There is no Overwatch League until June 6th, so instead of a recap you get my adventures playing a new to-me.

As a more casual player that struggles with wanting to suffer through LFR to get more gear and content, there seems to have run out of things for me to currently do in World of Warcraft. I refuse to level alts past 110 without flying and I want to finish my horde War Campaign, but that requires you to do LFR. Maybe I’ll get to it, though I suppose I’ll have to just to get the story finished. It’s dumb that they make the horde do LFR and not the alliance. Anyways…

A friend said “Try Guild Wars 2”. You can play it for free and you don’t have a subscription to play. Why not? I was failing hard at farming for the Deathwing mount. (I’m apparently so terrible that I can’t solo that or BWL’s first boss.) So I did. I picked out this cool looking character, a human necromancer with Winter Sky pigtails and a demonic doll face. What first struck me was how you were able to make decisions that affect the story. I like that custom experience because it offers more playability. The game itself was fun enough; it was easy to pick up and figure out. This could be because of my WoW obsession, since a lot of the playstyle was the same. With the exception of the manual parry ability, which was really freaking fun to do whenever I could.

It also works for someone who’s a completionist freak, as I tend to be. I like to finish zones in WoW when I’m doing my first play through because I want to see the story. Even if I have leveled past the zone, I like that I can just keep going to see how the story plays out. It seems as though Guild Wars forces you to do this, and rewards you rather nicely for it.

I haven’t figured out the talent or profession system. I never played the first one, despite having several friends who raved about it. Right now, I’m more concerned about learning mechanics and experiencing the story. The game impressed me enough where I did buy the expansion bundle pack, getting 2 level 80 boosts. I refuse to use them though, now anyways. I don’t want to be that noob that boosts a character without knowing how to really play. I want to have that experience of leveling to 80 and getting to do the storyline. I’m a lore freak, so I like the immersive story experience that you get from games like Guild Wars 2 or World of Warcraft.

Is it my favorite game? No. I still think World of Warcraft is the superior game. Is it good as a filler while there’s nothing left to farm but mounts and you’re still recovering from the Overwatch Storm Rising event burnout? Yes. Will I be playing it much this week due to the release of the Overwatch Anniversary event, where D.Va (my main) gets one of the coolest skins? Nope. As of Tuesday, I’m all Overwatch until I get all of the skins. But, it’s a decent game to play when you’re bored of other games and you aren’t forced to play it because you pay the sub fee.

Where could it improve? There’s something lacking in the social department, when compared to my WoW experience. Maybe it’s because I don’t know as many people who play. When streaming it, I did get some good advice and meet some cool people. I like that the story instances (at least so far) are solo instances that don’t require you to group up with people, especially since I’m self-conscious about my play being so new at the game. I feel it’s a little disjointed, maybe not quite as streamlined as WoW. But, games should try to do something different from WoW to give us entertaining options. Which this is a great option, just not a replacement to World of Warcraft.