Exploration in Guild Wars 2

To kick off the blog, I decided to start by taking a look at how Guild Wars 2 is adding new game mechanics to improve exploration in MMOs, based on what is available so far in the beta. The biggest change from previous MMOs I've played is the game map and area loading screens. They are filled with progress information clearly showing you how many points of interest you have discovered in that area.

Gotta find it all!

The various dynamic events, skill point challenges, waypoints and points of interest are well spread out across each zone, encouraging the player to go exploring across the map. The rewards for exploring are quite significant and, while questing in the starting area, it is quite important to complete all the dynamic events to keep up with the levelling curve.

To begin with your character has no map information, but a quick chat with scout npcs dotted around the map will helpfully add markers to your map. They also reveal the location of further scouts so you can keep expanding your map marker information. Importantly the they don't reveal the map terrain so that you sense of exploration isn't taken away from you.

This system does have a downside. The dynamic events marked on the map aren't that thrilling. They are usually made up of the sort of quest that you will have done a million times already. The game incentivises completing them with good experience rewards and further experience from the various achievements.

It doesn't inform you of dynamic events that I had the most fun with, which were the ones that would spontaneously happen; such as being asked to defend a caravan or aiding friendly npcs to take down a boss enemy. I only came across these because they appear on you UI if you are close enough to the event. There are also secret areas to discover beyond the marked areas which is great, but you could easily go through the game without knowing they exist.

The world designers have realised the most important part of creating a world to explore, is to create interesting terrain and scenery for the player to discover. Most MMOs since World of Warcraft seemed to have missed this point to some degree or another. As an example, Star Wars The Old Republic had a lot of mediocre and poor planets to explore which were a real disappointment. They suffered from a lack of change in scenery, terrain (such as cliffs, valleys, water in general) and textures. What WoW did right was having clearly distinct areas within each zone so that you something fresh at regular intervals (although the original Barrens is an large exception to that statement).

Divinty's Reach is massive and you can explore it all! But will you want to?

Capital cities are good fun to explore and actually feel alive, without requiring players to fill them. Plenty of npcs fill up the various city districts with the ambient noise of their everyday hustle and bustle. The flip side is that like MMOs that have come before, a player probably won't have any reason to visit many areas beyond their storyline quests and crating / banking areas. This isn't a major problem (in GW2 or other MMOs) and the designers have certainly prioritised player convenience over trying to get players to fill out the cities; but it makes you wonder why they would put they effort they have into creating such grand areas.

Long journeys are thankfully no longer a 5 minute scenic tour of landscapes you have already spent hours questing in. The waypoint system allows you to quickly travel from where you are to any waypoint you have discovered for a small fee, or for free if you are travelling within city walls. This is absolutely brilliant! You can go off exploring to your hearts content and when you bags are full of random junk and crafting materials, you can jump to the nearest city and empty them on the nearest vendor who's a sucker for all the useless items you've found.

To sum up, GW2 has some excellent world design and opportunities for great exploring which are reasonably well incentivised.