So I’m a little deeper in Guild Wars 2. I leveled a bit, played more of my “Personal Story”, and tried to save a princess with a stick.

You get 10 action bar slots. That’s it. The five on the left are from your weapon, the sixth is your healing ability, 7-8-9 are your normal skills, the 10th (which I don’t have yet) is an “Elite” ability you unlock at level 30. Each class has something tied to the first few function keys, for a ranger it’s pet commands. So essentially there are 3 slots you play around with (7-8-9). There are a lot more than 3 skills that you can assign to these slots, so you’re going to pick the ones you like, and use those, maybe switching them around situationally (I haven’t really had a reason to yet, though). So you may play with very different skills than others in your class. On the flip side, after you unlock the skills you like, there seems to be very little reason to unlock others. I’ve got a bleed, a constant speed boost, and a plant turret. I can get a passive that removes conditions once every ten seconds? Who cares? PLANT TURRET.

I guess it's no more weird than humans wearing leather.

I guess it’s no more weird than humans wearing leather.

I guess it’s no more weird than humans wearing leather.[/caption]I got some cool plant armor for my plant man. I’m actually 10 levels too low for it yet, but the game gives you transmute tokens for exploration, and you can use those to give your armor the appearance of cooler armor, even of a higher level than you can wear. This is cool, if kind of demotivating. I am already as cool-looking as I could ever want to be. I may very well hit max level and make whatever gear I’m wearing then look like what I’m wearing now.

The “Personal Story” is kind of weak so far. First I played out a weird retelling of Gawain and the Green Knight where it wasn’t a story about honor and keeping your word but just an asshole in green armor being an asshole. Now I’m getting ready to go after an undead dragon. Apparently “Personal Story” becomes the same for everyone around level 30 or so.

Each month GW2 has a unique story event for everyone to participate in. This month it’s the Super Adventure Box.
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Why yes, it is a 3D version of a 16-bit game. The dark lord has kidnapped the princess, and you must set forth with your pointy stick to save her. Your stats from the actual game mean nothing here.You start with 3 hearts and a stick with one strike. There’s platforming, classic strike and dodge gameplay, and clouds that fart rainbows. It’s pretty fun, funny, and challenging, and something I’ve never seen in an MMO before.

I rolled up an alt (Human Guardian), and I’ve been liking the feel of the class a little better than ranger. Perhaps I’m not feeling the ranger because I’m so used to my Hunter from WoW. I’ll keep playing both and see how it goes. While playing the guardian, I came across a big group of about 30 players killing a giant boar. Turns out there’s a rotation of Champion mobs in the human starting area that have roughly the same spawn timers and can be reached quickly. Since most champions have events tied to the that grant XP, Gold, and Karma (another in-game currency), and they always drop at least one piece of gear for each player that participates in the kill, there’s almost always a group of people running through them in a farming rotation. If one person has bought the “Commander” training, you can follow the mob by a symbol showing the commander on the map and get all the benefits of every kill without having to join a group. I did this with them for THREE HOURS.

Boar. BOAR.

Just throw your abilities into the explosion. There’s probably a boar in there somewhere.


It has some rough edges, and I’m not keen on all the streamlining, but I’m warming up to some of the Guild Wars approach to the MMO.