2024

Progress on Map Completion

stargrace August 27, 2024 0Comment

Despite the 12 years I’ve been ‘playing’ Guild Wars 2 (I use the term loosely, I’m to and from the game more often than not) I’ve never actually finished the map before, and my highest character has been 67% complete for quite some time. I decided why not slowly chip away at this achievement by trying to complete a map every few days. Some are a lot more involved than others, some I’m almost done.

Today I started with Metrica Province, which is part of Maguuma Jungle. There were 16 hearts to complete but I had 8 of them already done (yay) along with most of the vista. I earned a few achievements as I bounced along here and there, and before too long – done!

I loved that even though it was 5am my time there were still people to be found in the zone, doing their thing and questing along as well. The game has done a fantastic job at keeping all zones relevant, for better or for worse. Between earning achievements, jumping puzzles, world bosses, hero points, and mastery – there’s lots of reasons to explore those older zones.

I am hoping I can keep up with this, but I won’t hold my breath. I am fairly certain I’ve made the claim before, that I was going to work on map completion – and welp, we all know where that went.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

GW2 Gets World Bosses Right

stargrace August 25, 2024 0Comment

It’s a Sunday morning, and I had a bit of time to game before life got started. I noticed someone named Older Than Time Too who was running a boss train. Basically you just follow this person around while they complete world bosses. There were 50/50 in the squad, and bosses were dropping in record time. It’s been a long time since I participated in this sort of event in GW2 but I was instantly reminded about how much I LOVE how this system is implemented. There was almost zero down time, everyone was able to participate and receive the rewards, and the event themselves felt larger than life.

The chatter in squad was positive and uplifting, everyone greeting one another, saying good morning (or evening, depending on time zones) and the community was top notch. It was a stark reminder to me about the differences in game communities. in Warcraft there is no way you’d get a 50+ team of people to bounce through older content the same week that a new expansion dropped. Of course GW2 also does a fantastic job of keeping these fights and zones relevant, no matter how old / new of a character you’re playing.

It’s been quite some time since I dedicated myself to just one MMO, and even longer since that MMO was GW2 (has it ever been? I’m not sure that it has) but over the past 12 years GW2 has always lacked the staying power that other games like WoW / Wurm have had over me. Could this time be different?

Probably not, but at least I’m having fun.

World Bosses? Absolutely

stargrace August 23, 2024 0Comment

It amazes me that no matter what time of day it is for you, if you port to a world boss fight in Guild Wars 2, chances are you will not be the only one there. These events are still hugely popular with crowds, and I love it. 12 years later, we’re all still gathering to complete these together.