I have been missing my pvp since leaving WAR. Plenty of games offer scenario type pvp, but I crave some RvR style gameplay instead. Mykiel recently live streamed some of Guild Wars 2, and I was intrigued. I played GW2 at launch, but it never stuck.
I re-downloaded the client, and found out which server Mykiel was playing on. Turns out to be Stormbluf Idle... and a transfer to that costs 1,800 gems. Of which I have none. So I spent $35 on a pack of 3,000 gems and transferred my level 15 Norn Engineer. I also bought another bag slot and the Copper fed Salvage-o-matic which was on sale.
WXP. One nice addition to the game is their World XP, which is like Renown. I really like earning regular XP and the World XP at the same time. During my play this afternoon I gained 4 levels of it. It's nice to get WXP drops as well, I got several +250 WXP potions. I also got my 1 year anniversary gift, which included a 'make me 20' potion so I used that too.
People Everywhere. On to the PvP itself. It was jam packed! There were huge battles going on as we held the central keep while being attacked by both other realms. It's been a while since I've seen any really massive battles, so it was nice to see pvp alive and well again.
Zerg. All the combat I saw was zerg on zerg, or blob warfare if you will. Without collision, it really just is masses of players tightly packed together clashing. I did the zerg thing as I was still trying to learn the game again. However, I don't feel as if I contributed in any meaningful way.
Targeting and AoE. My biggest issue was I could not really target anyone. Between the mass of players on my side, the enemies, AND the mass of half-dead players from both sides I could not really get anyone targeted. That just leads to the dark side: AoE spamming. Maybe I am missing something though, as it seems AoE spamming is the order of the day.
Performance. I was really impressed how well the game performed with the massive battles going on. Of course, my computer is pretty decent, but it still was a nice surprise.
Long Term. I'm not sure GW2 will keep my long term, mainly due to the zergy nature of it. Don't get me wrong, zerg is fun sometimes, but if it is the order of the day... I won't judge it based on one afternoon though.
