Guild Wars 2 and the Z-axis

Several months back, when I was playing Lord of the Rings Online regularly, I posted that I was impressed with their handling of the z-axis and had also noticed this in Turbine's other notable (to me) MMO, Dungeons & Dragons Online.

I've still been playing Guild Wars 2 every day since release. I am happy to report that I have been enjoying the treatment of the z-axis in Guild Wars 2, and tonight I finally found a spot in-game that gave me a good screen shot of it. The difficulties with GW2's limited field of view had me turning upside down trying to get a shot, but I did load the experimental Fov modifier on to the exe target, so that helped me here.

This is an Asura staircase / bridge, as evidenced by the architectural style and floating energy platforms.

We descended from the upper left (above).

An earthen ramp leaving the area gave me a good vantage point for a screenshot. My husband's character, a human guardian, is in the foreground.

The Asuran architecture is quite attractive with its geometric forms in stone, plus plasma glowy power cells.

Further along, we ascended a mountainous region complete with lava flows. The Asuran staircase is visible in the upper left.

In side news - the Mad King left town today, but I did get a witch's hat from him last night, and defeated him in his mini-dungeon Sunday with the help of guildmates. That was quite fun and somewhat scary, especially the first time you walk in when no one knows what's going on and everyone is like "uh ... crap... wow everyone died."

My Asuran character finally got a good upgrade for a re-breather on Saturday - but these things just don't seem to come in any other appearance. Oh well. Underwater is another area where the z-axis work is very smooth. Occasionally a foe will go into "Invulnerable" state when nearby, so it is not perfect, but the underwater environment is very enjoyable. The ambient audio replicates the noises of swimming underwater perfectly - the noise of bubbles, the echo-y tones as you glide through the water, the acoustics are enough to keep me swimming along.

More of tonight's adventures: this is the elementalist elite skill fiery greatsword. Fun to use and fun to look at, too.

This veteran cave troll was over the cusp of the lava mountain.

We made our way to greener areas not long after.

I also got a gold dagger that looks more like a vine. Not sure how I could stab anyone with it, but (well, I'm casting spells, not really stabbing anyway, right?) ... the damage numbers are higher than what I had, so ... shrug. I'll use it.

This watchtower (where we chose to park our characters for the night) has a Charr guarding it. I am still not quite ready to make a Charr character, but my Norn character's experience with the Charr has warmed me to them more than I expected. I love my Norn engineer, but I went back to playing my Asuran elementalist so I could get one character to level 80. Tonight I reached level 75.

Again, I am pleased with ArenaNet's treatment of the z-axis. It is harder to get great screenshots of it than it was in LotRO (and I get dizzy in tight spots - a further zoom would help immensely), but the climbing and the puzzling paths - yes, they did good.