Lion’s Arch is under attack! Or, well, make that, Lion’s Arch is under attack — again. The poor city just can’t seem to catch a break. Just as the Mad King himself burst into Lion’s Arch rather destructively on October 28, so too is something coming to the coastal city next weekend. And it’s not a nice something.
The “Shadow of the Mad King” October event that marked Halloween in Tyria was the beginning, not the end, of Guild Wars 2‘s slate of large-scale live events. The next, “The Lost Shores”, is coming on November 16.
The event, which takes place over three days next weekend, promises to leave a permanent mark on Tyria. Players will have to work together in the large scale not only to fight the invading karka, but to research means to damage them at all.
In addition to a major three-day live event taking place in the game’s regular zones, ArenaNet is adding a major new dungeon structure and a new PvP zone to Guild Wars 2 with their November update. The PvP area, Temple of the Silent Storm, promises to be more vertically oriented than existing PvP maps, challenging players to move through the giant iceberg dojo of the kodan, a race of heavily armoured polar bears.
The dungeon addition, meanwhile, adds a whole level of progression in and of itself. Fractals of the Mists is a set of level 80 mini-dungeons that get more challenging for players the farther they progress. On entering the dungeon, a group must complete a set of three separate small dungeons, each taking about 15-45 minutes and culminating with a major boss fight. When that set is complete and players return to the hub, each successive return gets harder. There are nine total “fractal” maps that players can be randomly sent into. As players progress through the fractals, and the challenge continues to increase, they can earn “ascended” item rewards. These, a level higher than existing exotic items, are the gear level that players will need as they keep getting further in and the challenge keeps rising.
Guild Wars 2 is also getting its first free trial weekend to coincide with the launch of “The Lost Shores”. Starting later today, current players will be able to invite up to three friends into the free trial event, which begins on Thursday, November 15 and runs through the full weekend.
“The Lost Shores” is a level 80 event, but participating players will be bumped up via GW2‘s “sidekicking” for the duration, so pretty much anyone can dive in.
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