You only have a mount because they changed the game recently to give you the raptor early on, before that all the mounts were locked behind Path of Fire and Living World season 4.
I don't know if Mike heard and didn't mention it or if he hadn't heard at all. But LW was a 2 week cadence. As someone who worked on the QA team during that period of GW2 life, I have to say it was one of the most stressful yet rewarding jobs I had in game QA. There's no room for mistakes in that environment, but the players' support was tremendous. (Definitely helped that they bought all of us at the studio a PS4 day one.)
Without revealing any spoilers: meta-events are the mechanic that they found to make you come back to many maps. I include maps from every season into my daily rotation, since there are certain daily time gates, but there are so many maps and metas that you don't end up feeling like you don't have anything else to do until tomorrow. Excellent design choice.
Is there like a daily meta train players follow? Like some sort of discord that schedule these things daily? Or are they all just basing it on Event Timer and checking the LFG if there's anyone doing it?
@@FullchanAnon a little of both. Some Commanders and guilds do meta trains. Most people just follow the event timer page or have it on Blish HUD for easier access.
I gotta say that while I definitely having fewer main characters worked really well for s1 going forward, I really loved having SO many characters in the core game. It made the world feel huge and lived-in for me, especially if you play different races/orders. As much of a let-down as the Zhaitan fight was, I did love how big and jumbled the pact felt, and replaying that after having played a race/order I hadn't previously made that really rewarding, because suddenly I knew these characters. Experiencing that as the base before going into LS1 and the more single story focused approach, it made Tyria feel really expansive and real to me. And to this day I find old characters I met ten years back on one obscure race specific quest, that you only meet if you picked THAT specific background and THAT specific quest direction, and I'm like hey! I know you! and I really love that
I've been wanting to try this game out for a while, I had the game years ago, but only played to like, lvl 30 then stopped. I then started playing SWTOR, and am now a FFXIV HC raider. But this series has convinced me to start playing GW2 again. :D Thanks Preach!
I'm really enjoying these GW2 videos, it's been fun watching you play and enjoy it. I just recently started playing GW2, and while all my friends are still on WoW, I find myself enjoying GW2 more in a lot of cases. It's such a fun game, and watching you play through it is really enjoyable for me as I too play through it.
One thing to keep in mind: the cadence for some of the living world chapters was at one point as short as two weeks between releases and some of them coincided with what are now seasonal events/zones For example there was one LW you completed and the mob talked about the festival of the four winds which was active at the time it launched and commingled with the flavor of the chapter events (it's now a summer event). So you were missing out on some companion gameplay to the LW chapters.
If Mike is enjoying season 1, I can't wait to see how he feels about seasons 3 and 4. Also, funny that Mike calls Logan a foot sniffer. Take a look at Queen Jenna's shoes...
5:20 Living world Season 1 originally started releasing in january 2013, while Final Fantasy 14 A Realm Reborn was released in august 2013, I'm fairly sure Arenanet wasn't looking at FF for that one :P
What won me over was Preach saying he hates Braham! JOIN THE CLUB!!! Serious note, it's very interesting to see that most new players have such a positive outlook on the LW S1 story, it's very much a mixed opinion from many of us older players. The good takeaway is Anet managed to stick the landing on bringing that content back and making sure it ramps up a bit more than the core story. I think you'll really enjoy LW S3 & 4( 4 imo is the best one ) can't wait to see you get into HoT xpac as well, the difficulty really ramps up once you're in that xpac. As a content creator, I can't wait for when you get into endgame content such as raids, strikes, WvW, those will be some of the most exciting streams!
Yesss.. Another who despises Braham. I've gone through everything all the way to current, and I've never once liked him. Rox is best girl, but Braham can jump off a cliff for all I care. I would die for Taimi tho.
I started playing at the start of PoF so i never got to experience the living world stories they removed and it felt so jarring to be moved straight into a story with a bunch of characters acting like they know you but you'd never seen them before. After playing through season 1 it gave me a new appreciation for a lot of dragons watch. Except braham...
2nd Expansion Path of Fire is where you originally got raptor mount, as you progress through the story for the 2nd expansion you unlock more and more mount types and you also unlock masteries to unlock each mounts full power/abilities.
Exploring the game the way it was intended the first time is such a better experience than just blasting over everything in mounts. HoT with glider especially, becomes trivialised if you can fly.
The reason you only have one mount is because mounts were added in the second expansion - Path of Fire. So that's where you'll get more mounts and not in Heart of Thorns - that expansion added gliders. That being said you should still do the story in order like you planned or else you're probably going to be a bit confused. You're definitely gonna like the fact that the story characters stay and their amount doesn't increase drastically. What you might not like is that Braham stays as well but if I recall correctly his character does develop past the wannabe gigachad eventually. I thought you'd be a bit happier about the raptor cause when I first rode it I thought it was soo much better than WoW mounts, not being just a speed boost but an actual mount with its own kinda movement and you could feel its weight. I guess now WoW's got dragonriding so the bar is higher though. That's another reason why you might not be as impressed with the good mounts when you get them as we were when Path of Fire dropped in 2017. Also the reason why elite specs require so many hero points is probably because they're expansion content and the expansions give much more hero points than the base game. That being said I'm not sure why they made it this way instead of making hero points equally available everywhere.
They probably made it that way so you wouldn't be able to get your elite specialization at the beginning of the expansion by stockpiling points from the previous content.
What do you mean you thought he'd be happier about the raptor? He didn't say he's displeased with it at all! He simply mused as to how to get more mounts.
You should know that from Living World Season 2 onwards, there is a meta achievement called Seasons of the Dragons which is quite a lot easier than the other achievements associated with Living World that you've seen. All you need to do is go for a tour through the content in each Living World episode, which is really fun, especially from LWS3 onwards. The rewards are incredible, not only do you get a wealth of materials, currencies and gold, you also get: An ascended-quality weapon of your choice. A 32-slot bag! A precursor weapon that you can upgrade to a Gen 3 Legendary weapon or sell at the Trading Post. A Legendary amulet for all your characters whose stats can be swapped at will! Note that Legendary items are as powerful as Ascended items, except you unlock them for all your characters and their stats, runes and sigils can be swapped freely. They also come with fancy visual effects. Having a full set of Legendary items is the best quality of life feature you can get in any MMO. It gives you so much freedom. You can always skip the Seasons of the Dragons achievements that are very vertical until you've unlocked the mounts that make vertical travel easier, then come back and finish them.
They don’t do enough to explain how endgame guild wars truly works. It’s completely choose your own adventure to the MAX. You pick things you want to do thru the cheevo system and you go explore the world based on that. Yo need to get resources from all the living world zones so there is more reason to return than you realize. It’s really hard to break the “wow mindset” of hit level cap, get gear and raid. Guild wars 2 has that to a degree but once you sit back and actually see how the entire game are systems that all flow together and allow you to do whatever you want to progress then you’ve seen what a gem this game is. I always tell new players when they ask me what to do or where to go , I say…. Go outside the city. Pick a direction and GO! It’s the only game where you can just run somewhere and get into a completely new adventure every time you play. Sure you learn the Metas eventually but those just become something you attend. Even after you think you’ve played thru every zone and seen what each zone has, you’ve just touched the very tip of what the real adventure has in store. I challenge anyone who is stuck in the wow mindset to just jump sometime and start heading down a road. Tell yourself you wanna travel through 3 zones and I promise you you won’t ever get past the first zone once you start getting into trouble cause everything you do rewards you with end game resources you need or can sell to progress. There’s literally never anything you do that doesn’t give you end game resources. It all matters and scales with your level. So go out and enjoy the living world of GW2. Save that town, drink that take the village back from the pirates that then opens up a new set of adventures you never knew where there!
The problem is making the first move. It's an overwhelming amount of content to chose from all at the same level cap. Many just nope out because they need direction, which the game doesn't do very well, the achievement panel is a giant tabbed list and most WoW players enjoy have 1 direction to be pushed in. The wiki is a necessity sometimes.
@@GamblingDedicated I bought Eternity with Gold last night. Really nothing else to spend gold on in the game after you have skyscale, ascended gear (which is free) etc & the new gen 3 legendary weapons are a lot quicker to craft than gen 1, spending gold on cosmetics and QoL is the way to go, so dont feel bad.
I've played a ton of WoW and FFXIV but very little Guild Wars 2...and as a guy with really no more free time I almost definitely never plan to! These videos have been so great in letting me know about the game, I feel we have a lot in common in that I want to know everything about every MMO so I really appreciate you diving in and delivering the info in this format.
Actually GW2 is that type of a game which you can literally play for 15 minutes a day and still have some real fun. An average story instance is ~15-30 minutes, an average dungeon or fractal run is ~10-15 minutes, an average open world event (they spawn at random all over the map) is ~3-10 minutes and a meta event (a chain of events) is 15-40 minutes, in WvW you can just enter a map for 3-5 minutes, help capture an objective (or get killed lol) and leave and feel like you made some progress. GW2 REALLY respects your time, you can leave the game for 2 years and on returning see your gear and build more or less as relevant as when you left (except if you had an OP build which got nerfed but chances are it could get OP again in that time lol).
@@AntonMochalin exactly that. I had a break for years (basically right after Season 1 until the release of Season 4 Ep.,2 Daybreak) and i had a BLAST catching up on the content.
There's no reason why you can't play gw2, it's even more chill then XIV. You can not play for a year, come back and not at all be behind other players Just play it. I play this and XIV. Quit wow ages ago and never looked back, it's just not able to compete with XIV and gw2
Season 3 in particular is going to be a huge reason to revisit those maps. They offer ascended trinkets that are the only easy ways to get stat-selectable endgame ascended trinkets for PvE without going to raids
true but most stats you it's easier to get rings from fractals and about as easy to get amulet from laurel vendor only major exception is viper which you need stat selectable for #makevipereasiertoget
@@jarzz3601 that makes sense, I just didn't like fractals that much, I spent most of my time between WvW and farming LWS3 maps as they launched in that period, so my experience is a little different
100%ing achievements on those maps is frustrating because you almost need a guide to know exactly what to do and when, since living world is so scripted and you'd end up wasting a lot of time repeating chapters because you missed or failed a challenge by a tiny margin. Much easier to just farm endgame group content.
@@anubisftn To be honest FFXIV was in a so bad state at the time was not even mentioned much hence the Reborn part of FFXIV :), also was not a base game, ARR is no expansion the base game of ARR is ARR, which was release almost exactly one year after guildwars2 on 24 August 2013, I did pre-order it
@@creativewild August 24th. Yeah 1.0 was bad. I was there. But it was def the release of FFXIV priot. Just not FFXIV ARR. Everyone is pretty open about it being a dumpster fire. Admitting it honestly and openly is why FFXIV and probably GW2 are both so much better games. Not hiding behind all the hubris and ego of WoW.
Well then, why not do that?! New content just released and there are Twitch drops this week for watching some GW2 streams. Plus, ya know, no sub fee, no pressure. :)
The Silverwastes actually has a pretty amazing meta event that you should definitely check out, Mike. Dry Top's sandstorm/qualm before the storm-cycle is also really fun to experience a few times, imho.
I think it was during the living world episode one that there was an election for the new mayor of lions arch that you could vote for and the winner at that time was the one that promised a map wide discount on warp point cost xD
Evon Ghashblade was the one that promised the WP discount. He is the richest man in the game, as he is the canonical owner of the in-game Black lion Trading Post.
not just that, but back then we were given the impression that the story would change or at least unfold in other ways depending on the outcome how much that was true we will never know, but I'm still a proud Evon supporter
Really enjoying this series and watching Mike discovering more of the game. Can't wait for him to get into HoT and experience our favourite map, The tangled depths... ☠
Living World Season 4 is the best experience i've ever had in a MMORPG ever. A lot of fun achievements, top tier missions and story progression/moments. I still need to buy Icebrood Saga and End of Dragons. Overall the best mmorpg i ever played, good on you wallet, respects your time, and is consistent, no huge changes that makes you learn 10 new systems to upgrade something. The definition of good foundation.
I'll be honest, IBS wasn't well received because it was expansion content in its on right, rushed out, but the strike missions in there are excelent to teach new players 10 man content.. Eod is at the very least as good as HoT.
Achievements act as a guide to the content. There are so many things going on in the open world that you might miss many on a first playthrough. If you try to complete the achievements for a map, though, it's very likely you will see all there is to see.
~6:30 yeah, Braham feels like a little kid, but it actually makes him kind of a "good" character. Not in the way as "he´s a very enjoyable one", but rather as a character, that actually develops. He´s maybe not the brightest one, and it takes a lot of time for him to actually develop, but that slow pace allows his development to actually be noticed. Doesn´t change the fact that he is probably one of the least loved characters by the community... 7:30 yeah, that´s a rather weird bug, which nobody exactly knows why it even happens, glad you found one of the possible fixes. WHat you expierienced when the story started picking up is the reason why veterans will ALWAYS advise to play the story in order without skipping anything. because everything in the story IS IMPORTANT! EVERYTHING! 9:11 the reason for it changing in the story-instances is, that Season 1 initially released as time-limited content that took place in the real game world. So in those instances, you are technically expieriencing a "flashback" into the content on how it WAS at its release, before it "expired" and was removed from the game. That´s why you see the old Lion's Arch in your personal story and in Season 1, you´re technically expieriencing the past. They changed this in the later Living World seasons, because the players HATED it back then. 12:42 The achievement-panel is probably your best "handbook" to find new stuff to do. Because basically EVERYTHING (or at least, almost everything) is at least to some extent represented in the achievement-panel. If you should EVER run out of stuff to do: check your achievement-panel, pick one that either sounds fun, or has a reward attached to it you want, and just do the achievements. It gets overlookd waaay too much by newer players. 15:09 you learned a very important lesson at that point, which is: playing your character well is the most crucial thing in gw2. Top Tier gear will not automatically lead to success, player-skill matters BY FAR the most. Ofc stuff like having the (important!) correct gear for your (important!) sensible build does have an impact, but if you´re just ignoring mechanics and smash your head against enemies, facetanking every hit, you´re gonna run against a wall. Character improvement hits a limit very fast if you rely on gear, instead YOU (as the player) need to improve/evolve. That´s by far the most impactful factor on playing basically anything in gw2. 18:05 don´t worry about the mount. You literally don´t need it at all before ANYTHING that came before the Path of Fire Expansion (because at that time, mounts didnt even EXIST in the game yet). So the maps are designed to be explored without mounts, it´s just a nice addition ANet did recently. You will eventually interact with the mounts way more once you get into PoF. Also: small advice, as you soon approach HoT: prepare mentally for having your underpants eaten by pocket raptors (DAMN I HATE THOSE, I WANNA KNOW WHOSE IDEA THAT WAS SO I CAN PUNCH THEM IN THE FACE!!!) lul
World completion is definitely a reason to revisit location and see the changes, you need world completion for crafting certain legendries and for other rewards and achievements
There are definitely reasons to return to the living world maps in GW2. Mostly for achievements and the gear/cosmetic rewards you get from those but also some maps have unique reasons to return such as treasure maps in The Silverwastes or the blizzard event and subsequent dragon hunt in Bjora Marches.
I started playing WoW Like many in 2005 (EU). Got addicted to it years straight, first break I took was after WOTLK, after that I still played every expansion but I don't stay for long, I grow tired of it fast. Guild Wars 2 I bought in 2013 after the break from WoW, but I never really gave the game a chance, I was too different from WoW at the time for me to enjoy it, so I bought it but shelved it till... last year. I decided to give the game another chance and I'm so glad I did. I have like 2000 hours now in the game in the span of a year. I'm currently on break from it but I do intend to return from time to time. I'm really enjoying seeing you explore the game as I did. I also feel that the initial experience of the game although kinda fun and different it shows its age, its only after you get Elite Specs that the game picks up for me. The base game was a bit boring but where the game shined for me was starting in Heart of Thorns due to the increase in difficulty and the amazing map Metas! But story wise it has to be Path of Fire + Season 4. Season 4 is SOOOO good! I think it will forever be the Wrath of the Lich King of GW2. The latest expansion was fun but it kinda felt a bit too empty in some zones for me to enjoy compared the metas of Heart of Thorns for example. All in all GW2 is really worth it for any RPG fan and I'm so glad I gave it another chance. :)
Be glad you're playing through GW2 at a time when living world season 1 is actually in the game.. before it got put back in, many many years after it originally released, you would go from base game straight to season 2 with all these characters that yours already knows. I was sat there like "who the heck are these guys, am I supposed to know them?" Made it really hard to feel connected to any of them.
The Raptor mount at level 20 is new. You're not supposed to have mounts until the 2nd expansion, Path of Fire, where you can get all the variety of mounts.
On the achievement panel: it's basically the endgame questlog and there's ascended gear that's earnable in there. Anet isn't super clear about bringing it to your attention, but for new players definitely look into it once you reach cap.
10:45 That was the biggest difference for me as a GW2 player playing WoW for a month recently. I was grinding for the Druid Class Mount from Legion which had me doing stuff all over the expansion's maps, but with Dragonflight being out, where are all the players? Certainly not in Legion, and with my item level being around 150 at level 60 I was struggling with some world bosses because the maps were so dead. In GW2 that wouldn't be a problem. There are achievements, dailies and world boss trains, to name a few, that makes you go back to the older maps, making them constantly populated. I think it's such a shame things become outdated in WoW, especially if you're a player hopping on after an expansion had its launch several years ago. You're basically fucked. That's why I love how GW2 makes you go back to older maps.
It helps that the FF14 mindset of "Do everything in a linear story based order to maximise content to be played as it was designed at that moment in history" is so welcome now, instead of the WoW "skip everything and rush to current expansion/endgame" that was dominant for so long.
I think the few living world concepts FFXIV has are Ildyshire, Doma, and Foundation. Very minor, but watching it change throughout patches or progress was nice touch.
ARR had Mor Dhonuts too! Because Mor Dhonuts in 2.0 doesn't look like it as it is now. But only the people who joined in ARR experienced that progression.
Also Beast Tribes do a similar thing. I miss the joined Beast Tribes quest after finishing all of the tribes in an expansion. It was fun seeing them all come together.
@@ChannelRaznoff I have a feeling the Allied Tribal Quests are coming back, they took a break from doing that in Shadowbringers. Since Hildibrand did come back in Endwalker.
@@ChannelRaznoff So few people do the beast tribes quests, it's kind of shocking. That's why they give away the rewards during the limited seasonal events.
Asmongold made me try FFXIV and it changed me in many ways. Now preach nudged me over the edge to try gw2. Its amazing so far. Im 10 hrs in. The world is so vast. I had no idea the game was so big
I'm really glad that you've enjoyed the story, because it just gets better and better with each living world and each expansion. I too find the base game story to be really mediocre, but as soon as the living worlds and expansions start, I really started caring about the characters and the story.
Gw2 is a truly hidden gem and i love it when ppl discover how insanely good it is. Great combat good graphics one of the best community and respect from company to playerbase not a cash grabbing mmo.
GW2 is a fantastic game, it's just really struggles in communicating activities for players to do and keeping players playing for the long term. Chasing gear in most MMOs is a simple treadmill that has simple understandable motivation (get stronger) that is also a really hard habit to break since it's been this way for so long.
@@cattysplat This is true, in Guild wars 2, you basically need to look up third party sources to discover all the endless possibilities on what to do in Guild wars 2 and where to have fun, as so much of the game is hidden away and not obvious to find at all unfortunately.
With Heart of Thorns (HoT) you will get gliding, which is essential on Raids (and some Strikes), then LWS 3 (6 episodes) with the first raids as far as I remember. Check the Masteries: Red is from the Core Maps (you want autoloot), green is HoT, Magenta/lilac is PoF, you only can do the masteries and development on those Maps (including the belonging LWS) and you want to have fully skilled gliding! HoT is really 3 D. 3rd Path of Fire (PoF) within the starting Story you got the Raptor and from that moment you can skill it, the other mounts follow then and you often need to unlock another mount you need a skillled mount from the map before. It was a pleasent journey. Then LWS 4 more mounts and Raids. Your Vindicator elite Spec is from the last expansion End of Dragons (EoD), you can use any heropoint on any specialization, you get more heropoints for the specializations than you really need, so no need to respec. It is fun to watch your journey here in Tyriah, but continue the Story the way it was meant to be. 🍀
It would be cool see a bigger version of living world in ff14, but i also can understand the time resources it takes to go into that. I guess best way we get with beast tribes how rank ups usally effect there small areas, or doman/ishgardian restoration.
Achievement system 14:00 is something that brings a lot of people back however… Quite a few of the achievements and collections aren’t for the sake of AP but actual items. The LWS 1 collections eventually unlock an item called Memory of Old Lion’s Arch and it is a key to the old city and you unlock the instance so you can go to the original map (-mounts of course). Mounts didn’t come out until expansion 3 so you were spoiled early.
I mean at one point the concept of a living world did play its parts especially in a huge way in Cataclysm when we saw Azeroth get fucked up by Deathwing. We saw this again in Mists when Siege of Orgrimmar came out along with Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Though I do see Ion's point in this, it is a bit hard to forget these things made Azeroth once a living world at some points. I take it with Dragonflight the reawakening of the other Primalists there might be another shift in the world where they will be waking up. Whether or not this is a concept of their living world it may as well count as one because the amount of resources they pull and the effort to create these things.
Depending on how much you play or plan on playing there is definitely a reason to go back to the old zones past the core game. There's usually a currency associated with each zone and a vendor that has lots of important stuff to buy. Home instance nodes for daily gathering, ascended jewelry with the ability to choose the stat lines you want, minis, and crafting recipes. There's also achievement hunting, farming the meta events for mastery xp, a chance to get exotics to either sell on the ah or unlock the appearance, and the later zone metas can have ascended gear drops.
For the rest of the mounts, you need to start Path of Fire and unlock them, usually through specific tasks and once you have them unlocked, they are unlocked for your ENTIRE account, no need to unlock them ever again. And the best part? If you create a new character you'll be able to use them right from the get go.
One big detail about the change of Lion's Arch is that for the original season 1 of living world, after the battle of Lion's Arch... The city was in ruin and kept that way for month then some was done on reconstruction, and then again we had the new Lion Arch. All of that to say, I still prefer the old one, and during a time it was the saddest place to be.
Actually I like Braham, it develops nice trough story. For me is way better than the annoying and useless Logan and Treaharne, that has zero personality.
Someone needs to tell Preach that the achievement system in GW2 IS the progression. Mounts weren’t added until PoF we walked everywhere. Remember having to walk through HoT?
I think I generally agree with everything you're saying except for one point. You mention that you prefer when they hold your hand and just mark the things you need to kill. I actually prefer when they don't do this, like in the open world you might get a quest like "Infiltrate the bandit hideout and sabotage their plans" and you have to look around and identify their hideout in a relatively small area using reasoning and exploration, instead of following the glowing line on the ground or auto-running through the story like games with bad world's and designs. Same for instances, where you said you prefer straight linear paths, I actually think that the instance that are more open and you can approach them in different ways are cool. I think we as gamers have been conditioned to look at minimaps and just click all our buttons on the guys with the X over their head so much that we are missing out on the cool experience of identifying enemies, looking at the worldbuilding and enjoying the unique aspects of the game, otherwise you might as well just replace all the enemies with a generic model and call it a day.
my favourite MMO content creator playing one of my all time favourite games has to be the best thing happening on the internet right now, love you preach (and team!) please keep rocking it!
The Raptor was from PoF at the start of the Expansion, they are spoiling you getting it so early. There were no mounts, until then, you got gliding in HoT - Boats are in Dragons End. Wait till you get the 2 flying mounts... As for Brahm - he gets better, not much though Taimi ended up being my favourite along with Rytlock.
The Zhaitan fight was originally designed to only be played with a party. Naturally, over time there were far fewer players running it, which made it impossible for new players to complete the story. As such, they introduced a solo mode, which is dull and boring. All future End of Expansion boss fights are designed much, much better, with both a single player story component and a group meta component. Regarding that, I cannot wait to hear what Preach thinks about the end of the HoT content, and I really hope he does the meta fight.
He already finished season 2 and really enjoyed it. Said he was very confused why people were telling him to skip it. He was expected a downgrade from season 1
@@RedNuii from what I understand is that most people never did lw S1 since it wasnt in the game, so going into season 2 without proper knowledge of season 1 made season 2 much worse.
@@richard-pv4ff This is can agree to. It is also slower but not necessarily bad imo. But if you dont know the characters I can see why it would seem bad.
@@richard-pv4ff S2 is also 8 chapters instead of 6 so it is the most expensive season. And at the same time if offers very little aside from the story because you don't get any maps or expansion type stuff like masteries or mounts. So if you have prior knowledge of what a typical living world season gives you then S2 is the weaker of the bunch but if you just go in blind and expect more story then that season is fantastic for that.
With regards to Lion’s Arch, I wasn’t there when Battle for Lion’s Arch happened, but I WAS there for the broken version of the city, as well as the small rebuilding period. I remember when I first walked in to New Lion’s Arch, and that cutscene played. It was so incredible.
I think the thing about living world too is the horizontal vs vertical progression, in WoW often you won’t go back because there is nothing of worth there, but it is reduced in GW2 as you will still go back to the main cities, and specially Lions arch
Some achievements are needed for masteries, others can give ascended gear, a few have side stories/follow-up involving some major characters. So not all are cosmetic.
For the mounts, you have to get to the Path of Fire expansion for the main ones and complete the side quests for the premium mounts. I really think you'll love it.
Before they re-added LW1, you would just get a story recap cutscene in LA. It was jarring to walk into Heart of thorns/LW2 with "friends" you literally never met.
Also want to say that the achievements don't just give cosmetics. Some of them reward you with ascended gear. Both the flying mounts are locked behind achievements. I was able to get my first few ascended gears from it (essentially the highest stat value equipment, account bound so switchable on your charactesrs)
For those who don't know, Living World were not off the bat paid content. If you logged in during the time each chapter was released, it was given to you for free, but after a certain point it becomes something you have to pay for. As for what makes you return to the LW maps... not much for LWS1. But 2, 3, 4, and 5 (Icebrood Saga) are exceptionable meta event farmable maps. LWS2 Silverwastes is still one of the most profitable maps in the game to this day. S3 for unbound magic currency, S4 for volatile magic (both of which gets you gold), S5 for eternal ice shards (which can get you more volatile magic or ascended trinkets) - S5/IBS also introduces one of the more profitable maps right now (Drizzlewood Coast). Not to mention the gear drops that are also sellable. LWS4 also introduces 2 additional mounts you can not acquire without playing it. The story ain't too shabby either, esp 3 and 4 (but 2 holds a special place in my heart as someone who plays mostly Sylvari - playing a priory sylvari character through s2-HOT was one of the most rewarding lore experiences I have had in any game ever).
Mike hope you read this. Mounts weren't brought to gw2 until the 2nd expac heart of fire. You got a long way to go before unlocking mounts. Raptor is the basic amount given to tide you over in the meantime
Unsure if you read these comments, but without any spoilers: - The storytelling REALLY picks up with Living World Season 3 (after Heart of Thorns expansion) - Mounts are acquired with the Path of Fire expansion gameplay (the flying mount is Living World Season 4 and it is a long grind with an amazing payoff) - Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire Hero Points give 10 points each (not 1 like the Core Tyria) - Core Tyria difficulty is a 2/10, Heart of Thorns is easily the hardest jump in difficulty anyone has ever done with an expansion, and it is a literal 10/10 without mounts/HoT masteries - Unsure if the difficulty will actually put you off the game (most Hero Points CANNOT be solod without a great Open World build) My honest recommendation: unlocking your spec, I am pretty sure all GW2 players who know who you are already messaged you offering their aid/insight, but I will gladly do so here as I have played both WoW and GW2, hopefully you will see this comment Preach, keep it up
Gw2 does something interesting with their open world zones. From heart of thorns onward, each will have huge story relevant events that progress across (for the most part) the entire map. These events are the reason why players keep coming back to the zones. Some are better than others, but they all have their bright sides.
You say, you wouldn’t go back to Thunderbluff if it was a living world. But in GW2 you’ve noticed that ALL the old maps are still extremely active. ANet doesn’t let old zones die like WoW. It’s a beautiful thing
I've had this super weird feeling when watching your videos for years. It finally clicked recently, and I sent my best friend a link to one of your videos to verify: you & I are basically doppelgangers. It's felt weird watching you because it's felt like watching myself.
I tried to care about the story in this game but LWS1 killed it for me. Just after I got to know and get used to the previous group of heroes, they throw them away and give me a bunch of new people who I don't care about to be my new group of heroes, and nearly all of them suck. Oddly enough I kind of like Logan. I did play human though so I got to know him better. Ya he's a "simp" for Jennah. He's her personal champion. He's a literal chivalrous knight. And as meh as that sounds, I found it better than: Braham- angsty teen who's angsty Rox- Who's core traits are having big eyes and a pet Marjory- Who's core trait is being arrogant for no reason (I guess she's supposed to be smart, but nothing she did in the time I interacted with her showed that) And her blonde friend who I don't even remember because by this point I was pretty checked out They're nearly all pretty obnoxious and not at all endearing. And I'm supposed to just abandon any attachment I had to the previous group for these people. lol.
Mounts got introduced in the expansion "Path of Fire", if you stuck to lore that'd mean: doing Living World S2, then Heart of Thorns (introduced Raids), then Living World S3, and THEN do Path of Fire
living world was originally very fomo content updates every 2 week or so where new events, missions and stuff got released, then got taken out of the game a few weeks later. if someone took a break from the game for even just a month or 2 then they would miss out on story content that they would never be able to play anymore. the original design of the game was to have only living world as future content, no expansions. that changed quickly after the failure of season 1.
It’s cause his stream reached the sub goal to make him finish FF8. Believe me he really didn’t want to go back to ff8 but people in chat were super adamant on him finishing the game.
Mounts came in the POF expansion. So you won’t unlock minute until you go to POF content, which if you own you can start at any time. If you’re playing everything In order you season 2, HOT expansion, sean 3-4. POF and then season 5. If you do play everything im Order and don’t go get mounts, you will get to enjoy the content as we all did when it first came out. Mounts kinda take away from the experience in HOT imo.
Ian saying that the reason they don't maintain a "living world" is because (he assumes that) no one would bother to appreciate it, is like a self fulfilling prophecy. Put another way, if they never even attempt it, players won't have the option to disregard it, or be angry about their doing it terribly. And, when they have attempted similar things in the past (Cata, mainly), it was extremely poorly received by a very vocal percentage of the player-base; probably because Cata took a massive shit on the one thing that keeps people coming back to WoW: nostalgia. _"What do you mean I can't do Linken's quest anymore!? This is BULLSHIT!!!"_ (etc)
About the living world season 1 achievements. If you do them all you can access old lion's arch, which is awesome. I get if you don't want to do the other achievements in the game because the reward is cosmetic. But that group of achievements has a very nice reward in the end.
Mounts were introduced in Path of Fire content. You will work through unlocking them when you go through Path of Fire content and story. Others like Griffon, Skyscale are unlocked as part of collection with later living world seasons. Turtle is unlocked in End of Dragons collections Heart of Thorns is going to be painful without better mounts ;-)
Honestly the story with Scarlet might not have been the strongest but the final cutscene as well as the reveal of mordremoth whose existance was only teased prior by turning on full detail combat against one of the CoE bosses whose attacks are named after the elder dragons was peak.
Gw2 is completely different from release. No mounts, no glider. But the massive battles that took place fighting Scarlett, clockwork, and the nightmare tower. The game has grown the mounts are in the 2nd expansion and season 4 and requires tine, gold and scavenger hunts. Lots to do Enjoy.
A number of the mounts are unlocked by achievements. Skyscale (the dragon) especially is a bit of a task to unlock. But it is very worth it, for all the mounts really.
I will remember all my life the living world 1. I experienced it when it was released and seeing Lion Arch's so changed, the dungeon to beat Scarlet in the middle of Lion Arch's as the culmination of a crazy chain of events that changed that place, all the destruction when a couple of weeks ago everyone was thinking "what are they going to do?". It was one of my favorite moments in an MMO. I never felt so attached on an MMO event until then, I didn't felt it like a to do list or having to complete new content because that's what you have to do in an mmo and it's what you do out of inertia. I felt very involved and surprised.
Living world 1 was never "removed". When the game started, living world was supposed to only happen LIVE in the actual game world. After it happened, it automatically was gone forever because, well - it was OVER. Then they obviously realized that it was not a good idea that everyone who started later on would miss all of that content and would be unable to experience it, so starting from Living World 2 it became replayable like a story episode. This is also where the idea of "it is free when you logged in while it was live, and you have to pay when you didn't" system comes from. Originally the content was made ONLY for those people who were playing at the time that it all happened.
Just a little addition they were released over a certain time and the time outside the game equals the game in game. For example when we meet him Braham is around 16 years. End of Dragons he is around 24/25 years. So you also see the, lets call it, the flaws of youth, etc. So the 10 years GW2 is life is also the time our commander and their companions matured from their starting point c:
You only have a mount because they changed the game recently to give you the raptor early on, before that all the mounts were locked behind Path of Fire and Living World season 4.
He knows now, chat told him, this video was probably recorded a few weeks ago
How long ago was this?
@@rufusremetsen4989 a few months ago.
the video has been recorded somewhere between 10/01/2023 and 31/01/2023, as the "Lunar New Year"-Festival was active in the footage.
On the other hand, the change to mount availability is a good example of the devs fixing problems.
I’m eagerly waiting for Mike to hit path of fire and season 4.
Living World 4 is top tier GW2.
Honestly..... I want to see his reaction when he moves to the Heart of Thorns maps
pof best expansion
@saibulumollel3758 Depends on if he does the mount skip to PoF scene 1 to get the raptor.
Yah, PoF+ S4 is some of the best gaming I've experienced. But he has to slog through S2...
I'm loving these GW2 videos.
I know right! I make sure to watch all the adds for the full duration just to support this content. XD
Same!
I don't know if Mike heard and didn't mention it or if he hadn't heard at all. But LW was a 2 week cadence. As someone who worked on the QA team during that period of GW2 life, I have to say it was one of the most stressful yet rewarding jobs I had in game QA. There's no room for mistakes in that environment, but the players' support was tremendous. (Definitely helped that they bought all of us at the studio a PS4 day one.)
Without revealing any spoilers: meta-events are the mechanic that they found to make you come back to many maps. I include maps from every season into my daily rotation, since there are certain daily time gates, but there are so many maps and metas that you don't end up feeling like you don't have anything else to do until tomorrow. Excellent design choice.
Heart of Thorns is where they really knocked Meta-event design out of the park so I look forward to seeing his reaction to some of the better ones.
@@GunnGuardian hey don't forget Silverwastes, we spent countless hours there doing RIBA :P
i think he already did some core metas like behemoth
Is there like a daily meta train players follow? Like some sort of discord that schedule these things daily? Or are they all just basing it on Event Timer and checking the LFG if there's anyone doing it?
@@FullchanAnon a little of both. Some Commanders and guilds do meta trains. Most people just follow the event timer page or have it on Blish HUD for easier access.
I gotta say that while I definitely having fewer main characters worked really well for s1 going forward, I really loved having SO many characters in the core game. It made the world feel huge and lived-in for me, especially if you play different races/orders. As much of a let-down as the Zhaitan fight was, I did love how big and jumbled the pact felt, and replaying that after having played a race/order I hadn't previously made that really rewarding, because suddenly I knew these characters. Experiencing that as the base before going into LS1 and the more single story focused approach, it made Tyria feel really expansive and real to me. And to this day I find old characters I met ten years back on one obscure race specific quest, that you only meet if you picked THAT specific background and THAT specific quest direction, and I'm like hey! I know you! and I really love that
I've been wanting to try this game out for a while, I had the game years ago, but only played to like, lvl 30 then stopped.
I then started playing SWTOR, and am now a FFXIV HC raider.
But this series has convinced me to start playing GW2 again. :D
Thanks Preach!
I'm really enjoying these GW2 videos, it's been fun watching you play and enjoy it. I just recently started playing GW2, and while all my friends are still on WoW, I find myself enjoying GW2 more in a lot of cases. It's such a fun game, and watching you play through it is really enjoyable for me as I too play through it.
One thing to keep in mind: the cadence for some of the living world chapters was at one point as short as two weeks between releases and some of them coincided with what are now seasonal events/zones
For example there was one LW you completed and the mob talked about the festival of the four winds which was active at the time it launched and commingled with the flavor of the chapter events (it's now a summer event). So you were missing out on some companion gameplay to the LW chapters.
If Mike is enjoying season 1, I can't wait to see how he feels about seasons 3 and 4.
Also, funny that Mike calls Logan a foot sniffer. Take a look at Queen Jenna's shoes...
He knows, chat pointed it out. That's why he calls Logan that.
This seems to have been recorded a while ago.
Since then he has played Season 2 and liked it even a bit better than Season 1.
@@TriddyYT Really? I can't find any of his vods following season 2.
@@Ncyphen there is a 5 hour vid.. Search it
@@Ncyphen he talks about living world 1 vs 2 at the end of his last gw2 vod
5:20 Living world Season 1 originally started releasing in january 2013, while Final Fantasy 14 A Realm Reborn was released in august 2013, I'm fairly sure Arenanet wasn't looking at FF for that one :P
What won me over was Preach saying he hates Braham! JOIN THE CLUB!!!
Serious note, it's very interesting to see that most new players have such a positive outlook on the LW S1 story, it's very much a mixed opinion from many of us older players.
The good takeaway is Anet managed to stick the landing on bringing that content back and making sure it ramps up a bit more than the core story.
I think you'll really enjoy LW S3 & 4( 4 imo is the best one ) can't wait to see you get into HoT xpac as well, the difficulty really ramps up once you're in that xpac.
As a content creator, I can't wait for when you get into endgame content such as raids, strikes, WvW, those will be some of the most exciting streams!
Braham *does* get better but he grows on you like a fungus. lol
@@ArmageddonEvil and you pluck said fungus and know it isn’t good to ingest and continue to toss into the bin
Yesss.. Another who despises Braham. I've gone through everything all the way to current, and I've never once liked him. Rox is best girl, but Braham can jump off a cliff for all I care.
I would die for Taimi tho.
I started playing at the start of PoF so i never got to experience the living world stories they removed and it felt so jarring to be moved straight into a story with a bunch of characters acting like they know you but you'd never seen them before. After playing through season 1 it gave me a new appreciation for a lot of dragons watch. Except braham...
Why do you guys hate Bahama? I mean, I'm not a fan of him but I don't hate him either.
2nd Expansion Path of Fire is where you originally got raptor mount, as you progress through the story for the 2nd expansion you unlock more and more mount types and you also unlock masteries to unlock each mounts full power/abilities.
Exploring the game the way it was intended the first time is such a better experience than just blasting over everything in mounts. HoT with glider especially, becomes trivialised if you can fly.
The reason you only have one mount is because mounts were added in the second expansion - Path of Fire. So that's where you'll get more mounts and not in Heart of Thorns - that expansion added gliders. That being said you should still do the story in order like you planned or else you're probably going to be a bit confused. You're definitely gonna like the fact that the story characters stay and their amount doesn't increase drastically. What you might not like is that Braham stays as well but if I recall correctly his character does develop past the wannabe gigachad eventually.
I thought you'd be a bit happier about the raptor cause when I first rode it I thought it was soo much better than WoW mounts, not being just a speed boost but an actual mount with its own kinda movement and you could feel its weight. I guess now WoW's got dragonriding so the bar is higher though. That's another reason why you might not be as impressed with the good mounts when you get them as we were when Path of Fire dropped in 2017.
Also the reason why elite specs require so many hero points is probably because they're expansion content and the expansions give much more hero points than the base game. That being said I'm not sure why they made it this way instead of making hero points equally available everywhere.
They probably made it that way so you wouldn't be able to get your elite specialization at the beginning of the expansion by stockpiling points from the previous content.
Glider is a game changer and particularly fun in the Heart of Thorns maps
Still waiting for Braham's demise
What do you mean you thought he'd be happier about the raptor? He didn't say he's displeased with it at all! He simply mused as to how to get more mounts.
I didn't say I thought he was displeased. Honestly it was just kind of a "back in my days we didn't have any mounts" regard. Kinda silly of me.
You should know that from Living World Season 2 onwards, there is a meta achievement called Seasons of the Dragons which is quite a lot easier than the other achievements associated with Living World that you've seen. All you need to do is go for a tour through the content in each Living World episode, which is really fun, especially from LWS3 onwards. The rewards are incredible, not only do you get a wealth of materials, currencies and gold, you also get:
An ascended-quality weapon of your choice.
A 32-slot bag!
A precursor weapon that you can upgrade to a Gen 3 Legendary weapon or sell at the Trading Post.
A Legendary amulet for all your characters whose stats can be swapped at will!
Note that Legendary items are as powerful as Ascended items, except you unlock them for all your characters and their stats, runes and sigils can be swapped freely. They also come with fancy visual effects. Having a full set of Legendary items is the best quality of life feature you can get in any MMO. It gives you so much freedom.
You can always skip the Seasons of the Dragons achievements that are very vertical until you've unlocked the mounts that make vertical travel easier, then come back and finish them.
They don’t do enough to explain how endgame guild wars truly works. It’s completely choose your own adventure to the MAX. You pick things you want to do thru the cheevo system and you go explore the world based on that. Yo need to get resources from all the living world zones so there is more reason to return than you realize. It’s really hard to break the “wow mindset” of hit level cap, get gear and raid. Guild wars 2 has that to a degree but once you sit back and actually see how the entire game are systems that all flow together and allow you to do whatever you want to progress then you’ve seen what a gem this game is. I always tell new players when they ask me what to do or where to go , I say…. Go outside the city. Pick a direction and GO! It’s the only game where you can just run somewhere and get into a completely new adventure every time you play. Sure you learn the Metas eventually but those just become something you attend. Even after you think you’ve played thru every zone and seen what each zone has, you’ve just touched the very tip of what the real adventure has in store. I challenge anyone who is stuck in the wow mindset to just jump sometime and start heading down a road. Tell yourself you wanna travel through 3 zones and I promise you you won’t ever get past the first zone once you start getting into trouble cause everything you do rewards you with end game resources you need or can sell to progress. There’s literally never anything you do that doesn’t give you end game resources. It all matters and scales with your level. So go out and enjoy the living world of GW2. Save that town, drink that take the village back from the pirates that then opens up a new set of adventures you never knew where there!
The problem is making the first move. It's an overwhelming amount of content to chose from all at the same level cap. Many just nope out because they need direction, which the game doesn't do very well, the achievement panel is a giant tabbed list and most WoW players enjoy have 1 direction to be pushed in. The wiki is a necessity sometimes.
I want to see his reaction to the time it takes to get the skyscale lol.
I did it in 4 days after getting the gold to buy the food snd the skips.
I am not happy with my life.
@@GamblingDedicated I bought Eternity with Gold last night. Really nothing else to spend gold on in the game after you have skyscale, ascended gear (which is free) etc & the new gen 3 legendary weapons are a lot quicker to craft than gen 1, spending gold on cosmetics and QoL is the way to go, so dont feel bad.
wasn't skyscale nerfed?
@@wiziek yeah, you can get the currency pretty easy with the return to achievements or so people told me.
@@wiziek unless it was very recently, no. I just got mine a few months ago and the grind was real.
I've played a ton of WoW and FFXIV but very little Guild Wars 2...and as a guy with really no more free time I almost definitely never plan to! These videos have been so great in letting me know about the game, I feel we have a lot in common in that I want to know everything about every MMO so I really appreciate you diving in and delivering the info in this format.
Actually GW2 is that type of a game which you can literally play for 15 minutes a day and still have some real fun. An average story instance is ~15-30 minutes, an average dungeon or fractal run is ~10-15 minutes, an average open world event (they spawn at random all over the map) is ~3-10 minutes and a meta event (a chain of events) is 15-40 minutes, in WvW you can just enter a map for 3-5 minutes, help capture an objective (or get killed lol) and leave and feel like you made some progress. GW2 REALLY respects your time, you can leave the game for 2 years and on returning see your gear and build more or less as relevant as when you left (except if you had an OP build which got nerfed but chances are it could get OP again in that time lol).
@@AntonMochalin exactly that. I had a break for years (basically right after Season 1 until the release of Season 4 Ep.,2 Daybreak) and i had a BLAST catching up on the content.
There's no reason why you can't play gw2, it's even more chill then XIV. You can not play for a year, come back and not at all be behind other players
Just play it. I play this and XIV. Quit wow ages ago and never looked back, it's just not able to compete with XIV and gw2
@@Hirotoro4692 Coming back to update and say I started playing guild wars 2 because of this comment, thanks!
Mounts came with Path of Fire. You have a bit of playing to do before you get there, but when you do, they come thick and fast.
Taimi is by far my favorite character. I love her so much, and you probably will too in later parts of the story.
Season 3 in particular is going to be a huge reason to revisit those maps. They offer ascended trinkets that are the only easy ways to get stat-selectable endgame ascended trinkets for PvE without going to raids
true but most stats you it's easier to get rings from fractals and about as easy to get amulet from laurel vendor only major exception is viper which you need stat selectable for #makevipereasiertoget
@@jarzz3601 that makes sense, I just didn't like fractals that much, I spent most of my time between WvW and farming LWS3 maps as they launched in that period, so my experience is a little different
@@zenith110 fair getting rings from lw3 isn't bad either I got my first rings from there as I just didn't want to get involved with group content
100%ing achievements on those maps is frustrating because you almost need a guide to know exactly what to do and when, since living world is so scripted and you'd end up wasting a lot of time repeating chapters because you missed or failed a challenge by a tiny margin. Much easier to just farm endgame group content.
The living story in gw2 happened before final fantasy - the episode 1
I was pretty cut when I heard him say that ngl
maybe for ARR, def not the base game release. that was 2010.
@@anubisftn To be honest FFXIV was in a so bad state at the time was not even mentioned much hence the Reborn part of FFXIV :), also was not a base game, ARR is no expansion the base game of ARR is ARR, which was release almost exactly one year after guildwars2 on 24 August 2013, I did pre-order it
@@creativewild August 24th. Yeah 1.0 was bad. I was there. But it was def the release of FFXIV priot. Just not FFXIV ARR. Everyone is pretty open about it being a dumpster fire. Admitting it honestly and openly is why FFXIV and probably GW2 are both so much better games. Not hiding behind all the hubris and ego of WoW.
Watching you play GW2 really makes me want to get back into the game.
Well then, why not do that?! New content just released and there are Twitch drops this week for watching some GW2 streams. Plus, ya know, no sub fee, no pressure. :)
The Silverwastes actually has a pretty amazing meta event that you should definitely check out, Mike. Dry Top's sandstorm/qualm before the storm-cycle is also really fun to experience a few times, imho.
RIBA is boring as fuck. Most overrated meta.
I think it was during the living world episode one that there was an election for the new mayor of lions arch that you could vote for and the winner at that time was the one that promised a map wide discount on warp point cost xD
Evon Ghashblade was the one that promised the WP discount. He is the richest man in the game, as he is the canonical owner of the in-game Black lion Trading Post.
not just that, but back then we were given the impression that the story would change or at least unfold in other ways depending on the outcome
how much that was true we will never know, but I'm still a proud Evon supporter
also there were to fractal maps, one for each mayor, depending who on, read some theories that it was rigged by devs
Really enjoying this series and watching Mike discovering more of the game. Can't wait for him to get into HoT and experience our favourite map, The tangled depths... ☠
Living World Season 4 is the best experience i've ever had in a MMORPG ever. A lot of fun achievements, top tier missions and story progression/moments. I still need to buy Icebrood Saga and End of Dragons. Overall the best mmorpg i ever played, good on you wallet, respects your time, and is consistent, no huge changes that makes you learn 10 new systems to upgrade something. The definition of good foundation.
Icebrood Saga was sick. Just the beginning by itself...
I'll be honest, IBS wasn't well received because it was expansion content in its on right, rushed out, but the strike missions in there are excelent to teach new players 10 man content.. Eod is at the very least as good as HoT.
Achievements act as a guide to the content. There are so many things going on in the open world that you might miss many on a first playthrough. If you try to complete the achievements for a map, though, it's very likely you will see all there is to see.
~6:30 yeah, Braham feels like a little kid, but it actually makes him kind of a "good" character. Not in the way as "he´s a very enjoyable one", but rather as a character, that actually develops. He´s maybe not the brightest one, and it takes a lot of time for him to actually develop, but that slow pace allows his development to actually be noticed. Doesn´t change the fact that he is probably one of the least loved characters by the community...
7:30 yeah, that´s a rather weird bug, which nobody exactly knows why it even happens, glad you found one of the possible fixes.
WHat you expierienced when the story started picking up is the reason why veterans will ALWAYS advise to play the story in order without skipping anything. because everything in the story IS IMPORTANT! EVERYTHING!
9:11 the reason for it changing in the story-instances is, that Season 1 initially released as time-limited content that took place in the real game world. So in those instances, you are technically expieriencing a "flashback" into the content on how it WAS at its release, before it "expired" and was removed from the game. That´s why you see the old Lion's Arch in your personal story and in Season 1, you´re technically expieriencing the past. They changed this in the later Living World seasons, because the players HATED it back then.
12:42 The achievement-panel is probably your best "handbook" to find new stuff to do. Because basically EVERYTHING (or at least, almost everything) is at least to some extent represented in the achievement-panel. If you should EVER run out of stuff to do: check your achievement-panel, pick one that either sounds fun, or has a reward attached to it you want, and just do the achievements. It gets overlookd waaay too much by newer players.
15:09 you learned a very important lesson at that point, which is: playing your character well is the most crucial thing in gw2. Top Tier gear will not automatically lead to success, player-skill matters BY FAR the most. Ofc stuff like having the (important!) correct gear for your (important!) sensible build does have an impact, but if you´re just ignoring mechanics and smash your head against enemies, facetanking every hit, you´re gonna run against a wall. Character improvement hits a limit very fast if you rely on gear, instead YOU (as the player) need to improve/evolve. That´s by far the most impactful factor on playing basically anything in gw2.
18:05 don´t worry about the mount. You literally don´t need it at all before ANYTHING that came before the Path of Fire Expansion (because at that time, mounts didnt even EXIST in the game yet). So the maps are designed to be explored without mounts, it´s just a nice addition ANet did recently. You will eventually interact with the mounts way more once you get into PoF.
Also: small advice, as you soon approach HoT: prepare mentally for having your underpants eaten by pocket raptors (DAMN I HATE THOSE, I WANNA KNOW WHOSE IDEA THAT WAS SO I CAN PUNCH THEM IN THE FACE!!!) lul
World completion is definitely a reason to revisit location and see the changes, you need world completion for crafting certain legendries and for other rewards and achievements
There are definitely reasons to return to the living world maps in GW2. Mostly for achievements and the gear/cosmetic rewards you get from those but also some maps have unique reasons to return such as treasure maps in The Silverwastes or the blizzard event and subsequent dragon hunt in Bjora Marches.
I started playing WoW Like many in 2005 (EU). Got addicted to it years straight, first break I took was after WOTLK, after that I still played every expansion but I don't stay for long, I grow tired of it fast.
Guild Wars 2 I bought in 2013 after the break from WoW, but I never really gave the game a chance, I was too different from WoW at the time for me to enjoy it, so I bought it but shelved it till... last year. I decided to give the game another chance and I'm so glad I did. I have like 2000 hours now in the game in the span of a year. I'm currently on break from it but I do intend to return from time to time.
I'm really enjoying seeing you explore the game as I did. I also feel that the initial experience of the game although kinda fun and different it shows its age, its only after you get Elite Specs that the game picks up for me.
The base game was a bit boring but where the game shined for me was starting in Heart of Thorns due to the increase in difficulty and the amazing map Metas!
But story wise it has to be Path of Fire + Season 4. Season 4 is SOOOO good! I think it will forever be the Wrath of the Lich King of GW2.
The latest expansion was fun but it kinda felt a bit too empty in some zones for me to enjoy compared the metas of Heart of Thorns for example.
All in all GW2 is really worth it for any RPG fan and I'm so glad I gave it another chance. :)
Be glad you're playing through GW2 at a time when living world season 1 is actually in the game.. before it got put back in, many many years after it originally released, you would go from base game straight to season 2 with all these characters that yours already knows. I was sat there like "who the heck are these guys, am I supposed to know them?" Made it really hard to feel connected to any of them.
i think game have some kind of summary hidden after dialogue with npc but is very brief, like 1-2 minute short movie
The Raptor mount at level 20 is new. You're not supposed to have mounts until the 2nd expansion, Path of Fire, where you can get all the variety of mounts.
It's at level 10
On the achievement panel: it's basically the endgame questlog and there's ascended gear that's earnable in there. Anet isn't super clear about bringing it to your attention, but for new players definitely look into it once you reach cap.
10:45 That was the biggest difference for me as a GW2 player playing WoW for a month recently. I was grinding for the Druid Class Mount from Legion which had me doing stuff all over the expansion's maps, but with Dragonflight being out, where are all the players? Certainly not in Legion, and with my item level being around 150 at level 60 I was struggling with some world bosses because the maps were so dead.
In GW2 that wouldn't be a problem. There are achievements, dailies and world boss trains, to name a few, that makes you go back to the older maps, making them constantly populated. I think it's such a shame things become outdated in WoW, especially if you're a player hopping on after an expansion had its launch several years ago. You're basically fucked. That's why I love how GW2 makes you go back to older maps.
WoW's old maps are horrifically dead. Everything outside of the dungeon finder and latest expansion zone is a ghost town.
It's refreshing and fun watching these honest reactions to GW2 from a new player's perspective.
It helps that the FF14 mindset of "Do everything in a linear story based order to maximise content to be played as it was designed at that moment in history" is so welcome now, instead of the WoW "skip everything and rush to current expansion/endgame" that was dominant for so long.
I think the few living world concepts FFXIV has are Ildyshire, Doma, and Foundation. Very minor, but watching it change throughout patches or progress was nice touch.
ARR had Mor Dhonuts too! Because Mor Dhonuts in 2.0 doesn't look like it as it is now. But only the people who joined in ARR experienced that progression.
Also Beast Tribes do a similar thing. I miss the joined Beast Tribes quest after finishing all of the tribes in an expansion. It was fun seeing them all come together.
@@ChannelRaznoff I have a feeling the Allied Tribal Quests are coming back, they took a break from doing that in Shadowbringers. Since Hildibrand did come back in Endwalker.
@@ChannelRaznoff So few people do the beast tribes quests, it's kind of shocking. That's why they give away the rewards during the limited seasonal events.
@@cattysplat they can be some of the best exp for sub jobs too. It sad so many sleep on them.
Asmongold made me try FFXIV and it changed me in many ways. Now preach nudged me over the edge to try gw2. Its amazing so far. Im 10 hrs in. The world is so vast. I had no idea the game was so big
I'm really glad that you've enjoyed the story, because it just gets better and better with each living world and each expansion. I too find the base game story to be really mediocre, but as soon as the living worlds and expansions start, I really started caring about the characters and the story.
Gw2 is a truly hidden gem and i love it when ppl discover how insanely good it is. Great combat good graphics one of the best community and respect from company to playerbase not a cash grabbing mmo.
GW2 is a fantastic game, it's just really struggles in communicating activities for players to do and keeping players playing for the long term. Chasing gear in most MMOs is a simple treadmill that has simple understandable motivation (get stronger) that is also a really hard habit to break since it's been this way for so long.
@@cattysplat This is true, in Guild wars 2, you basically need to look up third party sources to discover all the endless possibilities on what to do in Guild wars 2 and where to have fun, as so much of the game is hidden away and not obvious to find at all unfortunately.
And then you get caught up and discover that the gem was counterfeit.
With Heart of Thorns (HoT) you will get gliding, which is essential on Raids (and some Strikes), then LWS 3 (6 episodes) with the first raids as far as I remember. Check the Masteries: Red is from the Core Maps (you want autoloot), green is HoT, Magenta/lilac is PoF, you only can do the masteries and development on those Maps (including the belonging LWS) and you want to have fully skilled gliding! HoT is really 3 D. 3rd Path of Fire (PoF) within the starting Story you got the Raptor and from that moment you can skill it, the other mounts follow then and you often need to unlock another mount you need a skillled mount from the map before. It was a pleasent journey. Then LWS 4 more mounts and Raids. Your Vindicator elite Spec is from the last expansion End of Dragons (EoD), you can use any heropoint on any specialization, you get more heropoints for the specializations than you really need, so no need to respec. It is fun to watch your journey here in Tyriah, but continue the Story the way it was meant to be. 🍀
still to this day my favourite open world meta chains are in HoT, sometimes I just log in to do a full day/night cycle in Verdant Brink just for fun
It would be cool see a bigger version of living world in ff14, but i also can understand the time resources it takes to go into that. I guess best way we get with beast tribes how rank ups usally effect there small areas, or doman/ishgardian restoration.
The MSQ is pretty much a living world in many areas
Achievement system 14:00 is something that brings a lot of people back however…
Quite a few of the achievements and collections aren’t for the sake of AP but actual items. The LWS 1 collections eventually unlock an item called Memory of Old Lion’s Arch and it is a key to the old city and you unlock the instance so you can go to the original map (-mounts of course).
Mounts didn’t come out until expansion 3 so you were spoiled early.
I mean at one point the concept of a living world did play its parts especially in a huge way in Cataclysm when we saw Azeroth get fucked up by Deathwing. We saw this again in Mists when Siege of Orgrimmar came out along with Vale of Eternal Blossoms. Though I do see Ion's point in this, it is a bit hard to forget these things made Azeroth once a living world at some points. I take it with Dragonflight the reawakening of the other Primalists there might be another shift in the world where they will be waking up. Whether or not this is a concept of their living world it may as well count as one because the amount of resources they pull and the effort to create these things.
Depending on how much you play or plan on playing there is definitely a reason to go back to the old zones past the core game. There's usually a currency associated with each zone and a vendor that has lots of important stuff to buy. Home instance nodes for daily gathering, ascended jewelry with the ability to choose the stat lines you want, minis, and crafting recipes. There's also achievement hunting, farming the meta events for mastery xp, a chance to get exotics to either sell on the ah or unlock the appearance, and the later zone metas can have ascended gear drops.
The LIVING WORLD I Wanted From WoW!
"but will i go back to those zones to explore? HMMMMMMM no" lol righto
For the rest of the mounts, you need to start Path of Fire and unlock them, usually through specific tasks and once you have them unlocked, they are unlocked for your ENTIRE account, no need to unlock them ever again.
And the best part? If you create a new character you'll be able to use them right from the get go.
Mike should have a discussion with Mukluk about Braham :)
One big detail about the change of Lion's Arch is that for the original season 1 of living world, after the battle of Lion's Arch... The city was in ruin and kept that way for month then some was done on reconstruction, and then again we had the new Lion Arch.
All of that to say, I still prefer the old one, and during a time it was the saddest place to be.
By Ogden's Hammer! What savings!
Poor Braham. Never gets any love. 😁
Alas Sam Riegal, clutch tragic hero of Thar Amphala.
If you know, you know. 😊
To be fair it was Scanlan not Sam, and he gets some hated voices from Alphinaud to Braham lol
To be fair, Braham was _meant_ to be a jackass. They just couldn't fine-tune it to "troubled kid."
Actually I like Braham, it develops nice trough story. For me is way better than the annoying and useless Logan and Treaharne, that has zero personality.
@@ROCKNROLL947 Trahearn tested my will to carry on with every line of dialogue
Someone needs to tell Preach that the achievement system in GW2 IS the progression. Mounts weren’t added until PoF we walked everywhere. Remember having to walk through HoT?
I think I generally agree with everything you're saying except for one point.
You mention that you prefer when they hold your hand and just mark the things you need to kill. I actually prefer when they don't do this, like in the open world you might get a quest like "Infiltrate the bandit hideout and sabotage their plans" and you have to look around and identify their hideout in a relatively small area using reasoning and exploration, instead of following the glowing line on the ground or auto-running through the story like games with bad world's and designs.
Same for instances, where you said you prefer straight linear paths, I actually think that the instance that are more open and you can approach them in different ways are cool.
I think we as gamers have been conditioned to look at minimaps and just click all our buttons on the guys with the X over their head so much that we are missing out on the cool experience of identifying enemies, looking at the worldbuilding and enjoying the unique aspects of the game, otherwise you might as well just replace all the enemies with a generic model and call it a day.
HoT- Gliders/elite spec
PoF- Mounts/elite spec
EoD- Turtle/elite spec/strikes
my favourite MMO content creator playing one of my all time favourite games has to be the best thing happening on the internet right now, love you preach (and team!) please keep rocking it!
The Raptor was from PoF at the start of the Expansion, they are spoiling you getting it so early. There were no mounts, until then, you got gliding in HoT - Boats are in Dragons End. Wait till you get the 2 flying mounts... As for Brahm - he gets better, not much though Taimi ended up being my favourite along with Rytlock.
The Zhaitan fight was originally designed to only be played with a party. Naturally, over time there were far fewer players running it, which made it impossible for new players to complete the story. As such, they introduced a solo mode, which is dull and boring.
All future End of Expansion boss fights are designed much, much better, with both a single player story component and a group meta component. Regarding that, I cannot wait to hear what Preach thinks about the end of the HoT content, and I really hope he does the meta fight.
As someone who had to solo their run when it was still group content without any elite specs and still a noob, it was even more of a nightmare.
LW S2 is a bit rocky but Heart of Thorns is goated, can't wait to see you play it!
He already finished season 2 and really enjoyed it. Said he was very confused why people were telling him to skip it. He was expected a downgrade from season 1
@@RedNuii from what I understand is that most people never did lw S1 since it wasnt in the game, so going into season 2 without proper knowledge of season 1 made season 2 much worse.
@@richard-pv4ff This is can agree to. It is also slower but not necessarily bad imo. But if you dont know the characters I can see why it would seem bad.
@@richard-pv4ff S2 is also 8 chapters instead of 6 so it is the most expensive season. And at the same time if offers very little aside from the story because you don't get any maps or expansion type stuff like masteries or mounts.
So if you have prior knowledge of what a typical living world season gives you then S2 is the weaker of the bunch but if you just go in blind and expect more story then that season is fantastic for that.
I love that he hates Braham already
Mounts were added in path of fire. They are designed to serve different purposes on certain maps. So you will start to unlock them there.
I am so very happy Mike is no in Gw2 to fall in love with it and give it the critical eye. Never thought Id see the day :)
With regards to Lion’s Arch, I wasn’t there when Battle for Lion’s Arch happened, but I WAS there for the broken version of the city, as well as the small rebuilding period. I remember when I first walked in to New Lion’s Arch, and that cutscene played. It was so incredible.
I think the thing about living world too is the horizontal vs vertical progression, in WoW often you won’t go back because there is nothing of worth there, but it is reduced in GW2 as you will still go back to the main cities, and specially Lions arch
Some achievements are needed for masteries, others can give ascended gear, a few have side stories/follow-up involving some major characters. So not all are cosmetic.
Yeeeeees, Preach! I love that you're doing all the Living World, AND that you enjoy it!
For the mounts, you have to get to the Path of Fire expansion for the main ones and complete the side quests for the premium mounts.
I really think you'll love it.
Before they re-added LW1, you would just get a story recap cutscene in LA.
It was jarring to walk into Heart of thorns/LW2 with "friends" you literally never met.
Cannach is still not properly explained since apparently he came in the with Karka Southsun Cove stuff that wasn't reintroduced
Also want to say that the achievements don't just give cosmetics. Some of them reward you with ascended gear. Both the flying mounts are locked behind achievements. I was able to get my first few ascended gears from it (essentially the highest stat value equipment, account bound so switchable on your charactesrs)
The mounts are a feature of the second expansion and that's where they unlock. Giving people the first mount before then was a great kindness.
For those who don't know, Living World were not off the bat paid content. If you logged in during the time each chapter was released, it was given to you for free, but after a certain point it becomes something you have to pay for. As for what makes you return to the LW maps... not much for LWS1. But 2, 3, 4, and 5 (Icebrood Saga) are exceptionable meta event farmable maps. LWS2 Silverwastes is still one of the most profitable maps in the game to this day. S3 for unbound magic currency, S4 for volatile magic (both of which gets you gold), S5 for eternal ice shards (which can get you more volatile magic or ascended trinkets) - S5/IBS also introduces one of the more profitable maps right now (Drizzlewood Coast). Not to mention the gear drops that are also sellable. LWS4 also introduces 2 additional mounts you can not acquire without playing it. The story ain't too shabby either, esp 3 and 4 (but 2 holds a special place in my heart as someone who plays mostly Sylvari - playing a priory sylvari character through s2-HOT was one of the most rewarding lore experiences I have had in any game ever).
Mike hope you read this. Mounts weren't brought to gw2 until the 2nd expac heart of fire. You got a long way to go before unlocking mounts. Raptor is the basic amount given to tide you over in the meantime
Sounds like Mike should try out soloing dungeons once he gets his full array of traits. Ideal for this sort of solo boss challenge things.
But the dungeons are terribly designed with no mechanics
Unsure if you read these comments, but without any spoilers:
- The storytelling REALLY picks up with Living World Season 3 (after Heart of Thorns expansion)
- Mounts are acquired with the Path of Fire expansion gameplay (the flying mount is Living World Season 4 and it is a long grind with an amazing payoff)
- Heart of Thorns and Path of Fire Hero Points give 10 points each (not 1 like the Core Tyria)
- Core Tyria difficulty is a 2/10, Heart of Thorns is easily the hardest jump in difficulty anyone has ever done with an expansion, and it is a literal 10/10 without mounts/HoT masteries
- Unsure if the difficulty will actually put you off the game (most Hero Points CANNOT be solod without a great Open World build)
My honest recommendation: unlocking your spec, I am pretty sure all GW2 players who know who you are already messaged you offering their aid/insight, but I will gladly do so here as I have played both WoW and GW2, hopefully you will see this comment Preach, keep it up
Gw2 does something interesting with their open world zones. From heart of thorns onward, each will have huge story relevant events that progress across (for the most part) the entire map. These events are the reason why players keep coming back to the zones. Some are better than others, but they all have their bright sides.
Ohh boy, this is only the beginning Preach!
You say, you wouldn’t go back to Thunderbluff if it was a living world. But in GW2 you’ve noticed that ALL the old maps are still extremely active. ANet doesn’t let old zones die like WoW. It’s a beautiful thing
I've had this super weird feeling when watching your videos for years. It finally clicked recently, and I sent my best friend a link to one of your videos to verify: you & I are basically doppelgangers. It's felt weird watching you because it's felt like watching myself.
I tried to care about the story in this game but LWS1 killed it for me. Just after I got to know and get used to the previous group of heroes, they throw them away and give me a bunch of new people who I don't care about to be my new group of heroes, and nearly all of them suck. Oddly enough I kind of like Logan. I did play human though so I got to know him better. Ya he's a "simp" for Jennah. He's her personal champion. He's a literal chivalrous knight. And as meh as that sounds, I found it better than:
Braham- angsty teen who's angsty
Rox- Who's core traits are having big eyes and a pet
Marjory- Who's core trait is being arrogant for no reason (I guess she's supposed to be smart, but nothing she did in the time I interacted with her showed that)
And her blonde friend who I don't even remember because by this point I was pretty checked out
They're nearly all pretty obnoxious and not at all endearing. And I'm supposed to just abandon any attachment I had to the previous group for these people. lol.
Mounts got introduced in the expansion "Path of Fire", if you stuck to lore that'd mean: doing Living World S2, then Heart of Thorns (introduced Raids), then Living World S3, and THEN do Path of Fire
As far as mounts - we didn't get them until our 2nd expansion 5 years after launch xD
living world was originally very fomo content updates every 2 week or so where new events, missions and stuff got released, then got taken out of the game a few weeks later. if someone took a break from the game for even just a month or 2 then they would miss out on story content that they would never be able to play anymore. the original design of the game was to have only living world as future content, no expansions. that changed quickly after the failure of season 1.
Stopped streaming Guild Wars 2 for nearly a week as soon as he got upto Heart if Thorns prologue. Broke my heart ❤️
FF8 done tomorrow... lets see how long XCOM or XCOM2 will take ^^
It’s cause his stream reached the sub goal to make him finish FF8. Believe me he really didn’t want to go back to ff8 but people in chat were super adamant on him finishing the game.
Mounts came in the POF expansion. So you won’t unlock minute until you go to POF content, which if you own you can start at any time. If you’re playing everything In order you season 2, HOT expansion, sean 3-4. POF and then season 5. If you do play everything im Order and don’t go get mounts, you will get to enjoy the content as we all did when it first came out. Mounts kinda take away from the experience in HOT imo.
If you love Dark Souls, then you need to play Heart of Thorns without a mount. It'll be unique experience.
Ian saying that the reason they don't maintain a "living world" is because (he assumes that) no one would bother to appreciate it, is like a self fulfilling prophecy. Put another way, if they never even attempt it, players won't have the option to disregard it, or be angry about their doing it terribly. And, when they have attempted similar things in the past (Cata, mainly), it was extremely poorly received by a very vocal percentage of the player-base; probably because Cata took a massive shit on the one thing that keeps people coming back to WoW: nostalgia. _"What do you mean I can't do Linken's quest anymore!? This is BULLSHIT!!!"_ (etc)
About the living world season 1 achievements. If you do them all you can access old lion's arch, which is awesome. I get if you don't want to do the other achievements in the game because the reward is cosmetic. But that group of achievements has a very nice reward in the end.
Mounts were introduced in Path of Fire content. You will work through unlocking them when you go through Path of Fire content and story.
Others like Griffon, Skyscale are unlocked as part of collection with later living world seasons.
Turtle is unlocked in End of Dragons collections
Heart of Thorns is going to be painful without better mounts ;-)
You also get a ton of Mastery points in Living World which you want to upgrade your character.
Your character description of Braham and Logan were spot on and had my laughing out loud.
Honestly the story with Scarlet might not have been the strongest but the final cutscene as well as the reveal of mordremoth whose existance was only teased prior by turning on full detail combat against one of the CoE bosses whose attacks are named after the elder dragons was peak.
Oh boy. When you get to the expansions or LW4 you're going to say: "Where were you GW2". This game is a gem
Gw2 is completely different from release. No mounts, no glider. But the massive battles that took place fighting Scarlett, clockwork, and the nightmare tower. The game has grown the mounts are in the 2nd expansion and season 4 and requires tine, gold and scavenger hunts. Lots to do Enjoy.
A number of the mounts are unlocked by achievements. Skyscale (the dragon) especially is a bit of a task to unlock. But it is very worth it, for all the mounts really.
I will remember all my life the living world 1. I experienced it when it was released and seeing Lion Arch's so changed, the dungeon to beat Scarlet in the middle of Lion Arch's as the culmination of a crazy chain of events that changed that place, all the destruction when a couple of weeks ago everyone was thinking "what are they going to do?". It was one of my favorite moments in an MMO. I never felt so attached on an MMO event until then, I didn't felt it like a to do list or having to complete new content because that's what you have to do in an mmo and it's what you do out of inertia. I felt very involved and surprised.
I love this music at the start. Brings back so many good old days preach memories. I miss legacies so much.
hope he plays all the way to IBS.. the rock concert meta in grothmar...best meta imo..just pure havoc
Living world 1 was never "removed". When the game started, living world was supposed to only happen LIVE in the actual game world. After it happened, it automatically was gone forever because, well - it was OVER. Then they obviously realized that it was not a good idea that everyone who started later on would miss all of that content and would be unable to experience it, so starting from Living World 2 it became replayable like a story episode. This is also where the idea of "it is free when you logged in while it was live, and you have to pay when you didn't" system comes from. Originally the content was made ONLY for those people who were playing at the time that it all happened.
Other advantages include playing it on alts, for nostalgia years later and completionism of extra achievements. Also screw FOMO.
Nothing really satisfies anymore. I'm just a jaded old man now.
Just a little addition they were released over a certain time and the time outside the game equals the game in game. For example when we meet him Braham is around 16 years. End of Dragons he is around 24/25 years. So you also see the, lets call it, the flaws of youth, etc. So the 10 years GW2 is life is also the time our commander and their companions matured from their starting point c: