Guild Wars 2

I was soooo noob I thought the pebbles dropped by the elementals on the Queensdale dam were a big deal. “Wow. I bet you can farm and sell these”

Me and a friend got a transformation tonic from somewhere and flew as owls through the swamp area in Queensdale. We were moving fast to avoid the mobs because we were underlevel and were trying to avoid the scary level 15 mobs.

We ventured into Kessex at one point and there, in front of us, was a level 24 deer.
3 of us. One deer. The odds were in our favor! We attacked!

Results: 2 dead players. One fleeing player. One angry deer.
We went back to Queensdale.

I remember showing another noob guildie “the moves.” Look! You can run around when attacking! You don’t have to stand in one spot." (Runs in a circle to demonstrate). “You can dodge!” (Dodges).

What are your war stories?

Oh god, I sometimes wish I could go back in time to the day GW2 came out to undo some of my stupid mistakes! (A wish I usually reserve for things like taking A level Physics instead of Psychology or my second boyfriend.)

Probably the worst was actually on the forum – claiming that I don’t need to dodge because I play a ranger. I still can’t believe I actually said that, but I was very new at the time (it may even have been during the betas). Fortunately I wanted to use sword/dagger so I was proven wrong and had to learn to dodge fairly early on, before I started doing group content.

Other than that…Oh, there was the very first time I got to play (the first beta after pre-purchase). I’d read so much about Dynamic Events and how if an NPC says centaurs are attacking the town then they’re attacking now and you need to help now or they will actually destroy it.

Then I got into the game and centaurs were attacking the town so I thought I didn’t have time to figure out the controls or menus or which way was up – I had to go save the villagers! As a result I was just kind of running awkwardly around (once I figured out how to move) flailing at things until I got out of that first instance and felt like I could figure out what I was doing.

More boring but probably worse is how long it took me to figure out the Trading Post. In the early days it didn’t have minimum prices and the interface didn’t make the fees so clear so I think I lost money on every single transaction before I learned to factor in both the listing fee and the exchange fee.

When I was new I didn’t know what to pick as a main so I chose Warrior because “you can’t go wrong with the profession that has the highest base def and hp”. It was my biggest mistake because I didn’t truly enjoy Warrior but I didn’t want to level up again (it was slow as a newbie) so I got bored and I quit for months. Later I came back and leveled some characters to 80 with the help of EotM and now I’m a happy Necro main!

Mea.5491:

When I was new I didn’t know what to pick as a main so I chose Warrior because “you can’t go wrong with the profession that has the highest base def and hp”. It was my biggest mistake because I didn’t truly enjoy Warrior but I didn’t want to level up again (it was slow as a newbie) so I got bored and I quit for months. Later I came back and leveled some characters to 80 with the help of EotM and now I’m a happy Necro main!

The worst piece of advice I’ve ever been given on RPGs (and it was supposed to apply to all of them) was “always make your first character the basic fighter class and don’t play anything else until you’ve finished the game with them”.

The idea behind it is that they’ll have less complicated mechanics to worry about which makes finishing the game easier and then you’ll be familiar with it and can add other stuff. Which is usually true, but it also makes them very boring to play.

Fortunately I only followed that when playing Baldur’s Gate (where you control a whole party anyway) and ever since then I’ve chosen whichever class/profession appealed to me most (usually one that’s a weird hybrid of everything), and making several alts. It does make games harder, but it also makes them more fun.

Dyed a lvl 2 armor in black while still in pre searing, tough it was a normal dye.

Aeolus.3615:

Dyed a lvl 2 armor in black while still in pre searing, tough it was a normal dye.

Ooops!

(For anyone who’s never played Guild Wars 1 in that game dyes were single use. And black was about as rare and valuable as Abyss in GW2, even more so in pre-searing.)

The very first thing I did was roll a necromancer and took a screenshot of her. The very second thing I did with her was try out the /laugh and /cheer emotes. I think I spent about 20 minutes doing those. I was smitten by the adorableness. Then I proceeded to go get that Inquest golem.

I didn’t know about the meta, I didn’t care about the meta. A year and a half later, she’s still my main character (she was my only character for a long while).

Looking back, she seems to simple and plain compared to how she looks now (all ascended gear), but I still love her.

I did not really have a good sense of where things were when I first started and my first character was a sylvari. It took me ages to figure out how to get to Gleaner’s Cove Waypoint and beyond except for when I did it by accident.

I remember all my friends and I made charr characters once to start and check out that area. There was some NPC bad guy shaman that was literally killing everyone. I mean dead bodies all around the cave and for at least 15 feet, yet people kept going back to fight it … die and respawn.

We eventually all quit playing charrs altogether.

I also remember accidentally finding some map, me and 2 guys in my party… we walked down some stairs kinda like … what map is this? So different and new. Then some green dude was running around started heading towards us. Cool, we thought. But how come he is green, he’s not an npc… maybe something is wrong with my graphics card. about 5 seconds later we were all dead and just realized we walked into WvW with our lowbies.

Started as a Norn guardian, reached lvl 10, got into the first story instance and got easily murdered by ettins.

Man, when I was exploring Orr for the first time, I ran like hell through Cursed Shore just to get to the Arah waypoint. This was back at release when the undead were buffed. I was just taking a beating trying to dodge the undead mobs! I felt so proud when I got to Arah its like I dodged a gauntlet.

I fell in love with Warrior during beta, so that’s what I went with as my main.
..No, that’s not my noob mistake. :P

But I do remember thinking “Warrior is really squishy for a heavy melee class.” I was probably doing something wrong. Granted, this was at a time before old Tyria mobs got stat adjustments and seemed to hit much harder. I’d gotten fairly frustrated at the kinds of situations I’d get KO’d for.

Ah, asuran portals!

My second toon (a char) I wanted in DR. I’d had the game less than a week. So me, in my infinite knowledge and skill, ran my level 2 charr across Disseau, Wayfarer, Snowden, Gendarren and Queensdale. I died numerous times in Snowden, but had to keep going because I had no more money to waypoint back to Black Citadel.

I think I discovered the portals a few days later.

Hexinx.1872:

I remember all my friends and I made charr characters once to start and check out that area. There was some NPC bad guy shaman that was literally killing everyone. I mean dead bodies all around the cave and for at least 15 feet, yet people kept going back to fight it … die and respawn.

I remember that! That was amazing.

In the first beta weekend I spent about 20 minutes on my charr mesmer duelling with a skale and being completely unable to outdamage it’s natural regeneration. I remember eventually dying and going through every utility skill looking for one that would remove boons so I could unlock it before going back for another 20 minute futile duel with the exact same skale. I never thought to look at the level of the the gear I was using or stats they were giving or anything as boring as that.

I spent a lot of time not wanting to leave the Snow Leopard shrine area with my norn ranger because I liked being a snow leopard too much.

Hexinx.1872:

I remember all my friends and I made charr characters once to start and check out that area. There was some NPC bad guy shaman that was literally killing everyone. I mean dead bodies all around the cave and for at least 15 feet, yet people kept going back to fight it … die and respawn.

I’m pretty mad they removed that event. I’m not one to play the “dumbing down the game” card, but it felt that way when that event was nixed.
/sniffle

This is my first MMO and what not.

I spent days farming white and yellow moas, running away from cave spiders and trolls and was stuck on the same map until someone messaged me about joining a guild….

I joined Warriors and Rebels [WaR], they explained that I could leave the starter map and that killing whites and yellow mobs actually did nothing.

As someone mentioned above: The first run through Orr to get to the ARAH wp was like running a gauntlet.

Then someone said “have you tried WvW?”…. First time WvW, got creamed over and over, maxed out a ranger then forever stayed in WvW/PvP.

My first character was a Thief (he’s still my RP main). While I had invested in a Naga HEX mouse after the first beta weekend so I could move and fight at the same time, I had a long way to go to figure out movement patterns and dodge timing, plus mobs hadn’t been nerfed yet, so I took a lot of dirt naps.

This persuaded me to set his build to all the stealth I could. My first time in Orr, though, when it was wall-to-wall Risen, involved a terrified sprint through a sea of red names, stealthing when I could, sprinkling caltrops to slow down my pursuers, getting totally lost because I had no time to look at the map as I ran for my life.

Before that, though, I spent a lot of time standing on steps and slopes to enjoy the animation. I RP’d like heck, my guild had been RPing in forums for months and now we had an immersive world to hold our story. I didn’t know how to use the TP initially. A guildie gave me 4 18 slot silk bags he’d made (or bought?) as he was more savvy than me — I had no clue of their value, though I was still very grateful. I still have those 4 bags to this day, on one alt or another.

And while details are blurry now, I remember our guild excitedly finding all the little details of the world to squee over, all the little finishing touches, npc chatter, etc that had us enthusiastically sharing it all with each other. That’s one reason I love helping new players in the game, they help me recover that starting sense of wonder.

My mistake was wasting the 3 day head-start on a necro which I later didn’t really like. Started over using ele… best decision of my life.

I’m still tilt over the fact that my /age on my main is over 1462 days and not 1467 (in fact none of my chars are 1467 because I deleted that necro)

I remember when the Fire Elemental in Metrica was a real fight. It had multiple smaller fire elementals flying around nuking the ground everywhere as well as its own attacks.There was no safe spot to stand. Fighting it meant multiple deaths, respawning from the waypoint and running back. The bridge leading to the fight area was covered with dead and dying players as the elementals nuked it over and over. People were dying so often they ended up fighting in their underwear.

Does anyone else remember getting excited to rez other players for a, “Plus 1,” to the resurrection achievement?

I categorically deny ever letting one of my gaming buddies die so that I could then rez him to advance the achievement.

I started during the first Halloween event, so my earliest memories are running around thinking how silly it was that you could mine Candy Corn.

One of the significant “noob” memories I have has to have come later in the game for me. It’s odd though because I still feel like I was new, but the circumstances dictate that I had spent at least a few months in game.
I did most of my exploration with my main character, a human ranger, yet this one memory that stands out was discovering the brand. I think it was Iron Marches where this happened. I remember seeing the edge of the brand, and the faint purple curtain that surrounds it, thinking “what sort of damage am I going to take if I cross through that?”.

I did the mad dash through Orr too.

When I got to level 80 on my first character I’d just reached Fort Trinity in the personal story. I’d read about Temple armour and someone in-game assured me it was a really short run from the Fort to the Temple.

So I set off excitedly to run to the Temple…of Grenth. Yeah, the one at the far end of Cursed Shore. Apparently the person who gave me instructions didn’t realise there was more than 1 temple to get armour from. That was an interesting experience.

Rauderi.8706:

Hexinx.1872:

I remember all my friends and I made charr characters once to start and check out that area. There was some NPC bad guy shaman that was literally killing everyone. I mean dead bodies all around the cave and for at least 15 feet, yet people kept going back to fight it … die and respawn.

I’m pretty mad they removed that event. I’m not one to play the “dumbing down the game” card, but it felt that way when that event was nixed.
/sniffle

I don’t mind them nerfing that one down to Veteran – but did they have to take Barradin’s Crypt from us? They should have upgraded it to a world boss (Serving as the Charr Starter Zone’s world boss, like the Fire Elemental, Shadow Behemoth, Great Jungle Wurm, and Svanir Shaman)

Anyway – that aside. I had a lot of fun in the Plains of Ashford as a new charr. I mentally broke the area down into all its separate segments – the only map I was level-appropriate for on my warrior, and always struggled to push from one area to another and deal with the higher-level mobs (The drakes southwest of Ashford Forum proved to be quite tough buggers. Actually reaching the crafting-station zone felt like an amazing accomplishment. And the two forts and Ash camp kept me confined to the starting area pretty well). I was halfway through Diessa Plateau when [RPcd] ran a Crusade Across Tyria (on Tarnished Coast), and I hopped on that as my recruit charr wearing full Worn Scale armor and using a basic rifle of some sort. I had to grab a bow so I could get credit after a certain point (Fire fields) – but I participated in my first Golem MK II kill in Mount Maelstrom as a level 28 warrior. I thought my low level caused my impression of that boss’ difficulty. Coming back as a full-exotic Warrior and later Ranger at 80… Nope. Those lightning fields are STILL a kitten to deal with.

I really, really wish they’d lower the Personal Story by 10 levels, and split Chapter 8 up into a level 70 and level 80 so the massive story grind between hitting 80 and finishing the Core Story wasn’t so long. And, it would allow the Personal Story to drive exploration again, instead of confining it (And have the touchpoint between the personal and dungeon stories make sense again)

Mea.5491:

When I was new I didn’t know what to pick as a main so I chose Warrior because “you can’t go wrong with the profession that has the highest base def and hp”. It was my biggest mistake because I didn’t truly enjoy Warrior but I didn’t want to level up again (it was slow as a newbie) so I got bored and I quit for months. Later I came back and leveled some characters to 80 with the help of EotM and now I’m a happy Necro main!

pfff. I thoroughly research each class of a game before I pick my first main because I intend to play them the longest.. I chose right, Mesmer has over a thousand hours more next to my next most-played class.

in the beginning I actually stuck around queensdale and leveled my char almost exclusively there, I visited kessex and gendarran a bit but had no motive to explore really since I liked the atmosphere of queensdale and there were always people around (think, pre megaserver, big server but there weren’t many people in other maps.) then the champ update came and I rolled with the queensdale champ train for the rest of my days til lv 80. (actually to be fair i got lvl 80 thru crafting starting at level 62 with the help of my first major guild)

Xbon.9086:

pfff. I thoroughly research each class of a game before I pick my first main because I intend to play them the longest.. I chose right, Mesmer has over a thousand hours more next to my next most-played class.

I also did my research but I honestly didn’t even like any of the professions first. So I went with Warrior because I liked the survivability. I’ve been playing MMOs since 2004 and I know what I like: archers, tanks, healers but those are all different in GW2 so choosing a main was hard in this game.

I remember going into Asc. Catacombs Story Mode in the first week of the game. We had a warrior, ranger, and 3 guardians. There was a fair amount of reviving, but overall the run went smoothly. The next day, someone else needed to do it, but this time we had 2 thieves, a ranger, a Necro and an Ele. Smooth? No, not even close.

Oh gosh, Indigo, you made me remember my first time in Caudecus Manor. No guides, doing it at level with my guild as we went in blind. I think it took us over 3 hours to do the butler path as waves of bandits wrecked us over and over and we were super happy to have the repair anvil in the stables (though back then repairs cost coin). We were on voice chat and one guildie kept yelling Tyrian curses at her character, a Thief, who was eating a lot of dirt (I was also on Thief and nomming the ground, but I am not so good at talking in the heat of action).

I joined mid-way through the first Halloween event. I spent my first day figuring out how to “unlock” Candy Corn mining, then the rest of the week doing Mad King Labyrinth trains and trying (unsuccessfully) to complete the Halloween JP.

- I went in all the little houses trying to open all the chests, doors and all the furnitures like in morrowind and thought i could not open them because i hadnt unlocked something yet

- I spent 2 hours trying to figure out what god i should choose in the characters creation panel thinking that if we had to choose, it had to be of great significance given that anet had not stated otherwise on the selection screen

- I had the graphic settings to maximum until i entered wvw for the first time

- I was wondering why in wvw we did not have the options for standard models, animations LODs and then learned a year later in a discussion on reddit that the devs simply did not know of simple things to display hundreds of players without your memory and fps going to hell (they still havent learned that they can display simple non animated-at-all forms or “impostors” at a great disatnce which would allow us to actually see enemies in siege range when aiming, because we dont need to be able to see their kitten floping in the wind at this distance)

- I used an instant repair canister right away after it droped because there was nothing saying that it was a one time use and it was a gold rarity item (i think there is still nothing saying that it is a one time use)

- I began to suspect anet was screwing up again because of the episodes depicted above

Yseron.8613:

- I went in all the little houses trying to open all the chests, doors and all the furnitures like in morrowind and thought i could not open them because i hadnt unlocked something yet

I did this as well

- Spent a decade trying to decide what class I should create

- Spent a decade trying to figure out how to dive under water like everyone else. Why could I only swim on top?

- I first started the game when the battle of lions arch was going on and all my friends were lvl 80. So I decided to go on a little journey with my lvl 5 sylvari thief to lions arch (because I felt lonely) to tag some enemies from a distance with my short bow. When all was said and done, I was completely nude since I died so many times. However, I did get credit for some events

- Collected every single minor rune I came across to store because I was scared it might be useful when I was a higher lvl. Seriously, my bank was full of runes.

- When I first started pvp, I played as a mesmer, summoned illusions, and auto attacked with gs from a distance, thinking I was “sneaky” for blending in with my illusions. Oh ya, also went after beast first. However, oddly enough this is what the group seemed to always do first when I first started pvp a long time ago.

I remember starting my norn ranger.

My wife an me, we were rushing north and east in Wayfarer Foothills all the time. North is that svanir champ event, and east of course the Frozen Maw.
Back then there were no set timers and everytime we killed Svanir Shaman, the event in the north was up again, and vice versa.

Awesome time.

I also remember the Fire Ele being almost unbeatable. Fun times when you think about it today ;D

Thinking behind my first heavy class:

“I need a heavy armor class to be a tank. A Charr Guardian looks interesting.” (somewhat later) “Why am I dying so often in heavy armor?”

Now that character’s main duties involve crafting. I have long since decided guardian is my most hated class, especially without the elite spec.

When i 1st discovered the downed state…. saw a pack of wolfes and attacked thinking they were easy. The result? one of them was a veteran wolf and found myself “fighting to survive”

Menadena.7482:

Thinking behind my first heavy class:

“I need a heavy armor class to be a tank. A Charr Guardian looks interesting.” (somewhat later) “Why am I dying so often in heavy armor?”

Now that character’s main duties involve crafting. I have long since decided guardian is my most hated class, especially without the elite spec.

Oogh. I know the feeling. I was beyond frustrated with my “squishy” guardian, especially comparing HP pools with my “squishy” warrior. And starting off, I also tried a ranger. Coming from a rather robust pet class that is WoW’s hunter, I balked (and still do, really) at how little pet control and utility the class had.

4 years later, I have found a way to love all the professions in some manner. GW2 may be the only game to do that for me.

Apart from that, another painful noob mistake: Crafting.
I had a warrior main, which meant I wanted to make gear for him as I progressed. Naturally, this meant Weaponsmithing and Armorcrafting. And two metric tons of ore-grinding to advance them simultaneously. I didn’t leave Plains of Ashford until level 25, because I was struggling to keep up, and I wasn’t using the trading post.
It became a constant race between my gear and my level, but I did manage to catch up around level 70.

-I still remember the first time I went into the Gendarran Fields as a lv 12 engi thinking lv +30 was insanely high.

-In Eternal battlegrounds, I still rember wandering into a 3 hour long seige for my home keep. I was just experimenting with bow and p/p on berzerker stats. Eventually my sever reclaimed it.

-When I tried pvp it took me a year to figure out that amulets were needed for higher stats. During that time I thought it was the pvp armor that gave the stats so i thought buying higher tier armor would help.

I actually played the game and explored ideas instead of doing random analyses all day trying to solve myths. I created new builds and concepts but I was so naive…

I have no stories of this sort about myself since I played perfectly ever since my first day in GW2 (kappa). Though I have one about when my friend was starting. He kept complaining that he often dies to enemies and everything feels too hard. So I decided to help him.
“Okay let’s sort this out… lemme see… what are your traits?”
“My what?”
“Traits.”
“Oh I never used that thing, it seems too complicated.”
“You were running all this time without a single trait? I found out the problem buddy.”

My first character was a Sylvari necromancer (I started playing 8 or 9 months after release). GW2 is my first PC MMO, so I was a skill clicking, keyboard turning noob who spent the first few months getting used to keyboard controls and navigating the UI.

One early story mission leaves you naked. I remember running around trying to figure out what the heck happened to my clothes, and rather upset that I wouldn’t get them back because a friend had crafted me some sweet gear. Totally oblivious to the fact that there are markers on the map to show you where to go in story…

I spent a good amount of time just using whatever gear I found that had “condition” stats, wanting to be some kind of support necro that takes condis from teammates and sends them back. Somehow managed through paths of CoE when making Meteorlogicus, at a time when [little did I know] necro was not desired in dungeon runs. Fast forward 3 years and I am living the dream, playing my Sylvari condi necromancer in raids.

Honestly can’t believe how far I have come, and I’m very thankful to all of the people who had so much patience with me when I started playing.

….played with old friends, ran dungeons, badly at first but I got better over time. Just mained my engi and necro, Condi builds of course and this was at the time when condis had a max cap of 25.

Ran guild missions, had parties in hoelbrak and lions arch. Ran around as a small 4 man squad taking towers and camps in WvW, watching Pvp matches between em, help friends cedar their first legendaries, even if it cost me all my kitten mats it was just great seein them so happy.

They’re all gone now though….sniff

Rauderi.8706:

Hexinx.1872:

I remember all my friends and I made charr characters once to start and check out that area. There was some NPC bad guy shaman that was literally killing everyone. I mean dead bodies all around the cave and for at least 15 feet, yet people kept going back to fight it … die and respawn.

I’m pretty mad they removed that event. I’m not one to play the “dumbing down the game” card, but it felt that way when that event was nixed.
/sniffle

I remember the headstart. He turned it into a slaughter.
Used to be one of my favorite events. To actually have this powerful enemy in such a low level area.

Simple, just rushing into pack of mobs dying all the time. Over time i get to kill more mobs and die less.

Typical situation for wipe and learn.

I discovered Kryta and necromancer. I was like “ooookaaaay so I don’t have to be in melee range to hit that centaur with my axe” and also “omg what is this ? Death shroud, sounds cool”

I also remember the first time I entered divinity’s reach, It was playing the music of wintersday, I turned left and saw that big flying christmas golem upon the city.

It was amazing.

I remember back before timers and the knowledge of all the meta bosses.

Me and a friend were leveling in Caledon and had reached the site where the jungle wurm spawns (which no one knew anything about). So we and a few others were quietly doing the heart in the middle of that area when unexpectedly this gigantic wurm came out of the ground right beside us.

O.o

Everyone in the area sprang into action and started attacking this thing. There was a several minute fight and we managed to kill it. I don’t even recall if there was a chest after but it was so unexpected and such an epic fight for us low levels to have.

Now he’s farmed on a timer and no new player can have this experience. Kind of sad, even if it was inevitable,

I can barely remember last week, so my halcyon days of GW2 aren’t something I can readily recall.

But, I am enjoying reading everyone’s stories. Ty.

~EW

Oh, there was crafting too.

I remember using up all my leather and jute making Rune of Life and thinking it was brilliant because it gave you +20 health. I thought I could put them on all my armour and sell all the rest.

Then I realised that a) it wasn’t that good, b) everyone else was making loads of them too so they weren’t worth much c) I really needed those materials to make other stuff.

And then of course there’s the time I accidentally turned all my softwood into dowels. Fortunately I didn’t have too much, so I was able to use them up eventually, but it took weeks. Especially because I had to collect new soft wood to make the other components.

Sold that fugly scythe skin because the dervish profession wasn’t in the game.
Yep- first toons name is Trub The Noob

Oh yes, crafting. I didn’t realize for a long time that you skill up via discovery rather than making multiples of things you already know how to make … all the wasted mats, I weep.

When I was new I had fun.

Henry.5713:

Rauderi.8706:

Hexinx.1872:

I remember all my friends and I made charr characters once to start and check out that area. There was some NPC bad guy shaman that was literally killing everyone. I mean dead bodies all around the cave and for at least 15 feet, yet people kept going back to fight it … die and respawn.

I’m pretty mad they removed that event. I’m not one to play the “dumbing down the game” card, but it felt that way when that event was nixed.
/sniffle

I remember the headstart. He turned it into a slaughter.
Used to be one of my favorite events. To actually have this powerful enemy in such a low level area.

That’s the best description, perfect. Yeah i think it was during that 3 day headstart. It was in fact just a slaughter, bodies strewn about… players going in to help res down players … only to die, and back on release we are talking about hundreds of new players. I’ve never seen anything like that in all my gaming career, it was hilarious, yet addictive. Like a challenge that could not be won, but like the lemmings we are, we were determined to beat it.

What I remember the most was getting to Arah and finally being able to do the explorable dungeon.

It was a guild run, we where on TS and presumed we where geared up enough for it.

3 hours and we where still hadnt gone past lupi, so we had to give up.

That’s how kittening hard the game was in the beginning, now like 1 warrior can do the entire path in 10 minutes or something lol.