Guild Wars 2

Ok, so first i’d like to say that i achieved lvl 80 on thief. I still didn’t complete the last personal quest though and i didn’t try PvP yet. I’m more PvE player. But i will try PvP soon as well because i hear it’s fun. But till then, i won’t judge PvP at all.
Also i decided to make such long feedback because this website belongs to people who actualy developed the game right? It’s not like Frogster and Bluehole studio, right? So the actual developers of Guild Wars 2 should read it, right? Well if they will read it, that’s the question.
And it will be very honest feedback. I tried other MMOs before and other services and i really don’t give akittenanymore. So i will be hard on some points.

Ok, so now to my feedback.

Part 1

Story:
Story is nice and i really like how characters are voice-acted. The game is very live. I hear speaking some NPCs all the time and also players (i mean their characters). And the idea with the personal story is good. So it’s really cool. The story is taled by voice-acted dialogs as well. I liked the story… well, only until it turned into about undead all the time. I don’t know, but… seriously? I mean, i like zombies and stuff like that, but i like it in games like Resident Evil or in movies. I don’t know how well you’d have to make it for me to enjoy that in MMO, but how they are made in this game is not enough for me. But mainly i would prefer removing the undead completely. I was expecting a lot of dragons and stuff like that. Well it’s not much original anymore but still better than undead.

World and graphics:
Now, here we go. There are really good and bad stuff if it comes about the world. So good things first. The world is huge and the graphics is really nice. I like how there is a lot of grass and stuff everywhere. It’s very rich. So the world looks nice. But again until you reach the places with undead. I can’t help but these locations are not much fun for me. It’s more frustrating. I guess it’s mainly because they look disgusting. I know they are meant to be like that, but i can’t help, i don’t see fun in that.
The engine could be improved. I have Q9550 2,8 Mhz, 4 GB ram, GTX 570. I have everything on high setings on 1920×1080 res. except shadow i have on high and i have AA turned off and the game is not smooth for me. I mean, it’s enjoyable but i don’t know. The graphics is not that great for FPS i’m having with my rig. And there are also long loadings. Now i’m getting to the part which annoys me most. The LOADINGS! The world is divided into areas for which the game needs to load up when you entering that area. And to reach other area, you need to search for onekittensmall passage for which you need to search all “walls” of that areas. And i say walls and not mountains etc, because those mountains are there actualy not so the game may look cool, but because there needs to be something to prevent you travel freely on whole world from any places you want, only because of those stupid loadings. That means i don’t believe it like that. I mean, it’s not natural. They are not mountains but walls. Hope you get what i mean. I can’t help, but this is absolutely not fun. This is no open world. You don’t want to have loadings in MMO. You should try every possible way to get rid of them. At least if it comes about traveling from area to another area. I don’t mean stuff like teleporting etc. And when you explore more areas like that and you check the map zoomed out, you see squares. Squares that makes up the areas divided by loadings. And it looks really ridiculous.
All those events etc are cool. You still have things to do while moving. But i think it’s also a bit too much. I would prefer if the game would let me breath more. I mean you can’t even go afk if you are not in city. Keep those events in the game but try to expand the space between them. I like when there is a lot of stuff in the game but i also like when there are places where is… well, pretty much nothing. Only nature. That way you believe in the world you’re playing in much more. Final Fantasy XIV offers this (however is the game bad in other aspects).

Part 2

Character models:
I was surprised actualy. As i said, i like females in games, but so far, only asian developers were able to make females really nice looking. Some people says that it’s harder to make male as 3D model, because there is more mess on the skin etc… But it’s not true. Females are harder. If you want to make female pretty, you need to make all those curves real, long legs and keep it gentle. Otherwise you will get something like Rift have for instance. Fat female with ugly face with messy skin texture. Well, maybe i didn’t see much yet, but you guys are first non-asian developers for me that was able to make beautiful female character models. Great job on this!

Animations
Animations are great. There is a lot of life in the character’s face as well as in body. You also nicely animated the skills. Weather is also animated nicely. When i stand with one leg on stone for instance, the leg bends. And what really surprised me is that when i use the /sleep emote on hill (but not on top… i mean like in half… don’t know how to put it in english), the character lies exactly how the ground is curved and not with the half of body inside the hill, if you know what i mean. It’s the first time i see this in MMO. Great job!
But there is still one little defect i think. When you run and holding W and switching between Q and E, you can see the character floating on the ground. This animation should be improved .

Races:
Sorry but you really didn’t come up with much originality or fantasy. Only enjoyable race for me is human, since i like to play pretty female. Norn has pretty female too, but the voice… no way. Norn could be another acceptable race for me if i’d want to make Conan. But they are more fat than muscular. I speak about male now ofc.

Battle:
Hybrit between targeting and real time dodging system. I like the idea not putting so many skills in the bar. Battle is fun. Not really that special, but is ok. Don’t know what more to say to this. As i said, i need to try PvP as well.

Part 3

Mobs and enemies
Ok, on lvl 5 areas there are wolves, ogres, moas… On lvl 60 areas there are wolves, ogres, moas… Then zombies are comming. Zombie fishes, chickens people and environment. As i said. Zombies are opinion matter, but repeating mobs from lvl 5 to 60 and more as zombie versions, it shouldn’t be like that.

Controls
Now tell me why the hell you didn’t implement gamepad? This game has manual dodging and you need to move a lot in battle. I know that many PC gamers are ok with keyboard, but this is console controls. That’s why you can use gamepad in Tera for instance. To those who says that you wouldn’t be so good in PvP with gamepad, try to think more please. This game has 10 skills on bar plus those F1-F4 skills. You can map EVERYTHING easy on X360 gamepad. Consider that Tera has more skills on the bar and still you can map everything there on gamepad. I’m using Xpadder program so i can play on gamepad. It’s a program that allows you to map desired keyboard keys to gamepad buttons. If you will ban me for using 3rd party program, GFY. That’s what i can honestly tell you to that. Implement gamepad so more people can choose how to control the game and no one will be using 3rd party program. I would break my fingers if i would control GW2 on keyboard. For example, i place my 4 fingers on 1 – 4 keys, ok? And the dodge is on left shift if i’m not wrong. Consider that i still need to have my 4 fingers ready on 1-4 keys plus also move it on 5, 6, 7… keys. Now i also need to be able automatically dodging and moving back and side. The only way to dodge like that is to move my pinky from 1 to shift while i still have the other 3 fingers on 2-4. Now how you keyboard players can do that without breaking your fingers? And you need to do it fast and automatically. Just try to put your pinky on shift like that. The pinky is collapsing there like that and is very week.

Leveling
Leveling is easy. I mean, you don’t even have to work much hard to level up fast. I really must thank you for not making it like in other MMOs where you take quest that sends you to kill 10 mobs and then you get XP for it. You made events in place of that and it’s good idea. Finally something different. And the lvl 80 cap is nice too. But hey, you really can reach it very soon. I don’t know if it is good to be able lvl up so fast. Actualy many games coming up with fast leveling now. Maybe it’s because people don’t like slow leveling? But RPG is mainly about improving yourself. That means leveling and obtaining new gear, skills, etc. I would prefer it slower

Part 4

Sounds and music:
I would feel really bad if i wouldn’t point out Jeremy Soule and his epic music. I’m an instrumental soundtrack fan, just so you know. He proved again that he is very talented. I didn’t play GW1, so i didn’t hear his music there, but i played Skyrim and his music there is extremely beautiful and epic. Actually i still like more Skyrim music than GW2, but in GW2 is great too. So i have nothing bad to say about the music.
About the sounds. Well the sounds used for make it as real as possible are ok. But the sound coding (or how should i call it) is not that great. Especially if it comes about volume balance between environment sound, battle effects sound, music. I know you can set the volumes but for example when i set the battle sound quieter, i don’t hear the footsteps anymore. Because the battle sound and the footsteps are one sound. And the problem here is that the battle sound is too loud but the footsteps are fine if it comes about the volume. So you either have too loud battles, so you volume your speakers down and that means you don’t hear other sounds enough, or you put battle volume on fine level, but you don’t hear the footsteps.. I know that footsteps is detail, but hey, that sound is there and i wanna hear it. Maybe balance it a little more would be good idea.

Ok, conclusion now. I was reading some interview where you guys was saying that you try to make the game fun. That when you make something in the game, you keep asking yourself: “is this fun?” Now let me answer you. Making the areas in the world divided by loadings and reachable only by certain passages is not fun. Making so small amount of gear skins and make the high lvl gear the same skin as low lvl gear is not fun. Not implementing gamepad on this kind of controls for people that prefer to play it with gamepad is not fun. Repeating the same mobs appearance as you moving on higher lvl areas is not fun. Other negatives are more opinion matter i think.
I knew it will end up bad somehow when i learned that you are trying to make the game fun so much. How i’m seeing it, you tried so hard to make the game fun that you forgot some other basic stuff. And as i was talking about those events, you overdone it with that fun a bit. But it’s still good game after all. Not that special as it looked before release though.

You recieved 9/10 rating on gamespot. I would give it 6/10, but because the game has no subscription (i wouldn’t pay monthly fees for this game) and thus all those bad things are easier acceptable like that, you get 7/10 from me. But who cares about my rating, right?

Part 5

Remove the message length limitation, omg. What’s the point?

Ehh, why i even made this feedback?