State of the Gamer | June 2025
What a journey it’s been! My husband and I met online, in a game 25 years ago. We’ve been exploring realms every since. Our first game together was Everquest, but we quickly moved to Dark Age of Camelot. Through the years, we’ve racked up thousands of hours playing Star Wars Galaxies, Rift, Warhammer Online, Final Fantasy XIV, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Neverwinter, Dungeons & Dragons Online, WildStar, World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2. We were hardcore WoW players until we finally ran out of patience with Blizzard. We’ve returned to Guild Wars last year and this is where we intend to stay.
The upside of playing GW2 is that there is no monthly subscription fee. You can play the core game FREE, which takes you to level 80, which is max level in this game. There’s so much to do in just the core game, but trust me, you’ll want to jump into the expansions. Each one packs in a ton of content and quality of life additions. We were happy to find that mounts arrived in Guild Wars 2 and in the latest expansion, “Janthir Wilds”, we have housing. You can see one side of my homestead in the screenshot above.
The main thing that I love about Guild Wars 2 is that every expansion remains relevant after a new expansion is launched. We’re still chasing achievements, completing maps, gathering skins for weapons and armor and participating in World Boss fights and more from old and new content. I also love that once I get my gear, it’s good for every new expac that comes along. The thing I disliked the most about World of Warcraft was putting in countless hours to earn top-tier gear and weapons, and then tossing them aside and starting over. Also, there’s very little reason to visit old expansion zones/worlds in World of Warcraft. All the action and community will be active in current content. In Guild Wars 2, crowds of players show up for world boss fights that happen on regular timers. The community in GW2 remains less toxic than World of Warcraft as well. Don’t get me wrong, WoW has so many wonderful players, but unless you’re part of a solid, active guild, you have a hard time finding the non-toxic groups.
The last content patch for Janthir Wilds drops today and we’re so excited! We’ll most likely log in, look around the new zone and check out the new items available. As for playing, that will happen during the weekend! Weeknights are for watching movies and series together!
Magic the Gathering
We have a regular Commander pod consisting of hubby, me, my nephew and his wife. When they’re not available we get together with our sons to play as well as play test new decks. Hubs, Son 1, and Nephew all build decks. SO MANY DECKS!! I’m trying to keep myself at under 10 Commander decks. I currently have 7 that I play, but there are 3 more I’d like to have built if my awesome husband thinks he can make it work. I’m biased, but my man can build some decks. My Elminster deck is my favorite. It’s a mill deck. Yes, if there’s a Magic player reading that and scratching their head… I do indeed pilot and Elminster mill deck and wins in multiple ways. It’s my favorite next to my pinger and landfall decks. J, the hubby, was astonished that I became a Blue deck player. He thought for sure I’d be green/white.
He just build me an Enchantress deck with Yshtola, from Final Fantasy, as the commander.
©2025 Wizards of the Coast.
I’ve played the deck twice and I’m still getting used to it but it’s absolutely my style and keeps everyone on their toes when we play. I won with the deck the first time I played. The next time I lost and that’s okay because we’re not competing with each other. The four of us are pretty even with wins. There have been many nights when we’ve each won a game. MtG quickly became my favorite TCG and I’ve been playing for just over 3 years now.
Right now, those are the two games that take up our gaming time. We tend to game on the weekends when we have time. There was a time when I played World of Warcraft 25-30 hours each week. Those days are gone because we have other things we’re interested in and as we’ve grown older (I’m 63 now) I don’t want to invest that much time in front of a screen. Heck, I plug my phone into the charger and leave it there most days because screens have taken over our lives.
So we keep video gaming to a minimum but enjoy every bit of the time we play together. It’s how we met, and it will always be part of who we are. I’ll be playing video games until I can no longer use a keyboard & mouse or a controller. As for tabletop games and cards with their tiny print. That’s what a handheld magnifying glass is for right?
Game on,
Betty
