End Of Dragons : Absolutely First Impressions

Better than Path of Fire. So far.

The update arrived at exactly 5pm local time. I was in and playing ten minutes later. 

I played for three hours without a break. I'd still be playing now if I hadn't gotten disconnected.

About half of that time I was following the storyline. The rest I spent exploring.

I took over a hundred screenshots. Could have taken five hundred. The ANet art team knocked it out of the park again. We expect it but even by their standards this is gorgeous work.

Much less predicably, I really enjoyed the writing, too. The plot made sense, everyone seemed to be in character. There were some decent jokes. Absolutely no spoilers here, though. Far too early to discuss the story. I'm not even using any of the storyline screenshots I took and there were some good ones.

Gameplay in the early stages felt good. Fast, fun, involving, comfortable. Even the fights were enjoyable. There were gimmicks but they were good ones, not the usual annoying crap. Let's hope it lasts.

I did quite a bit of fishing. It's like fishing in most mmorpgs. I liked it. I even won a fishing contest. I was the only one who entered. That'll happen if you run on ahead and explore the second map when everyone else is still back in the first.

I enjoyed myself so much I thought I ought to check what I thought of Path of Fire first time around. Maybe I liked that, too. Turns out I wasn't much for the story and I hated the mounts from the get-go but I did appreciate the art, especially the first three zones, which I called "a total delight to explore - visually stunning, vast, complex and fascinating." It wasn't until I reached the fourth, Desolation, that I started to complain about the things that have defined exploration in PoF for me ever since.

Tellingly, though, by the time I gave my first verdict on the last expansion I'd been playing for fifteen hours and it had been out for a week. I was on holiday when it launched. I didn't get to play until five days later. I'd forgotten that.

Let's hope End of Dragons carries on the way it's begun. I have hopes it might. It just feels like a better fit for me, somehow. 

We'll find out soon enough, I guess.