Guild Wars 2: the joys and its issue

This could be a review In a sense, though I'm going for something a bit different in with the "issue" bit, I'm really hoping ArenaNet manages to fix as it's basically a world vs world issue to everyone.

So one of the "joys" is just how well the questing has been created in this game, It's at a point where it doesn't even really feel like questing, it makes an MMO into what an MMO should actually be which isn't talking to every NPC with a ! over his head to either kill 10 spiders or kill a bunch of boars and bring back some meat from their corpse, then do more quests just killing different looking mobs 100+ more times in attempt to reach level cap.

What GW2 has managed to do is made it totally up to you how you level up, in which you can either be doing the public events in lots of different areas in any kind of order you want, level up by gathering and crafting or just doing WorldVsWorld as you get a ton of exp from that as well.

One of the things I really like the most on the side of doing which ever public quest you feel like doing at the time, is simply having a reason to explore in which you can go around trying to find "vistas" and finding how to actually get to them or even just getting to some random area in which there's a little square mark on the map that you can try get to, then you can be hunting for challenges in which completing them will reward you with a skill point so leveling up isn't the only way to advance your character, so this just further encourages the exploring bit for me.

The "questing" on this game I'm seriously hoping that future MMO's will adopt this method as it's just simply the best and easyest way to progress in a game, especially when MMO's launch and you have several hundred people trying to fight over the 15 odd mobs in the area for the quest and most the people seem to not want to group up, though not wanting to group up seems to be the normal in MMO's for two obvious reasons, the player wants the max exp from the mob (generally to avoid grinding later) and they want all the mob drops to them self's, in GW2 that doesn't even become a tiny factor anymore simply because as long as you hit the mob a few times to deal decent damage to it's HP, you can also pick up loot from the mob with it being normal loot or quest loot so people also can't really complain about kill stealing, also because mob exp generally isn't that high anyway compared to the bulks of exp you get from public quests or even doing world vs world events, people tend to not care about having someone kill the mob they're attacking.

So no more having 1 NPC ask 100+ people to kill some wolves separately towards their own quest log unless they're grouped up and bring back 10 teeth like an asshole instead of having everyone in the area work towards a common goal.

Very few games have really managed to make questing interesting, we get the odd games like Sword2/Grando Espada that managed to pull it off slightly though they had to be instance based anyway to do such things like escort missions or defending an area from mobs etc though they were still fun none the less, GW2 seems to have thought of most ideas in what they can stuff into the game for quest variety such as stopping a mob invasion on towns all the way down to getting the rabbits back into their hut before they eat all the cabbage in the farm.

We even get quests like this where we get turned into a pig to go truffle hunting, like you could just be sniffing around in plant areas or go into a burrow in which you can find a couple in there, though you can only bring one back of course as it has to hold it in it's mouth or you could simply eat it to get a quick heal and a movement speed increase, little things like that make me like the game that little bit more as there's never a definitive thing you have to do with any item or on the game in general.

The other thing I really enjoy about this game is it's story and the way it does it, though the story quests in general are instance based that doesn't really bother me, also because of the fact that it's one of the only proper ways it could work, otherwise you could potentially see the same NPC walking in the same area and saying the same thing about 15 times simultaneously because several people are doing it at once, anyway...along with the story being quite interesting (providing you bother to read/listen to the story line), what I like more is the fact that a lot of the story missions actually give you an option on what missions you will take, like will you do a full on assault to take back a fort from the undead? or will you use an experimental unit that's armed with mines and can self destruct to try defend the fort from the assault?, it's the things like that which give the story a little bit more flavour so at least if you pick the same race again it won't be 100% the same depending on what routes you take.

Now the world vs world is really fun especially when you're doing it with an organized guild as your not just simply running around randomly or just following the zerg totally unorganized in what they will be doing and how to fight off a potentially bigger army, the exp you also get from doing this as well as the money just makes the experience more enjoyable as it greatly helps to being able to buy siege equipment or even fortify your forts so you can defend them much easier with a smaller army simply because the base has the tools to defend against it like having cannons on the walls, reinforced walls and more guards to help defend.

In the world vs world there is still side things you can be doing just like in the main world such as you can even explore a little bit and find vistas and even challenge points to get extra skill points if need be, some of them actually needing access to the fort to get behind them, there's even things like this overgrown grub boss that takes a massive beating to kill in which you can gain exp/money rewards just for killing it off.

So now I'll move onto possibly one of the only things that's bugging the hell out of me on the game and the same with a lot of other people as it really effects world vs world in an awful way that at some points just makes it slightly unplayable simply because you can't see the enemy army in front of you.

In the picture above you can see that there is a lot of things going on such as trying to capture the main castle in the eternal battlegrounds, yet there's no enemy's on the screen here at all even though there's actually a heck of alot of people about in general, I can't even see all my allies on the screen either simply because of one annoying issue which is that they simply don't render in because of the amount of people on the screen, this makes it so that a lot of the time you don't even see the enemy army that's about to attack you from behind, if your lucky you will see perhaps 5 or so of them and you will just think "oh lets kill them", in which you will give a bit of a chase and before you know it...you will find that your about to get stomped because you don't see the 20 other people simply because they havn't rendered up, so a lot of the time you're fighting an invisible army.

Now sure you can just tab target and attack like that even though you can't see them but it makes it much harder to use aoes if you don't even know where the heck they're standing.

This is the only main issue I currently have with the game at the moment as it ruins the experience for me in world vs world, how do you fight what you can't see? well it's do-able but it's a giant pain to accomplish as you don't know where is safe and where isn't safe a lot of the time especially if it's not with one side defending in a fort and the other trying to attack, if you're both just in the open fields it really becomes a pain to handle.

So that's all of it, what I'm currently enjoying about the game and my own real gripe effecting the world vs world gameplay, the PvE is a heck of a lot of fun especially with all the exploring with finding new areas and all the public events you find as a lot of them can be quite unique to each other, so with that said I just hope ArenaNet actually manage to get some sort of fix for the rendering issue in world vs world as it will make it so much more enjoyable when you can actually see your enemy and fight properly.