Whilst I recommend reading all the topics linked in other posts I’d also recommend trying to post more specific questions. The more vague/broad the question is the harder it is to answer.
how is it compared to other mmos?
The last MMO I played was Ultima Online over 10 years ago (not counting free trials and GW1) but from what other people have said it’s very different.
Firstly there is no need or reason to rush the levelling process. There is nothing new you get to do at level 80 that you can’t do in some form before then so you won’t miss out on anything if you take your time. And on the other side if you go into an area that’s below your level you’ll be down-levelled, meaning you will still earn decent XP and rewards and still have challenging fights. So you don’t need to worry about missing out on anything by out-levelling it.
Secondly there are very few conventional quests. There’s your Personal Story (green map markers and text in the upper right corner of the screen) and heart quests dotted around the map, but most of your experience and most of the actual gameplay comes in the form of Dynamic Events. These show up in orange on the map and the list in the top right and function a lot like quests – protect this, attack that, collect 10 rats, etc. but unlike quests they start up independently of anything you do and will carry on regardless of whether anyone is around to help or not. You can drop in and out at any time and will be rewarded based on your level of participation. I recommend sticking around after they finish however because often there’s some NPC dialogue and then another event will start.
Thirdly contrary to what you might hear on the forums this game is not particularly gear orientated. There are 6 tiers in total, and all gear within a tier has equal stats. The first 4 (white, blue, green and yellow/gold) you’ll go through as you’re levelling up. Then when you reach level 80 you’ll want to get a set of exotic (orange) gear, which you can do in a number of ways and which is generally very quick and easy to get.
The only tier which resembles the ‘gear grind’/treadmill you get in a lot of games is the last one – ascended (pink). At the moment there is no ascended armor, only accessories and weapons but they will probably add armor at some point in the future. This has to be earned through a variety of time or content gated methods, but you don’t need to worry about that until you get to level 80 anyway. Even then you can do everything in the game in exotic (or even lower tier) gear.
(There are also legendary weapons, which have purple text and are even harder to get, but those are purely cosmetic. The stats are the same as other ascended weapons but they have more unusual and noticeable skins and animations.)
Finally there’s the Living Story. This game gets updates every 2 weeks, with either temporary or permanent content. At the moment the Halloween event is going on – which is temporary and will disappear shortly after the end of the month (I forget the exact date). The last 2 updates before that – when one of the huge open-world bosses (Tequatl) was changed into a kind of open-world raid, and a new level 80 dungeon path was added were permanent so those are still around.
In general temporary Living Story content is either open to all levels or you’ll be bumped up to level 80 while in the area, so you’ll always be able to join in. That doesn’t always apply to the permanent stuff but because it’s permanent you can do it when you are actually level 80.
(BTW if you don’t understand any of the terms I, or anyone else, used feel free to ask. I’m never quite sure what people will and won’t know from other games.)
