Played Lately: Guild Wars 2

• My chores were minimal Thursday night (and I really needed a break since I wasn't feeling especially great about myself), so I sunk into Guild Wars 2 for a time. I'd been stuck in Divinity's Reach for long enough, so I felt the call of the wilderness. And all of those little icons in said wilderness.

• One thing that I didn't expect, even though I fully should have because I did Guild Wars quite a lot and they did the same thing there, was all of the optional paths, hidden nooks, and landscape just for the sake of having something cool to see. On the west edge of Queensdale, there is a long ravine that leads between the northern and southern halves of the back, patroled by several ettins. There is not reason for it to be there except that it's cool. So of course I fought my way up and back, killing and gathering all the while. And I swam to a waterfall, I ran into Kessex Hills, and I got killed in a swamp that was too high of a level for me. Just for the fun of it.


• By that time I had leveled enough to return to my personal story. Of course the clandestine meeting (right in the center of Divinity's Reach!) was an extended ambush. Freaking White Mantle again! Hilarious that they've become cultists in the intervening centuries. It's a good thing they came in waves instead of all at once or I never would have survived.

  As an aside: I really miss the Mursaat. I hope GW2 delves into the history of the world more. Between the Mursaat, the Seers, and the Forsaken, there have some neat little bits of lore.

• The next step in the story was rated three levels higher, so it was back to adverturing again. I fought bunch of centaurs, skritt, a server reset, and escorted a flock of pygmy moas to find my way to Beetletun. I can't believe how huge this world feels. And I'm just in the starter zone. I love running around and just running into stuff. Unfortunately I'm so used to other games that I forget that downleveling means I have to treat every enemy seriously.


• And then it was two o'clock in the morning.

---

© 2012 Marty Runyon. All rights reserved.