Last week we explored some of the flora and fauna of the Maguuma Jungle. We went over some of the monsters you’re likely to find there and how the Asura and Sylvari survive in such a harsh environment. Then, at the end of last week’s column I let out a bit of a teaser about what I’ll have going on the next few weeks; The orders of Tyria.
The orders are a design decision by ArenaNet that helps bring the races together to the common goal of defeating the elder dragons. Where the lower level story missions are almost exclusively race/background specific, the higher levels will be based off of the player’s choice of order (I say almost because I haven’t seen one, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t there). This serves a dual-purpose design wise. This enables the developers to reduce the content needing to be written from 5 races and multiple backgrounds down to 3 orders and multiple backgrounds. Subtracting two might not seem like very much until you realize they aren’t additive; they’re multiplicative. The second purpose is to bring the players together regardless of race to help each other as the difficulty of the content ramps up. This will effectively increase the player density in the higher level areas where it will be more needed. The more players having epic battles at the fringes of civilization give the player a sense of epicness and character progression.
It’s been hinted at that the player won’t be forced to join an order to have access to all the areas of the game, but there will be a point in the personal story where the player will not be able to proceed without choosing an order. Also, if you regret your decision on order choice, there will be a way to change it, but it will require “a little effort” according to the Guild Wars 2 Wiki.
There are three orders in Guild Wars 2 that players can choose to join. They are the Vigil, the Durmand Priory, and the Order of Whispers. I will be covering each of them in turn to try to give future players a good feel for which ones they might be interested in. Well we’re going to start things off this week with the Vigil because that big castle in Gendarran fields last BWE is just way too enticing.
As with all of the orders, players get the chance to join the Vigil through their personal story. Players interested in a more regimented feel will be right at home with the Vigil. Their leader, Almorra Soulkeeper, keeps a tight leash on all members and the whole order acts as an army to fight Zhaitan. The Vigil’s philosophy to defeating the Elder Dragons is to unite the races and fight their minions back wherever they’re found. They believe that by facing Zhaitan’s minions directly someone will eventually find a chink in their metaphorical armor. Strength in numbers and military tactics are the focus of the vigil and they are present in force wherever a large number of minions have massed. They say that every day that passes the Elder Dragons grow stronger and those not fighting are letting them win.
The main headquarters of the Vigil is the Vigil Keep in the northern region of the Gendarran Fields (Just north from Lion’s Arch). Players that are members of the Vigil will have access to vigil-only merchants and karma vendors here. The keep itself is a large span over a mostly dried up riverbed in the Vigilant Hills. Although there is a vigil base inside Lion’s Arch, it is speculated that most of the personal story missions revolving around the vigil will be started here.
One of the major events surrounding the Vigil is the meta event in Sparkfly Fen, Defeat Tequatl the Sunless. Any player can take part in this event when its active, it it the Vigil who lead the attack in lore. Their asuran scientists came up with massive cannon called the “Asura Mega Laser” which stuns Tequatl and allows everyone to do much more damage to him while he’s stunned.
The Vigil is definitely the order for you if you look for some up close and personal action from your personal story. It’s designed for players who like the kill it now and ask questions later approach. While they do have times when the vigil uses a more subtle approach, its appears few and far between. If you want to dive right in and crack some skulls I’m thinking you’ll like the Vigil best.
LET'S GET SOCIAL