Honestly I'm surprised the number's not higher.

Either way, it was definitely worth the wait. I'm having to force myself to come onto rating sites to rate it instead of play it...

I honestly haven't experienced any of this. I've been on overflow servers as well, but I actually had people congratulating each other on WvW victories, doing trade and excitedly talking about the game. Was a little bitching during day 1 but people were fairly respectful about it.

Didn't see much QQing or trolling going around. If you're on Tarnished Coast you should be aware that it was specifically targeted by 4chan for trolling.

I bet they're feeling the appreciation, with $3,000 worth of cupcakes headed their way. :D

But I feel you, I've already gotten my moneys worth in the betas and now this is just icing.

By the way, hello from another JQer! Yeah, it was pretty crazy, we were full in what...a half hour? But then the caps went up and all was well. I wonder if it's still full.

Yes. Definitely.

I'm surprised by how smooth this game is running for me. I'm on Max and have mid-range specs, haven't had a hiccup in FPS yet.

Thank you for stating your reasons for thinking these things and all. :)

You can find a full page of screenshots from the previewer here. I did not make this list! These are insanely cool.

1. There's plenty of money-making opportunities in WvW, you need to stop and actually mine/gather in order to get them.
2. Money does absolutely nothing without Supply, which requires a good team and strategy to obtain.
3. The game was designed so that teams could mine/gather the money they needed to get siege equipment.

Yup.

Surprised at the trolls who clearly haven't even touched this game. "Looks like Lineage 2 and WoW". Yeaaah right. You can hate the game, but that's absolute bull. XD

Not even bothering to post in those threads as it just bumps their false statements up.

This weekend is the first beta weekend for many of my friends, so we accompanied them through the Asura and Sylvari areas. I'm happy to say that I'm absolutely in love with the Sylvari starting content and that they are having a great deal of fun as well--staying up till 4 am pushing deeper and deeper into Nightmare Court territory has been even more rewarding than playing as a human, strangely enough. 

Wow.

Finally, some GW2 coverage! Awesome article.

Originally posted by Bootez

Originally posted by Poison_Adele

Sorry things have not gone well for you. :(

Still, the PVE was good IMO--is there something in particular you're not enjoying? Perhaps you aren't fully understanding the mechanics. 

Either way, best of luck on your next game.

 

The mechanics aren't really a problem. I just didn't find anything very innovative. It's really the same dungeon experience we have all seen over and over again. For a game that touts innovation, it seemed to fall short here. 

 

Maybe my expectations are too high, and maybe I'm just completely bored of the genre. But I don't see that being the case. When I go back and play old games that I really enjoyed, they still have a lot of great and fun aspects. Nothing new that has come out lately has been even remotely original..

Well, you may as well give it a bit longer and get your money's worth. :)

But I agree with what others are saying. For a brand new MMO, one with a subscription fee at least, I'd watch it for a month or two before buying. The critic reviews are pretty spot-on with this one.

Sorry things have not gone well for you. :(

Still, the PVE was good IMO--is there something in particular you're not enjoying? Perhaps you aren't fully understanding the mechanics. 

Either way, best of luck on your next game.

Originally posted by Lord.Bachus

Nothing will kill WoW, nothing else but time.

 

Over time the number of WoW players will decline and they will addapt to F2P and such things, but when a game is overdue, its overdue. GW2 will be nothing more but another step forward in time for both the MMO community as the WoW community, some will step over but then some of those empty spots will be filled by new players.

 

I just hope for Blizzard that WoW will cover the time till WoW really gets in decline. As many of their investors might not understand the process and shares would be dropping making it harder for them to get enough funds for their new game under development.

 

One thing we can asume for sure, many of the good things we see in GW2 today, will also make Blizzards new game.

QFT

I never really got into WoW or got completely sucked into an MMO, despite trying to be. Over the beta weekends that definitely occured for me and I was sold.

Definitely doesn't feel like the same game, but the feeling that there's a lot of depth and a place to make a name for yourself is certainly there.

Originally posted by Garvon3

Originally posted by Poison_Adele

Originally posted by GTwander

Originally posted by Poison_Adele

So let me get this straight.

You: "Everyone from the good old days agrees with this statement!"

Me: "I don't."

You: "Well, your opinion isn't valid."

you're obviously new to the party, and it got stale by the time you hit puberty.

As for how MMOs are innovating in this day and age:

• Push towards increeased personal stories (TOR, TSW, to some extent GW2) Yum, single-player stuff
• Move away from subscription models (GW2) Changes nothing
• Move away from holy trinity (GW2) Was like that years ago already, EQ made it popular
• Move away from tab-targeting (DDO, TERA) above statement
• Dynamic events (GW2, to a very small extent RIFT) Tabula Rasa
• Move from focus on gear grind (GW2) EQ statement, again
• etc etc No

Everything's an evolution and the next step from some previous step, so of course these things have been done in lesser degrees before. But to act like the MMO industry is just stagnating is, as you all put it, "ignorant". 

 

nothing is evolving, just going back slowly to ideas that were already done in an age where the genre didn't have mass appeal, so there is no relevant data as to how the focus group that makes/breaks a game would take it.

 

Is your position really so weak that you have to resort to thinly-veiled insults? Really?

• Stories that you play with other people hardly strike me as "single-player stuff", and clearly a lot of people are very happy with the stories they can play in TSW, and were happy with the stories in TOR. You lose. Except that TOR is sinking faster than anyone thought possible. Because this IS singleplayer stuff, not MMO stuff. Games like Diablo aren't MMOs.
• How does the move from subscription fees change nothing? Because it doesn't impact the game, we're talking about gameplay here.
• EverQuest had a holy trinity. And you're acting like I'm not from this era? Get your facts straight. Many MMOs of the past didn't have a holy trinity, it's not an evolution.
• EverQuest didn't have tab targeting but F button targeting. The mapping is different, but the gameplay is the same. Except for all the other MMOs that didn't have either of those things. More than one MMO existed in the past.
• Yes, Tabula Rasa had somewhat dynamic events but not in remotely the same way as GW2 is pushing. Actually, almost exactly the same way as GW2. Asheron's Call had them as well. And WAR even had a little.
• Whether EQ had a gear grind at all I don't know, but WoW made it standard post-EQ. The move past that is still an improvement, NOT stagnation. It's an improvement by bringing back ideas we ALREADY HAD. It's an improvement over the awful gameplay mechanics that are currently standard, but its not new.

I think that is what the kids call "getting your information wrong".

 

Thank you for addressing my points! I appreciate the discussion.

• Yes, TOR is doing terribly financially, because it innovated in one area while ignoring issues of longevity. This doesn't discount the fact that, like other financially unsuccessful/dead MMOs of "the good old days", the game still brought something good to the genre and is now likely to be emulated by MMOs that can back up a good story with a  good game. It's not singleplayer stuff just because you say so, however. Single-player games are single-player, no one complains about RPG aspects in their MMOs being single-player mechanics because they're not. They're something that peole enjoy and I respect that you don't like them, but many people do.
• Post-WoW, yes it is an improvement (as opposed to stagnation) to finally move away from the holy trinity. Would your preference be to continue to have every game with a holy trinity? If the good games of old didn't have holy trinities, wouldn't you feel that it's good that the current generation of MMOs is improving by moving back towards this improvement?
• Yes, there were lots of games that didn't have tab-targeting back then. But post-WoW, it's extremely rare, and some improvements have been made in that regard (TERA, for example) that were not present back then.
• I didn't play these games so I won't dispute what your experience tells you, except to point out that these are still improvements. If the good old days were so great, how is it not considered an improvement to go back to certain aspects?

1. Games were way better back then.
2. Games are borrowing ideas from the good old days, but this isn't a good thing.