User:XacTactX
So I came back to GW after a 5 year break and I was really surprised at the new stuff. A team full of heroes, Nich, Zaishen Quests, the dramatic changes to professions like Ele and Derv, the changes to Shadow Form and Wounding Strike, Reaper's Sweep, PI, Panic, and more. The vast majority of the changes have been for the better. ZQ lets me find groups for HM missions and vanquishes when I wouldn't be able to. Average players like me who just want to earn titles can make good money by simply playing the game and getting a nice balance of content every day. 7H allows me to have to a competent group of heroes that complement each other no matter where I am. Shadow Form doesn't rule the roost anymore for farming, the other professions can get a piece of the pie. Eles finally have a reason to use Overcast (it will always be Exhaustion in my heart) instead of using Meteor and MS every once in a while. The skill balance is better, the heroes are more versatile, and there are more opportunities to do HM and endgame content than ever before.
But behind all this, the times have changed. There was a time when I could go into almost any outpost and find other people who were playing the main storyline. We could quest together and enjoy the game. Sure, I may have sucked back then, but in those NM PUGs, we sucked together. We would even watch the cutscenes. When is the last time you did that? Today, the only time I watch cutscenes is when that one player in ZM decides to go AFK or decides to relive the story (while everyone else sighs and double-checks a grayed-out skip button).
In the past two months since I started playing GW again, I've made at least 10x as much money as I did in those early days. I have 4x as many titles as I did two months ago, when I started playing again. I have an armor set for farming, an armor set for questing, and a handful of other armor sets just because I can, as well as half a dozen rare daggers to match my armor. Death Penalty is as permanent as the writing on an Etch-a-Sketch, allies can be summoned with a double-click, and Consumables turn challenging areas into a cakewalk.
But still, I miss the old days. --XacTactX 09:10, 13 April 2013 (UTC)
