Guild Wars 2

Hey folks, first time post here, long time GW1 player. The funny thing is… I don’t play MMOs. World of Warcraft never tempted me for a second, and City of Heroes was fun, but I despised the subscription model.

Guild Wars was something special, an online game I could play at my own pace. I was part of a Guild but eventually left, striking out to solo content which I loved.

All this sounds like a traditional lead up to, GW2 sucks right?

Wrong.

Guild Wars 2 is a great game, and absolutely the most fun I’ve ever had in an MMO.

First of all, the art and world building of Guild Wars. As a casual project, every time I saw an awesome, jaw dropping piece of Guild Wars art, I saved it to a USB drive. That drive now has… around 400 pieces of art and getting bigger whenever Anet releases something new. It is everything glorious, cheesy and fun about high fantasy smashed together on an anvil of awesome. I make no claims that GW is a paragon of story telling, but I have grown attached the world over the past few years. I hate what the Charr did to Ascalon’s people, and seeing Ebonhawke still standing after 250 years of war filled my old Prophecies nostalgia with pride.

I love that Tyria has evolved. The Elder Dragons and their minions are well designed and fun to fight. I love the great efforts that have been made on keeping continuity relatively solid.

Second, the no subscription model. I loved in then, and I loved it now. I probably wouldn’t be playing if it wasn’t subscription free. I buy it, I own it, that’s how I feel about it.

Third, the combat is amazingly, amazingly fun. I feel like GW2 could have been a legitimate single player game if it had been retooled in some general areas. I can’t comment on others experience, but for me, combat has been fun with a minimum of frustration.

My next post will be on the highs and lows of the personal story, since I’ve seen that aspect been criticized most harshly, and somewhat unfairly in my view (and look, I know my Grenth from my Kormir if you get my drift). But I’m having a blast, and adventuring in Tyria is the most fun I’ve had online all year.

Okay, the meat and potatoes.

Personal story.

My primary character is a human guardian, I don’t have any other race past level 5 or so. First of all, I’ve very impressed an MMO even attempted to have a branching mission system, and for the most part, I think it works.

The only real story complaint I have is the general vagueness behind what you’ll be doing when you join an Order. I don’t mean their methods, I meant what they’re actually working on. I nearly went Order of Whispers until I found out in the Vigil you were involved in helping Ebonhawke put down Charr renegades. That sold me right there, but I never would have picked it had I not known in advance.

Trahearne, the monkey on the back of discussion is… really not that big of a deal. I’ve heard soooo many complaints that he’s out to ‘steal’ the player’s thunder, when all he really is is a figure to rally behind. He’s not the greatest warrior and admits that. I’ve heard many claim he comes out of nowhere in the story for non Sylvari, and he really doesn’t anymore so than your Vigil mentor, or Logan, or anything else. The pacing to his reveal as the Order’s unifier happens over the space of six or so missions. That’s not “rushed” even by GW1 standards. He’s an honestly reluctant tree dude and your hero is the one that gives him the push he needs. As brought up in several missions, the other Orders DON’T suddenly all weak in the knees when he takes leadership control of the pact. They have serious doubts. This is not what a Mary Sue is.

Putting an MMO hero at the zenith of power of a political structure is restricting not only to the story but to the player as well. If you notice, Trahearne is only involved in a few major battles with the Dragon’s minions. You’re the champion out on the front lines, something I feel best personified during the recapture of Claw Island. The soldiers there aren’t clamoring for Trahearne, they’re clamoring for YOU. To use another comparison, Commander Shepard isn’t a big shot Admiral or power player, but he’s the biggest BA in the galaxy. In your personal story, the other Orders are counting on you to come through, and morale improves on whatever battlefield you show up on. That’s pretty dang, “personal” to me.

Destiny’s Edge. Soon to come.

I agree with the Trahearne thing. He’s got a similar ‘thunder stealing’ as Kormir, who ascends to Godhood while we just take out Abaddon. So it’s not like it’s anything new to the GW universe to be the ‘side’ character.
My biggest complaint about Trahearne is his strange voice >.>

I just want to point out that “I don’t play MMO’s” and “long time GW1” are contradictory to each other.

It doesn’t matter how you look at it, Guild Wars is an MMO and you can’t say you don’t play MMO’s if you’ve played GW1.

GW1 is heavily instanced based, and not technically an MMO in the traditional sense. You can have no more than 8 players active at a time in any group. As I said, I have played other MMOs, but not on a long term basis. Guild Wars and City of Heroes are the only ones I can say I’ve enjoyed. In general I stick with single player games. I hate dungeon raid crap, five hour task forces, and grinding. I avoid them like the plague.

Right, so Destiny’s Edge.

I am aware of Ghosts of Ascalon, but never read it. I came into Guild Wars 2 free of forums, Beta and books.

My initial reaction:

THESE yahoos are the folks who are supposed to save the world?

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t hate any of DE personally, maybe Rytlock. But nothing they do, in the entire game, lead me to believe they’re even half as effective as my player character.

I’ve seen Logan get dumped on endlessly for returning to save Jennah from the Branded. That was rough, but understandable. However, the responsibility of the failure to kill big K was solely on Eir, she was the squad leader, she thought they could do it, she authorized the strike. I’m going purely by game information here. The responsibility of the chain of command was hers alone. In personality, he’s fairly happy go lucky in the human storyline. Which means he irrates me the least along with…

Caithe, the only one who takes the Dragon seriously. While her personal baggage isn’t very interesting, at the least she cares about the Dragons and actually, you know, doing something instead of sulking in the Iron Citadel or trading love notes with the Queen.

Rytlock is a sociopathic idiot, and all things I hate in a Charr. Perhaps he gets more development from a Charr POV but his attitude exemplifies what I hate about their race. They never take responsibility for anything, and they never admit they were wrong. Rytlock danced on the graves of Ascalonians and it sounds like given a chance, he would perform the Searing all over again. There are other Charr who I feel are infinitely more heroic than Rytlock. General Almorra, Tybalt Leftpaw, Charr who left the mindless conquest of the Legions to help other races and their people. Rytlock is the past with his dumb human prejudices and refusal to look beyond the Legions.

Eir is just… Eir. She has guilt about failing the team as leader, perhaps rightfully so. I like that she’s not the traditional, “LET ME SING TALES OF MY GREAT HUNTING VICTORY WOLF WOLF BEAR” Norn. But she seems like a Debbie Downer.

For all of Zojja’s brilliance, she has the emotional maturity of a child. And once again demonstrations the unprofessional-ism of DE. The world is at stake and rather than accept that casualties are a part of war, she refuses to get back out on the frontlines.

Hopefully now that DE is back together they can do some actually inspiring feats. As it stands, my characters has defeated just as many Dragon champions as they have, been on the strike that killed Zhaitan just like them, and did ALL of the heavy lifting creating the Pact, protecting the Human/Charr treaty, leading military strikes against Zhaitan, gathering allies, and invading Orr while the rest of DE sulked like children. Those kids playing DE in Lion’s Arch nailed it.

As of now, DE. I am unimpressed. Hopefully they’ll actually show us next expansion why they’re the great heroes of the world. As of now, I personally have done more to defeat the Elder Dragons than they have, and that’s pretty sad.

I can’t tell, but did you read the book? I feel like they were epic in that, and it sort of explains how they all fell apart and are sulky and whatnot. And the dungeons also shed some light in the reparations.
Even looking back at GW1, the main heroes (Mhenlo/Devona/Aidan/Eve/Cynn), we do pretty much all that they do too.

Didn’t read the book, but I know the summary. I’m going based on the game which in theory should be a higher canon anyway. And again, the Dungeons are mostly DE being a bunch of spoiled children. The exception would be the final dungeon, and the Citadel of Flame since Logan and Rytlock do team up to take out Gaelron. The rest of DE in their dungeons are simply consumed by personal vendettas that have no bearing on the war with the Dragons.

Again, I feel like I’m being kind to DE. I don’t think they’re hateful individuals, but as a group of champions, they come up hilariously short.