Today, June 4th, 2025, is my 48th birthday but I celebrated it with my family this past weekend because having a birthday in the middle of the week is rather inconvenient sometimes. My youngest daughter and I drove up to the city Saturday afternoon to pick up my oldest daughter because she was having car trouble and wasn’t able to drive to my house. It was fine, we needed an adventure anyway. I made pizza for dinner Saturday night and Sunday we planned to go to my mom’s house to celebrate my birthday with lunch and ice cream cake.
Earlier that week my oldest daughter had asked me if I could help her with some Guild Wars 2 dungeons that she was doing for the story. Apparently, most players don’t do the dungeons in Guild Wars 2 anymore because they’re not necessary or required. I’d never done any dungeon in GW2 so I had no idea what to expect. We decided that we’d do the dungeons together when she was at my house because that way we’d be right next to each other and could immediately adjust our strategy. Or rather, so she could help me when I inevitably got lost and/or pulled too many mobs, etc.
So we both logged in Saturday night, me at my desk and her sitting on the couch right next to my desk with her laptop set up on the small, folding laptop table I’d bought for exactly that purpose. I immediately used one of my level 80 boosts to boost my Norn guardian to level 80. Her name is Srinity Frostpaw and she was only around level 20 before I boosted her so level 80 was a whole new thing. Not that I really ever know what I’m doing in GW2 on any class but I manage to muddle through. My daughter’s character was a level 70 Sylvari engineer and it’s her main character so she definitely knew what she was doing.
My daughter led me to the first of the dungeons and we mowed through mobs pretty easily because of our high levels. She’d gotten pretty far in the dungeons solo but some of the bosses had given her trouble so me being a durable level 80 guardian helped get her through them. By “helped” I mean distracted them by pummeling them while she actually made effective attacks. Sometimes I was less than helpful when I’d run into trouble and die.
One rather humorous issue I ran into is that my Norn character is so big, if we got backed into a tight spot, I couldn’t see myself, what I was fighting, or where my daughters was. We had quite a few laughs while I complained that I couldn’t see squat and she would say that all she saw was me running around like an idiot not hitting anything. I’m seriously considering buying a makeover kit to make my Norn the shortest possible height because she’s about mid height at the moment and that’s just not helpful when all the mobs and my daughter’s character are tiny.
I think we did three dungeons Saturday night and I don’t remember the names of any of them but I was pleasantly surprised to see that some of the bosses actually required a strategy to beat, even with our high levels. To me, the dungeons functioned like World of Warcraft dungeons in that they’re all open and you can fight anything until you reach the boss fight. There were some rooms that required disarming traps before proceeding and in those, we died a few times before figuring it out but we were still having fun.
By the end of the last dungeon Saturday night, I had a much better understanding of how to play level 80 Norn guardian and was fighting more effectively. Doing the dungeons together would have been far more challenging had my daughter not been sitting literally a foot from me telling me where to go and what to do. I did get lost many times which left her baffled even though it’s something I’ve been doing her entire life.
Sunday morning, my daughters and I headed over to my mom’s and got lunch from the local grocery store chain that has a nice food court. I’d been craving one of their roast beef subs and waited in line to get one. My oldest daughter got some sushi and my youngest daughter got pizza. It was nice that everyone was able to get what they wanted and it was a one-stop shop. I also got some sushi to eat for dinner and a few groceries for the week.
We all enjoyed our lunches back at my mom’s house and had yummy ice cream cake for dessert. We hung out for a few hours and talked and had fun before heading back to my house in the late afternoon. I knew I had to take my oldest daughter back to her apartment in the city eventually that evening but I wasn’t in any rush because I love having her around. I’ve told her before that she could live home forever but understandably, she didn’t want to do that.
Once home, my oldest and I booted up our laptops and headed back into GW2 for more dungeons. If you’re wondering what my youngest was doing during all this, she was playing Roblox on her own laptop. Yes, I’m a gamer mom with two gamer daughters. They grew up watching me play World of Warcraft and then Final Fantasy 14 and while gaming isn’t our only hobby, it’s one we all share. My youngest daughter prefers to play her games solo and I’m fine with that, I don’t want to interfere with what makes her happy.
The final dungeon my oldest daughter and I did for the weekend was called Sorrow’s Embrace and it was quite an experience. I’d equate it to Gnomeregan from World of Warcraft because there were a lot of mobs, called dredge, and they were very annoying. At one point we had to fight an entire room of dredge but thankfully most of them were not elite and we managed to survive.
That dungeon made me hate golems with a passion, especially since one of the bosses has three different types of golems in a row, the final one of which killed us twice before my daughter figured out the correct strategy.
The last boss of that dungeon is called The Iron Forgeman and we completely failed on our first attempt and had to look online for the proper mechanics. Despite our failure it was very amusing when we were trying to dodge lava beams, lava being dumped on us from above, and flame jellies that kept spawning. In order to kill the giant golem boss, we had to pick up the boulders the flame jellies dropped when we killed them and then throw those boulders at the boss. Easier said than done.
When we first tried picking up the boulders, they were too close to the useless NPCs who had long since been defeated by the boss, so our clicks kept trying to resurrect the NPCs instead of pick up the boulders. When we would finally get a boulder, it was tricky to aim it properly so it would miss the boss, but once we did get them going in the right direction, it was amazing how such tiny objects did so much damage to the giant boss. Mind you, while we were trying to pick up boulders and throw them, we were also dodging several types of lava and also trying not to suffocate laughing.
Once The Iron Forgeman was defeated, he sank into the lava and as he was floating away, he raised his hand and gave a thumb’s up. I wouldn’t have even seen that if my daughter hadn’t laughingly pointed it out. I managed to get a screenshot before the boss totally sunk.
Doing Sorrow’s Embrace took longer than we expected so we ended the evening by fighting a world boss. It was wonderful to see so many players gathered waiting for the world boss to spawn as I’m sure GW2 is like most other MMOs in that content creators and articles occasionally say the game is “dead” or “dying.” It obviously is not.
With our adventures in GW2 complete and sunset looming (I have horrible night vision), it was time to take my oldest daughter back home to her apartment. It’s about a 45 minute drive so not terrible but further than I usually go during the week. My youngest daughter came with us and we had fun chats on the drive. Once my oldest was dropped off and we made it back home safely, we settled into our evening routine before the weekend came to a close. I was glad I’d been able to help my oldest with the dungeons and that we’d had so much fun together.
Today my oldest texted me asking if I could help her with more GW2 dungeons tonight and I said of course! My youngest daughter will be going back to her father’s house this afternoon so it will just be me and my four kitties for the night. Doing GW2 dungeons with my oldest tonight will be trickier than it was this weekend since we won’t be sitting next to each other and will have to type out conversations, but we’ll figure it out I’m sure. I’m just grateful that gaming has given us another way to stay in contact and be “together” even when we’re miles apart.
Srinity 