GW2 the first 11 levels

I'm a veteran of most all popular MMOs.  I thought I'd post some comments on my first impressions and what I see is different about guild wars 2 compared to other games.

First thing

Guid wars 2 is not guild wars 1.  There is some lore carry over and the races and classes have some foundational connection.  But this game is a full MMO and EVERYTHING is different.  So your feelings about guild war 1 has no relationship to anything you should prejudge this game by.   IE I have people I know who say, I didn't like guild wars 1 so I won't like guild wars 2.  Know right now they are completely different games.

This game is a modern game and in most ways should be compared to games like Star Wars the Old Republic & Secret World.  I find aspects of the game very comparable to parts of those games which I think is good for comparison.  I've seen people comparing this to combat in Tera which I have not played so I can't comment on that.

Questing

Probably one of the biggest differences in the game relative to other MMOs is that you aren't following a quest chain.  In most MMOs you go from quest hub to quest hub in a fairly linear fashion.  This tends to make the game very linear and scripted and really from an RPG point of view it's pretty unnatural.

In GW2 there is a race based story quest which is a lot like SWTOR although you do appear to have choices.  I've not tried replaying doing both choices but they are pretty distinct and seem very different.   I feel like the choices have far more impact than SWTOR.  I'd guess that the choice forks are pretty minor and reconverge but at least there is some impact from the choices  As you play the game for the most part you only have 1 quest at any time and that is either the story quest or an event you are actually doing.

So for a new player coming from other popular MMORPGs this can be a little confusion but pretty quickly you also learn about heart quests.  One might think that heart quests are your quest hubs in guild wars 2.  You enter a map area and there are hearts fairly evenly distributed across the map.  There are also special areas, vista points, and skill challenges.  Your basic challenge is to explore all of the map features and as a reward you get a special chest.  So you might think of an entire map area as your quest hub.  The story quest leads you from map area to map area.

So when you play the game you either decide to follow the story quest or explore the features of the map.  Even if you try to follow the story it is easy to get side tracked since as you wander down a road you will get near the hears or special areas and just being in the area you pass through dynamic events all the time.  Sometimes these are tied to a random npc or sometimes related to the heart quest.  The key though is that you aren't following a quest the quests are following you.  Where ever you go you get dynamic quest events.  It feels far more natural and from an RPG point of view it feels right.

You also find discovery points or something.  These are spots on the map in hard to get to locations.  So you gotta jump or wander around a bit to figure out how to get to the location.  This gives you a nice visual cut scene showing the view from your vantage.

Interesting areas are areas that seem to have dynamic events.  Each area appears to have a variety of events that were pretty fun and varied.

One interesting heart quest involved me turning into a wolf and interacting with other wolves.  When you changed I had world abilties which was kinda cool.  You could interact with other wolves and fight invading spiders.  Using my super sniffer ability I could discover unique scents that did things .  Another quest put me in a disguise to explore an enemy camp where I could interact with poeple and had options to basically be disruptive and ultimately free some prisoners.  Some very unique and well done quests.

This one character is both the most unique feature of gw2 and it's best feature.  I know other games like rift and warhammer have dynamic event quests but for the most part these do not feel natural.  The feel like special game features.  Ie lets go to the warhammer dynamic quest area, or lets go hunt rifts, or do the map event.  They don't feel like stuff that just happens naturally as part of the story.  Thats all about doing quests and going from hub to hub.

Combat system

The combat system is something that people really like to argue about.  The combat system is somewhat unique and class based.  Each class that I've played have a great deal of uniqueness and play style is very different.  However on a different level all the classes have similar functions and there are no distinct class roles.  So while you might do things differnt then another class you really aren't any different in function, you have dps, healing, and some damage avoidance or absorbtion.  So I'm not sure how I feel about that but it seems like it would make group teams rather unstructured and really cause most players to forget that they are in fact a team.  There are synergetic abilities but the subtuleness of it will likely be lost on most players and just randomly happen since the feedback is hard to see with the speed of combat.

I'm also thinking that most grouping will probably lack any real communication.  Again combat is very active and without voice chat which is not included as part of the game any real in game coordination is going to be rare if it happens at all.  Even if the game encounters are build to require some of these strategic tactics which do exist in the game I'm thinking it will be hard to depend and coordinate on the make up of a party to really bring these details to play.  Rather the encounters will be near impossible.

The game also has double tapping to dodge.  So you can see some attacks coming your way or see an AE attack so you can quickly move out of the way.  At first from the description of game play this looked like it would be something really arcady but it looks mostly like a copy of TSW combat.  Generally not a big deal.  It is more manageable due to the fact that you have autoattack and can use any ability while on the move.  Targeting was another area I was concerned about but is also isn't that bad.  You can use an ability without a target and it can go to where the mouse is or you can tab target and it will go to your target.  You can also in options set the game to autotarget when you use an ability.  

Generally I thought that the mechanics of fighting was very similar to TSW so if you are coming from TSW you would be right at home.

Again like TSW abilities are tied to weapon choices.  Each class has equipment restrictions so unlike TSW this game definitely isn't a one character can do anything.  The game is also setup so that you can actively switch between two weapon sets to take advantage of more skill options.

Depending on your weapon choice you will have 5 variable abilities.  2H weapons have 5 straight up.  1H weapons can be equiped in main hand which gives 3 abilities and the weapon in the off hand gives 2 unique abilities.  So dual weilding daggers will give you 3 for the main hand and 2 offhand unique additional dagger skills.  You can mix a variety of melee, ranged, healing, CC type abilities.  As you use a weapon for the first time you start with the first ability and learn the other abilities by using the weapon.  This happens very quickly killing a few creatures unlocking abilities.

One interesting feature is you also have down/drowning abilties.  So if in combat you run out of health points you don't immediately die.  Instead you are down.  You have a unique set of down/drowning abilites you can use.  You can do some attacks, heal, and call party members for help.  I've not really used all the abilities but this is a unique variation that I kinda like.  Nothing like dying only to jump back up after you manage to heal while fighting in down.

Another really cool thing in this game is water combat.  You can go under water with a rebreather items you get early in the game.  You also have a couple unique underwater weapons.  So in the water you automatically switch to underwater weapons.  Underwater combat is then somewhat similar to above ground except it is more 3d oriented. 

Then you also have a set of class utility abilities.  As you leave or do skill challenges you get skill points.  You spend them to buy class abilities.  These are independent of your weapon.  Stuff like bufs, debufs, pets, healing, etc.  Definitely some interesting stuff here with lots of modifiers that work in many different ways.  

At level 10 you start to also get traits.  These are enhancements to your class abilities.  Again gives you some additional progression and variety.

Having played only 11 levels my sense at this point is that there is a lot to learn.  My fear is that it won't matter a lot for group play.  Combat seems most similar to TSW with some unique differences in how you develop skills.  In TSW you pick active abilities from a large pool of weapon abilities and passives from any weapon skills.   There is a lot of min maxing but after playing TSW for awhile I felt rather generic and kinda wanted a more class based role game.  I want back to SWTOR which felt a lot better for group game play.

I also see a fair amount of combat encounter similarity between TSW and GW2.  Most encounters in TSW are very active with players balancing out active avoidance and moving a lot.  So for example most mobs have abilities that do area based attacks that you need to avoid.  They also use a lot of positioning things like hiding behind objects to avoid boss damage, moving to safe areas to avoid electric charges in water or bursts of fire in some periodic way.  So from this perspective GW2 combat is very similar to TSW.  

The class basis and the way you learn abilities makes things feel more different and unique than TSW combat.  For combat this gives GW2 more replayability.  I feel that I'll really miss the role based group game play of games like SWTOR.

Game Mechanics

The last area I'll cover is the game mechanics 

The game UI is ok but seem lacking.  Customization options are non existant.  I really miss a lot of the great options from SWTOR that allow me to customize the UI.  Options to create an area for usable inventory items like in TSW is also something sorely missing.  Using items requires that you open your inventory to find the item.  This is a bother and assuming there are things later in the game that you might want to use during combat becomes a show stopper.  For now it's just an inconvenience that no other game I can think of makes you deal with.

Some of the graphical elements in the game area also very small and could be more distinct.  This will probably be easier to deal with as I get more familiar with the game but the bufs and debufs are small little icons that are not very recognizable at this point.

Not sure how to fix this one but a lot of abilities at least for some weapons with ground targeting are sometimes hard to see when there is a lot of combat going on on screen.

Animation and combat ability graphics are great.  Everything graphically about this game is outstanding.  The environment is beautiful and very 3d with multiple levels in many maps.  The UI makes dealing with this kinda structure very easy.  The underwater areas are easy to move in and very pretty.  Overally in my opinion the graphical artistic quality of the environments is better than any game including wow which I also think is very good. 

Quick travel is done by learning waypoints you discover on the map.  As you learn them you can instantly travel to them by looking at the map, clicking the waypoint, and paying a small fee.  You appear in the new location.

The world areas are instanced to deal with population.  They put you in an overflow instance when there are too many people.  This technology works very well and helps avoid infamous login queues.  The only complaint is that is seems to move you back and forth a lot without a lot of choice, you do have the choice to say not now I want to stay in the queue.  When you switch if you were doing an event you loose the event.

Inventory is pretty standard.  You get bags like wow to expand your inventory.  You can compress items to reorganize, it even has a search ability.  You can access mail from the UI without needing a mailbox.  You can also send items to mail, to the trade house (which isn't working) or send trophy items to the bank.  Normal items require that you go to the bank. 

Crafting allows you to do all harvesting abilities although you can only use tools a limited number of times.  So you are buying new tools periodically to harvest of break down equipment and items you loot.  Things are tiered here so you will need upgraded tools and kits as you adventure in higher level areas.  You also get xp for harvesting.  You can learn 2 crafting skills.  Crafting is fairly common you find recipes and learn new abilites.  I don't think you automatically learn them as you level up I think that you need to learn them by experimenting.  So you can make components and stick them in a box in the crafting tool.  It highlights items that can possibly be added.  When you add enough items is says this should make something.  You combine them and it learns a new recipe.

There appear to be a variety of enhancements and things you can add to equipment you craft and add to equipment that already exists.  So far equipment I've gotten in game has one upgrade slot.  I've found a few items that you can double click to add to the equipment upgrade slot.  I have also been able to craft sigils and runes that can be included in the crafting process and add enhancements to items you make.

Summary

GW2 is a VERY polished game.  I'd put the production quality up there with Wow & SWTOR.  Meaning everything about it feels very well polished.  Graphics art and performance are outstanding.  The environments and animations are beautiful.  There are details everywhere that add to the overal feel.  

The game does have some bugs.  I've found some items with incorrect graphics.  I don't know the extent of the bugs but in general it feels much better than most games.

There is a lot of compare with TSW in the combat area and some things in other areas but this game is much more polished product with much better art and graphical quality.  It also has more variety in mob types vs TSW.  Quests remind me of the latest releases of wow, meaning they have a great deal of creativity and are no just kill 100 x.  Difficulty so far isn't too bad.  I've died a couple times in boss fights but feel that with better use of abilities I should have been able to survive.

I'd rate this game VERY good.  Some really strong points.  Weaknesses feel like group oriented gameplay and lack of any lfg type tools for dungeons that I guess will appear later.  It is early for me to have any solid conclusions but based on my impressions so far I'm going to keep playing although I'm not canceling swtor just yet :P