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so far the questing has been really lame
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GOTY!
Let's internet
No argument about the writing of GW2...it's not really its stronger points. It's simply sufficient (so far at least).
But I actually like how scout information was presented. Any more flare and it would divert my attention away from the map and the information it gives me. Also simply speaking to NPCs and listening their chatter made me empathic of them just as much as I would have been with letterboxed cutscenes.
As far as cutscenes go though, TSW and SWTOR currently does a better job. Although GW2 labeled their cutscenes a "Work in Progress". I wonder what the final product will look like...
Absolutely right man! Ppl hear dynamic events and they are like YEAAAAAH! But they are not able to realise its the same, well not the same, even more boring!
Ah yes something i want to note tho is that when i mean quests i mean heart events, the majority, if not all of dynamic events are voiced and there are 1500 of them making them the larger chunck of the game.
At later levels there arent even heart quests anymore.
And yes i know what you mean when it gives the idea that you gota be on the move. But that should be offset by the fact that there is no rush to level to 80.
I pressume you love the setting in TSW and i also think that is wonderfull. But if you take your time and listen to the stories being told by the npcs that are without cutscenes you will have the same feelings you have for the npcs in TSW, at least thats how i felt by paying attention.
I personally think that TSW quests and GW2 are the same, the difference is in how each game presents them and which one is better depends on what you want out of an mmo. Both have their special things, not all of them in either are just collect, kill and deliver. For example the first thing i did with my asura was play Golem chess with my friends in the starter zone.
Its all really subjective and that includes the personal stories. I PERSONALLY enjoy them more than TSW or TOR, and i know some others who do too.
What you are talking about are Heart Tasks. They are the closest thing to traditional MMO quests that you will find in GW2s PvE game world, but they are not the main form of PvE content. These are just little tasks you can do to earn some Karma, Coin and XP, as well as unlocking the Heart Task NPC as a Karma Vendor with his/her own karma items selection. You also earn Karma from doing Dynamic Events, which are the meat of the game's PvE content and there are some karma vendors here and there that aren't tied to Heart Tasks, but unlocking these tasks gives you access to some nice gear once you start to hit level 10+ areas of the game. (The lower level karma selections tend to be more novelty).
I personally like the variety of tasks you can do as part of these Heart Tasks. It provides a nice break from the "kill ten rats" sort of MMO quest. Many of these have more than one activity you can do to fill the hearts and usually one of them will be combat related. I actually feel bad for people that can't appreciate what Arenanet have done here.
Rest assured, however, that the heart tasks become more likely to require combat related challenges as you get deeper into the game. GW2 starts with each character living in a fairly mundane and peaceful part of the world that has been barely touched by the threat of the Elder Dragons, but over the course of progressing deeper and deeper into the game, the tone changes gradually and the dark threat to the world will become more and more obvious.
In many ways, the level 2-6 "mini-zones", which are semi-isolated areas with in each race's level 2-17 starter zone, may be a bit too mundane for there own good. Most players will enjoy the tone and the simplicity as they begin to learn and explore a new game, but some may get a poor first impression and, as the OP has done, write the game off as light weight fluff, when in reality the game is anything but.
Not only does the tone and level of challenge advance as you progress into higher and higher level zones, but the Dynamic Events also become more challenging and complex. GW2 may lack a step by step tutorial to teach players how to use there WASD keys for movement, or their 1-10 keys for skill use, but the level 2-6 areas of the game are a tutorial of sorts, introducing players to the approach for PvE content delivery that the game utilizes. I think most of the game is designed to aid in the learning curve that will eventually lead to some very intense late game content and very complex webs and branching chains of Dynamic Events to be found in the highest level zones of the game.
Some people may need time to adjust to the new paradigm, but most people who make it over the hump with this game tend to find it difficult to go back to other MMOs, with their stale, linear MMO quest lines and "kill ten rats" mentality of content delivery.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Well, despite being "meh" about GW2 - I'm almost certainly going to pick it up anyway. The pricing model is simply too alluring - and I can afford being right about it, and there would be no disappointment involved.
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-Azure Prower
http://www.youtube.com/AzurePrower
Where the hell did you play?
I was directed to prevent a group of thugs from muscling in on us, and then had to kill their giant BOSS robot. Then I proceeded to get side tracked by dynamic heart events as I went to the other part of the quest.
Then I had a guildie grab me at level 3 and I spent the next 2.5 hours in WvWvW and actually being effective even at my low level. Made it to level 6 BTW and gained tons of karma.
I then jumped out of there and continued my quest to stop these sabotures from ruining our day.
After that I was back in WvWvW playing a Tug-O-War between two server keeps that lasted over 3 hours and was epic.
And then I returned to the PVE world and started to learn how to harvest.
I'm sorry, but that's a very ignorant representation.
Stale MMO "X"
You go to a quest hub and get a quest telling you that bandits are stealing food that the villagers need to survive. Go kill ten bandits and collect three apples. Return the apples to the quest giver to get your reward. You go to some spot marked on your map and there are a bunch of bandits standing around doing nothing. You kill 10 bandits and collect three apples. More bandits respawn and stand around the same field. If another player comes along while you are killing 10 bandits, you might ask them to join a party, where you may or may not be able to share credit for kills and apples, depending on the game. If not, that player or gaggle of players just become a hassle, as they compete for the same resources and you all fight to tag kills, in order to meet your quota for killing ten bandits.
When it's all done, you return back to the quest hub, turn in the apples and as you run by the field, on your way to the next quest hub, you see the same bandits, standing around in the same field and nothing ever changes.
GW2
In GW2, you might be out exploring the world and run through a pretty idyllic Apple Orchard, nothing amiss, full bushells of freshly picked apples scattered about the Orchard, waiting to be collected and sent to market.
As you are exploring the general area, you may hear shouts and have an NPC run up to you and tell you that bandits have over-run his apple orchard and he needs help. You see in your interface that there is a new Event nearby and looking at the map, you see it's the same peaceful Orchard you just passed through ten minutes earlier is now in the midst of a bandit raid!
As you rush back to the Orchard, you see the summary of your objectives during the Event.
1.) Defeat raiding bandits to decrease their morale and send them into retreat: With a progress bar that starts full and decreases as bandits are defeated.
2.) Prevent the Bandits from stealing all the bushels of apples: 12/12 Bushells remaining.
Waves of bandits will actually rush the orchard. Many of them are raiders, but some of them are Apple Thieves. Unlike MMO "X", all players in the area who respond or just happen across the event can just jump in and participate. The objectives are shared. A kill by anyone damages the bandit Morale and the Bushells that need to be saved are a communal resource.
If you don't stop the Apple Thieves in time, they will grab a bussle of apples and try to race back the the near by Bandit Camp with the stolen apples. You can intercept them and stop them. If you defeat them before they make their escape, the bushell will drop to the ground and you may be able to pick it up and return it to the orchard, so that another Apple Thief can't just come along and grab the bushell and make off with it.
During all of this, the difficulty will scale based on the number of active player participants. With more players, the bandits may get a little tougher, or the waves of bandits may get bigger, (thus requiring larger number of bandits to be killed in order to reduce their morale).
There is no mob tapping or kill stealing. Everyone who attacks a mob will get 100% of the normal XP for the kill and their own loot as well.
If the players defeat enough Bandits to send them into retreat before all the Apples have been stolen, the event will be successful and all participants will be rewarded automatically with Karma and XP. In most cases, they will also receive an in game mail with a thank you letter and a small currency reward. There are Gold, Silver and Bronze levels of rewards, based on participation, but they have pre-set thresholds. You aren't competing against other players for a finite number of gold rewards, Everyone who participates for most of the event will get a Gold level reward. Those that are slackers or are late to arrive may get Silver or Bronze.
In MMO "X", once the bandit Apple thieves have been killed to the proper quota, nothing actually changes.
In GW2, Events can lead to other events in ways that make sense based on the logical consequences of event success or failure.
If players succeeded in the above event and stick around, they may hear a conversation from a couple of the Apple Farmers about the harrowing experience and the close call they had at almost losing their entire crop to bandits. They may decide that they need to send the apples off to market asap and load up a pack animal and cart with the apples. This would spawn a new Dynamic Event where players can escort the Apples to the nearby village, fighting off determined bandits and other threats along the way.
If the players failed, they may instead hear the Apple Farmers begroan the loss and frett about how the village may starve during the coming winter if the apples can't be recovered. This would spawn a new event where players can raid the Bandit camp, with the opportunity of driving them out and claiming it for the local soldiers. If they succeed, they drive the bandits out and the farmers send a cart to fetch the apples, which then spawns a new escort event to escort the apples from the bandit camp to the local village. If players fail, eventually the bandits will raid the Apple Orchard again.
Aha! So the effects on the world are not permanent! Well, of course not. If all events played once, it wouldn't be long before there was no more content left to do. No company could ever produce content efficiently enough to keep up. However, rather than the event just repeating based on some timer, it is tied to the state of the bandits in the local area. Driving the Bandits from their camp pushes events in a direction where players may be able to push the bandits farther and farther from the Orchard and village and put off any future Apple Raids unless, or until, the bandits manage to take back their camp.
Players actions do effect how further events play out and can have a great impact on the state of the zone at any given time.
I've detailed a simple, linear Event Chain that may move back or forth through a few steps that can proceed in either direction, up or down the chain, based on player success/failure. As you get deeper into the game, Event Chains can become branching chains, one event state can effect the direction of another near by series of events, or a zone may contain a complex web of events that can interact with and influence each other in some very complex ways.
This is not an exact event, I tailored the scenario to address the misinformation presented in the diagram presented above, but events like this do happen in the way I've detailed. I've participated in a number of them.
So, stop with the disinformation, whether it's done knowingly or as a result of ignorance. Do not miss out on this game! It's a true gem in the genre and does indeed represent a new paradigm for the genre. Unless you prefer "kill ten rats" linear, quest hub driven MMO quests, in which case this game may just be to much for you to handle.
(BTW, players do still get rewarded for a failure, but it's a lesser reward than a success, so it's worth fighting a battle you aren't sure you can win and you won't find that you've wasted your time if those sneaky Apple Thieves do manage to make off with all the apples)!
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
Ummm, actually yes they are much less lame than the OP's description of the majority of the quests. At least you get way better XP killing X amount of things... but, I have good taste which is hard to find.
What makes these events dynamic is the world doesn't give a damn if you're there or not. If you aren't there to fight off a groupof bandits they will take over the area. The game moves on without you. In X other mmo's the same bandits stand there and wait for you doing absolutley nothing.
The original poster and several people who are very misinformed i this post also see to be getting muddled up with renown hearts and dynamic events. much of the "picking up eggs" are from renown hearts which offer multiple ways to benefit the area , these are background tasks that can be accomplished whilst partaking in dynamic events and should not be seen as the main questing system but as an added bonus and structure to the world.
But you didn't get very far (I'd say past the 1st zone of each race you tried)...
So yeah,
starting areas are just "an introduction" of how the game works I guess...
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
-------------------------------
well, after "collect 100 apples and return them" comes the big bad spider
and that's not the only quest ending in follow ups which have been realy interesting imo.
"believe me, mike.. i calculated the odds of this working against the odds that i was doing something incredibly stupid and i did it anyway!"
Totally disagree with the OP. There are plenty of kill x quests in GW2. I find these off the wall quests rather fun because they take the edge off grinding. This is something good that GW2 took from WOW (though I am sure WOW took it from an older game). My favorite in GW2 is the Norn "feeding the bears fish" quest. The size of the fish is just hilarious!
Here's an example for you in TotalBiscuits beta wrap up. He talks to a scout outside the starter zone and gets a little history of the zone he's entering and what's going on there. He also follows nicely an event chain and explains rather well the fact that much of the event system is built on top of the standard quest concepts, but the delivery is key. You'll have to watch it to get the full gist.
Oderint, dum metuant.
Another complaint about the quests prior to level 5. Pray thee tell me what other MMO lets you fight bosses that can kill you at level 1. Of course the quests are not overly challenging, these early quests are mostly to give you perspective and to get you used to the mechanics of the game, and even then you're never restricted to where you can go. As soon as the cutscene ends after you've done the intro, you can go (in this case in the Norn area) fight the Sons of Svanir. At level 2, you'll wish all you were doing was picking apples, because they hit hard and will probably destroy you.
No one's holding you back from DE's, if you can't find your own adventures and are left complaining about heart quests, that's your problem. I assume the game was designed for people who can think on their feet, I've never been bored because I do what I want in the game.
If your sense of adventure and curiosity to find new things have been diminished by traditonal quest hub games, I understand, but that doesn't mean everyone's has.
Traditional MMO:
Dude standing in town with a big punctuation mark over his head. Run up to him, click on him, quickly read the quest summary (don't much care what's going on or why). Head out of town and perform some meaningless task that doesn't even reflect whatever nonsense is written in the quest text (wolves threatening the town... umm ok I'll use my imagination :-| ). Make sure you avoid other people who are competing with you for the same task (can't have cooperation... no sir). If you somehow are unable to complete the quest, just abandon it and run back to the dude to start over (don't worry, he'll act like it's your first time again so your ego won't take a hit). Once complete, run back to same dude with a different punctuation mark over his head and turn it in for your reward. Your actions have zero impact on the game world aside from being able to hinder other people from completing the same task at the same time.
GW2:
Run around actually witnessing whatever the problem/threat/event is without having to use your imagination or read some meaningless quest text or click on some place-holder NPC to find out. Join in with other people to cooperate and (hopefully) succeed in whatever the goal is. If you fail the task, you (and everyone involved) now have a different task to complete (no starting over... sorry if your ego gets bruised, but you did fail after all). Get your rewards immediately for being successful in completing the event without having to look for punctuation markers on your map. Another event could potentially spawn based on the outcome of the event you just participated in. Your actions have direct and lasting impact on the game world.
Come on now don't drag entire community in it to make your point. You don't speak for entire GW2 community and if this one little pictures offended you that much then please do me a favor and never ever read comics about MMOS which satire and make fun of MMOS and its player base on regular basis.
And yes i did indeed address the poster by posting that funny picture. If you really want to come off as someone reasonable you should go talk to that 'go back to WOW' guy first. Till then you are just another over sensitive fan making much ado about nothing.
Hahaha..so true... You know i would have ignored it like i do most of the topics where OP is flamed by GW2 fan base for giving an opinion but i really couldn't stop myself this time. I am really sick of 'go play WOW' crowd.
Look at colddog for example that dude has all the time in the world to teach me how not to undermine other people opinion and insult entire community (imagine that) by posting that picture and yet has zero advice for his fellow fans who can't stop but insult people like OP who are simply giving their opinions. Reminds me of you scratch my back i scratch yours.
there are so many zones to do events in, you skip any heart quest you feel like. I was already lvl 35 by the time I entered the first lvl 25-35 zone, and was scaled down, the whole time.
I allways do my race starter zone moving from sp to sp, I will skip several hearts. - then I take a trip to the charr and norn equivalent areas and hunt all the sp's for those as well, then I go on to kessex hills, the lvl 15-25 zone for humans, do events and some hearts here (not many) but hunt all sp's and most events, and then repeat this for charr and norn. - This way I have all the epic skills I want by lvl 35, and I have no grind in the heart quest department. I also have alot of materials for crafting, and gain a few levels just from that area of the game, skilling up 1 craft skill.
Anyone forcing themselves to finish heart quests, not out of desire to 100% complete, but to catch up with a personal story quest, is doing it wrong! - You have all these other zones, with tons of skillpoints to grab, and lots of events you havent tried. Unless you intend to make 5 alts, you really have no reason to treat them as offlimits, and even if you dont want to replay them with alts, you are restricting your skill access by artificially lowering your access to skillpoints.
Dont do heartquests if they bore you. EXPLORE other maps for other races and grab skillpoints and events in those areas as well.
Fantastic post, I actually used it (with credits) on my guild's site to explain the difference between GW2 "questing" and WoW clone "questing".
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
that is a excellent tip, thanks
I miss DAoC
And yet no one called out people who insulted OP by tellign him to go back to wow...seriously. If you guys really want to prove that you all are such mature and reasonable community members you should have said something but nope you didn't instead all ganged up on me for posting a satire.
I don't know about you guys but i am sick of people being insulted for simply giving their opinions. Notice how OP didn't insult anyone in his post.
Why aren't you taking charge of yoru own gaming?
For instance...
The "feeding the cows quest..." is part of helping farmer X (whatever his name is). Part of that quset area has "put the fires out" and of course "kill the monstrosities that are coming out of the earth". Sounds to me like you should just have killed the monsters. At which time, either a giant version of these beasts appear or bandits show up.
You can say no to things. In that same area there is another quest to destroy these small water drakes. Next to that is a mine area where you can kill these other beasts.
closer to the farmer is a woman who is having troubles with bandits (same bandits that attack the first farmer?) and you can go inot their lair and cause them trouble.
You dont' have to accept a task if you don't want to. I categorically refuse to do mundane quests anymore so I only do quests that either solve puzzles or have combat.
What about the quest to stave off attacks while a merchant brought his goods from one town to another?
You are either not looking hard enough or seeing the "feed the cows" tasks and they are blinding you to what else is going on.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
To the OP..I am not sure it is possible to not get to level 2 when you have already begun the 'cow quest' area. In any event, if you did 2 -3 quests and didn't get to level 2, you haven't played enough. Or perhaps you have. If someone tells you 'yes that is what is going to happen (adding in some standard kill quests, escort quests, jump puzzles (sort of)) maybe you have seen enough.
Hard for me to say.
It isn't for everyone.
Not a single person in this thread told the OP to go back to WoW. Not a one. I've only seen people say that you cannot play the game like you would play WoW. Go ahead and look, evidence is in the posts. Stop lying to support your arguments please.
BOOYAKA!