So how big is the game world? Questions for those playing

[Deleted]

Is it huge? How many zones are there in compare with WoW?
Are there loading screens between zones or continents?
Are there "invisible walls" or can you really explore all of the landmass? I hated how in swtor there was only a set path on a planet and outside of it you couldn't really explore.

I'm really big on exploration, so if the world is big enough i might give this game a go.

Thanks.

[Seolla]

only about 5x bigger than WoW, even the cities are like 5x bigger, and thats not counting height

[Deleted]

only about 5x bigger than WoW, even the cities are like 5x bigger, and thats not counting height

Wow. Really? So if you put together azeroth, eastern kingdoms, outland, northrend and pandaria and multiplied it all by 3? thats really appealing

[Cakka]

Wow. Really? So if you put together azeroth, eastern kingdoms, outland, northrend and pandaria and multiplied it all by 3? thats really appealing

It's not really that big.

[savagetommy]

It's like 3000 times bigger than all WoW and SW:TOR combined.

[Clockwork Pinkie]

If you're into exploration, then, well, yea ou should buy this game. It has the best environments I've seen in a game yet, and it seems pretty massive. Each zone has it's own unique touch to it and you witness that each time you enter a new location within a zone, or a new zone completly. Forest feel like forest, plains feel like plains, and the southern parts of the map with the pirates feels like something right out of a pirate movie, it's nothing short of amazing, and I've really only seen about 20% of the locations so far, so much more out there to see.

[General_Typhus]

More impressive than the massive scale of the game is the quality of the environments. Everything just feels hand-crafted and alive. It's easily the most dynamic and organic world I've seen in an online or offline game and utterly gorgeous to boot.

[Cakka]

More impressive than the massive scale of the game is the quality of the environments. Everything just feels hand-crafted and alive. It's easily the most dynamic and organic world I've seen in an online or offline game and utterly gorgeous to boot.

Very much this. You can sense that they really wanted to encourage players to explore the world.

[Eskulap]

The landmass in the game is actually significantly bigger than what WoW has, however that doesn't really say much, as size is only relevant to how fast you travel. The best way you can somewhat objectively measure a game world, is by using time - refer to this post for more information: http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/306052

[MrSerious]

Wow. Really? So if you put together azeroth, eastern kingdoms, outland, northrend and pandaria and multiplied it all by 3? thats really appealing

I think WoW in all its expansions has a bigger land mass but as far as content and things to see I'd say GW2 would have twice as much content. WoW feels like a barren wasteland compared to GW2.

[Deleted]

since there are no mounts of any kind, it feels more huge than it is ( it is HUGE anyway) because it takes some time to travel

[PanikSpreder]

The combination of massive hand-crafted zones with no quest-hubs make for a wonderfull explorer game. I hardly check my experience bar to see the next time I ding - its just something that happens along the way :P

[Shuji V2]

If you are into exploration and things like that, you should definitely give this game a go. It rewards you for exploring the vistas and points of interest with experience and if you have fully explored and completed a map you get a nice rewards as well.

Besides that the zones are pretty massive and alive compared to other games. I'll bet you'll have a blast.

[MarizzaDraenor]

No no its not bigger then WoW people just cant appreciate how big Azeroth is due to the portals haha WoW players pre portal era know how big the world really is.

Tyria is massive though as well with tremendous cities and almost every side of the map has something you wanna do and see. Oh and with a high end pc it look just marvelous. You have to see it to appreciate the detail placed into the world really i cant describe it very well haven't seen anything similar.

Game all in all is great but it does have 3-4 silly game play bugs that need to be taken care of asap though

[Blackmist]

As a rough guess, it feels about the same size as EK and Kalimdor if you shunted the two together.

You can fast travel to previously visited areas though, which I like a lot. A far better idea than ground/flying mounts.

[Shadzta]

On the surface alone gw2 map is huge and "orr" inspiring ( teeheheheeeeeeeee ) then don't forget the level of depth with underwater exploration and nifty shit that no one knew about to begin with...theres 2 crazy juming puzzle achievements in lions arch alone that require non surface exploration hell there might be more I just know of 2...

[Deleted]

wow is WAAAAAY bigger and better BUT you have to pay monthly fee so its obvious that its better then a f2p game lol!

---------- Post added 2012-08-30 at 11:00 AM ----------

But ofc its awesome for f2p i play it^^

[Seolla]

Elwynn forest in WoW takes about 2 hours to complete all the quests; by comparison, the starting area for human in GW2 (Queensdale) took me about 2 days (and I played like 5-6 hours a day) to get the 100% complete achievement just for comparison.

[Deleted]

Exploration is definitely a strong point in this game. I was expecting the mid-level zones to be rushed and lacking in depth but they're actually really good. There is a lot of attention to detail, even if it's just little things like how the caves are all different and not just cut-paste copies of each other.

There's a lot of ambition (?) in the design, if that's the right way to describe it. They aren't afraid to put stuff in that isn't part of the main levelling experience. So you can head somewhere completely off the beaten track and find a ledge with veterans on it guarding a chest or a rich ore node, for example. And of course there's the jumping puzzles, some of which are pretty huge in themselves, check out the videos of them on the woodenpotatoes youtube channel for a peek.

I wouldn't say the world was bigger than WoW but there seems to be a lot more to "explore". WoW holds your hand and says "hey, look at this! and this!" while GW lets you run around and find things, so it depends what you prefer.

[Deleted]

It takes a ton of time to explore everything, its so hugh!