Lala’s Escapades – Something Wicked This Way Comes

I know I said I would be covering underwater gameplay this time, but in light of it being the first big event for Guild Wars 2, I thought I would give my take on it.

There was a lot of excitement leading up to this, because no one had a clue what to expect.  In the original Guild Wars, the only unexpected things were the hats, but this time around we were all in the same boat.  After the patch (finally) hit, people were running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to get anything and everything Halloween related.  It was the little things that were so amusing, like the fact that candy corn could be harvested like iron ore, or those ridiculously adorable quaggan trick or treaters.  The haunted doors were a bit frustrating, because they seemed to have something against me.  As a ranger, there’s not a whole lot I can do when it comes to swiftness, so I’m stuck with the regular running speed unless some kind person comes along and bestows the boon on me.  And before you say “Use a warhorn, silly,” I didn’t have one at the time.  So whenever I would come to a door, and I would almost reach it, it would disappear.  Then I would try and run to the next one off in the distance, and the same thing would happen.  Talk about dangling the carrot.  Needless to say, I didn’t spend much time chasing those around.

I did, however, spend a large amount of time finding candy corn.  A random person had said something about there being a lot of nodes in WvW, so I decided to try it.  Well thank you, random person, because I hit the mother lode.  I happily ran around for hours getting all the candy corn I could.

By the time I was ready to start Act I, people had already put most of the locations on the wiki, and for that I was extremely grateful.  I felt ArenaNet should have made the instructions a little clearer for those of us who aren’t so good at riddles.  I had to laugh at my own stupidity (well, I do that all the time so it’s nothing new) in the Provernic Crypt puzzle, where I touched the suspicious location and got teleported out before I even talked to the ghost.

Act II was a little more challenging, with the introduction of the Mad King’s Realm.  At least it made those stupid doors stay still.  I tried each of the four areas it had to offer, and I was good at absolutely none of them.  Still, it was fun to go around trying to turn people into ghosts, or chuck pumpkins at them.   But oh, that place of torture they call the clock tower.  Whoever created that was clearly sadistic.  As someone who’s not that good at jumping and landing in the right spot anyway, you add deadly green stuff and a timer and it’s impossible for me.  I wish I could say I came out victorious, but alas, my efforts proved I was unworthy.  Hopefully they’ll have it next year.

The second part of Mad Memoires took place in a little higher-level area, but it was still manageable.  On site 10, where the flames of the village had to be extinguished, I was either extremely challenged or the game was glitched, because I dumped bucket after bucket on sections of the fire, and those stubborn things refused to extinguish.  Third time was the charm, when other people finally took pity and helped my poor soul.  Afterwards on the very last page, in Sparkfly Fen, it put my downed skills to the test while fighting a veteran ghost.  I took advantage of the fact that your pet can resurrect you while you still fight, and used that to keep my health up until someone came along to finish off the ghost.

Now it’s time for Lala’s Fail of the Week.  I made sure I was there for the start of Act III, because I didn’t want to miss the onetime cut scene (it really was worth seeing).  Afterwards, everyone made a mad dash for the collapsed fountain, myself included.  However, in the rush to see the new content, I somehow overlooked the fact that it was a 5 person dungeon.  Yes, you read that right.  I quite literally tried to take on the Mad King by myself.  Who’s the mad one now?  I got him down to about three quarters health when I realized something was wrong, then headed back to town and gave myself a knock on the head before joining a proper group.  Armor repair cost: 5 silver.  Lesson in thinking before you go Leeroy: Priceless.  Blonde moment aside, Ascent to Madness was a very fun and fairly simple dungeon.  Also, the chest gave me my first two exotics, which I was very excited about (it’s the little things).

The final act gave everyone some nostalgia, as they brought back the good old game of Mad King Says.  A new addition that was extremely helpful was the timer for the emotes.  Another thing I loved was that they gave the Mad King a voice.  I commend whoever did the voice for him, because it was absolutely perfect.  The witch’s hat that everyone received as a reward was adorable, and seeing everyone run around behind the Mad King was rather amusing.  But after the craziness of Act III, it felt a little anticlimactic.

All in all, ArenaNet did a fantastic job with the first big event of Guild Wars 2, and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the rest of the holiday season.

(Photo credit: Guild Wars 2 Wiki)