Me: Okay, so I'm back in Guild Wars 2 for the first time in 2 years. It'll probably take me a while to work out what I should -
GW2: Hey, here's an arrow to show you where you can go next! Go go go!
There's usually a settling in period upon returning to an MMO after an extended period away, during which I work out what I'm supposed to be doing and how I'm supposed to be doing it. How long this takes varies from one game to another.
In the case of Guild Wars 2, the first part took about thirty seconds. After clicking through a series of sparkling icons notifying me of log-in rewards and suchlike, I glanced at the UI and saw a prompt telling me where I could go to discover a new location. After being briefly sidetracked into a nearby event – which I subsequently remembered I'd done before – I decided to do just that. This quite smoothly got me back into the habit of using the map to look for places I'd never been to and activities I hadn't completed.
As
I've said before, GW2 can come across as rather manic – constantly
prodding the player to do stuff or at least bombarding them with
information about stuff that can be done. That this is usually more
charming than annoying is a testament to the quality of the game's
UI, which is easy to read, highly informative and never feels too
busy. It makes for an easy
return, requiring very little thought to get back into the regular loop of exploration, local quests and events.
Maybe too little thought. While tidying up my inventory I may have accidentally clicked on an XP item while trying to store it. Either that or I clicked on it because the description didn't make it clear that it was an XP item. In any case I accrued 5 instant levels, taking me from 60 to 65 in a flash. This is something I've been trying to avoid, and I've got a couple of other similar items in my bank which I'll cash in later, after I hit 80. Still, it's not a big deal, given GW2's rather casual attitude toward character level.
(The main lesson here is one I should have taken away from Dungeons & Dragons Online a couple of years ago: Always empty your inventory at the end of a run so you don't have to try and work through it when you come back to the game.)
I can't recall for the life of me where I picked this item up. Log-in reward? Level up reward? Zone completion reward? God knows. Maybe the game just chucked it at me because it figured I'm taking too long to get to level 80.
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