GW2: Out of the Shadows
So, I've managed the time to sink my teeth into the new Guild Wars 2 living story content over the weekend and such. Not sure how long that will be the case with WoW ramping up pre-Legion stuff and things like DX: Mankind Divided coming up on the horizon rapidly. I suppose I'm just glad you don't have to finish the Heart of Thorns story missions to actually participate, since that last one still stymies me (a lot like requiring the Arah dungeon did in the main game).
Story-wise... well... hmm. On the up side, we see many of the core characters in the wake of the main expansion events, and that all feels pretty solid. Fallout from those events is what would be expected with minor exception. I don't want to spoil anything for certain folks, so there's only so much I can say. Then there's the gearing up of a new threat, which... feels a little out of the blue to me. Maybe it's because I didn't experience the raid, so I don't really know what transpired in there, but the reintroduction of the White Mantle as an established force strikes me as abrupt. I sort of like the return of GW1 legacy threats, but either my memory for the main game plot is poor (which is possible, as it's been a while) or I missed something somewhere, as the White Mantle has a presence and characters are discussing Bloodstones like they are supposed to mean something to me. So... mixed-bag story-wise.
I could say the same about the events and activities. On the one hand, we get a new zone with new events. It makes heavy use of verticality which, while making advanced gliding masteries very desirable, you can navigate pretty well with only the first two or three ranks of gliding. While smaller than a lot of zones, it's pretty densely packed. All that's good. On the other hand, the primary novelty wears out quickly - after running through the dozen-plus chained events a couple times, there's not really anything to do but... run it again. Decent XP gain, but that's the same issue with most of the game at this point - in a day or two, any new content is no longer new, and there's no further way to advance (I still need a bunch of XP and mastery points to max out my main) but running the same stuff over and over, usually in a zerg of players that feels pretty mindless.
Story-wise... well... hmm. On the up side, we see many of the core characters in the wake of the main expansion events, and that all feels pretty solid. Fallout from those events is what would be expected with minor exception. I don't want to spoil anything for certain folks, so there's only so much I can say. Then there's the gearing up of a new threat, which... feels a little out of the blue to me. Maybe it's because I didn't experience the raid, so I don't really know what transpired in there, but the reintroduction of the White Mantle as an established force strikes me as abrupt. I sort of like the return of GW1 legacy threats, but either my memory for the main game plot is poor (which is possible, as it's been a while) or I missed something somewhere, as the White Mantle has a presence and characters are discussing Bloodstones like they are supposed to mean something to me. So... mixed-bag story-wise.
I could say the same about the events and activities. On the one hand, we get a new zone with new events. It makes heavy use of verticality which, while making advanced gliding masteries very desirable, you can navigate pretty well with only the first two or three ranks of gliding. While smaller than a lot of zones, it's pretty densely packed. All that's good. On the other hand, the primary novelty wears out quickly - after running through the dozen-plus chained events a couple times, there's not really anything to do but... run it again. Decent XP gain, but that's the same issue with most of the game at this point - in a day or two, any new content is no longer new, and there's no further way to advance (I still need a bunch of XP and mastery points to max out my main) but running the same stuff over and over, usually in a zerg of players that feels pretty mindless.
The White Mantle actually showed up in GW2 - during one of the human personal story arcs. The boar house has a White Mantle lodge hidden in it.
ReplyDeleteIf you took the personal plot where you were adopted, that unlocks the White Mantle storyline.
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