Having spent much of the last couple of weeks talking about PvP, be it on the blog, my podcast, or comments on other blogs, and also spending much of my gaming time participating in PvP (albeit in other genres), I started to feel the craving to play some MMO PvP. I would have preferred to play an Open World PvP game, because that was the focal point of all the discussion, plus I get my “instanced” PvP fix from MOBAs. However, the more I read about ArcheAge the more I don’t want to get involved, plus I’m standing on principle that I don’t like my preferred content gated, and that seems to be the case with all current MMOs outside of EvE or Darkfall, and I’m not interested in either. I can handle it when a game requires you to hit level 10 before you can queue for some instanced PvP, I’m not cool with having to play over half the game’s content just to see if you even enjoy the PvP. There’s more to my dislike for ArcheAge, but that’s the story I’m sticking to.

As a gamer on a budget (read: I’m broke as fuck), I don’t have the funds to pay for a subscription, so that eliminates playing WoW or trying ESO (I hear the PvP there is pretty fun, but you do have to get through a lot of the content. I still want to try the game anyway), and I already know that WoW is Battlegrounds or Arenas, unless you play on a PvP server, and even then it’s not really what I’m looking for. Same goes for Rift. I had been toying with going back and trying to get to cap and through the expansions I have yet to touch, but I already know that the PvP there is the typical themepark style — Plus side, it’s free. Guild Wars 2 was the other game on the list to try, as I’ve owned it for a while and never really played it, and being buy to play, I don’t have any expenditure to play it. I also read somewhere that you can basically complete the tutorial and jump straight into WvW. We had a winner.

After starting up a week ago or so I was unpleasantly surprised to find that you cannot just jump into WvW right away, not even the sPvP, both are level gated — the former level 18, the latter level 22. However, with the game’s level cap being 80, you don’t have to go through a large chunk of the content to get to level 18 or 22. As I mentioned in my last post, I had randomly ended up playing this Ranger class, and had just completed what there is to do in Queensdale, and had ventured into Kessex Hills.

I was level 16 when I started my session last night, and sadly that’s the only shot I thought to take, but it was a group event I happened upon to kill a big ass spider and she was rather tough. I do like the fact that the game feels pretty populated, in most places I have been. I have participated in many different randomized events through the two zones I’ve been in. After finishing a few events and some hearts, I dinged level 18 and decided it was time to try out WvW. I was advised by J3w3l that the upscaling to level 80 is shite, but I just figured I’d peek my head in and see what it’s all about.

Let me just preface by saying, I really have no idea what’s going on in WvW. I mean, there’s a tutorial guide and he tells you what the different symbols on the map are, and I understand the basic concepts, but I feel like I should read a guide or spend a night talking with someone who plays the game to get a better grasp on things. One of the things that I liked to see was a rather large map, something that isn’t just a little instanced battleground. It makes it feel more OWPvP than instanced, along with having portals to other sections that appear to be all linked in an overall battle via worlds. It appears there are 3 different worlds which are colored red, blue and green, and a scoreboard of sorts that shows who owns what and who’s winning overall. Again, I don’t really know what I’m talking about, but it looks interesting enough.

I wasn’t able to test out whether or not the upscaling was good or not, because I didn’t see a single person while I was in the Mists. I wandered around the map for quite a while too. I ended up going towards a landmark that was colored Red (I was on team Green), thinking that I might find some enemies to fight, but it was simply a camp with NPCs, and far too many of them for me to solo. I wandered around some more, still never found a single soul. Granted, it was after midnight, and being a server that is on North American time, perhaps that means I was playing at a bad time. Or maybe between the 3 servers involved, these are ones with a lower population? I’m really not sure.

So I ask you, people who play WvW in GW2 regularly, am I correct in assuming the three teams are from 3 servers? Or does the megaserver thing work differently? I get how it works among the normal PvE stuff, but not really sure on the WvW. Would you also say that there is a peak time for WvW? I really want to try it and the sPvP out, just to scratch that itch if nothing else. I might not even like it in the end, and might just go back to waiting for H1Z1, but I’d like to hear your input.

#guildwars2 #gw2 #wvw #pvp