Guardian and Ele are two of the ones I've fully leveled up (the other two are Mesmer and Thief). They're both very fun, if not very different. Actually, that's a nice thing - all professions feel very different from each other. I really like that fact.
Vistas are awesome. Just wait until you find jumping puzzles...
Originally posted by BackFire
I will probably try several classes. The Guardian among them, and the elementalist.I really like the game so far. The emphasis on exploration and rewarding said exploration through Vistas was a stroke of genius and very welcome in a genre mostly dominated by combat mechanics.
Really, the sense of a living world to interact with and explore is this game's finest achievement. Everywhere you go feels alive and in some way also tells a story that you can experience. To my mind, you actually get a better story by going out and experiencing the world than you do by going through the storyline, especially the later bits.
The only 'problem' is that it is finite- sooner or later... well, emphasis on later... you will have seen and done it all, or at least as much as you are interested in. But so what? It's awesome on the way, they'll keep expanding it and I'm not a fan of those whole 'endgame' thing. With no sub fees, just experience the game as you like for as long as you enjoy it.
I really love the meta-event chains - the one in Harathi Hinterlands is probably one of my favorites. And I'm really liking Orr more and more - yeah, it's one big event farm, and right now it's making me a lot of money. But yesterday I did the event to take the Temple of Grenth which was actually really, really neat and fun. Certainly more fun than taking Melandru...
Still, I think the most fun/ridiculous thing I've done so far is taking the Temple of Lyssa (a level 79-80 event), with my Thief, at level 73. Thieves are hard at lower levels, I found, but they really shine at high level content. And are amazing in dungeons. We rarely do dungeons without either myself or a friend of mine on our Thieves anymore. Twilight Arbor without a Thief is out of the question entirely!
Originally posted by Ushgarak
Really, the sense of a living world to interact with and explore is this game's finest achievement. Everywhere you go feels alive and in some way also tells a story that you can experience. To my mind, you actually get a better story by going out and experiencing the world than you do by going through the storyline, especially the later bits.The only 'problem' is that it is finite- sooner or later... well, emphasis on later... you will have seen and done it all, or at least as much as you are interested in. But so what? It's awesome on the way, they'll keep expanding it and I'm not a fan of those whole 'endgame' thing. With no sub fees, just experience the game as you like for as long as you enjoy it.
Yep, I was running around the big human city last night, it really did feel like a city from Assassin's Creed or something more than cities in other MMO's. It was pretty cool.
I have no problem with that being finite, that doesn't bother me with this game. Since there's no monthly fee I won't feel obligated to keep playing in order to not feel like I'm wasting money. So I have no problem with the prospect of playing the game for a couple of months and then stopping when I get bored of it. Kind of a nice feeling with an MMO.
Originally posted by BackFire
Yep, I was running around the big human city last night, it really did feel like a city from Assassin's Creed or something more than cities in other MMO's. It was pretty cool.I have no problem with that being finite, that doesn't bother me with this game. Since there's no monthly fee I won't feel obligated to keep playing in order to not feel like I'm wasting money. So I have no problem with the prospect of playing the game for a couple of months and then stopping when I get bored of it. Kind of a nice feeling with an MMO.
Divinity's Reach is their best designed city- some of the others have solid design concepts but you can tell they put the most effort into DR.
Sadly, once you get pas the opening parts of the game, you spend almost all your time in Lion's Arch, which is't bad but I do miss DR. All MMO cities should take that sort of scale as the default in future, I think. And hopefully beyond.
I do most of my crafting in the Grove. The city is so compact that running from the trading post to the crafting stations isn't nearly as annoying as in LA or DR.
I do wish there was more reason to visit the racial cities after you finish your initial personal story though. Same for home instances. Especially since there's a nifty lore tidbit in the sylvari home instance that I'm curious about.
Anyway! Some stuff from a live stream with Colin yesterday.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/16utsi/mmoftw_livestream_with_colin_johanson_notes/
I'm surprised that charr are the least played (I love my kitty!) and that professions are evenly spread (I see very few Engineers). Orr changes are welcome, as are updates to how you can get a legendary precursor. I don't want to have to spend 400g on mine.
It simply becomes the most convenient hub to operate from. By extension everyone does their LFG calls there as well, but even if you have no interest in grouping you find yourself gravitating there as it's the most convenient place to get everything you want done and then head off to where you are going next. All the major game events (for holidays and expansion content) start there too. It's just the effect of it being that little bit more convenient than other places.
They blew it on the home instances- it is obvious they are something they started with but never went anywhere with them. They end up with no point at all.
Gah, it's useless spam-a-rama. The whole concept of having Dungeons out in the world doesn't work- no-one goes out in the world to do them, they all stay in LA grouping up and then one of them just teleports over. That's why the Fractal Dungeon, which they introduced after game launch, makes the most sense as it actually starts from LA itself, and makes no attempt to build an effectively false connection to the open world.
(Compare the 'mini-dungeons' that you can found to do in the open world, which you can enter as found when you find them, either on your own or with other people who also found them, or saw you doing the event needed to open them, as happened with me once. They DO work as designed, and connect to the open world much better. The actual dungeons may as well be in alternate dimensions or another planet. The Fractals Dungeon IS another dimension, so that worked).
Regardless, the PUGing system right now is a total mess as people wanting to do Dungeons- especially the Story variants you are meant to do first but carry no repeatable rewards so no-one does them any more- are scattered all over the servers unable to find each other.
They say a proper LFG tool is on its way, though this really should be standard issue these days.
That's too bad. The dungeon finder tool they added to WoW was a revelation, gonna be hard to go back to LFG spamming after utilizing that.
I'm surprised there isn't one in this game already. That actually is in most top tier MMO games these days pretty much from the start. Guild Wars 2 is so ahead of the curve in so many other ways, confusing why they're taking the dated spammy approach for something as important as finding a group for a dungeon.
Their whole Dungeon construction in the world is in fact completely orthodox (playing them is different because there's no tank/healer/dps thing going on, but finding and starting them works the same old rubbish way before Finders). It is disappointing, and it stands out more because GW2 otherwise does so well in the whole 'go explore and do stuff' idea. When you find a Dungeon, you can't do it, because you need a group, and where are you going to find a group? Certainly not anywhere near the damn dungeon. And most the time these days on a lot of servers, not anywhere at all, because they are all doing the bloody Fractals if anything.
They've been tight-lipped on what their LFG tool will take the form of, but they are calling it an LFG tool rather than a Dungeon Finder because they say they want to design it to help grouping for any purpose. I suspect that means it won't work as well as a dedicated finder for Dungeons.
In the meantime, people are using this website:
...though personally I don't like blind whispers or party invites based on a website. I want it working through the game.
Ush, that's the case on your server, but it definitely isn't on mine, which just goes to show how much population can change things - there's always people hanging out in front of dungeons looking for groups, and many a time when we've been lacking a fifth person we've been able to pick up a PUG in no time without sending someone back to LA to spam map chat.
You can't say stuff like that is universally the case when it just isn't. The only times I don't see people always chilling out by a dungeon entrance is for ones like Crucible of Eternity, Citadel of Flames, or Arah, where there's a meta-event involved in unlocking it...and those events are always packed with people, too.
Also, the bigger barrier to doing a dungeon soon as you come across one is not the need for a group, but the fact that 95% of the time you won't be the right level yet. Ascalon Catacombs (level 30-35), Caudecus Manor (40-45), and Twilight Arbor (50-55) are all located in starter zones.
Server populations matter greatly. Jade Quarry is a high population server; yours isn't.
Anyway, BF, the reason most people go to LA is for some of the reasons that Ush mentioned - it's a central hub city that connects to all of the other cities, people frequently use the Heart of the Mists as a shortcut to not pay waypoint costs and that will bring you back to LA, the entrance to Fractals is there, dungeon token vendors are there, the Mystic Forge is there, it's where most events and many mid-level story quests take place...it's just the biggest and most convenient of the cities, and there are a few things you can only do while there.
BTW, when you get leveled more and want to do dungeons, let me know. My guild does them all the time. It's not unusual for us to do 2-3 an evening if we're all on at a decent hour.
The nice thing about dungeon finder tools, at least the way they're done currently in some MMO games, is that it removes the necessity to be on a high population realm in order to be able to easily find groups because the type of dungeon finder tool that most games use groups you not just with people from your server but from other servers as well. The only problem with them usually is that queue times can be high for damage dealing classes, but instant for tanks/healers. Ironically, that wouldn't be a problem with this game since the game doesn't use the traditional holy trinity philosophy of class design. Some people also complain that it removes the sense of community from servers, but I never really felt that way.
Thanks Lana, I'll let you know. I'm still only level 8 and I plan on taking my time. The first dungeon doesn't open up until 30, right?