The Lost City of Atlant... - WAIT - Lion's Arch

This time I focused on what was under the water - as I will during the actual release.  I have reasons for this.  I know that the game has made the greatest strides in this area.

I tried out the Asura portals and quickly learned that you can fall THROUGH the ones that aren't active.  Unfortunately, it takes a little more work to dive off the the portal platform in Lion's Arch (or what passes as Lion's Arch...I'll get to that).

So this is how I fell out of the portal to the Sylvari area...I wound up on the rocks below and then got stuck inside the bridge to the portal.  It was kind of weird.  I sent a ticket asking if I was supposed to be able to walk INSIDE the bridge supports.   If you still can in the final release, I'm going to assume that it's a "yes".

Trying to glitch the game again, I managed to dive into the water in my town clothing.  It did switch to my armor though, even though it's water in town...in more ways than one.

Here we have an underwater village.  There were some kind of sea people I didn't recognize.

Here is the part where it got creepy.  I'd been wandering through Lion's Arch noticing that I didn't recognize any of it and couldn't find the floating (in midair) castle from GW1.  Or anything for that matter.  There's a reason for that and the NPCs will tell you all about it if you have your sound on and wander through the ward filled with pieces of ships strung up in the air and lashed together.  Apparently the whole city of Lion's Arch flooded and it's no longer really the central city of human civilization.  What we know as Lion's Arch, is on the bottom of the bay.  Meanwhile, The tiny little village that we saved from the White Mantle in War In Kryta in GW Beyond, is now Shaemoor from what I can see and Divinity's Reach is built over the inland sea it was next to.  I can only assume that there's a way out into that water as well.

Oh, and the new Lion's Arch has a neat fountain that does different patterns and tricks with water and plays music.  I'm not joking.  It's obviously a point of interest and I need to take video of it next event.

So, being me, I needed to jump of of EVERYTHING in Lion's Arch into the water.

I think I even jumped off a few foot bridges into shallow moats.

There are three banks of Asura portals in Lion's Arch - one to take you to the different starter cities (five races, three portals are currently active though), one to take you to the Mists for PvP (they're all color names), and one that isn't active.  I'm not sure if they BECOME active or if it's just for show.  I suspect they'll become usable at a later date since they're due north of the other two sets.

Now here are the funky ships-in-the-sky that form a ward of Lion's Arch now.  Apparently this is how people stayed alive when the city sank or something?  Sit here and the NPCs will chatter all about it.

Here is Lion's Arch as we knew it in Guild Wars 1 - now sitting on the floor of Sanctum Harbor.  I'll get some real landmarks below.

Recognize the Statue?  Yeah, I thought so!

Here is the pedestal that all Guild Wars Prophecies players should know.  It's not looking so great now.

Here is where I swam to find this - yeah, Lion's Arch IS the harbor.  There's like nothing else in that area.

There's a waterfall...I think there was a river about here in Northern Kryta, actually, so this is probably what it's up to now.

There's now a humpback whale in Lion's Arch under the sea.

There is this pathway up to a platform above Sanctum Harbor - of course I had to climb it and jump off.

They anticipated my arrival - there's this guy here with a swimsuit and a diving board.   There's also a waypoint so I can do it over and over without climbing.  You can take on diving skills too.  See the skillbar below.

Flip!