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The Daily Grind: What in-game project have you had hanging over your head?
For just the longest time, my personal story was uncompleted in Guild Wars 2. I'd hit the final mission which required a group run of Arah, and I never was able to find a group to run it. So the game continued to inform me that I had this step to go, that Trahearne was quite disappointed in me, and that I was a loser for ignoring it. I might've been reading into it a little. But anyway, the other night my guild did an Arah run for those of us who needed it and my personal story was finally finished. Having those in-game projects hanging over your head can be frustrating if you're unable to make progress. Do you have any of those going on right now? What in-game project do you wish you could finish up -- but can't seem to, for whatever reason? Every morning, the Massively bloggers probe the minds of their readers with deep, thought-provoking questions about that most serious of topics: massively online gaming. We crave your opinions, so grab your caffeinated beverage of choice and chime in on today's Daily Grind!
Flameseeker Chronicles: Guild Wars 2's living story and the Orrian menace
The cleansing of Orr has long been a popular source of speculation in the community, which is why I asked Colin Johanson about the possibility of it happening in the course of Guild Wars 2's living story when I interviewed him in July. Although I understood his reasoning, I was still disappointed by the answer: that it'd be very difficult to change Orr due to its intersection with the personal story but that in future chapters ArenaNet will do its best to make sure no areas end up locked in time. In a recent Q&A session, our own Richie Procopio asked ArenaNet president Mike O'Brien a similar question and got a somewhat different response. According to O'Brien, the studio's original intent was to steer away from content that could impact the personal story in the interest of simplicity; however, ArenaNet wants to make sure that nothing is off limits to the living story overall. I'm trying not to read too much into that, since it could just be a different way of phrasing what Johanson said, but given a little hope to cling to I'd like to discuss why it's so important that ArenaNet not establish any existing content as off-limits -- especially not Orr.
Flameseeker Chronicles: Guild Wars 2 election postmortem
We were young. We were trusting. We didn't understand the power we wielded. When the voting booths closed and the last ballots were cast, a dark portal yawned wide in Lion's Arch, unleashing the terrible titan version of candidate Ellen Kiel upon the unsuspecting Guild Wars 2 playerbase. ArenaNet didn't see fit to warn us of the true consequences of the Cutthroat Politics update, but at least we can take some comfort in the fact that Evon Gnashblade didn't win the election. He's got claws. And really pointy teeth. Fortunately, the citizens of Tyria have been distracted from their inevitable doom by the current Queen's Jubilee patch, which is showering us with loot in the manner of a quenching summer rain. I'm the kind of person who will happily farm for multiple hours if given the opportunity, but I'm going to try to drag my hollow eyes from the slaughter long enough to talk about how the previous living story chapter was a great experiment in evolving the world of GW2 -- and how it didn't quite hit the mark.
Flameseeker Chronicles: My Guild Wars 2 wishlist
Having hit level 80 on one character, finished the personal storyline, delved into dungeons, been handed my backside in PvP, conquered keeps in WvW, and run around like a chipmunk on crack with multiple alts, I feel that I am totally in a position to pass absolute judgment on Guild Wars 2. Well, I've at least had enough time to draw some firm opinions about the game. There are a lot of things I like, but there are also things I wish were different. This is by no means a conclusive list of those things. What are they? You'll never know unless you skip below the jump. Go on. You know you want to.
