2024 gave me GW2, and I'm very thankful

I played WoW off and on since launch, but with much more time off than on. It just failed to ever really fully grab me, but it did scratch an itch. Towards the beginning of the year I set out to find my ideal MMO, I tried to give a decent few a fair shake, and I ultimately landed on GW2 and started playing it more heavily these past few months.

Having a game that I have a feeling of anticipation to get to play it later has been a feeling that's been lost for me for a long time. The group that I gamed with for years kinda fizzled as life pulled people different directions, and most of my friends that do game mainly play CoD Warzone which I'm just not interested in. Don't get me wrong, I've still enjoyed gaming but the feeling of really looking forward to playing your game later has been gone for a long time for me. But it feels like I've found a home base in this game, and I really enjoy having a game hold that place for me.

I'm still what I would call fairly new, and haven't really made progress to the depths of the game. I started with an engineer, wasn't liking it a ton so I made a ranger. Got that to 80, then said what the heck I'm pretty close lets get that engineer to 80 and ended up enjoying it more. Then I decided to pick up the first two expansions. Used my 80 boost on a necro. Fell in love with necro. Picked up the third expansion so I could play reaper. I now main that reaper. I don't even have a full set of ascended gear, but I'm working on it.

I love how much this game feels like a buffet, where you can really pick around at stuff you like and build a good time for yourself that way, it gives the game a feeling of both breadth and depth. Right now I'm playing through PoF trying to unlock all the mounts, while also going back now and then to make progress on my personal story. Also one of my favorite ways to chill is to throw on a podcast, pick a zone on the map I haven't completed and go work on it to chip away at 100% map completion. I'm also fully sucked into the fashion wars side of the game and love unlocking dyes and I'm desperate to find ways to unlock different skins both for myself and my mounts haha I've done a little WvW which I think is fun, but I haven't even touched a fractal, dungeon, raid, or strike so I feel like I have so much yet to get to

It's nice that I can have a game where I can jump on each day, play a little bit, and feel like I've chipped away at progress somewhere, it really does feel like building my characters legacy in the world. I just unlocked my second elite spec yesterday and that's a nice milestone. Got my first crafting level to 100, that's a milestone. Got my first ascended weapon recently, that's another milestone. Unlocking a mastery, same thing. Even doing the big world events I've done multiple times helps me stack up more rare resources. It's a game that makes itself easy to call home for me, it's exactly what I wanted when I sought my ideal MMO.

And sorry for burying this part so deep, but a lot of what's great is the community. People are insanely responsive and helpful. Randos will just drop out of nowhere to hit you with a revive then take off again before you can even say thank you it's that routine. Now that I think of it I can't say I've even seen toxicity happen. For big events like that 3 headed great jungle wurm I'll open with something like "I'm new and never done this before, apologies if I do something wrong" and everyone responds very nicely and welcoming. A lot of games can be offputting because of the other people, but quite the opposite here

For 2025 I'd love to craft a legendary, that's the mountaintop on my horizon right now. I'd also like to get my alts better geared out and spend some time on them, and of course: Skyscale.