Guild Wars 2 Diary #16 : 2012 to 2013

And so we've come to this: the final Guild Wars 2 diary of 2012. What better way of ending a great year than by summoning a dead pirate and playing medic on a bloody battlefield? It’s all important work and somebody has to do it! Of course, it’s also a good time to look forward at 2013, and to think about the challenges and triumphs we have to look forward to in Guild Wars 2 during the coming year. Is there enough to look forward to? Is Guild Wars 2 still worth your time and money? In this week’s diary, we decide.

Bloodfields

Following the green quest marker will take you to a new-ish location full of rather difficult centaurs and other nasty crawlies. These monsters are about levels 25-28, so you’ll want to be at least level 24 before entering the area, preferably higher. As soon as you enter the area, you’ll notice a couple of things. Firstly how dark the area is... Queensdale and Kessex Hills map have been largely green, colourful places. Gendarran Fields is a little different. Parts of the ground is scorched, there’s more industry, more damage, more death. The ground is littered with Seraph wounded.

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Aside from the rather more depressing tone, you’ll also notice a renown heart quest near the entrance to this area. We had been here once before, but the higher levels made it far too difficult to explore at any length and it certainly made fighting stupidly complicated. Now is the time to explore and finish the renown heart quest. Head south, there are a lot of way-points to discover and all the added experience will come in handy. Avoid groups of enemies and work alongside other players if you want to keep an advantage and stop yourself from being killed.

The renown heart quest is easy enough, although it sounds rather complicated. Take med-kits and rescue as many fallen soldiers as you can. This is code for “forget the med-kit, just revive fallen soldiers and kill as many enemies as possible.” This’ll be slightly harder than previous renown heart quests, because the creatures are of a much higher level (and many of them can teleport, going completely invisible at random moments). As always, the bar stays filled if you die or leave, so don’t worry about making use of way-points if you get knocked down or if you need to repair your armor.

Once you’re finished with this renown heart quest – it’s a nice warm-up and will take about 15 minutes – I suggest you make your way to the green quest marker and prepare yourself for a little dead summoning.

Speaker of the Dead

The quest Speaker of the Dead will have you working with the priory in the hopes of summoning the spirit of the dead pirate thought to be somehow involved in the surge of Risen attacks. It’s not going to be an easy thing to get in touch with her, as opening the doors to the afterlife means that anything can get through. Once the ritual begins, you’ll have to fight your way through three or so waves of dangerous spirits. These things can easily knock you over and stop your attacks, so prepare yourself for the worst and time your moves carefully and you should be fine.

The first wave is made up of level 25s, the second is made up of levels 26s, rinse and repeat. Once you’ve got through the regular spirits, a Aatxe appears and this thing is going to make your life miserable. It’s not as difficult as the last Risen attack, but the Aatxe is quick and powerful. It can kill you in less than five moves under the right circumstance, so you’ll want to evade, evade, evade. Just hitting 1 and hoping the auto-attack takes care of him is not a great strategy.

Summon the Ghost of Alastia Crow

Finally the ghost appears and she reveales that the rough Seraph controlling the Risen is doing so with a cursed item. Worse, he believes the only way of getting rid of his curse is to “bathe in royal blood.” It’s time to make another choice: you have to join with one of the groups you’ve been working with over the last several weeks. Choose quickly: the Queen’s life depends on it.

A New Year for Guild Wars 2

2013 is going to be the year that Guild Wars 2 has to prove itself. Fans expect a lot from Guild Wars 2 in 2013. We’re going to need to see events that actually work, we’re going to want improved frame rate in cities (because there are times when it drops ridiculously) and we’re going to want to see to where the world might expand. There are some sPVP features already announced: we’re going to see custom arenas, improved stats, leader-boards, spectator modes and tournaments, all added within the first quarter of the year. With all this focus on that mode, it wouldn’t be surprising to see further announcements in that direction as we get into the new year, but I’m not going to presume anything.

In regards to the PvE mode, you can expect more and more large events. I can’t say that I reckon ArenaNet seem to have learnt their lesson after The Lost Shores disaster– there were still connection issues and frame rate problems in Guild Wars 2 when I played the Wintersday events, but at least they actually worked. They were hardly massively multiplayer events, and I think that’s where ArenaNet will want to put their focus in the coming months.

Christmas will naturally see a new set of players jumping into the game, and it’ll be interesting to see how well Guild Wars 2 does now that there are other big MMOs going to be ditching the subscription. With The Old Republic and The Secret World available at far cheaper prices, there may be some people jumping ship or deciding to wait for a decent deal on Guild Wars 2. Remember that next year will also see the release of The Elder Scrolls Online, which is bound to attract an awful lot of attention. ArenaNet will desperately need to do something to prove themselves in the run up to that release.

Guild Wars 2 : From 2012 to 2013

2012 has been good to Guild Wars 2, but it hasn’t been out long enough to give a real judgment to how successful it has been. It has done everything that it promised, and more, but with The Elder Scrolls Online to be released in the not so distant future, it’s difficult to see if that will last. For now though, we’ll continue enjoying what’s on offer, because nobody in there right mind would say that Guild Wars 2 isn’t a terrific game and perhaps the best MMO of 2012.

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