Guild Wars 2

As a new player to guild wars 2 but a returning consumer to large scale mmo’s I have some brief opinions about my playing experience thus far.

Cons:
- Sandbox variety: Guild Wars 2 has crafting but it lacks variety. I was hoping to build things other then weapons and armor. I should mention most of the items crafted all look the same from far away.

- Map recourse: The starting areas for each race are far and in between. One most portal to another race’s city in order to continue the leveling process before continuation of your storyline. This makes the adventure feel off track even though it gives you a feeling of accomplishment. This may not be the case for a hardcore grinder.

-Pets and mounts versus companions: While Guild Wars 2 has a variety of companions nothing surpasses the notion of having a customizable pet or flashy mount to summon in your adventures in Tyria. The summons they do have in game feel bland and uninspiring.

Pro’s:
- Fluid leveling: While most mmo’s concentrate on amassing high stat gear to complete an objective, grouping, or out leveling an opponent; Guild Wars 2 offers every player the opportunity to reasonably complete the given objectives. There will be little time spent on skipping certain content because you didn’t have one or all of the things mentioned above.

-Artistic walkthrough: It’s rare to see any large scale mmo offer cutscene’s while questing. To me it makes the story more imaginative to the player. Whether your revealing a viewpoint on the map or simply questing your personel story you’ll never see a better way to adventure in Guild Wars 2.

-Solid misc. content: I find it hard to get lost in Tyria but if you do there is a ton of help options available such as live maps, wiki, website and a ton of youtube help vids. The quality of this misc. content suggests Guild Wars 2 will be around for the long run.

marlborz.8243:

Cons:
- Sandbox variety: Guild Wars 2 has crafting but it lacks variety. I was hoping to build things other then weapons and armor. I should mention most of the items crafted all look the same from far away.

You can also make consumable items, including food and dyes (Chef) and jewelry (although rings and amulets don’t appear on your character). As you get more levels in a craft, you can make more and better items. Armor in particular gives you very different looks for different tiers, though each type has to look the part (medium armor is all vests and trenchcoats and masks, that’s how MOST of the medium armor in the game looks). You can also discover recipes out in the world from Karma merchants and Heart NPCs that let you create items with really unique appearances.

- Map recourse: The starting areas for each race are far and in between. One most portal to another race’s city in order to continue the leveling process before continuation of your storyline. This makes the adventure feel off track even though it gives you a feeling of accomplishment. This may not be the case for a hardcore grinder.

There is actually a lore reason for this: asura gates. They’re basically teleporter gates that send you from one place to another instantly. Formerly, Lion’s Arch was the hub for all Tyria, but due to the Living Story it got destroyed and the Vigil Keep is the new temporary hub. But the idea is that the cities, while necessarily geographically distant because of the racial origins of each culture, are closely connected because they all rely on each other for trade, politics, and supplies. So you ARE meant to go to the hub and then go through another gate to reach another race’s territory.

-Pets and mounts versus companions: While Guild Wars 2 has a variety of companions nothing surpasses the notion of having a customizable pet or flashy mount to summon in your adventures in Tyria. The summons they do have in game feel bland and uninspiring.

This is intentional on Anet’s part. In Guild Wars lore, the only real “summons” are spirits and undead minions. Summoning anything larger than that is done by NPCs as part of a quest or the main story. You won’t be seeing demons coming out of Hell or impish familiars that act as personal companions like you would in other settings, or even magical animal pets conjured up out of nowhere. GW1 established this trend, and it continues in GW2. Also, there have NEVER been mounts in Tyria like you see in other games. It’s true there were ridable wurms in Nightfall and siege devourers in Eye of the North, but these were more like environmental weapons than mounts. So GW1 and 2 both break the MMO mold of allowing mounts, and it’s almost guaranteed that the developers will NEVER add in mounts.

I will agree with you on this. The leveling and personal story process doesn’t seem to go fast enough to complete it within a single zone. Low level bosses spawn in different areas of the world and only reward the chests once a day. Waypoint travel is fast and easy. Crafting, banking, and trading posts aren’t close to all the adventuring areas. Daily achievements often specify certain zones in which they have to be completed.

The cumulative result is that even at a very low level I find myself constantly warping all over the world in an attempt to catch bosses, finish the daily achievements, do crafting, banking, and trading, and so on. The story line my be there, but when I do a personal story stage, then warp off for a boss, then warp off to do Shiverpeaks Slayer, then back to another area to hit the bank, TP, and crafting station, all sense of any running storyline in the zones and the world gets lost. I wish there was some solution to that other than just playing for the story and ignoring the rest.

Great post, Equinox.

And jmo about mounts in this game……..no, no, and no. No reason for mounts and glad I don’t have those stupid things, like I had to in other mmos.

Enjoyed reading your post, marlborz.

If they’d just add fishing, I’d be pretty content.

I know how you feel about the pets, and mounts, marlborz.

I hear people constantly shouting “Noooo!” about mounts like they’re a president refusing broccoli. I never understood the argument that removing mounts, but adding dozens of instant teleport points “makes people enjoy the scenery”. If anything, I think the opposite would be true.
I personally miss having something else fun, and personal to collect. …Even if they were a cosmetic-only item, like the broom, I think mounts would be great.

And yeah, I wish mini-pets were a bit more than, well…. miniatures of creatures, and NPCs found in game. It’s a bit immersion breaking. …I’d love to have a simple, black cat for my Necro. (thankfully, they added the raven)

Nice post, marlborz. It’s refreshing to see a calm discussion of ideas and opinions without the first post being “OMG DEVS RUINED THIS GAME HATE THIS GAME HATE ANET HATE EVERYTHING UNINSTALLING GAME NEVER COMING BACK BYE LOSERS”

Very nice post indeed, marlborz. You have my sincere thanks.

serenitygirl.1967:

I know how you feel about the pets, and mounts, marlborz.

I hear people constantly shouting “Noooo!” about mounts like they’re a president refusing broccoli. I never understood the argument that removing mounts, but adding dozens of instant teleport points “makes people enjoy the scenery”. If anything, I think the opposite would be true.
I personally miss having something else fun, and personal to collect. …Even if they were a cosmetic-only item, like the broom, I think mounts would be great.

And yeah, I wish mini-pets were a bit more than, well…. miniatures of creatures, and NPCs found in game. It’s a bit immersion breaking. …I’d love to have a simple, black cat for my Necro. (thankfully, they added the raven)

I have no problems enjoying the scenery. When I want to do that, I just don’t use a waypoint portal.

I think part of the reason why some of us are so against mounts, is that it reminds some us, myself included, of older, super grindy mmos. Imo, portals are a much better solution than mounts to getting around the world at a quicker rate…..but that’s just me…..I know there are quite a few players out there that actually liked mounts.

Its good for people new to the game to post their impressions. I too would like more things to do added to the game. I think more things will be forthcoming.