Echoes of the Past is AMAZEBALLS

I've only logged into GW2 twice in the past few months. Once to check out Halloween stuff, and yesterday to check out the new Living Story, Echoes of the Past.

Man, was I impressed! I did all of the new chapter in two sittings and gobbled it up. The writing was better than previous stories, the emotions were heightened, there was abundant lore (omg the library!), and Glint's lair was absolutely breathtaking.

If you haven't been playing Guild Wars 2 much lately, I urge you to log back in and experience this great chapter. I almost want to play it again!

I dyed my Ancestral Outfit for Halloween.
I wanted to buy the kitty mini, but alas, no gold.

The Hexed Outfit is fantastic!
Wish I could have bought it as well.

I almost died because I kept looking around with my mouth open! I looked over the edges and up at the sky and admired my distorted reflection in the crystals. Amazing job, Artists of ANet. Standing ovation!

Loving the Dragon's Reach Living Story

I haven't had much time to play lately, but when I do play, it's to complete the Living Story. And I love it! Of course, it's still a bit cheesy in dialogue and the interactions between the members of Destiny's Orphans, but the fights are pretty awesome and epic. I won't give away any spoilers, although I'm sure all you hardcore GW2 fans out there have already done the whole story. :)

Spiral wearing Orchid cultural gear

I got Spiral all dressed up in her traditional Sylvari armor to go visit the Pale Tree. She looks fabulous, although I doubt these petals are good for fighting. I've got 90 transmutation charges sitting around, so I figured I'd change her clothes now and then to take advantage of them.

Down below is a pic I snapped near the end of Dragon's Reach Part 2. I had to adjust the brightness a bit afterwards. not sure why but my screenshots are all coming out very dark. And since my graphics card burnt up (*sob*), I haven't been playing on nice settings, so the world is quite as pretty as it was. Still gorgeous though. I'm constantly wide-mouthed in amazement at the beauty of Tyria!

I guess the game is taking a break from Living Story and gearing up for the September Feature Pack. Is anyone else irritated by that? I mean, not just that the LS is on hiatus, but that they're doing ANOTHER feature pack? To me, the game is fine as it is. All these changes to things just makes things complicated and has the potential to wreck your progress on things.

I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. Like, the wardrobe system "feature" wrecked the dye market, and made dye production in cooking a worthless investment. I'm sure there are other examples. I guess I just want things to stay the same so I can stop having to relearn everything and readjust to new systems of rewards and PvP and on and on. The game is FINE. Leave it alone!

Anyway, minor rant ended! Time for lunch and perhaps some more gaming. TTYL, friends! :)

Are they still called Destiny's Orphans? Hmmm, they've got to find a better guild name.
And maybe get some more male members? Poor Braham!

Cosplay -- No Boobs, Sorry :)

I don't usually go for cosplay, but check out the amazing cosplay by Enayla. This is handmade Orrian armor. Wow! She's trying to win a contest to go to ComicCon. Go "like" her page on Facebook, or just admire her handiwork. :D

Hilarious (And Dirty) Song

If you haven't seen this yet, give it a watch! Really funny song, and especially awesome with GW2! YouTubers Bananas and Shrimps (Tyria Today) did such a great job!
Thanks to my gaming-girlfriends, Chazdy and Desi, for the link.

I'm Alive and So Are You!

Hey, faithful readers! It's your not-so-faithful blogger, Spiral. I'm so sorry!! I've been absent for months, haven't I? My bad.
I've been super busy doing fun real-life things, and have been trying to squeeze in some time to enjoy the Festival of the Winds on GW2. I think that it's my fave festival, aside from Mad King/Hallowe'en.

I've leveled a few of my alts to 80, unlocked a metric-crap-tonne of skins, ran the baby dolyak race a bazillion times, bought the coolest Zephyrite stuff, and farmed keys until I can't stand to hear the NPCs one more FREAKING time. ("By all Six Gods, what is that thing!") I play with my music blaring so I don't have to listen to them.

I've made a point of going around to listen to all the NPCs in Labyrinthine Cliffs to find clues for the new content, Gates of Maguuma, on July 1. WAIT -- THAT'S TOMORROW! OMG!!! Super excited!

Here are the very few screens I've taken over the past six weeks or so.
I've got to work now. *grumble*
Have fun out there!

Me (on my thief,Agga) and my friend Grave on his Charr. So hilarious!

Grave showed me how to break INTO the Asura jail in Rata Sum. LOL!  :)

Agga preparing to dive into the bucket in Edge of the Mists. (She made it on the first try even!)

Majyst (on Carnelion) came back!
But it was only briefly. He disappeared again. *sniff sniff* Maj, I miss you!

Gave Spiral a makeover: new face, new eye color, new hair color.
The eyes and hair are very subtle changes but the face is taking some getting used to. 

April is Exciting

Figured it was about time for another fascinating blog post from moi. :)

Totally had a blast on April's Fools with the Bobble Heads. Spent a solid hour in Vigil Keep laughing at the folks there, using up my Mystery Potions, and dancing my bobbley-head off.

Loved this guy! You can see me and my little bobble-head to the left of him.

Whatchoo looking at?

Spent most of the beginning of April, pre-Feature Pack, farming BL keys to try to get enough Black Lion scraps to buy the Tormented Focus skin before the price went up. I was successful, but only because of my darling friend, Dezi, who taught me how to farm BL keys properly. Thanks so much, girlfriend. :)
I also tried to focus on making gold, but when I got more than 100, I ended up just getting discouraged at the wasted time. So I spent it all. I actually spent 20g buying a complete stranger a Makeover Kit because he hated his hair. Random act of kindness, courtesy of 2am boredom. He was very pleased with his new look. I made his day, I guess. I spent the rest of Cultural Armor for Spiral and Whispers Armor for Mistress. Don't they look fab?

Mistress Madheart in her dom gear. ;)

I'm still wearing the T2 legs vines.
Probably will never give them up.
I love the idea that Spiral is barefoot.

You'd never know that purple is my favourite colour. :D
Playing on a toon named Mistress, with a guild tag of [bAd], and an outfit like that, I do get some pervs whispering me. Sometimes I play along; sometimes I tell them to shove off. Had a hilarious conversation with an overeager admirer the other night and yanked his chain talking about the "exquisite pleasure of sex, love and power". Heh heh. I'm a dominatrix, but only in the sense that I enjoy messing with people's heads. Mental S&M.

Anyhoo, the Feature Patch came and there was no more time for shenanigans. I got 465 unidentified dyes. Only opened 215 and left a stack for later. Unlocked 12 new colours, which is impressive considering how close I am to finished the entire dye set. Still don't have Celestial. Grrr. Simple white just won't do. *stomps foot and pouts*
Found my inner rage-quitter with the implementation of the megaserver, but so far have managed to vent enough steam on the forums to prevent myself from actually quitting. I hate hate HATE the megaserver idea. I love Yak's Bend. I love the people, I love the personality of the server, I love being alone in Lornar's Pass. I don't want to be mixed in with jerks from other worlds. I'm a gamer. I'm anti-social. Duh!
However, I love the new wardrobe, even though it makes me feel my time and effort are all for naught. The people who play this game from now on have it so easy, and they won't understand the struggles we went through in the beginning to get that perfect look. (Sounds like "kids these days have no respect!" I'm getting old, eh?)
Spiral got a full wardrobe makeover, and Mistress finally gets her Abyss colour. Put a blindfold on her to incite more entertaining late-night conversations.

Is she dom or sub now?

This is a mixed armor set.
Going with gold and white for now, just to stand out.

May the Six bless Dulfy again for her Wardrobe Guide. Go there now and get your fashion on!

I've been spending some time in The Edge of the Mists and Eternal Battlegrounds,  having fun running with the zerg. The new dailies and monthlies are irritating because they're forcing me to do stuff I don't usually do, but sometimes change is good. And also inevitable, so there is that. 

Screenshot dump for ya. See you in game, friends. :)

Flaxi fought this Charr for that magnificent Roast Yak on a Stick.

Found this mystical seal in a cave in Harathi Hinterlands. Anyone know where it goes?

Scared myself with my own alt!

The Grawl worship me! How sweet. :)

I am light. I push back the darkness. I am a child of the universe.

Must See Video

Okay, I know today is The Big Patch, but I just saw this video and I had to share. Made me LOL.
Watch the first minute to get the idea, then fast forward to 3:30 and listen to the guys talk for a few seconds, then continue watching for an AWESOME surprise.  :)

New Wardrobe and Dye Systems OMG!!

Read this: Introducing the Wardrobe System.
And this: Dyes in the New Account Wardrobe.

To sum up the main bits:
1. All armor and weapon skins will be unlocked account-wide.
2. All dyes are unlocked account-wide.

This is shocking to me. I'm stunned. I'm excited and confused also. And nervous. And happy. And disappointed. And ... a bundle of emotions!

Shocked and stunned that such a huge change is coming after the game has been out for so long.
Excited because I love dressing up!
Confused because they didn't explain it all, or else I read it too fast and didn't absorb it.
Nervous that I will lose what I've already unlocked.
Happy to see this fine print: "If you already have the same dyes unlocked on multiple characters, when you log in on additional characters, you will receive one unidentified dye for each duplicate dye already unlocked on your account."
Disappointed that all my hard work and gold getting skins and dyes is now pretty much wasted. Everyone is going to have it sooooo easy from here on in.

New Wardrobe UI. I'm staring at it, trying to figure out how it'll work.

QUESTIONS:
What is a transmutation charge? How much will those cost?
The article says, currently owned "Transmutation Crystals can be directly converted into charges, and Transmutation Stones can be converted at a three-to-one rate."
So does that mean the charges good for all levels? Will there be level restrictions? Like, could a level 10 noob put level 80 gear on his toon? (Makes it  less awesome to have level 80 gear if all the noobs are wearing it.)
Can we switch armor types? Medium to light, etc? (Edit: No, not gonna happen.)
Can we switch cultural armor? Can my Charr wear Asura cultural armor?
If unidentified dyes will no longer drop. how we will craft some of the legendary items that require 250 of them? (I think it's Bifrost.)

The forums are going crazy. The TP is crazier. I'm heading into game to hear some mapchat.

Alts and Other Time Well Spent

Time for another screenshot folder dump! This one focused on the strange things I've seen in my travels, plus the abundant number of alts I've played with while key farming. Enjoy.

Me and my friend, Grave Lord Nito, as a miniaturized blonde asura.
He's since moved to Henge of Denravi to have more success in WvW.

It looks like a tie game, but they actually won it. Grrrr.

Did you know there were snow butterflies?

Have you been to the old Marionette fight location yet?

Garm and a wolf pup tearing around in the snow at Eir's house. So adorable!

Planking, Tyria style.

Frustrated by an invisible wall that keeps me from getting to a cool cave opening.

Swam down to this fabulous chest, fought off a bunch of pirates,
and then the darn thing wouldn't open. 

One of the most realistic and funny things I've seen. Girl walking in the woods, checking out a curious raven, not noticing a GIANT moose hiding in the bushes. (Welcome to Canada.)

Quaggan jumping puzzle, Coddler's Cove.
This lovely dame was singing to the babes.

Now for the alts! I tell ya, if you ever need to come up with a toon name, let me know. I seem to have an endless reservoir of monikers in my head. Pointless talent.

Miss Magicpaws

Needlefoot
(couldn't believe that name wasn't taken)

Norm Dullspoon
(making fun of all the dudes named
Awesomix RazorScythe and such)

Aerie Skyborn

Idina Wolfsong

Schnozelda

You know you want her.

Willow Kitteh
(designed after my real life kitty, Willow, who is in fact much fiercer than a Charr. I have the scars to prove it.)

Anna of Arendelle, based on the movie Frozen

Mel Eficient
(designed after Angelina Jolie as Maleficent)

Liezle

Screwturner Khyjji

Spiral Minime

Bechemelle

And finally, Flaxi Barnborn.
She is going to stay! I love her so much, I'm deleting my
male Sylvari warrior to keep her instead.)

Smoke Has Cleared

The Battle of L.A. seemed to go by in a flash! Was it two weeks? So crazy that it's done.
I was going through my screenshot folder, and it seems I took very few pix of my adventures. Yes, I did kill Scarlet. A bunch of times, actually. Totally satisfying. Got lots of loot, had some hilarious chats with random players, got frustrated with Knight fights, got angry at AFKers, helped stuck folks with my mesmer portals, all that jazz. Excellent finish to an epic Living Story.

Kasjory --- cute and nauseating in equal measures. 

Heal-o-Tron was redeemed! Very happy.

Now that the smoke has cleared from L.A., it's even more depressing! I went in first thing after the patch with just a handful of other peeps who were lucky enough to be playing GW2 on a Tuesday afternoon. We chatted as we explored and it was very interesting. I wish there was an ability to retrieve chat logs so you could see how we swung from humor to sadness to curiosity and back to sadness.

The bottom of the Big Screw hole. Nothing there.
That's probably a good thing.

I spoke to the few NPCs wandering amidst the ruins, and they all told such sad stories. One was looking for his son's body to give it a proper burial. One was in disbelief that he had lost everything. A woman sobbed by the shore. Workers dug graves. Looters looted.
A Charr and I dove to the bottom of the Big Screw hole to see what was there. An Asura and I threw insults at the "chicken-people" behind their big stone gate. Everyone was overcome with the Feels reading the missing person wall. The Feels intensified with the help of a new melancholy soundtrack. The whole city was bleak, and yet impressive. The Guild Wars 2 creators have caused us to have such a passion for a virtual place, and to feel such empathy for imaginary people. It seems silly when typing it out, but to see it all in front of your eyes, these places that you've seen a thousand times before, and they're so empty and charred and black and broken, it hurts. If there was a quest to pick up garbage and clear out debris in L.A., I would be doing that. Every day I would be doing that to restore my city. I would VOLUNTEER. No reward required.

Anyway, moving to cheerier topics, I also took a jaunt over to the Dead End Bar and sat through a rather lengthy but fascinating conversation scene with the ... hmmm... I just realized. Do the Scarlet-fighting team have a guild name? I mean, Marjory, Kasmeer, Braham, Rox, and Taimi. Are they a guild? Do they have a name? At any rate, it was cool, and if you haven't done it yet, go do so. It's long though, you've been warned. There are big portions where it gets quiet and they sit for a bit doing nothing, but if you wait, a new conversation will start up. You'll know you're done when you get a reward.

Prince Charr Ming is back on "his ledge". He was pleased as a cat in cream. :)

So we had only two days to catch our breaths and ponder our fate. Which dragon will wake? Will Alain be involved? Will the gate to the Crystal Desert be opened? Which new hairstyle looks cuter on me? Where do I store all these damn Blade Shards? What did you say about WvW?

And then BAM, today brings news about a feature patch on April 15. The first blog post talks about a huge trait rework: resetting traits, adding new traits, and confusing me even more, all in one shot! We'll see what other insanity they are planning over the next few days.

So take this brief time to hoard your gold, gather your mats, clear your bank slots, and curse the gods/devs that relish in shaking things up. There are more battles to come: virtual, mental, and theoretical! (I'm not making any sense, am I? Ha! Just go with it.)

In other news, I actually found a new place, a spot I've never been before. Have you been here?