Guild Wars 2

[Huw the Poo]

Well, it's here.  It's been a long wait and there's been lots of hype, with a massive feature list promised by ArenaNet.

Happily they have delivered on at least 90% of their promises, even if some of the implementations maybe aren't quite what was expected.  After playing for nearly a week I'm delighted to report that I am hopelessly in love with the game.  Here, in no particular order, are my first impressions:

Freedom.  There's a great deal of this in GW2.  There are no quest hubs per se; they've been replaced by a dynamic events system.  Scattered around each zone are what has become known as "heart quests".  These are NPCs who are in some kind of trouble.  You can help each in several ways.  For example, a farmer might want you to water crops, drive away vermin, or feed his cattle.  In doing so you will earn contribution points and when you've accumulated enough of them you'll get a large XP and "karma" reward (not to mention gold).  Karma is a universal currency and can be spent at karma vendors; NPCs who live in towns and hand out nice items.  The heart quest NPCs will also become karma vendors, giving out more specialised rewards.  Thus you have an impetus to help out each one.  But the heart quests aren't the only source of quests; as you roam around the countryside you'll encounter other events already in play.  You're automatically added to the event when you approach it, and after you and the undoubtedly large group of other players has completed (or failed) it, in all likelihood another will start.

It makes for very dynamic and exciting play.  You just don't worry about where the next XP is going to come from.  As you run around you're doing all the stuff you expect to be doing anyway, except you don't need to hunt around for big floating exclamation marks, and you don't have to worry about turning anything in (except in rare cases).

Speaking of XP, nearly everything you do in GW2 rewards you with XP, and the levelling curve is linear.  This means you advance through the game's 80 levels at a rapid rate, even without intending to.  I have two characters and couldn't even tell you what level they're at because it just isn't important.  This is further enhanced by the fact that whenever you enter a zone below your level, you're automatically scaled down to that level (keeping all of your current skills and traits).  You find that you just don't care what level you are, and you're freed to just go exploring.  Guild Wars 2 is a game that encourages and rewards exploring.  It's fantastically refreshing.

Level doesn't even matter in PvP.  I've barely touched this yet, but when you enter PvP you're scaled again and everyone plays on a more or less equal footing.  You can create a level 1 character and immediately go up against level 80 characters without breaking a sweat.

The classes are worth a mention.  They're really customisable, just as they were in Guild Wars.  Each character you create gets a main class.  But where GW2 differs from other MMOs is that the skills you use are based on the weapon combinations you're using.  My ranger, for example, uses a longbow as his primary weapon which gives me several ranged abilities such as Barrage (an AoE cripple attack) and Rapid Fire.  But when enemies get in close, I hit a key and swap to my sword and dagger.  The sword gives me three skills while the dagger gives me another two.  Or I could swap the sword out for another dagger and get five dagger-based skills.  Along with the traits that you put skill points into, the scope for customising each character rivals even that of Rift's.  The game is a theorycrafter's wet dream.

It's a beautiful world, too, and more than any other MMO, I've been content to spend an hour just walking around a city or forest, taking things in and chatting to other players.  There's a crafting system which appears at first to be similar to any other MMO's, but there's also a Minecraft-like "discovery" mode which encourages you to experiment with components and create your own recipes.  This is a great source of XP by the way. :D

I wanted to say a lot more but I'm out of time so I'll have to post some more later.  At the moment the only problems with the game are due to the massive influx of players on release.  The servers are extremely busy and you'll often find yourself kicked onto an "overflow" server.  If you're not planning to group with anyone in particular this is no problem at all, and in my opinion vastly preferable to having to queue to play the game at all.  Apparently if you specifically want to play with certain people and you get separated across servers, you can click a button to join them.  This has reportedly not been working very well all week, but is now apparently getting much better.

I'll post more this evening.  Who else is playing, and do you agree that GW2 is a brilliant game?

[bob48]

^ I just know I'm gonna have to buy this, huw.

[Huw the Poo]

^ I just know I'm gonna have to buy this, huw.

Yeah, you really, really do. :D

[bob48]

alreet - you convinced me. already.....where do I sign?

[undercovergeek]

nice write up Huw, glad youre enjoying it

ummmm has Mrs Bob approved the purchase before you get too carried away!!

[bob48]

^I'm working on it......

[Huw the Poo]

Thanks Geek. :)

Bob, you can get it from all the usual places.  Not from ArenaNet themselves though; due to the sheer demand on the servers, they've temporarily suspended sales from their own website!

I got mine from Tesco Entertainment's website as it was cheapest there at the time with a pre-order discount.  That may well have changed by now.

[bob48]

amazon have it for £35. I'm not sure if we have a grog/amazon UK tie-in, but I buy most of my books and CD's / PC games from amazon, and would like to think that Grog's get some benefit from that.

Anyroadup - due to, um, financial considerations, I may have to wait until my birthday in November to get GW2 :-{{

[undercovergeek]

Ooooooo - Mrs Bob smackdown - volunteer for more hoovering Bob, more hoovering always works!

[bob48]

shutyergob....she might be listening......

[Tpek]

*Cough* http://grogheads.com/forums/index.php?topic=2554.0 *Cough*

[bob48]

^point taken, nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

So do I take it the servers are not like WoW where you could only access a regional server?

[Bison]

I started to playing last night.  The only issue I have with it is that I CTD 3 or 4 times.   I'm too tired to write more.  I like the game.  Get it.

Tpek  you and I need to link up in game so I can be a groghead there.

[LongBlade]

Hu that's a great endorsement. Your "refreshing" comment is most welcome. It's rare for a game to really break out of the mold, but it sounds like Guild Wars 2 has done so. Dang, I'm tempted and I don't really have time for this. :)

[Kushan]

I will not but GW2, I will not but GW2....must resist....