i have to agree with the original review. After purchasing both nightfall and prophecies, i was SEVERELY disappointed with this expansion, and felt i truly did pay about 20 bucks too much for it.
Tell me, how in the world does real-world references ruin a game's role-playing aspect? Role-playing is about being whoever you want and doing whatever you want, not about pretending to be some fantasy character.
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Have played: RuneScape, EQ2 (free trial), Last Chaos, Silk Road, Dungeon Runners. Currently playing: RuneScape, Dungeon Runners.
The notion that graphics, or anything else for that matter, are anywhere near as important as gameplay/fun is so utterly ridiculous that anyone who shares such a view should be placed in an asylum.
First, comparing the cost of GWEN to the campaigns without still adding that the price of admission in comparison to almost all other games is a bit biased. And, as other posters have pointed out, this is just the beginning of bias.
Second, just to further echo, you would think a review that is oh... I dunno... only a couple months late. Would be very thorough to the point of talking about every feature in GWEN. This reviewer missed mini-games, dungeons, PvE skills. I don't remember the reviewer even saying how PvE skills come about in a big way.
Finally, I do agree with the reviewer in one point. The expansion felt just a little unpolished, and it did come off as a big GW2-things-will-be-cooler-then-advertisement. How could they have done things different? I don't know. I just know what it felt like.
Anyway, reviewing the review: you think mmorpg.com would not allow a biased, incomplete review after the game has been out for months....they must have been dying for articles/content over the holiday season.
This expansion was a huge disappointment all around. The storyline was way too short and cheezy imo. There were major gaps in the storyline that could have easily been filled to provide a better experience all around.
After the short story, this game is a huge faction grind, which is sad. If this is a taste of what we will see in Guild Wars 2, I will not be buying it.
The Hall of Monuments was also a huge disappointment. At release there were many problems with it, and even though many of them were fixed, some still remain ( ie. You can only put Destroyer Weapons on display).
This expansion wasn't even worth the money it cost. It looks like Arenanet development team put more effort in designing that Mission Bonus Pack then dealing with all the problems in the expansion.
A somewhat disappointing review that made a few good points.
Once I got to the line "The biggest addition to GWEN is the Hall of Monuments", however, I began to realize that the reviewer really had no clue. The Hall of Monuments was lame, I admit, but it was hardly the "biggest addition" in a large expansion that added new Heroes, new skills, new areas, new armors and weapons, a new story, and repeatable dungeons.
I would say that the dungeons are my favorite part of EotN: and you can always run them, any time you feel like it. Just try finding a group for any dungeon in WoW... Good luck with that. In GW you ALWAYS have a group ready to go, even if it's just henches. Few other online games offer casual gamers an option like that.
I think part of the point of EotN was to transition players over to something new (i.e., GW2) and, yes, also to give them something fun to do in meantime. What's so lame about that?
In short, I have had a great time with EotN, I have found the community to be just fine (a *mature* player in ANY online game ought to have the common sense to find other mature players and a mature guild to join -- really now, Mr. Starr, it's not that difficult), and I think this expansion is a worthwhile addition to the series.
While I enjoy grouping with other players occasionally, it is the inability to complete dungeons on my own (if I feel like it) that keeps me out of games like WoW and EQ2. GW is one of the few games that completely adapts to an individual player's preferred style of play: grouping, soloing, and everything in between.
I don't believe in such reviews as this because you can tell there is bias all over it not to mention it is 4 months late. Sounds like someone just read the back of the box and put something together.
Most Guild Wars fans liked the game but they did have some issues with a few things as always but that is nothing new in the community. GW:EN was just too short but there are reasons for that, Guild wars 2 is priority #1 so they weren't going to turn this expansion into a full campaign.
You can't complain about the price of the expansion because everyone these days charges you the same for the expansion and not too mention if you did order GW:EN through the online store you got the Bonus Mission Pack for free which offered extra missions and really nice weapons that moslty everyone was happy about.
The graphics in GW:EN were pretty good. Anet upgraded their graphics and if you have an old pc or old video card you would never notice the difference.
There is no roleplaying in Guild Wars. If you want to act out rapunzel then join a play ? Guild Wars is mostly about competitive play.
The idea of the new races in GW:EN was to give you an idea of what they are like from a lore perspective. They weren't made to be a played class at this point. Guild Wars 2 is coming so be patient.
Did you guys even mention the dungeons ? There are 17 of them that you and your group can do. Some of them take over an hour to do.
There are 2 ways to play this expansion. If you just follow all the quests and not do the dungeons then you can finish the main storyline in no time. If you do each area of the game such as the Norn, Asura and Ebon Vanguard including the dungeons then it will take you alot longer to do.
The Guild Wars community isn't exactly the greatest by no means but by quoting something like this " LOLZ – WTB life for u, stoopid nub rper, lol11!!!!11" in a game review is ridiculous. Try logging into WOW and you get that and 100x worse outside each major city.
I havent played the expansion, so I dont know who is right about GWEN. What I DO see however is, people who disagree start to attack the auhor. Quite a disqualifying way to comment on something you do not agree with. It's so poor to berate someone about his writing style and play expert. But apparently arrogance has become trendy. Watched the same parrents of reaction to critic in too many game forums these days, alas. Maybe the reviewer is wrong, I dunno, but even IF thats now reason to attack him/her personally as unable to write! PA THE TIC!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I havent played the expansion, so I dont know who is right about GWEN. What I DO see however is, people who disagree start to attack the auhor. Quite a disqualifying way to comment on something you do not agree with. It's so poor to berate someone about his writing style and play expert. But apparently arrogance has become trendy. Watched the same parrents of reaction to critic in too many game forums these days, alas. Maybe the reviewer is wrong, I dunno, but even IF thats now reason to attack him/her personally as unable to write! PA THE TIC!
And the review wasn't attacking guild wars and even their players?? Did you read it??
-So it's OK to attack a game that took months of people to develop, months of designers, gameplay, artwork etc....and their players....
-But it's NOT ok to attack a rewiever who spend half an hour writing up a lousy review.
This review blows. It's totally unobjective, nor is it an entertaining read, it's a burn on a game instead of a review. It sux and it's unprofessional, he deserved these responses. Was a pathetic attempt at a review. End of story.
I havent played the expansion, so I dont know who is right about GWEN. What I DO see however is, people who disagree start to attack the auhor. Quite a disqualifying way to comment on something you do not agree with. It's so poor to berate someone about his writing style and play expert. But apparently arrogance has become trendy. Watched the same parrents of reaction to critic in too many game forums these days, alas. Maybe the reviewer is wrong, I dunno, but even IF thats now reason to attack him/her personally as unable to write! PA THE TIC!
And the review wasn't attacking guild wars and even their players?? Did you read it??
-So it's OK to attack a game that took months of people to develop, months of designers, gameplay, artwork etc....and their players....
-But it's NOT ok to attack a rewiever who spend half an hour writing up a lousy review.
This review blows. It's totally unobjective, nor is it an entertaining read, it's a burn on a game instead of a review. It sux and it's unprofessional, he deserved these responses. Was a pathetic attempt at a review. End of story.
It's OK, as a writer I am used to the hysterical rantings of forum posters. (Or as Dan Fortier calls them, Forum Terrorists, I term I wish I had coined.) Regardless of what I write, there will be people that do not agree, and cannot express their disagreement without resorting to name calling or other childish outbursts. It's universal, it's age-old, and it's actually entertaining for us to read, sometimes. (Well, those of us who can keep a level head about it.)
Agent_X7 AKA J Star [/URL] Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
I havent played the expansion, so I dont know who is right about GWEN. What I DO see however is, people who disagree start to attack the auhor. Quite a disqualifying way to comment on something you do not agree with. It's so poor to berate someone about his writing style and play expert. But apparently arrogance has become trendy. Watched the same parrents of reaction to critic in too many game forums these days, alas. Maybe the reviewer is wrong, I dunno, but even IF thats now reason to attack him/her personally as unable to write! PA THE TIC!
And the review wasn't attacking guild wars and even their players?? Did you read it??
-So it's OK to attack a game that took months of people to develop, months of designers, gameplay, artwork etc....and their players....
-But it's NOT ok to attack a rewiever who spend half an hour writing up a lousy review.
This review blows. It's totally unobjective, nor is it an entertaining read, it's a burn on a game instead of a review. It sux and it's unprofessional, he deserved these responses. Was a pathetic attempt at a review. End of story.
1. An attack never justifies a counter attack as being more logcial.
2. That many GW players are jerks is a fact you can see. What is good writing style is subjective, and basically of no interest in a gaming forum, unless we were on a forum for good writing. Talking about the community of a game is a natural part of a review.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I liked the Guild Wars games, but I think the review is hitting home.
It's not bad, but it's not that great either.
EotN was the first Guild Wars game I never bothered finishing, simply because it didn't feel like it was really going anywhere I hadn't been before, apart from the whole foreshadowing GW2 bits.
Still love the franchise, but EotN felt like a wimpering end to the first series.
The whole expansion beats you over the head repeatedly with what's coming, but you never get to experience any of it.
Ah...er...d'uh! You don't get to experience any of it 'cause it isn't out yet.
Look, I have my own reasons for hating GWEN and most of them have nothing to do with the look or the feel.
My biggest beef is that the game teeters between being ridiculously easy and insanely difficult with virtually no middle ground. The dungeons (which weren't reviewed) are a massive time-sink (read: waste of time) due to the difficulty of some of the bosses at the end. You can literally spend 3+ hours in a dungeon only to get wiped out so quickly at the end, you wonder what the hell happened! And then do it all over again, if you can stand the idea of another 3+hours wasted. Ugh!
In the meantime, the story missions are all fairly easy to complete with all hero/henchie teams, but the end-game rewards (Droknar's greens) aren't worth the time spent playing to get them. (They're not even on the approved list for the Hall of Monuments. If they were, they might be worth getting.) Not only that, but to even stock your Hall of Monuments with weapons, armors, mini-pets and achievements is such a gawd-awful grind...well, more on that in next paragraph.
And speaking of grind: ANYTHING worth doing in GWEN is going to cost you scores if not hundreds of hours! Dungeon raids, reputation farming: everything is geared to try to keep people playing until GW2 comes out in about 2 years, but the grind to get through any of this stuff is so insane I find it to be nothing more than a huge turn-off.
In short, GWEN has virtually killed my love for this game to the point I can barely bring myself to log in anymore. Everything you do in GWEN feels like a day at the office. It was fun the first time through, but for players - like me - with more than one account and more than 10 characters, it's just not fun anymore.
At all.
P.S. They could've ended the GW1 saga with Nightfall, and I don't think most people would've cared. There's plenty of reputation farming in Nightfall to tide over the most hardcore gamer. As it stands now, you have to choose how much grinding you want to do: Lightbringer and Sunspear ranks in Nightfall, or Norn/Dwarf/Asuran/Vanguard reputation in EoTN. There's simply too much of this crap all the way around to make any of it fun.
And don't bother wasting time on those LB ranks in Nightfall: they don't apply to anything in GWEN, neither do the LB skills you earn with them. Makes me even wonder why I bothered.
This review blows. It's totally unobjective, nor is it an entertaining read, it's a burn on a game instead of a review. It sux and it's unprofessional, he deserved these responses. Was a pathetic attempt at a review. End of story.
First of all, it's "opinion", just like the vitriolic post you made. "Opinion" is not meant to be objective. Get that? By it's very definition and nature "opinion" is subjective. Understand?
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, but that doesn't make your position any more or less valid than the reviewer's.
I gotta say, the review in general? Not terribly well written. Regardless, the bullet points he lists are, essentially, what's wrong with EotN.
I'm speaking as a longtime player who has participated in various parts of GW, from the highest tiers of competitive play to managing an alliance of 1000 casual players.
PvE Content
EotN is an expansion that brings a moderate amount of content, and minimal depth, to Guild Wars. It gives you stuff, but very little that will drive a player to replay the previous 3 chapters. The expansion does not let you create new characters, instead having you continue the adventures of your existing characters.
EotN packs 11 'missions', as compared to the 25 in prophecies, 13 in Factions and 20 in Nightfall. These missions are divided between the major groups that are introduced in EotN - the giant Norn, the diminutive gnome-like Asura and the Charr. Once those three segments are completed, the player must complete the Dwarf segment, which features a vicious rise in learning curve. Experienced players will typically walk through even the hardest of these missions, helped by the (inexplicable) fact that unlike the previous games, parties get respawn points spaced out through the majority of the missions.
EotN suffers from a lack of pacing. The first three quarters of the game have the players rallying the Norn, Asura and Charr for the confrontation with The Destroyer and his Destroyer minions. Ultimately, the only result the player sees from these efforts are a handful of fragile NPCs in one quest leading up to the final confrontation. The final confrontation, again, is underwhelming, and many players agree that bosses earlier in EotN are more intimidating and memorable than the final boss.
Players who beat the game - a process that can be readily completed within 20 hours of play time, have a number of other things to fill their time. There are several minigames that are rife with issues and minimal rewards. Polymock is a Pokemon-esque game where players pick a selection of monsters and fight the opponents. However, monsters in Polymock are all too similar to one another, and suffers from the fact that the player has lag while the AI does not, making Polymock more of an exercise in problem solving, luck and trial and error than actual gameplay.
The Norn Tournament and Dwarven boxing pit players against a series of opponents. The Norn Tournament lets players bring their own skill setup against a series of enemies with well known builds, ending in a fight with a boss. Though interesting, most players will play enough times to unlock the two heroes and get the Cup. Beating the tournament 5 more times will give a player a hat or ale, with no reason or motivation to continue playing beyond that. Dwarven Boxing is similar, with players fighting a series of opponents with a set of 'boxing' skills. While fun and hilarious at times, Boxing ends after only 4 quests, with no serious reward outside of Dwarven reputation. Any of the minigames could have benefited from PvP implementation, as each of the games end all too quickly.
Those seeking more content for their dollar will inevitably try the dungeons. About eighteen dungeons exist, ranging from one to four stages riddled with traps, monsters and periodic bosses. Those who fight past the series of challenges will gain access to a final chest, giving players a chance at some quality loot. Dungeons are good for players that enjoy them, but generally require a group of eight people who can put together a team (generally consisting of the same skills and classes as 90% of the other groups attempting the same dungeon) and dedicate 1-5 hours to complete the dungeon. Dungeons appeal to a niche of GW players, as casual players will find the experience too frustrating, and hardcore PvE players will find all but the elite dungeon are too easy.
In Guild Wars, there are no godly items - instead, players are rewarded with higher quality weapon and armor art, which bestow a degree of satisfaction and prestige. EotN promised 40 sets of armor - 4 for each class. Players who bought EotN discovered to their chagrin that there were only 31 sets of armor, with the 10 'dwarven' armors actually being made up of 4 disparate pieces and no available headwear. When EotN was released, a large number of players were outraged at the fact that most of the 'new' armor rehashed previous sets with new skins painted over them.
There was a greater outcry at the fact that to obtain the armor, players had to grind for 26,000 points in the respective title track (Norn, Asuran, Charr, Dwarven). In the time since EotN's release, the game developers have increased the rewards for completing the game, allowing players to either grind the faction or complete the game for their armor.
PvP Content
Because of the dynamics of Guild Wars PvP, it is hard to define how essential EotN is to PvP. Where previous chapters offered 30 skills to each class, the expansion offers only 10. If a player is interested in serious, competitive play, there is no question that they need access to the EotN skills.
Beyond the 100 skills, EotN offers nothing to PvP players. There are no new PvP types, no new maps or PvP challenges.
Hall of Monuments
One of the selling points of EotN is the hall of monuments. Players who access the expansion pack gain access to an area that can be personalized. The hall is broken into five sections where players can display various accomplishments for each character, with the stated promise that these things will translate to direct rewards in Guild Wars 2.
The Hall of Monuments is great for players who have a single character they dedicate themselves to. Players with elite pets, maxed out titles and elite armors will enjoy the chance to display these things. Casual players or players who spread their time across a number of characters will find themselves out of luck. The hall, generally speaking, only displays things that require many hours to obtain. For all but the most dedicated players, most parts of the hall will be very bare.
Graphics
From the moment players begin the quest to enter the expansion, a problem becomes readily apparent. Art is reused at every opportunity, from details both small and large. This repeats itself across monsters, terrain, armor, weapons and even maps.
The reused artwork ranges from obvious to subtle. A player entering the first level of the Rragar's Menangerie dungeon will find an entire stretch of the dungeon is, stone for stone, duplicated in the Heart of the Shiverpeaks dungeon. Terrain features and tilesets in the EotN introductory mission are copied and pasted from the Catacombs in Prophecies. Less subtle are the underground caverns in the Asuran lands,copied from the Echovald in Factions and tinted a different color.
Beyond the replicated art, Guild Wars has some beautiful terrain and well modeled monsters. If you've liked the art in previous Guild Wars games, you will find it doesn't disappoint in EotN. Much of the armor and weapons in EotN have been seen in previous expansions (as much as 75%) but even 'repainted' ones remain attractive for the most part.
Sound
I'm deaf, sorry. :P
Design & Recent Updates
EotN has a number of basic design flaws. For a game that was originally stated to be about 'skill, not grind', it has devolved into something with a large amount of grind, and not much skill. To outfit the hall of monuments, obtain EotN armor, get destroyer weapons, make PvE skills worthwhile or gain rains in titles requires a large amount of repetitive task completion.
In recent updates and additions to the game, much of the major rewards and content have been directed at the 10% of the community that's truly competitive. That being said and done, competitive PvE players will inevitably lose interest in repeatedly clearing the same areas, while serious PvP players are currently wallowing in a metagame that's been stale and virtually unchanged for the past eight months. As design for GW2 is getting underway, the GW1 team is stating more often that they do not have the resources to implement game fixes and updates.
Anet has made steps forward in terms of fixing some of the most glaring flaws in EotN, such as the grind for obtaining armor. They've also put forward a marketing promotion that distressed a wide variety of the playerbase -- shortly after EotN's release, they rewarded people who had bought things in the online store (Within a select time frame) with a set of missions and unique weapon art. This limited offer answers questions that were supposed to be covered in EotN, and positively radiates polish. Odd and distressing to many, who felt that this was content that should have been offered in the expansion.
Value & Final Thoughts
EotN is not terrific value for your dollar, and in general, I've not recommended it to my guildmates or friends. Generally speaking, it has about a third of the content of previous chapters, for about $10 less.
That being said, EotN is a good buy for the most casual players (though I might recommend these players simply exhaust the content in the games they own first). It is also a good buy for the hardcore PvE player who just has to get everything (though most of these have bought the game already) and the hardcore PvP player who will need access to the 100 skills EotN offers in order to stay competitive.
If you're losing interest in Guild Wars, don't count on EotN reviving that interest. Content can be exhausted over a weekend, and at it's root, EotN doesn't offer much to make you want to make a new character, return to the older games or find PvP engaging again. Driving the point home is the fact that Anet is busy enough with GW2 that we can't expect a major or serious update to the original series. Spare your wallet.
Although I liked EotN much better than you did, Hyudra, what you wrote here was a really thorough and informative review. I didn't hear any "axes grinding", as the saying goes. Well done! :-)
By the way, I count 11 missions in EotN -- 3 for each arc (Asuran, Ebon, and Norn) and then 2 afterward. Frankly, I think "Heart of the Shiverpeaks" should also count as a mission, although I guess technically it isn't one. That means EotN has 2 fewer missions than Factions, which is not bad for an expansion, in my opinion.
Moreover, as I stated earlier, I liked the dungeons. To me they feel like repeatable "mini-campaigns" or longer-than-usual missions, each with a *chance* at a decent reward such as you might get after completing a campaign. I really think they are a good addition to the GW series. Some of them are, admittedly, excruciatingly difficult, but that just makes eventually beating them all the sweeter.
Is it wrong that that made me chuckle when i read it? Although not being Deaf myself (and not wanting to sound like a complete ass), Jeremy Soule did yet another awesome job with the music and ANet's sound effects are top notch as usual and its a real shame that you can;t enjoy them
For all but the most dedicated players, most parts of the hall will be very bare.
This has to be my biggest gripe with GWEN. The game actually punishes you for having spent money on extra character slots.
In my case, I have 23 characters spread across 2 accounts. Most of the extra slots were purchased before Nightfall was released. Had I known then that the grind to make them effective via reputation farming would have been so extreme, I wouldn't have bothered buying the extra slots.
I've gotten 10 characters through the story missions in GWEN and am literally so sick of it, I've gone back to City of Heroes for awhile. Yeah, that's a grinder, too, but at least it's different.
Here's a perfect example of how broken GWEN is regarding the Hall of Monuments:
The only way you can display heroes there is by outfitting them with hero armor. But if you go to Dakjah Inlet (Nightfall) to farm hero armor fragments for the first 4 heroes you can get armor for there, the first three fragments drop pretty easily. After that, the fourth piece becomes so rare, you have to try running the challenge dozens of times and then hope you get lucky. Meanwhile, you can't display Nightfall's 4th hero in the HoM without that fourth armor piece.
In another instance, I have a storage chest on my main account with 22 greens in it I've farmed over the past 28 months. Not one displays in the HoM. Zero.
The problem is the developers designed GWEN as though everyone playing the game only has one character on one account and has been playing just long enough to get to the Eye of the North. But to players - like myself - who have already invested several thousand hours into the whole Guild Wars franchise, including spending extra money on bonus packs and extra character slots, the Hall of Monuments discounts most of the investment of time and money we've put into it. It punishes dedicated, long time players and customers. It doesn't reward us.
Fixes to HoM I'd suggest:
Any green from any campaign should be good enough to go into the Hall of Monuments. Players shouldn't have to feel as though the time they spent farming Ghial's Staff was any less valuable than the time they spent farming in Slaver's Exile. Greens are greens. They should be treated equally.
Drop the ridiculous requirement for elite hero armor to be required for heroes to be displayed in the HoM. Once they're on display, they appear as bronzed statues anyway! What freaking difference does it make what armor they're wearing?!?
None of the EoTN racial armor you get once you get rank 5 in any one title can even go into the HoM because none of it's considered "elite." In Factions, for instance, I can get access to Imperial Ascended armor by having enough gold and crafting materials and by beating the last mission in the game. THAT armor can be displayed and you don't even have to be a certain rank to get it there, but the time you spent beating GWEN, farming the faction and having the gold and materials needed to craft "end-game GWEN armor" isn't good enough for the HoM. IMHO, that's just stupid. Again, players are punished for not putting MORE time into getting this stuff.
The net effect of all the grinding you have to do to get anything for the HoM, for me, is to not even bother anymore. It's become so overwhelming and stale it's not even worth it.
And if anyone from A-Net is reading this: if this is where you're taking GW2, I wont bother with that, either. I - for one - am getting sick and tired of feeling like a hamster on a treadmill. That's exactly how GWEN has made this long-time customer feel.
Is it wrong that that made me chuckle when i read it? Although not being Deaf myself (and not wanting to sound like a complete ass), Jeremy Soule did yet another awesome job with the music and ANet's sound effects are top notch as usual and its a real shame that you can;t enjoy them
Ah, I'm not capital-D Deaf, just deaf/hard of hearing. It's not so bad that I can't hear the music, just enough that I can't seriously review it (or get reliable use out of Vent, which is what ~really~ irritates me). If I didn't mean some humor in that little blurb, I wouldn't have put it up - regardless, I just wanted to show that I was at least trying to cover all the bases.
Originally posted by Serling
And if anyone from A-Net is reading this: if this is where you're taking GW2, I wont bother with that, either.
If you'd asked me in August if I'd get GW2? I'd have given a tentative yes. Now, after EotN, I'm pretty sure it's a no.
GW started off really well. It had a novel concept with minimal grind, an illusion of balance in PvP (As much as such a thing is possible), a forgiving system where you couldn't make irrevocable mistakes, and a rare design twist that gives players freedom in their character design - something I haven't seen to such a pleasant degree since FFT, the only other game I've really devoted so many hours to.
Anet lost their way. I disagree with many by saying that I think Factions was well designed, but for a few errors (Namely the ritualist design concept and spirit spam's annoying influence on casual PvP). Factions wasn't a big game by any measure, but it introduced new gametypes, new classes, fresh challenges and a beautiful setting. Factions was designed as an 'underpowered' addition to guild wars. Skills and new classes were intentionally created weaker, to be buffed at a later date. For a game with relatively cautious skill balancers, I think this was a fairly good road to take (though it's disappointing that skills that were so bad as to be unusuable in early '06 are still unusuable as '08 approaches).
Nightfall was where the trouble lay. The third chapter was created as an overpowered chapter, to be weakened later. Skills such as Searing Flames dominated the meta for a time, in probably the most defining example of 'metagaming' as we've seen in the past few years. I applaud Anet for raising the elementalist above being just raw utility (and party wide heals) but I think that in terms of raw design, Nightfall fell short. The paragon and searing flames both suffered from the same syndrome. Underpowered or moderately balanced on their own, but exponentially stronger with each additional person that brings it to the table. With all of this, the PvP metagame was fundamentally altered, and since Anet couldn't very well nerf 50 of the 300 skills they'd introduced with Nightfall, they'd fouled things up rightly. Nightfall introduced more grind, less creativity and around this time, Anet's goals were distinctly shown to have changed. It wasn't until EotN that this truly became apparent.
Anet has turned it's back on the original design tenets - 'skill, not grind' being the chief one. Meanwhile, PvP has dwindled into what is essentially the same build, with maybe 3 skills being different between two given teams, and the occasional adventurous guild trying a gimmick or variation on the theme (and invariably losing in the long run). Kind of sad for a game with 1,200 skills to see so few made useful. Less than a third of the skills are viable for serious play, over 400 are just too weak to use.
This has barely changed in recent updates -- the skill balancing team is focused on fixing the most troublesome builds in high end PvP - a situation that affects perhaps 10% of GW's playerbase. Skill balances come infrequently enough (once per season) that by the time anything is seriously fixed, GW2 will be on the shelves.
I can't fault Anet for recognizing that they made a fundamental error in the design of guild wars - one that would require hundreds of man hours to iron out. Melee is too strong, and caster damage can't be buffed to match it without being too strong in 'spike' damage. As a result, PvP revolves around melee, with casters to prevent the melee damage, healers to prevent/heal it, and more casters to mess with enemy casters. Skill balances and changes come far too infrequently (and are too cautious to make a difference on their own), so the environment hasn't changed for eight or ten months.
(As an aside, it's probably pretty obvious that I think Anet made a poor choice in their skill balancer, Izzy Cartwright. He made a good step forward in bringing a prominent & skilled GW player to the table as an adviser, but in the two months since, has yet to release a serious update. The game as a whole needs someone that can jump off that cliff, making sweeping changes, seeing what happens and then revoking those that simply don't work).
I can fault Anet for giving up rather than trying to fix the game. "It's too hard to fix this game, so let's make a sequel and see if we can make it work this time." -- I can understand where they're coming from, but I won't be buying GW2 because there's absolutely nothing that says the exact same situation won't happen again.
Originally, Anet had excellent design, and I convinced no less than a dozen people to buy the game and participate. They've lost sight of their objectives, and they've lost my customer loyalty with it.
I disagree with many by saying that I think Factions was well designed, but for a few errors (Namely the ritualist design concept and spirit spam's annoying influence on casual PvP).
Next to Prophecies, Factions is my favorite game, and is where I bought most of my extra character slots. The best thing about Factions was how very little grinding there was. XP was excellent and even getting the 10,000 Kurzick or Luxon faction you needed could be done in about an hour and a half or so. Factions was Prophecies on steroids, and - in my mind - represented the closest the devs would ever get to their "skill, not grind" vision.
Unfortunately, they seemed to have been listening to the wrong people, who were bitching about how easy the game was and how little "content" Factions had (d'uh: it was designed around PvP!)
So A-Net's pendulum swung the other way in Nightfall, and while getting all the heroes gave me a reason to play Nightfall, the grind that was introduced to make my characters "better" through LB and SS point farming became a huge turn-off. Nightfall was the anti-Factions in virtually every way.
EoTN has completed A-Net's "journey to the dark side" as far as it's original vision goes. I haven't logged in more than 5 minutes all week because every time I do, I'm reminded of how much more farming I have to do to get anywhere in this game. It's become an "Asian grinder" and I've simply lost interest in doing one more thing there.
Knowing none of this will be fixed has lessened my desire to be there even more, as the dev team gears up for GW2.
In all, GW1 will not go out with a bang, which is what this long-time fan and loyal customer would've liked, but with a whimper.
I disagree with many by saying that I think Factions was well designed, but for a few errors (Namely the ritualist design concept and spirit spam's annoying influence on casual PvP).
Next to Prophecies, Factions is my favorite game, and is where I bought most of my extra character slots. The best thing about Factions was how very little grinding there was. XP was excellent and even getting the 10,000 Kurzick or Luxon faction you needed could be done in about an hour and a half or so. Factions was Prophecies on steroids, and - in my mind - represented the closest the devs would ever get to their "skill, not grind" vision.
Unfortunately, they seemed to have been listening to the wrong people, who were bitching about how easy the game was and how little "content" Factions had (d'uh: it was designed around PvP!)
So A-Net's pendulum swung the other way in Nightfall, and while getting all the heroes gave me a reason to play Nightfall, the grind that was introduced to make my characters "better" through LB and SS point farming became a huge turn-off. Nightfall was the anti-Factions in virtually every way.
EoTN has completed A-Net's "journey to the dark side" as far as it's original vision goes. I haven't logged in more than 5 minutes all week because every time I do, I'm reminded of how much more farming I have to do to get anywhere in this game. It's become an "Asian grinder" and I've simply lost interest in doing one more thing there.
Knowing none of this will be fixed has lessened my desire to be there even more, as the dev team gears up for GW2.
In all, GW1 will not go out with a bang, which is what this long-time fan and loyal customer would've liked, but with a whimper.
Sorry to say, but this review is one of the worst I've read about it. I don't mean on the reviewer's opinion. I mean on how it was written. Most of this has sarcasim in it, which is not necessary at all for a review. Sarcasim in a review is like a big sign saying "STOP READING REVIEWS AT MMORPG.COM". Thank you Jeremy Star for making MMORPG.com look completely bad for allowing your review to pull through.
Anyways... The game itself is pretty good. It is average compared to Nightfall. If you have a friend or a couple of friends who you can play with, you'll have a good time. If you are just going to solo and enjoy soloing, you'll have a good time. If you hate solo'ing, you'll possibly hate most of the game till the end.
It's been said before, but I want to say it again:
This review, not the opinions expressed but how they were expressed, was very poorly written. The whole time I read it, I felt no different then when I read the angry kids who bang away on their keyboards in the forums screaming "OMG! TH!S GAME SUXXORZ!".
And when it comes to the content, I think it was more of a waste of time by what he chose to harp on. Bashing the graphics to an expansion of the game because Age of Conan MIGHT be coming out soon? Come on, it's an expansion to a game that's been out a couple years. Bashing the community? Tell you what: Point me to a community that is better than Guild Wars, and I'll honestly give it a shot. I've played all the big names on your top-10's here. Guild Wars is the only game where the community has KEPT me.
Yeah, the expansion was cut short in places. No arguing there. And the grind for aesthetics is still *GASP!* a grind for AESTHETICS. Hooray to Guild Wars, who provides max armor, max weapons AND max skills early enough to where the rest of the game is purely based on player skill. My main hit all of those years ago, and I still love playing him. The game is still the fun it always has been. Sorry this expansion didn't add 10 levels and a new tier of items to work towards for end game PvP for you.
Judging by most of the complaints, it sounds more like the reviewer had a problem with Guild Wars overall than the Expansion itself. In that case, can I apply to write the review for the next WoW Expansion when it comes out? I thought WoW was a pretty meh. I respect it for bringing MMO's into the mainstream, but those graphics are so 2004. So my biased opinion against WoW should obviously make me a great candidate for a featured review of their next expansion.
And the grind for aesthetics is still *GASP!* a grind for AESTHETICS. Hooray to Guild Wars, who provides max armor, max weapons AND max skills early enough to where the rest of the game is purely based on player skill.
Actually, you're not just grinding for aesthetics. Every racial skill you earn (like LB and SS skills in Nightfall) gets more effective the higher your rank in those titles. Dwarven skills get better with higher dwarven ranks. Asuran skills get better with higher Asuran ranks, etc, etc.
The point is, you get those ranks - for the most part - by farming the reputation points you need to get them higher. Farming is a time-based activity, not a skill-based one. The more time you put into farming, the higher your ranks, the better your skills (skills you can't use in PvP, BTW).
In other words, you're heavily rewarded for sinking time into this game which is 180 degrees contrary to how Prophecies was marketed.
GWEN has all the feel and playability of an Asian grinder now. That's how far they've moved from the original vision.
Comments
i have to agree with the original review. After purchasing both nightfall and prophecies, i was SEVERELY disappointed with this expansion, and felt i truly did pay about 20 bucks too much for it.
Tell me, how in the world does real-world references ruin a game's role-playing aspect? Role-playing is about being whoever you want and doing whatever you want, not about pretending to be some fantasy character.
____________________
Have played: RuneScape, EQ2 (free trial), Last Chaos, Silk Road, Dungeon Runners.
Currently playing: RuneScape, Dungeon Runners.
The notion that graphics, or anything else for that matter, are anywhere near as important as gameplay/fun is so utterly ridiculous that anyone who shares such a view should be placed in an asylum.
First, comparing the cost of GWEN to the campaigns without still adding that the price of admission in comparison to almost all other games is a bit biased. And, as other posters have pointed out, this is just the beginning of bias.
Second, just to further echo, you would think a review that is oh... I dunno... only a couple months late. Would be very thorough to the point of talking about every feature in GWEN. This reviewer missed mini-games, dungeons, PvE skills. I don't remember the reviewer even saying how PvE skills come about in a big way.
Finally, I do agree with the reviewer in one point. The expansion felt just a little unpolished, and it did come off as a big GW2-things-will-be-cooler-then-advertisement. How could they have done things different? I don't know. I just know what it felt like.
Anyway, reviewing the review: you think mmorpg.com would not allow a biased, incomplete review after the game has been out for months....they must have been dying for articles/content over the holiday season.
I agree with the review on most of the points.
This expansion was a huge disappointment all around. The storyline was way too short and cheezy imo. There were major gaps in the storyline that could have easily been filled to provide a better experience all around.
After the short story, this game is a huge faction grind, which is sad. If this is a taste of what we will see in Guild Wars 2, I will not be buying it.
The Hall of Monuments was also a huge disappointment. At release there were many problems with it, and even though many of them were fixed, some still remain ( ie. You can only put Destroyer Weapons on display).
This expansion wasn't even worth the money it cost. It looks like Arenanet development team put more effort in designing that Mission Bonus Pack then dealing with all the problems in the expansion.
A somewhat disappointing review that made a few good points.
Once I got to the line "The biggest addition to GWEN is the Hall of Monuments", however, I began to realize that the reviewer really had no clue. The Hall of Monuments was lame, I admit, but it was hardly the "biggest addition" in a large expansion that added new Heroes, new skills, new areas, new armors and weapons, a new story, and repeatable dungeons.
I would say that the dungeons are my favorite part of EotN: and you can always run them, any time you feel like it. Just try finding a group for any dungeon in WoW... Good luck with that. In GW you ALWAYS have a group ready to go, even if it's just henches. Few other online games offer casual gamers an option like that.
I think part of the point of EotN was to transition players over to something new (i.e., GW2) and, yes, also to give them something fun to do in meantime. What's so lame about that?
In short, I have had a great time with EotN, I have found the community to be just fine (a *mature* player in ANY online game ought to have the common sense to find other mature players and a mature guild to join -- really now, Mr. Starr, it's not that difficult), and I think this expansion is a worthwhile addition to the series.
While I enjoy grouping with other players occasionally, it is the inability to complete dungeons on my own (if I feel like it) that keeps me out of games like WoW and EQ2. GW is one of the few games that completely adapts to an individual player's preferred style of play: grouping, soloing, and everything in between.
EotN is a fine addition to the GW series.
I don't believe in such reviews as this because you can tell there is bias all over it not to mention it is 4 months late. Sounds like someone just read the back of the box and put something together.
Most Guild Wars fans liked the game but they did have some issues with a few things as always but that is nothing new in the community. GW:EN was just too short but there are reasons for that, Guild wars 2 is priority #1 so they weren't going to turn this expansion into a full campaign.
You can't complain about the price of the expansion because everyone these days charges you the same for the expansion and not too mention if you did order GW:EN through the online store you got the Bonus Mission Pack for free which offered extra missions and really nice weapons that moslty everyone was happy about.
The graphics in GW:EN were pretty good. Anet upgraded their graphics and if you have an old pc or old video card you would never notice the difference.
There is no roleplaying in Guild Wars. If you want to act out rapunzel then join a play ? Guild Wars is mostly about competitive play.
The idea of the new races in GW:EN was to give you an idea of what they are like from a lore perspective. They weren't made to be a played class at this point. Guild Wars 2 is coming so be patient.
Did you guys even mention the dungeons ? There are 17 of them that you and your group can do. Some of them take over an hour to do.
There are 2 ways to play this expansion. If you just follow all the quests and not do the dungeons then you can finish the main storyline in no time. If you do each area of the game such as the Norn, Asura and Ebon Vanguard including the dungeons then it will take you alot longer to do.
The Guild Wars community isn't exactly the greatest by no means but by quoting something like this " LOLZ – WTB life for u, stoopid nub rper, lol11!!!!11" in a game review is ridiculous. Try logging into WOW and you get that and 100x worse outside each major city.
I havent played the expansion, so I dont know who is right about GWEN. What I DO see however is, people who disagree start to attack the auhor. Quite a disqualifying way to comment on something you do not agree with. It's so poor to berate someone about his writing style and play expert. But apparently arrogance has become trendy. Watched the same parrents of reaction to critic in too many game forums these days, alas. Maybe the reviewer is wrong, I dunno, but even IF thats now reason to attack him/her personally as unable to write! PA THE TIC!
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
And the review wasn't attacking guild wars and even their players?? Did you read it??
-So it's OK to attack a game that took months of people to develop, months of designers, gameplay, artwork etc....and their players....
-But it's NOT ok to attack a rewiever who spend half an hour writing up a lousy review.
This review blows. It's totally unobjective, nor is it an entertaining read, it's a burn on a game instead of a review. It sux and it's unprofessional, he deserved these responses. Was a pathetic attempt at a review. End of story.
And the review wasn't attacking guild wars and even their players?? Did you read it??
-So it's OK to attack a game that took months of people to develop, months of designers, gameplay, artwork etc....and their players....
-But it's NOT ok to attack a rewiever who spend half an hour writing up a lousy review.
This review blows. It's totally unobjective, nor is it an entertaining read, it's a burn on a game instead of a review. It sux and it's unprofessional, he deserved these responses. Was a pathetic attempt at a review. End of story.
It's OK, as a writer I am used to the hysterical rantings of forum posters. (Or as Dan Fortier calls them, Forum Terrorists, I term I wish I had coined.) Regardless of what I write, there will be people that do not agree, and cannot express their disagreement without resorting to name calling or other childish outbursts. It's universal, it's age-old, and it's actually entertaining for us to read, sometimes. (Well, those of us who can keep a level head about it.)
Agent_X7 AKA J Star
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Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MMORPG.com or its management.
And the review wasn't attacking guild wars and even their players?? Did you read it??
-So it's OK to attack a game that took months of people to develop, months of designers, gameplay, artwork etc....and their players....
-But it's NOT ok to attack a rewiever who spend half an hour writing up a lousy review.
This review blows. It's totally unobjective, nor is it an entertaining read, it's a burn on a game instead of a review. It sux and it's unprofessional, he deserved these responses. Was a pathetic attempt at a review. End of story.
1. An attack never justifies a counter attack as being more logcial.
2. That many GW players are jerks is a fact you can see. What is good writing style is subjective, and basically of no interest in a gaming forum, unless we were on a forum for good writing. Talking about the community of a game is a natural part of a review.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I liked the Guild Wars games, but I think the review is hitting home.
It's not bad, but it's not that great either.
EotN was the first Guild Wars game I never bothered finishing, simply because it didn't feel like it was really going anywhere I hadn't been before, apart from the whole foreshadowing GW2 bits.
Still love the franchise, but EotN felt like a wimpering end to the first series.
Ah...er...d'uh! You don't get to experience any of it 'cause it isn't out yet.
Look, I have my own reasons for hating GWEN and most of them have nothing to do with the look or the feel.
My biggest beef is that the game teeters between being ridiculously easy and insanely difficult with virtually no middle ground. The dungeons (which weren't reviewed) are a massive time-sink (read: waste of time) due to the difficulty of some of the bosses at the end. You can literally spend 3+ hours in a dungeon only to get wiped out so quickly at the end, you wonder what the hell happened! And then do it all over again, if you can stand the idea of another 3+hours wasted. Ugh!
In the meantime, the story missions are all fairly easy to complete with all hero/henchie teams, but the end-game rewards (Droknar's greens) aren't worth the time spent playing to get them. (They're not even on the approved list for the Hall of Monuments. If they were, they might be worth getting.) Not only that, but to even stock your Hall of Monuments with weapons, armors, mini-pets and achievements is such a gawd-awful grind...well, more on that in next paragraph.
And speaking of grind: ANYTHING worth doing in GWEN is going to cost you scores if not hundreds of hours! Dungeon raids, reputation farming: everything is geared to try to keep people playing until GW2 comes out in about 2 years, but the grind to get through any of this stuff is so insane I find it to be nothing more than a huge turn-off.
In short, GWEN has virtually killed my love for this game to the point I can barely bring myself to log in anymore. Everything you do in GWEN feels like a day at the office. It was fun the first time through, but for players - like me - with more than one account and more than 10 characters, it's just not fun anymore.
At all.
P.S. They could've ended the GW1 saga with Nightfall, and I don't think most people would've cared. There's plenty of reputation farming in Nightfall to tide over the most hardcore gamer. As it stands now, you have to choose how much grinding you want to do: Lightbringer and Sunspear ranks in Nightfall, or Norn/Dwarf/Asuran/Vanguard reputation in EoTN. There's simply too much of this crap all the way around to make any of it fun.
And don't bother wasting time on those LB ranks in Nightfall: they don't apply to anything in GWEN, neither do the LB skills you earn with them. Makes me even wonder why I bothered.
First of all, it's "opinion", just like the vitriolic post you made. "Opinion" is not meant to be objective. Get that? By it's very definition and nature "opinion" is subjective. Understand?
You are, of course, entitled to your opinion, but that doesn't make your position any more or less valid than the reviewer's.
I gotta say, the review in general? Not terribly well written. Regardless, the bullet points he lists are, essentially, what's wrong with EotN.
I'm speaking as a longtime player who has participated in various parts of GW, from the highest tiers of competitive play to managing an alliance of 1000 casual players.
PvE Content
EotN is an expansion that brings a moderate amount of content, and minimal depth, to Guild Wars. It gives you stuff, but very little that will drive a player to replay the previous 3 chapters. The expansion does not let you create new characters, instead having you continue the adventures of your existing characters.
EotN packs 11 'missions', as compared to the 25 in prophecies, 13 in Factions and 20 in Nightfall. These missions are divided between the major groups that are introduced in EotN - the giant Norn, the diminutive gnome-like Asura and the Charr. Once those three segments are completed, the player must complete the Dwarf segment, which features a vicious rise in learning curve. Experienced players will typically walk through even the hardest of these missions, helped by the (inexplicable) fact that unlike the previous games, parties get respawn points spaced out through the majority of the missions.
EotN suffers from a lack of pacing. The first three quarters of the game have the players rallying the Norn, Asura and Charr for the confrontation with The Destroyer and his Destroyer minions. Ultimately, the only result the player sees from these efforts are a handful of fragile NPCs in one quest leading up to the final confrontation. The final confrontation, again, is underwhelming, and many players agree that bosses earlier in EotN are more intimidating and memorable than the final boss.
Players who beat the game - a process that can be readily completed within 20 hours of play time, have a number of other things to fill their time. There are several minigames that are rife with issues and minimal rewards. Polymock is a Pokemon-esque game where players pick a selection of monsters and fight the opponents. However, monsters in Polymock are all too similar to one another, and suffers from the fact that the player has lag while the AI does not, making Polymock more of an exercise in problem solving, luck and trial and error than actual gameplay.
The Norn Tournament and Dwarven boxing pit players against a series of opponents. The Norn Tournament lets players bring their own skill setup against a series of enemies with well known builds, ending in a fight with a boss. Though interesting, most players will play enough times to unlock the two heroes and get the Cup. Beating the tournament 5 more times will give a player a hat or ale, with no reason or motivation to continue playing beyond that. Dwarven Boxing is similar, with players fighting a series of opponents with a set of 'boxing' skills. While fun and hilarious at times, Boxing ends after only 4 quests, with no serious reward outside of Dwarven reputation. Any of the minigames could have benefited from PvP implementation, as each of the games end all too quickly.
Those seeking more content for their dollar will inevitably try the dungeons. About eighteen dungeons exist, ranging from one to four stages riddled with traps, monsters and periodic bosses. Those who fight past the series of challenges will gain access to a final chest, giving players a chance at some quality loot. Dungeons are good for players that enjoy them, but generally require a group of eight people who can put together a team (generally consisting of the same skills and classes as 90% of the other groups attempting the same dungeon) and dedicate 1-5 hours to complete the dungeon. Dungeons appeal to a niche of GW players, as casual players will find the experience too frustrating, and hardcore PvE players will find all but the elite dungeon are too easy.
In Guild Wars, there are no godly items - instead, players are rewarded with higher quality weapon and armor art, which bestow a degree of satisfaction and prestige. EotN promised 40 sets of armor - 4 for each class. Players who bought EotN discovered to their chagrin that there were only 31 sets of armor, with the 10 'dwarven' armors actually being made up of 4 disparate pieces and no available headwear. When EotN was released, a large number of players were outraged at the fact that most of the 'new' armor rehashed previous sets with new skins painted over them.
There was a greater outcry at the fact that to obtain the armor, players had to grind for 26,000 points in the respective title track (Norn, Asuran, Charr, Dwarven). In the time since EotN's release, the game developers have increased the rewards for completing the game, allowing players to either grind the faction or complete the game for their armor.
PvP Content
Because of the dynamics of Guild Wars PvP, it is hard to define how essential EotN is to PvP. Where previous chapters offered 30 skills to each class, the expansion offers only 10. If a player is interested in serious, competitive play, there is no question that they need access to the EotN skills.
Beyond the 100 skills, EotN offers nothing to PvP players. There are no new PvP types, no new maps or PvP challenges.
Hall of Monuments
One of the selling points of EotN is the hall of monuments. Players who access the expansion pack gain access to an area that can be personalized. The hall is broken into five sections where players can display various accomplishments for each character, with the stated promise that these things will translate to direct rewards in Guild Wars 2.
The Hall of Monuments is great for players who have a single character they dedicate themselves to. Players with elite pets, maxed out titles and elite armors will enjoy the chance to display these things. Casual players or players who spread their time across a number of characters will find themselves out of luck. The hall, generally speaking, only displays things that require many hours to obtain. For all but the most dedicated players, most parts of the hall will be very bare.
Graphics
From the moment players begin the quest to enter the expansion, a problem becomes readily apparent. Art is reused at every opportunity, from details both small and large. This repeats itself across monsters, terrain, armor, weapons and even maps.
The reused artwork ranges from obvious to subtle. A player entering the first level of the Rragar's Menangerie dungeon will find an entire stretch of the dungeon is, stone for stone, duplicated in the Heart of the Shiverpeaks dungeon. Terrain features and tilesets in the EotN introductory mission are copied and pasted from the Catacombs in Prophecies. Less subtle are the underground caverns in the Asuran lands,copied from the Echovald in Factions and tinted a different color.
Beyond the replicated art, Guild Wars has some beautiful terrain and well modeled monsters. If you've liked the art in previous Guild Wars games, you will find it doesn't disappoint in EotN. Much of the armor and weapons in EotN have been seen in previous expansions (as much as 75%) but even 'repainted' ones remain attractive for the most part.
Sound
I'm deaf, sorry. :P
Design & Recent Updates
EotN has a number of basic design flaws. For a game that was originally stated to be about 'skill, not grind', it has devolved into something with a large amount of grind, and not much skill. To outfit the hall of monuments, obtain EotN armor, get destroyer weapons, make PvE skills worthwhile or gain rains in titles requires a large amount of repetitive task completion.
In recent updates and additions to the game, much of the major rewards and content have been directed at the 10% of the community that's truly competitive. That being said and done, competitive PvE players will inevitably lose interest in repeatedly clearing the same areas, while serious PvP players are currently wallowing in a metagame that's been stale and virtually unchanged for the past eight months. As design for GW2 is getting underway, the GW1 team is stating more often that they do not have the resources to implement game fixes and updates.
Anet has made steps forward in terms of fixing some of the most glaring flaws in EotN, such as the grind for obtaining armor. They've also put forward a marketing promotion that distressed a wide variety of the playerbase -- shortly after EotN's release, they rewarded people who had bought things in the online store (Within a select time frame) with a set of missions and unique weapon art. This limited offer answers questions that were supposed to be covered in EotN, and positively radiates polish. Odd and distressing to many, who felt that this was content that should have been offered in the expansion.
Value & Final Thoughts
EotN is not terrific value for your dollar, and in general, I've not recommended it to my guildmates or friends. Generally speaking, it has about a third of the content of previous chapters, for about $10 less.
That being said, EotN is a good buy for the most casual players (though I might recommend these players simply exhaust the content in the games they own first). It is also a good buy for the hardcore PvE player who just has to get everything (though most of these have bought the game already) and the hardcore PvP player who will need access to the 100 skills EotN offers in order to stay competitive.
If you're losing interest in Guild Wars, don't count on EotN reviving that interest. Content can be exhausted over a weekend, and at it's root, EotN doesn't offer much to make you want to make a new character, return to the older games or find PvP engaging again. Driving the point home is the fact that Anet is busy enough with GW2 that we can't expect a major or serious update to the original series. Spare your wallet.
Although I liked EotN much better than you did, Hyudra, what you wrote here was a really thorough and informative review. I didn't hear any "axes grinding", as the saying goes. Well done! :-)
By the way, I count 11 missions in EotN -- 3 for each arc (Asuran, Ebon, and Norn) and then 2 afterward. Frankly, I think "Heart of the Shiverpeaks" should also count as a mission, although I guess technically it isn't one. That means EotN has 2 fewer missions than Factions, which is not bad for an expansion, in my opinion.
Moreover, as I stated earlier, I liked the dungeons. To me they feel like repeatable "mini-campaigns" or longer-than-usual missions, each with a *chance* at a decent reward such as you might get after completing a campaign. I really think they are a good addition to the GW series. Some of them are, admittedly, excruciatingly difficult, but that just makes eventually beating them all the sweeter.
Thank you for the positive response.
I double checked, and you're right. 11 missions, not 9. I'll edit my post.
Sound
I'm deaf, sorry. :P
Is it wrong that that made me chuckle when i read it? Although not being Deaf myself (and not wanting to sound like a complete ass), Jeremy Soule did yet another awesome job with the music and ANet's sound effects are top notch as usual and its a real shame that you can;t enjoy them
This has to be my biggest gripe with GWEN. The game actually punishes you for having spent money on extra character slots.
In my case, I have 23 characters spread across 2 accounts. Most of the extra slots were purchased before Nightfall was released. Had I known then that the grind to make them effective via reputation farming would have been so extreme, I wouldn't have bothered buying the extra slots.
I've gotten 10 characters through the story missions in GWEN and am literally so sick of it, I've gone back to City of Heroes for awhile. Yeah, that's a grinder, too, but at least it's different.
Here's a perfect example of how broken GWEN is regarding the Hall of Monuments:
The only way you can display heroes there is by outfitting them with hero armor. But if you go to Dakjah Inlet (Nightfall) to farm hero armor fragments for the first 4 heroes you can get armor for there, the first three fragments drop pretty easily. After that, the fourth piece becomes so rare, you have to try running the challenge dozens of times and then hope you get lucky. Meanwhile, you can't display Nightfall's 4th hero in the HoM without that fourth armor piece.
In another instance, I have a storage chest on my main account with 22 greens in it I've farmed over the past 28 months. Not one displays in the HoM. Zero.
The problem is the developers designed GWEN as though everyone playing the game only has one character on one account and has been playing just long enough to get to the Eye of the North. But to players - like myself - who have already invested several thousand hours into the whole Guild Wars franchise, including spending extra money on bonus packs and extra character slots, the Hall of Monuments discounts most of the investment of time and money we've put into it. It punishes dedicated, long time players and customers. It doesn't reward us.
Fixes to HoM I'd suggest:
The net effect of all the grinding you have to do to get anything for the HoM, for me, is to not even bother anymore. It's become so overwhelming and stale it's not even worth it.
And if anyone from A-Net is reading this: if this is where you're taking GW2, I wont bother with that, either. I - for one - am getting sick and tired of feeling like a hamster on a treadmill. That's exactly how GWEN has made this long-time customer feel.
As always, your mileage may vary.
Ah, I'm not capital-D Deaf, just deaf/hard of hearing. It's not so bad that I can't hear the music, just enough that I can't seriously review it (or get reliable use out of Vent, which is what ~really~ irritates me). If I didn't mean some humor in that little blurb, I wouldn't have put it up - regardless, I just wanted to show that I was at least trying to cover all the bases.
If you'd asked me in August if I'd get GW2? I'd have given a tentative yes. Now, after EotN, I'm pretty sure it's a no.
GW started off really well. It had a novel concept with minimal grind, an illusion of balance in PvP (As much as such a thing is possible), a forgiving system where you couldn't make irrevocable mistakes, and a rare design twist that gives players freedom in their character design - something I haven't seen to such a pleasant degree since FFT, the only other game I've really devoted so many hours to.
Anet lost their way. I disagree with many by saying that I think Factions was well designed, but for a few errors (Namely the ritualist design concept and spirit spam's annoying influence on casual PvP). Factions wasn't a big game by any measure, but it introduced new gametypes, new classes, fresh challenges and a beautiful setting. Factions was designed as an 'underpowered' addition to guild wars. Skills and new classes were intentionally created weaker, to be buffed at a later date. For a game with relatively cautious skill balancers, I think this was a fairly good road to take (though it's disappointing that skills that were so bad as to be unusuable in early '06 are still unusuable as '08 approaches).
Nightfall was where the trouble lay. The third chapter was created as an overpowered chapter, to be weakened later. Skills such as Searing Flames dominated the meta for a time, in probably the most defining example of 'metagaming' as we've seen in the past few years. I applaud Anet for raising the elementalist above being just raw utility (and party wide heals) but I think that in terms of raw design, Nightfall fell short. The paragon and searing flames both suffered from the same syndrome. Underpowered or moderately balanced on their own, but exponentially stronger with each additional person that brings it to the table. With all of this, the PvP metagame was fundamentally altered, and since Anet couldn't very well nerf 50 of the 300 skills they'd introduced with Nightfall, they'd fouled things up rightly. Nightfall introduced more grind, less creativity and around this time, Anet's goals were distinctly shown to have changed. It wasn't until EotN that this truly became apparent.
Anet has turned it's back on the original design tenets - 'skill, not grind' being the chief one. Meanwhile, PvP has dwindled into what is essentially the same build, with maybe 3 skills being different between two given teams, and the occasional adventurous guild trying a gimmick or variation on the theme (and invariably losing in the long run). Kind of sad for a game with 1,200 skills to see so few made useful. Less than a third of the skills are viable for serious play, over 400 are just too weak to use.
This has barely changed in recent updates -- the skill balancing team is focused on fixing the most troublesome builds in high end PvP - a situation that affects perhaps 10% of GW's playerbase. Skill balances come infrequently enough (once per season) that by the time anything is seriously fixed, GW2 will be on the shelves.
I can't fault Anet for recognizing that they made a fundamental error in the design of guild wars - one that would require hundreds of man hours to iron out. Melee is too strong, and caster damage can't be buffed to match it without being too strong in 'spike' damage. As a result, PvP revolves around melee, with casters to prevent the melee damage, healers to prevent/heal it, and more casters to mess with enemy casters. Skill balances and changes come far too infrequently (and are too cautious to make a difference on their own), so the environment hasn't changed for eight or ten months.
(As an aside, it's probably pretty obvious that I think Anet made a poor choice in their skill balancer, Izzy Cartwright. He made a good step forward in bringing a prominent & skilled GW player to the table as an adviser, but in the two months since, has yet to release a serious update. The game as a whole needs someone that can jump off that cliff, making sweeping changes, seeing what happens and then revoking those that simply don't work).
I can fault Anet for giving up rather than trying to fix the game. "It's too hard to fix this game, so let's make a sequel and see if we can make it work this time." -- I can understand where they're coming from, but I won't be buying GW2 because there's absolutely nothing that says the exact same situation won't happen again.
Originally, Anet had excellent design, and I convinced no less than a dozen people to buy the game and participate. They've lost sight of their objectives, and they've lost my customer loyalty with it.
Next to Prophecies, Factions is my favorite game, and is where I bought most of my extra character slots. The best thing about Factions was how very little grinding there was. XP was excellent and even getting the 10,000 Kurzick or Luxon faction you needed could be done in about an hour and a half or so. Factions was Prophecies on steroids, and - in my mind - represented the closest the devs would ever get to their "skill, not grind" vision.
Unfortunately, they seemed to have been listening to the wrong people, who were bitching about how easy the game was and how little "content" Factions had (d'uh: it was designed around PvP!)
So A-Net's pendulum swung the other way in Nightfall, and while getting all the heroes gave me a reason to play Nightfall, the grind that was introduced to make my characters "better" through LB and SS point farming became a huge turn-off. Nightfall was the anti-Factions in virtually every way.
EoTN has completed A-Net's "journey to the dark side" as far as it's original vision goes. I haven't logged in more than 5 minutes all week because every time I do, I'm reminded of how much more farming I have to do to get anywhere in this game. It's become an "Asian grinder" and I've simply lost interest in doing one more thing there.
Knowing none of this will be fixed has lessened my desire to be there even more, as the dev team gears up for GW2.
In all, GW1 will not go out with a bang, which is what this long-time fan and loyal customer would've liked, but with a whimper.
Damn shame if you ask me.
Next to Prophecies, Factions is my favorite game, and is where I bought most of my extra character slots. The best thing about Factions was how very little grinding there was. XP was excellent and even getting the 10,000 Kurzick or Luxon faction you needed could be done in about an hour and a half or so. Factions was Prophecies on steroids, and - in my mind - represented the closest the devs would ever get to their "skill, not grind" vision.
Unfortunately, they seemed to have been listening to the wrong people, who were bitching about how easy the game was and how little "content" Factions had (d'uh: it was designed around PvP!)
So A-Net's pendulum swung the other way in Nightfall, and while getting all the heroes gave me a reason to play Nightfall, the grind that was introduced to make my characters "better" through LB and SS point farming became a huge turn-off. Nightfall was the anti-Factions in virtually every way.
EoTN has completed A-Net's "journey to the dark side" as far as it's original vision goes. I haven't logged in more than 5 minutes all week because every time I do, I'm reminded of how much more farming I have to do to get anywhere in this game. It's become an "Asian grinder" and I've simply lost interest in doing one more thing there.
Knowing none of this will be fixed has lessened my desire to be there even more, as the dev team gears up for GW2.
In all, GW1 will not go out with a bang, which is what this long-time fan and loyal customer would've liked, but with a whimper.
Damn shame if you ask me.
I agree with you on all counts.
Sorry to say, but this review is one of the worst I've read about it. I don't mean on the reviewer's opinion. I mean on how it was written. Most of this has sarcasim in it, which is not necessary at all for a review. Sarcasim in a review is like a big sign saying "STOP READING REVIEWS AT MMORPG.COM". Thank you Jeremy Star for making MMORPG.com look completely bad for allowing your review to pull through.
Anyways... The game itself is pretty good. It is average compared to Nightfall. If you have a friend or a couple of friends who you can play with, you'll have a good time. If you are just going to solo and enjoy soloing, you'll have a good time. If you hate solo'ing, you'll possibly hate most of the game till the end.
Unless you have lots of friends who love you...
I would love gwen but i have no moneys lol
Playing: Everthing
Played: DAoC,AC2,EvE,SWG,WAR,MXO,CoX,EQ2,L2,LOTRO,SB,UO,WoW.
I have played every MMO that has ever come out.
It's been said before, but I want to say it again:
This review, not the opinions expressed but how they were expressed, was very poorly written. The whole time I read it, I felt no different then when I read the angry kids who bang away on their keyboards in the forums screaming "OMG! TH!S GAME SUXXORZ!".
And when it comes to the content, I think it was more of a waste of time by what he chose to harp on. Bashing the graphics to an expansion of the game because Age of Conan MIGHT be coming out soon? Come on, it's an expansion to a game that's been out a couple years. Bashing the community? Tell you what: Point me to a community that is better than Guild Wars, and I'll honestly give it a shot. I've played all the big names on your top-10's here. Guild Wars is the only game where the community has KEPT me.
Yeah, the expansion was cut short in places. No arguing there. And the grind for aesthetics is still *GASP!* a grind for AESTHETICS. Hooray to Guild Wars, who provides max armor, max weapons AND max skills early enough to where the rest of the game is purely based on player skill. My main hit all of those years ago, and I still love playing him. The game is still the fun it always has been. Sorry this expansion didn't add 10 levels and a new tier of items to work towards for end game PvP for you.
Judging by most of the complaints, it sounds more like the reviewer had a problem with Guild Wars overall than the Expansion itself. In that case, can I apply to write the review for the next WoW Expansion when it comes out? I thought WoW was a pretty meh. I respect it for bringing MMO's into the mainstream, but those graphics are so 2004. So my biased opinion against WoW should obviously make me a great candidate for a featured review of their next expansion.
Actually, you're not just grinding for aesthetics. Every racial skill you earn (like LB and SS skills in Nightfall) gets more effective the higher your rank in those titles. Dwarven skills get better with higher dwarven ranks. Asuran skills get better with higher Asuran ranks, etc, etc.
The point is, you get those ranks - for the most part - by farming the reputation points you need to get them higher. Farming is a time-based activity, not a skill-based one. The more time you put into farming, the higher your ranks, the better your skills (skills you can't use in PvP, BTW).
In other words, you're heavily rewarded for sinking time into this game which is 180 degrees contrary to how Prophecies was marketed.
GWEN has all the feel and playability of an Asian grinder now. That's how far they've moved from the original vision.