If we measure success by the sheer number of things that one could do, without doubt, GW2’s Heart of Thorns expansion is an unmitigated success.
One look down the achievements list (sorry Bhagpuss, it’s still here), the collections tab, the new masteries, the legendary precursor sections, the Heart of Thorns zones, the Heart of Thorns story chapters, the new guild initiatives, and oh, there were elite specializations and a new revenant profession, wasn’t there? (haven’t had time to even progress on any of those.)
Not to mention, all things WvW and PvP related that I haven’t even glanced at.
Oh, did we mention Halloween is in full swing in Lion’s Arch, so you -could- also be grinding out limited time festival goodies for shiny skins if so prioritized?
If we measure success by server stability and lack of game breaking bugs or everybody-can’t-login-or-play crashes, ArenaNet completely blows the competition out of the water on this one.
So far, most of the problems I’ve been hearing about are related to people being impatient and jumping straight into the game once it’s downloaded past the “playable” mark, and then charging headlong into a new zone or a story chapter where the content hasn’t fully downloaded yet – whereupon it either pauses/hangs or unceremoniously crashes the player out.
Duh.
I was patient (albeit in a knuckle gnawing, restlessly listening to others on Teamspeak, “I think I shall go and have some lunch while I wait for the full download” manner) and downloaded to 100% before logging in, and the whole experience for me has been silky smooth and perfect.
The servers are holding up in a remarkably rock solid manner, considering that my online friends list that usually is about half a page of people online stretched out to about 2.5-3 pages of people all online and checking out the shiny.
Impressions?
The jungle feels a lot better than I thought it would be.
One thing that’s definitely helping is the music. I turned it back up from silent to appreciate the new scores and wow, the one on the character loading screen has to be heard to be believed.
Everything has a new coat of HoT shiny. The launcher now features a green tinted charr (Rytlock?); the character selection screen looks super-dramatic and shows off more helpful information, including which crafting professions are on which character.
The new HoT zones feel better when they’re all interconnected in one giant three-tiered map that goes from treetop canopy to roots, as opposed to one tiny section on reveal during beta. The former feels expansive and freeing, the latter felt small and cramped.
Add on some good accompanying background music, a little mob clutter, some NPCs (though some of them are chattering away at a slightly abnormal cranked up pace) and they become zones that seem worth exploring.
It also seems to me that they may have populated the floor with more jungle plant entities, which helps the atmosphere greatly (though I have no idea if this is an issue for older, slightly less updated computers now. The ‘perils’ of enjoying a new-ish rig.)
The story feels promising.
I just passed chapter 7 – Personal Possessions (which made me rage quite a bit, I’ll tell you, frickin’ latency and zephyrite-ish jumping puzzles = most of the drama and pacing taken out by multiple fall/deaths to the point where one was running as essentially naked charr), which properly segues us into the next zone past Verdant Brink, Auric Basin.
Given that there are two more zones past Auric Basin, and that I’ve only uncovered about three-quarters of the Verdant Brink map and definitely not touched a great many events and mastery points and adventures in VB itself, there appears to be a sizeable chunk of content on offer.
It’s the chapter before that lets us meet some old friends and has significant plot movement.
It’s amazing how many people have rushed past the story and into just wandering about the new zones though.
I would have really appreciated some alone time playing through all the story chapters, but I knew one of my guilds was looking to claim a guild hall ASAP, so most of yesterday was spent with Teamspeak voices in the background, doing my best to power through some masteries while waiting for the expedition so that I wouldn’t miss the essentially one-off event.
Turns out that one was still lacking an Exalted mastery to get past a gate, but fortunately, there are mesmers to help guildies skip through that part, and I managed to zone into the instance.
Wasn’t too bad. It definitely needed some communication and cooperation, along the lines of “split up your zerg, you morons.”
Whatever messaging system the devs were using for cues and instructions -needs- to be used and repeated in future zone events and even raids, imo. The pop up message was concise and offered feedback of the direct “shove it down your throat” kind – you failed this, this consequence now happens. Try doing X instead.
Given the mess of 40+ players running around, whose first impulse tends to be “follow the other yellow dots and commander tag,” the direct messaging was very helpful.
It took a bit of turning like an oil tanker (and one failure phase, but not failed in its entirety) for the group to learn and figure out what it had to do, but it was done in the end.
Oh, speaking of other guild changes, the yellow dots are an interesting touch.
Some people don’t like it, but I’m fairly neutral about it. I kind of like that it makes me feel a bit more interconnected with the other people in the guild, in that I can see their names repeated in my daily game encounters (leading to a sense of familiarity) and at a glance, you can also see if there are any fun congregations of group activity going on in certain zones.
The multiple guild chat channels, though. FREAKING GODSEND. ABOUT TIME. HOW DID WE PLAY THREE YEARS WITHOUT THIS.
That one change makes my chat window suddenly worth looking at and reading, rather than mostly ignoring.
Makes the whole place feel a lot more lively and social now.
(And I don’t even talk much. Just listen to the chatty ones mostly.)
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My one criticism of the Heart of Thorns expansion?
The 6 new stats sets being introduced.
Apparently, even though we are not having any increase in item gear rarity ever (so sayeth Colin), someone has figured out a clever little workaround and decided that they can get away with putting two primary stats and two secondary stats on new gear, as opposed to the one primary and two secondaries of old.
Um, are we power-creeping a little here? Did we just obsolete the desirability of things like Berserker or Sinister because now everyone should want one of the newer stat combinations for that secondary stat bonus now?
Not sure. I haven’t looked at the actual numbers to compare yet, but I’m sure someone will be doing those calculations sooner rather than later.
And then we shall see if there was any attempt at equivalency or just an outright “this gear is better, by X%”.
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In the meantime, there are masteries and lots of candy corn to chase.
And I suppose I should make that revenant some day. (I’m in not that much hurry, I don’t think the asura name I have in mind will be grabbed any time soon.)
Why I Game 
The fact that I haven’t done a first impressions post yet because I don’t want to take time out from playing says more about my first impressions than anything. In brief, it’s much better than I was expecting (so far). The beta did the whole thing an extreme dis-service, I’d say.
I’m one of the ones who hasn’t bothered with the Personal Story. I do want to know what’s going on but if there was an option to just watch it on YouTube and have my account credited with having done it I’d take it like a shot. I’m having much more fun exploring.
There’s a weird paradox in that so much has changed and so much has stayed the same. I didn’t actually express a preference in my speculations on Achievements but actually I was hoping we’d get loads more, not that they’d go away! I love *easy* achievements – who doesn’t? It’s free stuff. It’s the “challenging” ones I dislike. I was getting Achis hand over fist last night for doing nothing at all and that’s just how I like it.
Anyway, could go on but I ought to do a post of my own and I don’t even want to do that until I’ve played some more…
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damn i’m tempted haha
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As someone that didn’t buy, I can say that I concur with your assessment of how smoothly it has gone on a technical level. No issues updating or logging in. Well done — best MMO expansion release (mechanically) that I’ve ever experienced or heard of.
I am glad to hear that your friends and guild list is more full. MMOs are always more fun with friends. My experience is the opposite — not a single person came back in two of my three guilds. The largest one (a good, mid-sized 60 person or so guild) saw half a dozen, and that includes my wife and I, and we didn’t purchase, so my first thought was that it was “unsuccessful.” Time will tell, I suppose.
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Good first impressions!
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