You're encouraged to follow your nose, and even on the edge of my 30th hour with this character I still find that surprising. I am enjoying being a bumblebee rather than a worker ant. Bees have all the fun. I've been gathering crafting materials and depositing them in my bank constantly, because it's so easy and painless to do. Gathering grants a chunk of XP equivalent to a few kills, so there's no reason not to pick up everything you see: and the 'deposit all collectibles' button in the inventory automatically files away your raw materials into a dedicated part of your bank. The fact that you get an unlimited capacity to store crafting bits and pieces from the get-go is a classy bit of design. It allows you to use your main bank for fun things - bits of armour you like, weapons you want to transmute later - and belies the fact that selling inventory space is one of the ways that Guild Wars 2 will make money through the gem store. Unshackling available storage space from crafting progression defangs their decision to monetise that part of the game. Classy is the word for it, really: it's a generous bit of thinking, worthy of a hat-tip. Grabbing all of my crafting materials out of my bank and turning them into (variously) inventory boxes, helmets and soup grants me about half a level's worth of experience, which is a pleasant surprise. I was aware that crafting granted XP but I hadn't seen it as a viable alternate progression route. I now know that it's how the first person to level 80 managed the last twenty levels, and while the average player won't have the support of a whole guild this sense that nothing you do is a waste of time makes you feel free to wander. One day I'll learn to forge a whole piece of armour. Wandering is the thing, really. After burning through all my copper and thread I drag three friends into a party so that I can show them a hidden jumping puzzle in a cave far to the south-east of Queensdale. I was originally taken through it by the developers as part of a press event, and I like the idea of playing tour-guide. We could port to a waypoint closer, but someone asks if we can walk from Divinity's Reach instead, because walking allows adventures to happen. I really hope that sentiment becomes http://www.gw2bank.com/ a defining element of GW2's community: rather than SWTOR instance-runners demanding that everyone skip the cutscenes, I want to see players asking to take the scenic route. As it happens, a major centaur assault takes place as we're taking the bridge near Shaemoor. The event scales up to factor in the participation of four geared-up players, and we find ourselves quickly annihilating twenty or so horsemen alongside a load of new characters. It's a cool feeling: we're leveled down to match the area, but our gear and abilities show off our time investment. Rather than watching high-level players float through beginner areas like invincible gods, new players get to fight alongside them. It's a clever way of keeping the community together.
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