A Week in Guild Wars 2

As I mentioned a week ago, I finally made the leap from Guild Wars to Guild Wars 2.  I have also been able to log in to the game and play some almost everyday (with the exception of Monday, that day sucked).  And I have some initial thoughts on my time spent in the game thus far.  My stats as of this writing is a level 16 Necromancer with a focus on minions (build 1) and a focus on AoE attacks (build2).  Let me say first hand, I absolutely love this game. Now read on and find out why.

Probably my first half hour to forty-five minutes of playtime were a little familiar yet a little confusing for me as well. The character creation portion of the game is pretty awesome. The character is pretty much customizable from head to toe. You pick from a set of preconfigured parts and can tweak them from there. For example, you pick from a set of faces for your toon. Then you can make adjustments to things like the chin size and angle of the eyebrows, etc. This system allows for a greater range of design than Guild Wars offered.

The confusing thing for me had to be the way the skill system works. In Guild Wars, you would unlock skills by gaining experience points (like a traditional RPG). Then you would visit NPC characters and purchase more skills. Elite skills were often captured from instanced bosses during your adventures using a Signet of Capture right after the battle. Not in Guild Wars 2.

Here is the just, you do unlock Utility Skills using Skill Points earned during play. You gain skill points by completing Skill Challenges and from leveling up. Your Combat skills are directly tied to your weapon set. Meaning if you happen to pickup and equip a new Ax or Mace, they new weapon will equip your character with a different set of skills for combat. And without equipping a particular weapon, you never know what skills you will get.

If the skills have not been used yet on a particular weapon, only one skill for that weapon will be available. As you use that skill, the second skill in the set will slowly unlock. This unlocking happens across three of the four combat skills. It's not a bad system, but it takes a little getting used too. I am used to picking what skills I want in my builds. Instead of "micro-managing" skills you will mange your inventory. Because obviously, if you had a nice skill set that you liked; you'd not want to discard or sell that weapon.

You Utility Skills cover things like buffs, healing skills, and in my case summoning minions and other Necrosis based monsters. These skills can be swapped on the fly as long as you aren't engaged in combat. Remember in Guild Wars, to make any skill or weapon changes you would have to map travel back to a city and make the necessary changes and swaps. Not both gear and skills can be swapped any time other than when in combat.

Speaking of gear, we can now swap between weapon sets. We three sets of weapons (2 slots for land based and three slots a piece for water based). This covers a primary and off hand weapon in each set. Which gives you additional options when trying out new skills. I like to use new weapons on one skill bar that I am unlocking. And my primary bar has a full, working set of skills. That way I am never stuck with just one skill on each bar.

The majority of the game world is no longer instanced. Meaning you take part in dynamic events that happen in real-time with other players. Kind of like Warhammer Online has. These events often become daily tasks as they pop up frequently and are a lot of fun to play.

Let's chat about loot. In the first Guild Wars, it seemed that I didn't come by crafting materials in loot drops from combat quite like it does in GW2. From my first fight, I have been collecting things like leather squares and Iron Cores. Which is nice, because crafting feels much more fleshed out in GW2. Forgive my ignorance on crafting, as I have only been at it for about two days now. Essentially you get the crafting recipe and the crafting materials and craft away. Unlike my brief time Aion where you could special d forever trying to successfully craft a single, simple item. So far I have bee  crafting in the leather working g profession to  make my 8 slot bags. And it has been a blast.

The Trading Post is another endeavor I have just started playing with. I have purchased some crafting materials with in-game gold with much success. And I have sold probably 50 or 60 silver worth of the items with success. And I love it. It's like a virtual eBay for your unwanted items and loot and craft materials. Included as part of the Trading Post is the Gem Store. Admittedly, I was concerned when I first heard about this. But it seems to be a nice complement to the core game. Essentially the Gem Store is for the much dreaded microtransactions we have seen in other games. But this one reminds me of "Lord of The Rings Online" and "Runes of Magic" in that you don't have to use real world money for the microtransactions. In LoTRO you could gain Turbine Points to make purchases by doing tasks in the game or buying the Turbine Cards and using those.

In GW2, if you decide you don't want to use your hard earned, real world cash. You can convert your in-game silver and gold into Gems to use instead. So what is for sale in the Gem Store? Mostly things like extra character slots, XP boosts, locked chests, and mini pets. You can also upgrade your copy of the game to the deluxe version and get the special skills and Rytlock mini too. There are also armor skins and cosmetic items up for grabs too. But who needs those right? lol

I have heard some complaints about leveling so far. I haven't had any complaints myself as the leveling feels pretty balanced to me. Not really having to grind much helps this out a lot too. Here is my progress so far:
-Levels 1 - 10: Flew by quick and painlessly.
-Levels 11 - 14: Took a little while longer than the first 10. And a little grind was necessary.
-Currently a Level 16 Necro and should hit level 17 pretty quick at this rate.

Overall, I have no complaints about the game. Is it perfect? No, it's not. Does it feel entirely original? Not 100%, as you can definitely find inspirations gleaned from the likes of WoW, LoTRO, and even Warhammer Online. But it feels seamless and they manage to keep it very interesting. One complaint t I have been following on their forums and in-game is balance within some of the classes (like the Necromancer) where people are complaining that the class feels to weak and unbalanced. Personally, this hasn't been an issue for me. But I'm sure AreaNet will address it in due time. On my second day in the game I had already been invited (and joined) a nice, active guild that is a little shy of 400 people strong as of this writing. It took me months to find a decent guild in Guild Wars. The inclusions of Points of Interest, Skill Challenges, and Vista's are awesome as well.

It looks like AreanNet has done it again. And with sales for Guild Wars 2 breaking the 2 million units sold mark. Looks like the rest of the world likes it too.