When I first started reading about what would be in Echoes of the Past it wasn’t so much the story that drew my attention, though I must give serious props to the music department on this one, wow. Instead though, it was the world vs world like zone they introduced, The Silverwastes that really caught my eye.
I’ve always been a big fan of WvW and thought it would be great to see some of the mechanics from that part of the game introduced into the PvE part of the game. That is exactly what they’ve done! Silverwastes is a zone constantly filled with events. The first ones you run into are caravan resupply escorts. Unlike those in WvW these can hardly make it a few steps without running into trouble. So while at first you might be inclined to just leave them make their run like you could do with them in WvW this isn’t something you can do here. They need a small team of players escorting them. So, if you’re headed towards one of the four points of interest where they go it doesn’t hurt to go a little bit slower and escort the supplies.
Most of the other major events in the zone revolve around the idea of taking back or defending the point of interest where the supply runs are headed. If you get there and it’s already controlled by the players then you get to defend it against a never ending onslaught of Mordrem. If it’s under Mordrem control then your job is to take it back. And this cycle just goes on and on. Unfortunately this also means that it’s the type of zone that only does well while there are a lot of people there. So late hours of the night, and once the zone ages some I can see this zone being all but abandoned.
For now though, there are lots of achievements to complete, many of them taking quite a bit of time and work to get to the right stage to complete. Other achievements are for finding lost bandit chests and finding lost badges. The searching badges mean that people will be around for some time to come, and you’re likely to find them off the main paths as these things could be hidden everywhere. They’re a fun little distraction, right up until you’re missing one and cannot find it to save your life, despite having given in and looked up a guide that directs you to all of them. No, I’m not speaking from experience at all, why do you ask? /sarcasm
Completing events in Silverwastes rewards yet another new currency, this one is called Bandit Crests. Bandit Crests can be used to buy keys for opening hidden chests, recipes with an all new stat type, and a few other random bits and pieces. These are much easier to get than geodes from Dry Top thankfully. Unfortunately, at least right now they also have less interesting things on offer. Hopefully as things continue on more will be added to the store.
So far I’ve not talked much about the story portion of the living story. There were a couple of things about it that really stood out to me. The first was in the Priory. We walked in on the Chef and his Sous Chef having a disagreement about using bloodstone dust in recipes. The sous chef walked out saying he would start his own work. It sounds like this is an early hint that level 500 chef is coming! Maybe this is just wishful thinking on my part as my main feels somewhat left out of the tier 7 club thanks to her doing Chef. The other thing that stood out in the living story was in the library. Being the completionist that I am I wanted to read through everything that people had to say. This, unfortunately activated mini map markers that took me right to the book I needed every time. I suppose, for people who don’t want to spend the time hunting this is important. But for someone like me, who is a big fan of The Secret World and all the hunting you have to do in that game, being able to just look at the mini map took all the fun out of things. They also missed a golden opportunity for an injection of a little humor during the scene where the bookshelves all rotate and sink into the floor. There were a few people standing around looking at the shelves. A one off comment about them reaching out to grab a book they wanted just as it moved away from them would have been lovely. Nothing big, just a small off the wall comment to make you chuckle in between all the super seriousness.
A lot of early predictions about this week seem to have been completely off base. In fact really the only thing that anyone seems to have gotten right was that we were in fact sent to Glint’s lair. The statue in the library was pretty much meaningless, for now at least. And though player predictions swore up and down that it wouldn’t just be a lower level of the Priory that is in fact exactly what it turned out to be. Though I have to say it is beautiful and I hope we will be able to access it again, especially now that we have the clearance for it.
Overall the return of the living story left me with more questions than answers. In fact none of the questions from before were answered, only a million more questions popped up in its place. One of the big questions being, where was Rox? Hopefully there will be more information in the coming weeks about the attack on the Pale Tree and we’ll find out more about everything we’ve seen in Echoes of the Past. I can’t wait for Tuesday when we will get the big reveal for the next episode of the living story. At this point though, I’m more excited to see what things they add to the game other than the story itself.
