Guild Wars 2

I wanted to welcome myself to the community! I quit MMORPGs about a year and a half ago, and started getting MMO withdrawl a short while ago. I caved in and decided to give GW2 a try.

No regrets!

I was always nervous about investing time into a F2P MMORPG. The last one I tried was “Requiem,” which was a good idea but… poorly executed. I’m glad I decided to give it a try!

The only thing I’ve seen thus far that kinda disappoints me is the lack of RP that I’ve seen thus far, which I intend on remedying soon!

Hope to meet people along the way! In the meantime, keep on killin’ and keep on fightin’!

What you get for free in GW2 is pretty substantial, and for the most part, it’s an MMO that you can take breaks from and come back to without losing much progress. Enjoy what’s there and see ya around!

Hi there. If you have questions, the Player Helping Player section would be better.

Basically everything you’re accustom to in WoW or other fantasy MMOs is likely different here. First, no RP or PvP only servers. PvP is a game mode and RP is “around”.

Mostly the standard MMO Trinity of Tank/DPS/Healer is de-emphasized. Some professions are better at one than other but not to the extreme you see in other MMOs (other than the Ranger elite). And tanking is a bit different here, it’s not being a hit point sponge but more about leading a target around.

You don’t split a drop or XP, each involved gets the full reward. Everyone gets a copy of a material node to harvest. The base design philosophy from ArenaNet was a player in PvE should never be worried about seeing another player. Everyone can rez a fallen player or NPC. Most healing is done by yourself on yourself.

Few skills root, combat system is about movement and attacking. Facetanking is difficult as armor doesn’t mitigate damage enough, self-healing isn’t enough and HP is low enough relative to damage being done. Surviving is about NOT being hit, not withstanding it.

Have fun.

Behellagh.1468:

Hi there. If you have questions, the Player Helping Player section would be better.

Basically everything you’re accustom to in WoW or other fantasy MMOs is likely different here. First, no RP or PvP only servers. PvP is a game mode and RP is “around”.

Mostly the standard MMO Trinity of Tank/DPS/Healer is de-emphasized. Some professions are better at one than other but not to the extreme you see in other MMOs (other than the Ranger elite). And tanking is a bit different here, it’s not being a hit point sponge but more about leading a target around.

You don’t split a drop or XP, each involved gets the full reward. Everyone gets a copy of a material node to harvest. The base design philosophy from ArenaNet was a player in PvE should never be worried about seeing another player. Everyone can rez a fallen player or NPC. Most healing is done by yourself on yourself.

Few skills root, combat system is about movement and attacking. Facetanking is difficult as armor doesn’t mitigate damage enough, self-healing isn’t enough and HP is low enough relative to damage being done. Surviving is about NOT being hit, not withstanding it.

Have fun.

Cheers to you mate for a very short but in depth coverage of the difference and playstyle. Couldn’t have said it better.

@OP WELCOME! Have fun.

Behellagh.1468:

Hi there. If you have questions, the Player Helping Player section would be better.

Basically everything you’re accustom to in WoW or other fantasy MMOs is likely different here. First, no RP or PvP only servers. PvP is a game mode and RP is “around”.

Mostly the standard MMO Trinity of Tank/DPS/Healer is de-emphasized. Some professions are better at one than other but not to the extreme you see in other MMOs (other than the Ranger elite). And tanking is a bit different here, it’s not being a hit point sponge but more about leading a target around.

You don’t split a drop or XP, each involved gets the full reward. Everyone gets a copy of a material node to harvest. The base design philosophy from ArenaNet was a player in PvE should never be worried about seeing another player. Everyone can rez a fallen player or NPC. Most healing is done by yourself on yourself.

Few skills root, combat system is about movement and attacking. Facetanking is difficult as armor doesn’t mitigate damage enough, self-healing isn’t enough and HP is low enough relative to damage being done. Surviving is about NOT being hit, not withstanding it.

Have fun.

I enjoy it thus far for sure! I was actually quite amazed at the detail and combat systems for a F2P game! To me, it’s quite generous of them.

I haven’t tried the PVP yet, but am very eager to give it a go.

As for the RP, I’m sure that I’ll find people to act out a story with!

Thank you for the welcome too! I am eager to continue playing!

If you purchased the game (which by posting here, indicates you have), you aren’t playing the Play4Free version. The P4F version has restrictions the full version does not.

A new-player tip: Save your L80 Boost until after you have leveled one or two characters naturally. You will receive a lot of tips from the leveling tutorial messages.

Welcome to Tyria, and good luck.

Remember to move and to dodge. Mobility is important and the game is often balanced around the assumption that you will be actively avoiding damage rather than just taking and shrugging it off.

Lahemic.6097:

The only thing I’ve seen thus far that kinda disappoints me is the lack of RP that I’ve seen thus far, which I intend on remedying soon!

Thanks to the “Megaservers” system, you may have been in the right place for RP, but in the wrong instance.

If you’re on a NA server, just take a run around the lower level’s inner circle in Divinity’s Reach every now and then, and if you’re in the right instance you’ll eventually encounter some emotes from someone RPing. (Emote range is really over done in this game, but this is one of the places where that’s helpful.) I’m not sure where to suggest looking if you’re on a EU server.

To find out which specific instance you’re in, use the “/ip” command. Getting to a different instance requires either zoning in and out with some solid luck, or teaming with someone in the right instance and then using the “Join in <zone name>” option you get when you click on their party icon. It’s worth noting that the agreed upon “RP instance” (when one is needed) does change every time there’s a patch, though.

The game isn’t necessarily free-to-play. It’s free-to-play trial with very open features, but still got restrictions. Buying the game fully opens up the game.

Take it as the World of Warcraft trial, but less hindering.

The game was originally fully buy-to-play.

Guild Wars 2 wasn’t designed as a Free-to-Play game. It’s a buy-to-play game that ended up getting the core game Free-to-Play as a trial when the expansion was announced.

Unfortunately, RP has never been strongly supported – no RP servers ever existed, though Piken Square and Tarnished Coast were unofficial RP servers. And then Megaservers scattered what was left of the RP community. Now they all hang out in Divinity’s Reach.

Lahemic.6097:

Behellagh.1468:

…

I enjoy it thus far for sure! I was actually quite amazed at the detail and combat systems for a F2P game! To me, it’s quite generous of them.

I haven’t tried the PVP yet, but am very eager to give it a go.

As for the RP, I’m sure that I’ll find people to act out a story with!

Thank you for the welcome too! I am eager to continue playing!

The game is still Buy2Play at it’s core. You will need to buy the expansion to unlock all of the features. They turned the base game into a huge trial version with very few restrictions after the expansion hit. It probably happened due to the popularity of F2P models nowadays, I guess. Which in turn now allows them to market it as such to draw in a new crowd.

You don’t have to be afraid of any of the negative things you heard about F2P games either . None of the terrible framework conditions you might find in a F2P game are present here. You know, the stuff that turns a great game into something bad.
Quite on the contrary actually:
The cash shop is quite player friendly. All about convinience and cosmetics, but not to the degree where you are forced to buy anything. And you can even exchange ingame gold for gems to buy anything there.
Updates are usually smooth and simple, bugs get fixed soon and server downtime is quite rare. The customer support is nice and helpful, the community is nice enough and quite alive and kicking.
None the less, people still complain about pretty much anything – something an MMO veteran is used to, I am sure.

In short, try it, play it and then decide wether you like to buy it. Even with an initial cost for the expansion the game is quite the steal compared to anything that is subcription based.

Another thing that might be helpful to know is that equipment is very different in this game to WoW.

There are only 6 tiers: Common (white), Fine (blue), Masterwork (green), Rare (yellow), Exotic (orange) and Ascended (pink). Everything with the same level requirement and tier is equally good: a level 80 Exotic Sword you got from a random enemy in the open-world will have stats equal to one from a dungeon, or crafted by a player. Also so far we haven’t had a level cap increase and only 1 new tier so there’s a definite end to obtaining better equipment.

Everything up to exotic is easy to obtain from a variety of places. Ascended is harder/more expensive because it’s supposed to be a long-term goal but it only has slightly higher stats so it’s not required for anything except 2 end-game group areas (Fractals and the one raid). (There is also a 7th ‘tier’ called legendary, but those have identical stats to ascended, they just have much fancier skins and they’re intended as long-term goals, something to go for if you like how it looks, not something you’d ever need.)

As a result most players will assume if you’re level 80 you’re in exotic/ascended and won’t check (and there’s nothing like gear scores). (Although they may ask what build/stat combination you’re using.)

One other thing that can be confusing to some people coming from other games is that every item has two ‘set names’ – one for the stats and one for the skin and players will discuss both almost interchangably, but it sounds like WoW’s transmogrification system (especially since Legion) is pretty much identical so you might be fine with that.

To the OP, I was also RP curious having come from the early MUD’s of yesteryear. I posted on these forums about it here:

https://forum-en.gw2archive.eu/forum/game/gw2/Roleplay-How-is-it-accomplshed-in-GW2/first#post6483179

Some excellent replies which I hope will help.

Mind you, I had a look at the LFG tool just now for RP and what I got was… odd. An LFG for Pokemon RP. Er… /confused face.