Lots of people warned me about this: starting the Prophecies campaign in Guild Wars is all pretty flowers and happy kids, and then suddenly you get dumped in post-Searing barren nastiness with bubbling tar pits and … brown. A lot of brown. Pale brown paths, darker brown slopes, mid-brown for most everything else, good only for spawning scorpion-like critters that pop out of the ground and try to chew your face off as you pass.
Nonetheless, the town part — New Ascalon I guess it is, as opposed to killed-by-brown Old Ascalon — has some pretty neat visual touches despite its brown-ness. I’m sure all this is deep lore but I haven’t got to that part yet — though again, every now and then I’ll come across some huge statue (see below) and read the associated lore. It’s fun.
Sometimes area decoration art doesn’t do a whole lot for me. These, on the other hand, I find quite evocative. Maybe I just like the art style.
In other news, the spousal unit started playing yesterday (BWAHAHAHA!). He’s still in the new game! new UI! head exploding! stage but fortunately that passes pretty quickly in GW. I’ll be interested to see what the game is like to play non-solo. Fun, hopefully, or I want my $40 back!
What you see here are murals of the Five Gods http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Five_Gods. The first is a mural of Grenth, god of death and Necros, the second is Dwayna, life and monks and all that. The guy with the big sword is Balthazar, god of war. The two lesbians represent Lyssa, the twin goddess of beauty and illusion. The next pic is one of the Ancient Dragons that will destroy the world, the final pic is the goddess of nature, Melandru.
You will see more of the ugly scorpion-like devourers. One Ascalonian has a devourer called Joe, and the Charr use the bigger ones to transport siege catapults.
I am sure you did not find the secret garden and Yakkington in the tutorial and maybe even did not take a trip to the Northlands. Told you that you should have waited for me! 😉 But I will show you some of my fully grown pets later on.
P.S. pets evolve in Guild Wars. Pets that take a lot damage but deal little (their effectiviness depends on your beast mastery skill in any case) become “hearty” pets, while the DD pets become “dire” pets.
They also grow physically noticeably larger. A giant wolf or moa bird is a sight to behold.
Real life is considerably “browner” than WoW, at any rate…
Yeah, I really like the GW art direction. I’m probably biased, though, since I’ve never liked a lot of saturation in the colors I look at… and I always fight saturation in the art that I do for my job. If I can dial the saturation back, I almost always will.
With a well-equipped pair of people (well-equipped meaning a broad array of skills, some good green weapons, and a good set of heroes), can do just about anything in the game. Maybe Slaver’s Exile (which I’ve never finished) would be beyond 2 people, or some of the other Elite dungeons (Domain of Anguish, Urgoz’s Warren, or The Deep). Still, a good pair of people can cover so much of the game.
Slaver’s Exile is H/H able both in nm and hm.
🙁 It still makes me sad that Urgoz et al aren’t, though I understand in principle why ANet made it UNPOSSIBLE (lol I love that unword) to bring henches there.
But yus, a good pair of people, or failing that, a decent hero setup and wise choice of henchies… can do almost anything.
I have a lot of memories of those old areas there so I suppose I favor them for nostalgic reasons. I still wish it was as pretty as presearing. One of these days I am going to make a character just for presearing.
Anyhow those pics make me remember I have been meaning to play for the last two weeks. I miss Guild Wars!
I’m personally not sure why people hate post sear as much as they do. While yes it is brown, i usually don’t get sick of it until i’m about ready to leave. Its like fallout 3, all gray all the time, but thats a great game. and there is a certain amount of awe from the damage wrought by the searing.
The brown is part of it Hunter, but I think part of it to is the frustration of the cotnrived scenario. I’m training to help out, becoming a hero, we’re ambushed (both the character and the player!), the screen goes black, and when it returns, we’ve been completely crushed. The battle of the century has come and went and I had no part in it. I guess in some sense it was good storytelling, because I was hella despressed over it and gave up the will to continue to adventure heroically lol.