So I haven't played in a while...
Not at all, you will likely do the new stuff mainly for achivs you if care to that, or just play for a few hours and realise the game is the same.
I also stopped playing since Wintersday 2012 and started again about 5 weeks ago.
I found the vast majority of things exactly the same (including the bugs), a few random changes and obligatory nerfs.
The biggest difference is with the Magic-Find gear being converted into an account wide Luck system, which you will have to consume a lot of to get to a decent % again (if you used lots of magic-find gear before).
Champion mobs now drop goody-bags and so the “Train” phenomenon has appeared (which is just a zerg with a route-plan) to maxmise these drops.
The biggest issue i’ve found is that the living-story updates had content and rewards that are no longer available, which is a shame.
Mimizu Heavy Industries [Doll] – Underworld
Its not difficult at all to get back into the swing of GW2…just start following the latest Living Story and set your own goals.
There has been loads of new stuff btw…its just 70%+ of it was temporary for 2 weeks only, so sadly you have missed it, with no chance of ever doing it.
You can read here on all the stuff you missed the past year or so:-
Er…
Ok, I’ll try to be as objective as possible.
You will be behind in the living story…immensely. If you are someone that is an achievement monger and completionist, you’ll be so far behind. And a lot of the living story content has been removed, you so are SOL.
Everything revolves around the living story. Everything. Every decision decision and business decision they make revolves around it. Their content release schedule is two weeks, but the quality is under immense scrutiny. Take the ‘wow’ of a two week release schedule with a grain of salt.
They have made a lot of performance improvements, as well as quality of life improvements(see the wallet!)
They have made some changes to world bosses(for the worse).
They have recently updated fractals with new fractals and more reason to go into fractals(for the better).
Ascended gear is still one of the cornerstones of the game.(along with living story).
Achievement points earn you rewards(gold, MF, skins, etc).
They have changed WvW for the better with a progression system, as well as updated the maps a bit.
50/50 on positive and negative things I would say.
Ive been bouncing back and forth all year, taking 1-2 month breaks and coming back. Each time I come back, Im a bit further behind than the last time I returned to the game. Do I need ascended weapons? No. But I like fractals and i WvW, so I will go after them, even though many people already have them. Do i need the achievement points? No, but I like to see as much content as possible and some of the skins rewarded are good.
Karma is as abundant as air, and as useless as the Kardashians.