Thinking About Guild Wars 2

Posted on August 23, 2024 by Aywren

I shouldn’t be thinking about Guild Wars 2, but I am. Naturally, I’ve been keeping my eye on information around the newest expansion, Janthir Wilds, especially since they’re introducing housing. Similar to POF, which drew me back to the game with mounts that I enjoyed, housing tends to be a feature that calls me back to a game.

Interestingly enough, while I haven’t played GW2 since the end of base game POF, I own all the expansions up to Janthir. I also logged in to claim all the Living World chapters over the years – thankfully, they’ve stopped doing that it seems. Another thing I took stock of when looking over my stable of alts there – despite as much time as I remember putting into GW2, I’ve honestly finished very little of the story in the big picture.

For reference, I have 13 characters. Yes, if you think my FFXIV antics are bad, here’s my GW2 roster!

All of my characters are level 80. I did this mostly back in the day when you could log into GW2 to claim daily rewards, culminating in leveling tomes. Yes. I leveled all of my alts with experience tomes dropped by the dailies. I also still have a number of level 80 skips in my bank.

My main used to be my warrior, Tai. He’s finished the “My Story” section – the pre-Living World stuff. He’s the only character out of them all to have done this. Everyone else either hasn’t started it, or are only a few chapters in, aside from Zznaf who left off at Claw Island.

Tai has also completely finished Living World Season 1 (and I thought Season 2) back when it was a live thing. But now that they’ve added it back in as staple story, the game doesn’t register that I had completed it back then.

Tai hasn’t touched HOT – I’ve only poked at that expansion here and there on other characters, but find the zones annoying and punishing. I really struggle to stick to that expansion.

He has, however completed base POF. I only have two characters who have done this.

The problem is, I don’t remember much about the story. And my memories of the other bits and pieces of the stories I played through are very hazy since it’s been… what… since 2012-2013 that I’ve been invested in the game. I was originally turned off by the mediocre story beats and the mentality of the monetization of the game (during POF), though I very much enjoyed my characters and the open world fun in the game.

Keep in mind that I was a huge Guild Wars 1 player back in the day, so some of the story choices they’ve made for lore that is sacred to me has rubbed me the wrong way. However, despite all this, I find the itch to return when I hear about fun features the game is introducing.

That being said, I still brushed off my account, took stock of where my characters stood (it’s a sad sight), and decided to update Zznaf’s Reaper build with new runes that I think didn’t exist back when I last played. I had him set up as a power Reaper, and remember he did quite well (despite sub-optimal setup) throughout all of POF.

The last thing I remember doing in GW2 was earning my griffon mount. I heard that the skyscale (which didn’t exist when I last played) and the warclaw are somewhat easier to get with the inclusion in the expansion stories. Those would be nice goals on down the line, if I choose to pick up the game again.

I know I really shouldn’t as I have way too many games to play already for the time I have, and I’m still working through what I want to achieve in FFXIV Dawntrail. I also feel like picking up GW2 will be somewhat of a monetary investment as I’d get the new expansion, but also need to invest in some additional storage space because my bank is a mess and my characters – even Zznaf has nowhere near enough storage to adventure on.

Despite knowing that I feel the overall story is mediocre – at least, what I’ve experienced of it – I still feel like I should go back through and see what it’s like now, preferably from the base game. If I did this, I’ve decided I’d play Zzaf, who left off at Claw Island. I think I have enough memory of what came before that to pick up from there – plus the game does provide summaries to read that should catch me up.

So, I don’t know. I’m on the fence, leaning hard towards trying it again. Even though I really shouldn’t.

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