GW2: Queen’s Jubilee – Opening Thoughts

Go #TeamKiel! We won!

Here’s looking forward to some delicious Thaumanova lore, and hopefully some fun developments in the Living Story with Kiel in a Council seat.

I’m open to seeing her continue to develop as a good-guy Robin Hood, with possible potential fall into bitter jadedness (think GW1 and Gwen) or conflict between priorities and obligations to Magnus or turn out to be an ebil sleeper agent who tricked us all and will become our nemesis. Or whatever.

Should be more interesting than mercantile minded Gnashblade anyway, he’ll work better as a bitter villain out for revenge.

I did, however, get majorly spooked on first seeing Stay Puff Ellen. Egads, those scarlet eyes.

I had to cozy up to her and check carefully once more. Nope, still blue. (Unless those are contacts. *twitch*)

I backed you too. Just sayin’. That’s some 795+ mouse clicks, 1590+ votes, and 8 gold if I vendored them post-patch instead… Be nice if you at least said “thank you.”

Then it was onto the Queen’s Jubilee and Divinity’s Reach.

First glimpse of a balloon was glorious. I left the reset graphics settings at crash-prone and lucked into one that was being attacked by an Aetherblade airship. Talk about visible from afar. Superb!

This was, of course, required screenshotting. Lovely eagle dome.

I quite enjoyed the storytelling of the Opening Ceremony instance. I think they’re getting better at it, with good pacing, some character development and dialogue moments, mixed in with the requisite action. And in an instance, one has the privacy to immerse into the world and roleplay a little.

Don’t mind me. I’m just the unofficial representative. No Legion affiliation whatsoever. I’m, er, her bodyguard. Yes. That’s it. Like that baby devourer over there. *chirp*

Same ol’ Faren. Still failing to pick up ladies with extended exposition.

And here we go… Battle time.

We got a glimpse of a suspicious “pillar person,” enough to see that she’s wearing scarlet and looks like a dark elf (er, Sylvari.)

Scarlet? Is dat you?

Looking forward to more story developments in the coming weeks.

As for the other stuff I tried out, the Torchbearer activity was quite fun.

Just difficult enough to make the first try at it potentially not succeed, but a few (meaning 1-3) subsequent tries would generally get you the achievement. Talking to the priests to get the city speed boost helps, and equalizes the playing field, since my guardian is pretty darned slow otherwise. It wasn’t insanely frustrating or rage-inducing, which is good when it’s classified as a seasonal kind of achievement and lumped in with the Queen’s Jubilee. Something casuals can do in a play session quite easily, I think.

Crown Pavilion group arena… what can I say?

I don’t know why I bothered to blur out the names. We’re all looking at the right side of the screen at the loot, anyway. It’s just pouring in.

It’s really hard to criticize a loot pinata.

Goodness knows what’s going to happen to the economy and if there’s going to be runaway inflation as a result of the next month, but I’m not complaining. Southsun Instigators, part deux?

Yes, please.

I am totally getting my money’s worth out of my magic find exotics/ascended, even if the subsequent patch will revise it like how they’ve throttled goldfind this patch.

I’ll just quirk an ironic eyebrow at the supposed anti-zerg mechanics.

On one hand, it doesn’t seem like it’s working. Players are throwing an immense number of bodies at it and pretty much overwhelming it through spamming 1 and all the natural buff/debuff of classes working in sync and having sufficient critical mass to rez each other and deal enough damage via autoattacks.

On the other hand, it wouldn’t nearly be as fun if it involved massive group coordination. (I still remember City of Heroes’ Incarnate Trials with ZERO fondness for the necessity of herding 12-24 players through even basic boss mechanics.)

And there are places where one sorta kinda has to read the red circles and stay out of them, or suffer a debuff (of birds) and have to dodge to get rid of them, or not stand in the lava font or die, which basically do knock out parts of the zerg who aren’t paying attention.

Some attacks are more telegraphed than others, though. (Like that centaur barrage, it’s way OP, there’s barely any time to dodge out of that hail of arrows.)

As for the improved particle effects clarity in crowds… er, yeah. If the boss has any special animations, I’m definitely not seeing it. You can blame my toaster. No probs. Anyone want to donate to the “Get Spikey Charr a Toaster Belonging to This Decade” fund?

Whatever.

Still not complaining.

When yellow rares pop with good frequency and greens and blues fall out of the sky, plus new champion loot bags and seasonal watchwork tokens, and it just takes pressing 1 and moving around with a modicum of attention to hoover it all in, even the most staunchly antisocial person will make an exception once in a while.

If Gnashblade bribed like this, even I would happily go over to the dark side.

If it helps, I saw repeated statements over mapchat that a number of players were really enjoying this and having a GREAT time, and just going by the crowds, it’s pretty obvious it’s very popular. Just goes to show what a majority of players really like, huh? Easy fun.