First up your disregarded the point that you actually have to unlock all the waypoints before you are able to use them and on the other side, waypoints are not made to make
sense. This feature was just a gameplay choice made by the developers. If you actually had played beyond one zone you would have experienced that at times you travel quite a lot in GW2. Imagining having to travel from Lions Arch to Citadel of Flames via mount just to do some CoF runs makes me happy to have this feature.
Thank you for bothering to quote him. I just couldn't be bothere, but we had almost the same idea at the same time. Even ended up making similar points, though I appreciated some other things you did like point out all the customization chocies. There's 3 freaking sliders for the nose ALONE. Not to mention that you can wear any combination of armor in your armor class, thanks to being able to use the skin from one armor and the stats from another, so end game characdters can look like... whatever with their armor, rather than having a couple BiS looks that you see over and over.
But I did want to say that the teleporters do have a game excuse. They're asura teleporters and people are using a portable teleporter system, with money charged by the rata sum council.
That's how waypoint discounts work, it's the council being convinced to charge you less.
22. This reviewer really likes poop. He mentions poop twice and farting another time. There's no poop. This wouldn't annoy me so much if he didn't keep harping on it as if there was actually huge amounts of actual poop quests in the game, not to mention the time he mentioned it's not a joke and it's for real. M... maybe there are in the French version. Anybody out there speaks French who can check the dialogue? Maybe all the heart text was replaced with 'poop' by a crazy translator. (I notice responding to points in order makes me sound crazy. This review is sort of disjointed, so I randomly respond to things that won't make much sense unless you reread the review. No way in hell I'm quoting all that and making this twice as long)
Well, there are cowpies, and we all know what cowpies are, so...
Because the reviewer seemed to think his position was unassailable, I thought I'd go through his points one by one, and explain all the problems with his review.
It's not that I =couldn't= do it, but it was just so full of inaccuracies that it seemed like an obviously huge waste of time. But I'm going to do it anyway because people seem to think the 'centaur/minotaur' thing is the only possible complaint. I am basically reading through the review and ticking off points as I see errors, so this is vaguely linear to the review. Not going to quote it all, because it was bad enough reading it without trying to figure out how to chop it all up.
1. Can the reviewer run the game with his system. Yes. Will it run well? No. Let's just get that out of the way right now. The screenshots alone show that that substandard laptop isn't doing so hot at handling the game. This is important, because this ties into things later on in the review.
2. Character creation: You can change faces quite a bit if you play with the sliders more, and there's a bunch of facial presets. It's not the game with the most changes possible, but it's better than average. As somebody who keeps on quoting RIFT as his game of choice, at least it's not RIFT.
3. He doesn't like the character models. This is personal opinion, and a matter of taste. Not much to say here other than 'you don't like the models' is your opinion so fine, but suggesting that it's purely tuned towards young boys is fairly ignorant and bordering on insulting. But whatever. Let's move on.
4. The choices you make during biography affects the game starting from level 3. He didn't notice this, which strongly suggests he wasn't paying much attention at all. And/or didn't play very much at all.
5. 'Noob experience is a scripted experience and feels like a tutorial.' Yes. Yes it is both scripted and a tutorial. Most MMORPGs start you off with some sort of tutorial. RIFT does. WoW does. Tutorials are useful. Not everybody has played an MMORPG before. A little bit of a build up so you can walk straight before you get in a hardcore dungeon experience or something? Not the worst idea. He phrased this as a complaint, which was a little strange.
6. So far as camera turning speed, I think it's the reviewers subpar laptop. A standard method of speed running with many classes is to =instantly= turn your camera 180 degrees, activate a skill that sends you backwards at high speed, then switch back 180 degrees, without breaking stride. I can smoothly rotate my camera at ridiculously fast speeds. This is necessary for some advanced techniques. If you can't rotate your camera smoothly and quickly, you need a new computer (Or turn down the settings)
7. The key 'm' opens map already. Another example of an outright factual error. Not 'a minor detail', but a fairly important mistake. NOt sure why you'd have to rebind that. In fact, I'm looking at the keyboard/mouse controls pamphlet now, just to make sure I didn't rebind in my sleep. 'm'is world map. Yes, it's true that 'h' opens up your [H]ero panel. :P You can rebind that to C if it makes you happier. I've usually found that in many MMOs I find some key or another I end up wanting to rebind. I'm pretty used to 'h' already though. This is hardly a valid complain either. I've found WAY too many MMOs use some weird key way off to the side for auto run, when I prefer 'r'. I just rebind it and move on.
8. Not actually a RIFT in the tutorial, that's an earth/wind elemental, coming out of the ground...this is almost as bad as when people accuse games of ripping off Warcraft because they have orcs (Like LOTRO. Stupid LOTRO, so unoriginal).
9. For the reviewer: if you're zoomed in too close, zoom out. Your mouse wheel does that for you. It's the thing between your left and right mouse buttons. If you don't have one, there are camera key binds, but who the heck even uses those?
10. It's an impressive looking boss, but no, it's not really the most epic battle in terms of strategy or something. Of course, it's also about the 5th kill by this point in time. Most MMOs don't expect you to have all of your combat abilities and knowledge by the 5th mob you run across. Also, the reviewer is a very bad player (At GW2. They might be great at other MMOs), so he should look at it as a mercy that they don't. (More on this later)
11. GW2 has 5 starter regions. =5=. Every single one of them is available from level 2. You can do any area within about 3-5 levels upward of you and however many levels you want backwards. Of course, he never got past level 4 (Check the screenshots), so he wouldn't know about backwards scaling. Progression is only completely linear if you're bad at playing (Can't push past your current level), aren't aware you have options, and stop playing by level 4 (So you never experience walking to an earlier part. Because there are no earlier parts). GW2 does, in fact, start pushing you around to other regions if you follow the story a little. Say, somewhere less than 5 gameplay hours. Which he didn't, because didn't get past level 4 so far as I can tell. He says he was hemmed in because at level 3 he'd run into a level 6 monster... but that gets back to the 'bad GW2 player' part. Which I'm still getting to later. Taking these points in order.
12. In the review, he doesn't appear to have done any events. He only talks about hearts, even though in one of the screenshots, it actually shows an event circle. He doesn't MENTION it in his review though. In fact the screenshot with the event circle talks about there not appearing to be anything else to do. Another reason why there's no evidence he played even 5 hours of gametime. This might partly be the fault of GW2's ability to explain what they have to offer, a lot of people seem to be confused by how events work or what they are, and focus unduly on hearts, which are a fraction of the actual content.
13. While the occasional heart is really interesting, I can actually agree that many of them aren't really that great. But, they're not actually required. Nor are they the most efficient way to level up. The reviewer is mistaken here. They're a possible way, but they're more sort of filler background content to keep you busy between events.
14. 'Farting gives you EXP. No joke. Seriously'. I just had to quote that line, because... well. It's obviously a joke. And then he claims it isn't. TWice. Not sure what's up with this.
15. 'You will not need to open windows to pull things out, use certain things, look at stats. You have1 window MAX at almost all times'. Yes. That's pretty much true (Except for 'look at stats'). That's a good thing. What confuses me is 'It creates the most easy MMORPG, skill lacking, reward showering, theme park mmorpg I have ever played'. I have never ever found opening a window to click on some item to interact with a quest to be an example of skill, or intelligence, or difficulty. It's just less elegant design. If somebody wants a certain item, and you're holding it, having a single button give that person that certain item is an example of good, clean design. It's not removing skill, because there's no skill involved in having a window open and dragging your item from one window to another, or whatever, unless you have some sort of severe motor control problem (In which case may I recommend Cookie Clicker. Trying to keep your mouse on the giant cookie will tax your skills to the utmost).
16. By level 4 (Possibly level 5. I don't see a screenshot for anything past level 4, but he does have a screenshot with 4 hearts, and that could be as much as level 5), it's true there aren't really much in the way of skill or stat distribution or traits. But what MMO has that by level 4? Who is going to waste that much time? You just equip whatever you pick up and wear armor like a hobo until you get to more serious, later game parts. All the customization is way past the point he ever reached from everything said in the review and the screenshots. He didn't say 'This is how GW2 does it and this is how RIFT does it, and RIFT's method is superior' (Something that is a matter of opinion but at least excusable), but 'This is how RIFT does it, and GW2 doesn't have any customization at all (Pst: Because he never got that far). It's not a comparison of how the two have customization, it's his explanation of RIFT's customization next to... him having no idea about any of GW2's customization and not even mentioning its existence. That's like me comparing 2 hours of demo play in RIFT with my level 80 GW2 character. The difference in customization is huge! Because... it's not a fair comparison, or one that makes any sense.
17. Yes. Mail can be opened and sent from anywhere. NOtice the awesome carrier pigeons! It's pretty sweet. I love having the carrier pigeons fly in. If you want a physical object to interact, the banks are physical. The trading post is physical. Many, many things are physical objects you need to interact with. Mail is carrier pigeons.
18. Yes you can pick up a bottle and throw it. Yes, it won't kill or even hurt a friendly NPC. But... uh. In almost every MMORPG out there, you can't hurt friendly NPCs. If 'can't hurt a friendly NPC with a bottle' qualifies it as useless fluff... then every single thing in RIFT is useless fluff. Every single thing in WoW. Barring a very small subset of hardcore 'kill anything' MMOs (There's surely one like this out here though I can't name them), you simply can't attack friendly NPCs. You can take the bottle, walk out of the bar, and bash it in an enemies face though. Some environmental weapons are incredibly deadly, in fact.
19. Holy crap I see now why nobody bothered responding to this guy. There's so many mistakes it's like slogging through a river of wrong, and it makes me feel like I'm picking on him. Oh well. Time to continue. The hot bar/UI is a matter of taste. A lot of people like it. Some people don't. This is opinion. Oddly enough this is one thing that a lot of professional game reviewers praised it on though. It's nice to me, but hey, reviewer doesn't like it, whatever. Nobody's fault he has his own particular taste. SOme people like Miley Cyrus. Not going to judge. Let's move on.
20. Instant teleporting: First of all, you have to find an instant teleport spot before you can use it. So you still have to explore the first time around. Second of all, many locations only have teleports vaguely near them. During events, many teleporters don't even work. This is, in fact, a convenience thing. It's for people in a hurry who value their time more than money. It does actually have an in game reason. He missed the explanation for this, the same way he missed events, how combat works, and 4 other starting zones.
21. There are many things that happen in the open world, rather than in cinematics. The reviewer must be talking about the personal story when he talks about people talking to each other in the game in a cut scene where they're side by side. There were various design reasons for that method of storytelling, I'm not particularly fond of it, and thankfully they're moving past it. BUT, it's a very small part of how characters interact. He specifically complains about characters not doing things in certain ways, when they actually do. There are times when characters talk to you and other people can hear them. People move around and do things out in the world. Things explode, people run around and plant explosives, all sorts of things. These sorts of things happen during events. Every single one of them has the dialogue and movement in the open world. The reviewer missed EVERY SINGLE ONE of them, or chose to ignore their existence. Since there are =67= of them in the Queensdale starting zone alone (More than 3 times as many as there are hearts, in fact), this either speaks to an extremely biased review, or somebody who has a hard time noticing things, or somebody who didn't spend more than a couple hours. (Or, most likely, a combination of all three).
22. This reviewer really likes poop. He mentions poop twice and farting another time. There's no poop. This wouldn't annoy me so much if he didn't keep harping on it as if there was actually huge amounts of actual poop quests in the game, not to mention the time he mentioned it's not a joke and it's for real. M... maybe there are in the French version. Anybody out there speaks French who can check the dialogue? Maybe all the heart text was replaced with 'poop' by a crazy translator. (I notice responding to points in order makes me sound crazy. This review is sort of disjointed, so I randomly respond to things that won't make much sense unless you reread the review. No way in hell I'm quoting all that and making this twice as long)
23. Evidence he never reached level 7 - no mention of the hot key that swaps between two weapon sets. Talking about sticking in a new weapon to change. Further proof that this review, for something so LONG, is based on nearly no gameplay at all (People can beat up to level 10 in story in less than an hour. This is key grinding, so it's a bit faster than normal, but it's not THAT much faster).
24. He talks about playing exclusively with auto attack and winning. Then when he dies, complains that it's 'just cheap design'. If your level 3 can't beat a level 6, they are bad. That's right. This player is a bad player. Beats up trash mobs at his level or less using auto attack, rather than experimenting with skills while it's safe... can't beat characters that provide any sort of challenge, blames it on the game being cheap.
It's not cheap until the level gets so high your damage is 'glancing'. I have a problem where I plow through the game skipping hearts, and eventually I'll get up to enemies so high that I can't actually do any meaningful damage to them. Now THAT is a problem. Not being able to beat a level 6 at level 3? Poor skills, compounded by him thinking that combat consists of hitting auto attack, making a sandwich, and winning. He never ran into ettins, any halfway decent centaur, anything that kites him.... basically, anything past around the level 2-5 enemies. Also, this is pretty much a staple of MMORPG combat. FFXIV, WoW, RIFT, SWTOR, TSW.... yes, GW2, all these games, the combat for the first several levels can be laughably easy. The game is basically assuming you're still trying to figure out how to walk straight, and throwing extremely deadly enemies at you would be rude. Yes, as you play more MMORPGs, it can feel sort of insulting, but this is pretty much ALL MMORPGs (Including RIFT), because they're all hoping they'll bring in players that are new to the genre. The easiest way to fix this in most MMORPGs is just blunder forward at high speed until you start running into fights that kick your ass. Getting up to level 5 and complaining the combat system is shallow just suggests you are still dipping your toes in the pool and guessing. I think it's silly when people do it about FFXIV, it's silly here too. It's silly in general. MMORPGs ramp up slow. It's a genre thing.
25. He thinks the solution to beating enemies he can't beat is to farm xp until he can auto attack. =alternatively=, the solution to beating enemies you can't beat is.... stop playing like you are going to the kitchen and making a sandwich. :T
26. You can cheat death if you do well. Trust me, downed state is not going to save your ass when the game gets hard. He shouldn't be proud that he 'cheated death' when he got out of downed state against a level 2 bandit. You're allowed to be proud of your 'cheating death' skills when you're downed in a 3v1 pvp fight, and then KILL THEM ALL. That's worth boasting about. Don't look at downed state as 'you die and then you have more life and you can totally win easier than in other games', look at it as 'When you get down to 25% of your life, suddenly your combat skills are severely compromised'. It's a mechanism that makes more sense in context of spvp, and advanced play. Since he hasn't gotten past level 5 (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here by the way. If he has gotten to level 10, and managed to miss basic game elements that he did, he's so horribly unobservant that it's like reviewing super Mario Bros and complaining about the lack of any powerups) he just isn't aware of how it's used, and complaining about it is just from an extremely insufficient knowledge base.
27. You are NOT dead when you are downed. The game doesn't call you dead. You are not a zombie on the ground. You are downed. There is a distinct difference between being downed and being dead. Being dead does, in fact, cost money and damage armor. In dungeons, you can't revive at all until your whole party gets out of combat. Against world bosses, you have to pay for a teleport back, to repair your armor AND you have a pretty decent sized run ahead of you depending on the boss. In level 2 tutorial land? Yeah. It's a slap on the wrist. Pretty par for the course for MMORPGs, which don't bother to punish you hardcore while you're still figuring out how to rotate your camera.
28. Gear gets better. Hardly anybody in the game has BiS items for everything. But hey. Reviewer never made it past level 5, I'm sure his review on how gear works is perfectly reliable.
29. NPCs falling off a mountain in reaction to an AOE: Factually wrong. NPCs never fall off anything. They're total jerks that way. It's built in to avoid people exploiting maps by just leveling by flinging enemies off cliffs all day long. There's places where you could level in minutes if you were allowed to use knockback abilities on enemies. NPCs just do not, will not, have not, and can not fall off mountains. This is annoying sometimes, but in the case of this review, just one more thing he got wrong.
30. PvP can be done from level 1. You go straight to level 80. Level of other players has nothing to do with it. (And considering this was a limited trial, the claim there wasn't anybody his level seems a little doubtful anyway)
31. Last screenshot? Person is talking about how much the game sucks with his level 1 character. This is not a biased review at all. I guess I take everything back, since journalistic ethics are strong here. Surely any mistakes were minor and unintentional.
You are wrong on ALL POINTS. I can go into detail, but I already did in the article. No need for more wall of text. And just to pick one at random to prove it wrong...I will go with number 7. - It is not M by default. It was "," and Character was not C but "H".. I think you set the controls back at release and FORGOT that you did it. Another example of my facts still holding up and being facts, and you'r fan boisme getting the best of you.
To all players on the fence. I think it is clear between facts in an article and the fan responses. Keep on the good path. And by the way, you will notice no one has taken on the core elements such as the teleporting mechanics, deep art, but shallow world. Instanced story telling, easy brainless hot bar management. etc. And of course, he wrote a wall of rubbish and outlash without reading my conclusion of the article: "Play it if you want, but be warned it is the childs like moorpg (hence the child young adult models)". And well, community response just supported that claim 100%
I mention it becuase there are little brown piles in the cow pins that you shuffle around only to find giant worm things (all which make no sense, and is a little silly...that "pile" could easily be poop. You would have to taste it to find out and since I licked the screen several times to no avail, I went with my visual sense....it's poop".
Originally posted by Papaprika Another example of my facts still holding up and being facts, and you'r fan boisme getting the best of you.
To all players on the fence. I think it is clear between facts in an article and the fan responses.
Uhm you call us fanboys while you posted a picture of your level 1 char with 3% exp exclaiming that the game sucks?
You call us a fanboys when you mention Rift 16 times in your "review"?
Trial review, read please.
Also, I have guild of friends I ran this trial with all whom claim (and can be found on my other blog website) they have 4 characters level 80 2 weeks. They let me run a level 80 toon. Nothing got better. IT all stays like the level 1 experience. A few changes but nothing to make me go YEAH I AM STAYING! Mobs get harder and more grouped, and un avoidable AOE that causes a forum eage and people screaming for bug fixes...nothing to do...Etc the end game...so back to your point....check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQB4nAjZIdE
Ok I guess that justifies a level 1 char claiming the game sucks - it's all a very fair review.
And all the lies - oh sorry - I mean false facts such as waypoint descriptions...
The only reason why I don't believe that you are a hired viral marketing drone is because I have respect for Trion and don't think they have to resort to this.
For a 1 payment only game , that pumps new content every 2 weeks , and has everyone as his dog playing it.
I think its worth it
Actually I am suprised to see "TRIAL REVIEW" i thought that any serious MMO player allready has it.
For some reason the game just didn't click with me.
I love how everything looks, I like the certain freedom you have instead of doing quest hubs. The gameworld feels alive. Entering a market place you will hear it. It has awesome small details to the world. Movement of character is fluid.
But I havn't put enough time in it to make it click. I actually loved how things where differerent then the norm these day's. Bu still
The one thing I noticed is that those that agreed with this review have already stated previously in other threads over the past year how they don't like the game, so no surprise there. Those that disagree are known to actually own and like to play the game. So again, no surprise there either. So basically this review is kind of 8 months to a year to late. Sure it's a "TRIAL REVIEW", but the basic game mechanics are what is being "reviewed" and commented on. Since the reviewer is posting a review on a game that has polarized this site's members since its beta, this just makes it seem like a troll bait post.
I agree with the OP about the crappy camera. I could rant about that too. But the rest of this obviously very elaborate rant is just that, a rant.
I always thought that Arenanet made those starting areas too easy. The early tasks you have to do make a lot of players think that it is just about completing hearts and small isolated dynamic events. The OP is fooled by that, mainly because he wasn't really interested in looking any further. His claim that he just could use autoattack and be done with it, would get his face smashed further on before leaving that area. This just shows that he only did the very low lvl things.
Because the reviewer seemed to think his position was unassailable, I thought I'd go through his points one by one, and explain all the problems with his review.
It's not that I =couldn't= do it, but it was just so full of inaccuracies that it seemed like an obviously huge waste of time. But I'm going to do it anyway because people seem to think the 'centaur/minotaur' thing is the only possible complaint. I am basically reading through the review and ticking off points as I see errors, so this is vaguely linear to the review. Not going to quote it all, because it was bad enough reading it without trying to figure out how to chop it all up.
1. Can the reviewer run the game with his system. Yes. Will it run well? No. Let's just get that out of the way right now. The screenshots alone show that that substandard laptop isn't doing so hot at handling the game. This is important, because this ties into things later on in the review.
2. Character creation: You can change faces quite a bit if you play with the sliders more, and there's a bunch of facial presets. It's not the game with the most changes possible, but it's better than average. As somebody who keeps on quoting RIFT as his game of choice, at least it's not RIFT.
3. He doesn't like the character models. This is personal opinion, and a matter of taste. Not much to say here other than 'you don't like the models' is your opinion so fine, but suggesting that it's purely tuned towards young boys is fairly ignorant and bordering on insulting. But whatever. Let's move on.
4. The choices you make during biography affects the game starting from level 3. He didn't notice this, which strongly suggests he wasn't paying much attention at all. And/or didn't play very much at all.
5. 'Noob experience is a scripted experience and feels like a tutorial.' Yes. Yes it is both scripted and a tutorial. Most MMORPGs start you off with some sort of tutorial. RIFT does. WoW does. Tutorials are useful. Not everybody has played an MMORPG before. A little bit of a build up so you can walk straight before you get in a hardcore dungeon experience or something? Not the worst idea. He phrased this as a complaint, which was a little strange.
6. So far as camera turning speed, I think it's the reviewers subpar laptop. A standard method of speed running with many classes is to =instantly= turn your camera 180 degrees, activate a skill that sends you backwards at high speed, then switch back 180 degrees, without breaking stride. I can smoothly rotate my camera at ridiculously fast speeds. This is necessary for some advanced techniques. If you can't rotate your camera smoothly and quickly, you need a new computer (Or turn down the settings)
7. The key 'm' opens map already. Another example of an outright factual error. Not 'a minor detail', but a fairly important mistake. NOt sure why you'd have to rebind that. In fact, I'm looking at the keyboard/mouse controls pamphlet now, just to make sure I didn't rebind in my sleep. 'm'is world map. Yes, it's true that 'h' opens up your [H]ero panel. :P You can rebind that to C if it makes you happier. I've usually found that in many MMOs I find some key or another I end up wanting to rebind. I'm pretty used to 'h' already though. This is hardly a valid complain either. I've found WAY too many MMOs use some weird key way off to the side for auto run, when I prefer 'r'. I just rebind it and move on.
8. Not actually a RIFT in the tutorial, that's an earth/wind elemental, coming out of the ground...this is almost as bad as when people accuse games of ripping off Warcraft because they have orcs (Like LOTRO. Stupid LOTRO, so unoriginal).
9. For the reviewer: if you're zoomed in too close, zoom out. Your mouse wheel does that for you. It's the thing between your left and right mouse buttons. If you don't have one, there are camera key binds, but who the heck even uses those?
10. It's an impressive looking boss, but no, it's not really the most epic battle in terms of strategy or something. Of course, it's also about the 5th kill by this point in time. Most MMOs don't expect you to have all of your combat abilities and knowledge by the 5th mob you run across. Also, the reviewer is a very bad player (At GW2. They might be great at other MMOs), so he should look at it as a mercy that they don't. (More on this later)
11. GW2 has 5 starter regions. =5=. Every single one of them is available from level 2. You can do any area within about 3-5 levels upward of you and however many levels you want backwards. Of course, he never got past level 4 (Check the screenshots), so he wouldn't know about backwards scaling. Progression is only completely linear if you're bad at playing (Can't push past your current level), aren't aware you have options, and stop playing by level 4 (So you never experience walking to an earlier part. Because there are no earlier parts). GW2 does, in fact, start pushing you around to other regions if you follow the story a little. Say, somewhere less than 5 gameplay hours. Which he didn't, because didn't get past level 4 so far as I can tell. He says he was hemmed in because at level 3 he'd run into a level 6 monster... but that gets back to the 'bad GW2 player' part. Which I'm still getting to later. Taking these points in order.
12. In the review, he doesn't appear to have done any events. He only talks about hearts, even though in one of the screenshots, it actually shows an event circle. He doesn't MENTION it in his review though. In fact the screenshot with the event circle talks about there not appearing to be anything else to do. Another reason why there's no evidence he played even 5 hours of gametime. This might partly be the fault of GW2's ability to explain what they have to offer, a lot of people seem to be confused by how events work or what they are, and focus unduly on hearts, which are a fraction of the actual content.
13. While the occasional heart is really interesting, I can actually agree that many of them aren't really that great. But, they're not actually required. Nor are they the most efficient way to level up. The reviewer is mistaken here. They're a possible way, but they're more sort of filler background content to keep you busy between events.
14. 'Farting gives you EXP. No joke. Seriously'. I just had to quote that line, because... well. It's obviously a joke. And then he claims it isn't. TWice. Not sure what's up with this.
15. 'You will not need to open windows to pull things out, use certain things, look at stats. You have1 window MAX at almost all times'. Yes. That's pretty much true (Except for 'look at stats'). That's a good thing. What confuses me is 'It creates the most easy MMORPG, skill lacking, reward showering, theme park mmorpg I have ever played'. I have never ever found opening a window to click on some item to interact with a quest to be an example of skill, or intelligence, or difficulty. It's just less elegant design. If somebody wants a certain item, and you're holding it, having a single button give that person that certain item is an example of good, clean design. It's not removing skill, because there's no skill involved in having a window open and dragging your item from one window to another, or whatever, unless you have some sort of severe motor control problem (In which case may I recommend Cookie Clicker. Trying to keep your mouse on the giant cookie will tax your skills to the utmost).
16. By level 4 (Possibly level 5. I don't see a screenshot for anything past level 4, but he does have a screenshot with 4 hearts, and that could be as much as level 5), it's true there aren't really much in the way of skill or stat distribution or traits. But what MMO has that by level 4? Who is going to waste that much time? You just equip whatever you pick up and wear armor like a hobo until you get to more serious, later game parts. All the customization is way past the point he ever reached from everything said in the review and the screenshots. He didn't say 'This is how GW2 does it and this is how RIFT does it, and RIFT's method is superior' (Something that is a matter of opinion but at least excusable), but 'This is how RIFT does it, and GW2 doesn't have any customization at all (Pst: Because he never got that far). It's not a comparison of how the two have customization, it's his explanation of RIFT's customization next to... him having no idea about any of GW2's customization and not even mentioning its existence. That's like me comparing 2 hours of demo play in RIFT with my level 80 GW2 character. The difference in customization is huge! Because... it's not a fair comparison, or one that makes any sense.
17. Yes. Mail can be opened and sent from anywhere. NOtice the awesome carrier pigeons! It's pretty sweet. I love having the carrier pigeons fly in. If you want a physical object to interact, the banks are physical. The trading post is physical. Many, many things are physical objects you need to interact with. Mail is carrier pigeons.
18. Yes you can pick up a bottle and throw it. Yes, it won't kill or even hurt a friendly NPC. But... uh. In almost every MMORPG out there, you can't hurt friendly NPCs. If 'can't hurt a friendly NPC with a bottle' qualifies it as useless fluff... then every single thing in RIFT is useless fluff. Every single thing in WoW. Barring a very small subset of hardcore 'kill anything' MMOs (There's surely one like this out here though I can't name them), you simply can't attack friendly NPCs. You can take the bottle, walk out of the bar, and bash it in an enemies face though. Some environmental weapons are incredibly deadly, in fact.
19. Holy crap I see now why nobody bothered responding to this guy. There's so many mistakes it's like slogging through a river of wrong, and it makes me feel like I'm picking on him. Oh well. Time to continue. The hot bar/UI is a matter of taste. A lot of people like it. Some people don't. This is opinion. Oddly enough this is one thing that a lot of professional game reviewers praised it on though. It's nice to me, but hey, reviewer doesn't like it, whatever. Nobody's fault he has his own particular taste. SOme people like Miley Cyrus. Not going to judge. Let's move on.
20. Instant teleporting: First of all, you have to find an instant teleport spot before you can use it. So you still have to explore the first time around. Second of all, many locations only have teleports vaguely near them. During events, many teleporters don't even work. This is, in fact, a convenience thing. It's for people in a hurry who value their time more than money. It does actually have an in game reason. He missed the explanation for this, the same way he missed events, how combat works, and 4 other starting zones.
21. There are many things that happen in the open world, rather than in cinematics. The reviewer must be talking about the personal story when he talks about people talking to each other in the game in a cut scene where they're side by side. There were various design reasons for that method of storytelling, I'm not particularly fond of it, and thankfully they're moving past it. BUT, it's a very small part of how characters interact. He specifically complains about characters not doing things in certain ways, when they actually do. There are times when characters talk to you and other people can hear them. People move around and do things out in the world. Things explode, people run around and plant explosives, all sorts of things. These sorts of things happen during events. Every single one of them has the dialogue and movement in the open world. The reviewer missed EVERY SINGLE ONE of them, or chose to ignore their existence. Since there are =67= of them in the Queensdale starting zone alone (More than 3 times as many as there are hearts, in fact), this either speaks to an extremely biased review, or somebody who has a hard time noticing things, or somebody who didn't spend more than a couple hours. (Or, most likely, a combination of all three).
22. This reviewer really likes poop. He mentions poop twice and farting another time. There's no poop. This wouldn't annoy me so much if he didn't keep harping on it as if there was actually huge amounts of actual poop quests in the game, not to mention the time he mentioned it's not a joke and it's for real. M... maybe there are in the French version. Anybody out there speaks French who can check the dialogue? Maybe all the heart text was replaced with 'poop' by a crazy translator. (I notice responding to points in order makes me sound crazy. This review is sort of disjointed, so I randomly respond to things that won't make much sense unless you reread the review. No way in hell I'm quoting all that and making this twice as long)
23. Evidence he never reached level 7 - no mention of the hot key that swaps between two weapon sets. Talking about sticking in a new weapon to change. Further proof that this review, for something so LONG, is based on nearly no gameplay at all (People can beat up to level 10 in story in less than an hour. This is key grinding, so it's a bit faster than normal, but it's not THAT much faster).
24. He talks about playing exclusively with auto attack and winning. Then when he dies, complains that it's 'just cheap design'. If your level 3 can't beat a level 6, they are bad. That's right. This player is a bad player. Beats up trash mobs at his level or less using auto attack, rather than experimenting with skills while it's safe... can't beat characters that provide any sort of challenge, blames it on the game being cheap.
It's not cheap until the level gets so high your damage is 'glancing'. I have a problem where I plow through the game skipping hearts, and eventually I'll get up to enemies so high that I can't actually do any meaningful damage to them. Now THAT is a problem. Not being able to beat a level 6 at level 3? Poor skills, compounded by him thinking that combat consists of hitting auto attack, making a sandwich, and winning. He never ran into ettins, any halfway decent centaur, anything that kites him.... basically, anything past around the level 2-5 enemies. Also, this is pretty much a staple of MMORPG combat. FFXIV, WoW, RIFT, SWTOR, TSW.... yes, GW2, all these games, the combat for the first several levels can be laughably easy. The game is basically assuming you're still trying to figure out how to walk straight, and throwing extremely deadly enemies at you would be rude. Yes, as you play more MMORPGs, it can feel sort of insulting, but this is pretty much ALL MMORPGs (Including RIFT), because they're all hoping they'll bring in players that are new to the genre. The easiest way to fix this in most MMORPGs is just blunder forward at high speed until you start running into fights that kick your ass. Getting up to level 5 and complaining the combat system is shallow just suggests you are still dipping your toes in the pool and guessing. I think it's silly when people do it about FFXIV, it's silly here too. It's silly in general. MMORPGs ramp up slow. It's a genre thing.
25. He thinks the solution to beating enemies he can't beat is to farm xp until he can auto attack. =alternatively=, the solution to beating enemies you can't beat is.... stop playing like you are going to the kitchen and making a sandwich. :T
26. You can cheat death if you do well. Trust me, downed state is not going to save your ass when the game gets hard. He shouldn't be proud that he 'cheated death' when he got out of downed state against a level 2 bandit. You're allowed to be proud of your 'cheating death' skills when you're downed in a 3v1 pvp fight, and then KILL THEM ALL. That's worth boasting about. Don't look at downed state as 'you die and then you have more life and you can totally win easier than in other games', look at it as 'When you get down to 25% of your life, suddenly your combat skills are severely compromised'. It's a mechanism that makes more sense in context of spvp, and advanced play. Since he hasn't gotten past level 5 (I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt here by the way. If he has gotten to level 10, and managed to miss basic game elements that he did, he's so horribly unobservant that it's like reviewing super Mario Bros and complaining about the lack of any powerups) he just isn't aware of how it's used, and complaining about it is just from an extremely insufficient knowledge base.
27. You are NOT dead when you are downed. The game doesn't call you dead. You are not a zombie on the ground. You are downed. There is a distinct difference between being downed and being dead. Being dead does, in fact, cost money and damage armor. In dungeons, you can't revive at all until your whole party gets out of combat. Against world bosses, you have to pay for a teleport back, to repair your armor AND you have a pretty decent sized run ahead of you depending on the boss. In level 2 tutorial land? Yeah. It's a slap on the wrist. Pretty par for the course for MMORPGs, which don't bother to punish you hardcore while you're still figuring out how to rotate your camera.
28. Gear gets better. Hardly anybody in the game has BiS items for everything. But hey. Reviewer never made it past level 5, I'm sure his review on how gear works is perfectly reliable.
29. NPCs falling off a mountain in reaction to an AOE: Factually wrong. NPCs never fall off anything. They're total jerks that way. It's built in to avoid people exploiting maps by just leveling by flinging enemies off cliffs all day long. There's places where you could level in minutes if you were allowed to use knockback abilities on enemies. NPCs just do not, will not, have not, and can not fall off mountains. This is annoying sometimes, but in the case of this review, just one more thing he got wrong.
30. PvP can be done from level 1. You go straight to level 80. Level of other players has nothing to do with it. (And considering this was a limited trial, the claim there wasn't anybody his level seems a little doubtful anyway)
31. Last screenshot? Person is talking about how much the game sucks with his level 1 character. This is not a biased review at all. I guess I take everything back, since journalistic ethics are strong here. Surely any mistakes were minor and unintentional.
You are wrong on ALL POINTS. I can go into detail, but I already did in the article. No need for more wall of text. And just to pick one at random to prove it wrong...I will go with number 7. - It is not M by default. It was "," and Character was not C but "H".. I think you set the controls back at release and FORGOT that you did it. Another example of my facts still holding up and being facts, and you'r fan boisme getting the best of you.
To all players on the fence. I think it is clear between facts in an article and the fan responses. Keep on the good path. And by the way, you will notice no one has taken on the core elements such as the teleporting mechanics, deep art, but shallow world. Instanced story telling, easy brainless hot bar management. etc. And of course, he wrote a wall of rubbish and outlash without reading my conclusion of the article: "Play it if you want, but be warned it is the childs like moorpg (hence the child young adult models)". And well, community response just supported that claim 100%
Sorry, but as a year long player, I can say that without a doubt he is right on all points.
He never said that the character window was binded to "c" but "h", just that you could bind it to "c" if you wanted (please read his comment again), and the map is indeed "m". It is likely that you binded it to ",", or maybe there are some weird bindings with the version you are using (maybe the bindings are different for the french version). The fact that more or less everyone here is on his side is proof that his facts hold up and yours don't.
And we already took on many of your problems:
1. Teleporting only works if you have unlocked the waypoint, can be done from anywhere as long as you aren't in combat, and costs money due to the convenience of instantly teleporting.
2. Deep art? That makes absolutely no sense. Sounds more like a compliment than a complaint.
3. The world is not shallow. NPCs will randomly have conversations with one another, and it isn't always the same one (yes you will hear them have the same conversation every so often, but usually they have 2 or 3 different conversations). The dynamic events, especially the meta ones that tie into one another, are not shallow. Everything about GW2 is not shallow. Just try to pay more attention.
4. The instanced story telling in GW2 is no different from the instanced story telling in SWTOR, and is usually the highlight of the game, especially if it has some humor in it (next time a free trial comes around, create a Charr and when the choice for your partner comes up, choose Dinky; he's supposed to be hilarious).
5. Well of course the hotbar management is "brainless"; you only have 10 buttons. This isn't WoW or Rift where you can have all of your skills mapped to all of your hotbar keys at once; you have a limited number of skills you can have at a time, and you need to plan out which ones you need and which ones you can sacrifice. In one of the fractals, skills that reflect projectiles are more important than any other skills, and in some dungeons skills that cause burning are completely useless. Hotbar management in GW2 is all about planning and effectiveness; the limited hotbars are designed to make you think and consider what is the most effective set of skills based on your chosen weapon and traits (oh and if you really want to see how "limited" it is, try rolling a warrior and going through all the weapon combinations they can equip).
Meowhead read through your "review" and your "conclusion". We all did. And outlash or not, it's still true.
Originally posted by Papaprika I mention it becuase there are little brown piles in the cow pins that you shuffle around only to find giant worm things (all which make no sense, and is a little silly...that "pile" could easily be poop. You would have to taste it to find out and since I licked the screen several times to no avail, I went with my visual sense....it's poop".
Fearing that others may try and identify these little brown piles by licking their screens, and worried about the ensuing class action against ArenaNet caused by those that managed to electrocute themselves, I decided to see if there was a safer way to work out what they might be. I present my findings below.
If only there were some way to identify this brown pile in front of me...
I was just about to lick the screen myself when I noticed some writing next to the pile. I went with my visual sense and determined it to be a Wurm Mound. There was also a clue in the reknown heart description in the upper right corner - Help Diah by watering corn, stomping wurm mounds, feeding cattle, and defending the fields. Screen unslobbered, tongue uncharred, I preceded to stomp on the wurm mound and kill the wurm that came out of it.
I guess the moral of the story is look before you lick (which is true of so many things in life)
You are wrong on ALL POINTS. I can go into detail, but I already did in the article. No need for more wall of text. And just to pick one at random to prove it wrong...I will go with number 7. - It is not M by default. It was "," and Character was not C but "H".. I think you set the controls back at release and FORGOT that you did it. Another example of my facts still holding up and being facts, and you'r fan boisme getting the best of you.
To all players on the fence. I think it is clear between facts in an article and the fan responses. Keep on the good path. And by the way, you will notice no one has taken on the core elements such as the teleporting mechanics, deep art, but shallow world. Instanced story telling, easy brainless hot bar management. etc. And of course, he wrote a wall of rubbish and outlash without reading my conclusion of the article: "Play it if you want, but be warned it is the childs like moorpg (hence the child young adult models)". And well, community response just supported that claim 100%
I am wrong on ALL points? Obvious you didn't even read some of them. A couple things I agreed with you. Though I have to admit, any time I agreed with you I probably was wrong.
I responded to your comment on teleporting mechanics, the instanced story telling, and the hot bar management. You just choose not to accept people who disagree with. Of course I read the conclusion of your article, but what you said was a matter of opinion and was undercut by your own screenshot.
Also, if you go back and read point 7, I =agreed= that Hero was [H]. I said that. Right there. On point 7. And I have no idea why your keybind on M was messed up, but here is a picture of the actual GW2 keybinds. The one I was looking at (Well, I was looking at the physical copy, but I found this one online). This isn't a matter of opinion, this is fact. With proof.
I think it's kind of interesting and telling that not only people who used to like the game but don't like it anymore disagree with the poster, but people who have NEVER liked the game still disagree with the poster on his conclusions.
A blanket 'It's fanbois disagreeing with me' can be easily debunked by looking at the posting history of some of these people who don't even LIKE GW2. ... but they at least keep their GW2 dislike to legitimate game design reasons.
OP you have taken way to much of your own time trying to push your dislike for the games on other folks.
Why do people do this?
If you don't like something don't play, use, fondle, taste, smell, or ride it. There are thousands of people who like GW2 and thousands who don't, just like thousands who love Tera and thousands that don't. It does no good to write a novel about it other than to start a war of words.
OP go to your favorite game forum and write a book on why it is the coolest game ever! Promote the hell out of it and that should make you feel better than bashing another title you don't like. (Well, it should) Be proactive, not reactive!
As far as a Free Trial goes, let people try it for themselves without you pushing your views on them. /shrug
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I'm a little surprised that OP thinks this game is linear like Rift. If GW2 has one thing going for it, it's not very linear. OP seems to like linear quest hubs (Rift) so I'm not shocked that he overall had a negative feeling toward this game.
I do agree that the game is too easy though. There are some tough moments in the final zones but they were nerfed so...not anymore. No risk to the game at all, but I had some fun times with the game. Just don't expect a thrilling experience.
Bit silly with some of the word choice that does diminish the 'feel' of your review though you did put a lot of work in it. Truthfully, I do feel quite similiar. Ignoring people trying to throw "HA its Centaur not minotaur' silly arguement against this (really, you can't defend your game better then to bash him using the wrong word?) I'd say really while i don't agree with your wording, I do feel your about on the level I feel with the game. Its quite heavily over-rated and takes far to much credit for things it didn't even do first.
The only real 'thing' it does thats new (ish, at least for an MMo its new) was more emphasis on scripted events (it lost that random feel how often they occur) and primarily the 'gear isn't that important' concept which I feel can be fine though it wasn't executed in the best way and does bring up its own problems. I'm not big on the formula but hey I know there are people that are. I just feel its still lack luster how they handled it and its still something that has to be perfected to keep interest.
Over-all, I'd say IF I had to score it, I'd probably be about the 2.5/5 point myself. I do feel your a bit harsh and make some odd 'pointed' arguments against it, but truthfully I agree feeling the game isn't that great. Its mediocre with some serious issues with some core game elements such as combat just not being up to snuff.
Ignoring people trying to throw "HA its Centaur not minotaur' silly arguement against this (really, you can't defend your game better then to bash him using the wrong word?)
How often do you review Man of Steel movie starting with how good Tor played there? That along is enough to disregard this review. So I don't even see the need to explain but fine I'll type some words.
He didn't pay ANY attention to the game at all. He was clueless about what is happening around him (minotaurs and centaurs again right?). He played 15-30 minutes at maximum, completed 3 heart quests and almost reached level 5 according to his screenshots. So what's the value of this review? Poop thrown to fan again.
SAB tribulation mode, Queens Gauntlet Liadri, new Tequatl, new Twilight Arbor Path, Arah exp, Ascalonian Catacombs exp. Mad King's Clocktower.
If above are too easy why the forums are full of "too hard, frustrating. impossible to do with pug" outcries?
Soloing challenge and danger throughout the open world are almost non existent. Making a challenging dungeon doesn't save the game from overall easiness as you spend 95% of the time in game out in the open world.
OP either had a language barrier or he likes things much different than I do in my MMO's as he complains about none of the things that bother me with the game (it's too linear...wha?)
Comments
Thank you for bothering to quote him. I just couldn't be bothere, but we had almost the same idea at the same time. Even ended up making similar points, though I appreciated some other things you did like point out all the customization chocies. There's 3 freaking sliders for the nose ALONE. Not to mention that you can wear any combination of armor in your armor class, thanks to being able to use the skin from one armor and the stats from another, so end game characdters can look like... whatever with their armor, rather than having a couple BiS looks that you see over and over.
But I did want to say that the teleporters do have a game excuse. They're asura teleporters and people are using a portable teleporter system, with money charged by the rata sum council.
That's how waypoint discounts work, it's the council being convinced to charge you less.
Well, there are cowpies, and we all know what cowpies are, so...
Since when is Tuesday a direction?
There are no hearts, events, story quests or anything that requires the use of those cow pies.
My point still remains valid that he's adding poop where it isn't (Namely, the hearts, events and story quests).
Yes, it's useable as a weapon, but that isn't what he claimed.
You are wrong on ALL POINTS. I can go into detail, but I already did in the article. No need for more wall of text. And just to pick one at random to prove it wrong...I will go with number 7. - It is not M by default. It was "," and Character was not C but "H".. I think you set the controls back at release and FORGOT that you did it. Another example of my facts still holding up and being facts, and you'r fan boisme getting the best of you.
To all players on the fence. I think it is clear between facts in an article and the fan responses. Keep on the good path. And by the way, you will notice no one has taken on the core elements such as the teleporting mechanics, deep art, but shallow world. Instanced story telling, easy brainless hot bar management. etc. And of course, he wrote a wall of rubbish and outlash without reading my conclusion of the article: "Play it if you want, but be warned it is the childs like moorpg (hence the child young adult models)". And well, community response just supported that claim 100%
Uhm you call us fanboys while you posted a picture of your level 1 char with 3% exp exclaiming that the game sucks?
You call us a fanboys when you mention Rift 16 times in your "review"?
Trial review, read please.
Also, I have guild of friends I ran this trial with all whom claim (and can be found on my other blog website) they have 4 characters level 80 2 weeks. They let me run a level 80 toon. Nothing got better. IT all stays like the level 1 experience. A few changes but nothing to make me go YEAH I AM STAYING! Mobs get harder and more grouped, and un avoidable AOE that causes a forum eage and people screaming for bug fixes...nothing to do...Etc the end game...so back to your point....check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQB4nAjZIdE
Ok I guess that justifies a level 1 char claiming the game sucks - it's all a very fair review.
And all the lies - oh sorry - I mean false facts such as waypoint descriptions...
The only reason why I don't believe that you are a hired viral marketing drone is because I have respect for Trion and don't think they have to resort to this.
For some reason the game just didn't click with me.
I love how everything looks, I like the certain freedom you have instead of doing quest hubs. The gameworld feels alive. Entering a market place you will hear it. It has awesome small details to the world. Movement of character is fluid.
But I havn't put enough time in it to make it click. I actually loved how things where differerent then the norm these day's. Bu still
Perhaps one day I will give the game another try.
The one thing I noticed is that those that agreed with this review have already stated previously in other threads over the past year how they don't like the game, so no surprise there. Those that disagree are known to actually own and like to play the game. So again, no surprise there either. So basically this review is kind of 8 months to a year to late. Sure it's a "TRIAL REVIEW", but the basic game mechanics are what is being "reviewed" and commented on. Since the reviewer is posting a review on a game that has polarized this site's members since its beta, this just makes it seem like a troll bait post.
I guess that's my review of the "REVIEW".
"If I offended you, you needed it" -Corey Taylor
I agree with the OP about the crappy camera. I could rant about that too. But the rest of this obviously very elaborate rant is just that, a rant.
I always thought that Arenanet made those starting areas too easy. The early tasks you have to do make a lot of players think that it is just about completing hearts and small isolated dynamic events. The OP is fooled by that, mainly because he wasn't really interested in looking any further. His claim that he just could use autoattack and be done with it, would get his face smashed further on before leaving that area. This just shows that he only did the very low lvl things.
Sorry, but as a year long player, I can say that without a doubt he is right on all points.
He never said that the character window was binded to "c" but "h", just that you could bind it to "c" if you wanted (please read his comment again), and the map is indeed "m". It is likely that you binded it to ",", or maybe there are some weird bindings with the version you are using (maybe the bindings are different for the french version). The fact that more or less everyone here is on his side is proof that his facts hold up and yours don't.
And we already took on many of your problems:
1. Teleporting only works if you have unlocked the waypoint, can be done from anywhere as long as you aren't in combat, and costs money due to the convenience of instantly teleporting.
2. Deep art? That makes absolutely no sense. Sounds more like a compliment than a complaint.
3. The world is not shallow. NPCs will randomly have conversations with one another, and it isn't always the same one (yes you will hear them have the same conversation every so often, but usually they have 2 or 3 different conversations). The dynamic events, especially the meta ones that tie into one another, are not shallow. Everything about GW2 is not shallow. Just try to pay more attention.
4. The instanced story telling in GW2 is no different from the instanced story telling in SWTOR, and is usually the highlight of the game, especially if it has some humor in it (next time a free trial comes around, create a Charr and when the choice for your partner comes up, choose Dinky; he's supposed to be hilarious).
5. Well of course the hotbar management is "brainless"; you only have 10 buttons. This isn't WoW or Rift where you can have all of your skills mapped to all of your hotbar keys at once; you have a limited number of skills you can have at a time, and you need to plan out which ones you need and which ones you can sacrifice. In one of the fractals, skills that reflect projectiles are more important than any other skills, and in some dungeons skills that cause burning are completely useless. Hotbar management in GW2 is all about planning and effectiveness; the limited hotbars are designed to make you think and consider what is the most effective set of skills based on your chosen weapon and traits (oh and if you really want to see how "limited" it is, try rolling a warrior and going through all the weapon combinations they can equip).
Meowhead read through your "review" and your "conclusion". We all did. And outlash or not, it's still true.
Since when is Tuesday a direction?
Fearing that others may try and identify these little brown piles by licking their screens, and worried about the ensuing class action against ArenaNet caused by those that managed to electrocute themselves, I decided to see if there was a safer way to work out what they might be. I present my findings below.
If only there were some way to identify this brown pile in front of me...
I was just about to lick the screen myself when I noticed some writing next to the pile. I went with my visual sense and determined it to be a Wurm Mound. There was also a clue in the reknown heart description in the upper right corner - Help Diah by watering corn, stomping wurm mounds, feeding cattle, and defending the fields. Screen unslobbered, tongue uncharred, I preceded to stomp on the wurm mound and kill the wurm that came out of it.
I guess the moral of the story is look before you lick (which is true of so many things in life)
Whether you like the game or not... GW2 is a very well made game.
: Art direction is top notch
: Beautiful world design, tons to explore, second to none
: Can be quite challenging at higher levels
: You get a hell of a bang for your buck
I prefer the Trinity style of play myself but I also find GW2 quite entertaining.
I give it an 8.5 on the Chihuahua scale and if you disagree I'll bite you ankles.
"Be water my friend" - Bruce Lee
I am wrong on ALL points? Obvious you didn't even read some of them. A couple things I agreed with you. Though I have to admit, any time I agreed with you I probably was wrong.
I responded to your comment on teleporting mechanics, the instanced story telling, and the hot bar management. You just choose not to accept people who disagree with. Of course I read the conclusion of your article, but what you said was a matter of opinion and was undercut by your own screenshot.
Also, if you go back and read point 7, I =agreed= that Hero was [H]. I said that. Right there. On point 7. And I have no idea why your keybind on M was messed up, but here is a picture of the actual GW2 keybinds. The one I was looking at (Well, I was looking at the physical copy, but I found this one online). This isn't a matter of opinion, this is fact. With proof.
I think it's kind of interesting and telling that not only people who used to like the game but don't like it anymore disagree with the poster, but people who have NEVER liked the game still disagree with the poster on his conclusions.
A blanket 'It's fanbois disagreeing with me' can be easily debunked by looking at the posting history of some of these people who don't even LIKE GW2. ... but they at least keep their GW2 dislike to legitimate game design reasons.
OP you have taken way to much of your own time trying to push your dislike for the games on other folks.
Why do people do this?
If you don't like something don't play, use, fondle, taste, smell, or ride it. There are thousands of people who like GW2 and thousands who don't, just like thousands who love Tera and thousands that don't. It does no good to write a novel about it other than to start a war of words.
OP go to your favorite game forum and write a book on why it is the coolest game ever! Promote the hell out of it and that should make you feel better than bashing another title you don't like. (Well, it should) Be proactive, not reactive!
As far as a Free Trial goes, let people try it for themselves without you pushing your views on them. /shrug
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
He's pushing his poop to the blowing fan only. That's not going to make his review valid.
I'm a little surprised that OP thinks this game is linear like Rift. If GW2 has one thing going for it, it's not very linear. OP seems to like linear quest hubs (Rift) so I'm not shocked that he overall had a negative feeling toward this game.
I do agree that the game is too easy though. There are some tough moments in the final zones but they were nerfed so...not anymore. No risk to the game at all, but I had some fun times with the game. Just don't expect a thrilling experience.
Bit silly with some of the word choice that does diminish the 'feel' of your review though you did put a lot of work in it. Truthfully, I do feel quite similiar. Ignoring people trying to throw "HA its Centaur not minotaur' silly arguement against this (really, you can't defend your game better then to bash him using the wrong word?) I'd say really while i don't agree with your wording, I do feel your about on the level I feel with the game. Its quite heavily over-rated and takes far to much credit for things it didn't even do first.
The only real 'thing' it does thats new (ish, at least for an MMo its new) was more emphasis on scripted events (it lost that random feel how often they occur) and primarily the 'gear isn't that important' concept which I feel can be fine though it wasn't executed in the best way and does bring up its own problems. I'm not big on the formula but hey I know there are people that are. I just feel its still lack luster how they handled it and its still something that has to be perfected to keep interest.
Over-all, I'd say IF I had to score it, I'd probably be about the 2.5/5 point myself. I do feel your a bit harsh and make some odd 'pointed' arguments against it, but truthfully I agree feeling the game isn't that great. Its mediocre with some serious issues with some core game elements such as combat just not being up to snuff.
SAB tribulation mode, Queens Gauntlet Liadri, new Tequatl, new Twilight Arbor Path, Arah exp, Ascalonian Catacombs exp. Mad King's Clocktower.
If above are too easy why the forums are full of "too hard, frustrating. impossible to do with pug" outcries?
How often do you review Man of Steel movie starting with how good Tor played there? That along is enough to disregard this review. So I don't even see the need to explain but fine I'll type some words.
He didn't pay ANY attention to the game at all. He was clueless about what is happening around him (minotaurs and centaurs again right?). He played 15-30 minutes at maximum, completed 3 heart quests and almost reached level 5 according to his screenshots. So what's the value of this review? Poop thrown to fan again.
Soloing challenge and danger throughout the open world are almost non existent. Making a challenging dungeon doesn't save the game from overall easiness as you spend 95% of the time in game out in the open world.
OP either had a language barrier or he likes things much different than I do in my MMO's as he complains about none of the things that bother me with the game (it's too linear...wha?)