User:Shard/GW2Review

Guild Wars 2 Review

Before Guild Wars 2 came out, I criticized many of the things ArenaNet had released concerning how they were designing Guild Wars 2 and what it was going to be like. After having played the free trial for a few days, I felt I had to let them know why I still won't give them my money.

ArenaNet officially stated that they were making Build Wars 2 because, while Guild Wars 1 was pretty successful and popular, they thought there were some things that could be improved or added that would be impossible to do in the current engine (a legitimate reason). Things like jumping (without using the /jump emote), and. . . well, to be honest, I'm not sure what else you could possible change to make the Guild Wars engine better. Certainly they could have added an auction house in GW1 (because I could, and they should theoretically have better resources than me at their disposal), but I digress.

So I got the free trial for GW2 and made two characters. First I made an ele, then I got to level 3 or 4 and stopped playing it because it was fucking boring. Then I made a paladin (guardian) which is the one I've spent a lot of time on. The first thing I thought when I got into the game was that the graphics look amazing, just like GW1, Anet went above and beyond with the visual style and quality of the game. It's a shame all those talented artists wasted their time on a game that has no gameplay.

Social

The social aspects of GW2 are really good. They managed to get rid of griefing (as far as I know, anyway) without issuing the standard retarded band-aid ideas they're so used to implementing to fix obvious problems. Every player is encouraged to either help other players, or at the very least, quest on one's own and ignore other people. Your rewards for kills are split based on how much you helped. The loot/xp doesn't go to the first party that attacked something like it does in most MMOs. The world events, while not at all dynamic like they claim, are still fun and exciting to both see and to take part in.

Your quest log isn't a conglomeration of the problems of every NPC you've visited. Instead, you get quests based on where your character is, and finishing them makes a particular NPC "like" you. The only quests that stay in your log are the story mode quests, which brings me to. . .

Story / Lore

The story in GW2 is terrible, and so are the characters. Game Design 101: You put your best storytelling and character development at the beginning of your game to draw players into the world. This does not happen in GW2. When the game starts, you have a random cutscene that has nothing to do with anything, followed by a "save the village" mission for which there is no reason or story connection (on human anyway, but I imagine the other races have a similar starting mission). By the time I got to level 10, none of the NPCs I'd met are interesting or memorable. I wouldn't even be able to tell you their names. The only one I remember is Whatshisname Thackaray, but only because his great grandpa was in GW1 and I accidentally played Grind of the North too much. If I was new to the GW universe, I wouldn't know or care who he is either.

For players already familiar with the GW universe, you offer no story content early in the game linking the events of GW1 to the second game. Hell, even Mortal Kombat gives you the story of their games on the "insert coins" screen. Why is the game called Guild Wars 2 if there are no guild wars going on? I know the name was chosen for marketing value, but the game would more appropriately be named "PvE Wars with Jumping", or "Random Characters Telling a Boring Story", or to be more serious, "Dragons in Tyria". I would make more characters on other races like Charr, but I feel like I would be playing through the same missions as human, only in an old Ascalon backdrop. Where's Lion's Arch (or more specifically, why did Lion's Arch disappear and get rebuilt in a place where the natives knew it would sink)? Why can't you visit any of the cool places from GW1? Elona's gone. Cantha's gone. The Crystal Desert and Ring of Fire are gone. The Maguuma Jungle is gone. The only places that make a return are Rata Sum and Lion's Arch 2. Why is the pvp area called "the mists" when it's not actually in the mists? Where did the Hall of Heroes go? What happened to Odran? Another good title for this game would be "Plot Holes Galore".

Gameplay

The skill system is worthless. Skill 1 is the equivalent of spacebar from GW1. Skills 2-5 are locked in based on your weapon/offhand choices. Skills 6-10 are chosen (sort of), but for any given role you need to play, there's one clear choice for those slots. This is the most disappointing part of the game. The skill system and combat was the main reason Guild Wars 1 was great, and they threw it out and replaced it with worthless "everybody's the same" garbage. We already have this in GW1. It's called Costume Brawl, and they usually fucked that up pretty good too. Blizzard was smart, they stole your skill bar idea from Guild Wars 1 and made Diablo 3 with it, and I'm still playing that game.

They obviously copied the combat style from other MMOS, which is good if you want your game to be a random shitterville of temporary fad players like every MMO ever made is, but who am I to question what Anet wanted. Maybe it was their intention to have a shallow combat system that would attract casuals and nobody else. The game sold. Maybe they'll put the money into something useful, like GW1.

One small thing I have to ask: why the fuck is double-tap to dodge the default control for dodging? Dodging is fine, but if it's gonna have a cooldown and be an integral part of combat, you don't make it something that good players are going to accidentally do every three or four seconds because of their awareness. I can forgive most of Anet for not being good at pvp, but you have a lot to learn about simple HCI (like how to test things with focus groups). Blizzard may be the new Anet when it comes to game balance, but they are still the best when it comes to UI and controls. By the way, the minimap sucks.

The only thing I liked about the gameplay is some of the platforming areas you have to go through. Unlike most MMOS that only have jumping for vanity, GW2 actually makes you utilize it sometimes. Good job!

Wanna make the perfect game? Take everything about GW1, add the social systems and "achievements" of GW2, and stop there. That's a good game.

Closing

Even if they changed nothing else, I would buy GW2 if it had a skill and combat system as good as the previous game, because that was the defining feature of Guild Wars' success. Players got to customize their characters with build choices. GW2 isn't Guild Wars. It has nothing to do with the first game, except the names of the races are the same. Nothing else is connected in any way. None of the interview promises have come true, except that they made player skill unimportant and got rid of skill bars (the two bad changes). The world isn't dynamic. Quests aren't interesting. The story is terrible (the dialogue is worse than Factions, but not quite as bad as the Trial of Zinn), and worst of all, they copied the skill system from every other MMO - the one where everybody is the same and there are no choices to make ever.

If you're too incompetent to balance individual skills, that's fine (actually it isn't), because you have a community of dedicated players to help you, even though they shouldn't. However, to be so incompetent at skill balance that you try to avoid it completely by making a "new" game where every possible build players can run has been predetermined, and STILL not having it be balanced, that's just pathetic. I hope Guild Wars 2 dies and people go back to Guild Wars 1 so you can turn all your attention back to that game.

I wanted GW2 to be good. I really did. My friends need a good, solid, social MMO to play in the very little time we all have free together. I set my hopes high for this one.

I was wrong when I said Guild Wars 2 was "Guild Wars with jumping." It's much less.