Guild Wars 2

Do you feel attached to your GW2 characters?

I ask because… i recently returned to the game after 4 months and it seems all of my 5 guild’s are dead with 6 players total logging online in the past 3 months. So I started talking to a friend on mumble and he mentioned casually that he took a break from GW2 and let his 12 yr old nephew play. He returned to find that the nephew had deleted 3 of his max level characters. And to my surprise, he just laughed about it. Laughed. And that got me thinking….

I would have freaked out if I lost 3 max level characters in the other MMOs i’ve played; I get really attached to my characters. But then I asked myself: What about GW2? Would I have reacted like my nonchalant friend? I realized – I would. I just dont care about my GW2 account. And suddenly I felt a little bummed out lol. GW2 is the most grindy game I’ve ever played, and all that grind, if it disappeared into the void, I would probably just shrug it off.

You friend is not you. You answered your own question: If it happened to you, you’d be unhappy. I imagine if his toons were deleted like that in another MMO he’d just laugh it off.

When I read people calling GW2 grindy I just can’t take them seriously.

This is why I’m glad there are a lot of different people in the world with different opinions. I’m very attached to my characters, and would probably be upset if something like that had happened.

Also, I don’t find this game nearly as grindy as other MMOs. And even when there is a grind, it’s usually because I choose to do something rather than being forced to do it, which is the case in most of those other MMOs.

I am very attached to my characters. I am not an RPer, but in a way, the 7 that I have are all individuals, and have even developed their own “personality” as I develop them.

One is a girly girl Ranger. She names her pets cute names, and tends to wear pink and purple and white.

One is the stereotypical stoic norsewoman (mesmer) who believes power and hunting prowess is more important than what color her armor is.

My main (and namesake) is the dignified “old lady” human ele. She’s the one who will jump into the middle of an argument and try to see what she can do to break it up.

The rest are just as important to me, and for different reasons.

Am I going to /slashwrists if they’re deleted? No, but I won’t be happy. I find that I am more attached to these characters, whom I have had almost a year, than I ever was to the ones in GW1, some of which are now almost as old as the game itself.

As far as grind goes, yes, there is grind…if you want to grind. I am in no hurry to max my characters, and as long as I do hearts, DE’s and craft a bit, the levels stack themselves. I don’t have t grind. In fact, my main is 80, and she leveled so fast (relatively speaking) that I didn’t notice that she had maxed until a guildie said “Grats on 80!”

Grind in GW2? If you want to know what grind is go and play a little game called Runescape…..that my friend is grind. This is all fun fun. :P

For me to get “attached” to a character, they (the characters) must first fit into the game world.
Sadly, and this has been my major quip with GW2 since beta, the armor design in the game makes them stand out like sore thumbs. My characters simply do not fit in with the NPCs around them (especially non-humans) and as such, I have no attachment to the characters.
This sadly also bleeds into not caring about the Living Story or majority of content we have. There’s a bad issue of detachment I suffer… but I don’t play the game very often anymore – only checking in now and then to see what they’ve added.

I do enjoy my quick play times, but there’s no “Attachment” to the game at all because of the (IMO) poorly designed armor choices.

I’m not nearly as attached to these characters as I was to my Guild Wars 1 characters. However, I’m far more attached to these characters that I have been to my characters in any other MMO.

The reason why I felt attached in Guild Wars 1, I think, is because my characters were going through a story and they weren’t really interchangable. Most title tracks had to worked on individually. This character had this much rep with Sunspears or Ebon Vanguard or whatever. This character was a survivor.

Also, the personal story is Guild Wars 2, just because of the nature of the game, can’t be as involving as missions in Guild Wars 1.

Take the way that missions worked. You’d do a mission and the entire area around that mission was all about what you were doing. If you were in the early part of Prophecies, your missions was about fighting charr and the entire game around you was about fighting charr.

Here, it’s very different. You have five different starting areas and you can go to any of them, then pop back and do a bit of personal story. It feels more like a game than a contiguous experience.

The price you pay for having the greater attachment to characters is the limits on your flexibility. You can jump to Lion’s Arch and any other starting area right away when you play Guild Wars 2. Try that in Guild Wars 1, when you want to get together with a friend who’s starting a character in a different game. If you start in Factions and he starts in Prophecies, you have to wait till you’re at KC or he’s at LA before you can meet up.

I’d rather have the flexibility but I can’t deny that something does get lost in the translation.

My tower had been down for 2 months. Even after It got fixed, it was in the middle of the Southsun updates, so I ended up not playing again until soon after Dragon Bash started.

Initially, I planned to delete my 80’s and start fresh, I even made a brand new Charr Ranger and got recruited to a guild so I could have a new beginning.

I ended up running AC with my new guildies, logged onto my ranger and well, I couldn’t bring myself to delete him.

My characters have all grown on me, honestly, my ID is my old WoW Worgen Huntards name.

I still from time to time will wander into Plains of Ashford on my alts and remember wandering through there the first time on my ranger.

They become a part of me, and I’d probably end up quitting for awhile if anything happened to my toons.

I’m very attached to my characters. Maybe too much since I was going to quit the game over the up coming wallet because I didn’t (still don’t) want to share gold and karma. I’m over that now.

I’ve only deleted three characters. One was my second ever (human Mesmer) and had no feelings whatsoever for him but he was only level 5. The other two were elementalists and both over 20. I took screenshots of them as a memento.

Characters can tend to stick with you based on the time and effort you invest in them. In games with a sub, characters are a monetary investment. Maybe there is some more attachment to characters in other MMOs because it takes a lot longer and costs more to achieve max level, and even after that, each piece of gear probably took hours and hours of gameplay to get.

In GW2 you can get a max level character within a week or two (actually playing, not craft boosting). And a set of top tier gear can be gotten for free from the karma vendors in Orr if you have been saving it and getting your dailies.

There isn’t much of a time or resource investment into that character yet. Now after you decided on the perfect armor look, and perfect accessories and have picked those hard to find/expensive weapon skins or are decorated with some event items or titles you earned with that character, then you start to get a little attached. That character is yours and not just a toon that went through the story and got the default end game armor.

This was the same in GW1. You could get max level and finish the story in a weekend. In Factions you were max level within an hour of starting a character. Then you start working towards your 15k armor, and title, maybe some chaos gloves or a blindfold, you hunt down each skill your character has specifically. You have hats to commemorate every holiday it’s seen and minis that mark every birthday.

The attachment is definitely there. But I would say it comes a bit later and for better reasons.

I love my characters.

It’s difficult to become attached to characters who don’t feel like they have any real attachments in their world.

I’ve recently started 3 new characters – human, asura, and charr – and I’ve been playing through the Personal Story stuff for the asura and the charr. I gotta say that right now (ignoring, for the moment, my views on the living story) it’s the Personal Story that’s (hyperbolically speaking) kind of killing the game for me. There’s not enough meat on the bones of these ‘personal’ stories, and there’s barely enough bone to flavor a soup.

My charr, for example – he hit 30 tonight and has been through the personal story up to joining an Order, but I’m not ready for him to ditch his warband and join an Order. To hell with the Orders. He’s barely had time to get to know his warband. I want him to do more – lots more! – with them. But that’s not an option. And I know from experience he’ll barely have time to get to know his Order mentor before that part of the story comes to an abrupt halt, too. Then it’s Trahearnia all the rest of the way. That’s an attachment I could do without. Ugh.

I recommend: the addition of mass quantities of ‘Side-Story’ missions: ongoing story arcs (and maybe some one-shot adventures to shake things up now and again) that our characters can experience with their warbands, krewes, families and friends, that scale to the character’s level so they can be played at any time along the way. This would also help fill in the gaps when the Personal Story jumps several levels ahead of our characters.

Another possibility: let the warbands, krewes, families/friends of our characters serve as ‘henchmen’ for use in dungeons/fractals.

To sum up: I think our characters need friends. Permanent friends, comrades at arms, and family members.

That aren’t Trahearnia.

i play guild wars 2 as if my characters have already been deleted, and i am enjoying my time with them before it happens

Tachenon.5270:

It’s difficult to become attached to characters who don’t feel like they have any real attachments in their world.

I’ve recently started 3 new characters – human, asura, and charr – and I’ve been playing through the Personal Story stuff for the asura and the charr. I gotta say that right now (ignoring, for the moment, my views on the living story) it’s the Personal Story that’s (hyperbolically speaking) kind of killing the game for me. There’s not enough meat on the bones of these ‘personal’ stories, and there’s barely enough bone to flavor a soup.

My charr, for example – he hit 30 tonight and has been through the personal story up to joining an Order, but I’m not ready for him to ditch his warband and join an Order. To hell with the Orders. He’s barely had time to get to know his warband. I want him to do more – lots more! – with them. But that’s not an option. And I know from experience he’ll barely have time to get to know his Order mentor before that part of the story comes to an abrupt halt, too. Then it’s Trahearnia all the rest of the way. That’s an attachment I could do without. Ugh.

I recommend: the addition of mass quantities of ‘Side-Story’ missions: ongoing story arcs (and maybe some one-shot adventures to shake things up now and again) that our characters can experience with their warbands, krewes, families and friends, that scale to the character’s level so they can be played at any time along the way. This would also help fill in the gaps when the Personal Story jumps several levels ahead of our characters.

Another possibility: let the warbands, krewes, families/friends of our characters serve as ‘henchmen’ for use in dungeons/fractals.

To sum up: I think our characters need friends. Permanent friends, comrades at arms, and family members.

That aren’t Trahearnia.

Absolutely! I’ve been thinking this also. Some of the early storylines are more likely LS material (second Tree, Steam creatures) but others could easily be expanded. Also, for those who play them, maybe have one or two alts to be henchmen.

Time, money, and dev inclination permitting, of course.

The motto is, do not let 12 year old little trolls play on your account.
If that happened to me the little kitten would be at ground zero!

I would have a fit honestly- just the thought of losing any of my 3 80’s make me break out in hives.

I love my characters and I am very attached to them.
They are individuals with their own personalities and I spent ages getting them just the way I like them.

At this point I would buy a character slot before I change as much as a hairstyle on any of them

Nope i dont feel myself attached to it, mostly coz the achievements r account bound. I was tryin out alts and accidentally did smth i wanted to achieve on my main. Now its all gone cause i cant even reset the achievements.

Like Vayne, I’m not ‘as’ attached to these characters as I was to their GW1 predecessors; however I am becoming more attached to some of them.

Now that I’m finding my footing in the game, and I’ve gone through and picked out armors, and dyes, and set goals, my characters feel more individualized and ‘alive’ now. It was just so darn hard to take my mesmer seriously when she started in the same skimpy armor that my ele did, they seemed so….homogonized? Like they weren’t different entities at all. I really do miss class specific armor at times, it made new characters of a different class feel different.

Anyway, now that my various characters feel like they have their own personalities (as they should), I’m getting more attached to them. I’ve already decided that the ele, necro, and mes will not be deleted…ever. Maybe a makeover kit for some tweaking, but I wont reroll them. The theif I’m still sort of meh on, and my guardian….she’s getting rerolled just as soon as I decide what to do with her. The ranger…needs a makeover. I just need to find the class/race combos that I resonate with I guess.

LanfearShadowflame.3189:

Like Vayne, I’m not ‘as’ attached to these characters as I was to their GW1 predecessors; however I am becoming more attached to some of them.

Now that I’m finding my footing in the game, and I’ve gone through and picked out armors, and dyes, and set goals, my characters feel more individualized and ‘alive’ now. It was just so darn hard to take my mesmer seriously when she started in the same skimpy armor that my ele did, they seemed so….homogonized? Like they weren’t different entities at all. I really do miss class specific armor at times, it made new characters of a different class feel different.

Anyway, now that my various characters feel like they have their own personalities (as they should), I’m getting more attached to them. I’ve already decided that the ele, necro, and mes will not be deleted…ever. Maybe a makeover kit for some tweaking, but I wont reroll them. The theif I’m still sort of meh on, and my guardian….she’s getting rerolled just as soon as I decide what to do with her. The ranger…needs a makeover. I just need to find the class/race combos that I resonate with I guess.

A lot of this has to do with having some sort of “theme” for your character. My necro as an example is hard as nails and a bit unfeeling. Power hungry too. My sylvari mesmer is almost exactly opposite. By playing characters differently, I come to understand them and like them more…but you have to put more effort in this game into doing it than say Guild Wars 1. It’s still better for me than any other MMO I’ve played though…just not as good as Guild Wars 1 for character attachment.

I’m attached to my guardian simply because it has three soulbound legendaries and a lot of other gold invested in it, including a full divinity set, full zerker set, MF set and tank set.

It’s like getting stuck in a marriage because you invested so much in it and filing for divorce will be messy

I’m extremely attached to my character. It may be because he’s a fluffy charr warrior with flowers for footsteps, and it may also be because of the /sleep emote, but I find that I’m very close to my character.

Vayne.8563:

A lot of this has to do with having some sort of “theme” for your character. My necro as an example is hard as nails and a bit unfeeling. Power hungry too. My sylvari mesmer is almost exactly opposite. By playing characters differently, I come to understand them and like them more…but you have to put more effort in this game into doing it than say Guild Wars 1. It’s still better for me than any other MMO I’ve played though…just not as good as Guild Wars 1 for character attachment.

I wonder if this might be intentional though. If you put more time into ‘defining’ your character, you may feel more attached to it, because you worked that much harder to make it what it is. Unique from each other.

You’re right though, I do have to put a lot more work into making each of my characters ‘be their own individual’. Since all classes can role swap, and now no longer even have profession defining armor, they felt lost in a sea of monotony. Seeing my necro is the same armor as my mesmer (roughly the same level) made me feel really blase about playing them. There was a whole lot of ‘really whats the difference between minions and clones other than looks, they both play the same.’ Very disheartening. Still, finding my style for each as they level, and setting goals (like armor) has helped to bring them to life for me, creating the gap of difference between their classes, and after putting so much work into it, I’m definitely disinclined to just blow them away.

I’m not attached at all. The only thing that would bother me about them being deleted would be the money/laurels/dungeon tokens I lost by losing the character.

As it stands when I hit 80 on a character, I gear them up within an hour and then I have no real goal for them after that and I usually move on to an alt. I’ll still play them all, I usually swap them out for running dungeons and doing events etc. but no real attachment.

That’s just me though. I know some people invest a lot of time into one individual character whereas I am an altaholic.

attached to character? no

attached to one time back piece never to come back in game? a bit

O.O"

Guild Wars 2 is the most grindy MMO you have ever played!? Please recommend some of the more casual ones for me.

To get attached to a character, I must feel the story, feel the world and feel the gameplay with some degree of intensity and investment.

It’s hard to get attached when the main story is poor and jumps from place to place, with large gaps of nothing inbetween; when exploring the world is all about filling bars or rushing to the next heart/ icon in the map; when there’s almost no adventure going on; when lore is poor and most of the new mechanics introduced are lore-less.

It doesn’t helps at all that the world is inconsistent and doesn’t feels believable. Everytime I look at the armor designs, at the inconsistency between regions, at several new features, I’m consistently reminded that a lot of stuff is very obviously done for the sake of the online shop or for the sake of trying to appeal to as many players as possible. That the entire world is a toy land, with a casino/ gambing sub-theme.

Very rarely have I felt like I was in a journey, or that there was something awesome to find. Very rarely did I find awesome lore details after exploring an old ruins, or an interesting treasure hidden at some corner, or an epic monster where I had to work hard to overcome. Most rewards are crappy or generalized, and champion bosses are either impossible to solo or easy encounters that simply take too much time (for too little reward). Very rarely did I find a hidden cavern where I could say, “wow, what a discovery, I must come here again!”

Likewise, the lack of community-driven tools make this game’s community very cold. There’s almost no meaningful interaction with other players. Watching players in the map is nothing more than watching a character moving and disappearing with a name over their head, and usually dressed with something that doesn’t even fits the game. There’s lack of guild mechanics, there’s lack of team playing, etc.

It’s hard to feel attached to our characters, because the game invests very little on immersion, and has too many design choices that constantly clash with whetever immersion it still has.

Tyria feels like a product more than it feels like a world. A service designed to appeal to every single taste, at the cost of consistency, at the cost of immersion.

DiogoSilva.7089:

To get attached to a character, I must feel the story, feel the world and feel the gameplay with some degree of intensity and investment.

It’s hard to get attached when the main story is poor and jumps from place to place, with large gaps of nothing inbetween; when exploring the world is all about filling bars or rushing to the next heart/ icon in the map; when there’s almost no adventure going on; when lore is poor and most of the new mechanics introduced are lore-less.

It doesn’t helps at all that the world is inconsistent and doesn’t feels believable. Everytime I look at the armor designs, at the inconsistency between regions, at several new features, I’m consistently reminded that a lot of stuff is very obviously done for the sake of the online shop or for the sake of trying to appeal to as many players as possible. That the entire world is a toy land, with a casino/ gambing sub-theme.

Very rarely have I felt like I was in a journey, or that there was something awesome to find. Very rarely did I find awesome lore details after exploring an old ruins, or an interesting treasure hidden at some corner, or an epic monster where I had to work hard to overcome. More rewards are crappy and/ or random, lore is lacking, champion bosses are either impossible solo or easy encoutners that take too much time for too little reward. Very rarely did I find a hidden cavern where I could say, “wow, what a discovery, I must come here again!”

Likewise, the lack of community-driven tools make this game’s community very cold. There’s almost no meaningful interaction with other players. Watching players in the map is nothing more than watching a character moving and disappearing with a name over their head, and usually dressed with something that doesn’t even fits the game.

It’s hard to feel us attached to our characters, because the game invests very little on immersion, and has too many design choices that constantly clash with whetever immersion still remains.

Tyria feels like a product more than it feels like a world. A service designed to appeal to every single taste, at the cost of consistency, at the cost of immersion.

This is one of the reasons I tend to turn off my map icons when I play the game. Then there is no running from heart to heart. After you get your world complete, if you want to feel the world, get ride of the map icons.

It makes a huge difference.

I’m attached to my character’s voice most of all. When I play alts and someone else uses my main’s voice I almost have to re-orient myself because I associate that voice with a completely different playstyle. I tend to play alts with the sound off now.

ParnAshwind.4823:

O.O"

Guild Wars 2 is the most grindy MMO you have ever played!? Please recommend some of the more casual ones for me.

lol everything of value in this game costs 250 of rare X, 500 of rare Y, 1 of rare Z (bought with 200 of rare A).

just because the grind is optional doesnt mean there isnt grind. And considering the entire game is a cosmetic fluff collection game, and it all costs rare items you need to GRIND events, dungeons, etc for… ya thats grind. big grind.

Answer me this.. what goals or game activities do you do that arent attached to a currency grind, hmmm?

ya, thats what I thought. nothing.

thefounder.2074:

ParnAshwind.4823:

O.O"

Guild Wars 2 is the most grindy MMO you have ever played!? Please recommend some of the more casual ones for me.

lol everything of value in this game costs 250 of rare X, 500 of rare Y, 1 of rare Z (bought with 200 of rare A).

just because the grind is optional doesnt mean there isnt grind. And considering the entire game is a cosmetic fluff collection game, and it all costs rare items you need to GRIND events, dungeons, etc for… ya thats grind. big grind.

Answer me this.. what goals or game activities do you do that arent attached to a currency grind, hmmm?

ya, thats what I thought. nothing.

Well, since I like less flamboyant equipment, I really cant find any reason to “grind” really.

Sometimes I do events, sometimes I do dungeons just for the fun of it. Otherwise, I pretty like running around in WvW with no particular goal in mind.

I sure hope ArenaNet can someday come up with equipment that I like so that I have a reason to grind =P

edit:
Try playing Korean made games. Now that is GRIND; I kill 50-100 mobs every minute there and I have to kill 1000 mobs to get a piece of drop that I need 20-50 pieces of…

thefounder.2074:

ParnAshwind.4823:

O.O"

Guild Wars 2 is the most grindy MMO you have ever played!? Please recommend some of the more casual ones for me.

lol everything of value in this game costs 250 of rare X, 500 of rare Y, 1 of rare Z (bought with 200 of rare A).

just because the grind is optional doesnt mean there isnt grind. And considering the entire game is a cosmetic fluff collection game, and it all costs rare items you need to GRIND events, dungeons, etc for… ya thats grind. big grind.

Answer me this.. what goals or game activities do you do that arent attached to a currency grind, hmmm?

ya, thats what I thought. nothing.

But since I’m not locked out of content by not having specific gear (with the exception of the highest level fractals),. it doesn’t matter. In other games you HAVE TO HAVE X gear to progress. Not so here.

Hell you can do all the living story stuff on a low level character. It’s just not that type of game. If you come here playing Guild Wars 2 like every other MMO, believing you need BIS gear to do stuff, it’s a grind.

If you just play and get stuff when you get it, it’s not a grind. And because the content isn’t gated by gear, the grind IS optional. You don’t have to do it to play the entire game.

Vayne.8563:

But since I’m not locked out of content by not having specific gear (with the exception of the highest level fractals),. it doesn’t matter. In other games you HAVE TO HAVE X gear to progress. Not so here.

To be honest, how much of that has to do with design, and how much of that has to do with the lack of challenge? It’s possible that as harder content comes in, the less skilled players will find a need to get better gear.

GW2 isn’t “grindy” at all. Unless you’re going for the tough to get skins, like Legendaries or Infinite Light/Foefire’s GS. Maybe dungeon tokens? But they are all skins.

You want to know grindy?
Play Aion. You actually have to get Best in Slot gear to do something. Here in GW2? Gold rarity can even work fine….
Oh I finally have 50e gear!
2.0 comes out
Oh I finally have eternal PvP gear! and Stormwing!
3.0 comes out
Oh now I have to get that eternal elite PvP gear! WHAT? New tier of Medals? MITHRIL MEDAL?
4.0 comes out
I don’t even…..

Vayne.8563:

thefounder.2074:

ParnAshwind.4823:

O.O"

Guild Wars 2 is the most grindy MMO you have ever played!? Please recommend some of the more casual ones for me.

lol everything of value in this game costs 250 of rare X, 500 of rare Y, 1 of rare Z (bought with 200 of rare A).

just because the grind is optional doesnt mean there isnt grind. And considering the entire game is a cosmetic fluff collection game, and it all costs rare items you need to GRIND events, dungeons, etc for… ya thats grind. big grind.

Answer me this.. what goals or game activities do you do that arent attached to a currency grind, hmmm?

ya, thats what I thought. nothing.

But since I’m not locked out of content by not having specific gear (with the exception of the highest level fractals),. it doesn’t matter. In other games you HAVE TO HAVE X gear to progress. Not so here.

Hell you can do all the living story stuff on a low level character. It’s just not that type of game. If you come here playing Guild Wars 2 like every other MMO, believing you need BIS gear to do stuff, it’s a grind.

If you just play and get stuff when you get it, it’s not a grind. And because the content isn’t gated by gear, the grind IS optional. You don’t have to do it to play the entire game.

optional? what else is there to do? seriously.. tell me what you do that does NOT involve currency grind? seriously. GW2’s foundation is collecting cosmetic items.. thats it. and it all involves currency grind. you just get the OPTION to choose which to grind. still grinding though.

The thing is, you are looking only at the goal. If you just want to get to the top of a mountain then climbing it will feel exhausting. If you climb that same mountain because you like mountain climbing, you’ll have fun.

I, personally, like the Claw of Jormag fight. I’m not there for the daily treasure chest. I’m there to see how many people I can res before the chill downs me. I’m like to stand in the middle of the action and dodge his attacks instead of standing somewhat safely on the side. I pan up and religiously watch him get shot out of the sky, bounce off a mountain cliff and claw his way onto another. I look forward to seeing how many ice columns I can take out so the bomb golems can get to him. I don’t do this fight every day. I do it when I want to be impressed by it.

If you want to know what a real grind is, try Ragnarok Online. As much as I love that game, I can’t be bothered to level a character up past 3 classes, be reborn and have to level them up all over again just to reach another class. And, if you think the legendaries her are bad, try getting them in that game. You have to collect the stuff and hand over all the materials to a blacksmith then hope he can forge what you want. There’s a chance that he will fail and you’ll lose all your materials.

Back in GW1 I was surely attached to my Canthan Mesmer because everything about the first GW was great , from the lore , the story , and the immersion . GW2 however is not really doing it for me and I don’t really have character attachments , so I don’t know how long I would stay .

I absolutely love my Guild wars 1 and 2 accounts. I would never leave them, because I really grown with this Game (expecially Gw1). That means a lot to me, I feel attached so much to my characters.

I have very little attachment at all to my characters. I think it is one of the big flaws in the game that we don’t get a “bio” option and a way for other people to see it.