27 replies to this topic

[tibbles777]

During my time on the stress test tonight I decided to go around and explore every main city accessible from the word go.

Lions Arch
Divinity's Reach
Rata Sum
Hoelbrak
Black Citadel
The Grove

(If there are more places to explore that are friendly and are accessible to begin with then please share, I just went for the racial cities and LH )

Turn out that if you go straight through to exploring right after your first tutorial, you can net yourself exp worth around 8 and a half levels

I made a Human Ranger and went from Divinity's Reach to Lions Arch to Hoelbrak to Black Citadel to The Grove finishing at Rata Sum. The completion rewards are quite nice and obviously the exp is awesome but the gold you get is kinda worthless. I think the hardest of all the places to finish was The Black Citadel... things on different levels and instances!!

I enjoyed this quite a lot and was a nice break from other stuff, I know what i'm doing first on release!

[jarred]

nice. 8.5 levels is more then expected to say the least..

[Tyrindor]

I think im going to explore all the cities before even leveling when the game launches.

8.5 levels is a nice boost and will give you more options. I found I constantly ran into mobs 2-3 levels higher than me in the betas.

Edited by Tyrindor, 03 August 2012 - 01:12 AM.

[Katreyn]

Didn't realize it'd give so many levels.  But I was planning on "touring" all the main cities from the start, so glad to see its well worth the exploration time.

[FireDancer]

may I ask how long it took to complete them and were there any parts you were stuck on?
I'd like to try that too, level in advance, so I can be further ahead in my personal story and not have to wait 2 levels to complete each one

[DeConstruct]

Black Citadel was impossible for me during the beta. I just couldnt find certain points of interest. Visited all the instances (at least I thought so). Makes the term "point of interest" rather ironic, because I lost all interest I had searching for them.

[Storm of the Ages]

This was my plan too!  Since they are full maps, you get that huge completion bonus if you get everything.  Plus you will be able to around and to where you want to be much faster.

[XcmGT]

Great I will definitly be doing this at launch before I start anything else...

[Bhak]

well no more than 4 hours

[BloatedGuppy]

DeConstruct, on 03 August 2012 - 01:23 AM, said:

Black Citadel was impossible for me during the beta. I just couldnt find certain points of interest. Visited all the instances (at least I thought so). Makes the term "point of interest" rather ironic, because I lost all interest I had searching for them.

Black Citadel seals off the player "home instance" from non-Charr. Was impossible for me to fully map it as well. Only city I had this issue with.

[Puddin Cheeks]

Did anyone ever figure out how to get the last point of interest under the whole city! Divintiy's Reach I meant

Edited by Puddin Cheeks, 03 August 2012 - 01:57 AM.

[FreeBooteR]

Puddin Cheeks, on 03 August 2012 - 01:43 AM, said:

Did anyone ever figure out how to get the last point of interest under the whole city! Divintiy's Reach I meant

You need to complete the personal story to get that one i believe.

[Jokerx7]

tibbles777, on 02 August 2012 - 11:11 PM, said:

snip

Did you completed all of them in 4 hours? Or less?

Good to know.

From lvl 2 to 10.5? (8.5 lvls of exploring)

Edited by Jokerx7, 03 August 2012 - 02:35 AM.

[diggdugg]

FreeBooteR, on 03 August 2012 - 02:31 AM, said:

You need to complete the personal story to get that one i believe.

not everyones personal story would take place in divintys reach , so i doubt they would put a poi in it

iirc  i saw a vid with a guy who went in the sewers , it might be down there

[Jokerx7]

diggdugg, on 03 August 2012 - 03:23 AM, said:

not everyones personal story would take place in divintys reach , so i doubt they would put a poi in it

iirc  i saw a vid with a guy who went in the sewers , it might be down there

The sewers are in Lion's Arch.

And it's probably an instance. You will have to go from the personal story if you play a human. But you can enter any time, even if you aren't human. Not sure what PoI he is talking about tho. But I got them all. =/

[gobberpooper]

Weird how the most interesting point I got to wasn't a point of interest. Maybe because you're not supposed to go there.
http://i.imgur.com/7Tpli.jpg
Yes, that is the bottom corner of the cube that is Rata Sum

[Minnie May Washu]

gobberpooper, on 03 August 2012 - 03:31 AM, said:

Weird how the most interesting point I got to wasn't a point of interest. Maybe because you're not supposed to go there.
http://i.imgur.com/7Tpli.jpg
Yes, that is the bottom corner of the cube that is Rata Sum

How did you get there? I spent the last hour of the stress test trying to slide down the sides of Rata Sum without dying! The first 3 hours I spent doing the Goemm's Lab jumping puzzle. Damn that one was frustrating!

[tallanx]

Puddin Cheeks, on 03 August 2012 - 01:43 AM, said:

Did anyone ever figure out how to get the last point of interest under the whole city! Divintiy's Reach I meant

pretty sure that's actually the top level, not bottom. I think you're talking about the throne room?

[gobberpooper]

Minnie May Washu, on 03 August 2012 - 03:51 AM, said:

How did you get there? I spent the last hour of the stress test trying to slide down the sides of Rata Sum without dying! The first 3 hours I spent doing the Goemm's Lab jumping puzzle. Damn that one was frustrating!

I really enjoyed the fact that I could spend hours and hours on a jumping puzzle. But if you go to the waypoint way in the bottom right corner, there's a side from which you can very carefully drop down onto a ledge halfway down and then all the way down. From there you can go to all the uncompleted sections. There's an asura gate in a closed off cubic arena between that place and the polymock arena and then you can go all the way up north.
Found a video somebody made of it

Spoiler

Edited by gobberpooper, 03 August 2012 - 04:15 AM.

[FateAnomaly]

During the previous BWEs i managed to get 100% for all the cities (i am human) so it should be possible for other races to do the same. There will be a way just have to figure it out.

It seems that a lot of will be doing city explorations first (me included).

[Baraccus]

yea i didn't know you can get 8.5 levels thats pretty awesome. That will also help me get through the story line a lot quicker, well at least the first 5-6 missions

[Izardoz]

the first time I did the Black Citadel, in BWE1, i think, I could not find the last two POIs, but I did find them in the subsequent stress test; they were in instances....I played as a human

I did all the other cities available, as well, and ended up about level ~8

it is also good for exp towards your first survivor level  

[Robsy128]

And that's why I love Arenanet - they actually allow you to do something different and interesting. Want to explore all of the main cities without even fighting? Sure... go ahead! You'll be level 8/9 by the time you've finished. That's actually quite awesome. I wonder whether it will be possible to level up in Guild Wars 2 all the way to 80 just by exploring. I know it sounds like a crazy thing to do, but if the option is there... why not?

[Arias Dulari]

@OP Its wonderful isn't it?

This is exactly what I did for every BWE!

I explored all cities first. Then started on the content for one of 5 starter maps, and I'd constantly switch between the starter maps to progess them all.

I hit lv 22 after exploring all the 5 Starter Maps + Cities!

[Jerich]

Across three beta weekends I have explored divinities reach 3x, hoelbrok(sp?) 2x, lion's arch 2x, and the black citidel and the grove 1x.  I find it relaxing and fun.  I think ebonhawke will also be available at release.  That will make 7 cities!  It may be OCD, but I plan on exploring each city, doing each newbie zone (5), doing each secondary zone(4) and then doing each zone in order with my first character.  For some reason, I really love map completion.

[MinkoAk]

Considering I'm going to play a ranger and the cities have a lot of juvenile pets, the first thing I will do is to explore those cities. This way I will have a good basis of pets to start. Though I did try to explore the whole of the Black Citadel, the PoI, instances and different levels (not at all clear on the map compared to other cities) drove me crazy...

[tibbles777]

Everywhere is accessible as far as I was aware, you just have to look around a bit, even home instances are fine to access And no, sorry, I meant that I hit level 8.5 from the exploration. It took me 3 hours of the test Also, I could not find any Juveniles in the cities at all, I do t think there is any unless I just wasn't looking hard enough?

Edited by tibbles777, 03 August 2012 - 09:45 AM.

[Vann Borakul]

Tyrindor, on 03 August 2012 - 01:11 AM, said:

I think im going to explore all the cities before even leveling when the game launches.

8.5 levels is a nice boost and will give you more options. I found I constantly ran into mobs 2-3 levels higher than me in the betas.

I don't think you're supposed to be on equal levels with monsters all the time
besides, I've yet to see a monster you can't kill at level 1