#6 Waypoints and Merchants and Events (Oh my!)

Once you've downed the worm Issormir, BAM, you're ported back to the starting area, BAM, you're level two, and BAM you get a new quest to talk with a nearby NPC (indicated by a green star over his head and on your minimap).

Talking with Scount Agnaar (if you're Norn) will give you some good explanations / advice / directions.

Follow his advice and check your map. Simply gorgeous isn't it?

A couple of items worth mentioning...

Waypoints

There are no mounts in Guild Wars 2. You travel by foot or by waypoint. Waypoints are scattered generously throughout the world. Very generously. You have to explore an area to activate a waypoint, but guess what you get when you find one? Yes! You get XP for that! You literally get XP for everything you do in Tryia. You do have to pay to use the system, but it's a relatively small amount.

Merchants

There are always merchants around that will sell you items you may need, and who will buy your junk and other items you may not need. Oh look, no health or mana potions. That's because there are none in this game (to the best of my knowledge). Every profession gets a self heal so you don't need, or at least you need to learn to live without, health potions. Mana isn't used in the game either. There is no skill resource to use up, only cool-downs (well, ok, the Thief is an exception). Once you get a few copper, there are a couple of things you'll want to pick up from the merchant. This leads me to...

Gathering Resources

Anyone can gather any resource right from the outset. There are no gathering 'professions' (again this makes sense right?). Some resources will drop from kills, and others are scattered throughout the world. You will be able to see these resource 'nodes' on your minimap. What you will need, however, are the tools to gather the various types of resources, so when you have enough copper coins, you will want to purchase the gathering tools even if you won't be pursuing a craft, as you can sell the raw materials on the Trading Post to other players who are. Note that the tools are used up as you gather, so eventually you will need to purchase new tools. Also, you will need a better grade tool to gather higher level resources. Oh, and don't worry if you arrive at a node and another player is already harvesting it, you can harvest it too. Same with kills. Sweet.

Another incredibly cool thing about resource gathering (or 'collectables' as Guild Wars 2 calls them) is that if you open your inventory and right click on the item, you will notice the fist menu entry is 'Deposit collectible'. What's this, you say? OMG, yes, you can deposit these types of items directly into your bank. From anywhere, any time. So your collectables need not be taking up valuable bag slots as you quest! Woot!

Events

As you are roaming around the countryside, you will occasionally be notified of an 'Event' occurring nearby. These may be associated with a 'Heart' quest or not. You may choose to engage in the event or not. If you do, naturally, you get XP for that. One thing I find refreshing about 'questing' in Tyria, is that, say you are out and about exploring the countryside and killing wombats as you go. You stumble upon a 'heart' quest, or Point of Interest, in which the NPC seeks your help in killing wombats. The wombats you've already killed before you received your directive, go towards accomplishing your task. Same thing if the NPC wants wombat gizzards. You will have already been getting wombat gizzards as you're killing them. All too often, I've been out on one quest killing some mob, then have to go back out and kill the same mob over again because now I have a new quest. Guild Wars 2 eliminates that tedium.

Mail

I needed to stick this in here real quick. In Tyria, the mail comes to you. Yes, yet another quality of life improvement. There are no mailboxes in Tyria, instead your mail is delivered straight to you. What is the mail used for? Yes, communicating and sending items to friends, but you also receive quest rewards via the mail. And as a sneak preview on a topic I'll talk about later, you do not mail items to your alts, instead, the items are available from your bank. That's right, all of your characters have access to the same bank, with the exception of any bound items you've placed there (you can see them, you just can't use them from different characters).

So, at this point you have most of the knowledge you'll need to roam around the starting area which should take you to level 7 or 9 depending on how much exploring, events or crafting you do. I know, we haven't talked about Vistas or Achievements so go research those on your own. Consider it homework. Fun homework. The main thing you'll want to be focused on though is discovering and learning how to use your skills. Switch out your items often as you get different ones so that you 'learn' the associated weapon skills.

We didn't quite get to Hoelbrak or talk about your personal story this time around, so maybe we'll cover that in the next post.

Ciao!