WoW at the moment is in a serious lull. I'm currently only raid-logging, as I'm fully mythic-geared, and we've just gotten to the end of our Mythic L'ura progression!

Yep, after 4 weeks of grinding the big purple windchime, it's finally dead!

We also killed Mythic Rotmire last night, but there was no Cutting Edge or Hall of Fame for that? Eh, not too fussed, literally took us 2 pulls to kill it anyway...

Travelling further afield...

So for now I have some free time, and felt bored with nothing to really sink my teeth into (despite a Steam back catalogue literally thousands of games deep).

Summer Games fest came around recently, and one of the announcements that caught my eye, aside from the Stellar Blade sequel, Ocarina of Time remake and the reveal of Final Fantasy VII Revelation, was the announcement of Guild Wars 3!

I played the original Guild Wars game for many hours back in the day, and when Guild Wars 2 came out, I didn't really gel with it. Then, about 5 years ago, I gave it another shot, made the mistake of using a level 60 boost on one of my characters, and subsequently got overwhelmed by everything and promptly shelved it again.

But after the 3rd game's reveal, I decided to give GW2 another shake of the dice, and this time it appears to have stuck!

I made the wise decision this time to roll a fresh character and level her from scratch.

I've been enjoying it so much, that I've since bought ALL of the expansions on the ArenaNet web store during their recent 35% off sale. So now I have an MMO game, with no sub fee, and 14yrs worth of content and horizontal progression at level 80 to play with!

I have been really enjoying it a LOT, and have found the initial starting out story to be grounded yet fun.

Graphically the environments in the core game have aged a bit, which is to be expected, but at least the character models still seem to be pretty decent. I have no idea how intricate the later expansions' environments will be or what graphical improvements they'll bring (if any), but it's not so bad that I'm in any way put off playing, far from it.

Microtransactions

The Black Lion Store, also known as the Gem Store, is the main method by which ArenaNet monetise and support the ongoing development of the game outside of their now yearly expansion releases.

Honestly? I like it. The cosmetics are great looking, and there's a lot of utility available such as additional bank tabs, character slots, deluxe upgrades to the base game/expansion releases etc

I've bought a few cosmetic options and am enjoying them a lot, and do intend to buy more over time.

A feature to dye for...

Guild Wars 2 has a feature that puts WoW to shame: Dyes. The game was built with the ability to dye armour, cosmetic gear and even mounts! Yes, you can recolour your mounts in GW2 with dyes! And I don't mean just their armour, the actual mounts themselves can be changed to any colour you have a dye for.

Yes, I'm aware WoW has introduced the limited ability to dye some housing items, but it's nothing compared to the GW2 system.

The below images show the same outfit from the cosmetics store dyed 3 different ways. They generally have 4 dye slots that can completely change up how a piece of armour or outfit looks, and is a lot of the time just as big a change as a new outfit!

Dyes get unlocked in your collection once you get them, and applying them is free all the time, and can be done anywhere via your character panel UI. It's a fantastic system and I'm ADORING it so far. It's really scratching that aesthetics itch.

Mounts

Mounts in GW2 are kinda different from WoW. They are one of a handful of categories: Raptors can jump far, Springers can jump really high, Skyscales can fly (and were the "inspiration" for dynamic/dragon flying in WoW) among others.

The skins you can acquire for them are impressive, and there is no such thing as endless recolours, given you can recolour them yourself with dyes, so generally every skin is unique.

These show a couple of different mount skins that I thought were really nice looking:

And this shows the raptor mount I currently use, as I have yet to unlock any other mount as yet. But this also shows off how dyes work on mounts: The first is my default pink raptor, but I dyed the same mount completely white to show the difference:

Classes

I'm playing a Ranger, the equivalent of WoW's Hunter class, and it's been a lot of fun so far.

You get to tame a pet, albeit with a much more limited selection than you get in WoW, and you can either play with a bow at range, or with a sword/axe/hammer etc in melee, similar to a Survival Hunter. But here's the thing, you can weapon swap in combat and by doing so your entire build, skills and action bar setup changes to your melee "spec".

I've yet to really try the other classes, or Professions as they're known here, but I will be giving them all a go over time.

The joys of no subscription fee pressure!

There are 9 Professions overall, and each comes with its own multiple Elite Specialisations, which changes how the class plays. Add in how switching weapons changes up abilities, action bars and playstyles, and there's a LOT of depth and variety to play about with here.

Levelling

Levelling's the bit I'm sticking on at the moment. Every 10 levels you get your Personal Story (PS), which is kind of like FFXIV's MSQ, except it comes in chunks every time you hit that 10 level increase. This is generally enough content to get you through 5 or so levels, but the rest of the time...

There's no quest system as per Wow either, so you can't go out and grind quests to level up outside of your PS. So what I've been doing so far is exploring, killing mobs, and completing random events which spawn in each zone on a regular basis.

The good thing is there's normally plenty of other players around you regardless of which zone you're in, as there's only 1 megaserver per region, which ensures bodies regardless of where you are in the world.

As of the time of writing I'm sitting at level 51, with a level cap of 80. So getting there in terms of levelling, at which point the endgame begins...

Endgame

So there's the usual kind of stuff to do: Raids, Dungeons, PvP etc, standard MMO endgame activities.

But most endgame appears to take the stance of horizontal progression.

That means that there's no constant upwards grind for increasing item levels and power. Once you get the best gear in the game, you're set for good! Progression comes in earning Exotic and Legendary gear, and getting new cosmetics.

Housing is also a thing in GW2 and has been for several years now since the Janthir Wilds expansion. I've as yet to dabble or look at it in much detail to be honest, but it looks like it'll be on a par with WoW at least despite being older.

Hopefully there aren't any £75 cosmetic housing bundles in GW2 as well...

Final Thoughts

Guild Wars 2 seems to be a great game, and one I'm sorry I've missed out on over all these years. However, doing that means I have TONNES of content to play through, and with horizontal progression at endgame, none of it is irrelevant. The first raids released back in the day are as relevant as those from the latest expansion.

Kinda wild to get used to when you're so ingrained into the Wow treadmill mindset.

It's for sure a game I'm going to be spending a lot of time in now over the coming years, alongside GW3 when it releases.

My time with Mythic Raiding in WoW has a vague end date in sight, albeit one which I've yet to nail down firmly.

But once that day arrives, I'll probably segue over to the Guild Wars franchise as being my main game. The horizontal progression and more casual approach to both endgame content and ongoing releases will start suiting my real life circumstances more and more as time goes by and I get older.

I'm 51 later this year, and grinding many hours per week at the start of every season to get the best gear possible in order to push our progression forwards as best I can does have a toll. As I get older I seem to have less time to devote to hardcore grinding as I did even just months ago. So yeah, a more relaxed approach to MMO gaming I think will be just what I'll need.

I'd miss Mythic Raiding in Wow when I retire, for sure, and I still don't know if I'd even play it casually when I do quit raiding. I've yet to make that decision, but at least I have a destination in mind in either case: Tyria!