Guild Wars 2 – The Early Levels

I have a terrible illness when it comes to video games. I act like I’m a Jack Russell with a caffeine high and a bad case of ADHD. I have the attention span of a kitten in an Ikea store. No matter how engaging the plot, no matter how linear the quests are, no matter how much the game says “Do X plot point, then do Y quest,” I just merry wander off the beaten path, hither and yon, until I realize I’ve completely lost track of what I was supposed to be doing or end up in an area where my just-out-of-tutorial-ass is promptly eaten by a dire rabid grizzly bear elder lich god.

The thing I love about Guild Wars 2 is that the game doesn’t punish me for my illness. GW2 actually does an amazing job of removing the painfully linear path of most MMOs (and to be fair, a lot of games, multi- or single- player) by making it fun and most importantly, rewarding, to randomly and aimlessly wander around like a tourist on giant fantasy mushrooms.

The questing zones are big, really big. The scale of the map makes them feel even bigger, which helps a lot with the feeling of ‘I’ve seen this for fifteen levels on ten characters’ feeling a lot of MMOs get into. To make travel easier, nearly each hub in the zone has a “Waypoint,” which is a simple fast travel teleporter. There’s no sitting around waiting for a bird to flap across mountains, you just click the icon (from your map, no matter where you are), pay some piddling amount of copper and you’re there. This mechanic also eliminates mounts, which I find somewhat sad. This landscape is so gorgeous, one day I’d love to be able to fly over it.

Quests are not itemized as “bring me eight bear pelts,” or “escort this cow NPC to his cow NPC home to reunite happily with his cow NPC kids.” Each hub has an overall goal that’s usually structured with helping a quest-giver(ish – hub goals just show up on your screen when you enter the area, you never have to talk to the NPC) character with whatever that area is having trouble with. You’re given a few options (kill these mobs, water these crops, turn into a cat and play with these adorable kittens, etc) and you can do any of them as many times as you want to increase the progress bar of the hub. When you’ve filled the bar, the hub is complete and you get XP and Karma Points. KP can be used to buy loot, consumables and crafting supplies from vendors and quest NPCs. KP are gained very quickly and are one of the faster ways of getting gear.

When you’re wandering from hub to hub, there’s a few things to keep you wandering, which I completely adore – this game loves for you to be exploring. It actively encourages you to terrain-hump and find new places, in the form of “Vistas.” Vistas are marked on your map – they’re very pretty scenic points, usually on high terrain, and require solving a jumping or navigation puzzle to get to. Once you get to the Vista, you get a nice little cut-scene, XP and some other bonuses. Also of note are “Points of Interest,” which are just useful areas like the crafting hub and NPCs marked “Scout,” which illuminate new areas of the map and questing hubs when you find them. All off these things give you XP. Yessss.

However, the coolest thing that keeps you meandering around the map instead of running to your capitol city and sitting on the auction house for three hours while being generally disgusted with general chat (No, WoW, I’m not bitter at all) – are the Dynamic Events. These are encounters that are kicked off by regular questing events and other unpredictable stimuli. Now, unlike a lot of other MMOs, in GW2, you do not have to be in a party, raid, squad or any other group to get credit (loot, XP) and there is no “tapping” of mobs, so there’s no kill-stealing. When a Dynamic Event starts up and you’re in the area, you get an alert and a highlighted area on your map. Dynamic Events take a lot of forms – I’ve actually seen some very diverse events even the under level 10 range. Without actually having to talk to anyone, players fall into a coordinated (sometimes more, sometimes less) effort to beat the Dynamic Encounter. When it’s over, like with other quests in the game, you get a mail from an NPC containing a bit of plot and your rewards (mail that can be opened from any where; you don’t need to run to a mailbox).

There’s a lot of other really great parts about Guild Wars 2 that make it very appealing to the jaded MMO player such as:

• Abilities are linked to weapon types so you have a much wider variety of playstyle
• Button mashing is detrimental due to the way attacks are queued and timed
• Dodging and evasion are vital, so that combat is not an auto-attack and alt-tab event
• And very importantly – after putting down the initial $60 USD for purchase, it’s free-to-play without a real-money store that has items that greatly change your effectiveness in the game. Cash items from the store are mostly utility (extra bag slots), novelty (“Cow Finisher” – you drop a cow on someone) or buffs (improves chance for rare loot drops for an hour) – things that are useful but not game-changing.

I haven’t gotten super-far in the game; I haven’t hit skill training yet, I’ve just started crafting, and I haven’t tried PVP or any dungeons, much less end-game content. I will say, though, that this game is off to a very, very strong start. I’ve never had this much fun with the initial ten levels of an MMO, which are traditionally a very boring series of levels. If Guild Wars 2 can keep up this pace of inventive gameplay, smart features and accessible content throughout all 80 levels and beyond, I will be playing this game with the same intensity that I spent on World of Warcraft for 8 years…without paying $15 a month. Which is pretty cool because I just realized I’ve spent over $1,500 on MMOs.

Save me, Guild Wars 2. Please don’t put pretty roleplay clothes in your cash store.