25 replies to this topic

[LiveSpartan235]

https://www.guildwar...htmares-within/

Quote

Are you ready to enter the Tower of Nightmares that’s spreading evil through Kessex Hills? Now that a way inside has been found, it’s time to storm the tower and attempt to put an end to its toxic growth.
LIVING WORLD

The Nightmares Within

The way is open. The bravest are entering the Tower of Nightmares and confronting scores of powerful enemies. Toxins in the air make the going rough, and players won’t know whether they’re encountering a hallucination or a living foe. No antitoxin can protect them from their inner demons, but someone has to bring this tower down before Kessex Hills is lost to the nightmare.
Story

• Thanks to the heroes of Tyria, Marjory Delaqua’s research has yielded a viable antitoxin that has allowed teams from the Seraph, the Durmand Priory, the Vigil, and the Order of Whispers to infiltrate the Tower of Nightmares in Kessex Hills.
  
• Air purifiers have been placed at key locations to counteract the toxic clouds around the base of the tower, allowing access to the interior. To destroy the heart of the nightmarish structure, brave squads have attempted to carry newly designed antitoxin injectors to the top of the tower, but they haven’t been heard from since. It’s now up to the heroes of Tyria to defeat the Toxic Alliance and destroy their tower.
  
• Players will receive in-game mail from Lady Kasmeer Meade informing them that the Tower of Nightmares is now open. Use the Show Me functionality in the mail to find the location of the Tower of Nightmares.
  
• Once inside the Tower of Nightmares, players will need to make their way up the tower, scaling three floors of horrifying dangers to reach the heart of the tower—a massive, noxious bloom pulsing with malevolent power. At the apex of the tower, players can enter the chamber protecting the tower’s heart and begin a story instance that can be completed solo or with a group of up to five players.
  
  • Upon defeating the challenges of the story instance, players can finish what the scouting team could not: inject Marjory’s antitoxin directly into the heart of the tower!
    
  • The story instance also has a repeatable mode so players can confront the challenges as many times as they like for additional rewards and accolades. Upon each completion, players will be able to inject another dose of antitoxin, weakening the tower that much more.

The Tower of Nightmares

• The interior of the Tower of Nightmares has been revealed, and it is as deadly as its name suggests. The Tower of Nightmares is an open-world map designed to challenge even the hardiest of groups. Fighting side by side, players will need to rely on each other to survive.
  
• Players will participate in a number of new open-world events throughout the structure and encounter the deadly hallucinations and lethal champions of the Toxic Alliance.
  
• Within the Tower of Nightmares, a mysterious chest was found at the top of the tower. The chest’s lock is an intricate mechanism that seems to require a three-pronged key. The pieces of the key for this Tri-key Chest can be found on creatures within the Tower of Nightmares, or they can be acquired through trade with Marjory’s Helper Dee back at the Thunder Ridge Camp in Kessex Hills. Players will also receive one complete set of keys in the initial mail from Kasmeer. Combine the keys to create a Tricolor Key.
  
• The Tower of Nightmares content will be available until the tower’s heart is destroyed. Watch the progress as more antitoxin is injected!

Nightmare Chambers

• Throughout the Tower of Nightmares, players will find smaller blossoms that resemble the tower’s heart. Within these chambers, players will experience their deepest fears and encounter twisted visions of their past.
  
• The Nightmare Chamber instances are designed for either solo or group play and are comprised of a number of random elements. Each time a player enters a chamber, there is a chance to see something, or someone, different. But is any of it real?

Open World

• The Toxic Alliance isn’t giving up on its plans for domination simply because their tower has been breached. Toxic Offshoots and Toxic Alliance events will continue to run throughout this release, giving players a chance to finish many of the achievements they may have missed in the last release.
  
• The Antitoxin Injected indicator is a representation of the amount of antitoxin that has been pumped into the heart of the tower by the heroes of Tyria and will update periodically.

Rewards

• Finishing the meta-achievement for The Nightmares Within rewards players with a Gas Mask Skin. This headgear skin has three dye channels and can be applied to head armor of any weight class. It’s just the thing for infiltrating a hostile and toxic environment like the Tower of Nightmares.
  
• Players will be awarded with a Mini Toxic Nimross miniature for completing the Tower Hybrid Master achievement.
  
• Tricolor Keys can be used to open the Tri-key Chest at the top of the third level of the Tower of Nightmares. Besides its guaranteed rewards, there’s a chance for players to receive unique items:
  
  • Air-Filtration Device Skin—a headgear skin for all weight classes
    
  • Toxic Spore Skin back-slot item
    
  • New, exclusive miniature

Achievements

• The Nightmares Within meta-achievement will task players with combating their way through the interior of the Tower of Nightmares, conquering their fears in the Nightmare Chamber instances, defeating the Toxic Hybrid, and injecting antitoxin into the heart of the tower.
  
  • Completing special Nightmares Within daily achievements during this release will contribute to the meta-achievement. These are earned by participating in specific Nightmares Within content each day.

NEW FEATURES AND CONTENT

Structured Player vs. Player

• Added a new Custom Arena option: Force Respawn. When enabled, players will automatically respawn at the end of their respawn timers, and defeated players will no longer be resurrectable.
  
• Solo Arena players will now be shuffled before joining a match to promote a more even and challenging game.
  
• The compass and map will now display enemy markers for enemies who are in combat and within line of sight of one of your teammates.
  
• Trick-or-Treat Bags have been reverted back to reward chests, and candy corn has been removed from Solo Arena and Team Arena. Until December 10, PvP will offer double reward chests for Solo Arena and Team Arena wins.

BALANCE, BUG-FIXING, POLISH

General

• Introduced further server-side optimizations, with significant improvements during heavy combat scenarios.

Structured Player vs. Player

• Fixed the Solo Arena UI to always have a Leave button instead of a Disband button.
  
• The PvP panel now remembers the last opened tab.
  
• The trebuchet in Battle of Kyhlo no longer awards personal scores for hitting minions.
  
• The PvP medal on the Character Select screen now directly represents the player’s rank.
  
• The Custom Arena configuration UI now disables the Play button when it’s expired.

BLACK LION TRADING COMPANY GEM STORE

New Items and Promotions

• All permanent gathering tools will now be account bound rather than soulbound. For one week, account-bound versions of the Jack-in-the-Box Scythe and Bone Pick gathering tools will be available in the Services category of the Gem Store for 1000 gems each.
  
  • Previously purchased permanent gathering tools can be upgraded to account-bound versions by unequipping them and bringing them to a Black Lion Weapons Specialist.
• Marjory’s Axe, Marjory’s Dagger, and Kasmeer’s Staff are now available as skins in the Style category of the Gem Store for 600 gems each.
  
• A pair of spirit wings rises from the player’s defeated foe. The new Permanent Sanctified Finisher is available in the Upgrades category of the Gem Store for 600 gems.

Improvements

• PvP Locker slots have been added for the Toxic hand and shoulder armors received from the Toxic Gloves Skin and the Toxic Mantle Skin, both available in the Style category of the Gem Store.
  
• Soulbound permanent gathering tools can be exchanged at a Black Lion Weapons Specialist for account-bound versions. Players must unequip the tool before exchanging it.
  
• All future permanent gathering tools from the Gem Store will be account bound and will cost slightly more than the soulbound versions.

[Reina Takayama]

I have school so I won't get to play yet but it sounds exactly what I wanted and was asking for in the forums lol the open world tower that u can climb with ppl / zergs do explore and do events while there's multiple instance chambers for special scenarios and fights and then a final story dungeon for the heart of the tower haha was exactly my hopes.... like everything combined

can't wait to get the gas mask

and account bound tools finally! means it's worth it to buy for me personally xD

[Rassy]

Honestly, really lame update, F- work as usual, ANet, this was the wors-






Thanks for the early Christmas, ANet, 10/10 update.

/thentheytotallysquanderitwithtybaltbutwhatever

[CriticKitten]

SPOILERS (not really but....sorta, I guess?)

So....wait.

Is that seriously it?

Scarlet just says "I'm done for right now" and leaves....is....is that seriously how you intend to end her story arc right now?  Having explained absolutely nothing about her, having developed virtually none of your supporting cast, and all in all having accomplished almost NOTHING?  All the build up, all the supposed drama that this was leading up to....and you did nothing with it.  No connection to the dragons, no story evolution, the world's full of nonsensical alliances, and Scarlet just gets bored with us and goes home to Ponyville.

....you know what, I change my mind.  I would rather have the next ten releases be Scarlet-focused if it means we get some actual fricking STORY.  I really don't get it.  I can't understand what writer on the team thought this was the ideal story.

This....this just might be worse than the Personal Story.  Yes, I'm going there.

[Noctis]

Logged first time since last week. Did all the new stuff witch took all of one hour at most.


This update is exactly the disappointment I was expecting it to be.


Ok, at this point I's pretty much expected that LS instance won't have anything substantial in it. But the whole new area - completely pointless. There's nothing to do in there except to go through one time and get to the end. Of course, there's achievements. And it seems like that is the only justification to stay there more than an hour.


I'm done. I just don't care what Anet does with their game anymore.

Playing to get together with friends and have fun is the only thing going for this game now. In my opinion anyway.

[Reina Takayama]

yeah the final story cutscene was retarded but scarlet isn't done and will be back next year cuz the rest of this year is like winters day and whatever crap

I still have hopes that they will get somewhere if they would just execute what the grand scheme is faster than what they're doing

there's this guys video which i haven't seen yet but should pretty interesting and of corse WP and all that speculation. https://forum-en.gui...r-Endgame-Video I mean again, if scarlet is such a huge character anet most likely has an idea of what she's doing but I have a feeling anet JUST THINKS THEYRE FREAKING CUTE OR SOMETHING TO GIVE FREAKING TEASER CRAP EVERY TIME. they never get to the point... but I mean each update sure we see "random alliances" but her plans are getting bigger and more powerful so to speak so we may just be seeing the tip of the iceberg still not what she is fully capable of yet or what she's planning

[UltraEM]

We need to do a Sylvari Red Wedding where we take out Scarlet and Trahearne... permanently.

[CriticKitten]

Reina Takayama, on 13 November 2013 - 12:35 AM, said:

-snip-

Oh yeah, it's clear she's coming back.  But what pisses me off is that they're making this sound like the "end" of her first story arc.  In which case....it's possibly the worst story arc that the Guild Wars franchise has ever experienced.

She popped up out of nowhere, she joined a bunch of enemies together, and then....leaves for no reason?  And all the while, nothing is revealed of her character, motivations, or the driving forces behind her.  No connections are made to any other lore, and no link to the dragons....it's all just atrocious.  This whole year-long story feels like it's been a waste of fucking time, and seemingly proves my sentiments last week about Scarlet seeming more like a "filler" villain to occupy space while they work on something else.  I had been holding out hope that maybe this release would prove me wrong and there'd be a point to all this, but no.  We get nothing.

When they bring her back, they had better produce something seriously good.  A valid reason for her departure, a scheme that goes beyond just "two factions ally for no reason", SOMETHING.  Fill in her character backstory, give us some motivations, really.  I do not understand why they are doing this, especially if they really have all of these details explaining Scarlet's actions.  Why not reveal that stuff?  You've had a whole YEAR to give us something, and we've gotten nothing.  I just....I truly don't understand what their thought process was.

[Reina Takayama]

I solo'd the dungeon, it's so easy... wtf...i was like so ready to put up a good fight.. And didn't even get rewarded with the achievements i shoulda gotten lol like hybrid slayer, party members not dying (does this work while solo?) only got the antitoxin injection :<

[Heylo]

Reina Takayama, on 13 November 2013 - 11:45 AM, said:

I solo'd the dungeon, it's so easy... wtf...i was like so ready to put up a good fight.. And didn't even get rewarded with the achievements i shoulda gotten lol like hybrid slayer, party members not dying (does this work while solo??) only got the antitoxin injection :<

If it was your first time through, you don't get those. A guildie solo'd it last night and she got all those, but it was her third or fourth time.

[CriticKitten]

Yeah, it's something of a logical paradox.  To get the achievement for killing the hybrid, you first must clear the original instance....which requires that you kill the hybrid.

In other words, ANet's developers are idiots and were too lazy to make this release substantial, so they threw in a "kill the boss X times" achievement.

Now just remember, back in the Manifesto, this same dev team was derisively mocking games that told you to go kill X of monster Y, games in which the boss just respawns within minutes and you don't feel like you had any impact.  Well, here we have a release in which we're asked to kill 4-5 of a single boss monster, and the boss in question respawns every single time you run the instance, so your actions have seemingly no impact every time.

This is supposed to replace an expansion?

[Noctis]

There's gonna be a vote in a month. If you elect to have Scarlet for 6 more months you'll get an expansion.
If you vote for new character Carver Victus Anet will put Bloodlust in all the PvE maps.

[Gatita]

I was pleasantly surprised with the update. I was expecting the worse, but I'm enjoying myself. I think I mainly like going into those nightmare chambers and seeing the interactions between the NPCs, then seeing the 'final boss' is Logan or Treehorn.

However, I found the lack of story disturbing. At first I didn't realize there was a cutscene, I had just done the final room with a group. Then I had went back in to attempt it solo. Then I read later that theres a machine in this room to view the cutscene. I got all excited and went back into the final room for the third time and go to see what Scarlet is up to...
Only to be greeted with a recap, because I somehow didn't realize Scarlet did everything. Maybe it's news to new players... but seriously? seriously?! seriously! so many questions about the Toxic Alliance and what Scarlet is doing with this tower and she talks about Faren's fancy panties. :[

[CriticKitten]

Well, dev livestream today confirmed that Scarlet's arc isn't done yet, and that we'd continue to see more and more in the coming months and into next year.

Which makes me wonder why they bothered with the recap, or the implication that Scarlet was leaving for a while.

[Noctis]

It's a red herring! They think they are such good writers!

Pffft.

[CriticKitten]

Noctis, on 13 November 2013 - 09:44 PM, said:

It's a red herring!

No, this is a red herring:

[Gatita]

Next time on GW2: Sons of Svanir and Centaur join forces for the Frozen Alliance!

[henez RS]

Gatita, on 13 November 2013 - 10:50 PM, said:

Next time on GW2: Sons of Svanir and Centaur join forces for the Frozen Alliance!

But the centaurs are like earth mages so it'd have to be the icy-dirt alliance, which is a much better name IMO

[Reina Takayama]

henez RS, on 13 November 2013 - 11:30 PM, said:

But the centaurs are like earth mages so it'd have to be the icy-dirt alliance, which is a much better name IMO

oh dear that's too funny lmao they should make the ambient creatures team up with scarlet too. champion rabbit

[UltraEM]

To be fair, the "bandits"(White Mantle Insurrectionists in disguise) and the centaurs already have some sort of alliance going (against the Kingdom of Kryta), except this one isn't a complete lore-raping mismatch and relevant to long-established lore.