Leveling To Max Level Is Free

If you didn’t know, Guild Wars 2 made its base game completely free of charge. New players can download the game and play the entirety of the vanilla content FOC. No trial charade, no level 20 only roadblock – the entirety of the base game is free with restrictions. You can just about level a character to 80 and experience the game’s story, zone events and more. The restrictions are not as heavy handed as other F2P MMORPGs like Star Wars The Old Republic for example, so you’ve got nothing to lose. The best part is, opting into the expansions is optional, but we highly recommend them anyway. And down the line, the game gives its content updates – Living World Season Episodes – to players for free for simply logging on when its out. If you haven’t got an account, click here and give the game a free test run.

The World of Tyria Continues To Evolve

GW2 is not a sandbox, and falls under the theme-park MMO category. But the game world does stand out remarkably well because of the scripted dynamic events that happens throughout the various maps in Tyria. The events can vary from a small scale invasion to a large multi-tiered map meta that leads to the slaying of a huge world boss for great rewards. What’s awesome is that it never feels scripted, and it’s a spectacle when it happens thanks to player participation, especially during prime time hours.

It’s the amount of events in addition to how the world is so intractable through exploration and activities that makes it feel very alive, and that’s above and beyond most MMOs that have static worlds that don’t respond to the consequences of a player’s actions on the landscape.

The Grinds Are Optional

And one of the best things GW2 does very well is making sure that players don’t feel the burn that we’ve all felt from other MMORPGs. There are no compulsory gear treadmills and gear grinds, you only craft or get what you want. Take legendary weapons and ascended gear for example – they are a long term progression that undeniably makes your stats better for end-game content. But not by a significant amount from the previous tier. So it’s more of an achievement thing really. And players who don’t do end-game content won’t need it to get through difficult PvE boss fights. Some will like not having a gear grind, while others may want it if they feel like they’re not accomplishing anything.

But what that does for the game is it makes catching up to newer content much, much easier. Ever left an MMO for years only to come back and feel like there’s no way you can get caught up to enjoy the new content? Well that never happens on Guild Wars 2, because there’s no grinding needed that blocks you off from future content.

PvP Is Challenging, Fun and Fair

Most MMOs don’t take the risk of omitting gear effectiveness from their PvP. Players that grind gear for months and even years would obviously like to use it in competitive modes to get an advantage. And why shouldn’t they, it’s their hard work! In Guild Wars 2 however, everyone is balanced and scaled equally, so it’s down to skill and understanding of the profession one plays rather than who’s get the best equipment.

By doing this, PvP becomes a lot more inclusive without entry barriers. That means a lot more people who wouldn’t normally participate in PvP will check it out and get a fair chance in structured PvP, which is why the PvP is pretty popular.

One Of The Best MMO Player Communities 

Hands down, Guild Wars 2 has the nicest bunch of players in any MMORPG. Subjective statement, but we play a lot of them, and we have a lot of experience to back that up. Not only are players helpful, willing and just fun to be around – the game fosters that and encourages togetherness. They way world events work, Commander tagging and Mentor tagging operates, creates a dynamic environment for extroverted players to lead, and for introverted and in-between players to find groups of people they belong to. The game is also the first to introduce the 5 guild system – you join 5 guilds instead of one. It just lets you expand your network.

And just this year, we saw the community in action, creating a campaign to help new players integrate in-game. The #WelcometoGW2 was all over the place, and a reflection of how the game and its veteran players takes care of its community.

The post Is Guild Wars 2 Still A Top MMORPG In 2019? appeared first on Mmos World.

Heart of Thorns Expansion Comes Free With Every Purchase of Path of Fire

The big announcement for expansions wasn’t that there’s going to be a new one after the Icebrood Saga, which honestly is a little disappointing. However, every purchase of the Path of Fire expansion will now come bundled in with the game’s first one, Heart of Thorns. This is consistent with what most modern MMORPGs do when including older content as part of a current purchase. Heart of Thorns owners who bought the content at launch will also receive compensation with a free gift pack. For players who already own Path of Fire but not Heart of Thorns, it will be added to your account sometime this week. If you haven’t picked up Path of Fire, the current expansion which introduces the awesome mount system, grab yours today here.

Gear/build Templates Are Working and Coming Soon

For players who’ve been wanting and needing a way to change builds and specializations on the fly for their characters, there’s good news. Guild Wars 2 showed off a working system of the build template in action during the presentation. As expected the system looks like it does exactly what players need it to do. Currently, players need to manually switch out traits, specializations and gear before tackling specific content. That’s looking to be a thing of the past. This feature is expected to arrive very soon.

New 10-player Strike Mission Bosses

One of the more exciting features announced at Pax West by Guild Wars 2 was the addition of more group oriented content. Strike Missions sound interesting. These are new 10 player instances where everyone takes on a single boss monster. The cool thing is, the aesthetic and mechanic of the boss fight will organically evolve over time as more content and episodes roll in. This does keep things fresh and increases replay value. It’s also a tad bit difficult, but a good introduction to Raids in Guild Wars 2, according to the developers.

A New World Bosses and Masteries

As players are traversing uncharted territories in the new maps and environments of Grothmar Vallety and Northern Shiverpeaks, it makes sense to populate the world with new boss monsters to fight. It’s been confirmed that players will encounter more than one, and they are structured like traditional world bosses – on a timer with good loot of course. Additionally, you can expect new Masteries to arrive in Episode 1 and 2 of the new Living World saga. These will explore the history and influence of the Spirits of the Wild, the mystic animal deities of the Norn. Thus, if you haven’t played a Norn before it might be a good idea to make an alt and play through the personal story for some background.

Prologue Quest: Bound by Blood

And after all that, Guild Wars 2 players won’t have to wait long to begin the new adventure. Coming on September 17th, everyone who owns the Path of Fire expansion can start the prologue quest for the Icebrood Saga called Bound By Blood. The prologue will serve as a narrative introduction in the characters, setting and the new map before the next conflict arrives. We should also see the more emphasis on the Charr and Norn races of Tyria.

All in all, exciting stuff and times ahead for Guild Wars 2. Want to check out Guild Wars 2 for free right now? Start your adventure in Tyria here.

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The Epic Saga’s Conclusion

If you’ve been playing Guild Wars 2 for a long time, you’ll know the formula. Living World Seasons are episodic content and lets the world tell stories, grow characters and lets you go on an epic, world changing adventure. Season 4 begins right after the Path of Fire expansion, and this episode will conclude that saga. Obviously, we won’t dive into spoilers here, but just know that this is the climax – not only for our characters and this storyline, but it also may tease the future of Guild Wars 2 once this is all done and over. Kralkatorrik has been Tyria’s biggest threat for the last year or so, and what happens should we end it? These are just a taste of the plot lines that ArenaNet could tie up this episode.

Exordium – New Legendary Great sword

For Legendary Weapon hunters, Episode 6 War Eternal will bring a brand new great sword to the game. The Exordium is the latest – and through the trailer previews we can tell that it’s flashy as heck. And Guild Wars 2 is all about fashion wars, where players fight to look the best in PvE and PvP. Anyway, the Exordium apparently does more than just poke things. As with all Legendaries, they can have their stats changed freely outside of combat which is a great benefit for players who run multiple builds. In addition, the skin is unlocked account-wide and can be used on any other great sword. Now rumors are, that this great sword is capable of changing the looks of animations for each of the classes that can wield great swords. If that’s true, this could be worth hunting over other Legendary great swords like Twilight. Don’t expect it to be easy to get however, as Legendaries can take a lot of time and gold grinding in order to craft one.

Mist Shard Armor Set

Also spotted in the teaser trailer is a new armor set coming to Guild Wars 2. The Mist Shard armor appears to be another unique armor set collectible that should be of Exotic quality at launch. If previous Living World Episodes are to go by, the expect to getting Light, Medium and Heavy armor variants of this armor set. It does look pretty cool in the trailer, but is it as cool as the Requiem armor set collection from Episode 4 earlier this season? Either way, this could be a similar scavenger hunt style collection where players need both achievements and hunting items on the new map in order to obtain.

New Map

And speaking of a new map, yes there is a new map for this episode. Unfortunately, it has no name as of yet probably due to spoiler reasons which is understandable. Therefore, there’s not much we can say about the map, except that we hope it’s a fitting arena for an epic finale for Season 4. Either way, the season finale for Guild Wars 2 is coming and there’s nothing we can do but enjoy it while it lasts. What will the future of Tyria be? Will we see a new expansion for Guild Wars 2 next? Will we head straight into Season 5? All these questions could be coming in the near future, and we hope Tyria sticks around for a long time to come.

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Equal Footing In PvP

Most MMOs don’t take the risk of omitting gear effectiveness from their PvP. Players that grind gear for months and even years would obviously like to use it in competitive modes to get an advantage. And why shouldn’t they, it’s their hard work! In Guild Wars 2 however, everyone is balanced and scaled equally, so it’s down to skill and understanding of the profession one plays rather than who’s get the best equipment.

By doing this, PvP becomes a lot more inclusive without entry barriers. That means a lot more people who wouldn’t normally participate in PvP will check it out and get a fair chance in structured PvP, which is why the PvP is pretty popular.

Optional Grinds

And one of the best things GW2 does very well is making sure that players don’t feel the burn that we’ve all felt from other MMORPGs. There are no compulsory gear treadmills and gear grinds, you only craft or get what you want. Take legendary weapons and ascended gear for example – they are a long term progression that undeniably makes your stats better for end-game content. But not by a significant amount from the previous tier. So it’s more of an achievement thing really. And players who don’t do end-game content won’t need it to get through difficult PvE boss fights. Some will like not having a gear grind, while others may want it if they feel like they’re not accomplishing anything.

But what that does for the game is it makes catching up to newer content much, much easier. Ever left an MMO for years only to come back and feel like there’s no way you can get caught up to enjoy the new content? Well that never happens on Guild Wars 2, because there’s no grinding needed that blocks you off from future content.

The World Is Alive

GW2 is not a sandbox, and falls under the theme-park MMO category. But the game world does stand out remarkably well because of the scripted dynamic events that happens throughout the various maps in Tyria. The events can vary from a small scale invasion to a large multi-tiered map meta that leads to the slaying of a huge world boss for great rewards. What’s awesome is that it never feels scripted, and it’s a spectacle when it happens thanks to player participation, especially during prime time hours.

It’s the amount of events in addition to how the world is so intractable through exploration and activities that makes it feel very alive, and that’s above and beyond most MMOs that have static worlds that don’t respond to the consequences of a player’s actions on the landscape.

Wholesome Community

And because the world is in someways organic, the player base responds in-turn, by organizing its community to tackle these events and meta progressions as often as possible. The result is a very active community that’s helpful, with mentors and commanders leading packs of players through zones to tackle content that arises. It feels very friendly and all inclusive, even to new players and returning players.

The social focus is very strong, and developers ArenaNet plays a part in that too, with active participation on Twitch in addition to hosting multiple Welcome To or Welcome Back events to Guild Wars 2. During these events, content such as Living World Episodes are given out free for both new and returning players to get into, and catch up on where the story and narrative content currently is.

Reinventing Functionality

What really keeps players invested in Guild Wars 2 is a combination of things, from systems, to mechanics and gameplay. But a common theme found in all of them is just how functional they really are. Let’s take guilds for example. GW2 doesn’t just add a guild system because it’s a compulsory MMO feature that groups players together. It adds layers of functionality to benefit the players. In GW2 you’re not just joining a guild for the sake of joining a guild. There’s benefits such as buffs, boons, and a guild hall to decorate and participate in guild missions and activities. Mounts are another great example. They’re not just a tool to get you from point A to B. They are masterfully crafted, with unique skills and abilities that makes travel and combat through Tyria a joy. Mounts in Guild Wars 2 are a masterclass on how to revolutionize something so trivial in the MMO landscape.

It doesn’t just stop there however. A lot of GW2’s systems have that extra functionality that many other MMO’s just ignore, either because of age or made in a time when things were simpler back then.

The post Top 5 Reasons Guild Wars 2 Differs From Other MMORPGs appeared first on Mmos World.

5. Containing The Scarab Plague Map Meta

Map: Domain of Kourna

Expansion: Living World 4 Episode 3: Long Live The Lich

To start things off, lets check out the latest map to arrive in Guild Wars 2, the Domain of Kourna. Long Live the Lich is the third episode of the current Living World Season 4. It’s the stronghold of Palawa Joko himself, the game’s current antagonist. While the story is great, the map meta Containing the Scarab Plague, is unfortunately, short. In fact, it’s one of the shortest map metas in the game. It revolves around players charging into Joko’s stronghold to disable the Inquest Golem. The whole ordeal lasts about 25 minutes in total, beginning with the pre-meta event which is to defend canons at three locations. It can be done with less than 20 people, and the reason why people are farming it right now is because it’s a good source of lootbags and Inscribed Shards, the map currency needed for the Ascended back slot and Dauntless achievements. It’s also needed for the Beetle mount.

Unlike other map metas such as Palawadan which we’ll talk about soon, this meta isn’t on a timer and is reliant on a map wide contribution of Spare Parts that drops from mobs all over. Once the bar is filled, the pre-meta begins. While it’s a fun and short meta, it definitely won’t have as much staying power once players get all they need from the Domain of Kourna.

4. Palawadan Domain of Istan Map Meta

Map: Domain of Istan

Expansion: Living World Season 4

The Palawadan map meta on the Domain of Istan is probably the most popular right now for making gold. Players first got a taste when episode 1 of the Living World Season 4 came out. The chain takes less that 30 minutes to do, and there’s plenty of Joko’s champion mobs to kill in the Palace. What’s great is that after each event, multiple supply chests appear all over the place and you can loot them to your heart’s content. The rewards include armor loot bags from Common to Rare, and depending on what you do, these will fetch a decent return of gold for a short period of time.

The meta itself is relatively fun, especially toward the end where players take down three Corsair ships, before taking on a legendary boss. Overall, due to how quick Palawadan is, players might prefer it for gold farming over RIBA in the Silverwastes.

3. Octovine Auric Basin Map Meta

Map: Auric Basin

Expansion: Heart of Thorns

Every couple of hours, the Auric Basin Octovine meta event starts. The unique thing about this is it’s all about defending the city of Tarir on four fronts. The event begins with a series of challenges that happen on the North, South, East and West entrances, as the Exalted prepare to retake their city. Then, players group up to beat back the vines blocking the entrances on each corner. All of them have different mechanics that makes it fun to replay. The challenge is for all sides to kill their vines within two minutes of each other, or the vines regenerate.

On the other hand, once the entrance is open, a mini boss fight ensues for the hidden chests, and then it’s loot time. Beneath Tarir, the chambers are open and players can loot a ton of Exalted chests for chances at rare loot, including Ascended level items.

2. RIBA Silverwastes Map Meta

Map: The Silverwastes

Expansion: Not Required

Farming the Silverwastes is an excellent way to earn gold in Guild Wars 2, particularly for free accounts, and for players who don’t have the Heart of Thorns or Path of Fire expansion packs. RIBA stands for Red, Indigo, Blue, Amber – the four Silverwaste bases. RIBA is a rotation squads use to efficiently push the Silverwastes map to breach. If you’re on a RIBA map, follow the commander tag through that progression of bases. Clear each base and wait for the Mordrem attacks to subside, then proceed to the next one on the rotation.

And the best part? Watch all that loot roll into your bags. It is then up to you how to efficiently sell or dispose the items you get for profit. To-date, the Silverwastes still remains a hugely popular map meta farm. To join one, simply open the LFG tool and look for groups that are running them.

1. The Mouth of Modremoth – Dragon Stand Map Meta

Map: Dragon Stand

Expansion: Heart of Thorns

At first place in our book, is the penultimate fight with Modremoth. The Heart of Thorns expansion introduced to the Green Elder Dragon, and players get to face off with him in Dragon Stand. The map meta here is a long and grueling multi-layered fight that in our opinion, is the best and most fun to do meta in the game. Every hour or so, the map closes off and ports players to an instance where three commanders must lead their squad in the North, Middle and South lanes to reach the dragon. Expect plenty of fights and loot. Once the Towers are breached, players then go toe to toe with the Dragon, and killing him results in more loot. This meta is perhaps the most unique in that it requires proper squad co-ordination, and on weekends you’ll see massive amounts of players attempting to do this.

Why? It’s not because of gold, because the returns here are poor. However, it is absolutely fun to do and the whole meta from start to finish awards a huge some of HoT experience points. If you have the masteries but need experience, doing the Dragon Stand meta in addition to the Auric Basin one is a great way to fill that XP bar quickly.

Agree with our list? Share you favorite Guild Wars 2 map metas!

The post Welcome To Guild Wars 2: Top 5 Best Guild Wars 2 World Meta Events appeared first on Mmos World.

Four Content Teams, Consistent Updates

Much have been made about the recent layoffs at ArenaNet, but it appears the studio is bouncing back to address concerns. The development team is restructuring into four fully staffed content teams with additional teams dedicated to supporting the core game. This includes areas such as Skills and Balance, Rewards, WvW and sPvP. Content teams will have more flexibility to decide what makes sense for a given release—for example, focusing on expanding the boundaries and content of an existing map if that would provide a better experience than creating a new one. Ultimately, this will mean a relatively steady release of new content that will allow Guild Wars 2 to continue telling the story of Tyria in exciting new ways.

Near Future Plans Includes Episode 6 of Living World Season 4

It has been sometime since the release of Guild Wars 2’s last episode for its Living World Season 4. The dry spell in between hasn’t offered players much to do, say for the returning festivals and the recent release of the Warclaw WvW mount that brought back some much needed life into that game mode. The good news now is that the team are wrapping up Episode 6, so we know the story continues. How will the Commander and the squad cope with the loss of Aurene? What happens next with the saga involving the Elder Dragon that destroyed our hope? All these questions need answering in Episode 6. Additionally, more polish is being done to the final encounter in the next raid which continues the story of Qadim. This will arrive after Episode 6.

The Distant Future

Ultimately it’s what is coming down the line -hopefully this year – is what’s exciting players the most. Here’s a snippet of all that’s being planned for release, assuming the content teams are on schedule:

We also have our sights set on a few features that have already been in development for some time. Please understand that these are all works in progress, so details can change between here and the final version, and we don’t have a timeline for the release of any of these. These features will ship when they are ready.

• The rune and sigil salvaging release last year was in anticipation of releasing legendary runes and sigils—the final components of legendary core equipment.
• Over the past few months, astute players have been noticing a trend of updates and improvements to how our skill-slotting system works and have accurately speculated that the long-requested feature of build templates is in the works.
• We’d like to increase the max cooking level from 400 to 500. This crafting profession needs a refresh to make lower-tier foods important to the ecosystem and help reinvigorate various resources throughout the game.
• We’ve mentioned in the past how important world restructuring is to our WvW initiatives, and that hasn’t changed. While the Programming Team is focused on this initiative, the team is also focusing on smaller updates that can temporarily change the game mode, like the No Downed State Week we’ve done in the past. We’re also talking about different types of reward structures for events.
• Swiss tournament support is the next major feature the sPvP team is working on. This feature will be utilized by our structured tournaments moving forward.

The post Here’s Why You Should Be Hyped About Guild Wars 2 2019 appeared first on Mmos World.

5. Don’t Expect Traditional MMORPG Quests

One of the biggest changes players will feel when coming from other MMOs is the questing and PvE experience. As a new player coming out of your starter zone, you’ll obviously want to quest for XP. The thing is, Guild Wars 2 doesn’t offer the traditional questing experience. There isn’t a reliance to go speak to NPCs to ‘pick up’ quests, then return for rewards. In Tyria, there will be Tasks, or Gold Hearts found throughout every map. When you get close to one, the objectives are automatically added to your objective tracker and you can swap between them by moving between Tasks. Completing these are good for XP, Karma and coin, but don’t just do them religiously. The game also wants you to explore, take part in zone events and more. All of these activities gives you XP, so to be effective at leveling up, do all of them at your own leisure.

4. Join A Guild For The Benefits

It’s perfectly fine if you want to play the game solo. But joining a guild doesn’t necessarily force you to group. We recommend joining an active one anyway, because the game’s guild system will offer you some really good benefits if you’re new and leveling. Firstly, there’s the Guild Halls. You can port to your Guild’s hall from anywhere in the map for free, and within you can get benefits. For example, if the guild is a high level one with NPCs within the hall, head to the tavern.

Here, you can get free 10% XP boost potions for landscape PvE, World vs World PvP and sPvP as well. These lasts for 24 hours and did we mention it’s free? It’s a small boost but it all adds up if you’re a new player. Players can also harvest daily materials in Guild Halls. These are a good way to stock up on mats to craft or to sell. Additionally, be sure to hit the Y button and check out the Looking for Group tool. If you need help with landscape bosses, Hero Points and more, there will be Commanders advertising their groups on there regularly. Simple join one from the tool and have fun.

3. Making Gold And The Economy

A popular question from new players is, how to make gold quickly? There’s plenty of ways to make gold, but the speed at which you earn them is relative to how much time you spend doing something in-game. Firstly, gold is account-wide and shared among all your characters. So if you have multiple toons running Fractals each week, you’re bound to make a lot. Besides that, study the Auction House closely.

See what sells, especially crafting resources like Ores. Ores can be gathered on the landscape easily and because the node is instanced to you, you’re not fighting with other players in the area to farm them. Simply start gathering what you can and start selling them regularly. A good website to keep track of the AH economy is GW2 Efficiency, which can track useful things like sales and profits.  Alternatively, run the content a lot. Especially event and map meta trains that offers tons of loot bags. You can then deconstruct them for Gold and also sell them on the AH for Gold.

2. Choosing Your Grinds

Another thing about Guild Wars 2 most people find odd is the grinds and gear treadmills. Simply put, you aren’t expected or required to grind a lot to play the game’s latest content. There are a few gear rarities to note, from White, Blue, Green, Yellow, Gold, Pink and then there’s Legendary. White to Gold comes easily if you’re just playing casually. And Gold gear – the Exotics – are more than enough to run even the hardest of boss fights, main story instances and more. This is due to Guild Wars 2 relying more on combat mechanics and player skill rather than gear outright which is great. The last two tiers are completely optional and while there are Achievements and metas for them, you do them at your own pace as the stat difference is marginally higher. They look great though, so if you’re a cosmetic hunter and want to look and wear the best stuff, be warned, these are long grinds especially Legendaries. Another plus about grinding a Legendary, is that you’ll never have to worry about its stats. You can change them at will outside of combat.

1. Learn To Dodge, Doing The Daily Tasks and Unlocking Mounts

Once you’ve grasped the basics of what Guild Wars 2 is about, here comes the nitty gritty. First of all, the art of combat and learning to dodge. Sounds rudimentary, but you will need to master this for future content. In the Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire expansions, the difficulty scales a lot harder than the vanilla content. As a result, expect to take a lot of hits from harder monsters. Learning to dodge attacks and counter break bars will be crucial here.

Secondly, is getting into the habit of finishing your Daily Achievements. These reset at 8PM EST daily. They give you 2 Gold, Spirit Shards and 10 Achievement Points. All of these are great for new players, especially Achievement Points. APs when accumulated to milestones, grants you account wide unlocks to more Gold Gain, XP Gain and other boosts to your account. It’s a great incentive to be an Achievement hunter.

And finally, if you only can make one expansion purchase, make it Path of Fire. The Mounts that you unlock will be extremely useful, and become game changers for you here on out. Each of the five mounts can help you get around faster, reach other wise hard places for content and more.

The post Top 5 Guild Wars 2 New Player Tips 2019 – How To Be Effective In Guild Wars 2 appeared first on Mmos World.

Leveling To Max Level Is Free

If you didn’t know, Guild Wars 2 made its base game completely free of charge. New players can download the game and play the entirety of the vanilla content FOC. No trial charade, no level 20 only roadblock – the entirety of the base game is free with restrictions. You can just about level a character to 80 and experience the game’s story, zone events and more. The restrictions are not as heavy handed as other F2P MMORPGs like Star Wars The Old Republic for example, so you’ve got nothing to lose. The best part is, opting into the expansions is optional, but we highly recommend them anyway. And down the line, the game gives its content updates – Living World Season Episodes – to players for free for simply logging on when its out. If you haven’t got an account, click here and give the game a free test run.

The World of Tyria Continues To Evolve

GW2 is not a sandbox, and falls under the theme-park MMO category. But the game world does stand out remarkably well because of the scripted dynamic events that happens throughout the various maps in Tyria. The events can vary from a small scale invasion to a large multi-tiered map meta that leads to the slaying of a huge world boss for great rewards. What’s awesome is that it never feels scripted, and it’s a spectacle when it happens thanks to player participation, especially during prime time hours.

It’s the amount of events in addition to how the world is so intractable through exploration and activities that makes it feel very alive, and that’s above and beyond most MMOs that have static worlds that don’t respond to the consequences of a player’s actions on the landscape.

The Grinds Are Optional

And one of the best things GW2 does very well is making sure that players don’t feel the burn that we’ve all felt from other MMORPGs. There are no compulsory gear treadmills and gear grinds, you only craft or get what you want. Take legendary weapons and ascended gear for example – they are a long term progression that undeniably makes your stats better for end-game content. But not by a significant amount from the previous tier. So it’s more of an achievement thing really. And players who don’t do end-game content won’t need it to get through difficult PvE boss fights. Some will like not having a gear grind, while others may want it if they feel like they’re not accomplishing anything.

But what that does for the game is it makes catching up to newer content much, much easier. Ever left an MMO for years only to come back and feel like there’s no way you can get caught up to enjoy the new content? Well that never happens on Guild Wars 2, because there’s no grinding needed that blocks you off from future content.

PvP Is Challenging, Fun and Fair

Most MMOs don’t take the risk of omitting gear effectiveness from their PvP. Players that grind gear for months and even years would obviously like to use it in competitive modes to get an advantage. And why shouldn’t they, it’s their hard work! In Guild Wars 2 however, everyone is balanced and scaled equally, so it’s down to skill and understanding of the profession one plays rather than who’s get the best equipment.

By doing this, PvP becomes a lot more inclusive without entry barriers. That means a lot more people who wouldn’t normally participate in PvP will check it out and get a fair chance in structured PvP, which is why the PvP is pretty popular.

One Of The Best MMO Player Communities 

Hands down, Guild Wars 2 has the nicest bunch of players in any MMORPG. Subjective statement, but we play a lot of them, and we have a lot of experience to back that up. Not only are players helpful, willing and just fun to be around – the game fosters that and encourages togetherness. They way world events work, Commander tagging and Mentor tagging operates, creates a dynamic environment for extroverted players to lead, and for introverted and in-between players to find groups of people they belong to. The game is also the first to introduce the 5 guild system – you join 5 guilds instead of one. It just lets you expand your network.

And just this year, we saw the community in action, creating a campaign to help new players integrate in-game. The #WelcometoGW2 was all over the place, and a reflection of how the game and its veteran players takes care of its community.

The post Here’s Why Guild Wars 2 Is Still One Of The Best MMORPGs In 2019 appeared first on Mmos World.

5. Forget Your Traditional MMORPG Questing Experience

One of the biggest changes players will feel when coming from other MMOs is the questing and PvE experience. As a new player coming out of your starter zone, you’ll obviously want to quest for XP. The thing is, Guild Wars 2 doesn’t offer the traditional questing experience. There isn’t a reliance to go speak to NPCs to ‘pick up’ quests, then return for rewards. In Tyria, there will be Tasks, or Gold Hearts found throughout every map. When you get close to one, the objectives are automatically added to your objective tracker and you can swap between them by moving between Tasks. Completing these are good for XP, Karma and coin, but don’t just do them religiously. The game also wants you to explore, take part in zone events and more. All of these activities gives you XP, so to be effective at leveling up, do all of them.

4. Join A Guild ASAP For Benefits

It’s perfectly fine if you want to play the game solo. But joining a guild doesn’t necesarrily force you to group. We recommend joining an active one anyway, because the game’s guild system will offer you some really good benefits if you’re new and leveling. Firstly, there’s the Guild Halls. You can port to your Guild’s hall from anywhere in the map for free, and within you can get benefits. For example, if the guild is a high level one with NPCs within the hall, head to the tavern.

Here, you can get free 10% XP boost potions for landscape PvE, World vs World PvP and sPvP as well. These lasts for 24 hours and did we mention it’s free? It’s a small boost but it all adds up if you’re a new player. Additionally, be sure to hit the Y button and check out the Looking for Group tool. If you need help with landscape bosses, Hero Points and more, there will be Commanders advertising their groups on there regularly. Simple join one from the tool and have fun.

3. Making Gold

A popular question from new players is, how to make gold quickly? There’s plenty of ways to make gold, but the speed at which you earn them is relative to how much time you spend doing something in-game. Firstly, gold is account-wide and shared among all your characters. So if you have multiple toons running Fractals each week, you’re bound to make a lot. Besides that, study the Auction House closely.

See what sells, especially crafting resources like Ores. Ores can be gathered on the landscape easily and because the node is instanced to you, you’re not fighting with other players in the area to farm them. Simply start gathering what you can and start selling them regularly. Alternatively, run the content a lot. Especially event and map meta trains that offers tons of loot bags. You can then deconstruct them for Gold and also sell them on the AH for Gold.

2. Choose Your Grinds

Another thing about Guild Wars 2 most people find odd is the grinds and gear treadmills. Simply put, you aren’t expected or required to grind a lot to play the game’s latest content. There are a few gear rarities to note, from White, Blue, Green, Yellow, Gold, Pink and then there’s Legendary. White to Gold comes easily if you’re just playing casually. And Gold gear – the Exotics – are more than enough to run even the hardest of boss fights, main story instances and more. The last two tiers are completely optional and while there are Achievements and metas for them, you do them at your own pace as the stat difference is marginally higher. They look great though, so if you’re a cosmetic hunter and want to look and wear the best stuff, be warned, these are long grinds especially Legendaries.

1. Learn To Dodge, Doing The Daily and Unlock Mounts ASAP

Once you’ve grasped the basics of what Guild Wars 2 is about, here comes the nitty gritty. First of all, the art of combat and learning to dodge. Sounds rudimentary, but you will need to master this for future content. In the Heart of Thorns expansion, the difficulty scales a lot harder than the vanilla content. As a result, expect to take a lot of hits from harder monsters. Learning to dodge attacks and counter break bars will be crucial here.

Secondly, is getting into the habit of finishing your Daily Achievements. These reset at 8PM EST daily. They give you 2 Gold, Spirit Shards and 10 Achievement Points. All of these are great for new players, especially Achievement Points. APs when accumulated to milestones, grants you account wide unlocks to more Gold Gain, XP Gain and other boosts to your account. It’s a great incentive to be an Achievement hunter.

And finally, if you only can make one expansion purchase, make it Path of Fire. The Mounts that you unlock will be extremely useful, and become game changers for you here on out. Each of the five mounts can help you get around faster, reach other wise hard places for content and more.

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