Guild Wars 2: Hopes, expectations, worries and comparisons – Introduction

Guild Wars and me: Not always best friends.

My first contact with Guild Wars was a few years ago and did not go that well, which may be up to the circumstance that it was a preview weekend close to the release of Factions and I got lost with my level 20 character, all his skills and being dropped off right in Kaineng with no introduction.
In addition to that, I was still used to the freedom of action that Ultima Online offered in its early years and to a beginner-friendly World of Warcraft with its exact and direct movement control, which is something I had never seen in an MMO before and have not seen achieved in most of the games I have played since.

Luckily, my girlfriend Paeroka was soon lured in again by a special price offer and tugged me with her.
From this moment on I have been playing Guild Wars now and then and enjoy its unique aspects which separate it from its competitors. At the moment, like many others, I observe all the information released and the little details hinted at in between. Some of them I will pick up here, add my own thoughts and post them here for discussion. Meanwhile, I will continue to dive deeper into Guild Wars in a more “casual”* way, use my limited time to pile up more stuff in the Hall of Monuments and push further the parts of the storyline I have never experienced before.

* due to the wide and liberal use of “casual” I want to state that I am using it without a negative connotation.
I use “casual” as a definition for a playstyle more driven by fun and entertainment than superior goals (like min/maxing your character,…). It explicitly does not have to go along with a lack of ambition or ignoring game mechanics or content.

German version