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

Generally favorable reviews- based on 3192 Ratings

User score distribution:
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  1. 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
  2. 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.
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  3. 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
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  4. 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
  5. 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.
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  6. 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.
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  7. 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
  8. 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
  9. 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.
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  10. 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.
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  11. 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
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  12. 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.
  13. 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.
  14. 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!
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  15. Aug 29, 2012
    6
    maybe my expectations were just too high. It isn't a bad game, nice graphics and smooth gameplay, but everything in the game is just a rehash of every other MMO, nothing innovative, nothing to really get you excited that this is something new and different, also nothing really to get you hooked early on.
  16. 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
  17. 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
  18. 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
  19. 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
  20. 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.
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  21. 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
  22. 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.
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  23. Sep 12, 2012
    6
    After about level 15 you will have every weapon skill learned, and after a few levels the rest of the 4 offensive skills you can use, at which point is when the weapon/skill system starts showing its limiting and suffocating side - play like the game tells you or GTFO. The game is great for the first week, and after that you start noticing that it really has nothing to keep you playing.After about level 15 you will have every weapon skill learned, and after a few levels the rest of the 4 offensive skills you can use, at which point is when the weapon/skill system starts showing its limiting and suffocating side - play like the game tells you or GTFO. The game is great for the first week, and after that you start noticing that it really has nothing to keep you playing. Structured PvP part of the game is disconnected from the rest, and really feels and plays like a separate game with the same engine - it sports its separate level treadmill, items and crafting. The only redeeming quality this game brings to the table is - no subscription. Expand
  24. 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
  25. 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
  26. 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
  27. 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
  28. 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.
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  29. 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.
  30. 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.
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  31. Aug 28, 2012
    6
    Is it a good game? Well, it's not a bad one... however you should know that the hype has painted an unrealistic picture of how good the game really is. On the surface its a solid, well crafted game with few technical flaws and a good eye for details that shines through in things like the crafting. It's certainly among the better MMO's to have been released in recent years. But... at theIs it a good game? Well, it's not a bad one... however you should know that the hype has painted an unrealistic picture of how good the game really is. On the surface its a solid, well crafted game with few technical flaws and a good eye for details that shines through in things like the crafting. It's certainly among the better MMO's to have been released in recent years. But... at the end of the day it's really not much more fun than it's fantasy MMO contemporaries. At least where PvE is concerned.

    Sure it mixes things up somewhat, and the dynamic events that temporarily changes the "lay of the land" are interesting. However it is still very much like the questing in all the other MMO's you have played. Same old, different wrapping. Grind X or collect Y, often longer and with less variety than other games due to the open nature of the events. I guess my main gripe is that GW2 is almost to streamlined, most of the time there is little challenge to be had, all while moving at a really fast pace. And that may be one reason why I found it difficult to get attached to several aspects of the game. While the graphical design is good and certainly doesn't bother me, it does however look dated in places if that should be a concern.

    Many will find pleasure in GW2, but I'm afraid I'm not one of them. GW2 simply doesn't bring anything profound to the table. So if like me, you are tired of the same old easy cookie cutter fantasy MMO's, chances are your time in Tyria would be short lived as well.

    It's simple, mindless fun, no more, no less.
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  32. Aug 30, 2012
    6
    I did not attend any beta events for Guild Wars 2, but after all the hype surrounding this game I took the chance and purchased it. I was really disappointed I did. The animations are horrible, and the controls/combat feel very clunky. As do quest mechanics, and interface. I am not too keen on the character models either. Performance wise, I have an Intel i5 3570k and nVidia GTX 680 butI did not attend any beta events for Guild Wars 2, but after all the hype surrounding this game I took the chance and purchased it. I was really disappointed I did. The animations are horrible, and the controls/combat feel very clunky. As do quest mechanics, and interface. I am not too keen on the character models either. Performance wise, I have an Intel i5 3570k and nVidia GTX 680 but my FPS still dips to 30 FPS regularly. The environments and ambient music are both nice, but that is about all. I paid 75 Euro for this and I expected much more from ArenaNET. Expand
  33. Aug 28, 2012
    6
    I'm quite unsure with my feelings on Guildwars 2. First of graphically it's not a terrible game, how ever it feels a bit dated in terms of it. Textures for anything other than armour and weapons is rather "meh" nothing special about them, they all appear somewhat blurry and lacking in detail. Water reflections are beautiful as well as shadows, but the water does lack allot of tessellation.I'm quite unsure with my feelings on Guildwars 2. First of graphically it's not a terrible game, how ever it feels a bit dated in terms of it. Textures for anything other than armour and weapons is rather "meh" nothing special about them, they all appear somewhat blurry and lacking in detail. Water reflections are beautiful as well as shadows, but the water does lack allot of tessellation. Its just seems to be an animated texture. They need more options for those with higher end systems, I understand this is an MMO and they target a broad market of people and systems, but it's quite disappointing to have system that could do so much more.

    In terms of gameplay, it feels lackluster. Yes it's a completely new system to Guildwars 1, but I feel the new improvements have no place. Even though you can roll to try get away from opponents, it does nothing they still with out fail deal damage to you. So the rolling system is just pointless to have. When It comes to questing its all the things we are familiar to. They do throw in a few quests where you get to control a giant cannon etc etc they still feeling kinda boring.

    The way point and point of interests are just repetitive and will drain hours of time trying to reach all of them in areas. You will find the majority of the game is just doing these anyway, they "Help quests" (The gold heart ones) Are pretty much all the same "Clear an area of X monster and fix X or collect X"

    PVP is a large chunk of the game (as was Guildwars 1) But Guildwars 2 pvp is pretty much the same as Guildwars 2 except Guildwars 2 introduces the concept of World vs World. Which is quite addictive, but the large amount of players on causes a fair amount of lag. If you loved PVP in the first you will love it in the second.

    I personally am not attached to the game as I was with the first. The first Guildwars I could play for 6 hours+ straight easily. Everything I did had a charm to it, which made the game more enjoyable. I fail to have this connection with Guildwars 2, It's NOT a bad game by all means. I'm sure there are plenty who will love it. I just believe it lacks something to it, I can't play for more than 2 hours with being bored or over it, everything I do seems all the same and quite bland.

    How ever this is all JUST my opinion. Which I am sharing to you all.
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  34. Sep 4, 2012
    6
    This game is by far the one of the most boring MMO's I have ever played. It is a over-hyped game with loads of people riding the bandwagon claiming it is awesome and cool with an ingenious quest system and dynamic off the **** events. Some will even say that the next big MMO's to come out will take pointers from GW2.

    Let me just say I hope not, 'cus I have never been more disappointed
    This game is by far the one of the most boring MMO's I have ever played. It is a over-hyped game with loads of people riding the bandwagon claiming it is awesome and cool with an ingenious quest system and dynamic off the **** events. Some will even say that the next big MMO's to come out will take pointers from GW2.

    Let me just say I hope not, 'cus I have never been more disappointed and bored playing an MMO. I liked SWTOR, TSW, TERA much more than this drivel. The combat is boring and repetitive, you have an extremely limited number of skills that you can have active. It is said that they designed the combat to be more action-oriented and more skill-oriented. Well that is nonsense. There is nothing that is more skill-oriented about gw2's combat and it doesn't really feel action-oriented (I can recommend TERA for action oriented/skill combat tho'). It falls flat along with it's questing which boasts itself on a boring story quest set in an uninteresting world with lore you don't give a halflings hat about, and with a multitude of sidequests (Heart icon-shaped NPCs that will appear on your map) that are triggered by being near the NPC's, then you will have multiple objectives in the area close to the NPC, which are all, "click some stuff on the ground and such" or "kill some mobs". It is not very exciting. Yes you don't have to click the NPC to get the quest, yes you don't have to use your brain to go somewhere and do something for him. No no. You just trigger the quest by being in his general area and then you click things on the ground and kill mobs to complete the quest. Yay.. fun? no. No not really.
    Questing for kids with no attention span sry. Surely a step back in making questing engaging and exciting, instead it is just a nonsense uninteresting grind.

    I have said enough about this game. I bought it thinking it would be good, everyone seems excited about it and praising it. All the articles I read pre release was positive and happy about the game.

    Mega Huge Disappointment. Everyone are mass delusional thinking this is the best thing since sliced bread. *facepalm*
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  35. Aug 29, 2012
    6
    Very unoriginal game, it steals a lot from Warhammer Online. Dynamic Events are no better than regular quests not to mention a lot of events never fail because events are way too easy. The overflow servers were a horrible idea. They prevent players from actually playing together. There is no room for error in Guild Wars 2. The game was made so players can succeed with ease. GW2 is only theVery unoriginal game, it steals a lot from Warhammer Online. Dynamic Events are no better than regular quests not to mention a lot of events never fail because events are way too easy. The overflow servers were a horrible idea. They prevent players from actually playing together. There is no room for error in Guild Wars 2. The game was made so players can succeed with ease. GW2 is only the flavor of the month. As soon as people reach max level there isn't much replayability left because dynamic events are boring, easy and too repetitive. Expand
  36. Aug 31, 2012
    6
    So, this is my first critic.
    GW2 is nice. Not more, not less. I have never seen so many problems at a mmo start. From account security over hackers to guild chat / menu problems. I have never seen such a horrible communication as Arenanet is having it. No patch notes, no forums, only twitter and reddit.
    Group play is more like a lottery right now, overflow server system not working as it
    So, this is my first critic.
    GW2 is nice. Not more, not less. I have never seen so many problems at a mmo start. From account security over hackers to guild chat / menu problems. I have never seen such a horrible communication as Arenanet is having it. No patch notes, no forums, only twitter and reddit.
    Group play is more like a lottery right now, overflow server system not working as it should. And all you hear is "We are working on it".
    Dynamic events aren't as dynamic, as they seem to be. They are more like static-events-that-appear-at-random-times.
    XP balancing is not working right now.
    All the lore, that can be found in the wiki and the books is not really in the game. Even TOR had better a story. They could have put lore in the vistas, some text with information about the place. Something. But no, there's nothing.
    Over all, the game is nice. I play it, I will go on playing, but only because it is F2P. Otherwise, I wouldn't.
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  37. Aug 31, 2012
    6
    why some many 10 ?i got screwed buying that game for the wrong review.....i stoped playing wow 2 years ago and wow is still way better than gw2......the pve questing is soo boring ,i tried wvw my server is dominating like 80%.... the only thing i did in wvw is exploring ,isn't supose to be pvp ?
  38. 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.
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  39. 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.
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  40. Sep 1, 2012
    6
    Game feels fairly uninspired. Not the revaluation in gameplay I was lead to believe from vocal fans and game promotions. Controls feel sluggish and you're still pressing your number keys on cool down. Just like World of Warcraft and Everquest did before it. Astheticly pleasing, but dialogue feels clunky and the voice acting can be cringe inducing. Lastly, lots of trouble even logging inGame feels fairly uninspired. Not the revaluation in gameplay I was lead to believe from vocal fans and game promotions. Controls feel sluggish and you're still pressing your number keys on cool down. Just like World of Warcraft and Everquest did before it. Astheticly pleasing, but dialogue feels clunky and the voice acting can be cringe inducing. Lastly, lots of trouble even logging in also. 4 days out from release as well. That's something that I think even the maligned Diablo 3 launch fixed fairly quickly by comparison. Expand
  41. 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
  42. Sep 2, 2012
    6
    Dynamic events
    Dynamic events are an in game realization of In Media Res (see Wikipedia). They are events (tied to a local) whose initiation and progression triggers automatically. The player can shape the outcome, but the event will progress whether players participate or not. This helps establishes the context of what you are doing through action rather than cut scenes or quest text.
    Dynamic events
    Dynamic events are an in game realization of In Media Res (see Wikipedia). They are events (tied to a local) whose initiation and progression triggers automatically. The player can shape the outcome, but the event will progress whether players participate or not. This helps establishes the context of what you are doing through action rather than cut scenes or quest text. I say helps because you still get quest text telling you what the objectives are and there is still a progress bar that advances as you complete quest objectives.
    This has some plusses and minuses. On the plus side the world feels more alive and active, there are several possible outcomes for each stage of an event, and at least until the event recycles (anywhere from 10 min to perhaps a couple of weeks for rare triggers), it gives a sense of having impacted the world (although this feeling is pretty dang ephemeral for the events with short re-trigger timers (which understandably is most of them). On the negative, until you acclimate to the system, players used to quest hub mechanics are going to feel a bit lost. You also lose a sense of connection to the characters in the world. Yes they send you a happy e-mail and you can buy karma gear from them, but the mechanic honestly doesn
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  43. Sep 5, 2012
    6
    Hi all. I'm writing this review because i feel like there are too many "personal" reviews (you know, the 10 or 0 score ones...) and i'd like to write the most objectively i can. I also know that one should play for some months before talking about a game, but i feel like this review can help those wondering whether to buy the game or not. There have been a lot of hype (not from me) aroundHi all. I'm writing this review because i feel like there are too many "personal" reviews (you know, the 10 or 0 score ones...) and i'd like to write the most objectively i can. I also know that one should play for some months before talking about a game, but i feel like this review can help those wondering whether to buy the game or not. There have been a lot of hype (not from me) around this game, mainly because of its "revolutionary" features. I honestly admit that there are some innovations, but the question is: are those innovations good? Let's talk about the combat system. You have 5 attack skills based on your equipped weapon/s, 1 healing skill chosen from a pool of 3, 3 so called "utility" skills and an elite one. You just can't customize your weapon skills: this means that every ranger wielding a greatsword will have the same 5 skills. Quite a constrain, in my opinion. The fact that almost no skill uses a resource (i.e. mana) makes the fights usually boring, since you will spam your skills when off from cooldown. The roll lets you evade an attack, but it is rare that a couple of rolls actually make the difference between a won and a lost fight; moreover, rolling is pretty much useless against both weaker enemies (you can take all of their hits) and champion-like foes (evade a couple of attacks, but when out endurance bar you're doomed). The "dynamic events" are just server-open quests, spawning every now and then and always requesting you to collect stuff - kill things. When a lot of fighting is involved it is common to have swarms of players overwhelming enemies just by numbers, not by skill. Even boss fights may become pretty boring, and you may feel useless since your efforts can be like a drop of water in an ocean. It should be mentioned that you will likely be unable to challenge yourself by trying and completing an event with only your 4 or 5 friends because everyone in the area will come and fight. Environments are well made and fascinating, with highly different locations and architectures. The graphics are acceptable although character customization is not so high (i.e. male human faces look pretty much the same). I was expecting a highly addictive and well made pve, but i'm sorry to say that my expectations were a little too high. If you don't play your personal story, the pve gets boring really fast. I'm sure that the devs expected this to happen, in fact they have added the gathering system, the point of interest / vistas "completion run", the daily / monthly achievements, etc. to break from the fight-move on-fight-move on-event-move on scheme. I'm not talking about pvp since i think it is too early on and still there are people not actually knowing what to do to play at a good level. All in all, pve wise (and please note that this is not like gw1, where pvp was predominant), Guild Wars 2 should be given a 7 or 7.5 but i'm lowering my score to 6 - 6.5 because i feel that all the innovations we should have seen in the game were either fake or simply unnecessary. Too much hype for a game that is actually good, but absolutely not a revolutionary one nor a mmorpg champion like WoW is. Expand
  44. Sep 9, 2012
    6
    Beware my friends, this game is not what they told us it would be

    I would like to take a moment and say that i ve been playing MMO's since Ultima Online, then tried Final Fantasy which i found terrible and then some friends made me play Daoc , Dark Age of Camelot was a hell of a game for it's time. Yes Pve was pretty much non existant and even with the expansion Raids felt kinda boring
    Beware my friends, this game is not what they told us it would be

    I would like to take a moment and say that i ve been playing MMO's since Ultima Online, then tried Final Fantasy which i found terrible and then some friends made me play Daoc , Dark Age of Camelot was a hell of a game for it's time. Yes Pve was pretty much non existant and even with the expansion Raids felt kinda boring since there wasn't any artificial intelligence with the bosses. But hey, that game was all about Pvp and yes Pvp was awsome , there were keep raids , siege situations and much more. In certain ways that game felt epic. Then wow came around and Wow was a hell of a game. Coming from a game where questing was non existant and you had to grind all your way to the max lvl and going to a game where you had a tons of quests to lvl up was a big step ahead. Yes Wow's Pvp sucked hard, Wow never delivered hero classes, siege weapons, raid honor from Thrall or other Town bosses. But it had the best Pve experience one could ever hard. Vanilla wow was an epic game and encounters like Onyxia or Ragnaros can confirm that.

    Why am i speaking of past games? Because those games were REVOLUTIONARY. One for it's pvp , the other for it's pve. Obviously both of the games after a couple of years became boring and repetitive but when they were launched they were AWESOME.

    I reached Naxxramas with my own guild on Wow and on Daoc i reached rank 6.

    Afterwards i played many mediocre games like Aion and Rift. Tbh i stopped playing Aion around 25 lvl since the game didn't have enough quests and it was all about grinding something that i actually hate nowadays. I managed to get much higher on Rift but Rift was like Wow with portals spawning everywhere, something that was also boring after a while.

    Then i tried Diablo 3 , which is not an mmorpg , but it's something time consuming much like an mmo. Diablo 3 is probably the biggest letdown in gaming history and so i was looking for something to move forward.(yes i ve played also Diablo 2 ) And then i started reading about Guild Wars 2 and how the game was unconventional and how questing was not boring and how Pvp was awsome and bla bla bla. Yes i don't expect that the producers tell me that the game sucks or that they didn't actually add anything but hey the game seemed to be something totally new and fresh. I tried to like the game but it was all in vain. Game doesn't offer anything new, graphics aren't great tbh, might be if you compare them with Wow but it's 4 years i don't play that game, Pvp seems Daoc WvW only that you have to button mash all the time useless skills that actually don't make the difference. And yes lvling up is still boring. There were a couple of quests that were kinda cool, one with the ogre transactions but the rest was always the same thing. Crafting was copy paste from all the other mmos, gathering resources same thing and the whole thing was not rewarding. The combat system is boring , it's boring since lvl 5, pressing 5 buttons without consequences is boring. Don't get me wrong running around , evading attacks is awesome but this combat system is extremely flawed. My personal opinion is that either there is a combat system like Demons/Dark Souls either the combat system has to be more elaborated. You can't have something in the middle. Either something very simple but yet difficult to master , either something very complex that needs to be executed perfectly.

    How about the world? Well since i ve not been stuck in wow for the last 4 years and since i ve tried Age of Conan, Aion and Rift i have to say that the world isn't anything fresh. It's the usual mmo world , exploring and puzzles were on Rift also but i found out that jumping games were a good idea, poorly implemented. I think that the next serious MMO in the industry will be a game which will actually allow you to move and jump in the same ways as Mario does. Otherwise it becomes boring after a while since there isn't any REAL difficult in the jumping process but the obstacles are crows or ravens or stuff like that.

    WvW pvp is bad , Zerging has ALWAYS BEEN BAD since 2003 ! And it is still bad in 2012, there is no skill in zerging and with 5 buttons and no group play Pvp is bad. Also slow movement in the pvp map is one of the worst things ever seen. 9 years ago you had Minstrels with movement buffs ...

    The worst part of the game is that thanks to their dynamic events there is no reason to socialize and meet new people through the game in order to party up and get things done. You just attack a mob with other 20 people and that's it. For all i care they can all die i ll just keep hitting.

    My conclusion is that the game is super Hyped, many people got the usual 5$ for each post and the game in a couple of months is gonna be kinda dead, not from the lack of pve but because Pvp is bad and doesn't reward players.
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  45. Sep 10, 2012
    6
    I have never written a metacritic review before, but I needed to make an account to review this game. I was incredibly excited for this game, but it simply has some issues that cannot be ignored. It IS well polished, and the team is constantly patching any bugs. Trading post glitches are pretty much gone. The problem with the game is not serves or bugs for me, but in the fundamentalI have never written a metacritic review before, but I needed to make an account to review this game. I was incredibly excited for this game, but it simply has some issues that cannot be ignored. It IS well polished, and the team is constantly patching any bugs. Trading post glitches are pretty much gone. The problem with the game is not serves or bugs for me, but in the fundamental game play.

    It was a novel idea to get rid of defined roles like tanks and healers, but ultimately, I feel it was a poor decision. The professions play far too similarly to one another. The destruction of "roles" means that everyone has a heal, everyone does some damage, everyone has some debuffs. And even ignoring the similarities between professions, the skill choices WITHIN a profession are lackluster with the weapons you pick defining over half of your skills that DO NOT CHANGE THE WHOLE GAME! So most of the skills you enjoy at level 1 or 2 are probably the same 5 you'll be using up until level 80. At least in games like WoW you can look forward to gaining new cool skills all the way as you level up. Because your skills are the same, combat becomes quite repetitive VERY quickly. The talent tree is a nice addition, but it simply isn't very deep. Just very small benefits, nothing substantial that you really can't wait for.

    Also the loot drops are not as quite as enjoyable or rewarding as they are in WoW. There ARE more useable types of loot and more magic item drops; HOWEVER, they are all very, very generic. There is a Greatsword of Precision, a Greatsword of Might, a Greatsword of "such-and-such-a-stat". There are very few weapon and armor models, the weapons/armor are all generically named, and the only difference are a few points in what attribute is affected. There need to be more "boss-type" special loots. Not like dungeons, but just elite type named mobs that drop some nice named, custom, non-generic weapons and armor. These are very very few and far between in this game. Therefore getting loot is just not exciting or pleasurable.

    I have played this game quite a bit. I've really really TRIED to like it, because, after all, I spent $60 on it. But each time I play, I find myself getting bored and forcing myself to keep playing just because I don't want to feel like I wasted my money. But I can honestly say that I wish I would have had my $60 right now, and wouldn't really the miss the game.
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  46. 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.
  47. 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.
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  48. 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.
  49. 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.
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  50. 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
  51. 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.
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  52. 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.
  53. 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?
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  54. 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
  55. 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
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  56. 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
  57. 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
  58. 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.
  59. 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.
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  60. 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.
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  61. 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.
  62. 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.
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  63. 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
  64. 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).
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  65. 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...
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  66. 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
  67. 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.
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  68. 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
  69. Sep 8, 2012
    5
    Gameplay: 4/10 Why so? Because It's always fun to do some stuff with people around. But harvesting eggs and washing cows is no fun after 80+ hours of playing is no fun at all. Maybe some people enjoy it. Not me. And I also take X and bring it to Y kind of stuff is annoying (90% of quests I've done). There are many games around which makes you to do so.

    Graphics: 5/10. (Textures) Well
    Gameplay: 4/10 Why so? Because It's always fun to do some stuff with people around. But harvesting eggs and washing cows is no fun after 80+ hours of playing is no fun at all. Maybe some people enjoy it. Not me. And I also take X and bring it to Y kind of stuff is annoying (90% of quests I've done). There are many games around which makes you to do so.

    Graphics: 5/10. (Textures) Well it's 2012. And if you ask full price for a game, you must at least try to be good at everything.

    Locations: 9/10 Fact is a fact. Locations are beautiful. They did a good job on this one.

    PvP/PvE: 3/10
    PvP require skill. Because in MOST cases you will be able to take down 1 or 2 enemies and die immediately after. Because of skill system, which is terrible. It just forces you to spam everything what's out of cooldown. If you are not doing so, you're doing it wrong.
    PvE is another weak point of this game. Let's start with "events". In most cases you see a mob, random spells flying everywhere. You don't even feel like you're doing everything. Not a challenge at all. Just be there, make sure to press 1, 2, 1, 3, 1 ,4. And your work is done.

    Audio: 4/10
    Well I don't feel the music. Voice actors are TERRIBLE(!). Spell sounds are fine.

    Also ingame shop? Really? After paying 60
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  70. Sep 10, 2012
    5
    Game play is enjoyable, security isn't up to par though which can ruin any good game... numerous people getting hacked and account name can be changed is easier than password changes makes one question why release a game with such a huge flaw...
  71. 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.
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  72. Aug 28, 2012
    5
    Game is fantastic, support is an unholy abomination. On top of taking days to get a response, all bans are treated the same as the system and accuse you of wrongdoing. If say someone from china tries to access your account, you immediately boot them off and change your password. A few hours later they'll helpfully ban you and a message accusing you of "unacceptable behavior" pops upGame is fantastic, support is an unholy abomination. On top of taking days to get a response, all bans are treated the same as the system and accuse you of wrongdoing. If say someone from china tries to access your account, you immediately boot them off and change your password. A few hours later they'll helpfully ban you and a message accusing you of "unacceptable behavior" pops up when you log in, but they won't even email you to let you know the real reason so you need to wait a day to get an automated response and it's probably going to be a few more days to get it fixed. Additionally you can't party up with your friends because the overflow system is broken. Gameplay is enjoyable however, and very beautiful scenery. Expand
  73. 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.
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  74. Aug 28, 2012
    5
    Fisrt, i am no fanboy and no hater, i am here to give my honest opinion, hope to help you design if this is your game or not.

    gameplay~ i was told by a friend this is an action based mmo, but it is not. it is another wow kind of point and clikcer. you hold your left mouse button to perform autoattack. the action feels very limited when i am spoiled by true action mmo like DCUO and Tera,
    Fisrt, i am no fanboy and no hater, i am here to give my honest opinion, hope to help you design if this is your game or not.

    gameplay~ i was told by a friend this is an action based mmo, but it is not. it is another wow kind of point and clikcer. you hold your left mouse button to perform autoattack. the action feels very limited when i am spoiled by true action mmo like DCUO and Tera, it makes me feel going back in time, playing wow holding my right mouse button to get a better angle,so i can stand there and hold tight to my left mouse button. plus, i cant even lock my camera to make the game feels better.
    QUESTING~ questing is a big plus for me, it is not like other mmo that u pick up a quest from npc then returning. they have pop up live event, so suddenly everyone on the map goes to the area and do quest togethor, which is interesting as i remember when i was playing other mmo i always feel like a lone wolf when my friend is not online questing by myself.
    pvp~ still didnt get to that part but i seriously doubt it when i dont like the combat system at all.
    graphic ~ not the best but surely live upto todays standard. and detail of the world is very rich, which creates an enjoyable enviorment. sound ~ wonderful
    charactor customization~ very very limited for mmo released in 2012
    other thoughts, this game is hyped up too much and i just make another other mistake buying a game before doing enough research. and my friend has never played either dcuo or tera so he doesnt know what action mmo means. i wont play alot of it until they improve the gameply. one more thing, this game has the worst community i have ever seen. i was just asking in the map chat that if there is a way i can lock my camera. response are " omg another console gamer" " go back to your xbox" "the camera is design for having better position yourselve, u should play that way...... i am like wtf...... i was expect answer like "yes you can, go to...... or "no you can not" , but hue hue .. guess too many fanboy in game u shouldnt even ask question
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  75. 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.
  76. 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
  77. Aug 30, 2012
    5
    There is much to like in GW2, and much to dislike as well. I had high hopes for great gameplay and a long lasting home in GW2, but I fear that is not to be the case. My review is of the game AS IT IS NOW, not of some 'future' GW2 after it has had months and months of refinement. That sort of refinement should have been done before launching. *Player Market is broken. * WvWvW is broken.There is much to like in GW2, and much to dislike as well. I had high hopes for great gameplay and a long lasting home in GW2, but I fear that is not to be the case. My review is of the game AS IT IS NOW, not of some 'future' GW2 after it has had months and months of refinement. That sort of refinement should have been done before launching. *Player Market is broken. * WvWvW is broken. * Cross-Server Guesting is Broken. * Dungeon group management is broken. * Many World Bosses are broken. * Game Stability (crashes & lockups) is broken. * Game Balance scaling is broken (Solo challenges are to hard, and Group challenges are to easy). * Overflow Server mechanics are broken. * Crafting scaling and balance is broken. **** Overall, GW2 needed another 6 months to 12 months 'in the oven', so to speak. I do not know why it was rushed out in this condition, but there were indications of known issues at the Beta Weekend Event 2. At that time, they had 100 servers online. That must have led to empty worlds, as they very quickly cut that down to 15ish for the next beta. That led to a host of stability and overflow issues that persist to this day; not fun. GW2 is worth a look, but one needs to play a character to Lvl 30ish or so to get a real feal as to how the game plays, and what to look forward to. Or not, as the case may be. Expand
  78. Aug 28, 2012
    5
    NOTE: Take reviews both bad and good with a pinch of salt for they are only opinions and not gospel. Fanboys and Haters would have scored the game 0 or 10 before it was even released. By all means read, but check out vid's as well and make an informed decision.

    MY OPINION: Another fantasy MMORPG *sighs* , So much hype, so much potential wasted. One thing this game isn't and that is a
    NOTE: Take reviews both bad and good with a pinch of salt for they are only opinions and not gospel. Fanboys and Haters would have scored the game 0 or 10 before it was even released. By all means read, but check out vid's as well and make an informed decision.

    MY OPINION: Another fantasy MMORPG *sighs* , So much hype, so much potential wasted. One thing this game isn't and that is a revolution of the MMO genre. It's more of and evolution making the game more accessible for the casual market. It does nothing new just adds it's only twist to systems seen before and sometimes better in other games. But that evolution comes at a price, the game has a very Xbox feel, offering little challenge. GRAPHICS: Are good, a bit to cartoony for my taste but they do the job but are not groundbreaking in anyway. PVE: GW1 was a mainly PvP game and it shows, GW2's PvE is the standard mix of kill x quests and Dynamic Events set on a repeat cycle , quickly becoming boring and degenerating into a zerg train.
    PVP: So much potential with the WvW but not fully realised yet by Anet, when the player strategies come to the for it wil be much better but at the moment is just another zerg. The long queues are to be expected but adding PvE elements to the maps has only added to the problem. To many slots are filled by those just doing the said PvE and not PvP .
    COMBAT: Is very limited and brings nothing new to the standard key sequence button mash of other games. Hit 1, Hit 1 again, Hit 2 then Hit 1 again . Same old same old system thats seen before. Active dodge and LoS mechanics add a small tactical element but don't save it from being mundane
    GENERAL: Badly voiced and scripted NPC's that drifts from mediorce > to cheesey > to downright bad.
    Certain bugs and Missing features such as the Trading house are to be expected for a new launch and will be addressed in due time and do not effect my score.
    SUMMARY: GW2 is marmite, it will be loved or loathed based on your own personal taste, but any potential buyer should inform themselves fully before a purchase and do not just follow the hype generated by the fans
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  79. Aug 30, 2012
    5
    soo, for starters i pre-ordered the game waiting to see something awsome...

    this is not the case on this game, feels kinda like when i bought Diablo 3. It has the nice name GW2 and really nice artwork and music is stunning, even that´s huge part of the game it cant hide the fact that the gameplay is inferior and feels like im playing free and unfinished MMO. control feels sluggish
    soo, for starters i pre-ordered the game waiting to see something awsome...

    this is not the case on this game, feels kinda like when i bought Diablo 3. It has the nice name GW2 and really nice artwork and music is stunning, even that´s huge part of the game it cant hide the fact that the gameplay is inferior and feels like im playing free and unfinished MMO. control feels sluggish and akward. another thing i dont like is that if you aggro more than 2 enemies alone you can only run away or fight and hope you survive. im not lying when i say that i feel like scammed when i payed 60bucks from this

    its really sad that this gem is covered with turd
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  80. Aug 30, 2012
    5
    1..Creating character:
    At start you chose your Home -server.
    There is a decent amount of options for character customization. You can chose from 5 races and 8 professions. That's all nice but you can create only 5 characters in game (not on server, but in whole game). You can unlock more slots buying it for real money. So you can't even try all professions. 2.PvE Personal story- you
    1..Creating character:
    At start you chose your Home -server.
    There is a decent amount of options for character customization. You can chose from 5 races and 8 professions. That's all nice but you can create only 5 characters in game (not on server, but in whole game). You can unlock more slots buying it for real money. So you can't even try all professions. 2.PvE
    Personal story- you have this personal story which are linear story's in instanced part 's of world. Story is in my opinion generic fantasy and not so good and it's badly voice over-ed and narrated. It can+t go even in same sentence with SWOTOR story's and story quests.
    Questing- there is no actual questing but you still go to NPC with black heart mark over head and take quest. Than everybody doing that quest (event) until it's over. There is also those "you entered this area help legion and kill 10 ghosts" quests (but hey game don't have quests!). It's so sad because they said there will never be those "mobs just standing near road and you have to kill 10 or 5 of them" quests but there are. Other event-ing (questing) is basically you have this text what to do and a progress bar. Everybody is killing something or collecting something and when bar is full you get your XP, karma and money based on your contribution. Nice idea. You also have this big event's who are basically escort this guy, than kill those, than fight boss or defend/attack outpost. Problem is when there is not enough players events are smaller, often not doable or even frustrating. The same is for those heart/quests where you see like 50 enemies spawning and just standing or fighting. If you don't engage them you don't care what is happening. They just keep standing still or fighting. If you engage you can change that part of world (for example black polluted lake becomes clean blue). But we saw all that in wow. In Litch King you take quest, game fazes, enemies are rushing on the hill, you kill them all and you get new flight point and new base. So it's all old news but now on every step. And that is the main concerns for PvE . When you clean one area it all starts again in other so it's quickly becomes all seen - all boring but with less seans of progression because there is not that i compleated quests feeling. The second concern is that if you only do hearts and some events you can't level fast enough to follow zone difficulty. You need to explore,do story quest and go in pvp or do vistas to keep your level high enough to continue. The final concern for me is that there is no reason to level to level 80 or even do those few dungeons while questing. You got nothing at that level. There are no raids and all equipment have the same stats but just looks different.

    3.Combat
    What weapon you equip that 5 skills you get. Why is only one unlocked at start and 4 you need to unlock i don't know when unlocking those is 5 minute job. Combat is mouse clicking like in wow but here you can move all the time and you can manually dodge. Rest 5 skills are basically your class buffs, heals, and one epic ability. That and traits are only things you unlock. So sad for RPG.

    4. PvP
    You have WvWvW which is nice in idea but it's almost unplayable and not so fun, at least for me. You have this ever ongoing 3 server battles on special map(4 big maps). Playing is now really lagy, unplayable when there is like 30 players on same place and half a day i spent destroying doors spamming my ability's. And you have classic PvP in which you can enter from start and play like a level 80 character. That's why i say there is no sens to do PvE leveling because it quickly get boring and it don't have any sense or reward. So this is basically a game for PvP-ers which will enjoy WvWvW and same gear pvp maps all over again... 5. Graphics:
    Graphic is a little out of my taste but very pretty on max settings. Problem is that on average PC you will look at very ugly textures and you will have a real hassle with a FPS which gave me a headache. 6. Social
    Current problems are -you can't play with your friends. Finding in world your 4 friends in 5 man group is a 30 minute job. You are on same server in same area but who knows in what instance. Constant overflowing and phasing get you lost. Guild's are very buggy and often GM can't see any players. Auction house is down. Adding friends had some issues but now is ok. 7. Conclusion
    A nice game especially for PvP players. It's trying to be different and in some way it succeeds. It don't have subscription because it couldn't sustain it, it miss so much (raids, PvE daily's, heroics, mounts, flying...) and imo it don't have really long - life time. It put some nice things from other MMO's and try to sell it for revolutionary. It's not but it's nice done. It's ok game but missing so much to compete with other AAA MMO's and lacks optimization
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  81. Sep 4, 2012
    5
    The low level zones are polished the higher level zones are buggy at best. Some of the dynamic events don't work at all. The Dungeons on story mode Leave a lot to be desired unless you like to corpse-run your dungeons. AC is ludicrous. Our guild ran CM on explorable last night way over leveled and side-kicked to level, and we only managed to get 2 bosses downed. At the staggering cost ofThe low level zones are polished the higher level zones are buggy at best. Some of the dynamic events don't work at all. The Dungeons on story mode Leave a lot to be desired unless you like to corpse-run your dungeons. AC is ludicrous. Our guild ran CM on explorable last night way over leveled and side-kicked to level, and we only managed to get 2 bosses downed. At the staggering cost of about 30-50 silver makes them not worth your time at the moment. And not fun at all! For 5 tokens a boss towards gear that is under level. Arenanet what are you thinking here? I realize there are pressing issues Ie. trading post and hacking. You better rethink balance in this game fairly soon. Especially for those of us that want to pve as well as wvw. Overall the potential for a fantastic game remains high. I am skeptical that it will be addressed in a timely manner though. Apparently Arenanet does not want much feedback either. No forums. Posting daily updates to the wiki.? No in game option for feedback.
    Now crafting: What a joke! (not a funny joke) This is one of the worst crafting systems I have seen in an mmo. It's so convoluted. I typically enjoy crafting too. So between the lack of balance for pve a poor crafting system and Arenanets total lack of Input/feedback the best I can do is a 5, and I think thats optimistic at the moment. I'm also tired of seeing you fanboys fawning over clearly broken un-balanced systems. Have you kids made it out of the starter zones yet?
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  82. 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.
  83. Sep 10, 2012
    5
    The good:

    -Environments look great. So do characters (except for humans). While graphic engine is not state of the art or anything, it is good and artists did good job with it. -Leveling proces is smooth, with no need to run to NPCs to take quests. You just get in area, have several options how to fill bar. Additionally game rewards exploring with hidden caves and bosses everywhere.
    The good:

    -Environments look great. So do characters (except for humans). While graphic engine is not state of the art or anything, it is good and artists did good job with it. -Leveling proces is smooth, with no need to run to NPCs to take quests. You just get in area, have several options how to fill bar. Additionally game rewards exploring with hidden caves and bosses everywhere. All that adds to the feeling that you can just go into the world and explore while your character progresses automatically.

    -Removal of alot of timesinks. Instant travel to specific points spread out around maps is a great time saver unless you actually did enjoy 15 minut flights to your destination. Also little things that really help saving time. Like "sell junk" option at vendors or automaticly sending gathered materials to bank which btw. also has special slots ther for such items. I believe they now even alowed crafting without need to manualy go to bank. All of that saves you alot of headaches.

    The bad:

    -Controls lag, delay or unresponsiveness. Whatever you want to call it. You tap a key, and there seems to be 200ms delay before your character starts moving. Either there is some crappy animation acceleration system or your character literally waits for server response when moving. Either way in 2012 something like that is absolutely ridiculous and that alone kills gameplay in this game for me.
    Sometimes stuff does not work. I press button, there are no cooldowns, yet it does not register. So you naturally end up spamming keys like crazy in order for attacks to actually work.
    Additionally tons of melee skills are really castable with short half second casts or so. Now I understand that most likely why this got implemented is so you can dodge hits. But end effect of controls lantency + randomly not working key press + castable skills that should be instant + some skills that make you stand in place before you finish animation + weapon switches = most unresponsive, laggy and frustrating control scheme I have seen in the last decade.

    -I hope you like to use 3 attacks over and over. Combat is nothing more than regular action bar skills based one + manual dodge even though screaming fanboys try to tell you otherwise. Nothing wrong with such system in itself if you get proper ammount of varried skills. Well I got bad news.
    For most classes you get 2 weapon sets. That is 2x5 buttons for weapons, 5 buttons for utility skills and 4 for class skills. First slot in weapons is autoatack (yes I am not kidding) so that leaves you at best with 17 buttons out of which you will have access only to 13 at one time without weapon switching. Utility and profession (class) skills are often on long cooldowns (30-90 seconds), some are buffs,heals or passive.No big deal right, afterall you can switch to second set of weapons anytime right? Joke, 10 second cooldown on weapon switch, have fun.
    End effect of it is that you end up spamming 3 attacks and presing few other buttons once a minute because not only second set of weapon has CD but depending on class actually might suck and not be worth using. Talk about boring. There are rare classes where you do get to use a bit more buttons but that brings into the question balance of difficulty of playing a proffesion (class) and in the end, still is not enough. Fun factor of combat varries from "id rather watch paint dry" to "meh, whats for dinner".

    Additionally because there is such small ammount of buttons available you end up with laughable buff/debuff system. You don't get skills that counter specific type of debuff out of lets say 10 types. No, instead you get skills like "remove random debuff","apply random debuff","convert random debuff into random buff". You even have passive skills removing debuffs.
    On a possitive side there is combo system where passing or shooting through various aoe speels you can get some effects, which nicely add another layer to combat. Still doesn't counter the feeling of boredom though.

    -Dungeons are just abomination. You would think that in game that has no problems dealing with dynamic event where you have 30 players vs 50 mobs, dungeons should be epic with 20 weaker mobs + several stronger at once in awesomelly design halls. Well here is epic for you. You get tiny claustrophobic corridors where camera gets constantly stucked, usually 2-4 trash mobs with obscene ammount of health and you stand there hitting them forever and ever and... I fell asleep. Then you get to boss who like to spam ability or two over and over which you have to dodge.

    -Lack of trade button. Awful auction house interface. The meh:
    Music, voice acting, goofy animations depending on race, poor choice if you like "ugly" races. Cliched story and dialog. Spell sounds are meh, I don't like casters in this game at all. I don't feel the destrucrive power behind them. Dynamic events are faceroll zerg, PvP is lame.
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  84. Sep 10, 2012
    5
    The game has very little variety. There's nothing about the PvE system that is different than any other MMO, except maybe GW2's system is rather bland. I have yet to try PvP, but from what I am hearing from others who have, it's just as boring as PvE. Anyone who gives this game a 10 or even a 9 hasn't played the game enough to discover the monotony in store for them.
  85. Sep 10, 2012
    5
    I have to say when i first downloaded this game i had such high hopes because i was a big fan of guild wars 1 but after a week of playing its let me down bad .. first i have to say i dislike the weapon skill bar it gets soooo boring fast and i feel like rerolling another class just to change the skills, you can change weapons around for different skills but god 80 levels of the same fewI have to say when i first downloaded this game i had such high hopes because i was a big fan of guild wars 1 but after a week of playing its let me down bad .. first i have to say i dislike the weapon skill bar it gets soooo boring fast and i feel like rerolling another class just to change the skills, you can change weapons around for different skills but god 80 levels of the same few weapons is just not fun.
    The pve is fun at the start but is more or less the same till end game gets a little harder but you can go from level 1 - 80 without talking to another person...
    The lac of skills is just silly you find yourself running around waiting for cd's on 5 skills while spamming the same 5 weapon skills. sorry but give me 30 keybinds any day.
    Pvp is fun and i do like the battle ground system as you can just jump on in at any level ,also the WvWvW is fun but needs work all in all pvp is whats best about GW2.
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  86. Sep 11, 2012
    5
    Guild Wars 2 was hyped as a revolutionary breath of fresh air in the MMO genre, so what did we get? Let's take a look.

    Gameplay mechanics: combat was a big disappointment, with fixed weapon skills creating some of the most shallow combat mechanics I've ever seen. My Guardian deals with every enemy in the game in the same way: 4, 2, 3, 1-1-1. It gets dull after 3,000th enemy. Events and
    Guild Wars 2 was hyped as a revolutionary breath of fresh air in the MMO genre, so what did we get? Let's take a look.

    Gameplay mechanics: combat was a big disappointment, with fixed weapon skills creating some of the most shallow combat mechanics I've ever seen. My Guardian deals with every enemy in the game in the same way: 4, 2, 3, 1-1-1. It gets dull after 3,000th enemy. Events and champion fights turn into a huge zergfest where the much-vaunted inter-player combo system gets lost amidst a hail of skill FX and isn't required anyway. +Power/+Precision/+Critical Damage (PPCD) items are the only thing of any importance, since you take so much damage from enemies (sometimes up to 75% of your max HP in a single hit from some standard enemies) that any pretense of boosting your defence is a joke. As a result, PPCD equipment costs 10x as much as other equipment on the trading system (which is thankfully now up). However, balance issues are to be expected on a new MMO release and so I'll give ArenaNet some leeway on this.

    Crafting is done better than in most MMOs, with little things like speeding up crafting of large numbers of items and the deposit all collectibles being welcome additions to a feature that can be a painful experience in other MMOs. The amount of EXP that can be gleaned from crafting, however, is in my opinion far too high and I reckon I got at least 1/3 of my levels from crafting (Lv.80 max, so 25-ish levels).

    Story: since this game is a true persistent-world MMO, the story takes a back seat, unlike the original Guild Wars where instancing (whatever you thought about it) did allow for an unusually good story-driven experience in PvE. Guild Wars 2 lacks the suspense and intrigue of the original story, since you know who the big bad is right from the start, and plays out largely forgettably and predictably. Discussion and cutscenes have been relegated to little conversations on a background, which is disappointing, lacking the cinematic story-driven experience of Guild Wars. My advice: do not play GW2 for the story.

    World PvE: The Renown Heart system and Dynamic Events were pedalled as the best thing since sliced bread by both ArenaNet's marketing division and various professional reviewers. Obviously these people had not done their research, as Warhammer Online had done this sort of public quest system back in 2008, to quite considerable success. GW2 lifted it, divided it, and gave us Renown Hearts, which are fetch/kill quests under any other name, but they work okay; and dynamic events, which can be fun but often suffer through having either too many players (zerg) or too few (impossible to complete). The Vistas and Skill Point Challenges are a nice touch, but the whole game feels very meta as a result and it ruins immersion somewhat.

    PvP: I have personally found PvP to be a mixed bag in this game. sPvP with teams of randomly assigned players going up against each other is quite fun and requires some degree of tactical skill. Lobbing trebuchets at your guildmates (who happened to be assigned to other team) is great fun. The WvW unfortunately is not so good at the moment as, like the major PvE events, it degenerates into a monstrous zergfest where the server with the most players (usually the French in my case) online always controls everything and everyone else gets diddly-squat. ANet needs to balance this, perhaps by limiting the number of players on each battlefield to an amount equal to that of the smallest actively represented server, but we shall see.

    Graphics: this game is beautiful, boasting the highest graphical fidelity I have ever seen in an MMO, and it is impressive. On the other hand, the game's engine optimisation and netcode are poor at the moment to say the least, but hopefully there will be some patches that address my 3 frames per second in a zerg against a champion boss. With regards to the art style, some people will like the new, more vibrant art style, while others (especially some fans of the original Guild Wars) will lament the move to a world that is more like WoW in both colour and feel, including the cheesiness of the NPCs.

    Music/SFX: The music is almost entirely ripped from the first Guild Wars, so it's a bit of a cop-out frankly. Otherwise sound effects are solid, but unspectacular. There really is not much more to say about it.

    Verdict: ArenaNet took everything that was great about Guild Wars...and threw it into a fire. Instead, they made a WoW clone and stole WAR's public quest/event system as its driver. In fairness, the aspects that have been borrowed are well implemented. But there is nothing innovative about Guild Wars 2. Shallow combat and lack of high-end content mean you will probably drop this game after a couple of months. If ANet can get balance updates and new content in my opinion may improve, but right now this game is a rough diamond at best.
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  87. Sep 12, 2012
    5
    My character r was engineer, and it was ridiciusly underpowered!
    I leveled till 35 and entered first dungeon, and my skills SUCKED in there.
    All i could do is practically auto attack from further away on bosses, becouse i dont have any other ranged skill, Seriosly? Im **** engineer, i got a rifle and bullets, Why does it sucks and doesnt have any skills? Was disappointed in that.
    My character r was engineer, and it was ridiciusly underpowered!
    I leveled till 35 and entered first dungeon, and my skills SUCKED in there.
    All i could do is practically auto attack from further away on bosses, becouse i dont have any other ranged skill, Seriosly? Im **** engineer, i got a rifle and bullets, Why does it sucks and doesnt have any skills?

    Was disappointed in that. Otherwise its good solid game, Just skills on engineer sucks, thats why im not playing it.
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  88. 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.
  89. 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.
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  90. 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".
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  91. 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.
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  92. 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
  93. 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.
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  94. 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.
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  95. 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
  96. 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.
  97. 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.
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  98. 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.
  99. 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.
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  100. 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
Metascore
90

Universal acclaim - based on 69 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 68 out of 69
  2. 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. 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.
  3. 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.