GW2 Experiences!! (Dungeons / Personal Story)

aesperus

I just wanted to post some of my own experiences from the game so far, which have largely been awesome! I'd also invite others to share their experiences, especially if they have been able to run any of the dungeons or have spent much time with their personal stories.

Just to get it out of the way, there are some issues with the game that annoyed me to say the least. The biggest ones being the Trading Post being down, The small storage space in the bank, and The bug in Ascalon Catacombs preventing some parties from being able to join the same instance (which seems to have been fixed). The game isn't perfect, and it's still an MMO, but damn is it fun!

- Dungeons -

That said, I've got to say I was pleasantly surprised with some of the other dungeons I found ingame. I played AC in beta, but the explorable mode is ROUGH. It's definitely challenging (which I like), and it's an interesting dungeon to say the least. In a lot of ways the dungeons shared a lot of similarities with the ones found in TSW. Unlike games like WoW, they are so far not heavy on trash mobs. There is some trash, but it's fairly minimal. Furthermore each dungeon I've ran so far is varied, interesting, and are not all dank, dark corridors. Without giving too much away, the first one is more like a traditional dungeon (ascalon catacombs) as you explore the ancient, haunted ruins of ascalon. The 2nd one takes place at a diplomat's estate, and upon first arrival is definitely a feeling of 'wait a minute, is this really a dungeon?' and then stuff happens, and it's totally awesome!

Furthermore, I was pleased to find a hidden mini-dungeon in Lion's Arch. If you like pirates / the goonies, this one's definitely worth checking out. The dialogue is hilarious, and the traps / puzzles are a lot of fun. It's just a really well done dungone, tbh.

- Personal Story -

I've got to admit, I wasn't really interested in these all that much during beta. I found most of them bland, and some of the dialogue to be cringe-worthy. Now, I don't know if this was changed or not (it seems like it has, but I haven't tested enough different storylines to say for a fact); however the male Sylvari storyline so far has been nothing short of awesome!

The dialogue has been across the board top-notch. Some of it extremely hilarious, some of it just well written. From the very beginning my choices mattered. Something a few games have been promising, but few have seemed to really live up to. I especially like how most of the choices seem to center around real moral issues. For example, I had to choose how to deal w/ an invasion during part of my story. I had to choose between sending in skilled soldiers to help fend off the enemy, knowing that many of them would probably die. Or did I try an experimental tactic that (in theory) should work perfectly, but hasn't ever been tested? Many of these decisions I had to really think about before choosing.

To be fair, I havent' really been to my personal instance, so I have no idea as to how that gets affected by the story. A criticism I'd also have to say, is that (so far) there doesn't seem to be any choices that lead to failure. Most story-oriented games have this problem, but it's something I would definitely like to see more of. I'd like to be able to make bad decisions, that may not cause me to lose the game, but can possibly have a negative impact on the overall outcome. Maybe if I used the Vigil in a bad way, they'd be less help w/ Zhaitan, etc. I'm currently only about 1/3rd of the way in, so maybe these consequences happen later?

TL;DR

Anyway, how are your experiences so far? Have you found any cool dungeons / puzzles that really surprised you? Have you found your personal story to be enjoyable or otherwise? I'd love to see other people's experience with the game!