Guild Wars 2

Background
Pong on the TV, Atari 2600, Nintendo, Apple IIC, PC (IBM), UO beta, Doom, Halflife, Diablo 2….then stopped about 10 years until…Vanguard, WoW, Rift, SWTOR, GW2. Messed with some others (Vindictus, LotR, D&D, AOC, Secret Wars…etc).

Opinion on GW2
I was mostly excited about no vertical progression. None of the “person with the most TIME wins” garbage. And downscaling so that all zones are always relevant (didn’t happen – I’m still hopeful they’ll “figure it out”). I’m fairly cynical about dev’s “figuring it out” however. Don’t get me wrong, I only gripe because I see so much potential in GW2 and love so much of it. There are a ton of quality of life things that are pretty easy to program (I’m a dev by trade) that, for the life of me, can’t understand why dev’s don’t include. And I’m in Irvine and talk to game devs all the time.

Just simple things like allowing us to rebind “interact w/ npc”, “rez” and “loot” to 3 different keys. Or realizing the massive fragmentation such granular leveling in FotM would cause. No LFG, Bank space for a subset of crafting mats. Not understanding the concept that every mob should feel like a pinata (a HUGE downfall, imo, of D3 — no mob should EVER not drop loot). More loot may “destroy” the economy, but a fun game, imo, trumps an economy where items have higher cost due to scarcity (again, D3 should let drops rain from heaven and kitten their AH – they still make $ if the item is cheap – but people would still be playing it if they got “mad lootz” – GW2 is starting to get the D3 vibe imo)). And the more recent direction down the path to vertical progression (I quit Rift after they went totally nutz in this area, and is part of the reason I quit WoW).

Death Reincarnated.3570:

CONS

- Game bugs. Yeah, some of them are annoying more than others, but wish that ANet representative put little more incentive/effort in addressing the issue(s).

It depends upon the bug, but I actually like game bugs.

I find it very humorous when I end up in strange places, flying across the countryside, casting a spell and ending up teleported somewhere else, etc. It reminds me it’s just a game, and provides some comic relief.

My Background: I’ve been gaming for years and years. I’ve tried just about every genre more or less. FPS was my thing for a long time and I grew into an RPG kind of gamer eventually. I’ve Played titles like MW3, Diablo 3, Black Ops, Combat Arms, Dragon Nest, Tried a little WoW lead me to play World of Kung Fu, (because I was young and it was free) I’ve played Evony, Armies of Magic on FB, Thirst of Night. Gosh the list goes on and on. My First 3rd Person Shooter was . . . (I hope you get a chuckle out of this) Oregon Trails on Windows 3.1 or Windows 95 I can’t remember. There’s a hunting mode in there and that’s all I’d do (Rather than learn what the game was trying to teach me lol) That eventually lead to Delta Force (every one except Black Hawk Down) and then to Medal of Honor Allied Assault : Demo. Yeah only ever played the demo and LOVED IT. Stalingrad is an awesome map period.

My Opinoin of Guild Wars 2: I don’t love video games first and foremost (it’s a game) Not gonna love me back ya know lol. But I must say that I am really thankful for this one. All around I enjoy the gameplay. I’m such a competitive player to a degree but they seperated the competition from a well done storyline and I actually really enjoy that. Anyone worried about gear in Guild Wars 2 for PVE . . . Don’t!!! You’ll Ruin it for yourself. I had not played Guild Wars prior to picking this up but I can tell you my friends and I are having a lot of fun and we haven’t hardly touched the PvP yet. I did have to approach GW2 in a different way though. Usuaully in MMO’s there’s such a rush to do everything so you can be one of the biggest baddest players around. GW2 encourages a player to take their time (Stop and smell the roses) I have no idea about ascended gear I guess I’ll look into it when I come across it but yeah I really like this Game. Only had it for 2 and a half weeks and already dropped over 100 hours into it.

In all honesty I think it might be that competetiveness we are all so used to in a title like this that ruins the gameplay because the competition and or the race is different. But you want some real competition in Guild Wars 2 Pick a puzzle Jump any time anywhere and let me know I’ll race you to the end. Can you beat me???

P.S. Garraeth THANK YOU whoever you are for pointing out that fatal Flaw on D3. OMG even the Legendaries on that game were $#!^ Yeah I played D3 but I’m getting ready to do a youtube video where I burn my physical copy of the Game (That’s why you get a physical copy) Don’t care for the idea of all digital content No good if I need to throw some BS at a wall or something.

Gaming background

This is hard without giving my approx age away, but it all started with the Atari 2600 console when i was 6
I got into playing text-based adventures (interactive fiction) and strategy games on the ZX Spectrum, loved playing Lords of Midnight and Doomdarks Revenge.
My rpg gaming didnt really begin until the Amiga, when i got into Eye of the Beholder 1&2, my first PC experience with RPG’s was MUD, Baldurs Gate, NWN, Daggerfall, Morrowind and expansions.
GW1 was probably my first MMO i got into from the day of its release, I avoided all the other big named ones like WoW and co. because of the elitism and all the hamsters who have little manhood issues who need to grind bigger stats to be able to say “mine is bigger than yours”, I stuck with GW as it was more of a relaxed atmosphere and community with a bare minimum of elitism and gating goin on.

GW2 Love/Hate
Difficult to say. I been excited since the moment i heard this game was in the works from other guildies when i was busy eating a pizza while standing in Temple of Ages in GW1, so much so I put in extra time in GW1 to gain 34 maxed titles and 50/50 HoM points, so I could have everything possible to bring into GW2 from GW1.
So maybe my expectations of the game was set very high, and to be fair for the first couple of months the game played out to expectations, I loved it.
Every single day I logged on (prior the end of Lost Shores weekend) I was always seeing an overlfow, regardless where i was visiting in-game. But since that weekend the only overflow i ever see is in LA. And all i see in chat is gating spam.
I used to love travelling around doing dailies, exploring, and bumping into and joining players, but now I may as well be playing in my own instance, I hardly bump into anyone now in openworld as most the population sitting in LA looking for groups.
I just feel the atmosphere of the game and the community has changed, and not in a good way. Regardless what side of the fence people are on with respects to the new Tier, its obviously had a detrimental effect on the openworld population.
Plus my in-game goals have changed, I was looking forward to filling me alts with exotics, maybe even doing some dungeons to get other skins, but my motivation has seriously dropped because I am concerned all the effort and gold i did to max my main and alts has been in vain, and I am unsure of what goal to go for at the moment as all goals except the FotM tier stuff seem obsolete.
So as far as Love/Hate for GW2, massive Love til the Lost Shores, now I don’t get too excited to logging in now, huge difference to GW1 as I always had a reason to log in daily in 6 yrs in that game, GW2 has damaged my motivation after 3 months. I was buying gems with with real money on a weekly basis to support Anet, until the changes that Lost Shores brought came about.

Edit: for typos

Gaming Background
I have literally grown up with computer games. Started playing when I was 5 or 6. I would describe myself as a Roleplayer. I get really into the mindset of the game I am playing, and start thinking like my character would (without intending to it just happens XD)
My earliest games where things like Orly’s Draw a Story and Derby the Dragon, both were very much stories that requireed active audience participation.
When I was 10 -15 I played through games like The Myst series, The Longest Journey, Aliens Versus Predator (the first game), Age of Mythology, Stronghold Crusader and The Elder Scrolls. I spent so much of my time playing Morrowind.
16 +, I played TES Oblivion (that game came out after I’d done my GCSE’s when you have that really long summer before sixth form…. that was a good summer :p) Also played; Aliens Versus Predator 2 (to death), Guild Wars 1, Kingdom Hearts II, Predator Concrete Jungle, Black and White II, Team Fortress II, Portal and Left 4 Dead.
I have less time to play, so the last few games I got properly into where, TES Skyrim, Littlebig planet (1 &2) and Guild Wars 2.

Love/Hate GW2
As I am a roleplayer, I’d say I absolutely love this game. It’s allowed me to play through a wierd childhood dream of mine of being able to be a tree. :p
Roleplaying and Lore wise, I’d say this game has a lot of depth, I find myself constantly thinking of questions, ‘How exactly does it work for a Sylvari to be Vegetarian?’, ‘What happened to the humans to make them loose so much land?’, ‘How long will this peace between races last?’, ‘What will sylvari cultire be like in 100 or 200 years time? Will they spread and have more trees?" etc…. I think it’s these questions that constnaly keep me interested and entertained.
I have found that with GW2, the lore and the fact that it’s a game don’t seem to blend that well. This was so obvious within the personal story. Where the makers would go for fun, excting and different to the point where it stops making sense.
(I’ve used this exmaple previously but I’ll use it again) In the Sylvari quests you have to kill this lich. I chose the Priory option to go to his tomb and ambush him there. As the NPCs said it would be dangerous since it was full of traps I assumed the quest would be more puzzle like. I thought we’d go in, sneak past all the traps and then there would be one boss fight at the end with the lich himself. However the ‘fun/different/exciting’ aspect came into play and The tomb was filled with enemies, the mission was centered around killing repeatedly whilst trying not to get caught by traps and then in the boss battle you were given a sword with entirely random skills that you’ve never seen before, so whilst you’re trying to work out what the attacks do you’ve been killed.

It is instantly like this scattered throughout the game that ruin the roleplaying aspect for me. But overall I love this game I am quite happy to go at my own pace exploring the world and roleplaying as a fire bretahing tree.

LOL @nintendo -atari for backgorund… lol?

I played almost since 10 year ago: lineage 2 & Aion (other games dont apply imo, like apb, dayz etc) Guildwars 2 is awesome, but had a CAREBEAR pvp system and a powerless Guild system, I am a hardcore pvp player, and my clan is 10 year old, for me the pvp in this game is like it was kids friendly (PG Rating). Guildwars 2 is a PVE game with some friendly and familiar pvp system, so no ones get offended or sad….

Pve in this game is awesome , thats something.

Wow Vanilla through Wrath of the Witch King
Lotro – (Lifetime Sub (almost a founder))
AION
Perfect World
RIFT
SwTOR
GW2
…and now PS2

Great beginning for GW2. Wv3 was especially refreshing to me; however it’s appeal has gone down. First time I’ve checked to see what’s going on for GW2 in almost a week.

IF they had not had the one-time event (that I missed) and focused on correcting the Wv3 issues and other bugs in the game vs bringing online new content (that was hardly flawless) that introduced yet more of the gear grind aspect… I probably wouldn’t have given PS2 the time of day; but they did and I did…and I’m hooked on PS2 at the moment.

I’ll check back every so often and see how it looks. I do the same thing for Lotro. For now… my money is being given to SOE.

Gaming background
My first game I really played was Civilization. Hours upon hours upon hours were spent on that game. Up until Civ III I played a lot. But I also played a lot of adventure games (King’s Quest, Space Quest!), platform games (Commander Keen, Duke Nukem) and 3D Shooters (Doom, Hexen, Heretic, Wolvenstein, Duke Nukem 3D). And finally I ended up with Baldur’s Gate and Diviny Divinity, aka RPG games. I was still busy (for the umptieth time) with Baldur’s Gate when GW1 came out. It was my first online game. At some point later, I tried one of those 15-day trials for WoW, but didn’t get past one day, as I didn’t like the looks. At all. I then bought Aion and that was my first traditional MMO that I played. I kind of liked it, except the PvP bit. So, by the time the only places I could meaningfully go where the ones where world PvP was enabled, I quit.

Then came GW2
GW2 still has what I am searching for in a MMO. No kill stealing, no node stealing and no world PvP (unless I search for it myself). Yet, I am not really happy with GW2 right now, and that has in part to do with the ascended items. I already really didn’t like the fact that exotics were a level over rare, but I knew that from the beginning.
Another reason is the fact that most maps are made for more people and people being people they stay away from the lower leveled maps because most people can only see dollar signs. And the lower leveled maps simply give less gold than the higher ones… So, ANet either should up the rewards of the lower level zones or scale the entire zone to the amount of people there. (why spawn a group event if there are only 10 people on the entire map) It’s almost a perfect game for me… Almost…

I used to play a lot of first-person-shooters PvP (Quake deathmatch, capture the flag etc). I especially liked that it was pretty much guaranteed that one could pick one of several well populated servers at any time of the day. No need to “lfg”, ever.

I lost interest in that in favor of games with more dept and slower pace, amongst which mmos/rpgs (GW1, AoC, Rift). So far my experience with MMO’s has over all been a bit disappointing, in that it’s usually harder to to find a well populated zone (find a group) in an mmorpg than it was to find a populated fps game server, even though the average mmo server/shard/world usually has many more players logged in at any time than an fps game server could ever handle.

Love/hate GW2?

yes (both)

Gaming Background

Been playing PnP games for over 20 years now, and still play in one weekly. Played the kitten out of single player RPGs like Planescape: Torment, Icewind Dale 1 & II, Baldur’s Gate (I recently ordered the new BD: Enhanced Edition), NWN, and then got hooked on Dungeon Siege II). Then I discovered MUSHes and did that for several years before discovering Guild Wars and City of Heroes (although it was always more City of Villains for me).

Love/Hate GW2

TL; DR Loving it so far.

I am greatly enjoying it. I would not say that it’s a perfect game, but I’m a huge fan of the setting and lore, I think it’s a visually gorgeous game, I think WvW was a stroke of genius (never thought I’d actually find any sort of PvP fun), and I like the DE system that allows you to play together without actually needing teams. I’m also kind of jazzed about the idea of actually having started playing during BWE1 and seeing how the game progresses. I started playing both GW1 and CoV late in their cycle, so I’m interested in seeing how the game changes over time. Yeah, it’s a bit painful. I find the number of bugs really distressing at times. There are a number of features that I consider pretty basic that I hope they add over time, and there are changes I’d like to see them make to existing features. Here are a few examples (not a comprehensive list). A lot of these have been discussed in other threads and recommended by other players as well.

• I’d like to see them add the ability for players to create their own channels.
• I’d like to see a serverwide LFG channel.
• And since I’m on the subject of ‘chatting’ I’d like to see the chat window made copy-able and have the ability to log chat.
• I really think they need to ease up on the gold sinks or increase the drop rates across the board, or both. This is far from a Monty Haul game; if anything, it feels pretty stingy. And having to spend a few silver to pop down to Orr, or to any other part of the world, to team up with a friend does not encourage people to play together. I do it, but every time I do, I have this same thought.
• I’d like to see traits be reconfigurable without having to return to a trainer, and have the ability to save and load them.
• I wish we had in-game support. I realize that might be a cost issue; after all, the game is F2P. But it would be nice to be able to get some timely help when, for example, you’ve gotten knocked into a piece of scenery and become stuck.
• I’d like to see the approach to the personal story missions changed somewhat in future expansions. Some examples:
  * Fewer cut scenes that put words in your character’s mouth and more dialogue options that give you some choices as to what they say, i.e. at least give the player the illusion of choice.
  * If possible, actual branching storylines (yes, I know that might be a non-starter as it would be a lot of work), but it would have been so much more compelling to be able to, for example, choose to leave Apatia or choose to stay and try to save her.
  * More acknowledgement of relevant points about the PC. Examples…
  Shouldn't my mesmer have had a chance to see through some of those illusions? Doesn't it seem likely that my Vigil character might already know Laranthir or that my Norn might know Gretchen? Just a little bit of rephrasing of the text could have covered those possibilities.
  * Some acknowledgement of when there are other PCs in the party, even if it’s just showing the whole party in the cut scene (if there is one), like they did in GW1.
  * Give the player the choice of whether they want an NCP to accompany them or whether they want them to stay behind.
  * Don’t use downscaling in the missions. Personally, I love the gameplay in the missions; it’s what I love best about them, in fact. I would replay some of them, if I could. But I know, both from reading the forums and from talking to friends in game, that there are people who do not enjoy the gameplay as much a I do. There are many people who want to be able to take their time, read the dialogue, poke around the map; people who are just more interested in ‘story’ part than the ‘mission’ part. By removing downscaling, those people who want more challenging gameplay can choose to do the missions ahead of, or at their, recommended level, and those who don’t can simply wait to outlevel them, then go in and not really have to worry about the mobs.

I know that sounds like a long list of complaints, so I’ll reiterate that I really am enjoying the game and anticipate playing for a long time to come.

EDIT: Fixed a typo that changed the entire meaning of a sentence.

Gaming background… without making a novel post of gaming experience, i’ll try to keep it short and pertain mainly to online and MMO played more than 100 hours:
- Pen and Paper (not really online, but at least co-op experience), CS (1.5, 1.6, source), Team Fortress 1&2, COD 3 and MW1-2, Battlefield 2-3, D2 and D3, WoW (stopped after defeating Sunwell pre-Wrath o’ LK), SC, GW2

I’m mostly a single player fan because a good/decent story with clean gameplay are just so replayable… this Thanksgiving marked 14th annual Thanksgiving marathon of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (it’s that good imo). Most games regardless of how many players are supposed to play have certain things that make the game ultimately enjoyable and worth playing.

So GW2…. Honestly, I was never really that gungho about the game but my friends bemoaned that I jump into it. With D3 ending up being a dud and SWOTR having all sorts of problems I knew it would have (even though the story and some of the mechanics were awesome), I figured I’d give it a shot. The manifesto looked intriguing, the classes seemed on the level, the WvW looked like it could work to really stop turtling…. all in all it looked like a D3 minus the gear system, but actually boasting real class synergy. I didn’t mind the gear cap being fairly easy to get to with the idea of skins being the goal and dungeons not requiring exorbitant lengths of time because it certainly catered to a more casual devotion but….

I have to say GW2 isn’t really a love/hate… it’s more kinda whatever waiting for the next game to come along. I didn’t set the bar really high for GW2, didn’t have any notions about what it would be or wouldn’t be (other than an MMORPG-kinda), and it really didn’t even exceed those low expectations… so whatever. I guess if we go by a strict hours played to purchase price ratio, I “got my money’s worth”…. but I have to say, video gaming in 2012, in general, has only reinforced my preconceptions of never buying a game right away and not taking fluff pieces, fluff reviews, and “interviews” as legitimate sources of info about the game.

Played GW1 (PvE and PvP both), Warhammer (only RvR), Aion (90% PvP), SWTOR (PvP), RIFT (PvP). Then also a bunch of FPS games and LoL.

I think GW2 is the best game I’ve ever played, it’s lacking somethings, like better, actual rewards from dragons, champions and event chests in general. They ‘patched’ it, but sorry, that was complete bs Anet, admit it.
Then lack of rewards in WvW, which Anet recently mentioned and they said they’re planning to add some kind of rewards, which is brilliant, because I really love PvP.
Other than that only minor issues like legendary weapons are not really created ‘equal’, the precursor problem, which is being adressed, etc. I think all of these things will be fixed and in future patches and expansions more races/content and rest of the ascended gear (hopefully no more tiers tho) will be added. This game is perfect for me.

Played
Lineage 2
sword of the new world
many F2P games

I learned to hate korean mmorpg and decided i would never touch any in my life…

Then I watched GW2 advertising and informed on the prequel…..
Anet used their name in order to bait customers so now for me Anet=NCsoft=korean mmorpg=EA=Bad business ethic.

At least this is my personal opinion

My gaming background goes all the way back to before table top pong. (My first games were oldschool pinball).

I’ve been playing games online since around ’99. I usually stick with one main game for years at a time. The longest played games of my gaming career being Shadowbane, Lineage II, WoW, LoTRo, Aion, and now GW2. Each of these games I played for at least one year if not longer.

My MMO background:

Acheron’s call
Anarchy Online
Shadowbane
Star Wars Galaxies
Lineage II
EvE
WOW
EQII
Guild Wars
Archlord
D&D Online
AoC
LoTRO
Aion
Darkfall
Rift
Tera
Guild Wars 2

Do I love or hate Guildwars 2?

I loved it until I found out about the introduction of vertical gear progression. I’ve played my share of gear grinds. Never again. I’d rather spend time IRL with family, or at the office than do something in a game that I dislike immensely, i.e., repeatedly running dungeons for RNG drops. I thought I would be playing GW2 for years, and possibly until the release of GW3 if that ever came out. I’m currently debating my gaming options, which very well may be an outright retirement from MMOs.

What I loved about GW2:

WvW large scale epic sieges. So much fun.

Small scale behind the lines roaming pvp.

World exploration.

Jumping puzzles (learned to love them)- GW2 needs more of them.

Tweaking my build.

What I hated about GW2:

Every single dungeon. So boring. I refuse to run things more than once or twice. After I’ve done a scripted fight and seen the dungeon there is no reason for me to ever see it again. I just can’t stand pve raids.

LordByron.8369:

Played
Lineage 2
sword of the new world
many F2P games

I learned to hate korean mmorpg and decided i would never touch any in my life…

Then I watched GW2 advertising and informed on the prequel…..
Anet used their name in order to bait customers so now for me Anet=NCsoft=korean mmorpg=EA=Bad business ethic.

At least this is my personal opinion

This seems to be a trend for these industries… EA/Activision/NCsoft/head-honcho-studio buy up these smaller studios and just spit out junk. Pretty much all the big disappointments this year have been games promising a lot and delivering it in the most cowardly/safe fashion rather than the bold leaps those studios originally took which made the games so successful. SC2 maybe the only series that is on the level with the original… even if the BS-corporate-fatheads split the kitten game into three installments. Maybe because it’s really identical to the original? FPS’s seem to do this with wild success.

Gaming Background
first rpg game on the mega drive Phantasy Star 4
great game btw ^^
later all kinds off rpg on the play station
all suikoden series
all final fantasy series
all xenosaga series
xenogear wild arms the legond of the dragoon
and so much more i am lets say a rpg freak XD

later my first mmorpg was endless online
later play for 4 years Cabal online
and some years on dekaron aka 2moons
RF online hero online Aika online
Vindictus Pandora saga and many more

about GW2
its good and bad but its stil a new game
i like to see more pll doing dungeon to many stay ad W3
so for new players not much they can do

the teleport cost and repair cost are to high
dye drop is zero by me like to see the old drop back

make classes some of them beter ad pve some classes have a rely hard time to get a good start they are to weak and die to fast compare to warrior ore guardian

for the rest i rely love this game its very big and i love to explore it all looks great to ^^

Let’s start with MuD’s. Or Multi User Dungeons for you kiddies who were not born yet. I started playing and programming these back in 1994. Played Hall of Fame, Ancient Anguish, Wormhall and others… Very basic, very simple, but good fun, a good introduction in to basic programming and you got to make new friends with people from all over the country meeting up at various universities for weekends of playing.

Then Games Workshop launched one of the first MMO’s, Wolfenburg. It was pay to play but I got in on a free trial. For the time, it was visually very good though the content wasnt over inspiring. Once the free trial was up though I didnt go pay to play. Didnt seem like good value for money. I dont recall the cost, plus I couldnt play from home – back in those days most people were running pay as you go internet on 28k modems. Slow and expensive.

Fast forward many many years and eventually I got broadband and WoW. Loved wow, and I still think that up to the end game it is still the best MMO out there for basic pve content. Dont like wow pvp, dont like wow crafting or economy, but basic pve can’t be beaten. The world is vast, the characters have good depth, the events are great, flying is stunning the first time you do it (though WAY to many flight points now). It’s a shame the end game is a horrific grind and the gear score scum cause so many problems, but the dungeon finder was a huge boost. Plus, IT HAS PANDAS… (actually i’ve not bought the new expansion but still… PANDAS!!!)

Next up I played WAR. Got in on the early release, 3 weeks later was the 3rd person to hit level 40 and the world ended. Talk about no end game content at all. Still we toughed it out. Visually, not as shiny as other mmo’s and the flashy attack graphics turned big battles in to slide shows but it had an awsome background (warhammer), open quest contain (like gw2 events), fantastic pvp and rvr. Once the population levels got up rvr was so good that servers would crash under the strain and limits were bought in. 200 ppl. Come on, when else have you seen 200 ppl fighting it out? we once fought a battle with close to that limit for 8 hours. Friggin awsome. Sadly the inevitable class balance complaints started up and yes, Bright Wizards were OP and you all know it. Tinkering started, balance got worse, people left, then biofail showed up, added the renown grind and that was the end of WAR. A shame, I loved pvp in WAR.

Next was Star Trek. Spaceship combat started out awsome even with the massive klingon advantage of cloacked ships and carriers. Ground combat was farcical, really embarressing. Effectively not enough depth made it really boring really fast. So much potential so poorly executed. Didnt stay long, but I here content has improved and its now f2p so who knows.

Then came starwars. Mixed feelings about this game. Lots and lots of good. Its starwars, you know the score. Cant fault the background. Storylines were pretty good though not always great. PVP started out excellent until you hit 50, then they bought in a new bracket to seperate 50’s and that worked. Then they bought in the gear grind and I was just ‘meh’ outtahere. The lack of LFG was also a frustration. Lot of end game content missed. Pve was pretty good though basic mobs were almost as kittentar trek, repetative and boring.

At this point I hod no mmo’s to play and was a sad panda…

So I downloaded rift and aion and played there f2p levels. Neither was that inspiring. Shiny to look at but failed to pull me in.

Then came GW2. Do I like GW2? for the most part yes, but you aksed to hear about peoples previous mmo experience to see if there is a pattern and for me there is. Gear Grinding and unbalanced, uncompetative pvp. Hate it, wont pay for it anymore. I dont play pvp in GW2 because I dont want to be dissapointed again. I can play Blacklight Retribution for my pvp fix. Im not even close to end game grind yet, so im happy with the game right now. Visually its good and content wise its good. It has some nice features, I like how combat works with different weapon combinations and hot swapping styles etc… So i’m here until the gear score scum brigade make it not fun to be here.

The biggest thing thats missing for me in GW2 is a hook. I like to get pulled in to a story and I dont think GW2 does that very well, even with the personal story quests, it doesnt. I dont feel part of the world. Everyone is supposedly worried about dragons – could have fooled me.

Former player of FF11 (I was an early adopter and a top-tier Japanese guild leader hitting the highest level content), GW1, now GW2. As far as MMO anyway.

My take on GW2 is that the non-instanced world is an improvement, Dynamic Events are improvements. Dungeons could use a major revamp for scale, difficulty, and variety of mechanics. Skills as well. Team coordination. In FF11, you also had team combos but the effects were massively pronounced. You were required to hit the right combo order and element type to essentially damage enemies. You also had a real incentive not to die. Every time you died, you lost about 10% of your XP.

Immediately, a timer would start counting down 1 hour in which your friends could resurrect you, giving you some of that exp back. That made for some GREAT rescue missions. If losing XP caused you to go below your level requirement, you level DOWN. If that meant your gear is now too high a level, you can’t wear it until you level back up! Difficult and fun. Made you care about staying alive.

In GW2 I feel it’s more like spam all your skills to burst down enemies with a few exceptions where coordination matters. Crafting in GW2 could use a major revamp too. In FF1, a lot of characters just crafted. No fighting. It was a valid way to play the game – you could make money, you could be valuable to your guild, you could be key to some raid strategies.

Lack of job types is kind of hit/miss in GW2. Some mechanics are really lacking, and it takes away from team coordination requirements. But on the other hand, you don’t need to rely on certain job types to find for a party.

Events like the Lost Shores are really where GW2 shines. That is what the game experience should be like – dynamic, fast paced, difficult – but rewarding. It seems that for people complaining about team coordination, ANet has implemented more of the “hit the 3 switches all within 3 seconds” mechanic which is not at all the same as a coordinated battle plan. Or merging the two. more use of the environment would help, also events and mobs that are only at night, only during the day, etc.

FFXI really built that up with an in-game “week” where during certain “day” cycles there were benefits to crafting, to healing, to fighting, etc.

In short, I like GW2 for a free-to-play game, but miss some of the features FFXI got right. GW1 was fun as well, but has similar drawbacks.

EQ→City of Heroes→WoW launch-Cataclysm→LOTRO/Rift/GW1→Guild Wars 2

I love so much about GW2, but I hate the idea of a gear treadmill, fragmented playerbase, funneling traffic into a single instance, etc. I wish we could see less focus on dungeon grinding and more on enhancing dynamic events (harder/better/more dynamic/longer chains) and making it the “Online World” concept they were briefly pushing pre-release. More sandpark.

I want to keep returning to play again and again because there’s awesome new content, not another +1 to chase.

The sad thing is, City of Heroes used to be the MMO I felt I could always go back to…

My gaming background…
Extensive. First games were the classics on the Apple 2 line like Ultima, Wizardry, etc. and the Atari 2600 games of old.
I play a lot of games from FPS types (CoD/BF/UT) to single player RPGs and some RTS games.
As far as MMOs I started with UO (as a player and part of the community volunteer program) then moved on to EQ, Asheron’s Call, DAoC, Anarchy Online, and a few other games before starting in WoW. Played WoW off and on for a few years. I played GW1 very briefly at it’s launch but never got into it. I’ve tried a few other MMOs that never caught my attention (Aion, Conan, Rift) until SWTOR in beta and for about 6 months into release.

Do I love or hate Guildwars 2?
Love. Not a complete, head over heels love but I’m definitely very fond of it. The bugs and lackluster monthly content are probably the two things that keep me from being totally enamored, but I’m having fun with the core content at this point and with the right group of people (having a great guild definitely helps) it can be a downright blast.

Gaming Background: (Console games since the early 80’s, although I don’t think thats pertinent to this conversation.) Diablo – Everquest – WoW (through wrath) – A smattering of games including going back to wow briefly for cataclysm – Allods (By far one of my favorites, took up about the last two years of my life) – SWtoR – and Now GW2.

Love/Hate: I like it. I don’t love it. I really took my time leveling and was late comer, almost a month and a half after release. I hit 80 recently and was a little taken back by the introduction of fractals, especially considering I didn’t have a full set of Exotics yet. I got over it and have been doing what I find interesting as much as possible, including running fractals (Love the colossus), dragons, Wv3 and so on.

I like the classes and feel as though, despite the balancing issues, everyone can play effectively with any class (I’m an engineer). I especially enjoy the scaling in fractals, allowing me to take pretty much anyone along which makes for some interesting runs…

Overall I give it a B+ and a solid A during events: Halloween and Lost Shores.

Gaming Experience
-WoW (maxed out 2 characters in the first free month BORING)
-Dark Age of Camelot (My all time favorite game. Played it until EA killed off the entire population base)
-Eve Online (Boring)
-Anarchy (Hated it)
-Everquest (Not bad, but my interest faded away after a year)
-Everquest 2 (Not as good as the first)
-Aion (Beautiful game, but content was stale)
-Rift (Great Idea, but it was lacking)
-Star Wars Galaxies (Great until JtLS)
-Age of Conan (PvP was fun for a while, but that was it)
-Lord of the Rings (Was in beta, but it didnt hold my interest)
-City of Heroes (Got on when it was F2P, held my interest for a few months then I just stopped playing)
-DC Universe Online (Had a blast, but just lost interest when I capped)
-Guild Wars 1 (Bought all the expansions, but none held my interest. Beautiful world and music)
-Final Fantasy XI (Beautiful game with a beautiful world. Hard game to play without friends that stick to your level, and the level downs were killer)
-Final Fantasy XIV (It looked pretty, that’s it)

I have tons more, working for game companies and review sites, I was always given games to try out.

Guild Wars 2 impressions
Currently I love it. For a new game, they have a ton of content and have great events for the holidays. You don’t see that often. I have yet to lose interest, and the PvP is very nice. It reminds me a lot of Dark Age of Camelot which is my all time favorite MMORPG to date. I’ve played every day so far and I have yet to lose interest in what I was doing. I have high hopes for the future of this game.

Gaming Background: I have no idea why this matters to you. Tabletop RPGs (player, GM, testing), computer-based RPGs (player, user-level debug/modifications), MMOs (9 that I can recall, from Meridian 59 and Ultima Online but most recently DDO, GW1, GW2). Rough total 20 to 25 years of generalized gaming experience.

Opinion of GW2: Flawed, but functional and entertaining. Needs work on a technical level, content could use some review, all things should be investigated to see if intent during design matches the finished product after 3 months of various changes.

In a nutshell: I’d grade it a “B”, would buy again but still room for improvement.

I’ll only include the PC online gaming as going further back may be irrelevant.

My first online game of any sort was Quake (QuakeWorld). My first MMO was Ultima Online. I played the Commodore 64 and Atari 2600 many moons ago.

MMO background: Ultima Online (4 yrs), Shadowbane (18 mos), City of Heroes (2 yrs), Star Wars Galaxies (3 mos), WoW (7 yrs), Champions Online (12 mos), Aion (2 mos), Rift (1 mo), The Old Republic (6 mos).

I like GW2 very much so far. I don’t think I can really like a MMO like I used to when the whole genre was new to me. I haven’t hit 80 yet but my warrior is 78 now. I obviously don’t mind gear treadmills because I played WoW for so long. Just as long as it’s fun. I didn’t read manifestos or much of anything before I bought the game.

So if there is to be a gear treadmill, then I will run it until I get tired of it. Then I’ll stop. But what I won’t do is complain here about something that I haven’t actually done in this game yet.

Good topic first of all.

I have always been into gaming back from Atari 2600 etc. to Kings Quest series (all the Roberta Williams games and Sierra games) to console and pc gaming to date. As of now I am more into MMO’s as my main but still play some fps like Quake 3 and Half-Life and Counter Strike etc. and some console games here and there.

Anyways my mmo history started with UO. Talk about MMO’s that take a lot to learn. This was by far one of them. I only played a little because I had no clue what I was doing. I would get my butt handed to me by a cat. But still I started to learn how to play but in the end wasn’t for me.

SWG came out and was the first mmo that I actually learned and spent a lot of time playing. Yes the game had major issues but it was all about the community. Made a lot of good friends whom I still talk to. Played since day 1 of launch till 2 months after the nge. So I put in years with this game.

Went to WoW about 2 months after launch and that is where I first found out about end game raiding and absolutely fell in love it. I got into hard core raiding quickly once I knew what it was about. Would put in 5-6 nights a week at 4 hrs+ to raid and when not raiding was always on unless I was at work or didn’t go out. I loved SWG because of the people but I really loved and still love WoW. I met a lot amazing people throughout playing WoW as well. Have cleared all end game raiding at the time you were supposed and pre-nerfs for the most part. So gained tons more mmo experience here and what I wanted in an mmo game.

Anyways since this about gaming history I still play WoW and raid but I also have played: AoC, Aion, LotR, TSW, STO, Rift, Tera, GW2, ToR, EQ2 and of all these the only one I still play is ToR. I have LotR installed and log on here and there but not all that much to say I play it still.

So I feel I have a lot of mmo experience having tried most of the main stream mmo’s but just never held my interest. I know I am not the only one who feels like this or else mmo’s post-WoW would actually grow in subs and not drop after month like every mmo has since WoW.

As for GW2 is no different than the other mmo’s I mentioned where it got boring fast and don’t like the game right now. I am a pve player w/ raiding as a focus but I wanted an mmo where pvp was actually a focus and to be fun and different so I thought GW2 would be it but the pvp is horrible in this game as well as the pve.

My background:

I started in text-only MUDs.
I played UO for 13 years, and Anarchy for 9 years. (Not currently playing / paying either)
I played GW for 6 years.
I played AoC for 6 months, and WoW for a 1 month free trial.

Do I love / hate GW2:

Neither !

At the moment, GW2 (when taken as a whole), is neither lovable or hateable. Some aspects of GW2 are great, some are a huge disappointment, and some are downright awful.

The Good:
The non-instanced, persistent world, which I missed so much when I moved from UO/AO to GW.
Easy levelling.
The DE questing system (when it works): An NPC asks me to protect them while they wander about a bit. If I succeed, and don’t run off as soon as the NPC is safe, the NPC then offers the next logical step in the quest chain. This is so much better than the standard quest hub model.
WvWvW has the potential to be more fun than UO Faction fighting.

The Sad:
Crafting is essentially pointless. My UO crafter was known server-wide: I was able to label my creations with a “Crafted By…” tag, and that meant something. As crafted weapons / armour were always worth more than the raw materials, I earned a reputation (and bought my first Keep with the profits) It disappoints me that EVERY tailor in GW2 makes exactly the same things: I have no opportunity to craft something unique.
There is no looting in PvP. I know that no modern gamers would accept the conditions under which I used to fight, but nevertheless… If I kill you in WvWvW, I want the ability to loot your corpse – which means that I can take your “acsended, exotic suit of leetness”; then either wear it, sell it back to you, or if you have annoyed me; I will salvage it, and drop the materials on the floor.

The Ugly:
The horrible mishmash of horizontal/vertical, grind/no grind that has appeared with the recent patches. I will admit that I fell for the ANET manifesto in all its “you don’t need to grind” glory. I was expecting a system similar to GW, where my max-armour, bought from a NPC suit, had the same stats as my “needs months of farming” Obsidian armour.
This was the case for the first 3 months of GW2 – then came the addition of ascended armour. If ascended only provided defence against a specific damage, found in a specific location; I doubt that anybody would be complaining – but it doesn’t. I will happily grind (or pay cash), for unusual armour skins; but the current philosophy of “you need to do (this thing), (multiple) times in order to get max-stat armour” is a direct contradiction of the original GW2 manifesto.
No amount of weasel-words by ANET can contradict this.

TL:DR

I am not quitting, as the good and bad currently cancel each other out.

What happens in the future remains to be seen.

Background

Non-MMO’s. Everything from popular console platformers, shooters, to RTS, TBS (turn based strategy), simulators, RPGs (video game and P&P).

Previous to GW2 the only MMO’s I’ve ever played was a couple weeks of both Vanilla WoW and pre-CU SWG.

Opinion on GW2

Absolutely loved the game. Even before the game was available for pre-order I was spending much of my time just trying to learn more about the game… eagerly watching for every little shred of information from blog/youtube as well as listening to GW1 vets. I was definitely the most vocal in my group of friends about everyone getting the game (a large proportion of those friends ended up playing the game).

On the day that we got news about Ascended gear, I couldn’t bring myself to start up GW2.. even though I had just previously had plans of what I was going to do on GW2 that day. Since learning of Ascended gear, I’ve drastically cut down my GW2 time… because I just simply don’t feel the same love I used to have for the game.

Love it or hate it? Loved it. Greatly dislike the direction it is heading. It could be because I have generally stayed clear of nonsensical gear treadmills, and inflation of stats in pretty much all games I have played in the past…. and now GW2 is just turning into, “just another stat inflation game that requires grinding”. Also, the sad state of WvW with all the free server transfers is a bit of a buzz kill as well (sometimes I think my guild might as well have switched servers, since the non-guildies in WvW seem to keep changing anyways).

Either way, still holding out hope that the game won’t continue down this boring old path that all WoW clones/imitators go down in their fruitless hopes of success.

- My gaming background -

I started with the love of rpg consoles games from gameboy/ps1/ps2. The first mmorpg I played was MapleStory. I played for almost a year. I had a taste of what mmorpg is about.

The following year, Granado Espada was introduced. It was released around the same time as WoW. While WoW was the king of mmo in western countries, Granado Espada was the king of mmo in Korean and other asian countries. GE was localised in other countries like Japan and SEA. It won some awards on that year like best mmo and best graphics. I was with that mmorpg for 3-4 years.

Among all mmorpgs, I had the best experience with Granado Espada. It’s the only mmorpg that really appeals to casual, hardcore and dedicated. It has it’s manifesto of not a grindy game at all. It’s because of a genius creator Hakkyu Kim who made the game allows you to afk for level’ing. You can play for 2-4 hours per day while you afk overnight while sleeping. It’s an in-game mechanic that allow characters to auto-attack. I can even dedicate myself to my real life commitments while I progresses in-game.

The best thing in this game is that “gear progression” is not the main carrot in that game. It’s the “npc progression”. People chase after unique and more legendary npcs. It’s like "Gotta’ catch em all pokemon’. You can do personal stories, befriend them and they join you in your character selection. What’s unique about this mmorpg is that you control 3 different avatars at once. You can have 50-100 characters in your character selections. The npc progression is that you can recruit limitless heroic npcs. For example, you can recruit Logan or Rytlock in gw2. GE has gear progression, but players sees npc collecting progression a much higher priority and more tempting carrots.

GE is the only game that gave me the true memories of mmorpg. The social interaction mechanic is awesome. There’re many guild activities. I remember there’s super world boss which can’t be brought down by a single guild. 3 guilds form alliance with each other to bring it down. The drama and bonding folds between the 3 guilds through time. We became friends with each other, meet in real life and all those memories. Only when there’s darkness, there’s light.

Every weekend, there’s a colony war where guilds take over cities and pve maps to conquer. This game brings real glory to the guilds. I actually feel so much fun whether we win or lose because it makes me closer with people in-game and reality. We even met the opposing guilds in real life too. We are rivals in-game, but close friends in reality. The pvp requires real skills because we control 3 avatars with changeable stances and 10-15 × 3 skills available during combat.

My experience with the player community is full with mature adults and teens. I see that most of the players are at age 20-50. My guild leader is a 30yo businessman and he appeared once in newspaper for attending a real life baroque-themed ball organised by the mmo company. The game hold quite alot of real life events like blood donation drive, fan-made video competition and overseas trip too. (Yes, I attended the blood donation drive and got an exclusive in-game item. Those are good memories.)

Overall, GE gave me the most memories. I did play other games like Dragon Nest and Runescape but GE is the only one that brings the true essense of mmorpg.

- Do I love or hate Guildwars 2? -
I love Guild Wars 2 because of it’s graphics and refreshing npc interactions. To be honest with myself, I’m very neutral about the entire experience of it as a mmorpg though. The game has some flaws which is related to social interactions and opportunities for bonding. If I be honest with my feedback, wvwvw is quite meaningless. Pve end-game feels like I completed a console rpg story instead of a progressive mmorpg. The end-game feels bland and needs effort in something that pulls players to log in daily and feel ancitipated. Something that makes players, “I feel like doing X/Y/Z today. I can’t wait for X/Y/Z tmr!”.

But still, I can see good efforts made into gw2 with the introductions of fractals and ascended gears. This game has quite good potential but it still needs alot of research to accustom with the human nature of players. The nature that leads to retain them each time they log in and make them feel anticipated. The clue for improvements is that, “Elements that can’t force players to it, but lead them to it.”

Gaming Background: (oh boy..)
Quake -> Runescape -> Maplestory -> Gunz -> Gunbound -> Warcraft III (Custom games) -> More Maplestory :X -> Team Fortress 2 -> League of Legends -> Dragonest -> Dota 2 -> Now GW2… [the story of my childhood <3].

Opinion of GW2:
Love everything but the combat.

Would love to see:
- Less lag in large scale battles.
- More build varieties per class.
- More gameplay tactics other than killing bosses with 999999 HP.

Have been gaming since 1984 on an Apple IIe. Have owned a Sega Master System, Mega Drive, PS2, Gamecube, XBox 360 and Wii, along with a plethora of handhelds. Have had a gaming PC for that majority of that time. Favourite genres have typically been RPGs, although I’ve recently been lured into the world of competitive RTS and MOBA gaming. Played GW1 casually for about 18 months, WoW for about two years including time as a prominent guild leader, City of Heroes and SWTOR for a couple of months each, and DCUO in an endgame guild for six months or so.

Have written about and reviewed games both as a hobby and professionally.

Have played most successful boardgames at one time or another; have played Warhammer, War Machine and Chronopia; have played a variety of CCGs, including Magic and A Game Of Thrones at a tournament level.

I write and run convention-style one-shot system-lite RPGs for Australian conventions and have on occasion been paid to run these.

I am in most respects a hardcore gamer, although I rarely put in the commitment to a single game that that demographic typically enjoys.

I love Guild Wars 2. It’s great. The art is the best I’ve seen in an MMO, and the game design philosophy is the most intriguing and intelligent. Their willingness to take risks and depart from previous models of MMOs is great, and I love their communication about how they come to their design decisions.

Frankly, for all that I love it, it’s just less addictive that something like WoW. I like playing, but I don’t NEED to play it. That’s vastly, vastly healthier (yay!) but to be perfectly honest it means I likely won’t stick with it as long as I did with WoW. shrug I need to find time to play other games somewhere. It’s normal and natural to be “done” with a game and move on. To expect otherwise is probably pretty unhealthy and co-dependent.

And as of right now, I’m still loving it.

My gaming background started with classic Nintendo, whom I stuck with for quite some time. Eventually I moved on to competitive fighting games, MOBAS and MMO’s. I have always loved RPG’s, and my first MMO was Ragnarok Online.

I’ve never touched WoW. I stuck with Ragnarok until moving on to Tera, which was my first ‘western’ MMO. Now experiencing Guild Wars 2, I have to say that while it lacks the sheer content and depth that I’m used to from a true korean MMO like Ragnarok, it is still fun enough to make me like the game. I just wish that it wasn’t so babied and watered down.

I do not like the art in GW2 as much as Tera, which I feel is the most beautiful MMO out there right now. The animation in GW2 is very solid and fluid, sometimes outdoing Tera, but the combat, while deeper and more similar to what I’m used to from RO in terms of status effects and control, lacks that ‘feel’ that I can get from Tera’s free combat.

I played mostly RTSs until I tried to buy Rise of Legends. My computer couldn’t run it and so I traded it back and bought Guild Wars 1 and loved it. I play RPGs and WoW often but I always waited for GW2 When it came out I was so excited.

I don’t love GW2 but I find it quite awesome. There are some issues but I feel that over time those will be taken care of.

Old games like Contra, Castlevania, Golden axe, ninja turtles in time all that good beat em up and platformer stuff.

Last system I owned was an xbox. Still play my old games, as for computer games just Diablo 2, and Silkroad took along time from me, then Dungeon Fighter Online until I got hacked and banned.

Friend got me into the mass effect series and a few popular games like L4D2 and whatnot. But mainly I still play my Castlevania games, no lord of shadows bullkitten though.

Oh yeah, love GW2 for some reason and got a friend with almost the same background as me into this game.

“I only played WOW for a grand total of 45 minutes before I got bored and closed it. "

Then how did you get through 10 minutes of this?

My gaming experience is varied with need for speed, far cry ², black ops, eve, guild wars 1, and now guild wars 2.

What I like about GW2 is the WvW. Little asuran grenader keeps those wall loving mobs on their toes. What I dont like about GW2 is the grind, yes I expected it once I learnt about gathering and farming for what I needed for each character. The down side is that sometime progress is slow so it takes alot more time than I have spare.

All in all here is enough variety to lvl up without touching all the zones and once at 80 you can leave most of tyria behind.

Khemizt.5104:

“I only played WOW for a grand total of 45 minutes before I got bored and closed it. "

Then how did you get through 10 minutes of this?

The promises of a different game made me endure the first 10 minutes of this. Totally worth it.

all ftp mmos. started cronous ( i did not know what a good one was back then). than found perfect world.. i than played forsaken world. than jade dynasty.. and war of immortals.. all ftp until now.

fotm ruined it. so finding another game thats pay to play and have trustworthy people who can run a game →not hypocrites.

When I was a wee lad, my first game was the original Civilization. I got into the Age of Empires series and strategy quickly became my mainstay, though I’ve also casually played a number of FPS games over the years. I got into GW1 because my AoE friends did, but only got as far as the Crystal Desert in the first game before finding myself left behind and shelving it. I tried WoW for 30 minutes once and decided it was stupid. I never touched any other MMORPG before GW2, which I’ve got into because the same friends who did GW1 decided to pick it up.

I don’t know if I’d have stuck with this game if Asura weren’t in it, the fact that they’re not meant to be taken seriously is great for someone like me who doesn’t care so much for the fantasy aspect of many MMO games. I’ve embraced GW2 the MMO because I’ve come to love the community, especially the one in WvW, that our server has. I also loved a lot of what the Halloween event offered. I did enjoy the exploration and jumping puzzles (both 100% now, the variety of platforming was loads of fun although my only previous experience was Psychonauts, also featuring characters of minimal stature), and I’m just starting to get into dungeons… the new fractals also impressed me.

I was very displeased by the announcement of Ascended gear, I hope it’s something that doesn’t impact the game much. It just seems like it’s totally unnecessary for a game with such a wealth of real content to introduce something so trivial that will simply increase the divide between the casual and hardcore players.

Experience:
Hmm this topic is fun~ Started with dos games like sky roads, the original prince of persia, and the Jazz Jack Rabbit. Around the same time; almost every single shareware game probably including whacky wheels, hocus pocus, commander keen 1 & 2, arctic adventure, crystal caves, monster bash, bio menace, almost every game from the then Apogee (aka 3d realms). This was played concurrently with a lot of educational games (gizmos and gadgets, treasure math storm, munchers, jump start series). Progressed to first generation fps games Wolfenstein, Doom, Heretic. No consoles save pokemon on gameboy pocket! Stopped gaming till I found GW1 which I probably played for 4-5 and popped in and out for an additional 2 years. Moved onto Granado Espada next which was beautiful in terms of world and clothing design, but tragically grindy and RNG hell… After another hiatus from gaming I tried Vindictus which was honestly my best mmo experience in terms of gameplay. The combat was engaging, fluid and intuitive. The clothing was also exceptionally designed. Alas…ruined by the infamous Nexon. Dabbled in Dragon Nest …(Nexon, all that needs to be said)… Finally played Aion for a few months before coming to GW2. Aion featured probably the most exquisite clothing designs of any game I have every played (not gear from 1-50… but beyond). Their quest stories were also tremendously well written. Alas, the gear treadmill and grind…

What I think of GW2:
The environment and world is beautiful and wonderful to explore. The hidden areas are a nice touch and the persistent world > instancing. However, in most every other facet I feel letdown. Of course there is the now admitted to vertical progression (if i wanted that I’d be playing Vindictus). However, even more so, I find the armor designs to be distasteful and not very fashionable, and the character customization to be limited… Combat is spammy and un-engaging (not to mention zergy). The stories are dull and the lore abandons almost all of GW1’s established lore in favor of dragons (…because dragons are apparently “cooler”). Not to mention the gems → gold. Dynamic events were a nice but failed idea to me as escorting caravans in every map doesn’t make me feel like I’m part of a living breathing world. Overall, GW2 = lots of potential, execution was lacking.

I don’t love it nor hate it but i like it.It made me to replace WoW which i played for 4 years

Gaming Background

Long and illustrious. I’m an older fart, not the oldest fart, but not exactly a young fart either. I started out with the BBC Micro, and progressed onto a number of home computer systems. Jet Set Willy, Lunar Jetpack, and so on. Grabbed a Sega Mega Drive (you lovely American types call it the Genesis), loved the heck out of Shining Force, and so on, and so on.

Lately I’ve found that I enjoy more casual games. Games where I can dive in and just have fun with them, games that don’t have obligations, or taxes, or the daily grind. I get enough of these things in the real world, so what I want from my games is escapism, imagination, creativity, and ultimately? Fun.

Fun can come in many forms, it can be an art game like Proteus or Journey where I wander an island. Or it can be a horror game that keeps me on the edge of my seat like Amnesia. It can also be a game which is truly dumb fun and embraces silliness, like Lego Batman 2 or Scribblenauts Unlimited.

What I’m playing most recently is, indeed, Scribblenauts Unlimited, Mass Effect 3’s multi-player, Pid, and Torchlight II. On my iPad, I’m playing MacGuffin’s Curse (which has some of the most fantastic dialogue I’ve read in a game outside of an Obsidian or Lucasarts title), Waking Mars, Incubuto, and others. I like games which manage to draw me in, via their brilliant world, their clever writing, or their continuous vibrant nature and novelty. I value that.

The notion of ‘bang for buck’ as a time-to-money measure has no meaning to me. To my account, Dragon Age: Origins is a tremendously dull RPG with wooden characters and WoW-like combat mechanics, but Portal, at only three hours, is a masterpiece and worth thrice what I paid for it.

My Feelings About Guild Wars 2

It’s a drag.

I don’t honestly feel that it delivers on its promise in any respect. The first thing to annoy me about the game is that it’s loaded down with taxes. You pay taxes to travel, you pay taxes to continue fighting, you pay taxes to make things with crafting, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we ended up having to pay taxes to pay taxes. That and the meagre rewards of the game have left the economy in dire straits, a nasty deflationary spiral which devalues everything.

The combat is also slow. Coming from games like Champions Online and Mass Effect 3, which are zippy and fun, I feel like I’m moving through treacle in GW2. It’s like a Final Fantasy character has cast a Slow curse on me, and I can almost feel the seconds pass. It’s obnoxiously, unpleasantly slow. But that’s not what kills the combat for me, it’s that coupled with the dumb AI, the AI that zergs and encourages counter-zerging.

I’ve been playing Mass Effect 3’s multi-player and I’m awed by its AI. It’s won awards and I can understand why. The AI is tactical, it understands concepts like choke points (and how to use smoke bombs at them), along with covering/suppressing fire, armoured escorts for large, heavy units, tougher opponents moving into the line of fire to protect weaker ones, and even basic things like honest to goodness flanking. When fighting Cerberus on Platinum or Gold, it pays to be a little bit paranoid.

(Continued.)

(Continued from last post.)

So I’ve recently been exposed to good AI. And I’m a fan of good AI. The AI of games like Creatures, Ultima VII, Gothic, Black & White’s creature and so on have always left me impressed. I admire that effort. Then I look at GW2’s AI and it just dumbly runs in a line towards the target. You kill them, then they dumbly run in a line towards the target again. Considering how much combat there is in Guild Wars 2… it needs to be better.

Add to that the new grindy elements and the fact that there’s no longer a power plateau, and that the game is moving towards vertical progression, and that’s all just a massive turn-off. I like getting to the power plateau so that I can enjoy the game at my leisure. I don’t think things like taxes and the daily grind have any business being in games. They’re antithetical to escapism and fun. They’re bad design, in my opinion.

But I might be able to stomach all that if the aesthetics and story were great…

Let me talk about the aesthetics, first. They promised us large, living cities. I was expecting something like the cities in Everquest II or Champions Online, which are actually both quite impressive and large/circuitous. Those feel like cities. Cities in GW2 feel like encampments. They promised us that our quarter would be customisable, nope! They promised us activities, and we only got one or two of those, in some cities I believe there are none. So cities were this massive letdown. A textbook example of lazy design.

Look at the charr camp. The original concept art was of a massive sphere, a humongous fantasy deathstar. Now look at the game. The game is nothing like that. It looks like they did just enough work to get it out of the way and no more. And when you’re wandering a city you can see where models have been slapped down, there’s a lack of detail textures and rims around the bottom of models which would help disguise that. It shows a lack of professional pride. They didn’t care.

Okay, so what else? Armour. If you’re not a norn or a human, you’re going to look terrible. You’re either going to lose part of your head (like your horns), or you’re going to clip like there’s no tomorrow. Again, another textbook example of laziness and doing the most minimal amount of work possible. If you look at the armours in EQ II, none of them clip on the beast races. Every. Single. Armour. Piece in EQ II is adjusted to look great on the beast races.

So what about the story? That’s gotta be good, right?

Trahearne.

So ultimately, there was so much potential and I wanted to believe and buy into that potential, but everything about GW2 is a letdown. The gameplay, the lack of a power plateau, the terrible aesthetics (painterly my rosey red bum), the story… just the everything. I wanted to like GW2, I found it impossible to.

So I went back to CO and ME3.

GW2 is a game that could have used longer in the oven, and it could have used a design team that stuck closer to both their original concepts and concept art.

Not done rambling yet!

Okay, I think one of the things that bothered me the most is that they couldn’t even live up to the ideal of presenting an MMO that broke the antiquated restrictions of old, not even in its aesthetics. One major problem I’ve had with fantasy MMOs in the past is that they were boring. Really, really bloody boring! So dull! Oh gods, the numbing dullness. Were they aimed at actuaries?

And GW2 isn’t that different. Instead of the warcamp that made it into GW2 as the charr city, they could have had a gigantic mechanical jellyfish as a city. Held up by thrusters with a glass and metal dome surrounding it. Sort of like a steampunk version of the SHIELD helicarrier, but more artsy! Inside you’d have cities and installations, factories and workplaces, and the whole thing would bristle with guns and cannons.

To get to it, you’d go to a launching point and hop on a helicopter, or you’d use a gate. Instead of having the yawnsome bridge over a pit as a defense, then, they could have suspended the thing over a gigantic iris, which leads to a long, long, long drop to the ground. That’s something they could have done.

Or the sylvari area. There are so many mushrooms in nature which are just… amazing! Instead, they copy-pasted the most typical fantasy and real world plants and palette-swapped them. For anyone with an imagination or absolutely any knowledge of nature, the sylvari home area was just… guh. It was… twee. It was colourful in its RGB colours, but it wasn’t really vibrant or alive. The Grove didn’t even have any real animal life in it beyond those plant dogs (did the sylvari kill off all the surrounding wildlife)?

Let me give you an example: http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ma70m3RIwI1qzurzvo1_500.jpg

You don’t see anything like that in the sylvari area. It’s just jungle vines, oh look… it’s the most typical type of blue mushroom imaginable, but it’s glowing. That must mean it’s special. And that’s not even mentioning how much of the asura aesthetic was liberally “lifted” ad verbatim (or whatever one would say for art) from Phantasy Star Online and Star Ocean. PLEASE ArenaNet. Your concept artists were coming up with much better than this, so why weren’t those ideas making it into the game? Why does the concept art look so breathtakingly awe-inspiring and your game look so… bad? Well, not just bad… but… devoid of imagination.

WoW has this curse, too. But I thought the point was that GW2 was supposed to be the game to get past limitations like that, to set aside the old dullness. The old laziness. I guess I was expecting too much? Well, I was expecting what a good single-player game would give me, I guess. I suppose that is too much.

Background: i started in the nes era, i could lay claim to atari i did play it but its not what i think of when i think of gaming as a kid. Nes, snes, and genisis come to mind first. Kinds of games was mostly rpgs, final fantasy, dragon warrior, chrono trigger and 7th saga along with the shining force series. I was also a big PC gamer with games like warcraft and x-wing…i remember DOS! =D

Do i like GW2?: answer is i quit playing it for the most part i like to check in occasionally and see how its faring. Truth is game did alot right, world is fun and enguaging, the characters are amusing stories is decent enough to keep me interested(a tad generic) and dynamic events are awesome! the problem? the issue is that they are far more focused on DUNGEONS then dynamic events, and lets face it the dungeons in this game are TERRIBLE!

On top of that the game has this idea that you should be instantly slaughtered for being hit by anything, even stacking defensive traits wont do you much good. They professed there was no trinity in this game but that is a lie. There is a trinity… and if you arent running a controller, buffer, and debuffer set up you are going to get slaughtered… a true skilled based game would be say tera or raiderZ where by if YOU are good enough you can solo any boss in those games, simply because you can avoid every attack. You cant do that in GW2 which saddly makes it more about gear, and group set up and less about skillful game play.

At the end of the day, i play games because they are fun, and while GW2 has alot of interesting mechanics, and probably one of the best questing systems. Its combat falls short, and were design choices i didnt care for at all. I think game is fine for those that like the way the game plays… and if was alot more focus on dynamic events over dungeons i’d probably pick it back up… but as that is not the case…well are other things to play and enjoy.

Gaming backround

Started with UGH, Prehistoric, Wolfenstein 3D, Simpsons and march bashing enemies with vacuum cleaner and other old games on PC, also there was some Gameboy Mario and stuff, Nintendo 64 Bomberman, James Bond, football and so on.

On PC it was mostly singleplayer games at the beggining but with Counter Strike I started to go into multiplayer world. First MMO – Ragnarok online for couple years, after that Lineage 2 for couple years, Guild Wars 1 for a long time, Age of Conan for a while, WoW (till max level when I did quit), EvE online (shame it is so much time consuming), Swtor for a while and tried couple others.

What is my playstyle? I don’t usualy care about money in game so I buy whatever I feel I want in that time and I don’t search much for cheapest way, its a game I’m supposed to have fun not do business or somethin like that. I level usualy slowly, I’m not rushing anywhere I just enjoy the game, dungeons, world, towns, other people.

My thoughts on GW 2

I said that I usualy don’t rush anywhere. It was always the truth until I started my engineer, I leveled him on max level as fast as I never did in any other MMO. Crafting (I crafted every armor I’ve had since probably lvl 20 or so) and exploration of maps I didnt go throught with my mesmer was my motivation, also going dungeons which I like a lot in this game. Some dungeons are more boring, mostly bosses, like end boss in TA but I get it he fits there and whole dungeon is a pain to those who don’t know flowers well. You know what I’m talking about. I love most of the things this game has to offer.

What I dislike? Fractals, not the dungeon itself but so many levels and people can go together if they are different level, not many people wants to go lower level, especialy 10 lower or so. Exotic crafting – you have to grind a lot of items to get it. But yes, I kinda dislike it because I’m not that hardcore farmer so I did spend around 7 gold for crafting some exo stuff – just helmet and coat, like I said, I don’t care much about money in games. But I also don’t dislike it so much because I get that exotic is supposed to be something special, more than rare, yet in CoF or dungeons you can farm way faster for equipment rather than farming items for crafted exotic. That probably should be looked at (imo).

Yes I hate poison in PvP and thiefs as well, also necros, but thats my subjetive thing and I know that balance here is kitten good. So keep up the good work Anet I’m loving this game so far. Just price of gems is what I hate.

For those who say in GW 1 was this and that and this is not like GW 1. I know there are ppl like that. This is not GW 1, would be pointless to make the same game twice and they know it, you know it. GW wasnt perfect at the beggining either. I thought there could be a bit more skills a had to get used to the idea noone at the map that its just for me, and henchman? You remember that stupid healing henchman who had AoE heal and was always healing the enemy you were trying to kill? Yea, I know..

There is one MMO I’d rather play than GW 2 but I’m not doing so. It just has some thing which doesn’t suit me, so am I crying on theirs forums? Nope, I went to this game which I think is kitten good and has a loads of potential. Golden rule of gaming – you don’t like it, find something else.

P.S. I hope Anet could bring back ritualist or paragon or a class with a pole, I’d love that. Thanks Anet for this great game, it has flaws, as we do, as everything has, so don’t worry, there are ppl like me who get that MMO can’t be perfect because of its compexity.

Gaming Background: GW1, a little Aion, very little WoW, any game that has the kittens to allow the complete mutilation of a child (since that’s taboo, for some reason). that’s all you get, cause i’m bored.

As far a GW2 goes, I LOVE this game. “Gear-Treadmill” conspiracies, and all.

Your gaming background?
I’ve played games since getting an Atari 2600 when I was 5 years old or so. Since then I have owned virtually every console released. My father went to college for Computer Programming so I got into computers at a similar age with the Atari 800. I went through the early stages of BBS gaming because I like Table-Top RPG’s and it was a natural progression. Then I got into early online games such as Neverwinter, Red Dragon Inn, and Meridian 59 in the early/mid 90’s. A friend was testing Ultima Online and got me into Phase 1 CBT for UO at which point I fell in love with the MMORPG concept. Around the same time (late 90’s/early 2000’s) I was also working as a game tester and some R&D for Acclaim, Activision, Tecmo, and Z-Axis Ltd. My love for console games still remains even if I am no longer working in the industry. However, UO opened me to a brand new experience and then getting into the beta test for Everquest sealed the deal for future MMORPG’s and my love of them. I’ve played hundreds if not thousands of them from the NA Market (probably every AAA release) to EU/Asia Markets (so many KR/CN/JP F2P and a couple sub games, they sometimes just blur together) over the past 16 years. WoW was the game I found to maintain a good balance among PvE and PvP. Although, I consider Final Fantasy XI and Horizons to have the best PvE experiences and Dark Age of Camelot is still hands down the best PvP experience to date.

Love/Hate GW2?
At the moment to be honest I am quite Neutral on the game. I don’t Hate it since it does so many things right. Love I can’t use right now because I think the recent FOTM/Ascended Update took the game in a very poor direction. Prior to that I very much loved the game and I hope it improves in the future to bring me back around. Otherwise, it’ll be a fun diversion until Elder Scrolls Online, Blade & Soul, ArcheAge, Bless, or another interesting MMORPG captures my attention.

Gaming Background:
I started playing online games with Age of Empires II: Age of Kings/Conquerors and Diablo II. Loved those two games to bit!

My first ever MMO was Dark Age of Camelot which I stuck with from 2001 until the end of 2005 (which I returned to in 2009 until 2011) and moved to Guild Wars where I played for a year before going to WoW because guildies left GW. After WoW, played Lord of the Rings Online and actually enjoyed raiding there more than I did in WoW. Played numerous other MMOs after playing WoW for 3 years and haven’t found any MMO which has got me clamoring to play every single hour just like DAoC, GW1, WoW & LoTRO did for me.

In order of ‘enjoyment’ I got from MMOs are:
DAoC – Simply put, this game made me a PVP’er and has the best 3 faction system ever that even WvWvW doesn’t compare at all.
GW1 – PVP in this game was a fresh breath of air after playing DAoC’s massive scale PVP. The arenas and GvG were very welcoming.
LoTRO – Very good PvE and I never expected myself to enjoy a PvE game so much.
Warhammer Online – Enjoyed the unique class mechanics for PVP
Age of Conan – Similar to above, enjoyed the unique Melee class mechanics especially for PVP
WoW – good balance of PvE/PvP, but crappy community, elitism etc kinda made this game less enjoyable.

The above are really just the ones that are memorable and worth mentioning. I admit I enjoy the fantasy type MMORPGs and can’t stand playing sci-fi MMOs like Star Trek Online, EVE, SW:G, SW:TOR and numerous other non-fantasy MMOs I’ve tried.

Love/Hate GW2?
Pretty neutral about this. No hate and no love. I was blown away by the beauty of the game and the game mechanics are pretty unique. I guess I’ve really just outgrown MMOs or even gaming as a whole and with a busy working life now, I find it hard to invest my time as much as I previously did. Maybe I’m just burnt out from dedicating a large portion of my time to gaming. I haven’t actually logged in GW2 in a few days now and haven’t played any games at all.

I keep love for my girlfriend and I don’t hate anything, life’s too short for such things. I’m 25 years old which should explain my gaming background more than enough. I also have a job which explains my gaming style.

I like GW2 as an mmo, however I seriously hope a.net can fix some of the ascended gear disaster. Sure looks like they know it, and Chris apologized several times throughout the AMA. That gives me hope, people who can admit mistakes usually are the ones who don’t do so twice. Blizzard never ever apologized for some of their worst mistakes, instead managed to make the same mistake over and over again.

Gaming background? Lol…I’ve played everything, and am a current developer and programmer for a small gaming company that has released a couple very successful games.

How I feel about GW2? It’s better than other MMOs, but is missing something that makes me want to keep playing it like I did GW1…mainly the shallowness of the character build systems compared to the original. They are lightyears beyond WoW (especially the horribly dumbed down system now), but is still missing something. Every build feels more or less the same.