Guild Wars 2

Hola,

I’ve been an avid mmo player since the early days of the polygonal fantasticness of Asheron’s Call and Everquest, and generally I pick these things up fairly quickly, but GW2 kind of has me stumped. I tried thumbing through the wiki, and the newbie tips thread but I couldn’t find the answers I was looking for.

1) Leveling – I’ve been doing hearts, story line quests, exploring, and crafting a little, but I still feel like I’m not leveling as quickly as I ought to be. I’m level 19, but I have almost 13 hours logged on my character. It’s been a fun 13 hours, admittedly, but I think I’m missing something.

2) Groups – The zones in Tyria are big and lonesome. I rarely see any body unless there’s an event going on, and even then it’s mostly just solo’ers doing their own thing. I was hoping for a more social aspect based on the name, I think. Is there any way to meet other players to level, or any benefit to grouping up for quests? Do I just need to power through the lower levels so I can group up for dungeons and PvP or is it all solo all the time?

3) Guilds – In previous games I joined the guilds of players I enjoyed grouping up with. But, since I’m doing nothing but soloing so far that’s not feasible. How do most people pick a forever guild in GW2?

Thanks!

1 – If you feel you are leveling slowly, try going to different areas of other races and finding that sweet spot. Also it should be noted some classes have an easier time leveling than others just from learning curves. Key thing to leveling alot is doing events, not grinding mobs.

2 – Use map chat to see if you want people to party with you to help. Even some of us level 80s will gladly help (we’re downscaled too anyways =3) or others in the same boat so you’ll likely find some if the timeframe is good.

3 – Well the nice thing about GW2 is that you can have up to 4 guilds I think? Not just one. So you don’t ahve to tie yourself down to just only one group in other mmos. You can still participate in a few other communities, learn share and communicate. There’s isn’t too much guild rivalry either so, having multiple isn’t an issue.

Most people are recruiting in Lion’s Arch, if you haven’t figured out how to get there yet, i can also detail that. =3

1) If you’ve played for 13 hours and you’re level 19, you’re already ahead of the curve. The devs wanted each level to take an hour or so.

Remember, there’s not really an end-game in GW2. The game is what you get. Because of the downleveling system, content can be and is played at any level. Don’t rush through leveling and expect the game to change once you hit level 80.

Asking in map chat where people are is a good tactic. If you spot a group event or champion up advertise it, if you have questions ask them. It’s easy to miss people in these maps.

I suggest also finding a new player guild to get started. Operation Union in this forum is a newb-friendly cross-server guild, and you can look in the guild forums for guilds that are on your server and seem friendly. You can be in up to 4 guilds, and most guilds are cool with that. I would avoid any guild that requires 100% representation, because those are usually the more hardcore guilds.

Anet said an average of 90 mins per level so you are not going slowly at all. That said, events events events, such fast exp.

It’s why wvw can level you really fast. Doing events that are scaled up by multiple people (another reason to go with a guild group) will also net much more xp due to more mobs.

I don’t know how anyone else did it but I found the guild I’ve been in since launch and will probably stay in forever by looking through guild adverts on fan sites for one that was on my server and looked like the type of guild I wanted to join. I also had a look at their website and the public sections of their forums to get a feel for the members.

You need to have a fairly good idea of what you want from a guild to do that so it’s probably good to wait until you’ve gotten a feel for the game and what you like doing. No point joining a PvE only guild and then deciding you want to focus on tournaments.

And of course it’s not fool proof. I didn’t know when I joined the guild that I’d want to stay, I had to get to know the other members before that. But at least I was off to a good start.

Hi and welcome to the game
Sometime I wonder whether it’s actually harder to come to GW2 if you’re an experienced MMO player, because it’s just the same in many aspects but just different enough to throw you off!

1) I wouldn’t worry about levelling. I can give you some tips if you feel like you’re falling behind the content you want to do, but it sounds like you’ll be fine. There’s no massive benefit to getting to max level, and I really recommend you don’t rush to it, just let the levelling happen in the background while you do what you do. You’ll hit 80 in no time without even trying.

2) GW2 works on a bit of a different dynamic. There isn’t much benefit to forming a party for content, outside of instances – it allows you to keep track of people and call targets, but not much else. Instead, you play solo and join up with people you run across without any kind of formal agreement. Something pops up on the map, people rush toward it, work together, then split up again to whatever they’re individually doing. It’s beautiful when it works, and random player encounters can be really fun. of course, it does rely on a certain number of people being in the map with you. As more people do non-open-world-PvE, there are less around for that stuff.

3) If you want company while you level, a guild is definitely the place to start. I’m part of an irl friends group so I can give limited advice, but as Talonblaze says you can be in multiple guilds at once (your account joins, not your character, but you choose which to represent at a given time). Perhaps if you see an advert you could ask them to run around with you for a bit? Otherwise, the first dungeon is available at level 30, so you may find people you enjoy grouping with through that.

What server are you on, out of interest?

Thank you every one for the info, it helps. I guess I should look at GW2 as a blank slate, and break the bad habits I picked up in other MMOs and just enjoy the ride.

Curuniel, thanks for the tips. I’m on Yak’s Bend.

I skimmed through this thread (at work!) and just wanted to add – when I found myself lacking levels for the heart quests I was doing, it was normally because I fell behind in the personal story. You can get some mad experience from this… Also, if you hit a tricky part and die, ‘restart from a checkpoint’ (or whatever it says) will res you at the nearest waypoint – 9 times out of ten, the fight will still be going on and the kitten that killed you won’t necessarily have regenerated all their health due to still fighting NPCs.

I’d def back up calling events out (and asking if there are any going on) in /m and linking the nearest waypoint (hold shift and click the WP square on the mini-map) and most of the time people will flock to it.

Hope that helps (If I’m not just repeating thngs others have said…)

1 – your levelling a lot faster then I did! theres some truly amazing places to see and things to do when exploring Tyria, the great thing about solo levelling is that you can explore them all at your own pace
Crafting is a great way to level, but can be costly without much of a return.

2 – a lot of people are ‘farming’ event chains now to get rare drops ect, the experience for group events is pretty awesome to level with, as said before ask in map if anyone wants a explorer party

3 – Which server are you on? some Guilds recruit in Lion’s Arch, its a little hit and miss if you find a non social one of a ‘forever’ Guild though.

1. as long as your leveling is faster then 1 lvl/hour your doing fine! there is no need to rush to lvl 80. just take your time, gather, kill, event as much as you like. usual MMO’s were like max lvl 100 (jsut example) and lvl 1-99 was useless grinding cuz 100 gave you the freedom to do everything. here its you can do every part of the game from lvl 2 (however the higher your lvl the better your chances you survive).

2. everyone have this at some moments but like many stated before. you dont need to party to play together with others. yesterday i was doing an event that had me kill 2 veteran mobs at the same time. could kill 1 but 2 was to much for me so i ran away. try to regen some HP to go in again, i turn around and see someone else running in. together we killed both said a small ‘ty’ — ‘np’ and that was it. we both completed the event. got reward, were polite and that was it.

3. i joined guild of friends from gw1. but for someone new to whole GW i would say just join some guild that are recruiting. spend 2 days in 1 guild 2 days in another and see what suits you best usually you get to join 1 guild here you represent 1 and join 4 guilds:) alot more relaxed.

If you want a group, sometimes it’s good to just find a person, then group, find another person, (group size increased). For example i was in kessex hills, a human 16-25 area, and found two random guys who were doing an area. We joined up, and being a giant butt norn I was the gung-ho leader.

Another prime example do not be afraid to just take charge. If you want to solo, go for it. If you want a group, call the shots. In orr there’s a skill point i needed in an area called the temple of balthazar. SURROUNDED BY SO MANY VETERANS. I knew i couldn’t solo the area so i backed off and kept exploring. Came back for a group event to take the temple and thought finally i can get the sp. Turns out i got there too late and the NPC’s just ended up dying off leaving 5 players sitting around like “ kitten ” So, i ran up said “i need this Skill Point, if you guys want to come let’s go I’m goin for it”. Turns out I got an instant group of 5 other + 1 to follow, and we took Orr by storm for the next two hours or so.

Dont address yourself as a “Dumb Newbie” everybody is equal.