I’m back on track with WoW just in time for maintenance day. Hrm, what’s a fellow to do? Oh yeah, there’s that other game. The one I installed yesterday before work (but wisely didn’t start up). Yup, Guild Wars 2. I’m not going to do a review of it or anything at this time, because I’m level three. I’m sorry, but I feel a bit more time is required before I pass any type of judgement. Of course, that doesn’t mean I can’t share a few thoughts early on.
For starters, that would be my first character in the screenshot. Tydus is a Human Necromancer and that was the first class I wanted to try. Not surprisingly, the game is capped at five character slots and I have ideas for all five already. Now, when I say capped it just means additional slots will cost you. Without a monthly subscription, I have no problem with that. I can see that, armor dyes, and bank/bag space being the most likely features people will pay for.
I like that I learn more abilities by using the ones I have. It’s interesting to suddenly see the ability in its power slot, and then “fade into view” until it becomes a part of your action bar. The action bar itself is pretty straight forward as well, and doesn’t feel as “busy” as it does in WoW, but that could easily change when I gain in level.
Speaking of WoW, I’m so used to the controls that one of the first things I needed to do was flip a couple key bindings. I hated that the L and R arrows strafed instead of turning. I use the arrows for movement and my QE buttons for strafing. So when I tried to turn and strafed instead, and couldn’t mentally correct myself, I just changed the keys.
But that’s what I find as a whole so far: I need to tell myself this isn’t Azeroth. Not for better or worse, just vastly different. From questing, to combat, to…well, everything. After this long my brain just wants to revert to how it operates in World of Warcraft and I need to stop that. For example, swearing at someone who “stole my mob.” There’s no mob stealing in Guild Wars 2. You get xp as long as you’re near anything that fits a quest requirement, or if you’ve attacked it. It’s the whole “working with people” that the game encourages.
I’ve only invested about an hour into the game, so I haven’t really gotten too involved. Heck, I haven’t even found a new weapon to see how my abilities change (your primary abilities change based on the weapon you have equipped). It’s akin to ordering a meal at a restaurant. The moment you see it coming and can smell it, but you haven’t had the first bite just yet. But, at first glance, the trailer ArenaNet released yesterday does feel somewhat accurate:
Oh no, I didn’t realize it didn’t require a subscription. Must not go look, must not go look.
Dooooo eeeeeeeeeet.
LOL Ancient!
It is VERY different, and not in a “better” way, just in a different way. There are things about that I love though, like the fact that gathering nodes are usable by EVERYONE, not just who gets there first. That you can send crafting mats directly to storage while you’re out questing. That your bank is shared by all your characters.
OK actually that was cool until I bought a bunch more character slots, and dyes, to share amongst my characters and then had to buy more bank space….and here I was telling myself I’d SAVE money with no sub fee…. o.O
I like that you can be in more then one guild, and I like (most) of the personal story quests, although I’m getting into a few now that are nearly impossible to solo and really I think those SHOULD be easy to solo.
I’m finding the way levels are adjusted per zone to be both a boon and a curse as well.
Overall, though, I’m liking it a lot more then I thought I would. My guardian and (surprisingly as I suck at being a rogue) thief and my ranger are my faves thus far.
My Human Necro is lvl 6…thinking Sylvari Elementalist next or Charr Engineer. I’ll round out my basic slots with a Thief and a Mesmer I think.
You summed up the goods and bads, pros and cons really well. Now, you probably COULD have saved money with some patience
Of course, I don’t mean that as a slight either. Just that (at least) the character slots could’ve probably waited a touch.
I feel your pain. I used the “well, there’s no sub fee” excuse to pick up three extra character slots and some dye packs. Randomly scored a Black Dye which sold for a decent amount, woohoo!
And sure, it’ll be a while before I can touch those alts so I could’ve waited, but wanted to stake my claim on a few names before they were snatched up.
Congrats on Black! I had Scarlet drop for me. Not sure whether to give it to another character, hang on to it…or actually auction it for some decent coin.
GW2 seems interesting, but even if I wanted to you can’t buy a copy here. They put a hold on sales in the EU due to lack of servers.
I think there was a freeze on digital purchases as well (not just EU) due to the overwhelming response at launch.
As I just got mine, if you really wanted it badly enough I suppose you could order it online (no doubt for a mint) and then sign up on a North American server. But, the game hasn’t been live but two weeks -I have faith it’ll sort out smoothly soon enough.
I think they enabled digital sales again this morning, at for NA, not sure about EU.
I had issues buying straight from NCsoft – my bank apparently has had problems with them and requires voice authorization, too much hassle for me – so I went through Amazon no problem.
Very excited you decided to take the plunge now versus waiting till Christmas. Question, now that you have a few levels/hours under your belt, do you see it pulling you away from Mists (or WoW in general) at all? Or will it be more, something to play with during maintainence?
And if anyone wants to add me to your friends list, Cake.1324.
Thanks for that, as I couldn’t remember what your ID was.
If you recall, I wasn’t planning on getting Mists in the first place, and someone even asked me recently “what if it came as a gift?” and I said there’s nothing in that box that I want, save for rolling a Monk. However, I still don’t want to do the 85-90 stuff or pandas.
I have been excited about Guild Wars 2 for a very long time and I’m incredibly happy with it. I’m already working on a sister blog to this one. I know what I want to do in WoW and you can expect a future post really elaborating on this discussion.