Guild Wars 2 Amazon US (physical copy) $24.99

Thanks for the link! I've been looking for a discounted version for my secondary account. $24.99 is a great price to pick it up at if you have not had a chance to play GW2.

Edit: Also, if you have a Chase Freedom card, Chase is running 5% cash back on Amazon.com purchases this month.
 
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Can GW2 be enjoyed casually? Looks fun but I don't like feeling like I need to play 24/7 to get anywhere.
 
I picked it up for $30 on their last sale and it's pretty fun. You don't really have to play 24/7 but they do have things like daily achievements that give you stuff, so you have to play at least a few hours daily to get that stuff. Otherwise, if you don't care about that, you can play it casually.
 
wizang said:
Can GW2 be enjoyed casually? Looks fun but I don't like feeling like I need to play 24/7 to get anywhere.
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Yeah, that's why I ditched WoW. You can do almost everything solo, and there's always groups doing whatever you want to do. Be sure to join a high-population server. I think they let you pick whatever server you want when you first register, regardless of population.

The best gear in the game can be had from the auction house for a reasonable amount of gold. It's never out of reach; you'll earn the money you need via doing whatever you want.
 
It's a neat game, but the server I am on is pretty much dead now.

Which server are you guys on? I should probably research and switch to a more populated one. At least move over my 2 level 80s.
 
You can enjoy the game casually without issue. They have introduced some elements that are unnecessarily grindy in my opinion. (Ascended Weapons, Trinkets, and on 12/10 Armor) Those things are time-gated and really make it difficult to have a large number of alts.

I am currently on Ehmry Bay with my main. However, the PvE crowd is not the best and WvW has started to fall off as well. If I did not have a large number of storage guilds over there I would likely have considered moving to a more active server. The good news is that if you PvE, you can guest on the other servers. It definitely pays to do some research on the forums to see which server is going to suit your play style best.

I will definitely be putting this account on a new server for PvE. I just have not decided which one yet. Jade Quarry, Tarnished Coast, or Yak's Bend are likely my top 3 at this time. I believe [H] had a guild on Borlis Pass but I don't know how active it is now. Additionally, the WvWers in Borlis are mortal enemies with Ehmry after a 13 week match earlier this year and Ehmry creatively tieing them for 4th in the WvW Silver League season that ended last week.

My in game main is Phatal One if anyone wants to do Fractals or just plain old PvE.
 
fattypants said:
Yeah, that's why I ditched WoW. You can do almost everything solo, and there's always groups doing whatever you want to do. Be sure to join a high-population server. I think they let you pick whatever server you want when you first register, regardless of population.

The best gear in the game can be had from the auction house for a reasonable amount of gold. It's never out of reach; you'll earn the money you need via doing whatever you want.
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To add to what fattypants said, the best gear obtainable via auction house (Exotic) will be or is 2nd best. Ascended Weapons/Trinkets/Armor are a few stat points higher and are account bound and usually must be crafted and the raw materials are time-gated. You can buy Legendary weapons on the trading post. If you have the gold for that, you are my hero.

Plus, just because ascended is available does not mean it is widespread. I have 8 lvl 80s on my main account and have played over 1800 hours since launch. Only 4 of them have some level of Ascended trinkets and only 1 has an ascended weapon. While they do more damage than exotic equipment, it is not game breaking. Though, we have yet to see what Ascended Armor will do to those stats though.

All that said, do not despair about a gear/gold grind. Exotic gear can be obtained by karma (from the temples at the end game), WvW badges + gold, dungeon tokens. You can also get exotic trinkets for laurels and/or fractal relics. If there is one complaint I have it is the ungodly number of "currencies" they have in the game!
 
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wizang said:
Can GW2 be enjoyed casually? Looks fun but I don't like feeling like I need to play 24/7 to get anywhere.
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It's the ideal casual MMO. You can also drop it and pick it back up later fairly easily as there's no subscription fee. That's how I treated GW1 and that's what I'm doing with GW2 now.
 
stealthy123 said:
It's a neat game, but the server I am on is pretty much dead now.

Which server are you guys on? I should probably research and switch to a more populated one. At least move over my 2 level 80s.
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I'm on northern shiverpeaks but not playing at the moment. my wife and I play in six month cycles lol. Great guild, too, zealots of shiverpeak
 
My friends and I play on Fort Aspenwood. Always someone willing to group up and help out, or just quest together. Great community, and some really great guilds.
 
I played GW2 hardcore like I did everything else before it and it was a blast but I ran out of content incredibly quickly. Interestingly though it was the first game I ever really enjoyed leveling alts and didn't attempt to power level or bribe someone else to do it. I should buy another copy and prepare for a hopeful expac.
 
guitarslingerchris said:
I played GW2 hardcore like I did everything else before it and it was a blast but I ran out of content incredibly quickly. Interestingly though it was the first game I ever really enjoyed leveling alts and didn't attempt to power level or bribe someone else to do it. I should buy another copy and prepare for a hopeful expac.
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Content in the 'traditional' MMO sense is limited. There's 'stuff to do', but not everything is meant to be an end game gear treadmill.

I agree, leveling alts is very enjoyable and relaxed. My ultimate plan is to have level 80s of all classes in exotic gear. When I stopped playing last year, I had 3 level 80s already. Picked it up again last month and I have another level 80, a 76, and a 50 that I'm playing with my gf.
 
I was thinking about buying this game. Not sure if it will just be another game I play for a couple of hours and then sits. I played WOW for a few months several years ago. I liked it for the few months I played it but lost interest so don't want to go down the $15.00 a month path again. I bought Secret Wars for me and my kid but only played for 6-7 hours. The idea really intrigued me. We didn't like the combat style but maybe We should fire it up again.

I saw this today.
http://buy.guildwars2.com/store/gw2/en_US/html/pbPage.buyguildwars2

Heroic Edition 29.99
Digital Deluxe Edition 41.99

Those prices are low enough for me to be an impulse buy. Is the Deluxe Edition worth the extra 11.00?
 
The Deluxe Edition might be worth it if you decide you are into the game. Otherwise, I would say no. (Kind of a catch-22, right?)

I got to level 30 and haven't really played it a lot lately. Might just be that MMOs aren't really my thing, but it's basically just the same shit over and over with grinding mobs and doing fetch quests. The world events can be somewhat interesting, but overall it's still pretty much grinding.
 
I play GW2 pretty much every day. I'm a bit OCD about getting the achievements, so that's part of the drive to play for me.

However, I really enjoyed leveling many of the classes in the game. Some were more frustrating than others, I have one of each.

One play through of the world is not out of the question. WvW is fun at times, although I think they need to revamp it some. I never found myself enjoying PVP, never seemed to get to get paired against people of my own skill level so I just get dominated constantly with no chance to learn. Which may be partially due to my lack of really spending time learning every little detail in the trait lines of each class...I'd just find something I was happy with and stuck with it instead of eeking out every last bit of DPS/whatever.

If you do buy the game, you get 5 char slots, there are 8 classes. So unless you pay to unlock more, you will have to winnow down to find classes you like.

Thief:
I personally felt that thief was difficult and rather inconsistent, it felt like something you really had to think a different way to use to me with all the stealthing and bursts....it was kinda hit and run, and be ready to run away at any time kind of class.

Mesmer:
Felt very weak levelling, but got progressively more interesting as I gained levels. At 80 the class really had a lot of options and variety. It again is more of a "think different" kind of class, but you have more options for hanging in the fight with all the clones, etc. You basically just annoy the hell out of your enemies by cloning yourself like crazy and making it hard for them to keep you targetted.

Guardian:
Probably my favorite class, it's kind of a mix between a healer and tank. They've recently buffed it's DPS, but i can't comment on that. Pretty straight forward for me in terms of what it does.

Warrior:
DPS, them going heavy tank and less DPS seems to be very unpopular...they don't really have many healing abilities. Although again the game added some class changes so it may come to light as a different story as people play around with it. It's a pretty fun class to play and MOST of the weapons are pretty good and varied...shield kinda sucks would be my only tick down for em.

Ranger:

Easy class to play, I mainly use greatsword and longbow, more longbow than anything. I found the pet to be best at maintaining aggro and rezzing you when you're down, but ranger does most of the damage in my build at least. You use the pets more for their effects and types of attacks...ranged..buff abilities, etc.

Elementalist:

This class just got a pretty big overhaul, so I can't really say I've spent a lot of time on it's current state. It's a VERY button spammy class. You essentially have four elements you can shift into, and to get the most out of the class you have to rotate between them and use various abilities. I am not particularly great at it when I start getting interrupted and knocked down so it's a bit frustrating.

Necromancer:

Can rely on conditions, or pets. Or can choose to use a different form as it's core. It's pretty varied and they are really hard to kill most times. Depending on the build they can be nasty 1v1 or annoying as hell to groups, etc. It's not a real "nukey" class like the elementalist, but more of a whittling down and outlasting..at least how I've seen it played.

Engineer:

Very diverse class, has kits you can change to so you can change your weapon bar and other functionalities. Flamethrowers, bombs, grenades, elixir gun, etc. Or drop turrets. It can play a little like various classes depending on armor and traits and turn it off and on with kits. If you like elementalist or mesmer you may like this class. It's very button heavy/rotation at times, or situational like constantly having to break stuns or stun something...like elementalist. But has a more spread out functionality/options like a mesmer IMO.


I will say some of the more satisfying things in GW2 are beating really difficult new content. Like Tequatl (sea dragon) revamp, there is a interserver guild that exists for the sole purpose of killing tequatl as an organized group (it requires like 50+ people, probably more like 80). And does new content and plans on looking doing the future upgraded dragon encounters.

GW2 can be repetitive, but there are ways to work around it with different classes and new content updates....it's just not going to keep you completely non-repeat if you play frequently. I really don't think any MMO can boast that, even the subscription ones.
 
MavericK96 said:
The Deluxe Edition might be worth it if you decide you are into the game. Otherwise, I would say no. (Kind of a catch-22, right?)

I got to level 30 and haven't really played it a lot lately. Might just be that MMOs aren't really my thing, but it's basically just the same shit over and over with grinding mobs and doing fetch quests. The world events can be somewhat interesting, but overall it's still pretty much grinding.
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That's a very big catch all for 'grinding' then. Pretty much all games involve doing the 'same thing over and over' - namely whatever gameplay that game has.

"Grind" in MMOs typically refers to repeatedly doing some task not for the same of doing the task, but for whatever reward you get at the end. What GW2 tried to do at least is to make the content enjoyable, so you play for the sake of playing rather than getting some sort of uber gear or reward. That said, obviously the 'rewards' are there and you can certainly 'grind' for things like legendary weapons. But really in the end, maybe you just don't like the gameplay enough to see it all the way through to 80. And that's fine - but that's not really because of grind (like you would see in other MMOs).

Describing GW2 as grinding is kind of disingenuous when comparing to grind in many other MMOs.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
That's a very big catch all for 'grinding' then. Pretty much all games involve doing the 'same thing over and over' - namely whatever gameplay that game has.

"Grind" in MMOs typically refers to repeatedly doing some task not for the same of doing the task, but for whatever reward you get at the end. What GW2 tried to do at least is to make the content enjoyable, so you play for the sake of playing rather than getting some sort of uber gear or reward. That said, obviously the 'rewards' are there and you can certainly 'grind' for things like legendary weapons. But really in the end, maybe you just don't like the gameplay enough to see it all the way through to 80. And that's fine - but that's not really because of grind (like you would see in other MMOs).

Describing GW2 as grinding is kind of disingenuous when comparing to grind in many other MMOs.
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Fair enough, I guess, though there are a lot of things where you have to do certain things daily or run certain instances over and over to get the "special" currency to buy higher-end items. I guess you technically don't have to do any of that, but if you want to be a high-level player it seems like you kinda do.

I'm not saying it's a bad game by any stretch, but other than the instances and special world events every quest is basically either "kill this" or "press F on this". Maybe that's the same for most MMOs, but I find it a bit tedious.

I will say that the game rewards you for doing just about anything, even just running around getting map completion. It's easy to get XP by running with other random people and getting a few hits in on every enemy, or doing Champion circuit runs.

Anyway, just trying to give an accurate description of what the game is for people who haven't bought it. I paid $30 last time it was on sale, and I'm not sure I've gotten my $30 worth out of it yet, but I'll keep playing on and off.
 
Looks like 49.99 to me.

EDIT: Sorry, it's 29.99 on Amazon, but the sale directly through their website is over.
 
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