Originally posted by Escada

Oh well thanks for all the info.  I've only recently signed up to these forums; the community seems mature and helpful and friendly.

I might well have a crack at the game :)

Hope you enjoy; I know I have.

P.S. just stay away from pretty much all GW2/WoW/Swtor forums in general... or you shall see the MMORPG.coms community's true colors :P

Originally posted by KingJiggly

Originally posted by Escada

Oh well thanks for all the info.  I've only recently signed up to these forums; the community seems mature and helpful and friendly.

I might well have a crack at the game :)

Hope you enjoy; I know I have.

P.S. just stay away from pretty much all GW2/WoW/Swtor forums in general... or you shall see the MMORPG.coms community's true colors :P

LOL So true:) Welcome :)

Originally posted by Escada

Im quite interested in ranked PvP.. I still have fun in TSW PvP but it needs a lot more work. 

What are peoples thoughts on the PvP side of the game?

It's not ranked pvp in the sense of WoW areans or even ranked battle grounds. The ranking system is much simpler, no plus minus point system or rewards that can be seen outside the mist (the Spvp lobby). It's domination based aswell, not killing based.

The the pvp in general suffers because of the simple ability system. Each class has certain weapons the can use, and those weapons are broke into main hand, off hand, and both hands; of which your main had has 3 abilities that will never change, and you off hand has 2 abilities that will never change. The both hand weapons have 5 abilities that never change. Traits are cool in theory, but all the +1% to "X" in between passives gets pretty boring. The spvp couldn't hold my attention like I hoped it would. I was spoiled by the TSW ability wheel.

WvWvW was a blast for about 2 or 3 weeks when the novalty wore of I was left asking myself  "why?"  There is just not much to gain, plus it can become a huge gold sink for sub 80 players. 

GW2 is a very polished mmo that is lacking in the rpg department. If you plan on playing it as a side game. You might be able to stretch the novalty. Milage will vary. 

As a poster above said If you do WvW first then play PS2 you might not WvW again. 

Originally posted by Zylaxx

Originally posted by hikaru77
Just buy Planetside 2 and play the beta, Is a FPS MMO but insanely fun, The RvRvR is way better than GW2 from any point of view. 

PS2 is not even an MMO, it is more FPS and as such will have no bearing on the gamer who doesn't like FPS's.  Me being one of them.

An MMO can be RPG, RTS or FPS. 

It really depends on what you are looking for.

Exploring: A+

Story Quests and voiceovers: C+

Combat: B ( locks base skills to weapon type )

Heart Quests & DEs : C - nothing new

Character Progression at endgame: D (unless you love crafting.  No treadmill = no tangible goals to meet for me)

WvWvW: D (Queues galore, zerg this, zerg that, spend gold on siege )

sPVP: can't grade.  skipped it

Pros:

1) Can buy gems for in game gold.  No need to spend cash at the moment.

2) B2P means you always have a game to come back to.

3) Leveling isn't bad and multiple classes are fun.

4) ANET is likely solely focused on making GW2 the best they can

honestly? you have to try it yourself to truly know. I personally enjoy playing it very much. theres nothing on the market that to me is as fun as gw2 atm. but honestly theres something missing from the game that i couldnt for sure pinpoint. and its making me not seeing myself playing for very long. i think the longest i ever played a mmo was with ffxi(6yrs), wow(4yrs). but gw2 is still new, and im sure there will be lots of new and exciting content coming.

Originally posted by Escada

What is the realistic situation re the in game shop?  Can you reasonably get by with not splashing out in the shop? A friend of mine said they were mostly convienience items.. what do you think?

I felt I 100% needed the shop for inventory and storage space.  I just bought gems for in game gold though.

There are some concerns going forward that the shop will be more necessary.

Some say it won't make it, but I think they are fooling themselves. I have seen posts from folks claiming that people are quitting left and right.

Here is a video I recorded this evening in the human starter area. Mind you this is just a small part of a huge world, and the number of players has to be huge...even on a Tuesday evening.

The game is awesome and no matter what, you can not beat the entertainment value.

Originally posted by FrodoFragins

It really depends on what you are looking for.

 

Exploring: A+

Story Quests and voiceovers: C+

Combat: B ( locks base skills to weapon type )

Heart Quests & DEs : C - nothing new

Character Progression at endgame: D (unless you love crafting.  No treadmill = no tangible goals to meet for me)

WvWvW: D (Queues galore, zerg this, zerg that, spend gold on siege )

sPVP: can't grade.  skipped it

 

 

Pros:

1) Can buy gems for in game gold.  No need to spend cash at the moment.

2) B2P means you always have a game to come back to.

3) Leveling isn't bad and multiple classes are fun.

4) ANET is likely solely focused on making GW2 the best they can

 

Give WvWVw a B, Heart quests and DES a A, endgame a B-/C+ I would agree with you.

I had fun... but I didn't have fun if that makes sense. It was a game I could play for an hour at first before it actually starting to get oddly boring. Why oddly? Because I'm the type that can grind away at games and have fun at it for hours depending on the game. Playing new games that come out non stop all day, this was a SERIOUS warning for me that something wasn't quite right. Still, it was fun and something to do at least for a bit. As time went on I did eventually hit 80... and then went up to 80 again though much slower pace sparing much less time. Now I just can't level any other characters.

The game itself to me is just to boring. There isn't much added at all to it, just a shift in focus to try and make thing look 'different' when truthfully its just the questing hub system, just compressed into one quest and automatically gained. Events can become quite dule after a while though they do help a little bit in making it fun (if it was just 100% heart quests I'd never of hit 80). WvWvW is often very one sided and truthfully feels underdeveloped. Combat to me is just to clunky for my liking but I'm the type that liked Tera (aka the type that likes penalties to performing actions rather then spam buttons). Event groups are just random people (and bots a lot in certain events) going around and just end up being a 'press 1 and afk' deal in many of them, particularly with bosses. Personal story is bland... anything good is often outweighed by some quite shotty story work that I just didn't find appealing. 

Over-all... I just can't recomend it. Its B2P at least but... I just really don't know if it was with the $60, particularly considering there are pure F2P games that provides more entertainment to me. My major issue is combat and honestly if you play it and like the combat, then its completely possible you might enjoy it. I just feel all the other flaws aside, combat is the one thing that really detracts from the game and really prevents me from recomending it. With smoother combat in place, I'd at least be hesitant to recomend it, or at least not such a wide variety of games available to really drown the game out so much.

Originally posted by Bladestrom
It has more content (and working content at that) than any other mmorg on launch. I was a pretty jaded mmorg player and Ive been playing 3 hours plus every night for a month at level 80, the game starts to grow on you as your guild grows bonds.

having played hundreds of mmo's, i gotta say, this is true, hell many years old mmo's have less content, the thing is alot of the bord people are bord because they got to 80, and didnt want to go explore the rest of the world they wanted the WoW "Carrot on the stick" type end game, and if thats what somebody wants, gw2 will leave them wanting.....because thats NOT AT ALL what gw2 is about.....

that said, I love this game, over 300hrs in since launch(would be more but, i have a life outside gaming) and I loveit, sure its got its warts, but anets been working on it, and even with them, its a smoother launch then any other mmo I have played this close to launch......hell, check the bug reports for WoW:MoP...its got more bugs then gw2......pretty funny for an expantion to a 7yo game....

I am thoroughly enjoying the game, and find that ANet have delivered 95% of what they promised.

There are a few issues;

I find the Necro pets issue odd - I mean I am not an MMO designer and could tell in seconds they were utterly useless.

Some DE's in higher level areas break due to lack of testing - part of my 5% here.

But the game delivers, and I find the non-quest hub, all-areas repeatability, every dungeon is a end-game dungeon etc. to be excellent design and I like that they are tough.

But I won't stay here for the long, long term, and it has nothing to do with how the functionality of the game or the MMO-paradigm-expanding features work - these are excellent work in my opinion.

It's the 'genre' they chose.

It's a melange - it has high technology, steampunk and high medieval all mixed up, and I personally like my fantasy genre's distinct and seperate.

I also don't like tiny little races hitting like trucks whole wielding swords twice their size - I find it immersion breaking and ridiculous.

If someone somewhere would combine the gritty fantasy of Age of Conan and the design features of GW2 I would be a happy man.

As things stand, I truly appreciate the game, think the mindless detractors of it are all fools, but I cannot, I just cannot grow to love magic-tech guns and Asurans mixed up with gothic plate armoured knights.

Just me....

I hold out hope for Elder Scrolls online in this respect - and I see from the latest reveals on game design philosophy they intend to put in features very close to DE's and so forth. I like the world too - rich, deep and although being 'stock fantasy' it keeps the genre well balanced.

However - proof of the pudding and all that....

You need to have a very special mindset for liking GW2, and that is doing fetchquests and collecting stuff in fantasy land,  with no emphasize on story.  And if you like zerg type PvP on top of that, GW2 is the ideal title for you. Otherwise, play TSW

Originally posted by hikaru77
Just buy Planetside 2 and play the beta, Is a FPS MMO but insanely fun, The RvRvR is way better than GW2 from any point of view. 

This might come as a shock for you but Planetside 2 is DESIGNED only as a RvRvR game of cource I'ts better captain obviouse.

First you get fanboys, then trolls, then people that pretend not to care but still are talking and then you will end up with so many different opinions that in the end - you will have no ide if it's good or bad. Only way is to check it yourself on youtube, read reviews etc and then try it for yourself. 

Sorry but that is the only option. I have a blast and this is what I can tell you but I play few hours a week and past 1 week I didn't have time to play at all. So I still enjoy the game. You will find here nolifes that play for 5-8 hours a day and they complain because it's getting boring or something. They just burned out.

So only one who can decide is You.