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Is Guild Wars 2 “cool”?


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I don't tell many people about any of the games I play, not because I don't think it's cool but because it's not worth the hassle of trying to explain it to people who know nothing about modern games beyond what you can play on a phone. In a previous job someone saw me on the forum during my lunch break and asked what GW2 was. When I said it's a computer game I got "Oh, like Candy Crush? Or more like Angry Birds?" I literally didn't know where to start explaining the difference between those games and an MMORPG, so I just settled for saying it's more like if you got to control one of the people in Lord of the Rings and decide what they do and where they go.

I'll talk about GW2 with my gamer friends, but generally they're already aware of it so it's more talking about new stuff or how it compares to other games rather than introducing them to it. Although with one guy I did have to explain that it was never a subscription game and had not gone free-to-play and how the free accounts actually worked.

And no, I'm not embaressed about my characters. When some of my friends started one of the first things I did was tell them about the Dreamer and why it was the first legendary I made.

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No. Then again, no desire to talk to anyone about GW2 - why would I?However, on the 3 or 4 times i have mentioned it to people who play games over the years (based on the "what games do you play?" question) they've either never heard of it or laugh.

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A game can be cool if that's what you are looking for and what you need at the present. Maybe years later your tastes and expectations will evolve, maybe you'll get bored of it. People are all in a different mindset because their life has been different than yours from your respective births on to today. So a game is not just "cool" or "uncool", it's about a unique human being meeting a piece of evolving art and software. Everyone reacts differently, and every day is different for each person. You just can't generalize or make assumptions if you really want to be accurate enough about it.

If you explain the game to someone else, you will explain it with your own mindset, where other people have different expectations and will make assumptions from every word you say which may be untrue. So the wise gamer says "i like it, maybe you should try it" and the wise listener says "maybe you're right, i'll look into it." Adding more can be a source of misunderstanding. Just let people see by themselves, don't overtalk it.

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I used to talk a lot about the game with the last of my rl friends that was still playing, but a few months ago he stopped playing too. It's sad because I convinced a lot of people to try the game, but none stuck with it in the end. Most stopped with the core game, as season 1 required too much attention (play the content or miss it forever).

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To be on point with OP, GW2 is not that "cool" game, like CoD, fortnite, pubg, rdr2, etc. MMO's in general are not viewed as cool even by alot of so-called gamers because it takes passion and its time consuming. People prefer alot of action, alot of meme content and funny encounters, or just a dose of fun right now without involvement of progression. Now, GW2 can offer all this, but not to the same degree and expectation as popular content.Influencers have alot to do with this, your friends, popular opinions... this is what most of the time determines a player's choice. "Follow the majority" is a human ideal since forever.At the end of the day, GW2 and MMO's in general is a gaming nieche that, even if its wide spread, its still nieche you know.So, GW2 is cool for the amateurs of the genre, edgy cool or just nerdy for the others. Its subjective, and this is the overall take on it.

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Most of the time I rather keep the profile low. When colleagues or friends ask what I do in my freetime, it is gaming. If they ask further, MMORPG. Many people still only know the term RPG, in terms of D&D pen and paper RPG. Or people ask "is it something like Final Fantasy, I played that as a kid?" Some eventually know WoW from the last time media discussed the dangers of shooters, but that is it. Discussion is usually over at that point. Sometimes at family-gatherings, people ask "what you play at the moment?" and if I respond "still GW2" they just respond with aha, sign the addicted checkbox in their head and the discussion is over as well. I am not mad at them, they just do not know how an MMORPG works. Most of them played games with duration between 1-70h maximum. At work ... worse. We do have a lot of gym-enthusiasts though and people who want to lose weight - sort of normal for people 30+? I do not have anyone I could tell about this game, my other contacts have 0 interest in computers except for messaging. Some already get a heart-attack when they see a rar-file.

Even if I want to, there is no one I can attract to GW2 at all. It is a cool game for sure, fits a great spot for people with weird time-schedules, no pressure due to the lack of real treadmill mechanics and quite an engaging story, while not demanding too many computer-resources. No monthly subscription fees, cheap game-purchase, almost useless gemstore (visuals & convenience only), no story-locking ... etc. In my opinion the pegi12 is miss-leading. I have not seen a teenager in this game in years.

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I once read something in a (rather ecchi) manga that really resonated with me.

"I can't talk to other people about games, because no matter how I explain, they just don't get it. Their eyes get all misty and they'll get "bored face". And even if they play games, they'll play a different game. If, by some miracle, they play the same game, they'll be at an entirely different stage and I just can't relate."

I'm paraphrasing a bit here, but that's how I feel about gaming (and hobbies in general).

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@jinxykat.6519 said:

@"GummyBearSummoner.7941" said:I normally don’t tell people I play pc games because I don’t look like the average pc player. But when I do they get surprised since I look nothing like other pc gamers I’ve seen on guild wars 2 lol

What do a average pc gamer look like?

Was going to ask the same thing..

They look sexy! <3 As for being cool or not, I stopped caring about "appearances"(i.e.: whether things were cool or trendy.) half-way through middle school because I was too lazy to care.

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@Mortifera.6138 said:Is GW2 the cool thing that you tell everyone about, or are they better off not knowing about your pink bunny-eared toon?

I don't tell everyone about GW2 for the same reasons that I don't tell everyone about the delicious things I ate for breakfast. ;)

If there is a conversation about computer games, sure, I tell that I play GW2. I still have (more often than not) fun playing the game.

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