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Too much to explore....
Kethrym
Member Posts: 85
How many of you are going to go to each zone (including the starter areas) and fully explore EVERYTHING instead of racing to 80? I played most of the weekend (about 20 hours total) and explored about 85% of the Asura starter area.
I was just running around trying out various weapon sets and strategies, but I kept getting into areas and saying "oh crap I didn't know this was here!" The maps are deceptively LARGE. If you stick to the Renown hearts on the road you'll miss out on about 50% of the zone and therefor 50% of the DE's.
The addition of the Vistas make it fun to explore EVERYTHING. Usually I play an MMO, get to max level and then make an alt or two. This game has me seriously thinking that one character is all I'll want to play. So much content to discover.
Anyone else feel this way or am I just crazy? The discovery reminds me of SWG, I could spend hours just driving around and seeing everything a planet had to offer.
Comments
I probably will.. I enjoy exploring and really don't care how fast I get to 80. I love how much there is to explore is GW2.
My first character (Norn Warrior) is definitely gonna have 100% exploration achievements, hearts, vistas, skill points, DEs, I intend to do it entirely - and this is gonna take a long time.
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I have been known in my circle of mmorpg friends as the slowest proggressor in the world! Ever since MUD's and then into M59 and onwards. I love to explore and smell the flowers, if you will. It's just something I do... if I can't feel a real sense of exploration then I don't hang out long in a mmorpg. That's likely why I love GW2 so much. And yes, I will be taking the long way around
I'll see 80 sometime next summer! 
NO SUCH THING as too much to explore
A friend and I spent our final hour and a half simply running through as much of the world as far as we could, trying to avoid death... and watching the world unfold before us was awesome. The best was finding little caves and hidden little out of the world places.
Now what I'd love is if ArenaNet added 'stumble upon' quests like The Secret World uses a lot where just by walking around, you might find... a broken sword for example. The sword has an inscription that leads ties to a name on a graveyard in a nearby town - and so on you unravel a story.
Great opportunity to add some awesome adventures
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
I could give a fuck about getting to 80. I'll be exploring quite a bit. One of the main focal points for myself with this game really.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
Just look at the screen shots I posted. I told a friend of mine that it seems EVERY single zone in the game feels like its own world. The exploration aspect of this game is so awesome. So many puzzles to try and figure out. Vistas to try and get to etc etc. Also in regards to alts what I love about this game is the auto scale. So you can take you level 80 and go to the other starter zones and check out their content.
Why would I race to 80?
I like it also the vastness and variety to where you can go is nice. Keeps it from getting repetitive. Kind of reminds me of eq1 where you have more options for places to go and level/explore.
It's a big world out there, and you have the option of trying to explore it fully or you can level as fast as you can. Personally I think I'm going to go for the 100%. To me that's how it's supposed to be played. On alts I doubt I'll do more than the starting areas to 100%, but who knows? It's how you want to play the game.
I feel more compelled to enjoy the meal than rush to the finnish line. Funny thing is exploring gives you so much xp there probably one in the same. Luckily I will be playing as amny alts as there are slots for them...
Yep. Me. I had to force myself to stop exploring last night so that I could get this drug(GW2) out of my system in order to survive the next month, lol. Seriously, I could explore all day. I did the whole Sylvari beginning zone, Lions Arch, The Grove and started in on the Human city. Got stumped on a Vista puzzle there though and logged off, this was at about 11pm. After playing about 8 hours yesterday. Heheh.
Plus, it will be beneficial to hit every zone to go after those skill challenges. While there, why not just get map completion, that's what I say. Before you know it, you will be leveling along very nicely. LOVE the exploration factor in this game, and I haven't even dug into the really deep exploration where you find the hidden stuff in caves behind vines that lead to events and what not. I didn't want to explore that hard until launch. Nice to know even after completing a map, there are still secret areas to find.
Look at the video somebody posted of the meta-event chain secret boss. It's around here somewhere.
A rare drop with no instructions on it that required asking repeatedly in the whole zone if somebody had it, something that takes hours of grinding to MAYBE find...
... hours of doing 2 really difficult hidden jumping puzzles, finding a secret area, and having to beat what is probably currently the toughest boss in the game (We're talking about something that is taking players hours to take down), just to activate the one key.
There's possibly other stuff like this. So yes, there's 'stumble upon' quests. The primary example at the moment is just crazy hard and elaborate.
I'll spend my time trying to find all the jumping puzzles then do them all, I found them to be great, and challenging.
100% Exploration will always be my priority as well
Block the trolls, don't answer them, so we can remove the garbage from these forums
Whoa... I hadn't even heard of that. Still, I'd love MUCH more smaller-scale quests. Even something as simple as finding a locket and returning it to someone in a village or small stuff like that.
BOYCOTTING EA / ORIGIN going forward.
Without a doubt, exploration is my favorite part of the game. And you get a nice weapon reward for completing a map as well.
That would be badass
Evil will always triumph because good is dumb....
I just know that for many the race is on. We will have to endure the threads from people that race to 80 and then try to claim how shallow the game is despite the fact that they missed nearly the whole thing during the race.
Not one developer has found the definitive way to drive that single player console mentality from those players. Racing to max level does not mean you beat the game.
I applaud ANET for trying. They might even be the closest developer to achieving that lofty goal but as yet they have not won the war on the locusts.
I was on the same boat this last BWE, good game :-).
I'll take my time to explore everything, max level will enventually happen.
I'm curious what the game holds in terms of exploration. I like how exploring typically gives you the most xp unless of course you complete a heart quest or DE. This is the one game I might actually start a guild in just so I can have like minded, reasonable people to explore with. My plan is probably to run around all the starting zones and get all the skill ups and locations to quickly level me up.
How ever I have determined that I will do both PVE and PVP in this game. It has been awhile since a game has opened my eyes to the possibility. Don't have any RL friends who play this so I'm hoping I can meet some cool in game friends to explore, die and generally progress with.
You know I think that would really suck, but I understand that some just want to hit max level. However I would agree that they would be missing out on some cool stuff. On this site there is a forum about a Meta Boss that requires you to get a key and infuse the key with elemental powers. Not to mention there is a DE boss just above the meta boss. Just to think if a large chunk of the hearts/DE's are like this.
I definitely want to be in a group of like minded exploring individuals. It reminds me of geo cashing (sp)
Lots and lots of DEs start by interracting with an object/npc in the middle of nowhere. The difference with TSW is that when you start an event in affects everyone around you, this has the positive of involving everyone and not feeling like a single player experience (like in TSW) but has the major drawback that not all players will find these events because when they get to the npc location, he will either not be there, or the event will be already underway. Also, there is no marker to show you that talking to that npc/object will begin an event.
For example there is this lady that wants to kill a giant baracuda in a lake, she is far away of any hearts and can only be reached by her cabin near the lake (by exploring). She wants to create some bait to lure the giant fish out, if you talk to her and convince her to do something about it, she will start moving towards a nearby cave. Once there she will call on all nearby players to gather some worms from around the cave and becomes a collection event. Once the amount of worms is reached she will return at the lake and throw the bait in to lure the giant baracuda, then the kill the baracuda event will start.
It is a very awesome and immersive way to present quests to the players, with the major drawback I noted above, it won't be seen as such by all players, they will think that the baracuda and worm gathering are separate random events that occur on a timer.
Advice: talk to everyone, especially named npcs in hard to reach places, you will be rewarded.
Block the trolls, don't answer them, so we can remove the garbage from these forums
I'm the guy that meticulously humps every edge of the map even in single-player RPGs looking for any extra goodies so...yeah. I will do my best to discover everything.
I agree with OP even though the word "Vista" have a bad tone to me for some reason...
same here plus the topic sounds negative . " too much "
I have a thing about achievements, really have to get all of them.