Guild Chat - Episode 116
Guild Chat - Episode 116
- Title
- End of Dragons Gameplay Overview
- Host
- Rubi Bayer
- Guests
- Chelsea Mills
Morgan Lockhart
Kwan Perng
Erin Amschlinger
Annie VanderMeer - Date
- December 3, 2021
- Official video
- YouTube
The 116th episode of Guild Chat aired on December 3, 2021.
Transcription[edit]
Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons New Guild Hall - Isle of Reflection trailer [12:56][edit]
Introduction [13:41][edit]
Rubi Bayer: Hi Tyria, happy Friday, and welcome to Guild Chat! I'm your host, Rubi, and I am so glad that you've decided to spend this time with us today. This is our last Guild Chat of 2021. We've all had so much fun sharing all of these little End of Dragons previews and tours with you since July, and since this is our last show, we want to end on a high note. We've a lot of stuff to share with you today, we're going to talk about legendary weapon variants for End of Dragons, we're going to introduce some new story characters, and tell you more about other story characters that you've already heard about. We're going to take a tour of the Isle of Reflection Guild Hall that you just saw the preview video of, and we're going to talk about the Arborstone Revitalization Mastery Track. We have a whole bunch to get through and I know you're all really excited to hear about this, so we're going to jump right into it, I'm not going to make you wait super long.
New Legendary Weapons [14:32][edit]
Rubi: Let's start with the legendary weapon variants. Back on July 27th during our first look live stream, we gave you that little peek at the legendary weapons and we've got a quick video just in case you weren't there or if you've forgotten because it's been a while and 2021 has been weird. we're going to give you a quick refresher of what we talked about back then.
Chelsea Mills: I'm Chelsea Mills and I'm a senior prop artist. In End of Dragons we're introducing 16 new legendary weapons all available on release day. This set of legendaries is inspired by the elder dragon Aurene who plays a significant role in the End of Dragons story. From an art perspective we wanted the legendaries to show Aurene's journey with the commander, from the first time you meet her as an adorable little hatchling, to now all grown up as our own elder dragon. The precursors represent baby Aurene, while the legendaries represent adult Aurene. Aurene is one of my favorite characters, and I'm so happy that we got to create a legendary set based on her. I can't wait to see players running around in-game with the legendaries.
Rubi: I'm with Chelsea, I'm looking forward to this. Chelsea and a lot of our other developers have been hard at work since well... for a very long time, but especially since that first look live stream in July, and the thing about these legendary weapons, this Aurene set that Chelsea talked about... Aurene isn't our only elder dragon. we have more, um, so the way this is going to work is that at end of dragon's launch you're going to get that core Aurene set. and then we will be releasing actually yeah there's a preview of the core Aurene set, and I have a little something extra for you in just a minute. but we're going to keep releasing legendary weapon variants based on the other elder dragons in the game so like Jormag, Kralkatorrik, Mordremoth. you're going to get versions based on that. here's a little preview just so you can get a look at like what the greatswords will look like. these are... each variant is going to use the style and effects based on that dragon. there's also going to be a new visual effect. and I think probably the best way to preview it is in games so let's take a look at a couple of the Aurene weapons that I have on my character now.
Rubi: This is the Aurene... this is the short bow, it is gorgeous and I love it. I'm just going to turn my character around a little bit so you can get a good close-up look at that and how the effects are very much like the Aurene, the elder dragon grown Aurene that you see in the hall of monuments right now. And let me just unhide my UI real quick because I think also it's going to be kind of fun to start some trouble - there is... and we can also see the footfalls. There is a naga right around here. So... when you... go into combat... come on. Okay yeah he did not love that! Nope! Now just... take him out real quick. And give you a look at what this looks like. That death blow effect is a new effect that will come with these legendary weapons.
Rubi: Um, you will occasionally get that when you kill - it's kind of a finishing style effect and you'll also see... when you first go into combat and swap weapons while you're in combat you get a little effect on there too. So the variance... the way this is going to work - the variances are appearances. You forge that core Aurene legendary weapon and then you will go on a journey with it to start unlocking the magic of other elder dragons and bringing that into this legendary weapon. So all of these awesome greatswords that we gave you a preview of and all of the other legendary weapons that will be released as part of those variants, you just have to forge that basic weapon once and then you do your gameplay to unlock it in other ways. The other thing that I want to mention about that because I'm pretty sure people are asking. These legendary weapons the core Aurene weapons and their precursors are going to be tradable. So, you can trade those with other... with others in the game, you can get them on the trading post, you can put them on the trading post after you forge them. And if you are super excited about that you can get a headstart on them right now with the legendary precursor that you get through living world replay, um, if you have missed some of those achievements they're permanent, so you can still... you can still work on those between now and End of Dragons and just get a little jump on things. There's a lot more to tell about those but we have a lot to get through today as well, so as soon as this show's over we're going to be publishing a post on our website, from three of the developers who are working on this that give you more information about these weapons.
Story Characters [19:41][edit]
Rubi: But there's your preview, and we're going to move on and talk about some of these story characters with our first couple of dev guests. Let's start with Morgan. Hi!
Morgan Lockhart: Hi Rubi! Hi everyone! I am Morgan Lockhart and I am a senior writer here at Arenanet working on all things End of Dragons. I wrote a bunch of the chapters of the golden path. I also worked on the Echovald Wilds map and the Arborstone map which we'll be talking about later today.
Rubi: Thank you! And also Kwan. Hi!
Kwan Perng: Hi everyone! My name is Kwan Perng and I'm the project narrative lead on End of Dragons and I'm really excited to share some of the characters with y'all today.
Rubi: Yeah. So, a quick thing: as always, we are pulling back on spoilers. We want to leave lots for you to find for yourself in game, so we're going to tell you a little bit about these characters - their background, who they are - but we're not going to be digging deep into the story spoilers. So if you don't want those, don't worry. We've got you covered. So why don't we start with Joon who we saw in the End of Dragons trailer not so long ago. Who is she? Tell us about her.
Kwan: Yeah. So Joon is the owner of Xunlai Jade, which is the company that's proliferating a lot of this jade technology that you have all been seeing throughout the trailers and previews. And she's a very brilliant inventor and also a very shrewd business woman and so she has a lot of talents that allow her to excel at what her role is. And interestingly, she was born to kind of a poor family in the Jade Sea, she was raised by a single mother and that’s, those are kind of surprisingly humble beginnings for this character, right.
Morgan: Yeah, it’s humble and it has meant that she’s had to overcome a lot of questions about her, about her talent, her ability, and because of that she has like, really high defenses. And that can sometimes complicate our relationship with her, complicate our interactions with her, where she can take a simple offer of help, or advice as being something that is a personal attack on her abilities. She hears, maybe we could do this this way as you know, “you are not capable and you will never be capable”, you know, “you will never amount to anything”. She’s always hearing that in her head because all these people that constantly ask that of her, and so because of that she can be a little prickly. She does not like to be questioned, she does like having things her way, and like you’re saying, that complicates some of our interactions with her, but she’s a really wonderful character. One of the things I really appreciate about writing her is that it’s a character type that we just don’t often see in a female identifying character, and when we thought about our inspirations, we did think of Lady True in Watchmen, but mostly when we were referring to her to our actors or to other people on the team, we brought up a lot of these real world brilliant pragmatic but egotistical male tech moguls, and so examining that character through the lens of womanhood has been a really interesting challenge and I think has created a very fresh character.
Rubi: Well, how about- I don’t want to make a pun that’s going to spoil things, but how about Empress Ihn? Let’s move on and talk about her a little bit.
Kwan: Yeah, so Empress Ihn is the current leader of the Canthan empire, she comes from the imperial line that’s been throughout Guild Wars’ history before even Factions, and she cares a lot about the people under her. She wants to do what’s best for the Canthan people, but she’s come into power at a very tumultuous time. There’s a lot of changes in society that are happening between the jade technology that’s kind of changing the culture and the ways of the Canthan people, but also at the same time in End of Dragons, Cantha’s going to reopen which is a monumental event in Canthan history. So, she faces a lot of challenges in this position as empress.
Morgan: Yeah, and another very interesting detail that we are going to now share about Joon is that she was actually the illegitimate child of the previous emperor which makes her the half-sister of the empress. However, she was not raised in court, she was not raised with any of those advantages, and so something that’s interesting that’s happened lately though is that there’s been this power shift, where Joon has grown in power, while Empress Ihn has seen some of her own power diminish, so there’s been this sort of flip of their positions- or not flip really, it’s more like Joon has risen to be close to her level, but it’s changed their relationship, it’s challenged their relationship. It does create some tension, but mostly there’s also still a lot of respect, but it is something that feeds into all of their interactions as two of the most prominent and powerful members of the Canthan society.
Kwan: Yeah and she's very interesting because she has like a very commanding presence as she should as a leader. She's comparable to Queen Jennah right. And when you meet her, you feel like you've met a world leader. She's just so confident and-
Morgan: She really has an impact.
Kwan: Yeah and- But at the same time, she has a human side to her right and we some of the more intimate moments even in the brief time that we see her. It's really interesting to kind of like peek behind the curtain of royalty during these times.
Rubi: Before we move on to the next character, I do want to call that out. How multi-casted these character are and this is something that I've loved as I've been watching these characters come along while you all are working on them and building them out. You have that exterior. You have that professional insight, that we're all interacting with these players but they have a history, they have interactions, they have backgrounds that complicates who they are. And they have that internal, that human depth, that more vulnerable side. It's subtle, it's not like hitting you in the face but it's very much informing who they are and I love that.
Morgan: Yeah absolutely.
Kwan: Yeah and I think that is really present in our next character which is Minister Li who is the head of Ministry of Security which is basically the modern version of the ministry of flame. And he is a very proud Canthan. He is a patriot and takes his job very seriously. He takes the security of his nation very seriously. As a result, he is a little distrustful of us as outsiders when we first come to Cantha.
Morgan: Yeah absolutely. Um you know it's his job to see that Cantha is safe and to you know to keep track of all these changes all the people entering and so that complicates a lot of our interactions with him um, you know, and as a traditionalist he definitely takes this view of the changes that are happening to Cantha in a very wary way you know anything that might change power structures could potentially threaten his place in society his power and he's very wary of all that but at the same time you know, he is, he is a politician he is skilled at what he does and every interaction with him is incredibly nuanced you can always tell he's operating on a few different layers and our his voice actor Patrick Gallagher does an amazing job um bringing that nuance to the performance.
Kwan: Yeah and even though his character comes across as very aggressive or stern and you know the many characters in the game around him who work under him or with him think, feel the same way about him. Joon has to interact with him and she-
Morgan: They are not friends.
Kwan: yeah, she that she feels that way about him. At the same time there's a warmth almost, that may be going too far.
Morgan: That might be too far.
Kwan: a sentimentality
Morgan: Yes
Kwan: beneath his kind of hard exterior. Sorry I'm being made aware of a mic issue. There's like a sentimentality beneath that comes across when he interacts with Detective Rama who's a character that we're going to see later this month. And they have almost like a mentor mentee relationship or even like a father-son relationship and -
Rubi: Yeah, actually, a quick thing on that, you mentioned we're gonna meet a couple of characters later this month. As we get closer to Wintersday and the end of the year, keep an eye on our instagram, our twitter, our facebook channels, because we have a couple of videos from our voice actors. Which is well, Rama and Yao are gonna get some more introductions. So yeah you will meet them later this month.
Kwan: Yup exactly.
Rubi: So, do we want to um move on and talk about Ankka?
Kwan: Yes yeah sure. So um before we start talking about Ankka, I do want to take a moment and appreciate her awesome design.
Rubi: She's so cool.
Morgan: Yeah
Kwan: I love her outfit and her her eyes are very unique of course. Um, the Aetherblades, we haven't seen them in a while and we've created a lot of new crew members to really fill out, make it feel like this is a family of sky pirates that have been in the mists for all these years together, and we previously have killed Horrik in the fractal who was the first mate to Mai Trin, he was the norn with the big cannon. Ankka has taken that position as the new first mate to Mai Trin and she's a little different, she has a very complicated backstory that we'll lightly touch on, we want to leave some of it for players to uncover in the actual game. But she was working with Gorrik at Thaumanova many years ago before the explosion there and the experience of that really changed her in a fundamental way and it was a formative moment uh in her life, right.
Morgan: Yeah and her interactions with Gorrik, you know they really, you know we see her in many contexts throughout the game but the interactions with Gorrik are incredibly unique and hse brings out an interesting side of him too. I think fans of Gorrik are really in for a treat this expansion but hey both bring out these really interesting sides of each other with this shared experience they have, but yeah she's been on a journey an it's been a tough one and because of that she has this viewpoint that is extremely negative towards all of the powerful figures of Tyria, you know, the Gods and the heroes who aspire to wield great power, because she looks at everything that's happened, and sort of seems to think that every time that really powerful people get involved, including us, things get worse.
Kwan: Yeah, which was kind of the point that Joko was making right?
Morgan: Yep Yep yeah yeah. She is not the first one to make it but she is the one who, I suppose, acts upon it. [Laughter] but yes.
Rubi: So one thing real quick, you called out her character model, and I do want to huge shout out to everybody who's been working on the character models, because they're gorgeous, and I love her eyes so much. They are fantastic.
Kwan: Yeah, for sure
Rubi: Yeah, but she's not the only Aetherblade that we're going to meet, there are a few others.
Kwan: Yeah, so we're going to tough on some other Aetherblade crew members not as deeply but the first one would be Ivan who's a dredge Aetherblade as you can see here.
Rubi: He's so great.
Kwan: He's the chief navigator and he's a very self-serious dredge, he's really a lot of fun, he's extremely loyal to Mai Trin, and the dynamics between him and Ankka and this other character that we're going to talk about make him just such a joy. Steve Blum plays him and brings just a lot of heart to this character, and the next Aetherblade character is Renyak who, he's a charr.
Morgan: But not like any charr you have ever met before.
Rubi: Oh man.
Kwan: Yeah he's, his personality is extremely wild. He is the chief munitions officer and we're not going to say much about it, what I will say is he has a very explosive personality.
Rubi: Kwan.
Morgan: That's one way to put it
Rubi:' [Cymbal noise]
Kwan: And when you hear his voice, when End of Dragons releases, we won't say who he's played by right now but when you're playing it and you hear his voice, try to imagine who you think plays this character and try to guess and you'll probably be wrong.
Morgan: You'll probably be wrong.
Rubi: I want to hear the guesses.
Morgan:' Yes, we want your guesses.
Rubi: As soon as you hear Renyak yeah I want to know who people think because honestly we've talked about the flexibility of our voice actors and this huge range where you can't even tell who they are but this is a really good one.
Morgan: Yeah, we gave people so many challenges this expansion, and I think you're all going to be interested to hear about one of them which is that so many of them would get the chance to play a tengu, and it was really interesting to see what each actor brought to that, and what their interpretation of it was, you know because we really gave people room to play, you know, and some people would think of literal birds, and we'd have to pull them back and we're like "No, no, Polly doesn't want a cracker."
Rubi: "Please stop screeching."
Morgan: "Please stop screeching." I mean unless I told you to screech, there's a few times but we save it. We save it for some key beats, you know and some people, you know we thought of, you know I was very delighted when I figured out that one of our voice actors was picturing a Skeksis from The Dark Crystal because I love it, and I was like "That's definitely what they're doing." and it was. At the end I verified, that was their inspiration.
Rubi: Oh my gosh.
Morgan: But speaking of Tengu...
Rubi: Let's talk about Ayumi!
Morgan: The next character we're going to talk about is one of our named Tengu characters, her name is Ayumi and she is the a member of the Kestrels. If you saw the Echovald Wilds stream, you'll remember that I talked a little bit about them, they are an organization of protectors of the Echovald Wilds and they began in the time of the purges of the Ministry of Purity was conducting, shepherding other Tengu to the Echovald Wilds. Now, Ayumi is one of them, she was actually not born in Echovald though, she was what they call a "city Tengu" which is a phrase that is occasionally thrown at her as a negative, but she was raised as a socialite, she was raised somewhat affluent, but her uncle was a member of the Kestrels and he saw a whole lot of skill in her, so he brought her into the fold, vouched for her, and she did prove to have alot of skill, but you know, all that said, alot of the other Kestrels still questioned how well she understands fundamentally what it means to be a Kestrel.
Kwan: Yeah, and part of her status as like this city Tengu, as some would call her, she's seen as an outsider in her life and that's what makes her relate to us when we come there as outsiders, right? And um, I think her background also is what makes her so adaptive and just kind of, sharp at different situations and um she's a very charming character and I really love this character.
Morgan: Yeah, and she's, you know, she's open to new ideas. You know one of the reasons the other kestrels kind of resist some of her proposals is that they she does suggest some change. As somebody who's young, as somebody who's new um, you know they, but the kestrels do feel like, especially some of these older kestrels, that the way the kestrels have been doing things, has kept the Tengu and then the people of Echovald safe for so long so, you know, she does run against this with a lot of the other kestrels, but in the end, like a lot of her ideas are, you know, they're more modern and and you know they are welcomed by many of the other kestrels on the other hand. Especially when dealing with members of the gangs. Um, if you saw the Echovald wilds stream then you would know that these two gangs play a large part in end of dragons as a whole, but in particular the Echovald wilds, where they are headquartered, and you know the kestrels have fallen a little bit behind on dealing with those gangs. They've dug in a little bit more, than the kestrels have ever allowed anyone else to take into Echovald. End Ayumi has some ideas about how to fix that, as long as she can be confident enough to advocate for her ideas and that the others can accept it. But because she's young, you know, she doesn't quite have that confidence. But she is somebody who we see grow in confidence over the course of the story.
Kwan: Totally
Rubi: Yeah so mentioning the gangs is a good time. Let's, let's go over, let's go over to where the gangs are hanging out and talk about who they are and their leaders. Uh. Let's start with Jade Brotherhood
Morgan: Yes the leader of the jade brotherhood is a man named Chul-Moo. He was actually the co-founder of Xunlai Jade with Joon. While Joon was sort of the more brilliant inventor, he had the business acumen. He had the business ideas, um, and together they brought the company up. But over time they began to butt heads, because they had different ethical lines. Like Joon was here, Chul-Moo was way over here. There were things he wanted to do, that were a little bit less ethical, that she did not want to do. And so over time, he ended up breaking off and forming his own group. Which he ended up adopting the name of the jade brotherhood. Which was actually. It's funny. He, he hasn't, you know, at one point Joon accuses him of having a small bag of bag of tricks. Which is to say that, that with Xunlai Jade, you know, they, they had adopted the name Xunlai-Guild by acquiring the old Xunlai-Guild for their jade company. A little bit like AT&T and Cingular, where Cingular buying AT&T and using the name. And he kind of did the same thing. Once he formed his, his gang. As that, you know, the jade brotherhood, this is not the same brotherhood as in guild wars 1. Um, but he knew that, that, name would strike fear into those who opposed him.
Kwan: Yeah. And he was never necessarily as clever of an inventor as Joon, right. And so in in many ways, she kind of outmaneuvered him in, in terms of like supply chains and things like that. And so, i think, that is, his inability to kind of, confront Joon in like the, the marketplace is kind of what led him to toward like, the black market and the criminal underworld. And kind of shaped who he is today.
Morgan: Yeah. Yeah. He, the, the jade brotherhood one of their main business models is is ripping off Xunlai, both literally and figurably and undercutting them. But also just doing things that Xunlai would never do, you know, um building weapons, that, that, that are, you know, of you know, building destructive weapons and and such that, things that Joon would never allow Xunlai to do. So um, that yeah, they they don't have many limits, they don't, they don't have many boundaries in the jade brotherhood. But the other interesting difference between the two of them is that, while Joon came from this, this humble upbringing and that she's always sort of fought against this perception. He on the other hand came from a very wealthy background from one of Canthas most wealthy families. Well most well-known families. His mom Matron Park is somebody we never meet, but who looms large, her, her story has spread. Um and he, you know, he's, he's actually a really fun character to write. Um because he even though we've focused a lot on his negative qualities he's actually incredibly charismatic you know that's one of the things that makes him an effective leader, an effective businessman. And you know, sometimes he brings the party, sometimes Chul-Moo brings the party. And yeah, so he's, he's just been, as with all these characters, he was a lot of fun to right.
Rubi: Honestly every time you say, that "he brings the party" I kind of laugh, because i can see his weapon i want him to have the mood.
Morgan: oh yeah, yeah
Rubi: I just. It seems like it would fit. Okay so on the total other end of that spectrum is Tetra. Who, i love Tetras models so much.
Morgan: Yeah. Two characters could not be any more different.
Rubi: Right?
Morgan: She is the leader of the speakers. Which is the other major gang of Echovald, and not only do they butt heads with the jade brotherhood over territory and resource control. It's also, they have a completely ideologically opposed you know the jade brotherhood are all about technology, technology with no limits. And on the other hand the speakers oppose the expansion of jade technology. Ah, Tetra is a warden. Players of guild wars 1 will recognize wardens. They are forest spirits who defend the forest, mostly from humans, and from the encroach of civilization. Uh the story is that they actually were once Kurzicks, Who went through this ceremony to become these eternal forest spirits. Um so, she's been around a long time, um and she sees this this approach of jade technology is something that's a direct threat to the natural world. And has managed to amass these followers humans, other wardens, Tengu, a whole motley assortment of people, who feel the same way.
Kwan: Yeah and tetra. It's interesting how she she's the leader of the speakers. Which is a very kind of diverse uh group a diverse gang, that has members of many different species, including humans, but at the same time, she despises humans, right?
Morgan: Yeah
Kwan: Because of what they what she perceives they've done in the heck of all wilds. And that that's a very interesting dynamic within the culture of that group.
Morgan: Yeah. Absolutely. I mean she has you know because she has humans in her group, but she does not disguise her contempt for them. You know?
Kwan: Right.
Morgan: I think they are all, you know, they're, all they all very much believe in the cause, which is why they deal with it. But she's not very nice.
Kwan: Yeah she's very direct, right?
Morgan: Yeah she's very direct. There is no bs with her. Um she says what she means, and she means what she says.
Rubi: No matter how hurtful.
Morgan: Yeah no matter, no matter how much it might harm her followers.
Rubi: Yeah super, super blunt, but you know, she's, she's getting stuff done. So yeah all right well that is a run-through of some of our characters that are coming with the end of dragons. Thank you both for spending some time telling us about that. Thank you all. Please don't go anywhere. We're going to take a very quick break and then we're going to come back with a guild hall tour for you. So we'll be back in just a minute.
Guild Hall Tour [45:30][edit]
Rubi: Welcome back to our final guild chat of the year. Thank you again for spending this time with us. I hope you're enjoying all of these insights into what's going on with end of dragons and some little previews. We are ready for our guild hall tour with our next developer guest. Hi Erin thank you for joining hi Erin.
Erin Amschlinger Thanks Ruby. Hi, my name is Erin Amschlinger. I am a writer and a narrative designer here at ArenaNet. And I've had the opportunity to work on this expansion pretty much since it began production. And one of the things that I had the chance to write for, that Rubi and I are going to show you here today is, uh, the Isle of Reflection which is this expansion's newest guild hall.
Rubi: Yeah. So if you were here for the Shing Jea Island Map Tour way back when, one of the things that we went to was this portal that I am in front of in game; and at the time we said we're not going to talk about this now, we're going to talk about it more later and later has arrived. So let's jump in. And let's see why. Yes, I would in fact like to continue to the Isle of Reflection. Even the loadscrean, I love the load screen so much it's so beautiful.
Erin: Beautiful. Yeah. This entire section is just visually stunning in so many ways. So Rubi's going to take us on a little tour here.
Rubi: Yeah. So tell us, where are we? What is this place? Because there's some history here.
Erin: Yeah, so this is, this is an island off the southern coast of Shing Jea, which is one of the main areas we'll be visiting in the expansion. And for those of you who have been with the franchise for a while, you may recognize this location from winds of change. The Guild arena that we're going to be visiting here in a few minutes is actually the same arena that you had defeated Rico Murakami in during that winds of change.
Rubi: Yeah, so, we're going to head there shortly. But right now I'm going to go up this way toward the marketplace, and while I'm walking, for those of you who need to capture this Guild hall, how does that work? Cuz this is a little bit different from Guild Hall to Guild Hall. So how's it for this?
Erin: Sure, I'll give you just a little bit of a rundown of the expedition that you're going to be going on here. So essentially, you have been enlisted by the Canthan government to help out with this island. There have been some reports that there are squatters around the area, just stirring up trouble, basically. So you are going to meet up with Kasmir, who we obviously know from the main game. And then two other characters who we meet in End of Dragons, Akane and beyond and you with your Guild are going to go through and basically just clean up the the riff raff that's roaming around the island. And get things back in shape, and then you'll be able to claim the Isle for your Guild.
Rubi: Yeah. And a fun thing about this, smaller guilds, this will scale down for smaller guilds, so if there's just a handful of you and you like your small Guild friend group. We've got you covered.
Erin: Absolutely. The difficulty will be proportionate for you guys.
Rubi: So one thing I do want to note is that some people decorated this Guild hall for us. We've been finding decorations in real time. It does not come like this with like random snow off in the corner.
Erin: The snow is not included.
Rubi: It is snow sold separately, it is. It is an interesting journey. We've found some we've found some fun things, so those of you who decorated it, we love you. You've been making us laugh all morning. All right, so let's look around here. I need to go down a little bit because on my skyscale I'm like I always got to be on the roof.
Erin: Yes, so Ruby is taking us through the more central area of the island right now we're headed into the marketplace. And for those of you who have played Guild halls before, you're going to see some of the same structures you've seen in past Guild halls. So I'll just kind of point those out as we go. And any unique decorations worth noting anything worth commenting on.
Rubi: All right, let's go this way. Over to the war room and take a look.
Erin: So, like Ruby said, we're making our way to the war room, and so for those of you who played Guild halls, this tied to PvP upgrades, claiming objectives for your Guild, etc.
Rubi: Yeah, take a little loop around here. And yes, here's the decoration that we have found that sure is happening. No, I don't want Griffin, not you. Right now I need skyscale. Alright, I'll finish this loop and let's head over to the workshop. And I need to open my map again, make sure I understand where I am.
Erin: Yeah the workshop is just a little bit South of where the war room is located, and over there we have plenty of space for crafting, for plenty of crafting stations for the scribe.
Rubi: I'm being- so, remember the Jade Sea live stream mapped tour when Kirk was saying I can't even look in that direction, there's a reason I'm doing this right now, so we're just going to make a real quick loop through there and then we're going to leave.
Erin: No spoilers.
Rubi: Let's go. Yeah. Let's go over to the Tavern now, because our priorities are in order.
Erin: Yeah. So making our way over to the Tavern, this place you can socialize, get experience, buffs, grab a drink after a hard day of gilding. What have you. Eat some sushi that looks like.
Rubi: I'm I like, yeah, this looks that is enough sushi for, like, 12 people. That's excessive. All right. How about up to the Arena?
Erin: Sure, we're going to swing over to the arena. Or well actually this is.
Rubi: All right. Look y'all.
Erin: You can't leave this.
Rubi: That was it was extremely deal with it. Alright, let's go up to the arena and we will. I love him. Thank you whoever put that there, I love you.
Erin: It's gonna be hard to top that, but we'll try.
Erin: We're, we're making our way back to the arena and this is the area I had mentioned earlier where we.
Rubi: Look, balloons
Erin: Ohh and get balloons too.
Rubi: You can. You can get balloons. It's not included. Also look at the waterfall.
Erin: Oh my gosh.
Rubi: Alright, I'm unhelpful. I keep getting distracted by how beautiful it is, but alright, so here's the arena that you mentioned. What Are we?
Erin: Yes, someone here we can use this area to practice our combat. It's a lovely seaside location. And like I said, it has historical significance and in a great spot, so not a bad deal.
Rubi: Yeah, it is absolutely gorgeous. So Speaking of seaside. I'm just going to pop right over here. And let's get my skiff up and running shall we?.
Erin: Cool. Yeah, this this being an island location. One thing you really wanted to take advantage of was some of the new features we're going to be seeing here in End of Dragons. And one of these Rubi's showing us right now is the skiffs.
Rubi: Yeah. And if you've been watching skiffs on various Guild chat episodes. Hey, snow. You'll notice that our icons got an upgrade. One of the things that we've talked about as this is a work in progress is things like temporary icons as just little work in progress reminders. Let's see. So I'm looking for a fishing node and like we've talked about before, you can fish literally anywhere there's water. Fishing nodes just give you a better chance at good stuff happening.
Erin: Yeah. Just prime real estate for the fish market. And yeah, we just wanted to let you know as well that past Guild halls that have water accessibility will you will be able to use your skiffs there.
Rubi: Yeah, anywhere that well. All Guild halls. You can fish anywhere where there is water deep enough to swim in. OK, I got distracted talking about fishing and just rammed my boat into a rock. It's fine, everything is fine. Any place that has water deep enough to swim in, you can use a skiff. All the Guild halls you can go fishing in. They're also going to be End of Dragons Guild Hall decorations as well.
Erin: Exactly. So yeah, you can pick those up. Any previous Guild hall upgrades that you may have had will also carry over to this hall.
Rubi: Yeah, you don't have to re-earn those all over again, just like the other. Guild halls all right. So that's a little tour of the Isle of Reflection Guild Hall. I'll do this one more time just for people who are screenshotting. All right. We have one more thing. We're going to take you through part of the Arborstone Revitalization mastery track. Erin, thank you so much for coming and running us through this with me and all of you stick around, we will be back in just a couple of minutes thanks.
Arborstone Revitalization Mastery Overview [57:45][edit]
Rubi: Welcome back to our End of Dragons gameplay Overview Guild chat. Thank you all again for hanging out with us. We are in the final part of this episode. We're going to go through part of the Arborstone Revitalization mastery track. If you are familiar with factions you're familiar with Arborstone, so the look of this might be familiar to you. Joining us to help out with this is Morgan is back. Thank you for sticking around. Yep, happy to. Help and Annie is joining us from home. Hi, Annie.
Annie VanderMeer: Hi, I'm Annie VanderMeer. I'm a senior game designer at ArenaNet. I worked in various parts in End of Dragons and most notably, what I've been so eager to show you uys for so long now is Arborstone. And its associated track.
Rubi: Yeah. All right. So we are, I am inside Arborstone in game. Morgan's going to join my party and hop in here. So, Annie, why don't you start us by telling us what this place is? What's it for?
Annie: So Arbor Stone is an open world social space that's inspired by and using some of the tech from. Sun's Refuge and the Eye of the North and the population right now size for Arborstone is around about the Eye of the North, but as you can get a sense of here and we'll definitely see later, it's way bigger. It is a a large space. Very it's it's tech is huge, and the mastery is a cool element of it that the more you put into it, the more you'll see this space develop and open up things like new vendors and a cool new buff and so on. Which we'll show you a little bit of.
Rubi: Yeah, let's go ahead. And, Morgan, what's the story behind this? I'll let you kind of talk to us from what the background is.
Morgan: Right. OK. Yes. So I'm going to go over here. And I'm going to harass my Kestral friend here. Yeah. So the kestrels, I've talked about them a few times now, I talked about them at the Echovald Wilds, I talked about them with Ayumi but the kestrels are a group that formed in the time of the Ministry of Purity to bring tengu to Echovald so that they have a safe location, a safe haven. They taught them to live here. They taught them to live with the elements and to stay out of sight. Now, when the Ministry of Purity fell, The kestrels stuck around even though they didn't have that job anymore. They decided to stay on as these Rangers that patrolled and protected Echovald. Now when they first arrived in in Echovald, they found Arborstone the way that we left it in Guild Wars 1, a ruin. And they they they used that ruin as a place to hide as a waypoint place where refugees could come and find them and connect, and because you know it was. Because it was, A ruin, You know, it was able. People weren't really patrolling it. They were ignoring it. And then once the ministry fell, they decided to build it. They decided to start rebuilding it, you know, make it a more permanent home. Now, because they're Rangers and they're not interior decorators. They're not city planners. They kind of just left it like this. You know, it served their purposes. It's like if they could put down a bedroll and, you know, make themselves some food over the fire they were happy. But now that they've aligned with the player, they are allowing the player to turn it into more of a proper headquarters and build it up even more.
Rubi: Yeah. All right. Well, let's start looking around because we are just here at the very beginning of this. Annie where should we go first? You are. You're the tour guide.
Annie: Uh, I think the first stop in our tour should be to your left. All right. Where we will see the Strikes area. This is basically a nice place to gather your party before venturing forth. That person right there will give you access to all of the strikes in End of Dragons in one Handy Dandy location. And I can't tell you anything more about those because not that my department but, here's a great place to be able to get stuff, repair your equipment, run around to dance on things like Morgan has been doing. Just epitomizing a cat.
Rubi: One thing that I want to mention, like Annie was saying, you leveled this up for your own mastery track, but this is an open world location, so you're going to see different things than others might be who are at different points on the masteries. So right now I'm at mastery Level 2 for Arborstone Revitalization. That's a mouthful. And, Morgan is at Level 0, so you're the newbie.
Morgan: I am the newbie. I am mine's very empty. It's the way the kestrels left it.
Rubi: But Morgan, when we hop over to Morgan's gameplay every once in a while, you'll see kind of the basics when you first come in and what you're going to get. Let's pop over here and talk about that.
Annie: Yeah. So you can see the strikes area is accessible right from the beginning and so is this basic commerce area. You can see that there's a merchant you can see that there's another repair anvil and there is another guy that is really cool looking that I can't quite evolve yet, but you can see, I mean there's room for expansion here. One might say this commerce Area has potential.
Rubi: I I would, I would be the one who would say that there's little portal that we're just going to talk about later, but I want to take a moment to admire this big scary friend over here because this model is gorgeous.
Morgan: Do you? Don't you just want him to give you a hug?
Rubi: OK, I'm conflicted about this. Like, we've talked about this. There's a lot of. There's a lot of arms for hugging, and this seems like a nice friend.
Morgan: So much fun so many arms for hugging.
Rubi: But there's claws at the end. And there's so much. Potential for like painful pinching?
Annie: Oh yeah, a lot of pinching.
Rubi: So. I need to think about this. From now I will admire from a distance.
Morgan: I think I'm willing to take the the the hit or the hug. Yeah.
Rubi: Are you? Are you?
Morgan: Yeah.
Rubi: All right. Why don't we come over here? Let's continue on and see. Oh, hello. I don't like this. Not one bit. See, they got a hug? Yeah, that's exactly what happened there. All right. Let's come over here.
Morgan: That's some of those grumpy kestrels that I talked about with Ayumi, they don't like us. They're not as happy. Not everybody's as happy that we're here.
Rubi: Alright. So I I need to point out this is extremely cat behavior. Someone sleeping. and you're running over their head.
Morgan: Uh oh.
Rubi: Morgan, please. Alright, so I've got a couple of- God, they're just like please I'm so tired.
Morgan: Yeah, but I'm the cat. I'm not gonna sleep. But actually, like, wait, wait here.
Rubi: You're not wrong.
Morgan: So how many refugees?
Rubi: I have 2 refugees.
Annie: I have one refugee.
Rubi: Yeah. So, Annie, why did you do that? As you as you level up what people start filtering in. It gets, it gets more populated and you get more refugees for Morgan to run back and forth over.
Morgan: Yeah, the kestrels you know, they, they, they make it as welcoming as you the player gets to make it. And so you attract more and more people. This space, as it grows in purpose as it grows in comforts.
Rubi: And all right, let's check out the training area. Let's start right here. This guy's just given up, I can fight no more. Yeah. All right, so. Tell us about the training area, Annie.
Annie: So this is a cool area where the kestrels have been training to shoot well, to kick the crap out of their foes, they've given sparring and had to move quietly and there's a cool lecture going on to your left RE:
Rubi: Ohh yeah.
Annie: careful talking, maybe calling on some people in the audience and then, you know, the occasional mode where they just,
Morgan: Don't call on me.
Annie: Whack the heck out of that dummy a little bit and as you can see that there between the two screens, more and more people will show up as this lecture becomes more and more popular. This guy knows what he's talking about. And speaking of people who are well known and good at demonstrating their skills we have Tsuko Talonedge over here. Who is our hero challenge. And she gives you a lore quiz! No, she you actually, you fight.
Rubi: This is not a lore quiz.
Annie: Nope, it's a quiz in pain.
Morgan: Here' we have a charr. Here we have a charr for scale. She's so big.
Rubi: Yeah. She's big! She's a big bird. Ah, but not like that.
Annie: Big, magnificant borb.
Rubi: She is wonderful.
Morgan: They are very beautiful. So beautiful.
Rubi: She is fantastic. Yeah. So that's the training area. Again, I'm at level 2. There will be more and more here as you level up your Arborstone revitalization mastery. All right, moving on in our tour, where we head next. Annie?
Annie: We are heading. To the right, up the stairs, the very long stairs, because again, this is a huge, big old area.
Rubi: Yeah, I'm going to fly through the chandelier.
Annie: Very pretty.
Rubi: So let's come up here and. We're just going to pause.
Morgan: We're going to take a little. Pause here just to highlight that even though I keep saying tengu, tengu, tengu,. Tango, the kestrels are now an organization of a much more expansive organization, anybody who has a vested interest in keeping Echovald safe, they're going to be represented within the ranks of the kestrels. So we have Luxons and Kurzicks. And yeah, yeah. So they're just, they're just they've grown in, in size and in purpose over time. And so it's not just tengu, this is to Stas. You'll, you'll, you'll interact with him in a few of our quests and yeah.
Rubi: He shoots. He's furious, apparently.
Morgan: Yeah. I love his mask. Just can't see what's going on with Stas.
Rubi: Ohh listen.
Annie: It's a quiet anger.
Morgan: Yeah, quiet anger.
Rubi: He;s quietly furious. All right. Well, he is frightening me. So up the stairs we go.
Morgan: Up the stairs we go.
Rubi: We're going to keep on. I'm just like I want. To go faster.
Morgan: Well, go ahead.
Rubi: I'm just going to show.
Annie: Got so much to cover.
Rubi: Yeah. And we're, we're getting up a little bit higher, so I'm just going to kind of move around here. And show off this area from up here, but not too close to the edge because I have fallen to my death more than once, getting excited and getting too close to the edge it.
Morgan: Is a long way down.
Annie: That is really funny.
Rubi: Yeah, we're high enough that there's birds roosting. All right, let's come over here. And aside from this gorgeous rug. Let's look and see who else what else we have here. Who else we are, memorializing?
Annie: This is an area that if if you're familiar with Guild Wars Factions, one of the most important areas of the game was Tonakai Temple, which was a Temple that had tribute areas to some of Cantha's greatest heroes, and this is basically trying to recreate that so you of course get to see tributes to our Archemorus and Saint Viktor. They would argue they are the most important I'm sure. But also some of those names from Guild Wars Factions like Kaolai and again, just like in other areas. The more you invest in the points in the arborstone revitalization, the more entries you're going to see pop in. And perhaps people checking out the space and making a little pilgrimage.
Rubi: Yeah, you see the you see the candles and the pillars here that aren't filled out yet. So I'm excited to see who else.
Morgan: Who shall appear?
Rubi: all right, onward and upward?
Annie: Yeah. And Speaking of pilgrimages and religious thingies.
Rubi: Let's see. Let's see how we time this entrance. Yeah. So where are we now? Ohh, we it was perfect. He's here's the sad guy. Yeah. Excellent.
Morgan: So I don't have that on my screen but, but since I wrote him, I know what he's about. But yeah. So well, a little bit of high level news did manage to make it to some of the really like high authority figures. You know, the Empress, the heads of the ministries, the average camp that knows nothing about what happened on the outside world and so, at many points in the story we are going to be bringing news about all that has transpired to the ordinary canthan and see the way they're, how they're reacting uniquely to things that have occurred elsewhere, and one of those is the revelations that we share about the departure of the gods, about the death of Balthazar and the Kurzicks being a very religious people are mostly not taking that news well, such as him feeling very abandoned. Others on the. Other hand, you know there's quite a variety of reactions. Some people are like I thought they- I always thought it was a bit of a crock anyways, but you know, but most people are pretty broken up about it. So that's that's this is a good example of one of those cases where we see how Cantah is adapting to this modern age and all the news that it brings.
Rubi: Yeah, we have statues of the human gods here. So, and Dwayna's, Dwayna's is the biggest.
Annie: Yeah, Arborstone was formerly not the seat of power, but one of the seats of power of House zu Heltzer, which was the most powerful of the five ruling houses, of the kurzicks. And each one of them had a patron deity.
Rubi: Disrespectful!
Annie: Yeah, Got right up on her head there.
Morgan: I'm a cat. I'm a cat.
Annie: Having a fun time. And a charr, chare like I always thought the gods were dumb.
Rubi: Yeah, very true.
Annie: But Dwayna was the patron deity of House zu Heltzer, so that's why she kind of has the biggest billing, so to speak, in this space and gets her head danced on by charr.
Morgan: Yeah. Yeah, sorry. Here I'm kneeling an apology.
Rubi: Sorry, showing proper respect. Yeah. All right. So one of the things that we've talked about over and over is how this is a work in progress and there are there's a lot of game play work to be done, but there are also little touches like all of these pews, you're going to be able to sit on those. Somebody gets all as soon as someone gets all that seating in, right, Annie?
Annie: Yes, that will be a thing of like this is a task. It's on my list. I'm trying to think how many butts can fit in those seats like. I'm doing the math.
Morgan: How many butts in a single pew?
Annie: I'll get it done.
Rubi: All right, let's. I just want to come out here for just a moment and admire the view because one thing that you'll see as we progress through here is that as the day progresses, the light changes and it is so dramatic in such a wide, soaring open space that you can really see that difference. This area again, I'm being extremely close to the edge, but carefully this is an area out the back of the main area that this is all accessible, right?
Annie: Yep, totally accessible. And so pretty like our our artist, Justin, I I mean, I work in this space a lot and every time I do, I'm still just like ah it's so lovely.
Morgan: Yeah, it is beautiful.
Annie: Like I want to do it absolute justice, it's so gorgeous. Justin kicks butt.
Rubi: Justin is fantastic and the work put in on this has been great. Yeah, alright, let's keep going. I'm pretty sure it's no skyscales in the Chapel and yet here we are.
Annie: How are they gonna tell you no. You're the commander.
Morgan: Yeah, who's going to tell us no.
Rubi: I mean, there's nobody. Here yet? Well, nobody who can reach me. That giant tengu is going to be an issue. Yeah. All right, let's head over to. Let's head head over here to. I have a mess hall.
Morgan: I I don't have anything, it's just empty space.
Rubi: I have oh. I want to, I want to call this out just because you know it's going to get fixed, but the chairs haven't arrived yet in gameplay development and I love that she's just, like, very resentfully and passive aggressively sitting on the floor like fine.
Morgan: I'll sit here. I'll drink my coffee.
Annie: Her legs are tired. She needs to sit.
Morgan: She needs to sit down.
Annie: Some days we need to sit.
Rubi: So she's mad about it. So like you don't even have her?
Morgan: Nope. Yeah, mine has yet to be built out.
Rubi: Let's talk about the mess hall, Annie.
Annie: So the mess hall we basically the way that we approached some elements of the revitalization is the whole hierarchy of needs idea. That, of course, the first step is food and shelter. And here's the food aspect of that. So all of a sudden the kestrels have a place to get some grub, albeit maybe not the best grub as you will see communicated over there. Oh. and there's Sam, one of two cats
Rubi: I'm sorry I have to. Let's let's talk about Sam just real quick because first of all, he's he's motoring.
Annie: Oh yeah, these are cats that I mean as as more people are in the space and there's more food you're going to get rats. And then of course, you get working kitties like Little Sam, who she is beautiful and hard working. And if a rat should appear, she shall chase them down immediately. And of course, you can play with them because it is a design standard I have proudly held throughout my career that if there are animals that are good animals, space cats and doggos. You can pet them. That's that's an Annie promise to you.
Rubi: So that was.
Annie: So there will be pets.
Rubi: That was a tiny sidetrack. I'm sorry, but that was your first cat, so I wanted to make sure we we gave Sam a little bit. Of love.
Annie: Yeah, it's very appreciated.
Rubi: Yeah. Alright. So we're at, we're at level 2. I'm going to come over here and I'm going to talk to the quartermaster. I don't think you've...
Morgan: I do not have the quartermaster.
Rubi: Yeah, the quartermaster shows up. And, things are getting a little bit better.
Annie: So the quartermaster will have some access to some cool things that you can buy and also give a good sort of state of affairs of how things are at your sort of level of mastery. At first they're like well, you know, you've got the basics at the level at Rubi's at there's Pepper and Dill, and they have a kitchen. And I think it's very important. Because dill and pepper are delicious with eggs and I'm not going to say anything about Tengu in that sort of regard where they get the eggs from.
Morgan: Ohh.
Rubi: Ohh Annie! Ohhh. I hadn't gone there.
Morgan: I hadn't gone there either.
Rubi: And now I can't leave.
Annie: This is what happens live. I get these thoughts, and I have to share them.
Morgan: OK. All right.
Annie: So we got the head server and we have a very salty Brewer was a very clear idea about who gets to have her wares and who does not. You're. Not a kestrel and so.
Rubi: I was just saying hi, but OK, I also I.
Annie: No touchy.
Rubi: I Love the stink face that she's giving me. Like, look at that glare.
Morgan: No Tom foolery allowed here.
Rubi: She's fine. All right. Well, let's. Let's move on to another area because I really love what's in these next two rooms.
Annie: So this is related to the next step of the mastery which you know you've got your your needs taken care of and now you move into crafting. So we've got a kitchen here with an actual cooking trainer. Next door there's also something cool across the way which you'll see later is a crafting hall.
Rubi: Morgan's over here like nuh uh.
Morgan: Like. No, no, no, I don't have any of that.
Annie: I see nothing, you say there's fire I see no fire.
Morgan: I know my fire is dead. My fire is extinguished.
Rubi: Crafting will come.
Morgan: Very, very relatable content.
Rubi: So yeah, so you start getting crafting stations once this is up and running. It's pretty good. There's pie.
Annie: Ohh yeah, and with the as with other areas in the in the area. That sounds very specific, other areas in Arborstone, as your mastery increases, you're going to see more, more artisans and stuff show up. You're gonna see sus chefs and servers start showing up to help fairy food into an increasingly populated vest hall. All these little things moving into the space and also more cats in the Mess Hall. You will see each other guests. You will see my other cats appear in there because I'm the developer that owns the space and I'm going to name cats after my cats if I can. Another Annie guarantee.
Rubi: All right. All right. Well, we're going to, go to one of my favorites now. She's great I love her.
Erin: I don't see anything
Rubi: Jewelry station. You can look at it over here.
Morgan: I'm looking at your screen now.
Annie: Look at all her majesty.
Rubi: Oh, she's wonderful. She's wonderful, but...
Morgan: But where's all her? Where's all her finery? Why ss she not studied with gems on those pauldrons?
Rubi: Yes, this is, this is my issue that I want her to have bracelets or something because she is the jeweler, but I'm going to talk to her and let you talk about her name Annie. So what's your story?
Annie: So I'm the dork who thinks that like acronyms are the height of hilarity like I'm a big Fan of Modoc. So of course I had to make Jadca the Jade automaton designed for creation of adornments, who technically is a piece of jewelry herself.
Rubi: She is a piece of jewelry. She's magnificent and I love her.
Morgan: She's a masterwork.
Rubi: She is great. All right, so there are there are more crafting stations, you don't just get cooking and jewelry crafting, but we'll get there. For now, let's go here.
Annie: So this beautiful area that is again a little absent, in Morgan's.
Rubi: Alright, this is making me feel bad.
Morgan: Yeah, I know. Just turn on some sad music because I just spin in circles. My empty space, my empty heart.
Rubi: So what is this place, Annie?
Annie: So this place was for the place formerly known as the Barracks. It was something like like monk cells or servants quarters back in the day. And once you take it over and spruce it up a bit, it is now the inn at Arborstone. And you have a host and you see more people showing up to to rest here. And actually, speaking of resting, there's a very cool mechanic with this space. With Arborstone we I mentioned, this is a player hub and this is a place we wanted players to feel tied to. And not just in building up the space, but if you hang out here in the Inn, and you don't even have to be logged in, for a certain amount of time- I love how Morgan's already getting into it. You have to unlock it first Morgan!
Morgan: Know I don't actually have the mechanic. But she's, I'm gonna. I'm gonna take a nap anyway.
Rubi: It looks great over here. OK, yeah.
Morgan: it does, yeah. We'll pretend, right? Yeah, it's comfortable.
Annie: But you will get a very cool Well Rested buff, and that buff actually increases in intensity, as with many other things, as you up your levels of Arborstone revitalization. I don't even know if it's probably restoration in my heart. It's it's all those things. Yeah, it's revitalization. It's radness.
Rubi: I I propose radness as a canonical, some sort of level, official we can we can put numbers to.
Morgan: Radness level at 2, radness level at 5.
Rubi: All right, for now I want to.
Annie: It goes up to Infinity because that's rad.
Rubi: That's fair. Alright, I'm gonna go over here to my favorite salty NPC, but first. Heeeeey
Annie: Out of many salty NPC's.
Rubi: And there's so many like to pick from.
Morgan: Yeah.
Annie: Yeah. Oh, yeah. A beautiful array of very very salty NPC's. So another thing that's unlocked in that step 1 of that mastery is this beautiful Asura gate that she'll take you to scenic Lions Arch a very careful, carefully built and negotiated item that, as you can see, the kestrels in true camp and bureaucracy format, are, are rather carefully monitoring.
Rubi: Yes, I got the cranky model. Look at her. Look at her face.
Morgan: Yeah, she's not here to help, she's. Here to harm, to hinder, but anything but help.
Rubi: She is so done with me and. I even have the.
Morgan: Harm, hinder, harang.
Rubi: She has a job to do, right, but I love that I can ask her to hurry up and she's like, no, absolutely not.
Annie: How dare? How dare?
Rubi: What if there's a seed on your shoe, the world will be over.
Morgan: Seeds on shoes are pretty serious business.
Rubi: OK, you know what? I'm going to go over here to her cool friend. Because she's so much better. And the thing I love about this, this is just such a fun little flavor piece where I'm. Like, OK so your friend over there is kind of an issue and she's like, you know what? That's that's a them problem.
Morgan: Once you go on the other side of that gate, not my problem. I dont care.
Rubi: The extent to which she does not care about what happens on the other side of the gate is amazing.
Morgan: Yeah, yeah.
Annie: She's like go have fun. Whatever. This sounds like a you problem.
Morgan: Have fun storming Lions Arch.
Rubi: Yeah. So, yeah, we've got the, we've got the Asura gate unlocked at Level 1. And we talked about these portals. I'm just gonna come over here.
Morgan: I do have the portals. Thankfully. The kestrels are much more generous than the exalted.
Rubi: Yeah, we start, we start you out with the portals and let's go ahead and use them because sometimes stairs are for suckers. Let's, come. Let's take this teleporter to the third level.
Annie: This is the place I like to call the overlook for probably pretty obvious reason. Because it looks out overall, this Majesty.
Rubi: Look at this. Oh, well, excuse me.
Annie: And this isn't even the highest point. This isn't even the highest point in, in Arborstone, because again as reference heckin' huge.
Rubi: Yeah, look, it's kestrel crossing down here on the bridge. Alright. And over here there is. This statue that I'm just gonna leave alone for now. I'll let you all do that after End of Dragons launches.
Annie: It might lead to. Little somethin' somethin' like, you know, a jumping puzzle or something like that. But these kind of suspicious, beautiful mushrooms and it's beautiful... See, I'm terrible at jumping puzzles, So I'm looking at that like I'll fall there, I'll fall there.
Morgan: Yep.
Annie: That's a place I'll definitely fall.
Rubi: But you know what? I would, I would like to point out the lack of "mounts have been disabled in this area." Yep. So Annie, I have news for you.
Annie: I can use a mount on this jumping puzzle.
Rubi: You can. You can I will not interact. Yeah. So yeah, this is one, and do you want to talk a little bit about what this does, Annie without too many spoilers.
Annie: So interacting with this one, I got to be a little vague with it. It is something where even noobs like me who are gonna fall off that thing all the time. Even with mounts are going to be able to participate and basically, have different levels of success. You can run around and be extremely thorough with what you pick up, or just try to get to the top as fast as possible. No way is the wrong way for that jumping puzzle, and it's just one of the many things like secret things or or elements to find that are scattered around this. Very large space.
Morgan: A very large empty space from my point of view.
Annie: That I will not give away.
Rubi: I'm sorry.
Morgan: An empty bookshelf is a crime that is a crime. They cannot be. We won't stand for this. We will fill that with books.
Annie: Oh yeah. Excellent. This is exactly the approach that I like to hear people taking.
Rubi: Yeah, so we've got the library here and then let's go over to the reading room with a quick pause to admire the art because one of the things that I've loved since launch back in 2012 is the art on the walls is so beautiful. So that one's familiar, I love that it's just in here and part of it, and we have the reading room.
Morgan: This is definitely where I'm going to be.
Annie: So this space.
Rubi: Yeah.
Annie: Is a little bit, I wouldn't say sparse, but a little bit, you know you got your boxes. It's sort of like a college dorm room in that the the furniture is just sort of whatever somebody leaves out on the side of the road with free sign on it or just leaves unattended for a certain amount of time, not. That I ever did that. But this is it before it has been improved, and let me tell you when you get that that level to make this space beautiful, it is outstanding. And there are plenty of places to sit.
Rubi: So this is. This is one thing I was asking about earlier and I just want to call this out this big fireplace. I'm so excited to just advance that and have this gorgeous set piece. Yeah. And maybe do something about this cozy reading chair, cuz I have opinions on that.
Morgan: I'm going to curl up in front of this big fire when it's there. With a book, with the latest Snargle Goldclaw
Rubi: The latest Snargle book?
Morgan Yeah, definitely the latest Snargle book.
Rubi: All right, let's keep going. Let's look around over here.
Annie: So here we have the Crafting hall.
Rubi: Yeah, I did promise more crafting. All right, Annie. Let us know to walk us through it. I'm just admiring. How did they get all that stuff on the walls?
Annie: That's a lot, I mean we haven't. Technically speaking, we haven't... There', you're probably a little light on entertainment options so far in Arborstone, so I can imagine that crafter with, you know, less stuff to do, decided to really push the envelope on on her display. To really get people's attention.
Rubi: I approve.
Annie: So these are the six professions that was not mentioned previously. We've got cooking and jewelcrafting on the other side and here you have the three armor and weapons disciplines, which I'm going to mess up if I try to recite, but I'm going to do it anyway. You've got tailoring artificing, letherworking, Huntsman-ship, I always want to call it something different. Armosrsmithing and Weaponsmithing.
Rubi: I do kind of love, where the tailoring station is right now this just, the dye pots are such a fun little touch.
Morgan: I don't have them.
Rubi: I'm sorry.
Annie: When you get it, it's going to be so great.
Morgan: It is. I'm going. To work hard to unlock these masteries.
Rubi: When End of Dragons lunches. I will help you because I will still feel bad about sitting over here going. Look at how. Beautiful.
Morgan: I know.
Rubi: Oh you can't.
Annie: Ohh so sorry.
Rubi: Yeah. So you get, so you get all of your crafting areas unlocked and they keep improving, they keep getting better as you expand those masteries. All right, let's. Take one more look. Let's just take a little walk across the bridge and look at how absolutely gorgeous this is. And again, like Annie said earlier, we weren't even at the highest point. We're about mid level right now, yeah. And the bridge is just, my gosh, I can hear the wind in. My ear, yeah.
Annie: The Creek of the slats. Well constructed, but it's still old.
Rubi: Oh, no. All right, so we don't want to go too much further because we want to leave, as always, lots for you to find on your own. But, Annie, why don't you give us another quick rundown of what this is, and let's talk a little bit about what's at Tier 5, maybe some collections that kind of thing.
Annie: Ohh yeah, so this is to reiterate everything. This is the gorgeous arborstone space. It is a social space. It is open world. It's using some of the tech from our most beloved Eye of the North and the very awesome Sun's Refuge and it will allow you to hang out there with your friends. Even though you have different levels of mastery and see and do different stuff as you have seen and there are 5 levels to the Mastery. We've, you've only seen two so far. One is for, you know, living spaces, and so you have cool stuff like the the barracks and the mess hall in addition to the Asura gate. And two is crafting, so you get all kinds of neat crafting stuff. So as to what the others might be, 3 You know, I mentioned people might be kind of bored in that space, as cool as it is, and might want something in the realm of, I don't know, entertainment. And I also mentioned previously where the the merchants were that it was looking a little bare and that maybe something could be done with that commerce area. For five that would be a lot of spoilers, but I will say a big thing about this space is that there's a lot of cool collections That might come here, that might draw your attention back.
Morgan: Yeah, as the space gets built out, it attracts a lot of interesting people, some old friends, some new friends that have some collections. It'll take us all around the world to learn more about what's going on in the history and the people that whose company we enjoy.
Rubi: Yeah. So I look forward to everybody getting here and working with me to help Morgan level her masteries.
Morgan: Please!
Rubi: We're gonna. We're gonna get you there because we owe that to you now? Yeah.
Morgan: You do, I just did a lot of running through an empty space. A lot of empty spaces.
Rubi: I have like my chat box is just full of your character going to sleep over and over.
Morgan: Dancing on things.
Rubi: That said, Annie, I do have to give you and everyone who worked on this, kudos for even at level 0 when you have none of these masteries up and running, you've still got like all of the basics there, there's still so much to do, and it's still absolutely gorgeous. It is so pretty.
Annie: There's so much in the space to explore still, and there's so much love from myself and from pretty much everybody who touched this space. To make something cool happen. And and we're not even done yet, so. Keep an eye out, run around the space as soon as you can get into it and take all kinds of screenshots. Like show every nook and cranny that you can get into. Dance on Dwayna's head. Go for it, I give you my blessing.
Morgan: Dance like Dwayna's watching. Or like she isn't watching?
Rubi: You give us your blessing. So yeah, a couple of things that Annie has said I was over here going oh, that's right. I really look forward to all of you getting in here, running around discovering what there is to discovering the collections, discovering the gameplay, finding out what else is in there. There was an "an event has started" that I just kind of quietly ignored.
Annie: Yes, yeah.
Rubi: Alright so.
Morgan: We just kept walking.
Rubi: We just keep going. Yeah, yeah. There's there's a lot. There's a reason we only explored very specific parts of this space. So that's our show for today and that is our show for 2021. We went over the legendary weapon variants. We went over a lot of story characters with Morgan and Kwan we took a tour of the new Guild Hall and we showed you the first parts of the Arborstone Revitalization mastery track. We have, if you need more, Cantha, we have something for you now. The End of Dragons 4th beta event is live in the game right now. All nine elite specializations are available to play, as is the siege Turtle mount that's going on until Saturday night December 4th. Also, every day you log in and play the beta in Guild Wars 2, excuse me, is a chance to win this DX racer gaming chair that we are partnering with DX Racer to give away. So enter to win that, have some fun playing the beta event, and good luck on that. Path of Fire, if you don't have the Path of Fire expansion quite yet, you're still thinking about it. This is when you want to do that because it is 50% off at Amazon right now through the end of December. Our next show is January 28th we're going to go heads down. We're going to get some work done. We're going to take a little break around the holidays. And then we're going to be back with some more End of Dragons for you guys on January 28th. Again, thank you all for spending this time with us since the first look live stream in July. It's been, the year has been a lot the past few months have been incredible to get to share more and more of End of Dragons with you and to help you build that picture of what that's going to be like. And we are all incredibly excited to come play this game with you in February. So next show January 28th, head over t. the Guild Wars two website in just a few minutes to read more about the legendary weapons and as always, thank you for spending time with us. We will see you in the new year. Bye, everybody. Thank you.
Morgan: Bye.
Annie: Bye.
