This patch is hands down my favourite since the release of the game, such a superb amount of effort has gone into this patch and it really shows. The attention to detail is exquisite, no ugly zergs, no achievement grinds, just a superbly delivered, subtle, yet powerful advancement in the story.
Walking around Lions Arch made me tear up, the music is magnificent, truly some of the best in game music i have ever heard creating the perfect atmosphere. The attention to detail, the lighting, swimming down to the drill and seeing the magic seeping through and the rumbles of a new threat awoken. Walking along i find a graveyard with a npc crying, the billboard of all the people dead or missing… this is the first time since the games release that i actually felt something for this city, for these characters.
The story really needed to be darker and this patch delivers on that. You could have easily added stray mobs into the city, add an achievement to kill 50 Looters, but thankfully you didn’t, you kept it hauntingly depressingly beautiful and simplistic.
However my favourite thing in this patch, and indeed my favourite thing since this games release, was seeing Laranthir of the Wild again. When i talked to him and he addressed me as Commanded i got chills, instant flashbacks to when this game was first released and i was madly in love and addicted. I was starting to think that everyone on Tyria was suffering from mass amnesia and forgot that i was a Commander that slayed an Elder Dragon.
Despite the flaws of the personal story, it was so overwhelmingly refreshing to once again feel connected to my personal story. It always bugged me that there was this massive leap from becoming a commander that united the orders to slay a elder dragon to instantly becoming a nobody who attended dragon bash festivals and voted in elections.
I feel important again, i feel like the story from levels 1-80 was not a complete waste of time, The Pact have returned, Trahearne has sent a ship to investigate Mordremoths awakening, just that one npc recognising me and acknowledging me has made me fall madly in love with this game once again.