Guild Wars 2

Wanted to do WoW, but I also wanted to keep my $$. My brother and cousin had started a guild in GW1 and I joined on to be able to do stuff with them. They didn’t make the jump to GW2.

I continue to play like a maniac because my wife refuses to let me spend an hour away from her movie-watching, and that means laptop for me. It’s pretty much killed my other creative efforts.

Because there isn’t anything better to play right now…

I’ve played WoW for years, but I grew into it from Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 so I was interested in the world already. I can see why you’d feel intimidated though.. the game has been running for ages.

As for why I play GW2 can be explained in a simple manner. It’s one of the most user-friendly MMO’s out there at the moment.

It’s buy to play, a huge plus for me. I simply cannot afford a sub right now and the amount of p2w games out there just aren’t worth my time. Gold/Gem conversion also helps a ton as I can still get gemstore perks without having to spend a large sum of money.

You only have optional gear grind (Legendaries/ascended) so even though my chars have been running in exotics for the most part (although my Warr earned his full ascended armor/trinkets ages ago) I can do just about anything I want in the game.

The event system beats traditional questing for me, every time I’ve tried other MMO’s or went back to something I used to play the quest dialogues just feel like they slow you down.

The way rewards are structured is also quite nice, it barely matters what you do, you’ll always earn money or items that will make you money or other useful items such as skins. Nearly all content is relevant so it doesn’t feel like you’re wasting your time doing stuff that would be useless in other games (due to low level or whatever it is you’re doing).

When I first tried out GW2 as I’d heard about it through youtube and a few websites I frequent I really liked the idea behind the game. Which is in my opinion still being honored (play how you want is still very relevant even though it doesn’t apply to all content).

Jumping puzzles. Enough said, they were fun the first time and I still do some occasionally when exploring maps. A shame Bloodstone Fen didn’t get one but it’s understandable :P (Josh, you better work on a SW 2.0 jumping puzzle in the expac or future LS maps).

Map design since post-launch has also been amazing for an MMO. I know many hate the HoT maps but in my opinion they are the best maps I’ve ever seen in an MMO (layout, secrets etc.).

There are loads of other things that make me play this and have me come back to the game but it’s too much to list.

EphemeralWallaby.7643:

Charr
Many builds to explore
Narrative
Large variety of content to do at lvl 80
Large variety of content to do before lvl 80
Non-competitive resource harvesting
Waypoints instead of mounts
Charr
Meta-events and renown heart quest system
Map diversity and scenery
Many treadmills that don’t feel like grinds
Movement during combat
Skills that don’t take up 1/3 of the screen
Charr
Gliding
No trinity/roles except the ones you make for yourself
Each profession feels different from all the others
Still functioning economy
Forum arguments

oh, and Charr.

~EW

Don’t forget about Charr. Those kittens are badkitten.

Just impatiently waiting for them to make us all revisit Cantha. That’s my number one but also waiting for them to hurry up with the living world.

otto.5684:

I played a couple of MMO, but the longest I played are SWTOR and GW2. GW2 strengths:

- GW2 has great interactive combat system compared to majority of MMOs. It plays more like an ARPG.
- Best maps/zones in all MMOs I have seen, and probably in all games I played.
- Great lore, which is also original.
- Between quest system and NPCs interactions, the world feels alive.
- Great quest/mission system.
- Good graphics.

THIS in literally every way; the guild I run’s main game is SWTOR; but GW2 in so many ways > SWTOR it saddened me initially. I come from SWG. I’ve played so many MMOs with my guild.

GW2 has stuff from ESO I loved and even ArcheAge; and more. The Open World and Dynamic Events is one of the best things I’ve ever experienced; the lore and char’s are awesome. The races/char creation was refreshing. Sure I’d love to see open world housing, etc. player cities, etc. being a SWGer but this game fills a lot of things.

No MMO is without issues/balance issues. I also love how much there is for PvE, but PvP and WvW too. I personally love the 3 different build/sets.

I’ll add that wasn’t said by otto:

- Gemstore/Tradepost – I will say once u learn to the market; you can make a lot or save a lot on selling/buying things it is very fun.

- Mini-games – all the daily activities and jumping puzzles, map exploration/vistas/points. Seriously – lots of fun, you don’t need 100% combat to MMOs.

- Wardrobe/Skin system – sure, can be expensive, etc. but really can have unique looks/colors. Fashion for a char is a huge thing for me and immersion esp PvE/story.

- Guild Missions/Puzzles

I’m sure there’s more.

Ardenwolfe.8590:

Consistent content updates. Well . . . it used to have them. . . .

it still does… check updates page and we never go a month without any sort of big update, often we can get 2 in a month.

for me… if wow didn’t have a subscription fee, I’d play it a bit, it has that loot grind that gw2 lacks, and a few mini games and of course better dungeons, but for everything else gw2… gw2 has a unique mechanic no other mmo has that really was the driving point for me starting out, the fact your level scales lower to any zone you’re in and you can get your level equipment (at a 50% chance), this allows you to explore at your own pace, and really, gw2 is the pinnacle of sandbox mmo, that’s just one of the big points for it but there’s also the fact that you can transform into practically any npc in the game (and even use emotes as them), you can have access to bank/trading post/merchants from anywhere in the world at any time (though in case of merch/tp only one at a time unless using the non-infinite versions), you can autoloot so you can just keep going with the action, glide around and there’s just so many ways to play now, and the free content updates are so massive that it’s a driving force to keep playing!

also musical harp and the fact you can use gold into the real money currency makes it a purely pay once to play type model if you want it to be (though I’ve splurged quite a bit XD)

not to mention this game has the best economy of any game I have ever played. EVER. know what a standard rare cost 4 years ago? 30 silver. how much does it cost today? 30 silver. you don’t get many games where the value of an item doesn’t exponentially drop with supply or raise with inflation very often, even most of the tier 6 materials are largely the same price, just a few silvers difference, you can actually learn and play the market reliably and make lots of money doing that while you do other things.

TBH I have played other MMOs before and got sick of the grind. I tried out GW1 about 7 years ago as a break from one of those grinders. Whilst it didn’t have enough type of content I would like (too much combat not enough other) it still impressed me enough to look forward to GW2.

I waited a long time as many others did I am sure lol. I had 2 games in mind, GW2 or FF14. I was going to try them both and decide whch would be for me. However I must say I was biased towards GW2 because of the no subs and how great gw1 was.

Anywho FF14 came out first and I played it. It was ok but the same old problems were there – grind. Not only that but the world seemed boring, in fact the map had many areas that were all cut and pasted! Looking at the minimap you could see this. I was in a guild there but the game just lacked a spark. Sure it was cool you could use one char and basically play all the classes on that 1 char but that grind was still there. My free period ran out (1 month) and I gave up on it, there were just too many flaws/not enough fun. It wasn’t only myself with these concerns either as obviously they had to rerelease to address the situation.

GW2 finally released and here I am. So why do I play? Fun combat system, pretty much no grind, well no forced grind at least anyway let’s put it that way. Yes the game still lacks the “other” types of content that I like to have in MMOs but that’s ok. I can always play other games alongside this and that’s fine.

EDIT – oh and Angryjoe’s review on youtube should be enough really to answer the OP’s question for anyone here I should imagine. When I saw that (first time I ever heard of him or saw any of his reviews) I thought this looks awesome. Even when I go back and watch it now and again it all still rings true and is a great reminder why I play this instead of those other games.

Btw anet, you guys should gift Joe something or something, I don’t know lol. But I am sure his review got a LOT of people into this game!

Lethalvriend.1723:

I’ve played WoW for years, but I grew into it from Warcraft 1, 2 and 3 so I was interested in the world already. I can see why you’d feel intimidated though.. the game has been running for ages.

Same here. Unfortunately, the game has aged… poorly.

Guild Wars 2 holds me because of a number of reasons. Most notably – the charr are the most amazing race ever, in spite of the developers neglect of them.

And I tried going back to WoW… but Guild Wars 2 has me spoiled with its level downscaling, PvP and WvW upscaling, dynamic events in the world, and open tagging/looting.

Hmm… everything about GW2 lured me in, especially pve and wvw.
But the cake goes to raids, pretty much the best team content i’ve played so far and i’ve played a large amount of multiplayer games. That feeling when i killed vg for the first time was awesome.