Another game release. This time the highly anticipated Guild Wars 2. So, not just any game release, but one that people have been getting more and more hyped about the closer it crawled towards its launch. I will admit that I was a pessimist about this game, as I was with SWTOR, Warhammer, Aion, Tera, and any other game before its release... but I'll also admit that I got more and more excited, as well.
Naturally, the first thing I did when I launched the game was make my first (and probably only) toon. I had debated between Necromancer and Elementalist for a while, but decided to make Necromancer my main. I stuck with Sylvari for Necromancer and was surprised at how evil you could make them look.
Once I had picked my story choices, I proceeded to the name select and was rather surprised that someone had already taken my main name (Q_Q). Oh well, doesn't matter than much since I will just be a "Fort Aspenwood Invader" anyway during WvW! Euphobia it is. Upon getting into the game the first thing I did, which was the first thing many people did, is take advantage of the /dance.
Throughout all of this I was streaming. The viewers actually helped me make quite a few decisions when it came to the appearance of my toon. Not only that, but we had quite a few discussions regarding classes, WvW, as well as many other aspects of the game.
I mainly stuck to leveling through PvE, in fact I've done no WvW so far. From my experience in the beta, it was actually quicker and more efficient to just finish of zones rather than go straight to WvW, as fun as it may be. So far the PvE hasn't been too bad. I'm not much of a quester, I'm more of a PvPer, but I haven't been having too terrible of a time. I guess this biggest thing is how grindy the PvE can feel at times. And yes, I know that other MMOs are worse, but that's not what I am saying. Even a game that isn't as bad can still have a grindy feeling to it, but I found a class that I enjoy playing so, naturally, I don't dislike it as much as I probably could.
)
I guess I was a little caught off guard with how well I have been enjoying the Sylvari story (thus far). I rolled a Norn in the beta because I knew I wanted to roll Asura or Sylvari for launch. I've actually been enjoying it, however. I am not one to really get into lore and I'll admit that in the beginning was just skipping the cutscenes, but at about level 5 I started paying attention and was relatively enthralled with what was going on. I won't give any spoilers, but if you're someone who is even mildly entertained by story in games, I'd suggest paying attention to it in this one. At least for the story quests.
I was especially mad that I had the option to "go evil" (in a sense), but due to me not paying attention I choose to go good. Hah. Guess that won't happen again.
Needless to say it wasn't too far into the head start experience that the servers crashed. Now, I've been in a lot of launches and head starts before and this certainly wasn't a terrible ordeal for me. I've experienced worse. Though I don't agree that queue times for a game are worse, I will say there were some games that queue times were due to people finding ways to AFK inside the game *cough*Aion*cough* and people would end up waiting for 4 hours or more just to play.
)
However, the servers were down for quite a bit with this crash. I actually just ended up going to sleep after waiting for about 3 hours. I heard it even affected Guild Wars (1), but that could just be rumor. That being said, it could have been a lot worse and I believe that, so far, things have been running relatively smooth since the servers went back live.
What about you all? Playing GW2? If so, have you been enjoying yourself as much as I have?
Let me know in a comment below. Back to leveling for me!
Hillary "Pokket" Nicole
Twitter: @Pokketsays
Facebook: /pokketsays
Youtube: /pokketproductions
