I was wondering since I am sure we all have our favorite maps/zones/whole areas
Recently I have been doing map completion on my Ranger and so have been wandering around a bit more that usual.
I absolutely love Ascalon.
the beauty, the story, the war against the ghosts and the flame legion and the brand,
the sadness, the determination of the Charr.
All this combines to make this my favorite area in the game.
Straits of Devastation. It sounds badkitten, and it’s a very lively and active area provided you have people engaging in the events. Also, the contrast is nice – beautiful jungle to corpse-ridden plaguelands. And not only is it a plaguelands, but it’s a grand and hard worked one, with old, ancient architecture, and aquatic assimilation over the land due to its sinking.
I’ll have to say Plains of Ashford is my favorite place. I’ll never forget the first time I played the game, making my Charr ranger and exploring it all for the first time, seeing the game through the eye’s of a beginner.
It was pretty amazing, and I’ll always love that zone.
BREAK YOURSELVES UPON MY BODY
FEEL THE STRENGTH OF THE EARTH
Vicodium – Ranger (IX) Coldsnap
Beautiful. The lush vegetation without being a forest, the small outposts here and there, the rivers… They all make the area rather nice.
Filled with dynamic events. While in some other maps you can walk quite a lot without finding an event, the starting areas have a lot of them.
Has many interesting event chains. If the bandits take the water reservatoire, you will see people sick directly in front of the gate to Divinity’s Reach, very far from where the event itself happens.
Haas just thousands of cool things. It has a lot of great ambient dialogue, the cemetery is filled with easter eggs, the former Temple of the Six Gods is great for those who played the original Guild Wars, both cities have many nice details, and so on.
I wish Orr had been at least half as good as Queensdale.
“I think that players are starting to mature past the point of wanting to be on that
treadmill, of being in that obvious pattern of every time I catch up you are going to
put another carrot in front of me” – Mike O’Brien right before Ascended weapons
Beautiful. The lush vegetation without being a forest, the small outposts here and there, the rivers… They all make the area rather nice.
Filled with dynamic events. While in some other maps you can walk quite a lot without finding an event, the starting areas have a lot of them.
Has many interesting event chains. If the bandits take the water reservatoire, you will see people sick directly in front of the gate to Divinity’s Reach, very far from where the event itself happens.
Haas just thousands of cool things. It has a lot of great ambient dialogue, the cemetery is filled with easter eggs, the former Temple of the Six Gods is great for those who played the original Guild Wars, both cities have many nice details, and so on.
I wish Orr had been at least half as good as Queensdale.
ahh yes I remember in the first beta I played I saw these people that looked sick in Shaemore and I was so curious to see what caused it and then when I figured it out, it was so cool
I also catch the bunny event whenever I see it up- it has become a thing for me
Queensdale is a really nice zone.
I don’t really like the rest of the human lands at all, which is hilarious considering most of my characters are human.
Here’s what people thought of GW1 when it first came out: http://tinyurl.com/bntcvyc
“A release is 7 days or less away or has just happened within the last 7 days…
These are the only two states you’ll find the world of Tyria.”
I made a exact same post many months ago and stated there that Frostgorge Sound was my fav map. Not only coz of the amazing beauty both on land and u/water but also coz it has Koda!
Ofc I love all the zones but there’s something magical about Frostgorge Sound.
My favorite zone is probably Ascalon. But it still pales in comparison to anything Blizzard can come up with. The starting area for the Night Elves is amazingly beautiful, and then the trees in the forest are perfectly placed along with architecture that depends on the different races.
But yeah, Ascalon is probably the closest in beauty compared to WoW.
I absolutely love anything to do with the Shiverpeaks. I can’t separate the maps down to a particular favourite. Maybe Timberline Falls or Lornar’s Pass.
Fire up the Hyperbowl ma, we’re going to town!
Would you like some hard cheeze with your sad whine?
Timerbline. Easily the most “Biodiverse” of the zones (swamp in one corner, Mellagan & crater lake in the other, pretty mountain streams everywhere, and huge peaks & waterfalls) …not to mention more Rosemary than any other zones combined if you guest to the right servers…
Queensdale!!!!!!!! Beautiful, and lots of people all the time! That’s how the game should be! The rest of the game, save for LA, is just a giant ghosttown in comparison to the small pocket that is Queensdale and all of its nonstop, compact dynamic events. I spend most of my time there nowadays, even with my max characters.
I used to like Orr, Pre-nerf, for the same reasons (except its not pretty) But now I have to be lucky to login at a time there are enough people to do one temple. And thats it.
I’d like to give a shoutout to Timberline Falls for its unique scenery. I am always so impressed how they captured that particular fresh, crisp, atmostphere unique to high-altitude valleys.
Every zone totally wins, in terms of visuals and details. But in terms of play/vitality, it remains Queensdale.
Interesting to see what people like
@ Tiger Ashante- I remember that topic
Some more pics from Ascalon- Iron Marches this time
In the first pic there is a tower in the distance, on that tower is a char that is in charge of the construction of the little town at the foot of the tower.
He tells you “isn’t it beautiful” and he is so proud of his work.
Then naturally the flame legion attacks, it was too hard to do by myself but two other rangers came and helped out and we saved the Charr’s little town
The second pic is near Bria’s cottage- the scene of a very creepy Hansel and Gretel type event
Third and forth- at the lake where the Brand starts- one of the coolest, strangest spots I have seen- I just love the look of it.
Iron marches. I love Kralkatorrik, the branded lands with crystals everywhere coming out of the ground; and iron marches has a huge area that’s branded, combined with the beauty of ascalon, along with that one heart there that takes place in a haunted forest that isn’t really explained.
Lornar’s Pass. It’s a huge zone (just like in GW1), with two different environments as well (snow and forest). It has several underground areas, some unique creatures…. all it really lacks is an epic zone boss. I think that giant bridge to the Priory may be one of my favorite visuals in the whole zone.
I don’t really have an absolute favourite, but a couple of favourites ‘bits’ are all the ruins in Ascalon, I love ruins, in every game I always love them. I really like snowy areas aswell, so lornar’s pass is one of my favourites aswell. The volcano in mt Maelstrom is also quite nice, aswell as the tiny ‘island/shoreline’ all the way to the southeast in that zone. I also like dense forests but this game doesn’t really have that, only jungles or open ‘forest-like’ places. There’s plenty of spots that I think are pretty awesome. Overall the game world is well made with alot of attention detail for an MMO, even the zones with themes I don’t really like (all the purple stuff in the branded scar). It was still pretty awesome fighting Shatterer the first time.
