First Impressions

[Stellan]

I had not planned to buy GW 2 but someone gave it to me for Christmas so I've played it a bit. I have played WOW for years.

First, I got the downloadable version and that went well. No problem getting the game up and running. The problem has been with frequent game crashes. I have an AMD Radeon HD 7800 video card which is a good card but from what I'm reading doesn't run well with the game. I updated the video driver and then ran the latest AMD Catalyst™ Application Profiles which was supposed to fix the problem. It didn't. The game crashes most frequently when I go through portals.

The best thing I can say about the game so far is that the art work is excellent. Very pretty. Lion's Arch looks great with it's holiday decorations, btw. The character models, themselves, aren't particularly impressive but the scenery is great. I started with a human ranger for an easy introduction to the game. The character creation is pretty detailed and my human's clothing came out somewhat distinctive. So I had some measure of individuality.

The 'dynamic events' and 'hearts' are by any other name, questing. I can't imagine anyone claiming otherwise. It's a bit more free flowing than getting quests from NPCs but not much since you're still talking to NPCs to find out what to do. And there's really no difference between a bar you have to fill up with boar kills and having the NPC tell you to kill ten boars.

I've been doing what, apparently, is the personal quest. It is extremely linear even including arrows on the ground to show me where I'm to go. I'm surprised there is so much hand holding in GW 2. My other main objection to this quest line is that there are way too many cut scenes. I disliked that in SWTOR and nothing's changed. They still annoy me a lot.

I've figured out where to train for crafting and am tentatively finding mats. I like professions in WOW so this should be an enjoyable activity in GW 2. I tried to buy and sell items on the Trading Post but again seemed to run into a game glitch. I managed to sell one item very quickly and then the trading post dialog box stopped responding. I couldn't get it back. Assuming I get it running, it seems like it will be a nifty way of buying and selling items since it can be done remotely.

I haven't tried any PVP and probably won't since I don't do PVP in WOW either. It may be that GW 2's PVP game is its best feature.

While playing GW 2, I was thinking about its similarity to other MMORPG's and, of course, there are many. By now the genre is pretty fixed. Questing, crafting, some kind of dungeons at end game and some kind of PVP. GW 2 has all those things to a lesser or greater degree. I'm not entirely sure that I'm interested in devoting the amount of time to yet another MMORPG when there is, in the final analysis, so much similarity between the games. I think GW 2 plays better than SWTOR, Rift and LOTR but certainly doesn't hold a candle to WOW in terms of depth of game play. I do keep in mind that WOW has been around for years and Blizzard has had plenty of time turn WOW into a highly polished game. Comparing other newer games isn't entirely fair.

So that's my first impression.

[Karizee]

Funny coincidence, my cousin got a WoW trial account, played it for 2 days and thought WoW had no depth.

Isn't that bizarre?

[ScottsdaleHokie]

LOL, WoW is about as shallow as a game can get and yet you think it has more depth than GW2?

Amazing. BTW, crafting in GW2 is 100x better than WoW.

[Valeron]

Each person is different. Plus if you have played a game for a while that is going to leave an impression on you and it will alter somewhat how you look at other games, can't really help that. It sounds like you didn't make it very far into the game since a lot of what you are talking about is the personal story (which starts fast with each part close in level but spreads out).

It's interesting that you said that there is so much hand holding in GW2. There are blog posts (the most recent one by massively as an example) that seem to state that there isn't enough hand holding.

[Stellan]

I've been wondering about my ranger pet. He seems to not attack my targets very well. He'll get the first one but then stop attacking. I use F1 but it seems to do nothing. Is there some secret to getting pets to attack properly?

[Valeron]

If you use aoe, your pet won't attack. They will only attack a specific target (a selected target). Also the F1 attack has been buggy at times. For the most part it has worked for me but on the occasion that it doesn't I'll swap pets and that usually will fix the problem.

[Willias]

I've been wondering about my ranger pet. He seems to not attack my targets very well. He'll get the first one but then stop attacking. I use F1 but it seems to do nothing. Is there some secret to getting pets to attack properly?

The shout Sic Em! can help I think, I believe it forces your pet to attack your current target (so long as your pet can get to it).

I also highly encourage you to try out multiple characters before you decide to level just one. While I agree GW2 doesn't have a ton of depth (which actually I'm pretty happy with. Not having to figure out an ability rotation is kind of nice), be aware that the Ranger class is probably one of the classes that has the least going on with it in terms of interesting utility.

Edit:

In terms of character class complexity I'd say

Simple: Ranger, Guardian, Warrior

Moderate: Engineer, Necromancer, Thief

Complex: Mesmer, Elementalist

[Meledelion]

In terms of character class complexity I'd say

Simple: Ranger, Guardian, Warrior

Moderate: Engineer, Necromancer, Thief

Complex: Mesmer, Elementalist

NO, just no.
Seeing that do dungeons on multiple 80s I must say that inorder of complexity it would be war>ele>ran>mes, if you count managing your pet it wouldbe ran>war>ele>mes (I haven't lvld the other classes to max yet)

TBH if you're tying to experience the game I'd stay away from rangers, they have the most broken mechanics ingame which can be very frustrating. If you want to play a huntsman type of class I'd go with a shortbow thief tbh.
(if you're interested in the issues regarding ranger just check "the one thread" I've listed them there)

Ranger is indeed easy to lvl but that's mainly due to how good we are at kiting without pulling additional mobs or losing combat, issues a thief occasionally has.

I agree with what others have said though, try out a couple of classes before you decide otherwise you'll end up like a friend of mine playing necro till 80 with fotm lvl 30 and then realising you actually prefer the mesmer playstyle...

[Deleted]

started gw2 a while ago too coming from 6-7 years of WoW (and I'm still planning to play it till it's end).
it's true that in the end the events are just another form of questing,but hell for me GW2 is lightyears ahead compared to WoW in questing.
In terms of integration,lore,follow-up quests...My first char was a sylvari and the first sylvari zone in terms of questing beats hands down every zone I've played in WoW.And that for a starter zone...ouch.
Graphics play a big role too,they're amazing but what I find really amazing is the map design.The way the zones are made,they feel like a real fantasy world,not a ''zone''.

[barackopala]

I laugh when people look at dinamic events as "shallow quests" when they come from WoW, take your time to "learn" and explore the event chain, it is a chained story that is quite deep itself, if only I had the dinamic event vid that explained that and showed a good example... all i remember is that it was a german guy explaining it like in 10 mins of vid (saw it on reddit a while ago).

The game has shaped up pretty well, jumping puzzles makes this mmorpg quite variated and makes you think out of the box, for example today i was playing darksiders 2 and the game showed me a strict pattern to jump from point A to B, you couldn't jump on a certain rock just because there's an invisible wall, with GW2 I got used to see rocks as rocks and a good way to climb to higher places, I felt disappointed that a platformer didn't grab that as good as GW2.

There's no deny on the dinamic events being fairly repetitive, but that's how rpg's have evolved into, even single player rpg's are like that if you break the quests appart, borderlands 2? kill A-B-C / talk to A-B-C / Loot A-B-C Using A-B-C. Can't blame WoW/GW2/Everquest or any of those games, it's how the whole model has come into when analized.

[Tirilka]

The game has shaped up pretty well, jumping puzzles makes this mmorpg quite variated and makes you think out of the box, for example today i was playing darksiders 2 and the game showed me a strict pattern to jump from point A to B, you couldn't jump on a certain rock just because there's an invisible wall, with GW2 I got used to see rocks as rocks and a good way to climb to higher places, I felt disappointed that a platformer didn't grab that as good as GW2.

There are a lot of invisible walls in GW2 too, they are usually on the edges of maps, or in areas where you are not supposed to be. Also, sometimes rock walls don't have hitbox, and you just go through them, usually ending in some kind of glitched closed space with common "mot meant to be seen" type of terrain, like serrated walls. The most notorious example is middle starting height in Eternal battlegrounds Jumping Puzzle. You go through the portal to it, turn left and go right through the wall. If too hasty, you fall into a pit with no exit.

[Gsara]

Both games are pretty elementary in design and game play, not really a lot of difference when it comes to the basics.

[Stellan]

I laugh when people look at dinamic events as "shallow quests" when they come from WoW, take your time to "learn" and explore the event chain, it is a chained story that is quite deep itself, if only I had the dinamic event vid that explained that and showed a good example... all i remember is that it was a german guy explaining it like in 10 mins of vid (saw it on reddit a while ago).

The game has shaped up pretty well, jumping puzzles makes this mmorpg quite variated and makes you think out of the box, for example today i was playing darksiders 2 and the game showed me a strict pattern to jump from point A to B, you couldn't jump on a certain rock just because there's an invisible wall, with GW2 I got used to see rocks as rocks and a good way to climb to higher places, I felt disappointed that a platformer didn't grab that as good as GW2.

There's no deny on the dinamic events being fairly repetitive, but that's how rpg's have evolved into, even single player rpg's are like that if you break the quests appart, borderlands 2? kill A-B-C / talk to A-B-C / Loot A-B-C Using A-B-C. Can't blame WoW/GW2/Everquest or any of those games, it's how the whole model has come into when analized.

Interestingly enough I haven't found a jumping puzzle yet. Vista's yes but no jumping puzzles. I guess I need to read a guide to find out where they are.

[Deleted]

Man.. I dont know, everyone has his own opinions.. but damn !

I got GW2 for Christmas, installed it, created my first character and... HOLY CRAP WHATS THAT ?!

I get my own epic questline, with awesome sidecharacters, interesting tasks, instanced quests and the fuckin best I GET A FRICKIN VIDEO EVERYTIME, WITH VOICE AND STUFF ?! I heard a chant of angel's singing in my head. I had such a blast playing it.

Then I went into PvP, thought about it like WoW or Warhammer, the second one I liked really much.
I saw what ? You get a level 80 character, with all skillbuilds, items to buy, runes to make your character pretty much unique.
Not bashing WoW or any other game but in like 10 hours or such.. the quests have more "depth" then 90% of the ones in WoW and I did them all for my lore master and stuff, still playing both games.

But actually Guild Wars 2 exceeded my expectations after much bashing and hyping by 100%. Totally glad I can play it.

[Durzlla]

NO, just no.
Seeing that do dungeons on multiple 80s I must say that inorder of complexity it would be war>ele>ran>mes, if you count managing your pet it wouldbe ran>war>ele>mes (I haven't lvld the other classes to max yet)

TBH if you're tying to experience the game I'd stay away from rangers, they have the most broken mechanics ingame which can be very frustrating. If you want to play a huntsman type of class I'd go with a shortbow thief tbh.
(if you're interested in the issues regarding ranger just check "the one thread" I've listed them there)

Ranger is indeed easy to lvl but that's mainly due to how good we are at kiting without pulling additional mobs or losing combat, issues a thief occasionally has.

I agree with what others have said though, try out a couple of classes before you decide otherwise you'll end up like a friend of mine playing necro till 80 with fotm lvl 30 and then realising you actually prefer the mesmer playstyle...

How you think warrior is harder to play than elementalist is beyond me... warrior may be one of -the- easiest profs in the game... i personally would say the only change to that would be to move ranger to moderate due to the complexity of managing your pet, and i personally don't see necromancer as very hard but *shrug*

PS: Rangers don't have that many broken mechanics, however if you don't want a pet don't roll a ranger, roll either a thief (for more of the scouty traps + poisons play style) or a warrior (for the long range sniper/military archer) approach.

[nightshark]

Simple: Ranger, Guardian, Warrior

Moderate: Engineer, Necromancer, Thief

Complex: Mesmer, Elementalist

I honestly don't think there is a simple/moderate/complex. All the classes are pretty simple, but you can get very skilled at playing any. I've recently started playing Mes in dungeons and have been finding it easier than warrior for the simple fact that most the time you don't draw any agro from mobs. I definitely feel like I'm doing more as a warrior. No doubt Mesmer is an extremely useful class to have in the group, and you can make your group be a lot more fluid by utilizing your skills correctly. But same with most classes.

[Valeron]

I don't know about the simple/complex thing. What I will say is that I feel that I have to work much harder as an Elementalist than I do on my Guardian for similar results.

[Valeron]

We'll just have to agree to disagree on that point, Bovinity.

[Meledelion]

war is harder due to having less built in survivability. Eles have blind, gap makers, stuns, selfheals, protection and weakness built in regardless off weapon/utilities, which means there's more room for error.

[Derah]

First, I got the downloadable version and that went well. No problem getting the game up and running. The problem has been with frequent game crashes. The game crashes most frequently when I go through portals.

I've been getting this a lot too. Its really annoying. It happens mostly when entering or leaving Divinity's Reach.

Your first impressions are quite similar to mine. I love the art style of this game (after well over 8 years of the cartoonish, exagerated style of Warcraft (And I Don't mean just wow, but Warcraft 1 2 and 3) playing a game with a more realistic look is a welcome change. SWTOR can't really count because while the scenery looks amazing, the character models SUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK)

And I'm having a hard time liking the dynamic events (since most of them are without any context. "HEEEEEEEEELP WE'RE UNDER ATTACK BY CENTAURS" doesn't do much for storytelling)