3201

I am breaking 3 years of MMO sobriety and downloading GW2 right now. Whee!

3202

I must say this is creating a bit of paralysis on character progression as I keep thinking the grass is greener in the way X class armor looks on Y race.

3203

Oh man, I couldn’t disagree more. I just hit L60 and I’m still unlocking all sorts of new tricks on my character. 10 hotbar slots is plenty, in any game you rarely are using more than that on a regular basis anyway (mostly far fewer in a typical rotation). Where the progression is really coming from for me is the trait lines (playing Mesmer). Now that I just hit 60, I can finally invest 30 points into each line. I’d been sitting there staring at my traits for seriously 45 minutes and finding 4-5 new amazing sounding builds that I could play around with more when the server downtime notification came up, which is my cue to go to bed.

I was already bouncing back and forth between awesome builds and having a few ideas for new ones I haven’t tried yet, and now I have the full 30 point spread unlocked and my available build combinations just went through the roof.

3204

I am the possible most boring part of the game (the one where I abandoned the beta the first time), and I can’t play because I get kicked out of the game by “network errors”. Meh…

3205

there are Transmutation stones or something like that that let you use the look of one piece and the stats of another. I don’t recall where I got them, probably either from story quest rewards or out of a Black Lion chest.

3206

I got 3 for finding all the features on the city map.

3207

Right, that’s probably how I got them too.

Also, they are a little non-intuitive how to use, there’s no explanation or anything. When you double click the transmutation stone, it opens a window with 2 panes. You drag the two items to the panes. Then you click which one you want the look of, and it moves to the middle; you click which set of stats you want, and the stats move to the middle; then you click which rune/sigil/accessory you want, and it moves to the middle. Once you’ve chosen all 3, you click done and you have 1 new piece.

3208

I enjoy PvP. That’s my hope for the endgame – PvP and WvWvW.

3209

But that isn’t the endgame. That’s what you can do right now.

3210

That actually sounds intuitive to me, which seems like a reason to not need an instruction manual.

3211

The sPvP is not tied to your character in any way. At Level 2 or 80 you’re still going to be starting at Glory Rank 1 and you’re still going to have the exact same access to gear and progression in the Mists.

If anything, you’ll be behind because the people who are focused on PvP will have had weeks of practice learning the maps and their builds and the good strategies.

WvW success is more a matter of organization than gear/levels. Getting in with a good organized group of players working together to accomplish smart objectives at the right times is going to be the biggest maker of success, moreso by far than if you’re level 80 instead of level 30.

For better or worse, if that’s your idea of endgame, you’re sitting in it right now. It’s not going to magically “start” later on.

3212

Well it wasn’t immediately obvious that you should or could click anything. It’s just a pane with two columns of information after you add the 2 items.

3213

I’m at level 8. If I do WvWvW now will I have all my skills? I thought I got new skills unlocked as I leveled and those skills would be helpful in WvWvW. My skill tab has a lot of darkened slots with padlocks on them still.

If I don’t need to level to acquire skills and gear for WvWvW I’d be all for that after I’ve played enough to understand my character better. I don’t really understand the synergies between characters presently. I see a lot of tiny icons on the screen that mean something, buffs or debuffs I think, but during combat who has time to inspect those? Often there are four or more of those icons on the screen, with some dropping off to be replaced by new ones in a matter of seconds. It’s difficult to process what is going on.

But yeah, if I could skip the leveling and not be at a disadvantage in WvWvW, as in having full access to my skills and have good gear, I’d be happy to do so. Nothing about the leveling process is really much more interesting than the leveling I’ve done in other fantasy MMOs. Most of it feels like I’ve done it a hundred times before, though ANet has done a really nice job of adding in a lot of achievement-type goals that give XP – I really like that.

3214

So far I’ve made it to level 24 or 25 with a Sylvari ranger. Despite hating jumping puzzles, I’ve cleared both the starting city and Caledon Forest. Like others have said, the story is lame, but not actively bad. The gameplay is well polished, almost to the point of being too easy/bland, at least in PvE. I think some of that is due to the slight overpopulation: there’s always a hoard of players descending on world events. The best fight I’ve ahd was when I wandered into a troll lair by myself, and had to drag my bloody body over to a nearby road to wave down some passers-by.

Borrowing from the podcast format, three more thoughts on the game: a dislike, like, and an anecdote. Dislike: the documentation is horrible. I made had fully explored Caledon Forest before I even realized I could tame additional pets. I knew I had empty pet slots, but I had no idea where to find them, or how to collect them. Many of the other systems are as poorly explained.

Like: auto down-leveling. It solves two huge MMO problems at once: you will never out level content, and you don’t have to stay the same level as your friends. How come no one thought of this before? (Is there a precedent?)

Anecdote: one of the times I joined WvWvW combat with the QT3 guild, a group of 5 or 6 of us all grabbed a viewpoint at the same time. The camera swooped back, revealing an epic view of the group, straight out of Lord of the Rings. Spectacular.

3215

You’ll level in WvWvW (and gain loot and crafting materials), so just go straight there if you don’t like PvE.

3216

You’ll be exactly as you are now, but able to level up, earn Karma and loot from enemies, etc.

Yes, more skills would be helpful. Things like the traits you’ll unlock at 10 will be helpful. But if WvW is what you’re actually playing the game for, there’s really no good reason not to pile in now and learn how it all works while levelling. Gear scales so it’s worth doing.

I see a lot of tiny icons on the screen that mean something, buffs or debuffs I think, but during combat who has time to inspect those? Often there are four or more of those icons on the screen, with some dropping off to be replaced by new ones in a matter of seconds. It’s difficult to process what is going on.

Here: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Boon & http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Condition

You probably don’t need to know exactly what an enemy has up. Anything important for you to know is represented with a graphical effect on the character itself (e.g. a glowing blue shield for Protection, a shimmering spiky shield for Retaliation), but there are many classes who just need to know how many boons/conditions you have and that’s easy to tell at a glance as the two look very different.

But yeah, if I could skip the leveling and not be at a disadvantage in WvWvW, as in having full access to my skills and have good gear, I’d be happy to do so. Nothing about the leveling process is really much more interesting than the leveling I’ve done in other fantasy MMOs. Most of it feels like I’ve done it a hundred times before, though ANet has done a really nice job of adding in a lot of achievement-type goals that give XP – I really like that.

Don’t forget that the more eSporty structured PVP (sPVP) is available from level 1 and features a level playing field. Everyone is boosted to 80 with the same gear and stats, and you have access to every trait and ability.

As for levelling I dunno what to say, I’ve never played a game that has rewarded you for literally everything you can do and has so much content for everything you want to focus on, while providing you with a pretty convincing living world with dynamic content. The freedom in GW2 is amazing.

3217

I would say the field is mostly level once you hit level 30, By level 20 you’ll have all 3 Utility Skills lots unlocked and at 30 you’ll have your Elite slot unlocked as well. The next 50 levels from 30 to 80 the only difference are Trait points which allow you to specialize but are not absolutely critical to succeed.

You can level and gear up and have a good time in WvW though without having to level through PvE first. Better, you’re getting incredibly valuable real-life experience points in learning the ins and outs of WvW and earning Badges which are a WvW specific currency that you can’t get in PvE and are useful for buying WvW items.

I’d say Level 15 is probably the farthest you need to go in PvE before you can jump into WvW and feel like you’ve got a fighting chance, because at that point you’ve got 2 Utility Skills, all your class skills, and weapon switching unlocked.

3218

Ok, so if I understand this right I can go into WvW and continue to earn XP so my actual level will continue to rise? In other words, I go into WvW at level 15 and play it for a few days and come out, say, level 20?

3219

Or for a few hours

3220

I agree. It’s great how the game rewards players in a lot of different ways. ANet has done a great job with it.

It doesn’t ever really feel like a living world to me, though. I just got done playing where I ran through the same event twice in less than an hour. Had to kill the same foozle at the end of the chain both times. The events are just quest chains from what I can see and it looks to me like they simply reset.

Maybe it would be different if we actually failed at any of the events. I’ve never seen one fail yet so they always unfold the same way.