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My MMO history: WoW for 5 years, SWTOR for about 9-10 months, GW2 for 3 days.
I started playing GW2 Saturday night during pre-release. At this time I have only played one race and one profession: Sylvari Elementalist. I have her up to level 22.
I expect this MMO to do well for several reasons: 1) GW1 has been online for a while now, which makes me feel more confident in the ongoing care the developers will give GW2. 2) It's not a "grinder." 3) No monthly subscription fee.
I have not played arena PVP yet. I have played WvWvW once. It's a great idea, but I didn't have fun in it, despite everyone else's glowing reviews. Reasons being: 1) huge maps = lots of running around to find a fight, 2) my PC had performance issues when more than 25 people were on screen, effectively ruining the gameplay for me. I love PVP, so I will definitely be giving W3 several more chances.
My Likes:
This is not a WoW clone like SWTOR was. Mind you I LOVE WoW and enjoyed SWTOR, but when I buy a new game, I don't expect nor want it to be a clone of the last game I played. I am looking for a new experience, which GW2 has in spades.
The achievement system offers XP in a way that equates it with daily quests in WoW. This is awesome because almost everything you do gives you XP or counts towards an achievement. The result is a sense that whatever you choose to do in your playtime truly will advance your character. In my opinion, this is extremely refreshing after doing repetitive dailies in WoW for so long.
The Dynamic Events and Area Quests lend to a feeling of openness of world and promote exploration. I haven't had a feeling like that since my first days of vanilla WoW.
I've heard mixed reviews on the use of Waypoints instead of mounts/flight paths. I actually love the Waypoints. Does teleporting around ruin some of the immersion? Yes. You what else ruins immersion for me? Taking a 4 minute+ flight path. The Waypoints are many and often and have no cooldown. Personally, the use of Waypoints gives me more inclination to keep exploring, since I don't have to worry about how long it might take me to get back to my main quest.
No load times. No travel times (flight paths). In WoW, I would browse the internet during flight paths. In SWTOR, I would browse during FP's and the frequent loading screens. So far in GW2, I haven't had one boring moment which inspired me to browse the internet.
Simplified spell bar. At first I was stunned and upset that there are only 10 hot-keyed spells, but the more I play around, the more I realize that choosing your weapons, active spells, and (in the case of an Elementalist) stance gives you a lot of personalized control over your play style.
No mana/rage/energy management. No holy trinity. This is just so different that I find it intriguing. I can't say more until I get higher level.
No ninja's. If you help with the kill, you get XP and loot rights. Gathering resources are available for all, so you're not constantly feeling the need to rush to resources when spotted. Having many other players in your questing area is always a good thing and never upsets your personal experience.
No opposing factions on server. I can talk to anyone I want and don't need to worry that my friends or family chose Allies over Horde, Imperial over Republic, etc.
No monthly fee and no endgame raiding gives me an incentive to play at my own pace. It's nice to be reminded that MMO's should be fun, and not just a rush to endgame so you can be the first on server to down a boss or clear a dungeon. I've been through all that. It was fun for a time, but it was also WORK and very time consuming.
You can dye your gear at any time, for no charge.
My Dislikes:
You cannot have characters on multiple servers.
o I don't expect this to be changed/fixed.
The movement could be smoother. I can't put my finger on it, but the movement seems less accurate in this game than in WOW or SWTOR. I find myself headed the wrong direction more often than I ever did in other games. Already I am getting accustomed to the movement and don't find it such a hindrance anymore, but still, it could use improvement.
o I don't expect this to be changed/fixed.
Grouping with friends isn't a fun experience. My husband and I attempted to play this game in a group, but gave up after about 10 levels. Because of the overflow instancing that is being used right now, we were often in different instances and therefore could not quest together. Also, there is no auto-follow and the dot that represents your party members on the mini-map and map are hard to see. Not being able to effectively group didn't ruin our gaming experience, but did squash our idea of calling our playtime "quality time together" LOL. Now, if we weren't in the same room playing, but instead across the state or across the country from each other, this would have been a much bigger gripe for me.
o I do expect this to be changed/fixed.
Only 5 default character slots, but 8 total professions!
o I understand that at some point I will be able to purchase additional slots, either through real money or in-game currency.
It's almost like the devs for this game really considered the most common BIG gripes in MMO's and took measures to correct those situations. GW2 fixed the below issues:
1. It takes too long to grind gear. If I don't have 10+ hours a week to play, I will never be on par with the more hardcore gamers and their gear.
a. All players are equalized in PVP so it is more skill based than gear based.
2. Other players ruin my experience by tagging all the mobs, stealing loot, or ganking me when I am questing.
a. No opposing factions. Equalized levels depending on the questing area. Shared kill credit and loot availability.
3. I'm tired of always dragging a tank or healer for my group.
a. GW2 removes the holy trinity (tank, heal, dps) and replaces it with professions that all have their own ability to do some tanking, healing, or dps.
4. I don't like paying a monthly fee.
a. No problem FREE TO PLAY!
5. I want to play with my friend, regardless of level, story/quest progression, or faction.
a. Can do! Players are automatically leveled down to the appropriate level for the area they are in. Quests are dynamic events so you can almost always bet you will be on the same step of the quest. There are no warring factions on server.
6. There is no incentive to visit or revisit low level quest areas, effectively quarantining endgame to max level areas.
a. Because of the leveling down I explained above, one could quest in low level areas and still get rewards and a challenging experience. In fact, you will need to do this in order to reach appropriate levels to complete your class quests.
**UPDATE**
The "join" group feature is now working as expected and we have been able to successfully group as needed!
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It seems like the past few years have been dreary for the MMO market. Even games that I was excited about due to the premise and my history with the series (SWTOR, I'm looking at you) have failed to deliver a fun, polished, innovative experience. I have seen truly interesting games pushed out far before they were ready, I've seen almost direct ripoffs of Warcraft, and I've also seen a lot of games that simply have no heart. Because of this, and perhaps because I was only a mild fan of the original Guild Wars, I followed the Guild Wars 2 hype with a fair amount of skepticism. The energy and the passion of the developers began to intrigue me, though, so I pre-purchased the game in order to have access to the beta weekends -and there was no turning back. The most important thing I should say is that you should throw out any pre-conceptions you have about the game based on the original Guild Wars. While there are certainly some familiar aspects this is a complete redesign of the Guild Wars experience.The first thing that struck me about the game was the sheer size, level of detail, and outright beauty of the world. This is the first game where I have walked into a main city and could actually imagine thousands of people living there. It is a great deal of fun to explore, and this becomes a key part of the game. Rather than simply being pointed to a town where you talk to a handful of NPCs, pick up a handful of quests, trot off twenty feet to handle the quests, return, rinse and repeat, this game encourages you to get out and take a look around. When you need direction you can look at your map and there will be hearts indicating someone in need of help -but the true purpose of these hearts is to get out you into that area to be exposed to the events that happen there. These events can be as small as bandits raiding a farmer's field, or a massive Shadow Behemoth on the scale of a raid boss, but there is almost always something to be seen. Forget the blinders that most MMOs have you put on while you quest: Guild Wars 2 wants you to rip them off, pay attention, and wander off whenever something strikes your fancy.
The Guild Wars team has put a lot of thought into some of the social dynamics of MMOs, and I have to sheepishly agree that I was much like everyone else. I glared virtual daggers at any player that would show up and start killing 'my' boars, mining 'my' material nodes, and otherwise doing what any normal player should be doing. Prior MMOs fed this anti-social, territorial urge by limiting the ways you could cooperate and share resources. I had to group up with that total stranger in order to share kill credit, and I had to dash around madly to collect crafting resources because if the other player got there first it was gone. Though the purpose of an MMO was to play with others, it was often less beneficial to do so and enforced an every man for himself mentality. Guild Wars does away with all this nonsense and makes it exciting to see other players again. Anyone who participates gets credit, a player mining a resource node doesn't make it disappear for you, and some of the events are difficult enough that it is a relief when a large pack of players shows up to assist. As an interesting touch, the final area of player conflict (PvP/WvW) even opts to show you a generic name for the opposing team's members instead of giving you a player name so no grudge can be carried over from the match.
I could talk endlessly about the combat system and the crafting system, but these are certainly a matter of taste and best experienced on your own. Suffice to say, combat is smooth and the animations satisfying, and the crafting system is simple yet elegant. There is a level of polish here that has been sorely lacking in other games of late, and though I've only made it to level 20 so far it is obvious that there is enough to keep me occupied for months on end. Each class is distinct and rewarding in its own right, and if you find you don't care for the play style be sure to swap your weapons and try the other skill mixes before giving up on the class completely. Warrior felt distinctly 'meh' to me with the first set of weapons I started with, and then suddenly became ripping fun when I was able to switch to something with skills more fast-pasted. Even classes I didn't much care for in the original game, such as the Necromancer, shine in their new incarnation. Your character feels solidly connected to the world, without the sense of floating or gliding that ruins the immersion. This has been a huge pet peeve for me, and it's nice to finally see another game get this right. And to those who think ten skills is too little, I will pose this question: How many of those fifty+ buttons did you use in your rotation in World of Warcraft? In most cases, only a small handful that varied depending on your build, and then a few utility skills. This is no different, except for the lack of UI clutter and the fact that 'switching spec' is simply switching your weapon.
This is a gorgeous, fun, and well thought-out game. If you are on the fence I encourage you to go to their web site and read the developer blogs and other material, watch some videos, and if your curiosity is piqued dive in. Without a monthly fee you have ample time to explore every avenue the game has, and even if you find it is not to your taste I suspect you would find you've spent much more time with the game than many FPS titles of the same price. This is well worth the cost, if only to experience what I feel is a solid step forward in the gaming world, and that is encouraging people to play *together* instead of against each other.
Best Deals for Guild Wars 2 - PC (Standard Edition)
I played during closed beta and all of the open beta weekends. As the beta progressed, I began to realize that this was not an MMORPG for me. I really really wanted to like this game, so I decided to purchase it as well. Unfortunately, not much has changed gameplay-wise since closed beta.I have played MMORPGs since 1998, and I primarily get my enjoyment out of them through acquiring new armor/weapons. I enjoy progressing my character seeing my character look more badass as he levels up, and it has always been my motivation for leveling up. However, GW2 does not cater to this type of player. This may be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your opinion. Stats on loot are relatively negligible and most armor is essentially cosmetic (this is a slight simplification of the system, but holds true compared to other MMORPGs). This is not really a surprise, since GW1 ran under a similar model. I guess I was hoping things would be different. I don't want to give the impression I'm a hardcore gamer. I've never really raided much or anything like that, but I guess I felt like there was no motivation to level up. You can compete PvP and WvWvW from level 1, you unlock the majority of your skills in the first 10 levels, your armor is largely cosmetic, and your character is scaled to the local content (so if you're level 50, but want to level in the level 1 15 zones, you can still get your ass handed to you). The end result, for me at least, was little motivation to play.
With that being said, if you enjoy MMORPGs, I would definitely still recommend buying it, as it is a well polished game. Also, since it doesn't have a monthly fee, you can easily get your money's worth even if you only play a couple months. However, if your primary drive for playing MMORPGs is leveling and character development, this game may leave more to be desired. Unfortunately, it wasn't for me.
Edit (12/10/12): It looks like, from reading other reviews, that this game has changed quite a bit since I wrote the review. It sounds now like they have added a gear grind to the game. I can't really comment because I don't play anymore, but my review is now slightly out of date.
Honest reviews on Guild Wars 2 - PC (Standard Edition)
I finally broke down on impulse and bought Guild Wars 2 to try and it and, boy, was that a good decision. I don't know if I will convince any of you to partake, but I really hope you do. This is my favorite game of all time, displacing Skyrim, World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy VII, and it's now all I do during my gaming time. In my review, I will also hit on some WoW comparisons, because if you're like me, there will be some audience overlap. Here goes nothing:Class Selection and Definition
The game calls classes "professions" and, from the beginning, each one is differentiated and engaging. I won't write about each one, but I have mostly played an engineer for now. He gets a blend of bombs, grenades, turrets to help him and allies in combat, toting a rifle or a shotgun for his own protection. The magic classes have vast arrays of spells. Every class has some type of heal, even if it's minimal, but for each class your gameplay gets you into the character you are. Warriors are rewarded for staying in combat. Engineers and ranged classes WILL get killed if they don't move. There are eight focused classes, I've tried three, and I've heard they are all great. People have not complained of an "OP class", which I'll help explain by hitting on combat.
Combat Dynamics
Battles are much longer than in Warcraft and you can't really one-hit kill people. It takes a while to beat a person into submission. When a player runs out of health, they fall onto the ground and get a last chance to fight back, or call for help from allies. If you see a wounded ally down, you can pull them up. Also, if a wounded enemy is making their last call for help, you can do a finishing move to kill them for good. If you die, you restart at a waypoint that you have discovered and take a small equipment hit.
Race Selection and Definition
There are five races, and each is beautiful and differentiated. I have looked at three. Character design is really fun, and when you run around zones, players look really different as a result. I am playing as Charr, a cruel animal species. Each class/race combo gets its own story that is instanced. There are 40 in all (8x5). Mine involves trying to create secret plans for a weapon. The first part was an instanced fight where enemies invaded my house. It was amazing.
NPC Conversations and Cutscenes
The game is loaded with conversations and cutscenes, all of which go to beautifully animated character interactions that are all spoken. They are really breathtaking.
Gear Dying
You start with a small number of dyes that you can use to change the color of your gear at any time, for free. As the game progresses, you can discover new dyes that you can learn permanently. It is really fun and allows you to give your character a really differentiated look that can change over time.
Questing Structure
Guild Wars really did a great job in overhauling the traditional "gather 10 sandwiches for me" quests in wow. When you talk to NPCs, you get objectives, which, yes, track in the upper-right hand corner like in WoW. However, the number of things you need to gather and the "annoyance" grindiness of it really is gone. You have to try it to see what I mean. Additionally, if someone else is working on the same quest and picks up things to help the objective, you get credit too. It's a really great system.
World Events
In addition to traditional questing, when you walk around, circles will appear on the map alerting you to a group quest. These involve much harder/larger objectives that are really fun. When the objective is achieved, you are graded from nothing/bronze/silver/gold on your contributions and get gear. These are great so far and have included killing a huge warm and stopping waves of intruders from penetrating a base.
Zone Exploration and Leveling
Each zone has multiple quests and objectives. You discover them organically by walking around although, it's not a "npc-find-fest" in that you can really feel free to roam and get alerts when you're near neat objectives. You don't need to hit all of them, although you get large bonuses for completing all tasks in a zone. You never have to go back to NPCs to turn things in your quest just triggers complete when finished.
Swimming/Underwater Exploration
Usually this would be a sidenote, but it merits special talking points in Guild Wars. Underwater animation is gorgeous and, for each profession, you have a special underwater weapon. I spent 40 minutes yesterday just swimming underwater and firing my classes weapon: a torpedo launcher. The graphics work and realistic swimming interactions are great. Also, when you exit the water, you get a "splash" across your screen that fades out, a neat small touch of how you need a moment to regain vision after being deep in the water.
Vistas
In each zone, there are points called vistas which you get xp for finding. These are amazing vantage points that give you a view of a particularly beautiful part of a zone. These can be hard to get to often they will be on top of a mountain that requires delicate jumping, or they are up a path on the top of a mountain or castle. When you hit the vista, you get a cutscene showing the beautiful view of that little area plus an xp bonus. These are really fun to go after and encourage zone exploration.
XP Generation
While I'm at it, I should mention how much I love the xp system. You get XP for everything. You get XP for gathering wood or berries. You get XP for crafting. You get XP for pulling up fallen comrades. You get XP for kills. You get XP for completing certain number of achievements each day. It's really nice because you feel like doing ANYTHING is rewarded and it makes you choice of what to do always feel rewarding. Also, and I'll hit this in achievements, you can often build up to goals for a day or month without knowing it and it feels so awesome when a reward kicks in.
Environmental Interaction
Every environmental object means something in guild wars. If you find rocks and trees around the landscape, hiding behind them makes bullets miss you. If you have a height advantage, you hit for me. There is no clipping. The idea that literally everything you see is important and plays a role in combat decisions is wonderful. Also, the environments are each very well thought out and look gorgeous.
Character Dolls
Guild Wars uses a pretty standard MMO doll, but with compressed item slots. There are about 15, if I had to guess off the top of my head. Most of the usual things like head, shoulders, etc, rings, trinkets are there. A neat feature is items you can upgrade with automatically pull to a window on the left that lets you upgrade. Also, after level 7, you can have two weapons that you can toggle between using a hotkey equipped at once. It allows a really cool range of battle choices.
Talents/Abilities
Talents are neatly broken down into three areas: abilities gained by using a weapon, class abilities, and traditional talents (player bonuses) in the Warcraft/MMO sense. For each weapon, you get abilities from 1-5 on your hotbar. You start with ability 1, the first time you pick up that weapon. As you use that ability, you unlock ability 2, then 3, etc. It is a nice delay because you get them pretty quickly, but it's just enough time that you can get used to each of the five abilities. For abilities 6-10, you unlock a choice for each slot as you level. To choose abilities for those slots, you need skill points, which you get as you level. You can unlock about 5-10 choices for each of the slots and can change between them, but you only have 10 abilities at once. I actually like this a lot better than the 20-30 ability madfest in wow, although you can alter to try different gameplay styles. For traditional talents, you get these at level 11, and you get to improve a specific area of your character. For my engineer, for example, these included bomb strength or grenade strength, as an example. The abilities you get are really neat. Right now on my engineer, I am playing with a bullet turret, medic turret and flame turret, along with the five abilities on my shotgun.
World Weapons
On the landscape, you can sometimes find random objects to interact with, like crowbars, bottles, crates, swords of other players, etc. Many of these are things you can pick up, and they will give you five new abilities for the left side of your ability bar. It's an amazingly fun feature.
Looting
Looting is similar to other MMORPGs: some, but not at all, enemies will get shiny after death and you just press f to loot them. However, for many larger world quests, you get a popup that you received gear. Also, after completing certain quests you will get mail from npcs thanking you. It's neat to get those. You can open your mail at any time on the overhead.
Gear Design / Presentation
Gear looks great although the level of item differentiation does not get great until higher levels, as is true in other MMORPGs. Much of the lowbie stuff looks the same, but I have seen screenpics of high level stuff and it's gorgeous.
Crafting and Professions
Guild Wars focuses you on just two professions. I chose cooking and leatherworking. You need to actively gather items in the landscape in order to boost most skills. The recipes and things you make are really fun. It's actually fun to craft. You can take new ingredients, experiment with combinations, and learn new recipes. You can also buy recipes in more traditional ways. Another neat thing is that when you want to craft, say, 10 of something, the first one takes a while, in the way a wow bar would take a second, but then each additional craft speeds up so it goes REALLY quickly. It sounds like a small detail but it's nice. I also like how you don't have to end your life to work on professions and it's focused. Others include jeweling and weaponry. You get XP for crafting, which is also neat.
Gems/Inserts
Like in other MMORPGs, you can find gems or other special inserts for weapons with slots to improve their stats. These can be found randomly or crafted.
Gathering
You need to purchase gathering tools, which are inexpensive but have limited uses (like say 100 axes), and you can click on things in the landscape. It is really neat when you find a tree or ore that is activated and you don't have to "compete" with other players for the node. Anybody can swing at it and it's phased as each player's individual node. You do need appropriate level axes/sickles etc to gather, though. The types of things you gather are in three categories: sickled foods, herbs/trees and minerals.
Achievements
The achievement structure is one of my favorite parts of the game. You can get achievements for SO many things. You can get achievements for killing varieties of enemies. You can get achievements for PvP. You can get achievements for picking up fallen comrades. Best of all though, in eliminating dailies, they instead have daily and monthly achievements which are broad and rewarding for more gameplay but eliminate the daily grind that so many players hate. For example, if you hit 19 daily achievements, you get a large reward. For me, this broke down to a few enemy kills, some crafting and gathering, some zone exploration, and some vistas. You also get reward for hitting your monthly achievements. And the points from your achievements give you tokens that you can use to buy gear. It's a BEAUTIFULLY executed achievement system.
Structured PvP
PvP is broken down into structured PvP and World versus World PvP. Structured PvP is like most MMORPGs. You queue for an island that has battlegrounds, you queue for a match, you play one of several games, you score honor. The battlegrounds are very well made and really fun to play. The note earlier about landscape interaction makes them particularly great. In the structured mode, everybody is automatically put at the level cap (80) and given medium level gear. As you play in this mode, two things happen. First, you get an honor-like equivalent to buy better gear above your base stats. Second, you gain ranking. For me, I started as a "pup", but for each amount of honor you increase your rank. However, you do not level your base character playing structured PvP. It is its own system and the systems stay in structured PvP. This is a great mode but, personally, I get the most excited about...
World versus World PvP and a Note on Factions and Server Choice
World versus World PvP!!!!! Of the many things I love about the game, this is my favorite. So, when you start the game, you choose a server. Guild Wars made a good number, so almost all are full or heavy population. Your entire "faction", re: alliance vs horde, good vs bad, is your server versus two other servers. For example, my server is called sea of sorrows. All servers are in multiples of three and each server is paired with two others that it fights in PvP. World PvP has a running, constant score between the three factions. World PvP is fought in a system of four large maps. You queue for one of the four. When you get in, you are on a HUGE map with open landscapes, castles, cottages and forts. You fight to control as many points of control as possible, but there are many objectives. You project supply caravans. You batter down castles, you defend points of control. Every 5-10 minutes, your color (there is red, green and blue to represent the three servers) scores points depending on its control, with the most points for a castle and less for a fort or small cottage area. These points go towards a larger balance that boosts some stat, like XP generation or stamina or gathering bonuses, for your entire server permanently.
The World PvP is the first game I've ever played in my life that finally meets the dreams and idea of what I had my whole life of PvP in a game. Let me give the castles as an example. When you are attacking the castle, you are literally attacking a tall, three-dimensional castle. You can attack the walls, but they are nearly impossible to take down. You can attack the gate, but you really need siege weapons to do it. To get/build siege weapons, you need supplies, from across the map, and the blueprints, which you can buy over time. Once the siege is built, you can start ramming, the wall. The range of things you can build/use to attack are amazing. On the other end, defenders can run into the castles, which look AMAZING. In the castles, you can also build fortifications with your quartermaster, including boiling oil that you can control, archers, commissioning new troops, etc. It is just so, so amazing. For each three servers, four world PvP zones are contested and, at any time, you can press B to see what the balance of the three server's fight is. The best past, though, is that it's three servers fighting and not two. It makes for a real mad fight. Also, keep in mind that each of the four zones are HUGE and that there are no mounts. I fought in a world PvP battle last night for four hours, and did not get bored for a second. I would almost buy the game just to world PvP, just to see what it's like.
Instances
Instances are really fun and dynamic and serve the large storylines. Dungeons are well instanced and they are NOT easy. You really have to pay attention and play with a good group to get through them. Highly, highly recommend. Boss fights are a thrill.
Raids
I have not seen these but I understand they are some. But, admittedly, raiding is not as big of a focus as it is in Warcraft. The big focus is on PvP.
Overflows
They have managed to control the latency issues most games have with huge numbers of players by having this great idea called zone overflows. First, for world versus world pvp, you have to queue to get in. Mind you, even in BETA, yesterday, I waited, each time, only about 60 seconds. There is a cap so it can be completely smooth, even when you have a 50 versus 50 player battle, plus NPCs on a castle, like did yesterday. For zones, if you queue into one that is highly populated, you get put in an overflow. What this means is you can do EVERYTHING in a mirror copy of the zone that you would normally do, but other players aren't in there with you. Once the overflows clears and you are told you can enter, you immediately queue into the exact same place in the zone but the "real" one with other players. You earn all rewards and things as you would normally while in overflow. Overflow only happened to me once last night and it lasted only 15 seconds. This helps also control latency and keep everything very smooth.
Mounts/Pets
There are no mounts, but I understand there are pets, which are hard to get.
Cross-Zone Travel
You find waypoints while exploring which you can then travel back to / spawn at for a very small fee.
General Graphical Presentation
Everything is amazing and it's heads-and-tails better than any MMORPG I've ever seen, both in terms of raw graphics, but also the game engines quality in controlling latency.
Sound
Sound effects and music are off the hook.
Combat Responsiveness / Structure
You have the ten abilities, five core to your weapon and five selected, plus you have a power bar that lets you do a quick roll or dodge in any direction. You have enough power at any time for two dodges in a row, back to back, and then it has to recharge. Health regenerates VERY quickly when you are out of combat.
Guilds
Guilds are amazing. I joined one yesterday and the rewards and efforts you have are really cool. You save up guild achievements points and then queue improvements you want to build for your guild, but they take a long time. We just queued up an improvement that will take 4 days to finish. It's hard to explain but there's a scale and scope of things you can build and do with the guild that is really cool. As your guild gets better and better, it can commission weapons and armor for your whole guild which people can buy, as well as other items. It is AMAZING. You can make a guild weapon or armor that everybody in your guild can buy as standard equipment.
Paid Economy
The game has no monthly subscription and has certain things, all completely non-necessary, that you can get for sapphires, or bought game credits. You can get cosmetic items. You can get boosts to experience or honor earned. You can buy extra bank slots. You can buy pets or other funny effects in PvP. I saw a few things I might shell out a few bucks out on for fun, but there's nothing there you have to have to do well and move on in the game.
Inventory/Bank Management and Display
The game automatically compresses bags and you can instantly move items used for crafting to your bank from anywhere at any time, which is awesome for saving space. You can also fast-sell junk with vendors. It also sorts all your bank items by what they are used for, in a way that's very useful and time-saving.
Cost
The game is $60 with no subscription fee.
Replayability
I can't see myself ever getting tired of this.
Conclusion
I like this game BETTER than Skyrim and, while the focus on PvE is maybe not as much as in WoW, I think the PvP is much, much, much much better. I would say, hold your breath, I honestly like this as much as WoW and it's the best PvP game I've ever played in my life. I highly recommend you get it if you have any interest and you seriously won't regret it. I know I sometimes say that and you guys roll your eyes but, seriously, if you are even thinking of WoW PvP, this BLOWS It out of the water. Buy it dudes. See you on the Sea of Sorrows server.
Top three game I've ever played, easy. Probably tied for one with WoW, and ahead of Skyrim. If you did nothing but World PvP, you would find it worth the money three times over.
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When ArenaNet was telling us what their philosophy on gaming was before GW2 was launched, they told us there'd be no grind for better gear, and that the rarest gear in the game would be differentiated by appearance only not stats.Colin Johanson, Lead Content Designer said:"The rarest items in the game are not more powerful than other items, so you don't need them to be the best. The rarest items have unique looks to help your character feel that sense of accomplishment, but it's not required to play the game. We don't need to make mandatory gear treadmills, we make all of it optional, so those who find it fun to chase this prestigious gear can do so, but those who don't are just as powerful and get to have fun too."
Mike O'Brien, Arenanet President and Founder said:
"Here's what we believe: If someone wants to play for a thousand hours to get an item that is so rare that other players can't realistically acquire it, that rare item should be differentiated by its visual appearance and rarity alone, not by being more powerful than everything else in the game. Otherwise, your MMO becomes all about grinding to get the best gear. We don't make grindy games we leave the grind to other MMOs."
These statements convinced me to buy GW2. I believed that GW2 would be something different and better than any other MMO. And until November 15th, it was. I enjoyed exploring the world. I didn't worry about having sub-par gear and the need to grind out better gear, because that's not what the game was about.
On November 15th, they added a new tier of "Ascended Gear" with improved stats over anything else in the game. Moreover, the grind to acquire this gear is like nothing I've seen in any other games. First you must acquire the gear, then you must "infuse" it to progress in their new, stratified dungeon "Fractals of the Mists".
To craft 12 Ascended items (a full set of gear) requires:
3000 tier 6 fine crafting material
12 vials of condensed mist essence
600 globs of ectoplasm
288 skill points
To infuse 12 Ascended items requires:
3000 Passion Fruits
1200 Vicious Claws
12 Eldritch Scrolls = 600 skill points
240 Mystic Coins = 240 daily achievements
No thanks, ArenaNet. I'm not getting on that treadmill. Moreover, it's EXACTLY what you promised you wouldn't do with Guild Wars 2.
Best of luck.
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