Twitch Expansion Announcement - Heart of Thorns

For those of you that didn't get to watch the PAX South GW2 live stream on Twitch, here are my notes. I was going to make them all neat and coherent, but screw that. I've got gaming to do!
Spiral OUT!

NOTES:
Jennifer Hale awkward hype build
MUCH CRINGE, MANY AWKWARD, WOW
audience -- cosplay girl & people with commander tags
polite nerds listening so attentively

who were the bloggers at the beginning?
Super fast chat... spammers, !key?? eventually just tuned out chat

Mike's smile as he announced Maguuma Jungle Expansion

Mike O'Brien of ArenaNet

"in it together" where you're "always happy to see another player"

"the journey is the reward"

Expansion is typically: New gear, new level,

Mike understands new gear invalidates old gear, leaving behind a "wasteland of old content", same with new level cap.

"I think you need new challenges." -- Mike

72,000 watchers on Twitch

"Masteries"
--in jungle, master skills and abilities that you need to succeed in the jungle.
Vertical environment.
(was hoping Mike would fly off the stage on cables)

new professional specializations
customize your existing professions
new guild support and progression

"HoT is our new vision for character progression in GW2." - Mike

Colin is so adorbs and awkward and his goofy grin

Colin Johanson

[ME: My face hurts from smiling. I love my game. I love my "people".]

The Heart of Maguuma -- name of new area

3 biomes - core (floor), roots (under), canopy (high)

audience never knew when to cheer
friendliest gaming community is actually quite shy  :)

MASTERIES - account-based pve
available to level 80s
complete content to get mastery points
points spent on abilities on any character
"no-grind philosophy" (clapping)

--exploration mastery - climbing... don't fall!... get to highest point... "What do we do?" Crowd yells: JUMP!! (Laughter) "then the epic journey to meet the ground and splat", then swarm of rezzers come out of nowhere. (laughter) ... but now... mastery points to hang-glide!!
HANG GLIDE!!!!

--lore mastery -- understand languages and will access secret locations (applause)

--combat mastery -- sketchy details about this

--collecting, crafting, building mastery -- "legendary weapon is the ultimate version", what is hardest to get? -- Crowd: "Precursor!!" Mastery will allow you to build collections to send you on journeys, once completed, will give you precursor weapon! (much applause), PLUS new legendaries!

-- skills & traits - specializations system allows each proffesional to master a new specialization (UGH lost stream)
--> "rich druidic history" RANGERS will be able to grow themselves to become a DRUID. use staff, could never use before. access to new heal skill, new elite, new utility skills, new professional mechanics
--> necromancers with greatsword (laughter) causing much debate... why was Marjory learning? Necro specialization means they can use greatswords. (won't say more!)

LAUNCH DATE -- awww... he won't tell... "When it's ready." infamous GW2 quote

HEAVY ARMOR PROFESSION! Colin's smile...
omg omg omg
THE REVENANT!!!!
Rytlock!!! is one
"ability to channel and control the powers of the Mists"
channels power of great legends from the past
--king jalis ironhammer, great dwarf, his powers will be available
--demon malix, power of conditions

PVP - "it's time for me to go kill another person" (Laughter)
WvW -- "inside an RTS game" (what is RTS?), new WvW Borderland map! each keep has distinct theme and defending and controlling keep will give you special abilities and features, eg. fire keep will make magma pools for fast travel... holding objectives rather than just taking them will be a bigger component of WvW

PvP - "STRONGHOLD" game mode, fight for control of supply, spend supply to hire troops, you and troops assault enemies, kill Guild Lord to win, can win over heroes to help you,

guild teams and competition

GUILD HALLS!! (amazing cheers, extended!!) - only sketches to show us

Point of No Return

I just finished the Living Story, Point of No Return.

EPIC. Epic epic epic!

I don't want to give anything away, so I'm going to the forums to barf praise on ANet! (Here's my my reply to the common feedback thread.)

If you haven't done it yet, go now!

Are you still here?
Get going! Go! Naow!

New Eyes, New Hair, New Adventures

Happy Release Day! I haven't gone into the game yet but I'm excited about No Turning Back. It was a bit of a cliffhanger, wasn't it? The sealed door...the sassy dwarf... And where is that goonberry, Caithe? Is she making a giant omelette with Glint's egg? I'll be finding out later today when I have time to immerse myself in this next chapter of the Living Story.

Thanks to Dulfy for posting up the new hair and eye colors so quickly. Love them!

New eye colours in Total Makeover Kits

New hair colours in Total Makeover Kits

Dulfy is also reporting that HEART OF THORNS has been trademarked by Guild Wars 2. Sounds like the name of an expansion to me!
People are commenting that they don't want a paid expansion, but I wouldn't mind shelling out some bucks to ANet for new content, and to show them how much I enjoy their game. I'm dirt poor but considering the number of hours I've put into the game, I think they deserve a bit of cash.

However, I did post a bit of a rant on the forums regarding this New Player Experience. I didn't even know that was a term until I started browsing the forums looking for a place to vent.
I was farming Black Lion keys to try to get enough scraps for a Wintersday skin -- and failed to get them, btw, but that's fine -- and therefore I was rolling new toons and revisiting the low zones and personal story. NOT impressed with the changes. Not impressed at all.

My conclusion: ANet suffers from low self esteem.
My solution: ANet should suck it up and realize they can't please everyone and stop trying to change. As my Mumsy always says, or rather sings: Be Yourself!

2015 Will Be A Big Year

Hey, GW2-ers! How's it going? How was your holidays? Has Tixx been good to you this Wintersday?

I've been puttering around in Tyria again! I logged on to see the Wintersday festivities, only to find them moved to Divinity's Reach. They've done a great job of decorating it! All the same games and prizes were there too, which was a bit disappointing. I was hoping for something new. Even a new song in Bell Choir would have been nice. I love the new striped scarf thing but can't afford to buy it.

I can, however, justify spending real hard cash on this!

Spiral Madheart 2015!

What's that? You don't see anything? Well, for those faithful readers who have been following along, I got a free Total Makeover Kit a while back and changed Spiral's face. And I've regretted it every since! I couldn't adjust to her new face. It just didn't look like HER. She looked so... nice. So sweet. Spiral can be sweet, of course, but she can also be spiky, like a cactus.
So I splurged and bought gems to get a Makeover Kit on sale and changed her back. I had a big grin on my face when I saw the "old" Spiral's mischievous smile. :D

I also bought a Black Lion Key and opened a chest. Got a Hair Style Kit and used it on Flaxi, my Warrior.

Flaxi Barnborn, Norn warrior

Once again, the preview in the kit (on the right) never seems to quite match the real thing. She looks a bit psychotic in the game... not sweet and happy like in the preview! Oh well. Might just be lighting and graphics options. I hardly play Flaxi anyway: warrior is not my thing. She and Butterscotch Ripple (ranger) are the only two characters I have that aren't at level 80.

What else has been going on? Oh, I took Mousekin out to do some of her personal story and she found her Mom!

That's Galina Edgecrusher of Blood Legion. She has the same purple eyes as Mousekin and pretty close to the same white & grey fur. I'm figuring that Galina hooked up with Snarl Backdraft, cuz you know they're making googly eyes at each other between their snarly spats, and she had Mousekin, but since Mousie was a pale and scrawny cub, she cut all ties to her. (Although, Charr give their cubs to the fahrar anyway.) But I've always thought Mousekin was a female kitten that was picked on for being too pretty to fight. That's why she chose Iron Legion and Guardian. Anyway, I never really roleplay but there is always a bit of backstory in my characters. Thought I'd share. :)

Okay, so one other thing. Have you guys tried key farming lately? OMG. I freaked out! I thought I'd go to a key farm real quick and ended up baffled and stalled. I take it they tried to kill key farming with that so-called "Feature" pack in September. Now you have to be level 10 to start your personal story line. Well, a quick Google shows that most folks just do cooking to level up, which really only adds a few more minutes to the key farm. Lucky for me, I have mats galore, so I didn't even have to fork over that much coin to get a few key runs done. Didn't get anything cool out the chests though.

Okay, maybe one more other thing.  :D
Have you been to the lowbie zones? They changed the hearts and stuff!
In Metrica Province, the progeny are moved over, and the weird heart with the ooze and the protesters is different.
In Queensdale, you now dance for the cows and "tend" the corn rather than watering it.
In Wayfarer Foothills, Bjarni is no longer up on the hill with that loonie, Linnea. He's down by the first pass into the zone. She's up there with some other guy, although in all her madness she still refers to him as Bjarni when she runs off to chase the jackalope!
Caledon Forest has a new heart and Plains of Ashford has TWO. So strange.

I'm not sure if I agree with all these features and changes. That little compass up at the top right showing where to go next? Yeah, hold my hand cuz I'm a BABY.
Unlocking stuff as you level to 10? Uh, why?
Plus I've always thought that leveling in GW2 was way way WAY too freaking easy. It's not even a challenge. There is no feeling of accomplishment when you reach 80. All this new stuff just adds to the feeling that the game is designed for lazy people who love to look good but don't want to work for it.
Oh, except for the endless collections of crap that are unlockable now. You could work on that every day for forever. Don't get me wrong: I loved collecting in Rift. It had me hooked. But the system in GW2 with the unlocking and the random crap all over the map... *sigh*... why? To give people something to do, I guess?

Sorry, that's enough ranting from me for now. Truthfully, I am enjoying wandering around in the game again. It still amazes me with its artistry and creativity and humour. I love finding hidden nooks. I love listening to NPCs. I love the jokesters in map chat. There haven't been too many games in my life that have captivated me for this long. :)

I'm off to bed! Happy New Year to all and to all a good night!