Guild Wars 2

Thank you ArenaNet! You have given me a game that conjures up the same feeling I had when I first stepped into EQ1’s Norrath back in 1999. Tyria feels like a living breathing world full of secrets at every turn and I love that.

Some of my favorite locations so far

<spoiler>
IceDevil Needle mines, The three jumping puzzles in Lion’s Arch, Lornar’s Pass, Some crazy underwater cavern on the bottom of the ocean floor in bloodtide coast, Mount Maelstrom, and my absolutely favorite the hidden cave off of Foundation 86 which leads to a climbable ice pillar into a jumping puzzle.
</spoiler>

One thing that I really missed since the days of EQ was open world dungeons and these cave systems kind of bring that feeling back. There is a sense of danger and mystery when you stumble on these and I absolutely love it. THANK YOU!

Yes the edition of a world meant to be played in is indeed a refreshing change.

no it gave u 3 worlds… how is this game not a map full of rectangles?

I also forgot to add frostgorge sound. I think its one of the best designed snow areas in the game. When you first encounter the bay its an incredible sight.

Ironangel.1548:

wow gave us a world to explore too, got more of a point?

WoW gave you a map with directions plastered all over it.

i agree this game is fantastic for exploring and i only think it will get better, the vistas are also a great idea they get people out and about to the remote parts which may otherwise be overlooked, great map design.

I’m actually unimpressed with the map design.

Zones are rectangles, with very limited, abrupt transitions to other zones. Compare even to WoW (2004) you had continuous zone boundaries, cross almost wherever you like and go back and forth at will.

Sometimes you can climb a 45-degree slope. Other times you can’t climb a 30 degree slope.

Inside of zones, you frequently encounter invisible walls, and abritrarily restricted travel. I think I understand why they limit it so much, but it feels like a throw-back to old-fashioned rpgs that don’t promote a feeling of being in an explorable world.

I went to explore an island with a lighthouse recently. Approach it and WHAM invisible wall on the face. Still hurting from that…

/sympathy for mimes

It’s true that the world is gorgeous, but even as an avid explorer, I’m really, REALLY tired of having to kill something every 10 feet to see it. It’s not that killing things is hard. That’s actually the problem. It’s predictable. A foregone conclusion. This thing keeping me from getting “over there” to see what’s there will, definitely, absolutely, 100% of the time die. It’s just a matter of time.

That’s mind breakingly dull, and I have no choice. There is no stealth option, and since I’m deleveled there is no walk past as they quiver in fear and leave me alone option.

It wouldn’t be so bad if it wasn’t so OBVIOUS that these road blocks were carefully placed by a human in order to slow you down.

Ever notice how many times to get to a crafting node, you have no choice but to go through some kind of aggro creature?

The man behind the curtain keeps standing right out in front of me waving his naughty bits at me and taunting me.

It’s getting old…

u just act like ur amazed that there is maps to explore like you came from tetris.

Yes that’s what mmos have in them.

Not that I want to defend WoW or anything, but it’s clear that Blizzard didn’t intend to do what Anet is doing. It would have been an added value to their game for sure.
WoW gave us a world to…it was just less alive and without jumping puzzles. If that means it’s just a map, then a map it is.
But nobody told me I couldn’t do my own jumping puzzles, the world was big enough.
And the way they combined things was fantastic, it’s hard to deny that. I’m starting to believe they did it by accident :-)

mulch.2586:

I’m actually unimpressed with the map design.

Zones are rectangles, with very limited, abrupt transitions to other zones. Compare even to WoW (2004) you had continuous zone boundaries, cross almost wherever you like and go back and forth at will.

Sometimes you can climb a 45-degree slope. Other times you can’t climb a 30 degree slope.

Inside of zones, you frequently encounter invisible walls, and abritrarily restricted travel. I think I understand why they limit it so much, but it feels like a throw-back to old-fashioned rpgs that don’t promote a feeling of being in an explorable world.

I went to explore an island with a lighthouse recently. Approach it and WHAM invisible wall on the face. Still hurting from that…

/sympathy for mimes

Hmmm. Yeah. I’d noticed it, but really only at a subconscious level. It reminds me of EQ actually. That’s REALLY old school. “Train to zone!!!”

I don’t miss either of those things and they snuck the zones in on me by putting a shiny thing at the zone lines.

Sigh.

Funny… WoW had edges… stopped you from doing things, exploring things. The shape of the map really has nothing to do with anything…

If the box is a rectangle and there is something in every inch of that rectangle… it’s far more stuff than if it had an irregular shape and most of that space was empty dead space.

Besides in WoW, you fly over everything anyways… it might as well be no larger than a postage stamp. You don’t actually go out in the world anymore, you merely fly over it.

I agree this is the first MMO that actually has something resembling a world that you can explore. Where you wonder what’s behind the next hill. Where things feel alive, and look breathtaking. Where you can find secret locations that really can amaze you and aren’t trivial. People who talk about rectangles and WoW having a ‘world’ will never understand it I’m talking about the thing that Gothic had, but Oblivion did not, what Deus Ex had, but Call of Duty did not, what Unreal had, but Quake did not.

World of Warcraft was awesome. Guild Wars 2 is awesome. I don’t why everyone has to be a hater all the time. It gets really old; the entire MMO community whining all day.

Everyone seems to be looking for some kind of fulfillment that I don’t think any game was ever meant to supply. When I am not raging about it, it just makes me sad.

Gimano.7381:

Not that I want to defend WoW or anything, but it’s clear that Blizzard didn’t intend to do what Anet is doing. It would have been an added value to their game for sure.
WoW gave us a world to…it was just less alive and without jumping puzzles. If that means it’s just a map, then a map it is.
But nobody told me I couldn’t do my own jumping puzzles, the world was big enough.
And the way they combined things was fantastic, it’s hard to deny that. I’m starting to believe they did it by accident :-)

I think the original developers of WoW did a decent job of this. But it all went downhill after a certain point. It felt more like you were playing “video game levels” and didn’t give you the same open ended feeling like GW2 or EQ1 does.

In EQ1 obviously there were no maps and you could easily get lost. Some people view this as a flaw in game design but a lot of people loved it too. Mainly because you had the option to take that risk or choose a safe route instead. If you stuck to the roads you were generally safe but if you went off the roads you took a big risk but not without reward.

For example in lesser faydark getting lost was soo easy to do, but going off that road meant you could randomly run into that patrolling brownie named thistle who carried the braided ivy chords which sold for 500 plat.

Also on the topic of exploration, I was bold and went out into that forest and got lost and actually ran into a zone I never new existed; Some vampire’s castle called castle mistmoore. It blew my mind.

Most modern video games lack this kind of exploration. Things that exist just to be cool but don’t necessarily serve a solid purpose. GW2 brings a lot of that true exploration back but the modern MMO community is so diverse now that a lot of people that “got it” back then, don’t “get it” now.

Manifoldgodhead.2356:

World of Warcraft was awesome. Guild Wars 2 is awesome. I don’t why everyone has to be a hater all the time. It gets really old; the entire MMO community whining all day.

Everyone seems to be looking for some kind of fulfillment that I don’t think any game was ever meant to supply. When I am not raging about it, it just makes me sad.

I think there is fulfillment we just don’t hear about it as much. For me the EQ1 was the only game that did it, but now GW2 can be added to the list as well.

EQ1 felt bigger, more real, and more dangerous to me.

The poster above me points out that you didn’t have maps, or minimaps, and certainly didn’t have instant WP travel.

I like what ANet did, but I think they fouled it with the clunky aspects – the invisible walls, arbitrary walls, and inexplicably unclimbable slopes.

Just trying to get around in a home city, for example, there’s sooo many streets you can’t get there from here – have to run a mile to get 50 feet. No real world would ever be designed that way.
Not having places to go (seriously, there’s not a single clothes vendor in the whole city?), can’t even sit on the chairs.

It’s a great world. It’s a shame they stopped short of making it feel more natural.

If it was so great why is the playerbase leaving or not loggin in once they got 80? hmmm

http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

Ironangel.1548:

If it was so great why is the playerbase leaving or not loggin in once they got 80? hmmm

http://beta.xfire.com/games/gw2

Personally I don’t really care? Does it really matter if I like it? Besides xfire is completely unreliable.

Ironangel.1548:

u just act like ur amazed that there is maps to explore like you came from tetris.

Yes that’s what mmos have in them.

How come every time someone says something positive, someone has to jump in and say “NO WRONG WOW DID IT BETTER”.

Every time.

“I agree this is the first MMO that actually has something resembling a world that you can explore. Where you wonder what’s behind the next hill. Where things feel alive, and look breathtaking. Where you can find secret locations that really can amaze you and aren’t trivial. People who talk about rectangles and WoW having a ‘world’ will never understand it I’m talking about the thing that Gothic had, but Oblivion did not, what Deus Ex had, but Call of Duty did not, what Unreal had, but Quake did not.”

Can’t quote for some reason but I totally agree with this guy and his examples…there’s something about those games that separated them from the rest in terms of immersion, and guild wars 2 has it.

So much so I’m still in the starter areas on 4 characters because I’m so in awe of the world I want to savor it like a fine wine. Especially caledon forest, that place is simply gorgeous…