Today was the day of Gnome runs, alas i could not do it in a group but i did it, someone asked me “no achives? no toys or mounts?” i told him “yes, i’m doing it just for fun” and that’s what people should do in games and in real life … do stuff because they are fun.
I choose a monk because my very first character was a monk, before i started, i made few macros, one for /wave, another for /cheer, i put them on the action bar and used them a lot to cheer and wave at everyone in the road, that was fun.
Say you are in a group waiting to fight a world boss in WoW, usually everything goes well, the fight is easy, it’s rare to wipe on a world boss, not impossible because it could happen if you are unlucky, but you go back and fight again.
Anyway, i was playing Guilds War 2, i reached level 60 (just 20 more to go) and i have a new chapter in the personal story, fighting undead who are minions of a dragon, in GW2 dragons are the main threat and yet i didn’t see one of them, NPCs talk about them but i still deal with local problems and minions of dragons, not complaining here, i’m having fun.
Anyway, after being in an instance for the story, i quit it and immediately in front of me spawn a world boss, not any boss but Legendary Ley-Line Anomaly, it seems there is an event in the game, one great thing about GW2 is it does not matter what level you are, if you can be in a zone you can fight the boss, also there are no roles, no tank, no healer, everyone can start the fight …. maybe i need to explain this in a post, because there is some kind of healer and tank specs.
The boss started running, i was alone behind it, shortly after players started to join the fight and in less than 30 second a horde of players running behind the boss who kept running around the zone, players are fighting and pulling with them all kind of mobs in the zone.
It was epic moment for me, i was having fun trying my best to help other players, revive them, heal them since as a ranger i can provide healing, and shoot the boss, keep running while trying to do all that.
The boss will stop at few points, change its tactics then run again, at the last stop there was a huge explosion, many players died, then a bigger one and everyone died, the boss despawned and we failed!
I was so happy! yes the boss will spawn again hours later, but i love it that we are not good enough, we didn’t get the loot, no achievement, we were so close but needed just to do more.
You see, i was so impressed by the whole event i wanted to write about it 🙂
In WoW my main is a hunter, so when i started playing GW2 the closest profession to hunter is Ranger, but as many things in GW2, profession (or classes) designed in a different way.
First take a look at this action bar:
buttons 1 to 5 are weapons kills, they change depend on the weapon you are using.
above them there is a profession bar, it’s different for each profession.
Red circle in the middle is for health, yellow line above it for dodge energy.
Number 6 is for healing.
7 to 9 is for utility skills, you can choose from many.
Number 0 is for elite skill.
This is the action bar, the only one, you can’t add more, you can’t change it, and all classes have the same action bar, it makes it easier to play other classes or profession.
Weapons Skills
Every profession in GW2 can use different weapons, there are 3 type of weapons:
2 hand weapon, gives 5 skills.
main hand weapon, 3 skills.
off-hand weapon, 2 skills.
As a ranger i can use a bow or a sword which mean i can fight from range or melee, but i also can use two weapons at the same time:
Main hand: Axe or sword (one handed).
Off hand: Warhorn or Torch
At level 15 you unlock Weapon swap feature, and now you can equip 2 sets of weapons and you can swap between them while you are fighting mobs, for example, my ranger currently use:
Long Bow.
Axe + Warhorn
By pressing ~ (the key to the left of number one on the keyboard) i can swap between weapons, useful when one weapon skills on cooldown.
Utility Skills
As you level up you gain hero point to spend on unlocking traits and skills, here is healing skills:
They all provide healing but each one works in a different way, one is HoT, one just flat healing, one is area healing like Druid healing circle in WoW.
And then there is utility skills which you can choose 3 of them:
As ranger there are traps, pet skills, passive skills provide some stats, some useful for groups even if you are not a group but you are fighting a world boss for example.
Action Combat
The combat in GW2 is mix between tab-target (like WoW) and action combat, some skills need a target others need to use them while facing mobs, many skills are both single target and AoE, if you swing a sword at 3 mobs you’ll hit them all not just the one you are targeting.
Underwater combat
In many games underwater combat or anything else is dreadful thing, you avoid it if you can, in GW2 it is different, early on you get a breathing mask and a spear or a harpoon gun so you can swim fast and fight underwater, the game makes underwater content pleasant, no breath meter, no slowing down, just go explore and fight.
And that’s all i have, for more details visit Combat page on GW2 Wiki.
I’m writing this in a lovely day, sunny and warm, the winter is coming and it is the best time of the year, i write to you in hope to reach an agreement about recent mails i got from you.
While i’m scouring caves, mines, castles and dungeons, i killed countless enemies, took their gold and silver with my trusty Loot-A-Rang, took some of their gear and left anything i considered trash, unworthy things that have no place in my bags.
Yet i find all the trash in my mailbox! what in the world are you doing?! are stalking me?! because there is no other explanation, you come after me to loot the dead and empty their pockets from all the trash i left there then you send it all to me? in the name of all old gods: WHY?!
You even sent me troll sweat you sick sick man! how did you do that?! did you find sweaty dead trolls and starting to “harvest” their sweat?! this is beyond disgusting.
Sir, you need help, in the name of all holy things you need to learn what to send and what to leave on the ground, ask Katy for help, or better, let her be the new Postmaster … or Postmistress.
Yours,
A grumpy hunter
Seriously, the postmaster have a problem, who send cheese in the mailbox?! tell me, did it happen to you? after doing many dungeons you find your mailbox full of trash?
Let’s take a quick look at cosmetics system in GW2, in WoW it’s called transmog, in GW2 it’s basically called wardrobe and dyes, the wardrobe works almost like WoW transmog system, only you don’t need a transmog vendor, you can change gear appearance any time any where, and there is a currency to spend when you change any gear looks.
This is the Wardrobe window, on the left side of the character you see the gear you can change their looks, head piece, shoulders, chest piece ..etc, to change any item look you click on it and you’ll see on the left site under “collection” the option available for you.
Here i clicked on shoulders and it shows me 3 options, since i’m low level i didn’t unlock many skins for the shoulders or anything else, anyway, you can see the character with different look here, and it costs 6 TC to apply this look, i didn’t spend them this time, i’m saving them for later.
now let’s take a look at the dyes window section
You only can change colors of your armor, and currently my character armor looks brown-ish and boring, on the left you see the dyes i currently have, and i can collect more from in game rewards, or crafting them or buying them from in-game store.
Now i changed the colors of my gear to look a litte more interesting, and this change costs nothing, and that’s the cosmetic system in GW2, or at least that’s all i know right now.
Wouldn’t you like to see dyes system in WoW?
Edit: one more thing, i forgot to talk about unlocking skins, any character can unlock a look of any weapon or armor, even if your character can’t use that armor or weapon, just right click the item then choose unlock skin.
When you start a new character in Guild Wars 2, the game start with 20 slots bag, press “i” to open the inventory, i still press “b” to open my bags, old habits die hard, anyway … GW2 inventory system is different than WoW and many other games.
The game offer vendor bags, levels bags you get when you reach certain level, and three crafting professions have bags and they are the main way to make larger bags.
When you kill mobs some drop items and bags of loot, open the bags to get materials and vendor trash, sometimes useful items, you go around the map to gather materials like planets, wood and ore … and now your bags are full.
GW2 offer a way to empty your bags or at least make some space, there is a feature to deposit all materials to account bank, there is a section just for materials and it’s shared between all characters in your account, no need to send mats between alts using mail.
To use this feature you only need to click on a wheel then click “Deposit All Materials” and that’s it, no need to visit a bank.
In the bags window, there is account slots which are shared between all characters, right now i have only one and i can buy more, this is useful to put something like XP boosts to share between all characters.
The bank offer shared space between alts and you can add more space to it using the game shop, to access the bank you need to visit a banker or use crafting station.
One more thing is shared between all characters: currency, any thing you get in any alts is shared with others.
To summarize:
You can deposit materials from your bags to your bank, any where and any time.
Bank is shared between alts and you can add more space to it.
Currencies are shared between all characters.
Is this system better than say WoW inventory system? i’m sure it’s better about shared currencies, also shared account bank, i wish to see this feature in WoW.
As for sending all materials to the bank, in WoW i don’t see this necessary, it’s been a long time since i needed to go back to main city to empty my bags, there are vendors every where, bags are large, material stack reach to 200, and there are toys and tools to offer you a vendor … even pets!
This is quick overview for inventory managment in GW2, next i need to talk about transmog … or whatever they call it in GW2.
The first post in this weblog used a screenshot from Guild Wars 2, back then i have a laptop with the game installed but the cpu fan started making noise and soon or later i have to replace it, instead of doing that i moved to a desktop machine but i didn’t install Guild Wars 2, now i did.
This post is an overview for GW2, i think it’s a good game and it offers something different from WoW and many other MMOs, i’m a new player so whatever i’m writing here could be wrong or inaccurate, with this in mind let’s have a look at GW2 features.
Note: all images in this post taken from GW2 website.
MMORPG, it’s an online game made by ArenaNet, released in 2012, and 2 in the name means there is original Guild Wars which released in 2005 and you still can play it today,
Buy to play, no need for subscription, only buy the game and its expansions and you get access to the whole game, there is an in-game shop which sell cosmetics and different kind of items, you don’t need it, you can play the game without spending anything in the shop.
All races can play all the classes, in GW2 classes called Professions:
Warriors.
Guardians
Revenant
Ranger, like a hunter in WoW, i will write a post about since this is my main class.
Thief
Engineer
Elementalists
Mesmer
Necromancer
3 types of armor, in GW2 there is heavy, medium or light armor, 3 profession for each type:
Heavy armor: Warrior, Guardian, Revenant.
Medium armor: Thief, Ranger, Engineer.
Light armor: Elementalists, Necromancer, Mesmer.
80 levels, other MMOs add levels with every expansion, GW2 does not do that, with its 2 expansions it kept the top level as it is, and most likely this won’t change with the next expansion.
Level scaling, high level players will still find low level zones a little challenging, the game scale them down to the zone level, but low level player will not scale up to high level zone.
No quests! now this is different from WoW, when you start a character you don’t go look for NPCs with yellow ! over their heads, the interface itself tells you to do something, go to that place, talk with this NPC, but after the starting event the map open up for you.
First thing you do is talking with a scout who have a telescope icon over their head, he or she tells you on the map where to go and what’s going on, they show you hearts which is the main way to level up in GW2.
Renown hearts, or simply hearts, they give you things to do, kill mobs, collect things, entertain cows! and fill a bar, when you do that an NPC will have a full heart over their heads, they are the karma vendors, karma is a currency, and these vendors will sell items using that currency.
Zone activities, while you are running around the zone, you gain experience by:
exploring the zone, go to points of interest to open up the map.
Open Waypoints, teleporting devices which you can use to teleport to any point in the game, but you should open the Waypoint first, just walk near it.
Vistas, point of views, it shows you something intersting in the zone.
Hero Challenges, Puzzles or hard NPC fights.
Jumping Puzzles, there are places which test your skills with jumping, places you can’t reach without solving a jumping puzzles, there is something in the end of the puzzle, is it worth it? sometimes yes, but i can’t deny that these puzzles makes me feel cold rage which is rare for me.
Dynamic events, while you are in a zone thing happen around you, an elite boss appear, someone started escorting a cart, a group of bandit took over a bridge and they need someone to take them out, you can participate in these events to gain experience, gold and karma.
Personal Story, this is a chain of events, a story driven quests but without quests, you go places, you talk with NPCs, things happen, sometimes you have to choose between 2 things, like recently i have to choose between saving a friend or protecting a lot of people from a dangerous gang, i chose the later and my friend payed the price.
After Personal stories there are seasons, or Living World Seasons, and currently there are 4 seasons.
Elite specs, when you reach level 80 you can choose an elite spec which change the way you play your class, and with 2 expansions you can choose between 2 elite specs, for example a ranger (like a hunter in WoW) can be a druid which is a healer or a Soulbeast, a DPS spec where you merge with your pet.
Action combat, moving around is important in GW2, you need to face enemies to hit them, a swing of a sword does not hit one mob but all mobs in front of you.
There is more, but i’ll talk about other features in different posts, i want to talk about inventory management because it is unique compared to many other MMOs, i need to talk about the interface and that alone could take many posts, also i want to talk about the transmog system, it’s not called that in GW2 but i’ll talk about it in a post.
If you only play WoW and for some reason you want to try another MMO, i highly recommend GW2, you can play it for free with limitations.
Edit: one more thing, i forgot to talk about unlocking skins, any character can unlock a look of any weapon or armor, even if your character can’t use that armor or weapon, just right click the item then choose unlock skin.
GW2 offer a way to empty your bags or at least make some space, there is a feature to deposit all materials to account bank, there is a section just for materials and it’s shared between all characters in your account, no need to send mats between alts using mail.
