It’s been said that GW2 doesn’t have an endgame, which is true in a traditional sense. I got to level 80 nearly a week ago, and I’ve beaten the final boss (though presumably there will be more in further content patches). I’ve finished my personal quest, so now what? Here are the things I’ve been doing or plan to do:
- Get cool looking gear. I have zero exotics (those are basically the equivalent of WoW epics) and it’s a little embarrassing. I can get more awesome gear by either playing WvW a ton, or completing explorable mode dungeons, crafting, or the Mystic Forge. The hard part is sticking to just one progression path for a matching set of gear.
- Clear all the dungeons. The story modes are usually pretty easy (that’s in GW2 terms, meaning you’ll wipe like 5-10 times before the final boss), and they tell a story that intertwines with your personal story. On top of that, I haven’t done any explorable mode dungeons yet. I imagine they’re like Cataclysm heroics before everyone out-geared them, in that they require heavy group coordination and a bit of skill. Each explorable mode has four variations (I’ve heard these are significant variations, but I can’t vouch for that) and with eight dungeons, that means I’ve got 32 difficult dungeons to complete.
- Make a legendary weapon. Sources say this will take months and a huge amount of gold, but the legendaries sound awesome. A bow that shoots rainbows, a sword made of stars! It’s a lot of work, and all for a weapon that has the same stats as your average exotic. But it’s all vanity in an MMO.
- Explore the entire world. GW2 is a completionist’s bane. Each zone has a series of waypoints, points of interest, skill challenges, and hearts (i.e. quest hubs) and if you complete all of them you get an achievement and a full bar. I’m about 40% done with world map completion, and I’ve heard you get some mighty cool stuff when you reach 100% world completion.
- Complete the high level zones. This is similar to exploring the entire world, but specifically I want to see the conclusion to other story lines and the hints of more to come. I’ve seen giant dragons (not elder dragons, just really big ones) spawn randomly in the level 80 mountain zone. I’ve heard about Kralkatorrik (god I love that name), a true elder dragon, spawning in his related zone as well. These zones look really cool.
- Find more jumping puzzles. As weird as it sounds, we only stumbled across one jumping puzzle on our way to 80. I know there are many out there, but they must be hidden. I did a few in the beta and they are surprisingly addictive and you receive a fantastic feeling of accomplishment once you reach the end.
- Battle against other servers in World vs. World vs. World. I can do this to get better gear, or better looking gear, and also because it’s fun even when you’re losing. The lag and the long queue isn’t so much fun, but assaulting, defending, and upgrading keeps is. What I really love about it so far is you can achieve important objectives like mercenary camps with just two or three people or choose to join the zerg and assault castles. And if you’re sneaky about it, it only takes a small group of people to build a catapult and take down a poorly defended castle all on their own.
- Structured PvP. I spent almost all my time in the beta in sPvP, but haven’t even stepped into the Mists now that the game is out. I really enjoy it, but I’ve been distracted so far. I’d really like to join a group of four other people and play in a tournament for more cool looking sPvP-only gear.
- Level my thief. I’m not sure alts count, but I’m enjoying the hell out of my thief. It’s far squishier than my warrior so I have to dodge much more (this is probably why everyone and their mom plays a warrior). It’s a completely different playstyle that I feel will be much more difficult to be competent. There are also many branches of the personal storyline and I would like to check most of them out, and alts give me that opportunity.
- Level up professions. You can level all professons on the same character, but only have access to two at a time. Right now I’m a chef, which is at a decently high level thanks to the ease of finding large amounts of materials, and a weaponsmith, which is embarrassingly low thanks to copper. I’ve never really been a big profession person, but I know these will be required to craft exotic and legendary gear.
One of the dungeon sets.
The most highly contested castle in WvW.
Stealing a chicken.