Guild Wars 2

Silvard.3469:

Compare it to SW:TOR

There is no comparisson. SW:TOR is not an MMO, it’s a single player ex-subscription-based flopped romance simulator with focus on voice acting, close-ups of horrible art style and bugged graphics, all built upon a prototype single-threaded engine which needs to run on 2 processes. No game, regardless of how bad it can be, will ever come close to thekittenthat EA served to blind Star Wars fanboys.

Though you do have a point, at least in their stories, you get your own starship and NPC to have sex with. Excelsior!

Gauradan.8361:

Swagman.9013:

No I didn’t play gw1 but I want to hear Gauradans solution for other people not enjoying the game when it’s catered to timeframes that suit his desires.

It’s not about time. If it required me to do 20 runs, but the dungeons were fun and not as punitive as they are now, it probably wouldn’t have been much of an issue. The problem is the dungeon are horrible. And it’s not my job to find solutions to dungeon design issues. If they couldn’t come up with interesting mechanics themselves, they could have just copied them from WoW instead of adding difficulty by increasing the health pool and damage of mobs.

I don’t think that the dungeons are bad. My problem is finding people to do them with that are smart enough to not wipe in obviously easy encounters.

Over 3000 tokens required for all the things that I want from that particular dungeon? That’s insane. Especially since it’s so hard to get a group that can get past the 3rd boss.

Swagman.9013:

Ok 20 to 30 runs you just gave the game life roughly 2 weeks (and thats being generous) before everyone has their whatever they want.

What’s your solution for after those 2 weeks when every player is standing around LA in their fancy gear and talking about how bored they are and that they don’t want to pvp.

I take it you didn’t play Guild Wars 1?

ThiBash.5634:

Yes it is.

No it isn’t.

None of the Hobbits in Lord of the Rings were constantly together around the ring for the last 25% of their quest. They all had separate stories. In Guild Wars 2 everyone starts out with different stories, and then they meet Trahearne and everyone goes and does the same thing in Orr.

ThiBash.5634:

That’s just nitpicking.

No it isn’t.

Everyone in GW2 has the same story. It starts out different, you meet different NPCs, and then suddenly the game turns in to Trahearne’s personal blog, and none of your story mattered, there is no reason to go and hang out in your personal instance to see if anything has changed, none of the people you rescued or talked to matter any more and the 1-mission-NPCs that come along and ‘bravely die’ are forgotten. I don’t even remember who half of the NPCs were, the ones from the Vigil who got turned in to zombies. They didn’t leave a lasting impression on me enough to remember who they are 5 minutes later. Now everyone has killed the elder dragon, and all we are doing is trying to farm millions of karma getting 300 per event doing the stuff that they mocked in other MMOs.

Ree: The boss respawns 10 minutes later, the game doesn’t care that you’re there
Guild Wars 2: The event restarts 10 minutes later, the game doesn’t care that you’re there

Filename.

Also, as an experiment, would anyone (that defends ArenaNet) care to remember how many times you’ve told people to go back to World of Warcraft when they criticize Guild Wars 2, because you don’t want people that work towards new gear to play your game?

This whole thing is extremely ironic. Nothing in Guild Wars 1 or World of Warcraft comes close to this ‘end game’ dungeon design.

Picture speaks a thousand words.

Artorous.8573:

1: You rushed to 80, admitted you got there in 3 days, then decided to “grind” dungeons to get the sets. That’s your fault. As an earlier poster said you want everything NOW. Get over yourself. In 1 MONTH a person that plays an ungodly amount of time, such as yourself, will have all of the dungeon armors they are after. Just because you don’t have everything the second you hit 80 you decided to say the grind is too much for you.

You poor thing. So much of what you said is wrong. Let me tell you why.

1) Nobody rushed to 80, nobody needed to. Leveling is incredibly easy in GW2, and anyone that has played since the head start or the first week and is not yet at level 80 is playing so badly that they probably got their parents to install the game for them. You get XP for picking stuff up, pressing F a bunch of a times around a yellow heart, killing things, crafting, exploring, running through an orange circle on your minimap while a dynamic event happens, and doing the story. So again, no one has rushed. I also saw this same kind of whining on the SW:TOR forums when everyone complained about the state of the game, people like you told them to go back to WoW and that it’s their fault somehow.

2) According to GW2’s manifesto, GW2 will have no grinding. According to the lead content designer Colin, he said nobody likes grind, nobody finds it fun. Having a set of dungeon gear should therefore not be grind. Do you follow so far? Y/N. Someone wanting a cosmetic set of gear should not be attacked by labeling him a grinder.

3) He, nor anyone else said that he wanted everything “NOW”. Never.

4) I’ve put in quite a few hours. Mostly to see the game’s content, and to compete with the people that ArenaNet let get away with exploiting the economy below their arbitrary forgiveness level. I am nowhere near the level of having the amount of tokens required for any of these dungeon sets, or a legendary weapon. In fact, I have 5 AC tokens, and 7 Arah tokens. I simply cannot find groups to do dungeons with on anywhere near the frequency required to get these items.

So it seems to me that (i) you have not experienced as much of the game as the people you are blaming for the shortcomings of GW2, and (ii) you seem to grossly misunderstand the amount of grind required for these items, contrary to the game’s manifesto.

Krimlin.3257:

Yay! Someone made a post like this. About time ArenaNet sees what they promised and how they disappointed so many of their players.

Come on ArenaNet… I trusted you.

I can’t see many WoW players sticking around when Pandas are on the horizon.

Naminator.9316:

Well according to you, WoW is just as big of a grindfest as GW2, so why not?

Citation needed.

Naminator.9316:

WOW what horrible, horrible liars!

You know what you should do?

You should do the ultimate form of protest!

You leave and never come back!

Once ANET realizes that they have lost one of their most valued and most renown members, they will see the error of their ways and make progress on fixing up the game!

But before you leave, make sure you make an “I Quit” thread on these forums!

A lot of people here will appreciate it and will be really, really sad to see you go.

Where to? We should go back to WoW where we are allowed to criticize GW2’s manifesto being completely contrary to its delivery?

Birdy.4816:

Moonthrower.1406:

You blew through 300 hours of content in 3 weeks? And you paid how much for it?

its not 300 hours though, its more like 100 doing it effeciently.

and to the previous poster…. that list is rubbish.

1) Go to WvWvW
2) Participate in WvWvW
3) Help to win in WvWvW
4) Play with your guild in WvWvW
5) Buy siege weapons in WvWvW
6) Kill things in WvWvW
7) Get skill points in WvWvW
8) Complete the jumping puzzle in WvWvW

Come on, bro there’s thousands of things to do at level 80.

Derpinator.2894:

Waypoints shouldn’t cost anything.

In fact, they should find a creative way to implement potential rewards for using them like being a delivery person to an NPC at the other end.

That’s actually a pretty good idea. There’s no reason to not have quests in GW2. Imagine being able to go questing over large areas in GW2. Having to discover things for the order of whipers. Like daily or weekly quests. Or have to deal with large incursions in to main hubs on behalf of the Vigil, or translate large libraries of books for the Priory, etc.

Birdy.4816:

Well what was you expecting a full fledged sandbox? you take some of it far too literally, by changing the world they meant dynamic events, if you expected more then your outta your mind.

But I do agree, this game has less fun LONGER grinds than games like World of Warcraft even… funnily enoug hthe game the fanboys attack for being a “treadmill” ….

“Tokens and legendaries are optional you dont have to get them” YES well done fanboys, everything in an MMO is optional congratulations, point is we want reasons to keep playing , fun rewarding reasons, be they aesthetic.

But its not just about reward, its fun achieving the reward.

I want a nice Orrian set, do I go through well structed dungeon content to do it?

No I have to go with 2-boss farming groups on mindless boring boss enoucnters with no thought put into them untill I have 1500 tokens.

If that is “better” than WoW’s Grind Treadmill then I lose faith in humanity… at least WoWs “gear treadmill” has spontanious loot excitement, well structured boss fights and dungeons, well defined roles ect ect.

This game is mindless in its current state, people say its a challenge but it isnt….

You’re missing the point – running a 5 man dungeon 100+ times for 1 set of cosmetic gear is a much better design than being rewarded with better loot after 3+ 25 man raids.

Stratto.3869:

I was doing COF runs to do two things at once: 1 Get tokens for the gear I wanted and, 2: Get 26-40 silver per run to buy some upgrades armor and weapon wise. they just nerfed the amount of money you get to 2 Silver from 26 Silver to 2. CM I heard it went from 50 Silver to 85 copper.

Is that true? I seriously hope that it isn’t. I make enough negative feedback posts here as it is, without having to be disgusted at more intentional player hindering.

+1^infinity

Seriously, everything you said is true. They lied about the design.

Derpinator.2894:

I’m coming to like it less and less the more I think on it.

Welcome to Guild Wars 2.

Skolops.2604:

Zen.1740

Well at least that’s 2x more than was in SW:TOR’s zones when people were asking for server merges. I remember seeing a screenshot showing 4 people on the entire planet, lol.

Is there a way to check a zone’s population in this game?

I’m not aware of any. That’s why I’m asking for their metrics.

Debsylvania.7396:

I think the intention is that the character for whom the weapon is intended actually crafts the weapon. Not necessarily all the components, etc., but the legendaries are supposed to be a benefit of learning a craft.

Riddle me this. What is the point of implementing a great and in-depth crafting system like what we have, second only to that of EVE’s, simply to have everyone have to be a Weaponsmith anyway?

Why did they let players choose to be armorsmiths and tailors, only to have everyone become a 400 Weaponsmith?

It makes no sense. Unless they are to be only made by players who have 5000 hours sunk in the game grinding enough materials to afford the gold to have one, and level all of the crafting professions to 400 anyway.

Apotheosis.3786:

When a group is dying, how do we know who to blame. When a group is thriving, how do we know who to thank and to learn from.

Oh god, this. Last night I went on a pug with 4 people from another guild and left the group after like 6 wipes on the same easy room. Upon my last death, I was frustrated, and the people who were assigned specific tasks weren’t doing them. As I was waiting to resurrect after the rest of the party died, I turned the camera around to see the guy assigned to kiting enemies around was playing with only his left hand, attacking 1 enemy every 5 seconds. If that would have been me I would have cleared almost all of the enemies attacking me to stop them from overwhelming the group. I cannot play with slackers.

I told them that I couldn’t play the game any more, left the group and logged out. I logged in today to do a daily and felt sick playing in the middle of being chased by Pirates of the Caribbean zombies while trying to farm materials at a snail’s pace and just logged out.

Lord Jaguar.9504:

My position: it could be better, so why not make it better? Would you really complain if 8 or 10 or 25 man raiding content was added (that did NOT add a WoW-esque style of gear progression, but just fun challenging content)?

Someone in another thread just told me his server is dead and there’s like 10 people in an entire zone. From what I’ve experience there aren’t even enough players to do a 5 man dungeon successfully, let alone 25 man content.

Maybe you are on a heavily populated server, though.

Moophious.1735:

Hell even GW1 gave us 8-man content. This 5-man stuff won’t hold on long trust you me.

If I’m not mistaken you can have 12 people in some missions in Factions.

Vesper.6709:

Sea of Sorrows: An empty server.

You don’t KNOW empty. Now that the pre-release hype is dead, there’s no overflows ANY TIME AT ALL! 10 people to a zone!

Well at least that’s 2x more than was in SW:TOR’s zones when people were asking for server merges. I remember seeing a screenshot showing 4 people on the entire planet, lol.

AvivKing.5863:

first of all u have a looooooooooooong way till u get ur legendry weapon !
we start with 100% world exploration – that will take u some time specialy at the end !
2nd u need spendd weeks on WvW to get 500 budgets
3rd u need get 200 skill point – mean u need alot of exp .- since now dengeons give u 20k exp instad of 177k exp per run !!
4th u need alot if dungeon run so u could get ur gift of the specipic weapon u need (500 tocken) each run give u 20 ! do the math !
and for the finaleeeee
need toooooonnnns of gold to buy all the math and the “weapon of rage” that probably cost like 70-80 gold

if u menge to get all that ! congrats on ur new legendery weapon

Predator:

1 x The Hunter of Rage (Exotic weapon)
1 x Bloodstone (200 Skill Points)
250 x Obsidian Shards (525,000 Karma)
1 x Gift of Exploration (100% map completion)
1 x Gift of Battle (500 WvWvW tokens)
77 x Mystic Clovers (RNG expensive Mystic Forge P2W kitten)
100 x Icy Runestones (1 gold each)
1 x Superior Sigil of Force
250 x Globs of Ectoplasm
[1 x Gift of Might;
250 x Vials of Powerful Blood
250 x Powerful Venom Sacs
250 x Elaborate Totems
250 x Piles of Crystalline Dust]
[1 x Gift of Magic;
250 x Vicious Fangs
250 x Armored Scales
250 x Vicious Claws
250 x Ancient Bones]
[1 x Gift of Wood;
250 x Elder Wood Planks
250 x Seasoned Wood Planks
250 x Ancient Wood Planks
250 x Hard Wood Planks]
[1 x Gift of Stealth;
250 x Orchalcum Ingots
250 x Orian Truffles
100 x Onyx Lodestones
1 x Gift of Knowledge (500 Crucible of Eternity Tokens)]

I gave up trying to calculate the gold price. But you’re way off the mark with even 100g. Even those Icy Runestones make up that total themselves.

If you should have learned anything from “professional” “video game journalism”, it’s that none of it concerns truth, integrity or validity. It all revolves around paid reviews, even GW2 does.

These same people gave SW:TOR a 90+/100 score. A game with more bugs than GW2, and a selling point of homosexual romance drizzled over an empty WoW clone shell with less content, built on an unfinished, bugged, single-threaded engine.

Doesn’t that tell you anything?

AcidicVision.5498:

TL:DR

You’re defending ArenaNet because you are brand loyal and have an emotional investment in your purchase. You are rationalizing the state of the game because of your cognitive bias. My criticism of the game makes you uncomfortable, to the extent that you had to use more logical fallacies and rant about irrelevant things to try to make yourself feel as if you have scored a victory.

The game shouldn’t have these basic bugs in it. They are BASIC, i.e. a low level programmer should be able to implement the code correctly before being checked by a higher-paid programmer. What does it take to fix an NPC that won’t react to a player click? 3 lines of code? Rocket science, obviously.

Pikafan.3792:

The trick is to not waypoint travel frivolously like the way you are describing it to us.

I prefer to not apologize for an intentionally hindering design.

Why can’t I quote these posts? Have you locked the thread or something?

“I’m saving exploration modes for when I hit level 80 and run out of normal PvE stuff to do.”

I kind of had the same idea, except when I’ve gone back to that waypoint each time, there’s hardly anyone there. I’ve waited weeks for the majority of players to level up, but no one seems interested.

The Nexon™ Cash Shop™ is here for all your gold-buying needs. Trade gems™ for gold, if you are having difficulty.

You want your Guild Wars™2™ Legendary weapon!?

Then you’d better get saving up hundreds of gold!

The very first dungeon. Ascalonian Catacombs. The very first explorable path.

Keep Hoggins alive while the gravelings spawn!

This might at first sound like a relatively simple process. An enemy spawns, and when it dies, it triggers another spawn, and so on.

Yet the reality is different, because while you’re standing over a graveling burrow, and destroy it, if you are within a certain distance of a door, you teleport beyond it and become useless to your team!

This dungeon was in development in around early 2011 if I’m not mistaken. We all remember hearing about how awesomely difficult it was, making World of Warcraft seem tame and easy! Why is this still bugged?

Something internally has changed at ArenaNet. This would have been patched early in GW1.

AcidicVision.5498:

Zen.1740:

3 weeks since release and there are still bugged skill points in Orr. Yeah sounds like we owe them an apology for having criticism.

Out of curiosity, what was the last piece of software you used, consisting of over a million lines of code, developed by over 100 people simultaneously, and under the stress of tens of thousands of people at any given moment of any day, that was completely bug free?

Actually, that might be a bit tough. I’m sorry. Unrealistic expectations. Instead of limiting it to your use, tell me the last time a piece of software like that ever existed anywhere…

Guess which logical fallacies you used in your post.

First of all, there are over 200 people working on it, not 100. This in itself would make it twice as likely that the work will get done.

Second of all, the tools that ArenaNet use are in constant development and have been around since GW1 which was a relatively stable game with frequent updates and events. GW2 doesn’t suddenly become some prototype space-age invention. It’s a video game, made on dated software, been in development since like 2007.

Skill points are a very integral part of the game’s design – they are needed to purchase a handful of skills that become available for your character to use! Do you not think that these systems should be fully tested and working way before the public got their hands on it?

mulch.2586:

Well, it’s seems common opinion is it’s best to skip AC.

Use your transfer option if your server is bad.

But I have to say, my server has WvW queues that are too long to bother with. And still you never see anything but the basic repeating dynamic events anyway.

Going to a full server won’t make a poorly-designed game better.

That’s very true. I transferred to another server to get certain places on the map and skill points, and on a server like Miller’s Sound, it wouldn’t let me in to WvWvW but on transferring back I was instantly let in.

To be honest, Orr seems like it was created for large-scale Guild karma farming. Except my server feels dead and hardly anyone does anything. I’m sure it would be more fun in a zerg of 100 players clearing all of Orr’s chains, but it doesn’t happen.

I’m considering moving to a heavily populated server but I like some of the people that I’ve met on FoW.

I don’t know, I just wanted your thoughts on the matter, and to see concurrent player metrics and things like that.

3 weeks since release and there are still bugged skill points in Orr. Yeah sounds like we owe them an apology for having criticism.

Do me a favor, if you are near AC, go and take a look at how many people are there, how many people want to group up, or how many people reply to you when you ask them to do explorable mode?

I’ve had more luck doing the very last dungeon with people than the first dungeon. Why do you think that is? Shouldn’t people start from the beginning? Basically, we are allowed to skip the whole of the dungeon process and start with Zhaitan token farming for the best gear. Is that designed properly or an oversight?

Here are the required materials for the Legendary Predator rifle.

1 x The Hunter of Rage (Exotic weapon)
1 x Bloodstone (200 Skill Points)
250 x Obsidian Shards (525,000 Karma)
1 x Gift of Exploration (100% map completion)
1 x Gift of Battle (500 WvWvW tokens)
77 x Mystic Clovers (RNG expensive Mystic Forge P2W ****)
100 x Icy Runestones (1 gold each)
1 x Superior Sigil of Force
250 x Globs of Ectoplasm
[1 x Gift of Might;
250 x Vials of Powerful Blood
250 x Powerful Venom Sacs
250 x Elaborate Totems
250 x Piles of Crystalline Dust]
[1 x Gift of Magic;
250 x Vicious Fangs
250 x Armored Scales
250 x Vicious Claws
250 x Ancient Bones]
[1 x Gift of Stealth;
250 x Orchalcum Ingots
250 x Orian Truffles
100 x Onyx Lodestones
1 x Gift of Knowledge (500 Crucible of Eternity Tokens)]

None of this list involves anything that requires skill. It feels like the equivalent of 10x Obsidian armors in Guild Wars 1. Only time input and silly amounts of grind.

Where is the end game content? How the hell am I supposed to farm 500 CoE tokens when I can’t even find a group to do the very first dungeon with? Where is this game’s population? The story is over, and now all there is to do is grind.

So my server feels dead already. Fissure of Woe. Medium population. Sucks in WvWvW compared to Miller’s Sound [DE] that has like twice as many players.

You’ll see less than 10 people standing around Ascalon Catacombs trying to get a party together. If the overflow system doesn’t kick in, you may get a group every 2 hours or so. Even guild groups are fail. Hardly anyone talks in the guild, so I joined another guild aswell, and that’s the same even though it has more members.

How are we supposed to get 500+ dungeon tokens from each dungeon, if I don’t see anyone looking for the groups? Honor the Waves has like 1 person every 10 minutes come by to the entrance. You may see 3 people stood around Twilight Arbor every few minutes.

So are there being server merges planned? Can you post some of your concurrent player metrics, and such?

Also, have you decided to roll back all the exploited karma from people who stole 1 item? If not, I hereby officially request that you reward everyone else in the game with the same items that were exploited under your arbitrary cut-off limit (50?), so we can catch up to the richer non-punished exploiters.

Just think, the money they spent to make that identical SW:TOR-esque trailer could have gone to creating more servers and completely removing the horrible overflow shard system, hiring new developers to put in MMO features like trading, dueling, gear inspection, more PVP modes, raiding, etc.

Yes. Same when a ranger is using a bear, and it runs around being way too loud.

Untouch.2541:

NPCs in hoelbrak are irrelevant to this, I mean going through the zones, seeing everything. If every zone was the same thing but you could unlock new skills (I mean you can already, but en more), would that be fine?

If every zone was the same thing? But it is. A zone full of Ice Wurm standing still, waiting for a player to come in to aggro range. Followed by a zone full of Centaur standing still, waiting for a player to come in to aggro range. All inside a rectangle zone cut off by mountains. All with ‘go here’ points of interest required for exploration titles (note that there are no titles that my character has got, despite having most of the world map explored, where as there were in GW1).

What does that ‘content’ have to do with progression, except giving you XP to get to level 80 (a marketing number for Wrath of the Lich King players who think that higher numbers are better than lower numbers).

They said in their manifesto video that NPCs would be doing things, be involved in events and that you wouldn’t have to go out in the world in this, and I quote “boring grind”. Yet no, you have to fight through idle NPCs just like any other generic MMO on the market, just to get to places, and what’s worse is they respawn so soon after it and will probably get in your way again on the way back.

How does any of that “progress” your character? Please explain because I don’t see it.

Untouch.2541:

Zen.1740:

Untouch.2541:

Please stop saying there is no progression.

Every RPG, no every GAME does not use skill based progression, every game uses zone/level based progression. I cannot think of one game that doesn’t. Roguelikes use it, platformers use it, RPGs use it.

The progression is there, it isn’t even hidden away, it’s in plain sight.

So you progress to level 80, by progressing through the numbered rectangle mountain zones, that’s very true. What other sense of progression is there outside of story?

Content, like every game released ever.

Which content?

How does seeing 2 clone Norn NPCs standing idly next to each other in a SW:TOR-level deserted Hoelbrak have to do with progressing your character?

How does looking at a vista or a point of interest of a shed in the middle of a map progress your character?

Outside of your story, or accumulating skill points that are required for legendary weapons or other League of Legend skills, which content are you talking about?

What does your character gain? How does your Necromancer distinguish itself from the others?

Untouch.2541:

Please stop saying there is no progression.

Every RPG, no every GAME does not use skill based progression, every game uses zone/level based progression. I cannot think of one game that doesn’t. Roguelikes use it, platformers use it, RPGs use it.

The progression is there, it isn’t even hidden away, it’s in plain sight.

So you progress to level 80, by progressing through the numbered rectangle mountain zones, that’s very true. What other sense of progression is there outside of story?

fizzypop.6458:

Anything you do in game can be tracked so I don’t really think that’s the reason

Yeah I’m sure that ArenaNet’s scam team finds it easier to browse through thousands of complaints of being ripped off when they emailed people items and didn’t get cash through the mail system, than ACTUALLY HAVING A TRADING SYSTEM.

You notice how smooth GW2’s launch was? Their support department couldn’t cope with the bugs, refunds or complaints.

Because they didn’t want to include a basic MMO feature in a AAA 2012 MMO, and would rather take all interaction out of the game, to add another gold sink to the impersonal trading post.

“This isn’t a QQ thread”.

Stop defending the creepy brand-loyal apologists who will send you death threats for criticising GW2. The camera sucks, as many people have commented on it. The point is valid, you don’t have to be so light-footed about giving the criticism. If people don’t like it, too bad, they will get over it eventually.

THANK YOU for making a game where I have to report core mechanic bugs to progress my character!

Let’s not get carried away, shall we?

nvmvoidrays.2158:

Zen.1740:

Let’s see them review Ascalon Catacombs, its overflow shards, forced difficulty and hour waiting times. Oh wait, they aren’t paid to.

so, basically:

ascalonian catacombs wasn’t that hard.

overflow is actually a good idea; it’s just currently buggy/awkward to use.

forced difficulty? wat.

WvW times are different for everyone. on my server, the queue times are usually around 5-10 minutes. some people on henge of denravi are reporting 5+ hour queue times because everyone wants to coast on an easy win.

“Overflow is actually a good idea”
- Guild Wars 2 player, 2012

How are you managing to get a pug that isn’t made up of special cases? Even people in my guild aren’t able to play properly. The mobs target me because I do the most damage, and no one manages to dodge the boss mechanics. Having a graveyard next to a boss encounter for running back (because the game is meant to make you die) is forced difficulty.

Abisco.4932:

They did in the review in progress videos actually. Here’s the list of complaints they mentioned off the top of my head in their other videos:
- Inventory space being limited and thus having to use gems to buy more space (especially with cooking)
- Long waiting times for WvW
- Crazy difficulty of Ascalon Catacombs (Though after beating it the reviewers opinion changed and he grew to LOVE it since he said the game finally “clicked”. I would COMPLETELY agree with this since once I found a group that discussed a lot, we got through the dungeon in an hour… complete breeze.)

A 9/10 isn’t a paid review for a game this amazing imo. You’re being silly and completely paranoid.

All reviews over 7/10 are paid. He was marketing the game in the video. Why can’t you see it? He ignored the games kitten design and problems and praised it as the second coming of Jesus. It doesn’t deserve that score.

All of the thank-you emails from NPCs are uninteresting, especially when you run past an event you completed 5 minutes ago and see the same NPC standing in the same place.

The Norn males look horrible. They aren’t muscly, just someone stretched a human model in the moddeling application and added more mass. They look flabby and cartoonish.

There are many places and events in the game where you see clone NPCs. It’s immersion-breaking. Norn in Hoelbrak, or ‘old woman’ NPCs who look 30 years old, stood next to other NPCs using the same model.

Allied NPCs are useless. They attack like once every 5 seconds, do very little damage and only half of them revive each other.

Reviving people and NPCs takes way too long. It’s almost pointless, since they run off and die again so easily, reviving them is not even worth the effort. Since they help so little, you may as well kill things yourself, because they split up and run away from each other and aggro more mobs. So allies feel like a burden. You said it would be worth reviving them to aid in events like a year ago, but now I just run past fallen allies, because they are useless.

The horrible community that will send you death threats for giving criticism of Guild Wars 2 (but on a positive note, this is not due to the design direction of ArenaNet, simply a negative aspect of the experience).

The underwater combat. No amount of words can express how much I hate the content under water. Your weapons aren’t as good, your movement is slower, the enemies seem to have more health or stay alive longer, and it just feels really awkward and annoying. It’s basically trying to kite in a small circle as to not aggro another 100 kraits or fish to attack you. It’s so depressing to have to swim past events and miss out on karma just because of how awful the underwater combat is. PLEASE leave it out of the expansions. I’m all for cool dungeons set under water, but at make them on land under the water.

Not that we’ll get a reply from anyone on the development team though. They’re probably all driving around in their sports cars that they bought with the pre-purchase money. Beware the dangers, next time a developer tells you to give them money for a video game 6 months before you even get to play it. They aren’t obliged to give you what you want, if you do that. Nor are they obliged to ship the game that they wanted to. Money speaks more than buzzwords and marketing hype.

For every good thing I can think of for Guild Wars 2, I get annoyed and can think of 2 bad things. I just hope some patches can fix some of these issues, but then again patches don’t usually fix design decisions, the ones that do are normally called content updates.

Not being able to spawn at any waypoint because it’s contested. Did you honestly think it was a good idea to have to get a raid together just to kill waves of NPCs to clear a waypoint all for the sake of getting through your story, or to points of interest? This is just stupid design, especially in Orr, if you play at times where no one is online. The waypoints get captured again 30 minutes later anyway.

Events do not scale properly. Tequatl the Sunless is boring, just like the other dragon I forgot the name of in the story at Lion’s Arch. He stands on 4 legs and roars, then stands on 2 legs and raws, and hits the floor and roars. A real dragon would have literally ripped the island apart. This was the turning point in the game where I started to see more and more flaws, get bored and have less interest in continuing the story. As for the event of Tequatl itself, around 3 or 4 players turned up for it and it was literally impossible. The NPCs spawned every 30 seconds or so, in waves and it was impossible to get even near the seige equipment, let alone the dragon). All of which just added up to dying a lot, running around in underwear trying to do a dynamic event, and listening to the NPC that keeps shouting the same thing over and over again to call out his attacks).

NPCs spawn too quickly. There is no need at all, in your personal story line to have to start at checkpoints way back in the map, and have to fight your way through waves of respawned enemies in your underwear over and over again (because of an obsolete game design of armor repairing and high upkeep costs compared to rewards from events), just to get to a green marker on the floor. In Orr the game is almost unplayable. I have zero interest in fighting any of the NPCs, they are all boring, have annoying snares and by the time you’ve killed one of them (20-30 seconds) and moved to the next mob to fight it, it’s respawned behind you again.

You lied about the design of GW2. You said that NPCs would be doing things. You made fun of other MMOs by saying they have NPCs that stand around idle, and that you don’t think that’s OK. You said that GW2 would have NPCs doing events, being active and moving in groups. Yet you go to Orr and it just looks like Northrend in World of Warcraft, with thousands of boring NPCs just floating in the water or stood idle waiting to troll players with stunlocks, snares and unwanted aggro. You can get that in any generic F2P MMO on the market.

No face-to-face trading. I mean, this game has been in development for like 6 years. Did it just slip your minds?

No cash-on-delivery trading system via mail. Do you expect to just take turns emailing things to people with no way of tracking items, and trusting the other person to keep their word? Really? Again, did this slip your minds?

No dueling. It’s 2012, even F2P games have it. Even unpopular flopped ones.

No PVP balance. Thieves can teleport all around the map, go invisible and reappear with full health, stun and have more burst damage than Warriors. They are the new Paladins of Guild Wars 2. Mesmers can spawn illusions with seemingly more HP than I’ve taken from other classes to kill them, and they can spawn like 4 or 5 of them. Seriously, do you play thieves or mesmers? Is that why? You nerfed the Warrior’s Hundred Blades greatsword build, yet kept in the 4K eviscerate, and left thieves alone to be meta.

Very little monetary reward for events and quests. Ooooh 1.8 silver! Nice! Next waypoint travel costs 2.8 silver. Uh-oh!!! (See next point).

Very high travel expenses compared to rewards. I don’t care about you tryhard powertraders that have like 100+ gold because you are a parasite that steals profit from the economy or you 100% the entire game in 6 days.

Moderators that suck, and will not roll back the servers to remove any (even just 1) exploited karma or item that people have gotten away with, just because it falls short of their arbitrary cut-off limit. How about you release some of your metrics to the public showing how much wealth has been accumulated/stolen by exploiters that escaped your moderation?

NPCs with names like (new string) breaking immersion. Why did you release the game in beta? Colin said it would be released when it was ready, but it wasn’t ready.

Linear PVP maps like the boat one. It’s a 90 degree corridor.

An annoying help pop-up that appears on the screen every time you spawn in PVP. Seriously, it’s just annoying. How many paragraphs do you need, just to type ‘This is a PVP map, capture the 3 areas to gain points. You win when your team has 500 points’

No variation of PVP game modes. None of your team likes Capture The Flag?

Broken skill challenges. I mean really, what have you been doing all this time? Maybe if you worked on the game instead of playing it all the time, these basic systems would not be bugged. Try fixing that one in Orr, the spectral blade challenge. It’s been reported like 3 times and is still bugged 10 days later.

Graphical glitches. It’s like being inside the matrix watching the terrain warp (the deja vu scene). Missing terrain like SW:TOR had, moving the camera around makes half of the things on the screen disappear in certain places. Players appearing in front of you as you move around The Grove, because everything seems tessellated and the environment loads in front of your eyes, you see flowers growing instantly as you run around).

The worst camera ever to have been implemented in any video game in history. It likes to refuse to move when your head is near a rock, it especially likes people getting mad over it, when you are in the downed state and cannot turn your camera around to target enemies. It sucks not having the ability to zoom out further, or to go first person view.

The downed state is a stupid idea. If you die, then so be it. Do you really want everyone to have to die twice? And then wait for around 15 seconds for a spawn? Is this the new Battlefield, but one step further in excessive waiting times? PVP = waiting to have fun.

PVP that requires zero skill. Numbers matter, nothing else. Except as long as you choose your character to be a thief or mesmer. You get stunlocked with the same purple chain animation all the time, end up in a huge cluster**** of fire spam in the middle of a slideshow as terribads button-mash to kill you. Oh and no matter how much you try to move or roll away, smash your keyboard or mouse, it just refuses to move).

It’s a generic paid review. If it was an actual honest review it wouldn’t have Jeremy Soul’s generic french horn music playing over it, while he talks about it positively. Do you honestly think that gaming journalism holds any validity or integrity?

Let’s see them review Ascalon Catacombs, its overflow shards, forced difficulty and hour waiting times. Oh wait, they aren’t paid to.