So I Tried Guild Wars 2

Yes, I have a very long list of games from Steam and from elsewhere that I wanted to try, and GW2 would be one of them. I’ve installed the game a long time ago (it maybe a year, maybe?), but never launched it so far, and I finally decided to give it a roll.

I don’t have any specific goals, except that I want to see the vibe, how the game feels like playing, and in general have an inside opinion – so that when somebody’s talking about it, I have my personal image in my mind’s eye.

What about my progress? So far I’ve run the intro scenario for every race, advanced to 15 and deleted a “viking race” girl, leveled an ordinary human to 20 and a “gollum” to 2. Your free account without buying expansions allows to have 2 characters, so that would be them I guess.

As far as I advanced, the game deserves a lot of praise in many, many aspects.

Classes

The range of combat jobs is convincing and feels just enough. You have more or less common range of paladin, warrior, hunter, thief, necromancer and elemental mage, but also an engineer and a mesmer. So, basically you’ll easily find an classic archetype you like, but also something new and unique for the game.

The combat gameplay is very different based on a weapon equipped. For example, a warrior gets a COMPLETELY different set of abilities depending on whether she wields a greatsword or a hammer. A mesmer (an illusion/copy caster) can wield a pistol, a wand, a staff, a pair of swords or a greatsword – imagine how different their gameplay is, and it’s available in a click. Talking about specs, huh? Add up the variety of auxiliary abilities, like buffs and heals, and you get an unlimited range of builds. I feel it even in my early teens, to say nothing of endgame.

Races & Character Creation

I don’t think it’s the best game if you like your character to look beautiful. What do we have here: two races of humans, one normal, and one taller “vikings” (to be fair, all humans look pretty), then furries of a panther variety (never, ever my piece of cake). Then, the most interesting thing: local “elves” and local “smallfolk”. I’ve never seen anything THAT disgusting among playable races in any game before. The smallfolk look like gollums (and a real Gollum from LotR would be considered a beauty among them), and I struggle with a strong urge to put the whole “elf” tab to a torch.

I picked a normal human to play a unique Mesmer class, feels ok so far, and my second allowed toon would be a “gollum” – because duh, smallfolk. She started as an elemental mage, if it will be boring, I’ll try an engineer.

Character creation screen is complex, with many options to tune your appearance – nothing excessive and nothing lacking, I’m quite happy and never lacked any option. There’s also a questionnaire, like are you ferocious or kind, and what is your deity, and are you noble or commonfolk – I hope it doesn’t influence anything later, because I clicked through this part.

Visuals and Music

All in all, the world is just great. It’s super beautiful (I tried all the starting zones), and I like the scale of the world itself and the characters in it. It just feels… right. The race capital cities are huge and fun to be at, and they do feel like real cities. I can’t say I remembered any of the music just yet, but it’s composed well.

All in all, a proper fantasy world, if somewhat generic, which surely has a great appeal, and it’s fun to be here.

Gameplay

There we go, after a starting scenario you’re in the world itself. First things first, the learning curve is probably the best I’ve met so far in a long, long time. I did not address Google even ONCE for any aspect of the game in my first 20 levels, and that is something for such a complex monstrosity as any mmorpg is at the moment.

The story is gated behind levels and exploration, and while someone would grumble about it, it’s simply my piece of cake. The game pushes you to explore the world at your leisure and at your own pace, but with definite mild directions: as you see a blank space with a locked teleport point, and you know you should go there.

Oh: events and world quests. This is where WoW stole them, and the origins are so much better. They seem to invent something new for every next questgiver, and it’s never, ever boring. For example, you need to help a farmer, and you might fill the bar collect grains, kill grubs or entertain cows – in any proportions you like. Or you train a simple move with a rifle, a shield and a sword (could be repeating just one of them if you wish so!). Or you pick-and-carry food baskets from around an area, and you use action buttons to either shoo away or outrun bunnies that will knock you from your feet and make you lose your burden :)

In short, the whole process is an endless adventure of basically no limits, and that’s super fun. I think I could advance to further areas now, as the level range for the “greenhill” starting zone is 1-15, and I’m 20, but you know me, I can’t leave any stone unturned and any blank space on the map.

Combat

Combat is very quick paced and is rather direction based than target based. You get 5 damage/defence buttons which would change completely depending on a weapon you wield (you might consider them specs), a number of common class “ultimates”, and 5 auxiliary buttons like buffs and heals which you can learn as you earn points and tune one by one as you like. So far, I figured that I should try all weapons for my class and pick the ones I like most, and go for them. You can wield 2 types at once and switch between them even mid-combat in a click – for example, from a big ass sword to a casting staff.

Shall I Be Playing Guild Wars 2?

The truth is: I don’t know. I’m going with the flow so far. I’m not planning to buy any expansion, the idea is to progress with exploration and story while it’s fun.

While exploration and gameplay is truly great so far (we’ll see how tedious and repetitive it would get further), I have my certain issues with the story – my major lure in games. Of course, I can’t expect anything too great and epic during my baby steps in the game (the starting zone in any mmorpg is always very simple and about oh waily-waily, protect us from los bandidos, or kobolds, or centaurs).

Yet the whole thing is very generic, as is the fantasy world itself. I got super bored from the “viking” zone (one of the most boring societies in any media, as almost no content creator in the whole wide world takes a single baby step out of hunt, feast and brawl), quit it by level 15 and deleted the associated character. The “normal” human zone is a generic and bleak medieval kingdom as it goes, and the story is quite simple and not too inspiring – I’ve seen these people and these plots a thousand times before in other games, books and movies. Also, it is rumored that the whole game’s major lore is all about dragons, and I’m interested in dragons only in one and only sense: as an enemy at the tip of my spear you slay for loot (and saving a princess). So probably not the setting for me, but we shall see.

Today, I’m sharing my gaming time among FFXIV’s raid reset day and slow, but steady leveling of alt jobs, and exploring Guild Wars 2. Let’s see how quickly I will abandon it :) Or will I?