Adventuring in Guild Wars 2

How to adventure in Guild Wars 2

These are my tips on how to experience the open world of Guild Wars 2. I will not handle the personal story or WvW as I didn't really play them during the beta events I've attended.

What you see is what you get (to)

Standing on a cliff looking out across a seemingly painted back drop, keep in mind that what you see is where you can go. Take the road down the hill, or just jump out and hope to survive, and walk onwards.

The world is alive, and as you approach you will notice this. A farmer is asking for help herding their cattle or bandits try to blow up the dam, whichever it might be, you will notice it.

There are three main ways to find out what to do.

Go to a scout

At times you will see a NPC with a telescope above them, these are scouts. Talking to them, they will give a short explanation on what is happening in the are and mark your map with "heart events".

Updates in the interface

On the right side of your screen, right under the information on your next personal story step, a short description of nearby events will show up. The description will tell you what activities are available, progress bars and similar information.

Look around

Take your eyes off the health bar, look away from the map, stop staring at the heart event progress bar. As you walk around you will see things happen, a giant oakheart infected with parasites is making its rounds or a small asura is just waiting for you to offer to help in getting her dancing mini-moas get to Beetletun.

Things happen all around that are not connected to heart events or over arching stories, these are the stories told by the residents of the world, the individuals whose life you will pass through shortly. Take a moment off and help them.

By walking along a mountain side, not meant for traversing, I eventually found myself on a cliff where some players were fighting a huge worm queen. I helped them, and without talking to anyone, I was again engulfed in an activity.

What to do

The first thing you will see are the heart events. These are standard, always present activities in the world. These will have several different ways to fill. Some ways are always present, like watering plants, kill centaurs or pick rocks. During this however, some dynamic events will occur; For example, someone needs guarding from centaurs during a material run or a large boss appears while you're stomping out worm holes.

The dynamic events will provide some experience, karma and gold as well as providing a boost to the heart event.

There is however a lot of dynamic events not connected to heart events or larger event chains in the world. These will occur depending on specific triggers such as night falling which wakes a ghost walking the cemetery.

Skill point events are scattered throughout the world. Finishing these will, big surprise, provide you with a skill point.

Points of interest are points marked on your map that for some reason or other has been noted as interesting by Arena Net. Usually these are close to events or interesting NPCs. Walking to these will also provide an amount of XP.

Someone tested this out and managed to reach level 7 in Divinitys Reach, the human home capital, by just visiting points of interest and waypoints.

Waypoints, you do best in visiting these. Besides the small amount of XP you get for every new waypoint you visit, these are also places you can travel to instantly from anywhere. Open your map, or die, and you will be able to see these. Choose one, and for a small fee you will be able to go there.

Hidden areas, strange places and jumping puzzles. These are my favorites. All around the world you will find jumping puzzles, secret pathways and hidden enemies.

This ooze for example was found by my ranger pet, I started to look around, and eventually found a small hole in a wall, entering this, I found myself walking inside the top of the wall.

Underwater

And when you think you have seen everything and done everything, have you been underwater?

There is just as much to see and do here as there is above.

My tips and hints

Be prepared to be overwhelmed. You will set your sight on going somewhere, take for steps in that direction, and be sideswiped by a snowball fight with some kids.

This is not a game for those with problems leaving stuff undone, the game doesn't care that you want to finish everything, so why should you?

Is a heart event boring or not what you feel like right now, walk away. Leave it half finished, dive into the nearest lake and look stuff up. Does the area over there look nice, go there. It might seem silent right now, but walk around a little bit more, perhaps talk to an NPC or kill that grawl standing suspiciously underneath a pine tree. Go to the pub, perhaps the bartender needs a new bouncer?

And if you feel the next area is above you, travel to your capital, go through the asura gate to Lions Arch and from there the next portal to the capital of any of the other races. Outside these cities you will find a lot of new things to do and areas in need of a hero.

Or just stay in Lions Arch and look around, perhaps you will find a path into the sewers and at a far corner of these your new favorite underwater pet is residing. I'm looking at you armorfish.

In short, just run. Take a direction and start running, and I dare you getting to the other end of the world without finding anything interesting that stops you, if so only to help Linnea catch the jackalope.