If you played Guild Wars 1, World of Warcraft (Vanilla-tBC), Dark Age of Camelot, and Everquest you’re probably going to hate Guild Wars 2.
The game is shallow. The end game content is questionably available to mostly lacking, a fact you will quickly realize when you get your first 80. The story writing is non-existent to absolutely horrible. The game’s zones are tiered by levels probably just so you don’t realize there’s nothing to do and what there is to find won’t be in material gains. Most of the armor looks goofy and the melee attacks are pretty immersion breaking: greatsword for instance. On top of all of that, the damage you do in low level zones turns into plastic spoons at high levels. With 80 levels of the same 8 skills you’re probably going to take a long long break before you get your first 80 out of pure spite and boredom. That’s if you even start playing again afterward.
I’m writing this for people ready to quit. The game DOES have an amazing level of enjoyment to it, but you have to find a way past ArenaNet’s own ignorance and self-sabotage.
First, do NOT level by doing hearts and Dynamic Events. Go to the Trading Post. Go to the Gem Store and by 35 dollars/pounds worth of Gems. Now check the Gold to Gems trading rates. Trade your gems for gold at average or daily high. Just follow the graph provided there. Next, find a crafting guide and level one of the crafts to 400. This should get you around 10 to 30 levels. In roughly 1 to 3 hours. Continue crafting till you have 15 gold left. Do not use up all of your gold! It is VERY hard to get until level 80.
Next, you have to make a decision. Do you want to start playing around and grinding through levels with your boring 8 skills or do something else?
If you have money to throw at the problem keep crafting. I recommend stopping at level 66-70 so you can learn your class. Level 70 through 80 happens very fast. That’s because there is a lot of Dynamic Event content to run into and you’ll blaze through those levels.
Before you go running off to slay monsters and prove yourself to world do not skip out on doing your Personal Story. The Story writing is HORRIBLE with the exception of the Order of Whispers. Don’t expect anything close to the quality of Guild Wars 1. Just hit the skip option down on the bottom right of your screen. Completing your personal story is a great way to get a few good chunks of experience really fast, especially if you’re well beyond the level the story should be done. I do recommend joining the Order of Whispers. You’ll enjoy Tybalt, of the characters in it.
At this point you should be no lower than level 45. Great job, you’ve managed to unlock roughly 2/3s of the game to yourself by skipping over the giant field of monotonous boredom that is GW2 leveling.
What’s left?
Well, the “game” mostly. For some reason ArenaNet got infected with the Blizzard/EA bug and forgot what “fun” FEELS like. Instead they went for a Korean-style-MMO grind wheel. They ARE making real improvements to get out of the pit they’ve dug for themselves but it will take time.
What’s left to do:
Learning to break out of the mentality other MMOs have set you in. Guild Wars 2 has a lot of “open-world” content as opposed to Dungeons content like World of Warcraft. It also has a lot of Zelda style puzzles and bosses in each zone if you take the time to stop and look around. That means it is a lot like Everquest 1 (1999 version). You want to fight a dragon, go hunt it where it flies. Get some …canons and shoot it down.
If you do enjoy dungeons your first choice will be at level 30, Ascalon Catacombs. It’s mostly a giant buried city and tombs complex. Completing a dungeon at any level will give you NO LESS than HALF your level. So, if you can get a an “experience group” don’t miss out on it.
Another thing that is NOT intuitive at all is how important armor is in this game. The armor that drops from creatures is positively horrible. Since you level up with this armor you’re probably not going to realize just how horrible it is. Post-lvl 80 you’ll be expected to get dungeon armor. Good news is you can do this in about 3 days. Every dungeon you complete will give you tokens for that dungeon. 40 tokens once a day upon completion, plus 20 by default: 60 total. It takes 1380 tokens to buy a full set of gear. All of the vendors are located in Lion’s Arch, south end, near the “Parade Grounds”. Joining a group is done through the contacts tab, top left of your screen, looking for group.
You can also buy your weapon up grades from these vendors in Lion’s Arch at the Parade Grounds.
The last thing to cover is Fractals: Fractals of the Mists.
You can find them by the Asura Gate outside the Consortium Gift Shop in Fort Marriner, Lion’s Arch. These are dungeons which provide you Ascended Gear (highest gear in the game) plus reliable access to Rings, Amulets, Backslot items, and worth while stats on such.