Hi, Welcome to my blog! It’s all about the Guild Wars Franchise ✨
You can call me Liz (she/her/they - 30s). I'm a Visual Merchandiser & illustrator from the Netherlands, based in Dublin. I've been playing Guild Wars since 2007, when EotN was released, I remember it well! :)
GW1 IGN: Sterrenlicht - PvE
GW2 IGN: Lil Kawaii Lizzziie.2509 [EU] - PvE/RP
Feel free to send me a dm in game :)
Commission status:
Commissions: CLOSED (info coming soon)
Art Trades: OPEN :)
🚫 Don't repost or use my Artwork without my permission. NO NFTs / NO AI! - all made by hand.
Navigation:
GW1 content:
My character Page
Posts - #GW1: Searing Chronicles
GW2 content:
My character pages
HUMANS - SYLVARI - NORN - ASURA
Posts - #Commander of Dragons (gw2 posts by me or for me)
GW3 content:
-
OCs:
[GW2] OC/RP blog
#Character list - all characters lined up and listed
Art:
#Art tag - My art (post art school)
#Old art tag - My art (pre-2017, before art school)
General Tags:
#Random screenshot
#Glitch Queen Adventures - original name of this blog, features all the bugs and glitches I found myself in :)
GW2 themed dividers by @soulbeastdragon - thank you!
This piece of my commander Fenrele has been in the works for literally over a year because I am trying to be as detailed with her as I possibly can...
So.. I keep working on it on and off whenever the mood strikes (which honestly isn't too often) but since it is taking so long why not post a work in progress :3
Confirmed Arenanet will be starting development on the next expansion for GW2 next year, but the details won’t be announced or revealed until after the launch of GW3 (they didn't specify whether they meant the beta or the 1.0). The aim is to return to an annual cadence for GW2 like what we’ve seen with SoTO, JW, & VoE
The announcement of GW3 has made an overall positive impact on the population of the game. Since the announcement on Friday they've seen a 40% increase in daily active users. VoE set a record with returning players (accounts with no log-ins for a year or more) and this weekend beat that by almost 2x (Saturday was the single best day for new player acquisition since the Steam launch). So the population is very healthy despite some community concerns about player migration.
The strategy they're embracing moving forward looks to keep that momentum and entice more players to try, remain engaged with, or return to regular activity in GW2 and GW1 with the tiered HoM 2.0 releases, GW2 world polish, and more info about GW3 being provided makes people excited to experience or return to the world.
They spent a while emphasizing that they want player time and investment to be and feel respected bridging between the three games, and are fostering an ecosystem where players are encouraged or inspired to try the different 'versions' of the world to earn those HoM rewards/ explore the unique experiences each game has to offer.
They heard feedback about GWAMM being carried over to GW3; that's not their current objective, but they might review/revisit. In that vein, they also essentially confirmed GW1 HoM won't connect to GW3 like. at all.
HoM 2.0 will ‘feel like the Return To experience’ and release in chronological order, with the core game having 2 releases (one focused on open world, one focused on story) to tackle the sheer volume of core content. Confirmed the living world instalments will also be included, not just the titled expacs. HoM 2.0 will grant rewardss in both GW2 and GW3.
Insisted that they have not and will not move devs off of GW2 to GW3 during these 18 months of 'down time' before the beta launch next fall to dispel concerns about gutting GW2's team/ resources. Each game has a dedicated team, they don’t share people or resources.
In talking about the new WVW BL, they touched on where they failed in the release of desert BL back in HoT. The internal approach was ‘what's best for gliding’ instead of ‘what's best for WvW’ and they're acknowledging that wasn't the correct approach. They've taken years of feedback to heart while developing their new map: they didn’t work alongside the community during devlopment of desert BL and they learned their lesson there (will be taking cues from the PvP push mode beta and feedback gained throughout that moving forward). Eg. They want to run betas for the new map for around a year on the live server and not just the private test realms to get broader community feedback and data.
Chatted a bit about the technical challenge of modernizing/optimizing the engine as the game has aged and touched on the coming PBR (physically based rendering), community voiced performance concerns (client performance like frame rate in large scale populated areas, server performance like skill latency) etc. that they want to address in these polish updates and future development. For example, they mentioned added granular settings for individual optimization, so more settings client side for your rig, and making info like event/boss timers and other stuff more intuitively accessible in game instead of through the /wiki commands.
‘You don't make investments in technology at this scale unless you are committed to supporting those investments long term.' Reaffirmed their commitment to developing all three games. All three will be updated with a zippered/staggered approach; a ‘lull’ in one game will be a leapfrog for an update in another, meaning there's always content in the world of Guild Wars.
GW2 will not be coming to mobile or console; the 3 games are meant to occupy different niches, and they've built them intentionally in that way. in order to do a game really well on console, you have to build it from the ground up with those gameplay and tech considerations in mind. doesn't make sense for GW2 to be placed anywhere other than PC ('Players managing gw2 inventory with a controller seems like a cruel punishment' lol).
The GW3 timeline is intensely focused on high fantasy with little to no technological advances in the world given it's so far in the past, with the intent that seeing how the magitech and jade tech etc. evolve in GW2 and feeling that distance between the setting of GW2 and GW3 is tangible and impactful (and also letting each game fully embrace it’s own unique storylines and themes).
Acknowledged that they've been a bit silent the last few months leading up to the announcement of gw3, but they want to return to more regular dev updates/roadmaps/ communication with the community now that the secret is out and they have more space to speak freely about the schedule/plan moving forward.
I never realised I never actually took the time to fully read Kodan lore. My it's so much more interesting than I remember, so many details!
Just a small bit from the wiki below!
''History
Early years
According to the histories of the kodan, the world was created long ago by Koda, and with it, the spirits of the world. Over time, these spirits began to take form, becoming the beasts of the world we see today. One day, the bear stood up and took notice of the restlessness and chaos, of the endless cycles of creation and destruction. And Koda took notice, and offered the bear guardianship of the world, tasking them with guiding the lesser spirits to enlightenment. Those that accepted his offer, became the kodan.
The kodan are one of the few races that lived during the time of the previous Elder Dragon awakening.[5] Before then, the kodan are said to have spread across the land, bringing balance to the spirits they encountered wherever they went, and were hindered only by the seas.[6] When the Elder Dragons awoke, they fled to the shores of the northern seas and waited out when the Dragonstorm occurred. Over the generations they waited, eventually a tribe of kodan, led by a Claw without a Voice, traveled south to find food, and never returned. It is speculated by scholars and Voices that the norn are descended from this tribe, and those Voices therefore view the norn as spiritual failures who are regressing to a more primal state. They warn that if the norn do not seek balance, they may soon follow the fate of the dwarves. Despite this, the two races are not hostile to one another.[3]''
They've been around this long ;_; <3 I guess so much makes sense now.
Also interesting that the Spirits of the Wild are mentioned here!
GW2 news again! Off the back of their Live-stream
Not a lot this time but tl;dr
Confirmation they intend to work on GW2 expacs (with the same current annual release schedule they have had for SOTO/Janthir/VoE) after GW3 is released
They'll be addressing each area of the game for modernisation and other changes from Core, then going through expac to expac, with a schedule of 1.5-2 months between each of those releases for the next year (or 18 months not sure, think they are counting from now and not from when VoE concludes)
They later addressed their intention to finally explore some lingering plot threads that have been hanging in the air for a long time for future GW2 expacs
They said that GW2's version of the Hall of Monuments would be a mix of stuff that applied retroactively and required you to replay it, albeit with very loose non-committal language to one or the other
The dev teams are completely separate for each game. This is a relief for me because I remember how rough Living World releases could be back in the day, when development teams were different between each release and there was a distinct disconnection and clear lack of communication between them. Nice to know GW2 & 3 probably won't have that
Trying to think of the lingering plot threads too…
All that comes to mind is:
The Charr Imperators that were implied to be up to something (Janthir epilogue)
Torment, at a stretch
Some Dwarves resurfaced but seemed to immediately get forgotten (perhaps by design) and by extension the Underground that Primordus destroyed and caused Asura to flee from is potentially open for exploration again
Malyck
Foefire
Wwwwhere's the Nightmare Court?
Bangar
Norn can return to the Far Shiverpeaks with the absence of Jormag
A little perspective from someone who's been here, on and off, since 2005:
When GW2 was announced, there were a significant number of people who said no way, I'm not playing it, I don't want an open world MMORPG that looks like all the other ones, that's why I play Guild Wars!
And in the fullness of time, a lot of those people changed their mind because once it was actually here GW2 looked pretty fun, and at some point it went on sale, and they thought ah what the hell I'll give it a go.
(GW3 is probably not coming out until 2028. There is so much time. You don't have to decide anything now)
But plenty of people didn't change their mind! Plenty of them kept playing Guild Wars for years, because that's the game they liked and they had a community there. Even without ongoing updates they stayed - and they could, because even without ongoing updates ArenaNet maintained the game that existed.
(The game isn't going away, even when GW3 is here. 'Depopulated' doesn't mean ghost town, if there's one server worth of players in the world you'll be fine)
And now we have the evidence of Guild Wars Reforged in front of us. The players never abandoned it, and the devs never forgot it, and now it's getting a revival because both players and devs still had love in their hearts for it. 20 years later!
Guild Wars 2 is not so frail as some of you fear. ArenaNet have made clear their intention to keep it around, and we have no reason to doubt that looking at GW1.
And if the future of GW2 has to be sustainable play of content that exists rather than constantly selling you new things... that's probably good, actually.
Starting to get sick of the people acting like gw3 not having charr or sylvari is the same as anet getting rid of charr and sylvari. It's an entirely different game, they're not taking your toys away they're just giving different ones time in the spotlight
i logged in not expecting to be dead on this cliff (which we hung out for a while on, and theres zero things there to hurt us), and bamboo said Dont worry I'll help, and LOGGED IN DEAD ON THE GROUND TOO
When gw3 comes out, will you recreate your ocs in there?
Yes, even if I need to change some races/classes here and there
Yes, but only if their race is in gw3 (even if they need to change class/theme)
Yes, but only if their class is in gw3 (even if they need to change race)
Yes, but only the ones that can fit the new (old) lore without any major change
No, but I'll create ocs similar to them (ancestors or similar characters)
No, I think I'm going to start fresh and leave my OCs in their world
Other (comment plz, I'm curious!)
Remaining time: 4 days 7 hours
Please answer even if you don't have a specific idea in mind/you prefer to wait until more info is public. I'm planning to make a second poll closer to the beta/release of gw3.
Also, comment if you have a crazy time travel story in mind for your ocs :)
