Tuesday, July 8, 2008

Fun at the Dragon Festival

To celebrate the 4th of July, Guild Wars players experienced the 3rd annual Dragon Festival. Players could earn victory tokens by completing special quests or by participating in a variety mini games. The tokens could be traded in for either a seriously weird looking 'Grasping Mask' or some party items. I opted for the party items, as they helped to further my party animal title track.

In traversing between mini games, I stumbled across a game played in the Shing Jea Monastery, where you had to run around and collect Celestial Charges and return them to NPCs. I usually don't participate in these kind of things, as it chews up valuable PvP time, but I was in a good mood. As a reward for my skillful charge running (lol), I received a bunch of Boardwalk Prizes, which supplied me with an easy 2 platinum. I was pleased :) Here is a pic of my monk running a Celestial Charge, right before it exploded:


The coolest part of the Dragon Festival was by far the Rollerbeetle racing. This mini game strangely resembles Super Mario Kart, but with colorful rolling beetles in place of karts and RPG skills in place of turtle shells and mushrooms. The game is largely based on skill, however if you're lucky enough to pick up a Super Rollerbeetle, you can gain a significant advantage over your opponents, especially if you Echo it.


By playing the Rollerbeetle racing I managed to increase my Gamer Title by 700 or so points. Unfortunately the time ran out and the festival ended with me a mere 32 points short of the 'Skillz' title. I justly provided a rather loud "NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOES!!!!", promptly followed by: "BRING BACK THE BEETLES!!!". This raised raised an eyebrow or two from my girlfriend.

Although this is the third time I've experienced the dragon festival, I must say that this time was definitely the most fun. It will be a while before I see the roller beetles again, so I might have to dig up the old SNES and sate my addiction with some Super Mario Kart. Good times...

2 comments:

Talyn said...

This year was the first time I think I ever even placed in a rollerbeetle race! I normally get freeze-spammed so much I come in dead last, and I'm always busy doing other stuff to actually practice and learn the track. But I did manage to come in 4th place this time, and freeze-ganked a few other guys in the process! =D

It's a shame they're not putting mounts in GW2. Yeah, map travel and all, but hell... Van Hemlock and I were helping a new guy play through Frost Gate yesterday and the cut-scene even has that Summit dwarf NPC riding a drake mount. How cool would that be?

For racing, especially with EotN I can't believe they never came up with some type of snow/ice-based "become a mob" or "ride a mob" snowboarding type race...

Seriously, Anet... you're advertising looking for a designer... I'm right here, ready and willing!

Crimson Starfire said...

Mounts are always cool.

You never know the Anet guys might read my blog and try and contact you for a design position... right after they contact me. There is only three places I would like to work as a games designer: Anet, 38 Studios and Bioware. It would be my dream job. Until that day happens, I'll stick to blogging ;)