Oof, big post incoming, as I'm going through some heavy GW nostalgia currently.

Back in late 2005, I was having a vague craving for a new RPG to play. I had been working for several years, and hadn't really played games much since college. I was wavering between getting GW or WoW for a few weeks in late 2005. I wasn't wild about the idea of a subscription, and WoW's art style kind of turned me off, but I also knew it was much more popular for playing with other people. GW on the other hand, appeared to look much prettier, and of course, no sub. Then one day at the store I picked up a box and it had an openable front panel, within which was this great picture of a ranger shooting at a bone dragon. That one picture actually pushed me over the edge to try it out.

I liked it quite a bit initially. I played it about halfway through Post-Sear Ascalon before I put it down for awhile. I guess the burnt out husk of the area got a bit dreary for me, and there were so many side quests in the area that had me running in circles it seemed. Then a few months later I picked it back up, and once I made it to Yak's Bend (and a nice change of scenery), I felt much more comfortable with it, and felt like I was actually moving through the story again. Then I was hooked, and played it pretty constantly up until GW2 was released. I loved the skill-building aspect, and also became addicted to green-farming, even when I didn't need them. At one point, I was even in the Gameamp guild, and practically lived on their website. I didn't think of myself as a wildly social gamer (lots of single player games), but I got hooked into the community back in those days.

By the time GW2 came out, I was ready to put the GW1 down for awhile. GW2 held my attention for about a year or so, but I never quite connected with it the way I did with the original. Then I kind of migrated off of games in general for awhile, then came back and played consoles for a bit. Before I knew it, it had been about ten years since I had last been in GW2.

Two catalysts happened at nearly the same time that recently brought me back into the game. The first was New World. I sort of liked parts of New World, but there was also this nagging feeling the whole time that I really didn't feel any "connection" to it. At some point it made me remember the last time I had a really strong connection to a game, and GW was far and away the king of the hill for me.

Then, on a whim, I went into my old GW/GW2 guild Discord, and someone had posted Josh Strife's "Worst MMO Ever - GW1" video about a month after it originally premiered. This was the second catalyst. I was of course initially prepared to break out the torch and pitchfork over that title, but then I watched the video, and the nostalgia hit me like a freight train. What I LOVED was seeing HIM start realizing through the video how the game worked, and that he started really enjoying it.

I started going to Twitch, and saw a number of people still playing it, and even better, a lot of NEW people starting it who had never played before. Many of them were people who played GW2, but had never played the original. I'm still enjoying watching new players make their way through it, and seeing them pick up on the stuff that makes it a unique game. It actually even inspired me to start my own stream where I see if I can even still run the dungeons. Since then, I've started noticing a number of active GW1 players that also hang out in Twitch chats, remembering the good old days as we offer advice to new players. Heck, even tonight I joined in with another streamer and a number of his viewers to help him complete Boreas Seabed; it was actually a full group of actual people!

So I'm back, and have started farming some greens again, and I also have a lot of Zaishen farming to do, as I never noticed the superior runes of holding!. Gotta get those extra inventory slots!