Guild Wars 2

Ok, I came into this game without any real expectations. My past MMORPG experience was in a game (which I’m almost ashamed to mention) nothing like GW2, WoW or anything similar so their wasn’t really the possibility that this game was just going to be another MMORPG that I’ve played before.

When I first jumped into this game, it was like; mind=blown, it was amazing, and it stayed amazing for quite some time.

However as I’ve leveled higher and progressed through both the personal story and different areas, my attitude towards the game has gone down just as quickly as it went up.

Problems started to arise when I started in got to the level 60+ areas (there are bugs in lower level areas which I did not get to until later) where I found stuck skillpoints and stuck dynamic events.

To begin with, it was just 1 or 2 in total for an area, but as I got to the Orr region… It was far worse. The whole Orr region is/was a complete mess with at least two stuck skillpoints and two stuck events per map.

For someone like myself who likes to complete an area as they go through it, stuck skillpoints were a huge pain in thekitten and of course stuck events mean the meta event cannot continue. To add to that, the stuck events lead to 75%+ of the waypoints being contested which (on top of the rage-inducing mobs in the region) made getting around the biggest challenge to be found in Orr.

Unfortunately the bad does not end there, here’s some more evidence (contains more bugs) that the game was released before it was finished.

-Trading Post being constantly down. I think it’s spent more time “under maintenance” than working.

-Lost money due to TP crash. I guess you could say I was lucky in that I have lost a relatively small amount (70 silver… So far…) compared to other people.
It’s been two days since this happened and ArenaNet have not made a single constructive comment on the issue. All they’ve said is; herpkittenit should be working.

-Bugged quests. I cannot remember the name of the quest, but I think it was in the 40s, you had to swim through the tunnels beneath Lion’s Arch.
The first THREE times I tried to do this quest, I got disconnected from the game.
The fourth time I tried to do this quest, it would not progress (I killed the final thing, and the quest would not ‘complete’).It wasn’t until the fifth attempt that I was actually able to finish the quest.
Other glitches in this quest included both ally and enemy NPCs clipping through walls.
It’s like they didn’t even test this quest.

-Hands down the most anti-climactic and underwhelming final boss battle I have ever seen in a game.
There is NO WAY the devs looked at what they did with the Zhaitan battle and concluded that was a fitting battle. Spamming the number 2 key (yes, that is all you do, you don’t touch any other buttons) for five minutes isn’t even a battle. That battle just screams rushed release.

-A bit of a minor addition to the above – Bugged loot. I assume this is a bug, I certainly hope ANet did not intentionally reward level 80s doing a level 80 quest with blue and green level 60 & 70 (some people got stuff below level 50) gear. This was just more junk I had to sell to a merchant.

-Rollbacks. The most recent of bugs I’ve encountered is losing a decent amount of progress.

There’s no doubt more, but this is what I’ve experienced.

Yes, this game has a LOT of really good stuff going for it, but that does not excuse so many bugs.

ArenaNet said Guild Wars 2 would not be released until it was ready for release. Well… We know they didn’t follow through with that, which leads me to the question.
Given the choice, would you rather the game wasn’t released until the game was actually finished and all the major bugs were dealt with OR are you happy playing an unfinished game, just so you can play it as soon as you can?

Sure, I couldn’t wait to play Guild Wars 2, but I would have rather waited a month or so more if it meant my time in Guild Wars 2 would not be so frustrating.

EDIT: Added a severely bugged quest I had trouble with.

I’m happy with playing it now. I just like exploring, even if there are bugs. Many MMO’s have bugs when they go to a live state. If all these bugs were prevalent in beta, why would they release?

Sometimes things go awry. There’s a heavier load on the servers than when people were in beta. Things will break.

however, when you get these bugs.. report them asap, so they can get fixed asap. So far, Anet’s been doing alright for trying to keep up on bugs like this. If something’s messed up, I’ll go back to it later, when it is working.

Thing is, their is simply no way to test how the game is going to perform with half a million people on it until you release it. It was doing pretty well in Beta, so it seemed like it was ready for release. The top level zones hadn’t got enough hard core action, though, and neither had the Trading Post.

In beta people were screaming “release the dogs!”, so they finally did and, like any huge game, they started finding the bugs. This is nothing compared to some other releases, (like, oh say a certain Final Fantasy, or Champions game that released about a year ago … or was it two now? Agh, time flies.).

Most MMOs aren’t really ready to play for the first six months after they hit the stage – really – so for the game to have some hiccoughs the first month isn’t so terrible.

Clem.2963:

Yes, this game has a LOT of really good stuff going for it

and this is what you can choose to hold onto, or let go and leave. there’s nothing anyone can say. it’s a weighing of pros and cons.

for me, market being down initially meant nothing. i dont care much for lore so the Zaitan fight doesnt impact my opinion of the game. i dont need to 100% complete everything, so i dont care about an odd glitchy DE or skill quest. etc.

youre right on all of your points. do you care enough to leave and come back a little later when the dust has settled? up to you. given your lack of experience with MMO’s, id like to emphasize that this release was the smoothest in MMO history, hands down, believe it or not (except for TSW maybe, but that game is skin and bones in comparison to what ANet achieved). if you look at the rate at which ANet is repairing the game, you might feel a little better.

Unfortunately I choose to buy Mists of Pandaria and will continue to play WoW. I say unfortuantely because I, like many other players that have played WoW, was looking to move on.

The biggest let down for me is the lack of any structure to playing classes. Having a defined role in an MMO allows easier design and most importantly interesting mechanics. No threat control and every class basically doing the same thing, Dodge, DPS and Heal yourself, gets old really quickly. There really is little difference to classes, they’re either basically melee or ranged, thats it.

It is a shame because ArenaNet have put a lot of work into the game and it shows. Unfortunately losing the Trinity wasn’t as good as it appeared to be on paper.

Salt.4621:

The biggest let down for me is the lack of any structure to playing classes.

Oh man, you could have saved yourself a nice wad of cash and skipped this game entirely if you had read the article about combat on the main GW2 site three years ago.

Sin.8174:

Sometimes things go awry. There’s a heavier load on the servers than when people were in beta. Things will break.

That’s exactly right, which is why I don’t understand why they did not open up the betas.
I’m sure there were many people like myself who were planning to play in first week, but did not pre-purchase. I pre-ordered a hard copy from somewhere which were not given beta keys.

If they’d opened up the betas (I can only remember one or two open betas, long before launch), they would have had a better idea of what to expect and possibly wouldn’t have had to halt digital sales for a week or so there.

PS. Bloody forums don’t even work properly, had to retype all that.

open betas are terrible for business. terrible. little things get blown out of proportion, story gets spoiled, etc. look at how quickly people devour these games. MMO’s cant be properly tested until release. this is a fact. this is why u do a great job with the foundation, give something to hold people over for a little while, and pump out new content.

most MMO’s fail because they dont give a “complete package” on release (did you see TOR’s endgame?), and they dont have a sustainable business model. neither of these issues is ANet’s problem.

Salt.4621:

Unfortunately I choose to buy Mists of Pandaria and will continue to play WoW. I say unfortuantely because I, like many other players that have played WoW, was looking to move on.

many WoW players have in fact moved on to GW2 and are not looking back. GW2’s release tanked WoW’s xfire numbers and theyre not coming back up. im sure they will for MoP, but i also doubt you’ll see GW2’s server pop decreasing. GW2 has its own dedicated fanbase.

thing about some WoW players is that theyre totally addicted to the carrot on a stick. this is why WoW will never die: its hooks are deep in you. if you truly just enjoyed pvp, beautiful visuals, balance, dynamic combat, interesting crafting and customization – you’d be all over GW2 for a long time. unfortunately, youre not after these things. you NEED stat-based gear progression. oh yes you do.

nerva.7940:

Clem.2963:

Yes, this game has a LOT of really good stuff going for it

and this is what you can choose to hold onto, or let go and leave. there’s nothing anyone can say. it’s a weighing of pros and cons.

for me, market being down initially meant nothing. i dont care much for lore so the Zaitan fight doesnt impact my opinion of the game. i dont need to 100% complete everything, so i dont care about an odd glitchy DE or skill quest. etc.

youre right on all of your points. do you care enough to leave and come back a little later when the dust has settled? up to you. given your lack of experience with MMO’s, id like to emphasize that this release was the smoothest in MMO history, hands down, believe it or not (except for TSW maybe, but that game is skin and bones in comparison to what ANet achieved). if you look at the rate at which ANet is repairing the game, you might feel a little better.

Well I guess the best way of looking at it is; yes, the majority of this stuff should be fixed within the first month or so.

Hopefully by the time I start on my next character, I won’t have to deal with the above, again. It really does gives you a negative feeling for your initial play-through, though.

I guess ANet are lucky in that most reviewers aren’t going to wait until they hit level 80 and complete the story before writing their review.
Now it took me ~150 hours to get to level 80 and I don’t expect reviewers to put that much time into the game before they review it, but I’m sure if most did, there would be less praise.

I’m not someone who gets too into lore, either, but I was still miffed with the Zhaitan battle. It just didn’t make any sense that the two lesser dragons (prior to Zhaitan battle) were more of a challenge than the boss of all bosses.

It would have been better had they just shown a cut-scene where you launch a nuke (or what ever the fantasy equivalent of a nuke is) at Zhaitan killing him in one hit. Sure, still would have been incredibly underwhelming, but at least we wouldn’t have had to waste 5 minutes mashing the number 2 key.

Also as far as losing money due to glitches go, it’s seems inexcusable that it’s been two days and they still have not made any effort to tell people what’s going on.

A bit of reassurance goes a long way. Ignoring people does nothing but make things much worse.

nerva.7940:

Salt.4621:

Unfortunately I choose to buy Mists of Pandaria and will continue to play WoW. I say unfortuantely because I, like many other players that have played WoW, was looking to move on.

many WoW players have in fact moved on to GW2 and are not looking back. GW2’s release tanked WoW’s xfire numbers and theyre not coming back up. im sure they will for MoP, but i also doubt you’ll see GW2’s server pop decreasing. GW2 has its own dedicated fanbase.

thing about some WoW players is that theyre totally addicted to the carrot on a stick. this is why WoW will never die: its hooks are deep in you. if you truly just enjoyed pvp, beautiful visuals, balance, dynamic combat, interesting crafting and customization – you’d be all over GW2 for a long time. unfortunately, youre not after these things. you NEED stat-based gear progression. oh yes you do.

Really? It’s already dropping. Only time will tell how much, especially next week.