5punk

Holy crap. I just wandered across a boss event. A huge undead dragon thing in the swamps. Probably took about 30 people to take it down in the end (plus the ones who ran over and tried to attack its feet, who were killed by a permanent short ranged AoE and had to stay there). Got four or five bits of nice loot.

Anyone got any issues if I invite a couple of bods from my ArmA2 lolclan to join our guild? We can bum them mightily and get them onto 5punk too.

friznit wrote:We can bum them mightily and get 5punk onto them too.

Fix'd

Fine by me.

Could someone invite me

FatherJack wrote:Could someone invite me

Invited, you can be promoted once you've accepted.

Not sure I'm enjoying the engineer class. There's too many options and I'm struggling to work out decent setups for situations. Unlike other classes you don't have a variety of weapons, it seems to be all about the kits; bombs, flames, mines, etc.

I struggled with Engineer in Warhammer. It's one of the three classes I couldn't fit in this time round.

I'm enjoying being a warrior. I roled it because it's the class I'm most familiar with, but the versatility is very refreshing. All weapon sets are viable, and it's fun being able to swap out and ring the changes - bows for AOE, hammers for crowd control, guns for ranged dps, 2 axes for insane whirly animations...and throwing your sword at someone before ripping it out of their chest is amusing. I'm learning the art of combos too - fire an AOE shot with a bow, then swap to axes and get double dps from the combo. I still die a lot though!

I guess I'm enjoying it, I'm disappointed by two things, things which could wear me down far too quickly. The first is lack of excitement when leveling up, lack of new goodies and abilities. The second is (as I address in the 3rd paragraph here) lack of context and story for general zone questing. I'm enjoying the personal story, but hearts and events, not so much. Attached to that is this, which I would tend to agree with. Additional third thing - lack of social interaction. A few times now I've spent 5-10 minutes with the same person in the same area, but with no reason to engage in conversation. In WoW you either grouped out of convenience or necessity. I don't want to argue with is better yet, but I built lasting friendships through WoW because of that.

I'm by no means thinking of giving up, I'm just hoping a little bit of that early WoW magic comes my way.

Guild Wars was never about levelling. You hit max level before you even finished the starting area, then built skills and cosmetics on that base. It's nice to get a ding and a raft of new skills, but I prefer this system of not having to grind to get them.

The group/heart events have to be the way they are in order to be all inclusive. As the post you linked to says, it's because they're one of the primary methods of levelling. They could be a bit more story relevant, and maybe in later levels they will be, but who ever reads them anyway? Now you don't even have to pretend to talk to the quest giver, you just do the quest. The story, on the other hand, is presented in an interesting and attractive way. I know why I'm doing the main quests, unlike almost everything I did in Warcraft. I prefer this, it feels more personal (like SWTOR) while simultaneously feeling so much more open. I'm not following a trail of exclamation marks any more, I'm wandering where I please and finding things to do there.

I hugely prefer not having to talk to randoms. Many are dicks, most don't want anything to do with you. I never, ever, grouped up with randoms in Warcraft, and when WAR introduced public quests it was like a huge breath of fresh air. GW2 has improved that formula by scaling it.

Horses for courses, but in all cases here I think it boils down to GW2 being based on GW rather than WoW, and as such is a completely different game. I read an interview with Arenanet recently in which the interviewee stated that the people who find GW2 the hardest to get into are the hardcore WoW raiders. To emphasis that I saw a guy in map chat complaining that he would have to grind to level because he could only see five quests on his map, thereby completely missing the point. As I say, some people will prefer the way Warcraft does things, and they have Pandaria, but I think the way GW2 has cast aside so many MMO conventions (many of which are designed to extend subscriptions) is hugely refreshing.

Dog Pants wrote:I think the way GW2 has cast aside so many MMO conventions (many of which are designed to extend subscriptions) is hugely refreshing.

That almost makes it sound like it's designed to have a limited lifespan for players. which makes sense due to the lack of a sub.

I wasn't trying to make a direct comparison or pit GW2 against WoW, it's just that WoW is my only other frame of reference. I know what the game is about, I've followed it for a long time as you may know. I've seen posts from people wondering where the raids are etc, I'm not that guy, and I only ever set out to play this casually.

They could be a bit more story relevant, and maybe in later levels they will be, but who ever reads them anyway? Now you don't even have to pretend to talk to the quest giver, you just do the quest. The story, on the other hand, is presented in an interesting and attractive way. I know why I'm doing the main quests, unlike almost everything I did in Warcraft.

I read every quest I ever did, and enjoyed doing so. The longer quest chains that spanned zones and levels were great. I don't want to do a quest, even if it's just badger arses, if I don't have a bit of story for it. GW2 has minimal descriptions or flavour text. I know you like story DP, so I can't put my finger on why you enjoy this way more than I do. I should perhaps point out I'm referring to vanilla WoW, which had much more sporadic quests than the streamlined hubs it has now.

I hugely prefer not having to talk to randoms. Many are dicks, most don't want anything to do with you. I never, ever, grouped up with randoms in Warcraft, and when WAR introduced public quests it was like a huge breath of fresh air. GW2 has improved that formula by scaling it.

No, I didn't mean compulsory grouping. I'll retract the "necessity" part, which only applies to a tiny percentage of quests. It's like clicking/not clicking with someone in conversation who you've never met before. Every so often I'd get a feeling that someone is ok to group with and it'd enhance the experience. I don't recall having a bad grouping experience, either good, or forgettable.

No need to defend yourself, your opinion is as valid as mine and I can see your point, I think we just emphasise different things. Every MMO I've played since World of Warcraft has, to varying degrees, felt like the same game in a different skin. To me GW2 feels similar but notably different. Possibly the main thing is that I can travel and explore without having to fight something every ten paces.

I'm wondering where this game is taking me, if anywhere at all and so that raises questions about its longevity and whether it is worth the time to find out.

I can see from my completion ratio that there are a finite number of heart tasks, and I get a new storyline quest every few levels, but what about after then? I assume the dynamic events happen a little less frequently in higher-level areas, because in the start areas they are so common it makes a mockery of your achievement in completing them. Oh, the experiment in the lab has gone wrong has it? Really? Again?

I am enjoying it though, which is I suppose the main thing. There seems to be enough in a single area to level enough to move to the next one, so I can experience each race's areas without being tempted to jump between them. How well that carries on into later levels remains to be seen - I imagine they all connect up at some point.

I'm liking the exploration, the fast travel system, the crafting (especially the bank shared between your chars and auto-dump collectables form inventory,) the way people don't ninja the harvested resources and the free movement during combat.

Aye, end game and dungeonies is going to be the next big question. Let's hope it can keep the content coming because I really like the way this plays out. It's refreshingly different to WoW, insofar as you can be different in an RPG based on hitting things with swords.

There's always the WvW(vW) too.

Hopefully this comes in the post today. Somebody hold my hand?

There should be plenty of us about to hold any appendage you like. I have a character of each race, most only a couple of levels in, although you get bumped down to the right level for an area anyway. Poke someone for a guild invite to make communication easier.

Grimmie wrote:Hopefully this comes in the post today. Somebody hold my hand?

Make a character called Dungeon Master and come meet Shankley, Glib and Thor!

Or, like Pants I have some just-started chars, too.

I made an Asura engineer called Nikolai Fedorski. He has a turret, and it about level 5.
The Asura home city is fucking nuts, I've spent ages just wriggling around inside the place.

I'll make a healy/defendy type called Anson (the cleric in Orhedge) and come beat things up with you.