Guild Wars 2

To ArenaNet,

I want to first say that you have done an AMAZING job with this game and that I am thoroughly happy with it on almost every front. There isn’t much I would change to your amazing game, except…
There is one thing that has bothered me since I first eyed him in the beta videos, moreover, the videos for the Ascalonian Catacombs. I lay in wait to see him in all his glory upon final release of the game, but I remain somewhat disappointed. I want to restate, that I think the art team has done a great job with the game, constraints and all, but King Adelbern’s head model seems… lacking. I know you build a majority of the NPCs on the character creator to minimize load I’m sure, but Adelbern being a major player in the Guild Wars universe, I feel he should have been fleshed out a bit more. Looking at this model image from the beta: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/4/4a/King_Adelbern.jpg
the main issue is that the head looks mannican-ish including the crown which doesn’t look very kingly. When comparing it to the painterly Adelbern in the cutscene or even to the Guild Wars 1 model, he looks dollish and seems to be missing hair where he should have at least some.
Going back to replace his head at this point may be moot, but I know I wouldn’t mind the extra load on my system if it were there. I love the legend of King Adelbern which was keenly expanded within the Ghosts of Ascalon novel and I find that I still wish for a little more love given to his appearance in-game. Not that there wasn’t, but for a wild plea from one of Adelbern’s biggest fans, I hope to see him looking more like himself again!

Thank you,
Narsilik Khilsigre

Now, character helms disappear in cutscenes. I don’t know if this is intentional or not, but bald Zojja and bald Adelbern look a little weird. I still want to push for a more Adelbern looking head model, but I think I would rather see helms stay on the cutscene characters more now.

You know, King Adelbern is the reason I wanted to do Ascalonian Catacombs.

. . . not because I like him, but because I loathe his attitude and the madness which drove him after the events of Prophecies made him much less someone I liked and more me thinking:

“Someone needs to put a boulder through his face.”

. . . yeah I got to do that. It was fun. Can we get Zehtuka next?

In a more serious note? The character of King Adelbern is just an interesting one. Before the Searing he wasn’t too bad but after? Hoo boy, that mind just kept right on slipping away. “We will never surrender!”

My liege, your kingdom lies in burnt ruins. Your cities are barely standing shells. Your people are fading into despair even as they fight on. You cannot hold . . . aaaand there goes the Foefire . . .

I wonder how Rurik’s sword returned to the Tyrian mainland.

There’s a whole series of lore left to explore within the Adelbern lineage. Like, you really have to think about how crazy he must’ve become in his last days to, not only sacrifice himself, but his whole entire nation just to keep the charr from winning Ascalon in the end. This is one of the things I love about the Ghosts of Ascalon novel. It explores the area and details the backstory behind Ascalon’s fall. Quite interesting.

What I’m wondering now is what happened to Sohothin, Magdaer’s twin sword. After Eir took it, we don’t hear about it again, so I’m thinking it will pop up in later content. Along with an epic journey to kill the other dragons and possibly seeing the Crystal Desert again, these are pretty exciting things to think about.