Guild Wars 2 Heroic Edition - $25

Even if you only moderately like MMOs, this is so much game for your money.

They're also bringing the whole world together with their "Megaserver" system. If you remember GW1, it's like when they would open and close copies of cities to accommodate the number of players and ensure you were always in a full, bustling city.
In GW2, they will be doing something similar, but to every zone in the world. So no more barren zones...they will open and close instances of zones based on how many players are in it.

So instead of 50 worlds having 50 copies of barren zones with just a few players in them, you'll have all the players from 50 worlds in three or four copies of the zone. Busier zones might have 80+ copies open, like during world events.
 
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A great price on a great game. GW2 seems to always have some neat improvements and new content coming down the pipe - they are offering a HUGE amount of content changes in their April 2014 patch too. GW2 is one of the few MMOs that is just polished to a level that really makes it enjoyable for players. For instance, there's a special inventory just for Crafting/Gathering items, that you can send any of these items you pick up in your main inventory, to this special craft-bank, from anywhere. Then, when you want to go crafting, you can craft directly from that craft-bank! Furthermore, you can only have a handful of crafting skills at a time, but if you "forget" one of them and then pick it up later, it stays at the same level and with all the same patterns you already learned! They just get a lot of the "little things" right, and many of the "big ones" too!

They're even "buy to play" without a subscription fee, and their Item Shoppe is the least offensive I've seen...and I'm VERY critical of Item Shoppes even existing.
 
I played this till level 80 on a warrior a long time back (over a year ago). I immediately got horribly bored with it and didn't really care for it terribly much. Part of the problem might be just how unbalanced the classes are when it comes to leveling up... try playing a warrior and then watch anything pale in comparison when it comes to grinding.

Well there's that and there's also how repetitive the leveling is, and how empty I found every zone outside of the very first ones to be. Snoozefest. I literally spent levels 70-80 on my warrior in Queensdale because of how empty everything else was, and it was faster to just do an event rotation...

I have a lot more critique than that, but it's spread out across multiple forums. TL;DR: I don't feel it's really anything special. I found the current Final Fantasy MMORPG to actually be more fun, because it brought in party dungeon play much sooner. Not to say it doesn't get boring, too, but eh. All MMORPG's do. Because they're usually rehashes of various staples to the genre.

That and this thing's item shop has a money to gold conversion ratio. So even if the items in the shop aren't blatantly broken, you can use the item shop to get anywhere in the game...
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
I played this till level 80 on a warrior a long time back (over a year ago). I immediately got horribly bored with it and didn't really care for it terribly much. Part of the problem might be just how unbalanced the classes are when it comes to leveling up... try playing a warrior and then watch anything pale in comparison when it comes to grinding.
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How long does it take to get to lvl 80?
 
I have 3k hours played so far in this game and haven't bought gems or anything with real money yet. The pve bores me, but competitive pvp is where the real good stuff is. If you play by yourself and don't join a guild then you will be bored though, same as any mmo.
 
Will I like this if I like WoW?

In theory, I should have liked Guild Wars 1 but the interface/guimechanics/interaction totally killed it for me. Does GW2 have the same interface?

(not sure if that made sense.. the freedom of movement (jumping/clicking terrain/etc) in GW1 sucked compared to wow)
 
I bought it last time it was on sale for this price. It's not a bad game, but honestly I played it till about level 30 and then got bored, even playing it with a few other guys. That said, it has a really nice XP system, where doing just about anything gives you XP, not just fighting mobs and completing quests.
 
Maybe if it was like 15 bucks i would give it a shot, but I have a feeling I will also get bored of the game. I tried going back to WOW on private servers and lost interest after hitting max level (this was on those fast level servers that only took a week to hit max)
 
I bought GW2 when it came out and assumed since it was an MMORPG that there would be end-game PvE content like raids. I quit after a week or so of playing. The mechanics are awesome and the world is great but no PvE end-game was a huge let-down for me.
 
I bought it for 40 on sale a while back and I really enjoy it. Wow is my poison of choice and will always be; but this is easily my 2nd favorite. It's a lot easier to get friends to play too since there's no monthly sub fee.
 
There are a lot of long over due quality of life improvements on the way in about a week.

Legendary and Ascended items will now be account bound instead of character bound so you can easily move them around. They are also adding a skin wardrobe to make reskinning things easier and save bank space.

They do regular updates to the PVE story, but it can get tiresome. I don't care for the PVP - I would rather play an FPS if I'm playing against people.
 
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Thanks for the heads up here. Going to buy a 2nd account.

This is a great deal for one of the best MMOs out. ESO just came out so that's probably why they are having a sale.

The true hidden treasure of this game is the WvWvW. I played GW1 and GW2, both since release, so I'm pretty hardcore. I spend 99.9% of my time in WvWvW. I'm also a commander, which is the most gratifying thing I've experienced in online gaming. Leading a raid of 40-80 people against two enemy teams of 40-80 is so freaking awesome.
 
WOW killed my motivation to play fantasy style MMO's. I need Sci-Fi or something different, everything else feels boring including WOW.
 
JPW said:
Thanks for the heads up here. Going to buy a 2nd account.

This is a great deal for one of the best MMOs out. ESO just came out so that's probably why they are having a sale.

The true hidden treasure of this game is the WvWvW. I played GW1 and GW2, both since release, so I'm pretty hardcore. I spend 99.9% of my time in WvWvW. I'm also a commander, which is the most gratifying thing I've experienced in online gaming. Leading a raid of 40-80 people against two enemy teams of 40-80 is so freaking awesome.
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Did they ever make leveling through WvWvW any more worthwhile? I grabbed one of my newbies and tried going around in it for a while... but aside from not only doing nothing for damage at that level with that gear, I also gained what felt like crap for exp. Have they ever finally fixed that Queensdale dynamic event rotations are like the fastest way to grind..?

Basically, what are the really big changes that have happened? I know there are end-game ish dungeons and stuff, but without dedicated healing and tanking roles it felt like everyone's basically a one man unit trying to take down a boss. If I wanted to experience that, it seems like Vindictus is the superior game to do that in.


NickJames said:
WOW killed my motivation to play fantasy style MMO's. I need Sci-Fi or something different, everything else feels boring including WOW.
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Once you realize that almost all MMORPGs are the same thing, or similar enough, it likely won't ever get better. That's just disillusionment. You can only fool yourself that "THIS IS REALLY SUPER DIFFERENT, I'M NOT JUST GRINDING IN A DIFFERENT WAY" for so long. It depends on how many levels of meta you go through.
 
Are the devs still controlling drop rates to funnel people through the gift shop?
 
tenub said:
I bought GW2 when it came out and assumed since it was an MMORPG that there would be end-game PvE content like raids. I quit after a week or so of playing. The mechanics are awesome and the world is great but no PvE end-game was a huge let-down for me.
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This. If youre a PVE head the game is a bit of a letdown (at launch at least). Otherwise its one of my favorite MMO's that when I explore and go around it I truely feel like its a new experience other than same shit different day. World and art design is absolutely gorgeous. Mechanics are interesting, if a little boring once you unlock all the weapon abilities. I do like the blizzard carrot on a stick leveling in which you get a new ability to try out every 2.

TL;DR Did they add content to PVE?
 
The main difference between GW2 and WoW (I don't play WoW) is that in GW2, combat is action based and you can use terrain, obstacles and dodging to avoid damage. You can't just stand in one place, success requires action.

I've seen videos comparing GW2 to WoW and how spells in WoW go through trees and hills and how the landscape is basically there just for looks. Like I said, I don't play WoW so I can only comment on my impression from watching videos.

The other major change is the lack of the holy trinity: Heal/Tank/Nuke - there are no dedicated healing classes and healing in general is pretty modest - you have to stay alive by killing things quickly and using active damage mitigation - dodges, blocks, protection, condition removal, etc.

In that sense, the game is very fun because combat can be very engaging and there ways for players to combo their skills for bonus effects.

This isn't the video I was thinking of, but it looks like a pretty fair side by side: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mgz4wa9VN6k
 
DoubleTap has the right of it, and I think this is definitely a great feature of GW2. The active combat feels more impressive at times, and you feel more engaged and immersed because of it. This, combined with the relative limited amount of hotkeys at a given time (you can learn a ton of skills, but you can only use so many at once), makes combat tactical and twitchy to some extent, without being a clickfest or having bars and bars at any given time.

I've actually have not been able to play much GW2 for quite a few months, and I'm eager to get back to it, especially with the big improvements coming soon. I've heard that the community is welcoming to new players and that you don't have to worry about coming in too "late" and never being able "catch up" with endgame content, which I hope is true as I have a lot of "catching up" to do!

I have to say that their monetization strategy seems to be on the whole, one of the best of any non-subscription MMO around. As I said before, I am VERY critical of "cash shops", prefer subscriptions (so long as they include all content!) and vehemently object to most "F2P" conventions these days. However, Guild Wars 2 has a great plan, overall. Being Buy To Play, means that those who may not play as frequently, don't have to feel they are "wasting" their money. You pay once and you have access to the entire game and account - I've heard they may bring expansion packs some day, which would also be fine, similar to the original Guild Wars. They have additional funding from their real-money-transaction (RMT) shop. Like many "F2P" games, they have a special RMT currency, in this case "Gems", which players can purchase for real world currencies. Players can also buy Gems with in-game gold (or vice versa) on a special transaction market that is powered by offers of other players wanting to buy or sell. Of course, it takes a relatively high amount of gold to buy Gems but that is to be expected to some extent; still, its a nice feature so that even those who don't want to spend any money aside from the initial purchase can pick up some Gems if they're successful enough earning in-game gold!

The "Gem Store" (AKA Black Lion Trading Company) is one of the better I've seen, and that is saying something! The great majority of the items on the Gem Store are convenience items, from experience/faction rate gain boosters, to those that grant additional bank or bag slots. There are also some cosmetic items, especially for "Town Clothes" (there's a separate character sheet section especially for non-combat, cosmetic clothing and fun "in town" items. This is different from being able to dye or "transmog" the appearance of your armor, which you can also do as well). This is the only part of the store to which I object - as a roleplayer I don't like the idea that "cosmetic" content can at some times be only exclusively available on an Item Mall. However, that said there aren't too horribly many items in this category and they're all reasonably priced. For that matter, much of what's on the store is reasonably priced - you won't see exorbitant $10 single use skins, exorbitant "random/gatchapon" item boxes where you pay a fortune only for a chance at something good or the other hallmarks of the Korean Item Mall paradigm. Furthermore, there are often sales and special limited release items, that often tie into the dynamic event currently going on in game .For instance, I remember that when a new set of dynamic quests and content came forth (this happens almost every 2 weeks - there's usally something new!), they sold a special Axe gathering tool which had an unlimited amount of uses (as opposed to standard ones in game where you may get only so many node hits before you had to repair or find a new axe etc..)and had a unique look, for Gems. Right now, there's a sale on bag and bank expansions, for instance. There are so very few games that build a cash shoppe and resist the urge to "boil the frog slowly" and try to drain the player's wallets as swiftly as possible, and that's one reason I want to pay a few dollars now and then to support their further development.

Edit: Here's a link to a description of all the major changes of the FREE update "Feature Pack: April 2014" that is being implemented on the 15th! This is the kind of quality of life, smart development that other companies should follow! https://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/releases/feature-packs/
Hope this helps!
 
The thing is, you can still practically DIRECTLY exchange money for gold. I don't know what they have in the shop right now, but that should raise a bit of a flag.

Also, again, if you really want action combat, I would try out Vindictus. All this has is a dodge button, and some attacks and events are still "queued" to hit you regardless of where you go (and terrain's a bit hard to use in most situations, so I've never actually experienced using that...?). There are full action MMORPG's/ARPGs out there (granted DFO got killed off semi-recently... that was a pretty decent one). This one's kind of halfway in between your usual kind and Vindictus.

Also, I'll reask this: have they done anything to actually fill out some of the other zones...? I know that aside from Queensdale and the beginner areas, almost everything was literally empty.
 
ok , im on the edge of buying it. I had fun with GW1 , played mostly solo with some pvp mixed in.

Is this game still fun while soloing? i like that fact that i can meet players while playing solo.
 
arr4ws said:
ok , im on the edge of buying it. I had fun with GW1 , played mostly solo with some pvp mixed in.

Is this game still fun while soloing? i like that fact that i can meet players while playing solo.
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Buy it. There is a lot of fun to be had while soloing. I made it all the way to max level before ever joining a group to do any content.
 
Good luck meeting anyone while soloing in areas outside of the beginner ones, if it hasn't changed. Crap tons of Champion mobs running around unchallenged. Because if you're not in a zone with a treasure chest dynamic event (ie one of the dragons), it's going to be practically empty.
 
yeah I got bored with the game too intial starting areas are awesome but lack of people later on mechanics of the game get stale great looking game that tried for perfection but Rift is still my favorite recent MMO.
 
Pringle said:
It is changing. Read the link Xaeos gave at the end of his post.
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This.

It was flawed with how many spread out servers they had at the start, sure, any game launch EVERYTHING is flooded with people, but years in and the number of people leveling at once are only going to fill a few maps worth. This is where the megaserver change comes in, in PvE world, all server population will be combined so you have lots of people around to interact with, but WvW will remain server vs server.

It is a great game, but it does not have a "end game" push behind it for the most part, and while leveling I felt no need to rush, low level was the same as higher, it was all fun and lots to explore, I only got in a rush to level once I got a taste of WvW. Also, if you have done map completion 4 times like myself, you kinda get lazy and can craft your way to 80, which is what I have done with all my other alts, as once you have all the items, it only takes an hour or two to craft up to 80.
 
i think this is the lowest price this game has ever been. I wish it was on steam so i could use my steam wallet!
 
Another big difference is that you aren't really funneled from hub to hub. They took time to make these maps and they want you to go around and explore them. They did a good job making the exploration worthwhile as well with the 100% completion chests you get.
 
-Tetsuo- said:
Another big difference is that you aren't really funneled from hub to hub. They took time to make these maps and they want you to go around and explore them. They did a good job making the exploration worthwhile as well with the 100% completion chests you get.
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LOL...

I remember the 100% completion for that... something or other Pass. It started with an L (Lornar I think), and it was a gigantic area with a lot of stuff to do. Yeah the reward make me permanently give up on bothering with exploring areas (well, along with how utterly empty everything was).

BlueFireIce said:
This.

It was flawed with how many spread out servers they had at the start, sure, any game launch EVERYTHING is flooded with people, but years in and the number of people leveling at once are only going to fill a few maps worth. This is where the megaserver change comes in, in PvE world, all server population will be combined so you have lots of people around to interact with, but WvW will remain server vs server.

It is a great game, but it does not have a "end game" push behind it for the most part, and while leveling I felt no need to rush, low level was the same as higher, it was all fun and lots to explore, I only got in a rush to level once I got a taste of WvW. Also, if you have done map completion 4 times like myself, you kinda get lazy and can craft your way to 80, which is what I have done with all my other alts, as once you have all the items, it only takes an hour or two to craft up to 80.
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I don't buy it. In a very populated server, I saw maybe 1-3 people within any area outside of the beginner areas. Even if you literally shove every server into one in those areas, I don't see it being any different statistically. I hope it actually makes the difference.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
The thing is, you can still practically DIRECTLY exchange money for gold. I don't know what they have in the shop right now, but that should raise a bit of a flag.

Also, again, if you really want action combat, I would try out Vindictus. All this has is a dodge button, and some attacks and events are still "queued" to hit you regardless of where you go (and terrain's a bit hard to use in most situations, so I've never actually experienced using that...?). There are full action MMORPG's/ARPGs out there (granted DFO got killed off semi-recently... that was a pretty decent one). This one's kind of halfway in between your usual kind and Vindictus.

Also, I'll reask this: have they done anything to actually fill out some of the other zones...? I know that aside from Queensdale and the beginner areas, almost everything was literally empty.
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You don't buy gold from ArenaNet, you buy it from players who have earned it in the game and you buy it from them using gems. There is a significant conversion penalty to discourage speculating on the player demand driven exchange rate. This allows people who have a lot of time (and in game gold) to use their in game gold to buy things in the cash shop.

The thing to keep in mind is there there isn't really a gear treadmill in GW2 so while spending a bunch of cash will help you level and gear up quickly, you can't buy uber items that give you an advantage that other players don't also have.

They are addressing the empty zone issue by making PVE zones multi server and population driven - so if you enter a mid level map, there won't just be you and 3 other people from your server - there could be 50+ people from 10 different servers and if it fills up, a new instance will be dynamically created - it also tried to put you in the dynamic instance with people who are your friends or guildmates when it can.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
LOL...




I don't buy it. In a very populated server, I saw maybe 1-3 people within any area outside of the beginner areas. Even if you literally shove every server into one in those areas, I don't see it being any different statistically. I hope it actually makes the difference.
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I'm guessing you didn't read any of the information regarding the new update being pushed out that addresses empty areas.
 
I bought it for three reasons: it's beautiful, gets consistent content updates, and it is a flat price... No monthly BS..
 
Pringle said:
I'm guessing you didn't read any of the information regarding the new update being pushed out that addresses empty areas.
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https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-megaserver-system/

Is this all I'm supposed to be reading? It's hard to prune out population-related articles from their news feed. If this is it: like I said, I don't think it will make that big of a difference unless they actually give people gameplay incentives to use these less populated maps. At crowded times during the day when the game was fairly popular, in a filled up server... I saw maybe 2-3 people traveling through Lornar's pass around me (and all of them doing random crap that wasn't related to me). Maybe 4-5.

If we use the metric here (further down in the linked article:
Average population per map copy +225%

That means 325% of the original value per map (that's probably optimistic, knowing that they want to sell this). That means I'll be seeing 7-17 (that's rounding up mind you) people now. Wow... dang. >_>

Sounded good on paper, but what about real performance? I suppose I'll log into my account and see sometime...

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-megaserver-system-world-bosses-and-events/

At least they're doing something about world bosses being annoying as hell to catch...
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/introducing-the-megaserver-system/

Is this all I'm supposed to be reading? It's hard to prune out population-related articles from their news feed. If this is it: like I said, I don't think it will make that big of a difference unless they actually give people gameplay incentives to use these less populated maps. At crowded times during the day when the game was fairly popular, in a filled up server... I saw maybe 2-3 people traveling through Lornar's pass around me (and all of them doing random crap that wasn't related to me). Maybe 4-5.

If we use the metric here (further down in the linked article:
Average population per map copy +225%

That means 325% of the original value per map (that's probably optimistic, knowing that they want to sell this). That means I'll be seeing 7-17 (that's rounding up mind you) people now. Wow... dang. >_>

Sounded good on paper, but what about real performance? I suppose I'll log into my account and see sometime...

https://www.guildwars2.com/en/news/the-megaserver-system-world-bosses-and-events/

At least they're doing something about world bosses being annoying as hell to catch...
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Holy fuck I hated getting to World Bosses. That was always a clusterfuck
 
Bought it. Well worth the 25 bucks IMO even though I haven't gotten very far yet. Even if I only get a month of play time out of it before I get bored thats not a bad deal at all.
 
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