I’ve been spending the early days of Guild Wars 2‘s Heart of Thorns expansion pack trying to remember how to play Guild Wars 2. So far it’s not going well.
For example, after I took the screenshot at the top of this article I tabbed out to begin writing, then tabbed back to this.
Not good.
Truth be told it’s probably been over a year since I’ve seriously played ArenaNet’s buy-to-play MMO, thanks to various distractions and chocobo sorts of things, so going from a level 30-something character (who apparently was deleted at some point) I hadn’t played in a year to a character who leveled from 1 to the 80 cap in 79 clicks (I was supplied with level-raising tomes) is not easy.
Yeah, I’m probably going to have to start over. Perhaps I’ll make a Revenant, the new class introduced in the expansion pack that my nephew tells me is a “beast in PVP” along with just about everything else. “That tree over there is a beast in PVP” is something I imagine he says all the time.
Perhaps she shall have a huge nose.
Perhaps I shall name her Nosey McNoserson.
I think I’ll keep her.
Anyway, Nosey and I will be spending the next few days getting reacquainted with Guild Wars 2. Once I feel comfortable in this virtual skin I’ll go try and make my level 80 look presentable.
Who knows, maybe in a couple of days I’ll be familiar enough to head over to the official forums and complain about the “endless grinding” I’ve heard so much about since Friday.
Are you playing Heart of Thorns? How is it working out for you so far? Is your character large nosed or small? Tell us all about it in the forums.
Comments
3 responses to “I’m Off To A Slow Start In Guild Wars 2: Heart Of Thorns”
Been playing the new expansion myself a little, so far it’s pretty miserable. I’d say this is largely due to the lack of soloability, which was one of the main things I liked about core GW2. I’m the type of person who only really enjoys grouping with RL friends, and none of them are still playing this game, so I’m trying to do what I can, but it seems like the developers are actively hostile towards solo players.
It’s a pretty big 180 for the direction of the game, IMO. Core GW2 was pretty much “play your way, have fun”, HoT seems more “play our way, or else”. Probably going to shelf it for a while and see where all the pieces fall, and whether they consider it a success.
It’s definitely more like GW1 in that regard, where solo’ing was only an option if you exploited every opportunity.
I don’t mind the change, but i can see how it would stop some people from being able to see the story content. If you’ve become invested in exploring that at your own pace in solo play, i can see how it looks like they’ve put up a wall.
The only real way around it atm is to join a social guild; there are a few big ones around which thrive on the more casual style of play.
I like the new classes and subs, they add interesting variety to what is already a very diverse game. And the new action cam mode finally lets my wiimote setup work as it was intended, so i can finally play GW as the couch-based MMO i’ve always wanted it to be!
Heart of thorns has been amazing for me. The new areas are incredibly both visually and from a design perspectives. The new events and missions are awesome. New mobs are very challenging and makes you think and goddamn gliding is going to ruin the old parts of the game for me. So awesome to do! I wish I could go gliding in Divinity’s reach :/
I can’t emphatise at all with the vocal minority complaining about the gating. I’m mostly soloing and it’s been easy to get around and do stuff. To unlock chronomancer in full I used the LFG tool and formed a 5 man on two maps to go hero point hunting and that was all I needed on my main (he already had 200 points). The mastery gating on stories is hardly an issue now that they’ve removed that poison mastery thing. I’ve got a baby and a PhD to do so it’s not like I get a lot of time to play either. Been having an absolute blast so far.
If you’re on the fence about getting HoT/GW2, dont’ be. Jump in, water’s fantastic 🙂