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  1. #1

    A 'World of Warcraft' Player Reviews 'Guild Wars 2'

    Hello everyone on MMO-Champion! I am Kaariana, long time lurker, almost 6 years reading the site. Loved every minute of it. Been a long time World of Warcraft player, and have taken forays into different MMOs. I recently had the chance to help a Forbes contributor with a review for Guild Wars 2. I was a bit skeptical at first, since I have never played Guild Wars 1. All I knew that is was a heavily PvP based game, and that the PvE content was not all there. But after doing some research on the series, I felt it deserved a chance, and just had to try it out. This is the first of several articles that Carol Pinchefsky is writing about Guild Wars 2. First one is posted here:

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpin...-guild-wars-2/

    Now to explain the perspective that I wrote this article in. Couple of things:
    -I have never played any version of Guild Wars up to this point.
    -I went in blind...never playing in the beta, and avoid as many videos as I could.
    -Most of the reading I did was in the MMO-Champ GW2 subforum.

    I intented for this article to not bash WoW, or anything along those lines. I only wanted to give it a fair shot. These were my first impressions by the way. I know that there is still things GW2 can improve on, and I've made note of these things to Carol. Please let me know what you think, and feel free to give the article a read if it is worth your time. Thank you MMO-Champ!

  2. #2
    The Insane DrakeWurrum's Avatar
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    Thankfully, you're one of the few WoW players who seem to get it. GW2 has never wanted anything more than to challenge WoW.

    Whether they will or not, remains to be seen. Even WoW took a while to really ramp up in popularity.


    What I've found myself wondering lately is: What would happen if Blizzard and ANet came together, combining their strengths? Blizzard is obviously experienced in encounter design. ANet is obviously experienced in designing questing content.
    And while I don't want to bash on Blizzard's combat, I want to say that ANet really knows how to make MMO combat exciting again, and innovate on the possibilities.

    I would love to see some kind of raid content in GW2, but only if it were done right. Obviously without the gear progression... it would just, essentially, be Explorable dungeons with a larger group size.
    Last edited by DrakeWurrum; 2012-09-01 at 04:56 PM.
    I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

    If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

  3. #3
    Quote Originally Posted by DrakeWurrum View Post
    Thankfully, you're one of the few WoW players who seem to get it. GW2 has never wanted anything more than to challenge WoW.

    Whether they will or not, remains to be seen. Even WoW took a while to really ramp up in popularity.


    What I've found myself wondering lately is: What would happen if Blizzard and ANet came together, combining their strengths? Blizzard is obviously experienced in encounter design. ANet is obviously experienced in designing questing content.
    And while I don't want to bash on Blizzard's combat, I want to say that ANet really knows how to make MMO combat exciting again, and innovate on the possibilities.

    I would love to see some kind of raid content in GW2, but only if it were done right. Obviously without the gear progression... it would just, essentially, be Explorable dungeons with a larger group size.
    We can all dream, can't we? I will say it was quite difficult healing a HoT heroic on my shaman yesterday. Was still used to double tapping to dodge xD
    Blizzard knows encounter design, that I will agree with. But the AC story mode that I did, I really enjoyed it. Was quite different from what Blizzard offered in the past. Can't wait to try Exploration mode. Now the only thing I really need to do, is more sPvP, and WvWvW.

  4. #4
    The Insane DrakeWurrum's Avatar
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    Just wait until you try out the god temples in Orr. I hear the mechanics there are as complex as any raid mechanic, but I'm not anywhere near that level. Jumping around too many characters with my girlfriend to really get a properly leveled character - she gets bored easy.
    I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

    If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

  5. #5
    What I've found myself wondering lately is: What would happen if Blizzard and ANet came together, combining their strengths? Blizzard is obviously experienced in encounter design. ANet is obviously experienced in designing questing content.
    And while I don't want to bash on Blizzard's combat, I want to say that ANet really knows how to make MMO combat exciting again, and innovate on the possibilities.
    Oh my, orgasm.
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  6. #6
    Shame your info about the 1 server bit on the article is kinda inaccurate and can be easily mis-portrayed.

    You say you are limited to one server like its a bad thing when that is exactly what you have on those other MMOs like WoW. The having one HOME server restriction on Guildwars2 is only for WvWvW battling. You can in fact guest on any other server when not doing WvWvW free of charge (UNLIKE WOW). So if your friend is on a different home server but you both want to play together you can do so all the time by having one of you guest on the other's server, you just cant both join the same WvWvW battles.


    Edit: Scratch all the above. Just read your comment replies on the section below the article.
    Last edited by Oogly; 2012-09-01 at 05:29 PM.

  7. #7
    The Insane DrakeWurrum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Oogly View Post
    Shame your info about the 1 server bit on the article is kinda inaccurate and can be easily mis-portrayed.

    You say you are limited to one server like its a bad thing when that is exactly what you have on those other MMOs like WoW. The having one HOME server restriction on Guildwars2 is only for WvWvW battling. You can in fact guest on any other server when not doing WvWvW free of charge (UNLIKE WOW). So if your friend is on a different home server but you both want to play together you can do so all the time by having one of you guest on the other's server, you just cant both join the same WvWvW battles.


    Edit: Scratch all the above. Just read your comment replies on the section below the article.
    To be fair, you can "guest" onto other WoW servers too, just not with the same characters. :<

    Both methods of pros/cons. In WoW, I loved being able to make alts on other servers as a means of just "getting away" from people on my main server. Can't do that in GW2, realistically.

    At least I can turn myself invisible, but people will still see my character running around and recognize me.
    Last edited by DrakeWurrum; 2012-09-01 at 05:35 PM.
    I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

    If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

  8. #8
    Quote Originally Posted by Oogly View Post
    Shame your info about the 1 server bit on the article is kinda inaccurate and can be easily mis-portrayed.

    You say you are limited to one server like its a bad thing when that is exactly what you have on those other MMOs like WoW. The having one HOME server restriction on Guildwars2 is only for WvWvW battling. You can in fact guest on any other server when not doing WvWvW free of charge (UNLIKE WOW). So if your friend is on a different home server but you both want to play together you can do so all the time by having one of you guest on the other's server, you just cant both join the same WvWvW battles.


    Edit: Scratch all the above. Just read your comment replies on the section below the article.
    To be fair, I think ArenaNet is doing a great job with creating enough servers to handle server load, and having free transfers to other servers for a limited time. There was another MMO that tried this tactic, and it didn't work well in the end. I do like the idea of being able to guest on other servers, and that WvWvW is the main reason why it is this way. Thanks for your comments btw!
    Last edited by Kaariana; 2012-09-01 at 07:41 PM.

  9. #9
    Been really impressed with the quality of the Forbes gaming writing lately.

    I never thought I'd find myself regularly reading Forbes for the gaming coverage lol

  10. #10
    Quote Originally Posted by lakhesis View Post
    Been really impressed with the quality of the Forbes gaming writing lately.

    I never thought I'd find myself regularly reading Forbes for the gaming coverage lol
    I was quite taken aback as well. When I met Carol...she did not look like a gamer what-so-ever. But seeing her playing GW2, and other games she has reviewed really surprised me. I have to say I was impressed. One of the main reasons why I am helping her with this article, since she has never played an MMO.

  11. #11
    The Insane DrakeWurrum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Kaariana View Post
    I was quite taken aback as well. When I met Carol...she did not look like a gamer what-so-ever. But seeing her playing GW2, and other games she has reviewed really surprised me. I have to say I was impressed. One of the main reasons why I am helping her with this article, since she has never played an MMO.
    I've met nice old grannies who enjoy playing gnomes in WoW, and are truly pretty hardcore raiders. She even went and worked as a GM for a while. Maybe she still works there, have no idea. Don't judge people by the way they look folks!
    I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

    If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

  12. #12
    What would happen if Blizzard and ANet came together, combining their strengths? Blizzard is obviously experienced in encounter design. ANet is obviously experienced in designing questing content.
    Interestingly enough ArenaNet was founded by former Blizzard employees.
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  13. #13
    Scarab Lord Karizee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrakeWurrum View Post
    What I've found myself wondering lately is: What would happen if Blizzard and ANet came together, combining their strengths? Blizzard is obviously experienced in encounter design. ANet is obviously experienced in designing questing content.

    Oh god no. Please don't get all that yucky Blizzardness all over my wonderful GW2.

    Besides, the founders of ANet use to work for Blizzard. They left.

    The founders of ArenaNet were former employees of Blizzard Entertainment who played important roles in developing the highly successful video games Warcraft, StarCraft, Diablo, Diablo II, and the Battle.net gaming network. They left in February 2000 to form their own company.
    Valar morghulis

  14. #14
    The Insane DrakeWurrum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Talorh View Post
    Interestingly enough ArenaNet was founded by former Blizzard employees.
    Well aware of this, but it was only founded by them, and these people were the ones who designed Battle.net. They're really good at handling server and network features (outside of the obvious launch problems that every MMO has), but all the experienced encounter design people are obviously over there at Blizz.

    No matter what you can say about Blizz, they do know how to design exciting encounters.
    Last edited by DrakeWurrum; 2012-09-01 at 10:58 PM.
    I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

    If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

  15. #15
    Scarab Lord Karizee's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by DrakeWurrum View Post
    No matter what you can say about Blizz, they do know how to design exciting encounters.
    Maybe they use to.

    That last raid they release however many ages ago? Dragon Soul? Boss just stands there like a lump in the middle of the room waiting for you to run around killing oozes over and over? Then do the same thing only with tentacles this time. Or maybe it was the tentacles and toenails on Madness that you found exciting. Bleh.

    I much prefer fighting GW2 dragons.
    Valar morghulis

  16. #16
    The Insane DrakeWurrum's Avatar
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    Well, Dragon Soul wasn't that amazing, but they still did manage to make the fights themselves fairly exciting, I think. Except for the one dragon boss where the only mechanic is to push a fancy button that teleports you to the twilight realm as a free "get out of jail free" card. They just needed to rehash old models less. And have less plot holes in their story.

    That's what we need. Bioware + Blizzard + Arena Net. Take the strengths of each one.
    Last edited by DrakeWurrum; 2012-09-01 at 11:11 PM.
    I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

    If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

  17. #17
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Kaariana View Post
    Hello everyone on MMO-Champion! I am Kaariana, long time lurker, almost 6 years reading the site. Loved every minute of it. Been a long time World of Warcraft player, and have taken forays into different MMOs. I recently had the chance to help a Forbes contributor with a review for Guild Wars 2. I was a bit skeptical at first, since I have never played Guild Wars 1. All I knew that is was a heavily PvP based game, and that the PvE content was not all there. But after doing some research on the series, I felt it deserved a chance, and just had to try it out. This is the first of several articles that Carol Pinchefsky is writing about Guild Wars 2. First one is posted here:

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/carolpin...-guild-wars-2/

    Now to explain the perspective that I wrote this article in. Couple of things:
    -I have never played any version of Guild Wars up to this point.
    -I went in blind...never playing in the beta, and avoid as many videos as I could.
    -Most of the reading I did was in the MMO-Champ GW2 subforum.

    I intented for this article to not bash WoW, or anything along those lines. I only wanted to give it a fair shot. These were my first impressions by the way. I know that there is still things GW2 can improve on, and I've made note of these things to Carol. Please let me know what you think, and feel free to give the article a read if it is worth your time. Thank you MMO-Champ!
    There's a very short and easy critique I can give: Your article contains a very early and short impression, and thusly the impressions and opinions aren't "good". They aren't critical. They are the first awe impressions of something completely new.

    I'd like to hear opinions after you've played it for a few weeks. When you've had proper time to get used to it and understand it. I found the article to be, well... not that great. It's a rambling of impressions. It feels incoherent and it seems to end rather abruptly where you talk about the negative things. It's like you haven't reviewed games before.

    I don't want to crush your spirit or anything. I just can't express it in a better way.

    I'm not too fond of the fact that you didn't post this for any other purpose that to promote your article. Which might be against the forum rules. It depends on how lenient the mods are about it. When people promote their youtube videos or other, they get their threads locked.
    Though you say "This is the first of several articles that Carol Pinchefsky is writing", refering to the writer of the article by name, aka not you but someone else. Then in your post you refer to the writer as yourself. That makes me wonder.

  18. #18
    Rebuttal:
    - GW2 has an amazing graphics engine...
    Graphics... the better graphics are, the more exclusive they are to other players. The quality of graphics in GW2 forces some of my good friends to be unable to play. World of Warcraft wins in this department because it includes a wider audience. Both games should meet in the middle.

    Character creation is one of the better ones I have seen in a long time. I was surprised with the amount of detail you can adjust the character model. Also filling out the history of your character is a nice touch,
    Again, the more character models, the more loading time that occurs. This is part of the graphical issue that causes GW2 to fail. Adjusting individual history causes quests to be different which, if you dig deeply, means that you can't play with friends who pick different history on some quests! MMO is supposed to be multiplayer, but questing in GW2 feels very single player.

    Dynamic Events (DE) are nice quests that appear throughout different parts of the maps. You’ll be running into those a ton if you go out exploring, like I did. Some are easy to find, some take more work.
    Scenarios will provide the same, and Blizzard's recent blue post boasts about 25 man scenarios. Keeping them out of the world helps so that you aren't running into these and forced to pass through or around them. Even without scenarios, LFR provides a location for players to work together to overcome easy bosses. When playing GW2, I found that when I ran into the same DE again and again, I was forced to participate. After doing the same one 3 times, I got bored.

    Not to mention the engineer bug where you can leave turrets right where DE bosses spawn to get XP from them! Cool...

    As a thief, I loved the “steal” ability. The simple idea of gaining an ability from an enemy that you’re fighting refreshes the whole idea of the thief/rogue archetype. I squeed in happiness when I stole a warrior’s Whirlwind attack and used it against him. Depending on what you fight, you can steal different abilities. It adds a whole new dynamic to combat.
    Death Knights and Druids both have this ability in MoP. Death Knights steal from enemies, while Druids borrow from allies. It only adds dynamic to PvP combat for a thief, so this point seems to be moot if we're comparing GW2 to WoW, which this article is pretty much doing.

    I can’t go back to WoW combat after this. Being able to jump, dodge enemy attacks, and attack on the move makes the combat more interactive. In WoW, people rely on a rotation of skills to maximize damage, whereas in GW2, your skill usage will depend on the situation. This applies even more to PvP combat, since the skills you select will either make or break your encounters.
    Rotations exist to do maximum damage in any PvE content. No game can avoid rotation! Just because you add the word "jump" as a synonym for dodge doesn't make 3 different things that GW2 has that WoW doesn't. Dodging attacks is the same as pushing the "special action button" in Dragon Soul to go into the twilight. Dodging attacks is why nobody ever dies in GW2 in high end PvP battles.

    The fact that different classes can use different weapon types, plus the fact you can hold different weapons in different Main Hand and Off Hand slots, blew me away. Using two daggers in MH and OH gives me access to different skills from someone using a dagger and pistol in MH/OH. Add to this the fact that you can do combinations with your skills to get a combined spell effect (either with your own skills, or another players) it surprised me. I’ll say, it will be difficult to get used to WoW’s rigid combat system again after playing this.
    This is the same as specs in WoW. Different specs give you different abilities. Talents and glyphs do the same thing! The "rigid" combat system is GW2. I feel like I only have a few buttons which are constantly changing what they do in GW2. I use one abilities 5 times, and suddenly, it becomes something else!

    I have a spear for underwater combat (with its own set of skills, mind you). This one addition absolutely amazed me. I’ve never seen underwater combat in an MMO like this.
    This exemplifies the problem with underwater combat. You're forced to use specific specs (or weapons in this case!).

    You don’t have to fight for nodes [resources]. Everybody can mine the same node without penalty. In other games, once you mine it, no one else can. Here, every node is like its own micro-instance.
    Another reason that GW2 feels more single player than multiplayer. I am not truly effecting the world.


    People just came and helped during a Dynamic Event. This rarely happens in WoW, because these redesigned worlds that came with Cataclysm helped players level quickly by themselves. With the elimination of many group quests–and elite creatures being changed to normal creatures–grouping is not necessary unless you do an instance.
    This is because it's fresh and new. It's only a matter of time before they're completely deserted.

    WvW is a persistent battlefield where you fight two opposing servers for control of a territory. You maintain control by capturing points on the map. The fact that you need to build siege weaponry to defend your territory increases the intensity of the game; the fact that you have to maintain your supply lines adds a depth of strategy to the battlefield. It reminded me of old-school Alterac Valley battles, which were eliminated with Burning Crusade.
    They were eliminated because after playing them for a year, you never really felt a sense of accomplishment. I absolutely loved AV in the early days... going to work, coming home and the battle would still be raging. But after a year, you just never felt like you were helping in the battle. I felt insignificant as I pushed for Stormpike GY for hours on end. Now, I can be there for the entire battle, the reason for victory or come up short in defeat. If WvW was truly rewarding for the fun factor, what makes you think people wouldn't be doing it in WoW?

  19. #19
    Deleted
    Quote Originally Posted by Karizee View Post
    Maybe they use to.

    That last raid they release however many ages ago? Dragon Soul? Boss just stands there like a lump in the middle of the room waiting for you to run around killing oozes over and over? Then do the same thing only with tentacles this time. Or maybe it was the tentacles and toenails on Madness that you found exciting. Bleh.

    I much prefer fighting GW2 dragons.
    Have you done any dungeon or big zone boss in GW2 yet? It's the same.
    I was so excited when I was part of a group of people that managed to fight the Shatterer, only to be really disappointed by a dull, very easy fight that only involved us defending our mortars and cannons from the easily zerged mobs that some times ran up to them. All the while, the dragon simply stands there, roaring and taking mortar shells to the face.

  20. #20
    The Insane DrakeWurrum's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by hx9 View Post
    This exemplifies the problem with underwater combat. You're forced to use specific specs (or weapons in this case!).
    I find this situation better than what Blizzard did for underwater combat. They very lazily just stuck you underwater, gave you the ability to breathe and swim faster (when they didn't have to make you swim slow to begin with), and said "Here, underwater content! AMAZING right?!" Not all skills translate well into a 3D environment. There's a reason certain utility skills in GW2 don't work at all underwater.

    There's even forms of CC that's unique to being underwater.
    Last edited by DrakeWurrum; 2012-09-01 at 11:26 PM.
    I hope you haven't forgotten my role in this little story. I'm the leading man. You know what they say about the leading man? He never dies.

    If you give in to your impulses in this world, the price is that it changes your personality in the real world. The player and character are one and the same.

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