I have to admit that The Grove surprised me. I had imagined a huge greenish brown tree that has lots and lots of sylvari living on its leaves. While I was certain that it would be pretty (as I find Guild Wars 2’s art style in general to be very pretty), I had also been a bit skeptical because surely, this could get boring quickly. Hoelbrak with its snowy region did have that effect on me: It’s pretty but after a while, I had enough of it and moved on to other places. The Grove, on the other hand, was completely different. I found myself going back there several times this weekend to make sure I had really seen it all and taken enough screenshots to capture its beauty. And I am certain that I have missed some corners.
The waypoints, points of interest and vistas do give you a great “tour” through a city, though. If you want to check one out yourself just use them as orientation and you will get to see most of the city.
Enjoy the pictures! And as usual, feel free to use them (as long as it complies with ArenaNet’s copyright, of course). :)
Nerdy Bookahs 
My thoughts about how the Grove would look like were a lot more sparse. In my mind it would be just a giant tree with the firstborn just chilling around it. Yeah, it wasn’t much of a city that I had in mind… XD
Anyway, I really like the Grove and the whole starting area of the Sylvari. It has such a magical feeling to it that fits perfectly with the race and their lore. I also like how they handled the whole “born in a dream”, innocence parts. After this beta weekend the Sylvari are definitely among my top 3 races. :)
Thanks for sharing the screenshots as always! :)
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Yeah, my mind wasn’t too sure about how the Grove looks either. But it was certainly more “tree” and less “town”. ;)
I’ve not done that much in the starting areas of sylvari and asura. Mostly because I spent my time in their cities instead. :) But what I did see was gorgeous in the sylvari case and impresse in the asuran areas. And pretty. Always pretty.
I now know that my mains will definitely be asura. I will have two sylvari as well (probably ranger and necromancer) but those professions will not be played immediately. They’re among my top 2 races, though. ;)
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My own preconceptions of The Grove were formed at least partially from my experiences in Greater Faydark and the wood elf city of Kelethin in EverQuest. I’m happy to report it is much, much better than that.
The scale of the Pale Tree is far more enormous than I was thinking for one thing but, the whole feeling of the place definitely had more of the “pixies and toadstools” vibe from celtic lore – in a good way. It felt like I was walking through an artist concept of some of the stories my much beloved Irish grandmother use to tell me as a child.
Beautiful and haunting…
Oh… btw, watch out for the lillypads if you decide to jump to the bottom. Water = good, lillypads = bad… (*sigh* I definitely have issues with “gravity poisoning”)
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EverQuest 1? Never seen those then, I think.
Funny. I do have something in mind that reminds me of what I imagined the Grove to be, but I do not know what it is or which game the image comes from. Oh well, either way, it’s much better! ;)
I was lucky to avoid the lillypads when falling into the water once. Was there a vista nearby? ;)
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