Guild Wars 2 Diary #22: The Black Citadel

Now that we’ve come to terms with the changes made in the Flame and Frost: Prelude update, it’s probably time to move on with the story. Remember that achievements aren’t as they were before and that you’ll need to check the new part of the UI (or the achievements section of the Hero page) to find out what you’ll need to do to net that experience, and the new Laurels currency as well. If you haven’t yet finished helping out the refugees as part of the living story, be sure to head (or stay) towards the east and journey towards the Black Citadel. By the time you get there you shouldn’t be a million miles from filling the living story achievement bar.

The Black Citadel

The Black Citadel is another of Guild Wars 2’s cities and a place that long-time fans of the franchise might recognise as Rin from the original Guild Wars. Like Lion’s Arch and Divinity’s Reach, The Black Citadel is a massive, bustling metropolis with lots to see and lots to do. When you arrive for the first time, be sure to have a look around, activate any waypoints you might come across and try to reach any vistas for a boost of experience.

Guild Wars 2 Gameplay Video - Episode 22 [HD]

It’s a very mechanical looking city, complete with vehicles and cog-pavements. None of this will be a surprise to people who know The Black Citadel is the home of the Iron Legion, the legion behind the Engineer class. In both The Black Citadel and in the surrounding area, you’ll see a lot of engineers and events will largely have you working alongside them. If you’re interested in what the class can do, you should head in this direction.

Although there’s not a lot to do in the way of helping refugees, the paths leading to The Black Citadel will be coated with signs waiting to be rebuilt, dead/wounded refugees and fires to light. If you haven’t helped 75 refugees by the time you make it to the Citadel, turn around and head back. Before long the achievement will be yours.

Guild Wars 2 - Glitches and Errors

People aren’t entirely happy with some of the side effects of updating to Flame and Frost, and I thought it’d be worth mentioning that things might not be as perfect as they should be until Arenanet make another patch. That’s not to say the game is unplayable – it’s really not – but rather that some people who have been playing since release might find things they’re used to are now a little bit broken.

I can’t personally vouch for many of the complaints (although I’ve seen plenty of people complaining that the game is broken since the patch), although I have started getting a really annoying sound effect each time I kill an enemy. It’s a kind of low, rising drone sound. Stopping it only takes using your weapon, but it’s still pretty damn annoying.

If you have problems, be sure to head over to the official Guild Wars 2 forums and submit a bug report. Doing this will ensure a fix might be put in place over the next few weeks.

Running Dungeons

A few weeks ago (about the same time we joined the Vigil), I got a message about a dungeon to the far east. It’s the first time a dungeon had come up on my map, aside from during seasonal events, but it was too far east to be viable. I made a note of it, hoping to build a future episode around it, and moved on with the story. Remember, this was before we’d even really explored the Snowden Rifts, so it really was a long way off.

Well, thanks to the Living Story, we’d gotten close enough that I thought it might be worth continuing on and trying out this dungeon. Helping refugees, completing renown heart events and taking part in events along the way, I finally made it to the Ascalonian Catacombs.

The Catacombs are the current resting place of an army of deadly, angry ghosts. Once the human protectors of Ascalon, the Charr attacked the city. Rather than surrender his kingdom, the human king destroyed his magical ancient sword, condemning his soldiers to roam the earth after their death. Only the very brave or very stupid dare to enter into the Catacombs and with good reason. Unfortunately one explorer has ventured a little too far and become lost. You, and a group of friends, must fight off the ghosts and save the day.

All this information was given in a very nice cut scene (see the video) and I was ready for anything. Except I wasn’t. This dungeon is definitely something you need friends/allies for and it doesn’t scale based on how many people are playing. The most annoying thing is that I’m above the level needed to run the dungeon and I still found it ridiculously difficult. After dying a couple of times, I went and stood outside, hoping to find someone to play with. This wasn’t entirely successful. Most of the people waiting to run this dungeon were already part of a group, and putting together five random strangers turned out to take quite a while.

Then there was the language barrier. Very few people in this area were speaking English, whether they could understand me or not, and while that isn’t often a real problem in games like this, trying to organise anything became a hundred times worse. They couldn’t understand me, I couldn’t understand them; more than once the only member of my team would disappear after an attempt at conversation went badly.

The Ascalonian Catacombs are best done by a group of five. We had three and it was just enough to get by. A few of us would fall, but it didn’t take long for them to be helped back up. Things were going quite well, until one of the team quit and the game ended. I’m not sure if that’s the norm, I can’t imagine it is, but the group disbanded and we were forced to try again.

After another fifteen minutes trying to get together a party, I gave up. This is one to try again in future weeks.

Conclusion

After trying the dungeon, I started to travel towards the green objective marker to continue with the story. To do so would take me through an area designed for level 40-50 characters and it took only a few hits to get killed. As much as Anet wanted to play down the idea of grinding, it seems it’s the only option sometimes. For now we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place, and the only option seems to be a lucky run through a no-man’s-land of deadly critters.

Also see:

• Guild Wars 2 Giveaway

• Guild Wars 2 Diary - Previous Episodes