Guild Wars 2

To all the people saying gw1 misses dodging, thats not true.
U can dodge in gw1 (sidestepping to dodge ranged attacks).

Positioning and movement is also extremely important in gw 1 and there is tons of cc avaible to use.
So I’m surprised to say the least at some of the things I have read so far about what is missing in the game I know everything about.

I’m really happy that a hardcore GW1 lover like Vayne was able to get the spelling of the ZAISHEN menagerie right. Thanks for supporting GW1 Vayne, I can tell you loved the game just as much as me.

Esplen.3940:

I totally forgot about dinosaurs, I apologize. Closest I remember are Raptors… mmmm raptor farming..

Fun, fun.

Meanwhile, some 250 or so years ago…

Man I miss the GW1 days. The community was one of a kind. Meeting up with a stranger and spending the next few hours beating missions and quests. By the time you’d depart, you were no longer strangers, but friends.

Something that I definitely lost when I went to GW2.

I remember getting GWAMM after all those great hours pursuing it. All the people who would congratulate you from all over Tyria. It was the small things like that, that made the game one of a kind, in my opinion.

I miss the Gargoyles. Remember my first experience in gw prophecies ascalon region, killing alot of these fellows. Like this fellow (Spasmo Thunderbolt):

Bolbo Baggins.8594:

I miss the Gargoyles. Remember my first experience in gw prophecies ascalon region, killing alot of these fellows. Like this fellow (Spasmo Thunderbolt):

Sarisa.4731:

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Which brings me back to my point, how has everyone managed to forget that GW1 had frickin’ DINOSAURS in it????

(…)
Hard Mode – Or difficulty levels like my previous MMO (normal mode doable by most PUGs; hard needs a bit of organization, but has higher drop rates; elite for the most experienced organized groups, but with even higher drop rates) . I’m still too inexperienced to do much with hard mode in GW1, but I appreciate it being there for those who have put in the time, money for gear, and the desire for challenge. It would only work for instanced areas in GW2, but it would allow groups to select their desired risk/reward ratio.
(…)

This!! So much!!

I understand, it won’t work the same way in GW2 and its open, shared world, but, man, was this fun in GW1! Vanquishing zones was a great challenge, and the HM dungeons really required some work!

Maybe you could make it work in GW2, actually. You can already instantiate new zones, i.e. “overflows”. So just make a few of these for hard mode. Have people queue up for them, if too many folks want in.

Tricky thing is, in GW1 you had heroes and henchmen to fill your party, so you either have to tune the GW2 HM zone to a party of 5, or for a solo player. Both, ideally and since we’re shooting the breeze.

Vayne.8563:

Astral Projections.7320:

Vayne.8563:

Astral Projections.7320:

The game felt so huge.

By the time I bought it, the EOTN had been released. I played all the way from the northernmost edge in Jaga Morraine down to the southernmost areas in Cantha, all across the parched plains of Elona and up to again the endlessly burning forests of the Charr area.

I miss the scale and scope of the dungeons. Not cramped rooms filled with seemingly endless trash mobs but whole maps in their own right where you carefully maneuvered among the mobs, taking them out one by one. (And the Dreadspawn Maw in the Domain of Anguish, aka DoA or Dead on Arrival, scared the spit out of me by coming out of the ground right beside me the first time I was there). The Guild Wars 2 dungeons don’t evoke the same feelings of battling dangerous foes.

By comparison, Guild Wars 2 feels so much smaller.

Keep in mind, I was able to finish all four Guild Wars 1 titles in a single week once.

I was talking about moving across the landscape and how big it felt. How big the dungeons were and how hard to fight the individual mobs were. Not whether one person could finish the game fast if they wanted to.

Guild Wars 1 (not dungeons the world) gave the illusion of size by limiting where you could and couldn’t go. It felt big because you could never go in a straight line to anywhere. You snaked back and forth on a path or one of a couple of paths through a large zone that was mostly inaccessible.

Take a look at the area north of Piken Square. It’s not really that big. But it’s very very hard to navigate. The illusion of size.

if i wanted to i could finish GW2 within a week too and GW2 has 4X more levels to go trough, GW1 is still at least 3X bigger in land mass and i am not even talking about dungeons, PvP arena’s, AB arena’s, elite missions and such…..

it would be cool if they turn the HoM in gw2 into something similar to the Zaishen menagerie. There is already 4 pets there for those that have 30 points so why not add more?

I miss the Underworld. I miss the Fissure of Woe. I miss going there for the first time and experiencing them.

I miss FOWSC.

I miss the Jade Sea. I miss Alliance battles.

I miss exploring the Northern Shiverpeaks. And the Eye of the North.

I miss the Ring of fire island chain. I miss the catacombs under Ascalon.
I miss pre-searing.

I miss build templates. I miss capes.
I miss Elite Templar and Elite Platemail.
I miss the Hall of Monuments.
I miss Devona, Aidan, Mhelno, Lina and Eve.

I miss the dungeons in EOTN and the Ebon Vanguard operatives.
I miss Gwen. And Keiran.

I miss the community – the people that made up that game.
I miss my old guilds. I miss Guild Halls.

I miss the old holidays ( Halloween and Wintersday).
I miss the Hidden City of Adashim.
I miss the Crystal Desert. And the Forgotten.

Can’t type it all out – too much nostalgia.

Vayne.8563:

The two things I really miss from Guild Wars 1 that didn’t make an appearance in this game, I hardly ever see mentioned at all.

The Zhaitian Managerie
The ability to view the game through the eyes of a teammate while you’re dead.

Those are two things I’d have loved to see here.

That’s Zaishen Menagerie, mate. The Zhaitan Menagerie is in GW2. It’s called Cursed Shore.

The death penalty

Vayne.8563:

The Zhaitian Managerie

When did Zhaitan get his own menagerie?!

Sorry, I couldn’t help myself. But I do miss the Zaishen and the Battle Isles. Overall, I miss how deep the story of Guild Wars 1 seemed…the way the missions/quests worked and the different areas they uncovered felt more fluid in a linear story. Guild Wars 2 is okay, but outside of the Personal/Living Story it seems the components of world interaction are missing.

I was severely disappointed when they postponed Living Story Season 2 – there are enough story links that they have to work with and at this rate of turnout I’ll be playing this game 10 years just to get the story fulfilled.

CrashTestAuto.9108:

Esplen.3940:

I totally forgot about dinosaurs, I apologize. Closest I remember are Raptors… mmmm raptor farming..

I did wonder :P

Which brings me back to my point, how has everyone managed to forget that GW1 had frickin’ DINOSAURS in it????

Well, my warrior and mesmer could be to blame for the absence of dinosaurs. Perhaps their reproductive cycle is far less adaptive than all of the other wildlife in Tyria. While the centaurs were able to make a comeback – dinosaurs, unfortunately, were not.

Vanquishing maps…

Oh yeah, forgot:

Rep grinding
Checklist builds
Cosmetic grinding
RNG
Killing the same boss repeatedly till the gods saw favor and dropped a weapon
55 monk
My character had a voice in the story
Touch ranger
Not able to move five feet in prophecies in any zone without having to fight a group of mobs

Astral Projections.7320:

Vayne.8563:

Astral Projections.7320:

Vayne.8563:

Astral Projections.7320:

The game felt so huge.

By the time I bought it, the EOTN had been released. I played all the way from the northernmost edge in Jaga Morraine down to the southernmost areas in Cantha, all across the parched plains of Elona and up to again the endlessly burning forests of the Charr area.

I miss the scale and scope of the dungeons. Not cramped rooms filled with seemingly endless trash mobs but whole maps in their own right where you carefully maneuvered among the mobs, taking them out one by one. (And the Dreadspawn Maw in the Domain of Anguish, aka DoA or Dead on Arrival, scared the spit out of me by coming out of the ground right beside me the first time I was there). The Guild Wars 2 dungeons don’t evoke the same feelings of battling dangerous foes.

By comparison, Guild Wars 2 feels so much smaller.

Keep in mind, I was able to finish all four Guild Wars 1 titles in a single week once.

I was talking about moving across the landscape and how big it felt. How big the dungeons were and how hard to fight the individual mobs were. Not whether one person could finish the game fast if they wanted to.

Guild Wars 1 (not dungeons the world) gave the illusion of size by limiting where you could and couldn’t go. It felt big because you could never go in a straight line to anywhere. You snaked back and forth on a path or one of a couple of paths through a large zone that was mostly inaccessible.

Take a look at the area north of Piken Square. It’s not really that big. But it’s very very hard to navigate. The illusion of size.

Oh I know all that. I didn’t say they were bigger, I said they gw1 felt bigger. And it still does, Guild Wars 1 gives the illusion of more space by being spread out across a bigger potion of the known maps. By having Elona and Cantha, the Crystal Desert and the far north. By having the ring of fire and the huge dungeons that were whole maps in their own right.

There may be more map to Guild Wars 2 but it feels much more limited in size without the other continents and the large dungeons.

You did say this is a thread about nostalgia and this is what I feel nostalgic for.

GW1 maps was way bigger ..time how long it takes to cross a map in gws 1 vs gws 2….the maps was/ are huge vs the maps of gws 2

I miss Rotscale and the frustration of Gargoyles shutting my energy down.
Then I miss the satisfaction of bludgeoning them.

Neko Dudley.2495:

Vanquishing maps…

Dude! Lonar’s Pass. I don’t think I spent much time in LP, so after having cleared maybe 90%, I thought, Hey, what’s this?, when I came to Grenth’s temple. Oh, it’s clickable! Will it spawn a boss monster? clicks - loading screen appears Oh, nonononoNONONONO!!! character is in underworld - all vanquish progress is reset - have to run all the way back from Camp Rankor through Snake Dance and Dreadnought’s Drift to get back to Lonar’s Pass

In no particular order:
(my opinion)

• Guild Halls
• 8 person party
• Various farms other than 2-3 dungeons and credit card
• Lore
• Expansions
• Underworld
• Fissure of Woe
• First person camera
• Capes
• Elite skins earned instead of bought with credit card
• Green weapons
• Alliance battles
• The Guild Wars 1 Anet krew back when they had a passion for Tyria
• Halloween
• Build diversity
• Templates
• Izzy’s balancing (never thought I’d say this)
• Hall of Heroes
• Non-rectangle zones
• Non-casual driven content
• Cantha
• Elona
• Crystal Desert
• Fire Islands
• Mursaat
• Ethnic musical scores
• Drok’s runs
• Port Sledge (was our hangout)
• The other two Anet founders (I don’t like Mike)
• Lore
• Did I say lore?
• Assassins
• Mesmers
• Glint killing us because of our horrible dance grooves
• Abaddon joining in with our sweet, sweet dance moves (we took lessons somewhere in between)

my dervish healer
endless energy, butt-loads of self regen and large spike heals for allies :-3

This is a tricky subject for me. I really tried to think of what I “miss” from GW1 that isn’t here and I am really, really struggling. I find that GW2 does much of the equivalent stuff better and what it doesn’t have, isn’t a big deal (to me personally).

- I actually don’t miss huge numbers of skills
- I don’t miss Hard Mode
- I don’t miss the story (at least prophecies and factions – they were truly dire)
- I don’t miss the restrictive pathing on the landscapes

I guess if I was to name what I do miss;

- The races as they were in GW1. Really, the differences between races feel blurred and lost now they can be part of any alliance. Charr don’t act like Charr, Norn not always acting like Norn and so on. Maybe in reality the strength of charcters was just better in GW1.

- I miss certain regions, but I suspect they will come in time. Certainly Maguuma is a massive improvement over the GW1 counterpart for me. I have equally high expectations for Far North and Crystal Desert.

- I miss questing. Never thought I’d say that and I know it doesn’t really fit in GW2, but DE’s need more depth to them to be as fun as some GW1 quests. I think this comes down to GW1 presenting its lore better despite have a naff story.

- Alliance Battles. Great memories. WVW is fun, but AB remains prob my all time favourite pvp experience and it was perfect for casuals like me.

- Content added in large chunks. I understand the LS I really do, but I miss having a big chunk of content put in front of me and doing it at my leisure. Some of that is addressed with S2, but it’s still not quite there for me (yet).

- Dervishes. Before they utterly destroyed the class for me in the last rebalance, these were so much fun!

Music – launch GW2 music was poor (except the GW1 stuff which rarely cycles in). The new S2 stuff is very good though.

- The Banana Scythe. Best…weapon…ever.

That’s it really and none of those are game breaking exemptions for me. I’m mostly happy with GW2, I just want to see a bolstering of core content (ie more DE’s, improved bosses, unskippable dungeons) , return of SAB, and new zones

I think it’s shorter if I list what I don’t miss about GW1:

-After the release of expansions , I do agree the amount of skills was a bit too much
-I always found exploration a little annoying there, especially when I wanted to look for the last 0,1% to complete my title and spent hours looking at the map and thinking “Where the heck is it?”
-the fact I couldn’t extinct the charrs (Believe me, I tried).
- the RNG bosses around prophecies when I was skill hunting.
- I agree the combat could use a lot of improvement, but I would find GW2 a lot more intresting with instances, good AI heroes and trinity.
sorry, I’m not good at this, can’t think about more atm but I’ll try to expand the list.

I should add to my list:

• profession-specific armor. When ironically you could look like a kitten dark and hunched necromancer while using divine AND dark magic…. Now you look like elementalist/necro/mesmer/all of them/neither of them while being restricted to skills of your one and only profession…

GW1 nostalgia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xssb7WDSZIs

Even older nostalgia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-Ii894ZFKg

What I miss. In no particular order.
-Ghost-In-A-Box
-Pre-Searing I love that place – Death leveled 2 chars for LDoA
-Nicholas the Traveler every Monday.
-Piken Square and the horrible crew that hung there.
-Nine Rings (not really)
-Finding a Black Dye, after 7 years it was still a rush
-Guild Halls
-working on Builds for me and for my Heroes
-pre-nerf Verata’s Sacrifice ( I kept hoping they’d revert it)
-The armors
-A drop was yours to use or sell, very few account bound items

Hunting down rare skills BEFORE THE CHANGE. When you had to use the capture signet at just the right time it 100% changed the encounter for some enemies. You didn’t just have to kill the boss, you had to figure out how to get the boss to use the skill in the first place and then find an opening to cap it. In fact, many times you had to actively avoid killing the boss. It was great and unique for 99% of the skills and for the 1% that the boss just wouldn’t use the skill, well that could have been easily fixed on a per enemy basis.

The traits in GW2 just aren’t the same since they were just tacked on to existing content that in no way changes it. You just do the same thing you’ve always done and happen to get an extra trait as a bonus. The other thing is there just aren’t that many unique enemies for a solo player to hunt. Champions could fill this gap but the design of GW2 means you’ll have a ton of other mooks scaling them up and lessening your personal impact on the encounter. Also, champions all drop the same lame loot bags/boxes instead of something unique to that champion (for the majority). Skill hunting in GW1 there were obviously some repeats for enemies having the same elite but it was at an acceptably low level and often times even enemies with the same elites didn’t have identical skillsets so the encounters still played differently.

Also, the loading times.

virus.4370:

Astral Projections.7320:

Vayne.8563:

Astral Projections.7320:

Vayne.8563:

Astral Projections.7320:

The game felt so huge.

By the time I bought it, the EOTN had been released. I played all the way from the northernmost edge in Jaga Morraine down to the southernmost areas in Cantha, all across the parched plains of Elona and up to again the endlessly burning forests of the Charr area.

I miss the scale and scope of the dungeons. Not cramped rooms filled with seemingly endless trash mobs but whole maps in their own right where you carefully maneuvered among the mobs, taking them out one by one. (And the Dreadspawn Maw in the Domain of Anguish, aka DoA or Dead on Arrival, scared the spit out of me by coming out of the ground right beside me the first time I was there). The Guild Wars 2 dungeons don’t evoke the same feelings of battling dangerous foes.

By comparison, Guild Wars 2 feels so much smaller.

Keep in mind, I was able to finish all four Guild Wars 1 titles in a single week once.

I was talking about moving across the landscape and how big it felt. How big the dungeons were and how hard to fight the individual mobs were. Not whether one person could finish the game fast if they wanted to.

Guild Wars 1 (not dungeons the world) gave the illusion of size by limiting where you could and couldn’t go. It felt big because you could never go in a straight line to anywhere. You snaked back and forth on a path or one of a couple of paths through a large zone that was mostly inaccessible.

Take a look at the area north of Piken Square. It’s not really that big. But it’s very very hard to navigate. The illusion of size.

Oh I know all that. I didn’t say they were bigger, I said they gw1 felt bigger. And it still does, Guild Wars 1 gives the illusion of more space by being spread out across a bigger potion of the known maps. By having Elona and Cantha, the Crystal Desert and the far north. By having the ring of fire and the huge dungeons that were whole maps in their own right.

There may be more map to Guild Wars 2 but it feels much more limited in size without the other continents and the large dungeons.

You did say this is a thread about nostalgia and this is what I feel nostalgic for.

GW1 maps was way bigger ..time how long it takes to cross a map in gws 1 vs gws 2….the maps was/ are huge vs the maps of gws 2

Maps weren’t bigger I don’t think. But they were pathed so you couldn’t cross them directly. That is to say, you couldn’t just walk across a zone, you had to follow a winding path making zones seem a lot bigger. But taking longer to cross doesn’t mean greater area. I pretty sure we have more explorable area of the same Zone in Guild Wars 2.

Another important one for me.

Soloing content gave you the reward as though there were still 8 people. (as in you’d get x8 the loot)

Made soloing things quite rewarding beyond the “just to say I could do it” aspect which gave lots of motivation to solo, increased difficulty/ingenious build required which added variety and rewarded you for it in a tangible way.

Until it was nerfed, but even post nerf you still got more then if you were in a group.

Molitov Rocktail!

’nuff said

Oh man, a GW1 thread. So here’s my list.

Part 1

1st person view I used a lot, and with more in-doors environments now it’s even more appropriate.

Guild Halls / GvG. I like that WvW is a larger scale. I always wanted to see bigger fights. But there’s no sense of ownership. Claiming isn’t worth much. Guilds don’t matter much. Just follow the dorito and tag red names. I miss having an official home of the guild, and I miss things generally being more guild-focused.

Build flexibility / multi-classing. I LOVED this (and I like it now in Archeage and look forward to it in EQN). I love not being restricted to a certain class but rather to be able to invent your own playstyle. I hate a hard trinity where you have your class, your one correct playstyle, and well ..that’s that forever. But I don’t mind a bit of a “roles” setup when you have the freedom to fit into whatever role you want or need (I mean roles that actually matter, not just dps all the way). Maybe there’s just one particular skill the situation calls for that will make a world of difference. No need to swap characters to get the skill, just tweak your build a little. We have pretty flexible builds in GW2, but we’re still just limited to the one class. Sure we have a few racial skills, but that’s pretty minor and not even close to replacing a multi-class system. This was definitely a step backward. In addition to this: Build Templates – nuff said

The feeling of having a huge world. I know this might not be a popular opinion but I’m going to just say it. I think we have far too many waypoints. We had instant travel in GW1. But it was to the nearest outpost/town, not 5 feet from where you want to be. In GW1 if I was in Droks and I wanted to pay a visit to Ascalon or Cantha, it was only a loading screen away like now. But if I was going to some place outside of town, I still had to make a bit of a trek even after the fast travel. I liked it. I think there needs to be a balance of getting places in a timely fashion ..but still having the world feel “substantial”. In GW2, you’re never more than a minute away from a WP and that does have an effect on how you perceive the scope of the world. (Personally I think at most, there should be 1 WP near every zone portal but nothing in between). Additionally to feel the world is huge, it would be nice if it actually was (cough whole new continents rather than two small zones)

Death actually mattering. In GW1 you definitely didn’t want to die. No long lasting consequences, but it could sure be an issue for what you’re doing at the time. Lose 15% life/energy each death, to a max of -60%? Yeah that mattered. That could easily make the difference between success and just giving up and starting over. Was it inconvenient? Oh yeah. But should DEATH be anything less? I wouldn’t mind seeing some similar idea adapted to GW2. It wouldn’t be instance-based of course, but maybe time-based? But in GW2 it feels like death just doesn’t matter. They even removed the armor repair costs (not a fan of that type of death-discouragement anyway). The only inconvenience with death now is just having to travel back. But oh wait ..the nearest WP is within spitting distance so ..yeah.

Part 2

The lore. There’s no question, the GW1 lore is a huge factor in me falling in love with the franchise. This game has so little to do with the foundational lore, it might as well be something else all together. Both the content and delivery of the old story was something I really liked. Now maybe it was easier due to everything being instances. But the story just felt more integrated into the world. The world kinda WAS the story. It was epic and amazing and difficult. It felt like there was a real threat to the world. You identified with the culture you were in at the time and appreciated the things that were happening there. Remember the first time we saw Ascalon after the searing? Or when we got to Kryta and became acquainted with the White Mantle and how that turned out? Or when we finally got out of Kaineng City and discovered the conflict between the Kurzicks and Luxons? The politics of Elona that ultimately lead us to the Fallen God? I don’t feel GW2 has been able to deliver on those kinds of experiences. It’s been more hollow. Less serious / important. Less urgent. Less immersive. I don’t feel like the story is taking me on a journey of discovery with important things happening that I have a stake in.

Difficulty. You had to put thought into things, with a good chance of failure (recently spent some time on an old lvl 11 warrior in the shiverpeaks and got my kitten handed to me. I forgot how much more challenging it was). You had to actually think out how you wanted to get through content, and often times you had to fail, change your build / party, and try again with a new plan. Maybe Anet thinks that wasn’t noob-friendly, but the truth is it really added a lot to the gameplay. Higher stakes made success more meaningful.

“Heroes” for instanced content. I avoid dungeons currently because I have to do them with other people, and “that crowd” tends to be jerks, and I don’t always like the expected commitment. I just avoid it all together. I would actually like to do the dungeons now and then ..but on my own terms. This wasn’t an issue in GW1 because I could build my party as I saw fit. Nobody was expecting me to do things their way, and nobody depending on me if I had to go afk or leave. I think AI helpers have no place in the open world, but are a valuable asset for instances. Since we don’t have that, there are big chunks of content I simply don’t play (and not because I wouldn’t ever like to).

That’s probably the main stuff I can think of at the moment.

I miss my HUGE white bunny mini. I miss my jingle bear. I miss my rainbow phoenix. I miss the flexibility of builds. I miss being able to run anything anytime (with heros), rather than being tied to waiting for people to run things (I know someone will blabber about finding more people, blah blah blah – not everyone wants to bother waiting all the time). Oh, and I miss my little black moa chick.

I have to wonder why some of the special minis never got transferred over. The HOM seems like a huge waste. All the armor, weapon skins, and the minis collected…that never actually did anything but “earn points”. The GW2 HOM is more of an after thought, a couple ruined rooms (very depressing). A bunch of skins, that are more than slightly ugly. Pets, that only a ranger can use. For GW2 I guess you just have to look at the HOM and wonder why they bothered. There really isn’t anything there worth while. There is no vanity to it. No prestige. Its just a sad and depressing waste of space, with absolutely NOTHING that ties my new characters to my old legacy (if it can even be called a legacy with such a loose half baked tie in).

First off, can people stop picking on Vayne for misspelling “Zaishan”? The first correction was enough, it didn’t need to be done by every person.

Odyssey.2613:

In no particular order:
(my opinion)

• Non-rectangle zones

Well, even in GW1, the zones were rectangles, but they were better disguised rectangles. A jagged edge in here, a rounded corner there. Take a close look at the borders of the zones, and you’ll know they’re pretty close to rectangles in nearly every case.

• Assassins
• Mesmers

Assassins were a very acquired skill back then, as I recall. Needing to have a lead-offhand-dual strike combo was far more annoying than even the warrior’s weapon/adrenaline requirements (which were a smaller pain, but still an issue). I’d rather have the thief. As for mesmers, they morphed into something else entirely. I kind of liked their old, mostly interrupt style, but I can live with illusions aplenty.

As for the menagerie, it isn’t so much that it’d only cater to rangers, but rangers now essentially have their menagerie wandering around in their back pocket. You dumped them in the menagerie because you could only have one at a time, and didn’t necessarily want to have to retrain it from level 5 back up to level 20. It was kind of cool how they grew with experience, though.

The main thing I miss about GW1 was all those hidden outposts out there. There were so many hidden outposts, and initially they were the only way to buy some of the prophesy skills. I know there’s still hidden still in GW2, but it’s not quite the same thing.

Rognik.2579:

First off, can people stop picking on Vayne for misspelling “Zaishan”? The first correction was enough, it didn’t need to be done by every person.

Odyssey.2613:

In no particular order:
(my opinion)

• Non-rectangle zones

Well, even in GW1, the zones were rectangles, but they were better disguised rectangles. A jagged edge in here, a rounded corner there. Take a close look at the borders of the zones, and you’ll know they’re pretty close to rectangles in nearly every case.

• Assassins
• Mesmers

Assassins were a very acquired skill back then, as I recall. Needing to have a lead-offhand-dual strike combo was far more annoying than even the warrior’s weapon/adrenaline requirements (which were a smaller pain, but still an issue). I’d rather have the thief. As for mesmers, they morphed into something else entirely. I kind of liked their old, mostly interrupt style, but I can live with illusions aplenty.

As for the menagerie, it isn’t so much that it’d only cater to rangers, but rangers now essentially have their menagerie wandering around in their back pocket. You dumped them in the menagerie because you could only have one at a time, and didn’t necessarily want to have to retrain it from level 5 back up to level 20. It was kind of cool how they grew with experience, though.

The main thing I miss about GW1 was all those hidden outposts out there. There were so many hidden outposts, and initially they were the only way to buy some of the prophesy skills. I know there’s still hidden still in GW2, but it’s not quite the same thing.

It’s “zaishen”… I had to. Lol

I missed farming with my Rt/Me. I also miss Kilroy, he was my favorite character from the four releases.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Kilroy_Stonekin

I miss hunting down and filling my Menagerie, even though I only ever used my faithful wolf pet for most things. And sometimes the Black Wings of Death which chase the scrub rangers away from the Sunspear Great Hall any time I take them out for a spin

I miss bounties, hunting down and killing particular targets.

I miss the simplicity of times when the alliance would “pick a target and go” for a night of fun. Someone names a mission or something to do and we either go “neh, not now” or “that sounds cool, I’m in”. Though that is probably due to me working more nights

Tobias Trueflight.8350:

I miss hunting down and filling my Menagerie, even though I only ever used my faithful wolf pet for most things. And sometimes the Black Wings of Death which chase the scrub rangers away from the Sunspear Great Hall any time I take them out for a spin

I miss bounties, hunting down and killing particular targets.

I miss the simplicity of times when the alliance would “pick a target and go” for a night of fun. Someone names a mission or something to do and we either go “neh, not now” or “that sounds cool, I’m in”. Though that is probably due to me working more nights

This is what my guild does, relatively frequently. Someone is doing something and we call go do it. Guild Wars 2 is actually a great game for that.

I miss my ability to take up and effectively use any weapon in the game.
My necromancer still has a Q8 15/50 +30 storm bow and Spike, the black Moa, that she can use with the best rangers in the world.
Used to out-monk the real monks in FA and JQ with both a prot/heal hybrid necro, and a Zealous Benediction Prot/Earth elementalist.

Which is why I never carried over my names from GW1. I feel it is a dis-service to the legends of my legacy to use the name without being able to completely fill the shoes.

I remember leaving pre-searing and thinking the game was done, only to find out that I only completed 1% of the game.

Vayne.8563:

virus.4370:

Astral Projections.7320:

Vayne.8563:

Astral Projections.7320:

Vayne.8563:

Astral Projections.7320:

The game felt so huge.

By the time I bought it, the EOTN had been released. I played all the way from the northernmost edge in Jaga Morraine down to the southernmost areas in Cantha, all across the parched plains of Elona and up to again the endlessly burning forests of the Charr area.

I miss the scale and scope of the dungeons. Not cramped rooms filled with seemingly endless trash mobs but whole maps in their own right where you carefully maneuvered among the mobs, taking them out one by one. (And the Dreadspawn Maw in the Domain of Anguish, aka DoA or Dead on Arrival, scared the spit out of me by coming out of the ground right beside me the first time I was there). The Guild Wars 2 dungeons don’t evoke the same feelings of battling dangerous foes.

By comparison, Guild Wars 2 feels so much smaller.

Keep in mind, I was able to finish all four Guild Wars 1 titles in a single week once.

I was talking about moving across the landscape and how big it felt. How big the dungeons were and how hard to fight the individual mobs were. Not whether one person could finish the game fast if they wanted to.

Guild Wars 1 (not dungeons the world) gave the illusion of size by limiting where you could and couldn’t go. It felt big because you could never go in a straight line to anywhere. You snaked back and forth on a path or one of a couple of paths through a large zone that was mostly inaccessible.

Take a look at the area north of Piken Square. It’s not really that big. But it’s very very hard to navigate. The illusion of size.

Oh I know all that. I didn’t say they were bigger, I said they gw1 felt bigger. And it still does, Guild Wars 1 gives the illusion of more space by being spread out across a bigger potion of the known maps. By having Elona and Cantha, the Crystal Desert and the far north. By having the ring of fire and the huge dungeons that were whole maps in their own right.

There may be more map to Guild Wars 2 but it feels much more limited in size without the other continents and the large dungeons.

You did say this is a thread about nostalgia and this is what I feel nostalgic for.

GW1 maps was way bigger ..time how long it takes to cross a map in gws 1 vs gws 2….the maps was/ are huge vs the maps of gws 2

Maps weren’t bigger I don’t think. But they were pathed so you couldn’t cross them directly. That is to say, you couldn’t just walk across a zone, you had to follow a winding path making zones seem a lot bigger. But taking longer to cross doesn’t mean greater area. I pretty sure we have more explorable area of the same Zone in Guild Wars 2.

look at the Jade sea..no paths..and most of those areas was huge..and half the map you couldn’t get to unless you portal jumped..there was huge maps everywhere

AngelDiscarnate.5489:

I miss my ability to take up and effectively use any weapon in the game.
My necromancer still has a Q8 15/50 +30 storm bow and Spike, the black Moa, that she can use with the best rangers in the world.
Used to out-monk the real monks in FA and JQ with both a prot/heal hybrid necro, and a Zealous Benediction Prot/Earth elementalist.

Which is why I never carried over my names from GW1. I feel it is a dis-service to the legends of my legacy to use the name without being able to completely fill the shoes.

For what it’s worth, many professions in GW2 are much, much, much stronger than the professions in GW1. Look at mesmers, warriors and rangers to their GW1 variants.

hannah mee.7925:

AngelDiscarnate.5489:

I miss my ability to take up and effectively use any weapon in the game.
My necromancer still has a Q8 15/50 +30 storm bow and Spike, the black Moa, that she can use with the best rangers in the world.
Used to out-monk the real monks in FA and JQ with both a prot/heal hybrid necro, and a Zealous Benediction Prot/Earth elementalist.

Which is why I never carried over my names from GW1. I feel it is a dis-service to the legends of my legacy to use the name without being able to completely fill the shoes.

For what it’s worth, many professions in GW2 are much, much, much stronger than the professions in GW1. Look at mesmers, warriors and rangers to their GW1 variants.

not necro..10-15 minions in gws 1 now only 5 in gws 2….

hannah mee.7925:

For what it’s worth, many professions in GW2 are much, much, much stronger than the professions in GW1. Look at mesmers, warriors and rangers to their GW1 variants.

I have to disagree, GW1 had the ability to mix and match skills and place whatever we wanted on the skill bar, making them pretty powerful. Whereas GW2 is tied to the weapon, you have skills that are hardly used or want on there.

just this from me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WenzlbYJ-lo

Pyrotechnic Hell.3209:

just this from me
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WenzlbYJ-lo

Nice video, brings back good memories from GW1.

I know after I leave GW2, I won’t won’t have any type of nostalgic memories. Here’s another one of those sequel that will never live up to the original, it’s a shame.

Pet Evolution/ pet training. Because it made you connected to your pet in an active way, i felt more of an emotional bond with my pets, than I currently do.

To para phrase—-‘This is my pet, there are many like it, but this is mine!’ (should be past tense, but you get the picture).

PS—-they had proper fireworks back then—the ones we have now are pathetic in comparison.

Mattargul.9235:

Neko Dudley.2495:

Vanquishing maps…

Dude! Lonar’s Pass. I don’t think I spent much time in LP, so after having cleared maybe 90%, I thought, Hey, what’s this?, when I came to Grenth’s temple. Oh, it’s clickable! Will it spawn a boss monster? clicks - loading screen appears Oh, nonononoNONONONO!!! character is in underworld - all vanquish progress is reset - have to run all the way back from Camp Rankor through Snake Dance and Dreadnought’s Drift to get back to Lonar’s Pass

This made me laugh so much, I could almost hear that NOOOOOOOOO!!! from where im sitting. Thank you for bringing back those memories of vanquishing and I still think the person that thought up the explored title was a sadist.

For me, I miss my guild, some were EU and others NA, once free transfers ceased and regions locked in GW2 we were scattered all over and too stubborn to leave where we had become settled in.

virus.4370:

GW1 maps was way bigger ..time how long it takes to cross a map in gws 1 vs gws 2….the maps was/ are huge vs the maps of gws 2

It took longer to get from Point A to Point B in GW1 because you had to take ridiculous detours to get pretty much anywhere.