Dear Mystic Quest Cat

This week I've been mostly sorting out my house and recovering from University. Also had a pleasant house warming party for a friend of mine, although the BBQ didn't go as planned. Haven't had as much time as I thought to devote myself to some projects or pastimes but that isn't a huge deal. I have managed to start working on this blog though, which is a bonus. One thing I did do this week was go through a lot of my old stuff and found my old SNES and NES games, whats left of them anyway. I still have my trusty first game, Super Mario Bros./Duck Hunt. Lots of fun memories between 4and 8 years old. Also, for the SNES, I still have The Lawnmower Man and Mystic Quest. I believe I played them until I left secondary school!

Outside the bubble

I'm pretty unaware of whats happening in the world this week. I just try to remember "Politicians are crooks" when I miss a week.

Music Talk

Guild Wars 2 being the focus of my video gaming mind over the last several years has lead me to the soundtrack. Someone extracted the files from the .dat presumably. I've just had it on shuffle/repeat most of the week and haven't even bothered to listen to anything else in particular. I will provide a link to it at the end of this post.

Literature Talk

 Being the slow reader I am, I finally started reading Ghosts of Ascalon last night. Only one chapter but I'm already feeling good about this book. I'm also trying not to be too biased when judging this book. I may review it in a later blog when I eventually finish it. A book I got for my wife has also been something I've been glancing at. Its called "If You Want to Write: A Book About Art, Independence and Spirit". Although I'm not biggest fan of the spiritual mumbo jumbo, this book seem really interesting coming from a writers perspective. Will be looking into this more. 

Gaming Talk

Besides making money very slowly in Guild Wars, I've been looking around for some interesting games. One in particular that has caught my eye is Dear Esther. It seem people are hard pushed to actually call this a game and more of an interactive experience and I find this facinating. I have only just begun playing so I will talk more about it in the future. Games I'm also spying right now are Mount & Blade and 0 A.D. 0 A.D. in particular look highly interesting with its open source ideas. Will definitely be checking that one out. Finally, Civilization V has been calling me recently therefore I may need to give in soon. It has been a while...

Other Stuff

As far as art is concerned:

Just amazing.

Video of the Week

Stereo Skifcha a.k.a. Dubstep Hispter Cat

This has been going for a few months now but I just keep coming back to it! Try the hour long loop version!

Editorial – Guild Wars 2 Personal Story

For this blog post I decided to put up a short editorial I wrote in order to get things started. Read on!

Guild Wars 2’s personal story pushes the image of a hero. You are the centrepiece of the story. Although your hero might be somewhat of a goody, too shoes, the story succeeds in drawing you in and encouraging you to complete the objectives that are set out. You want to save your best friend’s father. You want to destroy the Ascalonian ghosts with your newly invented weapon. You want to claim back that war horn heirloom that was stolen from you.

Of course, this isn’t always the case. Some of the racial stories are not for everyone. This was clear from spooling through the forums during the first Beta Weekend Event. Most notably was the uproar over the Norn storyline. I can understand some people’s concerns here though. The Norn characters do need some improved dialogue. I often found myself rolling my eyes in midst of a conversation between my hero and some hefty Norn I didn’t care about as they bantered about…. Well… nothing! All they did was spout meaningless cliché lines and repeat what each other said. I was left quite bored of the extra characters. Eir Stegalkin seemed to be the only character with a little bit of life in her, but this was limited. However, once the arc progressed to be concerned with the heirloom I lost in a bet, things picked up. I can only hope that things pick up further along in the Norn story as we get further into the content. And they probably will. I trust ArenaNet there.

The Charr storyline was a lot more riveting and immersive. My Iron Legion Charr turned out to be developing a new advanced ghost killing weapon called the Ghostbore. Of course, I was dying to test

it out. To my greater excitement, the Blood and the Ash Legions wanted to make it into a greater killing weapon using either a huge turret or droppable mini turrets. A fantastic opportunity to see the tension between Legions. The story really made me feel the centre of attention.

Obviously, Arenanet have chosen a certain direction for the storyline of Guild Wars 2. It’s your atypical Hero story. This has both pros and cons associated with it. You can’t please everyone. Personally, I am happy with the direction they have taken although it would not be my favourite. It has its problems; dialogue and arc progression are still choppy. We will have to see if the story can live up to the games that have come before it. I look forward to finding out!

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