111 replies to this topic

[Trei]

DuskWolf, on 10 January 2013 - 04:39 AM, said:

What I found, as a casual player, was that the game kept me in one area for a hell of a long time. Monotony and repetition set in very quickly, doing the same damn heart events (basically just traditional quests without the pick-ups or turn-ins) day in, day out, in the same area, with the same visual style, and ....

...This is all very subjective.
....

One area?

To the thread starter:
At level 1, you already have 5 full maps to explore as you wish, one starting zone per race accessible by

- locating your capital city's asura gate to Lion's Arch (giant round purple stargate portal).
- port through it and use the corresponding portal from Lion's Arch to any of the other capital cities of other races of your choice.
- find your way through the city to the start zone of that race.

All five maps are as different as it can get, tropical jungles for one, rolling plains in another, snowy alpine highlands... fantasy fey forests...country farmlands...

That's not even including the 5 entire capital cities no less unique.

Nor does it count the spvp maps you can choose to join at any lvl.

There are various zones you could choose from at subsequent higher lvls as well. Personally I took 3 months to hit max level and am still not yet done exploring the lower lvl zones.

If you feel adventurous and think you could handle zones higher than your lvl, no one is stopping you from trying. I was doing lvl 24 heart quests at lvl 7, for example, simply because I stumbled into the zone by accident.

And then there's yet another 4 full map sized zones in world vs world which you also can join at any lvl, if you want a break at anytime from pve.

Yes, it is indeed truly very subjective.

Edited by Trei, 11 January 2013 - 02:11 AM.

[Ardeni]

I don't think that you could accomplish much in PvE environment (getting legendaries or even t3 sets would take forever). I could recommend sPvP and tPvP for you, though. You are boosted straight to the max level and you get to enjoy pvp immediately. WvW could work too, but playing 30 minutes a day it'd take months to reach level 80 without crafting (and casual players rarely have the gold to craft their chars all the way to level 80).

[Ritualist]

Think of it this way - when A.Net talked about daily achievements, which means killing 60 foes/15 unique foes, completing 5 dynamic events/20 gatherings for some extra gold/karma/xp - they specifically said that they are in the game to reward those first HOURS of play.
So with the daily probably taking an hour or so on average (sometimes you'll have it in 20 minutes - sometimes it takes 2 or more hours) when levelling, I'd say that that's about the minimum time they expect you to invest into a game per sitting.

The daily showcases the issue of the PvE world - PvE is mostly all about dynamic events. These quests do and will happen when you are not around. And with only 30 minutes to play, it can and it WILL happen that you'll log into the game with DEs just ending or waiting to start and you'll load into an empty game.

Not only that, but GW2 gets close to the game everyone is raving about only IF you play it in a group. If you solo it, which I imagine you'll be forced to do with just 30 minutes of play, it's not that good.

[Sword Hammer Axe]

Easily. All of the content takes less than an hour to complete, even things like dungeons, and while the leveling system is complicated at first, at the higher levels you'll notice that it doesn't actually take much longer getting a level than it did in the early levels. Even gearing up doesn't take too much in this game, and is more a matter of appearance and perfectionism than actual need.

Keep in mind that it's an MMO though. There is grind, though definitely not as much as in a lot of other games. Also, at the casual level you might have problems doing some of the world content like the group events, unless you're lucky to stumble upon someone already doing it, meaning that some of the content is pretty much out of your reach.

But generally I can say it's a good game for casuals. I myself don't have time for more than a few hours a day, many days I don't have time at all, but that hasn't stopped me from enjoying it to the fullest

[Heart Collector]

This game is great for casual play - however 30 minutes is indeed too little to get any huge sense of accomplishment IMO. You can squeeze in quite a bit of stuff in these 30 minutes, if you play two or three half-hour bouts a day you'll probably be able to get your daily achievements. You can explore, level a bit, craft, do some DEs, and I guess you could always hop into some WvW.

You can do plenty of stuff in a small time frame, but in a casual, more laid-back way.

[DuskWolf]

You're all still avoiding the topic of how, as a casual player, he'll be stuck in a samey zone for a nontrivial portion of his life. That's a deal breaker. The problem with GW2's design is that everything in one zone pretty much looks the same; so if you've seen a portion of one zone, you've seen it all. The only starting zone that broke this rule was the norn one (which has a total of, gasp, two kinds of setting rather than one), and it's sad that I can point out exceptions to the rule like that. In most cases, you'll be stuck in the same area, doing the same sort of thing. Over, and over, and over. This is the 'curse' of GW2.

The transition between areas is just far, far too slow. They keep you in an area for way too long, as I've pointed out, and that feels grindy. You can explore the area in a very short period if you're actually good at exploring (as a veteran wall-walker, I'm a top-notch explorer), and jumping puzzles can be completed in 30 minutes to an hour, depending on skill. And then you have the grind. And for me, logging in each day just to grind the same daily achievements (which are all very samey), in the same area, for the aforementioned nontrivial amount of time... it's just a game killer.

And not everyone fetishises progression. A fun time for me isn't logging in to kill 20 ghosts, that's why I stopped playing WoW, because I'm fed up of grinding numbers. And the daily achievements are pretty much just disguised WoW kill quests. That's all they are. And you're stuck in the same damn area doing them over, and over, and over, and over. And that the combat is unfun and based upon numbers and RNG mechanics almost exclusively, rather than player skill, means that grinding is just... why am I here?

Bots can play GW2 so well that they had to put in farming caps to try to do something to limit their potential. The more mindless a game is to play, the easier it is for a bot to play. This is why you don't have bots in Mass Effect 3 multi-player. Oh, I've seen some experiments, but they're bad. Point of the matter is - the combat just isn't fun. And you're telling him to log in to do WoW-style kill quests with unfun combat for the amount of time he has. In that case, you might as well just tell him to go and play WoW, there's not really going to be any difference. And in WoW he'll at least experience some kind of story progression. I hate to say that this is an area which WoW beats out GW2, because I loathe (loathe) WoW, but it is.

Again, I will point out that the solution to this is to just allow players to create level 80 PvE characters. That way they can do a dungeon run whenever they want, they can do the exploration stuff, but they can also skip the WoW-like grind through the zones, which is distinctly unfun. I mean, if you're telling him to do only daily achievements, too, then he's going to be stuck in the starting zones forever. That really is the curse of GW2.

The motto here is "I hope you like the scenery, you're going to be seeing it a lot for a very, very, very long time to come."

Edited by DuskWolf, 10 January 2013 - 12:28 PM.

[escada_assassin]

What's an accomplishment for you? Kiling 10 rats? Doing all DE's in the entire world? Getting a legendary? Getting exotic armor? Getting ascended / infused rings? It all depends on that as I see the problem. But anyway you take it and even though ANet said this should have been a casual game, this isn't a casual friendly game. If by playing the game you mean walking, not rushing, from one flower to another or admiring a tree (look how big it is) and stuff like that, then 30 minutes are more than enough. If you want more than just smelling flowers (and at some point, it's impossible not to see something that you might like & want) you'll need a hell of a lot more than 30 minutes. I play for around 2 hours / day every day and it just feels like it's not enough. There's always more and more and more. More armor sets for more chars, more weapons for more chars, more billion materials you need for all kind of stuff. And it's not all driven by the fact that some of them are rare, exotics or whatever - some of them are just about looks and it won't matter if we're talking about legendary or any other crap. You either try to mentally limit yourself at smelling flowers or you're gonna be stuck in grinding for a million years to get whatever stick (they call it staff) you want.

[dondarrion]

* As a casual, more than anything, I think you'll enjoy GW2. There's no rush, you can explore the entire world at your pace, there's always people about with you and you can do these dynamic events that just take place and you chip in if you happen to be nearby.

* It's true that you've got dungeons that take more time than 30 minutes, but I'm an example myself lately that by finding a PUG(group) on gw2lfg.com, I can make a run of an explorable dungeon within 30 minutes. Mind you, the dungeons are what you can do at certain "milestone" levels in order to gain token rewards exchangeable for better weapon and armor.

* From simply exploring and doing this, you get stuff you can put to good use in crafting if that's your cup of tea.

* Or if you're into PvP or semi-PvP (World vs world) it's easy to get into games for that, getting a real feeling for WvW might take more than a 30 minute setting, but I'm guessing you're not so strict you can't play for 1 hour sometimes and that's enough time to get a taste of that.

All of it contributes to leveling. Which should be a blast as a casual.

Until you hit level 80 and expect to find some endgame, of which there isn't any, and instead you face a wall of grinding for mostly cosmetic items, but you can still go out and explore like you've done previously - unexplored areas will downscale you to that area's level range so you're not rolling over anything like a tank.

Hope you take a chance on this game - imho should be far more appealing to casual players than other MMOs on the market.

Edited by Leyana, 10 January 2013 - 11:00 PM.
No

[Gilles VI]

Protoss, on 10 January 2013 - 08:29 AM, said:

Not only that, but GW2 gets close to the game everyone is raving about only IF you play it in a group. If you solo it, which I imagine you'll be forced to do with just 30 minutes of play, it's not that good.

I'm having a blast levelling my 5th character solo in zones.
Just playing alone, doing the hearts/DE's, immerse yourself in the world, talk to NPC's,...

Although I admit I love playing alone.

[Ritualist]

DuskWolf, on 10 January 2013 - 12:27 PM, said:

Again, I will point out that the solution to this is to just allow players to create level 80 PvE characters.

Add free travel to that and you'd have one pretty darn good game.

[Ghostwing]

I, on 10 January 2013 - 04:47 AM, said:

This game isn't for casual players. Ultimately the end goal here is obtaining max gear and looking aesthetically good. And that takes a lot of farming.

That depends on the player. When I was leveling up I couldn't care about the max gear or the legendary or even reaching level 80. I played it like I played Skyrim, just wandered around, looked at sights, ran into jumping puzzles by chance, encountered DEs by chance, and just immersed myself into the world. Whether you or anyone else who thinks the world is too boring for them to do that, well, that's personal preference. I enjoyed it, that was the best part of GW2 for me, and that can be done in short spurts.

DuskWolf, on 10 January 2013 - 12:27 PM, said:

You're all still avoiding the topic of how, as a casual player, he'll be stuck in a samey zone for a nontrivial portion of his life. That's a deal breaker. The problem with GW2's design is that everything in one zone pretty much looks the same; so if you've seen a portion of one zone, you've seen it all. The only starting zone that broke this rule was the norn one (which has a total of, gasp, two kinds of setting rather than one), and it's sad that I can point out exceptions to the rule like that. In most cases, you'll be stuck in the same area, doing the same sort of thing. Over, and over, and over. This is the 'curse' of GW2.

The motto here is "I hope you like the scenery, you're going to be seeing it a lot for a very, very, very long time to come."

For a long time, I only played till I completed the daily and logged off. That took 35 minutes to 45 minutes in the earlier levels. I didn't get tired of the zone just because I saw it again the next day after my previous short playtime. You're generalizing a bit, just because a zone has snow everywhere doesn't mean the entire zone looks the same. There are caves and castles and whatever to explore. Besides, each level range has several zones within that range, if you do get tired of looking at "the scenery" you can go elsewhere.

Quote

Depending on your server, I wouldn't count on this. In the entire time I played, for all the hundred-some players I got on my feet, I was only rezzed once; and that's no matter how politely I asked. If you browse the forums, and other forums on the Internet, you'll also learn about the level 30-80 wasteland.

Did you spend your time in-game like you spend your time on this forum: talking about how you'd rather be playing other games? That might've been why.

Edited by Ghostwing, 10 January 2013 - 06:17 PM.

[Astral Projections]

This game was made to be enjoyed by the casual player. That said, 30 minutes is very short and it would be hard to accomplish much in that time. But if you don't mind wandering around exploring and just doing whatever you find in that time you should have fun. Be sure and farm everything you can to sell. Armor and weapon strength aren't real important in this game (and for the lower levels it's pretty cheap) but its nice to have get level appropriate gear every 10 levels or so. I've found the people in this game to be very nice and helpful. They will rez you if they are around when you die and will answer questions in chat. It can be hard to solo the champions and some events. Asking for help in chat may or may not get you help because harder stuff doesn't get you higher rewards and the game penalizes you with waypoint costs and gear repair costs if you die in the harder content.

[Mura]

I'm surprised you're even considering an mmo with only 30 minutes at a time.  However, this one is pretty good for just that.

In fact, if you want pvp, this is the best game for that . Within 30 minutes, you quickly make your first character, do the initial introductory event, then go to Heart of the Mists for structured pvp.  You're instantly level 80, access to all skills/traits, and access to equal gear as everyone else in spvp.  In 30 minutes you could  create a toon, get to Heart of the Mists, and do a spvp match.

For pve, well I've been kind of doing just that this week, only logging in for half an hour.  I've been working on world completion, so I'll discover some of the map, do a dynamic event or two, and log.  The other night I was able to help a guildy with part of their personal story, took 30 minutes.

[Juanele]

This is probably the perfect mmo for that kind of playstyle. However, if you want to run any of the instances you'll probably need a bit more time to play.

The only other type of mmos that would be better suited to your time constraints would be games like Vindictus and Dragon Nest.

[Archon_Wing]

30 minutes would be a bit too little, but I think there aren't many games for 30 minutes only IMO.

Still, as a casual myself (I skipped the game for 2 months, and only have 1 level 68 necromancer) , I don't mind running towards an unexplored part of the map, gathering resources, killing whatever monsters there are and doing whatever event comes my way. It's doable in 30 min.

It'd be nice for people that can devote more than an hour on occasion for the dailys. I think that helps casuals stick around a lot, since the daily acihevements are the most we'll usually aim for. (Monthly is too far out of reach and I'm not bothering with wvw atm)

[DuskWolf]

I see a lot of words, but two issues still have yet to be tackled.

Issue #1: Monotony is the best predator.

There's an entirely valid criticism for GW2; that's that all the aesthetics within a zone are very, very samey. This can even extend to the next zone to a degree, as is truly the case with the charr starter area and the zone that leads out from there. This fuels a sense of repetition. Now, as an explorer, you'll be able to find all of the points of interest within an hour. The jumping puzzle (depending on your skill at platformers) can be completed in anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour, and that's being generous.

So, ultimately, there's two hours of good content. The combat is pretty much your random-number-generator stuff, lots of dice rolls and very little player skill. This isn't Mass Effect 3's multiplayer, this is an MMORPG which revels in the WoW style. The dodge-roll is so infrequent that it's purely a vestigial thing. If you want to see combat done better, look at TERA, but this discussion isn't about that. What this is about is that the combat is so easy, and so mindless, that it can be played by a bot. (This game is plagued with bot issues to the point where they had to put in farming limits. A game that requires skill wouldn't have needed that.)

So what you're doing is something a bot could do, you're going to log in for 30 minutes every day to faceroll the same mobs, in the same damn area. With only 30 minutes to play, you're going to be stuck in this samey area for a long, long time. A long time. And there's going to be absolutely no visual variety what so ever. Now, if that sounds like a fun time for you, then you'll love it. But the fact of the matter is is that as much as I loathe WoW, WoW does this better. A few sessions of WoW will net you some story and at least some visual variety, but the same amount of time spent in GW2 won't. That's kind of sad. But it's an undeniable truth.

Even if you do the personal story stuff, you're looking at only an hour again, tops. They're really short missions and they have huge gaps between them. So most of the time you're going to be grinding; grinding Aion style.

That's just not fun.

Don't think of trying to escape, either. Five levels above you and you'll cease doing damage to an enemy due to a mechanic called 'glancing blows,' five more levels than that and enemies will start one-shotting you. This is a method to keep you within your designated zone, so that you play nice, like a good little drone. You're not even permitted to think of leaving until you've done the preprequisite grinding, and that's a heck of a lot of grinding. Compare this to, say, TERA. I cite TERA as a game where you can explore zones 10 or more levels higher than you, actually take stuff on, and have a good chance at winning based upon your skill.

A solution to this would be to allow the casual player to create a level 80 character, so that they can just get their money's worth from the points of interest, vistas, and jumping puzzles wihtout forcing them through some seriously unfun grind, and without keeping them locked in teh same area.

Issue #2: Casual players are not Achiev-O-Matic bots.

When did casual players ever strike you as this? The daily quests are more for the WoW-ish die-hards, so that they have an excuse to stick around for a little while longer each day, and it rewards them for having too much free time. It's not something you do as the only thing you do because then you're just grinding. I touched upon this above, but I'll touch upon it more, here. If you're only logging in to do daily quests for 30 minutes a day, then you're going to be stuck in the first zone for at least two months. The same zone, killing the same mobs.

I hope you like the scenery. And I really hope you like fighting those mobs.

Variety is the spice of life. If you could login and go to a different zone to do dailies or explore, then that's a different matter. But no, you'll be logging into the same zone, to grind the same mobs, just to watch numbers go up. Is that really what you want out of your gaming experience? Because if that's what you want, then you're honestly better off watching a series of good fantasy movies whilst Progress Quest plays in the background. You get the same end result either way. Isn't that lovely? And whilst this may seem harsh, I'm just being honest about this game's glaring flaws. It is unequivocally not a game for casual players.

I would urge you to save your money. GW1 is a better game for casual players, since you can just play a mission every now and then. Mass Effect 3's multi-player is fantastic for casual players, since you can do a match in under 20 minutes easily, especially on bronze. The upcoming Marvel Heroes MMO (which now has preorders available) is similar to the original Guild Wars (as in not 2), and that looks to be great for casual players as well.

What I'm saying is is that these two flaws make GW2 one of the most casual unfriendly games out there. And as such, there are better options.

Edited by DuskWolf, 10 January 2013 - 07:35 PM.

[Ghostwing]

DuskWolf, on 10 January 2013 - 07:35 PM, said:

When did casual players ever strike you as this? The daily quests are more for the WoW-ish die-hards, so that they have an excuse to stick around for a little while longer each day, and it rewards them for having too much free time. It's not something you do as the only thing you do because then you're just grinding. I touched upon this above, but I'll touch upon it more, here. If you're only logging in to do daily quests for 30 minutes a day, then you're going to be stuck in the first zone for at least two months. The same zone, killing the same mobs.

What repetitive "daily quests" are you referring to here?

The daily I was referring to (and I'm sure other people too) is the one where you complete 5 DEs (any), kill 15 diff kind of enemies, gather 20 mats (any type), and kill 60 enemies altogether. This happens through regular PVE playing.  I'm just saying I logged on to do the daily as a means to control play-time during a busy period of my life, as opposed to using a stop-watch. I stopped once I finished the daily even though I wanted to keep playing, in order to limit my playtime, and in the earlier maps it took me 30-45 mins to finish it.

I was never "stuck" anywhere. If I wanted to I could go to another level appropriate zone, if it bugged me that much. The two-month time frame is ridiculous, but I've never played for only 30 mins a day for two months to say for sure. But let's just do the math, that's roughly 30 hours (60 days * .5 hours). I've surely completed maps in under 30 hours. I'm positive most people do.

Quote

There's an entirely valid criticism for GW2; that's that all the aesthetics within a zone are very, very samey. This can even extend to the next zone to a degree, as is truly the case with the charr starter area and the zone that leads out from there. This fuels a sense of repetition. Now, as an explorer, you'll be able to find all of the points of interest within an hour. The jumping puzzle (depending on your skill at platformers) can be completed in anywhere between 30 minutes and an hour, and that's being generous.

You don't have to hunt for stuff on the map key. When I said exploring, I meant wandering the map at my own pace going to my own destinations and finding stuff along the way without any in-game guidance. The statue of dwayna that had a riddle about kneeling in front of it to lead to a DE, the riddle of the closed door that only opened when I /threatened it, the jumping puzzles I found by chance, etc, that's all part of exploring. If you're just going through map POIs like a check list, that's something else.

The aesthetics being samey, it didn't bother me. It doesn't bother me that entire levels in Gears of War looked like caves or a broken urban setting, it doesn't bother me that the entire World 7 in Mario 3 was the green plant enemy world, etc. It's not a game breaker for me. It could be for you--it could be for the OP--so yes, it is a valid criticism in that regard, but that doesn't mean the game as a whole is monotonous just because the zones have the same aesthetic theme throughout their individual maps.

Besides all that, there are other game modes to try. Want to try something different when you're tired of PVE? Jump into spvp or WVW. Either of which where fun could be had in 30 mins.

Edited by Ghostwing, 10 January 2013 - 08:33 PM.

[Straegen]

Most zones are worth around 8-10 levels. A level takes about an hour so basically a player should blow through a zone in around 9 hours. Call it repetitive if you want but the GW2 world is vast and there is plenty of other zones to try if someone gets bored in one area.

Lets also keep in mind GW2 rewards players for exploring and playing in areas where others haven't been in a while. To be honest I cannot really think of any triple A PvE based MMOs that can be played as casually as this one.

Edited by Straegen, 10 January 2013 - 08:12 PM.

[Vorch]

From the get go there are four lvl1-15 and one lvl 1-17 area. You will have 5 different places to explore if the atmosphere get's too "samey" for you. There are then 4 level 15-25 areas.

http://wiki.guildwar.../Map_completion

Once you hit 30, you can start doing dungeons. Storymode will take about an hour to complete, though. Dungeon paths can easily be completed in half an hour. However, you will need some experience to do so.

As long as you don't ABSOLUTELY NEED to complete 100% of an area before you consider checking out another one, you should be fine.

[DuskWolf]

One last thing I'm throwing into the ring for the OP.

You could pay $60 for this, right now, and find that you've wasted a lot of money. Or you could optionally try TERA, which is completely free up until level 28. Just food for thought. Why doesn't GW2 have an open-to-all trial, I wonder?

[Sandpit]

The gameplay s very casual friendly in the most, but not to accomplish anything. You really need to commit to some level of activity to do ANY dungeon or get the top geat; casual won't cut it. You won't even be able to complete your PERSONAL story because ANet got lazy and dumped the last "mission" on a 5 player dungeon completion.

ie. you can not even complete your personal story on your own, and that is about the lowest accomplishment in the game.

[Reverse Ghost]

DuskWolf, on 10 January 2013 - 08:50 PM, said:

One last thing I'm throwing into the ring for the OP.

You could pay $60 for this, right now, and find that you've wasted a lot of money. Or you could optionally try TERA, which is completely free up until level 28. Just food for thought. Why doesn't GW2 have an open-to-all trial, I wonder?

I would think it's because TERA isn't selling well anymore and Guild Wars 2 still is.

I'm not disagreeing with you though, I think people should try TERA, or any free option available to them before necessarily spending any money.

[Faowri]

DuskWolf, on 10 January 2013 - 07:35 PM, said:

There's an entirely valid criticism for GW2; that's that all the aesthetics within a zone are very, very samey.

Speak for yourself. Mapping a zone is quite frankly my favourite part of the whole game. I find the environments gorgeous, and the dynamic event system extremely flexible and relaxing to participate in.

Others may not. That's fine. Nobody's opinion is objective fact, and the types of content that different players enjoy and prioritise is so varied that presenting any opinion as such more than a little misleading.

I also disagree with most of your negatives about the combat system. Dodging is useful, though YMMV depending on how resilient your class/build is to damage, and it's very actiony and engaging. It's also pretty easy to pick up, and doesn't require huge amounts of time investment or extensive research to make sure you don't make your character 'wrong'. All of this is extremely casual-friendly. It's also kind of hilarious that you think other games don't have bot problems.

Here's the thing - that stuff you call grind is the stuff I find enjoyable about playing the game. Doing dynamic events is fun. The personal story is fun. Exploring a map is fun. If you don't enjoy any of these things, then I guess you might consider them a grind, but then why are you playing PvE in the first place if you don't actually like the gameplay?

Quote

][/u]When did casual players ever strike you as this? The daily quests are more for the WoW-ish die-hards, so that they have an excuse to stick around for a little while longer each day, and it rewards them for having too much free time.

Really? Have you ever done a daily achievement? Depending on the map, it usually takes less than an hour for me. It's also not compulsory and often completed just going about your exploring and progression anyway. I often complete mine entirely by accident without going out of my way at all.

I'm not going to tell you not to feel negatively about the game. You're totally entitled to your opinion, and if you don't enjoy something, then you don't enjoy it. But, as I said, it's pretty misleading to present these things that you don't like as concrete evidence of casual-unfriendliness.

The definition of 'casual' varies. Here it's primarily a time limitation, and the OP hasn't come back (I don't think) to clarify what they like to get out of a game. But, as a casual player who plays in a guild with a lot of other casual players, here are some relatively common traits and where GW2 fits with them, from a much more objective standpoint:

• Short play session length:
  
  • The good: Waypoints, logging in exactly where you log out, short-length hot-joinable PvP matches, the availability of boosts for increasing efficiency, the general ability to proceed at your own pace, and the lack of pressure from a monthly fee
    
  • The bad: LFG functions are lacklustre, which can make getting a group together for group content time-consuming. Some areas of content, such as dungeons and significant contributions to WvW, require a solid couple of hours at once to complete.

• Slower progress/Fewer hours overall to sink into the game:
  
  • The good: Pay-once-play-forever means no rush to complete content, insta-max-level for PvP means you can jump right in
    
  • The bad: Serious long-term/grindy goals, like legendaries, may be mostly out of reach, and unlike GW1, it will take a while to get to max gear levels
• Prefer non-repetitive content > gear treadmills/endless power creep:
  
  • The good: Casual time restrictions will probably make the PvE campaign content last you a while, if you enjoy it and aren't inclined to rush through it.
    
  • The bad: Due to the 'living world' aspect of GW2, some of the special event content so far has been quite time-restricted, and the initial suggestion of a power creep with ascended gear makes the prospect of a gear treadmill and content-gating worrisome

• Prefer cosmetics > Power:
  
  • The good: Transmutation stones make aesthetics flexible, the gem store is available for extra non-time-required customisation or boosting your gold with RL money, and there's quite a lot of armour available
    
  • The bad: Some skins are only available at the end of long content grinds, and town clothes are a pretty abysmal implementation of non-combat cosmetics. Also no further word yet on promised cosmetic features like housing.
• Often play solo/with other casual players:
  
  • The good: Tonnes of content does not require looking for a group, as the game is designed around easy, casual collaboration e.g. cooperating with other players in PvE maps, hot-join PvP, grouping/guilds not required for WvW
    
  • The bad: There is still content that requires a group to play, such as dungeons. Higher level maps are very dense with mobs, with dynamic events designed for multiple players, so they can be extremely frustrating to play solo

I guess that about sums it up. Ultimately what I'd say is if you like PvE for its own sake, enjoy exploring and soaking up the ambience, customising your character and following the story, you will get your money's worth out of GW2 as a casual player. I don't play much PvP or WvW so I can't really advise on that side.

GW2 has flaws, but for the amount of time you'd be playing the game, you'd be mostly hitting the great, polished content.

[Arquenya]

I also would recommend against it. There's simply too many things that will take longer than 20 minutes, like all the end game content. Also consider, for example, playing for 15 minutes and encountering a boss that will take 10 minutes to take down.

[Bloodtau]

Yes. This game is designed more for playing in short bursts than playing for hours a day.

[raspberry jam]

Ishalim03, on 09 January 2013 - 06:40 PM, said:

can I feel like I've "accomplished" something in such short playing spurts?  If so--and this is the question I'd most like answered--how specifically does the the game promote that?

It depends on what you mean by "accomplished". If you want to have a small, specific goal that you can complete within 30 minutes, then yes the game does provide those for you, in the form of Renown Hearts. Certain world events can also be completed within that time, but you can't always rely on those to pop up when you need them.

On the other hand, if you have that little time on your hands, I'd recommend another genre altogether. If you insist on MMOs, there are many that do provide short-term objectives. GW2 is one of them.

[sevalaricgirl]

This game was made for casual players.  Don't worry about what the negative people say.  A hr here or there and you can get a lot accomplished.  The people saying no have issues with either ANet or the game.  Believe me, there are days when I just play for a bit such as before I came to work this morning, spent some time making an engineer.  I haven't spent any time in game all week but I still feel like I'm accomplishing something.  Play it.  I think you'll find that these people are wrong again.

[Ritualist]

sevalaricgirl, on 11 January 2013 - 03:19 PM, said:

This game was made for casual players.  Don't worry about what the negative people say.  A hr here or there and you can get a lot accomplished.  The people saying no have issues with either ANet or the game.  Believe me, there are days when I just play for a bit such as before I came to work this morning, spent some time making an engineer.  I haven't spent any time in game all week but I still feel like I'm accomplishing something.  Play it.  I think you'll find that these people are wrong again.

He's not saying an hour here and an hour there. An hour here and an hour there WORKS.
What he's saying is 20 or 30 minutes here and 20 or 30 minutes there. And THAT'S much more problematic.

[raspberry jam]

It's interesting how few people actually reply to OPs question.
It seems to be either

• Get GW2 its a good game because I like it I'm so causal despite sinking 3+ hours per day into the game, or
  
• Don't get GW2 it's bad because I don't like it, I demand more of the games that I spend a lot of time with

I don't like GW2 but it does give OP what he asked for. I don't even expect him to hit 80 if he gets GW2 and certainly not going for legendaries like some people talk about. Guitar Hero would be a better choice though, but that series is discontinued so yeah.

[Arquenya]

Ishalim03, on 09 January 2013 - 06:40 PM, said:

what I'm wondering specifically is: can I feel like I've "accomplished" something in such short playing spurts?  If so--and this is the question I'd most like answered--how specifically does the the game promote that?

It depends (key question) what you'd consider "accomplished". You can't do the majority of the endgame content (dungeons) but you can play the game, level up, see the pretty landscapes and (eventually) get to level 80 and get good gear.

I wouldn't say that GW2 is that different from other games what that's concerned, it just goes a little faster than in your average MMO.