MMO Diaries: Guild Wars 2 Trial

It's fair to say that Guild Wars 2 became my obsession for the week that I was able to play it. According to the MMORPG's server message I have played the game for 30 hours in the week I had access to it.

At the start of the game I realised my choice of races was quite stupid. I've played a fair bit of Skyrim talking to hearty Scandinavian type folk in mostly snowy and mountainous lands. You'd think that after that I would not go and choose the hearty Scandinavian class of the Norn, with their stomping grounds being snowy and mountainous. My experience may have been filled with more varied and interesting locales if I had chosen another race but the games still managed to capture my attention (and copious amounts of time).

The first 2 hours weren't really weren't too great, as I imagine would be the case with most MMOs. It tries to teach you about combat mechanics, activities, levelling, equipment, spells, quests, events and so forth. I imagine it is quite difficult finding a balance between imparting information that bores you with things you already know or having the game spew jargon which flies straight over your head.

My first attempt to join forces with friends was with kingofallcosmos at the very start of the game. Being different races we had to play our short personal tutorial instance before mingling with others on the server.

The world is vast - so huge it is terrifying (go to this site for a better idea). The player markers between myself and kingofallcosmos showed that we were continents apart and it felt it, as it took several flicks of the scroll wheel to zoom out to actually show the full extent of the map. The world is open to you from the very start but don't expect to wander anywhere as areas are figuratively cut off from you by high level areas and their terrifying small animals which will destroy you with a solitary nip on your hind quarters which was the demise of myself, thisisjazz and gnatasha as our mission to find yoglaiii failed.

It took another session which I played on my own where I discovered Asura Gates which transported you (for free) to the main hub world (Lion's Arch) and grants you access to the main towns of all the other races.

Combat is fairly standard MMO fare however the first five slots in your hotbar are related to the weapon you are equipping with the latter five unlocking with class based skills. Once your health has depleted you have another health bar and set of abilities where you can be resurrected through killing an enemy or being revived by other players or healing yourself until your bar is full. Lose that health bar and you will have to pick a location to respawn in, at a cost depending on how far away it is from where you were killed. Movement, evading and where you are in relation to your target plays a large part too which gives the game a bit more of an action feel rather than a tit-for-tat fight using abilities until someone dies.

As I started through the main quest line I fended off some Sons of Svanir, a race that the Norn begrudgingly are at peace with despite their (slightly annoying) tendency to try to bring dragons back to life and destroy everything. I then entered a combat tournament to defeat a rival from last year's tournament. And finally was introduced to the three main orders (spies, scholars and warriors) that each have their own way of doing things and leaves you the option on how to deal with a new threat from the Dredge (a race of fairly technologically advanced moles with shotguns). I stuck with the spy most of the time however I imagine all three would have resulted in getting into fights for the sake of levelling as no matter how sneaky I was, being rumbled was eventual.

Along with the main quest there were plenty of side missions, however instead of these being triggered by people with a mark denoting that they are of interest, the area triggers events where for example, a stampede of minotaurs running through an area. Also you are not alone with these missions as anyone nearby can contribute to these events. Once the event is completed you are awarded a medal along with scaling XP and money related to your contribution. If you follow the NPC asking for assistance after a side mission you can follow them and their story which usually leads to more side missions.

In one early case there was a siege at a trading post, after the enemies had all been defeated I received my medal but listened to an NPC conversation about storming a base run by the Sons of Svanir. I followed the troops and upon reached the entrance to the base a new event popped up to capture two towers which then led to a boss event where plenty of real players along with NPCs joined to fight the leader. Once the boss was defeated, loot was looted and XP was doled out, they headed back to the trading outpost where a few moments later another siege began, starting the cycle again.

The boss fight was particularly tough as the amount of health he had made any of my attacks look like they delivered zero damage and if you had noone else to assist you other than NPCs (which had happened to me a few times) his focus on you will have you dead extremely quickly.

Seeing how these stories play out is a great way to feel the constant changing nature of an area and makes it really easy to jump in and start doing something. However once you see the loop begin again you realise that these NPCs are living this strange routine for the rest of their life with different players not realising that they could try and stop the cycle altogether. I guess it beats standing in one location all day trading with players and without resistance purchasing any old tat the player has clogging their inventory.

On top of questing you have the ability to learn two of the eight crafting disciplines. While the choice is completely up to you most of the disciplines will not be suitable for your class (for example heavy armor producing Armorsmiths would not be useful to a mage). You can try every discipline once but you will have to rejoin disciplines for a fee. Most of the items you craft are dropped by monsters or can be harvested from trees, ore and plants. There are several layers of crafting before you will be wearing any of your handmade items which may not be as good as items you have already found. However there is incentive to craft as you level up in your respective disciplines allowing you to be able to create better equipment.

General exploration is also an activity in itself as there are vistas to find where you must either find a route to the peak of an area or play a (sometimes annoying) bit of platforming to get an Assassin's Creed style pan around the area and some XP. Discover all an area has to offer and you will receive additional XP and loot.

Despite doing all the things mentioned above I feel like I've only scratched the surface, not even joining a Guild (ITS IN THE NAME OF THE GAME), or fighting in the PvP and World v World modes, let alone discovering from what I can assume is only about an eighth of the world so far. The other aspect I haven't looked at is all the different currencies and the auction houses available. The different types of currency is very confusing with the sheer number of types of currency you can get in the game (coins, gems, karma, laurels, glory, badges of honour, fractal relics, guild commendations etc). I was a bit grossed out by the existence of gems that can be purchased for real money and then converting it into game money, however I discovered you can also create gems with gold and through completing achievements ways too which I imagine would be easier as the game progresses.

Playing a considerable chunk of this game on my own, I feel this game can stand up quite well without needing to party up. I probably spent twenty of my thirty hours just exploring and questing on my own and had a blast. Playing on your own allows you to slowly wander around new areas finding vistas, waypoints and secrets which feel rewarding. I imagine this may change as more difficult areas and dungeons open up but I also learnt that joining a guild means that you aren't going to be alone if you don't want to be, not to mention having side quests more representative of mingleplayer games where players who happen to be in the same place share in carrying event-based missions.

If you do want to invest in this game I think it is fair to say that using a wiki is highly recommended as you are much more likely finding the information you need by alt-tabbing and running a search. That doesn't mean the game is impenetrable but you may end up with items that can confuse with terms such as 'account bound' and 'soul bound'.

This games scope is outstanding, multiplied by its level of detail makes it a game well worth exploring. It is visually stunning with massive structures, expansive areas with varied and fantastical locales. Fighting can sometimes feel like a rote process (having a standard combo of triggering abilities) but with other players it can make it more involved and strategic. The sheer amount of things to do and experience makes it well worth it's £30 price tag, considering it is a high end MMO which isn't free-to-play or have a subscription there is a lot of value to be had with this game. Now to get round to buying it now that the trial is over...

OR as this is my first positive MMORPG experience and also being the first time I've spent more than 2 hours playing an MMORPG, maybe I should play more MMORPGs and judge them against each other?!!!?!?!?!?!?!?!?