Guild Wars 2

After playing GW1 since 2008, adjusting to GW2 in this past month was not the easiest transition for me, but I managed to easily make it to level 25 on a few of my characters. After taking some time to feel out the game, I’ve grown to love GW2 but I’m left longing for some of the features is GW1.

Since I am new to the game and this is my first post on the forums, I apologize in advance if there is some key information about gameplay that I am missing or if my inquiries were already discussed/solved.

-Point and Click
The lack of this feature almost made me hate the game. I’ve since gotten used to it but I probably miss this the most. Why can’t I just click on a plant/npc/map area and run there without needing full control?

-Show Players, NPCs, and Enemies on Map
I miss seeing little red, green, and blue dots on my map! I like knowing what’s ahead of me and behind me from a basic arial view, or what direction my friends or foes are coming from. Was this left out to present more of a strategic atmosphere?

-Item Appearence
I can’t recall a time in GW1 that I had an issue telling 2 different items’ symbols apart. For example in GW2, there are accessories that look exactly the same recipies. There are about 4 or 5 other items in the game that I’ve come across so far that appear to be identical. Couldn’t they just be rendered a different colour?

-Heroes and Henchmen
I am the epitome of an anti-social gamer. I’ll thank someone for healing me but that’s it as far as human interaction is concerned and honestly, I prefer it that way. I have never branched out from PvE. This also means I’m Guild-less (I’ll make my own later). I play the game at my convienience, not someone elses. It would almost be impossible for me to know when I have an opportunity to play so I have become self reliant. Although I rock thus far flying solo, it’s still impossible for me to single handedly take down a level 5 champion. I have also come across territories that recommend level 30 with a party of 5 or more. Personally, I don’t have time to seek out other players to help me for a certain area. I know everyone can’t have their own personal heroes running around given the layout of player interaction, but for people with my situation, it can make playing the game somewhat challenging. It doesn’t matter if I’m the only soul in GW1, I can play whatever I want, whenever I want, with no problem thanks to heroes and henchmen. I don’t really have any ideas on how to remedy this in GW2.

-Character Select Menu Screen
After making changes to my armor, I always looked forward of getting a good look at it on the start screen of the game. I could zoom in and out, look up and down. I wasn’t just limited to a 360 twist. Is there anything I can do to get an indepth look at the details of my character?

-Ranger Pets
I love how much more attention GW2 gives to pets, and I know there is already a discussion thread about this, but I had to bring it up: The whole not saving the name thing is irritating. If I consistently have different companions to permanently run at my side and assist me, it would be nice to make it more personal. I don’t want to see the word ‘Juvenile’ either. If I charm it, just get rid of the word! I’m constantly finding myself trying to charm unnamed, already-tamed pets! Also the way to view a pet’s stats is whack. I constantly have to switch out pets, wait a few seconds for the switch to happen, and then I’m able to view the stats, while in turn messing up their names. Then you have to wait all over again to load the next pet to compare stats while forgetting a few of the stat numbers in the process.

Does anyone know if I’m missing something to get the features I want, or if this is the way the game was meant to be? Does anyone else feel the same? Is there anything else from GW1 that you think would be a pivotal compontent to GW2?

• Click-to-move: the game has other features that aren’t compatible with this, e.g. being able to walk through foes.
• Show all character dots on map: this is a limitation of this type of MMO: with so many things on the map, it consumes a lot of resources to display them all at every instant.
• Item Appearence: ANet admitted that they didn’t finish some of the icons. They have been updating them a bunch at a time with various releases. Post a separate suggestion with a list of duplicates that you find; devs said that they will follow-up (as they have time to do so).
• Heroes and Henchmen: it’s a multiplayer game. Although virtually all the content can be managed solo, it’s designed for group play. If that doesn’t appear to you, I am sorry to say this might not be the game for you.
• Character Select Menu Screen: [h]ero panel allows you to take a closer look at your toon.
• Ranger Pets: turns out, the devs decided it wasn’t worth creating a huge data table for 50 pets/ranger, so they set it up to have the names saved by slot (Terrestrial top & bottom slots, aquatic top & bottom). A lot of players feel the same as you do about “juvenile” and saving more names. Add your voice to those existing discussions and there’s some chance ANet will reconsider. However, this probably isn’t a cheap solution, given how they designed things originally (meaning: to implement this, they’d have to forgo something else equally important to players…at least for a while).

I forgot to say: welcome to GW2, Brap!

I started playing during BETA testing and I have to admit, I found the transition difficult, too. There were many things (including some of those you mention) that I found required an adjustment in my play style and thinking and I had trouble getting used to it. Now, however, I can’t go back to GW1 — it’s so slow, colorless, and static by comparison.

ANet also made adjustments since BETA, most for the better. I expect they will continue to tweak and restructure parts of the game, based in part on constructive feedback.

There are all sorts of things that IMO are more fun in this game: jumping, dodging, moving while casting, depositing collectibles without visiting a bank, and so on.

I hope you learn to enjoy the game as much as I have done.

Thank you so much for your detailed response and welcoming to the game! Your reply to these small, innocuous issues makes perfect sense. What concerns me about actually needing other people is when I play at 2am, when the final boss pops up, while the majority of North America is fast asleep. It’s almost impossible to do most events alone (depending on the territory). It makes me uneasy to think that 5 or 6 years from now when there’s a GW3 (hopefully) and nobody is playing GW2, you won’t be able to accomplish anything. But who knows what the future holds for this kind of dilemma. It’s way too soon to tell.

The newness of GW2 still hasn’t worn off yet (sooooo addicting) but it was refreshing to hop on and play Canthan New Year. The only thing that gets to me now while playing GW1 is I can’t jump off the side of a cliff. I still like the skill sets in GW1. I felt that they were much more complicated and required a significant amount of thought before you went into battle. I’m pretty sure I’ll always prefer the original, but I have to admit, if I started playing GW2 first and then went to GW1, I’d probably rip my hair out from all of the wiki-ing.

i loved gw1, but i could never go back now, gw2 is definitely an evolution

I think you mean de-evolution.

I completely agree with the OP the difference between Guild Wars 2 and Guild Wars 1 is the difference between night and day. Really, the only reason one could call Guild Wars 2 part of the franchise is that they have the same races and same general area. However in their race to put graphics before gameplay, and attempt to appeal to MMO elitists , they lost sight of what made Guild Wars great.

Its also fairly obvious from Illconcieved’s “answers” that he didnt play (much) Guild Wars 1 if he thought solo-players and small groups of casual MMOers were never the original target audience of the series. Guild Wars was designed as a game you could play with small (or as large) a group as you wanted though unlike…well, every other MMO, you were never required/forced at any time to join a Guild or play a certain way to win thanks to a well developed skill tree.

Then you have the henchmen, heroes. Yet another feature that set Guild Wars above the rest (and again pointed to their desire to have a solo friendly game). Never once did you have to rely being online at ‘just the right time’. Or trying to find a group that didnt have some sort of gear/skill snob trying to tell you the ‘right way to play the game’. No. All you had to do was get a good selection of henchmen and you were pretty much set.

Hell, It was the solo player audience that lead to one of the greatest design coups in MMO history – having everything (save towns) instanced which was the best thing that ever happened to an MMO in recent history

-No annoying distractions/noise
-No kill stealing (granted they didnt get any xp or gold from it, but they still killed something I was having fun fighting)
-No having to struggle to complete quests due to everyone else doing the same one.

Secondly you had the dual class system. While not necessarily a first, Guild Wars was the first MMO to allow players at any time and without penalty or fee to switch their secondary class AND completely respec their character so long as they were in a town. This was another key pointing to Guild Wars as targeting more of a solo/small group audience than traditional MMOs. One could go Fighter/Monk and be able to heal themselves on the fly or my personal favorite the Fighter/Ranger allowing for a pure fighter with pet support. Yet another feature that added complexity to the game that Guild Wars 2 sadly lacks.

Third, the questing. While its loads better than Warhammer Online’s campaign/questing (which forced you to quest in PvP areas), the story is neither engaging or the heroes/villians as memorable as those who graced the Guild Wars 1 campaign. Its not, however, just a simple matter of being entirely forgettable as the story lacking momentum. This is due to the horrible decision to put massive level gaps between missions.

In Guild Wars 1, you could litterally flow from one mission to the next and thus they were able to keep up the momentum of the story. Even in Factions and Nightfall where there were a few gaps here and there, the game always made it possible to fulfill the requirements fairly easily. However thanks to the lack of quests, lack of bonus missions, and forcing you to grind “group quests” for a small pittance of experience and gold they managed to make what should have been a fluid, though not overly easy, experience. A real questing system (and not this ‘group quest nonsense’) however, can always be added in later. So thats not nearly as much a concern as is fixing the fluidity of the story.

As far as the skill system goes, Guild Wars 1 takes the lead again. I won’t say much on it since the OP pretty much covered everything that needs to be covered. But I will say this: Between 100 M&Ms and 5 M&Ms, which would anyone with a right mind prefer? Exactly. Not only did they kill the entire skill system, but they weakened all of the classes and player innovation by doing so. Out of all the poor decisions, linking combat related skills to weapons was a terrible move dramatically weakening the compexity of the game.

And for heavens sake, dont even get GW1 players started on the world map. The geography is terribly off.

Unfortunately any significant changes to make this game worthy of the “Guild Wars” title wont come in any content update. It will be when (and if) an expansion is released (which had better be Cantha). Until then I’ll stick with the better of the two games and hopefully the devs will fix what needs to be fixed (gameplay) and not worry about stupid stuff thats not nearly as vital (PvP/RvR…seriously, what a disappointing “content update”).