9 and a half years ago I created my Guild Wars account. 9 and a half years, that seems like an awfully long time ago. In those years I managed to put in over 1,500 hours into the game with many of my main character having 230 hours of play time. I don’t think I’ve ever played a single game that long since and probably never will again.

In the past I’ve tried to make it a point to go back every once and a while to open my birthday presents and see which mini pet I would get this year. Apparently it’s ben a long time since I’ve done that because each of my characters had 4 presents waiting to be opened today. It’s crazy to think these characters are old enough to be in the  2nd grade!

Guild Wars was my game in high school. I first came to it after being fed up with being a free player on Runescape and not having the means to become a member. Guild Wars was a physical box I could buy with cash and didn’t have to pay a subscription afterwards so no credit card needed. I loved the world, the classes, the battle system. I loved that max level was 20 and there were hundreds of skills to choose from to make builds. Most of all I loved the fashion, all the armor and weapons was the same stat wise at 20 so everything was viable to wear.

Over the years I’ve ran the content to the ground on at least 6 characters. My stable of 10 still has some stragglers that I never quite got around to playing. My assassin was my main with the most hours clocked on him but my favorite class has to be the ritualist. I haven’t played a game since with a class quite like it from the mobile spirit turrets to random jars you can carry around and drop for different effects.

As you can tell I’ve been feeling a little nostalgic lately about the game. One thing I’ve never done is finish the Prophecies campaign. As soon as I got the Factions expansion and realized how easy it was to fully level a character I never looked back. I even tried to take some Factions and Nightfall characters back to Lion’s Arch to try and finish the campaign but I never got too far.So last night I decided I would try to beat it and if all went well and if I was still enjoying the game I’d revisit the other expansions as well.

So I rolled up a Mesmer, a class I never really got around to playing, and was hit by a wave of nostalgia as I entered the Pre-Searing. With Guild Wars being in Maintenance mode for years now I’m really surprised that there are so many people still running around in Pre-Searing towns, and by so many people I mean like 5. I would of thought it would have been a complete ghost town, surprise surprise. I’ve only done a few quests and run aorund to a few towns. I don’t know if I’ll end up sticking with it but it’s like seeing an old friend again for now and it’s kind of a cool feeling.