Jonjonz wrote on Aug 17, 2022, 06:53:
The GW2 "community" is the most cult like MMORPG community there is. Anything other than the current Arenanet party line is shouted down and vilified.

Well, if you go into something with that kind of attitude you should probably expect the other people you interact with to not like you much for it. It's pretty well regarded as being one of the nicest and most welcoming communities you'll find in any game with anywhere near that many people in it.

Jonjonz wrote on Aug 17, 2022, 06:53:
It's a pretty workman grade MMORPG, all the usual bullet points, the graphics are nice, but the control schemes are a bit wonky, there are some insane long tedious grindy quest lines (camouflaged as multiple linked but uniquely named "achievements", "collections", and quests), open world PVE is the home of dogpile cooperation, and group PVP and progressive dungeons the home of "every one stack in one spot" and burn down the boss with the exact same attack rotations.

The idea that listing a 10 year old game on Steam is going to significantly add new players or help maintain the current population is precious.

The controls are the same WASD tab-target that you'd get if you play World of Warcraft.

The only long questline that everyone is going to do is the one for a flying Skyscale mount. It is pretty long and tedious, but it's also worth the trouble. The only other long tedious questlines in the entire game are those to get legendary weapons and armor. If you want to do those, fine, if you don't, you don't have to...there's nothing that presses you do them.

The rest is like complaining that all you do is run around and shoot people in Call of Duty. I mean, yeah, but... that's kind of what you signed up for, and people tend to enjoy anyway.

The GW2 "community" is the most cult like MMORPG community there is. Anything other than the current Arenanet party line is shouted down and vilified.

It's a pretty workman grade MMORPG, all the usual bullet points, the graphics are nice, but the control schemes are a bit wonky, there are some insane long tedious grindy quest lines (camouflaged as multiple linked but uniquely named "achievements", "collections", and quests), open world PVE is the home of dogpile cooperation, and group PVP and progressive dungeons the home of "every one stack in one spot" and burn down the boss with the exact same attack rotations.

The idea that listing a 10 year old game on Steam is going to significantly add new players or help maintain the current population is precious.

GinRummy wrote on Aug 16, 2022, 14:58:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I had the impression that Guild Wars was focused mostly on PVP play? I that still the case? Is there a good game to be had for someone soloing any pve content? Is that just until the endgame?

GW2 is my most played game in the past two years by...a lot, and I think I can count the number of hours that I've played PvP on one hand. I don't even know if its PvP is good or not, honestly, and I'm pretty sure I have thousands of hours into the game at this point.

I play almost entirely solo. My wife plays, too, but it's a strangely awkward game to play co-op outside of instanced content since you're actually better off playing solo due to being able to navigate the world and events at your own pace. The only thing that requires raiding or high-end group content is getting Legendary gear, which gives no stat advantage over anything you can get solo; it's just cosmetic, and with the quality of life boost that comes with it being immediately available account-wide (other non-legendary high end "ascended" gear is also account wide, but you have to transfer it with your bank). Legendary gear is nice, but I do just fine without it since I have no interest in ever raiding in any MMO ever again...and stat-wise, I have no disadvantage compared to the people that do have legendaries.

GW2 is a little unique on that front in another way, though; even though I do play solo, I would say that the majority of what I do is with other people there. I play open world content 99% of the time, doing world bosses and festivals and other events, and even though I don't join a group or a guild to do anything I'm often playing a support class to help people around me. It's a little disorienting when you're first experiencing the game since it doesn't have traditional quests where you go here and then come back for a reward, it's more open-ended and achievement based where you can just roam the world and do whatever you come across and still make progress doing it. The story missions are instanced, and more traditional single-player RPG fare; the oldest ones are a bit rough around the edges, but especially with the Living World seasons and later expansions the story's really pretty good and there's quite a bit of it to play through.

End game isn't your traditional "end game" either, where you hit a wall that requires you to join a guild and run raids ad nauseum to get a bunch of sweaty tryhards the loot that they can't get without exploiting you until you get sick of it and quit. In GW2 end game is pretty much the entire game... you hit 80, and can go anywhere and do anything. Gear is a horizontal progression thing, so you don't have to only play the latest content to get equipment or else. You earn advancement called mastery points doing content from different eras of the game, with a variety of skills and abilities that come with that, and everything else you can earn just by playing and doing different activities.

There's a lot more, but the game is sort of overwhelming as it is. The best thing to know is that you can play when you want, where you want, how you want, and at your own pace, and you'll always be earning some kind of progress. It's way more friendly to casual players than most MMO's, without being like ESO where all casual content is accessible but also piss easy and pointless. It's a really great game once you get into it, but getting started can be pretty overwhelming at first.

I had fun with the game playing solo, but at the higher levels, it became way too grindy for me

GinRummy wrote on Aug 16, 2022, 14:58:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I had the impression that Guild Wars was focused mostly on PVP play? I that still the case? Is there a good game to be had for someone soloing any pve content? Is that just until the endgame?

Guild Wars has always been an epic action RPG first, featuring huge open areas to explore and a lengthy story-based campaign with repeatable missions. The PVP is fairly robust and popular, especially now with the persistent three-way server conquest feature in addition to round-based small teams stuff, but you could completely ignore all of that and still have loads to do. First game was a bit more tactical (i.e. standing at higher elevation as an archer gave you a damage bonus), and all content was instanced with just you and/or your group setting out beyond the social hub cities. Some of the harder missions pretty much required you LFG, but they later added an extensive henchman system so you could just solo everything with bots helping you. Having most of the online game trappings with no subscription fee was pretty awesome back in 2005...

Second game is more like a traditional MMO, with players everywhere running around doing their thing in a shared world, though I always liked how the combat was not quite so rigidly MMO-like (you can move while attacking, etc.). Even better is the innovation of dynamic open world events where just being in the area and participating will grant players a share of the rewards for completion, even without formally grouping together or even "accepting" the quest. Very nice for the anti-social MMO player. That ranges from eliminating a handful of enemies or delivering scattered objects all the way up to gigantic world bosses which may require dozens of players and/or advanced coordination and strategy to defeat. They also popularized the idea of scaling down player stats to appropriate levels for each area's content, so you have more freedom to choose what order you do things in (or visit all the starting zones with the same character), as well as do co-op with other players of any level without anyone being useless or too overpowered. Oh yeah, and since you can jump, they added jumping puzzles all over the place, which was one of my favorite things.

GinRummy wrote on Aug 16, 2022, 14:58:
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I had the impression that Guild Wars was focused mostly on PVP play? I that still the case? Is there a good game to be had for someone soloing any pve content? Is that just until the endgame?

You are wrong. I hate pvp. This has a huge overarching story and side quests - and the story quests can be done single-player. Lot of the living world stuff can be solo'd, too. Despite this being called GUILD Wars, I have never joined a guild and had 100s of hours fun mostly alone in the game. But the latest expansion in China, sorry, Cantha is just nothing I would pay for.
It is an MMORPG, though, so many events in the open world are open to all. And many of these events you just cannot win/survive alone, they are meant to played together. The story can be solo'd, though.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I had the impression that Guild Wars was focused mostly on PVP play? I that still the case? Is there a good game to be had for someone soloing any pve content? Is that just until the endgame?

Hump wrote on Aug 16, 2022, 14:14:
I never partook of the game so excuse my confusion with the fact that GW2 already came out yet is this advertising it like a new game?

What am I missing?

Edit just new to Steam?

Correct, for 10 years they only offered it directly through their website because they didn't want to split digital revenue with anyone else.

I never partook of the game so excuse my confusion with the fact that GW2 already came out yet is this advertising it like a new game?

What am I missing?

Edit just new to Steam?

Yeah, I had 1000+ hours in the base game and first expansion, but I didn't make it very far into even the second... I guess this makes it more convenient if I ever want to load it up again, though. The changes listed here sound pretty good.

GW2 is still pretty good. The last FFXIV expansion put me off, so GW2 is the only other MMO I'd play because the combat might not be Black Desert... but it ain't Black Desert.

I had lots and lots and lots of fun with GW2 with its huge expansions and parts (not everything) of the living world events. But the latest Cantha expansion is not my thing, I already hated Cantha in GW1. Also, the grinding got worse over time because they used the grind as a gapfiller between the expansions and it got really, REALLY grindy (aka Grind Wars 2).