Happy Holidays!

 

Cantha in an alternate timeline

So I was messing around a bit and wondered "how would Cantha look like if we sided with Jormag in the Icebrood Saga?". Answer: cool.

 

Shing Jea Monastery comparison

 

New "Demonic" alphabet

 As some might have noticed the Binding of Ipos and its precursors have a lot of text written on them. At first glance it looks like regular New Krytan but on closer inspection it's nothing alike. I've taken the time to analyze all textures and it looks like these are unique characters that make up different words.

I've also spent some time on separating some of these characters and ran them through deciphering tools with mixed but promising results.

Now I think it would be awesome for anybody interested in this stuff to try and help me out to decode this, because up till now we haven't seen a new language this close to being translatable since the launch of the game (Mursaat is still a giant mystery) and it might hold some cool lore!

• "Demonic" alphabet as shown on the True Name, Ars Goetia and the Binding of Ipos
• Separated Characters

Soon... (only one day left for the Beta weekend)

Next expansion launcher

As you may recall I've already leaked the name of the next expansion so I hereby present you a screenshot of its beautiful new launcher. Enjoy.

Amnoon Oasis Boardgame

With the release of the new heart of the mists map they've added a VIP section to it that can only be accessed by a tiny amount of people (21 to 29 players per region, per month). In it you can find a small board game, tucked away in a corner on a table.

This board game uses a combination of playing cards and different kind of dice and has room for up to four players. The cards and glyphs all have a distinct Elonian feel to it and one of the meshes is called AmnoonOasisLattice1:Dice1.

With the amount of textures available it is possible we'll be getting a new mini game in the future. Now I do not understand why they chose to put an item that in my opinion could've sparked quite some hype in a location that only 0.0000001% of the population will ever be able to visit and definitely would've ignored.

Anyhow, enough of my complaints, enjoy!

• Render of the Board Game
• Cards
• Dice

Upcoming features from the June 20 patch

Here are the items from the Heart of the Mists update

Next playable race

New Shoulder Armor

It looks like ArenaNet is going to try something different by releasing part of an existing outfit as separate armor pieces!

You'll probably recognize this one as the shoulder armor of Braham's Wolfblood Outfit and it's probably going to be sold along with the new Mini Wolfblood Braham and Braham's Bitterfrost Frontier Pack.

Lake Doric - before the attack

I was wondering how Lake Doric would've looked like before the White Mantle attack so I took some time fixing the damage they've done and refilled it with water.

Upcoming features from the February 8 patch

Today's patch was huge (about 1400 new lines) so it took a bit longer to sift through everything. I've made sure I've left out a couple of mini-pets and items that could be considered story spoilers so you don't have to worry about those.

Ascalon - birds eye view

I gave a shot at creating a birds eye view image of Ascalon like I did before with Kryta. It didn't turn out as well as I had hoped due to the source images lacking detail. But anyway.. I thought you might still like what I've put together with these.

• Ascalon - birds eye view
• Labeled version
  

Human male Face and Hairstyle

First of all it appears the hairstyle I posted a couple of days ago won't also be available for Norn females but Human males instead (sometimes hard to tell them apart)

Second off all here's one of the other new hairstyles (that I also mistook for Norn female at first) and and faces for human males, enjoy!

• New human male face and hairstyle

Some more WvW and placeholder UI elements

First of all happy new year! I've been taking a break for a couple of weeks and I thought today would be a great day to get back to work. To get started here's a couple more of those new WvW UI and BETA placeholder images I've talked about earlier. It's not entirely clear what they're planning but let's hope we'll find out soon^tm

Enjoy,

• Beta & WvW UI elements

Gotta catch em all!