I have played through to the newly released Ember Bay map and I must say I am highly impressed with the scale of the map, the visuals and the game play. However, as usual for me, the story is the most important and, though I haven't finished my play-through yet, this one has already made me very excited!
First of all, the quality of the storytelling in the Living World Seasons has gotten progressively better. LWS1 was not as good as LWS2 and the entirety of LWS2 has now been outdone already by LWS3's first two episodes. Whew.
What a ride we've been on. In "Out of the Shadows", we already learned more about the White Mantle, Minister Caudecus, Lazarus the Dire and were left with the cliffhanger that Primordus was now active once again. Now, in the first mission of LWS3, we find out that Taimi has been holding out on another bombshell: Jormag is active as well!
With "Rising Flames", It finally feels like Guild Wars 2's story is going somewhere exciting with a plot that has multiple threads and multiple tantalizing missing links. This was missing from Heart of Thorns for me. I feel that HoT suffered from the frustrations of the "middle episode filler" feeling. Despite the fact that it had a complete story, that story felt disconnected from larger events and other plotlines in Tyria. LWS3 is already getting us back on track in a huge way. I can't wait to learn more! We even know that the heretofore unknown Deep Sea Dragon's name starts with the letter S for sure as Taimi let this tidbit slip out in her musings.
One thing I wasn't a huge fan of from LWS3E1 was the bloodstone magic mechanic. I feel it could be useful to have new mechanics, even map-specific mechanics like this one, if they weren't so situational. I'd much rather be able to use a map mechanic at any time I choose (subject to cooldown) like I do with gliding. The new Thermal Tubes are cool and more interesting to me than the bloodstone magic mechanic, but they also feel like "bouncing mushroom part 2".
The new legendary mace and the map reward backpack skin look amazing! Can't wait to get my hands on the backpack to make my evilest character yet!
But wait, there's more. And stuff. Structured PvP got a new map. I haven't had time to check that out yet, but the visuals look great. Fractals got a slew of updates, but I am not a fractal player (not enough time and I would let my teammates down if I had to go suddenly).
Overall, I am immensely satisfied with this update and I actually feel like playing more regularly again. Great job, Arenanet!
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