Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Gamespy review based on 80 levels, 116+ hrs, 4.5 / 5
Nadia
Member UncommonPosts: 11,798
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/guild-wars-2/1225879p1.html
Pros:
A living world; engaging PvP; challenging, unique dungeons; encourages exploration and cooperation; no subscription.
Cons:
Lingering bugs; questionable endgame; personal story is hit or miss
commentary about hitting 80
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/guild-wars-2/1225879p2.html
Sometime around 10:00 this morning I hit level 80. If you're curious about my total playtime and how it compares to other MMORPGs, my timer is sitting at 116 hours, which is about how long it took me to level a new character from start to finish in World of Warcraft last month. I'm far enough ahead of the curve that I ended up soloing almost all of the dynamic events in the level 70-80 zone of Frostgorge Sound, and none of the few people in the general chat channels in the endgame wonderland of the Ruins of Orr sound like they know what they're doing. The novelty of it all is refreshing, and I'm enjoying it. I still have much to learn, of course, but I feel confident in stating that it looks like there's a lot of hope for Guild Wars 2's PvE endgame after all. Just don't expect it to resemble many MMORPGs you've played before.
Take the world bosses. I'd worried about these after fun-but-disappointing experiences with two of them in the 60 bracket, in which gigantic dragons were called or pulled down out of the sky after a series of dynamic events. They put on a good visual show when they landed, but the actual combat struck me as barely more complex than punching pinatas without a blindfold. Sure, their area-of-effect abilities left a lot of people dying in GW2's "downed" state -- playing melee in dungeons and on boss fight, unfortunately, usually means you have a death wish -- is and periodic "fears" would cause us to run away from the boss, but there was very little in the way of strategy. I can see these fights getting old after a while.
I had a much better experience with the Claw of Jormag, an ice dragon in Frostgorge Sound who's more like a traditional instanced raid boss. I loved it. [Spoilers! If you don't want hints on how the fight goes skip the rest of this paragraph.]
Comments
An interesting review that paints a realistic picture of the game. It's not the beginning of the revolution of the MMORPG genre, but an evolution of existing mechanics.
Now sure the game launched with a number of bugs & issues (most of which have been fixed within 2 weeks) and the endgame just won't do it for some. I like many others, simply find so much to enjoy about this game. Now I'm just hoping that they'll squash the remaining bugs and ongoing issues soon, so that they can start adding new features to give them game more longevity.
Even if you stop there 120 hours of entertainment for 50e is not bad at all. Can't say many other games have given that much value to me. Overall all pretty decent review.
Personally I don't plan on stopping whenever I get to that point..
My Guild Wars 2 blog. Read it. The bestestest and most TRUTHEST BLOG EVER!!
I agree.
The game is well worth the box price just to solo one toon to 80. If thats all you did your money would be well spent IMO. Not many games out there I think are worth the full $60 + tax price. GW2 is well worth that and more IMO. Easily the best $ to value ratio I have spent on a game in recent memory.
Yeah well, SWTOR probably also gave people its worth of money in personal story. MMO is not about playing X hours and being done, its about constantly living in an alternate reality, you might spend 1 hour a week, one hour a day, or 10 hours a day, but its about living there.
Most MMOs would not work with little population. Most MMOs will not tolerate outsurge of people that have "got their box worth of money".
GW2 is especially prone to huge problems if population dwindles because of a lot of events requiring a good number of people to be fun or to even be completeable.
We can only hope it goes well. This game is great but so far some critical flaws can really break the experience for many people and be its downfall
Mostly agree with the review, good and bad.
A couple things to clarify, though.
You no longer have to pull stuff out of your crafting inventory in order to craft(as of Friday's update, I think). However, if you have half made materials in the bank, (a blade or a pommel, for example), you need to have them in your inventory to make something out of them.
You DO, however, have to still pull stuff from crafting inventory for discovery.
He's right about the personal story being a BIZNITCH in some cases. Sometimes it's not hard at all, and sometimes it's completely insane. And he's also right about NPC's in the personal story/dungeons being pretty much useless, or worse. They do next to no damage, can't tank and will aggro everything in sight if you don't stay WAY out of aggro range.
Anyhoo, he implied that you could go do the story a couple levels higher. Technically true, but it downgrades you to the recommended level. So if it's a 30+ level quest(lvl 30 being the point where you have your secondary and elite skill slots), there's no significant advantage.
Definitely an evolution as opposed to revolution. It doesn't reinvent the wheel; it takes what other MMO's have done and does it better(IMO), while avoiding, and in some cases, flat out eliminating many of their legacy trappings.
Kill sharing, for example. Surely Bioware had the tech and the budget to do kill sharing, but nope. They stuck to the old "kill lock" system, likely because, "that's how everyone else does it".
But IMO, it's not so much an evolution in tech so much as it is an evolution in gaming philosophy. The philosophy that the core of all gameplay should be player cooperation to reach mutual goals. That a person should never see other players being around as a negative thing(eliminate node and mob stealing from the equation). That you should get credit for a mob even when you weren't the first to attack, etc.
Everything else is pretty much just a tech upgrade from older games, but it's that philosophy that makes it special in my book.