Saturday, 8 September 2012

Guild Wars 2 - Exploring Orr


I’ve reached 80 on my Mesmer now, and things have been going well. The story I’m almost done with, and it has been a fun ride, with two exceptions. One, if a choice leads to underwater battle, I managed to pick it. Every time. I hate underwater combat. And two, sometimes it’s been a real pain to actually get to the quest entry points, especially in later levels.

Guild Wars 2 Cursed Shore Vista

Which brings me to the Ruins of Orr.

The three areas surrounding the Ruins are zones for levels 70 to 75, 75 to 80, and 80. For me, all of the points in Orr have been a mission to get to solo. There’s a possibility it’s simply because my realm is under-populated or too few have levelled to 80 yet, or even that everyone’s just busy with WvW while we actually own the place for once.

But you can’t take three steps in the Straits of Devastation, Malchor’s Leap, or the Cursed Shore without running face first into usually more than one mob, and usually Risen. I’ve picked up easily five times more high level bones for crafting than any other crafting ingredient, just in trying to make my way around Orr. 

And it gets worse. Because of this lack of people fighting in these near max level zones, events regularly fail. Most of the waypoints are located in hubs that can be attacked and taken over by the Risen. I hope the full degree of tedious horror is starting to become obvious, now. 

It’s almost a shame. The ruins are beautifully designed and they’ve done a very good job of corrupting and wrecking what was clearly once a beautiful place. I understand these issues will get better, and rapidly so. Eventually I imagine people will hang out in Orr to grind karma or skill points for the Mystic Forging of those oh-so-tempting legendaries, and everything will be fine. The waypoint invasions will be dealt with, and the group boss-like mobs wandering around will be a rare sight.

But for now, while I love the design of Orr and see the potential, I despise going there.



- ED

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