Guild Wars 2

um, probably 90% of the game is great. A few issues with regard to scaling and complexity (needs harsher scaling and more complexity) and a LFG.

But the combat, the classes and such are great. The zones are absolutely amazing, the puzzels fun, the world feels alive in a way no other MMO has managed to capture.

WvWvW is mostly great, and the issues will be sorted or settledown in time.

PvP is fun and skill rather than gear based.

The good far outweighs the bad, massively so. But remember, alot of “negativity” in the forums is people loving the game wanting a few things tweaked, its only a very small minority who are just all negative.

Finding a new place without Map Completion turned on in game (Press M, lower left there is an eye, click there and start unchecking – then explore!)

This is a small ‘good thing’, but it does kind of highlight the sheer detail that has gone into the game.

When you type /sleep, your character makes snoring/sleeping noises. I’ve never seen this in an mmo before (i guess i haven’t played enough), so it’s nice to see(hear?, w/e) things like this put into the game.
Ever heard a Charr /sleep? it’s adorable :P

Keep it up Anet, loving every moment of this game so far.

I have been complaining about the loot/event DR system lately (horrible piece of junk), so I thought I’d come in and list the stuff I like:

• I love the combat system, and feeling in control of my character’s survival, instead of it all being determined by die rolls.

• I love the design of the areas and the beautiful art in the game.

• I love the multitude of small touches that make the world feel alive.

• I love doing dynamic events, and even failing them. I love seeing the consequences of events and seeing them in different stages.

• I love doing open world bosses with tons of players.

Oooh, positivity on a game forum. I like this thread

I love the beautiful art and that the areas all feel different. I want to explore this game Unlike any other MMO I’ve ever seen, going to new areas, participating in new events, and seeing/killing new things all make me really happy.

But my favorite thing is probably the dialog. As an example, there was a mission in the Asura starting zone where you had to round up skritt for some experiment. The ones you beat up were captured by a golem who follows behind the group, and spouts the most hilarious and disturbing dialogue. “I-am-your-friend. Would-you-like-some-sweets?” and things to that effect. I laughed so hard it woke up my roomate who was napping on the couch in the other room.

Props to you, devs. A non-comedy game getting actual lols is a rare and precious thing.

- Love being rewarded for exploring nooks and crannies of the world, whether its loot or an NPC or discovering a new ranger pet. It makes the game feel more then just a pretty backdrop to grind exp like many other MMOs.

- Love the general open-world feel

- Love the random conversations that often hint of things.

- Love the robust dye system and transmutation stones. Love the design of the armors. Being able to look like you want, that’s huge to me. Huge plus that I can change my dyes anytime I want.

- Love how beautiful the world is. Love the attention to detail, the attention to sound effects, the gorgeous look of the long distance terrain. Easily the best looking MMO out there. I can’t count how many times me I have just stopped and admired the views and not always from vistas. Its hard to even pick a zone that is most amazing, they are all just stunning in their own ways. The beauty of this game puts every other MMO to shame and I have played most of them.

- Love the push towards the RPG of MMORPG. There may be alot of complaints with the personal storylines, but its really refreshing to feel like you’re actually role-playing more again instead of just rushing through text to go and grind more mobs.

There are just so many things in this game that make me stop and go “oh wow” or make me laugh. I love the exploration and adventure. My favorite is still the dragon flying through my vista while I was viewing it and then getting to kill him minutes later… that was priceless.

In Lion’s Arch I found a secret underwater cave filled with old shipwrecks. Besides a couple of fish there was nothing down there, not even a point of interest. It was so still.

The creepy vibe sent my imagination groping out into the depths crafting all the people that once bustled over those lifeless decks. Easily my most memorable moment.

Things i like:
- World design, look, feel, atmosphere, details… best i’ve ever seen in any mmo period.
- Heart System, Events, Vistas i like.
- Revive System… love or hate it, i like it.
- WvW i like.

Things i don’t like:
- End game area Orr
- Lack of Lvl80 themed areas and events.
- no TDM, DM arena mode in PVP
- being able to buy gold, xps in shop

Cruising the landscape in my asura joggingsuit i come across a lake.
I look around and see no one so i slip into my areodynamic speedo and dive into the water.
Breather fitted i dive deeper and deeper. The odd aquadic inhabitant mistakes one of my utillity extensions for a worm and tries to take a nibble. I quickly dispose them and save them for the BBQ later that evening.
As i dive deeper towards the dark abbys out of the darkness lights begin to show and a whole underwater city appears. Full of living creatures with their own troubles and joys.
It’s an amazing sight and one of the biggest “awesome” moments i come across.

Quaggan.

I love those little butterballs.

I hate that I can never say no to them when they come asking for help. Saying no feels like Im kicking a puppy.

Also ingame:

Also some of the ambiant dialog is fantastic.

Hearing in the background two humans discussing if Grenth or Melandru would win in a fight or a group of Sylvari trying to figure out ‘Rock, Paper, Scissors’.

“What I want to know is why anyone would ruin a perfectly good pair of scissors’

Ten things I love off the top of my head. Some big, some small.

1) That exploration is rewarded. And I don’t mean in the “get XP” sense, I mean the, “Oh my god I just found a jumping puzzle with disappearing landing pads” rewarded, because I happened to see Tron-esque lights peeping through some bushes.

2) Seeing my ele draw the glyphs in the air with her hand when she uses them. So many of the skill animations are fantastic.

3) The dye system. I love mix and matching armors and colours to get a unique look.

4) The sense of accomplishment when I finish something that requires platforming. I’m not very good at it (I didn’t grow up on Mario) but the fact that my only choices are “get better” or “don’t complete it” is great. I’m not big on achievements, but achievements for THOSE are actually satisfying to me.

5) Combat nuances. I’m still learning new things every day about skills I’ve used for quite awhile. I remember my head exploding when I found out instant cast skills didn’t interrupt channels; and I keep seeing players point out synergies that I would never have thought of myself.

6) That when I crush wasp nests, the buzz gets louder for a second before disappearing completely.

7) Ambient dialogue … as long as it’s not merchant/service NPCs.

8) The fact that game mechanics don’t motivate me to spoiler everything or risk falling “behind the curve.”

9) Opening easter egg areas with emotes. Seeing another player /cry at a gravestone and trigger a ghost NPC.

10) That grouping with friends who don’t level as quickly as I do is not a problem.

I especially love the synergies between classes.

I love that this game has no resource system. No energy. No mana bar. No rage. In fact, this is so amazingly seamless that I barely noticed the absence of resources until today.

The recent tp crash that stripped off my 25 gold put me on a detox away from my possessions sculpting me into a less materialistic player.

Actually seriously, I’d like my coin back.

I like the personal story line a lot. The voice acting added a lot.

Also having fun beating my head against a brick wall in the dungeons explorer mode.

There are so many little details in this game that just make my day and grow my love for ArenaNet

..like the way that when sylvari curses they say “thorns”

..or the fact that i went to explore the human city and there was a children school and it had a chalkboard with a catapult trajectory over a wall and some doodles of centaurs and some trajectory angle equations

Really enjoying how much different things I can do on my Elementalist. D/D is just so much fun. Recently got to 80 and had a first look in Orr. The events there look like a lot of fun if you can push them further in.

PvE exploration is great. Such amazing looking environments. It’s a nice change after running through corridors in space :P

The absolute best part is still pvp though. Even with quite a lot of bugged skills a lot of different balancing issues for both sPVP and WvW. But I am still having a lot of fun trying different builds and play-styles in sPVP or taking down forts with my guild in WvW.

My wife and i having a great time explorin!
The personal story makes ur character looks important.
I like the cities look so alive, especially Divinity Reach
I just hope Anet can tweak the dungeon more so it wont feel too harsh and if we have to get through it with lots of effort, an appropriate reward would be nice.
Im not saying this just because me and my wife are casual players, but also for the hardcores out there.

Overall, Anet really did a good job on GW2! Bravo!

Yea been voicing complaints lately too because I see so much potential in GW2 and really want it to continue being a great game. Well here’s a off of my mind list of things I like.

1. The jumping puzzles, esp the one in EB, is awesome!! the traps! the invis wells! and chance for danger! I also love how different puzzles have different unique aspects about them.

2. Individual loot. NO DKP, no round robin, no “everyone roll a gold and pass.” love this.

3. No consumables (hp/mp pots), scrolls, etc. A food/potion every 30 min is not so bad. But no constant consumable is awesome. Makes it easy to get into the game. Never have to log on and go… before I can go enjoy the game, I must go craft some pots..

4. No enchant/socketing RNG. Thank you Anet for saving me from a few white hair. No more stressing about enchanting!

5. PVP Setup. I love how there’s 3 sides to PVP factions so they sort of balance each other out. Additionally the PVE instances/maps are setup so that less populated servers can just group w/ friends on other servers and do things together. Also TP being cross server, this further mitigates the impact of being on a losing server. Faction based PVP always had the problem that once one side starts winning, there is a snowball effect of that side having more resources, more access, becoming more geared, and further being nonstoppable. Many aspects of GW2’s pvp protects against that.

6. Dyes. I love how dyes are unlocked for the char instead of one time use. I know it’s kind of silly but I love being able to keep testing and changing colors for each piece of my armor. Abyss- monday, celestial- tuesday, rainbow- wednesday xD

The really, really immersive world. The vistas, the handmade look of mountainranges, caves, lakes, the constant dialogue of NPC’s, the children running around, the seamless transition to underwater areas, all the stuff lying around that you can pick up, and does odd (and sometimes useful!) stuff. Listening to the dialogue of an event-chain and just be immersed.

I can not believe some people that say the PvE is just a bonus in this game, that must really hurt the world-builders…..

One thing about criticism:
Most of us aren’t doing that because we hate the game, we actually love it and just want so see how it even gets better for everyone. I really hope ArenaNet keeps that in mind, because I know that criticism can hurt if you put that much effort into something and if you get the feeling it didn’t come out like you hoped for… It’s what you do when you care about something.
If we wouldn’t care, we wouldn’t take the time to criticise, we would just move along!

So, there is so much why I love this game and really enjoy it overall!
But everything I love is something I could imagine that it could be even greater, a lot actually, so therefor I’m one that gives his concerns to you regardless, for the sake of greatness! Because I care about what happens to that game… :-)

So, I love…
… the lack of competition in the PvE world that for now seems to keep the community together, more than it otherwise probably would be
… the immersive world
… to explore the world
… the lack of the holy trinity
… the down scaling
… the dynamic events
… all the details
… the sPvP/WvW overall
… actually the most how all the mechanics work together…

… but as said, even if I really love and enjoy them, I think we should give our concerns to ArenaNet, not for bashing them, instead to help making an even better game, for everyone!

MMOs are the genre that changes the most with the time and I think decent criticism is something that is kind of necessary to help that these changes are for the better, not for the worse!

The personal Story: A Light in Darkness

Awesome mission, right length, hits all the right beats, great cinematics. Especially awesome, if you do not play Sylvari and have never been to the Sylvari area before.

Tyncale.1629:

The really, really immersive world. The vistas, the handmade look of mountainranges, caves, lakes, the constant dialogue of NPC’s, the children running around, the seamless transition to underwater areas, all the stuff lying around that you can pick up, and does odd (and sometimes useful!) stuff. Listening to the dialogue of an event-chain and just be immersed.

I can not believe some people that say the PvE is just a bonus in this game, that must really hurt the world-builders…..

I can’t believe the amount of work that was obviously put in this … well, I can hardly call it a game. GW2 is more like an Alternate World Experience than anything I’ve encountered so far. It’s really just amazing. That’s right, it’s a MMORPAWE. I said it.

Both the rendering of the water (among other rendering) and the seamless implementation of water combat where non-fish can actually chase you out of the water onto land makes for a very believable environment!

Love so many things, but a lot of the dialogues are too funny.

“Splish splash four Norn in a bath”…

The Charr couple in Lion’s arch discussing the future of their child, Dad wants him to go back home to be raised by a warband, Mom wants him to grow up in the city and be cultured in the ways of all the races.

The children playing Destiny’s Edge.

The feel of the epicness of playing a single player game, but with all the perks of an MMO. (I remember my husband and I both playing DAO on separate comps and me telling him “Why can’t they make a game like this into an MMO, I get to pick where I want to go, what story lines I want to follow etc, I just want you here with me!” I feel like they have accomplished that for me.

Never worrying about what level I am…I don’t have a feeling of “must level” I am having a blast…Nope still not 80, almost!

Love figuring things out on my own down to events, puzzles, traits, weapons etc. I know some people want a guide for everything, but I love that there’s’ really nothing out yet, so I play how I want to play, not how some min/maxer says I should!

Craven.5468:

Both the rendering of the water (among other rendering) and the seamless implementation of water combat where non-fish can actually chase you out of the water onto land makes for a very believable environment!

I agree – I love how smooth the transition is between land and water. I think it was brilliant to have a mode where you swim on the surface to address the camera issues that plague other games with swimming.

I’ve found some underwater areas even more stunning than some of the land areas. When I need to de-stress, I grab my pet shark and we go take a swim around lion’s arch.

I love the detail in this game
I love the Npc’s
I love the openness of the world and the environments are mind boggling
I love my character because it feels like mine
I love the fluid combat
I love the secrets and little hidden things.
I love that I can set my own goals and pretty much do whatever I want.
I love that there is always something new to see
I love the community on my server and the fact that this game encourages community
I love crafting
I love everything about it actually- it makes me happy to play, it makes me smile, it fills me with a sense of wonder
Wintyre Fraust said it is more like a virtual world- I think that is a perfect discription

I’ll add mine:

- Don’t hate me ‘cuz I’m beautiful! The game is just good looking. From the characters to the environment to the weather to the weapon and armor models. And detailed.

- To boldly go… One of my favorite things to do in new games is explore. I like seeing the sights and (at times) outrunning the mobs that are 20 levels higher than me because I wanted to just look around. Well this game encourages it!

- Everyone into the pool! I like the group events. I don’t like competing against other players for PvE kills or resources. I’ll save that for PvP or WvWvWvWvW. Till then, it’s all good. /fistbump

- By jove, I think they’ve got it! The smaller things: Shared bank. In game mail access always. Collectibles storage and access from crafting stations. Small things that take the tedium out of the game. Each on its own is nice but it all adds up and really makes a difference.

1. Lovely surroundings
2. De-leveling & Rewards which make beginner areas worth exploring
3. New take on crafting with the Discovery is well thought out imo
4. TB from anywhere in the world (when it’s up)
5. hidden things like the underwater keyboard (pretty eerie sound to the GW theme song there <3)

The good dynamic events are very nice. The bad dynamic events are as boring as anything I’ve done in any other MMO.

Artwork is fantastic. Some of the innovations worked out.

I’m happy with my purchase overall though I might complain about a few things.

I level a lot of alts with a friend, and have done for years across several mmo’s. Last night he wanted to level his low level warrior. I wanted to do stuff on my main since I needed some more karma. I really enjoy levelling with my friend though. Normally I’d have to choose but instead we just completed Brisbane Wildlands with me on my level 80 and him on his alt – everybody wins. Brilliant.

Been playing MMOs since 2 months after EQ1s release. This is the first MMO that just satisfies so many things. I haven’t been into raiding and large scale PvE endeavors since EQ1 cause frankly I burned out on all that and the drama it can bring.

There are issues with this game but I haven’t seen any that won’t be cleared out going forward. I enjoy this game very much, even more than I did GW1 (I really didn’t like the Mission system).

All in all it’s a masterpiece with new and innovative ideas that should be copied, emulated and embellished by future MMOs.

I love everything about the game, from the focus on exploration and variety, to the moment-to-moment game play, to the stunningly beautiful world, to the way ArenaNet is running things and realizing their goals and design philosophy so well and so consistently. I love the way they are handling their business model, and every day, I can’t wait to get back in game. Keep doing what you’re doing, ArenaNet! For the first time since 2003 when I left EQ…I’ve found a long-term home.

• The music

I turn down the effects and turn up the music and find myself humming along consistently.

• The world

Particularly impressed with the cities. I want to live in Divinity’s Reach IRL.

• WvW

So epic.

My favorite thing is that there’s no pressure to join a guild, or play with a holy trinity, just so you can play certain content. I can just run up to a dungeon, ask if anyone got a free spot in a party and join them, and then I’m good to go. But the best part is that after the dungeon is completed, I have shared an experience with complete strangers, which has ended up bonding us closer together. Everyone gets something positive out of it. That is the greatest strength of Guild Wars 2.

I’ve finally done Sorrow’s Embrace today with my brother, and i just have to add this to the list of ‘good things’: The last boss in Sorrow’s Embrace story mode, the fight is just awesome and extremely fun.

I absolutely love the jumping puzzles and platformjng, reminds me of the good ole banjo kazooie days!! The only down side is my keen eye for finding paths ends up taking me on a great many adventures to areas you’re not actually supposed to go to…. Like the very top of mount maelstrom, or into the watery abyss outside of the map lol….

Oh, not to mention the entire crafting system, absolutely love it!! I could go on more… But that’ll take up to much, let’s just say I’ve yet to find something I dislike…

Throwing axes for rangers.

Best idea EVER.

and, the charr story. <3 it.

edit: Bet you can guess my profession/race!

The things positive about the game….its now wow….its guild wars 2….and its 100% perfectly made….no problems at all haters and potatoes! its 100% perfection!

Just finished the Jumping puzzle in Lion’s Arch the Sharkmaw area… and I ended up laughing almost the entire time. I rp’ed with the ghost, and when I jumped over gaps and then got slammed to the ground by spears and he said, “Bet you didn’t see that one coming,” I died. It was great!

The last mission for the blood legion (level 10 I think) was amazing. Not only do you rebuild your warband, but then calling out sniper targets and mortar fire… I want to replay that mission a few more times just for kicks!

I really enjoy this game, and like many, have found very few things to complain about!

@Brutus

Yes. The blood legion missions are AWESOME.

I originally didn’t like the Charr race simply because of their horns, but now theyre my favorite race.

this is a good thing, the personal story of my norn ranger, i guess my crazy ranger got drunk with a charr, stole a charr chugger mobile and were last seen diving off the cannon into a lake, and now we have to find it, this story line was so funny

Overall World Design
Animation
Combat feels fresh
Nice music

Some of the Asura Male dialogue:
Level Up: “I’d like to thank my college and my krewe.”
Combat: You’re beaten you just don’t know it yet.

Some of the little touches. You can see other players running around during the vista cinematic and how water beads on the screen when you transition from underwater to surface.

I’m taken back by the shear elegance in the overall game design. The combat system is easily to learn, but provides extreme depth and concepts that could take a while to master fully. The fact that I can access mail and TP’s from anywhere in the game AND that the TP is global instead of server based. The leveling curve and the fact that just about anything I could possibly do grants a reasonable amount of XP. I’m taken back by how well all the mechanics and game systems work to compliment each other instead of acting as their own separate entities. From a design perspective, this game is a huge step forward, not just for the MMO genre, but for basic game design as a whole. I’d really love to see a postmortem down the line, as I’m sure it would be fascinating.

Let’s have a look as some of the stuff that happened to me in one evening’s play in Brisbane Wildlands (including a quick story instance in Kessex ):
Explored some beautiful and varied environments including a memorably creepy canyon. Lots of Hyenas, I swear it was a Lion King reference.
Pretended to be a bandit and poisoned their food.
Chased a ghost, aggroed a couple of spiders and had a massive solo battle, made it with a few HP left.
Fought a bunch of critters some crazy Asura kept releasing through an experimental gate.
Fought an impressive sweeping battle with several other players to take down three enemy camps. The their bosses. By the end of it we’d got some nice combo moves down.
Piloted a mini golem to blow up a bunch of undead with mines.
Explored, gathered, crafted, etc.
Genuinely laughed at some of the one-liners that permeate the game.

All of this in one play session, not lasting much longer than two hours. This is not a grindy MMO. This is a beautiful co-op adventure action RPG set in a persistent world and I’m loving it!

Sin.8174:

BAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oh man.. I did the same thing in my first WvW match…

We just raided a keep and got swarmed pretty fast. I saw a mesmer and guardian lock onto me, so I ran as fast as my little booty would take me. Get to a cliff, look down and said to myself ‘Better to take myself out than let them get me’… I plummeted to my death, and just before I went to rez… BLAM.. here come my two enemies right beside me. xD

As for myself, there’s a lotof things that I love about this game, but I think the one thing I find most fun.. is the lack of ‘invisible walls’. I often find myself climbing onto ANYTHING that I can. Finding hidden ways up the sideof a mountain, or exploring Divinity’s Reach via rooftop travel. (I’ve died a lot trying that!)

I also like how much control you have while jumping. I often find myself practicing my jumping skills. Hard to get vistas, jumping puzzles, whatever.. I have a knack for doing it as fast as possible, even if I die a few times trying. It’s tons of fun.

I love that, and it’s one of the reasons I have the death from above trait that has warriors take 1/2 fall damage.

I jump off a cliff, they see I lived and jump off too. They go splat and I dance on their corpses.

What I’ve found is that it’s a mob mentality in the forums. By the end of reading the forums for a while, I can end up really ticked off at ANet for whatever laundry list of things people have been whining about.

Then I actually fire up the game, play for an hour, and the bliss returns. Yeah there are issues, but this game is FRACKING FUN! Once I realized this was happening, I can now rise above the forum ranting and remember that once I actually play the game, I have an absolute blast doing it.

So, my “good things” are:

The environments are so rich and beautiful (with the possible exception of Orr, which is a tad repetitive and depressing).

The automatic social aspect of the game is….amazing. When i used to play WoW, it was like…OH MAN SOMEONE IS ACTUALLY PLAYING THROUGH THIS CONTENT WITH ME INSTEAD OF TRYING TO STEAL ALL MY STUFF! Now it’s totally commonplace for random groups of 2-5 to just appear out of nowhere from fellow players joining up with you, and then disintegrate after a few minutes when you’re all done doing whatever you were doing.

The Lore and RP. The game begs for RP and makes it easy to get into character. Every race has a history that is very easy to pick up on and learn, even if you didn’t play GW1.

No level grind. You can get to lvl 79-80 pretty much just as fast as you got from lvl 15-16. Leveling is mostly linear, and it doesn’t take a very long time to do. It seems that it’s mainly there so you “must” explore the content on your way to 80. New characters in other MMOs have traditionally taken months to get to the level cap, and it turns into a real grind by the time it’s done.

The guild system is freaking brilliant. Why didn’t anyone think of this before? Multiple guilds only make sense! (sorry if this is a carryover from another game, but it’s new to me.)

Guesting into the personal instances is great.

The way the classes are set up, so you can succeed using any particular class, is great. Once you learn the play style of your class, they’re very balanced.

I think the class structure, DEs, and downscaling really make this game unique. Once more DEs and incentives are added, I think the downscaling and combat are really going to shine.