When does this game start feeling epic?

I bought the trilogy off of Steam, decided on starting with Prophecies and went with an Elementalist. I've been playing for about 12 hours now and the game feels quite hallow, hardly anyone talks, and the quests are extremely bland.

I'm assuming this is all just the learning curve, because watching the trailers from this game makes it seem pretty dang epic.

It really depends on your definition of the term.

As far as geographic scope, GW is what many people consider "epic", i.e. HUGE.
Three massive continents to cover, amazing differences in landscapes and climates, etc.

The missions have a Lord of the Rings-esque feel to them, especially the ones involving big battles and/or stealth.

The individual quests in the early parts of the game are pretty much straightforward "find this and carry it to this person", but later they get much more complex, especially in Factions.


All that being said, I came into Guild Wars from the Elder Scrolls games, so it took me awhile to differentiate Elder Scrolls-epic from Guild Wars-epic.

Not the same thing, to say the least.

The original campaign, now called Prophecies, is extremely slow in many ways. It's good to play for completion or if you're interested in the lore of the Guild Wars universe (which is very good), but for just picking up and playing, I suggest starting in Factions or Nightfall. Much faster leveling, much quicker gameplay, and a shorter overall campaign so you get to the good stuff quicker.

Since you've got extra character slots, I'd suggest making another character in Nightfall or Factions.

Hope you enjoy it!

Not really clear where you are in the game, if you've even undergone the searing yet. Focus on primary quests (labled so in your quest log) which will lead you into missions, those tend to be more "epic" (cinematic at least). Unlike most MMOs you don't need to grind sidequests to level up (although the few quests giving skills as rewards are nice), so if bored just focus on the "main storyline" and see if that does you any favors.

First off, Prophecies is the most epic campaign IMO (in terms of epic bosses, Nightfall for sure). The other campaigns move at a much faster pace and most players don't concern themselves with others while moving at that fast pace.

Pre-Searing Ascalon is one of the easiest places to make friends (the other being High-End PvE/PvP); just talk to peeps. Also, take care to note the scenery in Pre-Searing, it'll be the most epic you'll ever see in the game (besides Sorrow's Furnace).
The fact that everything moves so slow makes it easier to keep up with others/your friends in Prophecies.

However, it is difficult to grasp the epicness of Prophecies at first. Play through Nightfall and Factions, and you will see the huge comparisons between each of them alongside their respective epicnesses (o_O).

About 4 years ago

The game will become epic when you find something in it that you enjoy doing. You might like doing the higher difficulty pve areas after you finish a few campaigns like Under World or Urgoz Warren.

You might find that you enjoy what is left of the pvp arenas also. Starting off pvp in Random arenas and Jade quarry is easy and a lot of people will be helpful.

Finding a good guild to join will also help in making your experience more "epic." Active members and a sense of humor are the things i think that make a guild good.

Just keep playing and you will get to see there are a lot of dimensions to guild wars and how it is still an epic game after five years.

You won't find a lot of interaction in the campaign that much, since the campaign is pretty dead, most people that are playing now have been for a long time (I'm one of the little 5y-playing people that's left) Most people are playing the Elite high-end aspects of the game now. Dungeons, Elite mission, Underworld, Fissure of Woe etc. That's mainly what the game has deflated down to. 4 years ago beating the game was still a challenge, now it's fairly easy, not to say faceroll easy... Bad timing to join in, but I advise you to keep playing, and try to enjoy the lore of the game too, it's a real fun game in my opinion, and it's kept me hooked up for 5 years now..

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

You also started the game smack in the middle of the Wintersday event, and if your at the start of Prophecies and have went threw searing, most of the players are in a few towns, mains Lions Arch, EOTN, because the events all start from these areas.

who said the game was epic?

Got to agree with all the above, but it mostly varies on your definition of "epic".

The game is huge, with tons to discover, most of which can easily be missed if you just follow the primary quests.

You can soon reach your max level (20), however it does vary from campaign to campaign (Prophecies is the slowest one). But you get more powerful by unlocking new skills, or finding new combos of existing skills. In prophecies alot of these come from quests, but many can initially only be found in hard to reach towns or locations. Anyways the larger battles and the fun often comes in finding said locations.

The Missions (And Quests) start off slow, but get more and more interesting (and difficult) as the game progresses. Prophecies is a really slow game however, but it is the best first campaign to play.

The other campaigns are more difficult, and do give you bigger fights (sooner).

For me, the more epic battles, and fights involve dungeons, or elite areas with friends, it makes the game more fun working with each other to do a difficult area. Sadly most of these only come once youve finished each campaign, or at least got a good way into it. And to stand any chance in them, you ideally need a balanced skill bar (Which only comes with lots of play), and ideally an experienced person to do them with first time.

The above in particular are for me what keep the game alive, I love dungeon runs. If you ever want to sample one drop me a message and ill PM you my IGN to get you to one of the first ones.

Have fun

Xani

When you stop comparing it to other games like wow. GW is a very different RPG and you're a bit late because nowadays 90% of the population is only on to grind for the Hall of Monuments and the rewards for GW2.

I suggest you do a barrel roll.

The game used to have a pretty "epic" feel to it.

Originally it was designed to be a game where skill was the deciding factor in progressing thru the game and in evolving your character.

The game was one of the best designed games ever seen back then.

The problem is that there are a lot of ways to make a great game suck....

Arenanet made a great game but then utterly failed to manage or maintain it.

Initially they started to crapify the game in the name of preventing bot-farming. Thier first attempts at this were impactful but reasonable, some examples would be an update some years ago that caused AOE to scatter enemies, and, reworking Lornars Pass and DMS skills like Mind Freeze in order to make things more difficult for runners.

This started a trend that A-net has continued since the games release. It doesn't matter to A-net if the game is made less stable or less fun or in many cases less playable to the masses. They have always allowed the players who want to skip all the gameplay to dictate everything they do.

There were othyer things too but for the most part the game maintained a reasonable amount of integrity in the first year it was out. At that time the game most certainly had an "epoc" feel to it.

Since then Arenanet has completely sold out those people who want to play the game. They have instead chosen to cater to the portion of thier community that prefers to avoid gameplay and simply inhabit the game.

This is easily evidenced by things like Ursan Blessing which not only removed any challenge and time investment from the game but also served to invalidate any prestige that was associated with Titles or economic success within the game.

Actual players did speak out, but they were largely ignored or treated in a condemnative way by the community managers. CM's insisted that those people who wanted to earn thier titles were free to do so, and those who preferred to Ursan them were also free to do so. This was true but unfortunately the very predictable result was that the majority of actual players left the game for greener pastures. Huge and excellent guilds and alliances collapsed overnight and others, based in exploits sprung up.

It became far too difficult to find people who wanted to earn things within the game to group with. By the end of Ursan Blessing's 19 month reign the game had become more of a chatroom than a game.

Today Signet Of Spirits is the most commonly used "easy button". It's not much fun for people who enjoy the game to play with an SoS rit because they are not actually playing so much as watching the sos rit play.

Shadowform is another gamebreaker. It requires consumables to function and it basically grants players absolute immunity to everything. Its something that a 7 year old can master in an hour or so and because it is so unrealistically effective it prevents the few remaining people who actually like the game from being able to find groups.

Now I am hearing rumors that 7 hero's will be allowed in parties, which will further destroy any semblance of teamplay or coop play.

Any sort of "epic" feel is and has been dead for quite some time. Its a shame really because it was a great game for a short time.

One thing to consider concerning GW2 is that the majority of people who want to play are not coming back. The community in GW2 is going to be the self-entitled crowd of gamplay avoiding exploiters that make up the vast majority todays GW1 community.

This causes me to believe that no matter how good or fun GW2 is upon release it will require too much effort for the current crop of users. I don't imagine it will be long before A-net turns GW2 into a chatroom also.

If you are looking for something that is "epic" and fun to play you'll want to look outside of Arenanets stable of games. There are some great rpgs and mmorpgs out now and more on the horizon in the suggest GW2 realease time frame.

If you are looking for an interactive chatroom full of pre-adolescent rage the GW and GW2 may be for you.

Good Luck and happy hunting !

At this point in the game's lifespan there are very few instances that feel 'epic.' There's numerous reasons as to why this is (most could be attributed to the dying playerbase), but I guess that's not really relevant anymore seeing as most people have accepted that.

I guess to answer your question though, the game more than likely won't feel 'epic' until you start playing the Eye of the North expansion. The overwhelming majority of missions in EotN have that 'epic' feeling to them--mostly because of the impressively breathtaking environments coupled with the often overpowering foes you encounter.

Back when I first started playing Guild Wars it seemed that everything was epic, but in the last few years it's really lost all sense of that, and whether or not that's just me or the game I'm not 100% positive because I know a lot of people who don't find the game interesting anymore, but I also have a lot of friends who do still find it a very compelling game.

I think there's more to a game than merely how epic it feels though. For me, the majority of my favourite moments playing Guild Wars are some of the most modest, fundamental tasks; for example, running myself and others to towns in Prophecies, leveling a new character on Shing Jea island in Factions, or playing through the missions that link Kourna and Vabbi are all seemingly mundane experiences in the grand schemes of things, but they encompass some of my most favourite, epic moments.

There's epicness everywhere in the game--you just have to find it.

When you've maxed out all PvP titles twice!

Also, this:

Get into the Docs Dolorian......go back about 4-5 years.....

Unfortunately, the game is quite dated at this point. Bare in mind the game is almost six years old now and it was never intended to be a competitor to something like WoW or any other MMO. It was originally more of a PVP focused game and many of the gameplay mechanics are obviously a little dated now, which is why they moved onto developing a sequel, rather than continuing to make expansions for this game and as such, the community has really died down too.

So I wouldn't expect to be completely blown away by epicness and as others have said, Prophecies (the original campaign) is very slow. For me, the game begun to get really exciting once you leave Ascalon and get to the more interesting environments, but again, that was nearly 6 years ago. I'd suggest reading into the lore, it's probably Guild Wars' strongest aspect and if you can get into that, it should make a lot of what's going on more exciting.

It should also help to find an active guild, if you're looking for other people to play with.

Very insightful comments, I appreciate them. I'm going to keep playing GW, as there's no sense in not as it seems okay. Prior to buying this game I thought it might be somewhat of a hack and slash judging by the game play videos and that's what I was looking for, I strongly assumed that because GW was developed involving some Diablo developers it would have some gritty reminiscence.

I wish I had played GW years ago, in its hayday.

I do admit I am a long time WoW player and Eve-Online player, two games which dominate their respective corners of the ring. I left WoW because the expansion is lackluster, so now I'm on the hunt for something new and addictive.

Prophecies starts to feel epic maybe around the desert.
Elite areas tend to retain an epic feel, even if you're good at clearing them.

It's epic for me when I went to the lands of the Charr (Pre-Searing).

dont pay attention to the negativity here
the only thing outdated is those cliche comments and attitudes.

rough time to start with everyone self involved in wintersday distraction but the games got a lot to offer.
if your not having fun, try another class.

the game, for me, gets epic when myself and friends in game work together to beat the best gw can throw at us, and win

As others have said, go back 5 years...before all the updates mangled the epicness. There is no epicness these days, just repetiveness and grind.

It really does all depend on what you think is 'Epic'.. There is so much to do, even though the game isn't a patch on how it once was, it is still enjoyable.

Also, you said that you've only been playing for about 12 hours, which part of the game did you start in? It really starts to pick up once you reach max level though, you only need about 150,000xp to reach level 20, but you will find that there are many people out there with many millions.

It's as epic or mundane as you make it. For long-time players, we really don't see much of the game as epic any more, because we've seen it all. New players will still see things fresh and go WOW for a little bit. As long as you don't fall into the abyss of trolls that is much of Guru, and find some good people who still like playing the game, you'll be alright, and you'll see how it turns out. Late-game in all three campaigns is still pretty hardcore especially for the new players, then there's hard mode and elite areas.

Most of missions feel epic when you complete them, especially when you are figuring them out for yourself without wiki help and have failed em few times.

Beating Thunderhead Keep/Vizunah Square/Gate of Madness should feel especially epic if it is your first time.

For the game felt rather epic when, instead of doing missions, my friends and I set out exploring. We left from Piken Square and fought our way to Yak's Bend, a city we didn't know even existed at that point in the game. Then we went farther into the mountains and all the way south to Beacon's Perch. It was at that point, when we set foot outside heading south, that the real epic feel struck us for the first time.

Times have changed though. Back when we did this none of us were using max items nor could you even buy such items till well beyond this point in the game. Our levels were around 12 - 14 at best and with very limited skill bars. You had to wait till a boss was actually using their elite to capture it...

In many ways the best content of this game has been stripped away simply by time bringing more and more content to the game and leaving fewer and fewer unknown factors for new players to experience.

In GW1, 'epicness' is limited to what you can do in later areas with many skills compared with what you can do at the beginning with a few skills, and to the scenery.
The first time you see Echovald, or Sorrow's Furnace... that's quite epic.
But places like old Ascalon's wastelands or maguuma red dirt areas... meh...

So if you call epicness to lots of sparks and fast-paced action, you won' find much of that in GW1, since action in GW1 goes around a second. And a heartbeat is a lot of time in a videogame.
That kind of visual epicness and quick action is limited with GW1's engine, but there will be plenty of that in GW2.

The bonus soundtracks and not skipping cinematics also help a little with 'epicness' feel.

I agree here. Following the storyline and actually knowing what you're fighting for, makes the game feel much more 'epic' .

You shouldn't be playing prophesies then.

I totally agree with everything. Last time you could successfully PUG was 2009 too. Games dead to me in that sense because I didn't sign up to play with robots, I mean heros, or be a robot playing only meta speedclear bars. And I also hope spirits get hit with the nerfbat. 3/4 is too fast.

Funny that people say that the "last time they could successfully PUG" was a long time ago. Totally untrue. I get into successful PUGs even now, for stuff that isn't even "elite" where people run meta. I still pug missions, longer quests, etc, and it works out fine more often than not.

I think they mean "successful" in a different way. You can beat any of the normal missions with just about any build setup. But imo a "successful" pug is where you don't have 3 people just running around talking trash, but you have a group that gets along and makes it through the mission while having fun. If it is that way I KNOW I have had a "successful" PUG since right before NF came out.

The moment you meet PRINCE RURIK, EPIC BADASS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=27w4rQg0yjs

Forget pugs, most of them suck anyway. They like to use cons and OP builds and that would totally spoil your fun. You can do this:

1. Buy only Prophecies, no EOTN, no heroes, no cons
2. Take only the henchies with you, doing each quest/mission as they are.
3. Don't ask for runs or use any cons

I've had many quite recently. It doesn't really count if you haven't actively been in a PuG much since then.

GW is the right Place for you I think. It takes a few weeks to get over the drastic differences in how this game plays, but it's very addictive. I think it's all the things you wish WoW would be but failed to deliver on. Proph IMO is pretty rough and doesn't do the game in it's entirety justice until much later in the campaign. Night Fall Factions and Eye of the North add all the epicness you could ask for and lots of new features, skills and goodies. Best of all, your not paying a monthly fee to grind farm animals for weeks on end

I think what I like the most about GW is the sense of freedom. Coupled with the Wiki, which provides all the info you could ask for, your pretty much free to do whatever you want every time you log on. I like that your not Tied into any particular quest for the most part, and can easily branch off and do whatever, (campaign hop)whenever you want without any kind of lost consequences.

EPIC feel is different for everyone. I honestly haven't played an epic game in years. But that's because everything is on the internet now , guides, game faqs , its so easy to look up a walkthrough online after you've failed 10 times to kill a boss.

I think the epic feeling is only when you beat the endgame boss without walkthroughs , no cheats , it took me forever to beat FF6 but man what a good feeling it was. That's how long since I played a good game. After that I got a job and internet >.<

YMMV

trailers always make games look good because that's their whole point.

i would've researched a bit more before buying, but hey you could probably still enjoy it if you appreciate the epic art and just general feel of gw compared to other games.. if you find elementalist boring try another class, it may not be the game but maybe just your play style. for the most part the community in this game has dwindled drastically, you can find guilds that still do regular pve and pvp stuff but you won't find many people in just a random outpost still doing the old missions. if you do, there's a 90% chance they're using a pos gimmick boring build with boring heroes with the same boring attitude and if you aren't using the same or similar builds, you're a noob and should gtfo pretty much.


tl;dr: games dead bro

Ahhh yes Presearing was the best time. Everything was so new and big and pretty! Like a dream ^^

That's why I have a permanent presearing char =) Just to walk around in pre now and then