My adventures Beyond (not yet?) the Sands

It’s Beyond the Sands, except it’s right at home in a tier near you.  It’s the live event leading up to the Land of the Dead.  I’ve been enjoying the event so far, and if it continues like this it may be my favorite live even in WAR yet.  It’s the first live event with a real story that I can feel connected to.  In my version (Tier 1), rare artifacts have fallen out of the sky during a zepplin crash in the Greenskin t1.  I was sent to investigate and discovered eventually that these artifacts had magical powers.  To sum it up roughly, the artifacts have attracted skeletons and there is more at work here than meets the eye.   I was asked to kill these skeletons for artifact and seal parts, pick up crates from the fallen zepplin, learn about some lore, and kill players.   Most all of the content for the first two steps took place (for me) in the RvR Lake of T1.  This meant that Order had to come out and play.  I died A LOT out there but I had so much fun having to watch my back while doing PvE content in a highly contest RvR area.  It made for good exp, good renown, and good fun.

One step in particular had me chuckling to myself.   It required players to go to the Lyceum in IC and kill a mob.  However, it’s not instanced.   I thought it would be an all-out zerg on the mob but I was shocked when I rolled up to the place and saw a line — yes, a line!  I haven’t seen lines like this since 1999 while waiting for Jboot spawns or Guk Croc spawn.  It was bizarre and cool at the same time to see the community being so respectful of each other.  We had about 20-25 people lined up and it took about 15 minutes for me to move through.  People were socializing, telling jokes, and getting to know people they would otherwise have just glossed over.  Being level 10, a level 40 would never give me the time of day anywhere else but in this line people were roleplaying with me, telling me my breath smelled and all that good stuff.

I’m excited to see what it asks me to do next.  Tomorrow I’ll have to move on to Tier 2 since I’m a sliver from level 12 and I hope it’s as fun out there as it is in T1.   I’m expecting a lot of great lore (like we’ve had in days 1 and 2) and explanation (beyond what was given in the podcasts) to explain why we’re going to the Land of the Dead.  In a way, I’m also expecting the event to feel a lot like the event in WoW to open the gates on Ahn’Qiraj.  My guild opened it first on/for our server and the entire event (although a bit grindy up to and crashy/laggy when it opened) felt massive and united the server.  I think Rise of the Tomb Kings will do the same.   Pitting factions against eachother in a race for resources, and hopefully all via a big RvR clash, will be incentive and reward at the same time for unlocking first access to LotD.

It actually surprises me to say this… WAR is moving in a very, very good direction.  There is such a feeling of momentum in the air and player morale is very high.  The feeling in the air is almost a 180 from what I was sensing two months ago when all players could talk about was the lag and the horrible end-game.  Don’t be mislead though – there is still some lag and the end-game is still on the stale side, but it’s moving very quickly in a direction that will remedy all of that… at least we all hope.

My Choppa is coming along nicely.  I’m level 11 but I feel like I haven’t played much at all;  The reality is that I really haven’t.  I’ve done mostly scenarios and been able to avoid questing beyond the first two chapters.  Trying to complete this live event has really, really moved my exp bar and allowed for me to not focus on the leveling experience, but rather the experience of actually experiencing something!  Does that make sense?  Well, it should.   Although the live event is being done through mostly quests, the quests feel more like a journey.   If I had my way, there would be a live event going on constantly and the questing in the game would fade away forever.   (Tip:  Those of you looking to make MMO’s in the future, this is a decent way to keep the basic premise of a quest but make it feel like something more (Very similar to some of WoW’s phasing quests that were more about story than anything else)).

More to come after Day 3.