[General Article] Guild Wars 2: Review in Progress Part 2

garrett

Last week (Review in Progress Part 1) I spent the first of several “Review in Progress” articles talking mainly about Guild Wars 2’s exploration, dynamic event questing, and the overall feeling I have when playing the game.  I also looked at some of the bad bits so far, and the good bits as well. Let’s keep up with this format as we dive into the 2^nd edition of the series, which ultimately will culminate in our official review later in September.  It’s now been almost two weeks since the Head Start began, and there are definitely some kinks to iron out, but one has to admit that ArenaNet has definitely increased its communication via social channels and their official site’s Wiki even as the players are being hounded by email phishing scams and the company has had to turn off first-party digital sales because the demand is too great. I guess that “being too popular” is a good problem to have when you’re trying to make a living.

 

Read the Full Article Here.  

orbitxo

i agree completely on your review!

 

personal story feel challenging at times(most of the time!). and theres a little disconnect going to other zones- BUT, that didnt happen to me until i joined the 'Vigil', and they started assigning me on 'special' missions throughout Tyria to gain trust etc. so it made sense.-to me and my character on its choices.

 

and so far I honestly can say i havent found any flaws within  this game -its hard to find if any at all!!!voices are dead on -dialogue is mature not child like. you dont get spoon fed you NEED to figure things out closer to Skyrim than WoW imo.

 

and pvp is just a WHOLE new game exp. to explore. - and for me to say all this when iam very vocal on bad game development on forums etc, says alot for me not to be critical on this game-iam no GW fanboy, iam just enjoying playing this mmo!!!

 

Rockniss

I think you grabbed a lot of what I'm seeing. Que times in the evening forget about it. I thought ok well I will transfer home worlds so I went from Jade Quarry to Fort Aspenwood which at the time was not bad, but a week later we are loaded too. There is some nice leadership going on so I'm going to stay, but still I have just accepted at this point that I'm not going to get any wvw in during the peak hours. Im not that upset because there is lots to do, but I'm sure at some point I'm going to go off if I always can't get in. So hopefully that gets fixed somehow.
I have been playing a warrior and I have to say I'm kind of suprised at how much I'm enjoying being melee in wvw as a warrior. I have some nice cds that keep me alive and I can regularly be seen getting ripped off a keep or just jumping off, diving right into a mob of invaders, dropping some damage and still making it back to safety. This is definately my cup of tea. I love how strategy changes from keep to keep not because of invaders, but just because of the nature of the various terrains. Been a lot of fun so far and I think we got a keeper thus far.

BadSpock

I have only tried to queue for Mists twice, both times I ended up leaving the queue once it popped because I was running low on play time that session. Kind of annoying, but I always planned on WvW to be more of an end-game activity for me.

The whole "leaving your leveling track" to another zone thing does miff me a bit too, not because it's hard to do or whatever I just feel you shouldn't have to, but I actually like exploring in this game and finding new skill challenges and PoI's/Warp points.

I've had the most fun ignoring my map and mini-map and just setting off for something I can see in the distance.

Trading post issues haven't effected me too much, I'm kind of a coin horder so I'd rather grind a bit to get mats I need for crafting.

I don't really worry about my gear being up to snuff while leveling unless I can craft it myself - and am having no problem keeping both my Armorsmith and Weaponsmith up to my level in terms of what equipment I can/can't use (experimentation is key!)

My only REAL gripe is that I just get such "grass is greener" when it comes to Professions/characters.

Started a Asura Gaurdian, got to late teens, made a Human Warrior, got to early 30's, now on to a Norn Guardian and loving it, level 18 or so.

At this rate it's going to take me forever to get max level, let alone in my 40's-50's.

Oh, and I always hate in MMO's that if you have long hair and put on a helmet nothing sticks out. Umm hello I've got a 3 foot poneytail on my Norn, but when I put on a chainmail skull cap nothing is coming out?

I wish they'd address that, most MMO's never do, but here's to hoping.. they have more concerns right now.

Grakulen

They need to find a way to increase the player cap in WvWvW.

xpiher

I haven't had the problem of leaving my race's area to keep up with the level of my personal story and I think the main reason that is is due to the fact that I do daily religiously and I complete a map before moving on. I've repeated some content as well (The Swamp Slumbers) a couple of times just because I really love that DE (I want to know what happens if we lose!). But I know I'm in the minority in this. 

lmollea

Agree with all you say.

WvW queues are a problem. Instead of raising the cap, maybe there's need of more worlds with the possibility of consolidating them later. The game's WvW was one of the big selling points, it's no surprise that most people want to participate in it.

Personal story is exceptional AND difficult enough, but so are renown hearts and overall general difficulty. The game is challenging, as someone in a review said, and that's good, good, good.

Experience? Ok that personal story has gaps in level, but with renown hearts, events, gathering and crafting I've always had enough to do to be over the required level for a step of the story.

And tbh, ANet idea probably wasn't all tied to the story, but more of "enjoy the view and sometimes remeber about your legend".

Until now I find this game really good.

eric_w66

I've found the combat in GW2 to be less interesting than in TERA, about on par with TSW. With so few skills to use most of the time, my combat usually involves merely "waiting for cooldowns, press button". Switching weapons is about the most taxing thing I have to think of during combat (ranged vs melee). My Sigils? (I can't remember the name atm) work by themselves most of the time, the actives being so a) useless b) niche that I can't be bothered to press them unless i'm stuck waiting for cooldowns on everything else. Dodging is far less important here than in TSW and TERA as well.

Coolit

I’ve been doing the Asura story arc also and find it well written and interesting, I’m level  55 currently so have done a fair chunk of it. Like you, I was also concerned that TSW and SWTOR would outshine the GW2 story presentation but I can safely say I find myself more invested in the GW2 story than any of the above.

 

I’ve still not done any PvP so the WvWvW queue times haven’t affected me although I’m starting to think it may be a major issue once everyone is at cap and ready to focus on PvP, hopefully by the time I get there they will have raised the cap or implemented some other measures to improve things.

 

Now the trading post is up and running I’m finding it quite possibly the best trading/AH system in any MMO, it pretty much has everything you need and then you have buy orders on top which are great, searching is fast considering the economy is game wide and there are many hundreds of thousands of items.

 

Overall I’m still delighted with the game, there’s nothing that makes me want to stop playing and Anet are doing an ok job of managing the issues considering the launch numbers involved.

Unknown

great second part of the review.

WvW times can suck, and even on some of the less hardcore WvW servers, there is still that queue almost all the time. granted on Sanctum of Rall (my server), the queue times during the day are non existant, the queue times on weekends, and evenings can suck pretty bad.

i also was a bit upset about the story line disconnects at first, but now as i've gotten a character to higher level i tend to look at it as a form of progression. like if i just get that one more level i can see the next part of my story! there are 8 different characters i'm working on and each story is great so far, and each one is different. i'm really happy i payed attention during the questions in character creation. i really like that the "personality" system also adds to my story as i do normal PvE content outside of the personal story quests. i'm a little curious, and even worried, that the stories may all merge into one at later levels though. my highest character is still only level 57, and lowest is level 10. i can kind of see them all merging into the same story line mid game, but my fingers are crossed i'll be very wrong.

looking forward to the part 3 review.

Betaguy

Originally posted by Rockniss
I think you grabbed a lot of what I'm seeing. Que times in the evening forget about it. I thought ok well I will transfer home worlds so I went from Jade Quarry to Fort Aspenwood which at the time was not bad, but a week later we are loaded too. There is some nice leadership going on so I'm going to stay, but still I have just accepted at this point that I'm not going to get any wvw in during the peak hours. Im not that upset because there is lots to do, but I'm sure at some point I'm going to go off if I always can't get in. So hopefully that gets fixed somehow.
I have been playing a warrior and I have to say I'm kind of suprised at how much I'm enjoying being melee in wvw as a warrior. I have some nice cds that keep me alive and I can regularly be seen getting ripped off a keep or just jumping off, diving right into a mob of invaders, dropping some damage and still making it back to safety. This is definately my cup of tea. I love how strategy changes from keep to keep not because of invaders, but just because of the nature of the various terrains. Been a lot of fun so far and I think we got a keeper thus far.

Wait till the 25th, people will leave, servers will be desolute, que times will be obsolete

Kuppa

Originally posted by Grakulen
They need to find a way to increase the player cap in WvWvW.

 or something else cause its pretty ridiculous.

Rockniss

Yeah 25th should open up some - I still think servers are going to be packed though. People already bought the game and there is no sub, so even though people will be playing wow, it will dwindle to wow on raid nights probably 2 days a week, then the rest of the time on GW2.

One more thing I wanted to add is warrior lunging needs help, I lunge past the target almost every time and therefore have to turn around to begin attacking- very annoying, have similar problems with my thief.

flynn444

I've been playing fairly regularly since Head Start, but summoning the will to continue to play is more and more difficult.  Combat is pretty boring to me.  At first, I thought it was just the class I started with, the Mezmer, but switching to the Ranger didn't improve matters all that much.  World vs. World was fun initially, but now that players are increasingly reaching max level, I'm experiencing frustrating instances of massive burst damage that drop my character's HP to 0 in a matter of seconds.  Crafting isn't all that great, in my opinion, offering little more than what you can buy from vendors or loot.  Scenario PvP is too twitchy for my taste.  Dungeons are highly difficult and I would say not PUG'able for the time being.

FrodoFragins

Well I made a thread about having to go to other zones, in my case every single one between 25 and 75.  The complaint isn't because it's a pain or unenjoyable.  It's because running alts will be much less unique.

 

I certainly wasn't hoping for unique paths per race either.  I was simply hoping for two unique paths after level 25.  It's possible, but you have to play a certain way.

laserit

I find the artwork and world design to be absolutley phenominal, the absolutle only negative in this category for me is the loading screens between zones, how I wish they could have made this seamless but it's a small price to pay for such a beautifully crafted world.

 

I was worried while leveling up that the combat was a quite a bit on the easy side, but now as I'm working my way through the 30's, I can notice the combat requiring more thought and skill which is making me more of a happy camper.

 

From all the complaint's about que's with WvW I havnt even bothered to try it yet and it hasnt really bothered me because the pve is so entertaining.I'm ready to try my first dungeon and I am so much looking forward to it, hopefully some mmorpg guildies will be willing to show me the ropes. Going to have to buy myself a new headset first.

 

Any one know if a blue tooth ear piece works well with mumble? I would really like buy one to use and keep my game sound seperate on my pc sound system.

 

So far I find that the more time I put into this game the more that I am impressed by it and that dosnt happen very often for me.

 

 

orbitxo

Originally posted by Betaguy

 

Wait till the 25th, people will leave, servers will be desolute, que times will be obsolete

lol...i hope so! ...oh u 'cute' pandarians.

...doubful!  <.<

 

 

BadSpock

In a couple of months everything in GW2 is going to be polished to a bright shine and all the little nitpicks people have now will be largely irrelevant.
I honestly hope some do leave for MoP and such as I have yet to log directly into my world's map - ever.

ZeGerman

Originally posted by xpiher
I haven't had the problem of leaving my race's area to keep up with the level of my personal story and I think the main reason that is is due to the fact that I do daily religiously and I complete a map before moving on. I've repeated some content as well (The Swamp Slumbers) a couple of times just because I really love that DE (I want to know what happens if we lose!). But I know I'm in the minority in this. 

Generaly when you lose an event either nothing happens or a different chain spawns.  For example in the bloodtide coast if you fail to escort treasure to the camp then you dont get the next event where pirates attack the camp.  And if you get to the camp but fail to defend it, instead of getting the event to kill the captain you get one to go collect more treasure from the ghosts.

The only events ive seen that actualy matter are the ones like the centaur attacks.  In some places the centaur actualy take over the waypoint if you fail the event and you cant use it until you suceed in the event to take it back.

ZeGerman

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

Well I made a thread about having to go to other zones, in my case every single one between 25 and 75.  The complaint isn't because it's a pain or unenjoyable.  It's because running alts will be much less unique.

 

I certainly wasn't hoping for unique paths per race either.  I was simply hoping for two unique paths after level 25.  It's possible, but you have to play a certain way.

 

I really am not sure how you guys are playing i left my area for one other area early for fun but i have found since then that my personals take me to a new area well well before i complete the old one.  I was told to leave the kessex hills when i was still have done with it same with the lornar pass.  I think this is because i do every DE i see and ive played a fair bit of WvW but those both give experience for a reason their meant to be played all along.

Zerackus

I love the game so, except I had my account hacked and stoen in 2 days. I waited almost a week and decdied I would buy another. ( I didn't write down my serial code like an idiot) I put it into to support and it sat there, a little back and forth.

I change the e-mail to gmail, do a totally different off the wall password, and boom, I am at work today and my Iphone hums, this account just got stolen..lovely.

Check support, and I just got my first account back.

Guess I can't say anything bad about support, they got me my original account back, took a while, and granted I didnt have the all the info they needed either..but the second account stolen...good god!

 

 

laserit

Originally posted by Zerackus

I love the game so, except I had my account hacked and stoen in 2 days. I waited almost a week and decdied I would buy another. ( I didn't write down my serial code like an idiot) I put it into to support and it sat there, a little back and forth.

I change the e-mail to gmail, do a totally different off the wall password, and boom, I am at work today and my Iphone hums, this account just got stolen..lovely.

Check support, and I just got my first account back.

Guess I can't say anything bad about support, they got me my original account back, took a while, and granted I didnt have the all the info they needed either..but the second account stolen...good god!

 

 

Too many A$$ holes in the world. Sounds like you should maybe wipe your computer. hopefully it dosnt happen to you again.

Kalafax

The higher level areas have more active role for the mobs to play, such as taking over zones and what not.

Crafting is a must in my opinions because crafted gear is 10 levels above dropped or reward gear and it helps to level your character at the same time as keeping him geared.

CujoSWAoA

So, 9 out of 10 is what I'm guessing this site will give GW2.

I say cut the crap and just give it a 10 out of 10.  Pony-up, as they say.  Because MMOs won't ever get better than this one. Not themepark MMOs anyway. 

 

orbitxo

Originally posted by CujoSWAoA

So, 9 out of 10 is what I'm guessing this site will give GW2.

I say cut the crap and just give it a 10 out of 10.  Pony-up, as they say.  Because MMOs won't ever get better than this one. Not themepark MMOs anyway. 

 

Agreed to that!

Militant

Wow, i had no idea that they disabled digital sales due to popularity, well thats either a good sign or a bad sign considering the hackig problems.

Trading post is still working intermitingly and is still a bit buggy.. Just today I went to go buy 10x of a food item (there was over 1k available at the price), it charged me for the 10 an when I went to pick them up, the game auto crashed to desktop and I only had 1 item delivered when i logged back in. Not a huge deal it was less than 1 silver, but bugs still clearly exist with the trading post.

The only time in encountered my story line quest was out leveling me was when I was tearing through it and just bee lining straight to it through zones, ignoring fighting mobs and waypoints and DE.. Then the story out leveled me and only then (and im lvl 80 on the last quest)

WvW CAN be a problem if you are ONLY queueing for the eternal BG, there are 4 WvW to queue for and you can queue for all of them at the same time, queue for all an you wont wait for more than 10min since the improved servers.