Guild Wars 2: Alt Friendly?

[Repefe]

Imho the biggest advantage is the downscalling. Your guildmate can go quest/dung with you without the gameplay turning into you watching him one shot everything.

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.

If $30 is too much just pick 5 you will like the most and play them ... 1 month per profession it's still half a year to just level them up.

[Deleted]

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.

If you've played other MMO's that require a monthly fee then really you've no reason to be complaining. Atleast with GW2 you choose what you want to pay for.

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

Both race and profession effect story aswell as your biography questions.

[jvbastel]

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.

"Obviously it's not set in stone, but I'm still a little skeptical. Have to pay, possibly another 15$ just to be able to play for longer than a month? I know they wanted micro-transactions to be for either customization of convenience, but this is certainly crossing the line."

GW2 doesn't require a monthly fee, so that 30$ could get you a mere 2-3 months of play in WoW/SWTOR. 3 characters give you a LOT more than that. Server transfers will most likely be free whereas in WoW they cost (iirc) 25 €. That's 25€ for something that costs blizzard nothing whatsoever.

Every business model has its downsides, but ANET's is definitely the best I've seen in the genre.

[Deleted]

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.

Why is it crossing the line? Extra character slots are not necessary to play and it's only a one time payment. You buy GW2 and then if you really like playing GW2 and want more professions (than the - probably - 5 you have already) you can buy more slots. I know I will buy them all, it beats spending $15 a month after 2 months of playing.

[Ogretron]

By what I've read I'm going to think it will be less alt friendly. In WoW and other MMOs you are forced to reroll if a friend is starting out and you want to run with him. It isn't fun running around as a level 85 in STV while your friend just stands there watching you kill stuff, so you make an alt so you can both have fun. Same goes with dungeons, if I want to experience an old instance I would either destroy the place on my main, or make an alt so I can experience the content as it was meant to be. In GW2 it will be so easy to just change your level to match that of your friends you would never have to roll an alt to be able to play with them without hurting the leveling experience.

That is the main reason I roll alts, and not having to do that means I will probably play on my main longer. Not saying this is a bad thing, I'm actually looking forward to it. Same goes with making another character on different servers, not going to be a problem with GW2.

[Deleted]

Im usually a person sticking with my main.
However, depending on how many character slots you get in this game, it most likely be the game I have most alts in.
I love pvp, I dont love leveling up. Since I can start pvp instantly on my chars I will fill those slots up.
If world pvp leveling is working and is fun and enjoyable, I might even drag my alts through that (less likely though).
But they made it so you can do the good stuff without the leveling part, and to me that is heaven when it comes to having alts.
Reason I havent had many alts in other games is that you must level them up, pvp queues long at low lvl forcing you to quest and so on. I hate questing =)
That's why personal story in GW2 is perfect for me, it's something you can do on the side, doesn't affect the rest and since there's no rush there's actually the possibility to enjoy and explore and take your time. I will really like that, but most likely on my main only =)

[Jovanaar]

I'm making 10 characters upon release, I'll make the game alt-friendly

[Primernova]

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).

No mounts? That seems an odd direction, players love mounts.

[Jovanaar]

No mounts? That seems an odd direction, players love mounts.

The reason why Guild Wars 2 doesn't have mounts is;

Traveling is already extremely easy.
They want people to explore the world on foot, and not rush through it.


With that being said; No mounts are implanted in game, however, they might put it in future patches.

[MissCleo]

I will happily buy three character slots upon release if necessary, roll one of every Profession, and shut myself up in my apartment for months playing all of them. Future archaeologists will find my bones at the bottom of a pile of discarded coffee cups, red bull cans, and snack food packages, and assume I was a ritual sacrifice to some sort of caffeine god.

[Deleted]

I'm making 10 characters upon release, I'll make the game alt-friendly

That's the spirit!

OT: As everyone said, it's "alt-friendly" indeed

[Hellgaunt]

I've seen no mention of that anywhere!

I can only find this in the guild wars 2 wiki:

Will there be mounts?
Other than map travel and asura gates, there will be no other methods of long distance travel such as mounts, ships, etc in Guild Wars 2 upon initial release

Source: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Freq...sked_Questions

I can't find any information on Anet.

[ChiliPepper]

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.

Don't forget that this is a business they are running and for them to not have a monthly fee, it is perfectly acceptable to ask players to pay for those slots when they want them. After all, if it takes a year to level all 8 characters with 5 or 6 being included in the cost of the game that would be $135-$150 less then you are spending if they wanted to charge $15 per month for the game. Embrace it.

[Arkenaw]

No mounts? That seems an odd direction, players love mounts.

Speak for yourself!

[Deleted]

Speak for yourself!

Im with Arkenaw on this one, lets hope the day never comes when gw2 have mounts,
portals and the fast travel system will be more then enough.

OP. The game will have plenty of replay value, if your not a cheap bastard and wount buy the
extra character slots

[Deleted]

The fast travel system works perfect and I'm also pretty happy to actually see players sometimes. Mounting in BGs, cities full of mounts, every tier having new mounts, it kinda got to much. Mounts were a relief in WoW because of all the walking on low levels gets pretty tedious and it also used to be something prestige, but GW2 just doesn't have that problem. GW1 also doesn't have mounts and I actually liked that. You don't miss it at all and the world feels less like a zoo.

[Valeron]

The mount discussion again eh?

GW had a bunch of speed boost skills, I'm sure GW2 will have something similar as well.

As far as alt friendly, other than having limited number of character slots it seems to be very alt friendly.

[Fencers]

The necessity of mounts is really determined by zone layout. The fast travel stuff is totally irrelevant. Being in the zones of GW2 might have a totally different feel than trekking across the Barrens in classic or Zangamarsh, for example. It just might be you don't miss mount in GW2 because the zones will be more compact.

[Deleted]

If GW2 is going to be alt friendly or not is definitely a difficult question to answer.

On one side it has accountwide achievements and absence of mounts, so you don't have to miss anything (except pets maybe).
On the other side, earning achievements on alts is one of the things that made them a timesink in the first place.

One thing is very likely though: GW2 will have a high amount of replayabililty to it.
Personal stories, dynamic events, all those features are there to stimulate replayability.
But the question still remains: will you play it on an alt or stick with your main?

This is where GW2 scores a bit lower then other games.
Where in other games you needed an alt to replay lower lvl areas, you can now replay them on your main.
This discourages the creation of alts by default.

This, of course, doesn't count for personal story.
But since personal story will create a deeper bond between player and avatar, it might be harder to leave your main character for an alt.

Of course, it's not all bad.
Downscaling might discourage people to create alts, but it also makes alts less of a thing to plan in.
In WoW, you and your friend have to plan out times, builds, races and quests just to play together.
In GW2, friends can join and leave on the fly, making the planning less tedious.
This encourages people to make alts.

Also, while personal stories may bind you more to one character, playing several characters has the advantage of experiencing more personal stories and therefore more lore.
Since personal story also ties into race, playing more then one race is a great way to get to know a lot about the lore of every race.

All in all, It's very difficult to determine if GW2 is going to be alt friendly without playing it first (for a long period of time).
There are goods and there are bads on this front, so it'll probably depend on the person playing.

I will definitely make at least one alt, perhaps more

[Whitepepper]

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

You're coming across as an asshole. Do I misunderstand or is that about right?