Guild Wars 2

I’m not trying to say one playstyle is better then the other and maybe its just my experience, but I see many if not most players just dart to one checkpoint to the next and not even taking a little stop to look for hidden treasures and areas or listen to the convos. Maybe these are many of the players that complain of lack of content?

Pre launch, I wasnt in the Beta but I watched a lot of videos. One piece of advice I remember listening to, and it is so true, was ‘Listen to the NPC’s conversations’
I do.. and the result.. is you get lots of little DE that dont pop up on the map, or that you cause them to pop up.

And lets not start on the amount of caves and explorable areas that are hidden but dont have a POI so nobody goes there until you trip over them…

I agree with you, players should take time and explore a little

hidden treasures?, if there isnt a guide about how to grind them it doesnt work the effort, hidden areas doesnt give any reward so its a worthless effort, listen to the convos i tried at start, got bored after my first 20 min of gameplay.

Nope you just play too slowly

Most MMO players believe that “leveling content” is worthless because everything is eclipsed by the rewards/gear you get at max level. At best, leveling content is considered mildly entertaining, but is always seen as an obstacle to get past as quickly as possible so that the top level gear and rewards can be unlocked — it’s a means to an end for the typical MMO player. That’s one reason why people arekitten at GW2, because it isn’t designed that way (i.e., “leveling content” as a mildly entertaining obstacle before the “real game” comes at level cap). I prefer it this way, but most MMO players don’t, so that’s why you see them rushing — leveling is viewed as basically worthless, and something you just need to get past as quickly as possible to play the real game.

Don’t worry, they’ll go back to WoW in a few days… and a month later will be back again, having rushed through Pandaville and gotten bored again. It’s the ADHD generation.

It’s just conditioning from other mmos. I know all of the undead starting zones like the back of my hand in wow but i can’t tell you anything really interesting or something that stood out, cause there was nothing.

Just going into random, seemingly unspectacular places can be so rewarding. Like that tiny, hidden little valley in the jungle that i first admired for its natural beauty, then later for allowing me to fight the demagogue once again.

Yeah. A good friend i play with almost everyday is like this. He’s always asking where i’m at or what i’m doing because i’m not like him and don’t like rushing lol. He looks on the map and sees me at some random location and asks “what the heck are you doing” and i say….playing the game.

It’s such a beautiful game and has some very funny dialog if you stop and listen once in a while.

It’s not like they’ll lose any content by rushing, they can always go back.

What I learned about this game by leveling my first toon to 80 is that level really isn’t the key. Karma is. You ahve to do a ton of dynamic events to stay viable. Since, I hit the high 60’s I realized you need an insane amount of karma to get Exotics and legendary.

I’ve been on a Karma treadmill since about level 69 and I have hit 80 and leveled beyond that roughly 30 times, and I am almost finished with my last piece of grenths armor. A legendary weapon is closer to a million karma, plus 200 skill points.

Knowing what I know now, I say forget the hearts/ POI’s, etc. You can explore some but do as many events as possible. You are going to need the karma. Some of the exotic armor was better defense by 150 a piece. Its a game changer, particularly because I am melee.

I started a new Norn yesterday and fresh out of the tutorial zone I went to Hoelbrak and spent something like two hours wandering through the city, went into every animal spirit temple and talked to every named NPC… at the end I was barely level 3. I probably could have “tagged” every POI and vista in the city in 10 min and gone on my way, but I really enjoyed seeing how the city was designed and many of the named NPCs either had a conversation that hinted at their personality or gave an in-game benefit like increasing Charm/Dignity/Ferocity. Several greeted me as a friend a few called me an annoying child…

Someone who rushed through the game to get to 80 expecting some glorious transformation is not only disappointed when nothing changes, but he has missed 99% of the game getting there.

Yeah I don’t see the point of getting to max level as fast as possible, especially in a NEW game. Every time I about to leave into the “wilderness” some npcs start having a conversation and I just have to stop to listen to them.

In major cities I keep coming across all sort of different “events” like these and I haven’t even visited the other 4 major cities.

P.S. I also love reading the books and scrolls found everywhere! (yep some people still read)

Eochaidh.4106:

It’s not like they’ll lose any content by rushing, they can always go back.

That’s true, but the vast majority don’t. “The rewards are crap compared to lvl 80 zones.” “Why would I go back and do low level crap?” “Uh, no, revisiting leveling zones is not content.” Etc.

Eochaidh.4106:

It’s not like they’ll lose any content by rushing, they can always go back.

The big problem is the people that rush and complain there’s nothing to do won’t go back after they are 80.

My best time in an MMO ever was the leveling in WoW. I started playing (my rogue) when the European servers opened. We played with 4 friends (from UT). It took us 3 months to get to 60. I had 25 days /played. It was awesome. Then we spend 2-3 months doing 5-man dungeons to get our blue gear, fire resistance gear, etc. That was also a good time. I’ve had fun times after that, but those first months were the best.

In GW2, I don’t think there is any longlivity for me. I am purely a PvE player. I’m better than average, I think. But I’m not an elite player. I’m too old for that, probably. But it seems the Exploration Modes are too hard for me (and my friends). Heck, I didn’t even enjoy AC StoryMode.

So what is there to do for a player like myself, in GW2 ?
Only the leveling.

So I’m taking it slow. Looking around. Trying to explore the whole map. Maybe not as detailed as I sometimes want. But I am always going into caves, checking out the borders of areas, climbing on mountains, etc. Done a bunch of jump puzzles, doing 100% completion of each map, etc. The world is nice. It’s very good looking. The leveling game in GW2 is pretty good ! Much better than any MMO I played before (except maybe those original 3 months in WoW). Currently I am lvl62. Taking about 2 hours per level-up.

But I know that I am the exception.
Most players want to get to max-level asap. Then they want the best gear asap. I have no idea why. For me: the longer I player, the more value you get out of the game. Why rush ? You’ll get there eventually.

SHM.7628:

What I learned about this game by leveling my first toon to 80 is that level really isn’t the key. Karma is. You ahve to do a ton of dynamic events to stay viable. Since, I hit the high 60’s I realized you need an insane amount of karma to get Exotics and legendary.

If your goal is to get a legendary weapon, be advised that it doesn’t really give you an in-game advantage over exotic (?) weapons. Their point is that carrying a legendary weapon requires a legendary effort, so be prepared to put in weeks or months of effort to gather the necessary “stuff” to put towards it, but the weapon itself is not the point. It’s the journey, and the fact that this journey means that it won’t be like other MMOS where every third player is carrying Gromunndungur the Sword of Awesome Awesomeness on his back.

Legendary weapons are intended to be rare, but not game changing.

SHM.7628:

What I learned about this game by leveling my first toon to 80 is that level really isn’t the key. Karma is.

It looks like the karma-rewards increase with level. That means that once you are 80, you get karma so fast, it hardly matters how much karma you have saved up at the lower levels.

If you want to keep your gear up-to-date, it is much easier to buy green gear at the TP. Most green gear is sold for vendor-price + 1 copper. Some items are a bit more expensive, like vendor-price + half a silver. Do you realize what that means ? It means you can buy a full set of green gear every level for X silver. And when you upgrade them, you can sell them for X – a few copper ! The green leveling gear in this game is almost free ! I’m buying full new sets almost every 5-8 levels. Putting decent gems in them is more expensive than the gear itself. I wish I would get usable gear from Story Quests, but those rewards are all useless blue junk.

WoW had a well-thought out system of slowly upgrading your gear while questing. That gives you incentive to do quests, and the joy of the feeling that you are progressing your character constantly. And that you deserve it. It seems almost no other MMO has managed to do this right. Buying stuff from the TP is never as much fun as questing for it yourself, or crafting it yourself.

It honestly doesn’t surprise me anymore that people rush while gaming. We’ve entered the Entitlement Age of mmo-gamers that began right around the time WoW started caving in to casuals. Rush, rush, rush, nothing sparkling in front of me? COMPLAIN, rush, rush, rush. People like this simply don’t care about anything other than killing and looting. They couldn’t care less about exploration, story lines, or scenery.

And hey, that’s their choice. Just do what you enjoy =)

Oh, and you should check out this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test
The Bartle Test.

It is a theory that divides players into 4 categories.

• Achievers
• Explorers
• Socializers
• Killers

I am an Explorer type myself.
I think a huge amount of gamers are Achievers. I don’t understand why. If you wanna achieve something, go to University, get a degree, become a surgeon, do research and cure cancer, or go study math. Those are things that you can call real achievements.

The weird thing is: MMO worlds are huge, and I think most development money is spent there. But the world is only used for leveling (in almost all games). So most of the development-budget is misspent. MMO-developers should come up with new ways to make gameplay in their game-world viable. GW2 tries, by downscaling you when you enter the world. I think that is the wrong way around. You need to create a parallel world, where every zone is a lvl80 zone. Maybe even a few lvl81-83 zones. With hard monsters, dangerous areas, and proper rewards. Maybe allow all players to completely redo all quests again, but now at lvl80 with lvl80 mobs.

Gryz.8376:

Oh, and you should check out this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test
The Bartle Test.

It is a theory that divides players into 4 categories.

• Achievers
• Explorers
• Socializers
• Killers

I am an Explorer type myself.
I think huge amount of gamers are Achievers. I don’t understand why. If you wanna achieve something, go to University, get a degree, become a surgeon, do research and cure cancer, or go study math. Those are things that you can call real achievements.

Real achievements require real efforts. You can aquire pseudo-achievements by simply having the ability to sit on your butt and press buttons for long periods of time.

I’m not “sad” that players do this. That’s just how they want to play it. This game is good for me because I’m a plodder. I like to get 100% map completion & check everything out — if it’s cool, I stick around, if not I move on. I find myself sticking around a lot in this game. I outlevel areas in other games, which is why I like the downleveling in this one. No monthly fee is good too, as I don’t feel like I need to play excessively to get my money’s worth, and it doesn’t feel grindy to me.

My only concern about others rushing to 80 is that I’m afraid a sizable portion of the population will evaporate. Maybe they’ll add some level 80-only content for the people who want to play it like that; maybe a dungeon that takes advantage of the karma sink or something.

Gryz.8376:

The weird thing is: MMO worlds are huge, and I think most development money is spent there. But the world is only used for leveling (in almost all games). So most of the development-budget is misspent. MMO-developers should come up with new ways to make gameplay in their game-world viable. GW2 tries, by downscaling you when you enter the world. I think that is the wrong way around. You need to create a parallel world, where every zone is a lvl80 zone. Maybe even a few lvl81-83 zones. With hard monsters, dangerous areas, and proper rewards. Maybe allow all players to completely redo all quests again, but now at lvl80 with lvl80 mobs.

I think that someone should make a game called Raidquest or World of Raids or something like that. No levels, just 100 tiers of gear separated by 35% or so in stats, such that each tier requires one of a few dungeons to be run repeatedly to get random drops for a complete set to be able to advance to the dungeon set for the next tier. No leveling content. No “open world” other than paths between the dungeons with trash mobs. And 100 levels of carrots for the progression gamers. I would like that, because then they would all play that, and MMO developers could follow other designs for open world MMOs.

Face it, most progress/achiever gamers prefer instanced content. Open world content is “a joke” or “a zerg”. So create a more or less fully instanced game for them, and done. Print money.

Why would I be sad? We are all different people, and different things give us fulfillment. Some people like to explore details, some people like to discover new things, some people like to progress in some way, some people like to be guided, some people like to pick a specific goal and focus on that, some people like competition…
None of these things are less valid or less valuable just because they’re not my thing. If the other individual has fun with what they’re doing, and they’re not hurting me with it, it’s not my place to judge them. And yes, pity is a judgement call as well.

The only thing that makes me sad is people rushing past my dead body when there is no danger around. Why not toss me a revive, it’s nice and gives EXP

tolunart.2095:

SHM.7628:

What I learned about this game by leveling my first toon to 80 is that level really isn’t the key. Karma is. You ahve to do a ton of dynamic events to stay viable. Since, I hit the high 60’s I realized you need an insane amount of karma to get Exotics and legendary.

If your goal is to get a legendary weapon, be advised that it doesn’t really give you an in-game advantage over exotic (?) weapons. Their point is that carrying a legendary weapon requires a legendary effort, so be prepared to put in weeks or months of effort to gather the necessary “stuff” to put towards it, but the weapon itself is not the point. It’s the journey, and the fact that this journey means that it won’t be like other MMOS where every third player is carrying Gromunndungur the Sword of Awesome Awesomeness on his back.

Legendary weapons are intended to be rare, but not game changing.

Yes, you’re correct. I am in all exotics right now except for my gloves, working on the Karma for that. Weapons are exotic too. Exotic are a game changer.

I also get what you are saying about the journey. However, for me at least, going back to do areas where they scale me down in level/rewards/karma/XP just seems pointless. I know a great many people enjoy this, I feel its a grind.

I am not hardcore. If you don’t dangle the carrot in front of me, I feel its just a needsless grind. Also, my time is at a premium. I need to optimize my playtime while having fun in my limitted time. Thanks for your reply and for being respectful.

I’ve noticed that while going to vistas the majority of players will click on them and instantly skip it and run off. I also notice a lot of people just run past mobs. mmo players really are a strange bunch

I think this is one of the upsides of mainly playing single-player RPGs before this.

The attitude seems to be so different to most MMO players because the point of those games is to play through the storyline, not to get past it so you can move on to something else, and levelling or otherwise improving your character is something that happens along the way rather than the be-all and end-all of gameplay.

Admittedly there are people who will rush through the main storyline, or selected side-quests to unlock specific rewards, but they’re well aware that what they’ll be doing afterwards is back-tracking to play through the content they skipped, not demanding basically another free game because they couldn’t be bothered to play the one they’ve got.

So yes, I’ve been taking my time to explore everything and talk to everyone, as well as listen to the NPC conversations, look at the world, whatever happens to come along. I might not have gotten beyond the first zone yet but I’m pretty sure in the long run I’ll end up getting far more out of this game than if I rushed to 80 to spend the rest of my time farming Orr until I got bored.

I have a level 80 character and I haven’t even found the exotic level 80 armor Karma vendors. Where are they? If they are all hiding out in Orr it would explain why I haven’t found them yet. I’ve been waiting to do that area until I catch up in my story.

Yea they are all in Orr but they are not the only way to get exotics. There is dungeon vendors in LA that have full sets as well.