Guild Wars 2

Hello all, i hope someone can help. I just came back to GW2 from a moderately long absence playing other games (mostly skyrim) and upon reinstalling the game, patching, logging in, selecting my character (no issues up to this point, all as expected) and watching the loading screen for the plains of ashford (still no issues) and then the in-game world shows itself…sort of…. The skill bar is there, the friends window comes up fie, the map displays well, I can even walk around, but the screen that isn’t part of the previously described HUD is a very pretty, very solid, and quite uniform shade of purple. I can see some names floating over characters in green, some floating icons (the scout/map view icon, for example) that floats over the heads of others. but I cannot actually see the characters these names and icons represent. I can walk, and interact with things, i just can’t see them for the lovely shade of violet blocking my vision. I exit as normal (all the menus work fine, there isn’t even any lag), reenter, reload ashford, and now the screen is blue (still see the hud, all things otherwise normal) I use the overhad map (which still funtions fine) to navigate my way into the black citadel, (the asura gate for entrance is functioning normally) and when the black citadel loads from the normal loading screen (which i can see fine) the HUD is normal, the map is as expected, but the actual world is now a uniform steely blue-gray.

Not sure what’s going on. Any hints?

System specs:
Microsoft Windows XP home edition, version 2002, Service Pack 3
AMD Athlon X2 Dual-Core Processor
2.11 GHz, 3.25 GB of RAM
ATI Radeon 4600 series

Now, I honestly don’t know what information beyond this is relevant, or how much of this is relevant, so let me know if other info is needed, and where to find it.

lol, nvm, I figured it out. Had no idea bout the “Discover” feature for crafting. lol

I’m looking for in-game Merchants, if there are any, that will sell low-level chef recipes for either Karma or coin. Best if they sell the recipe for making that most magnificent of foods, the hamburger! Any help would be appreciated, as I am a bit new to the game, and Chef seems to be the only craft that has confounded me thus far.

Thank you all, and Happy Hunting!