Xakaal wrote:So, im poking around to try my hand at a new MMO... GW2 is free to play, 5 character slots to begin with, and a lot more flexability and versatility in armor/weapons and classes? I only read back to about page 27 >.>;;
To each of you guys playing the game, is it worth the money?
Every last penny.
Xakaal wrote:Whats the lore like? Is it easy to understand and feel like your a part of the GW universe? Is it in-depth and extensive in the origins of the world and the races that used to and still do live there? Ive never even had the idea of playing GW until now so i know nothing on what its about xD
I actually don't know much about the lore myself, but the little tidbits I've picked up are interesting. Giant pwn-your-face dragons are always fun to have threatening the world.
Xakaal wrote:Is it easy to learn and understand the gameplay?
To be honest, it felt a little odd to me at first. It only took a few minutes for me to get the hang of it, though. One thing I would recommend is immediately making sure your camera rotation speed in the settings is set to medium at the very least. Mine was on minimum by default and it made turning and combat so slow and cruddy. As soon as I upped the camera speed, bam, a hundred times better.
Xakaal wrote:I have absolutely no understanding of computer lingo so for graphics, does it tax your computers to run on a medium or higher graphic setting? Like, lag, glitches, poor fps?
Your computer, based on a past post I saw, is better than mine (though I am not sure about the graphics card itself), and mine runs most settings on high and a few on medium and it looks gorgeous. I think you'll be just fine.
Xakaal wrote:What classes are there and (just a basic explanation) how do they work? What are each of your favorite classes? In WoW i play hunters and rogues mostly, but im always willing to attempt a caster class. I have mixed feelings to casters depending on how the game im playing made them.
I think a lot of others have answered but I'll still toss in my two pennies:
-Elementalist: caster type. They're pretty spiffy because they can switch between the four elements (fire, water, wind and earth) during combat, giving them whole new sets of skills. They are the only profession that cannot switch weapons during combat, but honestly...they probably don't need to. High damage, a wee bit squishy like a glass cannon should be.
-Necromancer: caster type. A bit similar to locks in WoW in my opinion, except I like them a lot better in this game. A lot of their abilities have to do with boons (buffs) and conditions (curses, afflictions, that sort of thing). They can help allies by soaking up their conditions for them, and then transfer them all to an enemy target, that sort of thing. Also, they have an ability unique to their profession called Death Shroud. Once you build up enough life force (some weapons give a tiny bit and then you gain some upon nearby enemy deaths), you can activate it. You get four new skills, plus instead of taking health damage, your life force damage takes the hits until it's depleted. It also depletes slowly over time if you don't get hit. It has saved my booty many a time.
-Engineer: ranged type? Not sure, I haven't tried one yet. All I know is that they can lay a butt-ton of turrets and stuff. They seem pretty neat, and are one of the ones I plan on trying soon.
-Thief: melee type? Again, not sure. I know they can use pistols pretty well. They don't have a "stealth" like we know it from most MMOs. I believe some of their abilities put them into temporary stealth, and that's about all I know. Also another I want to try soon.
-Ranger: ranged type and probably my favorite profession so far! Can also use melee weapons, of course (and I do, frequently). You can choose one of three pets to start depending on your race, but you can "charm" (tame) other creatures in the world later! It's pretty simple, you find one that is specifically called "juvenile [animal]" (it'll be friendly to you), and you press the F (default I think) key to charm it. Once you charm it, it's yours forever. There's no worrying about stable space and no abandoning. Sadly, names disappear when you move them out of your active slot, but you can quickly and easily re-apply the name once you decide to use them again. I love my ranger because he's very versatile. I don't care for "turret" style fighting where you stand there and pew pew. My ranger uses rolls and traps and all kinds of stuff a lot. He's more fun than I thought he'd be.

While many or most swear by the longbow, I prefer the quickness of the shortbow with my alternate weapon set as one-handed sword and torch. It makes him a very quick fighter able to jump in and out of combat and dodge around and stuff. Loooove it!
-Guardian: tanky type. They can still do damage, but they shine in defense of their allies. Mine's a lowbie so I'm not too familiar with him, but they have a lot of heals and shields and all other kinds of things perfect for supporting and defending.
-Warrior: melee type. They can use shields, but they seem to be meaty, in-your-face fighters. Mine uses two axes and it is delicious fun. Personally, I don't think their slot skills are all that interesting. They have a lot of banners (basically buff sticks you can carry around and even beat people with, hehe) and shouts, but not as much in the way of "oo shiny attack!". Not that they're bad, they're still fun.

-Mesmer: caster type. These seem very interesting and unique, though I've not tried one. The meat of their attacks are illusions and clones, little copies of you that, depending on which weapon you're wielding, do different things. That's about as much as I know. XD
Xakaal wrote:If i join i'll probably roll a Charr, what classes benefit from that race the most?
This game gives you the freedom of being whatever profession you want with whatever race you want. There is no "better" race for one thing or another, though personally I feel that a big freaking charr
looks like a better warrior than say...a sylvari. But that's just personal opinion. ^.^
Xakaal wrote:What armor and weapons should each class use and how much leeway is there to customizing them? I saw one post that mentioned they were having fun with a 'greatsword ranger'.
Each profession can use different weapons. There isn't any one profession that can use all weapons, though warriors have the most combinations with I think 21. And yeah, they go a little outside the box by giving what one would normally think of as a caster class like the elementalist the ability to use daggers, and use them with deadly efficiency. And different weapons provide different skills based on which profession is wielding them. What that means is that an axe gives you abilities on a warrior such as whirlwind, while a necromancer using an axe gets a whole other set of skills. You won't see a necromancer whirlwinding about, but they'll instead do an AoE slow with it.

It's very interesting IMO.
Xakaal wrote:What is combat like? Is it more akin to Skyrim where you have to pay attention to what your doing unlike WoW where you just sit there and pew pew?
Definitely not a sit there and pew pew game, I don't think. At lower levels you can get away with not being as mobile, but I find later on that I'm kiting my tail off in many circumstances, but it's actually fun. And with the roll dodge and combo system, it adds some strategy. The combat thing works as such: an elementalist lays down a big ring of fire. A ranger standing outside of it is firing at an enemy in the ring of fire. His or her arrows are now fire arrows as long as they're firing through the ring. Some professions can do their own combos, too, like I think elementalists can do a ring of fire and then a rock, and it makes it a molten rock...or something. With my ranger, I can toss down a big fire thing with my torch, then use my sword to leap out and back into it, giving myself a fire shield.

It's super cool!
Xakaal wrote:Are there any addons from Curse or elsewhere for GW2? If so, are there any you guys use that benefit you in general on the game? (nothing class specific but just to change gameplay or UI).
None that I'm aware of, though I've never been one of those that changes the default UI. I just stick with whatever the game gives me. XD
Xakaal wrote:What are the commands, controls, and UI set up like? Is it easy to work with the UI and customize the key bindings?
Gonna have to go with /shrug on this one. I'm not very knowledgeable about that sort of thing.
Xakaal wrote:What is the social aspect of the game like as a whole? Is it cutthroat, do quest mobs tag when hit, do people grief others horribly, do people fight for mobs? Is it more free-for-all with the named quest mobs in that you can get credit for helping rather then having the first tag? What's PvP like? Is there world PvP? Battlegrounds? Are there factions like WoW where they cant communicate with each other?
It encourages teamwork, believe it or not. It's a very welcome change from what I believe WoW has encouraged in the form of ganking and stealing and all that. There is no mob tagging, anyone who hits something has contributed, and gets experience and loot. You can also resurrect fallen players, and the resource nodes in the game don't despawn when one person touches them. They're there for everyone and once you gather it, it becomes unavailable for oh, I dunno, an hour or so? before you can use it again. So there's no resource thieving which again, is a welcome change.
PvP is limited to battlegrounds that you choose to enter. World PvP is when I think three servers are pitted against each other in a huge map complete with fortresses and camps and other things that you fight for. My experience in it is extremely limited, but it seems really cool. You're not going to stumble into a contested zone or anything like that. The only PvP you'll experience is that which you choose to enter.
OH! Also, the game scales your level
down if you're a high level going into a low level area. This is so that a level 80 doesn't come stomping into a lowbie zone and annihilate everything. It basically takes your stats and lowers them to what it would be at that area's level. However, I believe you retain the stats from your gear. It's fun to see higher levels think they can take on a level 6 champion mob and get pasted.

Group champion mobs can and will rip you to shreds if you're ballsy enough to think you can take one on yourself, even if you are in pretty shiny gear. Or at least, that's from my experience. But anyway, what's cool about this level down thing is that if your friend out-levels you, they don't really out-level you. When they come to quest with you, you'll be the same level (or darn close to it)!

Same goes with dungeons, they level you down to the dungeon's level. :3
Xakaal wrote:What are the dungeons like?
Believe it or not, I've not done one, but I hear they're more difficult than WoW (YAY!). Also, I think they have a least two modes: one's a story mode where you get to take part in a, well...story. The other mode I'm not sure about, but if I had to guess it's just a run-in-and-beat-the-bad-guys mode. If I'm not mistaken, loot drops according to your actual level rather than the dungeon's level. So if I'm truly level 60, but the dungeon is level 30 and therefore levels me down to 30, I'll still get high-50s or 60 gear. I think. That's how a friend explained it to me, anyway.
Xakaal wrote:I read a couple pages back you can cross-realm. How does that work?
*scratches head* I don't think you can play with your friends if you're on different realms, but you can still talk to them and join their guild if you want.
Xakaal wrote:How do guilds work? I'll def be trying to wiggle into the Petopians guild if i can.
You can join a lot of guilds (is it limitless? I'm not sure), but can only "represent" one at a time. Whichever one you're representing is the one that all of your "influence points" (basically like guild experience...sorta) go to. But you can change your representation at any time. They still have banks and tabards and all that other fun stuff.
Xakaal wrote:What kind of mounts are there? What level can you get them at? Where can you acquire mounts? What do you require to ride a mount? Are there flying mounts?
Your left foot (or paw) and your right foot (or paw).

So far, there are no mounts, but it appears that every profession does get a running speed buff if they want which helps a little. Honestly, traveling on foot is no big deal. This game makes me
want to travel on foot. Plus when you unlock waypoints, you can travel to them at any time from anywhere for a small fee. It's kinda like having your hearthstone bound to everywhere you go, you just have to pay for it. There are also portals in the main cities to Lion's Arch, and Lion's Arch has portals to all the main cities.
Sorry if this is very wordy! I just love the game. Oh, and there are jumping puzzles in just about every zone that if you complete, grant you a chest of loot and an achievement. Many are hard to find, and a great many are difficult to complete. It adds a fun incentive to get out there and explore!