Winds Of Change


Reference Pages:

[GuildWars.com] Official Winds Of Change Page


[Official GW1 Wiki] Winds Of Change Overview

[Official GW1 Wiki] Winds Of Change Questline Walkthrough

Guild Wars wrote:

The Ministry of Purity has heard your cries. They are organizing volunteers to purge the Afflicted from our lands once and for all. If you will lend your arms to the cause, speak with Initiate Zei Ri on the streets of Kaineng Center. Strength in unity; together, we overcome.

Called it last night on vent.... Ahem... HELLZ FLIPPIN' Yeah. Honestly it's about time.

So me and Link did all of Tsuriai, Zei Ri and Lei Jeng quests in NM. Gonna do the HM only quests later. Is that all of it?

I am so confused about the phases can somebody please explain to me how the phases will work. Is Phase One going to be released over a couple of days or? Is this all of Phase One or?

My Winds Of Change [Part 1] Impressions:
(For Those Who Have & Haven't Gotten Into It Yet)

While I feel that the storyline behind Winds Of Change [Part 1] picks up towards the end of the various quest lines, there is definitely way too much filler and fluff to get you to that point. I'm pretty certain that the lore could've been told in about half of the quests given. More is not better when it's mostly the same thing over and over and over and over. There are a few fun quests mixed in, but for the most part they are derivative and repetitive 'kill this mob, then kill this next mob' type stuff. I think WoC [P1] would've been better served if there were more mission-style quests (ie. objectives/failure components/timers/etc.).

War In Kryta started off really slow, but eventually it got better and more immersive. With the insertion of the greens and minipets that the normal White Mantle/Peacekeeper mobs could potentially drop, as well as the Confessor's Orders and the various NPCs getting messed with in the various Krytan explorable areas, War In Kryta really felt like more of an event than Winds Of Change has thus far, at least through [Part 1]. Right now it just feels like a tacked-on questline for players to do rather than some GW:Beyond-caliber game-changing event. The Courier Falken Dwarven Boxing quest is really fun, but alas, NOT repeatable. I love the Dragonguard and Purity armors (available as costume sets in the in-game store). The Arms Dealer in Kaineng has some really interesting (inscribable) weapons available, such as Jitte daggers, Tetsubo hammers, Platinum Staves, and Fans as wands. However, the Arms Dealer takes items only given out through quest rewards, not random quest drops (like Confessor's Orders -> War Supplies), and there are no unique drops to these quests, just more of the same Canthan crap. This is a MAJOR downer, IMO. Basically, there is almost no replayability in [Part 1] other than to get to [Part 2] and witness the storyline firsthand. Nothing to grind for, which is a one-way ticket to "forgettable" in the MMO universe. With WiK at least it was fun to just go out and kill random mobs to collect Confessor's Orders and take the chance at a green/mini drop, as well as farm for Medals of Honor and Royal Gifts. I was surprised at noticing that the recently-implemented Imperial Faction (from the recent PvP update) wasn't given as a reward/shrine bounty or something similar during the [P1] questline at all.

All in all, Winds Of Change [Part 1] is good content for what it is, but I expect a bit more from the final two installments. Hopefully [Part 2] and [Part 3] of Winds Of Change do more to flesh out the GW:Beyond experience than [Part 1] did. Most people aren't too thrilled with the staleness of the added [P1] content, and my biggest fear is that many players won't keep their interest long enough to grind through the drawn-out [P1] questline to get to more-developed [P2] and [P3] content. (Some of us in the guild are already burned out by just ONE play-through to immediately go through it again on other characters.) We know for sure that there is a new Imperial Weapon set to come and hopefully some other kinds of unique/special drops to look forward to as well. Maybe even some new heroes or something.

We shall see...

Got these from a Guru thread. Icons of the Imperial Weapons:

Quote:

A couple of close-ups:

is the 6th or 4th one over the spear?

Ugly.

I figured the last one was the daggers

I was expecting a bit more from WoC. The whole WiK stuff seems more professional.

I guess WoC was made by the same guys as WiK. Can anyone confirm it?

My cousin says Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall was made by different teams. Is that true or is it just urban legend?

I am under the impression that the GW Live team developed both WiK and WoC. However, a few members have been added and swapped around, to my knowledge. Also keep in mind that WoC isn't completely released yet.

UPDATE:

New quests for Winds Of Change are out today. Not sure if it's technically the unveiling of Part 2 or some quests leading up to it, but whatever. New content. Just in time too. Now that the Red Sox season is over, I suddenly have a LOT of free time at night in my schedule.

EDIT: Looks like it's actually Part 2. Nice! Someone in the Guru thread about this is noting that there are 11 new quests.




Earlier this week Jason and I were doing another push-through of the boring-ass WoC Part 1. Didn't get to finish as I got too damn busy out of game (Red Sox collapse, other stuff, etc.) to keep showing up nightly. We'll have to get that done ASAP. Even though it was NM it seems to me that the Cho's Estate quest got a slight nerf somewhere recently. I remember even NM of that quest being a PITA, but this time Jason and I blew through it without breaking a sweat.

Go, go Red Sox!

I started working on some of the new quests Wednesday. Right now i'm stuck on the "Warning the Angchu" part in HM. God damn 4 man zone.
I Just finished WOC Part 2 in HM. Not as hard as the first part. The last quest in part 2 may give people problems in HM. What I did was pull groups towards the back of Tsumei Village, instead of standing in the middle and fighting.

What I decided to do this time is right after I finish a normal mode quest, I do the hard mode version of it before the next normal mode quest.

Yeah Ive been trying to complete Rescue at Minister Cho's Estate - HM

I keep getting my ass handed to me. I will be on sometime sunday and on monday if anyone needs help - (monk) Sakora Le Calcifer

I got stuck on Cho's Estate HM as well. Felt more unbalanced than difficult, IMO, so I said the hell with HM WoC and decided to stick with NM only. Doesn't seem worth the frustration to be honest.

Jason (Sarge) is back playing GW again. Likewise, I took it easy in-game for about a month or so but now I'm back playing again as well. Jason and I have been getting on at nights and doing random stuff. I've gotten around to rolling those new characters I never shut up about wanting to do all summer... but didn't. Jason and I were doing a push-through of WoC Part 1 about a week ago, but we accidentally let the damn NPC die during the When Kappas Attack quest (ie. failed, but in our defense it was really late at night) and put it on the backburner for a bit.

I haven't gotten very far into WoC Part 2. Only a couple of quests or so.

Part 1 of Winds Of Change was released 6.5 MONTHS AGO and there still aren't even rumblings about when the final installment (Part 3) is going to make it out. Canthan New Year is soon and the 2nd part of the Ele skill balance update (for normal skills) is in the pipeline somewhere, but no word on when to expect WoC Pt 3. Hmmmm. Let's not forget the St. Patrick's Day event, Easter event, and GW1's 7th Birthday aren't very far off either. The GW1 team is going to have their hands full.

I haven't even finished Part 2 on any characters yet. As I'm not all that enthused about the Imperial weapon set, I'll probably wait for a really rainy day or for Part 3 to actually make it out and see what it entails before deciding when or whether or not to actually continue on with WoC at all.

If the Oppressor weapon set from WiK is any indication, I expect the Imperial weapon set to be made HoM'able.

Part 3 of Winds Of Change will go live on Thursday, February 9th.

Here is a write-up about it (and a storyline recap, because ANet knows by this point nobody remembers a goddamn thing):
http://www.arena.net/blog/mikus-tale-winds-of-change-part-three

Quote:

Winds of Change has been our largest free content expansion in Guild Wars to date, and this final chapter sees the addition of 9 new quests, exciting new rewards, and a number of hidden scenes for players to discover that flesh out the story.

Goddamnit Zephy's still away then

Guru threads dealing with the Winds Of Change, Part 3 update:
Update - Thursday, February 9, 2012 (Winds of Change Part 3)

Imperial Guard Lockbox


^^ The above threads have lots of pics of the new greens, items, etc..

Quote:

Update Notes: Winds of Change The story of the Yuudachi family has long been intertwined with that of Cantha. Miku seeks to close a mysterious and troubling chapter in both by confronting Reiko, the founder of the Ministry of Purity, and reconciling with her long lost brother, Ashu. Meet with Miku in the Shenzun Tunnels to join in her quest. Feature Updates *Added an Imperial Guide NPC in Kaineng Center to help players navigate the Winds of Change content. *Rebalanced several existing Winds of Change quests and explorable areas. Automated Tournaments *Added the 2012 Automated Tournament Series Trophy in the Great Temple of Balthazar. *Updated the Automated Tournament map rotation.

Apparently, one of the new items you can get is an Imperial Panda License that you hand into the Menagerie keeper which lets you charm Panda Bears (!!!). You can also unlock the Panda bear at the Menagerie for 15 gold zaishen coins or 80k Balthazar faction.

FWIW, there's a quest you can get now which resets the explorable spawns to their original formats (read: much weaker) to make things easier for vanquishers, etc.. Continuing the trend of weapon skins being used for other weapons (as seen from WoC Part 1's Kaineng weapons crafter), apparently there's a green scythe that is using the Bo Staff skin. There's also a dagger skin that's used as a shield. (What?)

There's also a new mini (gold): Mini Ecclesiaste Xun Rao (the white Ministry Of Purity dude).

EDIT: I see someone in Kaineng selling a Mini Reiko as well, so that makes at least 2 minis from this.




Guess I'm going to work my way through this then.

When you complete WoC, you get Miku as a new hero.

Can't add the new Imperial weapons to your HoM. No word on whether or not that is planned for the future. It makes sense to do so, IMO (which is why it probably won't happen).