However i know quite well what Anet is trying to do and how sneaky and misleading they are,
Um...what are they trying to do - give many months (years?) of gameplay for the low start up price?
All of you have more experience with MMO's than I do, but I played PW for years and it was a total P2W. Imagine grinding for hours to by a reasonable piece of gear and here the OP is complaining because there is so much gear and loot drops.
Then I played Neverwinter which I assume the OP never played. Holy crap if you consider GW2 to be linear as you've described, you would spontaneously combust playing NW - its so linear even I couldn't stomach it.
Not commenting on the review but there is indeed multiple locations with level 1 and 2 starting area minotaurs. Alpines and bulls for certain.
He/she said in the starting instance, the one you get as soon as you log into the game. None of them has minotaurs attacking a city. And definitely not the human one he/she was playing.
I will quote: "The town is on fire attacked by Minotaurs."
None of the introductory areas has this scenario.
My point is, if you are pretending doing a "review", be accurate. Otherwise, it just sounds like someone who tried the game without paying much attention about what was happening on his screen and posted just in order to bash it.
Is this just one big, roundabout, unnecessarily dickish way of pointing out his obvious "centaur" typo?
Actually, no. That's pointing out one of many typos, omissions, and errors in the review that show complete obliviousness to what's being reviewed.
"Teleports" instead of "Waypoints"
"Panoramic" instead of "Vista"
The whole rant about "instant teleportation, event if it costs, is lazy and avoids exploration" completely neglected the fact that Waypoints are locked. They require a person to first discover them via exploration and travel before being able to use them.
I honestly think he was trying to reference Dynamic Events by calling them "NPC tasks" in the following paragraph, but that's hard to tell if accurate or not. Especially when it follows up with "Even farting gives you XP. No joke. Seriously.", which itself is just a straight out bullshit statement (there's no farting emote or otherwise, I know, I've tried). I think instead of Dynamic Events, that might have been about Hearts (especially since the referenced tasks were choice style such as Hearts are).
Another inconsistence is his reference to "cleaning poop", which I'm unaware of any Dynamic Event or Heart that asks for such tasks. The particular Heart he provided a screenshot to this caption has a player defeating giant worms, filling in worm holes, feeding cows, or watering cows. Nothing to do with 'poop' at all. And this is like the 2nd Heart a player comes across in Queensdale, at level 2-3ish (out of 80). And this isn't a simple mistake either since he references it 3x, as if intending to state that all there is to do in GW2 is "clean poop".
The mail rant is so-so for me, as I didn't notice the delivery doves until the 2nd week of play, so it's quite possible to think it's all done "magically". But, it's not. Those doves work night and day to deliver mail to Tyrians everywhere.
Yet another inaccuracy to point out is how the author claims that all weapon skills are instantly unlocked at the equipping of that weapon. This is in fact a lie and the progressively unlock as the weapon is used in combat to gain kills.
Assuming PvP was locked to level? Okay, now I know he's just trolling. Right? I mean, I can understand an obvious Rift-fanboy to think that since Rift does it other games might too. Well, he's wrong in that assumption. GW2 WvW and sPvP can be played from level 2 just outside that starting tutorial zone. Booth boost the player to level 80. Only in WvW does gear and trait points matter; in sPvP those things matter not.
Saying that there is no armor repairing at all in-game is a show of obliviousness and purposeful ignorance. In the starting town there is an armor repair guy with icon (looks like a broken red heart) above their head. Many of the key towns throughout zones have these armor repair NPC's available for use.
One other thing I would like to point out is the explanation of Waypoint system. This is explained by the first NPC directed by the Personal Story to talk to after the Tutorial zone: The Scout. These NPC's in the starting area act as guides to tell players where interesting things on the maps are. The first ones explain that the WP system is a product of the Asura technology; all money from them actually goes to the council of Rata Sum.
I really could go on, but I'm not going to any more. Jean-Luc Picard (incidentally my favorite Captain of the USS Enterprise) and others in this thread already did a great job breaking down this shame of a "review" and exposing it for what it is: an anti-GW2 rant by a possible Rift fanboy.
Originally posted by Dakeru Hmm Rift was mentioned 16 times - how refreshing to see an unbiased review for once.
Agreed......
To the OP...no sympathies to be found here...go play for more than an hour, I did and was quite surprised.
This is how I felt as well. I believe that I really started to enjoy the game after I left the first map. I also feel that the humans have the most boring starting area. Maybe that's just me.
Also unless I missed it you didn't discuss pvp at all. Which is available to you at level 1. Wvw is a great implementation that let's you take a break from boring grinding. I also just started doing spvp a few days ago and it is by far the most fun I have had pvping in an mmo in a very long time.
You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
There are all kinds of valid issues people bring up with GW2 and you managed to miss them all and obviously this post was made with an agenda to get people to try one of the cruddier MMORPG out there in RIFT. This is just a really sad post by what I assume is a bitter poster. To those who do not like the game I get it, in fact I've never made it to 80 because I get bored before reaching that point because the game gets so repetitive, so I may even agree with you. But almost nothing in this review is really valid. How you managed to make such an in depth review and miss the really valid issues the game has in some places is beyond me.
Is this just one big, roundabout, unnecessarily dickish way of pointing out his obvious "centaur" typo?
It's more like it's just an easy shortcut to point out how he's pretty unobservant. There are a lot of errors all over what was said. That was just an obvious one. I'd agree that under normal circumstances it'd be a bit petty, but him saying minotaurs is just a reflection of the lack of accuracy that pervades the whole review.
Is this just one big, roundabout, unnecessarily dickish way of pointing out his obvious "centaur" typo?
It's more like it's just an easy shortcut to point out how he's pretty unobservant. There are a lot of errors all over what was said. That was just an obvious one. I'd agree that under normal circumstances it'd be a bit petty, but him saying minotaurs is just a reflection of the lack of accuracy that pervades the whole review.
This is a review of a trial experience, if the game didn't only offer a temporary trial, and instead offered it at all times, this would be a redundant thing. That aside, considering it is a trial (a few days) there's really little time to take notice of those finer details when you're really focusing on what the overall experience offers. That's what knowledge a normal person would seek to attain in that short period of time. Considering that you should expect some finer details being misrepresented based on personal experience and perception.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
This is a review of a trial experience, if the game didn't only offer a temporary trial, and instead offered it at all times, this would be a redundant thing. That aside, considering it is a trial (a few days) there's really little time to take notice of those finer details when you're really focusing on what the overall experience offers. That's what knowledge a normal person would seek to attain in that short period of time. Considering that you should expect some finer details being misrepresented based on personal experience and perception.
But they got large chunks of the overall experience wrong as WELL Actual factual things. Not opinion things. Just things they flat out got wrong, like no armor repair.
They are just not an observant person.
You probably also shouldn't say you literally get xp for farting, unless you actually, literally get xp for farting.
Just saying.
Hate when people misuse literally. I literally hate it. :P
If somebody misses large chunks of things, then complains about the things that they missed, and they've a proven track record of not being observant, it is a perfectly acceptable thing to state 'this person is bad at observing things and this is the flaw with their review'.
If you have the time to spare, then you can get to max lvl in 68 hours or less, probably a lot less if you focus solely and don't wast any time chatting etc!
I have 9 lvl 80's, 2 of which took less than 2 weeks to max out!
Is this just one big, roundabout, unnecessarily dickish way of pointing out his obvious "centaur" typo?
It's more like it's just an easy shortcut to point out how he's pretty unobservant. There are a lot of errors all over what was said. That was just an obvious one. I'd agree that under normal circumstances it'd be a bit petty, but him saying minotaurs is just a reflection of the lack of accuracy that pervades the whole review.
This is a review of a trial experience, if the game didn't only offer a temporary trial, and instead offered it at all times, this would be a redundant thing. That aside, considering it is a trial (a few days) there's really little time to take notice of those finer details when you're really focusing on what the overall experience offers. That's what knowledge a normal person would seek to attain in that short period of time. Considering that you should expect some finer details being misrepresented based on personal experience and perception.
10 days trial. Man if you can't take a notice of centaurs burning the city in 10 days I feel sad for your family and neighbours. They might be already dead while you're trying to figure our where the shop is to buy them some food.
Thanks to the commenters that liked the article and understand the facts presented.
Just to highlight on the general other negative comments:
1) Majority of people touched on all the sub subjects, like: "Oh, there is only one Minotaur (actually there are mobs of them the second you log in the game. They are fighting the local towns folk in endless waves and you can test out combat for the first time there. I take it 90% of the comments left here have never played this game, and flaming). But not one person here against the article has argued the massive problem/issue/subject. The insta teleporting. The combat, the death, the easiness...They all picked the weak arguments and posted. I can roll with that. Let's say I made it up and there is only 1 Minotaur....That has nothing to do with the rest of the core game mechanics discussed in the game.
2) Because the main issues every one avoids and "trolls" the other weaker points are still there and glaring, this entire post is FACT and not Opinion.
3) But I do not like to call it "problems", because as I concluded. Kids need to start somewhere, and some times it is not a progression. It is not "start here, end here". Maybe people want to stay in this title for all the ease, and shallowness it has to offer. Nothing wrong with that. Not once did I say there was a problem with that. To each their own.
The only thing this article should be taken with these facts is: "This is how it is, before you slap down that cash, is that what you want?" - And "I enjoy this kind of game: (RIFT, TERA, etc..) so will I find those game elements in this game?" and the answer is, yes, some familiar things in mmorpgs are here in GW2, and no, you will not like it if you currently enjoy the challenges of these other titles that seperate themselves from this kind of theme park. Last question "I loved GW1, Is this the immersive world of GW brought to life? No, it is as shallow as a plastic kiddy pool and has NO GUILD WARS, but yes, the graphics are pretty so if you want to see pretty places from the creators of GW 1....go ahead.
Conclusion: On the scale, this game gets easily 2/5 - 1 point for the graphics and performance. Another point for features that I might be good end game that I did not have time to touch in this trial. But all in all. NOTHING ELSE. Again, it is the everything that killed WoW: the ease of showering all in theme parkness and killing the groups and guild activity only to do certain group and guild activity (see my article about community in my blog). This is kind of a "shoot self in the foot" design. You create a game that is themed out, easy, skill less practically, and then expect to have groups for some content with a heavy emphasis on PvP (that requires groups). It is like giving dessert before eating diner...it leaves it a little gross to take in and odd and to filling to fast. That said, the graphics and performance are AMAZING! I have decided I Will not throw cash down (EU asking for 31,99 for this game after Trial) right away. I was itching to go right back to the RIFT experience and continue my game I have been progressing in. Guild Wars 2 will be on my "After I finish RIFT and get where I want to be until I am bored. Then, when it goes on sale, I will get it assuming something better is not out at the time". I do recommend it for those not wanting anything demanding in an mmorpg (childs first mmorpg). I also advise to stay away if you are a fan of ANY of the original Guild Wars games (nothing in this game resembles it except the legal use to the names and locations etc.). To all the current players. Enjoy, and one day perhaps I will be there with you. Until then, this game made me appreciate my current game a little more.
Any one else try out the trial? What do you think?
Sorry Papaprika but your post was too long to quote it all so I've just cut to the end. You ask what I think?
I think there are some valid points hidden amongst your review but I really can't accept it as anything other than a biased review by someone who had already decided they didn't like the game. In order to give a proper review you need to leave all your prejudices at the door and look at the game with fresh eyes when playing it.
I take it the pictures you posted were your own and not someone else's? The last one seems to suggest that you had already formed your opinion of this game, i.e. that it's poor and is for children, right at the very start - to quote "This game sucks, and is like putting on a pair of pampers." From the rest of the picture it seems this opinion was made when you were lvl 1, with only the 1st two skills of your starting weapon unlocked, and in the starting zone before you had even entered the game proper, and probably after only fighting 3 or 4 mobs to unlock the second weapon skill.
Such evidence of a preformed opinion makes it very difficult to take your review seriously.
Oh, there is only one Minotaur (actually there are mobs of them the second you log in the game. They are fighting the local towns folk in endless waves and you can test out combat for the first time there.
Show me a single minotaur please. Also I find it hilarious asking you to show me how they burn the city.
Actually I feel very sad for the OP. He's missing a very good game. And the reason for it is his own ignorance and inability to see things in the way they really are.
I just noticed the last picture of the OP. THe OP conveniently typed the game sucks and blah blah blah and took the screenshot. Everything is in french, except that specific message. How convenient.
One of the longest troll posts, full of inaccurate opinions you wrongly state as facts. All that just to show everyone that you didnt like the game. Thats how you see why mmorpgs need to stop catering to young audiences. They have no idea how to share their opinions with others without pretending to be the most accurate reviewers after playing a free trial weekend.
I just noticed the last picture of the OP. THe OP conveniently typed the game sucks and blah blah blah and took the screenshot. Everything is in french, except that specific message. How convenient.
I hadn't even taken a closer look at the pictures.
He is really standing in the tutorial instance - being level 1 with 3% exp and exclaims that the game sucks.
(Look at the diamonds on the map...who needs mounts, roads, or anything when you have magical teleporters. Just pay the invisible man (god?) and you are teleported)
REALLY ?!?!?
Interesting you dont need roads ok....
you sir tried your best now ... go and never come back...
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.
Just to reiterate what I said earlier. Anyone who wants an honest review of this game who is deciding whether or not to play it should completely ignore everything in this review. The game has its own share of problems and someone could write a very negative review that I could get behind most of, but this particular review is rubbish being posted by someone who obviously had an agenda.
Comments
Um...what are they trying to do - give many months (years?) of gameplay for the low start up price?
All of you have more experience with MMO's than I do, but I played PW for years and it was a total P2W. Imagine grinding for hours to by a reasonable piece of gear and here the OP is complaining because there is so much gear and loot drops.
Then I played Neverwinter which I assume the OP never played. Holy crap if you consider GW2 to be linear as you've described, you would spontaneously combust playing NW - its so linear even I couldn't stomach it.
Horses for courses I say.
Actually, no. That's pointing out one of many typos, omissions, and errors in the review that show complete obliviousness to what's being reviewed.
"Teleports" instead of "Waypoints"
"Panoramic" instead of "Vista"
The whole rant about "instant teleportation, event if it costs, is lazy and avoids exploration" completely neglected the fact that Waypoints are locked. They require a person to first discover them via exploration and travel before being able to use them.
I honestly think he was trying to reference Dynamic Events by calling them "NPC tasks" in the following paragraph, but that's hard to tell if accurate or not. Especially when it follows up with "Even farting gives you XP. No joke. Seriously.", which itself is just a straight out bullshit statement (there's no farting emote or otherwise, I know, I've tried). I think instead of Dynamic Events, that might have been about Hearts (especially since the referenced tasks were choice style such as Hearts are).
Another inconsistence is his reference to "cleaning poop", which I'm unaware of any Dynamic Event or Heart that asks for such tasks. The particular Heart he provided a screenshot to this caption has a player defeating giant worms, filling in worm holes, feeding cows, or watering cows. Nothing to do with 'poop' at all. And this is like the 2nd Heart a player comes across in Queensdale, at level 2-3ish (out of 80). And this isn't a simple mistake either since he references it 3x, as if intending to state that all there is to do in GW2 is "clean poop".
The mail rant is so-so for me, as I didn't notice the delivery doves until the 2nd week of play, so it's quite possible to think it's all done "magically". But, it's not. Those doves work night and day to deliver mail to Tyrians everywhere.
Yet another inaccuracy to point out is how the author claims that all weapon skills are instantly unlocked at the equipping of that weapon. This is in fact a lie and the progressively unlock as the weapon is used in combat to gain kills.
Assuming PvP was locked to level? Okay, now I know he's just trolling. Right? I mean, I can understand an obvious Rift-fanboy to think that since Rift does it other games might too. Well, he's wrong in that assumption. GW2 WvW and sPvP can be played from level 2 just outside that starting tutorial zone. Booth boost the player to level 80. Only in WvW does gear and trait points matter; in sPvP those things matter not.
Saying that there is no armor repairing at all in-game is a show of obliviousness and purposeful ignorance. In the starting town there is an armor repair guy with icon (looks like a broken red heart) above their head. Many of the key towns throughout zones have these armor repair NPC's available for use.
One other thing I would like to point out is the explanation of Waypoint system. This is explained by the first NPC directed by the Personal Story to talk to after the Tutorial zone: The Scout. These NPC's in the starting area act as guides to tell players where interesting things on the maps are. The first ones explain that the WP system is a product of the Asura technology; all money from them actually goes to the council of Rata Sum.
I really could go on, but I'm not going to any more. Jean-Luc Picard (incidentally my favorite Captain of the USS Enterprise) and others in this thread already did a great job breaking down this shame of a "review" and exposing it for what it is: an anti-GW2 rant by a possible Rift fanboy.
Agreed......
To the OP...no sympathies to be found here...go play for more than an hour, I did and was quite surprised.
This is how I felt as well. I believe that I really started to enjoy the game after I left the first map. I also feel that the humans have the most boring starting area. Maybe that's just me.
Also unless I missed it you didn't discuss pvp at all. Which is available to you at level 1. Wvw is a great implementation that let's you take a break from boring grinding. I also just started doing spvp a few days ago and it is by far the most fun I have had pvping in an mmo in a very long time.
You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
There are all kinds of valid issues people bring up with GW2 and you managed to miss them all and obviously this post was made with an agenda to get people to try one of the cruddier MMORPG out there in RIFT. This is just a really sad post by what I assume is a bitter poster. To those who do not like the game I get it, in fact I've never made it to 80 because I get bored before reaching that point because the game gets so repetitive, so I may even agree with you. But almost nothing in this review is really valid. How you managed to make such an in depth review and miss the really valid issues the game has in some places is beyond me.
It's more like it's just an easy shortcut to point out how he's pretty unobservant. There are a lot of errors all over what was said. That was just an obvious one. I'd agree that under normal circumstances it'd be a bit petty, but him saying minotaurs is just a reflection of the lack of accuracy that pervades the whole review.
This is a review of a trial experience, if the game didn't only offer a temporary trial, and instead offered it at all times, this would be a redundant thing. That aside, considering it is a trial (a few days) there's really little time to take notice of those finer details when you're really focusing on what the overall experience offers. That's what knowledge a normal person would seek to attain in that short period of time. Considering that you should expect some finer details being misrepresented based on personal experience and perception.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
But they got large chunks of the overall experience wrong as WELL Actual factual things. Not opinion things. Just things they flat out got wrong, like no armor repair.
They are just not an observant person.
You probably also shouldn't say you literally get xp for farting, unless you actually, literally get xp for farting.
Just saying.
Hate when people misuse literally. I literally hate it. :P
If somebody misses large chunks of things, then complains about the things that they missed, and they've a proven track record of not being observant, it is a perfectly acceptable thing to state 'this person is bad at observing things and this is the flaw with their review'.
If you have the time to spare, then you can get to max lvl in 68 hours or less, probably a lot less if you focus solely and don't wast any time chatting etc!
I have 9 lvl 80's, 2 of which took less than 2 weeks to max out!
Even if the review was true (which its not)
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.
OP, your entire negatively biased opinion lost every possible credibility when you said that Rift runs smoothly and GW2 is clunky.
Seriously, why fanatics try too hard to bash other games? You entire post is a fallacy
10 days trial. Man if you can't take a notice of centaurs burning the city in 10 days I feel sad for your family and neighbours. They might be already dead while you're trying to figure our where the shop is to buy them some food.
And the man who tries to advocate idiocy is who?
Thanks to the commenters that liked the article and understand the facts presented.
Just to highlight on the general other negative comments:
1) Majority of people touched on all the sub subjects, like: "Oh, there is only one Minotaur (actually there are mobs of them the second you log in the game. They are fighting the local towns folk in endless waves and you can test out combat for the first time there. I take it 90% of the comments left here have never played this game, and flaming). But not one person here against the article has argued the massive problem/issue/subject. The insta teleporting. The combat, the death, the easiness...They all picked the weak arguments and posted. I can roll with that. Let's say I made it up and there is only 1 Minotaur....That has nothing to do with the rest of the core game mechanics discussed in the game.
2) Because the main issues every one avoids and "trolls" the other weaker points are still there and glaring, this entire post is FACT and not Opinion.
3) But I do not like to call it "problems", because as I concluded. Kids need to start somewhere, and some times it is not a progression. It is not "start here, end here". Maybe people want to stay in this title for all the ease, and shallowness it has to offer. Nothing wrong with that. Not once did I say there was a problem with that. To each their own.
The only thing this article should be taken with these facts is: "This is how it is, before you slap down that cash, is that what you want?" - And "I enjoy this kind of game: (RIFT, TERA, etc..) so will I find those game elements in this game?" and the answer is, yes, some familiar things in mmorpgs are here in GW2, and no, you will not like it if you currently enjoy the challenges of these other titles that seperate themselves from this kind of theme park. Last question "I loved GW1, Is this the immersive world of GW brought to life? No, it is as shallow as a plastic kiddy pool and has NO GUILD WARS, but yes, the graphics are pretty so if you want to see pretty places from the creators of GW 1....go ahead.
GAME ON FOLKS!
Sorry Papaprika but your post was too long to quote it all so I've just cut to the end. You ask what I think?
I think there are some valid points hidden amongst your review but I really can't accept it as anything other than a biased review by someone who had already decided they didn't like the game. In order to give a proper review you need to leave all your prejudices at the door and look at the game with fresh eyes when playing it.
I take it the pictures you posted were your own and not someone else's? The last one seems to suggest that you had already formed your opinion of this game, i.e. that it's poor and is for children, right at the very start - to quote "This game sucks, and is like putting on a pair of pampers." From the rest of the picture it seems this opinion was made when you were lvl 1, with only the 1st two skills of your starting weapon unlocked, and in the starting zone before you had even entered the game proper, and probably after only fighting 3 or 4 mobs to unlock the second weapon skill.
Such evidence of a preformed opinion makes it very difficult to take your review seriously.
Show me a single minotaur please. Also I find it hilarious asking you to show me how they burn the city.
Just think... minotaur burns the city.
I'm curious, has no one noticed from the OP's screen shots and iffy diction that they're clearly not a native English speaker?
Or would that just get in the way of trying to use an idiotic thing like mixing up 'centaur' and 'minotaur' to "prove" the OP wrong?
I just noticed the last picture of the OP. THe OP conveniently typed the game sucks and blah blah blah and took the screenshot. Everything is in french, except that specific message. How convenient.
One of the longest troll posts, full of inaccurate opinions you wrongly state as facts. All that just to show everyone that you didnt like the game. Thats how you see why mmorpgs need to stop catering to young audiences. They have no idea how to share their opinions with others without pretending to be the most accurate reviewers after playing a free trial weekend.
minotaure and centaure in french.
how often do you mix up apples with oranges?
I hadn't even taken a closer look at the pictures.
He is really standing in the tutorial instance - being level 1 with 3% exp and exclaims that the game sucks.
Completely unbiased review.
There are no GUILD Wars in GUILD Wars 2.... /kiddo read some books. You spent so much time typing... kinda feel sorry for ´ya...
Originally posted by Papaprika
(Look at the diamonds on the map...who needs mounts, roads, or anything when you have magical teleporters. Just pay the invisible man (god?) and you are teleported)
REALLY ?!?!?
Interesting you dont need roads ok....
you sir tried your best now ... go and never come back...
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.
Just to reiterate what I said earlier. Anyone who wants an honest review of this game who is deciding whether or not to play it should completely ignore everything in this review. The game has its own share of problems and someone could write a very negative review that I could get behind most of, but this particular review is rubbish being posted by someone who obviously had an agenda.