The Mad King’s Clock Tower + Easter Egg
[youtube id=”UNXX8_TjPL8″ align=”center”]This is one of our many runs through the Mad King’s Clock Tower, a jumping puzzle which was part of Guild Wars 2’s 2012 Halloween event. In addition, we recorded an Easter Egg that a fellow tge member pointed out on the official forums: a hidden message on the bell written in New Krytan.
As illustrated by the video, the Clock Tower is very challenging and made even more so by wonky camera angles and especially the mass of moving bodies blocking the view. Josh Foreman, the ANet developer who designed the jumping puzzle, said that he had originally planned for it to be a single-player instance. We believe that this in itself would have solved the majority of player issues. In reply to a forum poster who had given up on the jumping portion of the puzzle, Josh further explained:
When I made this map I was HOPING that people who aren’t into jumping would do exactly this. They’d see a fun Halloween looking environment, maybe get to the first chest and snag a goodie, then be on their merry way. I see now it was a mistake to make the hardest jumping challenge in the game part of an in-your-face update like a holiday event. I’m not going to stop making difficult stuff like this, they just won’t be so prominent in the future. I honestly hate making people upset and have a very high level of empathy. So it’s been hard hearing all the people that are so angry, frustrated and sad because of something I’ve made. But it’s just another lesson learned.
Though disappointed that these puzzles will be less featured down the line, we fully understand why.
The Easter Egg has been translated to “TIRZAH WANTS A CHEESEBURGER,” referring to Tirzah Bauer, an environmental artist at ANet. We also found some lettering on the bell clapper, but after careful comparison, it looks to be just a misapplied texture: a portion of the cheeseburger message upside-down and backwards.
Easter Egg translation [Guild Wars 2 Forum]
Josh Foreman on the Mad King’s Clock Tower [Guild Wars 2 Forum]
“Guild Wars 2 Halloween 2012 – Halloween Theme” by Maclaine Diemer [SoundCloud]
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