Guild Wars 2
Hello and welcome to my Guild Wars 2 shrine. This game means a lot to me, it's what got me into gaming and helped bridge the generational gap between my brother and myself. If you also play on the North American servers, come find me in game @ sapphomancer.8269! We can start a comfy cat chair nap pile or secret rave in Arborstone :p
Guild Wars 2 is an MMORPG by ArenaNet that was released in 2012 as a sequel to their action RPG Guild Wars. Guild Wars 2 takes place 250 years after the events in Guild Wars. The main story as players level up to the max level revolves around protecting the planet of Tyria from catastrophic events caused by the Dragon Cycle. Notable elements of the game are a lack of subscription fee, fast paced combat, dynamic open-world events, and unique playable races that deviate from the tolkien-esque norm.
My History
with GW2
I was starting highschool when this game came out, and MMOs were not on my radar. As if being 14 wasn't hard enough, I had been outed and disowned by my parents only a few months beforehand. My brother did his best to keep in contact with me after this; our phone conversations were extremely awkward for a while, we didn't grow up together and he was twenty years older than me. It was hard to find common ground. He had been a die-hard fan of Guild Wars and upon hearing about the release of Guild Wars 2 he bought me a copy so we could play together. This wouldn't have been possible if Guild Wars 2 had a subscription fee like other MMOs. Every week my friend's parents would let me use their housephone and we'd talk on the phone while he showed me around the game.
My first character was a Sylvari elementalist named Z Malloi. I was immediately drawn to the Sylvari, elf-like plant people, and they are still my favorites. You can make such gorgeous characters with the wide variety of skin tones and bioluminescent glow. My brother and I are the type of people to make backstories for any character we play. And most of my time in Guild Wars 2 was spent roleplaying with our small guild while I waited for more story updates. I was an extremely casual player and would regularly take extended breaks from the game when my living situation got rocky.