This is my third attempt to form something readable since the last time I posted.
In the middle of last week, when Isle of Janthir was in their first T1 matchup ever, I wrote a little rant about how boring certain key tasks in WvW were, but why it was necessary to do them anyway – like supply running and defending (or at least leaving a scout in a tower or keep.)
- Pretty much all I was staring at the whole week.
Seeing as I could count the number of people doing abovementioned jobs in the map on one hand, me being one of them with only NPC guards to keep the dolyak and me company, I had a sudden attack of enlightened self-interest and decided not to report on the weaknesses of my server in an ongoing matchup – I was already getting steamrolled by an organized guild or two as it was, though now and then, a helpful militia member or two would wander by to assist in staving off the solo yak gankers.
I also rather enjoyed the delicious irony of my last post being one about if players had sufficient long term patience.
A week later, distance has made me largely indifferent. Halloween has been a good excuse to cut back on WvW time this week and go back to my PvE roots for a while. Probably a whole lot of IoJ folks are doing the same, if our current abysmal score versus Sea of Sorrows is anything to go by. I’m just going to wait it out and see if the organization improves the following week.
I was already burning out by voluntarily doing all the not-fun things last week (including putting a personal fortune into the supply camps to keep them upgraded, despite regular flipping and the lack of any structured, organized defence) and frustrated at the lack of visible support from the majority – who were far more keen to rush headlong into offensive charges, and usually wipe with insufficient siege, feeding the defending side points.
I only took time out to screen cap this extravagant insanity.
Long story short, there was a plan to build 10 golems to attack some place. Map crashed. All 10 golems lost. In a fit of high spirits (but not terribly wise tactical sense), someone contributed 20 golem blueprints and nearly everyone enthusiastically rushed to build them. (Using bay keep’s entire supply, mind you, which made me wince a little since I’d been the one shoving nearly every scrap of the 1300 supply in there, one dolyak at a time, and I’d have to begin all over again. But what the heck, it is sort of one of the reasons why we run supply, to provide a stockpile for offensive pushes, though it was no doubt serious overkill and most of the golems wiped after a keep and a tower or two.)
This week, it is officially Halloween break week for me. I’ve even essentially switched my guild channels off for a couple days by swapping into a personal guild. It’s been rather relaxing to roam around in normal-for-me MMO solo mode and immerse into the maps and the world.
I’d write about Halloween, but who hasn’t done the same things already? I’m enjoying sampling them all, the two PvP game modes, the clock tower, the Halloween events (when they aren’t broken, which ain’t saying much) and the Mad King specific maps. I’m relieved that the dungeon is both soloable and groupable, which is the perfect balance to strike, imo. It takes around 20-30 minutes for a level 80 to solo it, and 10-15 minutes in a group – which can accomodate lower levels. Fair enough.
I’d write about my thief alt, who has made it to level 42, exploring parts of the world I purposefully left blank on my Charr, so that my alts have new stuff to see. But I’m still trying to get to grips with him, the immense mobility and need for evasion and active mitigation in order to stay alive is quite different from the tanky self-healing blocking and reflecting guardian. Perhaps another post later.
I think what I’ll do is just leave you with some screenshots from the best bug ever in GW2. After doing the Mad King dungeon, you can zoom your camera back quite a bit more than usual.
I’d do more running around the world taking screenies, except I tend to crash out of memory after loading a zone without mininum settings alas. And on crashing and relogging, it gets set back to its normal view, which is like having horse blinders on.
Divinity’s Reach is on the to-do list, fer sure.
Why I Game 