Hail*NOR/

The worlds have mysteriously merged and we have welcomed several members who were temporarily lost on distant worlds.

We continue to gain our awakened weapons as the game gods distribute them. Currently two classes await their turn and will gain this ability on Wednesday. We look forward to having everyone enjoy their new abilities.

As a guild we have taken our first steps to really investigating the lands of Valencia, to find the evil and end their ability to do harm. Death is inevitable but we will persevere!

We continue to work on recruiting like minded members to our guild where they can truly enjoy the game and all of the content available.

Thank you,
Countess Kinaria (SanSing)
*NOR/CS BL:BDo

Hail*NOR/

Happy Wintersday from the Guild Wars 2 branch! We’ve taken a brief respite from knocking back egg nog after surviving the Toypocalypse to bring you our monthly report. Over the past couple of months we have been chilling out with the new sights in the Bitterfrost region of the Shiverpeaks, as well as the decorated Winter Wonderland in Divinity’s Reach. Both the latest episode of the Living Story and the Wintersday event have blown a chilly wind across Tyria, but we’ve all warmed up to the changes and are happily exploring the mysteries (and loot!) they contain.

ArenaNet released A Crack in the Ice, the next installment of Living Story 3, which is available free to all owners of the Heart of Thorns expansion. The content expands on the personal story and includes a new map with all the events, achievements, and goodies we’ve come to expect from these installments. There is also a new legendary shield called Shooshadoo, whose appearance looks like a quaggan inside a small aquarium! We’ve also been given a new fractal called “Nightmare”, which is set within the Tower of Nightmares that appeared during the first Living Story episodes. The mechanics and setting are really fun and there are achievements that unlock some fantastic looking weapon skins. The Living Story episodes continue to deliver varied, interesting content, so it’s a good time to be a Heart of Thorns owner.

The Wintersday festival has arrived and will run from December 13th through January 10th. There are a wide variety of activities to choose from, including a challenging jumping puzzle, a choir bell game (similar to guitar hero), snowball fights, goodwill to orphans, defending against waves of misbehaving toys in the Toypocalypse, or helping to keep Tixx’s airship, the Infinirarium, in order. There are some unique items to acquire through achievements, such as the Star of Gratitude and Wintersday Tree node. The star will consume empyreal fragments and provide loot in exchange. The tree node will grant you a daily wintersday gift in your home instance.

We have continued to make steady progress on the Guild Hall, unlocking all the tavern buffs and filling out our Arena obstacles. We are nearly level 35 and will be pushing towards the significant level 40 that opens up further exploration. We send a major thanks to everyone who has worked hard to contribute towards the upgrades and kindly remind everyone to keep an eye on the message of the day to see what materials we need for the next goal.

We also continued to grow with new recruits and promotions. We are honored to have new squires Gwyn, Serra Beth, Oldgoat, Key Lime Pie, Piona Master, and Flare Scott. We warmly welcome our new recruits therise, Mathuzalis, Reapersyn, Gearspowered, EZAZU, Ethenium, Elthrai, Fanaki, and Colwyn Dale. We hope you too make a permanent home with us and come to appreciate the NOR family as we do.

Guild Wars 2 continues to serve up a variety of interesting content that keeps us busy and entertained. Arena Net was honored with Massively Op’s Best Business Model of 2016 Award. This is due to its friendly free to play model, absence of pay to win policies, and generous buy-to-play full membership. If you’ve been thinking about taking a look, come join us and find out why this game continues to enjoy a loyal fan base. Happy Gaming!

Duke Windemere
*NOR/DK BL:GW2

Hail*NOR/

November 8 saw the launch of the second half of Mod 10, "Storm King's Thunder: Sea of Moving Ice."  The new campaign is set in a new zone of Icewind Dale, and for the first time, we get in our little boats and sail across the frozen sea in style...as long as you don't run into a Heroic Encounter where you get tossed by a Dragon Turtle!

These last two months have also been a time when our members were able to make significant upgrades to their artifact armor and weapon sets Harder dungeons such as Epic Cragmire and Grey Wolf Den are still no cakewalk, but they are no longer impossible even for the average geared NORbies.

Recently, Count Tyrandil has stepped down from his post, and Baron Dlandru has stepped up to fill the post.  Let's thank Tyrandil for his 3 years of service, and let's congratulate Dlandru in stepping up!

December 15 is the launch of the annual Winter Festival!  The Winter Festival give you little gifts which you can only open when in a party.  We usually plan a large gift exchange sometime around New Year's Eve, and if past years are any indication, we all get a lot of swag.  ;-)

Duchess Phelaia
*NOR/DC BL:NW

Hail*NOR/

Season's Greetings from Overwatch, where it's snowing in Hanamura and
King's Row!

The Winter Wonderland event is on from now til January 3.  This seasonal event features Mei’s Snowball Offensive, a snowball fight in the form of a 6v6 Elimination match.   There are also winter loot boxes that include 100+ new character skins, emotes, victory poses, highlight intros and other cosmetic items, and players are guaranteed at least one Winter Wonderland item in each box.  Come build some ice walls, hurl some snowballs, or simply rain some justice from above with us!

Congrats to Noobicabra in winning his latest tournament and steadily climbing in the rankings!

Duchess Phelaia
*NOR/DC BL:NW

Hail*NOR/

Many exciting things have occurred since our last newsletter! The Dark vs Light event has concluded and 5.0 has been released.  A couple of new things to do in the 5.0 release are uprisings and more of the storyline.  The storyline continues to offer fun and exciting moments so give it a try if you haven’t yet.  The uprisings are the new group content that have been described as mini operations, but not quite.  They are better explained here:    http://dulfy.net/2016/10/27/swtor-uprising-overview-livestream-notes/

There have been changes to classes, gearing, etc.  As the changes can be confusing, more information on these changes can be found here:  swtor-5-0-class-changes and swtor-big-gearing-changes-in-kotet   Baroness Teigra has started a crafting thread on the forum for those that want to know more about the crafting and what we can make.  If there’s something you need, let us know and we’ll do our best to make it for you.

Our Christmas party with the White Elephant gift idea from Baron Kaurix was a hit with lots of laughs and fun times.  Gifts included weapon tunings, a handler license, packs, mounts, armor sets and more.  Baron Kaurix named one of his contributions: “Ow that’s my head” which included a vending machine, feign death, and a ball toss, which got a good laugh and was actually stolen from the person who got it first.  We are hoping Duke Intisar got some good pictures to show the different ways everyone chose to dress their toons.  We love group fun and look forward to the next meeting!

We wish everyone a Happy Holiday Season and if we don’t see you online in the next few days, we look forward to seeing you next year!  May the upcoming year bring you all the fun and good times you can handle!

As the Branch moves into the next exciting phase, we invite everyone to keep contributing in whatever ways you can. The NOR Spirit is flourishing here, and we hope that together we all can continue to pull together and take the Branch to new heights. Good luck in your gaming adventures and we hope to see you in game! May the Force be with You!

Countess Galaxiya
*NOR/CS-swToR