About a month ago, maybe more, I saw an ad on some gaming news site for Guild Wars 2 being 50% off for about a week. I passed, and spent the next several weeks REALLY wishing I hadn’t. And then, the sale happened again! Obviously I wasn’t in any kind of shape to resist the second time ’round.
For 3 days, I thought I was going to regret buying the game even more. Download after download ended in an error message; some after less than ten seconds, some after more than an hour. Don’t ask me what I did to finally make it work, because I’d swear I hadn’t tweaked, turned off or uninstalled a thing that time or the previous 10 tries that night. But, eventually, I managed to get the patching done. I have a friend from some fan fiction sites who wrote a story based on the human street gang origin, so naturally my female warrior had to have the same background. I also made a Nord defender and a Sylvari engineer because Altoholic. Those 5 measly character slots are at once frustration and relief for one such as me.
Once I actually started playing, I realized I didn’t know what to expect as well as I thought I did. What surprised me, though, was just how much I liked it. I found myself enjoying the free-form style to completing hearts. While I am not one to bash questing, I am also quickly becoming a fan of GW2’s heart system. The frequency of the orange special events popping up was also nice, though I could see myself becoming annoyed with them, especially since I always run toward them when I see them. I only have 13 levels between the 3 chars I made so far, but I have to say I’m finding GW2 fun in a way that I only find the MMOs I’ve stuck with for a long time (WOW, SWTOR, LOTRO, TSW).
After being all “meh” in the ESO and Wildstar betas, I had been afraid I was becoming jaded about the whole MMO scene. Or even worse, just bored by everything. But GW2 has restored that optimistic side of me I try to deny most of the time. For now, at least.
Late to the Party 
One of us. One of us.
No sub, so if you do burn out, you can always come back. But let us hope that is far off still. 🙂
Little tip: Buy some minor runes of citadel, hoelbrak, pack, vampire, etc. – basically anything that has +10 power- from the TP and stick it on your armor.
They’re fairly cheap and a nice enough power boost at low levels so that you don’t feel like you’re bogging down on mobs too often.
Wander, explore, poke into hidden corners and find some jumping puzzles!
Southeast Queensdale has one, but I find it kinda boring compared to say, the sylvari starting zone one where you climb a giant tree or the one in Norn Wayfarer Foothills (somewhere near the hot springs.)
I already did the very first vistas in each zone, though truth be told I am NOT a fan of jumping puzzles, being probably the only person in the western world who never even came close to mastering Super Mario Brothers in their youth…
And thanks for the upgrade tip. One thing that has annoyed me is unlocking a merchant only to be told the merchandise is not for my class
You know GW2 was a game i highly anticipated. And then when it released I found myself not at all excited about it. I tried the beta and just the fact that it began like every other MMO I played sucked whatever high expectations I had for the game right out of me.
I will not buy this game ever. It might be great, but Im pretty sure I’ve played GW2 before with some other title. Glad to hear youre finding the pace and features just to your liking. Lots of other players are definitely enjoying it too.
I know what you mean. The reason I waited this long (besides taking this long for me to hear of a sale like that) is that I had a very similar attitude, except what turned me off was all the hype and buildup leading to its release. There were plenty of others before it, but GW2 was the first MMO whose hype was SO loud and SO insistent that it was the “WOW-killer” gamers supposedly had been longing for. I guess with me caving came down to the fact that I hadn’t been in the beta, so never tried it for myself, along with the price of course. Maybe the main reason was just that time made me forget just how obnoxious the build-up for it seemed to me. And, y’know, Wildstar might have made me forget a little too 😉