Guild Wars 2

 PC
  • Publisher: NCSOFT
  • Release Date: Aug 28, 2012
User Score
8.0

Generally favorable reviews- based on 3192 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 2,380 out of 3192
  2. Mixed: 386 out of 3192
  3. Negative: 426 out of 3192
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  1. VectorManuel
    Aug 13, 2023
    6
    The game is dying, it used to be great but not now.
    Pros:
    * It's casual and "poor" friendly - If you want to play an mmorpg while working full time, this is the best, and if you can't afford a monthly sub, this is it! * Till Living World Season 4 - It has best features and story is alright. * New player friendly - New players can get to high levels easily now, plus free to play players    The game is dying, it used to be great but not now.
    Pros:
    * It's casual and "poor" friendly - If you want to play an mmorpg while working full time, this is the best, and if you can't afford a monthly sub, this is it!
    * Till Living World Season 4 - It has best features and story is alright.
    * New player friendly - New players can get to high levels easily now, plus free to play players could also experience a lot of good contents.

    Cons:
    * Story - It went real bad after lws4, I don't understand how another country's political problems are a concern for a foreigner(Us), We discover a new land and somehow got involved into their politics (EoD). Apart from story, the scripts have gone bad too, it felt like written by teenagers, the story plots weren't as immersing as it was for PoF.
    * Content - Not being a monthly sub game, it finally took a toll on them, since there aren't much (or any) new content to put out, they can't sell their expansions like before. EoD is an example of how they tried to sell what little they had. Now they changed to mini expansions (5 bucks less).
    * Politics - I don't want to get into details, but like any other American entertainment industry, they went political. Funny thing, they sold a "political inclusion" and didn't make it look like one, but lately it's changed.

    Is it worth to buy/play it?
    Short term - Yes! Go for it. It's worth every penny (till lws4).
    Long term - Probably not, unless they bring good story later on then go for it (maybe new features too).    … Expand
  2. spice9
    Jul 18, 2023
    6
    It's great for the first 100-200 hours or so. You're out in a massive well-crafted world exploring, helping people, and slaying various creatures. The maps are large and detailed and they feel alive due to the living world system.
    Then, suddenly you reach max level, and it simply starts to get old - and not for a good reason. The tasks simply become far too repetitive and formulaic.    It's great for the first 100-200 hours or so. You're out in a massive well-crafted world exploring, helping people, and slaying various creatures. The maps are large and detailed and they feel alive due to the living world system.
    Then, suddenly you reach max level, and it simply starts to get old - and not for a good reason. The tasks simply become far too repetitive and formulaic. Endless thinly-veiled fetch quests, move from point A to point B, click this button here, talk to this guy there. In addition to that, there is artificial difficulty in the form of things simply taking TOO DAMN LONG! What should be a regular mid-boss ends up having a health bar that takes 7 whole minutes to slowly whittle down using the repetitive button-mashy combat wherein you simply cycle through all your abilities without much thought. And yes, I am using the meta DPS build and rotations. It feels like ****
    I understand its an MMO, but it feels like an absolute slog to play at times. Other games keep longer harder boss fights engaging by having good mechanics and satisfying combat. Multiple phases, skill checks, etc.
    With GW2? Yeah let's just make this boss "harder" by giving him 5x the health he should have. Forget good mechanics, forget satisfying gameplay.    … Expand
  3. Pohch
    Feb 21, 2022
    5
    Игра из детства, помню как играли в локальном мультиплеере с братом. По части геймплея - в одночасье игра становится обычной фармилкой денег.
  4. Rhacal
    Nov 2, 2020
    7
    Guild Wars 2 is still a great Game without any Question, but with a few "but.."Moments!
    You have Acces to:
    - Open World which is gigantic and after years you can still find secret Eastereggs, but....(few Maps are lagging very hard and most of them you need to pay for like Path of Fire Expansion Maps or Living Storry 4 Maps, all other Maps are fine so far) - Fractals which are the    Guild Wars 2 is still a great Game without any Question, but with a few "but.."Moments!
    You have Acces to:
    - Open World which is gigantic and after years you can still find secret Eastereggs, but....(few Maps are lagging very hard and most of them you need to pay for like Path of Fire Expansion Maps or Living Storry 4 Maps, all other Maps are fine so far)
    - Fractals which are the deleveloped Options to Dungeons
    - Dungeons which are nice for the first time but ArenaNet never upgrade it in the whole time...so the Final Loot is...and you can more or less easy Solo the Dungeon with a Hearth of Thrones / Path of Fire Expansion Build
    - Raids which are not too hard in all, but you still need alot of "know how"
    - World vs. World where you can fight against other Servers in a big Map to Control Sectors
    - PvP, like..hey: PvP :)
    ____________________
    Templates for Gear and Skills
    - Before ArenaNet take over there was a Free way to save Builds+Gear by a Programm called ArcDPS, now ArenaNet have there own System and its....
    You start with 2 Gearslot, 3 Skillslots, but each Class has a Condition Build, Phsysical Damage, Heal, Tank, Support Builds and for Raids you need different Gear and Skills as in Fractals or for Open World, also World vs World is different...so if you want to play it little bit more as a Weekendend Hobby you need to spend ~7€ for EACH Slot on EACH Character to a max of 5 Slots. Otherwise you need to spend alot of time to switch the Gear all the time one by one. This was a great idea, but more or less its behind a paywall to get a good comfort for your Character.
    - Also a point that is good and bad at once: The Gear, if you are Level 80 you cant get better Gear after the Ancient Gear which is pretty easy to craft after 2-3 Month Playtime. So its very nice if you want to take a break, come back later and you dont need to upgrade the whole Gear again, but that also means that you need your own goals for the Game to set, without it can get boring very fast!
    So keep this in Mind.
    ____________________
    Positive:
    + Many different Characters to play
    + Huge Map, many ways to do something like Meta-Maps, Fractals etc
    + Good solid Story
    + Content for a Year if you want to explore the Maps, Story's, see any Content and find all the little Secrets in the World etc
    + No pay to win, just many COMFORT Items like Unlimited Harvest Tools etc

    Negative
    - Map-Lags for Paid Content, but instead of fix this issues they are more interested to bring new Content (what means they dont care realy about !!!in my Opinion!!!)
    - You need to set up your own goals to still have fun after round about a half year when you finished the Story, get your Gear etc
    - Dungeons are realy fine and nice, but are no challenge after reach Level 80
    - Few Maps are realy hard to explore until you get a Mount!
    ____________________
    All in All: Its a great game that is defently worth it to explore, but with a bad taste after around a half year! If you dont want to upgrade your gear each few Month and able to set your own goals in a Game and more a "Story, Explore, Find out" Dude instead of a "I need always something to do by the Game, Dailys, Items Grind, hard Challenges" its a DEFENTLY YES in my Opinion!
    ____________________
    Personal Hint: If you want to explore the Game without big frustation Moments play until Level 20-30 and if you still like it, look for a Guild which can support you with great Informations "how to..." and how to explore the big World!    … Expand
  5. Zophibee
    Sep 8, 2020
    6
    As a player of 3 consecutive years I have seen a lot from this game, and unfortunately a lot of disappointment. The story updates in Living World S4 were incredible and something I looked forward to. However now the storylines are dull, hardly much thought put into them, and all they do is give us meaningless rewards we don't need, plus a giant map with a meta that gets nerfed almostAs a player of 3 consecutive years I have seen a lot from this game, and unfortunately a lot of disappointment. The story updates in Living World S4 were incredible and something I looked forward to. However now the storylines are dull, hardly much thought put into them, and all they do is give us meaningless rewards we don't need, plus a giant map with a meta that gets nerfed almost immediately. It's incredibly hard to earn decent gold in this game unless you know every trick and devote all your time to doing everything. They make expensive gem store items as the focus of their monetization. Premium skins are 1,600 to 2,000 gems while normal skins are worth about 400 gems each. 800 gems costs 10$ USD so a skin priced at 2,000 gems is worth about 30$ to them. That's expensive! 30$ for a game skin or food? Everything is paywalled to some extent. Need a previous episode? 200 gems please! Want to switch servers? 500+ gems please! Not to mention the developers have ignored WvW so much that it's nearly unplayable. They gave us a mount to draw people in, only to have them leave once they obtained the mount. Waste of time, waste of materials, and waste of effort. WvW is dying as a result of the neglect, and I think this game only has 3 years left before it ultimately succumbs and shuts down. I've been playing MMOs for over 10 years, I've seen the signs before and GW2 is a sinking ship because of the developers neglecting the players and the changes we truly need to see. Their response? Working on 3rd expansion instead of what we wanted. That's their answer to everything. So, play the game now while you can, because I'll be shocked if it lasts more than 3-5 years from now.… Expand
  6. Shimmeywill
    Mar 3, 2020
    7
    While this MMO has some decent mechanics, the overall gameplay and mission experience isn't something I want to return to. Combat is stale.
  7. colnaghi
    Feb 4, 2020
    7
    Great graphics, nice character customization (not as good as Tera in this aspect), gigantic worlds and plenty of quests to perform and mobs to fight.
    Swimming and diving are amazing adds to the game possibilities that cannot be seen that often on other mmo's.
    It may take a while until you grasp the inner works of the complex crafting system.
  8. KuriousJorj
    Feb 7, 2019
    5
    Don't listen to the nerds, fanbois, and weaklings. This is AT BEST, a mediocre game.

    First off, the combat is spastic and spazzy. It's bad. If you take ritalin, maybe you'll get off on it. If you have standards, you'll hate it. Sorry nerds, you're not that fast and real weapons move slower than wiffle-ball bats. Also WTH is wrong with the target-lock? Unbelievably amateurish.    Don't listen to the nerds, fanbois, and weaklings. This is AT BEST, a mediocre game.

    First off, the combat is spastic and spazzy. It's bad. If you take ritalin, maybe you'll get off on it. If you have standards, you'll hate it. Sorry nerds, you're not that fast and real weapons move slower than wiffle-ball bats.

    Also WTH is wrong with the target-lock? Unbelievably amateurish. Always switching for NO REASON, always turning off and losing target lock on certain bosses FOR NO REASON.

    There is no story. And the cut scenes are super cheap. Just two characters standing and talking, totally dialogue driven, with a plain static background. Looks like something from 1998. The opposite of cinematic, the opposite of immersive.

    I have no idea what the history or mythos of this world is... and the game makes no attempts to tell me. No opening cut-scenes or anything similar. It's almost like they don't even care if you care about the world, it's history, the races in it, or why you're doing what you're doing. Almost like they ACKNOWLEDGE this is a shallow empty grind-fest.

    The world is boring and soulless. That's both in the towns and out in nature. You encounter the same enemies in the earliest maps that you face the whole way through... thus there's no sense of progression in that respect either.

    The story missions frequently disconnect, and always right at the end, forcing you do to everything all over again. This is a common problem that has existed for years.

    There are so many currencies and windows and specialized vendors, the whole damn things is so cumbersome and unnecessarily complicated.

    Platform jumping. Yes. It's required, and it's all thru this p.o.s. game.

    All of that makes it an empty, boring, tedious grind. This is not a good game, it's not an enjoyable game. It might appeal to those who think they look kewl, but really look like "the Star Wars kid," but unless you're a soyboy, you'll not be able to stand this mediocrity.    … Expand
  9. Svoby42
    Dec 19, 2016
    7
    I used to play it lot. I used to. But they wreck everything up. Like the dungeon. They nerfed dungeons. The best part of the game. That is why i wont ever come back to this game.
  10. Crackfarmer
    Nov 9, 2015
    6
    The most annoying thing in this Game is to explore the whole Map, i mean who gives a flying **** about some useless Houses inside of Caves or Camp with enemy Npc's inside? I don't. Cpu utilization is terrible, 80% cpu usage on 4,5 ghz cpu is a joke. This Game is an awful example of how coding can end if you smoke too much kush.
  11. jonesen
    Oct 15, 2015
    6
    Okay decent mmorpg but nothing in the game that keep me interested for long. The weapon and spell mechanic combination were a very nice touch. Great graphics but beyond those two things nothing else felt interesting.
  12. Augustus75
    Sep 2, 2015
    6
    Definitely a game for younger gamers. From cartoony Pokemon type graphics, to childish voice emotes when leveling up or performing certain skills, this is a large departure from the original guild wars games.

    That said, the game is extremely polished, and very well made. As an adult, I can't possibly become interested in this type of game. However, I absolutely appreciate the    Definitely a game for younger gamers. From cartoony Pokemon type graphics, to childish voice emotes when leveling up or performing certain skills, this is a large departure from the original guild wars games.

    That said, the game is extremely polished, and very well made. As an adult, I can't possibly become interested in this type of game. However, I absolutely appreciate the excellent job they did in creating a fast paced, all encompassing game for younger and casual players. Would not recommend it as a serious game however for veterans of mmorpgs, or those seeking a mature game.    … Expand
  13. SpaceRaptor
    Jun 21, 2015
    6
    It's not awful, but it's not all that great either. While I don't hate this game, since people give it so much praise I'm going to focus on where it falls short. GW2 advertises itself as a lot of things that are only really quarter truths. I think the most outlandish false advertising was the "dynamic event system". To quote:

    "The living world of Guild Wars 2 is filled with thousands of    It's not awful, but it's not all that great either. While I don't hate this game, since people give it so much praise I'm going to focus on where it falls short. GW2 advertises itself as a lot of things that are only really quarter truths. I think the most outlandish false advertising was the "dynamic event system". To quote:

    "The living world of Guild Wars 2 is filled with thousands of dynamic events that constantly change based on the actions of players like you. You never know what you’ll discover when you log in!"

    This is true, until you log in the second time. The "events" are inherently no different than your standard "My dog **** on my neighbour's lawn so I need you to to deliver this apology cake 3 meters due south." generic MMO quest. The only thing GW2 changed is that now they walk and talk, and you have to repeat them over and over and over and over. And no they don't impact the world in any meaningful way because just as there are no permanent consequences, there are no permanent solutions.

    Some other half truths from their video on their combat page: "If a big attack comes your way, you can dodge roll out of the way" - Yes, if your endurance is full. And you can only dodge roll twice before you have to wait for it to recharge, making it feel entirely pointless. "It has the action of a shooter, the strategy of an RTS and the depth of an mmo". Haha, no. The action is entirely third person and repetitive. The "strategy" is practically non existent given the ridiculous limitations on evasion, cool downs, heals, skills, blocks and what have you. A common cause of death is not lack of skill, but lack of skills.

    The story is at points questionable, laughable or boring. The writers start by trying to prop you up as an unbelievable speshul snowflake which is most evident in the human starting story, where despite the military evacuating the entire town allow you, random civilian #4832, to stay and fight for no apparent reason. Or perhaps the Norn, where at level 1 you slay an ice wurm people widely praise and give you a title for and they continue to praise you for it even when you get to a level that you could've one shot it at.

    I should also mention both story and game mechanic wise, NPCs are inherently useless unless they're Trahearne. In which case, he is a paradox of being the most uselessly important person in the entire world. By this point the writers are really trying to make you feel like you're just another John Smith in a world populated by characters no inherently more important or special than the other. While commendable in theory, it's entirely awful in execution given Trahearne just takes credit for everything you do.

    In one of their promotional videos before the release of the core game, one Anet spokesperson said something along the lines of “If you're a FPS gamer you'll like playing Guild Wars 2”. Hilarious, because my boyfriend who exclusively plays only FPS and RTS games absolutely reviled this game. I could never get him to play it with me for more than an hour. His major gripes being the combat system which I already semi elaborated on (and it hits harder for FPS/ RTS gamers) and the levelling system (linearity).

    You're very much locked into an area of what you can do via arbitrary numbers. And you're not rewarded for seeking out challenges (I mean real challenges, not the “but it's your level” kind of challenge), in fact you're outright punished for it. And if we keep in mind how relatively fast it is to level, the entire system just makes itself redundant. You could have maps and characters where everything is just “a challenge” instead of a level, but instead you're punished every time you make a new character by being restricted to repeating the same content over and over. “Oh god, not this event/ map again”. And then there's dead maps problem caused by this.

    And speaking of end game, there isn't one. Yes, by all technical means there are things to do at level 80. The problem is, these are the same things you've already being doing in your treadmill climb to end level. Anet did at one point say "The whole game is the end game". That is the one whole truth they've said. So you kind of end up with a game that is marginally more enjoyable than your average MMO by a couple inches, but after a couple level 80's and tiring of the lack of features you find yourself logging in maybe once a month to play one new content release, get bored of it and then let it collect dust on your desktop till the next time you get bored of your other games.

    The one good thing I can say about GW2 is you don't feel like you have to spend a year to catch up to other players when you do return. Given this, I wouldn't call it a waste of money.

    In summary, meh. It's kind of OK.    … Expand
  14. Ixnatifual
    Apr 13, 2015
    5
    Yet another overhyped MMO that turned out mediocre. Basic gameplay feels really clunky here, perhaps even worse than Warhammer Online. It's missing that MMO feel of games like World of WarCraft and EvE and feels more like a kindergarden. Somewhere in the construction of this game ArenaNet missed many of the important things of the genre. Building your character, the feel of being in aYet another overhyped MMO that turned out mediocre. Basic gameplay feels really clunky here, perhaps even worse than Warhammer Online. It's missing that MMO feel of games like World of WarCraft and EvE and feels more like a kindergarden. Somewhere in the construction of this game ArenaNet missed many of the important things of the genre. Building your character, the feel of being in a world, and perhaps most importantly, HAVING FUN.… Expand
  15. marc5477
    Dec 31, 2014
    7
    Probably the best MMO available and fits a wide range of audience. Anyone can pick it up and be successful at the casual level yet there is enough intricacy that the hardcore crowd can do their customary min/maxing. They nice thing about this MMO is it receives a lot of love from its developer. World events are frequent and the stories are always moving along to keep people interested inProbably the best MMO available and fits a wide range of audience. Anyone can pick it up and be successful at the casual level yet there is enough intricacy that the hardcore crowd can do their customary min/maxing. They nice thing about this MMO is it receives a lot of love from its developer. World events are frequent and the stories are always moving along to keep people interested in raids and bosses. The bad news is that the game is easy... then again, all MMO's have devolve to this problem since WoW became successful and I cannot fault the developers for wanting to make enough money to keep their jobs. There are some nice features in this game that others lack, most notably, exploration is rewarded and it really is fun to run into random puzzles in the world and try to figure them out. Some of those jumping puzzles are very memorable and well placed. In fact, if you are not alert or reading a guide, you can miss them altogether which is really cool when you find them on your own. The game has your standard crafting professions as well as class trees that are fairly well balanced allowing for many viable builds. PvP is ok and world PvP is somewhat fun but I was never a PvP guy so I didnt play as much of it. I personally enjoy exploring new areas and getting the best gear within reason (kind of like trophies for me). The nice thing about Guild Wars 2 is that everyone has means to get some of the best weapons in the game. You can do it the old fashion way of raiding or your can earn it in other ways such as PvP or crafting or just through in game wealth. I like the mini-instances in the game but the one thing that I dont like is itemization. Loot in the game just feels useless and most items only have value because they are torn down via crafting. I suppose there is no way around this in an MMO (or even 1 player games) and it has been a gripe of mine since my early gaming days. Anyway, its a great MMO. No subscription fees to worry about and most anything can be bought with in game currency and time. You can buy some cosmetic upgrades or more storage slots but honestly, there is no reason to do so. I would recommend playing the game normally and saving up for the upgrades since there is nothing else worth spending in-game money on anyway.… Expand
  16. Livskis
    Dec 9, 2014
    7
    I'm a 2+ year veteran of this game and have been playing since launch. I have 3000+ hours logged on all my characters combined. This is hands down the best MMO out there. The graphics are fantastic. The character models and animations are amazing. The combat is the best combat out of any MMO that I've ever played, and I've never had as much fun leveling a character in other games as I haveI'm a 2+ year veteran of this game and have been playing since launch. I have 3000+ hours logged on all my characters combined. This is hands down the best MMO out there. The graphics are fantastic. The character models and animations are amazing. The combat is the best combat out of any MMO that I've ever played, and I've never had as much fun leveling a character in other games as I have in this one

    On the other hand, the game hasn't changed much since launch. The developers are SLOW at releasing patches. In the PvE department, Arenanet is experimenting with their Living Story which is about 30-60 minutes of new content released every 2 weeks followed by an endless grind for cosmetic gear. There is no end game. The hardest dungeon in the game is called Fractals, and it's incredibly easy even on the hardest difficulty. To reach to the hardest difficulty you need to run this dungeon 50 times, each time advancing in a difficulty tier. Furthermore, during the later levels you receive an irremovable debuff that will just kill you until you have the right gear. To obtain the right gear you complete Fractals over and over and over again for an item that will drop once per run per day in addition to crafting armors and weapons with dozens of materials that, again, you can only create once per day. It's a long and tedious grind that becomes stale very quickly.

    The world bosses, while impressive looking, are stationary structures (yes they are actually classified as structures and not creatures) that occasionally fling attacks at you. For the majority of the world bosses, players gather at its feet and attack its toes until it dies and don't even get me started on the game's primary antagonist. Everything is just disappointing.

    World vs World vs World (or WvW) is a mode that pits 3 different servers together for control of various structures in 5 different and huge maps. At first it was amazing. The giant battles that were waged at launch were simply spectacular, if not rough on my PC. However there are glaring balance issues in this mode from the different types of food you can eat which grant you obscene buffs that would just break the game. Furthermore as a competitive PvP player, I did not find much competition. There were instances where I would face off against 10+ people by myself and would end up victorious. Of course I can't completely fault Arenanet for the prowess, or lack thereof, of the players of its game. But quite frankly the game mode doesn't promote skill progression as much as it does reliance on gear and food.

    PvP is the game mode which I enjoy and play the most. One of GW2 PvP's biggest strengths is the even playing field. There is no gear or level advantage. When you enter the PvP area you are immediately boosted to max level and have all your abilities unlocked. You are also given the same equipment as everyone else. Then it's all a matter of entering an arena and brawling. However like I said earlier, Arenanet is incredibly slow at releasing patches. This is very problematic when it comes to balance. For example, at a certain point in time Arenanet overbuffed the Warrior class and did not tone it down for over a year. Warriors dominated the entire PvP scene and simply put it was not fun to play (I do not play a Warrior). Balance patches come every 6 months and often aren't great though the current metagame is quite good.

    There is only one game mode and quite frankly it's extremely stale 2+ years in. The devs have promised new things and, once again, are extremely slow at delivering. New content is being worked on they said over a year ago. A big problem with this single game mode is that Arenanet has balanced the classes in accordance to this game mode. That means if and when new game modes are released, there will be glaring balance issues. For example the current and only game mode is conquest which focuses on capturing and holding points. The Thief, which is an assassin type class, have a build that's focused on stealth. It's nearly unkillable and deals a lot of damage but isn't commonly used because while in stealth you cannot capture or prevent the capture of a point. If something like deathmatch is introduced, these once useless builds will now be dominating and further toss balance into disarray. And we do not want this because of the speed in which Arenanet releases patches.

    The PvP population is extremely tiny relative to other competitive games. There are a few community organized tournaments every week/month and the same teams win every time simply because there is no competition. Part of that I attribute to the toxicity of the community. While nothing compared to other communities like DotA or LoL, players in this game just can't seem to get along much less form a team with one another.

    I've run out of room so I'll just say that despite my disappointment for the potential of the game and the ineptitude of the devs, I still think it's the best MMO out there. Buy it now    … Expand
  17. nugerium
    Dec 9, 2014
    7
    Good graphics, but scenic places have little purposes.
    Good game play, since you get to control the attacks.
    Bosses and interactions with players are good. Most quests are boring, despite their idea of a dynamic world where your contribution affects the game. Storyline is horrible, and the main quests is extremely boring. Many pets, but most are disinteresting. Big, beautiful world,    Good graphics, but scenic places have little purposes.
    Good game play, since you get to control the attacks.
    Bosses and interactions with players are good.
    Most quests are boring, despite their idea of a dynamic world where your contribution affects the game.
    Storyline is horrible, and the main quests is extremely boring.
    Many pets, but most are disinteresting.
    Big, beautiful world, but you'll spend too much time wasted exploring.
    Extremely difficult to navigate, travel. I've never seen anything like this, not even in the first Warcraft.
    Difficult to get creative in crafting.    … Expand
  18. Expospeed
    Dec 6, 2014
    5
    GW2 is an acceptable MMO with innovative features, including auto quest pop-ups, a dynamic world, and world vs world pvp. Also, there is no subscription fee. However, this game suffers from a few unfortunate problems. My breakdown is as follows:

    1. Graphics: 8/10 - detailed with great art style 2. Gameplay: 3/10 - large world to explore, but after a couple of hours of play, game    GW2 is an acceptable MMO with innovative features, including auto quest pop-ups, a dynamic world, and world vs world pvp. Also, there is no subscription fee. However, this game suffers from a few unfortunate problems. My breakdown is as follows:

    1. Graphics: 8/10 - detailed with great art style
    2. Gameplay: 3/10 - large world to explore, but after a couple of hours of play, game becomes stale - new skills aren't innovative or satisfying, and becomes a grind
    3. Progression: 2/10 - not challenging at all, gear is also unappealing
    4. Story: 5/10 - average story

    Overall, average game.    … Expand
  19. Mudgee
    Nov 24, 2014
    6
    Quick, fast-paced and semi-fun. GW2 was a slight change of pace for the MMO scene. In honesty however, it couldn't manage to find myself spending much time with this game. Despite its relevant fun and semi interest, it quickly dried up and just became another MMO incapable of maintaining a flailing interest. Playable, not replayable.
  20. TimTeamTebow
    Nov 15, 2014
    7
    I have a little over 1000 hours into GW2 and I really enjoy it.
    The only real complaint I have is with the devs.
    The game just isn't growing the way it really should. They've added 2, maybe 3, new PvE areas and a new World vs World vs World area since release. They've added a lot of cosmetic items and items to craft, but I wouldn't call that something that all players could enjoy.    I have a little over 1000 hours into GW2 and I really enjoy it.
    The only real complaint I have is with the devs.
    The game just isn't growing the way it really should.
    They've added 2, maybe 3, new PvE areas and a new World vs World vs World area since release.
    They've added a lot of cosmetic items and items to craft, but I wouldn't call that something that all players could enjoy.
    Wheres the new dungeons, the new classes, the new PvP maps??
    The combat for PvP is great, its mostly based on your timing so its fairly rewarding and doesn't stale too easily...Except you play the same handful of maps.
    PvE combat isn't too good, the first few hundred hours are exciting, but then the flare goes away and it becomes a bit boring. You run dungeons for gold, but there is little to no challenge anymore. Open world content is equally easy. There are ways to challenge yourself, like soloing a dungeon , but its not really supported. No achievements from it, no loot bonus, much slower than a full group which is easy to find.

    Given the cost, I would encourage everyone to atleast try GW2. The cheaper heroic version is good enough. the extra $20 for the deluxe edition has very little impact on your gameplay.    … Expand
  21. unlimitednk
    Nov 7, 2014
    6
    Stealth implementation in this game is bad. It’s not about thief, or mesmer or any class, but about stealth. I played all classes, you can try and see for yourself too. We won’t agree ever on everything, some people just like it as it is, and unless you played other games too, and have somehting to compare, can really understand how fun can be, when your opponent can counter whatever youStealth implementation in this game is bad. It’s not about thief, or mesmer or any class, but about stealth. I played all classes, you can try and see for yourself too. We won’t agree ever on everything, some people just like it as it is, and unless you played other games too, and have somehting to compare, can really understand how fun can be, when your opponent can counter whatever you do.
    Can someone who uses stealth be killed, defeated? Sure. You need to learn what to do and what not, but that’s true always.
    Can any class and build defeat any class and build? Certainly will be more difficult to do it on some or next to impossible on other (even if network latency, lag, player skill and so on is ignored).
    Then what’s wrong with stealth? “Learn and adapt, and stop crying” – true… just do that, but some will end with a bitter taste after these fights, and no fun at all. That’s the problem – games meant to be fun. For some, it is, no matter what, they like it. Let those who don’t like to tell you why we lose players…
    I despise stealth and I feel shame, guilt and I know I almost cheated, whenever on my thief I decide to use stealth, to get away from a fight that vent badly, or just recover and try again. Since that can be done endlessly, most of the time, unless you are not skilled enough. I know that rarely, if ever, my opponent enjoyed that fight. It all comes down to your personality: if you can be proud and taunt after such fights, then stealth is for you. That’s you, have fun. Play with those who feel like this.
    The others will post things like the OP, will play other games, or like me, will prefer to play on other class, and ignore thieves – I fight back if attacked, but don’t care to chase them and don’t care to kill them – they are just like other negatives in this game, such as lag when occurs – you have to endure these and find something else to do. Can stealth be changed, so it’s use or playing against won’t “kill” the fun in some of us? Can everything be improved? Can we listen to each other and try to find solutions together? I hope so. Very much.    … Expand
  22. MothaFlippin
    Aug 10, 2014
    5
    First of, this game has an amazing potential with it's innovative action-based combat system and awesome PvE. From the moment you create your character you get to know the main mechanics of the game and of your class. The classes give you big variety and a lot to choose from.
    From level 1 to 80 the game is amazing, lots of exploration, a nice way of telling you the plot and making your    First of, this game has an amazing potential with it's innovative action-based combat system and awesome PvE. From the moment you create your character you get to know the main mechanics of the game and of your class. The classes give you big variety and a lot to choose from.
    From level 1 to 80 the game is amazing, lots of exploration, a nice way of telling you the plot and making your character progress through that plot. The exp rate is high making it a smooth expirience and not focusing a lot on repetitive grinding quests. The new dynamic events are pretty good however could be better. You can easily reach lvl cap (80) in about a month and from that moment on the game just goes downhill.
    After you hit lvl cap the game turns into a gigantic grind fest, with everything in the game consisting of mindlessly zerging around certain zones and that's it. The PvE after reaching lvl 80 is all that, there is no character progression everything you do is grind grind and grind for a hope of better skins, you have no objectives nor rewards for doing better or poorly at certain situations. There are a few dungeons (about 5) in the entire game, which are pretty decent but that get pretty repetitive and boring after a while with no enemy mechanics other than: "Dodge or Die/Get Knocked Back into a Hole".
    The game population has been decreasing a LOT with the bad decisions and back feedback of the devs that seem to let everyone confused. Dubious the development paths being taken day after day, the developers seem to ignore most of the requests on the forums and just do their own thing.
    The PVP and WvW is a mess (even tho it's still probably the best PvP MMORPG game), with certain classes just being dominant in every aspect and other classes just being completly irrelevant since day 1 of this game.
    The lack of patches to focus on balancing classes just lead to classes such as Warrior being dominant both in PvE and PvP with no one to ever representing any kind of challenge to them and other classes (eg Ranger) being so weak that it doesn't justify having any of them in any part of the game.
    The lack of holy trinity (Healer, Tank, DPSer) instead of leading to everyone feel useful just leads to everyone feeling useless and easily replacable and just leads to not justifying any build other than full-DPS.
    Overall the game represents no challenge at any point, badly balanced (leading to a bad WvW / sPvP expirience), with little to no-content being added and dubious development paths being taken over and over again.
    If you are looking for maybe a month or so of content, go ahead, otherwise you will be very quickly hit in the face by boring and monotonous events.    … Expand
  23. MarcTryon
    Jul 16, 2014
    6
    This is a game a really wanted to like and I did give it a good six months. It has beautiful character models, an fun combat system, a non-gear based pvp system, and dynamic content (DC). The latter, DC, is what really got my attention, and is, in fact, what the publisher hyped about the game.

    Other things are interesting too, from the little (account wide banks and currency) to the    This is a game a really wanted to like and I did give it a good six months. It has beautiful character models, an fun combat system, a non-gear based pvp system, and dynamic content (DC). The latter, DC, is what really got my attention, and is, in fact, what the publisher hyped about the game.

    Other things are interesting too, from the little (account wide banks and currency) to the big, especially the hub-free questing.

    Yet, somehow, for me, the whole is much less than the sum of its parts. I did enjoy maxing out a few characters and exploring the world. But after all, it just seemed a bit stale. The DC is quite weak in the end, much less interesting to me than RIFT's DC. The questing gets tedious and, quest-granting method aside, is still the same old kill-this/fetch that.

    Maybe they fixed this in the last few months but when I left, many folks were doing a very dull zone boss spawn loop in the starting zones collecting goodies. It was quick, it was efficient, and it was terribly boring. It's also a travesty of dynamic content: yes you had to wait for a boss to spawn but they spawned in the exact same order. No variation in timing or bosses.

    Pre-launch they promised that your actions would affect the world. If those in zone don't stop the bandits poisoning the water supply, it remains poisoned. Trouble is, while sometimes it does get poisoned, it doesn't really have any effect and more typically, if an event fails, you just immediately go to the next "fix it" step in the chain, essentially getting a slightly longer version of the quest.

    PVP was fun for a while and I think the cosmetic gear only rewards is interesting but A) why couldn't I wear this gear as town-wear so I could show it off outside of PVP and B) after level 30 or so, there was 50 or more levels of grind before there was any more gear I was interested in.

    In the end, I just got bored with it. I do sometimes pine for those gorgeous character models and sexy gear but when I pop on again after the publisher sends me their latest hook, I feel the same distaste for the game that I felt for WoW after playing it for three years solid. I just can't face the tedium. There's too little to hold my attention.

    Most of the gamers I know are the same way- fun for a while but easy to move on to something else. So if you can get it cheap, I think you can expect a few months of play out of it but don't be surprised if it does not hold your long term interest.    … Expand
  24. mikelovichNor
    Jun 9, 2014
    5
    This game should have two reviews, one pre-megaserver and one post it.
    The pre-megaserver game was great. It had servers with their own communities and faces that you will most likely recognize. It also bolster the World V World population by how easy it is for guilds to recruit.
    Each server/world has their own pride, much like a nation. And it was very easy to organize guild events.    This game should have two reviews, one pre-megaserver and one post it.
    The pre-megaserver game was great. It had servers with their own communities and faces that you will most likely recognize. It also bolster the World V World population by how easy it is for guilds to recruit.
    Each server/world has their own pride, much like a nation. And it was very easy to organize guild events.
    ---------------------------------
    With the advent of the megaserver, everything I mentioned above were destroyed.
    Everyone now pve in one server which feels very bad to me because it's like helping your enemies in WvW get items/gold which they will use against you in WvW. What a stupid concept. Before this patch you know at least that most of the people you're helping on events were your own server pop with a few guests, now it's just mostly strangers. It's like taking a road trip, but instead of going with friends you pickup unknown peeps.------------------------------

    Now, the only people that would like gw2 is newbies who didn't know about the pre-patch gw2. It's like Anet deliberately culled the veteran population of gw2 so they could appease the casual newbie players(newbies who will realize later on that there is now no meaningful endgame content). ------------------------

    I don't know what anet is thinking. Besides, vets are the ones most likely to spend real money in the gem store. The only money they'll get from casual/newbie players are the game initial purchase. If it is their plan to gain short term money instead of guaranteed long term then it's probably an indicator that gw2 won't last much longer, and they're trying to get as much money before bailing out.---------------------------

    This is why I'm leary of Wildstar too. The same publisher(NCSoft) in gw2 manages wildstar. It's easy for me to think that what changed the gw2 into a megaserver is a financial decision(so they would incur less bandwidth). And I have a nagging suspicion that NCsoft has a hand in that. If that's the case then what would NCsoft do in wildstar that changes game mechanics so much like the gw2 megablunder.
    ---------------------------------------
    I gave a 5(average) for the review because it is now just one of the one world generic mmo out there.    … Expand
  25. chronoT
    Apr 5, 2014
    6
    When I initially played Guild Wars 2 I enjoyed the graphics and game play because it was something new. Sadly though I quickly got bored and stopped playing when I hit level 50. The world itself is massive and there are many quests, but it gets repetitive after a while and kind of stale in general. I know though that opinions on MMO's don't mean much because some people like them and someWhen I initially played Guild Wars 2 I enjoyed the graphics and game play because it was something new. Sadly though I quickly got bored and stopped playing when I hit level 50. The world itself is massive and there are many quests, but it gets repetitive after a while and kind of stale in general. I know though that opinions on MMO's don't mean much because some people like them and some people don't. I am starting to get the feeling that MMO's aren't for me, or maybe they need to release something innovative instead of the same thing over and over.… Expand
  26. BountyCritic
    Apr 4, 2014
    5
    Although good, very overrated. If you're looking for the next big MMO, this wont be it. It's a simple distraction which will last you about 200 hours max, which aren't always that fun. It is good value per money if you only account for the play time, although it is quite boring sometimes and if you want good value for your money that you will actually enjoy, just buy a single-player RPG.Although good, very overrated. If you're looking for the next big MMO, this wont be it. It's a simple distraction which will last you about 200 hours max, which aren't always that fun. It is good value per money if you only account for the play time, although it is quite boring sometimes and if you want good value for your money that you will actually enjoy, just buy a single-player RPG. It's overrated, since it's buy-to-play and doesn't require a 15 dollar-per-month subscription, although chances are, you're not going to play past that month anyways.… Expand
  27. gamer4life1
    Mar 12, 2014
    5
    GW2...bought it because of all the hype, all the adverts and reviews. Well, once again disappointed. Feel as though people rant and rave about this mmo for some hidden agenda or reason. I bought it and played it for awhile. Then after a few months hiatus I thought my interest or viewpoint would be renewed so I returned and lo and behold; Nope....It just feels generic and the visuals areGW2...bought it because of all the hype, all the adverts and reviews. Well, once again disappointed. Feel as though people rant and rave about this mmo for some hidden agenda or reason. I bought it and played it for awhile. Then after a few months hiatus I thought my interest or viewpoint would be renewed so I returned and lo and behold; Nope....It just feels generic and the visuals are hollow and flat.

    The music is great though and the character creation and classes are unique enough to warrant a small bit of interest, but beyond that it seems bland. The dialogue is atrocious and does nothing to move the story. Most of the time I was just clicking "next" or "skip" really fast. Overall Guild wars 2 is sorely lacking and unfortunately most games published in markets outside Europe and America are sorely lacking in the development department...they always seem "aloof" or "floaty" for some odd reason. No offense to any, but it's to much of a fact to be disregarded or dismissed.    … Expand
  28. Claytality
    Jan 31, 2014
    5
    Don't get me wrong, the game is good, but the way people were speaking and writing about it you would expect it to be the next huge evolution in the MMORPG genre. It is not.
    There are a few great improvements, such as "dynamic events" which let you join in on any world event regardless of your level (won't scale you up though). But if I am being honest this is more of a convenience than    Don't get me wrong, the game is good, but the way people were speaking and writing about it you would expect it to be the next huge evolution in the MMORPG genre. It is not.
    There are a few great improvements, such as "dynamic events" which let you join in on any world event regardless of your level (won't scale you up though). But if I am being honest this is more of a convenience than a major game changer, it simply makes it faster to run around and engage in the world rather than having to find a party/guild, etc.
    The gameplay/battle is standard cookie-cutter MMORPG fare from 2006. If you enjoy pressing tab to target, then your character auto attacks or you use a few skills till its dead, then this game will live up to your expectations. I will say the dodge system is a nice small change, but it only goes so far.
    sPvP is your standard capture points, etc. While the game brings a few new welcome changes to the genre, it in no way redefines MMOs. Dull target/autoattack engine from WoW 2006.

    I spent about a month thinking over whether to buy this game, looking at gameplay, reviews, etc. I finally bought it on sale for $40. I was sorely mistaken. I had more fun with Terraria and I bought it for $2.50.
    Simply put, do NOT buy into the hyped up reviews from 2012 who reviewed it the day after it was released and use all sorts of nice words like "fantastic, amazing, beautiful, game-changer".    … Expand
  29. zmaint
    Jan 25, 2014
    5
    Very good looking game. Great quest system, doesn't feel like a grind to get to 80. Mechanics are well-polished. Good sound effects and ambience.

    Crafting is a complete and total waste of time. Very very very few customization options for your toon. You can dye your armor. That's it. There are only about 3 different "skins" for gear for each class for about every 20 lvls. As    Very good looking game. Great quest system, doesn't feel like a grind to get to 80. Mechanics are well-polished. Good sound effects and ambience.

    Crafting is a complete and total waste of time.

    Very very very few customization options for your toon. You can dye your armor. That's it. There are only about 3 different "skins" for gear for each class for about every 20 lvls. As you lvl you look like everyone else. When you hit 80, you look like you did when you were 20 and still like everyone else. Sure sure you can run 9000000000000 raid instances and maybe get something different. No thanks.

    There's not even anything in the in game cash shop worth buying. Total waste of a cash shop IMO.

    PVP.... game is supposed to be built around it. Q up, only 1 of 2 things happens. You wander around with NOTHING to do, and NOONE else in the zone.... OR you get insta zerg raped. Hooray.    … Expand
  30. shywen2004
    Jan 3, 2014
    5
    The good:
    - good to look at
    - something different - dynamic events The bad : - gets old quick - grindy despite what anet tells us - you will spend a considerable amount of time in overflow or queus - If you want to join anything awesome, you have to show up 1hr ahead of time due to overflow/queu - you can get in-game cash by paying anet real money - No end game - Moderated    The good:
    - good to look at
    - something different
    - dynamic events

    The bad :
    - gets old quick
    - grindy despite what anet tells us
    - you will spend a considerable amount of time in overflow or queus
    - If you want to join anything awesome, you have to show up 1hr ahead of time due to overflow/queu
    - you can get in-game cash by paying anet real money
    - No end game
    - Moderated like game for children (names containing poop, pee, puke will not be tolerated. Cussing may land you a temporary ban)

    Good/Bad depends on what you like:
    - Very casual
    - Relatively easy learning curve

    Unless you have 60$ lying around and does not have any games to spend it on. I would suggest you get a different game. It's fun at first but it will get old quick. Once you hit 80 and realize you simply do the same thing rinse and repeat everyday and the fact that you can buy in-game cash from Anet... yeah it's different than your average mmo. The saying the more they change the more they stay the same rings true in my experience. How is this not like any chinese free-to-play mmo when you can buy in game cash?    … Expand
  31. Spango
    Dec 5, 2013
    7
    This is by far the most fun MMORPG I've played to date. I kept myself busy and entertained for months, and since there is no subscription fee, I'll be back to play again when I get the MMO bug again. Dungeon Crawlers are my favorite genre, so maybe I'm just expecting too much out of an item system and the overall story presentation, but I feel like there was more to be expected from theThis is by far the most fun MMORPG I've played to date. I kept myself busy and entertained for months, and since there is no subscription fee, I'll be back to play again when I get the MMO bug again. Dungeon Crawlers are my favorite genre, so maybe I'm just expecting too much out of an item system and the overall story presentation, but I feel like there was more to be expected from the game on these aspects. Don't get me wrong, the lore for the world and the various weapon and armor skins were amazing, but the voice acting counterbalanced the interesting lore, and the lack of interesting items left the item hunt feeling a bit lackluster. Those problems being taken into consideration, and I still give it a 7/10.… Expand
  32. faceless-1
    Dec 2, 2013
    5
    I really don't know about this game. It is not bad MMO, but it have some really weird parts like: skill system classes could be more interesting (esp. necromancer) underwater combat is total trash, when you wonder in world you complete events you don't even participate and so on.
  33. Rudal
    Nov 13, 2013
    5
    I really liked Guild Wars (1). It wasn't the best of games but it had something in it.
    GW2 while improved and looking nice (not great, it could have been better) is missing that something that GW had.

    I like what they did with skills and how they change according to what weapon type character is wealding but in a longer run the game was just boring.
  34. DominikCZE
    Nov 9, 2013
    7
    I've never been into MMOs but this one compelled me because it had a very appealing pay once, play forever model, which any game should have. It didn't turn out to be as great as I thought it would be though, it's still fun and entertaining to play once in a while with a bunch of friends, but there are a couple problems that I'm going to explain.
    First of all, the world is absolutely    I've never been into MMOs but this one compelled me because it had a very appealing pay once, play forever model, which any game should have. It didn't turn out to be as great as I thought it would be though, it's still fun and entertaining to play once in a while with a bunch of friends, but there are a couple problems that I'm going to explain.
    First of all, the world is absolutely MASSIVE, it's just that, there isn't that much to do in it, pretty much every quest is the same generic "kill 5 rats and feed my cows!", the skill challenges are the same thing, fight this one guy, get a skill point and you're done. Another problem which I find huge is how utterly annoying the wildlife is. Say you want just relax and take in the scenery, while peacefully walking through the mountains, no can do sir. There are literally tens of mobs on your screen at ANY given moment and EVERYWHERE, even some towns are infested with mobs. The worst thing is that these mobs are extremely aggressive and attack on sight, which makes getting anywhere a real pain. I'm trying to walk to a quest objective, not fight a thousand wolves for two hours for god's sake!

    One last thing that I'd like to criticize is the lore of the game, I'm just not feeling it, it's pretty shallow and with all the barbie dolls and Halloween pumpkins frankly quite unbelievable. And the last thing I almost forgot to mention, daily events. What's the point of these? Kill thirty bunnies? Twenty-five underwater creatures? Collect twenty pieces of wood? Why would I wanna do that? Why force people to grind? Well whatever, it's not a mandatory thing to do, just completely pointless in my opinion.

    Other than that the game is fairly solid and can provide countless hours of fun if you have friends to play with, for solo action I would recommend a classic single-player RPG backed by a strong story and quality lore. I'm not going to review the PvP element, it's solid, don't really care about it, look elsewhere for that.    … Expand
  35. Namtar
    Oct 9, 2013
    6
    A year ago i rated it 9.
    It was willing to bring some fresh air in the mmorpg panorama, no trinity, no gear grind, do whatever you like and obtain whatever you want.
    Well now this is only a fable that someone used to tell. They took their own manifesto and how-different-is-our-mmorpg-from-the-others and flush it into the wc. The ascended tier and living story brought more and more farm    A year ago i rated it 9.
    It was willing to bring some fresh air in the mmorpg panorama, no trinity, no gear grind, do whatever you like and obtain whatever you want.
    Well now this is only a fable that someone used to tell. They took their own manifesto and how-different-is-our-mmorpg-from-the-others and flush it into the wc.
    The ascended tier and living story brought more and more farm and grind every 2 weeks. This is not the game it was supposed to be.    … Expand
  36. bassgirl90
    Sep 27, 2013
    7
    I have played Guild Wars 2 since the day after it was released. I played the original as well. Pros are fast leveling, craftable items (weapons, armor, food) interesting dungeons, lots of metaevents, lots of dynamic events particularly with regard to the "living world".

    For me, Guild Wars 2 falls short due to the silliness of gated crafting materials (i.e. even if you have the materials    I have played Guild Wars 2 since the day after it was released. I played the original as well. Pros are fast leveling, craftable items (weapons, armor, food) interesting dungeons, lots of metaevents, lots of dynamic events particularly with regard to the "living world".

    For me, Guild Wars 2 falls short due to the silliness of gated crafting materials (i.e. even if you have the materials and the skill you can only craft/harvest one of these every 24 hours), gear treadmill seems to be the way that the game is keeping people playing, the daily "to do list" of things that are worthless and eat up your time to get a reward that you can only get through doing our little daily and monthly "to do lists" (i.e. kill x number of champions, harvest 30 items, kill 5 veterans, participate in 2 group events, and 25 underwater kills for a daily chore list example). By the time you get all of your daily crafting, rotate through the metaevents to get your bonus chest for each, and then finish your daily chores its already been 3 hours that you could have been in a dungeon, doing guild missions, or just about anything else. I had to quit the time sink to live in RL with my SO and RL Friends.

    TLDR: GW2 is a modified to do list.    … Expand
  37. Horcos
    Aug 7, 2013
    7
    I really wanted to play this game, i found some new friends and i really tried to play this game, but i found a lack of spells, i just wanted lots of useless spells with cool animations, all so the quests, or the yellow hearts was repetitive
  38. iseeall
    Jul 29, 2013
    5
    My story with this game was probably typical. I gave into the marketing hype and bought it as soon as the Mac version came out. Then 2 weeks of fun. I loved this game. It was just better than WoW in many respects. So many nice features which fixed mistakes in WoW. This "constant end-game" mode is great. And you don't have to run to the auction house. And the interesting weapons-dependingMy story with this game was probably typical. I gave into the marketing hype and bought it as soon as the Mac version came out. Then 2 weeks of fun. I loved this game. It was just better than WoW in many respects. So many nice features which fixed mistakes in WoW. This "constant end-game" mode is great. And you don't have to run to the auction house. And the interesting weapons-depending abilities system. Etc etc. Until I went into the first instance. It was like a bad Dead Mines run in WoW (i mean, during the vanilla WoW). The boss kept running at me (I was the mage and surely specced as a glass cannon, WoW-style). Everyone was dying. The tank couldn't keep the aggro. Some guys were telling me there is no aggro. I have to kite the boss. Ok, I went to the forums and found out, that the PvE is different here. Namely, it's like a bad noobish run in WoW. I was so frustrated I quit that very day. 4 months later I came back for 2 days to give this game another chance (since I paid for the CD anyway and there is no subscribtion) but alas, the fun was gone. I just didn't remember the spells anymore and didn't care about the zone progression etc. So, I still have it on my laptop, installed, with a shortcut on the desktop, but i never play it. I suppose, just like everybody else.
    A few other things I didn't like from the start were: the Asura characters (which I naturally took as a mage) are so ugly that I forced myself into playing them, yet there was emotional detachment compared to what I had to the gnome mage in WoW. Artists, you did really a bad job there! Whoever drew those Asura models deserves to be fired. Also, the storyline of the game was not fun. Was your goal to annoy all the mage players? What's the point of introducing an ugly class (but not a funny ugly, like undead in WoW)? In WoW, I had this immersion, the attachment to the world. Even though I didn't read every quest, it still was a very personal world to me. In GW 2 the world is very mechanical. I only read the quests in the first 1-2 zones, but after that it was just grinding.
    Since I don't play this game, I regret buying it. Also, a good lesson to NEVER buy a game without trying a demo (but those guys didn't offer a demo, how clever of them). They give a refund now, but just too much time has passed and I don't qualify.
    All in all, I feel like I was cheated by their marketing campaign. 2 weeks of playing are not worth 60 dollars. And surely I won't every buy anything from this developer.    … Expand
  39. DukeRaoul
    Jun 21, 2013
    5
    Ah, I just wrote a five thousand character review. I reached the limit, and prepared to backspace a few times, then a few seconds later everything I wrote was gone. I don't think I'll be writing another review on this site. Nonetheless, an extremely brief summary of what I wrote:
    -Reasonably good graphics, though that's not really important
    -Arenanet lied to their fans and a lot of the    Ah, I just wrote a five thousand character review. I reached the limit, and prepared to backspace a few times, then a few seconds later everything I wrote was gone. I don't think I'll be writing another review on this site. Nonetheless, an extremely brief summary of what I wrote:
    -Reasonably good graphics, though that's not really important
    -Arenanet lied to their fans and a lot of the stuff promised in the promotional content isn't true the 'dynamically changing world' is utter claptrap (all it comes down to is you being unable to teleport to certain waypoints at times and a bunch of monsters roaming around those areas, wahey) and the game was going to lack a gear treadmill 'fixed' in the Southsun Cove patch (another promise broken)
    -Abilities are not enjoyable, and you're far more limited than you think one ability is just an autoattack, elite skills are next to useless, so you're practically limited to eight abilities (with one being a mere generic heal). You'll find your preferences quickly and probably never change out again, meaning you're using the same eight abilities with very little strategy no complexity equates to no enjoyability or actual 'gameplay'
    -Events are quite literally nothing more than 'Zerg rushes'. This is an undeniable fact; the more people involved, the better spam your eight abilities and hope for victory. If repeating this over and over sounds fun to you, Guild Wars 2 has you covered
    -The game DOES have some positive points, such as four unique races not seen in any other fantasies that have some genuine lore and personality behind them; something I'm sure any fantasy fan would appreciate who's tired of the typical 'orcs and humans' format (or just humans in the case of some fiction)
    -The personal story is a joke. The first half; you'll feel like you're experiencing the outcome of those background choices you made and truly enjoying your own 'personal story'. Around half way through, you encounter a sylvari called Trahearne, and without spoiling anything (though why you'd care about spoilers for the plot devoid of quite literally... er, everything, emotion, intrigue, drama etc), the story is now about Trahearne, not you. You are his mere accomplice and sidekick; enjoy taking a back seat for the rest of what was meant to be your 'personal story did I mention Trahearne is a character without any distinguishable personality and likeability and is something most people would consider a 'Mary Sue'? That's the guy who's taking over, folks!
    -Arenanet has committed to some particularly scandalous behaviour. There have been several controversies over so-called 'exploits' that were merely poor programming on the behalf of Arenanet. The most well known of which was the case where over four thousand accounts were banned within the first month for simply purchasing items that Arenanet had mistakenly given a low price no other company to my knowledge would take such a brash action; certainly not the exemplary Blizzard of which almost all MMORPGs are compared to the infamous WoW. However, evading comparing the two, Arenanet made some ridiculous decisions that simply boggle the mind and suggest inexperience on their behalf they damaged their reputation while banning players who could potentially purchase from the real money store in the future, rather than fixing a simple error that was undeniably THEIR FAULT you should never be punished for taking advantage of an opportunity; especially when it's extremely vague that it's an 'exploit' anyhow

    Overall, would I suggest you buy Guild Wars 2? Actually, yes. Because despite all these immense drawbacks, it's still an undeniably fun game. However, with its many flaws, I have to give an extremely mixed review as it feels like the game is outright broken in some regards while spectacular in other ways. As of current, I believe any future content will only improve the game although that could just me being optimistic. Good luck, Arenanet.    … Expand
  40. exceeder616
    Jun 3, 2013
    6
    Played the game for about 2 months. The graphics are good but cared little for the gameplay. Did not like any of the races and the lore was meh. The one time purchase fee is a plus. Not much PvE and I am not a pvp oriented person.
  41. normyp
    May 18, 2013
    5
    3rd review all in all this game was meh and i wish I hadn't wasted my money on it tbh. the first few months of when it came out was good because you had people all over the starting zones etc. they're now dead graveyards with noone in them. all the casual gamers have left the game and u hv a load of people at end game wondering what to do. its lost its edge for me as a casual gamer. i3rd review all in all this game was meh and i wish I hadn't wasted my money on it tbh. the first few months of when it came out was good because you had people all over the starting zones etc. they're now dead graveyards with noone in them. all the casual gamers have left the game and u hv a load of people at end game wondering what to do. its lost its edge for me as a casual gamer. i think the thing is mmorpgs get good when u devote a lot of time to them. i hate running around a map getting somewhere for ages, and u hv to do that quite a bit in gw2 but if ur willing to put the time in the game is hella awesome and im sure ull hv a blast. i just find the events hv dried up now, noone does them in the starting zones.… Expand
  42. kabilaking
    Apr 30, 2013
    6
    I will keep this short and snappy for you guys. This game is good fast paced, beautiful environment, characters look amazing and so do weapons and armor, Dungeons amazing, PVP & PVE are my fav in a game absolutely amazing. However there is a couple of things for me which are important in a game which for me guild wars 2 ruined for me. First and most important the skills system is awfulI will keep this short and snappy for you guys. This game is good fast paced, beautiful environment, characters look amazing and so do weapons and armor, Dungeons amazing, PVP & PVE are my fav in a game absolutely amazing. However there is a couple of things for me which are important in a game which for me guild wars 2 ruined for me. First and most important the skills system is awful basically when you get a weapon you level it up and only 5 skills are available thats it thats your skill system right there basically kill 4 monsters and you hit max level for your weapon which for me sucks what happend to choosing skills. This is extremely important in this type of game and if it aint right it ruins gameplay. Also lastly the crafting system is not very good in my opinion but thats just me others do enjoy the crafting and others do enjoy the gameplay however the end game content sucks at the moment which I know everybody gets pissed off about so because of the skill system and crafting and end game only a 6 for me as they are really important in a MMO… Expand
  43. Amargosa
    Apr 7, 2013
    6
    While the visuals are beautiful and the world is big the forcibly attempt of trying to revolutionize the RPG genre is not fun. Taking away the holy trinity is a good idea but brings other problems. The most important issue however is the enforced auto-scaling of your level depending on the area you are. The game takes away any sense of power in the bigger style and the dungeons feel illWhile the visuals are beautiful and the world is big the forcibly attempt of trying to revolutionize the RPG genre is not fun. Taking away the holy trinity is a good idea but brings other problems. The most important issue however is the enforced auto-scaling of your level depending on the area you are. The game takes away any sense of power in the bigger style and the dungeons feel ill balanced until you are maximum level. before that they are a stressful annoying chore.… Expand
  44. Capzero007
    Mar 31, 2013
    7
    Guild Wars 2 manages to bring some new elements to a genre which is quickly becoming boring and repetitive (meaning the fantasy MMO). The elimination of the need to find quest givers and the need to hand them back in really streamlines play. The excellent rewards for completely exploring a map and finishing all the content really promotes exploration. The final great addition is theGuild Wars 2 manages to bring some new elements to a genre which is quickly becoming boring and repetitive (meaning the fantasy MMO). The elimination of the need to find quest givers and the need to hand them back in really streamlines play. The excellent rewards for completely exploring a map and finishing all the content really promotes exploration. The final great addition is the support for random cooperation between players. No issues over loot rights, kill rights, or even crafting material nodes. Everyone gets credit.

    These items alone forced me to give GW2 a 7. The rest of the MMO problems remain. Repetitive content, tiresome combat, loot grinds, and forced grouping at the end game. I recommend GW2. Enjoy the trip to the level cap but logout once you get there     … Expand
  45. ReggiWatson
    Mar 31, 2013
    7
    As a great fan of Guild Wars i set myself to purchase this game as soon as it was released. I was not (too much) disappointed, its a great game, and a must have in for any MMO players. Go ahead, buy it, its worth it.

    Why an 7 then? Well, despite being a great game, its not perfect. And its definitely not the experience i was expecting since i played for like almost 7 year of Guild Wars.    As a great fan of Guild Wars i set myself to purchase this game as soon as it was released. I was not (too much) disappointed, its a great game, and a must have in for any MMO players. Go ahead, buy it, its worth it.

    Why an 7 then? Well, despite being a great game, its not perfect. And its definitely not the experience i was expecting since i played for like almost 7 year of Guild Wars. Let me do this in topics of Pos and Cons.

    Pos:
    - Gorgeous Graphics. Certainly a very good upgrade.
    - Free group questing, If you are in the are with more random players, everyone contributes for that same quest.
    - 5 distinct and interesting races. (personally i never had any issue of having a full human race on GW)
    - Weapon and skills mechanic. Each weapon gives you a set of skill based on which hand its equipped. 3 skills for main hand, 2 for off hand. All 5 for a 2H weapon.
    - Dedicated skill slots. 1 for healing skill, 3 for support skills, 1 for an elite skill.
    - The removal of the "healer stress". Since everyone must have a healing skill, its up to you to make your own survival.
    - The last stand mechanic. Which allow you to get back into the battle after you have been defeated if you kill 1 enemy before the timer goes down.
    - The still rich lore.

    Cons:
    - Lost its originality, compared to the original GW. Its just your regular MMO now.
    - Old mechanics. Dungeons. Elite Mobs. Auction House. Regular "collect X", "kill Y" and such quests.
    - Instant travel now costs gold, compared to the free travel of the original GW.
    - Skill limitation. I loved to mess around with the enormous quantity of skills of GW, now classes like Engineer are limited to like 3-4 weapon sets.
    - Dual class system was removed.
    - Special class traits where removed. No more get energy with each dead enemy for necromancer, and such.
    - Some classes where removed. Hope they get back on an expansion or so.
    - Loss of tactical action. Since Monk was removed and everyone can heal themselves, you consider each class as a DPS. Just spam attack skills.

    There are some other things that where added that in my opinion bring nothing to the game:
    - Pseudo durability system. Pointless
    - Jumping key. Sorry, i think this was a huge fan service, i think its pointless to have it compared to GW, i liked the fact i could use the space bar to do focused actions and not jump.
    - The complete loss of character customization, where you had a complete different set of faces and hairs for each class (and campaign) in GW, now its just same sets for each race, leaving you probably recycling the same face/hair for many characters.
    - No more skill hunting. You get a weapon, you use it to train the skills, that's done.
    - Amped up level cap. Why? I loved the fact level cap was only 20 in GW, and the real game started from there on, where enemies got stronger and above that level cap. (lvl 31 Dragon Glint anyone?)

    Bottom line, Guild Wars 2 is a great game, but lost the Guild Wars originality and became mainstream. If you like WoW or SW TOR you will like this game, if you loved Guild Wars, you might get a bit disappointed with this new installment. Let's hope new expansion will make things different.    … Expand
  46. MayhemMike83
    Mar 23, 2013
    6
    First of all let me state this: It is one of the best MMOs out there and you can find lots of reviews that will tell you all the reasons why it deserves a high rating, but here are the reasons why I didn't really like it.

    1. There is no traditional leveling: Each weapons uses another skill set but you can unlock all of them really quickly in under 30 mins. What's left to unlock are just    First of all let me state this: It is one of the best MMOs out there and you can find lots of reviews that will tell you all the reasons why it deserves a high rating, but here are the reasons why I didn't really like it.

    1. There is no traditional leveling: Each weapons uses another skill set but you can unlock all of them really quickly in under 30 mins. What's left to unlock are just skills that I would consider minor and mostly not worth playing for. Leveling up is one of the biggest motivational points for me in such a game and GW2 doesn't offer enough for me to keep me interested

    2. If there is no real leveling system the game needs something else to keep you involved like the story and here lays the next problem. The emotional arc of your character concludes after the second arc is finished. From that point onward you are, just a tag-along. The story is affecting other people, and you're just along for the ride. A good part of this is due to the segmented nature of the quests 3. Crafting: You need to level up your crafting skills in order to be able to craft valuable gear and that's when crafting becomes an exercise because creating one level 10 recipe does not increase your level to 11 as it would appear. No, you get experience toward level 11, meaning that the problem of leveling up by making useless items is exacerbated.    … Expand
  47. Friendzie
    Mar 21, 2013
    6
    What I want in a MMORPG is incredibly designed bosses requiring great teamwork to kill. By abandoning the staple roles of RPGs in favor of some sort of a weapon-based skill system and self-healing, the game pushes itself way backward in that department. I appreciate Guild War's answer to the dead world instance-play of games like Warcraft, but what we need more is a game with Warcraft'sWhat I want in a MMORPG is incredibly designed bosses requiring great teamwork to kill. By abandoning the staple roles of RPGs in favor of some sort of a weapon-based skill system and self-healing, the game pushes itself way backward in that department. I appreciate Guild War's answer to the dead world instance-play of games like Warcraft, but what we need more is a game with Warcraft's raid bosses and Guild War's leveling and vibrant world. We don't need a game to be 100% different in every way from the competition. I'm not just looking for the next WoW when I play a MMORPG I can deal with games diverging from WoW in a variety of ways but can we please have any other game which features PVE raid bosses as well designed as WoW? Warhammer Online nailed its coffin by specifically ignoring PVE raiding in an attempt to be different. Now Guild Wars 2, a beautiful game with so much to do, manages to do something similar, preventing itself from well-designed content by abolishing the tried-and-true staples of RPG gameplay that have worked so well. I'd maybe recommend this game for people who want PVP over PVE in a MMORPG.… Expand
  48. Indrigis
    Feb 23, 2013
    6
    The game tries hard and gets a lot right. And it gets a lot wrong. On the bright side there's the distinct lack of quest NPCs, but rather quest areas marked on the map that you just need to reach in order to be on the quest. Then again all these are the same. Kill waves of attackers, gather stuff off the ground, maybe even... do something else (no, not even remotely often enough).The game tries hard and gets a lot right. And it gets a lot wrong. On the bright side there's the distinct lack of quest NPCs, but rather quest areas marked on the map that you just need to reach in order to be on the quest. Then again all these are the same. Kill waves of attackers, gather stuff off the ground, maybe even... do something else (no, not even remotely often enough). There's no reason to really care about that. Wander around the map hoping for events to pop up until you have gained enough experience to progress to the next map. Sure, there are VISTAS! Which serve no purpose, as they did in Assassin's Creed. Geez, there's a whole world around this point! Nope, no reason to care. There are a lot of fun things too, like the whole cattle launcher affair, but they're fun once only. Otherwise it's a grind and then some more grind. And tedious exploration for the sake of map completion achievements. As for the Multiplayer and Role-Playing parts... This is pretty much an anti-social MMORPG. You can resurrect others and you can work for a common goal if you are at the same event, but you don't even remotely care about others' classes or builds or whatever. This is especially bad in dungeons. You literally have no reason to bother with tactics just mash everything you have and maybe some combos will happen maybe, or maybe not, or whatever and you know, being a tank is not a good thing it's actually not a thing at all and rogues make the best tanks due to jumping around and I'm not even motivated to find flaws in this because it's BORING AND STUPID. Also you have 30-40 skills to unlock, out of which a whopping 5 (yes, FIVE) are available for use at any time and you pretty much don't even need anything beyond the five you actually like because if you want situational skill A you can't just use it anytime unless you unequip the always useful skill B beforehand. The personal story is good, somewhat personal and influenced by your character creation choices, but... After you're done with the first arc of it you are forcefully sent on an amazingly stupid and overwhelmingly boring and hugely pointless task of getting to know more of one of the lesser races of the world. WHY? WHY ON EARTH WOULD THE DESIGNERS THINK YOU WOULD EVER WANT TO DO THAT?! Oh, and as for the 8.0 user score can't help but notice the amazing amount of 10 points reviews published on 28/8/12 (the day after launch, no less).… Expand
  49. Flash_Over
    Feb 20, 2013
    6
    Guild Wars 2... I have such mixed feelings about his game. I will start with the PROs I will say it is a good game. It is high quality and it very detailed and adventurous. I love the world, the artwork and most of all the character creator. The character creator is possibly one of the best I have used and I had a lot of fun (In the beginning) playing this game. I waited a good long fewGuild Wars 2... I have such mixed feelings about his game. I will start with the PROs I will say it is a good game. It is high quality and it very detailed and adventurous. I love the world, the artwork and most of all the character creator. The character creator is possibly one of the best I have used and I had a lot of fun (In the beginning) playing this game. I waited a good long few months so i soak up what this game is all about from the gameplay and 'is it fun?' perspective. But, after the things I have encountered... though high quality, the game seems to be unfinished. I will explain. CONs First thing that annoyed me unlike other MMOs, is there are certain things that must come as standard in every MMO. By these I mean, trading with other players, mounts and a well designed and easy to use Auction House. This game lacks all of those. No trading option still puzzles me, but the auction house feels unpolished since it was first created, the text is choppy and the filters are terrible, ontop of that, the way the auction house is set up makes is EASY for other players and gold farmers/seller to exploit and drive up the currency market. Mounts, I understand Arenanets solution to no mount is to create instant teleport points. Yea, that is convenient, but personally I like buying/earning mounts in a game. I also love galloping through the environments. But, (I may be speculating) That taking the mounts out of the game frees up time and money creating the animations, skins, programming ect, making this a cooperate decision and not a game one. Next is the combat system and skill system. No trainers, no weapon learning, no nothing. Around level 30 you will unlock all you skill slots and spell you will use for the rest of the game exspereince. You will only have 5 weapon spells (5 more for underwater) and 6 buffs/cooldowns. That is it. i personally could not bare with using the same 5 or so spells over and over till lvl 80. The combat is just not fun. The weapon skills and spells are so limited. I feel brain dead though right now. This maybe the worst review I have written, but I feel I touched on the things that greatly disappointed me about this game. So to sum things up. PROS: No monthly fee, Excellent Character creator, Amazing world and environments, refreshing questing and story concept, good graphics and animations, and finally fun exploration and puzzle mechanics. CONS: NO mounts, NO player to player trading, Poor (But tolerable) Auction House and currency system, Limited spells and abilities, no tank/dps/healer concept (Which makes boss fights nothing but freelancing spell spamming chaos with no team work.), and a boring and repetitive combat system.… Expand
  50. Nathonas
    Feb 19, 2013
    6
    As a long time disillusioned WoW player I was looking forward to Guild Wars 2 as a new MMO to play. I prepurchased the game and began playing immediately in August. I enjoyed the game at first and liked that it tried to do a lot of things differently, although my friends didn't share my opinion. However I quickly became bored and within a month I was no longer logging on at all. The gameAs a long time disillusioned WoW player I was looking forward to Guild Wars 2 as a new MMO to play. I prepurchased the game and began playing immediately in August. I enjoyed the game at first and liked that it tried to do a lot of things differently, although my friends didn't share my opinion. However I quickly became bored and within a month I was no longer logging on at all. The game is not terrible by any means, but I can now safely say it is a rather lackluster MMO:

    Successful Mechanics:

    - Everything is rewarded with experience really simple and great idea to reduce the grind and give people motivation to try everything

    - Very nice sense of exploration with beautiful Zones and vistas

    - A social approach to quests dynamic events leveling in GW2 is not nearly as boring as standard MMOs and it can be fun to group up with other people constantly Skills being tied to weapons is an interesting and innovative idea

    - Gorgeous Graphics Poor Mechanics:

    - PvP is a horribly-designed, horribly balanced zerg fast. This is by far my biggest gripe with the game, as I was a hardcore PvP/arena player in WoW. WvW is just a huge zerg fest with little to no strategy, and the "battlegrounds" are boring and stale.

    - The combat and controls in the game just don't feel smooth. WoW players will know what I mean.

    - The "downed" mechanic is silly in PvP and adds a tedious element to killing enemies.

    - Every class has basically the same set of skills with slight differences (for example, damage, heal, escape, CC, etc). At first the classes look different but really the differences are quite small as everyone can do a little bit of everything and you can see how similar a 99% of the skills are. The story side of the game is very cheesy and boring    … Expand
  51. Rajal
    Feb 17, 2013
    7
    Overall, its not a bad game... However it does feel like it was rushed. The biggest issue may be that people feel a little confused with where to go. In a way I like the heart system, but then you don't have to talk to anyone and that alone can make the world feel kind of hollow. This can be solved by just going up to the Heart giver and asking him whats up, but you don't have to toOverall, its not a bad game... However it does feel like it was rushed. The biggest issue may be that people feel a little confused with where to go. In a way I like the heart system, but then you don't have to talk to anyone and that alone can make the world feel kind of hollow. This can be solved by just going up to the Heart giver and asking him whats up, but you don't have to to activate the tasks and what not. Some people really hate the new weapon skill system, but I'm fine with it. I understand that balancing all those skills in GW1 must of been a nightmare but one part of me still misses all those build possibilities... ESPECIALLY with Mesmers. I feel the game kind of favors soloing a bit too much, but its not entirely a bad thing either.

    My main concern is with NCSoft however. I feel like its been rushed out by them, and apparently they have been involved in nearly eradicating all Asian related things (Tengus not included... kinda). Rumors about how they wanted Anet to remove the Canthan District and a possibility of never having a return trip to Cantha is... odd. I really hope NCSoft does not block Anet from doing this as a possible expansion set, and that Anet can start pumping more life into this game. It's not bad really, but it feels... Well, incomplete. My hope is that this goes the way of the old GW and that an expansion will breathe more life into it.    … Expand
  52. MRGamer
    Feb 3, 2013
    7
    I bought the game during the holiday sales and leveled a warrior to level 80. I completed the personal story, and did a bit of everything else- sPvP, Fractals, WvW. There are many casual/ solo friendly features of the game that make it a great "B2P" game to pick up and play through. The production value is high, and the game looks good and runs well. However, as I continued to log in andI bought the game during the holiday sales and leveled a warrior to level 80. I completed the personal story, and did a bit of everything else- sPvP, Fractals, WvW. There are many casual/ solo friendly features of the game that make it a great "B2P" game to pick up and play through. The production value is high, and the game looks good and runs well. However, as I continued to log in and play with my level 80 character, I started to feel the impact of the design decisions Anet continues to make that are aimed at herding players toward the TP/ Gem Store. In spite of the famous "no grind" manifesto policy, each of the areas of the game presented me with some sort of time/ gold sink, including the infamous "DR" that prompts so much conspiracy discussion. For every inconvenience the game presents, there is a solution that can be purchased in the gem store. It is a delicate balancing act, and GW2 will continue to run the risk of losing players when the obvious F2P greed drives away customers- like myself. I decided I got my money's worth out of my one play through. The fun of playing the game was not worth the time and effort for me, and I personally will not start buying gems/ gold in order to enjoy the game. I would rather pay a sub or full price for expansions than get continually nickel and dimed to ride all the rides. Still a good game, but I am not going to keep throwing money at it.… Expand
  53. iozay
    Feb 2, 2013
    7
    Guildwars 2 is a decent game, is supported well but the game is pretty overhyped. The game is also arguable "pay2win"(Even though people might disagree with it).
  54. DivinityItself
    Jan 23, 2013
    5
    ArenaNet's Core Dev team thought up a wonderful change for the MMO genre. But the game was so big to develop, that they had to bring in more employees. And as with any big company, leadership needs to be strong en directive. This is not a cosy and warm enthusiast project. This is a real gargantuan challenge. And sorry to say: it fails for me. It is judged by the criterium that all gamesArenaNet's Core Dev team thought up a wonderful change for the MMO genre. But the game was so big to develop, that they had to bring in more employees. And as with any big company, leadership needs to be strong en directive. This is not a cosy and warm enthusiast project. This is a real gargantuan challenge. And sorry to say: it fails for me. It is judged by the criterium that all games are judged by: engagement. Remember the 8-bit games? Visually prehistoric, but by times excellent to keep you interested due to the mechanics of the game-design. Fast-forward to GW2. It does not commit you to your character development, role or affairs in the GW2 world. The player does not matter to the world, and the game mechanics autonomously does its thing. This is not a MMORPG, it's a MMO. I know that over time it will enhance on its features and get more polished. But will not change in its core design that sins on the first rule of successful gaming: engagement.… Expand
  55. cc742
    Jan 21, 2013
    7
    I find it hard to review GW2 since the only other mmo's i've played are aq worlds(aka the worst mmo there is) and runescape which has graphic worse than an n64. That being said, i coudnt find a ton of enjoyment in guild wars 2. The classes were interesting and alot of the game is simply beautiful, but rip it down to its core its still an MMo. I found the system of just telling youI find it hard to review GW2 since the only other mmo's i've played are aq worlds(aka the worst mmo there is) and runescape which has graphic worse than an n64. That being said, i coudnt find a ton of enjoyment in guild wars 2. The classes were interesting and alot of the game is simply beautiful, but rip it down to its core its still an MMo. I found the system of just telling you everything u need to do at the beggining of the area nice, but still i've never like fetch quests as doing the same thing 200000 times has never interested me. I cant recomend the PVP though. Dear god i played it for 10 mins where we wated and decided to breach a walll. we finaly do and what happens? ANOTHER WALL. Ugh it got so boring i just decided to stay on the PVE and work with that. After a week i was about to log on and i ask myself am i have fun? the answer was no. No, this is not fun and there are better games to play, even if there off line. In conclusion if u like mmo's you will enjoy this, but if not it most likly wont be the big converter or "wow killer" people thought it could be… Expand
  56. Fuub
    Jan 21, 2013
    5
    Guild wars 2, good graphics, nice maps, fun dynamic events, and... that's about it!

    Classes feel weird, too few skills to choose from and don't feel solid whatsoever, Spammable PvP is not really fun, WvWvW its just repetitive pug battles, and the worst of all, it has reduced camera Field Of View that reminds me all the bad quality games out there, which completely breaks the game experience.
  57. DaChunK
    Jan 11, 2013
    6
    I cant get into it. I really have tried and like the first Guild wars I've only got a character to around lvl 25 and have completely lost interest. I find it a very unsocial game, still to much of a rush to get to the end game or lvl 80. Which is my first big gripe - it takes to damn long to finish the game or reach maximum level. True it's not about the end game, it's the journey. yet II cant get into it. I really have tried and like the first Guild wars I've only got a character to around lvl 25 and have completely lost interest. I find it a very unsocial game, still to much of a rush to get to the end game or lvl 80. Which is my first big gripe - it takes to damn long to finish the game or reach maximum level. True it's not about the end game, it's the journey. yet I should not have to spend 100 hours or so to bloody well get there, it's ridiculous! Around 30 or so hours is more than enough time to dedicate to one character and a player should be rewarded more appropriately for their time invested.

    As for being in a guild - it's a sense of belonging to something, yet it aside from that, the game does indeed feel like a single player game with other people jumping in and out of it at times. As an older gamer (37) I play for perhaps different reasons than others. One of my main reason for playing while I'm distanced from more interesting things to do (my girlfriend for one), is the social aspect of a multiplayer game. And for me this game has very little meaningful interaction. People jump in, kill, jump out of your area. For all it was promised to be, guild wars is STILL and end level game. That for me makes it rather disappointing as I'll most likely never get there.

    Another BIG mistake they did was make the level's to high - to big of a spread. 40 levels would have been more than sufficient and make it take longer to achieve them. That way more people could have played together, with there being more characters of a similar level. Instead you have a situation where you are pretty well ALWAYS playing without your fellow guild members and by yourself to level. Hence little reason to be a part of a guild until you reach end game... my opinion. :-)

    It was fresh in many ways and combat is fun. Looks pretty and great with no monthly subscription, yet it's far from enough to get me to give in any more of my time until MAJOR changes take place... which they shall not.    … Expand
  58. WhiteTalpa
    Jan 10, 2013
    6
    Guild Wars 2 does a lot of things right and is an enjoyable game However, there are already other big games like RuneScape which has got it 99% right, so in conclusion forget Guild Wars 2 and play RuneScape.
  59. morroblivion
    Jan 3, 2013
    6
    In all honesty, I regret buying the game. It was now for me, and quite possibly not for some people who gave negative reviews. I saw that the good things were "Dynamic events" "Revolutionary" and I really thought that these things would make me love the game, but instead it felt very repetitive and I was unable to cling to it. I must admit though that I enjoyed it at the start, but IIn all honesty, I regret buying the game. It was now for me, and quite possibly not for some people who gave negative reviews. I saw that the good things were "Dynamic events" "Revolutionary" and I really thought that these things would make me love the game, but instead it felt very repetitive and I was unable to cling to it. I must admit though that I enjoyed it at the start, but I slowly lost it. The only quest rewards are only coins, ranging from a few copper(4 copper) to some silver(3 silver and some copper). They didn't offer anything new to the kill x collect y thing, it's essentially the same except they put a progress bar instead of say 0/10 kills. The dynamic events were good at the start but I felt that they were just self activated quests with a timer. Also the events lack in variety, its all the same. It's usually killing a champion/veteran monster, kill hordes/waves of monsters while capturing this area, collecting a certain number of plants, escorting a dolyak/person and killing of some monsters. It's all the same. The armors too lack in variety and have to be either crafter, bought(karma,AH) or looted(looted ones are generally poorer in qyuiality compared to crafted or bought. The story is nice but could've been presented MUCH better. One good this about the game is Tyria. The world looks amazing and Tyria is beautifully crafted. The sound is also amazing. WvW is fun and PvP is statistically balanced. It's not a good game in my eyes, it's not a bad one either. It's just another game in the MMO cycle. Either to be remembered or forgotten.… Expand
  60. Landiien
    Dec 27, 2012
    6
    I really wanted to like GW2, and I tried. Different classes, different races. I kept asking myself, "So many people like this game, and the reviews are great; what am I not getting, here?" The story is weak, and the voice acting is often laughably bad. The questing system is a hot mess, and it just seems as though the world is constantly throwing these objectives at you without anyI really wanted to like GW2, and I tried. Different classes, different races. I kept asking myself, "So many people like this game, and the reviews are great; what am I not getting, here?" The story is weak, and the voice acting is often laughably bad. The questing system is a hot mess, and it just seems as though the world is constantly throwing these objectives at you without any back-story or sense of purpose (unless you go looking for the NPC with the heart over their head, but even then, the story is usually not worth reading). The combat is extremely dull and simple. I could engage in combat, walk away from my computer for a minute or two, and return to find I'd won.

    Even when playing with friends, I could never stomach more than an hour before things got boring. In other MMOs, when I needed to break-up the monotony, I'd jump into PvP. But this is the same effect-spamming, insta-cast, running in circles and jumping all over the place crap that has become the MMO norm.

    Nothing about it felt revolutionary. In fact, some much was streamlined in the U/I and party systems that the experience felt cheapened. Coupled with the mediocre production values and lackluster visuals, I was extremely aware at all times that I was playing a free game. In the end, I decided that I'm not actually "missing" anything. GW2 is insanely overhyped and completely overrated because it's free-to-play. Would the reviews be so high if you had to pay monthly to play?    … Expand
  61. Paulo-Maciel
    Dec 25, 2012
    6
    This game may have a lot of positive things, but for people adicted to MMORPG. My experience from this game it´s just fight the same enemys in the same place, in the same way, over and over again until I level up to go to a new place and repeat it all.
    Think before buy this game, it´s not for everyone.
  62. IndigoEyes
    Dec 13, 2012
    5
    Guild Wars II feels like it's heading towards a new genre that's not mmorpg. Players who hate mmorpgs but wants to play a game with multi-player options should give this game a try. Players who love mmorpgs and wants the same feelings they acquired from previous mmorpgs should avoid this game at all cost. - Unless you approach this game like how you approach a ps3/xbox console RPG.

    The    Guild Wars II feels like it's heading towards a new genre that's not mmorpg. Players who hate mmorpgs but wants to play a game with multi-player options should give this game a try. Players who love mmorpgs and wants the same feelings they acquired from previous mmorpgs should avoid this game at all cost. - Unless you approach this game like how you approach a ps3/xbox console RPG.

    The reason for the mediocore score is because this game doesn't have the pull factor after weeks or months of gameplay. Mmorpgs are supposed to make players stick for years. It's subjected to individual because everyone has different burn-outs. Among the many mmorpgs I played, this game has burned me out the fastest. It has a weak end-game that caters mainly the casual players. If you love to play mmorpgs where you can reach the max stuffs + achieved every addictive goals so that you can stop being lured into the game and only login once a month for special events, this game is just for you.

    This mmorpg punishes dedicated mmorpg'ers while awards action/skill-gamers who favors games like Tomb Raider and Ninja Gaiden. It lacks the avatar progression from traditional mmorpg. It severely lacks the rewards factor in progression. Guild Wars II seems to mainly focus towards players-to-npc interactions than players-to-players interaction. All or most of your memories are you being with npcs. A true mmorpg leds players to create memories with other players. Social interactions and character progression are the 2 weakest elements in this game. The strong points of this game is the graphic, npc to player interactions, customisable looks, side-quests and casual-friendly. If you're an action/skill gamer that came from games like Tomb Raider, street fighter, ninja gaiden and super mario, GW2 is just for you. If you're a rpg gamer that came from games like Final Fantasy, pokemon and asian rpgs, GWII is not for you. Please judge mmorpg by it's merits, not by the hype. The games that shine the most are those who spent millions of dollars into advertising than improving content.    … Expand
  63. OliverGrau
    Dec 3, 2012
    6
    Guild Wars 2 was my last MMORPG. The meaning of a MMORPG is progession, progression gets you too keep playing. I can now say, as I've had a lvl 80 for just about as long as the game has been released that progressions ends when you reach lvl 80. The Graphics: They are decent for an MMORPG, but it's very bad optimized. I've changed my old gaming desktop out for a completly new one and I seeGuild Wars 2 was my last MMORPG. The meaning of a MMORPG is progession, progression gets you too keep playing. I can now say, as I've had a lvl 80 for just about as long as the game has been released that progressions ends when you reach lvl 80. The Graphics: They are decent for an MMORPG, but it's very bad optimized. I've changed my old gaming desktop out for a completly new one and I see no increase of FPS. The gameplay: I love how you actually need some skill to be good in this game, it's not just about the gear, but about your skill of playing. This falls apart though, because the PVP system is not very good I'd say. SPVP is a nice addition for those WHO wants completely fairplay, but where does that leave the progression? You can't get stronger, faster or better by this. In WvWvW all your progression Means nothing, because 1 man can't make any difference. The Dungeons: Not rewarding at all, I hate how it's all bout those emblems and not about what bosses actually could be dropping. I loved in WOW how I always was so excited when we were in raids. Oh yeah, raids those doesn't exist in GW2. There is also a lack of dungeons. It's all just the same, there really isn't such big difference about them. I'm giving this a 6 because of the great idea and there is no monthly subscription. It lacks of content though. As said before, reach lvl 80 and feel the pain of nothing to do.… Expand
  64. tyler_james
    Dec 2, 2012
    6
    I played Guild Wars 1 for 5 years. I was a huge fan and some of the memories I made there will stay with me for a long time. Conversely, Guild Wars 2 is not a game that I can really recommend. I hate to say that, but it's true. The good aspects of the game include the no-monthly-fee system Arena Net has continued, and some genuinely ambitious game-play changes. Unfortunately, even 3-monthsI played Guild Wars 1 for 5 years. I was a huge fan and some of the memories I made there will stay with me for a long time. Conversely, Guild Wars 2 is not a game that I can really recommend. I hate to say that, but it's true. The good aspects of the game include the no-monthly-fee system Arena Net has continued, and some genuinely ambitious game-play changes. Unfortunately, even 3-months into launch, the game is incredibly buggy, the market sell/purchase system makes productive enterprise almost impossible (you're taxed 20% just to sell an item), and the controls are disappointingly clunky. On top of that, game-play gets incredibly repetitive and boring. Also, GW2 is a grind-heavy game. I appreciate the extension of the level-cap, however you spend the first 60 levels looking stupid aesthetically, with rewards in the form of items and gold only really coming from intense dungeon runs. There are ups and downs to the game, but in my opinion, and only comparing it to GW1, this game has taken a lot of the fun and a lot of the magic right out of the series. GW2 might compare more favorably to other contemporary MMO's, but I feel that Arena Net took a big step backwards in some critical areas with disappointingly executed new-content that generally detracts from the single most important question of any game: is it fun?… Expand
  65. Dethstar
    Dec 2, 2012
    5
    This is never going to be your primary MMO unless your a student maybe. The lack of a subscription is nice meaning that you can keep it on a back burner just in case you want to play it one day. The launch went well with less bugs than normal and the graphics are pretty enough. However, boy does this get tedious fast. For once, its not the quests that make it dull but the combat. I haveThis is never going to be your primary MMO unless your a student maybe. The lack of a subscription is nice meaning that you can keep it on a back burner just in case you want to play it one day. The launch went well with less bugs than normal and the graphics are pretty enough. However, boy does this get tedious fast. For once, its not the quests that make it dull but the combat. I have tried a couple of different classes so far but they share one thing. Click target hit attack then repetetively hit one button (maybe 2 if you can be arsed) over and over. So many characters all the same as you wander around that it should be renamed clone world. This really kills the game for me. The skill tree just doesn't have diversity and the drip feeding of rewards is not satisfying enough. Compare this a game with much more diverse character development like Rift for an example of what is better. This is a new MMO. Massive Mediocrity Online. Nothing to detest here, but may as well move along because there is nothing to see here either.… Expand
  66. Jangle
    Dec 1, 2012
    7
    I played this game for around 3 weeks from release and sold the account for $140 with a lvl 80 warrior alone. The game is fun and interesting with new mechanics for the first few weeks. The story is somewhat decent. The action is pretty linear and easy for anyone to use, so it appeals to more new players in the GW series. For the more experienced players, there is little customizationI played this game for around 3 weeks from release and sold the account for $140 with a lvl 80 warrior alone. The game is fun and interesting with new mechanics for the first few weeks. The story is somewhat decent. The action is pretty linear and easy for anyone to use, so it appeals to more new players in the GW series. For the more experienced players, there is little customization of skills and weapons, so basically, everyone does the same thing. Compared to GW1, there is only single class so no adding a second, there are a small limited pool of skills for every class, there's a lot less strategy and skill involved since you can attack and use skills while moving and you can see your enemies' AOE landings before they hit the spot, and there are numerous game-breaking bugs. The PVP is very repetitive and doesn't give me any incentive to play it. Aside from these downs, the achievements systems is probably one of the best I've seen in any MMO. The graphics are pretty good even though they aren't optimized well for higher end systems yet. The quests are pretty average and mundane so yes you will do a lot of gathering wood for farmers and such. So for those of you considering the game, if you are new to MMOs and haven't played GW1, you will like this game. From the more experienced players, you will notice a lot of what made GW1 so great, has been removed and made it more geared towards new players. Interesting strategy considering it's much easier to keep your loyal customer base than trying to get new ones. They should have kept their strengths and simply tweaked and updated them. All around, some decent mechanics, but essentially, not much different from any other MMO out there.… Expand
  67. hfffoman
    Nov 25, 2012
    7
    I am downgrading my score from when it first came out because of some annoying bugs. On two occasions I suffered a rollback which meant I went back to an earlier version of my character, losing all progress. Each time it cost me a day's play. I believe they are aware of the problem but chose to do nothing about it. The rest of my review still stands - the game is fantastic fun to playI am downgrading my score from when it first came out because of some annoying bugs. On two occasions I suffered a rollback which meant I went back to an earlier version of my character, losing all progress. Each time it cost me a day's play. I believe they are aware of the problem but chose to do nothing about it. The rest of my review still stands - the game is fantastic fun to play though I found the story a bit weak.… Expand
  68. InternetWarrior
    Nov 19, 2012
    7
    Guild Wars 2 was said by many to be the game to usher in the next generation of MMOs. In my view, it hasn't lived up to that distinction. Nevertheless, I would still commend ArenaNet on attempting to innovate rather than re-hashing same old tired generic MMO concepts.

    The PvE (Player versus Environment, i.e. player versus computer) is probably the best part of GW2. The combat system,    Guild Wars 2 was said by many to be the game to usher in the next generation of MMOs. In my view, it hasn't lived up to that distinction. Nevertheless, I would still commend ArenaNet on attempting to innovate rather than re-hashing same old tired generic MMO concepts.

    The PvE (Player versus Environment, i.e. player versus computer) is probably the best part of GW2. The combat system, scaling and dynamic events breathe new life in to open world PvE. As someone who has done questing to death in other MMOs, I actually found I was perfectly happy to run around and do a few zones without getting bored. The two big criticisms I had of open world PvE was unoriginal/boring story-lines and hearts (very close to traditional quests).

    Regarding the hearts. This was a feature announced basically at the 11th hour. Most zones were given X amount of heart quests to complete, each appearing on the world map. This encouraged people to run around doing them and move on to the next zone, hence, detracting from dynamic events (which were the real innovation with GW2). Furthermore, the hearts caused many people to wander in to the next zone under-leveled because they did not grant sufficient experience.

    To elaborate on the "unoriginal/boring story-lines", I felt the stories had pretty generic MMO/DnD fantasy type plots. I can't remember any use of writing devices such as red herrings and plot twists to mix things up a bit and make them interesting. Additionally, I wasn't impressed with the setting outside of dynamic events/hearts either. Although the races are not standard fantasy Human, Elf and Dwarf (etc.) they do use the same old stereotypes we have seem time and time again. Lastly, I found the voice acting to range from acceptable, to downright bad to completely immersion breaking. Having multiple races (sometimes in the same zone) with "funny" Jar Jar Binks-like voices really irritated me.

    The two major parts of PvE I have not mentioned are dungeons and the personal story. I would say much the same thing about personal story that I did in the last paragraph. Dungeons on the other hand were well done. However, I would liked there to have been more of them.

    WvW (World v World v World) offers good large group siege warfare style PvP (Player versus Player) if you like that sort of thing. Nevertheless, be prepared to deal with technical problems (i.e. lag). I have a monster PC and average internet connection and I was still experiencing lag (most likely some kind of server-side bug). Furthermore, you should also be prepared to deal with a system where whoever has the greatest numbers generally wins and a rather arbitrary scoring mechanism. In other words, winning is not really about playing well, winning is about getting as many people as possible to play at silly 'o' clock in the morning.

    WvW also fails to cater very well to the solo player, small group and guild. Solo players and small groups are very likely to encounter larger groups of people in their travels due to the relatively small size of the map (considering the amount of people in it). When solo players and small groups do manage to take appropriately sized objectives they will often find it is steamrolled by a larger group and taken back 5 minutes later. WvW could have potentially been a great environment for guilds, however, that was defeated by small population limits on maps and long queues; it takes a long time to get the whole guild in.

    Structured PvP is the last big part of GW2 I haven't mentioned. Teams of 1-8 compete to take and hold 3 objectives within a small map. It is intended as the more competitive PvP option. As great as the combat system is for PvE, it doesn't really seem to compliment PvP at all. The dodge system, removal of energy and abilities in general seem to make for a very frustrating style of play. Remember those extremely irritating gimmicky builds from other MMOs (e.g. early WoTLK Retri Pala, early RIFT Saboteur and SW:TOR tracer spammer)? Well, it's not the occasional person running this type of build in GW2, it's everyone.

    The dodge system is frustrating because it can add a huge element of luck in to winning and justifies the inclusion of insanely powerful dodge or die abilities. These dodge or die abilities have a disproportionately powerful considering how hard it is to dodge them. In addition, be prepare for limited field of view, excessive spell effects, lack of cast bars and an excessive amount of characters (e.g. pets/clones) on screen to make dodging these abilities even harder. The number of dodges does not scale with the number of attackers, so you can potentially get nuked down in a second, if focused by a large group.

    If you enjoy doing solo and small group PvE I would recommend GW2 wholeheartedly. The fresh take on things is well worth experiencing. However, there is a limited amount of PvE content available so don't expect it to last months and months if you play a lot.    … Expand
  69. BeoMauz
    Nov 19, 2012
    7
    Why Hello thar,

    first of all Guild Wars 2 isnt a bad Game at all, the Leveling is quite nice but htere could be more Models for the NPC enemies. The Problem with the Game is the Endgame once u hit Max Level the Game just falls a bit off, due to lack of Content. The PvP is a split Thing the WvW-PvP is quite nice and offers you options on how to play, for example you dont need to zerg    Why Hello thar,

    first of all Guild Wars 2 isnt a bad Game at all, the Leveling is quite nice but htere could be more Models for the NPC enemies.
    The Problem with the Game is the Endgame once u hit Max Level the Game just falls a bit off, due to lack of Content.

    The PvP is a split Thing the WvW-PvP is quite nice and offers you options on how to play, for example you dont need to zerg around you can push the Logistics and make your team win.

    All in all the Game is solid but the Motivation after you hit Max Level is just fallin off a bit too quickly.    … Expand
  70. rptb1
    Nov 16, 2012
    5
    Whichever class you play, wherever you go, whatever you do, Guild Wars 2 feels the same. In making all choices equally valid and rewarding, they've made a game in which nothing is special. There is nothing much to find out, few tips or tricks to share, little player skill to develop. Just do anything and make progress. It doesn't matter. Press any key to continue.
  71. MrBuckie
    Nov 13, 2012
    6
    I used to love this game, I was in all the public betas. But after a while, this game gets really boring. There's not enough content for sure. There are things I like and things I don't. I really like some of the innovative things with this game. I liked how crafting system worked and lvling up. And some of the dungeons werereally good since you had to do teamwork to do them, (but stillI used to love this game, I was in all the public betas. But after a while, this game gets really boring. There's not enough content for sure. There are things I like and things I don't. I really like some of the innovative things with this game. I liked how crafting system worked and lvling up. And some of the dungeons werereally good since you had to do teamwork to do them, (but still most of the dungeons were bad). Didn't Arenanet say that there wasn't much grind in this game? The end game is actually all about grind. It's too damn repetitive and boring. Also GW2 has problem with bots. The personal story is loads of crap too, your choices doesn't really affect to the story AT ALL. All and all, it's a good game, since there isn't subscription fee. I wouldn't really recommend to buy it if you're planning to rush to max lvl.… Expand
  72. saidor
    Nov 11, 2012
    6
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. GW2 is a nice place to visit, but I wouldn't want to live there. Visually it's good, but not fantastic, and the game play animation has a strange feel to it. Some call it floaty, some call it bloaty. The game play itself is also average. Some interesting combat mechancis in that different weapon combinations open up different skills, and the crafting mechanics shared across all your characters, are welcome features i've not seem on the other mmo's, but as will all mmo's its go here kill that go here collect this. Not quite on red snapper levels but it's still there. The game heavily promotes the 'personal story' making out that its all about you creating your own legend. In this Anet has completely failed. Sorry Anet. It's a linear story line with poor voice acting. It doesnt even have real world animation, just odd cut scenes that detach you from the game. Most of the story isnt about what you do, its about you following instructions like a good little peon. The game lacks depth to a newcomer unfamiliar with the GW world and background. Very little draws you in to the world. For a one of price its a reasonable game with some interesting new touches but nothing to really get excited over. However, zones feel empty, servers are already struggling to attract new players, and there are the usual requests to merge servers or transfer to better ones. If this was pay to play it would be worrying.… Expand
  73. GrouchoMarx
    Nov 3, 2012
    7
    This game is worth the money, if only to go through the content once. I was a hard core WoW player for 4 years before giving it up. Guild Wars 2 makes it clear it is going head-to-head with WoW as evidenced by this "encrypted" saying that was on one of the tombstones outside of Divinity's Reach: "I played WoW and look at me now. If only I had been like you and stuck to playing GW2". ItThis game is worth the money, if only to go through the content once. I was a hard core WoW player for 4 years before giving it up. Guild Wars 2 makes it clear it is going head-to-head with WoW as evidenced by this "encrypted" saying that was on one of the tombstones outside of Divinity's Reach: "I played WoW and look at me now. If only I had been like you and stuck to playing GW2". It has since been removed, but it makes it clear what audience ArenaNet is going after. + Better than WoW
    = Equal to WoW
    - Worse than WoW

    + Dynamic quests keeps things fresh and exciting and making grouping up with people in the same area painless
    + Every class gets a self heal
    + Every class can rez another player
    + Access to trading post from anywhere in the world
    + Shared resource nodes (unlike WoW's every man for himself model)
    + No monthly subscription fee = Graphics: Pretty equal to WoW, although the text in GW2 is a bit weird/dated.
    = Environment: World is alive and detailed with leaves flying around and visually stunning landscapes
    = Sound/Music: Music is good; the sounds come from real life recordings for realism
    = Holiday events and rewards on par with WoW's

    - Different areas are instanced leading to "breaks" between traveling between them
    - No LFG tool. Every modern MMO has this. This game needs a serious LFG tool like WoW
    - No addon support
    - Lack of content. I found myself trying to hunt all over for quests to level up with. WoW doesn't have this problem
    - Dungeons can be frustrating
    - Lack of a decent tutorial or guide system for crafting, travel and gameplay (Blizzard now gives you a PDF manual with everything you ever wanted to know and more about WoW)
    - Lack of mounts

    Overall, this game seems like WoW in a simpler time, like 2004/2005. Sit in a map or a city and spam the chat channels LFG. That's what I did years ago and don't feel like doing that anymore.    … Expand
  74. Jalfred
    Nov 2, 2012
    7
    I'm an avid fan of MMORPG and this game fall short of my expectations and many others by the looks of it. Yet I still recommend fans of this genre pick up this game as unlike most, it's none subscription based and will be a game I will come back to every now and again for years to come.
    The games PvP, from what I've seen is pretty unbalanced but it's not a game breaker. The PvE is very    I'm an avid fan of MMORPG and this game fall short of my expectations and many others by the looks of it. Yet I still recommend fans of this genre pick up this game as unlike most, it's none subscription based and will be a game I will come back to every now and again for years to come.
    The games PvP, from what I've seen is pretty unbalanced but it's not a game breaker. The PvE is very different to any other MMORPG I've played. Each instance has a limit of 5 players which I found slightly disappointing yet they are very challenging and requires a lot more cooperation than any other multi player PvE experience, like World Of Warcraft for instance. What I found very interesting is the fact ArenaNet based the game on giving the player a choice of how to level. For example, one could level to 80 with just World PvP (A new feature which involves a server VS server VS server system. Which takes place in a huge battleground). Or Structured PvP (A smaller PVP environment). Or even just questing. The game hasn't got a compelling storyline but this can easily be avoided.
    The game play varies greatly from profession to profession, depending on what type of profession you're playing. The thief and most melee classes consist of more button mashing then skillful play with ranged classes mostly bound to a powerful rotation.
    Personally I recommend picking this up even if you don't plan on playing for a considerable amount of time. The soul fact that this game isn't a subscription is a must buy for me.    … Expand
  75. Jinxey
    Nov 1, 2012
    5
    The game, doesn't hold up to what I thought it would be from GW1. It annoys me how many bugs there are in the game, one of the level 45 story mode quests has been broken, since the game was released it is the second quest for Order of the whispers for the Skritt. I bought it while knowing there wouldn't be any tank or healer in the game, even through you can be semi, it is still not theThe game, doesn't hold up to what I thought it would be from GW1. It annoys me how many bugs there are in the game, one of the level 45 story mode quests has been broken, since the game was released it is the second quest for Order of the whispers for the Skritt. I bought it while knowing there wouldn't be any tank or healer in the game, even through you can be semi, it is still not the same. My biggest complaint is how useless it makes you feel with crafting. On other MMOs, you could at least sell what you made through the leveling up of it, even if you don't break even you can still sell it, while GW2 everything you make until max level is practically trash. I witnessed so many times I tried to do a skill quest and there was no npc there or the same with a event, that they are gone because of a bug. Only reason I didn't give it a 0, but a 5 because it at least does show me a little bit of joy trying to reach max level. The dodge feature is another thing, that shouldn't of been introduced to mmos, at least it should of been, where you don't dodge everything, it makes why should I do a aoe, when people can just dodge out of it. I am still going give the game a chance to max level, but after I reach it not sure, if I want to continue due to no end game content other then dungeons that i have to sometimes wait 1 hour to find something or WVW where unless you are on a good server you can actually have fun, while it doesn't matter what server you are on, because eventually it will drop and another server will be better and make WVW suck for your server. I have played around 14 mmos and I plan to jump ship to FFXIV Realm reborn, as soon as it comes out it will give me more of a mmo experience and not a single player one, with multi-player.… Expand
  76. VendettaDFA
    Oct 29, 2012
    6
    I reviewed this game previously a 10 after playing since headstart. After this time I am rereviewing and have come to the conclusion this prince of a game has more warts than a frog in a swamp. The main game is fine except for 2 core mechanics that have been exploited. Instanced nodes and a game wide Trading Post. Goldsellers have hacked into the game and botted in the form of what I referI reviewed this game previously a 10 after playing since headstart. After this time I am rereviewing and have come to the conclusion this prince of a game has more warts than a frog in a swamp. The main game is fine except for 2 core mechanics that have been exploited. Instanced nodes and a game wide Trading Post. Goldsellers have hacked into the game and botted in the form of what I refer to as the Naked Ranger Conga Line. All nodes can be harvested by each player or bot with impunity. A line of 5 ormore bots hits all the best areas before legit players can have a shot. They tag mobs and take drops and then all these basic mats glut the Trading Post. You would think this would bottom the price to nothing, but the forums cried for and got a barrier keeping the price from dropping below a sell price to an NPC vendor. They said that would keep new players from getting cheated on the Post. Instead it allows a set ROI for all the goldsellers and the armchair Economy experts in the forums never noticed. They are more bent on calling anyone expressing the desire for a free market chance a power mad moneygrubber. So this version of Trading post keeps the goldsellers in business while choking the playablity out of the TP. After spending time trying to handle this within the forums and being accused of
    trying to gain an unfair advantage by players and having mods and John Smith "you guys got this thread handled" of ANET shout me down as trying to make a ton of money i give up handling this on the inside. The top tier items cost 400g .... who is trying to make a ton of money? almost RMAH-like. The goldsellers illegal influx of money generated from a stable ROI on basic mats has sent gems values up and gold from gems down. Example - I bought one character slot with in-game gold for under 3g shortly after the game got the TP up. Fair and nice...... that same slot would take over 8g now. Crafting is worhtless and a money sink ... like its needed.. with only xp having any value. I can farm mats and gain equal exp and more money. anyone who is looking for an enjoyable market experience with free enterprise and the ability to succeed or fail on your own... run fast and far the other direction. This is not your game. The game environment is good. The dyanmic events, POI, heart quests etc ... are wonderful. thats the 6 ... the rest is a zero. sorry to say any who thought GUILD WARS 2 was the no sub solution and successorto WoW will be disappointed. It's only slightly better in the quest and loses by a landslide in the rest... damn shame too. I had high hopes.    … Expand
  77. RedMattis
    Oct 28, 2012
    5
    The lack of clear character roles such as a clear tank, healer, damagers, crowd controllers and so on unfortunately reduces the teamwork in the game to beating up monsters and dodging their attacks... in group! As opposed to beating up monsters and dodging their attack alone!

    Unfortunately everyone basically just runs their own race, and aside of "combo fields" it typically works    The lack of clear character roles such as a clear tank, healer, damagers, crowd controllers and so on unfortunately reduces the teamwork in the game to beating up monsters and dodging their attacks... in group! As opposed to beating up monsters and dodging their attack alone!

    Unfortunately everyone basically just runs their own race, and aside of "combo fields" it typically works better that way. Working together alongside strangers is obviously even more devoid of sophisticated teamwork.

    Next problem is the attack numbers, and this is something almost every bad review mentions. There are only 5 attacks per weapon and a few support abilities used more rarely. This in turn means that you'll be using the same tricks again and again and again until you start getting bored.

    The World versus World is very well done though, and some features such as jumping puzzles can be a fun diversion.

    Overall this is not a bad game, but the non-dedicated character classes don't quite work out, and it drags down the entire game.    … Expand
  78. superbau
    Oct 26, 2012
    6
    Mmmm game are beautiful, but need to refix and expand more.. i cant play more than 2hours, it come boring anywhere,,, pve: it have a very nice place, but have to do always the same think, annoying a lot... and havent the desert place!!!! ... pvp are Very annoying, well its good to play but... 30 minuts its my best before CLOSE computer... WvW it mu prefer but... need more interaction,Mmmm game are beautiful, but need to refix and expand more.. i cant play more than 2hours, it come boring anywhere,,, pve: it have a very nice place, but have to do always the same think, annoying a lot... and havent the desert place!!!! ... pvp are Very annoying, well its good to play but... 30 minuts its my best before CLOSE computer... WvW it mu prefer but... need more interaction, more think, mount... need more object usable, more place, some WvW dungeon.. ecc... Game need to expand more and more and insert more and more feature for come to a best game ever, now.. it just a Beautifull Work in progress… Expand
  79. GolovA
    Oct 20, 2012
    7
    I failed to see what all the hype was about. This game is by no means special.
    HOWEVER: having said that, it is a very good Online RPG. Many characters to play, tons of items, skills, spells, etc. But for me - what's important in an online RPG is to play with someone i know. Otherwise - it's just no fun - even less fun if there was a single player campaign.
  80. Jesperbro
    Oct 20, 2012
    7
    Haven't played the game in a little while, but will write a few thoughts about it anyways.

    First of all it has a gigantic, beautiful world to explore, something I appreciate a lot. Exploring the world in full is rewarded in forms of xp and gear. The quest system is great, as well as the occasional event system. The trading system is very good, although getting materials for making    Haven't played the game in a little while, but will write a few thoughts about it anyways.

    First of all it has a gigantic, beautiful world to explore, something I appreciate a lot. Exploring the world in full is rewarded in forms of xp and gear. The quest system is great, as well as the occasional event system. The trading system is very good, although getting materials for making something can take some grinding. The combat system is good, and I like how they implement a few action elements to it, so you don't feel like you're just clicking on something, and engaging you more into the fight. That if you participate in killing something, all the loot and experience is shared, so there isn't some manical battle for the item drops like in for example Runescape. The only PvP mode I played reminded me a bit of League of Legends, something that I find good. Overall - the game is very good. I liked it a lot the first three weeks I played it. Then...

    I realized how redundant and repetitive the game became. While you get different areas to explore, you're just doing the same quests over and over and over again. Either it's kill this, or fetch a lot of this, and this goes on for EVERY area in the game. I've never really been a gigantic fan of MMORPG's, and this shows why. After a while you'll just get so bored with the game that you won't play it again for a long time. Maybe after a while I'll go back to playing it, but after a while I'll grow bored of doing the same things over and over. This pulls down my score of the game a lot, something that could've been a perfect ten. When I play games I need a bit of variety, and Guild Wars 2 sadly doesn't provide that.    … Expand
  81. Bulaba0
    Oct 14, 2012
    5
    Pretty fun, but the story is pathetic, the characters all horribly uninteresting, and the endgame nonexistent. It was fun getting to 80, but everything gets boring after a few hours there. WvW is just a Numbers battle, Structured PVP isn't doable without a team, and all that's left from that is farming dungeons for cool looking armor, or farming mats for legendary e-peen weps.

    All the    Pretty fun, but the story is pathetic, the characters all horribly uninteresting, and the endgame nonexistent. It was fun getting to 80, but everything gets boring after a few hours there. WvW is just a Numbers battle, Structured PVP isn't doable without a team, and all that's left from that is farming dungeons for cool looking armor, or farming mats for legendary e-peen weps.

    All the classes blend in with eachother, making every class try to do a bit of everything, and making pvp boring as all hell. There are really no counters to classes. Every class has their heal, their escape, etc. so PVP can last 4-5 minutes 1-on-1, until someone gets bored, misses a cooldown, or someone else comes along.

    To reiterate, the main story is atrocious. You're thrown onto characters who are supposed to be interesting and dynamic, but end up being annoying cardboard cutouts. The worst part is the game acts like you feel deep compassion for them, with horribly played-up dialogue and dramatic cutscenes. There were points where I would rather kill the character myself just to save the time in saving them when something bad inevitably happened to them.

    Overall fun, but not lasting more than a few weeks.    … Expand
  82. RetRap
    Oct 14, 2012
    7
    This game is well worth the box price, I've put about 60 hours into GW2 and while they have been enjoyable; I will not likely be going back to it any time soon. Although it is a fantastically crafted world with wonderful new perks to the tried any trusted MMO formula; this game still has the basic hot-key combat and repetitive actions. While giving lots of different tasks to try such asThis game is well worth the box price, I've put about 60 hours into GW2 and while they have been enjoyable; I will not likely be going back to it any time soon. Although it is a fantastically crafted world with wonderful new perks to the tried any trusted MMO formula; this game still has the basic hot-key combat and repetitive actions. While giving lots of different tasks to try such as exploring for Vistas, taking part in dynamic events and more formulaic 'heart' quests; after the 50th time of doing a slight variation it does, unfortunately; get boring (at least for me). As a great piece of escapism and for those happy with the existing MMO foundations; buy it without hesitation. If you've grown bored of the likes of WoW, ToR, Rift, Tera et al. this will provide a welcome refresh but will eventually get stale.… Expand
  83. Ghostte
    Oct 12, 2012
    7
    I liked GW2 but i was disappointed that I did not LOVE GW2. While not a huge fan of MMO's i thought this would be the game that brought me into this genre. However, i was bored by the time i reached level 60 with my necromancer and i couldn't take how slow my character moved and how the camera had a little sway to it.. I alo hated how immersion breaking the story was. As a necromancer II liked GW2 but i was disappointed that I did not LOVE GW2. While not a huge fan of MMO's i thought this would be the game that brought me into this genre. However, i was bored by the time i reached level 60 with my necromancer and i couldn't take how slow my character moved and how the camera had a little sway to it.. I alo hated how immersion breaking the story was. As a necromancer I would have not made the decisions my character was making. I wish there were more voice choices and speech options. Overall well polished game with fun PVP.....but just not for me.… Expand
  84. edjiang
    Oct 9, 2012
    7
    Great artwork, clean combat, and a VERY nice PvP system. However, the game simply couldn't hold my attention for more than a month. Definitely worth trying out though.
  85. ABNMP
    Oct 7, 2012
    6
    This game is basically an evolution to a higher standard of what has been done before. If you have played an MMO in the last 12 years you will see the similarities. The major areas of failure include open world player versus player and endgame progression. I guess I can summarize the game saying it is like RIFT without the raid element, and with massive unbalanced world PvP. DAOC andThis game is basically an evolution to a higher standard of what has been done before. If you have played an MMO in the last 12 years you will see the similarities. The major areas of failure include open world player versus player and endgame progression. I guess I can summarize the game saying it is like RIFT without the raid element, and with massive unbalanced world PvP. DAOC and Warhammer Online had a better PvP system. If you enjoy a VERY casual game then this is your pick. I was hoping for a REVOLUTION in MMO gaming, but sadly this is more of a "been there done that" experience.… Expand
  86. prinnylaharl
    Oct 3, 2012
    6
    Pre-ordered months in advance in anticipation, but sadly the game just does not live up to expectations. For the first few days I'd have gladly given the game a 10/10 however, when you make it into the 70-80 range the PVE content immediately falls off and becomes boring due to poorly tuned events and somehow even more repetitive combat than the "Cookie cutter" MMOs such as WoW. There isPre-ordered months in advance in anticipation, but sadly the game just does not live up to expectations. For the first few days I'd have gladly given the game a 10/10 however, when you make it into the 70-80 range the PVE content immediately falls off and becomes boring due to poorly tuned events and somehow even more repetitive combat than the "Cookie cutter" MMOs such as WoW. There is no true difficulty in the game since you will almost never really die and fighting PVE bosses is as simple as learning their one threatening move that is hidden in around 4-5 weak but flashy hits and then using your invulnerability dodge to get through it. A.Net had such potential with the open world bosses and they really could have made some interesting open raids such as they did with the earlier bosses, but the late game ones really don't even come close to that quality. Most will say the focus on GW has always been PVP, which is true so let's go to that. Currently PVP is entirely imbalanced which is alright I suppose due to it being new, but even then the PVP is for the most part slow and repetitive with very little reaction based combat for most of the classes and is in many ways worse than GW1 and honestly right now not even WvWvW is fun enough to make up for the core gameplay mistakes. Overall it's fun enough that I got my moneys worth and will still make alts for the fun low level content, but most players will want to look elsewhere for a good MMO. Both PVE and PVP players have much better options to choose from.… Expand
  87. Dreyfus
    Oct 3, 2012
    6
    First of all: Sorry about my english

    Deception. That's how I define this game. I simply can't understand why big-official-reviews could give this a 10 out of 10. I loved Guild Wars. I have all 4 games and had a great time. So... If the production team is the same (which I don't think so) how could they turn a wonderful game franchise into this? Graphics and environements are fancy,    First of all: Sorry about my english

    Deception. That's how I define this game. I simply can't understand why big-official-reviews could give this a 10 out of 10. I loved Guild Wars. I have all 4 games and had a great time. So... If the production team is the same (which I don't think so) how could they turn a wonderful game franchise into this?

    Graphics and environements are fancy, beautiful and epic. You really feel like you're in Tyria. Guild and crafting systems are the best I've ever seen in all MMO's or RPG's. Character customization, existent items and dungeons are cool too.

    But that's it. Questing system is incredibly boring.. And not only the secondary quests are repetitive and boring. Primary quests too. Dialogues are sooo simple... They doesn't give you any explanations. It's just: 'This happened. Do this' You can easlily predict what they're going to say. Feels like NPC's were put for stetic and environement purposes only. That's what the game feels like: 60% stetic, 40% game. The game doesn't care if you played GW or not: No explanations about history or environement are given. Combat system might be cool at first, but then gets repetitive and boring. Mobs are few. You can walk from side to side without engaging a single foe. And if you engage anything, it should be a 1v1 fight. Even if there are a lot of types of weapons, the weapon-attached skill system it's a joke. You just spam what it's not cooldown. You don't need to think, just act. And that premise works for everything. You don't need to think about the stuff in your inventory, since you have a button that, no matter where you are, makes that you can put your crafting items in storage. Also, there are a lot of merchants en each map. And speaking about maps... Exploration is a joke too. Death doesn't feel like a burden. You can die over and over and you feel like: "Whatever man. I'll just keep going." Death penalty is almost non-existent and broken armors doesn't suppose much trouble, since there are a TON of waypoints. You don't even need to walk in this game. Looks like they made it for lazy players. Every single map consists in doing the same thing over and over. Around 11 quests per map (auto asigned. You don't even need to talk to a NPC to activate or finish it). Those 11 quest are exactly the same: Go to an area, interact with 3 or 4 things and kill some foes. Even if the purpose is different, it is exactly the same. After that, there are 6 or 7 challenges, wich consist on pressing F on a place and waiting 4 or 5 seconds or killing a strong foe. Then you got the views (get to a point, press F and admire the views) and the exploration thing (discover waypoints and places). And that's all you'll do from map to map. Doesn't matter if it's a 1-17 lvl map or a 50-60 lvl map) The only thing worth to enjoy on each map are those dynamic events. You can win them or lose them. But... Almost always victory is guaranteed because there are like 10 or 15 other players completing it. So you just need to watch.

    Underwater playthrough feels like stated above but worse. That part it's boring, anoying, with awful control... I'll just state 'Oh my god'.

    I could go on, and on, and on but I don't have more time and my english is not that great.

    Conclusion: Comparing MMO's, this doesn't even get the 6 out of 10 I gave it... But... It depends on what kind of gamer you are. If you're a casual gamer, you might enjoy Guild Wars 2 and think about this as a 8 out of 10. You might enjoy it. If you're an experienced MMO player, I don't recommend this to you FOR NOW. (It might get better in the future). If you're an average gamer, I don't recommend this to you either.    … Expand
  88. kirkkh
    Oct 3, 2012
    7
    This isn't an mmo. It's smash brothers with a F2P "world explore" mode tacked on. You can level straight to 80 and play the real game at any time. Items and "builds" (they're a joke) don't really effect much. Pve is a gank-fest, pvp is a gank-fest. You just find a group of madness to join and blaze through. Don't go here looking for strategy, community or depth. You'd be surprised howThis isn't an mmo. It's smash brothers with a F2P "world explore" mode tacked on. You can level straight to 80 and play the real game at any time. Items and "builds" (they're a joke) don't really effect much. Pve is a gank-fest, pvp is a gank-fest. You just find a group of madness to join and blaze through. Don't go here looking for strategy, community or depth. You'd be surprised how quickly it gets old (for god sake their are jumping puzzles). It's completely different than the original Guild Wars. I give six months.… Expand
  89. Pete97K
    Oct 2, 2012
    5
    This game has its great and its not so great I loved the pvp it was great I love every second when i play, yet the questing and zones for me do not feel right, the quests feel like a grind always killing and collecting which for me is very annoying and quite tiresome the zones although beautiful do not feel like they apart of a world but more of a playground of stuff for you to kill. ForThis game has its great and its not so great I loved the pvp it was great I love every second when i play, yet the questing and zones for me do not feel right, the quests feel like a grind always killing and collecting which for me is very annoying and quite tiresome the zones although beautiful do not feel like they apart of a world but more of a playground of stuff for you to kill. For me this game was also hyped up too much, I felt that when everytime i saw a trailer that i needed this game, well i do not believe it lived up to this hype.… Expand
  90. Heatsink
    Oct 1, 2012
    7
    Arenanet made a number of improvements to MMO design with Guild Wars 2, but also made a significant number of questionable design decisions, effectively repeating the mistakes of the products they should have learned from. Positives: mob tapping is gone, grouping works automatically in the open world, the trinity is gone, graphics are very good, events help the world seem not-so-static.Arenanet made a number of improvements to MMO design with Guild Wars 2, but also made a significant number of questionable design decisions, effectively repeating the mistakes of the products they should have learned from. Positives: mob tapping is gone, grouping works automatically in the open world, the trinity is gone, graphics are very good, events help the world seem not-so-static.

    There are some heavy negatives to consider though. The boosting system in WvW doesn't do much as level 80 characters can drop lower level players in literally 1 second flat. Crafting is yet again something of an afterthought, but does bring significant XP gains, without many sellable products. Some drops required to craft seem broken, as the rarity makes them non-viable for production. Not much of an endgame is available. The game still has significant bugs as of 10/1/2012, such as trait point NPCs disappearing. Character classes are wildly unbalanced, with some being orders of magnitude more powerful than others. Personal story quest difficulty is largely broken, with mobs wiping out players pretty quickly, leading to repair bills.

    One last item to consider is the combat design. It is a bit..odd. Players have an active dodge, which can be used twice and then wait for recharge. Mobs tend to hit extremely hard, even on their plain vanilla attacks, and even from trash mobs. Mobs also are spawned on top of players already in combat quite frequently. Overall, the combat seems somewhat clunky. Defensive abilities tend to be weak, healing abilities almost not worth using, and both are usually on very long cooldowns. There are a number of other abilities than don't seem to have much to offer, and yet again, on long cooldowns. Range attacks are usually more advantageous then melee, mostly due to the damage mobs toss out to melee characters.    … Expand
  91. nightfyre
    Sep 30, 2012
    6
    Well I've been playing Guild Wars 2 since release,
    It just wasn't the game they made it out to be, and it quickly loses it's magic after a month. First it's just another game that has no real social value. Can't say i didn't love the challenge of the puzzles and the events, it's just the game hasn't captured my attention like it should have I don't feel anything when playing it anymore.    Well I've been playing Guild Wars 2 since release,
    It just wasn't the game they made it out to be, and it quickly loses it's magic after a month. First it's just another game that has no real social value. Can't say i didn't love the challenge of the puzzles and the events, it's just the game hasn't captured my attention like it should have I don't feel anything when playing it anymore. It's just another of those games run to this spot and do this, run to the next spot and do it over again. Then after hit 80 should I expect to do grinds for gear or what is there for me to do other then go and gather all the map locations and point of interests that I haven't found yet? Just another leveling game that slows down to a crawl once you hit 80 with no hope other then doing PvP if you're a person that likes that sort of thing.    … Expand
  92. Its_Nice_In_RW
    Sep 29, 2012
    7
    I played GW1 it was a decent game not great but decent. I played WOW it was a very poor game graphically and had the worst player base in any game I played but it had something that drew you back to it (gameplay). I now play GW2 (and others) graphically very nice not as spectacular as Tera but nice. Like Tera does not offer much at end game level. If you want to experience some differentI played GW1 it was a decent game not great but decent. I played WOW it was a very poor game graphically and had the worst player base in any game I played but it had something that drew you back to it (gameplay). I now play GW2 (and others) graphically very nice not as spectacular as Tera but nice. Like Tera does not offer much at end game level. If you want to experience some different aspects of MMO I would suggest GW2 is a good place to start. Be aware though (WOW rips a monthy sub from your hands) GW2 is one off payment for game though the aggressive shop influence make it less attractive from a costing level. Its a mix mash of different good things taken mostly from Korean MMO's nothing particularly new but all in one game rather than spread over many MMO's. If you play MMO's it will be interesting for about a month then probably you will move on to next one (like me). The game plays like a cash shop mico payment game which is very sad but people seem to like this genre at the moment. People thinking free to play is actually that which in fact it is much more expensive than a sub game IMO and IME. The famous problem of bagsize is here in all its glory. Lastly the game whats new hmmmm well I have seen everything in this game in other MMO's I have played so nothing I could say the events as in other games they tend to be GM initiated but happen on a timer in this game so that :) Enough to keep me playing ? Not at the moment. I will give it an 7/10. I can return to the game at any time for no fee so that is a big plus but the rabid cash shop element makes it in the minus for me. On the whole the community is very nice so that is a big bonus.… Expand
  93. Xiny
    Sep 27, 2012
    7
    I Loved the game, excellent quests, unique combat and even has a separate story quest line. However, the love for this game quickly died when i started doing dungeons. The fun, reward, and sense of purpose for GW2's dungeons is one of the biggest fails I've experienced in any MMO and by far the worst mechanics. However due to not having a holy trinity i don't think they would be able toI Loved the game, excellent quests, unique combat and even has a separate story quest line. However, the love for this game quickly died when i started doing dungeons. The fun, reward, and sense of purpose for GW2's dungeons is one of the biggest fails I've experienced in any MMO and by far the worst mechanics. However due to not having a holy trinity i don't think they would be able to properly recover from this fiasco, so i got a refund. If you want this game i would avoid dungeons till they are patched.… Expand
  94. suzakuii
    Sep 25, 2012
    7
    Overall not too bad of a game. The best thing about this game is still the PvP. The pvp became better with the WvWvW system implanted that could affect your PvE. Many times people resort to just clicking everything they can when it is off cd. Not a particular effective way of going about PvP. Theres a certain element of anticipation and knowing your enemy before engaging recklessly.Overall not too bad of a game. The best thing about this game is still the PvP. The pvp became better with the WvWvW system implanted that could affect your PvE. Many times people resort to just clicking everything they can when it is off cd. Not a particular effective way of going about PvP. Theres a certain element of anticipation and knowing your enemy before engaging recklessly. Everyone will start off reckless, myself included, but as you play your character class more, you realize theres more than just spam can save your tail. Perhaps waiting for them to start channeling then stun them would be wiser than just stunning them upon seeing them. dodge roll back as you see them charging toward you. Stealth the moment you enter a fray (people don't even know you are there) and start reviving downed allies. Many more possibilities can be explored. Unfortunately PvE of this game is kind of lack luster. Daily achievements helps you level up your character, but always the smae thing. Dynamics events attracts your attention for the early game, then after a while it all became the same. Defend spot/character/building for x waves of enemies, kill the leader of y group to disband, collect z items and deliver. However theres a few very interesting dynamic events. Early dynamic events has almost no consequence for failing. However some would actually have a town wiped out and events will follow to try and restore the town back to normal. Other really interesting events includes bosses that rarely spawns, like a dragon that will be almost 100x bigger than you. These although fun to try and kill, there will be too many people around, it lags the crap out of you. Story for the characters seems rather generic. Each choices in the character creation affects your story line for like the first 30 levels. After that all the stories are just the same. There are some choices in paths of the story like using brute force, sneak and assassinate, or like gather info. Ultimately it just makes you fight in a different setting and still merge back to main story afterwards. Fighting in PvE is purely spamming. auto set your first skill to auto cast. This just means that is your normal attack. everything else have a cool down you will probably use the moment it is off cd. PvE has auto adjust to level of surrounding if surrounding is weaker than your total level. This way you will still feel like doing something in the beginning areas (esp areas of other races) don't feel like you were simply overpowered. There are some rather intricate mazes/jump quests layed out in just about every map. Can try to find the secluded entrence by your self and everything afterwards is pretty straight forward with the jump quest. Each level up is not too difficult. It feels nearly the same as going from lvl 8 to 9 as lvl 79 to 80, there really isn't your typical grind fest of like 10 days to get 1 level. Aside from the few set backs, I think this is a game that deserves and good look at… Expand
  95. 91metalhead
    Sep 24, 2012
    5
    i bought this game because of the great review it had gotten, but i found the gameplay to be so slow and sluggish. I didn't feel compelled at all to play it, so now it is just collecting dust on my harddrive (so to speak). I regret buying it, since i feel Star Wars TOR is a better overall experience.
  96. Kassdhal
    Sep 22, 2012
    5
    Very mixed in multiple respects... the first view of the game is that it is fantastic. At least a refreshing view on the MMO world, really well done and finished, with innovative quest system and fantastic innovative levelling mechanism.

    And after a while you're logging in and you don;t really know why you're accepting silly limitations like the stupidly think inventory system, the    Very mixed in multiple respects... the first view of the game is that it is fantastic. At least a refreshing view on the MMO world, really well done and finished, with innovative quest system and fantastic innovative levelling mechanism.

    And after a while you're logging in and you don;t really know why you're accepting silly limitations like the stupidly think inventory system, the lacklustre crafting mechanism, the stupid "personnal story" system that for some quests is just so close to impossible that it is frustrating beyond relief (with no hope of overpowering the quest... my engineer has been stuck on a lvl 28 quest since the beginning...)

    It could have been fantastic but it is barely passable due to these limitations. It is not a hazard if blizzard has simplified the silly things in wow... guild wars should have thought about it too...

    WvW is very well thought but individual contributions are pretty much close to zero so the strategy is either zerg grouping or smaller "pro" groups which is boring after a while

    I see this game performing very well over time but will require a LOT of refining to keep players in. NC Soft does not care because there are no subscription.

    In some respect this game gave me the same feeling as TOR: an initial "Waouw" and then "but..... why did they... why didn't they....?"

    Sad...    … Expand
  97. Bovinus
    Sep 21, 2012
    6
    Guild wars 2 is the most bizarre MMO of all times, it is a MMO made for people who doesn't like MMOs, it's pve is horrible, monsters doesn't give xp so you can't grind, you're forced to keep running around the world searching for boring events that, at first sight, looks awesome, unltil you note that there is no difference between the other players and a bunch of bots, there are noGuild wars 2 is the most bizarre MMO of all times, it is a MMO made for people who doesn't like MMOs, it's pve is horrible, monsters doesn't give xp so you can't grind, you're forced to keep running around the world searching for boring events that, at first sight, looks awesome, unltil you note that there is no difference between the other players and a bunch of bots, there are no interactions between players, the event starts, they come, the event ends, they disappear, there is no talking, no grouping, you really think that you're just playing a single player RPG with a ridiculous story line and a bunch of NPCs.

    The SPvP is good, thanks to the simplified gameplay, the problem is the lack of many support systems like "Look for group", more statistics and a better glory distribution, today playing on pubs is really annoying because most players just want to duel and farm glory, playing on tournaments solve this problem but is too hard to find a group.

    So i do not recommend this game, the PVE is not a MMO and paying 60 dollars for a PVP is not worth, there are better options.    … Expand
  98. Deadalon
    Sep 20, 2012
    5
    Like many others - Ive now played alot more and Ive got abit of diffrent opinions about few things. The big bad thing about the game is the dungeons. They are just bad in so many ways. The settings are underwhelming. The encounters are just boring most of the time, unbalance and now ANet devs have changed alot of things and broken ALOT and created alot of new bugs that make them evenLike many others - Ive now played alot more and Ive got abit of diffrent opinions about few things. The big bad thing about the game is the dungeons. They are just bad in so many ways. The settings are underwhelming. The encounters are just boring most of the time, unbalance and now ANet devs have changed alot of things and broken ALOT and created alot of new bugs that make them even worse. FOr example - ppl are not getting rewards cause of a bug that penalies ppl that run the dungeons to quickly. THe thing is - some ppl that are not doing speed runs are still getting low or no rewards.

    SO stay away from the dungeons if you want to enjoy the game abit longer. If your like me - you would probably quit when you see how badly they are designed and implemented.    … Expand
  99. Nataraja
    Sep 17, 2012
    7
    I will preface this with a caveat - I tried very hard to like the original GW and just never got into it. I am also very picky about my games right now and fantasy games are a bit stale to say least.

    I much prefer a more recent game that I will not go into but it lacks any sort of decent end game. To me that is where GW2 shines with the open world events, sidekick level system (so you    I will preface this with a caveat - I tried very hard to like the original GW and just never got into it. I am also very picky about my games right now and fantasy games are a bit stale to say least.

    I much prefer a more recent game that I will not go into but it lacks any sort of decent end game. To me that is where GW2 shines with the open world events, sidekick level system (so you can't face roll content lower than you) and the dynamic events that alter the world - but what really shines is the PvP, both structured and WvWvW - Especially the WvWvW. I can lose days in that setting.

    The instances are decent and the lack of a trinity is AWESOME. However there are things that drive me nuts:

    - the game gets repetitious and leveling an alt is tedious at best
    - the dynamic events follow about 3 or maybe 4 templates and get old
    - there are some unresolved bugs that seem to continue to evade the devs
    - Its another -ANOTHER - fantasy game
    - Asura are annoyingly cutesy and should be exterminated like the rats that they are
    - The setup for the cash shop makes it seem like ArenaNet constantly has its hand out
    - There are parts of the game that should just be totally reworked (the abysmal writing and voice acting in places - especially the Norn area)

    So its a decent game and for $60, assuming you don't go CE or use the cash shop, is better than most single player games - and it has no sub fee so you can come and go guilt free.

    So its a decent game - but is it revolutionary? Not really. Its a very VERY safe game compared to other recent games and in the end will be a nice diversion from things that are truly revolutionary that I consume like a rabid animal.    … Expand
  100. Tykune
    Sep 14, 2012
    7
    This game is better than the other moderately entertaining games out there, such as TERA and some of the other F2P games out there, but while the graphics are stunning and the story play is stellar, there are some flaws that this game acquired. I am not at all saying that this game is bad, but has a lot of potential, and has a long way to go to fix itself up to from that cracked crystalThis game is better than the other moderately entertaining games out there, such as TERA and some of the other F2P games out there, but while the graphics are stunning and the story play is stellar, there are some flaws that this game acquired. I am not at all saying that this game is bad, but has a lot of potential, and has a long way to go to fix itself up to from that cracked crystal gem to a flawless diamond gem.

    Pros: Great Graphics - It is rare to find awesome, cutting edge graphics in any other game. This one in particular, takes the cake in being unique and note-worthy.

    Excellent Story - The fact you can pick your own background and progress through the story on a global scale, yet blend together with other players in the world around you, is a very rare thing to find in an MMORPG. This is what makes the game in itself unique and fun to play.

    Cons: Buggy and Unfulfilling Events - The events themselves are quite buggy and they leave a feeling of unfulfillment. You could litrally kill 3 things, and go take a dump while they event wears out, and you will get a gold medal and max rewards. This is something in my opinion should get fixed right away.

    Unbalanced Classes - Some of the classes are boring and unpolished, and as NCsoft stated 'unfinished', except for warrior of course. Some of the classes are useless in PvP and in some cases, nearly useless when soloing.. or at least makes it extremely difficult.

    Summary - In general, this game is not too bad at all.. in fact, it is great and holds a lot of potential, but it needs some sprucing up and fixes here and there, and a bit of changes before it can really be worth its money. I'd honestly say let the game mature a bit, then maybe NCsoft can clean it up.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

3
#3 Best PC Game of 2012
5
#5 Most Discussed PC Game of 2012
4
#4 Most Shared PC Game of 2012

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
90

Universal acclaim - based on 69 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 68 out of 69
  2. Mixed: 1 out of 69
  3. Negative: 0 out of 69
  1. PC Master (Greece)
    Feb 6, 2013
    90
    GW2 has made a powerful impact on the MMO scene, confirming years of expectations. Stunning presentation and revolutionary design guarantee a thoroughly enjoyable experience. However, it’s not flawless, nor complete. The beautiful vistas, the massive PvP element, the rich leveling experience- those can offer hours of gameplay, but the endgame is desperately seeking for enrichment. [November 2012]
  2. Gaming Nexus
    Jan 2, 2013
    95
    Guild Wars 2 surpasses the original in every aspect, from its massive and atmospheric world to its addictive and engrossing gameplay.
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  3. RPG Fan
    Nov 28, 2012
    80
    After spending fifty hours with GW2, I have a lot of praise for ArenaNet's work and the way it changes up some of the typical trappings of the MMO. And yet, I find myself thinking less and less about it each day. It's not a declaration against the product, mind you, but simply a fact that this game still is very much an MMO, and your enjoyment will directly relate to how much you enjoy the genre. For many who were hoping for a clean break from MMO design philosophy, Guild Wars 2 will probably come across as a slight disappointment. It pushes the genre slightly forward, however, and could lead to even further development in the future.
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