I’m now having huge problems logging on. I keep getting error codes. I don’t know if it is because I picked an EU server, but it is a PITA.
I made a Mesmer named Syree on the Crystal Desert server, in case anyone chooses that server. I had to drag myself away from character creation…the characters and clothing are so lush!!!
I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m having fun! Still, lots of unanswered questions.
I have no idea what I’m doing either. I just sort of wander around, looking at stuff, mashing buttons, dying a lot. I’m having a blast!
I like what I’ve seen so far, but I think the game suffers from a bit too much complexity and opacity, at least in the beginning. There’s no tutorial that I can find, so you’re just immediately thrust into the fight without even knowing how to do it.
I’m playing an Engineer, and I’ve apparently got a grappling gun equipped… but I have no idea how to use it or switch to it from the pistols I’m already using. I found the crafting trainers… before I ever managed to find anything to craft with, so I can’t even do some basic crafting to figure out how it works. Do I want precision on my armor, or do I want vitality? There’s tons of stuff that just isn’t explained, so I’m spending more of my time wondering how things work than actually doing them.
And damn, but are the cities big enough? Sure, they’re awe-inspiring, but having to run three minutes just to get to a quest means that there’s a whole lot of wasted space.
That said, I like the open-world events. They give you a good reason to explore, but it seems like it’s very easy to get in over your head.
Oh, and do you ever get to multiclass like in the previous game? That was my favorite feature- I loved trying to make interesting power combos.
No multiclassing, the interesting combos come form weapon switching now.
When I first started playing mmo’s ten years ago, I remember having that sense of wasted space too, but I had to remind myself that the concept applied to the physical world, but real estate is cheap in ones and zeros.
I had trouble understanding how to get quest rewards at first. It wasn’t apparent to me that turning in a quest was related to the mail I was getting and that the mail had pennies in it. I also had to ask in Local a bunch in order to find out where we can buy armor and weapons, since no light armor or weapons my level was dropping from questing. The tiny red and blue dots on Divinity’s map were not nearly obvious enough without explanation. I like the idea that my armor retained the same starter look, and I guess you can buy armor every 5 levels?
I’m still looking for crafting trainers.
[QUOTE=wonderlust]
I’m still looking for crafting trainers.
[/QUOTE]
If you’re in a major city, open up the map, there should be little icons that show you which crafting trainer they are. Leatherworking, Jeweler, Cook, Tailor, etc. You can only craft at the tables in cities though which I think is kind of a pain. So far I’ve made myself a bag and a new pair of boots, but nothing more, having too much fun out in the world.
My only complaint so far is the overflow servers. I’ve been trying to play with two other friends, I say trying because aside from the one story quest we haven’t been able to quest together. We can all be in the same party, but due to the overflow servers we never see each other. Logging and relogging hoping to get on the same overflow server hasn’t worked and we can’t roll on a new server just to play. If we’re going to be placed in an overflow server that’s fine, I’d just like some way to be on the same overflow server.
I haven’t been as impressed as I hoped I would, but I think that’s my fault for building it up so much in my mind. There have been some cool moments, I guess I just need to forget my expectations and just play the game because it’s damn fun.
Yeah, I have that feeling as well, but since it is a Beta I am not too worried. I have run into a few bugs working on quests, mainly with getting an error that says something like unable to create an instance. But that is what the Beta events are for.
Given how good looking GW is, I do have higher hopes for a more advanced version at release.
The game is quite a bit different that GW, so it will take some used to fact that you can’t get elite skills until you hit level 30 (the max level in GW is 20). I am having fun for the most part and will play alot between now and the end of the event. I still have to try out the PvP.
I’m confused by the queues we wait in until the map is ready. None of our questing counts until we’re in the actual map?
I’m unclear on that as well. And I am having trouble logging in again today. I don’t think I’ll log out the next time I get in.
I haven’t found myself having to repeat any of the hubs I’ve worked on while in overflow, so I think it does count. The only thing you can’t do in overflow is run around with your friends and engage in WvW. Haven’t tried queueing for PvP scenarios from there yet though.
[QUOTE=wonderlust]
I’m confused by the queues we wait in until the map is ready. None of our questing counts until we’re in the actual map?
[/QUOTE]
It counts. I’ve done the majority of my quest/events/what have you while in a queue/overflow server and when I was put in the “main” server I noticed no changes.
Ran into a very annoying glitch/bug. Walked my thief into the Asura gate to go to Lions Arch, took a few steps and the game crashed. Now I can’t log into that character without the game locking up or crashing. Sent in a bug report so hopefully they’ll look into it.
I’ve had several quests I’ve finished in overflow, on 2 characters, show up as not done when I travel to the real map. It’s very confusing to move between overflow and real, because they act the same.
If anyone’s playing a ranger and is wondering why the pet won’t attack, they get “defeated” and need to be revived frequently.
Is WvW when an orange quest pops up and everyone in the area participates?
No, those are just dynamic events. WvW is World vs World PvP and is its own separate map where people from your sever go up against people from another server (and another server) to lay siege to each others camps and keeps.
How do I enter WvW? I’d love to do it once the servers are back up!
I tried doing that last night with my Charr but didn’t have the same bug fortunately. Hope they can fix that for you.
Those Orange events are just additional events on the map that are nearby and got triggered for one reason or another. There’s definitely a lot more to do than just the Heart markers that get pointed out to you. 
WvW is on a seperate map for the Massivley Multiplayer PvP, by default N should bring up a PvP panel with one of the options being to go fight in the Mists. That’s where the WvW goes on.
The game definitely doesn’t explain things very well. Crafting/salvaging and quest money in mail among them. But once I figured it out it has all seemed to be working smoothly since. It’s like they made a very nice game and then forgot that everyone else isn’t going to be familiar with how it works and haven’t added enough training/tutorial bits to help people along.
I’m going to be seeing code=48:1000:7006:529:101 in my sleep, I think.
I kind of like that things are not explained well. I think mmorpgs have gone overboard with the handholding in recent years. I’d be too jaded to play yet another one like that.
I like GW2 okay so far. For me, the test will be how fun pvp is. Have yet to try that. I do like that my thief looks just like Gene Tierney.
“I . . . enjoy pie. . . .”
I really enjoyed the game, for the most part. There were some issues that will get worked out, because that is what beta events are for. So, I won’t worry about the cut scenes with missing dialog, they said ‘Work In Progress’ after all. I won’t be concerned that the game used DirectX 9. I won’t worry that I got a few errors that said an instance could not be created. I won’t worry that I spent 50 of my gems to buy plant food and never got the plant food but lost the gems anyway.
There are some more pressing issues that concern me. First, the difficulty to log on- again I know it was a beta event, but Anet should have had an idea about how many people were going to be playing. If all those people and more show up for release, well code=48 messages and lag will be the rule. I mention this because there are sometime bad lag in the original GW, when there is a special event, and I am not sure Anet has figured it out.
Second, the limited number of skills- Guild Wars had hundreds of skills and what set it apart was the mixing and matching from the different professions and the fact that you could only take 8 at a time. Now, how quickly is the novelty of the ‘Grasping Dead’ animation going to wear off? I do like the changes that were made tying skills to weapons, but I think that the low number of skills may be a long term problem.
Third, and this is probably the biggest problem- something in the game is out of balance. I played along the personal story line and enjoyed it (human Necro, ftr). I got my character up to level 17, I wanted level 20 to unlock one more skill slot, but oh well. I did a handful of the quests that gave you skill points, and unlocked some of the skills- no problem there. The problem came with the attribute points- they were called something else but they are the attribute points. I had a handful of the points and I could not allocate them. Why? Well, to be able to use those points you had to talk to one of the trainers that were located around the map, they were represented by a little book icon. The problem was that the cheapest of those books was 10 silver. In the grand scheme of things, probably not too much money but I never got over 8 silver 50. Between the costs of moving around the map and armour repairs (things not in GW) I never had the money for the first damn book. At one point my Necro only had 95 copper coins. Now, not being able to configure your attribute points in a RPG seems to miss the point of RPGs.
Now, please fix these things and give us back a first person view, at times it was had to follow what was happening with body blocking the view. Also, please give us the click to move ability. I don’t always use it in GW, but it is nice to have it in some circumstances.
Oh yeah, nothing I can do with dye keeps my Necro from looking like the bastard love child of Bootsy Collins and Ace Frehley.
I loved it, and today I quit Rift, realizing that GW2 is the game I’d much rather be playing.
I thought I’d share a fun 8-second video (not mine), entitled: My favorite part about Guild Wars 2 so far