So as the title implies, this review will cover my initial impressions from level 1-30 in Guild Wars 2. So needless to say I was one of 400,000 + people to jump into the head start for GW2, and so far I’ve been nothing but impressed. So I will attempt to cover a few topics or categories of my experience to level 30.
Mesmer in front of main Human City
The game starts with a typical well thought out character creation process. The fun part here is that you pick a few things that describe your character, which establishes your story. What this means is there are different variations within the same race depending upon what you choose. For a comparison it feels similar to Mass Effect 1 where you set up your characters past. Except here there are way more variations because of the different races, so in essence you would have to play a lot of characters to get every story line.
After your character is made you launch right into the game and story, you don’t just spawn into some newbie zone and kill bunny rabbits with a stick. After the first story quest is done (you are in an instance for this), then you are free to go wherever and quest. Here is where GW2 REALLY shines. Your character level will adjust to whatever zone you are playing in. This was awesome because I rocketed past in level over my friends, but I could go back and play in their zone with them, and still get experience and money. This vastly recreates replay ability, and helps keep zones from turning into dead zones because there is less people that level. Also, it is particularly easy to get to the other starting areas with your friends. A couple of portal jumps and you are there.
So with that I will segue into questing. The questing in GW2 is seamless and very painless. The only quest you will keep on your HUD is your main story quest. All other quests are specific to the area you walk in. So you walk near a quest giver and it pops up on your HUD, soon as you leave the area it goes away. If you complete it, you automatically get the reward, so you don’t have to chase down NPC’s later to receive rewards. This method helps streamline player progression a lot.
The next best thing about questing is the dynamic group events that happen everywhere. I’m not entirely sure if the group events trigger from a certain amount of players in the area, or if they are on a timer or random. Either way, group events will start up all over the place, requiring a decent amount of players to accomplish them. They vary from taking down a boss, defending a city, escorting an NPC, or destroying objects/cities. The best part about them is that you only have to be in the area and you can participate, very similar to what Warhammer started, but much more seamless and plentiful. For questing, they have a very refreshing take when compared to traditional MMORPG’s.
Event Quest
Event Quest
On to story a little, the story NPC’s are fully voice casted and pretty well animated. The voice acting is also pretty well done. I found I was actually interested in my storyline quest, and found the characters to be believable, this is rare in an MMORPG and should be valued. It should not come as a surprise though, considering how established and vast the lore for GW is in the first place. It’s a rich and very fleshed out world to explore.
Aesthetically speaking, the world is very well constructed. They implemented “view vistas”, which often require some Mario jumping skills plus puzzle solving, to locate. Once you reach the vista you are rewarded with a camera view panning over some grand scenic view (which a lot of these screenshots come from in game). That paired with a good soundtrack (reminds me of playing Skyrim with the music), really helps the player get immersed in the world. The level designs are also very expertly crafted, and well just plain gorgeous in a lot of places.
View Vista Before
View Vista during camera movement
Now some more technical review, lets get on to the character skills setup. Here is one of the most refreshing aspects of all with GW2. You get character traits and character skills. The traits are dependent on your class and you unlock them as you level up, similar to a skill tree. However you can only have a limited few selected at a time, so you have to mix and match five of them on your HUD to use. You can change them out easily, but not during combat. The best part is that your skills are specific to whatever weapon your character is holding. For example, on my Mesmer I switch back and forth between a greatsword and a staff often. When I do this switch, my skills completely change because they are specific to that weapon type. This is awesome because you can quickly change up your tactics to suit the situation. You are also limited to five skills, this might sound like over simplification to people used to MMORPG’s where 80% of your screen is filled with a hundred buttons. This design streamlines the process very nicely, as you can have two weapons types selected, and you can switch between them in battle. This allows you to change your tactics on the fly, which is awesome especially for PVP.
Mesmer blasting enemies with a Greatsword
The character classes are also refreshing (I know I keep using that word a lot, but GW2 is refreshing!) mainly because they don’t really conform to traditional archetypes. For example, my ranger uses a bow and throwing axes which is expected, but she can also use a greatsword. My Mesmer is a magical light armor casting class, so you would expect just wands and staffs right? Well she happens to rock with a greatsword as well. Sounds odd, but they are well executed.
The last thing I’ll compliment them on so far is the server set up. I got on when the servers were fired up, and guess what… no queue times! This is because they smartly implemented “overflow servers”. So basically you play on a server and you’re in queue for the regular server. When it pops it seamlessly transports you to the main server in the exact location you were standing. The only issue with this is when your playing with your friends, sometimes it can be a challenge to get on the same overflow server or main server with them to play. This will work itself out as populations and community’s balance out. It is a nice feature though, because nobody likes seeing “Estimated wait time : 3- Hours”, I know we have all been there.
So now on to some gripes. The largest issue right now is the fact that the auction house, as of the time of this writing, is still down and not operational. This doesn’t anger me specifically, because I realize there are always kinks in an MMORPG launch. I just hope it is fixed soon for the less patient players. I also have observed that there seems to be a lack of variety with different armor models. So far, I believe there are a certain amount of sets between level ranges, I.e. 10-20, 20-30, etc etc. I hope in the future they add new armor and equipment models.
I realize that I’m at lvl 30, which is a drop in the bucket for a total of 80 possible levels. So far this s an awesome experience and completely refreshing for me. I will continue to review the game as I progress towards the “End Game” experience. I hope you will enjoy reading about my experience there as much as I enjoy playing it!
Randen's Entertainment Blog 