Another new player here
Population seems to vary server to server and by time of day. I’m lucky enough to be on the NA unofficial RP server, Tarnished Coast. I always see people.
Charr only run on four legs without weapons (and like all other races, are slower with the weapon out. You can keybind a sheathe weapons toggle to rapidly swap states).
The only quest you “collect” is your personal story; it is tracked in the screen upper right.. Everything else is either with hearts (do all the tasks they want, you do not have to talk to them first, just be in the area) or dynamic events. Oh, also you can work on daily quests for xp and laurels, if you bring up the achievement panel in your hero window you will see the list of choices for the day. Those reset at 8 pm Eastern.
Crafting is fun. I find the cooking and armor crafts much more fun than weapons, because you only make boring looking weapons for the most part. It’s free to learn a craft, so once you have some materials (like jute scraps for tailoring) you can give it a go. The real leveling of craft skill comes from discovery. In the discovery panel you can drag 2 to 4 items to the boxes and if it will make something, you can discover how to make that thing. They’ve done a few things to make it more fun, like if you are processing 100 jute scraps it speeds up quickly so you don’t have to grind them out slowly.
I don’t try to make money but I do get gold building up over time. You don’t need tons of the stuff to have effective fun in the game, only to get high end cosmetic items. Crafting is usually not a moneymaker; dungeons are quite lucrative if you don’t get too many repair bills.
I can’t help with guilds, I’m in one designed well before beta. If you’re on Tarnished Coast and want to RP, check guildwars2roleplayers.com for guild listings.
WvW is World v World. It’s a large set of maps with keeps to capture and supply caravans to guard. Hundreds of people can run around in it. While there are some PvE parts of it (some events, skill points, vistas), mostly you are attacking or defending against other players. Three servers go in at time, with a reset to new opponents every … 2 weeks? They may have changed the frequency. I have always loathed PvP because I hate getting ganked but I have enjoyed WvW when running around with friends. Since the enemy names are just the names of their server, not individuals, you get less kitten rage and it feels more like you are just in a very smart AI environment.
I’ll try to approach some of your questions but due to my own inexperience I can’t answer all.
There are no mounts. There are waypoints that once you have visited them you can open your map and click them to travel around faster. This does require a little bit of coin, aside from in main cities where it is free.
‘Quests’ are on your map as hearts. If you find an NPC on the map, the symbol looks like binoculars, they will show you more in your area. Also there are dynamic events that will show on the map with a big read circle. Usually these show up when you are close and they usually pop up around the hearts.
The other quest style is your personal story and the upper right of your screen should tell you where to go and what to do. On the map the location will show up as a yellow star.
As far as picking a profession in my opinion warrior or guardian are not bad to start with as you kind of start to find your way around. It really depends on what style of play you like. I like to mix it up so I have 5 alts.
Crafting is a good way to earn xp. You can switch between the different trades without losing progress in the previous ones. This is nice as it allows you to test them out. From my experience crafted items don’t sell for much on the TP. To craft you either need to harvest the mats or buy them from the TP. Crafting takes a little getting used to because you can discover different ‘recipes’ by dropping the crafted mats and things like sigils into the interface to see what turns up.
While we are on crafting you can send all of your harvested and found mats directly to your bank without going to the bank by clicking the cog wheel in your inventory interface. You can access your bank from the usual banks in town and also from any crafting station even if you don’t do that craft.
You will also have daily and monthly tasks to do which will get you some karma and laurels. You will probably spend those later as you start to level.
I have noticed that the human starter map, Queensdale, seems to be a bit more populated. I find this area an easier start spot so that may be why.
I hope this helped and welcome to the GW2 community!
The Burninator
There aren’t quests in the traditional sense. Hearts are kinda like it, but you don’t need to talk to the NPC if you don’t want to. I like to just to get some context/story as to why we should kill the 20 monsters. They usually want you to do something in the area and after you complete it, they will offer something for sale in exchange for karma points. You can find them by wandering into their area or talking to scout NPC who have telescope icons on the map to reveal nearby ones. Don’t forget to check your mailbox each time you complete a heart because the NPC will send you money in a thank you letter.
Though hearts do sound like quests, it is the dynamic events that are the replacement for “quests” in this game. The main reason for hearts is to act as a guide to dynamic events in the area. Most of the time, things that you will be doing on the event will also apply to the heart. There are times when events will be in a chain and lead to another event right after.
Right now there’s an event going on in a zone called Southsun Cove and it is drawing all the players there. The first phase is on right now with the second phase coming in tomorrow and it should all end by June 12th I think.
(edited by kokocabana.8153)
WvW is much Monster Play in Lotro, except your server is matched against two other servers. There is also arena-type PvP if you want to go that route.
You can ‘guest’ on other servers. When guesting you are limited to PvE content so no PvP. Guesting lets you check server communities without having to transfer.
I am also on Tarnished Coast which is a NA server. Seafarer’s Rest is EU, correct? TC is quite popular, but I can find quiet spots when the mood strikes. Most servers would be similar.
Good luck. I hope you enjoy the game.
“Please accept my text in the jovial, friendly manner that it is intended.”
First, are there a lot of people playing? I am on the server Seaferers Rest.
You might be playing during an off-time for your server. Peak times are usually during the evening for the local area (15:00 – 02:00 UTC for EU servers and 21:00 – 07:00 UTC for NA servers), so if you are playing at an off time for your local servers, you may want to switch regions. For EU servers, I’ve heard Gunnar’s Hold is popular (though I know some people on FS), and for NA servers, I love Tarnished Coast – but Ehmry Bay and Ferguson’s Crossing are also great (and not the only ones that are good).
If you decide to change servers, you may want to think about moving any extra stuff you have to your bank and deleting all your characters to move for free. Your character’s names will remain yours for 24 hours once you delete that character, so you can remake the characters on your new home server.
I really like the Charr, but was wondering if you can run on two legs with the weapon put away or only on all four?
No. I always do jumps on my Charr with her weapons out – I miss otherwise.
I don’t seem to be able to collect quests, they just pop up when I am near something. I think that is kind of neat, more of an observation than a question.
Yep! You get credit for doing quests if you do the objectives listed by the quest in the area that the quest is active. For “heart quests” (called Reknown Hearts) you have to do enough stuff in the area to fill the bar. For other quests, you typically have to do something like collect items, kill enemies, kill a tough enemy, escort someone, etc. You don’t have to be there for the whole duration of these other quests – you can rush to help as soon as you see it, and you don’t have to stay for the whole event. You’ll get credit for helping as long as you stay on that map – but if you help more, you get better rewards.
Having trouble deciding on a class, but leaning toward a warrior. I usually play rogue type classes and want to go different this go round. Plus, I like the idea of a heavily armored Charr. Any advice for this class?
Each class plays differently, and since you start with 5 character slots you can play around with some options. I would say PvE is easiest to learn on a Warrior, Guardian, or Ranger.
Are there mounts in game?
No. You can use Waypoints to teleport for a small fee, or you can go to PvP or WvW to get a free teleport back to Lion’s Arch, the main city in this game.
How is the crafting? I see that I can buy and equip all the gathering tools, but how is the actual crafting?
Crafting is a fast way to gain levels at the expense of your gold – and once you master a crafting discipline, it is a nice way to make some things and potentially save a little bit of money. It’s very formulaic, and once you learn your first craft, the rest are pretty intuitive. There are lots of crafting leveling guides – following one of those may be the best walkthrough you can get right now.
Even if you don’t craft buy the gathering tools and use them. Start with copper tools for the starting areas, grab some iron tools for the level 20-35 areas, and so on. Gathering gives you experience and you can sell what you gather on the Black Lion Trading Company (in-game TP) for some decent money.
How hard/easy is it to make money?
I have never been in need of money in this game – but I have not pursued any Legendary (highest tier) weapons. Read the “If You Only Knew This” thread at the top of this forum for some tips.
How hard is it to find a guild? I have seen zero recruitment posts in the chat window. Am I just in the wrong place?
Likely. You’ll find more guilds recruiting in Lion’s Arch. You can also check out the Guilds forum here on the GW2.com website.
What is WvW? Is that like PvP? I am mostly interested in PvE, but wanting to try PvP later on.
WvW is open-world PvP where you’ll encounter skirmishes of varying sizes. I’m on a high population server, so a lot of the battles I fight are anywhere between less than10 vs. 10 to more than 50 vs. 50 vs. 50. I would highly encourage you to try it out – hop in to the Eternal Battleground or your home world’s Borderlands, find a commander (a player marked on the map with a blue v-looking chip), and if there’s a large group of people following the commander, join in! It’s also a good way to gain levels.
Enjoy your time in Tyria! If you happen to make your way to a server in the NA region, look me up!
So I can guest on another server even though it says I can’t transfer for 5 days? And I can do everything PvE there, like level, craft, join guilds and such? Then transfer after 5 days and be able to WvW and PvP?
If that is so I am headed to the unofficial RP realm. Probably should have done a bit more research on servers, ha. Also, what are laurels? Is that the currency here?
I appreciate all the responses, thanks!
You can get a guest pass to up to two other servers in your region. The guest pass lasts for 24 hours – then you can guest to another server or re-guest to that server. Yes, you’ll be able to do everything PvE on that server and join guilds, then when you’re able to transfer you can take part in that world’s WvW.
If you want to stay on an EU server, then you want to head to Piken Square. If you want to move to an NA server, then Tarnished Coast is the unofficial RP server (which doesn’t mean everyone RPs – just that it’s much more common).
Laurels are one of the many forms of currency in this game. Gold is the most commonly used currency, which comes in copper, silver, and gold coins. There’s also Karma (purple triangle), which is gained by completing quests. It can be used to purchase things from Karma Vendors and Heart Vendors (those guys who have heart quests turn into vendors when you finish the quest). Laurels are gained by completing daily achievements and monthly achievements and are great to save for high-level gear. Then there are also tokens you get from dungeons that you can also spend at particular vendors in Lion’s Arch for high-level gear.
Is Piken Square an RP server?I see it is medium pop just like the one I am currently on which worries me a bit. I don’t want a slammed packed server with a player every ten feet, but I do not like crossing an entire area and never seeing anyone else.
Even on the high population servers here in NA, I don’t feel crowded (except in particular spots of Lion’s Arch, but that’s because it is a central location). Maybe try guesting to some of the servers with Very High population in your region to see what they’re like?
Populations are based on the total number of player accounts on the server and not current online players. Very high/Full servers just means that a lot of players call that server home. The population status only goes down when players transfer off that server.
Piken Square is the unofficial EU RP server, yes. I’ve heard it hasn’t gotten the density that Tarnished Coast did but I know some excellent RPers that are over there.
Thank you all, I appreciate it.