As I have mentioned numerous times before GW2 is a free-to-play, free-to-download, basically free across the board to try for as long as you want to MMO that one of the most popular online games in the world. They make money off of optional purchases that you will likely get involved in later... however, the free free free aspect of it at the start is a wonderful method of seeing if you are even going to like it. You can check it out / download it here
However this blog is about Ascalonian Catacombs, which is the first dungeon players will encounter in the game.
First off, you need to be level 30 before you can enter this place. There are 80 levels and getting to level 30 takes almost no time at all, so don't worry about that. Then you simply need to find a group and go in, this can normally pretty easily be accomplished in the LFG feature of the game that is extremely useful (kudos to A-net for simplifying this process.) In order to enter the dungeon you simply need to be on the same map as it is located in, which is massive.
The dungeon is massive, but you can't access all of it just whenever you feel like it. There are 4 "paths" to take and one of them must be chosen in order to access certain parts. The first one called "Story Mode" is relatively simple and kind of mirrors what fighting several mobs at a time would be like outside of the dungeon and then after that you will have a access to the other 3 paths each of which have a certain reward for completion. And this next part is where A-net kind of confuses me with their decision.
It becomes extremely difficult after Story Mode
Now there are some extreme players out there that will say it is NOT difficult but those guys are in an entirely different gaming world than I am. When you have to be intimately familiar with the dungeon and stand in precise spots and have everyone focus on one enemy very quickly in order to get past the very first part of the dungeon... i think it is too hard.
You see that red globe in the middle bottom? That is this guys HP, he is nearly out and the enemy they are focused on is a common (trash) mob. I find it to be borderline unfair when a startout enemy can do this sort of damage to you. After that section of the dungeon there are traps (flames and spikes from the floor) that have a really good chance of killing you with one hit. Now it's not like it is game over at that point and you can retry as many times as you want, but isn't this a bit early to be instakilling our customers? I mean it's the very first dungeon and we are gonna crank the difficulty up to 11?
There are some segments of the dungeon where the intention is to completely skip masses of enemies and veteran players will do exactly that. The problem is, if they don't tell you this or you didn't "do your research" on youtube before arriving, you are not going to know this and get left behind / possibly shouted at by the "experts."
The hardcore players have figured out an exact formula for where you need to stand, when, and exactly what skills to use in order to get through the dungeon as quickly as possible and I have to say,... what is fun about that?
Now the video above maybe makes it seem like I am full of crap because these guys get through path 1 relatively easily, but you can tell by the vid that they are very familiar with how the dungeon operates and are well above your average player in terms of dedication to the game.
The point I am trying to make is that I feel that this, being the first dungeon in the game, is far more difficult than it should be. The other, later dungeons, should be very difficult, but the very first one? If entering this dungeon with a group of people who have never done it before (very unlikely to happen these days) I would bet the farm on failure or at the minimum many many deaths on the part of everyone in the group. Basically, while somewhat fun and a nice break from the tedium outside of the dungeon I really feel as though ArenaNet made this entirely too difficult.
What do you think? I know there are a few Guild Wars players out there but for me anyway, i find the gradual increase in difficulty existent in other MMO's out there are far more conducive to the average player. Just my 2 pennies!