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Free trial weekend
crabdog
Member Posts: 30
Started my free trial yesterday and thought I'd share my thoughts so far.
My first impression regarded the graphics. While the engine runs nice and smooth and things look rather nice, I felt that it all blends together a bit too much so that it's difficult to distinguish NPCs and mobs from the landscape, kinda like looking at a painting done all in different shades of green for example. This might be partly due to my race's starting zone as it's mostly jungle but it doesn't feel immersive for me.
Second thing that came to mind was that in looks and gameplay it seems very similar to RIFT. Obviously the skill tree and traits etc are different but the combat, movement and general appearance felt very riftlike. The mobs encountered are definitely more challenging though in some parts. The heart quests are basically just a copy of rifts with some subtle differences eg: escort and defend this area quests thrown in. There seems to be far too many of them as well. I know it's not mandatory to do them but the rate notifications pop up on the screen every time you run any direction for 10 seconds annoys me a bit and the same ones constantly pop up every time you go back to an area where you did one before.
The story quests are not really exciting me either, I don't feel any connection to my character and found myself skipping through most of the cinematics.
I played only briefly yesterday and ran around for a couple of hours today but I don't feel the urge to jump back in just yet. I'm currently at lvl 11 with my warrior (yes I know it's very early in the game) but everything seems rather lackluster. It's so ridiculously far removed from what all the hype would suggest and is not revolutionary in any way. I'm not trying to bash the game, just letting people know how it is for me. It was nice to have a distraction for the weekend but I don't see myself buying the game.
Comments
Nice review and you are of course entiled to your opinion. There are literally thousands upon thousands who feel the opposite of you and enjoy the hell out of the game. IMHO it feels nothing like Rift. /shrug.
These folks here feel the same as me I would venture to say!
There is way more to the game than what appears in the first PvE areas.
Edit: Someone else posted this and it may help some folks understand the game a bit better. Wait! Guild Wars 2 Doesn't Suck?
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
http://www.mmorpg.com/giveaways.cfm/offer/437/Guild-Wars-2-Weekend-Free-Trial-Key-Giveaway.html
i got the key for this weekend thanks to mmorpg
and the game is great, great graphics, the main city is amazing
what i dont like is thata there is no collision detection and you cant remove the red and green glowing
Sigh.. seems like you're trying to play the game like previous WoW-clones. As long that continues, you're probably going to miss out on a lot of what this game is about.
(hint a lot of those things can be turned off. GW2 has pretty terrible default settings for everything. It also does a terrible job of distinguishing itself from other games early on. The starting areas try way too hard to pander to WoW players, and so people often make the wrong conclusion that the game is just another quest-grind MMO)
The personal stories are definitely a mixed bag. Some aren't bad, others are very bland. I'd say that's one of the weakest parts of the game. Again, where this game really shines is in the exploration. If you aren't telling yourself to ignore all that crap and just getting lost in the world, you're missing out. Try looking for hidden treasures, jumping puzzles, etc. Try completing the map. Try a bit of everything.
This video pretty much summed up my feelings for the game. Well except for me paying to continue to play it.
I am not saying this game is complicated, but they need to do a MUCH better job with the tutorial. I should not have to log into youtube or find a guide to start understanding how some things work in the game.
Add that to the fact that the game just doesn't FEEL right for some reason and I just can't see myself paying 60 bucks to continue to play this game.
They seriously need to listen to what the maker of the above video say's. I really do believe they are losing a lot of potential subscribers due to some of the issues he brought up. While he did stay, I just can't see this pulling me away from Planetside 2 (my current MMO) and trust me I SOOOOO wanted to be pulled away from Planetside 2....
Thank you MMORPG.COM and ArenaNet for the oppurtunity to try Guildwars 2 out.
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You see, every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with their surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You spread to an area, and you multiply, and you multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet.-Mr.Smith
I just finished my trial period, I have a few more hours left but I really can't be bothered with it. Not feeling that game at all. The graphics are quite nice, the sound reminds me of Oblivion, I quite like the way they place quest areas that you can help with. I just can't get on with the way they've designed classes. Having five active skills based on what weapons you've got equipped just feels so dry to me, it's like I'm not playing a character, I'm playing a weapon attached to a character. Not only that, but I tried out a Mesmer and by level 6 I'd max'd all the weapon skills so I could use any combination, even the underwater one.. at level 6. There's 74 levels to go and I already have pretty much every combat ability I'll ever use?
I enjoyed the Thief class for a while, leaping over heads and backstabbing, but really, when I've got all abilities by level 6, will that fun last through another 70+ levels, or will I be yawning as I again somersault over someones head and chop chop him in the back? I think I'll be yawning.
While I'm sure the world is vast and interesting, that just isn't enough for me, especially with how bland I found the whole storyline. I'm not even interested in seeing what happens next because I really don't care enough, I just see 74 levels of leaping over the mobs heads and figure nothing I'm going to see in game is going to make it interesting enough to stick around. It's like these people who go on holiday to picturesque places just to see the scenery.. completely don't understand the appeal.
It is the same posters here who just can not accept that not eveyone is going to enjoy GW2. And it is embarassing really to see them use same tactics everytime someone tries to give their impression about the game.
I know it just annoys me. Tried GW2 again just now (waiting for a new good mmo) after having stopped playing around level 76ish on a thief 40 warrior 30 hunter 30 elementalist and several sub 20 characters (remade many of them) and from just playing a bit it reminds me that there was a reason I stopped playing in the first place.
Oooo...I've got to add "Don't play it like WoW and you will enjoy it more!" to my list of derp statements right alongside, "This game is not for you." and "You're playing it wrong."
You can't really blame people for making abstract responses when the original post is so vague. "Not immersive", "like Rift", "too many quests" and "can't connect to my character while skipping most dialogue" aren't even real complaints. They're just vague comments that could mean pretty much anything.
This I agree with. They need to make a proper tutorial. Maybe a single-player mission with a premade character or something. Something to make people understand how traits, combos, Hearts etc. work. On the other hand, I think it's pretty sad people expect a game to hold their hand so much nowadays. GW2 isn't very complex, but it seems some people can't even run around and do simple tasks without a gigantic arrow telling them "THIS IS WHERE YOU WANT TO GO NEXT".
So true.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
I can agree a bit with the OP's initial impressions. During beta weekends, I found the graphics a bit "off" and was not really captured by the whole gameplay. Granted, it's hard for me to get engrossed in any sort of "trial" as part of me doesn't seem to want to commit knowing its a trial and all.
But one of the very nice things about its model is that once you do buy, you can go back and play whenever you'd like. I've had my impressions drastically change since the initial ones were formed and can say in all honesty that the game is well worth the purchase price.
Well, to be fair, it's five weapons skills per equipped weapons on the left, then there are the healing, utility and elite skills on the right. In addition, weapon swapping adds another set of skills. Add in (for the mesmer) the shatters (which are a big part of the mesmer, but you probably didn't have time yet to fully realize that), secondary and tertiary (in some cases) skill effects and you'll see there's a lot more skills available to you than you see on the surface. Traits will also add various flavors to your skills and can really affect how you play. The whole combat system is a lot deeper than it appears on the surface.
I've been running a mesmer since the beginning... they're a ton of fun to be honest. Your focus skill in the four slot is a blast in WvW... you can yank enemies off walls, over cliffs, etc. There's something special about tossing enemies off a cliff, waiting a moment, then a loot bag appears at your feet... ah, good times, good times.
Oderint, dum metuant.
Erm... you probably meant buyers?
There are no subscriptions in GW2 after all.
You buy once and play as much as you want and whenever you want.
What many people fail to see like the OP obviously too is that this game is build upon choices and everything in the game has them.
So saying the quests are like rifts or a copy of them is definately not true.
In GW 2 all the heart quests are having 3-4 different options on completing them.
As example, while you are fighting against works, I'm feeding the cows, while someone else is taking care of the plants or is doing anything else.
This alone makes the game more flexible than others cause people get to pick out of 3-4 options to finish a heart quest instead of having to do the same thing everyone else has to.
The world is wide open and waits to get explored, its up to us to explore it the way we want it.
That's something most of us weren't used to for many years so it might feel akward to some or give the feeling to some that they are "lost" because there is no guideance like it was in the previous mmos we played.
That's where you open your map and see the possibilities and that's where you start exploring the game to learn more from it and find what is more fun for you to play with.
Some people love to explore around and find secret places, others can't get enough from jumping puzzles, others rather are looking forward to complete the maps (secret places are extra btw), others jump immediately in the pvp or wvswvsw, others hunting events down or gathering materials so they can immediately begin with crafting.