Guild Wars 2

Hey guys

New guy here. I’m about to give Guild Wars 2 a go after I picked it up on sale this week. I have a couple of questions, so if anyone could be so kind as to indulge me I would greatly appreciate it.

Q1: Is there a server/realm in the EU that qualifies as a good place for someone to go who is looking for mainly PvP?

Q2: What is the general consensus about the state of the game, are we in good or bad shape, is there anything you can elaborate on in terms of status of the MMO as a whole?

Q3: Is there anything I need to know about character creation, anything to stay away from or anything that is deemed by consensus as either broken, unbalanced or not entertaining?

Q4: Is there anything I should do or not do as a new player? Is there any recommend starting regiment for new players? Specific guides to read for example or perhaps certain things to do or not to do early on (for example is a good idea to get into crafting early or is there something that is good to do early on like gathering resources etc..).

Thanks again guys, tonight I will be starting.

1. I don’t know much about EU, and its standings. But if its WvW your wondering about you might look at the WvW Forums, understand though its pretty toxic there. Other then WvW you can PvP as much as you like in the spvp areas.

If your mainly a pvp guy alot of things won’t effect you much. As the games main PvP area is broken off from the rest of the game. When you enter it you become level 80 with access to almost everything there to balance the playing field. All you will need to do is learn some builds. Each Sub profession forum has some builds that are popular, (ie hambow warrior or meditation guardian)

2. State of the game is rather dependent on what you like most. There have been a few new maps added, and anet has changed the way new players will play the game. As I had all my characters to level 80 before they implemented it I never played through with the new changes. There are mixed feelings on those. Alougth WvW hasn’t seen much change PvP is still fun and the New PvE maps like silverwaste has been alot of fun to play in.

3. Race has no impact on your character. Most racial skills were designed to be so weak it wont’ matter. Rangers just got a huge buff so many are playing them, there are threads about how overpowered there are, but before that it was warriors, if you have played an MMO before you know how those threads seem to go.

4. The game is very friendly. Almost any content can be fairly easily. Crafting is a good way to level. But your going to have want to gather your own materials as the ways to make gold are somewhat limited at lower levels.

Myself I would suggest taking your time and exploring the world. GW2 is a very pretty game with alot of details. Some of the hearts are interesting as are the events. I will never forget playing on my Norn, semi afk in the starting zone when someone activated an even and bears starting flooding in to attack everyone. It was quite a chuckle.

End game is kinda limited to running the same dungeons for gold or doing WvW or PvP.

Hope this helps. And welcome to the game.

A1: I don’t know too much about WvW or the EU standings but as stated above, check out the WvW forums, (although I’ve heard its pretty toxic over there) also WvW is very much a large scale mode and if you aren’t already aware, their is an alternate PvP mode called “The Heart of the Mists” that is much more intimate with its fight as its a simple 6v6, if your more into individually making a difference that’s the place you’ll want to go, as far as WvW goes, again IDK about EU servers but generally try to join a server that has a higher population if possible, since that might mean more WvW players on that server

PS: Once you hit level 80 and you need some experience consider heading for a new area added to the game called “The Silverwastes” this level 80 area is very similar in mechanics to WvW, but is focused on PvE as opposed to PvP, it would be a good way to “get your feet wet” with the mechanics behind WvW and what to expect

A2: General consensus is a very difficult thing to discern on account of the toxicity of the community, (heck any community on the internet) but what I can tell you from my perspective as a long time player of the game since near launch and several other friends and acquaintances, the game is very well loved and for good reason, it has some minor flaws in it, especially when it comes to more difficult content but more recently the devs have added several new area’s that could be considered more “hardcore” than the usual areas of the game, that and if you don’t know GW2 has a system called “The Living Story” the idea behind this is every 2 weeks or so a new patch goes live that advances the main plot of the game, as of now though the previous patches will be locked as you weren’t logged in at the time of release, so I believe that you have to purchase the previous patches via in-game gold, or the premium currency, if you have no interest in story however, the Living story has also added a few new maps to the game that are available for free

Overall yes the game has it’s flaws but its very well loved.

A:3 as far as your character creation, nothing is considered “broken” or “boring” it all just depends on your play style, nothing really to avoid, just go with whatever race and class seems to suite you, however I will say if you have played MMO’s before any of the classes will probably be easy enough to understand so just go with whatever catches your eye,

If you’ve never played an MMO before however, I would recommend trying one of the simpler classes out just to get a feel for the game, examples would be Warrior/Guardian or Ranger, these are generally the easiest classes to understand and play, I must stress though the game is easy enough to understand and if you really want to don’t feel afraid to try out a necromancer or elementalist or even engineer if none of the 3 simpler classes really suite you

A4: On launch the game was kind of intimidating but recently the game has quite a few tutorials and basics built in, what I will say though is when leveling early, crafting isn’t a bad idea if you can afford it, and there are quite a few basic crafting guides on the game too get you started, if crafting isn’t really something you want to do don’t worry, just run around the area that you start in and you will encounter several things on the map too help you level up, Hearts (Quests) can be found in several places and are very good for leveling up, just find a heart and complete the tasks until the bar is filled, also WayPoints will help you travel around the map and give some more exp

I can recommend a guide on youtube that is very much a “beginner’s guide” for people who haven’t played MMO’s or GW2 before:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7MJ-HmkoE4I
Mods please let me know if I am breaking any code of conduct rules by posting a link, if so sorry and feel free to edit my post :p

That’s pretty much all you really need to know welcome to the game have fun!

LordBad.2083:

Hey guys

New guy here. I’m about to give Guild Wars 2 a go after I picked it up on sale this week. I have a couple of questions, so if anyone could be so kind as to indulge me I would greatly appreciate it.

Q1: Is there a server/realm in the EU that qualifies as a good place for someone to go who is looking for mainly PvP?

Q2: What is the general consensus about the state of the game, are we in good or bad shape, is there anything you can elaborate on in terms of status of the MMO as a whole?

Q3: Is there anything I need to know about character creation, anything to stay away from or anything that is deemed by consensus as either broken, unbalanced or not entertaining?

Q4: Is there anything I should do or not do as a new player? Is there any recommend starting regiment for new players? Specific guides to read for example or perhaps certain things to do or not to do early on (for example is a good idea to get into crafting early or is there something that is good to do early on like gathering resources etc..).

Thanks again guys, tonight I will be starting.

1: Server only matters when it comes to WvW, which is large scale PvP. In normal PvP, it doesn’t matter which server you pick since the games are either all EU or all NA. In PVE, the newly implemented megaservers means that maps will be fused and split depending on how many players are on it, so server is less important there as well.

2: The state of the game since the last patch is very good if you talk about PVE, the latest living story (a series of continuous story updates) is very good, there is a new team writing things and the new zone added is fun. PvP I play so rarely I can’t even comment on it, and I know that WvW is fun, but still suffers from the lack of balance between stacked servers and ones lacking people that happens in so many games. There’s a lot of discussion going on how to fix these things.

The game has a healthy population, for me the updates/patches are moving in the right direction, and Anet was exempt from the recent NCsoft layoffs so I think it is a steady seller.

3: Character creation. Well, there are known visual issues. Huge Norn and Charr can have difficulty doing jumping puzzles. Shoulderpads and boots on Sylvari (mostly male) can sometimes scale really weirdly on some armors. There are often clipping issues with Charr ears/horns and tail. Charr and Norn armour are sometimes stretched versions of Human ones, which doesn’t look good texture wise if you have the biggest bodytypes. A lot of people used to complained that the tiny asura had an advantage in PvP because they were so small their tells weren’t as obvious for various skills.

Profession wise, there are some that are easier to level with and some that are harder, but a lot depend on your playstyle. I’ve leveled almost everything by now, and a lot of the time it is the build more than the profession that is the issue. You can move traits and skills around anytime you want (except combat) so you can always experiment. That being said, some professions become markedly better once they get their more powerful traits, and can struggle for a while at the start. That being said, leveling is not that hard.

4: One thing you can remember as a new player is that playing the game normally (following the personal story, walking around zones) not only gives you XP, it also gives you nice gold for equipment and a lot of things to break down for materials. With the NPE (new player experience) a lot of these things are going to be unlocked/revealed as you level, and I think it shouldn’t be too complicated.

One thing is that as soon as you have leveled enough to buy the kits, break down the weapons and armors you don’t need for materials and also harvest/mine everything in your way. That will become so handy later.

Your starting two crafts should be two that are useful for your profession, for example if you pick a warrior, you can use weaponsmithing, armorsmithing or maybe jewelry. Making your own things gives nice XP at the start.

There are several guides out there on how to speedlevel with crafting and the like, but I feel that for a first time character you are better off playing the game. That’s why you bought it after all.

One last thing: It might seem a little more deserted than usual for a few weeks, because a new zone was just released, which makes everyone run there to do the new stuff. I know I am.

If there are other questions, just ask in map chat or here. We’re a friendly bunch.

LordBad.2083:

Hey guys

New guy here. I’m about to give Guild Wars 2 a go after I picked it up on sale this week. I have a couple of questions, so if anyone could be so kind as to indulge me I would greatly appreciate it.

Q1: Is there a server/realm in the EU that qualifies as a good place for someone to go who is looking for mainly PvP?

Q2: What is the general consensus about the state of the game, are we in good or bad shape, is there anything you can elaborate on in terms of status of the MMO as a whole?

Q3: Is there anything I need to know about character creation, anything to stay away from or anything that is deemed by consensus as either broken, unbalanced or not entertaining?

Q4: Is there anything I should do or not do as a new player? Is there any recommend starting regiment for new players? Specific guides to read for example or perhaps certain things to do or not to do early on (for example is a good idea to get into crafting early or is there something that is good to do early on like gathering resources etc..).

Thanks again guys, tonight I will be starting.

A1: Not a PvPer myself and I only dabble in WvW. For WvW rankings you can check it out here.

http://mos.millenium.org/eu/matchups

A2: I think the game is going fine. There are those however who see only the negative, usually looking at only a very narrow aspect of play. I feel that the game is primarily PvE. WvW is PvP/Capture the Flag with siege weapons and clashes between large opposing groups of players (called Zergs after StarCraft). As I mentioned PvP is something I don’t do myself but seeing the plethora of finishers in the Cash Shop, they must be selling them to someone since they keep introducing new ones.

A3: All professions (ie classes) work well although there are some who insist that profession A is far superior to all others, but I’ve seen that in other MMOs as well. Main difference is the “traditional” roles of healer/tank/damage isn’t as pronounce here. Everyone can do a bit of everything, some a little better in one aspect over another but you aren’t going to find a “meat shield” holding aggro with a group of “healers” keeping him standing. Combat is more action oriented and standing still is a sure way to be defeated. Dodge is your friend.

A4: Stand in the red rings (incoming AoE damage hint). The PvE aspect of the game in my opinion leans on the exploration aspect of play. Don’t stay in one area to long, keep moving, exploring, bonking critters, doing events and other content that popup on the right side of the screen. Gather mats as you encounter them, sell or salvage items you can’t use. Be aware that the reward system is set up to funnel players to the trading post to sell unwanted items as well as buying wanted ones. Crafting is okay but nobody is going to get wealthy crafting, especially at lower levels. Also be aware that you aren’t going to be pushed from one area to another. You can level your character to max in the starter zones but it’s a big world so go out and explore.

Read the sticky threads at the top of this board for useful info. Some might be a little outdated due to the New Player Experience (NPE). The Wiki is the official help system in the game.

Feel free to ask questions. The Player Helping Player board tends to be less polarized than other boards.