I want to thank Arenanet for Tyria. Just Tyria, the world. Though the big things get most of the attention (the main cast, the personal story, the loot, the economy) I want to show my appreciation for the little things.
What blew me away when I first started going through this content, a year ago, were details that most people might not even see or care about. That proved to me the people who made this, loved this.
the player character, Demmi and Tybalt ambushes Commander Langdon. I loved how when everything was over, Tybalt would go into the small tent, take out a bucket of water and put out the flaming apple barrels one by one.
I did ‘Victory or Death’ with a friend and a bug happened (I got my storyline reward but he did not, and it only appeared after we exited the instance). Not knowing that, we stayed in the instance trying to figure it out. If that bug did not happen, we would have completely missed Woznack the Wonderful.
I love how moas can be seen roaming in flocks. I love how wild life attack each other for food. I’m very curious about the ghost cat at Plains of Ashford. I love the pipe organ in Ebonhawke. Maklain the Minstrel ending up at Meddler’s Summit. I love how all the Risen retreat into the sea just before Tequatl appears. The Dolyak graveyard in Harathi Hinterlands (and the grandfather and child talking there). Idle NPCs (both enemy and friendly) talking. The chicken named ‘Dinner’ at Nagaling that you can catch and give to the old soldier. I love how as you progress through your personal story, (though I only did Charr so far) your warband members and the allies you’ve gathered can be found in various places around your home instance.
Sometimes NPCs can be spotted running around with no event marker and nothing special. If one were curious and followed them, more often than not an event would trigger. A lot of the dialog I liked to hear can be pretty hard to catch because they happened when the event started before there were any map notifications.
I even love the messenger birds each time you get mail.
And if you’re an Order of Whispers agent, even better! (though it has now made me try talking to every NPC I see)
All the references like:
“Can I has cheesy meat?”
“By Odgen’s Hammer, what savings!”
The end boss death in Sorrow’s Embrace, story path.
The chickens in Ebonhawke. I think I found out about this one in the best way (i.e. stumble onto someone else discovering it)
I’ve probably forgotten about alot I would have liked to mention.These little touches are appreciated all the more since I come from MMOs where their worlds, by comparison, are extremely dead or robotic. It makes me wonder how many of these falling-trees-in-the-forest I was not there to hear. I hope the developers are not discouraged by how these are not oft-talked about.
Its one year on and I still keep finding them. I want it known that we do see these and I would love to learn of more.
I thought about putting it into Lore instead but I wasn’t sure if mention of Zelda chickens would belong.