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Leveling Game (Casual Perspective)
Irus
Member Posts: 774
This is sort of a thinking aloud about early game experience in GW2, and I'm comparing it to WoW/Rift. Some of these are kinda questions since I haven't played GW2 myself yet. And a lot of these are "little" things that only select MMO players care about, most of us are "soloers" I believe. Basically, it's a list of things important for me in MMO's, and how various games approached them, and how GW2 seems to approach them. Feel free to correct/comment.
I'm deeply concerned with early-middle game, as that's where I spend my time, and most MMO's, in my experience, do not do this very well. Rift was particularly guilty in recent memory (aside from the-game-that-will-not-be-named). While I still believe WoW has the best leveling game to date (feel free to laugh at me), it obviously has its problems, too.
1. Start of the game. What I liked about WoW was that, when you start the game, you are immediately in the actual game world. This means you can get up and go where you feel like going and you do not have to pass some initial phase. Rift and Allods Online were guilty of having an initial phase which you have to sit through before you are actually properly in the game world. WoW was pretty good at this: orcs/trolls start in Kalimdor, humans in Eastern Kingdoms, etc. Recently, they added some initial phases of their own, such as the goblin starting area.
Reason I don't like initial phases? It's limiting, and it's gimmicky, and it forces specific content on you. I often feel trapped and it breaks my immersion because usually the initial phase is actually lagging stupidly behind the gameworld (although I hate it even if it's the first time I opened the game). I can't just leave to Orgrimmar and fly somewhere else. I can't run around for a bit. I frequently re-do characters so this is rather crucial for me, and an initial phase often prevents me from going back to a game. Further, it usually holds your hand (i.e., go here now, go there now). Especially in the case of Rift. You have only one way to go... and, if you don't collect all the books in Rift's initial phase, you can't go back to it, either.
How does GW2 manages this? From what I've seen in videos, you're thrown right into the game world and you start kinda in the middle of everything. I love that, but not 100% sure if I saw that right. Can you just run off from that location and do something random? Can you run to another starting zone? Can you go straight to your main city (getting killed along the way notwithstanding)?
2. Crafting/professions and little things like that. Even if it's completely pointless my early WoW game is all about mining/skinning/w/e and doing all the little things and making myself some slightly better axe, cooking myself some clams, what have you. I just enjoy the entire process of collecting materials, grinding mobs for materials, etc.
From what I heard, GW2 has a rather extensive crafting system and they'll probably take all my money for the bag/bank slots. I can spend my whole time traveling and grinding for mats.
3. Exploration. This is something most MMO's failed at and GW2 is supposed to succeed at. While I definitely appreciate some more recent WoW additions (i.e., hidden chests, special non-quest monsters), the quest system usually damages exploration considerably. Just exploring for the sake of exploring in WoW usually means you're not getting quests done, which damages your overall progression and results in excessive revisiting of places and rekilling of mobs on a quest. GW2 is supposedly using a double-feedback quest system where you can complete a quest without actually speaking to the original quest giver, and then there are those dynamic events which kinda just happen all over the place. So here's to hoping that one can simply walk around in the gameworld without worrying about collecting quests from a hub first.
I also like when there's NPC activity outside of a city. Recently WoW removed various NPC's from everything but cities. You can't find a blacksmith in some random orc camp anymore, or a lonely inscriptionist in some hut out in the world. Grrr. I have nothing against cities, but I don't want to be in them every time I need something done. Sometimes I like the cozy atmosphere of some camp.
4. Special quests. In WoW, I considered two sets of quests as such: class quests (and lore quests) and long-range quests, and these were usually my favorite quests. Cataclysm basically got rid of all of them... although, fortunately, the new quests they added are smarter than kill-8-boars. Class quests were usually funny quests that actually related to your class and were a bit different from your usual kill-8-boars. Particularly, I remember a shaman quest where you had to find some hidden hill in Durotar around Southfury River. I liked that you had to take part in a quest to learn a warrior stance or a totem, felt very natural and immersive. The lore quests simply told you lore and frequently you didn't even do anything but I loved them.
Long range quests were simply quests that said "go all the way over here to get something done". They were often not part of a hub, either. It spiced things up because you got to visit a new area and kind of walk through the game world without worrying about all the other quests in it. Sometimes you would find some dangers along the way. And sometimes it wasn't very well adjusted to your level so you could discover you could only do part of it now, and had to go back to it later. I didn't mind the outside instance quests, either, it was always interesting to find one, and at times I'd go to WoWhead and look up all the quests for a particular dungeon, and they're all over the freaking map, and I'd collect them all and then go to the instance.
This is something I'm not convinced GW2 actually offers. I have heard of a personal story which sounds like it could accomplish the same thing as class quests, but I also heard a lot of negative things about it. GW2 also mostly has dynamics events, but also renown hearts, and I'm not really sure what those are. I don't know if GW2 has any long-range quests, or just long-term quests or story arcs or w/e. I've also seen that GW2 strongly favors fast travel, but I suppose nothing prevents one from walking everywhere on purpose? Does GW2 have other stuff like flying machines/ships/etc.? Or is it just walk-or-portal?
5. Dungeons.
One thing I always hated about WoW low-level instances is that they were simultaneously too easy, yet everyone rushed through them like their life depended on it, which is a shame as they often had great lore. GW2 offers this wonderful option of story mode, which means people like myself who actually want to explore the dungeon and the story can, hopefully, find like-minded people to do just that. On the other hand, the difficulty of the exploration mode can be really ramped up to offer a challenge when that's what people are looking for. In theory, of course. Not sure how this works in practice. I also wonder if there's a solo story mode for times when there are no people available due to shifting populations.
6. Combat.
The thing that often kills games for me. I don't really mind WoW's combat... too much. But it has its problems. For instance, due to the heavy influence of the Trinity system, you often end up with a disbalanced character that's specifically DPS or specifically tank. Half your stuff is not useful for the game world for w/e reason (who you're gonna Taunt?). Or you die very fast, or you barely do any damage (generally I'm speaking of fighting Elites here). And if you make a solo spec (not that Cataclysm lets you do that anymore), you're no good in instances, anyway. Dual spec helps with this a bit.
A bigger problem is if combat is very slow and draggy per-mob with high mob density, which is what Rift did. Moving through the countryside is really annoying because there are literallly mobs every 5 seconds and they all take forever to kill on one spec or kill you fast on another spec. Bleh. Kills all the exploration/artifact hunting.
From what I've heard, GW2 still uses standard MMO combat with some added bits like dodges, but no longer has the Trinity rubbish. GW2 also has a more agile skill system, from what I can see. But this may not compensate for the problem mentioned above.
Monsters shouldn't take forever to kill. There shouldn't be a monster every inch of the world. I want to spend some time just plain walking and enjoying the view. I don't want to have to worry about 20+ mobs in the same location with a ridiculous respawn rate. I really don't know how GW2 is in this sense, and that can make or break the game. I really hope combat is at least remotely enjoyable.
7. Self-expression. Most MMO's dropped the ball on this one for various reasons, one being that group play takes such a strong priority that individuality is stamped into the ground and replaced by what groups want. For instance, Blizzard believes it's more important for gear to be shown than for people to be able to customize their gear. BioWare believes the same and adds that classes should be recognized by their gear. One thing I like about Rift is that it has an appearance tab.
This is furthered by the Trinity system and the nature of how MMO encounters are designed. You need a specific spec or you fail, you can't really build your character the way you want to. The only way to combat this is to create sort of a floating build state where your character is never really maxed. EVE sort of did it.
GW2 has its own skill system which, I'll admit, I don't understand very well at the moment. It seems to remind me of Diablo III a bit, because you have a limited amount of skills you can use, and you can swap them out quickly. But what I do like is that each weapon set has its own abilities. Which means if I want to be specifically a two-handed axe wielding Charr, I can be that, and that should be a viable way to play. I don't have to force myself to use a hammer because the DPS is higher since using an axe gives me access to a different set of skills.
GW2 also at least has dyes, which is a great plus already. I'm not sure if it has a more in-depth appearance system, but I'll survive if it doesn't.
Also, I can't play anything if my character looks like crap regardless of the reason.
8. Player level and state vs area level.
This is a major, major issue in most standard MMO's. In WoW it even comes in two parts: different level (usually overleveling an area) and phasing. In WoW, it's rather easy to overlevel your current questing area if you ever enter an instance (or, God forbid, play some PvP on the side). It becomes kind of lame to overlevel your content and end up with green, if not gray quests everywhere, and the problem just gets worse with time. Overleveling is bad both in the sense of content becoming even less challenging than it already is, and there is also the issue of not being at the same level/quest state as your friends (which is a big reason why these games favor max-level group play and solo leveling). Phasing causes an even greater issue when playing with friends, and it's especially amusing when you are both high level but you did different quests or didn't do something and now you're on different phases anyway... oh, and phased resources are pretty funny, too. Yeah.
GW2's dynamic events should eliminate the need for phasing, hopefully. They seem to work closer to how Rifts work, which is a much better way to manage such things, IMO.
I also heard about the level adjusting, but I'm not really sure how it works right now. It doesn't seem to always adjust your level, because I've heard of people saying some area is too high level, which is a good thing. But, hopefully, it can help with leveling with friends, as well as doing quests that are below your level, or running old dungeons.
Comments
That's one lengthy post :P It was very readable though, so I did read it all.
To answer some of your questions: No, you can't just run off straight away in GW2. There is a tiny little tutorial. But it takes like 5 minutes.
The Norn have to kill 1 mini-boss, then the big Worm boss.
The Charr have to go into some crypt and kill a ghost and then a statue.
The humans have to defend a keep from 3 waves of mobs (which die in like 2 seconds) then kill the big elemental boss.
Renown Hearts are the things people really are talking about when they complain about how boring some DEs are. It's the small tasks like throwing snowballs at kids, or feeding the cows. Usually doing a DE in the area automatically completes a Heart. Hearts are only there to keep you busy until a DE shows up.
Also, in WoW, I think most people only rushed those dungeons because they already did that same dungeon anywhere between 10 and 200 times before. They've already seen it before, they just want to get it over with so they can get some emblems to buy gear.
Lastly, it somehow felt a bit like you took more time explaining how WoW works than actually comparing it with GW2.
"I'll lead, you follow."
Haha, maybe. I am playing WoW right now (out of boredom, waiting for DIII to come out) which spurred this post. And I don't assume everyone has the same perspective on WoW and how it progressed through the expansions. Obviously, I didn't play GW2, either.
I hope the starting tutorials really take 5 minutes. The Rift starting area takes forever.
If that. They're very short. I too disliked the Rift starting area after creating a few characters.
Well i dont like loooong tutorials but i think GW2 needs more guiding of whats has been shown on the betas, im tired of watching videos and streams (in ye olde beta times) were people was just wandering around complaining on how lost they were, i know its their fault, but most of these videos are made by some "popular" MMORPG players and their fans may get a wrong image of the game, and we all know how does that end.
what i saw during beta is people running heart to heart, u dont have to follow the path, just go wonder in the world. Me In the humain starting area instend of running to the first heart over the bridge, ,I turned left and started to explore and by exploring i ended up saving a villager and then defending the water pipe. i think its was pretty cool
You will come accross them eventualy but dont do them like ur following a line once u finsih 1 u jump to the other,. many people did that like itsa chain quest.
note that the first map on each side(race) is to show you how the system work by putting basic Dynamic event,
i had the chance to play higher lvl area during pax and belive me the dynamic event and heart is totaly different then the noobie zone,
~The only opinion that matters is your own.Everything else is just advice,~
Yeah, but then how much hand-holding is too much? Do we NEED a lengthy tutorial? I think it's brilliant that you can get lost in GW2 and still find something to do, but if people are lost they can always look for the hearts on the map or backtrack to a town or outpost. I know what you're saying, but I don't think ANet can really help the intelligence of video streamers. Maybe they should hire someone to do some decent videos... either that or yeah, increase the tutorial or explain what's going on. Some people don't get it.
This is the thing I find so strange. I purposely took heart quests maybe less than half a dozen times during the entire beta. The rest was DE's that happened around me. People who complain about the simplicity of the system aren't looking at the pros of it.
Well i dont like loooong tutorials but i think GW2 needs more guiding of whats has been shown on the betas, im tired of watching videos and streams (in ye olde beta times) were people was just wandering around complaining on how lost they were, i know its their fault, but most of these videos are made by some "popular" MMORPG players and their fans may get a wrong image of the game, and we all know how does that end.
How that ends? If you mean, people complaining on forums about stuff that isn't actually like that, that's already happening enough to not notice a difference. If you mean that GW2 might have less players, I'd say Arenanet and NCSoft have nothing to worry, as hundreds of thousands of players already bought the game, many more will follow, and once the game is released (whenever that might be) the good word will be spread anyways.
"I'll lead, you follow."
i think heart quest are all great but some people look at them like they are just quest to follow, when 1 is done they leave and go to the next,
~The only opinion that matters is your own.Everything else is just advice,~
I was refering to the trolls and misinformed people claiming how bad the game is, and its tiring.
If that. They're very short. I too disliked the Rift starting area after creating a few characters.
Well i dont like loooong tutorials but i think GW2 needs more guiding of whats has been shown on the betas, im tired of watching videos and streams (in ye olde beta times) were people was just wandering around complaining on how lost they were, i know its their fault, but most of these videos are made by some "popular" MMORPG players and their fans may get a wrong image of the game, and we all know how does that end.
How that ends? If you mean, people complaining on forums about stuff that isn't actually like that, that's already happening enough to not notice a difference. If you mean that GW2 might have less players, I'd say Arenanet and NCSoft have nothing to worry, as hundreds of thousands of players already bought the game, many more will follow, and once the game is released (whenever that might be) the good word will be spread anyways.
I was refering to the trolls and misinformed people claiming how bad the game is, and its tiring.
So the first option then. Yes, they're very annoying, but as I said, that's happening anyways, not much you can do about it. Just ignore the trolls and inform the misinformed.
"I'll lead, you follow."
Most of your questions were answered, however, I did want to emphasize something. Explorers should be very excited about Guild Wars 2. As soon as you get out of your tutorial zone, you are free to roam. What makes this better, is that you can level up by just exploring. One member of the community got to level 7 just by exploring the 4 available cities. You can also gain experience from crafting and rezzing, so you don't have to actually kill mobs all the time.
Renowns are basically your run of the mill quests that are stationary and available for one time completions. They open up a vendor upon completion, and like someone else mentioned they are really there because ArenaNet needed to fill in the gaps in between dynamic events.
One of my favorite moments of the beta centered around exploring, and this is coming from a die-hard PvPer. The cities are gorgeous and alive with NPCs, lore, and fascinating nooks and crannies.
Out in the wild, I stumbled upon a little outpost with a tavern. Just by chance, I went inside and started talking to the local NPCs. By talking to a hunter, it activated a dynamic event where he we would hunt a giant boar. It was so cool just to stumble upon so many amazing parts of the game. I only did a couple of renowns, and centered my time around exploration and dynamic events. The events cascade out pretty quickly. For example, I saved a little outpost under attack and rezzed a nearby scholar NPC. This NPC then asked if I could help him explore a nearby hostile village because the NPCs there were acting strangely. Once we arrived, we discovered an Elder Dragon Statue, and he asked me to destroy it. When we destroyed it, a Veteran boss warped in and we had to fight him and waves of enemies. It was great.
I also remember swimming out on this lake. In the middle of the lake there was some make-shift wood floating that had cages on top of them. When I got closer, I noticed several friendly NPCs were take hostage and they needed to be saved by some aquatic hostile NPCs.
Another thing that I felt was overlooked, is how well the game encourages players to work together. Players can create combo fields that benefit the other, for example an elementalist laying down a fire wall, and a ranger shooting through it now causes burning to everything he/she hits. Everyone can easily rezz other players, and everyone works on the same team. You don't have to be in the same party to get the benefits, which is something other MMOs do not do well.
My Guild Wars 2 Blog can be found here: Divinity's Reach
I think the dynamic events are one of the greatest things to come along to an mmo! It really changes the face of gaming having these unique events pop up out of seemingly nowhere. The examples you gave are typical of the imagination of the developers.
Being in the cities I felt like I was really there. It will be an amazing adventure!
Yeah, I always had a problem with games like WoW where once you used up all the exclamation points on your mini-map in your tightly closed off little quest hub, the immediately surrounding zone was useless to you. In GW2 you can't be sure you've seen everything, and even then, I loved hearing that the devs plan to actively go through zones and add and change events to spice things up. There's never been anything like that.
You choose what you want to do after the small tutorial. From what I noticed you can teleport to the mists, head to Lion's Arch, and then teleport to any city you want. I don't know if the mists teleport option is available right when you start though and I don't know if this will be a beta-only thing. I didn't quite catch if it was unlocked when I first started. I do know that the main quests lead you to your home city quite early on.
Avoid cooking at first. Most of the materials in cooking come from vendors. It cost me about 80 copper for 10 of one cooking material. The food though is good at all levels from what I've noticed. The other crafting skills on the other hand are much cheaper to level. I found a video that makes leveling much easier. Basically what you do is you try to discover as many recipes as you can through the discovery tab, because that gives you double crafting EXP when you discover a new item for your crafting tab.
I think I heard from some guy in a video I was watching that he managed to gain 3 levels just by exploring. I didn't really explore for myself in beta though. Didn't want to spoil any secrets until launch.
Some people didn't like the personal quests, but you don't have to do them from what I know. Personally I loved some of the blood legion Charr personal quests. The quest I was on revolved around aiding the blood legion in stopping a group of terrorist. I had about 3 companions following me around and they were pretty interesting. Sometimes they would even talk to each other, which made me wonder what would happen if I kept helping out more of those NPCs, but they limited the amount of personal story quests we could do in the demo and I couldn't go any further.
Transportation that I've seen so far consists of walking, going through portals to get to new zones, and you pick up waypoints along the way. I don't personally know if there are ships that we can ride on.
I personally didn't do the dungeons during beta. I was tinkering with other areas, but one thing about the population is that you could probably just guest to another world with high population to do a dungeon if your normal world doesn't have enough people on it. If the roleplayers try to build a community on a certain server you can guest over to that community and then play story mode with them I guess.
I found only certain mobs annoying to fight. I noticed some mobs are more unique than others. For example there's this species of lizard fish things that live near water that regenerate health. Those things took forever for me to kill! Not all monsters were as annoying as those guys and luckily most of the annoyingly difficult monsters were out of way.
From my experience with walking around the world, the monsters didn't seem to intentionally block the roads or aimlessly around the world just to peeve people off. I could walk roads and plains without aggroing some monster. When I did aggro something I didn't want to aggro I always had the option to run away.
This game has a bunch of armor dye colors. There's also something called a transmute stone, which allow players to change the armor model of their gear to another armor's model, but they are currently deciding on how they are going to approach giving players that. In beta they were available only at the cash shop, but they have been planning on allowing players to buy them through currency such as karma.
For combat customization, there are 3 things all classes have in common to customize themselves. There are utility skills, traits (which are like talents in WoW), and weapon skills. If one weapon lacks something you need for PvP or PvE you could easily use a utility skill or trait that fulfills what that weapon lacks.
I personally loved how I could level where I found leveling to be appropriate. I try to keep my character's crafting up to my level, but in most MMORPGs I can't level up if I'm in a zone where I need to play catch-up with my crafting skills. The system GW2 has got is great on multiple levels.
Thanks for your long and detailed reply.
Yeah, that's different. I always welcome monsters with different mechanics. Many MMO's it doesn't matter what a monster does, you can hack at them as usual and nothing changes lol.
From what it sounds like, you are use to WoW. Please understand that GW2 is NOT WoW, nor does it try to be WoW. If you go into GW2 expecting WoW 2.0, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. So from what it sounds like in your post, you are setting yourself up for disappointment as you're trying to compare everything to WoW.
EDIT: Sorry if the stuff in my post is full of repeats. It took me a while to type that up.
1. Start of the game. When the game goes live there'll be five starting cities to choose from, so even though you have a forced 3-5 minute tutorial instance, you're free to choose which one. Once over that first five minutes you're free to explore, exploring is definitely one of the key features of GW2, as people have stated, hearts are there as guidance only, dynamic events happen all over the place, explore and you'll stumble across one.
2. Crafting/professions You craft improved items for your level every 5 character levels to start (not sure if this changes later but was true from 5 to 20), the rewards are relevant and often a good replacement for rewards/drops. The process is fairly simple, once you get in to the discovery system it's plain sailing, they've taken a lot of the pain away by reducing wait times for crafting multiples, there's no RNG (negative or positive) but you'll need to grind creature drops if you're intent on discovering all recipes.
3. Exploration Richly rewarded by events, hidden lore, hidden places of beauty and jumping puzzles, zones are very large. Mob density doesn't get in the way of exploration, you won't be able to avoid them all but it's certainly not Rift. You also get plenty of XP gain via uncovering waypoints and Points Of Interest littered throughout the map.
4. Special quests Guess personal story quests come under this one, quests based on decisions you make at character creation, instanced and can be played solo or invite your friends. Everything else breaks down in to: Dynamic Events - Often short chained quests (hang around or follow that NPC if you've just finished one stage to see the chain) , Meta events - Larger event chains that lead to some dramatic outcome that can affect the zone, so far we've only really seen these that culminate in a boss spawn, could be other outcomes, and finally renown hearts - small focal areas with a single quest that has multiple options for your contribution towards completion.
5. Dungeons. You got that one covered.
6. Combat. Not massively different from traditional MMO combat but different enough to cause you problems if you don't adjust. Mobility is key for every profession. They had the difficulty about right in my opinion, mobs become a challenge quite early on where taking on two of your level can be a gamble. Mobility is crucial and for that reason you need to watch whats going on around you, it's rare though to find areas where design and/or mob density cause you too many problems.
7. Self-expression There's always cookie cutter in any MMO, it's likely it will happen here too. The lack of a hard trinity means that people should be more open minded, some classes are clearly more suited to support and are likely to be the most wanted but not necessarily needed. Anet are good at balancing stuff, I'm optimistic for now. Dyes - great, three dyable sections per armour item is really good, there's transmutation stones too so you can transfer stats from one piece of armour to another. Crafting lets you dictate item stats from the get go to suit your playstyle.
8. Player level and state vs area level. Leveling you down to content means that content never becomes redundant, love that idea. The system is supposed to ensure that if you're playing in a level 5 area as a level 40 you'll still get level 40 drops, it worked for some and not for others during the beta, guess it's still in need of work. You're not ever in a state where the game stops being a challenge. They intend to continue to add events to all level areas post release too, that along with steps in a DE chain you missed should keep some content fresh
I "compare" it to WoW because I've been told "GW2 is not that different, just pretends to be different". That, and I'm discussing what I liked or didn't like in leveling management in other MMORPG's. I'd rather expect GW2 to have all WoW's drawbacks and surprise me than expect it to be the 2nd coming and then, instead, ending up being disappointed. And everything you said sounds pretty cool to me. I have very, very low expectations from MMO's. I have yet to see anything approach WoW, and that's probably my favorite MMO, hence the comparison. This doesn't mean I'm not open to new/different things, I mean, I played EVE on the side...
Thanks for typing that up.
who every told you the GW2 is the same as WoW is way wrong on that part.
just take combat in GW2 witch every one say is the same as every MMO out there what you see on the screen may looks the same but the AI behind it is not.
in most MMO's you come up on some one fighting 3 mobs you can stay and watch or keep on walking. in GW2 you walk up on some one fighting 3 mobs you become a target of the mobs also. all 3 may come after you are they may not. this is just one of the thigns that GW2 does that most MMO's do not.
take the skills i sure you have read are been told this to is like every MMo out there walk up to a mobs and smash 1 2 3 4 5. go to the next mobs and do it again. this also is not ture if you smash your keys 1 2 3 4 5 you will die and die a lot.
just a few thing that are now the same there are more.
I stopped paying any attention to heart objective. For the most part just playing around them often finished it for you.
1. The Start of the Game
In Guild Wars 2, you start the game in a shared story instance, which for the races we have seen so far have been an instance of a portion of the same area you will end up in when you reach the game proper.
You can quickly follow the story and it's tasks, as you are thrust right into an ongoing event and be in and out in possibly as soon as five minutes. If you want to take time to kill a few things to level up your initial weapon skills, you can do that too, but it's only to get a head start on your skill unlocks, as you don't get much XP or loot for those kills.
Once you finish this first shared story instance, you are sent into the game proper, starting in the non-instanced locale where your intro took place. You'll be very near the city gates for your starter city, which gives you quick access to Asuran Portals that can transport you to the starting areas of the other races. Or, you can just head right into the meat of the game, with a scout NPC to point out some Heart Tasks you can do for renown and rewards, or you can just head out and explore the world, looking for Dynamic Events along the way.
You can even take a cue and do the first step of your personal story, which usually leads you into your Home Instance area of your racial city.
There is no tedious, mandatory mini intro zone that you have to trudge through. The five minute intro goes by very quickly and is pretty exciting. No detriment for those who want to jump right into the game, or who may make and delete a character a few times to get things just right.
2. Crafting from the time of your beginnings
The game does have an extensive crafting system and anyone can gather from any of the resource nodes, with out having to train first, but you do need to purchase some resource extraction consumables to tap into resource nodes.
The game doesn't hold your hand on this, so either you have to be one that really loves to explore the initial environment and talk to all the NPCs to stumble upon crafting/gathering stuff, or brush up with a good starting crafting guide before hopping into the game.
Basically, you will want to grab a stack each of the various gathering tools, buy a stack of Salvage Kits and grab two crafting professions before heading out into the rest of the game world, if you wish to craft from the start. You'll find all the resources you need while adventuring and can hop back to a spot with crafting stations from time to time, (which is made easier by the abundance of instant travel way points).
The game features a discovery system for crafting, so you can puzzle out recipes by moving various components into the crafting slots, rather than relying on or requiring recipes to be found/purchased in order to craft items.
The game only allows you to have two crafting professions active at a time, but you can pay a fee to switch to a new one at any time, with out losing your progress and discovered recipes of any profession you make inactive.
3. Exploration in the Game World
Yes, indeed, Guild Wars 2 provides an extremely rich exploration based game experience. There are Renown Heart tasks in each map, the location of which you can have marked on your map by a scout NPC, or you can just explore and find them yourself. These provide the closest analogue to quest hubs in the game and are beneficial to complete, because they provide rewards and open up the Karma Vendor option for the NPC that issues the heart task. There are often Dynamic Events that occur in these areas as well, so for those who like a trail of bread crumbs to follow, pursuing the various Renown Hearts in a zone will lead you to areas were you are likely to experience some of the Dynamic Events the area may have to offer.
I am an explorer at heart, so I skip the Scout NPCs, (with a looking glass icon above them) and just strike out into the game. I still do Renown Hearts Tasks when I encounter them, but I also like being able to explore and find Dynamic Events as I'm exploring the world.
Exploration is the key to finding the majority of Dynamic Events the game zone may offer. Some occur off the beaten path. Some occur on their own, with out the intervention of players. Some are triggered by the presence of players and some may require an active trigger, like examining a toy sword you spot on the ground or asking an NPC why they are standing there crying. Many events also occur as part of a full Dynamic Event Chain, so cutting through the same area again may reveal an event that wasn't occuring on your first trek through that location. If you are interested in how DE Chains play out, you can often stick around after a DE has ended and see if any NPCs have anything pertinent to say. Often, one event will lead onto another and if you don't stick around to see what the NPCs might be up to, you may miss the next link in the chain.
The game also rewards explorers with many hidden caves, mini dungeons and even puzzles and some of the hidden areas may only be accessible after the completion or even failure of a particular event.
GW2 is by far one of the most rewarding MMORPGs for explorers, though they also throw in things like the Scout NPCs for those who like a game to provide a little more direction.
Dynamic Events become available to a player when ever they are with in proximity, with the location and objectives showing up in the interface, You can just freely participate and most DE objectives are shared objectives, so they become cooperative endeavors. There are no quest pre-requisites or a list of quests that need to be played out in a particular order. If an event is going on and you are in proximity, you can jump in and participate, or not, depending on your desire.
4. Special Quests
Some Dynamic Events are part of long, branching quest chains. You can hop in at any stage and you are not forced to follow the progression, as you are rewarded at each stage, but some can provide a pretty epic story arch in their own right.
Your Personal Story is a superb example of the kind of long range quest you describe. It is linear, but it also branches, based on the biography choices you make at character creation and based on key choices you make along the way.
There is not enough Personal Story content to level you all the way to the cap, so sometimes you may need to take a break from the story when the next step is beyond your character level and return to it when you can handle it. (GW2 has a flat leveling curve from level 20-80, with each level taking roughly 1 1/2 hours, so it's not like you'll have to wait 5-10 hours between steps).
Each stage of the Personal Story sends you to the location in the world where it is set, but the actual PS event takes place in an instanced version of that location. (You can invite other players into your story, though and it will scale appropriately). These kick off with a voice over narrative that features two people on screen at a time, with music and an (often animated) concept art background to convey the key story conversations. You don't have dialogue choices for flavor, you will only have the opportunity to direct your part of the conversation when your choice will actually make a difference for your story.
The narrative is for flavor and I did enjoy it very much, but the heart of the Personal Story is the action that takes place in the instanced version of the locale where it is set.
Some are rather mundane, others are actually extremely fun, challenging and compelling.
The storyline itself tends to start out slow, but as you approach level 20 various elements start to come together and you realize that everything has been leading you deeper and deeper down the rabbit hole.
The rewards are well worth the effort and it appears that at higher levels, the story and it's events will be truly epic.
I love that the story is set in instanced versions of the same world you adventure in and that you need to actually travel to the setting for the next part of the story to participate. I also liked that of the three Humans I played during the first Weekend Beta Event, chosing different biographies resulted in very different stories. I'm sure events will converge and be shared by more than one biography track, but I had litte repetion between the characters over the 38 hours of game play I squeezed in.
5. Dungeons of Guild Wars 2
There are eight Dungeons in GW2. The first is for level 30 Characters and there is one every ten levels there after, with three Dungeons at level 80. Each has a Story Mode, which is easy enough for a PUG, though still challenging. Each Dungeon also has at least three Exploration Mode wings as well, which are mostly new regions of the parent dungeon, with the same architecture and feel. Both modes have Dynamic Events that can occur within them and there are random occurances as well. In order to ensure that each run-through will have something that will keep it feeling fresh and not entirely predictable.
As far as gathering other players for a Dungeon Run, you will always need a full, (or nearly full, for a particularly skilled and determined foursome) party, because you always automatically scale down in level for the level of the dungeon. No gaining ten levels in order to be able to return and solo what had required a full group to complete when you were on level for that content. However, this also makes it much easier to get together a group, because any character of at least the minimum level for the dungeon can participate and find it fun, challenging and rewarding.
6. Combat
Combat in GW2 is pretty unique and I could write an entire post trying to convey all it's nuance. Half your active skills are tied to weapon choice. Most classes can switch between two weapon sets while in combat and all can switch outside of combat. The other five skill slots are filled with skills you purchase via skill points, which are earned via leveling and via skill point challenges spread accross the game world. The slots open up at set character levels, but the skills that fill them can be purchased in any order you wish, as long as you have the skill points for your purchase. You can re-slot skills any time outside of combat.
On the fly skill choice, via weapon and right bar skill swaps, gives each character a great deal of flexibility in character build from very early levels and at any time through out the course of the game.
There is also a trait system in place. Each profession has five trait lines. From level 10 on, you earn a trait point each level, Putting points in a trait line gives you a particular stat related bonus for each point spent. At 5, 15 and 25 points, you unlock set traits for the given trait line. At 10, 20 and 30 points, you open up trait slots, which you can fill with any of a dozen traits in that trait line. Refunding trait points requires a fee and a visit to your trainer, so there is semi-permanence to the "flavor" of your charcter. However, the slotable traits themselves can be changed at any time outside of combat and there is enough variety of choice to allow a lot of flexibility of trait builds even with in a set point allocation.
As far as combat itself. Tough creatures can take some time to kill, but most can be killed in a manner of seconds. Mob strength, toughness, AI and skill use scale up depending on the number of players engaged with it, so group or zerg action usually does not yield instant kills.
Almost all skills can be used on the move and positioning can effect certain skills as well as allow you to evade certain attacks. All characters also have access to an active dodge, which becomes very important against tougher mobs with devastating special attacks. A dodge costs you endurance and most charcters have enough endurance for two dodges in a row and about a five second "recharge time" for each dodge expended. Many profession have trait builds that allow them to increase endurance, endurance regen rates or reduce the cost of dodging.
The game does have tab targeting, but you can also fire a skill with out an active target and hit or miss will depend on your facing and the path/area/cone/arc of the attack vs. the location of any mobs with in range.
Many, if not most, skills allow situational benefits, so there are very few skill load outs that call for or reward a set skill rotation. Combat is active and dynamic, with mobs occassionally utilizing movement, positioning and active dodging against you as well.
At the lower levels, most combat is not overly challenging, (though most will still find themselves downed fairly often in the first ten levels), but the game ramps up the challenge level as you progress, by making mobs more intelligent, giving them more powerful specials and providing them with more challenging skills to face off against.
Guild Wars 2 provides what, for me, has so far been the most most enjoyable RPG combat I have ever experienced. Other games have come to pale in comparison and I've been having trouble finding anything to play while I wait for the GW2 launch, because most other combat feels sluggish and stale in comparison.
7. Self Expression
GW2 offers oodles of ways to express yourself via your character.
Physically, the facial options are numerous and there are a number of sliders you can utilize to fine tune the look. It's not as robust a system as seen in Aion, but still much better than most MMORPGs or even most solo RPGs. You have a height slider and, unlike most MMOs, you even have a number of different physiques to chose between. There are no anorexics or the truly obese, but there is still good selection of body proportions and a variety of fitness levels available among the choices.
Plenty of hair choices, most of which are above average for an MMO and look good with most of the provided color choices.
Right from the start, you can chose a dye scheme from a pallet of about 20 colors. Most armor pieces have three seperate areas you can color. At any time, for free, you can recolor your armor from the available palette, (you can unlock over 400 colors total via game play) and the game will try to automatically apply your color scheme to new pieces of armor you aquire.
Your biography and Personal Story choices allow further personalization of your character and provide meaningful distinctions in the way your branching Personal Story begins and plays out.
You can also aquire Transmutation stones, which will allow you to combine the look of one item with the stats of another. Each profession has an Armor Class; Heavy, Medium or Light; and your character can only use armor of the appropriate AC. However, most armor of the AC is not profession or race specific, (there are some exceptions), so there is a lot of freedom in how you look.
There may not be a lot of variety at lower levels, but there are many styles that can be aquired via crafting, dungeons, rare drops or karma vendors through out the game and transmutation stones can allow you to assemble the look of your choice from armor you have aquired, with out sacrificing on stats.
As far as character builds, there is a lot of room for variety and it appears that the balance, so far, is pretty good between builds. Even each weapon has it's own "style" and feel to it and with balance being what it is, players can chose what fits their play style first and foremost, with out as much concern of particular choices being more powerful than others.
(I'm sure balance won't be perfect and the process will be an ongoing one, but I was impressed by how the various options I tried al seemed viable, even if some were better in certain situations than others).
8. Player Level vs. Content
Guild Wars 2 handles these concerns better than any MMO to date.
Via Level Scaling, you never "out level" content. You are always scaled down for the content you are participating in, while earning XP and rewards based on your true level. As you level up in GW2, you open up more and more playable content, rather than only having a narrow range of viable content that advances, but doesn't grow wider, as you level.
"The Entire Game is Endgame" is an oft-quoted sentiment to describe the effect that level scaling has on GW2.
Mobs and Events indeed scale based on te number of active players and all who participate in a kill get full XP and their own loot.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
GW2 is quite a bit different, tbh. I feel like most of the people who state it's 'just more of the same' are falling victim to one of 2 things.
1) Most commonly, people are just not coming into the game w/ an open mind. They assume it's going to be the same, and there for focus on looking for ways to do the same stuff as they are used to. For example, heart quests. Quite a few players did nothing but grind heart quests, and complained that this was all the game had to offer. They couldn't be more wrong.
2) Unreasonable expectations. Keep in mind this game is still an MMO, and it's still an RPG. I think some people either forget, or overlook what that actually means. There are still quests, and you will find yourself doing similar things, but the way GW2 does it is quite different. So, yes, you will find kill X events, lots of them. You will also have the option of doing other things, though. It really comes down to what you decide to focus on. If you only play the game to grind lvls, then it may end up feeling like the same. However, if you take the time to explore, get immersed in the lore, etc. there is a lot of that all over the game. This game has way more content than any MMO I've played in years. Maybe not as much as EQ2, but it's got a ton.
- Mob AI:
GW2 does have mob AI. They are still tweaking it, but mobs are a lot more action based. Some mobs will favor casters more, others will favor melee more. Furthermore, the elite mobs have a wide variety of skills that they use, which you need to learn how to respond to if you want to avoid dying a lot.
- Combat:
On the surface, ya you are just tab-targetting & pressing 1-2-3-4-5. However, this is much like saying 'in chess you just move pieces across the board'. GW2's combat is designed in such a way where (with the exception of race-specific skills), you will never have a 'useless' ability on your skillbar. Every skill is useful, and many have multiple uses. Some people choose to play them as a rotation, but as was said, it's more about using the right skills for the current situation, than memorizing a correct order.