Tiny update (I have a larger one coming soon, complete with big dump of screenshots and several new characters) but I wanted to point out a strange thing...

I used to play FFXI, and for the longest time I felt that FFXI was the best MMO I've ever played. I still, kinda, feel that way... Sort of. Looking back at my FFXI blog, you can see that I played that game for a solid 6 years, from Jan 2004 to Feb 2010. I enjoyed every minute of it.

However, this month (Aug 2018) marks the 6th year anniversary of GW2. By year 6 in FFXI, I was getting pretty tired of the game. Honestly, my last year in FFXI (my 5th year) I really wound down playing it. I played it significantly less, I closed down my ClanAM linkshell, I leveled up BST (which was a solo affair, so I didn't party), so you could say I really stopped playing FFXI seriously in my 5th year.

Meanwhile, over in GW2, we're 6 years in and I'm still going strong. I haven't tired of the game, and, in fact, it keeps getting better. We just had a massive balance patch that I'm mostly excited for, we have another LS chapter that has been teased, and I'm actively working towards several goals in the game.

At what point does it no longer make sense for me to say that FFXI is my favorite MMO and that nothing else is as good when I'm actually playing another MMO for longer and with more intensity?

I don't know the answer to this. All I know is I'm loving the shit out of GW2. And if you haven't checked it out lately, now is the time. It's fun as hell.

We had another SAND birthday this last month. Honestly, I forget exactly when SAND's birthday is, but Moon knows it, and we always have a little celebration.

She also loves to gather us together in Dry Top for group photos. They usually don't include all of us... (we'd probably fill the map if our entire guild tried to come, not everyone could even get in)... but they do include those who could show for the event and/or celebration.

BTW, Moon is the blue Sylvari in these pictures. I'm the white-armored Char in the back. I know Oriana is in there somewhere, but I forget who all else is there...

Oh boy.... what excitement...

Waaaaaaaay back in 2013, during Living Story Season 1, we were introduced to the Zephyrites, which were this group of people that lived in airships and sailed the skies traveling from port to port, never setting down roots anywhere. The Zephyrites were the ones who later on, in Living Story Season 2, crashed in Dry Top. The meta events we do in SAND when we run Dry Top all center around the Zephyrites.

In LS1, the chapter where we were introduced to the Zephyrites took place in this really cool zone called Labyrinthine Cliffs, which was this cliffside region overlooking the sea where the Zephyrites had their airships moored. There, we had a really awesome event that was very memorable, and, frankly, one of my three favorite LS1 events (the other two being the Marionette battle and the battle for Lions Arch, I guess with the Southsun Cove Karka event coming in a close fourth...)

LS1 was awesome, but it was also something where Anet was still experimenting with the idea of a Living Story, and so, from a technical perspective, it was a season that we've never been able to experience again. By the time LS2 rolled around, they had nailed down the delivery and were able to create episodic chapters that could be replayed whenever you wanted (and bought if you missed them, like they were mini-expansions). But the LS1 stuff was more organic, and woven into the fabric of the actual core Tyria, so it's stuff that has proven really difficult to bring back, and, up until recently, none of it has ever come back (with the exception of the one instance that was turned into a Fractal).

Well, this last July, Anet managed to bring back at least part of that original content from LS1 in the form of a new annual event called Festival of the Four Winds! This pulled in much of the stuff from the Labyrinthine Cliffs, along with much of the Queen's Jubilee (which was another part of LS1). This isn't exactly the same event as before. The Zephyrites are gone, obviously, as are most of their airships (and the ones that are there feel strangely empty... as if all the NPCs had been scrubbed...) and there's new activities to do that weren't there before. Plus, now that we have gliding and mounts, a lot of the classic jumping and zipping around we did with the boons you get there are no longer needed or even used. But it was still fun to go back and do events there.

To get to the cliffs, you take a hot air balloon from Lions Arch:

When you get there, Captain Ellen Kiel (the lady from Lions Arch I didn't vote for... damnit) greets you with a bit of dialog memorializing the Zephyrites.

The cliffs are just as pretty as they always had been:

...but now they have all new activities, many of which are pretty nuts, like this one where you have to take down a burning effigy using water balloons:

Meanwhile, over in the Jubilee, Moon led up a semi-impromptu SAND run against the bosses there:

The Festival was pretty cool, but I'll admit, it's not as magical as I remembered. I'd wager that is mostly because it's no longer part of a Living Story chapter, and, when you remove the narrative elements it's just a map full of random events, which diminishes it somewhat. But, regardless, I'll still enjoy it when it rolls around next summer.