Guild Wars 2

So, how is it going so far. Has day one lived up to what you expected? Is it starting off the way it should?

http://strawpoll.me/2030538

I’m enjoying it.

Me too Valdur. I think it’s been a lot of fun for opening day.

Voted “Pretty Good so Far”

For someone who absolutely despise Season 1, i must admit I really like
how Season 2 is going.

In fact i enjoyed it so much, i bought some gems just to support Anet.
Good effort should be rewarded imo.

I <3 it!

I hope the upcoming episodes will be awesome like this one. I can’t wait for the next update!

I’m missing the “awesome-but-why-yet-another-Sylvari-villan-that-ruined-the-whole-thing” option.

it dont look and it dont feel so half baken like s1 did.

I dont like story and find all this npc talking and videos extrem annoying but this story thing was nice. Not so much annoying npc text talking or videos but the story was interactive – how it should be in a game – i wanna play it and dont watch it. Super.

The map design i like most. It has Atmosphere. It has a Soul. Playing on this map feels like an Adventure. Somehow i always feel like i will find indiana jones in a cave^^

Events are ok. Only bad is i cant see where are events going – this i dont like on all other maps too^^

and the contra for this patch:

tooooooooooooooo much jumping
seriously – not everyone like jumping puzzles and i find all this jumping rly annoying

overall – first livingstory i like

Personally I find this kind of silly. Wait until a few more episodes. Although for an Episode 1, it is nice to see a new map that is supposedly going to stay. I just hope they get rid of the aspects when we move on from Dry Top. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun traversing a small map and all but the mechanics are nothing more than a gimmick and now they’re even timed. Just give me maps with a lot of content, a decent to good on going story arch, and baddies to kill. Jumping puzzles are fine as they were in vanilla but I would like to see zero-more aspects in the Episodes ahead.

That being said, ironically enough can we see teleport skills (IE: Shadow Step) get a rework to act more in line with the lightning-aspect? Let people have their moments making puzzle jumping easier, I’m just tired of being unable to traverse an object because it’s on a higher plain-level and there’s no route frame to connect the path.

Voted for Meh. The story is good, but I really hate the new zone. It’s really compacted together, no endless desert feel. I also hate maps where you have to do jumping puzzles just go from place to place. Vertical maps are also hard to navigate, I’m at the green star but actually it’s 2 levels above me. Another sky crystal collection (called coins this time), which was the worst part of the last patch. So it’s among the three worst releases for me, the other two are SAB and Labyrinthe Cliffs. I HATE jumping puzzles, I can do them for achievements, but I do not enjoy doing them.

I am very satisfied with new storytelling and story missions even in terms of gameplay. It’s huge improvement over S1 and I love it. But there is one thing I am not big fan of – jumping-puzzle based content. Just like ProTech above me, I will do it for achievements, but I won’t find much joy in it, I prefer “classic” content like bossfights, dungeons and stuff like that… so I hope that S2 is going to be well ballanced at delivering enough content for all kinds of audience.

TLDR: Pretty good so far, just not aimed towards my liking.

I love it so far. Great mehanics, story and characters. Only thing i miss are no gem skins. There is to much gem oriented stuff lattely. I would rather pay for the content or expansion than the gem store stuff.

Huge MEH :/ for me.

While I appreciate the new area, and Dry Top (even just this first piece, Prospect Valley) is beautifully crafted and scenic, the story — first and foremost — and the low amount of content (not including the post-episode-completion achievements since I haven’t tried them yet and thus cannot make proper judgement) are greatly impairing my ability to enjoy this episode — and I’m sure they will leave their mark on the rest of my season 2 experience.

Since the content quantity and the amount of fun it yields varies from person to person, I’ll just go over my issues with the story. (However, I cannot help but think that the rest of the updates/episodes will give relatively the same gameplay length; 3-5 hours using dulfy.net for the hardcore players, 1-3 days for casual players who want to explore and discover stuff on their own. That’s not much if you ask me, but then again, as I said before; depends entirely on the person experiencing it.)

• By now it has become obvious that ANet is incapable of driving the story, making progression if it doesn’t involve slaughter, mayhem, and destruction (+ the added drama & loss that’s being set up so blatantly most of the time — you can bet your sweet coins that Belinda will either get killed or become corrupted in a future episode, based on how much they reminisced with Marjory and wished to fight together and go home to their mother). Season 1 was all about massacres, from the Molten Alliance raids on norn settlements and charr fahrars to Lion’s Arch. Now we get fresh new Season 2 — an excellent chance to start a new “life” and gain distance from that abysmal Season 1 — and what is the first thing we see? Zephyrites (one of the only, if not the sole, intriguing and likeable elements from S1) dying left and right, mourning lost friends and lovers, because another crazed sylvari, a simple-trader-turned-killing-machine suddenly highly trained in melee (knifing), sabotage, and explosives (the guy was in the early stages of the Scarlet Sue syndrome) betrayed them. I’m getting real tired of this senseless butchery, especially when they are mostly done in ways very similar to real life calamities like bombing of public events, biological warfare against civilians, bombing of an aircraft. Personally, I hoped I could escape from all that in a fantasy game, but I guess I was horribly wrong. I’m already dreading what is going to happen in the next episodes: an Inquest test-firing of some nuclear-like weapon on the crash site? Canisters holding Mordy-corruption sprayed over Dry Top? The wholesale massacre of Prosperity and the survivors of the crash? (Also, rest in peace, Morning. You didn’t have to die, but a bloodthirsty, sylvari-wubbing writer demanded that you be killed for the sake of a below-mediocre plot.)

• Scarlet, Scarlet, Scarlet. I don’t think I need to say any more than this, but I always feel compelled to over-elaborate my points. Instead of decreasing her Mary Sueness, they only increased it exponentially: it is now confirmed that she was the creator of the Steam creatures as well as their portals, and that she discovered the ley line network all on her own (something not even the asura’s overused technological genius could accomplish). However, I did find her room quite interesting, but mostly because of the books by Snaff and Ogden (that dragon one was pretty cool), as well as some props to popular theories made by the lore community, like magic seeping in through weakened/torn barriers between Tyria and the Mists where magic is in abundance. (Also, I wanted to throw up when that annoying Taimi was orgasming to Scarlet and all her stuff.)

• The fake investigation, while looks nice and doesn’t make the PC look stupid, is just cheap. Green star and the quest log telling me all I need to do, no conversation choices except for one. Probably asking too much, but if I think of an investigation, I want something similar done to Batman’s detective mode (with the amount of sci-fi and steampunk making into the game, an asura investigation equipment wouldn’t be that out of place), or Geralt’s witcher sense. Even SW:ToR could accomplish something remarkable in this field with the macrobinocular…

I’m pretty sure I could continue on, but that would lead to off-topic issues with the entirety of the storytelling as well as the writers’ shortcomings and failures. These issues were the ones that soured my experience the most, the worst being the first point, of course.

P.S.: The music is great.

Opening hyperbolic statement: With LS2, arenanet took everything I hate about GW2 and mooned me with it. Over and over. And over.

Boo: by the time I was halfway through the introductory mission, I was already sick of the endless red circle dodging. Unfortunately (for me), that set the tone for what was to come.

Boo: to the aspects travel gimmick outside of the Labyrinthine Cliffs. It was all right, there, but I don’t want it anywhere else, thanks.

Boo: to bosses using knockback skills on tiny elevated platforms. Grow up, anet.

Boo: to yet another more-annoying-than-fun gimmicky boss encounter in which the real struggle was to not throw my PC out the nearest window.

Missed Opportunities:

1. Instead of recycling the aspect travel things, why not bring back the rapid-growth vine bridges from Guild Wars?

2. Instead of moar jumping, why not introduce some form of, ya know, climbing?

3. You could have even had some type of rent-a-mount to get us through the quicksand areas.

3a: Or… given how wacky GW2 often is… sand shoes! With shoulder-mounted balloons to offset our weight and keep us from sinking (there was a movie back in the 60s in which people used gas-filled balloons and special shoes to walk on water).

4. Also, gosh, this place looks all hot and dry and all that blowing sand – here, guys, here’s a complimentary (and optional) Sandstorm resistant outfit or at least some kind of mask/filter/whatever thingee to keep the sand out of your eyes/noses/mouths/lungs.

5. Oh yeah, better take some extra water! Just in case. Gee, I wonder if there are any hidden springs out here anywhere…

Rating: three frowny faces, one meh face, one smiley face.

Tachenon: Well, the game’s combat is based on dodging, I wonder how you could play it until now, if that bothers you that much. But I (sort of) agree with rest except knockbacks by bosses… imo these are are awesome, I like it… my only issue is that it’s kinda unfair that we can’t knock them down too (I know, it’s about balancing stuff blabla).

starwatto.4527:

Tachenon: Well, the game’s combat is based on dodging, I wonder how you could play it until now, if that bothers you that much. But I (sort of) agree with rest except knockbacks by bosses… imo these are are awesome, I like it… my only issue is that it’s kinda unfair that we can’t knock them down too (I know, it’s about balancing stuff blabla).

Dodging every now and again is all right, but having to do it over and over again and again repeatedly, especially when dodging out of one conglomeration of red circles just lands you in another = boo.

Another (potentially wacky) Missed Opportunity: some kind of special skill/environmental weapon with an attack called ‘Pound Sand’.

ThiBash.5634:

I’m missing the “awesome-but-why-yet-another-Sylvari-villan-that-ruined-the-whole-thing” option.

Tbh, it makes sense if Mordemoth is the focus. Sylvari would probably be his target for corruption, so I’d expect more evil sylvari to come.

Personally, for a first episode, I have to give it a 10/10. If this first one is anything to go bye, they HAVE taken the feedback seriously. We just have to see if it continues to show.

Also bonus: I have not seen anyone complain of bugs, and I can’t say I’ve run in to any either.

Wasn’t really into S1 mainly being a WvWer.But this entertained me.

I’m still enjoying it. The new events are fun and the zone is beautiful. It is kind of small for what I expected but if they are going to add more as the season goes on that’s ok.

I hated just about all of season 1 and Scarlet, but I like how they are approaching the story this go around. Having Scarlet as just background noise is pretty nice and the development of the world around us is really neat. I do hope we get some less “Everything is blowing up! We’re all going to die!” updates but to kick it all off I thought it was well done.

Plus, I LOVE the Zephyrs so I’m glad they are playing such a prominent role.

Good:
The zone is visually appealing and has a cool mechanic (the sandstorm switchover)
The new story steps are, mechanically, very good
Using zephyrite crystals to ascend a vertical map is a cool gimmick
The characters seem a bit more ‘full’
The zone champions are interesting and threatening

Bad:
Using the JP/aspect mechanics is necessary to enter the zone/story content at all
Characters have too much dialogue (yes you’re hooked up marjory and kasmeer we get it) (yes braham you don’t like scarlet, go outside and let the adults talk)
I don’t really want to look at Scarlet’s finger paints; too much of the story stuff is required reading
The map feels somewhat small- possibly because of the vertical design

Ugly:
I am not sure how the Nomad’s gear will play out
Quicksand is an interesting gimmick but can be kind of annoying
Dust Mite blindspam augh

So I went with “pretty good”, or whatever the 4/5 option was. It’s a solid start, and if this is the low point of the content, then we’ve got good things ahead of us!

The release definitely isn’t perfect, and there were big chunks of season 1 that I enjoyed, but it’s easy to tell that they have listened and made huge improvements between season 1 and season 2.

They improve the direction and story and are finally giving us a little insight into Scarlet’s madness instead of just some vague hints. I didn’t completely hate Scarlet the first time around like a lot of people did, but I am glad that they aren’t just bringing her back as the main villain again. At least, it doesn’t seem like they are going to, but I am sure we’ll be hearing about her for a while. I’m glaid that Taimi has something substantial to do now.

My friends and I ran through it together and had a blast, and I’ve played through the story again myself, slower this time, to try and catch all the hidden surprises and work out achievements. I do hope that there will be a few bigger world events in through the life of this season, but I was really glad to see it wasn’t about leading the zerg with a leash, and then subsequently changing the encounters so they couldn’t be zerged. This was definitely a nice change so far.

I am really hopeful and really looking forward to the upcoming installations for this season. I’m sure that there are going to be things that I don’t like, and some things that I really love, but that’s the way video games are. I’m overall optimistic and definitely enjoying myself so far. I don’t have all the achievements yet, but I did manage to best the jq. I found myself wanting more story when this one ended, so I guess they are doing something right.

I haven’t played it much so far, just did the introductory part of story and walked a bit on the new map, then I can’t say much. But I’m going to tell my impressions so far. Let me put it in a “easy-to-read” way:

Pros:

• Regarding design aspects the new map looks cool, fresh new places are nice.
• I thought it interesting to have a better trackable story, although I don’t like the fact of having to switch between Personal and Living story.
• New mats are cool too, although they are for high lvl crafting.

Cons:

• As already mentioned here, a whole jumping puzzle map is a pain. I had tried to do the very first jump with Lightning around 10 times or so without success. I had to use Experimental Portal Device which did the trick, but it was very annoying to be tossed away from my target the whole time. With lag it’s a very worse experience and frustrating.
• By chance was the new content meant to hardcore players? C’mon, the introductory part was more painful than Orr. Even doing it with a friend it was tough, I can’t even imagine it being done solo. You put us very outnumbered and the pushing from the golems is a pain in the… It was nice seeing NPCs really fighting with me, but I spent more time dodging than fighting or shooting. It WASN’T fun at all. Even worse with the crap lag that made skills badly responsive. Why doing a thing so tough right at the first part? It even made me feel to want giving up the rest of story. WTH, being overwhelmed and pushed back the whole f**** time isn’t fun! I got downed 2 times in it even though I was having help from a friend and NPCs while I could easily solo vets at Orr! Change it now please! If you were expecting it to be done in groups it should have been put in open world, not in instance. (Ah, not to mention the crap loot… 1 masterwork and 8 fine gears after that painful fight? WTH? Not a single rare?)

To finish it, I rated it “meeh :/” for now because I had more frustrations than fun so far. I already feel frustrated and wanting to let it be, but I think it’s early to say and I may be going to give it a try.
By the way, I also tend to agree with Thalador, ProTech and Tachenon above…

ThiBash.5634:

I’m missing the “awesome-but-why-yet-another-Sylvari-villan-that-ruined-the-whole-thing” option.

I have a feeling why there is that trend is yet to be explained and actually part of the story. Here is my theory.

cant rate it, I cant be bothered to do all the silly jumping puzzles just to experience it

I kind of finding the story tedious at the moment. not only does it involved alot of going to point A to point B just to advance the story but the boss fight was bloody annoying.

You have to find the aspect crystal before it vanish and once you do, you get up on the pillar to face the boss and then he throw grenade at you which if you don’t dodge away in time, it blown you off the pillar and you’re back to finding the crystal. Need I remind you that the pillar are already small in the first place leaving you very little space to dodge and remain on top of the pillar.

While I won’t say it’s a plothole but I am baffle at how a mining town exist in the firstplace without any proper support like an asuran gate nor have they fully explain why they chose themselves to be isolated from the other major settlements.

I ran solo for all of the content and thought it was pretty fun. It was nice to actually have a little bit of a challenge. With the boss fight as long as you dodge, keep moving, and have some sort of range yous should have been fine.

On the mining town I think its existence has something to do with the Sinister Triad. I’m pretty sure they do a lot of trade with them.

So far people seem pretty happy. Nice.

1.) Pretty good so far.
…..241 votes (46%)
2.) Amazing!
…..105 votes (20%)
3.) Meh. :|
…..95 votes (18%)
4.) Piece Of Garbage…
…..44 votes (8%)
5. Not very good so far.
…..39 votes (7%)

I need to dig into story stuff more before I really decide, but so far, there’s only two things marring it for me. I suppose that’s a good sign?

Badbad:
1. Jumping focused. Not mad at the jumping itself, but the 15-second time limit. And I play Charr, so their skinny ledges are still irritating.

2. Blind. I need to slap someone’s hand here. Your “write this on the chalkboard until your hand goes numb” statement is: Blind is not every 3 seconds. It’s getting highly irritating that this form of denial-CC is how they expect to ‘challenge’ us. It wasn’t funny with fake-Zojja in Twilight Arbor, and it’s not funny now.

But those are semi-minor details, and I’m still jazzed about my next Living Story steps.

I’m the type of person who just accepts that there are parts of the game (and most games) I’m not very good at by default, so the mechanics don’t really bother me, it’s just something new to learn.

That said, the mechanics were never an issue with season one, in fact, that was the only part that felt interesting. The problem was the story was both bad and depersonalized, so you had zero interest in how things went and it felt like you had no real input. They improved on both of those things, ironically, by completely removing choice from the story. And why not, they can’t actually afford to customize the game in real-time, so it’s always going to have to force you into situations.

That said, I think they could have made it personal while still giving you choice. Something I would have liked is if they had offered different paths to take from Point A to Point B. It would be more fun to replay on different characters if you could do something that better fit who you consider your character to be. Maybe one path could be the path with Belinda and Marjory and another path could have been staying with Rox down below and having to fight more Inquest or lots of destroyers in a sandstorm, and then making it so that somehow that resulted in finding the same information. Tweaks like that would still not satisfy everybody, but it would be more in line with the original personal story and would make things even more fun.

Renkencen.6127:

While I won’t say it’s a plothole but I am baffle at how a mining town exist in the firstplace without any proper support like an asuran gate nor have they fully explain why they chose themselves to be isolated from the other major settlements.

Sounds like they get airdrops. The only clue I noticed was “from our friends up north.” Riot Alice also mentioned them, I think. So it could definitely be bandits, but I haven’t seen bandits with airships, have you?

Two storylines I’d enjoy, though I’m not suggesting these are likely: the Consortium, or… bit of a stretch here… minions of Mordremoth.

How cool would it be if Mordy had lieutenants actively extorting the locals, forcing them to produce food and other sustenance for the dragon in exchange for meager compensation?

Zhaitan enslaves through death. Mordremoth enslaves by isolating.

Prophet.6257:

I ran solo for all of the content and thought it was pretty fun. It was nice to actually have a little bit of a challenge. With the boss fight as long as you dodge, keep moving, and have some sort of range yous should have been fine.

Yes, I don’t mind some challenge actually, but for me the very first fight in the story were more dodging and struggling with skills than really hitting at a foe. There were too much golems around that keep pushing you away. It could be fun and easy for players used to extreme fight and such, but it may be a pain for median players and even worse if “our lovely friend lag” comes in (yes, I had some lag during it and skills were stubborn on working).
I was told the next parts wouldn’t be that hard, but if “the first impression is the one which lasts” then it didn’t looked good for me.
I get easily overwhelmed and being required to look at all corners during the fight in order to fight it properly doesn’t work for me. Note here, I play as mesmer then I’m most ranged than melee, even so it wasn’t that fun.

I like the construct of the new map a lot, not the jumping concept but the way it looks and the mine. It gives me that explorer feeling that i only had at the beginning of the game when i was a newby. The buried chests are a great idea too.

The story is pretty decent, i like the end part where everyone is in that room, this is the first time in curious about what comes next. I never really cared for the story last season.

This is not what Anet said was coming as in much more expansive Living Story content but less frequent. Its back to Living Story one standards. Yes this is good for a two weekly update but no better than some Living Story 1 content and certainly not as large even as Southsun Cove. After 5 months of repetitive festivals I expected much more and I would have paid for much more rather than for cosmetic items that Anet seem to think this game thrives on yet GW1 was so much better content wise. So much better.

Its good content but definitely not what Anet led us to believe was coming. Well those of us who read all the stuff that they wrote since Christmas about what the LS2 was bringing. Its not enough to hook me for long. Im back to my fps and MMO beta.

I’m enjoying it. I like the change to the achievements. I now feel like I don’t have to grind out a meta. I can play it as much or as little as I want, it reminded me of my time playing Guild Wars. Playing to have fun. I don’t exspect to be able to finish everything. But it’s nice to know I can do them when ever I want.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I’m enjoying it. I like the change to the achievements. I now feel like I don’t have to grind out a meta. I can play it as much or as little as I want, it reminded me of my time playing Guild Wars. Playing to have fun. I don’t exspect to be able to finish everything. But it’s nice to know I can do them when ever I want.

Buts its too little content after so long without anything new and its not much to hold on to. I cant be kitten d repeating it so I will go back to my fps and beta mmo and even though I look in each update I wont stay for long. If many people just do as i do and dont properly engage with the world outside of each update how can that help keep a healthy sized consistent population? To be honest the way I feel let down right now i have no interest at all in coming updates. There will need to be something considerable to get me interested again.

Ok, since my last post here I was still intending to give it some more try before I could really rate it.. However.. WTH is it with poison and push away? Seriously, I tried to play the second part of it and just at the beginning I got too many red circles over me with just 2 or 3 mobs nearby.. I had to watch over more the ground than the mobs I was fighting with! What about the d* pushes away from the golems C’mon, a single push is enough to immobilize us but 4 in a row?! I tried to play the second part of the story and in the part where you fight with Inquest interrogating Zephyr I was pushed away 4 times in a row that I was tossed out of the platform. What were my options? Restarting instance? No, there wasn’t a “leave instance” button.. Waypointing and coming back? No way as it says I was “still in combat” then I couldn’t use waypoint… Walking all my way up again? Naah as Lightning aspect keeps failing on me and tossing me out of my target… Exiting game? Yes, that was what I did…. :/

Regarding the visual part I say I liked it, the new map looks cool. Regarding the gameplay I have been more frustrated than enjoying it… I know it’s a level 80 map but these mobs are too strong to be done solo. Too many things at once! Pushing away is a golem mechanic someone could say and yes I know that, but please not 4 or 5 times in a row where I can barely react to.
I can’t even say about what I think about the story, achievements or other stuff so far as I haven’t had the mood to continue.. too much frustrations.. Sorry but I’m not a hardcore player and I dislike being overwhelmed. If they would lessen the push away and amount of buff on us or risen the dodge cooldown it would work better :S

joneb.5679:

BrotherBelial.3094:

I’m enjoying it. I like the change to the achievements. I now feel like I don’t have to grind out a meta. I can play it as much or as little as I want, it reminded me of my time playing Guild Wars. Playing to have fun. I don’t exspect to be able to finish everything. But it’s nice to know I can do them when ever I want.

Buts its too little content after so long without anything new and its not much to hold on to. I cant be kitten d repeating it so I will go back to my fps and beta mmo and even though I look in each update I wont stay for long. If many people just do as i do and dont properly engage with the world outside of each update how can that help keep a healthy sized consistent population? To be honest the way I feel let down right now i have no interest at all in coming updates. There will need to be something considerable to get me interested again.

There are a ton of events to do in dry top. I’m enjoying every bit of it. I don’t see how it’s too little content. The achievements are challenging. I still have about 3 to get, but the nice thing is that I can go back and do them when ever I want. Also I’m not tied to zerging around for the next 2 weeks trying to get the meta. If I want to do something else with my limited time I get to play I can and not miss out. I think the JP hit the sweet spot of challenging but not so much that you think “F*** that noise” after your first few attempts like the clock tower, and this is coming from someone who generally hates JP’s. The events are fun and different to other zones. With the LS working like this I also have a resin to level my alts and play the PS as my story is continuing. My only gripe is that my PC is silent. I wouldn’t mind if it had been this way right through but the PS spoilt me. I like hearing my warrior talk. I understand things are down on a budget, and I hope this is something that can be changed down the line.

shadow.6174:

Ok, since my last post here I was still intending to give it some more try before I could really rate it.. However.. WTH is it with poison and push away? Seriously, I tried to play the second part of it and just at the beginning I got too many red circles over me with just 2 or 3 mobs nearby.. I had to watch over more the ground than the mobs I was fighting with! What about the d* pushes away from the golems C’mon, a single push is enough to immobilize us but 4 in a row?! I tried to play the second part of the story and in the part where you fight with Inquest interrogating Zephyr I was pushed away 4 times in a row that I was tossed out of the platform. What were my options? Restarting instance? No, there wasn’t a “leave instance” button.. Waypointing and coming back? No way as it says I was “still in combat” then I couldn’t use waypoint… Walking all my way up again? Naah as Lightning aspect keeps failing on me and tossing me out of my target… Exiting game? Yes, that was what I did…. :/

Regarding the visual part I say I liked it, the new map looks cool. Regarding the gameplay I have been more frustrated than enjoying it… I know it’s a level 80 map but these mobs are too strong to be done solo. Too many things at once! Pushing away is a golem mechanic someone could say and yes I know that, but please not 4 or 5 times in a row where I can barely react to.
I can’t even say about what I think about the story, achievements or other stuff so far as I haven’t had the mood to continue.. too much frustrations.. Sorry but I’m not a hardcore player and I dislike being overwhelmed. If they would lessen the push away and amount of buff on us or risen the dodge cooldown it would work better :S

I play as a warrior and the trick to beat the Golem is to keep it at range. I burned down the other 3 targets with my GS before switching to my rifle and just ranging him down. I am by no means the best player out there, but simple game mechanics should not be that much of a problem.

All (most of) the people, who complain about the jumping part are just noobs, who got used to being carried by more experienced/skilled players while zerging around. My impression of this new living world is very good, because everything was finally made a solo effort (thus achievements are now actual achievements, not just stading around until others do stuff for me). Because you are now completely independent of random fools, who ruin everything for you, many people got all the new achievements the first/second day, while the noobs decided to complain on the forum that they cannot press spacebar a single time.
My advice is… get used to this. You will no longer be carried by more experienced players. Train hard, push yourself to your limits and complete all the content on your own. If you do not want to get better and cannot perform simple tasks like jumping, this is a wrong game for you.

Amazing living world Anet, thank you for that. Keep it up!

Voted meh as well, but that’s not to say that I didn’t see any improvements. The overall LS system has moved a huge step forward with the permanent replayability/journal feature, and I also like the fact that they’ve continued to expand the world with the introduction of another zone. The Zephyrite storyline has reasonable potential, although I’m keeping my expectations low.

However, that said, I ultimately found certain aspects of the plot to be somewhat banal. At this point, any calamity that occurs in Tyria has almost no chance of eliciting excitement from me because of the frequency with which they occurred during season one. The Zephyrite crash, therefore, feels just like business as usual; “here we go, another disaster site to clean up.” The characters don’t seem to be growing much beyond Taimi getting a little crazier(?) for Scarlet’s legacy and Marjory’s sister becoming more central of a figure, both of which seem more like plot devices than character development. It’s not that the writing is bad, but with the LS format I feel as if they have their hands tied in some areas by needing to fulfill certain requirements for gameplay purposes. It must be difficult, and it may speed up from here, but the story just hasn’t gripped me and left me wanting more yet.

In terms of gameplay, again, not much has changed. More platforming (if I wanted more of it I’d play something like Assassin’s Creed where the implementation isn’t as clunky due to MMO controls and lag), some decently implemented achievements, but also some random collection quests/runarounds that are much more tedious than challenging, and still some buggy implementation with achievement completion.

TL;DR
The good: permanent content system, a new zone, llamas, possibilities inherent in gw2 lore means story could potentially be great
The bad: imo the writing has to be truly amazing (or they need a lot more resources) to squeeze great storytelling into the LS format and gameplay could benefit from an end to this strange love affair with platforming; gw2 doesn’t do guitar hero nearly well enough for it to be a core mechanic, and the same feels like it should be true for platforming. Keep it a side diversion please, and leave mandatory platforming to games designed around it.

BrotherBelial.3094:

I play as a warrior and the trick to beat the Golem is to keep it at range. I burned down the other 3 targets with my GS before switching to my rifle and just ranging him down. I am by no means the best player out there, but simple game mechanics should not be that much of a problem.

I play as mesmer (that explains it, mesmers have so many bugs…) and I have been able to manage golems before, what annoys me in this one is too much pushing away sequentially that’s too much dodging for few cooldown. Although I’m used to play ranged I don’t know why it has been a pain to me, but just in the first 2 parts of it I already got frustrated.

Another fact is being outnumbered. It’s nice to see some more action from the NPCs in this story but the amount of mobs just in the first part felt as if I was alone in the enemy’s territory.

BrotherBelial.3094:

Also I’m not tied to zerging around for the next 2 weeks trying to get the meta. If I want to do something else with my limited time I get to play I can and not miss out. [..] The events are fun and different to other zones. With the LS working like this I also have a resin to level my alts and play the PS as my story is continuing.

Despite all I also agree and like it, it doesn’t require you to be in a huge group zerging and just spamming key 1 the most of times, it requires something more now.

Also you are free to get the achievements any time you want, no more limited to the time window of the release. Also, it seems to incentivize players to complete their story if they want it to make more sense. With that PS doesn’t look simply as a complement anymore.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

All (most of) the people, who complain about the jumping part are just noobs, who got used to being carried by more experienced/skilled players while zerging around. [..] Because you are now completely independent of random fools, who ruin everything for you, many people got all the new achievements the first/second day, while the noobs decided to complain on the forum that they cannot press spacebar a single time. [..] You will no longer be carried by more experienced players. Train hard, push yourself to your limits and complete all the content on your own. If you do not want to get better and cannot perform simple tasks like jumping, this is a wrong game for you.

As I said above, it’s a good thing which it doesn’t depend too much on a huge group where fools could ruin it. However, not all the people having hard times with it are noobs that likes to be carried around by experienced players, more is involved. This is not about being skilled only, other things can ruin your experience, like lag.

My main frustration with jumping is Lightning aspect fails almost the whole time. I DO know well how to jump and I have done jumping puzzles and “hard to reach” vistas easily before. But rely on a buggy skill that keeps tossing you out of where you intend to land is a real pain. I lost the count of how many times I fell off my target while doing just that very first jump in the map using Lightning.

NEVER compare others with you. Not everyone can do what you do exactly how you do. Not all situations are exactly the same. (Not meant to anyone specifically)

I wanted to play the update a little, before I could come back with some feedback.

POSITIVE:
The new map looks really nice, the sandstorm is awesome, dying for the first time in the quicksand was hilarious.
The story instances were entertaining and had some nice fights.
I love being able to get dragonite just by opening chests.
The female assassin outfit is amazing.
The events are fun.

A BIT ANNOYING:
Having to listen to Kasmeer and Marjory.
The aspect jumping becomes quite tiring when you want to get to events quickly.

NEGATIVE:
The only nice new item is purchasable with gems.
The area merchants sell only food and gear recepies, no new skins.
The only actual rewards are crafting items.
The fact that the aspects run out after a certain time has been driving me crazy.

shadow.6174:

…

After what you said I DO honestly believe you managed everything, only might have taken you a bit more tries. I would say it is more of a question of persistency.
Anyway, if failure is predicated by factors I didn’t mention, like PC/connection problems, it affects other parts of gameplay equally as this living world content. Because of lag you might fail to dodge a lethal attack and get downed. I don’t see any reason why should be all the hatred aimed towards jumping (in my opinion, it is even more lag-forgiving than combat).
I do understand you and respect I shouldn’t toss everyone in the same basket, but I still got the feeling most complaints are coming from people, who have not learned to complete the content on their own and kept relying on others.

It’s really hard to judge. I have to see at least 2 more releases.

For what it is right now? Really good. If every release will be like episode 1, season 2 will be great. It’s the first time i’m thinking “what’s going to happen now?”

Tarasicodissa.7084:

After what you said I DO honestly believe you managed everything, only might have taken you a bit more tries. I would say it is more of a question of persistency.

Hehe yes, I admit I lacked some more persistence at that point, but I got to much frustrated just at the very first attempt that it spoiled my fun. But as I said, I’m not giving it up yet neither rating it as “crap” yet, I have more to see yet.

Tarasicodissa.7084:

Because of lag you might fail to dodge a lethal attack and get downed. I don’t see any reason why should be all the hatred aimed towards jumping (in my opinion, it is even more lag-forgiving than combat).

Again yes, this is one of my annoyance with golems. They give too much push away in a row that if you fail in the first you won’t block the next ones. I even got downed due that in my first attempt on part one. Also I can understand why someone would hate jumping (even I have hated and cursed it several times), even worse regarding lightning. It relies too much on server side that you easily miss it in case of even a minor lag. This isn’t a matter of persistence only as I have countless times tried to make that first jump in the map without success.

Therefore, to get back on track and topic of this thread: I could say the new LS is “medium”, it has their pros and cons that could be almost equal. Then I don’t think it is that “awesome” neither that “very crap”.