Guild Wars 2

First of all: I realize that gw1 was much more a rpg then a mmo, while gw2 is more mmo then a rpg. It’s not comparing apples to apples. However I’ve been discussing it with some of my old gw1 buddies on a number on occasions and some stuff from gw1 could have a place here.

In gw1 you had hubs and a lot of zones. Some high end zones however had no hubs at all, giving players a feeling they could explore and get lost doing so. Several players loved farming and exploring challenging regions where a big death-penalty would mean go back and start over. Some examples:
-Farming the icy dragon sword in the imp cave
-Going on a killing spree from droknar’s forge to beacon’s perch or worse: the other way around (yes some actually tried)
-Going up to the crystal desort from elona (and no not cheating for directions by using wiki/maps)
-Doing the Villany of Galrath quest from where you pick it up (LA) instead of going to TOA.
-Sorrow’s Furnace
-DoA
and last but not least:
-Farming for the totem axe in magus falls, all 55hp monks loved to have.

The latter is what got me thinking, given the awakening of the " new" dragon at the end of the LS. It’s obvious the direction we are moving to now is the same direction magus falls used to be, which is where gw2 comes in:

Yes we got high end zones here, but nowhere in game are you ever far from the location you died, meaning there is no penalty at all to going down, no true exploring where a wrong turn can make you run around in circles before you know it. Gw2 is much, much more forgiving then gw1 ever was. You die? spent 3silver and pick it up where you left. Gw1: you die, you get a death penalty. Die to often and restart from 0.

My suggestion/request would therefore be: If you are really taking the LS towards the Maguuma Jungle/Magus falls: Give us these challenging zones. Zones where dropping death will have consequences by having much, much lesser waypoints available (or perhaps just 1 for an entire zone). For example reintroduce Magus Falls like it was: a region where you can get lost with no towns/camps everywhere on the map.

Just like the ice-imp cave there was no need for anyone to clear it out. however for those few that loved it, it was worth the effort to get their hands on a rare and highly wanted skin. a win-win for many type of players: explorers, farmers, more hardcore pve players or one time thrill seekers.

GW1 zones had more lore that was sewed together. GW2 zones are mostly lore spread out in different directions and not sewed together. GW2 zones need more meta events and more chained events, make the lore in each zone feel like they are sewed together.