Guild Wars 2

I want to buy a secondary account for my girlfriend to play, tomorrow with the discount.

But I am scared of the NPE.

I was forced to play the NPE to level up a few of my Alts as of now, and I am as scared of the NPE in GW2, as a Star Wars Galaxies fan is scared of the NGE!

But my girlfiend is new to MMOs, so I am not sure if she will do better with the NPE this time around than in past attempts at getting her to play MMOs. I hope the NPE doesn’t have a tract record of turning away new players. If anything, I believe a proper tutorial system should have gone over basic keyboard movements and mouse movement and camera controls for basic MMO gamers/PC Gamers
IMO.

I was wondering if anybody else had a similar situation, and mind sharing the outcome.
Because if this turns into my second account and I am forced to level in the NPE I,,,,,well let’s just say, I don’t know what I will do right now……

Well if it were me, I would also invest in an outfit of her choice. I know of several people who’s girlfriends were put off by how ugly armours look at low level, and with the new transmute system, you don’t accrue enough charges to keep your look constant and/or attractive.

NPE isn’t that bad, and the level up rewards are kind of alright. The only problem with the NPE is the unreasonable requirements for some of the traits, but even that is mostly a whatever situation as eventually you will always be able to get them. It’s not like leveling is hard, nor that a lack of traits makes leveling all that much harder.

There was a thread a while back where a guy posted about how he had a friend try out the game. OP posted a sample of chat and in that short section, he had made 3 negative remarks about the NPE and leveling. The friend quit after a couple of days.

The point is, don’t invite your gf to play the game and then make remarks about how bad parts of it is. No one wants to play a bad game.

I’m not saying, be anything but honest. But you can answer truthfully without stating your opinion. If you don’t like something, state the facts and nothing but the facts.
She may like something you hate or not even notice it, but If you prejudice her ahead of time she will approach it knowing she dislikes it. If she knows ahead of time that X is bad and Y is only for noobs and this is all she knows about the game then she will only try out the game to humor you and leave as soon as reasonable.

Astral Projections.7320:

There was a thread a while back where a guy posted about how he had a friend try out the game. OP posted a sample of chat and in that short section, he had made 3 negative remarks about the NPE and leveling. The friend quit after a couple of days.

The point is, don’t invite your gf to play the game and then make remarks about how bad parts of it is. No one wants to play a bad game.

I’m not saying, be anything but honest. But you can answer truthfully without stating your opinion. If you don’t like something, state the facts and nothing but the facts.
She may like something you hate or not even notice it, but If you prejudice her ahead of time she will approach it knowing she dislikes it. If she knows ahead of time that X is bad and Y is only for noobs and this is all she knows about the game then she will only try out the game to humor you and leave as soon as reasonable.

Ugh… yeah. I read that thread and thought “well of course that guy quit.”

One recommendation I have as not only a woman but a half of a gamer couple is to help her get social. Specifically, other gamer couples and women. Im not saying guys arent great to play with, they totally are! But if she is new to gaming and may already have a mindset of expecting mostly single men playing, make sure she can make some girlfriends or you guys can “double date” play with other couples. I always loved doing this. Having
been a gamer my whole life grew me some thicker skin when it comes to the whole “video games are for guys” mentality (especially in the 90s) but… earlier in the game I was in a guild with ALL men. Made some awesome friends and they werent bad guys at all… but after a while I had to ask them to lay off of some constant sexist/kitchen jokes. Can be funny, but get old very fast when you hear them over and over and could be an easy way to turn a new female gamer off from MMOs.

Edit: I realize you were moreso talking about the NPE but I just figured id mention all of this if she was new to the mmo experience.

Lol.. people have really ridiculous problems …

Send your girlfriend just some gold, so that she can just right of unlock everything important that she will need later in regard of traits .. seriously.. as a 2 year long veteran gamer you should have more than enough gold to just send her a bit, so that she can unlock right away all the traits that she will need later and then just let her play and let her her level up and experience the game alone, while you might help her simply out if needed at her personal story and play together with her doing events together and she will be quickly high enough at level, equipment and so on, especially with the double exp event.

The NPE is just bad in view of a veteran player, because it dumbed down everything, that was in view of an experienced veteran player absolutely ok and where an experienced player had with it absolutely no problems in the past time, before of the NPE, which turned alot of things into just laughable crap, like dancing for cows… seriously, where you start to believe, how massively mentally devolved some players in the past must have been, not to be able to do the easiest things in this game, that Anet felt, that their game is too confusing and needs this insulting heavy dumbing down of mechanics instead of giving this game just a proper tutorial mode that is integrated into the very first personal story instance map, before players get into the present time of the game, that is the persistant game world outside of the personal story instances.

You can send also your girl friend materials, so that she can craft herself always appropiate equipment, that is basically better than the stuff she will find and receive through level up rewards.
Juts play with her together and support her, where you can, and brign her together with also other nice supportive players, which can and will show her thigns in the game cough hint hint. a newbie supportive guild, GW2 should have plenty of them…

People do here, as if the NPE is some kind of “total different game” out of a sudden xD
You do exactly the same things, like you did, when you started your very first character.
So simple.

Somehow I really find this thread same as funny as like it is simply sad xD

I got my wife into it shortly before the launch of the NPE. She has ZERO experience in any type of MMO, and very little gaming experience in general. After the NPE launched she found it much easier to handle, has a much better time figuring things out, and what to do next, and actually really enjoyed it. With the NPE she was given information a bit slower and more easily digestable bits and that has helped her greatly.

Trait System is NOT part of the NPE at all.. and was not designed for it. the Traits system was changed for other reasons. Its not terrible especially if its her first character. She’s gonna wanna do most of the stuff anyway. Most of the traits are unlocked just playing and exploring the game and those that aren’t or those that are gotten in weird places like EotM you can pick up for money.

Honestly, a good portion of traits aren’t even that game breaking for many classes. And the few traits that “make” or “break” a build are easily purchased if you can’t be bothered to go out and get them.

I don’t understand this logic at all. By the time a new player is 80 they will have unlocked several traits if they played anything like I did to level..which was exploring the open world doing dungeons at level appropriateness, doing events in zones I was already in, etc.

Knighthonor, if you actually like this girl then give her the time and respect to make up her own mind. If she’s still playing in a few months time (and you’re still going out) try comparing notes then.

pdavis.8031:

I got my wife into it shortly before the launch of the NPE. She has ZERO experience in any type of MMO, and very little gaming experience in general. After the NPE launched she found it much easier to handle, has a much better time figuring things out, and what to do next, and actually really enjoyed it. With the NPE she was given information a bit slower and more easily digestable bits and that has helped her greatly.

I can’t remember if I ever saw how your wife went with it but I have been wondering. Nice to know she enjoys the game.

If she’s not familiar with GW2 before the NPE, or MMOs in general, she probably won’t think anything of it. She won’t know how it worked before and that she’s locked out of some things longer than she used to be.

If she’s interested in the story the level 60+ chapters might be an issue because they’re still a mess and there’s been no word on when that will be fixed.

The NPE system is NOTHING compared to almost any MMO title in the industry. It is just different compared to what we had. I don’t see it as a bad thing and most people who complain about it are vets.

GW2 has a vast world to explore and NPE makes it easier to understand. It does indeed make the experience more traditional however, I don’t specifically see it as a bad thing as many people left back in time because they couldn’t understand the game.

Danikat.8537:

If she’s not familiar with GW2 before the NPE, or MMOs in general, she probably won’t think anything of it. She won’t know how it worked before and that she’s locked out of some things longer than she used to be.

Exactly this. Just be encouraging and refrain from telling her how it used to be. Help her become a part of Tyria, not feel like an outsider. A friend of mine who came over from another game has leveled three characters since the NPE, and has had no issues.

Give her a nice welcome package of some gold, some unidentified dyes (they’re fun to open and it’s more exciting than selecting colors yourself), and a gem store outfit. I absolutely hate starter armor and keep my non 80 alts in outfits.

zenleto.6179:

Knighthonor, if you actually like this girl then give her the time and respect to make up her own mind. If she’s still playing in a few months time (and you’re still going out) try comparing notes then.

pdavis.8031:

I got my wife into it shortly before the launch of the NPE. She has ZERO experience in any type of MMO, and very little gaming experience in general. After the NPE launched she found it much easier to handle, has a much better time figuring things out, and what to do next, and actually really enjoyed it. With the NPE she was given information a bit slower and more easily digestable bits and that has helped her greatly.

I can’t remember if I ever saw how your wife went with it but I have been wondering. Nice to know she enjoys the game.

Yeah, forgot to follow up on it. But she likes it, and its not so overwhelming anymore. She hasnt played much (health and medical reasons) but does find it enjoyable when she does play.

About the NPE, I agree with everything that’s been said – she won’t know the difference and it’s going to be fine if not easier. A seasoned mmo veteran friend of mine started playing recently and he didn’t notice that something was supposed to be “wrong” at all.

That said, if this is her first mmo you have to find the delicate balance between lettering her learn things at her own pace and spending quality time with her ingame. If she’s into stories tell her about the different races and help her get excited about one, if she’s into fashion you can get her a make over kit so she can try the gem store exclusive styles, if she’s into watching a story unfold make sure you let her watch all the cutscenes and don’t nag about it.
Above all: make a lowbie character to play with her on similar terms and follow her pace – if she spends the first half hour running in circles and throwing herself off cliffs you do the same.

Liz.1497:

That said, if this is her first mmo you have to find the delicate balance between lettering her learn things at her own pace and spending quality time with her ingame. If she’s into stories tell her about the different races and help her get excited about one, if she’s into fashion you can get her a make over kit so she can try the gem store exclusive styles, if she’s into watching a story unfold make sure you let her watch all the cutscenes and don’t nag about it.
Above all: make a lowbie character to play with her on similar terms and follow her pace – if she spends the first half hour running in circles and throwing herself off cliffs you do the same.

In this sense I’d say the more important question is whether it’s her first RPG. Although there are some differences to single-player games a lot does carry over.

But I absolutely agree that it’s important to let her decide what to do and how to do it, even if you think it’s wrong.

If I’d had any say in the matter my husband would have started with a nice, easy warrior instead of the Mesmer and ele he wanted to play, and he’d have been bored silly by combat instead of really enjoying it.

Don’t bother with Traits anymore… Consider it self-imposed Hard Mode.