaNet had crafted for the weekend. Things did not bode well for the MMO developers chances to impress all those new players they had drawn into the game with the trial key giveaways.

Players gathered around Levvi, waiting for the Phase Two event to kick off. 12:00pm server time came and went, leaving the adventurers puzzled. Where was the next major event, where were the karka that were supposed to attack Lions Arch once more? They were nowhere to be seen. All adventurers were left with was an updated meta-event text stating something about testing out new weapons on the Karka, but where these weapons were, and how you went about testing them, nobody knew. There was no cutscene to show us the way, no hints from ArenaNet like there had been yesterday. Today we were left believing something had gone dreadfully wrong.

Fifteen minutes after the even start time, there was at last some progress. Apparently the Lionguard, under the direction of Magnus, were building a siege weapon to attack the Ancient Karka with. Now that things were at last underway, Magnus, along with Levvi and Kiel, lead us to the walls of Fort Marriner, where we could see the aforementioned trebulchet. That was the moment the karka chose to attack.

Like the previous event, the Ancient Karka sent waves of lesser karka against us, but this time we were prepared. Barrels of a toxic substance harmful to the karka were scattered across the land between Fort Marriner and the lighthouse. This time the egg-layers fell with ease, the toxin ripping through their shells. Forced into a confrontation, the Ancient Karka joins the fight, but this is where the problems start. On some servers the boss vanished without a trace, leaving adventurers without any event rewards or completion bonuses. On other servers the karka's health continously reset, making him impossible to defeat. Unfortunately, my server was one of those affected by this bug, which means I missed what end to the event there could have been. Upon my return to Lions Arch, after exploring a couple other points of interest in the event weekend, I found the boss gone, having vanished into thin air.

Regretfully, this was the outcome many got when taking part in the event. I'm afraid to say Day Two started on a worse note than Day One, at least the first event was achievable. All that is left for adventurers now is to continue the storyline on into the Southsun Cove, via the shipmaster at the Lions Arch docks.

Stay tuned for more details and screenshots of Southsun Cove as Unfathomable Writings embarks upon their  voyage across the Sea of Sorrows. Read More →

Guild Wars 2: Fractals of the Mists

Following the completion of the opening event, access to Guild Wars 2's new style of dungeon experience was released to adventurers all over Tyria, even to those who are not quite lv80 yet when they were scaled up to lv80 for the weekend long event so that they could experience the dungeon alongside veteran players. When the portal opened, Unfathomable Writings was there to take the first step into Fractals of the Mists, a dungeon-crawling adventure like no other.

First thing we were greeted with through the portal was Dessa's Laboratory, which served as the central nexus for movement through the many instances to be found within the mists. General goods and repair venders were to be found here, as well as the namesake NPC Dessa and her assistants.

Stepping onto the platform in the centre of the room we were greeted with a prompt asking us if we were ready to travel deeper into the mists. Not knowing quite what to expect, we all ticked our ready status and waited for Dessa to plunge us into the chaos that was to come. Loading times were smooth, and our experience proved to be pleasantly bug free.

First up we were thrown right into the middle of a dark, gloomy swamp. None of us had a clue where we were, or how to get out of this hellhole we found ourselves in. Two steps into the swamp and we were confronted by our first fight, a Champion Marsh Drake. Surprised to find such a high level monster as our first opposition we eagerly joined the fight, burning the creature down, and were disappointed to find no loot reward given for our kill. It appeared that champions were to be a normal trash mob in this particular instance.

Having dispatched the foul champion beast, we explored further into the swamp and found our way blocked by three locks. To open these locks we would need to recover the three wisps that would release them. The said wisps were scattered across the swamp, hidden behind hordes of monsters and masses of discretely placed traps. To complete this puzzle, we were forced to collect all the wisps in one go, rushing back to the locks on a thirty second timer. This was not so easy to achieve, for traps and monsters were determined to delay our flight, and the swamp itself was pitted against us when impenetrable walls of vines rose and fell, blocking out path. Our challenge was made even harder when the same Champion Marsh Drake continued to respawn on a timer of only a few seconds. He was joined by the Mossman, a purple bordered boss. After numerous attempts, uncountable crippling traps, and running around like a madman to try and get away from the Mossman, we were victorious.

Inside, we travelled through an underwater passage which eventually opened up to the small glade belonging to a twisted and hostile Tree Ent, Bloomhunger. The boss himself was a pushover and we had very little trouble dispatching him. During the fight he would drop poison AoE circles, for the most part easily avoidable. He would also summon elementals to buff him, but the adds were dispatched within seconds, offering us no challenge at all. Once defeated we were treated to a chest containing several random items, sometimes rares, as one of our party managed to get. Dessa then spoke to us through the nether, prompting if we wanted to continue on to the next dungeon. Sure, why not, we thought; that wasn't so bad.

But Dessa had larger games for us to play. As soon as we arrived in the second dungeon, we knew we were in for an amazing encounter. Drawn right into the middle of an all out war between the charr and an ascalonian city, we were forced to use charr disguises and join the battle alongside the charr as they assaulted the walls, confronted the enemy commander and threw their gates wide open. It was not an easy battle to win. The enemy turned their seige weapons on us. Catapults fired on our position, the arrows from carts reigned down from above and the enemy tipped burning oil on us whenever we got near the gates. With some amazing ranged combat by one of our party, we were able to take their weapons down and attack the gate.

On the other side of the walls we fought our way through streets crawling with enemy soldiers, the city itself turned into a complicated maze network by the blockades the ascalonians had erected. Eventually we found our way to the central courtyard where we were greeted by an army of enemy soldiers manning catapults. After dispatching the opposing forces and capturing the courtyard we defended the charr magician as he performed the ritual needed to win the day and destroy the ascalonians. They were not going to give up so easily though. Their leader retaliated, leading an attack against our position. Much to our disappointment though, the boss of this instance put up less of a fight than Bloomhunger had. Victorious, we took our reward from the chest and moved on to the next stage.

Our final adventure inside the Mists involved scaling a massive colossus who had been imprisoned by a dark cult. At the colossus's feet we were confronted by the boss of the instance, the Legendary Archdiviner. Putting up more of a fight than expected, the head cultist drops his magical hammer and flees deeper into the ruins. Taking his weapon we climbed the scaffolding, making our way to the top where the Archdiviner waited for us. Little did we know the challenge that awaited us along the way.

Our first stop was the giant's knees, which were bound to the cliff by a magical seal. The only way to break the seal was to charge the Archdiviner's hammer with the blood of his fellow cultists. Veteran mobs attacked us, aiding the trash cultist mobs in their fight, making our attempts to free the colossus difficult indeed. It was made worse by the debuff placed on the party member holding the hammer. When the debuff stacked forty times, the player would be killed instantly. Our only choice was to pass the hammer between us before we reached that fatal number. Three charges later, the knee was free and we moved on to the next one, repeating the process. Victorious, we proceeded up the scaffolding, making our way to the chest seal. This one proved to be the easiest of them all, and it wasn't long before we were working our way up even higher. Little did we know what waited for us halfway up the ruins.

Faces that blew strong winds at us threatened to throw us from the edge, plummeting to our death below. Luckily, this instance had checkpoints, so if you died, you respawned at various stages up the side of the ruins, and not from the beginning. This was the only instance to offer us this feature. During this adventure we discovered that once you leave the instance, it appears that there is no way back in. Entering the Mists would result in you being thrown into a completely different instance from the one the rest of the party was in. Which was unfortunate, since several of us had forgotten to bring repair canisters  By the look of the red gear we had towards the end, we really needed that repair vendor, but to return to Dessa's lab would wipe all our progress in this instance.

The wrists proved to be a greater challenge. They were protected by shields and you could only strike the seal once before the shield made it invulnerable. We were forced to run back and forth between the wrists, fighting off the hordes of cultists that spawned while hit by hit, we broke the seals down. All that was left was to free the head and confront the Legendary Archdiviner at the top. This would be no easy achievement, especially since we were now one man down. After dodging fireball traps that played the same tricks on us that the wind did, we at last reached the top of the scaffolding and were greeted by the final boss.

The Archdiviner turned out to be both the most challenging of the three bosses and the most interesting. In the centre of the room was the final seal, restraining the colossus's head, but it was protected permanently by a shield. The only way to get past the shield was to confront the Archdiviner and burn his health down a quarter. During the fight cultists ran to his aid, making for a tough fight, but when the shield broke for the first time we rushed in, killing the adds to charge the hammer. We failed. The Archdiviner's attacks were serious business, nearly one-shotting several members of the party. Luckily for us, his health never regenerates, even when you wipe, until he is almost dead, but even then his health will never regen past quarter full. The fight wasn't made any easier by our severely broken gear. In the end, several of us were forced to purchase canisters from the Black Lion Trading Co. in order to continue fighting.

Down to half health, the boss changed his tactics, releasing a high-damage AoE attack that left burning DoTs on us. I can tell you now, those burns hurt, bad. Unless you could switch the conditions into boons, you were most likely dead if you got caught in it. during this stage the boss started teleporting party members he came in contact with into cages where they were forced to break their way out of, or enlist the aid of other party members to free them.

The final stage of the boss saw his teleporting trick continuing throughout the fight while he spawned baby karka to help him fight. Fortunately, his AoE attack ceased to happen during this stage, making it easier for us to burn him down and release the shield around the seal. It only took three hits to break the seal and emerge victorious as a four man dungeon team. We were treated to one last treasure chest while the Colossus made his way off into the distance after bowing his thanks to us. We were then transported back to Dessa's Lab, where we could continue on with level two, if we so chose to do so.

Overall, our experience ended on a very positive note. Unlike other dungeons, we'd succeeded in clearing path one of the Mists on our first day, without pulling any hair out, enjoying every moment of it - especially when we were knocking down the walls of that ascalonian city - and coming out of our adventure thoroughly satisfied. I commend ArenaNet on their fantastic new dungeon and its flawless, bug free, progression. Read More →

Guild Wars 2: The Lost Shores - Day One - UPDATED: 3:45PM PST

SEE END OF POST FOR UPDATES.

The first day of the weekend long event has started with the karka strike on Lions Arch. As we waited at the lighthouse, a giant sea monster, the Ancient Karka, launched out of the water, destroying a Black Lion Trading Co ship the process. After landing on the rocks above the shoreline, the creature summons a horde of lesser karka to attack the city.

Hundreds of adventurers gathered at the southern coast of Lions Arch to push the karka threat back. They were met with a handful of egg-laying mother karka, who proceeded to give birth to many baby karka who were so small, and numbered so many that adventurers were hard pushed to keep the swarm back. Karka attached themselves to limbs, biting and hindering the adventurers movements while they tried to defend against the veteran karka that were summoned to aid the egg-layers in their strike.

During the battle, the biology team collected samples of the karka flesh as they slowly dropped, one after another. The battle was hard pushed, the egg-layers nearly invincible behind their thick armour. Many adventurers turned their attention to the lesser Karka aiding the egg-layers, until the karka lost their resolve to fight, giving up the attack and retreating back into the waters for the time being.

Enraged by our resilience the Ancient Karka destroys the lighthouse in Lions Arch. Afterwards a tense peacefulness fulls upon Lions Arch, but not is all well. A call to arms is made to aid in the building of defences against the karka, and the research into the sea monsters, in the hopes that we might find a weakness to exploit. In the meantime, Tyrro of the Lionsguard investigates the Consortium and their strange asura gate that has torn an unstable rip in reality.

Even though the battle was epic, an exciting event, the zone was so overrun with players that it causes the server to suffer from a severe input lag, meaning most players were forced to auto-attack the mobs when their activated abilities continously failed to proc. Many were even unable to heal themselves when the karka dropped AoE poisons.

UPDATES: 3:15PM PST

Karka have started to send waves of attacks against Morgan's Spiral in Caledan Forest. Meanwhile, aid is sort from the races of Tyria in various locations. Including defending the Largos in Viathan Lake (Kessex Hills) from Krait in order to win his loyalty, helping the Hylek Gukumatz create potions to weaken the karka in Michoan March (Metrica Province) and information is being sought from the Quaggans in Stormwreak Deeps for clues on how to deal with the karka threat. The Quaggans ask that we search the depths of the lake for clues to help in the fight.

Unfortunately, many of these events appear to be a bit buggy at the moment, but hopefully in time the kinks will get sorted out and we will be able to proceed ahead with the events.

UPDATES: 3:45PM PST

The Karka have attacked Garrenhoof in Kessex Hills, but something suspicious is going on at the local wizards guild. Adventurers have been sent to confront Canach and discover what exactly he knows about the karka. Lag has also got so bad that enemy mobs to do show up at all now due to too many character models. Unfortunately the event is currently bugged on my server, along with several of the other events so I'm unable to provide details on the outcome of the event at this stage.

Keep an eye on this post and following threads for updates, videos and screenshots as the day progresses.

Read More →

The Lost Shores trial begins

Two hours ago the doors to Tyria opened for all trial users and while Queensdale remains quiet on Sorrows Furnace, it can be expected as the day reaches its peak that many more players will flock to the servers to discover what many of us are considering the MMO of the year.

The Lost Shores event is set to start in a bit over 24 hours and while there still remains traces of the last tragedy to befall Lions Arch, attention is drawn to the beaches, where the tension is high. The crew of ships waiting in the harbours stand on edge, on the lookout for any signs of danger, while on shore, large notices warn citizens to stay away from the beaches. These warnings fail to deter some though, who go about their daily lives along the shoreline, while others stand, debating the meaning behind the notices and fear what might happen if the citizens of Tyria fail to heed the warnings. A group of Sylvari sense a disturbance in the waters, fearing that the dangerous creatures they had been warned about might soon rise from the depths to terrorise the shorelines.

A single Asura Gate sits along the shoreline, inoperable, yet one can expect it might lead us one day to new lands when the time comes. In the meantime, players are keeping a close eye on the gate, suspecting it might have something to do with the pre-warned danger about to target Lions Arch once more.

Will the defenders of Lions Arch emerge victorious this time? Will they drive back the monsters, like they did the Mad King? The call to arms has risen and the adventurers of Tyria stand firm to defend their realm. Tomorrow at 12:00 pm PST the Karka will strike. All that can be asked of us is that we stand together on those shores, ready to drive the foul creatures back to the depths they rose up from. Read More →

Guild Wars 2: The Lost Shores

Roughly three months after the game launched, Guild Wars 2 is set to receive its first major, world-changing update; The Lost Shores. Unlike the Halloween event, this update will leave a permanent mark on the world of Tyria. Players will be welcomed into the new mini-expansion with the scripted events happening each day on the 16th, 17th and 18th of November at 12:00 pm PST (20:00 GMT). During this time the servers will be opened up to trial accounts, allowing every player to invite three friends to play with them over the weekend. All players will also be scaled up to lv80 during the events and while exploring the new zone to allow trial members to play with their friends.

The Lost Shores of Southsun Cove

Players will need to defend the city of Lions Arch from the Karka, a new amphibious race, and as the weekend-long event progresses, push them back into the new island zone, Southsun Cove, where they will find many new dynamic events and challenges to complete, including a whole new dungeon; Fractals of the Mists. In this dungeon players will fight bosses to collect a new tier of gear called Ascended. This artefact gear is graded above exotic, yet below legendary. All legendary items in the game will be getting a bonus to their stats in order to match the new tier of gear, which might for once make the legendary weapons worth getting. Not interested in the legendary weapons, yet want your gear to look amazing? The Black Lion company is releasing a new set of weapon skins through their gemstore for players to purchase over the weekend.

Some might think it unfortunate, but this patch is set to begin Arenanet's first forays into an item progression system, which is strange, considering they were always against it in the past. Personally, I'm happy they have decided to take this direction. To me it means there will be much more to do at endgame, because honestly, I was done with all the PvE content about two weeks after it was released. This shift in direction gets two thumbs up from me.

First glimpses into the Fractals of the Mists

For those of you who would prefer to PvP in the Mists instead of following the event, you will be treated to a new PvP map; The Temple of the Silent Storm. Be aware though, the map is still in beta stages and may be subject to change - it might also be buggy still. Either way, it will make a fresh change to those maps I'm sure you're all tired of doing over and over again.

The trial starts in two days (15th Nov), and I will be there bright and early on the 16th to take part in this world-changing event. I hope to see you all ingame. So with that I leave you with the promo trailer released yesterday by Arenanet's offical youtube channel. Enjoy.

Pictures courtesy of the offical Guild Wars 2 page.





UPDATES: 15/11/2012: After the release of the final patch before the event, activity has been increasing along the shorelines of Lions Arch. The Consortium is making its play, announcing the coming of a new resort destination to be found through their new Asura Gate. We can expect the gate to be active at stage two of the weekend long event.


The harbour has received a new PoI addition, Malcha's Landing, along with the Consortium on the southern short of Lions Arch. There is now an orange star on the Lions Arch map signifying where the event is to start. Once again in the Grand Plaza.

Along with this news is a collection of new NPCs, including a Consortium Gift Shop, but so far it appears they have nothing for sale, yet. Stay tuned at the new PoI in Lions Arch for more gifts and rewards to be discovered in the coming days.

I'm off to investigate the mentioned changes made to the Shatterer event. Will report back with all the juicy details. Read More →