My time with Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns release

Traditionally, one enters the expansion of an MMO with a number of thoughts.  There is a sense of anticipation regarding the new content available to experience; a drive to explore the new environments and discover rare treasures and Easter eggs; a determination to take on the new challenges before you and continue to forge a story of your character amongst other things that make an MMO special.  That being said, my time with expansions in the past has kind of been marred by the feeling of a need to ‘rush’ through the content so you can remain on par with the overall progression.  Whether it be rushing to max level so you can start gearing up for the end-game raid, or practising with your new skills to stay competitive in the new pvp season, for many players a lot of the content will fly past them swept up in xp numbers and the occasional ‘ding’.  Over the past few years, this concept has become less and less appealing to me, so to have Guild Wars 2s new expansion Heart of Thorns not following this convention with no level or gear cap increase has renewed my interest in playing through such content.  Now I've had a couple weeks with Heart of Thorns, I would say that it has been a thoroughly enjoyable one that I'm looking forward to its continued progress.  

The new character select screen has a nice UI fade-out showing off your character and the jungle motif.  Screenshot taken 22/11/2015

Heart of Thorns takes off from where Season 2 of the Living Story left us with The Pact in tatters after the attack by Mordremoth which tore the airships from the sky and sent Sylvari into an internal conflict as the jungle dragon twisted their thoughts.  The Pact Commander (the player character) is charged with picking up the pieces of The Pact while leading a small band of adventurers (more commonly known as Destiny’s Edge 2.0) to bring an end to Mordremoth; something which requires a great deal of exploration and information gathering.  

The story in this expansion has evolved from the game's initial release in 2012, removing the side-by-side dialogue cut-scenes and replacing them with in-game NPC conversations which feature in a mix of both open world and story mission instances; making the conversations feel a lot better in terms of context as well as getting the player character to voice / emote their thoughts to groups of people.  It is clear that these story missions have also learnt from the previous Living Story seasons with the addition of movement / vehicle mechanics (see the Zephyrites for such an example) but where it has added its own new feature is through the integration of the mastery system added in Heart of Thorns.  

The vines of Mordremoth cracking the stone it falls upon, show-casing the power of the expansion's main antagonist.  Image from Guild Wars 2, Heart of Thorns release trailer via YouTube.  Accessed 23/11/2015

As I mentioned earlier, Heart of Thorns doesn’t have any level cap increase which may spark the question “what character progression is there to be had?”  Masteries is what answers this through an alternative levelling system that looks to level environmental skills to aid one’s journey through the Maguuma Jungle.  For example, one can learn how to use a glider to assist in getting around the map in short bursts.  As you put more mastery points into this skill (a currency obtained by completing HoT objectives / achievements) you learn how to use up-drafts to gain height, stealth techniques to stop enemies knocking you out of the sky, and leans to become more efficient.  On the surface, this doesn't really do much, but in depth it gives the player a great experience of the map much like a metroid-vania; where you find a canyon you can’t cross at first but with that one skill improvement you find a way to reach the other side.  For me this was experienced early on in my playtime when I didn’t have access to the jumping mushroom skill (Itzal mastery).  There was an event involving the recovery of wyvern eggs from a plateau that took some 30-60 seconds to climb normally, but with this mastery I was able to reach the top in 10 seconds, allowing me to have a much greater contribution for the event.  I feel it's a rather clever way to extend the playtime of maps, because you can’t just rush through it 100%’ing everything without taking time to learn the new skills.  As I mentioned previously, I was one to rush through to end-game in previous MMos but my time in HoT hasn't felt rushed and in turn i’m taking note of more of the landscape, its characters and events.  

Flying high in the canopy showcases how much space is in the map.  Draw-distance aside, it's pretty big.  Screenshot taken 22/11/2015

Another thing I'm loving about these maps is the verticality they hold reinforcing the importance of these new masteries and depth of the playable space.  Before the expansion launched, there was a lot of talk about how each map would have 3 levels of interaction (Roots, Jungle and Canopy) and although each level doesn’t constitute a full map, it does add some interesting dynamics to the game-play.  The first map of the expansion (Verdant Brink) has you fighting in the jungle during the day, but when night falls you find yourself up in the canopy battling with one of the zone’s boss battles using your newly honed gliding skills to stop you meeting an untimely end below.  Although I have thoroughly enjoyed playing through this content there is something that has marred my experience being performance issues when interacting with large groups of players.  Having 15fps when trying to dodge a large fire breath attack from a rampaging Wyvern Matriarch creates its own unique challenge, but it is definitely one that I would like to not contend with.  This of course wouldn’t be an issue once I get my new PC built, but for now if you’re someone who has a low-performance PC you will probably find yourself sticking to the small form content such as the story and adventures.  

This boss event requires the players to glide off and throw eggs at it to make the ground safe and continue the fight.  Screenshot taken 22/11/2015

This is not to say that you’ll have a worse experience because one of the things i’m loving about HoT is its range of content available.  Adventures have been a great deal of fun for their ability to add small parts of competitive events without the taxing performance above.  These challenges are dotted around the map (usually correlating to a nearby outpost which may have conventional events tied to it) and task the player with racing/fighting/flying/etc their way to achieve a gold, silver or bronze reward.  These adventures also have leader-boards on them, which allow for players to hone their skills and look to get on the top of the leader-board for all to survey, which personally has been a task that I usually come mid/high in the rankings.  The adventures also have a nice connection with the mastery system, as many challenges are easier to achieve higher scores through the use of said skills e.g. Tendril Torchers has a mesa which one can access via a jumping mushroom, allowing you to clear a large number of tendrils that otherwise wouldn’t be accessible.  

Alongside Adventures, finding hidden mastery points adds to the enjoyment of exploration.  Screenshot taken 22/11/2015

As you can probably tell by this post, I am very much enjoying my time in HoT, but if you’re from a traditional MMo point of view, you maybe thinking that not having a level/gear cap increase somewhat diminishes the experience of an expansion.  This of course can be an issue but I feel that HoT has created an enjoyable combat loop with enough customisability to keep it fresh.  Since entering the HoT maps, I have tried a number of builds on my trusty engineer ranging from heavy damage condition builds to the more supportive boon / healing builds which have been relevant to keep some of the my more ‘glassy’ companions alive.  New stat combinations in gear have helped in making these builds more viable, but the addition of the specialisations have added a new interesting dynamic to my favourite profession in the name of the ‘scraper’.  This build gives the engineer a proper melee weapon (tool kit has been around but i’m classing it as a skill in this context) in the Hammer alongside an array of mobile drones to assist you in combat.  Like with many players, I went for my specialisation straight away to give it a try and found myself getting a lot of fun out of the build with its mixture of CC and combo fields, but in the long run I think I would need to properly invest in a gear setup to get the most out of it.  

Engaging with other specialisations has been a mixed bag of feelings between co-operation (pve) and competition (pvp).  I love how different weapon types like shields, torches, warhorns have these interesting skills such as the Chronomancer with their shield; but the learning process to properly know how to act on these skills has been a bit annoying especially due to my low performance set-up.  To give you an example, the Chronomancer elite skill ‘Gravity Well’ is a large aoe that causes float, pull and knock-down but due to my graphic settings and culling I get a very faint outline of this skill, if anything.  I also have a similar experience with the Dragonhunter skill “Hunter’s Ward’ because the barrier won’t show up on my screen, so naturally I knock into the barrier and potentially not get off that life saving elixir throw (speaking from personal experience in spvp).  Naturally, this will improve when my hardware improves, but i’m in that awkward space of not sure whether the range of skill effects correlate with a reasonable means of educating yourself to act upon it.  

A check-list with little hints to the next objective makes achievement hunting fun in-game rather than a chore.  Screenshot taken 23/11/2015

The last thing I wanted to talk about was something that on the surface is really minor, but I absolutely love as an explorer / achiever.  In the past, if you had an achievement with multiple tasks to hand (e.g. coin collection in Dry Top or the Dive Master) you had little means to know which ones you were missing outside of external guides.  In HoT, they have now put in a proper list system for these achievements so it's much easier to have a in-game / world means to discover and explore.  When I first came back to Guild Wars 2, I wrote about this explorer nature and how it really gets me involved in the world, so having this information available to me keeps me from alt-tabbing to Dulfy and just following a guide (not that it's a bad thing I just personally prefer the current setup).  

The Scrapper with his drones give Engineers a new way to play.  Image from https://www.guildwars2.com accessed 23/11/2015

Overall, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in HoT as an experience continuing my enjoyment of the world of Guild Wars 2 and the MMo as a genre.  Having a expansion that doesn’t right off your achievements of the past couple years as well as giving you new challenges to go up against seems so logical that looking back at the WoW/Rift expansions makes them look ‘old-fashioned’.  A level cap increase feels arbitrary and now i’m enjoying the maps because I like being there, not because I need the xp to get to the next place.  This expansion respects your time whether you want to spend 30 minutes a day doing a couple events or power game your way through a 10 hour binge in meta events and raiding; which is something I hope stays relevant in the months to come.  Whether you’ve played many MMos or completely new to the genre, I think this game and its recent expansion Heart of Thorns is a great game to get involved in and experience what it has to offer.  

Lion’s Arch Rebuilt, Guild Wars 2

Last month, I discussed my thoughts on the redevelopment of Lion’s Arch as it stood in an awkward state of ruins and fortifications awaiting a shiny new look via the in-game organisation called “The Consortium”.  One month on and we able to see how those pieces of scaffolding and concept drawings have to come to life alongside a significant change to gameplay via the implementation of the specialisation system and build creator.  As a quick note, I very much like this system (even if I was a little confused at first) and have been trying out some builds I haven’t touched in quite some time. 

The Asuran Gateways have a new plaza for players to look and interact with.  Screenshot taken 28/6/2015

Anyway, onto talking about the rebuild.

The harbor features a large sculpture of a lobster/ shellfish much like other important landmarks in LA.  Screenshot taken 28/6/2015 

Lion’s Arch new look is something that holds a great deal of aesthetical beauty and strength while maintaining its impression as a maritime-focused settlement.  It has a collection of aquatic-themed sculptures defining each section of the city such as trade skills, banks and harbour that use a combination of polished white stone and jade-like glass with minor details adorned with gems e.g. the squid’s eyes by the banker across from the mystic forge.  The residents have a nice mixture of timber framed lodges and stone-clad houses which fit nicely into the maritime feeling in particular with some of the timber buildings being built from a ship’s hull (or at least designed to look like it was).  The fortress gives the impression of a formidable position as it continues the stone masonry creating high walls punctuated by a collection of canons finished in metal and gold that tie into the Lion’s Guard regalia which gives credence to one NPC’s line saying that “Lion’s Arch is the safest place to be these days”.  Outside of this, a tall lighthouse sits on the edge of the city as its bold rays of light circle around its central point giving the people of LA a means to help those looking to dock and be more aware than ever when a threat is upon them.  Overall, it is a significant increase in size and bulk that is somewhat different to how I believe it would work out. 

A combination of wood and stone give LA a particular feeling.  Screenshot taken 28/6/2015

LA being this ‘pirate state’ originally fit into its aesthetic with a selection of shacks, wooden structures and makeshift architecture from boats alongside a bazaar-like trade district.  This is why in my earlier post, I wished for a North-African souk/bazaar feeling as I feel it would instil a feeling of business and life into the area.  That’s not to say that the current trade district doesn’t have the potential to be loud under its glass sea-life canopy, I just hope that place gets to be a bit chaotic from time to time; with NPCs peddling their goods and players running around achieving their goals for the day.  This follows into my thoughts about the landscape of the main areas in LA which feature an ordered array of houses and offices against a white stone formation.  This place to me feels like it’s been ‘colonized’ akin to the British Empire days where places like the West Indies would have their ports and architecture heavily influenced by their ruler’s design.  Although at first I was on the fence about the look, I feel that it does make sense when one considers the story, as LA has become a place that has seen its fair share of conflict and an external organisation (Consortium) has paid for its reconstruction.  So, by welcoming our new overlords, I’d like to talk about what I enjoy about the new LA. 

The spaces feel properly landscaped making open spaces feel relevant against the urban feel.  Screenshot taken 28/6/2015

Lion’s Arch is a lovely piece of landscaping which looks to create a good mix of tall structures, residential blocks, green spaces and artistic sculptures that all fit into the overall aesthetic.  It does a great job of bringing together an urban environment within a rural setting which the racial cities haven’t really experimented with to this degree.  I believe it’s something that is very much similar when we look at the development of town planning in the 20^th century with Garden Cities and New Towns. 

The Garden City and its concept of urban living in a rural environment.  Image from http://www.morrissociety.org/ accessed 29/6/2015

Ebenezer Howard’s vision for a Garden city was created towards the end of the Victorian age where the desire for industrialisation was closely followed by the increase of designated parkland and green-spaces as concepts like ‘jogging for pleasure / fitness’ started to become more apparent.  The idea of having factories fitting into a backdrop of rolling fields and wooded areas was commonly seen in concept work, finding its way into a couple real world examples with Letchworth and Welwyn in the late 1800s / early 1900s in England.  Garden Cities found a new lease of life after the Second World War due to the creation of New Towns with my home town, Harlow, being developed from 1947 onwards.  The ability for services, shops, residential blocks and communal spaces of an urban design being wrapped in a mixture of green verges, fields and forests is something I’ve greatly appreciated during my time living in this environment.  The fact that I can sit in the town centre and see 2 wooded areas, rolling hills and horses trotting around a field is something I’ve rarely experience elsewhere when it comes to a town and / or city.  Taking some time to review the new specialisation system made me have a similar feeling sitting on a landscaped piece of grass with a tall urban city present around me. 

(Right) Harlow Town centre (Left) green hills and woods.  Image from Google maps c.October 2014.  Image accessed 29/6/2015

Overall, I would say I’m happy with the design of the new Lion’s Arch.  It fits into the new identity of the city and it’s created some nice new vistas (visually not mechanically) which make for some lovely screenshots.  That being said, I still would like to see a bit more NPC life being brought into the place which potentially could be solved with some living world updates or short-term celebrations being held in LA. 

A spot to watch the world go past while I figure out my new engineer build.  Screenshot taken 28/6/2015

As a rough end-point, I’d say the patch is pretty cool and the Karka exterminate collection has created a nice incentive for people to explore the new city while gaining a very useful item in return.  If you’ve played GW2 in the past, it’s a pretty cool time to return.  

Retrospective RTS: Warzone 2100

So another week has passed and I have found myself without a time period to play Starbound for the purpose of this blog.  For you see, I usually look do organise content for this blog over the weekend ready for Monday, but this weekend I found myself blindsided by a hangover from not a great deal of beer which probably shows how long it’s been since I've ‘properly’ drank.  Just like with anything, it’s all good then one time it’s just awful =/.

Anyway, enough about that because I would like to talk about something I have been doing this past week and that’s playing the campaign of an old RTS game called Warzone 2100. 

RTS games have always been a staple of my gaming interests with titles such as Warcraft, Command and Conquer and Total Annihilation.  When I only had a PSX thou, there were only a few titles I could play outside of going to a friend’s house to use their PC but I battled through the awkward controls to find some great titles.  It was on that old PSX I first encountered Command and Conquer as well as its follow-up Red Alert, but one month there was a demo in the Official PlayStation Magazine for a little game called Warzone 2100 that kept me playing way beyond its perceived time-length.  Warzone 2100 was special to me because of what it did.  It had this expansive tech tree I had only previously encountered in a game like Civilisation and a highly customisable set of tanks using a relativity simple body/propulsion/turret manufacturing tool giving me the ability to make lots of different kinds of vehicles of offensive and defensive properties.  Around this time in my life, I had a large number of constructional toys like K’nex and Lego in which I would make custom objects like cars and bipedal robots so it’s natural to see how I could be enthralled by a system such as this. 

Warzone 2100 features a mix of vehicles, cyborgs, VTOL and Hovercrafts alongside a whole host of structures.  Screenshot taken 13/4/2015

Warzone 2100 originally came out in 1999/2000 depending on where you lived, but for me it wasn't until a couple years later when I had a PC to use myself and a good friend who let me borrow it over a period of a couple weeks.  This was a great time for me, because I got to see how far the customisation went and experienced things like VTOL crafts and cyborg manufacturing plants filling my mind with even more possibilities.  I would play skirmishes just to build lots of different kinds of vehicles and compare them to each other not really thinking about the AI or what affect my decisions made on the battlefield.  RTS’s like Command and Conquer were always great, but Warzone 2100 just had this unique selling point (to the best of my knowledge) where I feel the only thing that gets close is the wide range of units a game like Total Annihilation has (and continues to create via community support).  That being said, after my two weeks of playing I had greatly enjoyed my time doing this one thing but it would be many years until I saw this game again. 

The start of Alpha mission 1 starts the player on a small map where they progress throughout the initial campaign.  screenshot taken 5/5/2015

I originally found out about the wz2100 project during my time at university in the year 2009.  I had been discussing old games with a housemate and I could not for the life of me remember the name of this game.  I knew of its customisable tanks and nuclear war scenario but the name had completely eluded me.  Out of some sheer determination (or luck) I found out what it was from random YouTube video watching and quickly found out that it was still being updated as an open source program.  Since this day, I have played it ever so often (a bit like DK2 in reference to this post) but only recently have I actually played the campaign which has allowed me to have a new appreciation for this title. 

A couple missions later, the base has grow from your own construction and the map has greatly increased.  Screenshot taken 5/5/2015

In your typical RTS campaign, you will have a mission that features a map and you carry out the objectives in an appropriate manner to reach the end goal.  After doing this, you will most likely move onto a new map with new objectives and only have a rare chance to return to the previous map (e.g. early CnC Red Alert Allies missions).  What Warzone 2100 does is that during each of its main campaigns, it has a core map which gets built upon with the addition of ‘away missions’ to bring in a new map ever so often.  The core map keeps all your buildings, units and defensive structures where they were even in away missions where your base continues to manufacture vehicles, generate resources and gather research.  When you start the campaign you have a relativity small map of a few valleys and a single clear movement path, but by the 9th mission the map is around 4 times bigger where you've built multiple outposts across the zone signalling past victories.  It also keeps these earlier sections relevant, as in later missions the enemy retaliates with unit drops across the map requiring the player to bolster their previous defenses or position units accordingly. 

The manufacturing features a 3 point design with many different combinations.  Screenshot taken 5/5/2015

The away missions create an interesting twist on the ‘no base’ mission type with the addition of a transport that can carry up to 10 units every couple minutes to the away mission spot.  Add on top of this the continuation of production while away and you can (in a simple format in comparison to modern titles such as Planetary Annihilation) management 2 maps at the same time which I find thoroughly enjoyable.  In these missions, you don’t just grab a load of turreted vehicles, but mix in a building truck, commander node or repair tool to give your LZ a defensible position and increase your map awareness with sensory towers.  I've never been too keen on ‘no base’ missions in titles like CnC, but this feels great for the setting because it keeps that link of my available resources while still requiring me to make decisions regarding my troop movement. 

Starting off in a away mission, the LZ is being protected while the units scour the nearby landscape.  Screenshot taken 5/52015

So, in a rough assessment that’s what my previous week has come up with.  Warzone 2100 will always hold a positive memory for me and going back to playing it again recently has showed me how much a game such as this still has to offer to the player.  Of course, the great work of the wz2100 project has allowed this game to continue working with updates but I hope that in the future we can see a modern interpretation of this game.  Maybe we already have in some light (I kinda gave reference to Planetary Annihilation earlier) which if you know of please comment, but I just don’t feel I've all its components come together quite like it.  

My Modern Gaming Architecture: The Black Citadel

During last week’s retrospective on my influences from gaming as a child, I made reference to a piece of design that encapsulates my interests in the industrial aesthetic and engineered feel in the Form of the Black Citadel.  Today I want to try and describe what I think makes this special to me but first, a little context to its existence…

The Black Citadel is the main city for a bestial race called the Charr within the Guild Wars series.  The site in question originally played host to a large Human nation called Ascalon, which protected itself against the Charr through the construction of a large wall amongst other things.  It was an ongoing battle, but the Charr used a great power to cause great amounts of devastation to the land which became known as the Searing.  Over time, the Charr moved into the lands and construction of the Black Citadel started over the ruined remains of Rin, becoming the main post for the Iron Legion (one of 4 recognised Legion with the others being Ash, Blood and the opposing Fire).  In Guild Wars 2, players get to visit the Black Citadel as one of 5 racial cities and one neutral city where all are available to explore its contents. 

To come at the Citadel from a broad point, it’s mass of being this vast piece of connected metal and ongoing mechanical sound perfectly encapsulates the Iron Legion’s ethos of engineering, weaponry and pragmatic thinking while having a certain sense of beauty in the finer details.  It is my belief that pure function construction finds ways to create art through it just working; a little bit like Victorian age railway archways or similarly-aged greenhouses showcasing an aspiration to let people know it can be done.  You could imagine the Charr being proud of this structure, but due to their nature it may be to it being a continual reminder of victory over a previous enemy. 

Here are some words on specific parts of the Citadel that I find great. 

The Core

The Black Citadel and its main core looking from the Lion's Arch Portal.  Screenshot taken 30/03/2015

 As I looked to get setup to take these screenshots, I had to take my character from Lion’s Arch (the neutral city) to the Citadel via a portal.  This meant that my entrance to the Citadel was not via the conventional front gates that sit lower down on the ground but a higher side-entrance that roughly sits in the middle in terms of height.  Regardless of view, it presents you with a massive core that combines many sheets of metal to create a sphere that dominates the landscape.  Its exterior which creates this look is a suspended form that comes from a mass of supports that are dimly illuminated by the afternoon sunlight and torch-poles, giving it an almost golden look in the reflection.  This very much reminds me of visit the Eiffel Tower in Paris during my first year university trip, where during the late evening I stood underneath the tower looking up through the structure.  Due to lighting, the tower appeared orange in colour giving it an odd glow that I thought was brilliant. 

The exposed structure that keeps the shell of the core in place.  Screenshot taken 30/03/2015

 Going back to the core itself, the look of it makes me think of two particular things.  Firstly (and more relevant to my thoughts) it makes me think of and jet engine or similar rotary device that has been put into an explode view while it’s been stopped in time.  The Citadel features quite a few fans, propellers and doors that rotate in a similar fashion so it all fits into the aesthetic of an industrial feel.  The other image I get from this structure is that of astronomy as the orange pod-like blips in this context could represent planets revolving around a central being like a sun.  Although I do see this, I personally don’t feel much connection with the general aesthetic. 

Beneath the Eiffel Tower at night presents a similar feeling to the framework in the Black Citadel.  Photo taken 02/2009

The Bane / Ruins

The ruins being overlooked by the ever present Charr stronghold.  Screenshot taken 30/03/2015

To the rear of the Citadel the player is able to interact with areas that look to transition the space between the older Human ruins and ever-present Charr settlement.  The more obvious place for this are the ruins of Rin that around the west / south-west reaches of the Black Citadel on the much lower ground level.  A player interacting with this space will most likely come for the couple vistas and Points-of-Interest for map completion, but in their haste they may end up missing the vast contrast that the ruins sit in.  The small collection of upright sections of tower and crumbling walls are all but overwhelmed by the ever-present core and smog that looks to surround it like some kind of aura.  This example encapsulates the contrast between the ‘old’ and ‘new’, but where I feel it’s done even better is with the gladiatorial arena called the Bane. 

The Bane arena built without concern to the present ruins of their previous enemy.  Screenshot taken 30/03/2015

The Bane sits at the bottom of the main core of the Citadel in which fights between Charr (primarily Gladiums) are fought in an arena beneath an audience.  What makes this great is that the arena’s circle is interrupted by a ruined structure which was incorporated into the design rather than demolishing it.  It reinforces that feeling of victory as mentioned previous, but in this context could also refer a reminder of an ongoing battle with the Ascalonian ghost that continue to siege the land. 

The Forge

A melting pot of scrap and ingenuity that defines this place.  Screenshot taken 30/03/2015 

I wanted to end on this piece because the sheer scale of it continues to present the Citadel as this mass of industrial achievement.  The southern section of the Citadel is primarily a massive metal forge in which the player looks down from a high up viewing point and fly-over vista when activated.  This forge is not designed as much as formed together; with a vast amount of scrap metal littering the ground being instructed by a colossal metal crane that forms the material anew into the ever-increasing armour of the Citadel.  It’s an organised mess that keeps the cogs turning and machinery turning so that it remains the most prominent feature on the map to anyone who may gaze upon it. 

Last week I was able to see potentially how much my time with video games had influence my interests as an adult in terms of architecture.  Today, I wanted to see where my current gaming time fitted into this and whether my thoughts had changed in any specific way.  Naturally, I would say that I’m more aware of it these days and as such may be reading more into the subject than I would of normally.  That being said, I feel that what makes the Black Citadel a great piece of architecture in my eyes is that industrial, mechanical feel that features heavily in my younger days of gaming and its much lower textured brethren.  What I feel sets this piece part is the factor of context; with its ability to incorporate many years of lore so that its narrative comes alive amongst its aesthetics to create more than just a place in the Guild Wars 2 world.  As mentioned last week, a field is a field but the story creates architecture.  


*If you would like to know more about the Lore surrounding the history I briefly mentioned, please watch this Lore video by Wooden Potatoes: Guild Wars 2 Lore: The Fall of Ascalon

Player Housing in the Video Game World: What does it mean to dwell?

One of the subjects that often come up around the subject of MMOs is that of the potential for player housing to enhance the experience of being immersed in a world different to our own.  There are those who have implemented such a system in the past (Star Wars Galaxies being a prominent one) alongside more recent results of Rift, Wildstar and WoW to the point where games like Everquest Next is making it a pillar of its design through Landmark.  These examples present a mixture of in-world structures and instanced-off dwellings, but they all present a ‘this is my mark in the world’ feeling that players get a lot of enjoyment out of. 

So we come to me, a person who likes to read into the subject of housing and what does it mean to dwell to which you would think I’m very much for the creation of player housing as much as possible.  My experiences of this are mixed, but generally I feel that they have a certain something missing from them that a static location can’t create which I hope to discuss in these paragraphs. 

Many of the examples I’ve presented above create a player housing situation through the use of an instanced area where the owner can invite people into to share their digital home from home.  These houses may have a colour scheme reflected of the player’s aesthetic choice, unique items showcasing their participation in the game or various NPCs that they’ve interacted with in a related storyline.  Other examples like WoW’s Garrison or the current GW2 home instance (pre-expansion as of today) have resources that can be obtained on a timed basis, giving players the potential to open up their instance for a trade-like experience with others.  For me, these examples create a vernacular feeling to their implementation, where the dwellings only have superficial changes while the personal stamp of housing isn’t truly presented. 

The other option of in-world creation seems a bit more true to life, in that various empty spaces in the world are set aside to create player housing naturally so that over time these spaces can grow like traditional towns and cities.  Although I didn’t play it personally, friends of mine who did always talk of a living town in SWG where craftsmen set up shops and people hung out together.  Creating something out of nothing in this sense has popularise older titles like Sim-City and more modern examples like Minecraft; where the player (whether alone or with friends) start with an ever-expansive horizon and form a vast city out of it creating stories as they go.  That being said, one could argue that the goal of player housing (in that to create a sense of location and togetherness in the world with others) is attained not through the bricks and mortar of their walls, but of the act of coming together to create an event where a group of similarly minded people work to achieve a goal. 

 

To put this viewpoint into perspective, I would like to present the concept of a field.  A field can be as basic as a piece of lawn in a non-descript place, or it can be a lush patch of land in amongst a landscape of forests and such other natural occurrences.  By its own accord, it doesn’t constitute a dwelling, but it has the potential to become something through people interacting with the space.  So, by a group of people coming together to have a picnic on the field, they are now creating a temporary dwelling to settle at so that they can enjoy a picnic.  Towels are placed onto the grass and hampers are produce bearing a selection of sandwiches, cake and drink while others have brought chairs to sit on.  While the adults do this, a group of children play around the edge of the field, maybe climbing up the nearby trees until their parents call them to the towel and enjoy some food and drink.  This field, for the people having a picnic, is now architecture as a place in which people have created an event from for the couple of hours they stay at the field. 

It’s by this view I feel that the concept of player housing can be represented in a way that keeps the spirit of the notion while exploring the physical manifestations of it in game.  Guilds meeting to participate in a raid against a mutual foe, friends exploring the environment and finding some hidden area together or players meeting in an area at a specific time to morph into bunny’s and confuse the regular player-base; these all potentially create architecture through a place being given narrative.  Player housing naturally has the potential to also do these sorts of things while also giving the player a means to put themselves on the digital map so-to-speak, but I feel there’s much to discuss about what we enjoy about the housing and how much of it is built around its bricks and mortar.  

The Joy of Exploration: Coins, Badges and a Jumping Puzzle Drydock Scratch

This is somewhat becoming a running theme with me where I plan to write on the Monday and don’t get to it until Friday, but having IRL commitments does put a spanner in the works unfortunately.  I had planned to write something a couple days ago on my next topic, but I didn’t want to jus rush it out and not give it a proper post.  Because of this, I want to take a little bit of time talking about an early morning playing Guild Wars 2 last Tuesday. 

As I have mentioned in the past, one of the biggest draws for me in MMO games (as well as single player games) is the feeling of exploration when going into new games or pieces of content.  It’s a factor that can potentially save a game with mechanics that I’m not fond of or that I have great difficulty with.  Finding out “What’s around the next corner?” or “What’s over the next hill?” ties into that natural curiosity which can come from both physical actions and in-game.  As it may come across, I’m quite the curious person and as such would like to travel the world, experience other cultures and learn new languages; so on a similar level when I find myself finding a large cavernous area I never knew existed in GW2 I want to just forget my previous intentions and explore. 

This area in question features in the Silverwastes (one of the new maps brought out during living story season 2) where after clearing a skritt camp taken over by bandits, I find myself under the map with a large ship precariously positioned over a dark void of nothingness.  This area signalled the start of the “Drydock Scratch” jumping puzzle.  

For those who aren’t aware of, a jumping puzzle is a platforming mystery that tasks the player with reaching an end chest through a series jumps, leaps and logic solving through item collection.  These puzzles can vary in size, from single structures like “Under New Management” to multi-staged monoliths like “Hidden Garden” and can sometimes have a polarising view from players due to the potential pitfalls and lengthy retries.  I for one love these puzzles, so being met with this challenge even in the early hours of Tuesday evening / Wednesday morning pushed sleep to one side as I took in my surroundings.

Progress for this puzzle started off slow, seeing a number of potential places to go and a cavalcade of golden badges littering the surrounding area giving me a mixture of confusion and intrigue.  This mixture of feelings kept with me as a chose a path and started to encounter large rock formations, more badges and milestones which somewhat informed me that I was going in the right direction; even thou I could see a number of other opportunities to take whether they be intentional or not.  Being an engineer and having access to a rifle, the combination allows the player to use a ‘leap shot’ ability which has allowed me to skip parts of puzzles in the past. 

I continued on, finding more milestones and gaining a bit of verticality when suddenly I was met on the top of a mesa-like formation overlooking the map of the Silverwastes.  At first my thoughts were that of relief as it seemed I was making clear progress to a goal, but on the other hand a sense of still being overwhelmed by the land mass.  I continued into my ~20-30 minute journey when I started to see other players below me going about their events defending one of the forts for the meta, only for it to hit me what this meant.  Pressing M to see the map I noticed that I was half way across the map, a sizeable distance from where I started covering a lot more land than what a normal puzzle would present itself with.  This made me think “how far does this thing really go?” as I spend the next 30 minutes continue to explore this ‘map within a map’ collection the golden badges and trying to figure out how to get around, before realising that it was rather late and I was needing to get up in just a few hours.  Although I didn’t find the finishing point on this occasion, it entertained me for this hour period and that is one of the many ways in interact with this medium of games. 

This feeling has similar reactions when it comes to other game genres.  RPGs have that ‘one More quest’ 4x’s have ‘just one more turn’ and multiplayer shooters just one more round’.  In this jumping puzzle, it was ‘just one more badge’ or ‘just one more milestone’ and I’m happy that I was able to experience this piece of content very naturally beyond the thrall of day one explorers or through the use of companion guides detailing every turn.  I’ll probably look to have another stab at it tomorrow but for now, that was a pretty cool thing you did there. 

Next time, “running up that hill” physical and mental hills and viewpoints from architecture.