08-30-2018, 02:33 PM
I've been playing Guild Wars 2 again. It's a pretty good MMO and has gotten better over the years. I think it doesn't get a lot of press that it deserves. It's buy to play with no subscription so it is easy to play on an off. They released an expansion last year that has some pretty cool mounts that have unique abilities. For example there is a raptor mount that can jump long distances, a springer mount that jump really high so great for climbing, a mount that can glide across water, a mount that can fly for a limited time, and a mount that has short teleports. All of which are acquired via game play. It is a rather interesting take on the mount system and works really well as you will find yourself using different mounts for different situations.
The expansion before that they added a mechanic that allows players to glide. So you can jump off a high spot and glide around the map. It isn't the same as flying because you slowly lose altitude as you glide. Aside from the gliding mechanic I wasn't really a fan of that expansion because the maps they added are really difficult to navigate. They are multi layered and just hard to get around with many trash mobs that agro the player constantly. They seemed to have learned from that as the 2nd expansion was much more friendly to explore and they reduced the mob density.
They also release living story episodes about every 3 months in between expansions that are basically DLCs but are free as long as you log in at least one time during the episode and before the next one is released so that's pretty cool. Many of those episodes include new maps as well.
They have a cash shop but there isn't really anything in there that is pay to win. It is mostly cosmetic items and a few utility items that come in handy. They sell additional account wide personal bank space in the cash shop which is probably the big thing if you are going to play a lot as you only start out with 30 bank slots. But there is also a separate no cost "bank" for crafting materials that allow for 250 of each material to be stored and can also be expanded via the cash shop if you want. The good thing is you can convert gold you earn in game into the cash shop currency so if you don't mind farming gold or playing the trading post (buy low sell high) to make gold you can buy things in the cash store without spending real world money.
For cosmetics GW2 has a cool wardrobe system that allows you to change the appearance of armor and weapons you have unlocked. Basically if you get a weapon or armor piece and equip it, salvage it for materials, or even destroy it the skin is added to your wardrobe. So you can then change the appearance of a weapon or armor to any of the skins you have unlocked without losing whatever stats you have on the item. To do so you have to have transmutation charges. These can be bought in the cash shop but are really easy to earn in game. I've never bought one and change my skins often. There is also a very robust dye system for armor and no cost to change dyes as often as you want. Dyes can be earned in game, crafted or bought on the trading post.
As far as MMOs go it is fairly casual friendly which is something I like since I don't have a lot of time to play games. There is no PvP in the open world so no worry about getting ganked by some high level character as you explore. There is no competing for resource nodes, everyone can harvest them and no competing for loot drops. Everyone that tags a mob before it dies gets credit for the kill and gets loot. Also no real gear grind as they don't keep introducing higher levels of gear like some MMOs. So once you get the highest level gear, called ascended, there won't be yet another higher level introduced later to grind to get best in stats. Ascended gear can be crafted and bought from some NPCs for various in game currency so there is also no hoping for that super rare RNG drop.
There is a 5v5 PvP arena mode and world verses world mode both separated from the PvE maps. 5v5 PvP is a capture point mode. WvW is basically a bunch of large maps where 3 servers compete against each other to capture territory. So in WvW there can be large scale battles involving many players in a zerg or if you want you can roam around alone or in small groups to pick off players if that is your thing.
They added raids a few years ago but I don't have time for that. So I can't comment on those but the feedback has been fairly positive. For quicker group content they have several instanced dungeons and a game mode called fractals. Fractals scale in difficulty and the rewards increase based on the scale you select but still only take an hour at most, often much less if you and your team know what to do.
Anyway if you have never heard of it or played it and like MMOs I'd suggest checking it out. There is a free to play option so you can try it before you buy it. As far as the free to play option it isn't like a lot of game trials. There is no limit on how long you can play, no level cap and all the core game maps, dungeons, fractals, PvP and WvW are available for free to play accounts. Most of the free to play restrictions are to keep spammers, real world money traders and bots from taking advantage of free to play accounts. For example there are restrictions on what you can buy and sell on the trading post, you can't mail items or gold to other players, and some chat restrictions.
Sorry for the long post and I didn't include details of a lot of other things to keep this post from being a short novel. I just think GW2 is a really good game if you are a fan of MMOs and worth checking out. If you want to try it, set up a free account and maybe we can arrange a time to meet up in game so I can show you around a bit.
The expansion before that they added a mechanic that allows players to glide. So you can jump off a high spot and glide around the map. It isn't the same as flying because you slowly lose altitude as you glide. Aside from the gliding mechanic I wasn't really a fan of that expansion because the maps they added are really difficult to navigate. They are multi layered and just hard to get around with many trash mobs that agro the player constantly. They seemed to have learned from that as the 2nd expansion was much more friendly to explore and they reduced the mob density.
They also release living story episodes about every 3 months in between expansions that are basically DLCs but are free as long as you log in at least one time during the episode and before the next one is released so that's pretty cool. Many of those episodes include new maps as well.
They have a cash shop but there isn't really anything in there that is pay to win. It is mostly cosmetic items and a few utility items that come in handy. They sell additional account wide personal bank space in the cash shop which is probably the big thing if you are going to play a lot as you only start out with 30 bank slots. But there is also a separate no cost "bank" for crafting materials that allow for 250 of each material to be stored and can also be expanded via the cash shop if you want. The good thing is you can convert gold you earn in game into the cash shop currency so if you don't mind farming gold or playing the trading post (buy low sell high) to make gold you can buy things in the cash store without spending real world money.
For cosmetics GW2 has a cool wardrobe system that allows you to change the appearance of armor and weapons you have unlocked. Basically if you get a weapon or armor piece and equip it, salvage it for materials, or even destroy it the skin is added to your wardrobe. So you can then change the appearance of a weapon or armor to any of the skins you have unlocked without losing whatever stats you have on the item. To do so you have to have transmutation charges. These can be bought in the cash shop but are really easy to earn in game. I've never bought one and change my skins often. There is also a very robust dye system for armor and no cost to change dyes as often as you want. Dyes can be earned in game, crafted or bought on the trading post.
As far as MMOs go it is fairly casual friendly which is something I like since I don't have a lot of time to play games. There is no PvP in the open world so no worry about getting ganked by some high level character as you explore. There is no competing for resource nodes, everyone can harvest them and no competing for loot drops. Everyone that tags a mob before it dies gets credit for the kill and gets loot. Also no real gear grind as they don't keep introducing higher levels of gear like some MMOs. So once you get the highest level gear, called ascended, there won't be yet another higher level introduced later to grind to get best in stats. Ascended gear can be crafted and bought from some NPCs for various in game currency so there is also no hoping for that super rare RNG drop.
There is a 5v5 PvP arena mode and world verses world mode both separated from the PvE maps. 5v5 PvP is a capture point mode. WvW is basically a bunch of large maps where 3 servers compete against each other to capture territory. So in WvW there can be large scale battles involving many players in a zerg or if you want you can roam around alone or in small groups to pick off players if that is your thing.
They added raids a few years ago but I don't have time for that. So I can't comment on those but the feedback has been fairly positive. For quicker group content they have several instanced dungeons and a game mode called fractals. Fractals scale in difficulty and the rewards increase based on the scale you select but still only take an hour at most, often much less if you and your team know what to do.
Anyway if you have never heard of it or played it and like MMOs I'd suggest checking it out. There is a free to play option so you can try it before you buy it. As far as the free to play option it isn't like a lot of game trials. There is no limit on how long you can play, no level cap and all the core game maps, dungeons, fractals, PvP and WvW are available for free to play accounts. Most of the free to play restrictions are to keep spammers, real world money traders and bots from taking advantage of free to play accounts. For example there are restrictions on what you can buy and sell on the trading post, you can't mail items or gold to other players, and some chat restrictions.
Sorry for the long post and I didn't include details of a lot of other things to keep this post from being a short novel. I just think GW2 is a really good game if you are a fan of MMOs and worth checking out. If you want to try it, set up a free account and maybe we can arrange a time to meet up in game so I can show you around a bit.
![[Image: 4CV0TeR.png]](https://i.imgur.com/4CV0TeR.png)
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