Vissarion wrote on Sep 2
nd, 2013 at 11:18am:
1. I am. Big draw, right?
2. The exploration, the dungeons, and a little bit of wuvwuv.
3. Less bugs, better graphics, less complex character building, less interesting PVE endgame, better PVP.
4. I don't think ANet has said one way or another.
5. Yes, though it depends on which sphere of the game. In PVE, Warriors are king, but they kinda suck in wuvwuv and PVP. Thieves are good in PVP formats. Rangers are meh in all, outside of one or two builds. Mesmers are pretty well-rounded. Yadda yadda.
6. Yep. Though there are mixed feelings about their emphasis on the Living Story over permanent content additions.
7. If you like toggled mouselook mode in DDO, then download one of the Combat Mods for GW2, since they let you enable mouselook targeting. Otherwise, it's your standard MMO feel.
Me too, see this post from a few days ago
http://www.ddovault.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1377220948/0#5I am primarily PvE- and Living World-centric.
There are some balance issues among the classes that ArenaNet both caused and have been fixing. It's nowhere near the issues that surrounded Rangers or the nerfs to Sorcs a while back; but they are definitely noticable.
Since it wasn't mentioned previously - Elementalists are also a very fun class to look into if you can put up with a couple days of squishiness... they shine at higher levels (55-ish and up).
The biggest challenge for any new player will be gold. That will translate into slower leveling. Once you do the first character and run some lvl 80 content for maybe a week, any character you play thereafter will be infinitely faster due to you being able to equip them properly.
Insofar as thieves and PvE (implied above) - I LOVE my thief... yah, they're squishier than Warriors, but I am a speed junky... lots of shadow walking (a sort of teleport skill), dodging, positioning for a backstab, etc. Adrenaline oozes out of a thief.
I think it's got a lot of staying power with me... can't speak to anyone else.
Biggest advice for DDO players coming in to GW2 new - you cannot jump cast. I did that for a week and interrupted spells and skills out the ass.
EDIT: regarding third-party add-ons. ArenaNet don't play when it comes to anything they deem an exploit. Even something as silly as a mod to back the camera away from your character so you have a wider FOV is considered an exploit to them. You're an adult and can do what you will, but word to the wise, their banhammer is like Maban-style.
EDIT: Just thought of this - the community is a little "saltier"/snarkier than DDO. Think Khyber with a toothache.