Guild Wars 2: Alt Friendly?

[Whitepepper]

I'm curious as to whether people think this will be an alt friendly. For a point of reference I don't consider WoW to be alt friendly because I lose access to mounts, achievements, pets (currently at least) etc. I feel like I'm giving up alot of tedious work if I reroll there. This makes me feel pigeonholed into playing a main. When it comes to Guild Wars 2 I'd like to try several different professions. Alot of people here know more about the game than I do, so I'm asking if I'll be able to play three or four different professions without feeling like I've lost something when switching between them.

[Naberios]

GW1 was very alt friendly since the crossed proffesions required you to have an understading of every proffesion in game anyway.

GW2 is probably going to be even more supportive when it comes to multiple characters.
- There arent many skills that you'll have to manage on your char, and some of the skills will be shared between different proffs (correct me if I'm wrong)
- You wont have to spend a significant time leveling your alts to play the actual content, cause of the level scaling system.

Regards

[Pyre Fierceshot]

Yes, GW2 is alt friendly.

There's no mounts, so you won't feel like you've lost them. There's mini pets and achievements (Not sure if they're account wide though).

Each profession has it's own unique story that branches depending on what you choose to do/options you pick, so even if you play the same profession twice you can have different stories. You can also level through the same areas and experience different dynamic events, since the same ones are unlikely to be up.

[Malthurius]

Account wide achievements and branching story paths support an alt-o-holic life style.

[Sanochan]

Yes, GW2 is alt friendly.

There's no mounts, so you won't feel like you've lost them. There's mini pets and achievements (Not sure if they're account wide though).

Each profession has it's own unique story that branches depending on what you choose to do/options you pick, so even if you play the same profession twice you can have different stories. You can also level through the same areas and experience different dynamic events, since the same ones are unlikely to be up.

What he said! /\/\/\/\/\

[Squirrelbanes]

Well...it should be more alt-friendly than your experience in wow.
Levelling should feel less like a grind because DE means that you probably won't see the same content.
Also, achievements are account wide. That's a big plus for me.
And there's no mounts for you to even worry about (map travel makes them irrelevant)
And personally, for me anyway, the races seem very different from each other, much more so than in wow. Plus, customisation is hugely more varied. This means that alts feel very different from each other, as well as ofc from the profession.

[Fencers]

I don't consider WoW to be alt friendly

this statement is so mind breaking.

[omlech]

Yes, GW2 is alt friendly.

There's no mounts, so you won't feel like you've lost them. There's mini pets and achievements (Not sure if they're account wide though).

Each profession has it's own unique story that branches depending on what you choose to do/options you pick, so even if you play the same profession twice you can have different stories. You can also level through the same areas and experience different dynamic events, since the same ones are unlikely to be up.

Your race defines your story, your profession as far as I know has only a tiny bearing on your story or none at all.

[Whitepepper]

this statement is so mind breaking.

Anything I accomplished on my main in WoW that I considered valuable (and worked hard for), I "lost" when switching to another toon. Similarly I accomplished things on alts that I wished I'd had credit for on my main. It's easy to roll another toon and get to max level, but to me that isn't valuable. Certain low chance mount drops, pets, achievements, and titles made me not want to switch classes because I would "lose" them. As an example; The Insane. With the amount of time it took to get that title I didn't want to go without it by playing another toon. For me that felt like a big loss in terms of time invested, so I kept playing the same class even if I didn't like the route the devs would take with changes to the mechanics.

Edit: At the end I found myself playing my Druid (main) not because I liked playing the class but because I didnt want to give up my accomplishments. To be honest this soured me on the game.

[Bulls191]

Has there been any information on how many character slots we will get?

[omlech]

Has there been any information on how many character slots we will get?

Last year they said 5 when you buy the box, but were still discussing a number and at this point it's still up in the air. If it's like GW1 they'll give you more slots with expansions or you can pay $10 per new slot. That's assuming it's handled just like GW1.

[Bulls191]

Is that 5 per account? Or Server? (Never played Guild Wars 1)

[Maklor]

I don't think there will be per server char slots since you can move your chars as you please - so I'm betting that there is a given number of slots (5 or 6).

[omlech]

Is that 5 per account? Or Server? (Never played Guild Wars 1)

Per account. The way servers will work in GW2 is different than what you're used to. All characters will be stored in a centralized database and your name is going to be 100% unique, no one else in the game will be able to have your name. What this means for gameplay is that you can hop servers for free at any time. So you'll be able to play with Server A with a group of thousands of people, then you could go to Server B and play with another entirely different group of thousands of people and so on. You can just hop servers at will, for free. So you can form friendships across any server you wish and play who you want to play with, no need to create a new character or anything. There's only one thing to be noted. In order to prevent people from jumping to the best WvWvW server every 2 weeks, when you move servers you'll be unable to take part in WvWvW for an unknown period of time. Right now we have no idea how long or if that's still the case.

One can ASSUME that if you go back to the server you came from you'd be able to do WvWvW, but that is just my own speculation based on the whole fact that their game design is about doing what you want, when you want.

[Fencers]

Anything I accomplished on my main in WoW that I considered valuable (and worked hard for), I "lost" when switching to another toon. Similarly I accomplished things on alts that I wished I'd had credit for on my main. It's easy to roll another toon and get to max level, but to me that isn't valuable. Certain low chance mount drops, pets, achievements, and titles made me not want to switch classes because I would "lose" them. As an example; The Insane. With the amount of time it took to get that title I didn't want to go without it by playing another toon. For me that felt like a big loss in terms of time invested, so I kept playing the same class even if I didn't like the route the devs would take with changes to the mechanics.

Edit: At the end I found myself playing my Druid (main) not because I liked playing the class but because I didnt want to give up my accomplishments. To be honest this soured me on the game.

Yea, I got your reasoning in the OP. Takes all kinds I suppose. All kinds...

[Lillpapps]

For me its really great that you can make a new character and jump right into structured pvp from the start. No need to level alts for pvp.

[Squirrelbanes]

Anything I accomplished on my main in WoW that I considered valuable (and worked hard for), I "lost" when switching to another toon. Similarly I accomplished things on alts that I wished I'd had credit for on my main. It's easy to roll another toon and get to max level, but to me that isn't valuable. Certain low chance mount drops, pets, achievements, and titles made me not want to switch classes because I would "lose" them. As an example; The Insane. With the amount of time it took to get that title I didn't want to go without it by playing another toon. For me that felt like a big loss in terms of time invested, so I kept playing the same class even if I didn't like the route the devs would take with changes to the mechanics.

Edit: At the end I found myself playing my Druid (main) not because I liked playing the class but because I didnt want to give up my accomplishments. To be honest this soured me on the game.

I normally go after specific things on characters. eg...the winterspring frostsaber on my female druid healer, the albino drake on my wee noom mage.
As for titles, well Squirrelbane the Insane has a nice ring to it...but I wouldn't go for it on any of my other characters.......
Tbh, items like mounts and pets create a personalised feel for my characters and I actually feel that instantly getting them across all characters would diminish the accomplishment, uniqueness and the basic enjoyment of them.
I think this would be increased in GW2, as each character can be personalised to an even greater degree...
I love what Anet are doing with things like removing the levelling grind for alts. But instantly giving you everything across all toons would be a step too far imo.

[Cherrysoul]

Per account. The way servers will work in GW2 is different than what you're used to. All characters will be stored in a centralized database and your name is going to be 100% unique, no one else in the game will be able to have your name. What this means for gameplay is that you can hop servers for free at any time. So you'll be able to play with Server A with a group of thousands of people, then you could go to Server B and play with another entirely different group of thousands of people and so on. You can just hop servers at will, for free. So you can form friendships across any server you wish and play who you want to play with, no need to create a new character or anything. There's only one thing to be noted. In order to prevent people from jumping to the best WvWvW server every 2 weeks, when you move servers you'll be unable to take part in WvWvW for an unknown period of time. Right now we have no idea how long or if that's still the case.

One can ASSUME that if you go back to the server you came from you'd be able to do WvWvW, but that is just my own speculation based on the whole fact that their game design is about doing what you want, when you want.

Thanks for that clarification , i thought server transfers where limited to 3 days. Good to know it only limits your WvWvW instead, which makes more sense

[Wildclaw]

GW1 was very alt friendly since the crossed proffesions required you to have an understading of every proffesion in game anyway.

Cross professions were the opposite of alt friendly, as they forced you to repeat the skill buying grind for every alt. The title track grinding was also horrible in GW1. The biggest support of alt friendliness in GW1 was no gear grind, and that is of course a big one gameplay wise. As soon as you get your basic max level armor, you are ready to participate in any "max difficulty content".

From what we have seen so far, GW2 sounds very alt friendly, with account wide achievements, dynamic events (less repeating/grinding in lower level zones) and down/up-scaling (less desolate lower level zones and able to play with friends while leveling alts). Traits and skills being profession specific so you don't have to grind every profession for every alt. And again, no gear grind!!!

Mounts, Pets and prestige armor I consider a smaller consideration in the bigger picture for alt friendliness as you can only can show one at a time anyway. Although I hope for shared pets in GW2 if that isn't too much trouble. Armor doesn't really make as much sense to share as different professions use different armor.

[Underskilled]

Is GW2 alt friendly? That certainly is a good question.

On the one hard, account wide achievements, removal of a required gear grind, and interesting content throughout leveling would have one think it definitely is an alt friendly game. On the other hand, not enough characters slots to roll at least one of every class? I'm not sure about everyone else, but that's a HUGE turnoff alt-wise for me.

Obviously it's not set in stone, but I'm still a little skeptical. Have to pay, possibly another 30$ just to be able to play the 3 classes you didn't roll? I know they wanted micro-transactions to be for either customization of convenience, but this is certainly crossing the line.