......................pation.

Guild Wars 2's 3-day headstart is on the horizon. There's an energy of excitement in the air around our store this week. Many of us who are now friends met through our mutual love of the first Guild Wars (and subsequently, World of Warcraft as well). There was something special about Guild Wars, about how we essentially had freedom to play it whenever we wanted without worrying if we were wasting money on a subscription. It's something we are all looking forward to feeling yet again.

In the original, my main was a Warrior/Necro. Coincidentally, my brother played as a Warrior/Monk, and we did a LOT of Drok's runs for people (thereby making shitloads of money). Aside from that, our group of friends also ran a lot of Sorrow's Furnace trying to get perfect greens, played a lot of PvP, and did a lot of Elite skill capturing. In short, we never felt like it was a grind because we could spend a couple of hours with the game, feel like we accomplished our general goals, and then move on to something else. Guild Wars was the "MMO" where you didn't try to plan your real life around the game, but planned the game around your real life. It was the odd man out, the middle finger to the industry saying "we'll do it our way, and we'll be successful at it".

Sadly, many of us quit playing some time after the launch of Factions, namely because we got sucked into WoW way too much. Since then, we've tried multiple different MMOs - Warhammer Online, DDO, Rift, and SWTOR are the main ones, but none of them were nearly as entertaining as our time with Guild Wars. In short, we were never looking for a game to replace WoW, not even one that was better than WoW. We didn't hold WoW to nearly the high standard we held Guild Wars. WoW was a job, while Guild Wars was always pure fun.

So we sit here...and we wait... Guild Wars 2 is on the horizon. We'll all be joining the Yak's Bend server to be alongside the Giant Bomb community as we explore Tyria, fight the forces of evil, and maybe draw penises in the general chat. We hope to see you all there on Saturday.

Until next time, piece.

P.S. - I'll be making a Charr warrior named Finlee. If you guys feel the need to throw me a friend request, go for it.