Guild Wars 2

hey guys. My first day playing the game, and so far I am really liking it. I am a true PvPer. Back in WoW I World PvPed my kitten off, but then left the game when Blizzard killed open PvP completely. But so far I am really getting immersed in the PvE world of GW2. My question is, how long would it take me to explore the entire world? I ask because I work a 9 to 5, and don’t have much time. so, I’d assume I can spend an entire year and not explore everything. or am I wrong here?

The first character I got world completion on took me about 5 months (not dedicated to it). That included looking for open WvW poi’s and vistas. I have not done a second to 100% but it would be a lot faster now since I know how things work.

I’m sure you will get a myriad of answers, as there are a myriad of playstyles. I’ve been playing since launch, and I still find new DEs (just ran into one today in a Starter map) and areas I’ve not seen before.

I’m sure it depends on what your focus is….casually exploring while just following your sense of adventure, or making a concerted effort to uncover every hidden twig under fallen leaves.

Welcome to Tyria! =)

I average about 3 hours per map.

Depends on what you go and do in pve. – There is a very big world out there and certainly not all of it is found by just doing quests.
If you like to go exploring and finding little corners not well traveled- then it’s amazingly big..
8 characters to 80 – over 1 year gaming for some 8-12 hours a day. and I still find things I had not found before.
Not to mention that things change, as time goes on. Maps change. dialog changes.. and Im sure much more will come in next living world updates.-
One thing I really like is that not all changes are mentioned in patch notes.
Even background dialog between Npc’s sometimes gets a little twist.

Not playing very often, or for long periods, world completion will take a long while, but not a year. However, that’s based upon actively trying to complete maps. Due to them being very clearly divided with a checklist of objectives to complete for 100% you can slip into doing that quite easily. But if you just wander around, exploring and taking in the environment, events and dialogue you could take much, much longer. Its also worth noting that Guild Wars 2’s PvE content isn’t just open world, with dungeons, WvW and the Living Story all being at least in part PvE.

It depends on what you mean by exploring.

If you just want to get map completion (completing all the hearts and skill points and unlocking all the points of interest, waypoints and vistas) it can be done in about 2-3 hours per map, maybe less. There are 26 zones so that’s about 52 – 78 hours.

If you want to actually take the time to look at everything, talk to the NPCs, investigate potential jumping puzzles and mini dungeons, complete actual jumping puzzles and mini dungeons etc. etc. then it will take much longer. I’ve never timed myself and have never done a map all in one go but I’d estimate it takes me between 5 and 10 hours to complete a map this way.

If you want to do all the PvE content, which includes all of the above and completing all the dynamic events it would take both more time and a lot more planning because some events trigger only very rarely under specific conditions.

Many events are part of a small chain of more events, often combined with dialogue a/o NPCs moving around between the events. The break between the events could last up to five or more minutes, often depending on the distance the NPC has to walk/run.

Eg. there is a Charr NPC in Diessa (lvl 15-25 Charr zone) in a village who is asked by a cook to collect eggs of caveworms for some omeletts. After this dialogue the NPC moves outside the village to a nearby cave. Once there and only then the event to help collecting the eggs starts and is visible on the map by the orange event circle. After the event is completed all players who helped get a reward. Most of them then move away but this event was just part one. The NPC moves back to the village, talks to the cook and a minute later part two starts. The NPC is asked again to collect eggs, moves again to the nearby cave, but instead of a collecting-event now a giant champion worm appears that players have to defeat.
This is just a small chain of two events, linked by NPC interactions. If you do not follow the NPC and its interactions you won’t get the hint that both are linked. The champion worm will never spawn as long as the collecting “pre” is not completed or fails.

Another example in Caledon (Sylvari starter zone). The chain contains two events and starts with the task to rescue a caged Hylek from hostile Kraits. The two events are linked by a moving and dialogue interaction between the Hylek and her xenophobic village chieftain daddy. At the end and after another dialogue sequence you can convince the hostile Hylek of your benevolence and are invited to visit the village, and the former hostile and killable villagers turn into friendly ones, even two npc traders are accessible to you. If you just click on the medal after the second event ended and move away, you will miss this "quest-candy".

If you mean exploring for 100% map completion, then you may find it a bit tedious and dull. If you mean how much PvE time is in this game, then the answer is the same as “How long is a piece of string?”.

I started my latest character with a friend and we just 100%‘d all the maps we could on the way to level 80 (this was pretty much just the Kryta part). Then we found that spending 2-3 hours a night running through easy PvE maps was pretty dull so started branching out into dungeons and fractals. We joined a very friendly and active guild and since then we don’t get chance to do map completion at all as as soon as we log on we’re asked to come to some sort of PvE big boss or come on a dungeon run.

I very rarely play PvP or WvW so I definitely think there’s enough to keep you going casually going on PvE for well over a year. If it’s purely map completion you want though it won’t really show off the beauty of the game with dynamic events, etc.

My favourite way to approach PvE content is to set myself a goal, start working towards it and then take a sort of “ADHD” approach where I let myself get distracted by anything and everything along the way.

For example the other day I set out to do the last few bits of my personal story, down in Cursed Shore. Because I’m cheap (and because I knew something like this might happen) I used the gate to Fort Trinity and then ran across the map from there.

The run across Straits of Devastation was relatively uneventful, but then I got into Malchor’s Leap and almost immediately I was zigzagging out of my way to gather crafting materials. Then I found a group fighting a champion so I joined in, and that lead to a quest chain which I followed through. Then as I was running back to where I was going I was answering someone’s questions in chat and not looking where I was going so I fell into a gorge. As I was looking for a way out I spotted a small hole in the cliff and went in to explore, then ended up doing the entire jumping puzzle it lead to. When I got out and back on track (after doing a couple of skill points) I found I was right by the Temple of Dwayna as the event chain was starting up, so I did all of that and then rushed over to Lyssas temple just in time to catch the boss….

After all that I only had time to get to the entrance to Cursed Shore, so I never did what I’d been intended to do, but I had a lot of fun along the way. (And did eventually finish my personal story.)

I have 2 characters with 100% world completion. Lately I started a character after the patch. Due to the new trait unlocking requirements I completed maps again I rarely visited during the last year. Thanks to the megaserver I discovered and participated in dynamic events I either overlooked or skipped earlier because there had been no one to do it with. While my main time still is spent in wvw, I appreciate pve more than before. I needed about 5 hours for a thorough exploration of Dredgehaunt Cliffs yesterday (to give you an image how much time a map could take). That included a nice duo run of the Windy Cave…

Been playing over 1 1/2 years, still finding things I never knew about.