I remember needing to get some map currency from tangled depths. I was trying to make a short cut and next thing I was exploring outside the map boundaries for at least an hour
I will never forget the first time i went to explore the Sparkfly Fen and stumbled upon the Tequatl bossfight going on. I was blown away, ran over so fast to see what was going on. Hundreds of other players locked in combat with an undead dragon, beating back hoards of zombies. Out in the open, happening dynamically, right here right now. Truly the worst thing about GW2 is that you can't discover it for the first time twice 👍
My 1st Teq was similar to yours, expect that I was doing thr heart north of Teq area where the locals talk about The Sunless on their ambient dialogue and I knew (because I did help the hylek) how important the sun is to them. So when I finally found Teq I was exactly like you were
Fun fact about the Charr, when they were being produced the higher ups wanted the female Charr to have boobs, but the designers were like, nah man, they're either gonna have no tits or 8 like a cat, no inbetween
One thing I wish you'd touched on was the lack of scarcity. It's so common in mmos for the pve experience to be based on scarcity. "You have to kill these things for a drop, but so does everyone else and loot isn't instanced, even in a party." GW2 has no content anywhere that makes you unhappy to see another player, and that's somehow a very rare thing in a genre whose defining trait is having a lot of people around. I believe that design decision is responsible for fostering the uncharacteristically positive, friendly, and helpful player base that this game has built. I wish more devs would take notice of this tension and remove scarcity mechanics from a genre characterized by social interaction.
This,as a new player this is how i felt,never before in my mmo years i dont mind having someone doing the same quest as me the quest usually give multiple option to finish,if you cant kill enemy faster than the other guy,just pick/active objective item scatter around so its not become a race
This was a direct and deliberate choice by the game designers, as you can watch them talk about in the "ArenaNet's MMO Manifesto" video from before launch.
@@lunarvvolf9606 is there still bot in eso??last time i play ive seen bot running around gathering nodes on my favorite spot it was annoying because back then i used to work for 12 hour sometimes more,so i have to manage my time between farming mats,vet dungeon and guild raid,thankgod finally ive settle on gw2 as my new home
@@lunarvvolf9606 well im not saying all of them are bots im just asking if theres still bot issue or not,and its not the reason why i left eso,it has a special place in my hearts,oh the memory,i dont know cp cap right now,but last time i played i already maxout too,sadly to say if my prime farm spot already taken by bots i become those speedy dickheads cutting people of from their nodes hehehe,its a shame i havent finish my perfect relequen set when i left.gw2 its not perfect mmo,and yes i agree with you100% with hot map,i almost drop this game when i reach there but it is my home now,and i love it
Same with gathering nodes! I remember playing WoW a long time ago, starting mining some ore, but the nodes had already been visited by someone who took only the valuable stuff and left the rest in the node so it didn't respawn...idk if it changed now, but that was hella annoying and was happy to see GW2 wasn't like that.
The raptor mount at level 10 was a fairly recent change. Before you could only get mounts at level 80 in the path of fire expansion. They wanted to speed up the leveling process since getting to 80 is basically the GW2 tutorial and the expansions are where the real shit is.
Yup, and for that mount challange - there are still the Griffon, Beetle and the crown jewel of ATVs - the Skyscale that require UNGODLY amount of grind and progression, mentioned in the 10:30
@@ErgoProxy12345 as someone who started the game in december 2022. I pretty much instantly bought HoT + PoF expansion for the mounts after my raptor trial ran out. Tried playing HoT but the terrain seemed so hard to traverse that i skipped it and completed PoF. Completed PoF + LW4 + IBS and started playing HoT only after getting skyscale. I will eventually make another character and play through the game on the correct order of quests.
@@stijn2010d I totally get that, but it's a bit of a pity, because HoT is SUPPOSED to be super hard to traverse. Getting into these maps when you only had baseline gliding that ran out of stamina, trying to find your way and suddenly having mobs that actually can quickly kill you was a really crazy experience because HoT actually felt like everything wants you dead, the mobs, the environment, even the music. I totally felt that "triumphant cocky army just crashed into unknown, alive enemy territory and OH SHIT". Totally not coming for you here btw, I only traverse HoT with mounts now too and it definitely is a lot less frustrating! I just always recommend to everyone new to just stick with that discomfort, because it was originally meant to be part of the experience. Of course, realistically that only works for story & map exploration today, I realize that doing meta's without mounts is basically impossible today, sadly.
GW2 also does something no one else does, and it's such a small thing but it makes such a huge difference to the overall experience: Live patching. The game does not go down during a patch. It patches in the background and simply tells you to relog when it's done. I went and played FFXIV the other year and it stunned me that they still take their servers offline to patch for hours at a time, completely ridiculous especially because in THAT game, you pay for game time.
I just returned to GW2 after a fairly long absence, but from what I recall they don't even make you relog right away when there's a hotfix. They post an alert that you can take some time to finished up whatever you're doing as long as you stay on the same map, then log out/in at your leisure to get the update. A quick download, and you're back in game within a minute or so. And yes, it's absolutely absurd that FFXIV (and WoW, I believe) still need to take the game offline for HOURS for regular maintenance. At least they're mostly doing it during off hours late at night (in my timezone, at least). But I remember when WoW would literally be offline every single Tuesday for like HALF A DAY. In addition to this, I think GW2 might be the most stable and lag-free online game I've ever played. I can't even remember ever having lag in GW2. I mean, surely it must have happened and my brain just glossed it over, but if it was literally so rare that I can't remember, that's saying something. I definitely can't say that for most other MMOs. Diablo 4 is still pretty ridiculous, to be honest. I still get rubberbanding, and the horse's dash ability only seems to function 15% of the time.
Their servers are also relics, they just had to replace them for the NA side because a set straight up caught fire. I love the game so much but I feel like the parent floor can fork over some more money considering how much work the team puts in for the game
I completely forgot about that in GW2, you’re 100% on point, they all should do it this way, even WoW takes the servers down. And XIV well it’s always during prime time for US players… it sucks and then it double sucks because there’s always a second downtime for their “hot fixes”… I absolutely hated that when I played it.
This was hilarious, fantastic job with the edits. I'm sure this took a long time! Imagine my surprise when my own voice came through the headset while watching this 😂
The fact that you said the world was really detailed and thought out and hadn't even gotten to Heart of Thorns yet is high praise. Base game is good, but Verdant Brink is incredibly designed, and Tangled Depths is one of the most complex, well-thought-out, and infuriating MMO maps of all time (and I love it so much).
I have been playing for about 2 years now. I have taken 6-7 character through the Tangled Depths and I still get lost and infuriated everytime I play on that map lol. I fucking love and hate it.
@@followthewolves1991 My favorite map of the 3 normal ones in HoT in terms of overall aesthetic is Verdant Brink. Favorite in terms of rewards is Auric Basin. But man, my favorite in terms of the pure skill that went into the design is Tangled Depths. I love to hate it.
As a new player perspective i think it was "over engineered" , how the fuck am i supposed to capture the beauty of the jungle design of the map when every inch there is a mob of starshiptrooper bug,groots families, jurasic park dinosaurs ,TmnT from wallmart and hentai tentacles wanted to kill me and i have to glider to just past everthing or use the magic tunnel made by naruto frog! I remember i was gonna quit after a few days playing the expansion never before i was gonna puke because of mmorpg map,but godamn it perfectly capture the situation storywise,i really feel like in the jungle controled by dragon,its beautiful but i hate it,i wish these map belongs in single player game so i can just explore it freely
Verdant Brink and Tangled Depths, incredibly designed? You do mean the vertical hell maze, filled with "fuck you for running berserker you broke our game so here are mobs way too powerful for you to survive if you don't step up your dodge game to let me solo her level", green and yellow, go grind that reputation fuckfest that are HoT maps? Gosh, I will never understand why people praise HoT maps, if there is ONE thing I hate about GW2.... It's HoT and its fucking awful level design.
The story behind Charr appearance is itself hilarious. When the artists were asked to put on boobs they came back with "if we are putting boobs on the cat people it's going to be like a real cat. So it's six nipples or none"
First time viewer here and I have to say, the satire in this video is peak humor Sidenote: as a Sylvari stan (the salad people) The light toggle in character creation is mainly for them so they can pick which color to glow in the dark
yeah really good that I created my character not knowing this and even be confused that nothing changed even I picked another color.. Luckily I still picked a good color and look awesome :D
@@DmncPalm no lie, I've actually seen you guys advertising on map chat and thought about it. I'll definitely give it some thought. Look out for a character named "La Vaes Ezmae"
The best thing bout this game is when it’s maintenance, you can still play. You just get a little message once it’s done saying there’s a new build available and you click a button to instantly go to the new patch
You nailed it. This game is obnoxiously bad ass to the point where I am pissed off I can't stop playing it. How am I supposed to drown myself in wow, grinding out renown for recipes and transmog when I can simply log into GW2 at any point, not feel FOMO and have a great gaming experience. My whole identity is crushed now.
@Tjokkaflens damn my dude, too much to even reply too here lol. I am sorry it was that way to you, but at least you got some joy out of it before the management screwed you
I think Preach's latest stream of GW2 showcases the "what's that over there?" better than anything. He began around 9 am by going "Okay, today our goal is to get this secret mount." And then he got to an arena called Fortune's Vale and spent, like, half of his stream just exploring that place as he liked the mini-dungeon there :
One of the nice things about the game is that it has some nice Quality of Life additions and low level engagements. You can send all crafting materials you gathered, looted, or salvaged from loot directly to your bank. This can be done magically from anywhere. It also lets you compress inventory and use bag types to sort. Salvaging can be batched. ex: you can salvage all low level Blue items in two clicks. Plus most loot is now in a stack-able form until you identify it. As for low level zones, there are world bosses in those zones that draw all level players, including level 80s that have been playing for years. This is because the zones adjust your stats based on the level of the zone. But the rewards are adjusted to your actual level so an 80 is not getting level 10 gear or materials. So boss fights are challenging, require some level of coordination, and are worth it for all levels.
Criminally underrated channel. The amount of detail you put into each part is enough to make me constantly pause to check. And as a fellow MMO-player in 2023, I can always appreciate the effort to find what is worst in something good to drag it through the mud. Well done!
I’ve been playing for 9 years and I think my most favorite thing, besides the combat, is how everything feels like it has weight and great movement. The weighty movements of the mounts always amaze me, like the raptor turning or when you fly over water the water moves like air is hitting it. I also like when my character runs and comes to a standstill she doesn’t just snap to a stop, there’s a feeling to her stopping. Idk how to describe it really, it just feels natural I guess. Oh and the idle movements, you don’t just stand in a pose, your character looks around, kinda shifts their weight around or when you afk on a mount there’s some interactions your character does like feeding the skyscale a treat. It’s so immersive
I completely agree with the weight of your own character’s movement. I went from OSRS, took a few years break from MMOs, a tiny bit of LOTRO, to GW2 and was so immersed by the animation. Trying any other MMO after starting GW2 sucks because of how stiff and unnatural the others’ movement animation can be. I can’t get invested in any other MMO because I love the visuals of GW2 so much.
@@hanas9006 LOTRO's warhorse movement has _definitely_ got serious weight. Even coming to it from GW2, I was impressed. It's actually hard to handle at first, but a blast once you get the hang of it!
@@hanas9006 LOTRO's warhorse movement has definitely got serious weight. Even coming to it from GW2, I was impressed. It's actually hard to handle at first, but a blast once you get the hang of it!
I still chuckle everytime my Asura comes to a stop while running with a great sword. She just is barely able to stop all the weight at once and does a little overcorrect step 😂
Don’t plan on returning to Gw2 but 100% agree. My brother who no longer plays said that’s one thing he liked as well. Hitting someone with a giant hammer sound and looks painful. Also the way enemy dies depending if it’s by fire or electricity.
This might be the fastest I've subscribed to a channel. I also went into GW2 very skeptical, especially after playing WoW for...14 years? But one of my best friends convinced me to try it, and after a year, I haven't looked back (or rebooted my WoW account). There are so many quality of life upgrades. I'm always blown away by how generous and kind almost all GW2 players are. And I also love how achievements actually bolster your account over time.
As someone who has been playing gw2 since launch.. I wasn't expecting this to be such a good video. I was quite entertained and you made me laugh a lot. Thanks for the video!
The other interesting thing about the open world events - many of them have consequences for *failing*. So for a hypothetical example, if there's some timer before the bandits make a get away with the farmer's goods, it may spawn an event where you help the farmer raid the bandit lair to get their stuff back if the farmer loses. Whereas if you had succeeded in defeating the bandits, it might have spawned an event instead where the bandit leader comes out to teach the farmer a lesson instead and you need to defend them. The events can also chain into each other, which is cool. There's one chain that I like running where you defend a fort from some undead, so the leader decides to send a crew out to defeat the lich that is stirring them up which you then escort, the escort blows open a hole in the lich's ruined tower lair and then you get to fight him and take his treasure at the end. I will defend the presence of the cash shop in this game though. There's no sub so they have to make money somehow; the free vanilla game goes to max level and has stats and builds still viable (though not probably not optimal) at endgame meaning that engaging in the cash shop isn't necessarily necessary to "win"; and the gold to gems conversion (which isn't very time efficient to gather the gold, I'll acknowledge) **exists** which means that all the cool stuff on the shop is technically available to any player without paying any additional real money. The only things that absolutely have to be paid for with real money is the expansions, which you can get as a bundle for $50, cheaper than a lot of other computer games. The other interweaving story episodes can be unlocked with the gems you can farm gold for, and there is a good gold farming map available for vanilla players. There's also a ton that are account bound rather than being character specific, like the max quality items, so if you really don't want to spend time to get more than one set and just trade them between your characters, you can do that - the legendary items are account *unlocks* and available to them all simultaneously. And, the max character level does not increase so you are never "left behind".
Two things: 1- The raptor used to be only obtainable through the first quest in Path of Fire expansion, indeed it was through a quest. 2- GW2 doesn't have a Pay to Win, at all ... as in you can't WIN anything at all. Only pay for convenience. there is no extra stuff to do more damage, have more health etc ... even the legendary items are for skins and convenience, their damage/stats are only 10% more than the exotics that you can buy after reaching level 80 or hell after your dailies lol
Legendary gear stats are also equal in power to Ascended gear which is a bit of a grind depending on how you go for them, but not to an exceptional degree.
@@6agenthawk You can only buy legendary weapons though. And gems to gold isn't that great of a conversion rate IIRC. Paying gives you no bonus over other players. You can't buy yourself epic gear and instantly win.
16:00 Oh good, glad that my Sylvari having some Diplomatic Negotiations with the Wardens of the hit expansion "End of Dragons" made it into the video as a form of spicy thumbnail potential! Really top notch video, Roze!
Incredible video Roze, the editing was awesome! And most of the jokes were actually really funny. Your first impressions were very fun to watch, and the overall pacing of your video was also incredible. One of the best videos I've seen cover guild wars 2!
Great review! While in game cash shops are always a sore spot, GW2s Gemstore ist probably one of the most acceptable implementations. Nothing in the store gives you an actual competitive advantage (unless fashion is your competition). And on top of that, the game finances itself through the cash shop, since the base game and expansions are all buy to play. Which imo is WAY better than a monthly subscription fee. You could literally play through the entire base game for FREE, including the first DLC "Living World Season 1". PS: yes I am GW2 simp
A prominent GW2 streamer is doing a series of 'zero to hero' streams in which he started with a brand-new FTP account, and has so far unlocked all content (living world and expansions), plus a lot of quality of life stuff, without spending 1 penny of real cash - everything has been financed by earning in-game gold and converting it to gems.
@@llamaninja7734 The short answer is "you can't"...but I know he did, somehow. Maybe there was a short-time special that he took advantage of...I can't recall, and there are a whole bunch of hours of videos to search through...but if I can find it, I'll post back here. And...I was wrong. He did actually start with an account that owned all the expansions. It was everything else (living world, QOL items, etc.) that was purchased with in-game gold only.
@@garydom4479 Yea but it's super crazy grindy. Just because you can doesn't mean the grind isn't good. But I don't mind spending money on stuff here and there anyways.
I played GW2 on release and have recently come back. People in game are so helpful and being helpful is thoroughly encouraged. Also, on the Pay 2 Win aspect, it's really more Pay 2 Drip. You can get fully geared quite easily without paying real money. You may not have the freshest look (we used to call it Fashion Wars 2) but you can still compete. Plus, if you have a higher level friend, they will be downscaled to the area you guys are playing in, which really helps leveling.
@@xL0stKIlah weak engagement bait but sure, i'll bite: not even remotely. gear you get in game and cosmetics you get in cash shop are different. because the game progression is horizontal, there is never a grind to get new gear once you have fully geared out a character. you can log on after a multi year break and not be behind in content and have to grind out new gear. there is criticism to be had about the cash shop, especially the convenience items, but cosmetics are largely account bound and can be freely used by any character on your account once owned and do not have to be purchased per character, a rarity in the genre. Edit: Oh I see, you've been replying some "NUH UH >:(" type bullshit on multiple comments just to be contrarian. This game is living rent free in your head bro, cringe as hell.
@@Kaikirith uhh no you can can buy the best legendary in game with real cash. Trash game with no progression. Making a cool build is not progressing especially when everyone is going to go for the best one anyways. You are a crying about a trash p2w game. Cringe lol
Got this randomly popped in recommended and I’m hooked now. The editing, the script, the showcase, the humor! Brilliant! And the review itself is very accurate too xD as a veteran GW2 player I can agree with everything. Even the cash shop at beginning of a player’s experience. I haven’t been spending any RL cash in the game for the last 2ish years or so (gold-to-gem conversion ftw), but at the start I did feel the need in those precious bank/bag/character slots, hehe! But maybe because I was just a hoarder afraid of accidentally tossing away anything important (and still is, despite knowing through wiki what is needed and what’s just trash)
I'd agree with your stance on no compromise "pay to win" labels, but it really just doesn't apply in Guild Wars 2. If you buy an expac you get a character boost that makes you 80 and gives you a full set of exotic 80 gear, you're basically already at the max benefit you could get from paying. Even if you don't buy an expac, if you hit 80 as a f2p, you'll have enough gold to buy a full exotic set off the trading post anyways. 99.9% of what is in Guild Wars 2 cash shop is exclusicely pay for convenience or cosmetic, and even if you do just straight up buy gems and convert to gold, the best you can do is buy a legendary weapon which is just a stat changeable ascended weapon with a fancy skin, which is 90% convenience and 10% extra stats vs exotic, for ONLY your weapon. You can't buy legendary or even ascended armor or trinkets with just gold, you cant buy progression with just gold, you can't really do anything meaningful by just swiping, you need account bound currencies and materials to get the best gear. It'd take less than the 10 bucks for a 800gem pack to fully gear out two or more characters in exotic gear, which would be pointless because if you just say "hi im a new player can someone help me get a full set of exotics" in map chat, you'll be flooded with gear and gold instantly. Anyways, just a long winded way to say "Akshully... gw2 IS pay for convenience, not pay to win"
@@xL0stKIlah At least I made one instead of yapping with nothing to support it. Stop necroing year old comments with your mindless drivel nobody cares.
As a 10 year veteran of this game, at the start of this video, I felt that pure, unfiltered gamer rage well up within me like you had just the disrespected the anime waifu that's on my body pillow. But I'm now 2 minutes further in & I adore your delivery, editing & writing. The fact this video is age restricted is a sin. You're earned my sub, good sir. *tips fedora*
yeah griffon is good for fast traveling and a better glider , but to be honest skyscale is insane , i never used something else other than skyscale to climb and do meta events and exploration.
It’s not the review that sold me on this game. It’s the player wielding a sword while wearing a kitty headset that looks like it was purchased through the gem shop.
The rel money > Gems > Gold system was implemented to reduce illegal gold farmers/sellers. I mean, it's also there to make money for the publisher, but I've been playing since launch and have yet to meet anyone who has ever bought gems because they wanted to turn them into gold.
I actually did it, I started in 2017 and didn‘t really find into the game alone at the first time until I found a friend who was playing it about the end of HoT and then I was poor before I came to raids and stuff and needed the gold (250 I think it was?) for the griffon when it was found xD
Flashback to the time I was levelling up my first character 10 years ago and randomly walked in on a 60ft tall ghost demon boss in the middle of a swamp in the first zone. This game has its ups and downs sure, but there's no other MMO that quite hits the same spectacle as this. Like a world boss where some npcs shoot down a giant dragon that crashes into a mountain before falling to the ground - or a story quest where you're chasing down a country-sized dragon while riding on a small one. This game just shows off some crazy gargantuan enemies and tells you to beat them up and take their lunch money, and I'm all for it.
I started playing GW2 a month ago. It's my first ever MMO and I was so surprised at howw much I actually enjoy it. Just pure and honest enjoyment. Your video accurately describes my experience XD
I first played Guild Wars 2 at launch with my wife. We played about 2 years intensely. The game was so good and different than other grindy or stand in place MMOs. Moving combat, dodging, jumping was beyond anything we had tried. My wife started playing again about a year ago. I just came back one month ago and, even though I had a lot of progression, now I have a ton of expansions, stories, achievements, side-quests.. so much has been added and changed that I basically have a whole new game to go through. 10 years later and the game still plays and looks amazing.
did you know mobs also save up "rested xp" so whenever a mob isnt killed by any player for a long amount of time they gain a big bonus xp, and as most people dont kill critters and deer because they die in one hit or so, they save up alot of bonus xp to the point where you can level faster running routes into zones killing critters instead of questing, dungeoneering or anything else really
I would guess an average player probably collects at least $10 worth of gold per month (which can be converted to premium currency) just by doing whatever they want to do and selling the loot. The game discourages gold farming by making all activities give similar values of loot (and incidentally experience as well). You really don't need to ever buy gems with real money to get what you want out of the shop, nor do you need to gold farm.
That would mean the average player makes around 450 gold a month just by playing? I only re-visited GW2 a short time ago and just finished heart of thorns and i am sitting on 31 Gold (and i have never bought anything except these salvaging kits). So whats the secret the average player does? I want to do it, too.
@@tairak3923 If you are doing some open world and instanced content you can def make a decent amount of gold just by selling the materials. Dailies alone yield 60 gold per month. I personally mostly pvp and that is considered one of the lowest gold per minute, but I had calculated something like 300 gold per month if you play ranked.
@@tairak3923 300 gold. I would guess I average 5 gold an hour just doing whatever. so 60 hours. 2 hours per day. you might be selling/salvaging/whatever in an inefficient way? do you sell your crafting materials or deposit them?
@@tairak3923 I mean, this is if you're not farming gold. If you are, you can easily get 1k+ gold/month and maybe more if you want to tryhard by selling legendaries. I do like 200g/week just by doing daily fractals (CM+T4s+recs), raids and EoD strikes NM weekly, could possibly do more if I joined a strikes CM group, so I get way more than $10 worth of gold per month just by doing "low effort"* activities with friends. Fractals take 1hr/day, raids 3hr/week and strikes 1hr/week. So, in total, 11hrs/week to get 200g raw (more if you consider currencies and materials that you can convert to gold). Also, sometimes I sell legendaries which can go for about 1.5k+. A friend of mine said that if you want to be comfortable and have gold to do w/e you want, just sell 1 legendary every month. I also do some fishing (~25g/hr) and get some winterberries with volatile gathering tools (~20g/hr) when I want to chill. * Raids and Fractals CM are only low effort once you're familiar with the content and have good groups.
@@tairak3923 Easy if your willing to Run event trains or mine and craft mats for ascended gear. However I would say that is a bit closer to hardcore than Average as it does require some dedication, knowing the Event/world boss routes or the Gathering paths. Barring that though find a comander who does know these things and just follow the Dorito.
This was hilarious and so well done! I love seeing new player perspectives. And I'm glad you had a good time! I also didn't realize they had started giving raptors at level 10. I think overall it's a good choice. You get a taste of what mounts are like, and lore-wise it makes sense that mounts would have been brought back to the mainland once knowledge about them spread. You even hear NPCs complaining about how much mounts would have helped in the HoT invasion. Plus, it's hard to feel like part of the community when everyone is leaving you in the dust, and gw2 (much like ffxiv) thrives on the player community.
The gold/gem swap thing I always think of it the same as a WoW Token or Bond in RS or something, since no membership there is just cosmetics and stuff, the passes are just like "VIP Areas" with a bank/auction etc. all close, nothing in there is game breaking at all. I love GW2 Ive played it on and off for years Guardian is by far my favorite, the game gets better and better as you go. And the PVP is actually pretty fun and you can really get into it with a friend. lvl 1 - 80 is just tutorial pretty much and after you get the hang of it its nothing to it, I have all bag slots and bank slots and I bought them all by earning gold in game, tons of cosmetics too. free keys you can earn etc. I love the game there is so much to do in it.
lack of bag space, lack of bank space, low number of use from base recycler are problem made to sell you convenience, it's not better. However, that the only thing that trigger me, like the game overall
@@orack6355 if you buy the base game you get 5 bag slots. Not sure how that is a 'problem' that needs a solution sold. It is plenty of space. salvage kits are a normal thing in game from the start and there was never one with unlimited uses until years later. Again, not a problem created to sell a solution, just a convenience item added as an option for players if they so choose. The BANK space is the only thing I would agree with that is a problem created to sell the solution. Considering the alternative games out there with their greedy and predatory practices and the fact their is NO subscription option even available for this game, I believe the cash shop is very fair and reasonable.
@@orack6355 The Base Game is 100% Free now, so in the long run all your paying for is the DLC. Take for Example WoW you pay your Mems, Buy the most current DLC. on GW2 you just buy the DLC that are in a bundle for all of them about the same price as one WoW DLC. I get what you are saying the bag space, etc. But if you add it up and think about it all playing the way GW2 is set up is way cheaper thats if buying with real $ ps. you can buy DLC for GW2 With In game Gold also. So the Convenience items really are not that bad plus just playing the game you get so many boosters and canisters, tele to friends, etc.. you get so many just playing that you will have stacks just piling up eventually. Its like 2 silver for a master salvage kit, and has better give back bonus then the copper fed machine in store. So I really dont see how that is a problem.
Great review! Only 1 note: Pay for Convenience does not = pay to win. There is no winning advantage over any other player granted by anything you get in the gem store.
Yes, plus I do not mind them selling convenience items because a) you can just farm in game gold to buy it, so you are not required to spend actual money, and importantly b) there is no sub-fee for the game. I get they need to make money somehow to keep the game afloat, and I prefer getting items/skins/convenience for it rather than just being allowed to play at all. Sure, there are items that are there to be sold as a solution to a manufactured problem, but I feel like in total there are relatively few of those so I don't mind. I don't feel ripped of by the game like I've felt with others
Yeah, that's definitely one part of this I have to disagree on. I've seen P2W and GW2 just doesn't make the cut. While "pay for convenience" can definitely cross that line and where you draw the line is obviously subjective, GW2 never felt to me like I was being inconvenienced on that level. What GW2 definitely is, however, is buy-to-play. There are expansions and DLC that you will need to purchase if you want the full experience and this content definitely provides an advantage over free accounts.
@Steam Acc I have many legendary items/weapons/trinkets/etc from gameplay and crafting. I kinda see that as the goal of the game. I can't imagine swiping a card to get them, because then what would I even be playing for? To re-re-re-play endgame content for rewards that will always be less-than? Nah, yeah, nah, I Could BUY game stuff, but I'd only be screwing myself out of any desire to keep playing. Which would thus make it a waste of money too. I don't think I could play any MMO w/out a Goal in mind like working for Leggies.
Amazing review! Hope to see more GW2 content from you soon (from a 1st time-watching GW2 vet). Full play-thru when? Plenty of guaranteed views and subscriptions out of that, for sure.
The rose tinted glasses during the wow section was a great touch lol As someone currently figuring out what mmo I'd like to dive into (it's been years), I was a bit nervous at the start of the vid, but quickly got what you were going for and hoowee this is such a great video. It's great, and I love the review because you're hitting on points that actual experienced mmo players would appreciate, I keep watching mmo review vids and it's almost always a bit... Shallow? They'll touch on the levelling, maybe the environments, questing and combat, but the small details you're explaining, the design of the mounts, the keybindings and how intuitive they are, the subtle design choices, are all details that a long-time player would appreciate over the many hours of playing.
Great video! I love seeing new people's perspectives. I remember all those years ago first playing GW2. I quit for a year after reaching level 40 because I couldn't handle the base movement and ability keybinds. Then I realized.... I COULD CHANGE ALL OF IT! I made action cam toggle-able (I'm an fps nerd), I made my abilities and weapon stowe like skyrim's keybinds, I changed the whole feel of the game and it blew my whole perception away. Fast forward 9 years and I'm still playing this game, trying to max out my legendary collection.
GW2 is a gem. Wanted to add- everything gives XP. Resources are client-side, so multiple players can harvest a thing and still get 100% resources. Every player that hits a mob gets full XP and rewards for that mob. Resurrecting players gives XP, harvesting, fighting, EXPLORATION! gives XP. Ever wanted to climb a mountain in a game, just to see if you could? In GW2, YOU CAN. Fully explorable maps, plus hidden goodies to encourage you to explore MORE. :)
Welcome to GW2, I'm glad you had fun, and I hope you enjoy your stay. I've been playing since launch and can't stop coming back to it. Good luck out in Tyria and Cantha!
Played this game since the start. the game only really starts after lvl 80... and the best mode is world vs world.... large scale pvp ... just one of the best gaming moments ever
Best thing for me in Guild Wars 2 is the WvW mass-pvp, I played Gw2 from 2016 to 2021, and from 2018 to 2021 I was 90% of the time on WvW. Loved it, mass pvp, storming and capturing enemies towers and supply camps for my server with catapults and rams, roaming around trying to sandwich enemies in the battlefield (its a 3 way pvp fight, 3 servers fighting each other). In the end of the week the server with more points in WvW tier up to fight stronger servers, the loser one tier down to fight weaker ones and the 2nd place staying in the same tier. Buts the devs dont give the love WvW deserve :(
It's the one game I still come back to from time to time. And I don't feel like I have to play catch-up grinding for months to have fun every time. I've spent some money in the cash shop for a couple convenience items. But compared to the sub cost I sank into WoW way back when, it's a drop in the ocean. So I'm "fine" with it.
This is the best GW2 "first impressions" video I've ever seen. So entertaining! I've been playing GW2 for a long time and I was just dieing. Here's a thumbs up and a new sub.
14:20 it doesn´t "feel" like mandatory, it IS mandatory. that´s the cool thing about the leveling-experience in GW2. Rather than chasing one quest after another, walking from npc to npc, always filling up the questlog with 10 quests, only to finish 2 of them and cancelling the remaining 8 because they´re not worth anymore and your log is full, you instead explore. You get to see the world, see what´s going on, with stuff happening left and right. The most common "mistake" new players, and especially players that are used to other mmo's make is, that they try to treat GW2 the same way. But GW2 does TONS of stuff different, from weapon-identity on professions, storytelling, crafting, exploration, combat, almost EVERYTHING works different. And while that´s a good thing (it makes GW2 stand out), it confuses other people that are not used to it. It´s a game, that looks simple on the surface, but gets REALLY complicated the more you dive into it. And this, while it is good for experienced players, becomes VERY confusing for newer players, especially since the game doesn´t really teach you that. On the other hand, it makes player-skill actually count. Especially since you are not carried by your gear. You can have the best gear in the game (quality-wise), but if you don´t know how to play your profession/specc, don´t know how to evade damage, don´t know how to utilize the correct stats (or in other words, stats that synergize with your weapon-, skill- and trait-choices), you´ll still gonna perform worse than a player with lower quality gear, but better class- and game-knowledge. 16:58 uhm, actually: exactly this is the case. When Guild Wars 2 was in development, they took a LOT of input from players that played the original Guild Wars. Even after the final beta, they still made adjustments before the actual release, and constantly tried to improve the game based on feedback of the players. This has a downside though, and i´m actually happy that they don´t follow every feedback-post anymore. Because..... feedback nowadays is VERY biased from the players. In the forums, there are certain topics frequently popping up, with people claiming things to be bad, which in reality, are totally fine (especially profession-balance). the playerbase has evolved (or rather, devolved) a bit towards a direction that doesn´t really want proper balance, but rather: their main thing they play should be buffed, and everything else is too strong (especially in PvP/WvW, where skill has probably the most impact in the entire game). I also wanna add a pro to the "pressure"-point you made in the conclusion, since you probably didn´t play it enough to experience this: We don´t have a gear-treadmill. This means, if you have the currently highest quality-tier gear (ascended), new content will NOT make this gear obsolete. We never had an increase in level-cap, and we also never had an increase in item-quality (ascended has always been the highest tier, and legendary is stat-wise exactly the same, but with quality-of-life features). You can literally leave the game for years, and when you´re coming back, you can still participate in all the content (both: the new one that may have been introduced since then, but also all the older content). Also, new content doesn´t make older content obsolete. Even Core-game ("F2P") is in many parts STILL RELEVANT up to this day.
If you haven't already, go give World vs World a try, and try a few World Boss events. When this game released, they were unparalleled, and even now hold up as some of the best PvP and World Events in the genre.
Be careful in WvW, Friday night WvW is a bruising and a half. The zergs are so tight and spikey now. At release, the slops were so much fun to splash around in.
10:14 When gw2 was requiring you to do something to get mounts it was not popular, but now when they give it at lv 10 it is good reason to complain :D, at least now someone is complaining, because it means there are more people. Fair trade :)
Yeah GW2 can get away with this because the mounts just feel that good. They dont need story/quest integration with a player recieving their first mount. If GW2 had what I term "flat mounts" like WoW has it would be way more of an issue.
@@RozeMMO They give you the raptor purely for convenience, but mounts are tied to the story / lore of the second expansion. Getting the raptor is how said expansion began.
@@RozeMMO Its a demo mount for people who are used to mounts in other games. Also it is a basic one, the same mount and other mounts gets abilities later in expansion through mastery system as pof expansion was the original place for acquiring mounts.
Extremely entertaining video man. I really like GW2, came from WoW after 19 years, and I am very enthusiastic for it. I really like the horizontal progression of the endgame. I feel like that’s how WoW actually kind of was in Classic, as one raid to another wasn’t a massive power increase, unless you maybe farmed it all out. Now WoW is massive power increases every 6 months that destroy any work you put in previously.
13:11 Gold DOES convert to gems. Actually that's how I literally got all my account upgrades (bag slots, char slots, chest space, etc.). Considering you can make around 100 gems per hour by farming gold Ingame, I'd even say it's pretty fair from a playtime/gem ratio. Playing 8h to unlock a character slot, 2 additional bag slots, or a new chest tab is very fair IMO. You can definitely unlock the basic "QOL" items that cost gems fairly quick and easy by just playing the game (would say you'd need around 3000 gems to buy most QOL stuff in the sale. And farming around 30h to almost be able to purchase everything you need QOL wise really isn't that much for a MMORPG.)
Some lore. Humans are not indigenous spieces in the Ascalon or even Tyria (and by Tyria I mean the world). Some time after coming to this world humans decided that there is oil to be freed, and you just need to remove a bunch of sentient big mo*herf**king cats. They did it, but some time later those very same cats decided that they may want to have their land back. So they came back, guns blazin' and kicked human asses so hard they went radical Osa Mabin Laden. After "glorious" death, they refused to go to meet allfather, just because they liked playing with cats too much.
Excellent and hilarious presentation! I can't begin to guess how many hours you put into creating it. Bravo, and a belated welcome to the wonderful world of Tyria!👏
This video was awesome man. I'm a new viewer to you will check out the other stuff. 3 things I want to highlight about gw2 though. 1 I'm a returning player myself. Played on release and for a while but took a 9 year gap, due to the sideways progression of the game my gear and character were still relevant all these years later. 2, there's an option to turn the tab targeting focused aspect of the game off and use a more action orientated type of controls and both feel fantastic the combat does still feel modern as you say. Lastly for the fatanasy aspect of it all for players that care about this, every heart (or quest) in the game has a non lethal path to completion. You as the player really do have a lot of choices to play out your story the way you want to
I loved your review! After 9+ years, I am still getting totally side-tracked all the time :D I hope you will enjoy the game in the future. You may have heard that griffon isn't worth it, but it totally is, just needs a bit of learning. There is afterall a reason why we've been meming about dragonflight XD
An important thing to mention that isn't really a new player thing is that the level 80 exotic gear that you get is what would be considered an "endgame". You can go for ascended/lego gear but I have a bunch of characters just parked in exotic gear and have for years. Lego is usually a long-term project you go for since you can use Lego gear across all of your characters and swap the stats freely. You get a slight power buff but it's like 5% total or something along those lines. Ascended it is needed for Fractals, which are like mini-dungeons that have their own story. It's nice because it incentivizes taking breaks and never really feeling like you need to feel rushed to do the next expansion or something to get the "new" gear set. The first set of exotic gear I got is actually still on my first Thief 10 characters and 2,000 hours later because I just never felt like changing it. I bought that gear 3 years ago lol. Also totally understand the comments about the cash shop. TBFH the most egregious shit in there is def the bag space or the character slots but I get it you need it for money and it's just how it works. The boosts are kinda whatever. I've never felt like I need to have them to play, especially since sPvP is with a common pool of gear and WvW has gear scaling. The biggest noob trap which honestly most players get angry about is the fucking transmutation charges. Never buy them as the game throws a million at you for just doing shit. The fact they are still there is just to prey on new players that come from games where they are not as common. The game is called FashionWars 2 for a reason. Happy to see more people playing tho. It's a great game and I think your review was 10/10. Hopefully, you keep playing and enjoy it more!
Back in the day, when I would be out of charges, sometimes I'd make a toon just to explore all the six big cities to get the transmute charges and then delete the character lol.
I just played this game for the first time today. I had so much fun playing it, I've tried lots of different mmos before and I've never stuck with any of them. I'm hoping I continue to enjoy this game. I'm so glad the ability bar is reasonable, I don't know how anyone plays wow or ff14. The amount of abilities is so overwhelming. Also... nice video 😅 definitely subbing.
I also like the more limited amount of skills you have access to at any time, so it's also part of making your build, you gotta find the class and weapon skills that will fit with the rest of the build...or fit a specific fight or situation.
(800+hr player here) So, I would like to start this off by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this video and thought the satire humor was incredibly funny. Now I typically hate ptw cash shops in almost every game and I think they take away from the experience in almost every aspect, facet, and situation, but IMHO the cash shop in GW2 is what I would call the best balance and solution for a "Pay to Win" cash shop. Now I could be wrong here, but from what I've seen, not only Is literally everything inside the cash shop obtainable without having to bust out the wallet, but the "Living world" content (which I would consider to be dlc) is also purchasable by just playing the game. I have purchased all of my items and Living World seasons from the cash shop just from grinding gold, which gives me EVEN LESS incentive to just spend real money for any of it. I also really hate over-priced cosmetics in cash shops, but I find that most things on there that are purely cosmetic to be fairly-ish priced. Grinding gold IMO is fairly quick too, I can obtain enough gold for about 1000 gems in less than a week of casually grinding (2000+ If I no-life the game), and I have easily obtained over 4000+ gems from doing so. While I do agree that some of the things in the "Utility" and "Upgrades" tabs are "Pay to Win" or "Pay for convenience", this places everything inside the cash shop, like character slots, bank upgrades, etc. to feel more like the progression of your account rather than an unfair advantage. I also find that most things that are ptw in gw2 really aren't "Overpowered", heck, I still don't have more than the base bank slots, or an unlimited gathering tool. Feel free to call me and idiot or copium if I've missed the joke or something lol, this is after all, just my opinion, and I just genuinely love this game to it's core :). Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
I enjoyed your video. Surprising that you don't have more subscribers. I've played WoW off and on since the beginning (lots of off) and am playing DragonFlight, but I have no desire to raid any longer, or push Mythics. I'm at a point where I want to play a different mmo, and GW2 just might be the ticket. Thanks.
Mannnn i just picked it up yesterday and I'm not disappointed in the slightest. The adding lore to your character based of your choices, mwah, just incredible
First time on this channel. Amazing video! The editing is super well done, and your humor is hilarious. You gained a subscriber. I hope you do any kind of gw2 content in the future, regardless of the topic.
I must be one of the rare few who find this game boring... I've tried to playing it twice now and just end up uninstalling after a few days... I really enjoyed this take though, more please
This game does definitely give me ESO vibes sometimes and its certainly not for everyone. I personally like it but I can definitely see its not going to be something everyone enjoys
It's a bit ironic that most of the recent praise of GW2 from TH-camrs is actually based on decade old content which is in fact some of the worst in the game. (the game's fault, not theirs). One of the only real downsides about never resetting or shrinking the world is that GW2 has a huge quality curve. The first impression from core Tyria is pretty meh, but once you get past the embarrassment that is the end of the core story in Orr, the game just keeps getting better and better, for a really long time. When you get to Heart of Thorns it doesn't even feel like the same game anymore in a very good way.
Coincidentally, I've also been trying Gw2 for the first time this last couple of weeks and after having reached max level I noticed a few things. Pros: - The adventure guide is a great and fast way to level. It shows you what you should be doing and in what map. - I don't feel bad for not doing something I don't want to do. If I don't want to play a dungeon, I simply don't and don't lose any value for it. Cons: - The game floods you with "useless" items forcing you to either buy more space or manage your inventory constantly. - Story quests can get a bit annoying when they start sending you to maps just to talk to one NPC and back just to talk to another NPC, making you spend a lot of silver on TPs. (To the credit of Gw2, you can get a 24 slot bag by signing in to their newsletter.)
Yess, when I first tried GW2 this game completely absorbed me! Such and intresting story, and I love the fact that our character is a person and you can choose their background. Oooof awesome! And look at this walking/stopping animations of character and mounts, looks incredible to me, so smooth and feels realistic :O And LW4 is always in my heart, cry everytime, beautiful 🥲🥲🥲
For once, I like a cash shop that feels like an option for me to be rewarded for continuing to support the devs, but I don't feel like it's required to enjoy the game to the extent I desire. Pretty neat.
Sorry you had a bad experience with dungeons 😢. I usually run 5-10 dungeon runs each for the first 8 dungeons but I’ve been on a break. And I specifically write “all welcome” and make sure new players enjoy themselves and feel a sense of accomplishment by focusing on preventing their failure (almost dying is a great kick in the ass teaching lesson). I’ll let you know when I’m back online. 😎
Eventually did manage to do the dungeon when Id hit lvl 34 but still have no idea why it happened. Just logged in on a different day and suddenly it worked
I was afraid that gameplay could be overwhelming to you when you choose Mesmer as a class (Even though its difficulty given as 2/3, its definitely 3/3) but you only showed the pre level 80 part of the game makes me relaxed :D. The original game starts after level 80 with expansions, things will get very hard after you complete the level 80 story.
4:30 When you realize that the backstory garbage in character creation was only relevant for like the first 6 months of the game's life before they completely abandoned it.
Top notch vid lol. I recently got the MMO itch and gave GW2 a shot again. I'm hooked. I still have my original launch physical copy/account but for some reason it didn't click with me back then. My computer at the time was rough as well so that probably didn't help.
Accurate description of the game with the "okay, I just need to... what's that over there?"
I more often than not find myself in a map meta event while I'm supposed to be doing something entirely different :D
I spent 3 hours finding one location... because everytime i try to walk there... there's meta event happening....😂😂😂😂😂😂
Easily getting distracted
I remember needing to get some map currency from tangled depths. I was trying to make a short cut and next thing I was exploring outside the map boundaries for at least an hour
@@n1cemaiden879 the fact we did HoT with out mounts blows my mind still todaay, when i tell my new friends who joins the game, they got it easy!
I will never forget the first time i went to explore the Sparkfly Fen and stumbled upon the Tequatl bossfight going on. I was blown away, ran over so fast to see what was going on. Hundreds of other players locked in combat with an undead dragon, beating back hoards of zombies. Out in the open, happening dynamically, right here right now.
Truly the worst thing about GW2 is that you can't discover it for the first time twice 👍
My 1st Teq was similar to yours, expect that I was doing thr heart north of Teq area where the locals talk about The Sunless on their ambient dialogue and I knew (because I did help the hylek) how important the sun is to them.
So when I finally found Teq I was exactly like you were
theeeeree is somethinnggg in the waaaataaaaaaaaar...!!!! th-cam.com/video/JERptrt3qW4/w-d-xo.html
Kinda true about the last sentence, but im having as much fun as in the beginning, didn't feel the difference in years..
Fun fact about the Charr, when they were being produced the higher ups wanted the female Charr to have boobs, but the designers were like, nah man, they're either gonna have no tits or 8 like a cat, no inbetween
they made the right choice.
think of all the teets we could have had..
/s
I wish they had 8, this would have made breastplates models... interesting xD
6* tits or none
@@RozeMMO sez u.... just imagine creating an 8 titty slot armour for female chars.... the design challenge and ingenuity to produce such creativity
One thing I wish you'd touched on was the lack of scarcity. It's so common in mmos for the pve experience to be based on scarcity. "You have to kill these things for a drop, but so does everyone else and loot isn't instanced, even in a party." GW2 has no content anywhere that makes you unhappy to see another player, and that's somehow a very rare thing in a genre whose defining trait is having a lot of people around. I believe that design decision is responsible for fostering the uncharacteristically positive, friendly, and helpful player base that this game has built. I wish more devs would take notice of this tension and remove scarcity mechanics from a genre characterized by social interaction.
This,as a new player this is how i felt,never before in my mmo years i dont mind having someone doing the same quest as me the quest usually give multiple option to finish,if you cant kill enemy faster than the other guy,just pick/active objective item scatter around so its not become a race
This was a direct and deliberate choice by the game designers, as you can watch them talk about in the "ArenaNet's MMO Manifesto" video from before launch.
@@lunarvvolf9606 is there still bot in eso??last time i play ive seen bot running around gathering nodes on my favorite spot it was annoying because back then i used to work for 12 hour sometimes more,so i have to manage my time between farming mats,vet dungeon and guild raid,thankgod finally ive settle on gw2 as my new home
@@lunarvvolf9606 well im not saying all of them are bots im just asking if theres still bot issue or not,and its not the reason why i left eso,it has a special place in my hearts,oh the memory,i dont know cp cap right now,but last time i played i already maxout too,sadly to say if my prime farm spot already taken by bots i become those speedy dickheads cutting people of from their nodes hehehe,its a shame i havent finish my perfect relequen set when i left.gw2 its not perfect mmo,and yes i agree with you100% with hot map,i almost drop this game when i reach there but it is my home now,and i love it
Same with gathering nodes! I remember playing WoW a long time ago, starting mining some ore, but the nodes had already been visited by someone who took only the valuable stuff and left the rest in the node so it didn't respawn...idk if it changed now, but that was hella annoying and was happy to see GW2 wasn't like that.
The raptor mount at level 10 was a fairly recent change. Before you could only get mounts at level 80 in the path of fire expansion. They wanted to speed up the leveling process since getting to 80 is basically the GW2 tutorial and the expansions are where the real shit is.
Yup, and for that mount challange - there are still the Griffon, Beetle and the crown jewel of ATVs - the Skyscale that require UNGODLY amount of grind and progression, mentioned in the 10:30
It's only 10hour free
it also required you to get to Path of Fire, which meant theoretically finishing the core game and Heart of Thorns
@@ErgoProxy12345 as someone who started the game in december 2022.
I pretty much instantly bought HoT + PoF expansion for the mounts after my raptor trial ran out.
Tried playing HoT but the terrain seemed so hard to traverse that i skipped it and completed PoF.
Completed PoF + LW4 + IBS and started playing HoT only after getting skyscale.
I will eventually make another character and play through the game on the correct order of quests.
@@stijn2010d I totally get that, but it's a bit of a pity, because HoT is SUPPOSED to be super hard to traverse. Getting into these maps when you only had baseline gliding that ran out of stamina, trying to find your way and suddenly having mobs that actually can quickly kill you was a really crazy experience because HoT actually felt like everything wants you dead, the mobs, the environment, even the music. I totally felt that "triumphant cocky army just crashed into unknown, alive enemy territory and OH SHIT".
Totally not coming for you here btw, I only traverse HoT with mounts now too and it definitely is a lot less frustrating! I just always recommend to everyone new to just stick with that discomfort, because it was originally meant to be part of the experience. Of course, realistically that only works for story & map exploration today, I realize that doing meta's without mounts is basically impossible today, sadly.
GW2 also does something no one else does, and it's such a small thing but it makes such a huge difference to the overall experience: Live patching. The game does not go down during a patch. It patches in the background and simply tells you to relog when it's done. I went and played FFXIV the other year and it stunned me that they still take their servers offline to patch for hours at a time, completely ridiculous especially because in THAT game, you pay for game time.
Yes, THIS! No downtime feels amazing!
I just returned to GW2 after a fairly long absence, but from what I recall they don't even make you relog right away when there's a hotfix. They post an alert that you can take some time to finished up whatever you're doing as long as you stay on the same map, then log out/in at your leisure to get the update. A quick download, and you're back in game within a minute or so. And yes, it's absolutely absurd that FFXIV (and WoW, I believe) still need to take the game offline for HOURS for regular maintenance. At least they're mostly doing it during off hours late at night (in my timezone, at least). But I remember when WoW would literally be offline every single Tuesday for like HALF A DAY.
In addition to this, I think GW2 might be the most stable and lag-free online game I've ever played. I can't even remember ever having lag in GW2. I mean, surely it must have happened and my brain just glossed it over, but if it was literally so rare that I can't remember, that's saying something. I definitely can't say that for most other MMOs. Diablo 4 is still pretty ridiculous, to be honest. I still get rubberbanding, and the horse's dash ability only seems to function 15% of the time.
Their servers are also relics, they just had to replace them for the NA side because a set straight up caught fire. I love the game so much but I feel like the parent floor can fork over some more money considering how much work the team puts in for the game
Oh yeah, Warframe also does this
I completely forgot about that in GW2, you’re 100% on point, they all should do it this way, even WoW takes the servers down. And XIV well it’s always during prime time for US players… it sucks and then it double sucks because there’s always a second downtime for their “hot fixes”… I absolutely hated that when I played it.
I too chose Charr and was pleasantly surprised when the race turned out to be grumpy alcoholics haunted by ghost of their past. This game gets me.
i think you mistaken norns with charrs there. Norns are drunk alcoholics
Literally haunted by the ghosts of their pasts lol.
Hope your sad little alcoholic life gets better bud
It's a cat-cow. What else would you expect? Love the Charr.
Charr are awesome, highly recommend reading up on their lore from hundreds of years before gw2
This was hilarious, fantastic job with the edits. I'm sure this took a long time! Imagine my surprise when my own voice came through the headset while watching this 😂
Hi Muk!! :P
As it should be
The fact that you said the world was really detailed and thought out and hadn't even gotten to Heart of Thorns yet is high praise. Base game is good, but Verdant Brink is incredibly designed, and Tangled Depths is one of the most complex, well-thought-out, and infuriating MMO maps of all time (and I love it so much).
I have been playing for about 2 years now. I have taken 6-7 character through the Tangled Depths and I still get lost and infuriated everytime I play on that map lol. I fucking love and hate it.
HoT map design nearly made me quit xD
The guys who made those maps hated people.
@@followthewolves1991 My favorite map of the 3 normal ones in HoT in terms of overall aesthetic is Verdant Brink. Favorite in terms of rewards is Auric Basin. But man, my favorite in terms of the pure skill that went into the design is Tangled Depths.
I love to hate it.
As a new player perspective i think it was "over engineered" , how the fuck am i supposed to capture the beauty of the jungle design of the map when every inch there is a mob of starshiptrooper bug,groots families, jurasic park dinosaurs ,TmnT from wallmart and hentai tentacles wanted to kill me and i have to glider to just past everthing or use the magic tunnel made by naruto frog! I remember i was gonna quit after a few days playing the expansion never before i was gonna puke because of mmorpg map,but godamn it perfectly capture the situation storywise,i really feel like in the jungle controled by dragon,its beautiful but i hate it,i wish these map belongs in single player game so i can just explore it freely
Verdant Brink and Tangled Depths, incredibly designed? You do mean the vertical hell maze, filled with "fuck you for running berserker you broke our game so here are mobs way too powerful for you to survive if you don't step up your dodge game to let me solo her level", green and yellow, go grind that reputation fuckfest that are HoT maps? Gosh, I will never understand why people praise HoT maps, if there is ONE thing I hate about GW2.... It's HoT and its fucking awful level design.
The story behind Charr appearance is itself hilarious. When the artists were asked to put on boobs they came back with "if we are putting boobs on the cat people it's going to be like a real cat. So it's six nipples or none"
Wish they went with 6
First time viewer here and I have to say, the satire in this video is peak humor
Sidenote: as a Sylvari stan (the salad people) The light toggle in character creation is mainly for them so they can pick which color to glow in the dark
yeah really good that I created my character not knowing this and even be confused that nothing changed even I picked another color.. Luckily I still picked a good color and look awesome :D
@@Zuchiniii You can change your customization later if you want to.
I'm part of a sylvari-main guild, find us in the capitol! Our clan tag is Dawn!! Join the Salad tide!
@@DmncPalm no lie, I've actually seen you guys advertising on map chat and thought about it. I'll definitely give it some thought. Look out for a character named "La Vaes Ezmae"
@@DmncPalmAre you on NA or EU?
The best thing bout this game is when it’s maintenance, you can still play. You just get a little message once it’s done saying there’s a new build available and you click a button to instantly go to the new patch
You nailed it. This game is obnoxiously bad ass to the point where I am pissed off I can't stop playing it. How am I supposed to drown myself in wow, grinding out renown for recipes and transmog when I can simply log into GW2 at any point, not feel FOMO and have a great gaming experience. My whole identity is crushed now.
same the lack of fomo I have for the game makes me feel comfortable going back to it knowing it won't abuse me lol
@Tjokkaflens damn my dude, too much to even reply too here lol. I am sorry it was that way to you, but at least you got some joy out of it before the management screwed you
@Tjokkaflens but you never roleplayed in guild wars. So you never truly played the game
This is me. After 16 years of playing wow I finally decided to try another mmo.
So your a casual
I think Preach's latest stream of GW2 showcases the "what's that over there?" better than anything. He began around 9 am by going "Okay, today our goal is to get this secret mount." And then he got to an arena called Fortune's Vale and spent, like, half of his stream just exploring that place as he liked the mini-dungeon there :
One of the nice things about the game is that it has some nice Quality of Life additions and low level engagements. You can send all crafting materials you gathered, looted, or salvaged from loot directly to your bank. This can be done magically from anywhere. It also lets you compress inventory and use bag types to sort. Salvaging can be batched. ex: you can salvage all low level Blue items in two clicks. Plus most loot is now in a stack-able form until you identify it. As for low level zones, there are world bosses in those zones that draw all level players, including level 80s that have been playing for years. This is because the zones adjust your stats based on the level of the zone. But the rewards are adjusted to your actual level so an 80 is not getting level 10 gear or materials. So boss fights are challenging, require some level of coordination, and are worth it for all levels.
Criminally underrated channel. The amount of detail you put into each part is enough to make me constantly pause to check.
And as a fellow MMO-player in 2023, I can always appreciate the effort to find what is worst in something good to drag it through the mud.
Well done!
I’ve been playing for 9 years and I think my most favorite thing, besides the combat, is how everything feels like it has weight and great movement. The weighty movements of the mounts always amaze me, like the raptor turning or when you fly over water the water moves like air is hitting it. I also like when my character runs and comes to a standstill she doesn’t just snap to a stop, there’s a feeling to her stopping. Idk how to describe it really, it just feels natural I guess. Oh and the idle movements, you don’t just stand in a pose, your character looks around, kinda shifts their weight around or when you afk on a mount there’s some interactions your character does like feeding the skyscale a treat. It’s so immersive
I completely agree with the weight of your own character’s movement. I went from OSRS, took a few years break from MMOs, a tiny bit of LOTRO, to GW2 and was so immersed by the animation. Trying any other MMO after starting GW2 sucks because of how stiff and unnatural the others’ movement animation can be. I can’t get invested in any other MMO because I love the visuals of GW2 so much.
@@hanas9006 LOTRO's warhorse movement has _definitely_ got serious weight. Even coming to it from GW2, I was impressed. It's actually hard to handle at first, but a blast once you get the hang of it!
@@hanas9006 LOTRO's warhorse movement has definitely got serious weight. Even coming to it from GW2, I was impressed. It's actually hard to handle at first, but a blast once you get the hang of it!
I still chuckle everytime my Asura comes to a stop while running with a great sword. She just is barely able to stop all the weight at once and does a little overcorrect step 😂
Don’t plan on returning to Gw2 but 100% agree. My brother who no longer plays said that’s one thing he liked as well. Hitting someone with a giant hammer sound and looks painful. Also the way enemy dies depending if it’s by fire or electricity.
This might be the fastest I've subscribed to a channel.
I also went into GW2 very skeptical, especially after playing WoW for...14 years? But one of my best friends convinced me to try it, and after a year, I haven't looked back (or rebooted my WoW account). There are so many quality of life upgrades. I'm always blown away by how generous and kind almost all GW2 players are. And I also love how achievements actually bolster your account over time.
i recently started playing both and stuck with Wow
As someone who has been playing gw2 since launch.. I wasn't expecting this to be such a good video. I was quite entertained and you made me laugh a lot. Thanks for the video!
The other interesting thing about the open world events - many of them have consequences for *failing*. So for a hypothetical example, if there's some timer before the bandits make a get away with the farmer's goods, it may spawn an event where you help the farmer raid the bandit lair to get their stuff back if the farmer loses. Whereas if you had succeeded in defeating the bandits, it might have spawned an event instead where the bandit leader comes out to teach the farmer a lesson instead and you need to defend them. The events can also chain into each other, which is cool. There's one chain that I like running where you defend a fort from some undead, so the leader decides to send a crew out to defeat the lich that is stirring them up which you then escort, the escort blows open a hole in the lich's ruined tower lair and then you get to fight him and take his treasure at the end.
I will defend the presence of the cash shop in this game though. There's no sub so they have to make money somehow; the free vanilla game goes to max level and has stats and builds still viable (though not probably not optimal) at endgame meaning that engaging in the cash shop isn't necessarily necessary to "win"; and the gold to gems conversion (which isn't very time efficient to gather the gold, I'll acknowledge) **exists** which means that all the cool stuff on the shop is technically available to any player without paying any additional real money. The only things that absolutely have to be paid for with real money is the expansions, which you can get as a bundle for $50, cheaper than a lot of other computer games. The other interweaving story episodes can be unlocked with the gems you can farm gold for, and there is a good gold farming map available for vanilla players. There's also a ton that are account bound rather than being character specific, like the max quality items, so if you really don't want to spend time to get more than one set and just trade them between your characters, you can do that - the legendary items are account *unlocks* and available to them all simultaneously. And, the max character level does not increase so you are never "left behind".
Two things:
1- The raptor used to be only obtainable through the first quest in Path of Fire expansion, indeed it was through a quest.
2- GW2 doesn't have a Pay to Win, at all ... as in you can't WIN anything at all. Only pay for convenience. there is no extra stuff to do more damage, have more health etc ... even the legendary items are for skins and convenience, their damage/stats are only 10% more than the exotics that you can buy after reaching level 80 or hell after your dailies lol
Legendary gear stats are also equal in power to Ascended gear which is a bit of a grind depending on how you go for them, but not to an exceptional degree.
as long as you can buy gold with money then its pay to win. period.
@@6agenthawk You can only buy legendary weapons though. And gems to gold isn't that great of a conversion rate IIRC. Paying gives you no bonus over other players. You can't buy yourself epic gear and instantly win.
Yeah Legendary gear has two aspects. Account wide *now* and stat changing. But it's not directly more powerful then ascended gear.
@@6agenthawk That makes every MMO pay to win then. period.
16:00 Oh good, glad that my Sylvari having some Diplomatic Negotiations with the Wardens of the hit expansion "End of Dragons" made it into the video as a form of spicy thumbnail potential! Really top notch video, Roze!
Incredible video Roze, the editing was awesome! And most of the jokes were actually really funny. Your first impressions were very fun to watch, and the overall pacing of your video was also incredible. One of the best videos I've seen cover guild wars 2!
Great review! While in game cash shops are always a sore spot, GW2s Gemstore ist probably one of the most acceptable implementations. Nothing in the store gives you an actual competitive advantage (unless fashion is your competition). And on top of that, the game finances itself through the cash shop, since the base game and expansions are all buy to play. Which imo is WAY better than a monthly subscription fee. You could literally play through the entire base game for FREE, including the first DLC "Living World Season 1".
PS: yes I am GW2 simp
A prominent GW2 streamer is doing a series of 'zero to hero' streams in which he started with a brand-new FTP account, and has so far unlocked all content (living world and expansions), plus a lot of quality of life stuff, without spending 1 penny of real cash - everything has been financed by earning in-game gold and converting it to gems.
@@garydom4479 mightyteapot for whoever is interested
since when can you buy the expansions with gems?
@@llamaninja7734 The short answer is "you can't"...but I know he did, somehow. Maybe there was a short-time special that he took advantage of...I can't recall, and there are a whole bunch of hours of videos to search through...but if I can find it, I'll post back here.
And...I was wrong. He did actually start with an account that owned all the expansions. It was everything else (living world, QOL items, etc.) that was purchased with in-game gold only.
@@garydom4479 Yea but it's super crazy grindy. Just because you can doesn't mean the grind isn't good. But I don't mind spending money on stuff here and there anyways.
This. Was. So. Good. I can’t imagine how much time you put into this script. Unless, you are a truly genius wordsmith who deserves more subs.
I played GW2 on release and have recently come back. People in game are so helpful and being helpful is thoroughly encouraged. Also, on the Pay 2 Win aspect, it's really more Pay 2 Drip. You can get fully geared quite easily without paying real money. You may not have the freshest look (we used to call it Fashion Wars 2) but you can still compete. Plus, if you have a higher level friend, they will be downscaled to the area you guys are playing in, which really helps leveling.
Fashion wars is the true end game
@@xyfurion Truly. When the homies say, "Yo, that's a sick skin." It always beats, "Yo, nice play on that Mesmer."
Garabage game. Literally milinking you guys to get gear and adding more pressure on all the rest of the community
@@xL0stKIlah weak engagement bait but sure, i'll bite: not even remotely. gear you get in game and cosmetics you get in cash shop are different. because the game progression is horizontal, there is never a grind to get new gear once you have fully geared out a character. you can log on after a multi year break and not be behind in content and have to grind out new gear. there is criticism to be had about the cash shop, especially the convenience items, but cosmetics are largely account bound and can be freely used by any character on your account once owned and do not have to be purchased per character, a rarity in the genre.
Edit: Oh I see, you've been replying some "NUH UH >:(" type bullshit on multiple comments just to be contrarian. This game is living rent free in your head bro, cringe as hell.
@@Kaikirith uhh no you can can buy the best legendary in game with real cash. Trash game with no progression. Making a cool build is not progressing especially when everyone is going to go for the best one anyways. You are a crying about a trash p2w game. Cringe lol
Got this randomly popped in recommended and I’m hooked now. The editing, the script, the showcase, the humor! Brilliant! And the review itself is very accurate too xD as a veteran GW2 player I can agree with everything. Even the cash shop at beginning of a player’s experience. I haven’t been spending any RL cash in the game for the last 2ish years or so (gold-to-gem conversion ftw), but at the start I did feel the need in those precious bank/bag/character slots, hehe! But maybe because I was just a hoarder afraid of accidentally tossing away anything important (and still is, despite knowing through wiki what is needed and what’s just trash)
I'd agree with your stance on no compromise "pay to win" labels, but it really just doesn't apply in Guild Wars 2. If you buy an expac you get a character boost that makes you 80 and gives you a full set of exotic 80 gear, you're basically already at the max benefit you could get from paying. Even if you don't buy an expac, if you hit 80 as a f2p, you'll have enough gold to buy a full exotic set off the trading post anyways.
99.9% of what is in Guild Wars 2 cash shop is exclusicely pay for convenience or cosmetic, and even if you do just straight up buy gems and convert to gold, the best you can do is buy a legendary weapon which is just a stat changeable ascended weapon with a fancy skin, which is 90% convenience and 10% extra stats vs exotic, for ONLY your weapon. You can't buy legendary or even ascended armor or trinkets with just gold, you cant buy progression with just gold, you can't really do anything meaningful by just swiping, you need account bound currencies and materials to get the best gear. It'd take less than the 10 bucks for a 800gem pack to fully gear out two or more characters in exotic gear, which would be pointless because if you just say "hi im a new player can someone help me get a full set of exotics" in map chat, you'll be flooded with gear and gold instantly.
Anyways, just a long winded way to say "Akshully... gw2 IS pay for convenience, not pay to win"
That being said it still doesn't feel great tbh. I think I'd prefer a sub fee personally.
Nope you can get the actual best gear in guild pay 2 win. Horrible argument
@@xL0stKIlah At least I made one instead of yapping with nothing to support it. Stop necroing year old comments with your mindless drivel nobody cares.
Hands down the best and funniest first impression i've yet seen of gw2, you earned yourself a sub
this had me dying. the editing is so well done. you deserve way more subs.
As a 10 year veteran of this game, at the start of this video, I felt that pure, unfiltered gamer rage well up within me like you had just the disrespected the anime waifu that's on my body pillow.
But I'm now 2 minutes further in & I adore your delivery, editing & writing. The fact this video is age restricted is a sin. You're earned my sub, good sir.
*tips fedora*
I can’t wait until you discover the griffon mount. It’s fantastic 😌 skyscale is cool too but griffon is a game changer in the mmo world.
Yess agree! (No bias or so)
yeah griffon is good for fast traveling and a better glider , but to be honest skyscale is insane , i never used something else other than skyscale to climb and do meta events and exploration.
@@sharkstaint1373 you might have to go into the channel on the comment above you 😁
As a long time GW2 player. Well done sir. This video had me rolling. Enjoy your time in Tyra Banks.
It’s not the review that sold me on this game. It’s the player wielding a sword while wearing a kitty headset that looks like it was purchased through the gem shop.
The rel money > Gems > Gold system was implemented to reduce illegal gold farmers/sellers. I mean, it's also there to make money for the publisher, but I've been playing since launch and have yet to meet anyone who has ever bought gems because they wanted to turn them into gold.
about the only reason I ever buy gems is to buy mini pets lol
@@grim4469 It's usually mount skins for me.
I actually did it, I started in 2017 and didn‘t really find into the game alone at the first time until I found a friend who was playing it about the end of HoT and then I was poor before I came to raids and stuff and needed the gold (250 I think it was?) for the griffon when it was found xD
But you can which is pure cringe. I can be max gear if I open up wallet smh
Flashback to the time I was levelling up my first character 10 years ago and randomly walked in on a 60ft tall ghost demon boss in the middle of a swamp in the first zone.
This game has its ups and downs sure, but there's no other MMO that quite hits the same spectacle as this. Like a world boss where some npcs shoot down a giant dragon that crashes into a mountain before falling to the ground - or a story quest where you're chasing down a country-sized dragon while riding on a small one.
This game just shows off some crazy gargantuan enemies and tells you to beat them up and take their lunch money, and I'm all for it.
Had the same initial experience with a giant worm just busting it way out of a swamp next to me for no reason. I had no idea what was going on.
This channel is underrated. Wasn't expecting such a BASED video. That Netflix Diversity Red-Head Meme was great XD.
Keep it up
I started playing GW2 a month ago. It's my first ever MMO and I was so surprised at howw much I actually enjoy it. Just pure and honest enjoyment. Your video accurately describes my experience XD
I first played Guild Wars 2 at launch with my wife. We played about 2 years intensely. The game was so good and different than other grindy or stand in place MMOs. Moving combat, dodging, jumping was beyond anything we had tried.
My wife started playing again about a year ago. I just came back one month ago and, even though I had a lot of progression, now I have a ton of expansions, stories, achievements, side-quests.. so much has been added and changed that I basically have a whole new game to go through. 10 years later and the game still plays and looks amazing.
did you know mobs also save up "rested xp" so whenever a mob isnt killed by any player for a long amount of time they gain a big bonus xp, and as most people dont kill critters and deer because they die in one hit or so, they save up alot of bonus xp to the point where you can level faster running routes into zones killing critters instead of questing, dungeoneering or anything else really
I would guess an average player probably collects at least $10 worth of gold per month (which can be converted to premium currency) just by doing whatever they want to do and selling the loot. The game discourages gold farming by making all activities give similar values of loot (and incidentally experience as well). You really don't need to ever buy gems with real money to get what you want out of the shop, nor do you need to gold farm.
That would mean the average player makes around 450 gold a month just by playing? I only re-visited GW2 a short time ago and just finished heart of thorns and i am sitting on 31 Gold (and i have never bought anything except these salvaging kits). So whats the secret the average player does? I want to do it, too.
@@tairak3923 If you are doing some open world and instanced content you can def make a decent amount of gold just by selling the materials. Dailies alone yield 60 gold per month.
I personally mostly pvp and that is considered one of the lowest gold per minute, but I had calculated something like 300 gold per month if you play ranked.
@@tairak3923 300 gold. I would guess I average 5 gold an hour just doing whatever. so 60 hours. 2 hours per day. you might be selling/salvaging/whatever in an inefficient way? do you sell your crafting materials or deposit them?
@@tairak3923 I mean, this is if you're not farming gold. If you are, you can easily get 1k+ gold/month and maybe more if you want to tryhard by selling legendaries.
I do like 200g/week just by doing daily fractals (CM+T4s+recs), raids and EoD strikes NM weekly, could possibly do more if I joined a strikes CM group, so I get way more than $10 worth of gold per month just by doing "low effort"* activities with friends. Fractals take 1hr/day, raids 3hr/week and strikes 1hr/week. So, in total, 11hrs/week to get 200g raw (more if you consider currencies and materials that you can convert to gold).
Also, sometimes I sell legendaries which can go for about 1.5k+. A friend of mine said that if you want to be comfortable and have gold to do w/e you want, just sell 1 legendary every month. I also do some fishing (~25g/hr) and get some winterberries with volatile gathering tools (~20g/hr) when I want to chill.
* Raids and Fractals CM are only low effort once you're familiar with the content and have good groups.
@@tairak3923 Easy if your willing to Run event trains or mine and craft mats for ascended gear. However I would say that is a bit closer to hardcore than Average as it does require some dedication, knowing the Event/world boss routes or the Gathering paths. Barring that though find a comander who does know these things and just follow the Dorito.
This was hilarious and so well done! I love seeing new player perspectives. And I'm glad you had a good time!
I also didn't realize they had started giving raptors at level 10. I think overall it's a good choice. You get a taste of what mounts are like, and lore-wise it makes sense that mounts would have been brought back to the mainland once knowledge about them spread. You even hear NPCs complaining about how much mounts would have helped in the HoT invasion. Plus, it's hard to feel like part of the community when everyone is leaving you in the dust, and gw2 (much like ffxiv) thrives on the player community.
The gold/gem swap thing I always think of it the same as a WoW Token or Bond in RS or something, since no membership there is just cosmetics and stuff, the passes are just like "VIP Areas" with a bank/auction etc. all close, nothing in there is game breaking at all. I love GW2 Ive played it on and off for years Guardian is by far my favorite, the game gets better and better as you go. And the PVP is actually pretty fun and you can really get into it with a friend. lvl 1 - 80 is just tutorial pretty much and after you get the hang of it its nothing to it, I have all bag slots and bank slots and I bought them all by earning gold in game, tons of cosmetics too. free keys you can earn etc. I love the game there is so much to do in it.
lack of bag space, lack of bank space, low number of use from base recycler are problem made to sell you convenience, it's not better.
However, that the only thing that trigger me, like the game overall
@@orack6355 The infinite salvage kits came out way later though. And you can use the mystic forge to get a 250 use salvage kit.
@@orack6355 if you buy the base game you get 5 bag slots. Not sure how that is a 'problem' that needs a solution sold. It is plenty of space. salvage kits are a normal thing in game from the start and there was never one with unlimited uses until years later. Again, not a problem created to sell a solution, just a convenience item added as an option for players if they so choose. The BANK space is the only thing I would agree with that is a problem created to sell the solution. Considering the alternative games out there with their greedy and predatory practices and the fact their is NO subscription option even available for this game, I believe the cash shop is very fair and reasonable.
@@orack6355 The Base Game is 100% Free now, so in the long run all your paying for is the DLC. Take for Example WoW you pay your Mems, Buy the most current DLC. on GW2 you just buy the DLC that are in a bundle for all of them about the same price as one WoW DLC. I get what you are saying the bag space, etc. But if you add it up and think about it all playing the way GW2 is set up is way cheaper thats if buying with real $ ps. you can buy DLC for GW2 With In game Gold also. So the Convenience items really are not that bad plus just playing the game you get so many boosters and canisters, tele to friends, etc.. you get so many just playing that you will have stacks just piling up eventually. Its like 2 silver for a master salvage kit, and has better give back bonus then the copper fed machine in store. So I really dont see how that is a problem.
Great review!
Only 1 note: Pay for Convenience does not = pay to win. There is no winning advantage over any other player granted by anything you get in the gem store.
Yes, plus I do not mind them selling convenience items because a) you can just farm in game gold to buy it, so you are not required to spend actual money, and importantly b) there is no sub-fee for the game. I get they need to make money somehow to keep the game afloat, and I prefer getting items/skins/convenience for it rather than just being allowed to play at all. Sure, there are items that are there to be sold as a solution to a manufactured problem, but I feel like in total there are relatively few of those so I don't mind. I don't feel ripped of by the game like I've felt with others
Yeah, that's definitely one part of this I have to disagree on. I've seen P2W and GW2 just doesn't make the cut. While "pay for convenience" can definitely cross that line and where you draw the line is obviously subjective, GW2 never felt to me like I was being inconvenienced on that level. What GW2 definitely is, however, is buy-to-play. There are expansions and DLC that you will need to purchase if you want the full experience and this content definitely provides an advantage over free accounts.
@Steam Acc I have many legendary items/weapons/trinkets/etc from gameplay and crafting. I kinda see that as the goal of the game. I can't imagine swiping a card to get them, because then what would I even be playing for? To re-re-re-play endgame content for rewards that will always be less-than? Nah, yeah, nah, I Could BUY game stuff, but I'd only be screwing myself out of any desire to keep playing. Which would thus make it a waste of money too. I don't think I could play any MMO w/out a Goal in mind like working for Leggies.
Yea, I just posted that myself...
Amazing review! Hope to see more GW2 content from you soon (from a 1st time-watching GW2 vet). Full play-thru when? Plenty of guaranteed views and subscriptions out of that, for sure.
The rose tinted glasses during the wow section was a great touch lol
As someone currently figuring out what mmo I'd like to dive into (it's been years), I was a bit nervous at the start of the vid, but quickly got what you were going for and hoowee this is such a great video.
It's great, and I love the review because you're hitting on points that actual experienced mmo players would appreciate, I keep watching mmo review vids and it's almost always a bit... Shallow? They'll touch on the levelling, maybe the environments, questing and combat, but the small details you're explaining, the design of the mounts, the keybindings and how intuitive they are, the subtle design choices, are all details that a long-time player would appreciate over the many hours of playing.
I think you're the first person I've seen mention the glasses
@@RozeMMO Ayy nice! Keep up the good work :P
Hey Roze, haven't even finished this video yet but already subbed. Love the style and presentation! great work! feels honest and fresh!
Great video! I love seeing new people's perspectives. I remember all those years ago first playing GW2.
I quit for a year after reaching level 40 because I couldn't handle the base movement and ability keybinds. Then I realized.... I COULD CHANGE ALL OF IT!
I made action cam toggle-able (I'm an fps nerd), I made my abilities and weapon stowe like skyrim's keybinds, I changed the whole feel of the game and it blew my whole perception away. Fast forward 9 years and I'm still playing this game, trying to max out my legendary collection.
GW2 is a gem. Wanted to add- everything gives XP. Resources are client-side, so multiple players can harvest a thing and still get 100% resources. Every player that hits a mob gets full XP and rewards for that mob.
Resurrecting players gives XP, harvesting, fighting, EXPLORATION! gives XP.
Ever wanted to climb a mountain in a game, just to see if you could? In GW2, YOU CAN. Fully explorable maps, plus hidden goodies to encourage you to explore MORE. :)
Welcome to GW2, I'm glad you had fun, and I hope you enjoy your stay. I've been playing since launch and can't stop coming back to it. Good luck out in Tyria and Cantha!
Played this game since the start. the game only really starts after lvl 80...
and the best mode is world vs world.... large scale pvp ... just one of the best gaming moments ever
Best thing for me in Guild Wars 2 is the WvW mass-pvp, I played Gw2 from 2016 to 2021, and from 2018 to 2021 I was 90% of the time on WvW. Loved it, mass pvp, storming and capturing enemies towers and supply camps for my server with catapults and rams, roaming around trying to sandwich enemies in the battlefield (its a 3 way pvp fight, 3 servers fighting each other). In the end of the week the server with more points in WvW tier up to fight stronger servers, the loser one tier down to fight weaker ones and the 2nd place staying in the same tier. Buts the devs dont give the love WvW deserve :(
It's the one game I still come back to from time to time. And I don't feel like I have to play catch-up grinding for months to have fun every time. I've spent some money in the cash shop for a couple convenience items. But compared to the sub cost I sank into WoW way back when, it's a drop in the ocean. So I'm "fine" with it.
Recently I've noticed TH-cam is recommending more videos from quality smaller channels and I'm all for it.
This is the best GW2 "first impressions" video I've ever seen. So entertaining! I've been playing GW2 for a long time and I was just dieing. Here's a thumbs up and a new sub.
This is absolute gold! Never seen your videos before and how you did this is very fun and almost interactive in a way. New sub.
Here from Muk's coverage - You are absolutely hilarious!
14:20 it doesn´t "feel" like mandatory, it IS mandatory. that´s the cool thing about the leveling-experience in GW2. Rather than chasing one quest after another, walking from npc to npc, always filling up the questlog with 10 quests, only to finish 2 of them and cancelling the remaining 8 because they´re not worth anymore and your log is full, you instead explore. You get to see the world, see what´s going on, with stuff happening left and right.
The most common "mistake" new players, and especially players that are used to other mmo's make is, that they try to treat GW2 the same way. But GW2 does TONS of stuff different, from weapon-identity on professions, storytelling, crafting, exploration, combat, almost EVERYTHING works different. And while that´s a good thing (it makes GW2 stand out), it confuses other people that are not used to it.
It´s a game, that looks simple on the surface, but gets REALLY complicated the more you dive into it. And this, while it is good for experienced players, becomes VERY confusing for newer players, especially since the game doesn´t really teach you that. On the other hand, it makes player-skill actually count. Especially since you are not carried by your gear. You can have the best gear in the game (quality-wise), but if you don´t know how to play your profession/specc, don´t know how to evade damage, don´t know how to utilize the correct stats (or in other words, stats that synergize with your weapon-, skill- and trait-choices), you´ll still gonna perform worse than a player with lower quality gear, but better class- and game-knowledge.
16:58 uhm, actually: exactly this is the case. When Guild Wars 2 was in development, they took a LOT of input from players that played the original Guild Wars. Even after the final beta, they still made adjustments before the actual release, and constantly tried to improve the game based on feedback of the players. This has a downside though, and i´m actually happy that they don´t follow every feedback-post anymore. Because..... feedback nowadays is VERY biased from the players. In the forums, there are certain topics frequently popping up, with people claiming things to be bad, which in reality, are totally fine (especially profession-balance). the playerbase has evolved (or rather, devolved) a bit towards a direction that doesn´t really want proper balance, but rather: their main thing they play should be buffed, and everything else is too strong (especially in PvP/WvW, where skill has probably the most impact in the entire game).
I also wanna add a pro to the "pressure"-point you made in the conclusion, since you probably didn´t play it enough to experience this: We don´t have a gear-treadmill. This means, if you have the currently highest quality-tier gear (ascended), new content will NOT make this gear obsolete. We never had an increase in level-cap, and we also never had an increase in item-quality (ascended has always been the highest tier, and legendary is stat-wise exactly the same, but with quality-of-life features). You can literally leave the game for years, and when you´re coming back, you can still participate in all the content (both: the new one that may have been introduced since then, but also all the older content). Also, new content doesn´t make older content obsolete. Even Core-game ("F2P") is in many parts STILL RELEVANT up to this day.
If you haven't already, go give World vs World a try, and try a few World Boss events.
When this game released, they were unparalleled, and even now hold up as some of the best PvP and World Events in the genre.
Be careful in WvW, Friday night WvW is a bruising and a half. The zergs are so tight and spikey now. At release, the slops were so much fun to splash around in.
Wow that was a fantastic review/overview! I love all the backwards approaches to compliments. Just found you today. Keep up the excellent work!
Lmao this was amazing, well done
The humour in this video instantly made me like this and sub. Well played.
I've even que'd up some older videos to watch later.
10:14 When gw2 was requiring you to do something to get mounts it was not popular, but now when they give it at lv 10 it is good reason to complain :D,
at least now someone is complaining, because it means there are more people. Fair trade :)
Yeah GW2 can get away with this because the mounts just feel that good. They dont need story/quest integration with a player recieving their first mount. If GW2 had what I term "flat mounts" like WoW has it would be way more of an issue.
@@RozeMMO They give you the raptor purely for convenience, but mounts are tied to the story / lore of the second expansion. Getting the raptor is how said expansion began.
@@RozeMMO Its a demo mount for people who are used to mounts in other games. Also it is a basic one, the same mount and other mounts gets abilities later in expansion through mastery system as pof expansion was the original place for acquiring mounts.
curious how you will find the griffon. its the 'dragon riding'mount from gw2 ( diving and pulling up and such :D )
Extremely entertaining video man. I really like GW2, came from WoW after 19 years, and I am very enthusiastic for it. I really like the horizontal progression of the endgame. I feel like that’s how WoW actually kind of was in Classic, as one raid to another wasn’t a massive power increase, unless you maybe farmed it all out. Now WoW is massive power increases every 6 months that destroy any work you put in previously.
Exactly. Horizontal progression is what keeps me coming back to my character after all those years. Many of the system GW2 does are very innovative.
I'm sorry the "Avada kedavra" bit absolutely murdered me
Time to go through your entire video backlog because this is fantastic
One of the best videos I've seen in the last months, great editing and humor!
I would say in years! (gw2 related)
13:11
Gold DOES convert to gems.
Actually that's how I literally got all my account upgrades (bag slots, char slots, chest space, etc.).
Considering you can make around 100 gems per hour by farming gold Ingame, I'd even say it's pretty fair from a playtime/gem ratio.
Playing 8h to unlock a character slot, 2 additional bag slots, or a new chest tab is very fair IMO.
You can definitely unlock the basic "QOL" items that cost gems fairly quick and easy by just playing the game (would say you'd need around 3000 gems to buy most QOL stuff in the sale. And farming around 30h to almost be able to purchase everything you need QOL wise really isn't that much for a MMORPG.)
I started gw2 in 2013 and this is the most perfect description I have seen on TH-cam to this day 👍
Really funny but accurate 😅 keep up your good work
what an incredible video, amazing content dude
cheers from Brazil!
Awesome video and awesome game.
I will always love gw2
Some lore. Humans are not indigenous spieces in the Ascalon or even Tyria (and by Tyria I mean the world). Some time after coming to this world humans decided that there is oil to be freed, and you just need to remove a bunch of sentient big mo*herf**king cats. They did it, but some time later those very same cats decided that they may want to have their land back. So they came back, guns blazin' and kicked human asses so hard they went radical Osa Mabin Laden. After "glorious" death, they refused to go to meet allfather, just because they liked playing with cats too much.
Excellent and hilarious presentation! I can't begin to guess how many hours you put into creating it. Bravo, and a belated welcome to the wonderful world of Tyria!👏
This video was awesome man. I'm a new viewer to you will check out the other stuff. 3 things I want to highlight about gw2 though. 1 I'm a returning player myself. Played on release and for a while but took a 9 year gap, due to the sideways progression of the game my gear and character were still relevant all these years later.
2, there's an option to turn the tab targeting focused aspect of the game off and use a more action orientated type of controls and both feel fantastic the combat does still feel modern as you say.
Lastly for the fatanasy aspect of it all for players that care about this, every heart (or quest) in the game has a non lethal path to completion. You as the player really do have a lot of choices to play out your story the way you want to
I loved your review! After 9+ years, I am still getting totally side-tracked all the time :D I hope you will enjoy the game in the future. You may have heard that griffon isn't worth it, but it totally is, just needs a bit of learning. There is afterall a reason why we've been meming about dragonflight XD
tru!
An important thing to mention that isn't really a new player thing is that the level 80 exotic gear that you get is what would be considered an "endgame". You can go for ascended/lego gear but I have a bunch of characters just parked in exotic gear and have for years. Lego is usually a long-term project you go for since you can use Lego gear across all of your characters and swap the stats freely. You get a slight power buff but it's like 5% total or something along those lines. Ascended it is needed for Fractals, which are like mini-dungeons that have their own story. It's nice because it incentivizes taking breaks and never really feeling like you need to feel rushed to do the next expansion or something to get the "new" gear set. The first set of exotic gear I got is actually still on my first Thief 10 characters and 2,000 hours later because I just never felt like changing it. I bought that gear 3 years ago lol.
Also totally understand the comments about the cash shop. TBFH the most egregious shit in there is def the bag space or the character slots but I get it you need it for money and it's just how it works. The boosts are kinda whatever. I've never felt like I need to have them to play, especially since sPvP is with a common pool of gear and WvW has gear scaling. The biggest noob trap which honestly most players get angry about is the fucking transmutation charges. Never buy them as the game throws a million at you for just doing shit. The fact they are still there is just to prey on new players that come from games where they are not as common. The game is called FashionWars 2 for a reason.
Happy to see more people playing tho. It's a great game and I think your review was 10/10. Hopefully, you keep playing and enjoy it more!
Back in the day, when I would be out of charges, sometimes I'd make a toon just to explore all the six big cities to get the transmute charges and then delete the character lol.
I just played this game for the first time today. I had so much fun playing it, I've tried lots of different mmos before and I've never stuck with any of them. I'm hoping I continue to enjoy this game. I'm so glad the ability bar is reasonable, I don't know how anyone plays wow or ff14. The amount of abilities is so overwhelming.
Also... nice video 😅 definitely subbing.
The quest system in MMO is just tragic in GW 2 there is no such problem the second big plus in my opinion is the dynamic combat system.
I also like the more limited amount of skills you have access to at any time, so it's also part of making your build, you gotta find the class and weapon skills that will fit with the rest of the build...or fit a specific fight or situation.
(800+hr player here) So, I would like to start this off by saying that I thoroughly enjoyed this video and thought the satire humor was incredibly funny. Now I typically hate ptw cash shops in almost every game and I think they take away from the experience in almost every aspect, facet, and situation, but IMHO the cash shop in GW2 is what I would call the best balance and solution for a "Pay to Win" cash shop. Now I could be wrong here, but from what I've seen, not only Is literally everything inside the cash shop obtainable without having to bust out the wallet, but the "Living world" content (which I would consider to be dlc) is also purchasable by just playing the game. I have purchased all of my items and Living World seasons from the cash shop just from grinding gold, which gives me EVEN LESS incentive to just spend real money for any of it. I also really hate over-priced cosmetics in cash shops, but I find that most things on there that are purely cosmetic to be fairly-ish priced. Grinding gold IMO is fairly quick too, I can obtain enough gold for about 1000 gems in less than a week of casually grinding (2000+ If I no-life the game), and I have easily obtained over 4000+ gems from doing so. While I do agree that some of the things in the "Utility" and "Upgrades" tabs are "Pay to Win" or "Pay for convenience", this places everything inside the cash shop, like character slots, bank upgrades, etc. to feel more like the progression of your account rather than an unfair advantage. I also find that most things that are ptw in gw2 really aren't "Overpowered", heck, I still don't have more than the base bank slots, or an unlimited gathering tool. Feel free to call me and idiot or copium if I've missed the joke or something lol, this is after all, just my opinion, and I just genuinely love this game to it's core :). Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
I enjoyed your video. Surprising that you don't have more subscribers. I've played WoW off and on since the beginning (lots of off) and am playing DragonFlight, but I have no desire to raid any longer, or push Mythics. I'm at a point where I want to play a different mmo, and GW2 just might be the ticket. Thanks.
Dude I find you hilarious! Awesome editing and writing, great work!
Wow you're going to grow with videos like this. Not just from the GW 2 simps, but from you're ability to produce content akin to youtubers like E;R.
Mannnn i just picked it up yesterday and I'm not disappointed in the slightest. The adding lore to your character based of your choices, mwah, just incredible
First time on this channel. Amazing video! The editing is super well done, and your humor is hilarious. You gained a subscriber. I hope you do any kind of gw2 content in the future, regardless of the topic.
never seen any of youer vids before, but you managed to get me to sub after like 40 seconds. LOL
damn this video was awesome. love your sense of humor.
I love how you used C&C Generals:Zero Hour OST in the background. You got a thumbs up from me for that and a sub. aaaaaah the nostalgia
I must be one of the rare few who find this game boring... I've tried to playing it twice now and just end up uninstalling after a few days...
I really enjoyed this take though, more please
This game does definitely give me ESO vibes sometimes and its certainly not for everyone. I personally like it but I can definitely see its not going to be something everyone enjoys
I instantly shared this and it was so relatable around. you get it man. good shit.
It's a bit ironic that most of the recent praise of GW2 from TH-camrs is actually based on decade old content which is in fact some of the worst in the game. (the game's fault, not theirs). One of the only real downsides about never resetting or shrinking the world is that GW2 has a huge quality curve. The first impression from core Tyria is pretty meh, but once you get past the embarrassment that is the end of the core story in Orr, the game just keeps getting better and better, for a really long time. When you get to Heart of Thorns it doesn't even feel like the same game anymore in a very good way.
Coincidentally, I've also been trying Gw2 for the first time this last couple of weeks and after having reached max level I noticed a few things.
Pros:
- The adventure guide is a great and fast way to level. It shows you what you should be doing and in what map.
- I don't feel bad for not doing something I don't want to do. If I don't want to play a dungeon, I simply don't and don't lose any value for it.
Cons:
- The game floods you with "useless" items forcing you to either buy more space or manage your inventory constantly.
- Story quests can get a bit annoying when they start sending you to maps just to talk to one NPC and back just to talk to another NPC, making you spend a lot of silver on TPs.
(To the credit of Gw2, you can get a 24 slot bag by signing in to their newsletter.)
you do realiise you can buy bigger slot bags on the trading poast right
Yess, when I first tried GW2 this game completely absorbed me! Such and intresting story, and I love the fact that our character is a person and you can choose their background. Oooof awesome! And look at this walking/stopping animations of character and mounts, looks incredible to me, so smooth and feels realistic :O And LW4 is always in my heart, cry everytime, beautiful 🥲🥲🥲
For once, I like a cash shop that feels like an option for me to be rewarded for continuing to support the devs, but I don't feel like it's required to enjoy the game to the extent I desire. Pretty neat.
Sorry you had a bad experience with dungeons 😢. I usually run 5-10 dungeon runs each for the first 8 dungeons but I’ve been on a break. And I specifically write “all welcome” and make sure new players enjoy themselves and feel a sense of accomplishment by focusing on preventing their failure (almost dying is a great kick in the ass teaching lesson). I’ll let you know when I’m back online. 😎
Grt vid! We're u able to do that dungeon? Figure out y was it erroring out?
Eventually did manage to do the dungeon when Id hit lvl 34 but still have no idea why it happened. Just logged in on a different day and suddenly it worked
I was afraid that gameplay could be overwhelming to you when you choose Mesmer as a class (Even though its difficulty given as 2/3, its definitely 3/3) but you only showed the pre level 80 part of the game makes me relaxed :D. The original game starts after level 80 with expansions, things will get very hard after you complete the level 80 story.
This was the most entertaining and funniest game review I have ever watched 😂thank you, you have my sub!
This man deserves much much more views and subscribers
4:30 When you realize that the backstory garbage in character creation was only relevant for like the first 6 months of the game's life before they completely abandoned it.
Best gw2 review so far 😁😁😁 "omg abilities change with weapon swap" 😅😅
Top notch vid lol. I recently got the MMO itch and gave GW2 a shot again. I'm hooked. I still have my original launch physical copy/account but for some reason it didn't click with me back then. My computer at the time was rough as well so that probably didn't help.