Madness Madness Madness

Okay, quick first impressions of the Origins of Madness content. (I made notes! I'm such a nerd.) 

Number 1: the icon for the Origin of Madness achieves is a Sylvari high-fiving a Marionette. Huh.

High-leaf!

I did the Marionette event first cuz I just happened to be logging in when it popped. When she came down from the "space ship", I actually laughed out loud and said, "Sexy lady!" My man-friend gave me a quizzical look from across the room. :D
Of course, we lost that fight, and many others after that. I'm hearing that's not unusual. In a way, it was kind of fun to do an event with absolutely no kitten clue as to what the mechanics are. It was a true adventure! Plus, we still got some rewards in the end, so it didn't feel like a total waste of time.
One complaint though: I wanted to SEE the fight! I kept looking up to see what was going on, and more often than not getting killed for my curiosity. I got to see the sole of the Marionette's fashionable boot a few times.

I found a perfect quote on the Official GW2 Forums by perilisk.1874, talking about the Marionette fight: "At least 20% of any open world zerg are going to be useless — griefers, afks, or just undergeared, underleveled, or underskilled. In playtesting (assuming it’s even done) an event with 100 people, assign 20 to actively try to wreck the event. If you can’t make it work, it isn’t going to work in-game."

Question: What lane were you in at Marionette?

Answer: Um....Lane 2. No, that's Lane 4. Uh, the northwest lane. Fck it, I'm in MY lane. Let's fight!

If you fought Marionette, you probably know what I'm referring to. Lucky for us, there are some super-duper folks over at the GW2 subforum on reddit. Lots of helpful fight hints over there, and user Vancelot put up a pic of lane naming in Marionette. This has been annoying, especially in overflow where servers are mixed. Besides the numbering, the more concise way to identify your lane is which NPC is there: Taimi, Marjory, Braham, Rox, Kasmeer. I prefer thumb, pointer, middle, ring, baby fingers! Of course, you could always just pick lane 3, that way you're always right, no matter the numbering. 

Marionette Lane Numbering Convention -- please use!

After Marionette, I followed my HUD quest tips and went to L.A. I actually found the story instance without much trouble and spoke to all the NPCs. The new asura, Taimi, is adorable but misguided. She wants to meet Scarlet? Hmm. We'll see where that goes, I think. An odd storyline happening there, for certain.

I'd never met Rox or Braham before, having been on hiatus when they were released. Rox looks mental! Those spacey eyes! I love her, even though her dialogue is dim-witted. And Braham, shockingly just found out he is Eir's son! OMG. (Whoops, is that a spoiler? Nah, it's on the wiki. Can't be.) He's so flaming though. Goofiest Norn I've ever seen. Talked to Logan too, the 'tard, and sang a little ditty to myself: "Logan, oh, Logan, no one likes you." Received another quizzical look from the man-friend. :D

And Kasjory are back! Everyone's favorite girl-on-girl group is back on the beach and tugging heartstrings with Kasmeer's sob story about her daddy. Oh, boo-hoo.  

Kasjory, with me pouting in the background.

I've been trying to pinpoint why their story seems so... hrm... stooopid. I don't what other word to use! I mean, I like them. Their dialogue is usually funny, but sometimes it just seems forced or contrived or obvious or something. (Thesaurus, help me out here!) False, phony, affected, fake, overdone, strained, artificial ,recherché (Recherché? Sheesh, the word itself is recherché.), unnatural, unspontaneous. Does that sum it up? Also expresses my feelings for most of the dialogue in the personal story line. "We could never have done it without you!" Yeah, right. Colour me cynical.

Anyhoo... after the story instance, I went and found the Secret Lair. They said it was somewhere beneath the Durmand Priory, and I actually remembered a cave beneath there when I had been exploring before. Without checking any hints, I prowled around until I actually found the entrance. All by my lonesome! For some reason, I was inordinately proud of myself. I did something without the Wiki! Yay!

But after that, I gave in to my nerd-brain and did some research before heading out into the fray again. At that point, it was only about two hours after the content had been released, so info was sketchy, but Dulfy, may the Six bless her, already had  up a Secret Lair Guide. That's how I found out I needed to get Power Cores to unlock the door to the Secret Lair. Off I went to find some Energy Probes, using this helpful map from the forums.

Locations of Energy Probes.

Did a few of those, then headed to big Wurm thing. Did the beach escort first, lost. Did the swamp one a few hours later, lost. Did the other one after that, lost. Hmm. Something's fucky. Turns out Wurm fight is mega-hard and requires all three head-teams to coordinate. So, maybe this fight is for later, once people figure out the mechanics. It's permanent so I'm in no rush.
(Speaking of later, I've never done Tequatl either. I've heard there's a server that does it daily, but that could be a rumor. I'd love to get those achieves.)

Having fun waiting for Wurm escort events.

So that's it for now.This blog post is long and I'm supposed to be working, plus my fingers are freezing so I need some more coffee. Polar vortex can kiss my butt! Brrrr.