I gave the Sylvari a good amount of hate previously, but now that I've played them, I actually kind of like them. For one, you can make a really alien looking plant-creature in character creation. The mushroom head top is awesome, but some of the faces are like treant faces which is great. Two, their personal story and Caithe shats all over the human story. The whole idea of a race creating their society around the first book they come across is a bit silly and it makes the Nightmare Court a somewhat interesting counter-force. You then have Caithe, who is an interesting character. At least, more interesting than your average MMO character. Very cold, very harsh and abrasive, but with romantic ties to the enemy. For the human story, I didn't really buy into the political mystery they were selling. For the Sylvari, the politics are tied to relationships and it makes the story much better.
One thing I am looking forward to at launch is finally being able to take my time to do whatever. With just a weekend of time, I did not explore as much as wanted, and certainly did not explore the cities as much as I would like. I often rushed to test out PVP builds in Conquest and played more sPvP than I may have otherwise to rank up and see how the rewards change. I still have the Norn, Charr and Asura starter zones mostly untouched.
