I normally don’t post on game forums, but I feel this time I have to express my disappointment at what has become of what could have been the best part of the game – Orr.
I’m not specifically talking about the terrible drop rates, nor the terrible loot that normally comes from said drops. I’m also not specifically talking about the practical lack of event rewards, nor the rarity of reward-based incentive of even being in the zone.
What I am talking about is that I understand that Orr was made to be a crazy, dangerous place, filled with dynamic content and a constantly changing landscape that encourages grouping and exploration. And for the first month of GW2 going live, that’s pretty much what it was. Let’s head to Orr! Grenth is up! That dude is in trouble – let’s help him!
Unfortunately six months into the game and nobody gives an elevator fart about Orr, other than hoping there may be enough people near Wren or whatever to free up a Temple Karma vendor. Gone forever are the days when there were large, roving bands of characters running from event to event, freeing up waypoints and whatnot. Now it’s a freaking wide awake nightmare for any character not decked out in exotics (and even for some classes it still is) that is trying to do anything at all there. It’s bad enough if you’re trying to run around solo farming or map completing, but the fact that you have to do storyline content in a place where you might not even make it alive to the quest point makes it a chore that creates more frustration than enjoyment.
The saddest thing for me is that the zone is incredibly detailed and ripe for exploration. Many times as I was sprinting/swimming toward a quest point or a roundabout route to the next waypoint, I would notice (as i was being clubbed to death by risen) how tragically beautiful the zone actually was, how much detail went into the creation of it’s decay and corruption, and how it’s too bad hardly anyone will ever see most of it anymore.
The fact is, you have three zones that are basically designed for endgame content that for a multitude of reasons nobody wants to deal with. With the advent of Fractals and the surety of at least salvageable loot from Dragons, everyone waits around in LA looking/waiting for that content (like the fate of another MMO), and Orr is now a wasteland of unnavigable terrain and s**t flying at you from every direction. I’m not saying it has to be La-La Land, but in it’s current state, it’s about as fun as being punched in the junk by a monkey for however long it takes you to get someplace because EVERY FROLICKING WAYPOINT IS CONTESTED FOREVER AND EVER.
What to do? Maybe cut it’s risen population by a third? Reduce the range of poopy catapults by half? Reduce the aggro radius of most things by half? Get rid of half of the arbitrary events that goof up waypoints? Revisit the loot drops, and add more incentives to completing the events that are there? I don’t know what the answer is, but I wish something would change it so some of the coolest content in the best MMO ever made would be more of an enjoyable and still difficult challenge and less of a frustrating, barren tragedy.