Guild Wars 2

Akiko.2364:

people calling this a buggy mess must be very new to MMO’s …

I think back to the first few months of Everquest 1, and 2.. DOAC, WoW, Lineage2, AoC, Vanguard, WAR… this launch has been remarkably solid and bug free.

Indeed. And more recently, SWTOR. That was in a far worse state than GW2 in the first few months. This has been a very smooth launch overall.

Would not recommend this game to a friend or anyone on gaming forums.

Kana.6793:

Indeed. And more recently, SWTOR. That was in a far worse state than GW2 in the first few months. This has been a very smooth launch overall.

You obviously weren’t there for the ToR launch so please don’t state something when you weren’t there or build lies because ToR had an incredibly smooth launch. Was there for Beta, early access launch and day 1 and beyond of launch. The servers never crashed. Had no lag issues. Didn’t see any game breaking bugs or issues. No rubber banding. Able to do 99% of the quests. No account issues etc.

So please do tell how ToR was in far worse shape. I won’t deny there were bugs but which game doesn’t at launch? GW2 had just as many but GW2 was far worse. Tons of bots to add to the mix too. Overall GW2 wasn’t a bad launch though but to say ToR was far worse shows you weren’t there for launch. If YOU had issues then that was just you. Also class balances in GW2 are horrible and has been since launch. ToR’s wasn’t even close to out of balance as GW2 is.

The only other smooth launch was Rift.

No, I would not recommend the game. That’s not to say that I haven’t gotten my money’s worth out of the game, because I have. My fundamental issues have to do with the distinct lack of faith in ArenaNet’s ability to fix numerous class bugs and being very unclear / unsure about where they want GW2 to go. After everything that has shaken out from the various things associated or introduced with the Lost Shore weekend, I’m finding that I really have no clue about how GW2 will look in 3 months and the Reddit AMA did absolutely nothing to clarify that.

Would I recommend the game in 3 or 6 months from now? Maybe. I’d need to see how things work themselves out over the coming months before I put my personal reputation on the line by endorsing the game to people I know. If ArenaNet can put up a consistent set of actions over the next half of a year and quickly squash the numerous class breaking bugs (which are far more important than resolving buggy Dynamic Events), then I’d probably recommend the game to people based on their specific tastes. This doesn’t neccessarily mean that GW2 would still be the game for me at that time, but I could see myself making a recommendation for a well done MMO.

I have recommended it to many and will continue to do so, despite my reservations about the Ascended gear. I have had (and continue to have) a ton of fun with the game. It has been well worth the box price.

As for the gear grind threat: Not only is it too soon to tell how gear progression will factor into the game in the long run, but I don’t assume that everyone else has the same negative reaction to it that I do. So, yes, I would recommend the game without reservation.

deborah.2068:

No I wouldnt as has been stated by soo many too many bugs and Anets throws in new dungeon and new tier of gear instead of fixing the game content they have out there. They think telling you we are working on that issue be patient will surfice. I see alot of talking and nothing being done except new content. Yes nodes are made available but the amount of materiel you need is excessive. Its just too grindy and the one feature I would have recommend to friends is gone that everyone was on even footing now to be the best you have to grind a dungeon. So just too many negatives in the game not enough positives there to sell the game on

I’ve only been playing since Sunday. I haven’t hit any bugs yet, so what kind of stuff do you encounter? One of the things that recently annoyed me greatly in WoW was the fact that throughout MoP there are tons upon tons of quests that completely bug out badly if you do them in a group (me and my wife level characters together so we hit tons of them).

One of my rules of online gaming these days is actually simple… I don’t seek to be the best anymore. No matter what gear I have there, there are always going to be people that are better then me… just as there are going to be people that are worse then me. Most of the time, changes in how I play will make a more significant difference in what happens then changing around my gear to be slightly better.

You don’t need to be the best. I know that Blizzard balance the first raid around having an ilvl of 463, even though it is possible to have a much higher ilvl (so better gear).

I would hope that ArenaNet would balance along a similar lines. I would hope that if they add more Acended, that future content additions are still balanced along the lines of a player having Exotic (what I would consider the average player to have). The people will full Ascended… maybe it will be slightly easier for them.

Yep… and the gear will effect PvP. But again, there are going to be people that are going to be better then me and there are people that are going to be worst. I will never be the best.

Once I got out of my head that I had to be the best, all the grinding and all the other stuff, stopped being an issue. I just played for fun.

I think that the fact that the game doesn’t have a sub made people a lot more forgiving towards the launch of this game, but it has been as broken or worse as any other MMO launch I’ve seen myself.

Now MMOs are tough from a development point of view so I do feel that some space needs to be given to developers because not all problems can be foreseen nor are they always easy to fix.

Still, I do think GW2 does have a number of things that really need to be working. I’ve heard of buggy mobs and bosses in all MMOs, but complete dungeons that are bugged like Arah so that people can’t actually complete their story is one example of something that should not be.

GW2 did not have a smooth launch but there were enough alternatives to level. Sadly by going to different areas of different races I kinda killed the replay value for me at the same time.

When I just add it all together it doesn’t work for me. Therefore I won’t tell anyone to try it and if they ask I will tell them it’s at their own risk.

Wiser with Age.3714:

Would I recommend the game in 3 or 6 months from now?

This is an interesting question. Without monthly subs, it is like we have lifetime subscriptions. We get a little tired of the shenanigans, just take a break for a month or three. You can pop back in and see where the game is going without really losing anything.

Maybe the OP’s question could be reworded to ask “Would you recommend buying a lifetime subscription for $60?”. I wonder how that would change a potential buyer’s decision?

bojangles.6912:

Kana.6793:

Indeed. And more recently, SWTOR. That was in a far worse state than GW2 in the first few months. This has been a very smooth launch overall.

You obviously weren’t there for the ToR launch so please don’t state something when you weren’t there or build lies because ToR had an incredibly smooth launch. Was there for Beta, early access launch and day 1 and beyond of launch. The servers never crashed. Had no lag issues. Didn’t see any game breaking bugs or issues. No rubber banding. Able to do 99% of the quests. No account issues etc.

So please do tell how ToR was in far worse shape. I won’t deny there were bugs but which game doesn’t at launch? GW2 had just as many but GW2 was far worse. Tons of bots to add to the mix too. Overall GW2 wasn’t a bad launch though but to say ToR was far worse shows you weren’t there for launch. If YOU had issues then that was just you. Also class balances in GW2 are horrible and has been since launch. ToR’s wasn’t even close to out of balance as GW2 is.

The only other smooth launch was Rift.

I was in the SWTOR beta and I started playing during pre-order access. The framerate spiked all over the place even on high end systems, there were huge threads about the strange drops in FPS when entering warzones. There was an issue with the game rendering stuttering (easily demonstrated by jumping and opening your bags – this caused you to hang in mid air momentarily). There were memory leak issues after playing for long sessions, many threads about BSOD’s. There were gamebreaking bugs in the operations – for example, the pylons becoming unlickable resulting in that boss sometimes being impossible to complete, the Soa fight had many bugs most notably the one where the floor didn’t appear meaning you couldn’t fight him. There was a bug at Gharj which randomly killed everyone in the operation. They also had long maintenance downtime, sometimes multiple times a week. There were broken Ilum dailies. Some of the class quests couldn’t be completed. As for class balance, they had entire warzones containing only sorcerers.

And here is a screenshot of Soa with his floor missing, taken in January.

xiede.8543:

I’ve only been playing since Sunday. I haven’t hit any bugs yet, so what kind of stuff do you encounter? One of the things that recently annoyed me greatly in WoW was the fact that throughout MoP there are tons upon tons of quests that completely bug out badly if you do them in a group (me and my wife level characters together so we hit tons of them).

Some of the major known bugs include:

1) Class Bugs – A lot of Skills or Traits are buggy. Every class has a few that just flat out don’t work either 100% of the time, only work with specific weapon combinations (which is not indicated by the Trait’s text), or inconsistently bug out. There should be a sticked thread near the top of each Class Forum that lists those bugs. In particular, a few classes are know for having an extreme amount of bugs. Those buggy classes have gotten partially cleaned up since launch, but have remained mostly remained unresolved.

2) Personal Story Bugs – Many people like to play together. One of the known issues is that once you get into one of the Secret Societies (which is chosen at around lvl 30 in each player’s Personal Story), you can severely bug your fellow player out if they let you join them in their Personal Story instance. While there will be no problems if you’re part of Secret Society #1 and they’re part of Secret Society #2, it’s a real problem if you’re both in Secret Society #1 (or any other choice). One person’s choices in the Personal Story instance that they control will causes bugs in the other player’s instance when you try to help them since your own previous choices try to override the choices that they’re actively trying to make. <If you make sure that you’re in different Secret Societies, then you can avoid this issue.>

3) Dynamic Event bugs – Some of the game’s Dynamic Events (DEs) are notorious for bugging out. They’ll get locked into a position when they still look like they’re functioning, but you can’t update the DE’s current objective. Often these bugged events will also prevent people from failing. These events end up in a kind of limbo status which prevents them from restarting. While not a major issue for some of the more minor DEs, there are a few notable ones in the final zones of the game that interfere with gameplay since you need to complete these events. (Sometimes people need to access a special vendor that only spawns after the DE is completed. This covers the Temple of Balthazar in the Straits of Devastation zone. Or you might need to finish the DE to cause the next DE in the chain to spawn, which is neccessary for you being able to access some of the dungeon instances.)

xiede.8543:

deborah.2068:

No I wouldnt as has been stated by soo many too many bugs and Anets throws in new dungeon and new tier of gear instead of fixing the game content they have out there. They think telling you we are working on that issue be patient will surfice. I see alot of talking and nothing being done except new content. Yes nodes are made available but the amount of materiel you need is excessive. Its just too grindy and the one feature I would have recommend to friends is gone that everyone was on even footing now to be the best you have to grind a dungeon. So just too many negatives in the game not enough positives there to sell the game on

I’ve only been playing since Sunday. I haven’t hit any bugs yet, so what kind of stuff do you encounter? One of the things that recently annoyed me greatly in WoW was the fact that throughout MoP there are tons upon tons of quests that completely bug out badly if you do them in a group (me and my wife level characters together so we hit tons of them).

One of my rules of online gaming these days is actually simple… I don’t seek to be the best anymore. No matter what gear I have there, there are always going to be people that are better then me… just as there are going to be people that are worse then me. Most of the time, changes in how I play will make a more significant difference in what happens then changing around my gear to be slightly better.

You don’t need to be the best. I know that Blizzard balance the first raid around having an ilvl of 463, even though it is possible to have a much higher ilvl (so better gear).

I would hope that ArenaNet would balance along a similar lines. I would hope that if they add more Acended, that future content additions are still balanced along the lines of a player having Exotic (what I would consider the average player to have). The people will full Ascended… maybe it will be slightly easier for them.

Yep… and the gear will effect PvP. But again, there are going to be people that are going to be better then me and there are people that are going to be worst. I will never be the best.

Once I got out of my head that I had to be the best, all the grinding and all the other stuff, stopped being an issue. I just played for fun.

i myself have saw challenge skills bugged out that i have revist several times in month period before it was working properly on revist to same challenge with another toon and it is bugged out yet again friends have told me of rogue and mesmer issues in wvw they have yet to be fixed they asked my opinion i gave it i m sure if you look thro the forums you can find more
ps it was more then one challenge skill that this happened on but i would have to say its like the annoying bug wow had on their brewfest race game just annoying but easily skippable but theirs was a holiday event gone in a week or two and this in game content for gw2

Yes. If a friend of mine is going to play this type of game (MMOG), I would recommend GW2 because I believe it is the best game of its type.

I would and I did. During the freebie tryouts, we brought 2 long time gamer friends from EQ2 to here. They played for a few hours and promptly purchased the game.

Pre-Bot ban when material costs were acceptable and before the implementation of Ascended gear as well as the diminished returns on Dynamic Events: Yes!!!

Now? No…I don’t believe the game will keep a strong enough populace to keep them entertained. They did get me looking at ArcheAge, even though it’s the “ever-loved” korean mmorpg, and what looks like a combat style from early 2002, it appears to be sandboxy enough to hop over to. GW2 is free to play though so it’s not like I’d be dropping a sub. However, buying from the gem store with rl cash out of the question until I see gw2 having some longevity.

Would not recommend in fact I’ve told people to avoid this game.

Rack.4930:

I already have, and was forced to rescind those recommendations. Fortunately everyone realised I made them in good faith. I’d originally called it an MMO without the grind but I just can’t hold on to that without a wishy-washy “doesn’t really have too bad a grind at the moment and the devs insist it won’t get one but then they claimed all gear would be even and they went back on that 3 months in. It comes down to trust and I can’t see any reason to do so. Maybe give it a go but don’t get your hopes up”

Personally I believe people stop because they got bored because they had nothing to do they felt worth doing. Imho I believe more people stopped because of easy obtained goals. I remember being level 40ish in the first 2 weeks and people where already 80.

Would I recommend? Sure I would, it is still nicely casual and it is worth its money.

Chamone.6890:

“Don’t bother, they’ve started to introduce new gear with higher stats, it’s World of Warcraft all over again. Stay away from it man.”

I would be OK with this if the rest of the game was as engaging as other MMOs. I also gave up years of progression in another MMO for GW2, and did it for the same reason (get off the gear treadmill). I’ve played MMOs since the 1990s and was hoping that GW2 was going to be the heir to DAoC’s RvR.

I like my Asura, a lot. I like the skins I’ve earned for him and the dyes I’ve worked for. I think I’ve gotten pretty good at my build. I like that ArenaNet enforces their behavior standards (witnessing that was worth the price of the game).

Some of the things I’d change:
- more responsive attack commands
- a wardrobe
- /target functionality
- moveable UI objects
- STOP adding every player I search for to “friends”
- telephone support
- character recovery
- add comment field to “report” functionality
- full right-click menu on players in WvW
- implement DAoC’s web-based RvR scoreboard (keep status, player stats, etc)
- implement some kind of Guild WvW ranking system

I’m sure there’s more ideas out there.

Chamone.6890:

Gnatoay.7581:

nach how would you know if your friend liked grinding or not?

I lost my relationship with my brother because he was addicted to EVE and could not socialise outside of the game. My best friend lost his girlfriend to her WoW guild. I’ve been there myself, my relationship with my own girlfriend almost broke down because I was logged in every waking hour that I was not at work, and she felt like the game was more important to me than she was. The terrifying thing is, on some level, she was right. Luckily I snapped out of it before it went too far. I’m sure we’ve all got stories like this.

Well I have a story opposite of yours. I found the love of my life because of gaming, my future profession is there because of gaming. Gaming is just a hobby. A hobby like any other hobby. It’s not more dangerous than getting addicted to watching TV or reading books.
I used to be really lonely growing up here. All of my childhood friends went to partying, drinking, smoking when they were 10. I did not share these interests. I felt pretty lonely and unable to find anyone to talk to. I liked gaming. Decided to start let’s playing. There was another person on youtube filming Nightmare Creatures, so I sent him my video, so he could feature it and maybe get me some views. We started messaging and well that’s my boyfriend now. We’ve been together for 3 years now. I learned more about hardware and software. Fell in love with programming. It was the subject that I did the best on in school. In half a year I’m going to study game design and programing in a university. I hope to be a game programmer in the future. We both spend 4 hours gaming together daily in the evening. It helps us relax and is something that we do together.

Of course I would and do! Why wouldn’t you tell people about the best game on the market? The problem is getting them on the same server as me cause the game is so populated and popular.

I would- pretty dedicated PvE player as opposed to taking on other players (would want to someday though) and so far, it’s been a kitten good game. Invited two friends already, for RP reasons and just for fun.

Never read the Manifesto. Played GW1, I wasn’t looking for anything revolutionary- I just wanted a fun game, and I got what I want. I’m not very happy about Ascended myself, and I really hope they stya true to what they said at AMA and help fix that mess. I feel if they make it much, much easier to get, and it’s only truly required for Fractal, I don’t see the problem. You need Aquabreathers to play underwater, don’t ya? It’s a reality for Fractal. That being said, I think when the full release for Ascended comes, it shouldn’t be /too/ strong.

It’s a great game. And even if peopel are upset, it really grinds my gears when people play over 200 hours then demand thier money back. Kitten you. If you want to shelf it and never play it again, fine, more server space for everybody else. But really? Demanding your money back after so much time played? I bought Brink, hated it, didn’t demand my cash back.

But, yes. Very, very, very fun game. And in the end, that’s what’s most important. I absolutely recommend it.

Also, nice title- really made me think this was just gonna be an innocent question as opposed to rant.

Absolutely I would recommend it – and I have!

Stellar game, solid contender for PC game of the year.
Great value, no sub fee and free content patches every month.

My brother that use to play WoW just bought it yesterday when I told him he could pvp at 80 immediately without leveling or gearing up. He hasn’t come out of WvW yet.

Yes. Recent games played/purchaced:

D3: $60 ~100 hours. Liked it for lore, recommend….meh.
Portal 2: $50 ~20 hours. Absolutely loved it, reccomend….YES!!
GW2: $70 ~760 hours. Even if I never played it again, I’d say I got my moneys worth.

That’s about $0.09 per hour. I’d like anyone to find me an activity cheaper than that. (My hobby is breathing, does not count)

in a heartbeat! have friends playing it still. and more are on the way

we don’t care about the so called gear treadmill. or how lost shores ruined the game for you. we are still having fun playing the game and that’s all that matters to us

bugs are fixable. (good lord people give them time)

its a game. if u have fun playing it that’s all that matters

Before the Fractals debacle, absolutely! Now… I’m not so sure. I’ll have to see what direction Anet takes the game in first.

No, I would not. I talked a friend of mine into pre-purchase so we could play the early access betas. After the formal release and playing for several weeks it became incredibly boring for me. PVE leveling was as much of a grind for me as WoW was. The WvWvW was simply a matter of US winning during the day when Europe was asleep and then when we wake up and Europe goes to bed we win. There was very little of these epic large scale PvP battles. Beautiful game graphically but the actual playing itself is just not for me at all. I honestly haven’t played in well over a month-and-a-half. No dungeon finder, the dungeons I did run required little to no strategy. It was simply a matter of facerolling your 5 attacks and hope the RNG aggro gods didn’t select you as the target.

Not anymore. I did recommend $10 Torchlight 2 to a bunch of friends though during the Steam sale and now I can play that with them.

I recommended this game to a close gaming friend I have had over a year.

He played the game less than two weeks, and during that time, he kept making up excuses for why he was logging out after having only been in game for 20 or so minutes. At first, I figured he wasn’t into the game, because it was so ‘new’ and figured he needed time. I knew he was sneaking back to play the game we had come from, but I didn’t pester him.

After two weeks, I asked how he was enjoying GW2, and he said that he didn’t really care for it. He tried, but he couldn’t get into it and wasn’t having a lot of fun. I said told him that was ok, and thanked him for trying.

That was the last convo we ever had. He never came back to GW2 and even when I’ve tried talking to him outside GW2 (since I don’t play anymore) he gave short, terse answers and I dropped the matter entirely.

I felt that GW2 made me lose a friend, and since I would never recommend this game to anyone else. Not if I value my friendships.

I would definitely recommend it, but not necessarily as a “long term” game.

Depending on the person’s preferences and play style, the game might not be one they want to play for the long term — that is, it is not suited to be their MMO “home”. But regardless, I think this game is a good value for the purchase price, and you can get many hours of fun from it!

I can’t help but chuckle when I read people saying stuff like ‘they already said in the AMA they are going to do this or that.’ You all are cheap dates. You may recall they said a whole lot of stuff leading up to release that is all out the window now. It doesn’t matter to me what they say at this point, I will never believe them again. That’s the thing about trust. It’s hard to earn, easy to lose and kitten near impossible to get back when you do lose it. They have lost my trust and I could not in good conscience recommend the game to anyone without warning them that it’s just another gear grinder MMO now.

Yes, I would. This game release with far fewer bugs then recent titles have for many years…

This notion that a game has to be perfect and bug free at release is rubbish. And the people in here saying things like oh they release new content they don’t care about broken bugs…. ya well little do you know its not as simple as grabbing a bug and fixing the problem. None of you stating such things have no idea the amount of systems and complex coding involved with a game like this…. its not as simple as oh look this npc isn’t talking going in and flipping a switch lol.

They also have seperate teams… content creation and the people working on fixing bugs… its only logical to deduce that the team creating new content keeps working on new content while the guys assigned to fix bugs work on their assignment. Throwing 10 devs at a problem doesn’t mean it will get fixed any faster then the 2-3 devs that are solely assigned to fix the problem.

I beta test 3d software, and I will tell you right now when I bug something the dev in charge of that system be it rendering, preview, modeling etc etc. Tackles the bug himself… having the other devs from other areas would likely complicate his work and time to fix the bug.

Some of you need to get off your high horses and try walking a mile in other peoples shoes. because no one is perfect.

You want a buggy mess? Try playing wow…. I remember at launch you couldn’t play for days at a time because it was so broken. New xpac…. ya might as well not login for a day or two as servers were likely to be broken and down for maintance for 24 hours or more…. yet its the most popular game in the world….. makes billions off sub fees…. yet they can’t get maintance and new patches going smoothly….. and you harp on Anet for the few bugs it has that aren’t even that bad lol.

Osprey.6587:

I can’t help but chuckle when I read people saying stuff like ‘they already said in the AMA they are going to do this or that.’ You all are cheap dates. You may recall they said a whole lot of stuff leading up to release that is all out the window now. It doesn’t matter to me what they say at this point, I will never believe them again. That’s the thing about trust. It’s hard to earn, easy to lose and kitten near impossible to get back when you do lose it. They have lost my trust and I could not in good conscience recommend the game to anyone without warning them that it’s just another gear grinder MMO now.

How was it earned??? By you watching PR videos leading up to release? lol please.

Thats like going out on a date with a guy you have heard about and him whispering sweet nothings in your ear all night.

Its not a gear grinder mmo, its almost like you want it to be just so you can sit there satisfied that you were right… but basing your opinion on things that have yet come to pass….. well its a bit ignorant dont you think. Them adding ONE tier of gear does not make this a gear treadmill. Now if in 4-6 months they come out with another tier pat yourself on the back. but until that happens… well.

Chamone.6890:

I and all of my freinds have played MMOs. Whether they were EVE, WoW, Runescape, SWOTR or some other game.

All of us, myself included, have stopped playing our MMOs because we were sick and tired of “Vertical Progression”. We were sick of chasing that carrot, and watching meaningless numbers slowly grow bigger and bigger. It took us a few years, and for some of us it took us a few MMOs, but we’re over that style of game, we never want to play a gear grind ever again.

We’re not unusual or unique. Most players I talk to share this mindset. Sometimes it’s painful, uncomfortable or difficult for people to admit they wasted some the best years of their life chasing a sword that increased their damage output by 0.5%, but in the end everyone feels cheated and hateful towards their old MMOs.

I hope you don’t think I’m exaggerating when I say that Gear Grind is addictive, demoralising and can lead to some really complex and frigtening emotions and behaviours. It can break up relationships, and in some cases even lead to real-life violence. It’s a despicable plague upon gaming, and brings the whole industry into disrepute.
You might think these incidents are far-fetched or unique, but they are the ultimate product of Gear Grind mentality, and are frighteningly common.

This is why there was such a wave of excitement when Arenanet released their “Manifesto” to the press. Would this FINALLY be the MMO that broke the mould? That did away with “Grinding”? It certainly appeared to be the case.

And it was. The beta weekends confirmed everything in the Manifesto, casual-friendly difficulty, stuff for hardcore people to do, and an easy-to-attain stat cap.

It was, for want of a better word, perfect. Sales went through the roof. The internet was abuzz, Youtube was flooded with videos of players having an awesome time, free from the tyranny of gear grind. The game was SO POPULAR that Arenanet actually had to close down sales on their own website for a while to be able to cope with demand. The success of the game was absolutely unprecedented.

For months now, I have been convincing and persuading my friends to buy Guild Wars 2. The game is so much more fun with friends, and I wanted them to see that MMOs had changed, it was no longer a competition to see who could play the longest, grind out the most mats, thoerycraft the highest numbers, it was about having FUN and being competitive on a level playing field.
“Come to Tyria, it’s different!” I said.
“You only need to get to 80 and buy 1 set of gear, then you’re set!” I said.
“World Vs World is AWESOME fun, and you don’t need to grind to play it!” I said.
I’ve given out free trial keys, I’ve pimped the game in the forums, I’ve asked people I don’t even like to try it on Facebook.
I had followed every blog post, read every interview, watched every video, I thought I knew what Guild Wars 2 was about. I thought I saw a pioneering young game company bringing something amazing to the world, which had the chance to actually do the unthinkable and topple WoW from it’s throne.
In October, my world was shaken. I saw a simple picture posted by someone I’d never heard of before called Lindsey. It seemed to show a new item available in Guild Wars 2, a simple ring with some magic find stats.
WHAT? WHAT WAS THIS. The game I loved, the game I treasured, the game I logged over 300 hours playing and enjoying every minute of was introducing a new tier of items, with slightly, EVERY SO SLIGHTLY higher numbers on it than what I already had.
And I was supposed to be “excited” by this?
Well yes I was excited. I was so kitten excited I immediately called my friend who was going to relent to my incessant pestering for him to buy the game and told him not to.
“Don’t bother, they’ve started to introduce new gear with higher stats, it’s World of Warcraft all over again. Stay away from it man.”
So would I recommend Guild Wars 2 to a friend? Well before October I not only would but did. I reccomended it to everyone I possibly could and practically begged them to buy it and come play with me.
Now, I would feel like a drug pusher, getting them hooked on their first little taste of Vertical Progression crack.
No, I won’t be recommending it to anyone in future. They might get stabbed, or starve to death at their computer screen.
Shame on you all.

Still beating that dead horse? Yes I would recommend GW2. Stop assuming just because they released Ascended gear it will continue. They have already made a statement on that. You will not see another tier after the ascended.. To many players jump to conclusions with their assumptions and acted undignified and hateful over the gear which was unwarranted.. Months ahead had they added another tier then I would say the outburst is then warranted. People need to learn patience. I will still continued to recommend GW2.

So many in this thread say no and act like they hate the game…yet stick around?
It’s ok. No one is paying a sub, so enjoy.

And yes, I would recommend it to a friend.

Yes I would. It is the best game in a long time.
It marks a returned to pre-WoW MMOs
It’s free for monthly fee.
Gameplay is great

I have recommended it to friends and I would again. I am not impressed with the design shift of adding gear creep beyond exotics (legendaries don’t count) and I’m not impressed with instanced/Gated endgame when Dynamic Events/Meta Events could still be improved. Even post Lost Shores patch I would still recommend the game to casual gaming friends that would take their time levelling multiple characters and exploring all the game has to offer at a reasonable pace. Out of the friends that I did recommend the game to, the ones that left are the ones that I used to raid with in WoW. The reason they left? It wasn’t because there was no gear progression, in fact it was because they didn’t want to grind through 80 levels or even the progression of gear from masterwork to exotic. They want the challenge but they don’t want the artificial vertical progression anymore, they don’t want tokens to buy gear.

I am still content and happy with the game, but I know deep down that it’s longevity is short-lived. Only a sandbox/themepark hybrid that completely revolves around community driven content will have the longevity to last. When the gear treadmill/power creep in GW2 becomes necessary to participate I will say my goodbyes. Until then I will enjoy it for what it is.

I would recommend it to anyone looking for a casual MMO experience. It’s lack of subscription makes it attractive to those without much free time on their hands and can also be played alongside another (maybe subscription) MMO for those that do.

This is not a troll but it will be infracted as one! Boycott NCSoft! We deserve to know why our games go offline! Save City of Heroes and City of Villains!!!

Just going to keep this short and sweet; No, I would not suggest this game to any of my friends online or offline.

I enjoyed GW2 for a short while, but for me the game quickly became repetitive as well as unfun. I invited friends along for the ride with the free trial, and they just didn’t seem impressed.

This game was a lot of fun at the beginning, but after seeing how many of the classes end up becoming two to three button mashers, dynamic events glitch out / become so repetitive I just run by them, and heart quests are the same go-gather-this type of quest; the game just really lost its magic on me.

I understand other people are still enjoying this game, and that’s great. These are just my personal experiences wrong or right, this is my opinion.

EDIT: I would like to add I honestly believe this game will be the game it promised to be in probably 1-2yrs time. Personally, I really disliked GW1 Proph for similar reasons, and I noticed a trend quickly within ArenaNet’s development. It takes time for ANet to warm up, but when they do great things occur. Nightfall, and Eye of the North are still (imho) the best experiences I’ve had in Guild Wars 1. Once ANet gets their rhythm with GW2, my answer will most likely change.

I would feel like I’m cheating my friends out of their hard earned money on a game that has become boring/buggy/kindergarden paintings are better than some zones.

Akiko.2364:

people calling this a buggy mess must be very new to MMO’s …

I think back to the first few months of Everquest 1, and 2.. DOAC, WoW, Lineage2, AoC, Vanguard, WAR… this launch has been remarkably solid and bug free.

It’s not 2005 anymore. That type of unpolished, messy launch doesn’t fly these days, not when MMOs are a dime a dozen and you’re launching into a market saturated by mature and polished competitors. You could get away with that 7 or 8 years ago if you had a fun underlying game because your only other option was really Everquest, but players are a lot less patient these days with unfamiliar IPs that aren’t clean and polished from the start. Guild Wars 2 got a big bump from Guild Wars players, but now they need to pull new people in and I don’t think new people will tolerate the bugs since they have nothing else invested in the lore already like most of the rest of us.

I didn’t really think Guild Wars 2 was that bad for a new MMO until the LS event but that mess has made me completely rethink my position on the game. I worry that GW2 will go the same way GW1 did: lots of weaknesses, limitations and options for improvement suggested but very few implemented, and the ones that get implemented I worry will be kitten.

So, now, no. I would not recommend it. I’ve never felt Anet was particularly responsive or good at advancing their game beyond its initial promise and until I see evidence that’s changed I think I’d be reticent to suggest anyone else get invested in it with me.

Anet is good at launching a game with a lot of promise, but they’re not good at following through on that promise and taking a good game at launch into a long-lasting great game.

Won’t recommend. The game has become WoW lite and people will be better off playing WoW.

Namu.5712:

Osprey.6587:

I can’t help but chuckle when I read people saying stuff like ‘they already said in the AMA they are going to do this or that.’ You all are cheap dates. You may recall they said a whole lot of stuff leading up to release that is all out the window now. It doesn’t matter to me what they say at this point, I will never believe them again. That’s the thing about trust. It’s hard to earn, easy to lose and kitten near impossible to get back when you do lose it. They have lost my trust and I could not in good conscience recommend the game to anyone without warning them that it’s just another gear grinder MMO now.

How was it earned??? By you watching PR videos leading up to release? lol please.

Thats like going out on a date with a guy you have heard about and him whispering sweet nothings in your ear all night.

You’ll have to forgive me if I took their previous body of work in GW1, combined that with what they were saying about GW2 and thought they were telling the truth in those videos, blogs and interviews.

Its not a gear grinder mmo, its almost like you want it to be just so you can sit there satisfied that you were right… but basing your opinion on things that have yet come to pass….. well its a bit ignorant dont you think. Them adding ONE tier of gear does not make this a gear treadmill. Now if in 4-6 months they come out with another tier pat yourself on the back. but until that happens… well.

Would you care to wager on whether or not this will turn into an ongoing treadmill? Logic dictates that if they thought having vertical progression was necessary in the first place to keep people interested (obviously they did since they added it) then having ongoing vertical progression is also necessary to continue to hold their interest. It may never be called anything other than Ascended just like WoW epics are still called epics but the numbers will go higher. I have zero doubts about that.

Meh… it’s okay, room for lots of improvement, especially in areas like event scaling. The new dungeon is pretty decent, although I never did like the idea of, and still do not like how they implemented agony and the stat progression that came along with it. I personally like games that rely on player skill, not some arbitrary stat to do well.

Would I recommend it? Maybe. If someone asked me I would say that its worth giving a shot, but otherwise I wouldn’t bring it up in most cases. If they bring in some good content for the open world elements of the game here in the next month or so I might.

i can’t bring myself to promote this game to friends. then again, i really don’t have any friends besides the ones in my guild that take me into dungeons every night

i tried to get my brother to play more, but after 5 hours, i think he’s given up, because he cannot join stormbluff, and has not been able to for 2 weeks. i really doubt he is trying, anyways, but small stuff like that kind of breaks it for me. “hey come join me in this awesome game, but we can only chat with each other because i am on another server, and you have to wait for it to free up spots to attempt to join me. see you when your 80…maybe.” can’t really go help him either, because i don’t want to risk losing my spot on the server after i change.

i found a small niche of players i like to hang out with in game, so i guess all the people i want to play with are alreakitteneping me happy. until they leave. they are nice people, and are cool with my noobishness.

Orr seems to have been drained of most life besides DE farming, so i cannot get my guardian to Melandru’s temple to get my next piece of exotic armor there. i tried to solo it, but i just can’t do it. every time i try i lose a bit of motivation to play, so i avoid that area mostly now, and focus on dailies to keep me invested every day, hoping the temple will become uncontested long enough for me to get what i need. and maybe by then i will have enough karma.

my guild friends want to do fractals, so i welcome the challenge it will bring.

rgrwng.4072:

Orr seems to have been drained of most life besides DE farming, so i cannot get my guardian to Melandru’s temple to get my next piece of exotic armor there. i tried to solo it, but i just can’t do it. every time i try i lose a bit of motivation to play, so i avoid that area mostly now, and focus on dailies to keep me invested every day, hoping the temple will become uncontested long enough for me to get what i need. and maybe by then i will have enough karma.

Yea, this kind of stinks too. I tried doing Southsun but it seems like a largely pointless area, so I went back to Orr and there’s nobody there since they’re all in LA/FotM. Most of the time all but one or two early WPs are contested and there are impassable champs running amok because nobody is around to drop them.

Really demoralizing that the old 80 zone is unplayable because of no population and the new 80 zone has no population because nobody understands what it’s there for.

No. Before the Lost Shores, Guild Wars was a good game worth of it’s legacy. No longer.

Would not recommend this game to anyone and matter of fact have told the truth about this game on many forums.

1. WvW has no point, no rewards, no RP’s, it gets boring real fast.

2. New gear treadmill that splits up the playerbase and whats the deal with the fract levels? silliness

3. These forums are draconian, thats a bad sign, Warhammer was like that before the crash, good games have nothing to hide.

4. The no farming policy, why? I just dont get it, alot of people like to do that stuff.

5. The Ranger (my main) was nerfed into oblivion months ago and apparently anet doesnt care, well if you dont care i dont care, not the only game on the block.

Yes I would, as I enjoy the game.

I’m sorry, I’m not joining this massive “This game is terrible” circle jerk.

Namu.5712:

Osprey.6587:

I can’t help but chuckle when I read people saying stuff like ‘they already said in the AMA they are going to do this or that.’ You all are cheap dates. You may recall they said a whole lot of stuff leading up to release that is all out the window now. It doesn’t matter to me what they say at this point, I will never believe them again. That’s the thing about trust. It’s hard to earn, easy to lose and kitten near impossible to get back when you do lose it. They have lost my trust and I could not in good conscience recommend the game to anyone without warning them that it’s just another gear grinder MMO now.

How was it earned??? By you watching PR videos leading up to release? lol please.

Thats like going out on a date with a guy you have heard about and him whispering sweet nothings in your ear all night.

Its not a gear grinder mmo, its almost like you want it to be just so you can sit there satisfied that you were right… but basing your opinion on things that have yet come to pass….. well its a bit ignorant dont you think. Them adding ONE tier of gear does not make this a gear treadmill. Now if in 4-6 months they come out with another tier pat yourself on the back. but until that happens… well.

I like to think it was earned by playing Guildwars 1 for many years…

Yes GW had a lot of issues too but many of them made little difference to that game, here and now its very big differences now and on the horizon.

2 Irl friends, my wife, and majority of my Aion friends played because i told them gw2 is pure awesomesauce!. and now they play more than me and my wife too making me make her a sammich while she plays