Staff:
| Guild info:
| Links: | Previous threads: |
PVE
Guild Wars 2 is a fully persistent MMO with a personal story as well. Your personal story is affected by some of your choices during character creation, as well as choices you make during the game. There is an instanced zone that reflects the choices you make during the game, and player housing is planned for some time after release. The game has a ton of dialogue and voice acting (over 60 feature films worth of it!)
The game has no subscription fee, and is supported by the cosmetics in the cash shop. All of the items in the cash shop can also be bought with ingame money as well.
Guild Wars 2 also has a new take on quests, which they call Dynamic events, and Renown Hearts. Heart events are more like traditional quests, but you don't have to talk to anyone to participate and receive the reward. Dynamic Events randomly appear in the map, and anyone can participate in them before it ends, and possibly starts another event in the chain. A popular example they have is that a band of centaurs is attacking a village, and there is an event to defend the village and kill the centaurs. If players do not stop the centaurs, they will take over the village, and any NPCs in that village become unavailable. A new event starts, to take back the village from the centaurs. If players succeed, a third event may be to escort villagers as they bring supplies to repair the village. These events reward all levels of participation, so even if you arrive late, you will still get something.
There are repeatable Dungeons made for groups of 5 people. The first time you do it, it is in Story mode, and it tells you the story of the dungeon, including decisions you made in your personal story. After you complete that, you can return in the more difficult explorable mode.
ArenaNet has also changed how classes function so that the holy trinity (Healer, DPS, Tank) isn't needed. Each profession has healing and support skills, as well as damage. The ability to swap your weapons and skills means that you can change to what is needed in a situation.
PVP
There are several kinds of PVP in GW2. Structured PvP (sPvP), that has many matches that act similar to FPS game servers. It will have a player limit (usually 16), and people can join and leave at will for more casual PvP. There are also automated Tournaments that require a number of players to join as a team, in an elimination style match. In these PvP types, everyone has access to every weapon, armor, upgrade and skill - making it so player skill is the only factor in winning, not who has the better gear.
The third is the most different - World vs World vs World, where three servers face each other on 4 massive maps over the course of a week. Hundreds of people can be playing across the 4 maps at a time, and 60 player skirmishes are common. By capturing keeps and supply posts, you gain points that help your entire world gain various bonuses, such as more experience per kill in PvE.
Pretty Pictures
