Welp, this is my new site for my time playing GW2. It's very much keeping in the tradition of my old FFXI site. I've actually been playing since 2012, but, obviously, haven't written anything yet. So I have some catching up to do :-)

Stay tuned...

As I said before, I started playing GW2 the day it came out (8/28/2012). My first character was a Norn male named Cor Aut Mors who was an Engineer.

Being a Norn, he hails from Hoelbrak in the Far Shiverpeaks, and began his journeys in the Wayfarer Foothills.

Here he is at the very beginning- after character creation and running around doing some initial events:

Unfortunately, this is the only screenshot I have of him (or any of my characters) for quite some time. The next picture you will see of Cor is at level 80.

Leveling in GW2 is unlike leveling in other MMOs I'm used to. It happens very quickly, and before you know it, it's over and you're at end-game. It happens so quickly, in fact, that you really shouldn't waste money or karma on buying new gear as you go. You level so fast, gear is outdated long before you really get used to it. Also, crap gear drops so frantically as you play that you'll never be wanting for something current to wear. Plus, being gimped gear-wise only matters at end-game.

So leveling Cor was largely unremarkable and it's understandable that I have no more screenies of him until end-game :-)

Alright, so I lied....

It turns out, I did have another screenshot from when I was leveling up Cor.

There I am at level 47. Doing who knows what, in who knows where.

Actually, looking at that now, I think that's the old Lions Arch, back before all the craziness occurred. If memory serves me, that's where the Black Lion vendor used to be- up above the TP.

I really do miss old Lions Arch....

Turns out, I have yet another screenie at 47.

Here I am as I was travelling south from Lions Arch for the first time. This is Bloodtide Coast, which is the home of the Covington Pirates. As you can see from the screenshot, I fancied myself a pirate as well.

I would spend most of the rest of my levels down in these southern zones. From Bloodtide Coast I went further south to Sparkfly Fen. There, I battled Tequatl, back when he was much easier to kill :-)

I leveled and kept travelling south, eventually winding up in the Ruins of Orr, and, finally, to the Straits of Devastation.

Now, you'll note that this zone is technically a 70-75 zone. However, back when I first hit 80, this was the end-game zone where most people hit 80. In fact, this was the first, and only, time when leveling in GW2 felt like leveling in other MMOs like FFXI.

What you'd do is basically set camp at Triumph Plaza. There you find a Pact camp and a safe, easy to access Waypoint. From that camp, you'd roam around doing various quick repeating events. There was a very specific pattern to these events, but, for the life of me, I can't recall them. You'd need a group to do these events (they weren't remotely soloable), which meant teaming up with others and following them from event to event. The EXP would come so fast and furious that the final stretch from about 74 to 80 could be easily done in a day or two.

I really enjoyed those last levels there, and kind of miss the fact that we all used to level down in that region. Sure, you can still occasionally find groups doing the same sequence of events, but it's most certainly not the main hub for end-game leveling that it once was.

After my last screenshot, and before the next, a lot of stuff happened :-)

• I completed my story missions as Cor.
• I leveled Meso, Genova, Moose and Haima to 80.
• Living Story season 1 began.
• The Secret of Southsun event happened, followed by the first hunt of the Karka Queen. This was spectacularily epic, and gave Meso a snazzy, new back item.

None of this I got screenshots of (except for the Karka back item).

In the middle of Living World season 1, during the Dragon Bash event, the Ships Council of Lions Arch was attacked by what turned out to be the Aetherblades. The Aetherblades would become a major force in the rest of the Living Story season.

Here's Meso standing in Lions Arch, looking at a throng of people participating in the Dragon Bash event:

Further along in Living Story season 1, we come to the Queen's Jubilee, an event celebrating the human Queen of Kryta. During this event, we were introduced to the Watchknights, which were very much like Asuran golems, except powered by gears and sprockets.

During a main ceremony of the Jubilee, these Watchknights suddenly stopped responding to commands. In the ensuing chaos, the Aetherblades attacked and it was revealed that they were the ones actually in control of the Watchknights.

It was during this event that I got the shield skin that I use on Moose to this day.

It was revealed that Scarlet Briar was the one behind the recent attacks, that she was the one mobilizing the Aetherblades, the Molten Aliance, and controlling the Watchknights. (Scarlet was a really interesting character, and she would become the major villian in season 1 of the Living Story. I'd definitely recommend reading up on her, if you're interested.) Following the chaos at the Queen's Jubilee, the new joined forces of the Aetherblades, the Molten Aliance, Watchknights, and Scarlet's own minions, began attacks throughout the regions of Tyria.

These attacks (Scarlet's Minions Invade!) were actually really fun to participate in. The basic concept was that, at the top of the hour, Scarlet's minions would invade a given zone in the game. There would be subsequent tiers of raids involving each of the minion types followed by Scarlet herself. You only had 45 minutes to drive back her forces, and, if time ran out, you'd fail. It was intense and often touch-and-go.

These invasions lasted quite some time, well past the end of the parent event. They continued well into Sept. 2013.

And now, for some brief silliness.

In April of 2014, during the days leading up to the update, I went crazy and farmed a ton of Unidentified Dyes. See, previously, you could get Unidentified Dyes as random drop from enemies and from harvesting plants. The update was changing that, and removing them from loot tables in the game.

I farmed 174 Unidentified Dyes and proceeded to open all of them. The ensuing chaos can be found in the following video.

Looking back on this with 2015 eyes, I kind of regret doing this. The smart thing would have been to sit on these for a while, letting the dye market react to the change, and then sell them once dyes went up in price (which they did). But, alas, I didn't do that. Instead, I made a silly video.

Now we fast-forward quite a bit, as I didn't take any screenshots between the Scarlet Invades! events of late 2013 and the fall of 2015. I did keep playing for the most part.

Scarlet eventually launched an all out assault on Lions Arch, which was completely, and utterly, epic. It ended with her destruction, and with her actions waking a new elder dragon, Mordremoth. Lions Arch itself was left in tatters, and it took another year before it was rebuilt into what it is today. (Side note: The new Lions Arch bears a striking resemblance to FFXI's "Sky", IMHO. Also, I don't like it and I miss the old Lions Arch :-)

Season 2 of the Living Story began, introducing a couple of new areas: Dry Top and Silverwastes. I started season 2, but then, in late 2014, started getting bored of the game (I had done just about everything to be done, save getting a Legendary, which, honestly, hasn't ever really appealed to me considering how hard they are to obtain). I subsequently took off about 9 months from the game and did other things.

At some point, either before I left, or after I came back, I encountered the following glitch:

What was happening when I encountered the glitch I do not know. All I know is that the glitch impressed me so much that I took a great deal of screenshots of it.

The glitch appears to be happening in Dry Top, at the Waypoint in Prospect Valley, and the effects seem to be some sort of healing intensified, but beyond that, I have no clue what's going on here. I can only assume I was also stuck in a wall or under the map or something.

I returned to the game in August 2015, after hearing some news about the upcoming expansion, Heart of Thorns. Honestly, I hadn't been following the news for GW2 before then and, while HoT had actually been announced much earlier, this was the first I had heard of it. It was the news about the addition of Raids and the Elite Specializations which got me interested in the game again. So, I downloaded the updates, and started the game again.

When I last played the game, I had left Meso in the Silverwastes. So when I logged back in, there she was.

The Silverwastes, for those who don't know, were one of two areas added in season 2 of the Living Story. These two new areas were unique in the world of Tyria in that they had sequences of events that shaped the course of the entire zone itself. As the events progressed, the zones would change- New events would open up and new paths/areas would become available. These zones were exciting and offered some entirely new experiences for a tired, GW2 player like myself.

In the Silverwastes there are four forts spread throughout the zone. At the start of the event chain, Foothold, the forts are overrun by Mordrem. You must clear the Mordrem from each fort, thus capturing the fort for the Pact. Once a fort is captured, other events start up. You have invasions, which are where many Mordrem attack the fort, trying to reclaim it.

You also have:

• Supply runs, where you escort a bull carrying supplies from one location to another.
• Fort repair, where you help gather materials to repair a damaged fort.
• Roaming Mordrem infestations, where you kill a special, higher level Mordrem roaming the area.
• Legendary battles, where fort-specific, very tough, rare Mordrem spawn (during invasions) and attack the fortifications once leveled up.

Additionally, you are rewarded special shovels which can be used to find buried Bandit treasure in the Silverwastes.

After Foothold comes The Breach, which is where gaping maws open up in the middle of each fort leading to an underground area where you must fight difficult, fort-specific sub-bosses.

After The Breach, is the final assault against the Vinewrath. Technically, you don't fight the Vinewrath, but fight his top-level minions instead. The Vinewrath is found deep inside a mountain on the far west side of the map. Three valleys (commonly called lanes) lead up the mountain to the Vinewrath's lair. Everyone in the zone divides up into each lane where they provide support to a lane-specific siege-carrier as it transports explosives up the mountain to the vines guarding the lair. When the vines are cleared (which happens sequentially up the lanes) the path to the lair is open and three bosses must be defeated (each in order). The entire chain is epic, and reminds me of the Scarlet invasions in the past- The Vinewrath part is especially reminiscent of Scarlet's Marionette battle.

Once the Vinewrath is defeated, vines everywhere in the zone retract. This opens up a previously closed-off area, the Labyrinth,, which serves as the final phase in the event chain.

The Labyrinth is a large area underground where bioluminescent enemies roam. These enemies move extremely fast (they cannot be outrun) and hit very hard, typically killing players in one hit. The objective in the Labyrinth is to find and open Nightmare Pods, which are basically just treasure chests. The group must open a certain number in a certain time-limit to win the event, and the event has three tiers to it.

The Labyrinth is evil, pure evil, and it reminds me of my time in the Promyvions back in FFXI. Like the Promies, you have to move methodically in the Labyrinth, avoid aggro, and systematically work your way to the final objective.

After all is done, the map resets and the event chain starts over again.

Sometimes I stream my gaming live. I don't really expect many people to watch it, or watch all of it- I mainly stream it for a few of my friends who like to leave the stream running in the background. I also usually don't keep my streams, as they can be hours long and often have repeating events (at least, for GW2). However, sometimes I'll keep a stream around and post it here on this site.

Here's a stream of mine from September 10th, 2015. In it, I do a lot of stuff in Silverwastes (event chaining, as well as a chest train). There's also some crafting thrown into the mix.

Here's something from the following day, September 11th. More Silverwastes stuff :-)

There's a lot to like about the Silverwastes. It's a phenominal money maker, it's a fun map to participate in, there's special recipes only available there, it's the best place in the game to farm Obsidian Shards, and it has some pretty sweet armor that is only obtainable there. So, naturally, since my return to the game I've been spending a lot of time there.

Here's one of the bosses. For each boss, there's a specific strategy to beat them. For this one, there are plant buds throughout the room, which you must attack to get them to flower. At certain points during the battle, this boss will do a move that will deal very high damage to everyone standing on the ground (usually killing almost everyone). The only thing that can protect you is standing on this flower.

I also started leveling up a new character. She's a Char Elementalist, and her name is Baeturia Laureli.

I spent some time running around with her, doing events and killing ghosts. I've been enjoying her so far, actually more-so than my time with Betsy (my previous Elementalist), largely because she starts with different weaponry than Betsy did. I assume this is because she's a Char, but don't know for certain.

Here's a video of my stream from September 18th. In it, I play as my new Char Elementalist and then play a lot of WvW with both Meso and Molina.