The beta is over. After my game abruptly checked back to the login screen I came here to relay experiences, stories, and general vibe of the game. I'm finding a lot of speculation, unfair judgement, and flat-out lying going on around here. I'm not sure whats possessing people to be this way. I still think its best if the record is set straight though. Regardless, everyone will surely know of GW2 upon release day once it is critically reviewed (and crowned XD, jk, jk..maybe).

     First and foremost there ARE balancing issues. Lets get this dillusion that the game is perfect out of our heads. Its not and will never be. It is, however, very close to achieving balance given that were talking about a game with no set release date here.

     Many of the story segmants are actually TOO hard while many of the dynamic events are too easy. Some adjusting will likely be done there.

     The norn and human stories are pretty good. This is definately opinion and preference heavy but the only other MMO that has matched the intrigue I had with my characters story in GW2 was SWTOR. The two tell their tales extremely differently though. I will elaborate. SWTOR tells sweeping storylines that are extremely good  in the middle and lifeless in the beginning and end (at least for me). GW2 tells stories in short bursts basically. A certain section of your story will climax with you destroying a portal or something then a completely new adventure will begin. It is a very chapter oriented way of telling stories.

There are some positives and drawbacks to this. The positive is there is far less time being spent in boring limbo where nothing interesting is happening. You are always right around the corner from some big climax. The drawback is there isn't really much room for character development here. You also don't have much time to build up to the climaxes. Making them less engaging than in SWTOR (only comparing the two as they are virtually the only MMO's with any focus on story); however, there are more of them. So it really depends on how you like your stories. If you like short stories then you will probably like GW2's style better. If you like long sweeping novels you would probably enjoy SWTOR's style of storytelling more.

     Personally, even though there is little room for character development, I enjoyed GW2's stories more than my one SWTOR story. Simply because I spent more time in curiosity and intrigue and did not feel like I was just going through a filler storyline until I'm higher level to get to the true climax. There was always an epic climax right around the corner.

     Hell, within minutes of starting in the norn area I was in what was basically a 20 man raid against a giant ice worm that busted through the ground in front of me. I didn't have to sit around and shout for healers or organize anything. The event just happened and the players followed the event and all was glorioius.

Now that the delusions of grandeur are out of the way lets take a critical eye to the slight overexagerations. Be forewarned that I am about to address what could be considered opinions. If that bothers you then you may just want to hit reply and skip what I will say next.

     The first thing I noticed was an assessment that the GW2 forums were "mostly negative". This is what I can only describe as a lie. Is that harsh? Maybe. From what I've seen the GW2 forums were the most overwhelmingly positive forums I've ever seen for a game period. There are those who are dissapointed but unlike every single other game forum (can't stress that enough) there are, literally--just counted, only two people who were generally dissapointed. Only 1 out of the two just didn't like the game. The rest of what I presume this man (or women) was talking about must have been the plethora of suggestions from the community. Which is a little unfair, seeing as how its beta the community is expected to actively post feedback and you are encouraged to tell all about what you think could be improved.

     I feel this may have been a case of someone attempting to convince themselves that they are right by trying to make it seem like they hold the more powerful majority opinion. Rest assured, the majority opinion is resoundingly positive.

     On to the next.

     People seem to be being overly harsh or falsley representing the dynamic events. For example one man (or women) posted his disdain for an event to hit children with snowballs. For one the event offers three seperate things you can do. You don't have to hit the kids with snowballs if you don't want, you can also kill the bees around threatening the children. Not every DE is going to be this epic struggle. Ironically, however, he failed to mention that after playing with the kids and hunting for some meat to give to the norn hunter he proceeds to smoke the meat. The child, wishing to impress his father, asks for your help in killing a great stag. After its death the kids perform a ritual, of sorts, to the bear spirit. It goes somewhat awry however and you find the whole village being attacked by hordes and hordes of bears. You watch in real time as the father rushes the kids inside and all the village warriors gather to quell the onslaught.

Players from the area come swooping down the hills to help in the fight. You see, what he failed to mention is that little tiny event did actually lead into something overwhelmingly epic.

Most of the DE chains are like this (in fact I think they all are? correct me if I'm wrong. I've never been in a DE chain that didn't end in some epic battle). Another man complained about killing gnolls for a raven spirit. Again, yes you CAN kill the gnolls. or gather the ravens eggs. Or you can burn down gnoll hutts. Any of those will help progress the event. After that event you go up to the ravens shrine to answer a series of riddles. They aren't incredably challenging but it was a little unique.

In conclusion here, not all events are going to be this giant apocolypse immenent situation. Some are small scale things that you CAN do. Remember they are events. You can just keep walking if you don't want to participate.

I find it truly stunning that anyone can walk away from this game and say anything bad about it to be completely honest with you. It was fun and exciting from start to finish.

good review.

I agree with everything you said.

I noticed this weekend that many players, that for some reason have something against GW2, just come here to say whatever they wish this game was, some without even actually play it.. Surprise for them, the game really is what was promised.

Many lies were said, but well, who cares.. Its normal when a big game comes out, they somehow feel threatned.

What matters is who actually played the game, and who did, almost everyone really loved it :)

Originally posted by Fir3line
You are mixing events with hearts...............

They aren't always mutually exclusive, from my experience.

Some other ones:

• Heart quests are seperate from DEs people!  Heart quests are meant to kill time while hoping waiting for a DE to spawn.  They give you SEVERAL options for things you can do, some of which do not involve combat (such as the throwing snowballs at children example); however in every heart quest I've seen (in my 30 levels) there have been combat options.
• Ranged is not more powerful than melee.  Melee does as much as twice the damage.  While you'll likely need to use ranged weapons on several occasions (that's what weapon swap is for!) if you are dying frequently in melee range you need to practice dodge rolling, get some better defensive utility, and actually stat for toughness and vitality for survivability.  Even saccing power and percision melee still does more damage than ranged.  Speaking of which...
• All professions have ranged options and are all useful.  Warriors who people keep citing as a "melee" class actually have the most damaging single target ranged weapon right now (rifle).
• Everyone tanks or kites.  Though some professions can "tank" for longer, it's impossible for any one class to tank harder PvE MOBs for an extended period of time.  Take turns tanking as you have cooldowns for it.  Remember dodge roll is a fantastic tanking ability.
• You don't need to zerg back and forth in WvWvW to be useful.  There are plenty of objectives across the map that are great for smaller groups.  Take these instead if you don't have a large guild to attack keeps.
• In Conquest sometimes simply just surviving and making people chase you off points is just as useful as racking up kills on other players.  Remember kills don't give you points, capturing and holding points do.

Originally posted by heartless

Originally posted by Fir3line
You are mixing events with hearts...............

They aren't always mutually exclusive, from my experience.

DE can happen while you are doing the hearts, but they aren't the same.

Originally posted by Fir3line

Originally posted by heartless

Originally posted by Fir3line
You are mixing events with hearts...............

They aren't always mutually exclusive, from my experience.

DE can happen while you are doing the hearts, but they aren't the same.

Technically they are different. I meant that very often you can accomplish a heart while doing a DE.

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Some other ones:

• Heart quests are seperate from DEs people!  Heart quests are meant to kill time while hoping waiting for a DE to spawn.  They give you SEVERAL options for things you can do, some of which do not involve combat (such as the throwing snowballs at children example); however in every heart quest I've seen (in my 30 levels) there have been combat options.
• Ranged is not more powerful than melee.  Melee does as much as twice the damage.  While you'll likely need to use ranged weapons on several occasions (that's what weapon swap is for!) if you are dying frequently in melee range you need to practice dodge rolling, get some better defensive utility, and actually stat for toughness and vitality for survivability.  Even saccing power and percision melee still does more damage than ranged.  Speaking of which...
• All professions have ranged options and are all useful.  Warriors who people keep citing as a "melee" class actually have the most damaging single target ranged weapon right now (rifle).
• Everyone tanks or kites.  Though some professions can "tank" for longer, it's impossible for any one class to tank harder PvE MOBs for an extended period of time.  Take turns tanking as you have cooldowns for it.  Remember dodge roll is a fantastic tanking ability.
• You don't need to zerg back and forth in WvWvW to be useful.  There are plenty of objectives across the map that are great for smaller groups.  Take these instead if you don't have a large guild to attack keeps.
• In Conquest sometimes simply just surviving and making people chase you off points is just as useful as racking up kills on other players.  Remember kills don't give you points, capturing and holding points do.

Rifle warrior was one of my favorite professions for single target DPS.  I loved it greatly.

Thanks for the responses guys and the warm welcome. I've been a lurker for a little while and finally decided to commit to the cause. I had never been to the forums though. Not to offend but many of the boards here seem rather...negative. For every game. I'm still glad I registered because I love MMO's but wow. So much hostility.

Its not just with GW2 but I just perused through the boards here of most MMO's I've played and its everywhere. Why guys? Why go around spreading lies about other games or trying to convince others of your opinion? Relaying your opinion is one thing but understand that that's all it is and isn't enough to convince anyone. You aren't arguing about something provable like math (some cases even mathmatics is not easy to prove). Once the argument gets down to (to use an example from the AoC boards):

GUY 1:"I loved the combat"

GUY 2:"I hated it"

There's no where you can go from there. Leave it alone.

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Some other ones:

• Heart quests are seperate from DEs people!  Heart quests are meant to kill time while hoping waiting for a DE to spawn.  They give you SEVERAL options for things you can do, some of which do not involve combat (such as the throwing snowballs at children example); however in every heart quest I've seen (in my 30 levels) there have been combat options.
• Ranged is not more powerful than melee.  Melee does as much as twice the damage.  While you'll likely need to use ranged weapons on several occasions (that's what weapon swap is for!) if you are dying frequently in melee range you need to practice dodge rolling, get some better defensive utility, and actually stat for toughness and vitality for survivability.  Even saccing power and percision melee still does more damage than ranged.  Speaking of which...
• All professions have ranged options and are all useful.  Warriors who people keep citing as a "melee" class actually have the most damaging single target ranged weapon right now (rifle).
• Everyone tanks or kites.  Though some professions can "tank" for longer, it's impossible for any one class to tank harder PvE MOBs for an extended period of time.  Take turns tanking as you have cooldowns for it.  Remember dodge roll is a fantastic tanking ability.
• You don't need to zerg back and forth in WvWvW to be useful.  There are plenty of objectives across the map that are great for smaller groups.  Take these instead if you don't have a large guild to attack keeps.
• In Conquest sometimes simply just surviving and making people chase you off points is just as useful as racking up kills on other players.  Remember kills don't give you points, capturing and holding points do.

Rifle warrior was one of my favorite professions for single target DPS.  I loved it greatly.

Skill 5 is my favorite!

Originally posted by Fir3line
You are mixing events with hearts...............

sorry about that Fir3line and thanks for the correction.

I actually didn't gather that there was a distinction XD. I mean I obviously saw the hearts but just figured they were still catagorized as DE's.

Originally posted by Magnum2103

Some other ones:

• Heart quests are seperate from DEs people!  Heart quests are meant to kill time while hoping waiting for a DE to spawn.  They give you SEVERAL options for things you can do, some of which do not involve combat (such as the throwing snowballs at children example); however in every heart quest I've seen (in my 30 levels) there have been combat options.
• Ranged is not more powerful than melee.  Melee does as much as twice the damage.  While you'll likely need to use ranged weapons on several occasions (that's what weapon swap is for!) if you are dying frequently in melee range you need to practice dodge rolling, get some better defensive utility, and actually stat for toughness and vitality for survivability.  Even saccing power and percision melee still does more damage than ranged.  Speaking of which...
• All professions have ranged options and are all useful.  Warriors who people keep citing as a "melee" class actually have the most damaging single target ranged weapon right now (rifle).
• Everyone tanks or kites.  Though some professions can "tank" for longer, it's impossible for any one class to tank harder PvE MOBs for an extended period of time.  Take turns tanking as you have cooldowns for it.  Remember dodge roll is a fantastic tanking ability.
• You don't need to zerg back and forth in WvWvW to be useful.  There are plenty of objectives across the map that are great for smaller groups.  Take these instead if you don't have a large guild to attack keeps.
• In Conquest sometimes simply just surviving and making people chase you off points is just as useful as racking up kills on other players.  Remember kills don't give you points, capturing and holding points do.

Yeah, I played warrior, and I loved it. There is no tanking, but there is a lot everyone can do. I noticed that 95% of all bosses I was able to use kick, or hit with the rifle or stun with a mace. So you can´t tank them, you don`t have a taunt or anything, but you can controll the mob. For example I usually used either a combination of sword/axe or mace/axe 2h word and rifle. Then I usually had dick and warstomp. So in most situations I had a lot of options to stun, or kick back my enemy. And still did a lot of dmg.

I loved it... kinda explains the /age of 46hours on my character by the end of the beta...

Overall its a 4.5/5 so far, but I bet It´ll be 5/5 by release when they smoothe out the little things. Like event balance, some events you ROFLSTOMP, and others are damn near impossible (for example the flame legion shaman in the char staring area) Ive only seen that event won once, and there ware like 100 people there so... a little balancing will be easy enough though. So yeah, I am really impressed. For a first rather open beta it felt really really great.

I´d say the game is in a state where other developers might have already released, and fix those problems with the first 1 or 2 patches.

The "mostly negative reaction" argument confuses me, too. From what I've seen, the reaction to the game seems to be overwhelmingly positive... I guess we just crave for conflict when we're watching something, don't we - so to most of us, the "negatives" might be standing out in a sea of positives and leave a somewhat deeper impression.

Lag / FPS or not, from what I've experienced, it seems to be a rather well made, polished game. It looks beautiful and mostly just  works. I can't help but be surprised by how high the MMO playerbase's expectations of technical quality in newly-launched (or in this case, pre-launch!) games have become. A bit rough around the edges is what should be expected in at this stage in this genre... There are maybe a total of *two* MMOs I remember being almost flawless in beta: LOTRO and Rift. As long as the game's fundamentals are not broken, I don't worry too much about it, to be honest.

As for personal story, I'm going to go ahead and absolutely disagree with the OP. It's really hackeneyed writing without a saving grace (unlike that of SWTOR, which is what I'd say Mickey Spillane hackneyed writing, while what I've seen of GW2 felt outright bad writing to me). Actually I think even old school games like LOTRO and WOW does storytelling better; here I keep feeling I'm being interrupted for nothing.

Though apart from that, it's highly probable one will have problems with what GW2 doesn't have rather than what it does  - I know I for one will likely have such problems, seeing as the game has next to no content outside of combat, which is important to me. Though what it does have seems to be good, not to mention pretty much what one should be expecting going on the available info out there.

Originally posted by Nightshade55

     The beta is over. After my game abruptly checked back to the login screen I came here to relay experiences, stories, and general vibe of the game. I'm finding a lot of speculation, unfair judgement, and flat-out lying going on around here. I'm not sure whats possessing people to be this way. I still think its best if the record is set straight though. Regardless, everyone will surely know of GW2 upon release day once it is critically reviewed (and crowned XD, jk, jk..maybe).

     First and foremost there ARE balancing issues. Lets get this dillusion that the game is perfect out of our heads. Its not and will never be. It is, however, very close to achieving balance given that were talking about a game with no set release date here.

     Many of the story segmants are actually TOO hard while many of the dynamic events are too easy. Some adjusting will likely be done there.

     The norn and human stories are pretty good. This is definately opinion and preference heavy but the only other MMO that has matched the intrigue I had with my characters story in GW2 was SWTOR. The two tell their tales extremely differently though. I will elaborate. SWTOR tells sweeping storylines that are extremely good  in the middle and lifeless in the beginning and end (at least for me). GW2 tells stories in short bursts basically. A certain section of your story will climax with you destroying a portal or something then a completely new adventure will begin. It is a very chapter oriented way of telling stories.

There are some positives and drawbacks to this. The positive is there is far less time being spent in boring limbo where nothing interesting is happening. You are always right around the corner from some big climax. The drawback is there isn't really much room for character development here. You also don't have much time to build up to the climaxes. Making them less engaging than in SWTOR (only comparing the two as they are virtually the only MMO's with any focus on story); however, there are more of them. So it really depends on how you like your stories. If you like short stories then you will probably like GW2's style better. If you like long sweeping novels you would probably enjoy SWTOR's style of storytelling more.

     Personally, even though there is little room for character development, I enjoyed GW2's stories more than my one SWTOR story. Simply because I spent more time in curiosity and intrigue and did not feel like I was just going through a filler storyline until I'm higher level to get to the true climax. There was always an epic climax right around the corner.

     Hell, within minutes of starting in the norn area I was in what was basically a 20 man raid against a giant ice worm that busted through the ground in front of me. I didn't have to sit around and shout for healers or organize anything. The event just happened and the players followed the event and all was glorioius.

 

Now that the delusions of grandeur are out of the way lets take a critical eye to the slight overexagerations. Be forewarned that I am about to address what could be considered opinions. If that bothers you then you may just want to hit reply and skip what I will say next.

 

     The first thing I noticed was an assessment that the GW2 forums were "mostly negative". This is what I can only describe as a lie. Is that harsh? Maybe. From what I've seen the GW2 forums were the most overwhelmingly positive forums I've ever seen for a game period. There are those who are dissapointed but unlike every single other game forum (can't stress that enough) there are, literally--just counted, only two people who were generally dissapointed. Only 1 out of the two just didn't like the game. The rest of what I presume this man (or women) was talking about must have been the plethora of suggestions from the community. Which is a little unfair, seeing as how its beta the community is expected to actively post feedback and you are encouraged to tell all about what you think could be improved.

 

     I feel this may have been a case of someone attempting to convince themselves that they are right by trying to make it seem like they hold the more powerful majority opinion. Rest assured, the majority opinion is resoundingly positive.

 

     On to the next.

 

     People seem to be being overly harsh or falsley representing the dynamic events. For example one man (or women) posted his disdain for an event to hit children with snowballs. For one the event offers three seperate things you can do. You don't have to hit the kids with snowballs if you don't want, you can also kill the bees around threatening the children. Not every DE is going to be this epic struggle. Ironically, however, he failed to mention that after playing with the kids and hunting for some meat to give to the norn hunter he proceeds to smoke the meat. The child, wishing to impress his father, asks for your help in killing a great stag. After its death the kids perform a ritual, of sorts, to the bear spirit. It goes somewhat awry however and you find the whole village being attacked by hordes and hordes of bears. You watch in real time as the father rushes the kids inside and all the village warriors gather to quell the onslaught.

 

Players from the area come swooping down the hills to help in the fight. You see, what he failed to mention is that little tiny event did actually lead into something overwhelmingly epic.

 

Most of the DE chains are like this (in fact I think they all are? correct me if I'm wrong. I've never been in a DE chain that didn't end in some epic battle). Another man complained about killing gnolls for a raven spirit. Again, yes you CAN kill the gnolls. or gather the ravens eggs. Or you can burn down gnoll hutts. Any of those will help progress the event. After that event you go up to the ravens shrine to answer a series of riddles. They aren't incredably challenging but it was a little unique.

 

In conclusion here, not all events are going to be this giant apocolypse immenent situation. Some are small scale things that you CAN do. Remember they are events. You can just keep walking if you don't want to participate.

 

I find it truly stunning that anyone can walk away from this game and say anything bad about it to be completely honest with you. It was fun and exciting from start to finish.

You are awesome. Welcome aboard :) +1.

Originally posted by Nightshade55

     The beta is over. After my game abruptly checked back to the login screen I came here to relay experiences, stories, and general vibe of the game. I'm finding a lot of speculation, unfair judgement, and flat-out lying going on around here. I'm not sure whats possessing people to be this way. I still think its best if the record is set straight though. Regardless, everyone will surely know of GW2 upon release day once it is critically reviewed (and crowned XD, jk, jk..maybe).

     First and foremost there ARE balancing issues. Lets get this dillusion that the game is perfect out of our heads. Its not and will never be. It is, however, very close to achieving balance given that were talking about a game with no set release date here.

     Many of the story segmants are actually TOO hard while many of the dynamic events are too easy. Some adjusting will likely be done there.

     The norn and human stories are pretty good. This is definately opinion and preference heavy but the only other MMO that has matched the intrigue I had with my characters story in GW2 was SWTOR. The two tell their tales extremely differently though. I will elaborate. SWTOR tells sweeping storylines that are extremely good  in the middle and lifeless in the beginning and end (at least for me). GW2 tells stories in short bursts basically. A certain section of your story will climax with you destroying a portal or something then a completely new adventure will begin. It is a very chapter oriented way of telling stories.

There are some positives and drawbacks to this. The positive is there is far less time being spent in boring limbo where nothing interesting is happening. You are always right around the corner from some big climax. The drawback is there isn't really much room for character development here. You also don't have much time to build up to the climaxes. Making them less engaging than in SWTOR (only comparing the two as they are virtually the only MMO's with any focus on story); however, there are more of them. So it really depends on how you like your stories. If you like short stories then you will probably like GW2's style better. If you like long sweeping novels you would probably enjoy SWTOR's style of storytelling more.

     Personally, even though there is little room for character development, I enjoyed GW2's stories more than my one SWTOR story. Simply because I spent more time in curiosity and intrigue and did not feel like I was just going through a filler storyline until I'm higher level to get to the true climax. There was always an epic climax right around the corner.

     Hell, within minutes of starting in the norn area I was in what was basically a 20 man raid against a giant ice worm that busted through the ground in front of me. I didn't have to sit around and shout for healers or organize anything. The event just happened and the players followed the event and all was glorioius.

 

Now that the delusions of grandeur are out of the way lets take a critical eye to the slight overexagerations. Be forewarned that I am about to address what could be considered opinions. If that bothers you then you may just want to hit reply and skip what I will say next.

 

     The first thing I noticed was an assessment that the GW2 forums were "mostly negative". This is what I can only describe as a lie. Is that harsh? Maybe. From what I've seen the GW2 forums were the most overwhelmingly positive forums I've ever seen for a game period. There are those who are dissapointed but unlike every single other game forum (can't stress that enough) there are, literally--just counted, only two people who were generally dissapointed. Only 1 out of the two just didn't like the game. The rest of what I presume this man (or women) was talking about must have been the plethora of suggestions from the community. Which is a little unfair, seeing as how its beta the community is expected to actively post feedback and you are encouraged to tell all about what you think could be improved.

 

     I feel this may have been a case of someone attempting to convince themselves that they are right by trying to make it seem like they hold the more powerful majority opinion. Rest assured, the majority opinion is resoundingly positive.

 

     On to the next.

 

     People seem to be being overly harsh or falsley representing the dynamic events. For example one man (or women) posted his disdain for an event to hit children with snowballs. For one the event offers three seperate things you can do. You don't have to hit the kids with snowballs if you don't want, you can also kill the bees around threatening the children. Not every DE is going to be this epic struggle. Ironically, however, he failed to mention that after playing with the kids and hunting for some meat to give to the norn hunter he proceeds to smoke the meat. The child, wishing to impress his father, asks for your help in killing a great stag. After its death the kids perform a ritual, of sorts, to the bear spirit. It goes somewhat awry however and you find the whole village being attacked by hordes and hordes of bears. You watch in real time as the father rushes the kids inside and all the village warriors gather to quell the onslaught.

 

Players from the area come swooping down the hills to help in the fight. You see, what he failed to mention is that little tiny event did actually lead into something overwhelmingly epic.

 

Most of the DE chains are like this (in fact I think they all are? correct me if I'm wrong. I've never been in a DE chain that didn't end in some epic battle). Another man complained about killing gnolls for a raven spirit. Again, yes you CAN kill the gnolls. or gather the ravens eggs. Or you can burn down gnoll hutts. Any of those will help progress the event. After that event you go up to the ravens shrine to answer a series of riddles. They aren't incredably challenging but it was a little unique.

 

In conclusion here, not all events are going to be this giant apocolypse immenent situation. Some are small scale things that you CAN do. Remember they are events. You can just keep walking if you don't want to participate.

 

I find it truly stunning that anyone can walk away from this game and say anything bad about it to be completely honest with you. It was fun and exciting from start to finish.

So you have played PvP?

I have mainly. Because I want to keep myself the story and dungeons for the launch.

PvE was very exciting and full of "Nice!"-moments - even for me as a veterean MMORPG-player.

But PvP? Wow, a lot has to change...