Didn't Shing Jea used to be a sunny, happy place?

I just came back from a LONG hiatus. My first character was a Factions Warrior. But since I haven't played in a long time I started over, again in Factions.

Has it just been a long time since I played and I've forgotten, or has Shing Jea undergone aesthetic changes? I remember the beginning areas (outside of the first two missions) being vibrant, with a nice blue sky and sunlight. Now, the sky is a murky shade of yellow/green, like there's a giant toxic cloud over it. It's depressing.

Oh, and when I made my Elementalist, I noticed they disabled the option to choose the color of starting gear. My gear was automatically died black and I couldn't change it. I'm not complaining, since I love black.

The Sunqua Vale has really darker sky, it's well visible if entering from Monastery. In the monastery is still the old bright texture, but after zoning the same view gets darker.

Yes, it used to be Bright and Sunny.
Just notice the cloudy look too.
(Sunqua Vale area)

It can't be from WoC, the char I used isn't active in the WoC quests or WiK.
Perhaps something new is happening for the Chinese New Year.

You're right about Sunqua Vale etc. having thick clouds overhead now. Not sure when that happened (I'd guess with Winds of Change) but yeah, it's different. Just checked and the starting gear color selection is working, it's on the left side on the same screen you decide the height of your toon.

Heh. I'll have to check myself after work tomorrow, but if this is true...that sounds awfully alot like the Halloween sky.

You know how they said they'd continue the Lunatic Court storyline at some point? You know how they don't celebrate Halloween in Cantha? Well maybe with the chains of containment on Mad King Thom being weakened, that's about to change. And what better time for him to make his acquaintance than during the Dragon Festival?

Its only pure theorycraft at the mo...but if the cloudy green sky is true...it sounds mighty plausible. Didn't they say they were going to continue the storyline in the not too distance future at some point?

Winds of Change Part 3 is coming up soon, so yeah "Winds" and the sky do go together.

Interesting theory about Halloween. Canthan New Year is up next for the festivals. Just have to wait and see. Maybe a little 2012 doomsday pop culture reference will be made.

Sunqua Vale has had a dark, gloomy sky for years. Don't remember it being any other way.

It took a bit of digging but found a ss from Sunqua Vale from back in 2006, seems the sky has always been like that.

Some areas have a fixed sky, but in some the sky will change depending on where you stand.

Sunqua Vale looks bight if you enable post-processing and do not look up. The fog in the horizon will look brighter.

But if you look up, you'll see a dark sky that is very different from the bright blue sky you can see inside Shing Jea Monastery.

Minister's Cho Estate has a nice bright blue sky too.


As far as I can tell the sky is composed by a colored background and several textures over it, sometimes animated, sometimes fixed. Change the color of the background, and the same sky will look different, change the textures or how they animate, and you get a different effect too.

The place that shows this better is the Gandara explorable. In some places it's day, and in some places it's night, and you can walk back and forth to see the transition and how the background changes and the textures fade in and out.

The sky textures in GW are usually quite... strange. But you don't notice until you intentionally start to look at the sky (doesn't happen much in normal gameplay).

I know I took years to actually start looking up at times. Can't say I really like the skies, though... too many are too weird...

Don't know what you were doing wrong, but starting gear can still be dyed during character creation.