Discovering new areas and taking in the scenery is one of my favorite aspects of this sort of game. Anet’s art department has demonstrated time and again that they have what it takes to make finding a new bit of scenery a reward in itself.
Ah, yes… did you kneel at Gwen’s grave for a while when you encountered it? I certainly did. Nostalgia and sentiment can be used so powerfully.
(If you didn’t play GW1, you can pretty much ignore the first two sentences.)
Not only did I sat there and thought about a flute, and red irises, I looked around to find sandfords and yakkington’s graves very close, making my stay even more…. well a return to the past. All my characters have meditated and rested at her grave listening to music from the past….
Gwen was the start of my guild wars experience, and was the end as well…
I finshed up attending her marriage and I felt I accomplished something…
I had a hard time understanding mesmers in gw1, but brought her along often….
I actually had negative feelings towards Charr for a while…. though I recovered from it….
I loved the stories of gw1… gw2 migh be more active and mobile and maybe more polished in appearance…. but the story is hollow in comparison… hollow, shallow, unfinished, no direction…
23 lvl 80’s, 9 times map, 4ele, 4ncr, 3war, 3grd, 3rgr, 2thf, 2msm, 1eng, 1 rev.
Been There, Done That & Will do it again…except maybe world completion.
@maddoctor – more masteries! Woo! Right? XP farm = survivability in the desert. =) Haha. I’d still pay for a robe outfit if they made that a legit mechanic. Still a neat idea, even though linked to gems.
Discovering new areas and taking in the scenery is one of my favorite aspects of this sort of game. Anet’s art department has demonstrated time and again that they have what it takes to make finding a new bit of scenery a reward in itself.
Ah, yes… did you kneel at Gwen’s grave for a while when you encountered it? I certainly did. Nostalgia and sentiment can be used so powerfully.
(If you didn’t play GW1, you can pretty much ignore the first two sentences.)
Not only did I sat there and thought about a flute, and red irises, I looked around to find sandfords and yakkington’s graves very close, making my stay even more…. well a return to the past. All my characters have meditated and rested at her grave listening to music from the past….
Gwen was the start of my guild wars experience, and was the end as well…
I finshed up attending her marriage and I felt I accomplished something…
I had a hard time understanding mesmers in gw1, but brought her along often….
I actually had negative feelings towards Charr for a while…. though I recovered from it….
I loved the stories of gw1… gw2 migh be more active and mobile and maybe more polished in appearance…. but the story is hollow in comparison… hollow, shallow, unfinished, no direction…
I wouldn’t say the story of Guild Wars 2 has no direction, but certainly compared to GW1 there is more care given to shiny trinkets/baubles than to story. But that’s probably a CORPG/MMORPG difference.
The main characters from GW1 were generally interesting. Graves, shrines, fields of battle where they fell… I would visit them all! As well as the lands I used to frequent with them in my party. (Remember Fort Ranik, anyone? Black Moa Chick scavenger hunt, hah.)
That sounds like what some mastery in the crystal desert will do :X
Speaking of the Crystal Desert… the sound effects of the revenant’s elite channeled skills will suit the place very, very nicely. Eerily nicely. Wandering (semi-aimlessly) through a desert while channeling haunting melodies…
I was really sad when i learned that HoT didn’t include any casual/relaxing maps to explore. Exploration when you have to dodge death left and right and to be in constant awareness doesn’t give you much of the option to stop and appreciate the environtment.
And that anet gated lots of exploration elements behind huge xp grind is really frustrates me. Right now i’m done exploring new maps but can’t get map complitions because i lack some of the masteries that i just don’t want to grind doing the same events over and over and over again.
I was really sad when i learned that HoT didn’t include any casual/relaxing maps to explore. Exploration when you have to dodge death left and right and to be in constant awareness doesn’t give you much of the option to stop and appreciate the environtment.
And that anet gated lots of exploration elements behind huge xp grind is really frustrates me. Right now i’m done exploring new maps but can’t get map complitions because i lack some of the masteries that i just don’t want to grind doing the same events over and over and over again.
… and over and over and over. Yep, it’s a grind. See, I don’t mind the grind existing in the game, but I’d like casual content to be added as well as the grind. Especially exploration.
Map completion on the HoT maps… haha, I guess I’ll be dreaming about that for a few months. But I think I’m done looking at them for a while, so that’s fine by me.
Ooh… not to mention that we haven’t seen the Tengu maps yet. They’re plonked right in the middle of the lands we have access to! I’m not asking for a playable race, just for exploration. I’ve even got wings that work (in four maps). =)
Query: which direction would people like to explore most? I’m sure you can all tell that I want to go anywhere east of Queensdale, but what about you guys? Straight north? Further west? South?
Query: which direction would people like to explore most? I’m sure you can all tell that I want to go anywhere east of Queensdale, but what about you guys? Straight north? Further west? South?
Ooh, as in the Ring of Fire? Or The Crystal Desert/Elona? Or Cantha? (Or do you mean underground, like in Eye of the North?)
Way down, underground. I never played Eye of the North, but I’m imagining something like Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”. Maybe we could even get a glimpse of where the Mega Destroyer sleeps when he’s not fighting.
Ooh, as in the Ring of Fire? Or The Crystal Desert/Elona? Or Cantha? (Or do you mean underground, like in Eye of the North?)
Way down, underground. I never played Eye of the North, but I’m imagining something like Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”. Maybe we could even get a glimpse of where the Mega Destroyer sleeps when he’s not fighting.
Eye of the North included (as per the wiki page) “An immense interconnected underground complex of natural caves and excavated areas underneath Tyria.” Was quite cool. Dwarven mines and halls. A bit like dungeon tilesets.
Ooh, as in the Ring of Fire? Or The Crystal Desert/Elona? Or Cantha? (Or do you mean underground, like in Eye of the North?)
Way down, underground. I never played Eye of the North, but I’m imagining something like Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”. Maybe we could even get a glimpse of where the Mega Destroyer sleeps when he’s not fighting.
Eye of the North included (as per the wiki page) “An immense interconnected underground complex of natural caves and excavated areas underneath Tyria.” Was quite cool. Dwarven mines and halls. A bit like dungeon tilesets.
Ooh, as in the Ring of Fire? Or The Crystal Desert/Elona? Or Cantha? (Or do you mean underground, like in Eye of the North?)
Way down, underground. I never played Eye of the North, but I’m imagining something like Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”. Maybe we could even get a glimpse of where the Mega Destroyer sleeps when he’s not fighting.
Eye of the North included (as per the wiki page) “An immense interconnected underground complex of natural caves and excavated areas underneath Tyria.” Was quite cool. Dwarven mines and halls. A bit like dungeon tilesets.
I never played Eye of the North, but I’m imagining something like Jules Verne’s “Journey to the Centre of the Earth”. Maybe we could even get a glimpse of where the Mega Destroyer sleeps when he’s not fighting.