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Considering the market is GW2 worth it?
Mantees
Member UncommonPosts: 37
in Guild Wars 2
Hi everybody. I have read really good things about GW2 and I'm considering buying it. But then my question is: considering all the great f2p mmmorpgs around, like Tera, Rift and others, is Gw2 really so much better that it is worth to buy it? And if yes, what makes it so?
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OGRank.com - Online Games News
Comments
it's hard to answer without knowing your playstyle
I enjoy GW2 but my advice is to wait for another GW2 trial period to decide for yourself
EQ2 fan sites
Not big on FTP, but I played all the previously pay to play mmos as P2P and FTP. For me GW2 is worth it. You can experience the whole game without ever spending a dime if you want. I have played for over a year and have spent $50 total and now have a max character in the best gear possible + numerous alts. The gameplay is not for everyone (free trial going on now) so check it out. (bah ended)
I personally love the jumping puzzles and the constant content updates. My biggest issue with the game is top end gear can be grindy. I think it helps that I love WvW and PVE, so for me it has been well worth my investment and I plan on playing until another possibly good mmo shows its face (TESO, Wildstar, Archage, Eqnext). But then again, because of the setup of GW2, I don't think I will stop playing it completely for many years to come.
Before you buy, look up some gameplay videos and see if it's the kind of thing you like.
A few things that don't get discussed on the forums that may be useful to you:
Class balance is a little iffy. Some classes only have one or two viable specs (engineer) while others are able to run many different builds and still be useful (warrior, guardian). I suggest playing a warrior or guardian for your first character because they are fairly straightforward and powerful out of the box.
The term end-game gets thrown about a lot, mostly with a negative connotation, but it's important to understand that there is a sort-of end-game in GW2: ascended items.
Item rarity goes in this order: gray, white, blue (fine), green (masterwork), yellow (rare), orange (exotic), pink (ascended), purple (legendary). Each step up gives you slightly better stats at level 80, with the best stats at Ascended (currently, there's only Legendary weapons and they have the same stats as Ascended weapons, with the option of being able to change its prefix on the fly).
Ascended items are a grind to get, because they are time-gated (laurels from daily/monthly achievements) and resource-gated (farming resources or gold to buy those resources from other players, in addition to crafting ascended weapons which requires high level crafting), so expect to put in a considerable amount of effort to get your ascended weapon. Also, ANet plans to introduce ascended armor eventually, so prepare to multiply the grind. Don't be mistaken: the difference between someone in full Masterwork gear (a reasonable level 80 set for a new player) and level 80 ascended items is night and day, especially for some specs that rely on critical hits for most of their trait procs.
Pick your server wisely. If you pick a server and later decide you want to go to another server, you can transfer for 1800 cash shop currency, or delete all your characters and then reroll on the server of your choice. Other players may suggest you 'guest' on other servers, but it's quite an inconvenient feature to use and you're going to want to select a server that has a healthy population.
You can do the research on features etc yourself because that is a very personal thing.
The one thing that stands out in GW2 compared to all those other titles you talked about is overall production quality. The pacing of combat, the movement, the animations etc are just so much better in WoW and GW2 than in a game like AION or Tera or Rift etc. That doesn't mean you'll like the game better mind you but once you get used to a game that does it 'right' it is hard to play a sluggish game like a Rift anymore.
A very good point Ender4 brings up.
Some abilities in GW2 will fail to fire for some reason or another, but still go on cooldown. An infamous bug with engineer's Elixir U still plagues the class to this day, which is sad because it's generally a cornerstone DPS skill for most HGH builds. While the combat can feel nice in a controlled setting (like when soloing), zergs make a real mess of everything on your screen and skill lag is a real pain in WvW still, which harms the flow of the gameplay considerably.
If you're still undecided after all of this information, I'd suggest giving the free-to-play titles a try, and if they don't have what you're after, you can try GW2. After all, the former games have no barrier to entry.
The worst of this is the heal skill and of course dodge, when both of these fail together it's time to go get repairs!
I have 9 max level chars and have enjoyed the game, but have found it very annoying at the same time. If played right you can get to max level in under 70 hours, or less than two weeks if you have the time to spare. The other ftp games will take much longer to get to end game content!
Technically you can buy them in Eq2 now. Really wish I could get back into that game, but raiding burned me out for good years ago:o(
Nobody said it was FTP, they all commented on it compared to FTP which is what the OP asked about.
I would personally rate Rift above GW2. GW2 does try some new things, some people love the combat (I don't personally). Character progression in GW2 (a big deal to me) is way less satisfying than it is in Rift. Rift is a pretty generic by-the-numbers themepark except for its brilliant character progression system, GW2 throws a new coat of paint on the model but at the end of the day you're still going from zone to zone killing and collecting stuff that you're told to.
As to whether it's "worth it" I don't know why people expect others to tell them whether to buy a game, there are tons of reviews and videos about GW2, so you can decide for yourself if it appeals to you. I don't think it's either as terrible as some people will say or as brilliant as some others will say, it's pretty middle of the road all in all.
Playing Rift is like walking in quicksand, it is just such a sluggish game overall. Rift is like driving a Gremlin while GW2 is like driving a Ferrari. I get that some people like the features of Rift more but from an overall production, gameplay, animition, fluidity of combat etc standpoint Rift is so far behind GW2 that it is laughable. GW2 is a game that I personally struggled to even reach max level in because of it being so dumbed down but when you are talking pure production values it is like 10,000 times the game Rift is.
Yeah it certainly is. Didn't want my previous post to be misconstrued. There are reasons for people to like Rift. But from a FTP vs BTP stnadpoint it is quite clear that the production values for GW2 are miles and miles ahead of Rift. The features have to make the case for Rift to win this discussion because the rest isn't going to.
Odd,,,When I played GW2 I thought it was Gw2 that was the "sluggish" and a poorly animated game, I felt tottally diconnected to the World while playing it..
So I guess It depends on whos playing..I also thought the sk story in the begiinner areas was way to childish for me to get any kind of feeling for it..
For me GW2 gave the opposite feeling of low production quality
I'll just add to the YES's in this forum. The reason I say this is because after a year I still have it installed and on my desktop. I got my moneyes worth in the first 3-4 months and now I can just hop and and PvP whenever I want.
World vs World PvP and SPvP are great features to be able to jump on whenever you want if you just feel like doing a little action/skill based PvP and not geared based.
The only real thing to do at endgame in GW2 is PVP. The PVP in GW2 is some of the best iv ever played. With that said though, here is the question.
Comparing it to first person shooters, which do you like better:
Unreal Tournament: Static frag frag frag fun over and over
Or Call of Duty/Battlefield: frag frag frag while gaining XP, perks, and unlocks (charecter progression).
If your answer is Unreal Torunament, GW2 is your game. If your answer is CoD, you should prob look elsewhere, as GW2 has no endgame charecter progression what so ever, PvE or PvP. And I don't mean its there, but "lacking" like some other themeparks. GW2was intentially designed with no endgame charecter progression as one of its "revolutions".
If you grab GW2 at the bargain prices they make nowadays, you will get a few hundreds of hours of gameplay for just $30 or $35... it's definitely worth it. Hell, it was even worth it at the original $60 price.
My computer is better than yours.
You should!
-combat is fun
-leveling is great (huge zones, dynamic quests are good, exploring is rewarded)
-WvWvW best PvP in any MMO right now
-beautiful Graphics
-a lot of "finally an MMO where they found a nice solution for this" - moments
-very fair payment model (you can completely ignore the ingame shop)
But:
-no clear endgame-raiding-gear-progression-stuff (this is the main reason, why some claim that GW2 is not even an MMO)
-no mounts and no housing
-crafting is nice and comfortable but not the reason why you want to play this game
Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need.