Guild Wars 2

So I would like to first note that this is absolutely Not a rant. It is more like venting my on silliness, I guess..
Just so you understand where I’m coming from, I played a free to play MMO that requires moving with the arrow keys and binding skills on keyboard, totally mouse free.
But as you know, free-2-play is usually pay-2-win which between the lines is actually pay-2-not win but self found is impossible if you want to get anything great.

Suddenly I remembered Diablo 2, and started playing it again. Took me about a week to beat the game and it was just great, totally forgot about that MMO.
But as you know, sh** gets old, so I got Diablo 3. For those of you who haven’t actually experienced D3, this is my own comparison:
Diablo 2 is like the first Iron Man movie from 2008
Diablo 3 is like the first Thor movie from 2011
The first is just great, the second is good but stays solid to a fifth of what you’d expect to see/experience.

So, la dida dida… I am kinda bored out of my mind and I see these reviews about Guild Wars 2 and I even go ahead and google “diablo 3 vs guild wars 2” and 80% of all feedback points at Guild Wars 2 as a great game.
So far so good, right? Well, I am used to either playing only with my keyboard, or mainly with the mouse.

Anyhow, less then 24 hours ago I go ahead and purchase Guild Wars 2 from here instead of like that other site which is legit and has 20% off. Now I kind of regret it.
You see, when I got Diablo 3, sure at the end we are all like ’ :/ ’ but you are hooked from the get-go for atleast a good week.

Usually if I actually purchase a game (alot of you know what I’m saying) I expect myself to not wanna stop playing it. But now what? The free MMO is open beside this window and I am really unhappy about that.

Let me just tell you exactly what prevents me from playing and exploring the game, ok?
1. I understand most people would think that a silly silly thing but for me the (maybe) more important feature of customization is being able to choose what ever In-Game-Name I desire. In Diablo 2 I play 100% legit, I’d only use a third-party software if I wanted to change my Single-Player characters’ name. In Diablo 3 I didn’t think about that but happily I could even name everything after myself which is great. I like that.
But here, I feel forced to choose something that I do not like. As much as " The Lord Of Fury/Wrath / Paqadin / Warriorq " looks ok for a second, I ended up re-making most of my characters like a dumb-@$$ without passing LV.2
Maybe I have a problem, but this is very important to me. I can’t see how I’m gonna solve this one.

2. The way the game is played.
I feel like I gotta walk with W,S,A,D , use the mouse for camera (usually right click to be able to move somewhat normally for me) and then try bashing 1-2-3 etc and it doesn’t feel at all fluid. Now I know you’ll tell me I just gotta get into it. I believe you.
What about the map? At LV.2 on my first character, I was told to go somewhere which was like 2 lands away ,and I couldn’t even mark it on the map to follow. You can imagine how annoying this gets that I try to force exploring just to find a path I can take. And Where ever I go, the map tells me to go else where (missions nearby).

So guys, I am nothing if not open minded. I honestly wanna spend 1000+ hours on this game. Why I am typing everything is because sometimes stuff gets worse if you don’t say anything, and I certainly do not want to let my digital copy of GW2 collect dust right after I buy it.

Why are people comparing this to Diablo?

Some people don’t play so many games..

Ok I skimped through it because that was a hard read, no bullet points, no tl;dr, no bold lines…nothing, just a bald ol’ imposing wall of text. So instead I will comment what I kinda overread and what tends to be the most usual complains:

This game is not p2w. As a guy who has played WoW, Rohan, Aion, 2moon, among many other monthly subscription or p2w games I can tell you this is NOT a p2w game. I have spent money but never have I had the need to do so if I dont wish to. Gold can be converted to gems and if you play the game regularly gold is not a problem. My biggest issue with monthly subscription is the following; when you stop paying, they ransom you or otherwise it is like you never got the game. Here, you buy, you play till the end of times.

Movement settings; yes, I like being lazy and moving around with the mouse. Sure I would like it, but if you are judging a game based on that, I dont think the problem is the game……

2 days is NOT enough to judge ANY game. Join a guild, find friends, go to populated servers and maps, immerse yourself, and above all: GET OUT OF THE FORUMS! . This place is filled with a very vocal minority that complains for everything, and by everything I mean everything, even when they introduce good stuff. It will quickly suck out the fun off you and make you believe the game is not as good as it is.

tl;dr Keep playing, get off the forums, learn to use key to move, game is free after purchase and not a p2w. Join a guild and make friends, you will soon realize why this is the best MMO out there.

Holy snap why was your comment +1’d ?
I never said this game is Pay to win!!!!
Jesus christ… READ what I am saying!
What’s the point of trying to express myself?

I was talking about a MMO which name I didn’t mention here!
I am here because I support this game!
I never thought this way Pay 2 Win

Let’s see if I can help.

1) Forced to pick a name you don’t like. That seems odd. You can use up to 19 characters, including spaces. It will automatically capitalize, true. So my main, Donari Mal di Bette (originally Donari Malo di Bette, but that’s 20 characters) becomes Donari Mal Di Bette. I can live with that. You just can’t use exactly the same name as someone else, which means one-word names are harder to come up with. I still managed it in the past few months with two new Sylvari, Ysethe and Andret.

What names do you want to use? Are you just mad at yourself for not coming up with good ones?

2) Movement. I have never used WASD in my life, certainly not in this game. I mouse move; just hold both buttons down to move forward and move the mouse side to side to turn. You can also keybind a walk/run toggle. I admit I did buy a Naga HEX specifically for this game since I need to do a lot of moving/dodging while tapping my hotkeys, so I strafe with the mouse as well.

2a) The Personal Story quest. At level 2, right after the tutorial, you are told to go to your race’s main city. That is through a portal right near where you first spawned. A green star on your map tells you where to go. Inside the city, green arrows on your mini map will lead you to the specific location. There is no obligation to do any of the PS at all, ever, though it is good xp and occasionally gives you armor skins you can’t get otherwise.

2b) Nearby Missions. I assume you mean the orange circles as opposed to the green star PS. Those are Dynamic Events. Centaurs are attacking, or mosquitoes are swarming streetlights, or harpies are assaulting the walls. If you go into the orange circle you’ll get a description in the screen’s upper right as to the goal of the Event, and if you help with that goal (gathering wurm eggs or killing centaurs or protecting a caravan, etc) then you get xp and karma. You don’t have to go to an NPC, you just get the rewards.

2c) Hearts. These are the closest to quests. NPCs with hearts over their heads stand around. They’ll tell you “my orchard is infested with spiders” if you talk to them, but you can never contact them at all and still do the tasks that fill the heart, like killing spiders and bats and collecting apples. Or feeding cattle. Not every task involves combat. Do enough tasks, and the heart NPC becomes a vendor for you for the rest of your life in game (for that alt).

None of these are things you have to do. You can explore, harvest plants/trees/ores, hop in and out of Events — anything you do gives xp. Up to level 10 it’s real fast, after that it’s a flat rate per level all the way to 80. You can get distracted. Escort a caravan halfway to Beetletun but what’s that? The Toxic Alliance has a spore up over there! I’m going to go fight Krait! Off you go, and if the caravan still makes it to town, your gold medal pops up even when you didn’t do the whole event. Or maybe you’re killing bats in Kessex, and you see a cave, and when you go in you find a perilous series of fallen beams to traverse with flaming oozes barring your way until you get to a nasty troll guarding a treasure chest …

But yeah maybe I didn’t read everything you said aswell so it’s on both of us…
Sorry.
I’ll just go ahead and play the game because this is evidently the way to find out for myself… As for In-Game naming… I’ll just do something like… Tomer(my name) ’Class’s name’ . That way I don’t need to re-think unique stuff if I wanna play something else.

Thanks for the comment. I guess this is better then chewing on the subject. I’ll go ahead and pull an all-nighter today playing a Warrior.

Last thing:
I chose a server which has Medium popularity becasue I assume this means no lag for me.
Will it it be better to make my characters in one that are more populated?
I really just want the best experience.

Most games use the combination of WASD and mouse to move around so it seems you had the unfortunate coincidence that you’ve only played games that use different movement systems.

I think this is a case of having to get yourself used to the different movement system which I would recommend doing as a lot of games use it. I think if you can’t get used to the WASD/Mouse combination you will have a hard time finding other games to play. Just keep trying and eventually you will get used to it.

As for pathing, there is no automated pathing in GW2 but you can alt mouse click on the map to place a waypoint so you can find the general direction of the area you want to go to.

As for exploring this is just a part of the game. You can’t expect to know your surrounding in real life until you have visited it. GW2 uses a similar principle. Instead of focusing on places to go on the map just look into your game environment instead immerse yourself and try to go to places that look interesting. The UI is just there to help guide you.

Tomer.8721:

But yeah maybe I didn’t read everything you said aswell so it’s on both of us…
Sorry.
I’ll just go ahead and play the game because this is evidently the way to find out for myself… As for In-Game naming… I’ll just do something like… Tomer(my name) ’Class’s name’ . That way I don’t need to re-think unique stuff if I wanna play something else.

Thanks for the comment. I guess this is better then chewing on the subject. I’ll go ahead and pull an all-nighter today playing a Warrior.

Last thing:
I chose a server which has Medium popularity becasue I assume this means no lag for me.
Will it it be better to make my characters in one that are more populated?
I really just want the best experience.

Go to a populated one, like Tarnished Coast. Depending on when you play (timezone-wise) and where you are in-game, some servers display “High” and yet you feel alone. cough Borlis Pass cough

I assume you are on an EU server, as NA has no medium servers. You can guest to any other EU server to check out the population and such. If you do decide to transfer to another server, you have two choices. You can delete all your characters (make sure to place all non-soulbound items in the bank, as your bank will transfer with you), or you can buy gems and transfer your characters to the new server.

I only use my mouse to move, and the keyboard for skills and such…each to their own.

You may or may not find this helpful: https://www.guildwars2.com/en/manual/

Welcome to Tyria!

Nobody has mentioned it yet but in Diablo you can mash buttons and kill things. In GW2 you need to work out how to play quite quickly or you’ll get your butt kicked. Take your time and give it a chance.

Wow that Alt+click, thanks for the information! I kinda wanted to reach where i need to go by exploring and I had such a hard time trying to do this. Thanks.

To the other guy, name-wise I’ll just play it dull and call (say my Necromancer) Tomer Necromancer and do the same for all classes I choose to play. I’m fine with that.
It’s not that I don’t think of good ones, it’s really only that I can’t suddenly like names just because they sound cool at that moment. So Diablo 3 was just an example that I could just name all my charactes after my own name and solve it like that. In that free MMO I play sometimes, I could be not playing for a whole week just because I didn’t find a name I wanna stick with.
Also I didn’t know you can convert Gold to Gems, so this makes the game and the company look even better. I hope by the end of tonight I’m hooked on GW 2.

Tomer, I suggest you read this thread for all sorts of helpful information for new players:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/players/OMG-If-you-only-knew-this-tips-for-new-players/

Tomer, you may prefer putting aTitle in front of your character names. Ex) Lord/Lady, Sir/Madame, etc. Or adding a color as a last name (Tomer Black).

As far as movement goes, I play on a laptop with no mouse, so I’ve set my movement keys to the number pad and my skills are assigned to the numbers at the top of the keyboard. You can also use Tab to auto select an enemy to attack.

I would suggest trying to find a nice group of players to play with. It makes the game so much more fun and you learn (and level up) so much faster.

Something is very warped right now. The transition from Diablo 2 to 3 was one of the biggest sequel disasters ever created.
You can’t throw the word “good” anywhere near that. o.O
GW2 does have some of that problem to where it’s only a fraction of what GW1 was/had which are it’s downfalls. You can still throw “good” at GW2 though. :P

Sounds to me that you need to get used to this style of gameplay. WASD style allows the best form of reaction and movement in an MMO, which is something extremely important in GW2, especially if you want to enjoy pvp. It’s not like those crappy F2P Korean games where you just stand in one place forever mashing buttons. So learn how to use Keyboard+Mouse It may even make your brain healthier and add 20 years to your life. Don’t surrender to such a simple challenge.

The Map in GW2 is awesome, I find myself constantly cursing maps in other games now because they’re horrible in comparison. You can mark like 1-2 points to follow. Think it’s either ctrl or alt + left or right click on map. XD idk I don’t use it anymore because I don’t really need it personally. You can also draw and ping stuff on mini map for party members.

Also you can put spaces in your character name so you could easily fix your problem by giving them a last name, title, etc. ~meow.

I played diablo 4 for about 69 hours and I got it free with the annual pass in world of Warcraft.

Guild wars 2 is at 1600 and counting… I didn’t make the wrong choice

all i an tell ya is dont quit i was like you when i first started remade characters like 24 times till i said to myself you know what i aint even played this long enough so i ll just make an engineer and stick with it till a near cap level and then try another class, then came the same issue you had i was used to controlling everything with arrows so i ended up trying even mouseless options like setting arrows to control camera and move with wasd and it worked for a while enough for me to get used to the game’s combat pace and such but then i realized sometimes i had to quickly select specific targets and preciseley so i incorporated the mouse and before i knew it i was playing like nothing had changed .

heck im willing to play and help ya around

server guesting is awesome :v

1: don’t play MMOs, because almost none of them have that feature.

2: don’t ask people to compare a click-to-move game with a WASDing game. also: what? your map troubles are totally bizarre sounding / totally nonrepresentational of how it works in game.

Just simply controlling GW2 is a mastery many of us take for granted. Managing a skill bar with 10 skills and tab targeting while constantly moving, jumping and dodging is quite a feat.

However, it is a nice system because we’re a bit more connected to camera rotation and UI. A lot of action combat MMOs streamline the UI and skill system to support LMB/RMB skills and locked mouse aim. GW2 is different. The controls help it feel a little more like a lasting MMO rather than a “fun for a while” action game with other people running around too.

(NOTE: The above has to do ONLY with control. Not disagreements with balancing and rewards which I’m sure at least one of you is itching roast me for.)

Naming can’t be helped. Some people prefer a unique name system, others prefer a shared name system. However, if you can get past that you’ll notice this game has the second best contacts/guild/friends UI system. (First being GW1 where idle timers didn’t wipe your guild chat.) Unlike most MMOs, in this game you friend an account not a character. Saves you from: 1. Rebuilding your friends list for every alt. 2. Appearing multiple times in the same guild. 3. Not knowing your friend is online when she is on an alt.

Yeah, naming can be a pain nowadays. I have a buddy who likes to have the commonality in his character names like you though. He started as Dolnar, then came Necnar, Stealnar and so on and so forth. You might want something more serious but you could easily go with a changing surname as was suggested earlier. Tomer Deathtouched, Tomer of Hoelbrak, Tomer Flamekissed etc.

Phy.2913:

Why are people comparing this to Diablo?

because the combat is as spammy ?? And even more brainless?

I had the opposite problem. When I first played it I loved it despite the bugs and balance issues. Once I hit level 60, the honeymoon was over for me, and my level of fun dropped dramatically. I got to level 80, with full exotic berzerker gear, got some gem costume sets, and now I’m done. Haven’t logged in for several months now, and the guild that I was in is now dead with no active players.

I seriously had a hard time following the OP’s post. I really dont know where you stand with GW2, what your issue is because it was very incoherent and disjointed… but I am going try to guess.

First, regardless if you inferred this or not: GW2 is not pay to win. Yes, like any free game, it has a cash shop and sure you can turn real $$ into in game gold. A 35 year old professional with 2 hours per night to play, but a fat wallet can accomplish the same as the 19 yr old college student with no money and loads of time to grind things out. Not pay to win, though. You can’t buy power.

Second, I know you havent played many games or MMOs, but you cannot compare an MMO to Diablo 3 or 2. Those games are hackn slash, and while fun, are not the same as GW2. So, right there you need to be even more objective and stop that comparison.

Thirdly, something about..your name? If a name is taken, by someone else in game, yes you have to choose a different one. This is the same for any MMO and likely any game that offers character customization. This is nothing new and nothing unique to GW2. If you wanted the name ‘Bob’ and someone already has it, you need to choose a new one. Some variation or something completely different. If this is a deal breaker I suggest not trying any more MMOs.

Next, you mentioned something about being lvl 2 and the game sending you ‘2 lands away’. Not true. You finish the little story prologue, and zone into your first lvl 1-15 zone. Go and do whatever. You arent asked to go two zones away. Just not true. Re-read the story mission, its in the same zone, maybe a major city.

Lastly, the combat can be wierd to get a hold of. But with some time you can find that its can be really fun utilizing combo fields. The thing I love about GW2…classes are so unique from eachother.

1. Why do you have issues with naming your characters ? It won’t let you name what you want ? What names do you want then ? Are they taken ? Or are they against naming policy ?

2. WSAD Movement is the way many many many games work. Usually, that ‘s the case if you play with First Person View, or Third Person View. Think Doom, Mass Effect, World of Warcraft and such. You can look more into getting a console controller for it though, if you like.
Diablo series is Hack n Slash, and the perspective is almost 2.5D Isometric, and so it uses different movement method. I highly recommend you get used to WSAD, because that’s how many many more games going to be like.

What I usually do is to; hold down Right Mouse Button all the time when ever I’m moving, move mouse left and right to turn, and simply use ‘W’ to go forward. ‘A’ and ‘D’ should be used for Strafing, and not for turning. Then you’re set.

I know many people who use QWE, instead of WSAD. Walking backward is very slow, and many times can get you killed. So many prefer to only turn and run, instead of walking back. And so, Q and E are turning, while W is still forward. You can use S for dodging back instead.

There are many ways to customize the key binds. Good luck with it !!

Kurakura.7281:

I had the opposite problem. When I first played it I loved it despite the bugs and balance issues. Once I hit level 60, the honeymoon was over for me, and my level of fun dropped dramatically. I got to level 80, with full exotic berzerker gear, got some gem costume sets, and now I’m done. Haven’t logged in for several months now, and the guild that I was in is now dead with no active players.

You just need to take it easy, maybe do a few things to level an alt for 30-60 minutes a day and do a few living story things. Next thing you know you’ve made friends who run dungeons and you’re spending hours mashing numbers into a calculator trying to maximize your build.

Unique names…..That’s why I reserved 14 of my characters’ name before launch. And the other 7 (all of which have been claimed in GW1, but those players’ were inactive so they weren’t reserved), when the game launched during those first 30 seconds I jumped in created a random character, grabbed the name. Alt+F4, log in again grab another name and did it as quickly as possible (and yet one was still taken)). So now I’m happy with all of my characters’ names.

Hi Tomer,
welcome to our game,

I hope you persevere, I too had a lot of trouble adjusting to this game.

I got very frustrated for a little while, but with help from lots of peeps in game I got used to it, and have now had about 16 months of fun. Though some things do still frustrate me, but you get that in anything you do.
I always found asking in map chat good most of the time. Usually someone is around to point the way, and give advice.

I now play wvw almost all my play time, once you get the hang of the game and a decently high level its a blast. check it out sometime.

cheers

Hi welcome to GW2…

Firstly I love Diablo as well, played them all and liked D3. Howerver, GW2 is a far, far better game even more so than the awesome D2/D1. So stick with it, it really is good but has more depth and its like discovering layer, after layer. My gameplay is so different from 18 months ago when I started playing GW2. By the way D3 played 500 hrs, GW2 2000+ and I am still enjoying it!

Firstly about choosing your name, you can have any name you want/like, the trick is if its taken, put a title in front of it. For example, I wanted my Charr Warrior to be called Sarak but obviously taken, I then tried Waylander but also taken, so then I tried Sarak Waylander, bingo it let me have that. Same with Goldmoon for my guardian, taken but Lady Goldmoon okay.

Secondly, try to find a friend or 2 or a join a good guild, they can show you the ropes and save you from loads of obvious mistakes.

What server are you on? You can transfer servers btw for free at start by deleting all your characters, useful to know at the beginning. Best get on a server you want to be on before you invest time/effort in you characters.

Moving is not hard, you just need to adjust like you would have to with many games…

using WASD allows you to press 12345, if you don’t like that and you want to use the arrowkeys that badly, you can try to keybind your skills to the keys around the arrowkeys instead but I don’t know why you just don’t use the WASD cause it’s way more convenient anyways.

last resort, buy a Razer Naga for like $50-70 and it has 1-12 buttons on the side of the mouse that you can use for keybinds, so you are able to use the arrowkeys and control the camera while using skills with your thumb.

The game is not pay 2 win even though you can, if you are wise and can get ahead of the curb you can make 1000’s of gold a month which is more gold than you can convert to gems to buy the content they do put on the gem store. This game has possibilities to play for free and still get EVERYTHING. While I agree free models are not the best for content because those who are use to paying $15 a month and getting everything the game offers this game makes you have to farm a lot of gold in-game each month or break down and actually pay real money which is sadness to get the equal content you should for $15 on another MMO.

That’s the unfair part about f2p, it hurts the dedicated gamers.

Just something to note for your naming issue: I have seen a lot of people name their alts the same name by using characters with accents on them. I am not sure exactly how its done, but I am sure Dr. Google has the answer.

Why would you compare Diablo 3 to Guild Wars 2. They’re two very different games.

I’m gonna tell you what I tell everyone whenever they get bored with a game, or just don’t like it at all.
“Stop playing, and move on.”

Guild Wars 2 is one game out of the millions out there. If you bought it and didn’t like it, sucks for you. I’ve bought plenty of games that I didn’t like, and I just left them.

No matter how good of a review a game gets, if YOU don’t like it, then YOU don’t like it. Simple as that. Everyone has different tastes.

I came from gw1 and diablo3 to gw2. And had to adjust about the movement in gw2, it felt weird and could not get used to it. For the first weeks or so, now I cannot see myself going back to the old gw1 method. Even if I startup Diablo 3 I feel like that is just limiting my gameplay.

And you are right, I do not get why renaming your char is such an important thing in a game. :/