OtakuModeEngage.8679

A point worth contesting is that ANet guaranteed that cosmetics won't disappear from the reward list after their season has ended, which some have taken to imply that other things will. But another possibility to consider is that maybe those cosmetics are the only rewards that change each season to begin with, while the base rewards such as karma, clovers, box of vegetables, crate of ores, or whatever, are a constant. Or maybe the only items that will disappear are ones that don't really make sense to be available after the season is over, like a map currency reward that was only available for that season because the season was tied to the release of that map. It doesn't really make sense for people to be grinding the central reward system for say, currency from Dragon Stand 2 years after Dragon Stand was released.

It's just a reward system with choices, just like our current dailies and weeklies, it will give you a bunch of optional tasks and you can choose which ones you want to do and in what order you want to do them. It doesn't force you to play any content, it just encourages you to. I also imagine, just like our current reward system, the options will include a mix of old content and new content, but will lean more heavily towards the content of the current release. For older content this system gives you a reason to go back, revitalizing those regions of the game, and for newer content, well you probably would have played it anyways, so this is just extra padding in your characters' wallet. But again, none of this is any different from the current available reward systems. The only thing that is changing compared to the old reward system, is the ability to choose which reward you want -and that, is a positive. It does so by giving you currency for completing an objective (instead of directly rewarding you with a specific item) and then allows you to spend that currency on whichever item you really want.

Certainly they could/should have done more. But at least we met the Master of Peace and see a few other zepherites standing around, and they name dropped the Master of Lightning and Glints Legacy. This means we are at least loosely introduced to the Zepherites as an organization, prior to seeing them crash in season 2. Even if they didn't go into any details, at least now it doesn't feel like they came out of nowhere. That's why I'm glad they added this isntance, even if it is barebones, because otherwise our first meeting with the Zepherites is a crash site. I don't think they should have added [[The Trek of the Zephyrites]], as that is in drytop already. And I think the [[Lionguard Security Force]] would have been better scattered in the Battle for Lion's Arch. I would have liked to see a Zepherite ship above LA, maybe have the Master of Peace stop so you can ask him who the Zepherites are/what they do. Or if he was too busy talking to Kiel, maybe one of the other aspect Master could have came with him, and we could have talked to them. They could have had Aerin ask that Master to join, then following their conversation we could ask the master about the zepherites and ask Aerin about why he wanted to join them. Of course this would have required new diologue, and for the most part they were just trying to recycle existing content.

So that means you didn't read the letter. It doesn't really hint that a catastrophe will happen, but it does say where they are going(which is where the catastrophe will occur), thus it ties, albeit very losely, Season 1 to Season 2. It's subtle, but it's definitely there. Also the letter literally says that they are carying "Glints Legacy", which hints toward Aurene.

Regardless of whether you can use TP to friend to get into any other lounges or not, the simple fact is you can't get into Memory of Old Lions Arch, unless you either have a pass or know someone who does. That means a pass IS required, even if its not yours. THAT makes it exclusive. If I have a VIP card at a club, I can go to the VIP section. Depending on the club, sometimes they allow me to bring a guest into the VIP section with me. But if no one has the VIP card, no one can go into the VIP section. If we apply that analogy to Lounges, all lounges require you to have a pass to enter, but most lounges don't let you bring a guest. But this one does.

One thing Honored Guests succeeded at was explaining how the city will be rebuilt, namely the joint funds collected by the Festival of the Four Winds and the Queen's Pavilion. Without that we'd have a gap where the city is destroyed in one episode and rebuilt in the next. I wish they'd done what Wooden Potatos suggested though, and placed the New Lion's Arch cut scene at the very end of the instance. That would have tied it together perfectly. The other thing Honored Guest did was hint at Glints Legacy and the Zepherites upcoming catastrophe. Although that was mainly through the letter 'easter egg', which can easily be missed, and should have been better implemented. Like you mentioned, showing the new sylvari saboteur joining the crew. Still, I think both of these are important story beats that warent some form of forshadowing to form connective tissue between the changing story lines, even if their implementation was somewhat lacking.

After obtaining my Lion's Pride key, and revisiting old Lion's Arch, I now have a greater appreciation for why they replaced it. Although there are fond memories of Old Lion's Arch, and I do love being able to go back, I had forgotten how clustered and dense the invironment was, and how spread out the services were. In comparison New Lion's Arch's open square and grand promenades feels much more easy to navigate, and it's services are much more organized and closer together. And without all that cluster, the new city just feels bigger. It's like when you empty a room as you're moving out and think to yourself, was this room really that big???

There are lobbys and lounges with jumping puzzles and portals to other maps, as well as Ambient dialogue. It is a lounge based off of what once was a city, a memory of the city, not the actual city itself.

I mean, they could have just as easily given it the other shard type. It's not really a complaint, just it feels like EotN/LA would be a better fit than Arb/LA, as it would pack all the LWS1 stuff in EotN, which just makes more sense.

Okay, I was thinking Phase 1 meant the karka attack on LA, Phase 2 was rhe first time we went to southsun, and Phase 3 was return to southsun. Which is why I said Canach is mostly in Phase 3. To be fair, this was a big episode, and was so packed full of content, that's its actually pretty easy to miss much of what they did put in. IE: staying around after events and story steps to listen to ambient dialogue, or pressing F on every character and going through all their dialogue options. Find every person who has something of value to say during the Escape from lionsarch, when that story instance has a timer. I think it's unrealistic to expect them to cramp everything back into this one episode, so I am satisfied with what they did manage to get in. I also view this as ANet just trying to get this content back into the game, regardless of the quality. There may be latter update passes to smooth out the details.

I don't think it does, as I mentioned earlier. Cities don't need pass keys, lounges do. Memory of Old Lion's Arch, needs a pass key, hense it's a lounge. Even if you are using teleport to a friend, that doesn't mean a pass key isn't required, it basically just means you are piggybacking on your friends pass key.

It's strange to me that the LWS1 strike is located in Arborstone, I feel it would be more appropriately placed in Eye of the North, given the timeline, and as all the other LWS1 instance stuff is in the Eye of the North.

Even if they can access via teleport to friend, that still requires them to at least have a friend who has access to and is currently in Memory of Old Lion's Arch, to me, that still makes it exclusive and gives it the status of a Lounge, because not just anyone can go in at any time. You either need the access key, or to be a 'guest' of someone with one. And yes, I consider the key a pass item, because you can't enter without someone in your group having one. It's like a VIP pass at a club, many of those allow you to bring a friend. But no one can get in without one.

The most important Phase is definitely Phase 3 as that's where all the important Canach stuff happens. That said, they added way more to Battle for Lion's Arch than anyone thought they would, bundling together six different releases! I for one thought that them slipping in the Marionette Public Instance as a side achievement in the Tower of Nightmares release, meant they were going to skip the Marionette, but they didn't! I mean that really caught me by surprise. And even though it was downgraded to a personal story instance, it was still a welcomed addition, to content I was certain they had skipped over. That said, it's possible when they bring back Southsun, we will get the original karka attack on old LA. Probably as a story instance though.

I don't really see a correlation. They wouldn't make an event that you have to either have a pass or use tp to friend to enter. If they bring that event back it will be similar to how they brought Battle for lions arch event back. Just talk to someone at the door.