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Which period of the game did you enjoy the most?


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@"Inculpatus cedo.9234" said:I think 'Vanilla' and 'Season One' are pretty much the same period.

Actually, there was only six weeks between launch and The Lost Shores (Nov. 15th, 2012). And only 4 weeks between launch and Shadow of the Mad King (Four Acts) with a festival dungeon, many events throughout maps; none of which is available now, so I would consider it 'Season One' content.

I admit that the border between the "Vanilla era" and "Living World Season 1" is quite blurred. To be honest, it is better if you put yourself your own border between the two periods.

@Ben K.6238 said:I think 'Vanilla' and 'Season One' are pretty much the same period.

For the most part I agree; there's only about three months' gap between release and the Lost Shores coming out. However, that period was when WvW was most enjoyable for me, as it started to nosedive very shortly after release; thus I'm happy to pick that option.

The question also includes your enjoyment in WvW and PvP. Do not feel restrained, even as a solely PvP or WvW player ;)

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Definitely vanilla for me. I don't actually think the game was at it's best then, and there've been many design improvements and quality of life enhancements over the years, but it was definitely the time I enjoyed the most. It was fantastic to explore Tyria for the first time, and the personal story - especially the level 1-30 chapters - gave a real insight into the races and the world. I also much preferred the levelling experience at release. I particularly liked learning weapon skills by actually using the weapon, especially since it incentivised experimenting with different options while levelling up. I also think part of the enjoyment of that first levelling experience came from not knowing what to do. Now I know that if I just pick the highest damage option (for gear, skills, and traits) while levelling a character, everything will be easy - and that sort of sucks some of the enjoyment out of it.

I hated Season 1 though, and for me, the border is definitely The Lost Shores, and that laggy karka event in Lion's Arch. I played some of Season 1, but gave up part way through, and didn't really come back for any length of time until HoT was released. Unlike some people, I don't feel annoyed that I missed out on the temporary content (after all, I actively chose to miss out on it), but I do feel glad that I didn't miss out on the original unspoiled Kessex Hills...

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The first year of the game was amazing. Constant new content, rapid fixes in many areas, A world of new maps and enemies and challenges, lots of players trying to help new and struggling players, forum input generated actual change. The pace just became too much to sustain for the Dev's and they had to make things harder for all those that ended up playing that content once and then leaving.

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Vanilla, here.

For me, the game was pretty great up until about May 2014, back when we still had the 13 or so traits per line, (mostly) free selection of traits, the ability to select across all 5 trait lines, and to have partial lines to boot. It reminds me of when all classes had a variety of viable builds, play-styles, and mechanics that didn't feel copy-pasted around or overly niche -- or worse, shoehorned into a specific role because PvP and WvW players whinge if things don't fit into a precise rotation.

There was something just truly fun about GW2 then that the game has lacked since LS2 and beyond, even into PoF, which arguably brought back a lot of the core feel of the game, yet still fell short.

And I still miss the original Daily and Monthly features. It was awesome getting to skulk around a few maps I truly enjoyed, chatting with fellow players about how ludicrous the cost of Jute was whilst fighting a few oakhearts or whomping flame legion shamans between runs of jumping puzzles to get the extra rewards. When doing events felt like you were actually participating in a group activity, rather than trying to deal enough damage to take down a mob and get participation credit before someone raptor swipes the whole wave.

It made leveling up enjoyable -- and yes, I miss the original leveling system, when the story came at a natural pace and you'd make up the interim level just exploring on your way to the next mission, rather than in "chapters" followed by 10 levels of futzing about.

Regarding Season 1

I can't really comment on Season 1. I was there for the first two "episodes," then went on a very long hiatus until the "Escape from LA" arc, so there is a period of the game that is permanently lost to me. What little I played of it was neat, though, and the huge fights in ruined LA were amazingly fun, just seeing the level of coordination (and jolly cooperation) of the other players.

... and Onward

I think that "gap" in experience is what has kept me from really engaging with a lot of the newer content, too. I've only been slowly going back and playing Living Story season content out of boredom, and I just ... look, I'm trying, but I just can't bring myself to care about this new cast like I did the original team. Taimi's funny at times, and the Rox / Braham ship amusing (in the best-worst ways), but ... ehhhhhhhhh? All that I really came away with from them was watching a big buff guy shave his head Brittany Spears style and go through what I can only assume is Norn Puberty.

The only thing that truly stuck out to me (aside from mild nostalgia in getting to see Koss and other Old Elonian touches, being a Prophecies veteran) were the Olmakhan, simply for how diametrically opposed they were to the Legions. And for the first time in years of playing the game, I sat myself down and thought, "I could see one of my characters wanting to give it all up and just stay. Stay here. Start over and really find the peace they've never had [in the Personal Story]."

Which kind of says something that an underdeveloped sidestory of a culture had more impact than the entirety of the living story and expansions before it.

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@Clyan.1593 said:Im surprised vanilla era has the most votes. I think it was fine, but 3 years without an expansion was really getting boring as hell.Vanilla wasn't three years though. It wasn't even one year.Flame and Frost launched on January 28, 2013, marking the turn from Vanilla to Season one (since they are listed as different times spans in this poll).This makes Vanilla only be about five months. If you count The Lost Shores as the start of Season one, Vanilla wasn't even two months.I think the first months, when everything is fresh and new, are the best times for many players.

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@Clyan.1593 said:Im surprised vanilla era has the most votes. I think it was fine, but 3 years without an expansion was really getting boring as hell.

It could be that people are looking more at the content itself, rather than how long said content was current.

Also, despite not having an expansion, it was still getting content updates through S1. Which is what matters most in an MMO, constant content updates, rather than specifically constant expansions (I feel that the forcing of regular expansion drops hurts more than it helps. Since it means that you end up with story arcs that get cut short or rushed to completion, you get less content expansion within a particular expansion, you get less time to work on the next expansion because it has to be ready by X date rather than when it's actually done being produced CoughWoDCough and you feel the need to force in some gimmick to be the big highlight of the expansions rather than adding stuff because it would actually imrove the game)

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@Fueki.4753 said:

@Clyan.1593 said:Im surprised vanilla era has the most votes. I think it was fine, but 3 years without an expansion was really getting boring as hell.Vanilla wasn't three years though. It wasn't even one year.Flame and Frost launched on January 28, 2013, marking the turn from Vanilla to Season one (since they are listed as different times spans in this poll).This makes Vanilla only be about five months.I think the first months, when everything is fresh and new, are the best times for many players.

Yeah, the poll is structured that way, you are right.

It's just that S1 and S2 haven't left much of an impression to me.Both of them were based around central tyria. Only 3 new maps: southsun cove, dry top and silverwastes.GW2 launched in august 2012 and HoT in october 2015. That's 3 years of central tyria, which - at least to me - felt all the same.

With HoT we got masteries, elite specs, gliding, raids, legendary armor, 5 new maps in a new setting, new creatures and finally killed another dragon.Before that the game was just the same all the time, S1 and S2 were just layers on top of it, which is why they feel like part of the core game / vanilla.

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LS4 for me. Not because of the content itself but that is when mounts introduced made the rest of the game that much more enjoyable.

I tried playing on a friend's account when the game came out and disliked it. Didn't buy it(wish I had, now I'm missing all those birthday gifts) but such is life. To me the core game all by itself is mostly like any other sword/bow rpg. Back then I preferred Skyrim way way way more.

And then my friends on SWTOR migrated to GW2, which by then had raids, and SWTOR announced they weren't going to anymore, and y'know, gliding was pretty cool. I still mostly played SWTOR and Skyrim. And then POF, which I didn't buy right when released because I was still working my way through the game. Around when my daughter got her griffon I got POF, which was when sandswept isles came out AND when my computer was replaced. Suddenly I could Zerg with them all with ease. I LOVED Istan. Found a static somewhere around the roller beetle.

Now GW2 doesn't have new raids, my friends have migrated mostly to FFXIV, and I have followed (haven't finished the newest mastery for the first time since sandswept, though I do keep working on it), but I still prefer GW2. Still raid with my static. I haven't cleared everything. I worry though, that when we do, if I still will login. I love the game, but the others have that wretched gear grind required for raiding, and for me, there is nothing like that exuberance from defeating a new boss. That excited watching as health drops from 30%, 20, 10, no one saying we got this because last week we wiped at three percent, and then the achievement floats up. All the whooping and picture posing, basking in reflected glory... And then the planning for the next challenge.

So I really hope more raids are somewhere in the future, but season four has my fondest memories.

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Though I was having hard time to pick in between vanilla & LW3, but I picked LW3 at the end because I love the map Bitterfrost so much! It was the icy map done right and a fun one to farm again and again. Despite going in circle, the map has many interesting individual sections but also cohesive as a whole. I remember spending so much time on that map not only because the map was beautiful to look at, but also was smooth to farm for gold, fun to run just for leisure, and not overly complicated/difficult to figure out. The bear was the plus! At that point of the time, with an account which hasn't gotten much, it was the time when I started to enjoy farming and finally getting my character geared.

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@Blueberry.8095 said:Though I was having hard time to pick in between vanilla & LW3, but I picked LW3 at the end because I love the map Bitterfrost so much! It was the icy map done right and a fun one to farm again and again. Despite going in circle, the map has many interesting individual sections but also cohesive as a whole. I remember spending so much time on that map not only because the map was beautiful to look at, but also was smooth to farm for gold, fun to run just for leisure, and not overly complicated/difficult to figure out. The bear was the plus! At that point of the time, with an account which hasn't gotten much, it was the time when I started to enjoy farming and finally getting my character geared.

I know some players don't like bitterfrost, but I like it too. Simple map with a lot of landscape variety, events and rewards. It's one of my favourite places to get HoT mastery xp.

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I really liked Living world season 1 for several reasons, the story was the worst imo, I hated scarlet so hard, this villain was poor designed and it took forever to end the plot, but some concepts developped at this moment were really cool and completly abandoned.

  • Massive events trying to revive some old areas, like the giants battles against scarlet's army, the tower of nightmare, the puppet, and best of all the epic aetherblade event inside the wvw jumping puzzle which brings the entiere community in this place trying to reach the final chest. That was definitly the funniest experience I had on 8 years of gw2. They never did something like that again, never.

  • The 3 new dungeons : Flame and frost, Aetherblade with Mai Trin and the Aetherpath. I keep thinking that was the best instances they ever put on gw2, the boss fights introduce raids with their tricky mechanics jumping puzzle based but they had more than just cool bosses fight, the fact they were real instances with some adds and events to deal with in order to get to the boss, with some cool uniques items available on TP as rewards (jetpack, great minis, expansive armor pieces and weapons...). These elites zones took about 1 hour to clear and this was a investment to group for it. Raids are cool but thats not the same, and fractals are so boring, keep farming 5 mins of the same dungeons again and again, oof... They cut these contents on 4 differents fracs to allow us to farm them faster, bad idea IMO, but yea, that was the only way to recycle this content...

  • Temporary content, I know this is an unpopular opinion but I think by adding content that disappear after some times they make the community exciting about doing it when it's there. I also liked how they transformed the world, I get it's time wasted to build something and then delete it to add something new, instead of just create and adding something new, but that makes the world moving, and that was for this idea that I initially bought gw2, and this main concept is lost and burried right now.

HoT is now the best open world content, unfortunatly I had stopped the game when it was released, I complete PoF and HoT at the same time when I came back and I think if I played the game when HoT just got released I would loved that period.

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Confession time. I started playing early 2013 (on another acc) and it was SO much different. It was something else. Because of this i somehow didn't liked the game. Then fast forward 6 years, i decide to jump in with f2p acc. And Icebrood Saga announcement happens. Base game + HoT for free with PoF. Dream Deal. So i made it. On top of that i purchase GW1 trilogy + EotN because of GWAMM. Now next XPack is announced, who see this happen? Now i'm the biggest fan of the franchise too, i wish i discover the game earlier (since i knew the name way before i start playing). Good times ahead.

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I don't like the HoT maps until Auric Basin. The ones before are a bit annoying to navigate. The HoT style events are great though and I'm glad the dragonfall meta event is something similar. Although having said this, it can be frustrating when some people don't seem to ever realise that you have to kill the bosses together in the meta event, even though they keep reviving when one dies to early.

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Before the last few weeks I’d be tempted to say LW3, but not because there was anything special about it. It was when I came back after a 15 month hiatus and started with HoT (stopped playing regularly around then) and then had to catch up through the first 3, I think, episodes? The Lake Doric one released while I was back. I just had so much to do. HoT played a lot better for me. Good times. Then it rolled into PoF and on and on and I haven’t felt like breaking since.

More recently - it’s everything. I’ve been trying to find every AP I can, closing in on 30K. I’ve been discovering all sorts of interesting things I never noticed, played metas I never got into before, playing through old story instances. Also working back through Icebrood from the beginning to pick up extra points I was missing, forgot how fun Grothmar is. Played through to quickly.

So I can’t pick one. I still like making new characters and playing through the original world and doing map completion and the story.

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I play since beta and saw with interest the game evolving over time. Originally, it was far from perfect but it was - on my very personal opinion - a lot richer in term of content. It needed some work to obtain results, progressing over time, and that was more my style than the way it is now.

The game is now tailored for the type of players who want to rush to end game as fast as possible and earn lot of gold even faster than that. They don't want to level up. They don't want to craft. They don't want to progress over time. All must happen immediately and with a minimum of efforts (otherwise they call it grinding).I regularly see new players, arrived in game since hardly more than 2 weeks, and complaining that they can't have ascended equipment (or even legendary weapons)! When I ask what for they need it, they don't know. Simply, it's best in game so they want it. That's just crazy... =)Another typical example is the recurring complaints about the work to get a skyscale... How many times I hear that... Or even the simple fact that it needs to reach rank 3 raptor before to go for another mount... LOLHave a look at the never ending list of complains in GW2 forum of the type "world completion being too long, hearts should be excluded" and so on... It tells it all.

I don't tell it's wrong or right. It's just different. Nowadays, the new generation of players search for easy content going fast. It explains that content of the game has adapted accordingly. From there, it' a matter of preferences. Players like me regret of course the original game and find little interest in current content.

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