GW2 gives me that arenaline rush that I would normally only get playing battlefield or gears but combined with the long term pleasure and personal customization that I typically play MMO's for.

Originally posted by Zhylaw

GW2 gives me that arenaline rush that I would normally only get playing battlefield or gears but combined with the long term pleasure and personal customization that I typically play MMO's for.

well said I agree

I don't really see how it's possible for me to get that old feeling again. SWG (pre-cu) and DAOC were the only two I experienced that in,  for me most of that was the entire MMO experience being new to me. First in DAOC, seeing and walking through the gates of the frontier and following a huge herd of players ( as a newb) watching them approach a keep and seeing the arrows fly, was just a spectacle to behold IMO (at the time). Then seeing the size of SWG for the first time, the amount of freedom, options in playstyle etc. AFter that it will take a lot more than what I've seen in GW2 to replicate that feeling it doesn't come close to the scope of SWG IMO.

I am a big fan of character creation and superior character modelling and character aesthetics. I've said before that it was more important to me then gameplay in many regards.  I play Aion because of the great character customization and beautiful armors. I play APB because of the greatly superior character customization. I was disappointed in GW2 character customization, and felt that it fell short in many ways.  The gameplay of GW2 feels so right though, beyond any game I've tried. There is no doubt that GW2 is the game I will be enjoying for a long time.

So to sum it up for me,  GW2 is the mmo that made me enjoy gameplay again.

I'm not going to say it gave me that first sense of wonderment I expierenced back in 05 (Or was it 04)the first time my Gnomge wandered into Ironforge ,but that had more to do with WOW being my first MMO and just the astonishment of playing in this open world with a ton of other Live players online.

 I will say this though, GW2 Came dam close! This is probably the most ALIVE mmo world i have ever expereinced and its easy to lose yourself, along with a few hours in this awesome game world.  Where the game really shines or breaks the mold is the PVE/Questing/Dynamic events.  It just feels so different and refreshing to have quests come to you as opposed to clicking on a NPC and having a quest log full of crap. The game has such a organic feel that gives you a real sense of freedom and thats what makes GW2 really shine, for me at least.

Hmm I sort of disagree. While GW2 does have that vastness and wonder effect on you there seems to be a constant urgency about everything, but that's whats different and why it's feels so good imo.

When I played Asheron's call (my first) and EQ there was a distinct calmness to it where you really made up your mind about what you do next. If you didn't get up off your butt and do something then nothing would happen.

True, GW2 doesn't force you to do anything but all the urgency happening around you from minimap popups, tool tips, what NPCs say and so on.. definately encourages you to progress in a certain direction. You don't HAVE to go in that direction but a lot of the time most people will. If you arn't a dedicated crafter then finding the moment to decide to go try out some crafting is hard. It's so none stop and so many people need help or need saving that there doesn't seem to be time to make up your own mind.

For example, yesterday I was just starting to have a go at crafting at the stations in the 1-15 Sylvari zone when a DE started literally on top of me right in the middle of the town/outpost (the one where you have to catch the small animals). So I got swept up in that event and afterwards an escort quest had started right next to the town so I got swept up in that as well. That led me somewhere else where I ended up being 'encouraged' to do other things and after a while I'd totally given up on the idea of going back to do some crafting.

Maybe it's a good thing, it's certainly refreshing to have something like this these days, but I was definately not consciously 'choosing' what I did... I was getting swept up in what was going on around me at the time. Games like EQ, AC and UO definately didn't do that sort of thing. It seems the only way to truely do what you want in GW2 is to ignore whats happening around you sometimes, but that just kinda feels unnatural to me and is also an immersion breaker.

Originally posted by Mahavishnu

Sometimes I think, that my biggest "success" playing WoW was, that it took me about a year to even understand the whole "I need XP and EPIX"-treadmill.

 

at least me and my wife were not alone there. I still remember an in-game friend explaining to me at max level that i had to do pvp over and over again, then be able to do heroics, then raids, etc.. (it was BC, though i started during vanilla).

i even got my main to lvl 69 and stopped playing on him for months, cause i thought when i hit 70, the game would have nothing left. Hell, i didnt even settle on a main until 3 months in, and it was very random.

after a few months, though i still loved the game, i was dissapointed by what 'end game' meant.

only thing is the games mentioned EQ, AC were out in 1999 and had seemless worlds, other then WOW, EQ2, Rift and some minor others, we have lost that.  I dont get into the exploration when I run to the end of a zone and have to wait for a loading screen

Originally posted by Ozimandeus

Not Bad.. I have a similar feeling, except mine was Ultima Online, then Anarchy Online.. GW2 has cracked that elusive quality that the vast Majority of MMORPG never find.

Infinite unique replay value.

Oh and its bloody Epic :-)

Yea, Anarchy Online was the first game to give me that feeling.. and I finally got that back with GW2 :)

Can't believe I had to wait for over ten years to have that feeling again :-o

Originally posted by Dampyre

ya i have not been this pumped for a MMO in years ,  I still remember what it felt like when i played my first MMO , can't say i feal exactly the same but for once i won't have to choke down disguised grinding crap quests anymore. What Diety did i please ?

And this ^!

Originally posted by The_Korrigan

The GW2 experience is also very close to Asheron's Call's.

I totally agree with this. I played AC for a few months and really enjoyed just running around exploring with what was the best community of online gamers I've ever had the pleasure of spending time with.

Originally posted by deamian

In 1999 I played this crazy game referred to me by a friend call Everquest. Installed it,  got it up and running, logged in, felt utterly and completely lost in adventure, it took me a day to realize there were other people playing and running around near me that weren't computer controlled.

 

So GW2 is the nearest i've felt to that sense of adventure in 13 years..cept when I went to disney world, big kids are kids too!!

Mine was NannyMUD back in 1993, then Ultima Online in 1997. My buddy picked me up and drove 3 hours to his house and he, his roommate, and myself played UO for a week straight draining pepsi cubes at an alarming rate.

Ultimately though I haven't felt that feeling in a long time. They just do not make them like they use to, and I do not mean they are better, it is rare to play a really, really good game let alone an online one.

Originally posted by Creslin321

Originally posted by aesperus

Originally posted by deamian

In 1999 I played this crazy game referred to me by a friend call Everquest. Installed it,  got it up and running, logged in, felt utterly and completely lost in adventure, it took me a day to realize there were other people playing and running around near me that weren't computer controlled.

 

So GW2 is the nearest i've felt to that sense of adventure in 13 years..cept when I went to disney world, big kids are kids too!!

Well said.

I think a lot of people picked up on this and feel the same way. I even saw TB mentioned this in his video (I believe he refered to it as an epic feeling of wunderlust / moment -to- moment gameplay). The PvE and WvW environment most definitely capture that. I'm looking forward to getting absolutely nothing done for at least a week once the game comes out, lol.

I agree as well, and I think it's because GW2 is like the only AAA MMORPG since the old days that doesn't require you to be led by the hand.  FINALLY we can explore again :).

More agreement here.  The journey through each zone really was an adventure.  Environment and atmosphere is perhaps my number 1 most important feature in an MMO, and out of the 9 or so zones I've seen so far (not including the wondrous cities), GW2 already features 4 or 5 of my all time favorite environments.  They're a joy to simply exist in.  

But on board with what you guys are saying, the way the environments are presented is perfect.  From any given vantage point, I can pan my camera around and see 3 or 4 really intriguing landmarks or monuments I want to go explore.  And the game encourages me to go do just that!  My gameplay of GW2 is driven by exploration first and foremost.  Along the way, I run the events I encounter and occasionally stop and help a heart quest NPC, but I love love love finding hidden puzzles (and they are everywhere) or figuring out how to reach a skill point challenge, vista or point of interest.  

Most importantly of all, there's variety everywhere.  I never find myself doing the same thing over and over.

I haven't gotten so lost in a virtual world in quite some time.  

Everything about this game has me anxious for its release.

I don't think I could compare my enthusiasm  for GW2 to any past game. GW2 surpasses all, even in its beta state.

Back to TSW.....for 22 more days.

-Uthrax

GW2 definitely captures the feeling of my earliest MMO experiences, but that doesn't mean it's a copy of old school MMOs. Where as the earliest MMOs didn't need to be designed to foster cooperative play, after a generation or two of games seemingly designed to destroy cooperative play, GW2 turns the genre around and through the sheer force of game design brings players back together in cooperative MMO game play!

That's only one of the things that makes GW2 such a good game. It really has almost everything you could want from a non-sandbox MMORPG and does everything well. Sometimes so well that the game puts it's contemporaries to shame.

For me, GW2 doesn't just recapture the magic I experienced playing the MMOs of a decade or more ago, but it really is "The One" that I've been hoping and waiting for, for over 14 years!

I felt some of that magic when I beta tested WoW, which was a bright point in the genre at the time it was released. I just hope that Arenanet does a better job than Blizzard at evolving the game through the expansion process and that other developers in the genre take the proper lessons from GW2's game design, rather that setting out to make a bunch of GW2 clones that fall short of the standard set by the game they seek to duplicate!

Vanilla WoW was my MMO 'first love', but like many of my relationships - went south when it got too needy and life-sucking! AoC was the one I really wanted to succeed and I still shake my head at the utter ineptitude of Funcom when it came to customer support et al.

GW2 has managed so far to combine immersion and engagement whilst allowing more casual play - something most mature gamers find very difficult to find in this genre.

As for the rest of the game as yet unseen - I don't see any logical reason why ANet should have dropped the ball in the later areas - they have taken their own sweet merry time over it after all and they really do seem to love their own creation - Funcom take note!

I look forwards to many hours of escapism - even if I have to put up with the Asurans....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JPONTneuaF4

The red/blues ones remind me of GW2 fans. Replace their destination with Guild Wars 2.

Haven't played GW2 yet and I hope it recaptures some of those feelings as stated in the OP.

I had it in my first mmorpg SWG, I only found out after a while characters with blue names were other players and was fascinated by that! Really cool.

The second time I was in awe was my first time in Planetside, I walked straigth in a big battle withh tanks, planes, foot soldiers. It was really exciting manning a gun on some random strangers tank! And having to bail out when it went down and thinking wtf do I do now!