[GW2] Asura Week: A Gabble of Golemancers

Oh, look he has a staff. That's a surprise.

I'm a sociologist, first and foremost*, and I know a division of labour which won't work when I see it. You can't run a society on a whole population of hairdressers. So, with that in mind I ask you this: is every single asura a golemancer? 

Every asura we have encountered in the literature (Ghosts of Ascalon, Edge of Destiny and now Jeff Grubb's "Mr Sparkles") certainly is. Snaff, Blimm, Kranxx, Zojja and now Flummox - all golemancers, through and through. Don't get me wrong, I liked the story from yesterday and I thoroughly enjoyed it, but I did find it rather predictable. As soon as Flummox said "We’ll need them to get the apparatus operational" the word "Golem" wasn't too far behind. 

I like the idea of a golemancer, I really do, but along with this vocation seems to have to come a magical counterpart. Without too much of an imaginative leap you could come to the conclusion that every one of the above named asura was a student of the arcane arts in some form of another. And I don't just mean (yes, I did start that sentence with "and") that they dabble in the mystical; I mean fully fledged, fireball wielding, lightning bolt hurling magical professionals. 

My issue is that ANet have always had the stance that no one race will be overly powerful as one school of professions. If it were the case that the norn made the best warriors, then no-one would play any other race (short of RP purposes) for their warrior. I'm sure it is still the case that the races and professions are in balance, but in terms of lore I think we'd currently be hard pushed to justify an asura guardian - all the lore sources we have seem to suggest that they don't exist.


Look, I don't like to complain (and I'm sure that Ree's post at the end of the week will feature a roving band of renegade asura warriors complete with rippling biceps, short fuses and even shorter attention spans) but would it be too much to ask for a story containing an asura guardian? Even a thief or ranger would do - something which shows off the other side of their character? We know they have brains - but how about we see a little of their brawn?

*Trained at the 3rd best University in the country, I'll have you know! 
Ps. I'm willing to admit some of them may be engineers, but that still isn't satisfactory!

[GW2] Asura Week: Littllest, but not Least

As I type this I know a number of my Guild Wars buddies are eagerly sitting by their blog feed waiting for ANet to drop the first article of the much anticipated asura week. The asura have claimed a lot of attention since they were released during Gamescom - mainly due to their freaking adorable animations and fantastic character modelling - but they have a long history at their back, and that's what I'm here to cover today.

The asura are short. There's no way around it, they are titchy. They are primarily a subterranean race and so have evolved large eyes to compensate for the low light of their underground lairs, and large ears to further enhance their senses. With short legs and short tempers they make unlikely heroes, but what they lack in stature they more than make up for in arrogance and self-belief. They are renowned for their faith in their own intellect; and this faith is, by and large, well placed.

The asura construct great cities of swirling rocks and boulders held up by arcane energies. They mackle together monstrous golems of metal and magic to do their bidding. Their great intellect does have a downside, however, as they view almost all other races as intellectual inferiors and often dismiss them as dullards and dunces out of hand. However, they are fierce fighters, determined and stoic in their eagerness to prevail (and such, prove their superiority over their opponents and friends) - as such they make terrible adversaries and even better allies.

 The asuran belief system is almost Gaiac in origin. They believe in the "Eternal Alchemy" - in that each facet of the world is interconnected and part of a greater structure. As such, working out the great formula for life should be an asura's greatest concern. 

In the years between the end of the Guild Wars story and the start of the Guild Wars 2 one, the asuran race - much like a lot of the races of Tyria - has suffered somewhat of a displacement. The increasing ferocity of the Destroyers (having recovered from the loss of their General - the Great Destroyer) has forced the asura from their underground cities and into the daylight. Even the transformation of the dwarven race into rootin-tootin stoneclad fighting machines hasn't been enough to prevent the need for the mass exodus. The asuran race has had to adapt to their life on the surface. The great city of Rata Sum has flourished and has evolved in kind from their main outpost on the surface to their fully fledged capitol city.

The asura have kinda won the hearts of the Guild Wars population over the past few weeks and ANet must be giddy with excitement to see how we react to all the juicy info they will be releasing over the next 5 days. I'm personally excited because I know that what comes out of the ANet blog from now until Friday will shape my final decision on my main race and so will probably shape how I play the game in the (hopefully) years to come.

Good Books for Gamers #1: House of Leaves

This is the first post in a series I hope to be setting up over the coming months; Good Books for Gamers. I'll be reviewing books which I believe should be a the top of any gamer's reading list. They won't be like "Big Jim's Big Book of Game Cheats", but hopefully they'll be books which will nurture the kind of mindset which you need to be a good gamer or at least bring up some interesting ideas for your brainbox.

First book in the series is one of my top 5 fave books of all time: House of Leaves

Released in 2000 and written by Mark Z Danielewski House of Leaves tells the story of a number of different characters:

Johnny Truant - a tattoo artist who's friend suggests he moves into the apartment in his block which has just become available. In this apartment he discovers (amongst other weird shit) a mysterious manuscript which he edits and transcribes for the reader, the manuscript is written by the previous occupant of the flat a Mr...

Zampano - a mad old man who lives alone in his flat with boarded windows and blocked ventilation systems. He is writing a critique of a documentary film called "The Navidson Record" which concerns the events surrounding...

The Navidson Family - William Navidson is a famous photographer and he is moving into a new house with his wife and children. Unfortunately, they find that their house holds some pretty fricking freaky secrets. Will Navidson films his exploits in his new home on a video camera; the results of which eventually become the documentary film "The Navidson Record".

(There are also the fictitious Editors who pipe up now and again to edit or paraphrase some of Johnny's ramblings - they are assumed to be the ones publishing the book as a whole).

So, as you can probably tell the book is pretty complex: Johnny is transcribing Zampano's critique of a documentary about a family. It's a book about a book about a book about a film. House of Leaves is a freaking onion, it has so many layers. It's a whole bushel of onions, dammit. Do onions come in bushels? I guess that's irrelevant.

The Plot
Starting from the very bottom of the narrative tower, ie: the Navidsons. The documentary "The Navidson Record" is pieced together out of old family videos filmed by Will Navidson. After a sizable description of the characters and their lives before they moved into the their new house, the story really starts when they discover that their new home is literally bigger on the inside than it is on the outside (they actually get a tape measure out to verify this). But it really, really starts when they come home from a trip to find a new door in one of the walls. A door leading to a hallway which, physically, should extend out into their back garden, but doesn't. The documentary which Zampano critiques mainly concerns the strain which is placed upon the family as Will Navidson and other intrepid adventurers explore the pitch black labyrinth of twisting hallways, shifting doorways and endless chambers which lies behind the new door. Frankly, the whole experience is incredibly harrowing and terrifying!

Zampano's written critique of the documentary is rambling and frequently goes on tangents so immense it's like reading an acid trip. At one point he begins listing the characteristics of various shotguns - right down to their measurements and specifications. 

Johnny transcribes Zampano's insane ramblings for us, but often goes out of his way to describe his own drunken, drug filled, sexed up, insomniac lifestyle. Johnny's story is told in parallel to Zampano's, often in epic footnotes (sometimes taking up whole pages themselves).

Format

What makes House of Leaves so interesting for me is the fascinating way the information is presented to the reader. The text is often distorted to reflect the characters emotions, feelings and situation at the time. For example, when Will Navidson is squeezing his way through an increasingly narrow hallway the text becomes tighter and tighter - forcing the reader to quickly skip through the text and feel the increasing pressure as the blank margins bear in on the text. 

 Similarly, as Will is climbing a rockface we have to read up the page in sections to simulate the feeling of ascending at a laborious pace.

Danielewski employs colour to add an extra layer of intrigue into his text. Every instance of the word house is in blue, every instance of the word minotaur is in red and throughout the book, strikethroughs and purple text is employed - but never really addressed. The book comes with a sizable full colour appendix containing a number of letters to Johnny from his mother and other interesting pieces.

Gaming the book

Why I think this book would be interesting to the average gamer is that it is absolutely riddled with riddles, it is covered with codes, cryptic cryptids and puzzles which, if you don't keep a keen eye, you'd miss. For example, at one point Johnny meets a band in a bar who have read his published copy of Zampano's transcript, not knowing the Johnny is the author one member says: 

"Had he made it to Virginia? Had he found the house? Did he ever get a good night's sleep? And most of all was he seeing anyone? Did he at long last find the woman who would love his ironies? Which shocked the hell out of me. I mean it takes some pretty impressive back-on-page-117 close-reading to catch that one." 

(House of Leaves, pg514)

So, you flick back to page 117 and find (in a particularly rambling footnote on his woman trouble) Johnny says:

"...a wild ode mentioned at New West hotel over wine infusions, light, lit, lofted on very entertaining moods, yawning in return, open nights, inviting everyone's song"

(ibid, pg117)

Which is an acrostic of "a woman who loves my ironies". Other puzzles reveal more about the characters, at one point Johnny's mother writes a letter which contains the code: "my dear Zampano, who did you lose?" similarly in acrostic - suggesting a hitherto unknown connection between the two characters.

This is just one of thousands of hidden gems which are burrowed deep within the book, and there is debate on whether we have discovered them all, and whether we have fully understood the ones we have discovered. There is the matter of the front cover, for example:

As you can see, the front cover is not quite large enough to cover the inside of the book. Almost mirroring the house itself in it's topsy turvy dimensions. Some have gone as far as to say that the book published by the editors IS the house - and the house IS the book. But that's getting into some pretty messed up metaphysical fuzz which I really don't want to get into right now.

My point is that the ability to grapple with puzzles such as the House of Leaves is an essential characteristic to being an effective gamer (well, OK, maybe not some FPS games, but certainly puzzle, MMO and adventure games). Even if you don't buy into the puzzle and game side of it, it's an incredibly engrossing book. Before the end you begin to wonder what part of it is real? Was there ever a family who lived in a house bigger on the inside than out, or was that made up by Zampano? Or was HE made up by Johnny as an expression of his increasing paranoia and madness? Or is it all the insane ramblings of Johnny's mother - alone in the mental asylum?
If you aren't convinced as to how enveloping the mystery is, just take a look at my copy: 

PS. that's how a book SHOULD look by the way - nice and worn. If another person lectures me about "breaking the spine" of a book, I might just go biblical on them.