I am smitten with Guild Wars 2!

  Wow, it's been awhile since I've made a post! I really was doing well for awhile, but it's easy to get out of the habit of things. I won't dwell on my absence too much, but I will try and make some posts up as drafts so I have a backlog of sorts. That might be an easier way to keep up with it, considering my random work schedule. When you come home sweaty, sore, and grumpy, there's not a lot of motivation to sit down and make a blog post! Anyway, enough of all that.

  World of Warcraft has been losing my interest the last few months, I was having a lot of fun but it just got very boring. After Diablo 3 came out my guild mostly stopped raiding, which wasn't necessarily a bad thing for me. I was getting tired of doing the same raid every week, only to get the last couple items of my armor set, that I didn't even really feel like I needed. There were daily quests and alts to level, but when I took a break for a week to play Diablo 3 I just couldn't find the motivation to go back. I should say that I do not think WoW is a bad game at all, but in many ways it has become stale for me. That's why when Guild Wars 2 came out, I was skeptical.

  I played the first Guild Wars, not super extensively but I did play it to max level (20) at least once. Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 are both free to play MMOs, meaning you only have to pay for it when you buy the actual copy of the game. There is no monthly fee, so you don't feel obligated to play any particular amount to get your money's worth. I was very fortunate to be gifted a copy of GW2, and I have to say that after playing it I am fairly certain I'm not going to buy Mists of Pandaria, the new World of Warcraft expansion, when it comes out later this month. It's the breath of fresh air I've been needing with the genre.

Desma, the Human Thief

  There are 5 different races in the game you can choose from, and 8 different classes - or as they are called in GW2 - professions. I could go into detail here, but I will say that there is no "holy trinity" as seen in other MMOs. That of being a tank, a healer, or a damage dealing class. All professions can fill these roles, they can all take care of themselves and take care of each other. A big jump from the first game, which had a maximum level of 20, GW2's is 80. Unlike other games, where each level takes longer than the last (making that last stretch to max level kind of excruciating), every level takes the same amount of time. There is no curve, and each level takes around an hour or so in my experience. There are plenty of ways to get experience, like discovering new places or crafting. You can easily gain multiple levels just from exploring entire cities, or crafting items, without ever killing a mob.

Interrogating dead fortune tellers.

The biggest thing that sets it apart from the genre, though, is the quest system. In most MMOs, you go talk to an NPC and they give you a spiel about how you have to kill enough boars to bring him 10 boar butts so he can make his famous boar butt stew. You agree to help and you go collect the items, bring them back to him, and he gives you experience/money/items. In GW2, there are "dynamic events," where just walking into an area where the quest is happening automatically makes you a part of it. You don't have to talk to anyone, you just see an event happening and you participate in it. In most cases these events chain into each other, and not in a terribly obvious way. For instance, you can finish an event and the NPC you were helping will run off. If you follow him, you can see where he's going, and from there another event may start. Some events happen specifically because other events have failed. It's really an interesting and fun way to do questing. The base level "kill things" and "collect items" is still there, as it has to be, but it's done in a way that's more fun and more rewarding.

Everyone working together to kill a Jungle Troll!

  Every area there is a potential to walk in to something that is already happening, where there are already other players doing it. You can walk onto a farm and help water their plants, only to find there is a giant worm boss underneath that everyone has to help kill. Some of the bosses you fight in this game are simply massive, and you do so at such a low level with NO party making. There is no looking for a tank or a healer, you just roll up on the boss with the group you have. Players in the area will be alerted to the boss' presence, and you can just see people running in from every direction to help. These fights can last several minutes or longer, depending on how many people are around to help kill it. At the end, you get a giant chest full of loot.  There is no arguing over who gets what, everyone gets their own specific chest to open with their own items in it.

Frieda, the Norn Ranger

  Each character you level can easily be a completely different experience, though truthfully I have not gotten a character over 30 yet. I keep making new ones, because each starting zone for the races is so fun that I want to try them all. When you make a character, you can choose their personality and a bit about their life. Based on those choices, you have what GW2 calls a "personal story," where you try and resolve the problem that you picked at character creation. This means that even if you make two human characters, based on their personal story choices, your time playing each of them will have little overlap. There are also three groups that every character must choose from to affiliate with, and that again will make your characters have different experiences. There are of course some exceptions, all zones have a set group of events and quests to complete, but it's impossible to see every event your first time through an area, so there is still a chance you may find something you missed. Like a cave you decided to run past, that has a troll you need to fight to get to his treasure chest. Or a necromancer hidden in a swamp hut, that warns you against reading a book on his back porch. Which, you will obviously do, like I did, and have to fight the terrible hellbeast you accidentally summoned despite his warnings.

Primavera, the Sylvari Mesmer

  If you are on the fence about Guild Wars 2, I hope this helped you make your decision a little. I've been having a lot of fun, personally, and I've seen so little of the game. I've been playing since it came out on August 28th, and I've only discovered 10% of the entire world map. What? That's crazy. There's still so much to do, and I don't feel in a rush to do it. If you like MMOs and have been bored with them, I really think you should try it.