Originally posted by Kityn

Yes I am aware that Windows 7 users had problems. However not all Windows 7 users had this problem while all reports from Windows 8 users did have this problem. Not seeing the Trading Post/Gem Store is a major issue and is just one of many issues that shows that GW2 is not ready for release.

It's the other way around: Windows 8 is still not ready for release.

People should use Beta OSs at their own peril.

Originally posted by CommoX

The only thing I am disappointed in is character creation. At this stage in the genres life cycle character creation should be a leg which a game is stood upon. The character I create represents something, and I want to be unique. The choices GW2 had were not as weak as some, but not nearly as strong as they could have been. Many players, be them role players or not, weave a story for their alter ego through character creation. The choices available when you create said character help drive, create and improve upon the players experience in the long run.

Just curious what you're standard for character creation is?

Imho the character creation didn't seem all that bad. It's not as robust as some other games, but they had a good amount of customization options for each race (and most of the games with stellar customization seem to have fewer / one race. There was also a few vids / screenshots floating around a month or so ago that players successfully trying to make celebrities in GW2. Between the basic customization, and what you could do w/ your armor & equipment, there seemed to be quite a bit of customization to be had.

Originally posted by aesperus

Originally posted by CommoX

The only thing I am disappointed in is character creation. At this stage in the genres life cycle character creation should be a leg which a game is stood upon. The character I create represents something, and I want to be unique. The choices GW2 had were not as weak as some, but not nearly as strong as they could have been. Many players, be them role players or not, weave a story for their alter ego through character creation. The choices available when you create said character help drive, create and improve upon the players experience in the long run.

Just curious what you're standard for character creation is?

Imho the character creation didn't seem all that bad. It's not as robust as some other games, but they had a good amount of customization options for each race (and most of the games with stellar customization seem to have fewer / one race. There was also a few vids / screenshots floating around a month or so ago that players successfully trying to make celebrities in GW2. Between the basic customization, and what you could do w/ your armor & equipment, there seemed to be quite a bit of customization to be had.

While the character creation was not weak, the use of sliders instead of choices for-

Hips/Waist/Bust/Chest/Arms

Would have greatly improved some of it.

The two races I did play over the BWE2 were the Humans and Norn.

Beard and hair choices were weak at best, maybe more than 15 each race, but that is a tad slim considering past titles.

I did enjoy the ability to mold my face, but the head choices were slim as well, and in my opinion scars could possibly be added in the SW-TOR style instead of as a face selections feature.

Sorry, but you're not getting any "the game isn't finished" quotes from me.

Speaking as a game tester and someone who's played the beta weekends, the game is astoundingly polished for the amount of content in the game. Something to keep in mind is that the more complex a game gets, the more issues/glitches you will naturally get. It's simply how programming works.

GW2 is *huge*--not just in world size but in the depth and variety of mechanics. And that's just judging what we've seen in the open betas. It rivals WoW in terms of size and complexity. Not quite yet in terms of polish, as WoW's had years to polish the content post-release. But the industry standard right now is to produce a buggy mess and patch it post-release (TOR) or publish a buggy mess and fix it never (TERA). 

The game is complete. All that's left is tweaking.

Originally posted by aesperus

Originally posted by CommoX

The only thing I am disappointed in is character creation. At this stage in the genres life cycle character creation should be a leg which a game is stood upon. The character I create represents something, and I want to be unique. The choices GW2 had were not as weak as some, but not nearly as strong as they could have been. Many players, be them role players or not, weave a story for their alter ego through character creation. The choices available when you create said character help drive, create and improve upon the players experience in the long run.

Just curious what you're standard for character creation is?

Imho the character creation didn't seem all that bad. It's not as robust as some other games, but they had a good amount of customization options for each race (and most of the games with stellar customization seem to have fewer / one race. There was also a few vids / screenshots floating around a month or so ago that players successfully trying to make celebrities in GW2. Between the basic customization, and what you could do w/ your armor & equipment, there seemed to be quite a bit of customization to be had.

What MMO besides insane Aion has a more robust character creation? Not challenging, just curious. People complain about GW2's character creation options all the time and I've personally yet to see anything better.

MMO wise there have not been many to be honest.

I not saying GW2 character creation is horrible, I just believe at this point in the genre character creation should reflect the RPG aspect of MMORPG.

To be honest, SW-TOR has more options when it comes to hair/scar and various detail choices.

DAOC, once they revamped their models had more choices, again to a degree in some areas.

SWG and EQ, EQ2, Aion, Rift and I'm sure there are others had a more robust set of options for character creation as well.

My chief issues with the GW2 character creation was the lack of hair styles, lack of beard styles and the face/body choices.

There was only 1 real mean, scarred, rather hideous face for the Norn, and the human male face/hair choices were fairly slim on, for lack of a better choice, manly men.

I was impressed with the facial construction options, tatoos, and I liked that your hieght was limited to what your races typical stature was.

Otherwise there is not much more I can say without repeating myself.

The game is polished, outstanding, I get the jitters just waiting to play it again, but I would love a few more face type/beard/hair and body style options.

Originally posted by CommoX

To be honest, SW-TOR has more options when it comes to hair/scar and various detail choices.

You lost me on this one...

Especially after complaining about a lack of sliders for individual body parts... huh?

Not saying that there aren't games out there w/ more customization options, but some of the examples you listed have my jaw hanging on the floor, and one of my eyebrows touching the ceiling...

Don't forget, even tho TOR has several races, they all have the same faces and many other character creation options. In gw2 however races look completely different.

Gw2 character creation while not the best in the industry is still above average imho.

I am curious as to the OP's motivation for working on such an article in the first place?

The game is still in BETA and no release date has been announced, so writing an article about how the game is not yet finished seems like rather a moot point to express.

Originally posted by Kreedz

I am curious as to the OP's motivation for working on such an article in the first place?

 

The game is still in BETA and no release date has been announced, so writing an article about how the game is not yet finished seems like rather a moot point to express.

 

Or you could realize there is no article, he's just trying to collect a whole bunch os negative statements about "This game isn't ready yet!" So he can claim it's a broken peice of crap or something. 

Originally posted by bcbully

 

I'm a pvpr so I like the concept of WvWvW, but I don't like pvp and pve being completely separate. You still having balancing, you still have nerfs and buffs, so why separte them? 

 

This goes to the OPs article. By design making the pvp and pve separate, the process of making one cohesive world was left out.  By normal standards this would be considerd "a game not done."

 

A game without anything different from the content you play from 30+ would normaly be considered a game with no end game, a game that is not done. 

 

I understand that a lot of people like both of these features (or lack of features), but again by normal standards and past history GW2 would be considerded a game that is not done.

Anet has proven that they can seperate PvE from PvP skillwise as seen in GW1 where certain skills had different effects in PvE and PvP. No doubt this has been translated into GW2

I think you need to let go of your views of what normal standards is. This is purely your opinion. You think seperating them makes it less cohosive. From my point of view the game world is a lot more cohesive as it removed negative associations that come from Open World PvP.

Needing some kind of Endgame Carrot is a phallacy. Raiding is just dungeon running with a larger group, nothing more. So from your own definition no MMO would be considered done. 

Furthermore OP focusing on how something might not be done will only lead to negativity. So I seriously think you need to re-evaluate how you are going to set up your article.

Only thing I seen were some baulders stuck to the pillars kind of floating at the damn in the human starter zone. Other than that it needs the gpu support and dx11. I highly doubt theres any content that isnt finished, maybe not fully polished but I'm pretty sure its there.

Originally posted by OldManFunk

Stick a fork in it, the game is done. The minor bugs aren't enough reason to keep me from the game. I realize that it's got a few things that need to be cleaned up before release, but I'd rather play GW2 in its current state than any "finished" MMO that is out now.

Exactly.

I'm not particularly happy with the OP fishing for comments "from fans" that support his conclusion that the game isn't ready. I can see what needs work during the month or two after BWE2, but I didn't see anything that hinted that the game couldn't be ready for release sometime between mid July and late August.

It's not just that the game was already less buggy in BWE2 than many MMOs are at launch. It's largely about the type of game that GW2 is. What it brings to the table, combined with the nature of the PvE content in the world, means that this is not a game who's release can be tarnished or "ruined" by random content bugs.

A lot of polished MMOs have failed, because the game design hasn't held water. GW2 game design is completely what the genre has needed and the core systems are close enough for a launch in the next month or two. If the rest of the content we haven't seen is on par with Gendarran Fields, the level 25-35 zone we gained access to in BWE2, then the content would also be "ready enough" for launch.

A few broken DEs or Skill Point Challenges are nothing but the most miniscule inconveniences when seen in context of the entire scope of the game. Those things can and will be fixed and it's o.k. if a lot of those bugs aren't fixed until after launch. They will continue to polish those elements of the game world leading up to release, but none of those bugs prevent a successful release of the game.

The game appeared "ready enough" for a July/August release during BWE2 and despite the conclusion that the OP wishes to cater his article towards, the majority of BWE2 testers who weighed in on the issue thought the game seemed very close to launch. Personally, if the 36 hours I spent play testing GW2 during the last BWE had been my first 36 hours of the released product, it would have been the best first 36 hours of post launch MMO game play I've had since the release of wow, bugs and all.

There was another recent Closed Beta - TSW and people never asked for a comparison in chharacter creation. GW2 gives you more choices, period.

As far as what the OP was asking, they have some tweaking to do but nothing major. This game is very polished and ready to go, if they decided to release it  tomorrow. Does it have some minor issues, yes, are they game breakers NO!

Originally posted by Tocks

What MMO besides insane Aion has a more robust character creation? Not challenging, just curious. People complain about GW2's character creation options all the time and I've personally yet to see anything better.

Let's give City of Heroes some respect.  A truly great character creator.

As far as GW2 character creation goes, I love the mechanics but not so much the actual options.  So much clear-faced, child-like emphasis, and so very little variety and mature, battle-worn options.  On a side note, I can't wait to see the Sylvari and Asura creation.

Originally posted by Kickaxe

Originally posted by Tocks

What MMO besides insane Aion has a more robust character creation? Not challenging, just curious. People complain about GW2's character creation options all the time and I've personally yet to see anything better.

Let's give City of Heroes some respect.  A truly great character creator.

 

As far as GW2 character creation goes, I love the mechanics but not so much the actual options.  So much clear-faced, child-like emphasis, and so very little variety and mature, battle-worn options.  On a side note, I can't wait to see the Sylvari and Asura creation.

Im so looking forward to the lil aragont asura!!!

Originally posted by botrytis

This game is very polished and ready to go

I hate it when 'journalists' start off with an agenda and then have to scrabble around for 'evidence' in order to prove the point they themselves want to make. Even to the point of begging for canned quotes off a forum, which is lazy modern internet 'journalism' at it's weakest.

He will ignore statements like Botryis makes above and focus entirely on the negative.

If the piece was asking 'is this game done yet?', and then presented different views on the matter, before ending with the writer's own conclusion I would have respect for it. At least the reader then would be able to make up their own mind that way.

But as it is... help you OP with this? No.

I don't think the OP got the information he wanted from this thread.

Originally posted by Kreedz

I am curious as to the OP's motivation for working on such an article in the first place?

 

The game is still in BETA and no release date has been announced, so writing an article about how the game is not yet finished seems like rather a moot point to express.

 

Not exactly, as there are people who will argue "The game is done, but just needs tweaks", which has been repeated a number of times in this thread alone. Actually, the article is about the massive flood of new content that was between BWE1 and BWE2 and how one portion of the game, World vs World, is undergoing the most changes each patch.

They aren't done the asura and sylvari zones yet.

I think it's safe to say it's not done.