After taking a few weeks off from GW2, I logged in, walked around a bit and had a Gerstmann-like thought:

"I don't want to play this game anymore."

I LOVED GW2. Got it at launch, had a blast leveling and thought it was the best looking game I had ever played.

The endgame has been a pretty huge disappointment. The cosmetics I was looking at for medium armor were deeply underwhelming, the challenge of the dungeons went from "IMPOSSIBLE" to "Meh" overnight after joining a good guild and the rest of the higher end upgrades required a grind I wasn't prepared to even begin. ANet is not doing a bad job, but it is clear they are struggling to find answers just as I am.

Do I want gear progression? Do I want to pvp? Do I want to level other characters? Do I want to run a guild? Is GW2 REALLY that different from other MMOs?

Ultimately I just turned it off and had a blast playing Far Cry 3. Maybe it's just me (and it very well could be), but I just think GW2 is out of gas for the time being.

You posted this right at the start of winters day. If new holiday content almost every day can't get you excited about an MMO then nothing can. But that's totally fine. The nice thing is you are free to leave and come back whenever for no cost whatsoever.

@jesterroyal: Indeed! I hadn't played Guild Wars 2 since the start of October, but to be able to log in again this friday and just play a couple of hours without having to start some payment thing again was super awesome.

@jesterroyal said:

You posted this right at the start of winters day. If new holiday content almost every day can't get you excited about an MMO then nothing can. But that's totally fine. The nice thing is you are free to leave and come back whenever for no cost whatsoever.

And this is exactly why GW2 is the first MMO I've played in years. I paid 40 something euros for it, played it for a good chunk of time and then stopped. I came back for both the Halloween and The Lost Shores events and will probably check it out at some point during the winter events. I don't feel bad or somehow robbed about that since I can just go back to it whenever I want for whatever length of time I feel like playing unlike some game that has a monthly fee where I would feel like I need to play as much as possible in the time I've already paid for just to feel like I'm not wasting money.

Now that they seem to have finally addressed some of the Ranger problems I might be more interested to stick around.

This game was probably the biggest disappointment of the year for me. I wasn't going crazy for it like some people but I was looking forward to it.

Once I actually played it though, I thought it was one of the most boring games I ever played. I honestly had more fun playing the old republic.

It definitely IS worth mentioning that the lack of a monthly fee makes the decision to drop in or out MUCH different than other MMOs. But in terms of the moment to moment enjoyment, and end game goals... ANet needs to figure a few things out. Fractals showed they can create amazing new content - but the new gear tier shows they're no longer shy about a vertical grind.

I reckon the main problem of the game is that it is more designed to appeal to MMO genre fans (must like grinding, feeling that you must "work" for gear and stuff) than to GW1 fans..this is unfortunately a tendency that all successful franchises are adopting over time: getting from underground genius uncompromising to mainstream I please the most potential buyers...this is a business, and a big one after all!

I am still playing from time to time because as you said the game is beautiful and the world looks great. But the gameplay is just not appealling enough to me to compete with the all of the immensely better games out there.

The best part is that its free. I'll roll another race/class sometime and have fun with that for awhile.
 
Beats paying 12,99 to get a month and hurry through the content if you ask me. No time pressure = win.

I came back from a post-Thanksgiving break, I'm enjoying myself, saw a Lincoln Force person out in the wild, but he didn't know who Jeff Gerstmann was so that conversation died quickly. Haven't dipped my feet into the Wintersday stuff yet but it seems like a fun distraction. Take a week or two off, the game will still be there when you get back and you won't feel like you've been set back ten years because of gear advances, people can only catch up to each other, not blow the others out of the water.

Though I must say; as enjoyable as the new dungeon is, Fractures of the Mists was a huge step back in the design philosophy I associated with the game, with the new tier of gear it's starting to get that WoW-like feeling of "We only want to do X dungeon, because all the best loot is in X"

I really like GW2. But there really isn't anything left for me to do at level 80 because I'm not a fan of high-pressure situations (SPVP, explorables). At the very least Pandaria has really casual rep grinds, mounts to collect and the pet battle system. Moving forward, I really hope they invest some time into the more frivolous stuff for people like me.

Is there still no free trial for it? Is it also still not on Steam? And 50 bucks still? I really want to try this game, but they aren't giving me a whole lot of reasons to.

@Bishna said:

Is there still no free trial for it? Is it also still not on Steam? And 50 bucks still? I really want to try this game, but they aren't giving me a whole lot of reasons to.

If you like MMOs you'll like it. I'm sure a trial is around the corner, but honestly it's a one time charge.

With no sub I feel like you'd get your moneys worth just by playing it, look for a sale on greenmangaming, I got it there for $40

I view a game like Guild Wars 2 as "left handed" as opposed to be better or worse. The nice thing about having no (or very little) gear progression is that you can stop playing and come back later and be fine. The bad thing about having no (or very little) gear progression is that if you play for a long amount of time you are no better than someone who stopped and came back which equates to poor sense "power progression". Really that is by design.\

You should play an MMO because you have friends in it that you want to run around and do things. If you don't have that then most MMOs just don't work out well.

Pretty much the same feeling here. I might come back to it, but doubtful.

@Heltom92 said:

This game was probably the biggest disappointment of the year for me. I wasn't going crazy for it like some people but I was looking forward to it. Once I actually played it though, I thought it was one of the most boring games I ever played. I honestly had more fun playing the old republic.

I have to agree with you to be honest, I was really excited for this game, I had 2000 hours invested in the first Guild Wars and this just isn't pulling me in and I don't know how they can manage it. I think the community is too different.

@Imsorrymsjackson: It's probably what the guild wars 1 community was like 5 years ago, just that you've grown as a person since then (that would be my guess anyway.)

And I agree that it doesn't quite feel enough like guild wars 1 for a direct sequel. Not sure how they'd change that now though.

@Benny said:

@Imsorrymsjackson: It's probably what the guild wars 1 community was like 5 years ago, just that you've grown as a person since then (that would be my guess anyway.)

And I agree that it doesn't quite feel enough like guild wars 1 for a direct sequel. Not sure how they'd change that now though.

Very nice of you to say, I would say that I have grown as a person, I am 30 years old now for a start! I don't think they can change it, its not like Guild Wars 2 is shitty, its just not what I wanted from the game and maybe that's just me but unfortunately I can't change that mindset. I had more fun replaying Deus Ex:HR.

I still enjoy it quite a bit. Doing a Fractals lvl 10 run every day, and every now and then pushing a level up in earnest. I've commited to grind a legendary. Went with the torch. Doing a quick round-up of Orichalcum spots and such takes about an hour each day, that's how I'm grinding out the 300-400 gold it'll take to get it done. Goes well with a podcast. That said, I kinda resent them for how grindy and RNG-driven the whole legendary business is. In no way does it require legendary feats on my part, just steady grind. Should get there in a about a month or two.

What would really increase my enjoyment of GW2? Getting XP & money from sPvP - as in proper leveling via sPvP. I've done two characters via regular leveling, one of which has 100% world completion, so I've 'been there, done that'. I'd love to play all the other classes (I have in fact unlocked 9 character slots), and level them in sPvP mostly. Then enjoy dungeons with whatever class I feel like. I cannot fathom why ArenaNet doesn't let me level-up characters via sPvP. People love doing that in other MMOs. I'd especially love doing that in GW2 - playing right away with 100% unlocked character customization - on even ground battlefields. I hope they wisen up to this fact soon. Just one little tweak, and so much longterm potential and motivation would be unlocked.

Oh - and I totally welcome the 'vertical' progression. Even though they'll just introduce one new tier of gear quality over the next year, it's totally necessary to truely motivate the playerbase to do certain things, like unpopular explorable paths in dungeons and such. Over time, ascended gear will become craftable and obtainable via WvW too - so in the long run, it should comply with the core directive of GW2's initial designs. I welcome a total overhaul of their reward/drop mechanics in dungeons. The token system just doesn't work.

And gods do we need a proper official LFG-tool, to make all that dungeoneering a more viable pastime.

I cannot bring myself to play more GW2.

I started playing TERA again instead.

@Bishna said:

Is there still no free trial for it? Is it also still not on Steam? And 50 bucks still? I really want to try this game, but they aren't giving me a whole lot of reasons to.

Players could get codes to give to their friends, for a free trial weekend. That was a one-time event. I also don't expect GW2 to ever drop in price, at least not for a couple of years. T'was the same deal with GW1. It never really came down in price. That's just the nature of its business model.

GW2 was my first MMO and I didn't know what to really expect.So when people talked about endgame, all of that completely went over my head. For the most part I ran from place-to-place exploring the world and doing the events. Occasionally I'd try some sPvP or WvW and I would have a blast with that too. I can honestly say that I've spent more time with GW2 than I've spent with any other game, except for Monster Hunter. The amount of time I've spent in game has decreased since I hit 80 but, the monthly content drops will keep pulling me back in, even if its just for a few hours. I guess that's the beauty of a no subscription model. My biggest worry is the emptiness of the lower level zones.Content wise, I think that Arenanet know what they're doing for the most part. I am confident enough in them to keep adding to the game better and in the community to point out their mistakes.

@Seppli said:

I still enjoy it quite a bit. Doing a Fractals lvl 10 run every day, and every now and then pushing a level up in earnest. I've commited to grind a legendary. Went with the torch. Doing a quick round-up of Orichalcum spots and such takes about an hour each day, that's how I'm grinding out the 300-400 gold it'll take to get it done. Goes well with a podcast. That said, I kinda resent them for how grindy and RNG-driven the whole legendary business is. In now way does it require legendary feats on my part, just steady grind. Should get there in a about a month or two.

What would really increase my enjoyment of GW2? Getting XP & money from sPvP - as in proper leveling via sPvP. I've done two characters via regular leveling, one of which has 100% world completion, so I've 'been there, done that'. I'd love to play all the other classes (I have in fact unlocked 9 character slots), and level them in sPvP mostly. Then enjoy dungeons with whatever class I feel like.

I cannot fathom why ArenaNet doesn't let me level-up characters via sPvP. People love doing that in other MMOs. I'd especially love doing that in GW2 - playing right away with 100% unlocked character customization - on even ground battlefields. I hope they wisen up to this fact soon. Just one little tweak, and so much longterm potential and motivation would be unlocked.

Oh - and I totally welcome the 'vertical' progression. Even though they'll just introduce one new tier of gear quality over the next year, it's totally necessary to truely motivate the playerbase to do certain things, like unpopular explorable paths in dungeons and such. Over time, ascended gear will become craftable and obtainable via WvW too - so in the long run, it should comply with the core tenants of GW2's initial designs. I welcome a total overhaul of their reward/drop mechanics in dungeons. The token system just doesn't work. And gods do we need a proper official LFG-tool, to make all that dungeoneering a more viable pastime.

This pretty much sums up how I feel in a roundabout way. This is somebody currently invested in and playing GW2 the way it's meant to be played right now. Dailys, Ore runs, fractals, legendary grind and sprinkle in some pvp.

He just happens to be cool with that, and I found myself on the other side. There seems to be a connective glue missing from the experience right now. Maybe it is the fact that despite Anet's efforts, the earlier parts of the game feel just like every other theme park MMO out - obsolete. Unless you're doing dungeons, fractals or pvp, you don't really have too much of a reason to enjoy this gorgeous world. Kill variety was the only thing that took me into different zones.

I only log in once in a while, but still listen to podcasts and read about the game, and the more I hear about the new additions and changes they're making, the less I want to log in. It just feels like they're going away from what I thought the game was going to be, and that's fine I guess. Maybe I just got the wrong impression of the game.

@Seppli said:

@Bishna said:

Is there still no free trial for it? Is it also still not on Steam? And 50 bucks still? I really want to try this game, but they aren't giving me a whole lot of reasons to.

Players could get codes to give to their friends, for a free trial weekend. That was a one-time event. I also don't expect GW2 to ever drop in price, at least not for a couple of years. T'was the same deal with GW1. It never really came down in price. That's just the nature of its business model.

From what I read somewhere, GW2 is the top selling/gifted PC game this year, so they have no reason to be dropping the price. I know 10 people that were on free trials from the trial weekend and 9 of them bought the game. That's gotta say something about the quality of the game here.

The other issue with the endgame is that if you're not in a great guild to socialize with, you're missing out. There's hopping into a dungeon with a bunch of random you got spamming LFG in map chat, and then there's hopping in with guildmates and powersmashing the thing. Plus if you have other people going for legendaries, then you can vent your pain with each other.

I highly recommend the GiantBomb guild of Lincoln Force. To be honest, if I didn't stick around and make my way to the Mumble server, the game would have probably been added to my backlog, but the duders there are awesome!

~Squasar, the horrible horrible Asura necro

@Seppli said:

@Bishna said:

Is there still no free trial for it? Is it also still not on Steam? And 50 bucks still? I really want to try this game, but they aren't giving me a whole lot of reasons to.

Players could get codes to give to their friends, for a free trial weekend. That was a one-time event. I also don't expect GW2 to ever drop in price, at least not for a couple of years. T'was the same deal with GW1. It never really came down in price. That's just the nature of its business model.

speaking of price drop...... the collector digital version is 40€ question now

is it worth it?

@akeripper4 said:

@Seppli said:

@Bishna said:

Is there still no free trial for it? Is it also still not on Steam? And 50 bucks still? I really want to try this game, but they aren't giving me a whole lot of reasons to.

Players could get codes to give to their friends, for a free trial weekend. That was a one-time event. I also don't expect GW2 to ever drop in price, at least not for a couple of years. T'was the same deal with GW1. It never really came down in price. That's just the nature of its business model.

speaking of price drop...... the collector digital version is 40€ question now

is it worth it?

It's worth it, yes, but IMO it is more worth it to look around at other sites (like greenmangaming or what have you) for the regular edition at a lower price, because the digital deluxe stuff is meh at best.

@shinboy630 said:

@akeripper4 said:

@Seppli said:

@Bishna said:

Is there still no free trial for it? Is it also still not on Steam? And 50 bucks still? I really want to try this game, but they aren't giving me a whole lot of reasons to.

Players could get codes to give to their friends, for a free trial weekend. That was a one-time event. I also don't expect GW2 to ever drop in price, at least not for a couple of years. T'was the same deal with GW1. It never really came down in price. That's just the nature of its business model.

speaking of price drop...... the collector digital version is 40€ question now

is it worth it?

It's worth it, yes, but IMO it is more worth it to look around at other sites (like greenmangaming or what have you) for the regular edition at a lower price, because the digital deluxe stuff is meh at best.

But... the mini-pet (that I never take out)! And the elite skill (that I haven't touched in months)!

Not worth it. In my opinion. The elite would be fun to play with but beyond that you dont get much of anything for the extra money you spend. So if the regular edition is cheaper than the digital collectors then go for the regular.

For the first few months I was playing hard core, I think I'm up to 300 some hours. But the past few months I log in once every couple weeks for an hour or two. And honestly I think the thing I have gotten the most sick of is the combat.

I wish they had been just a little more ambitious in a few areas. didn't even end up hitting the level cap before I got bored

Anybody who plays GW2 like WoW is going to burn out pretty quickly. The dev team took some pretty important design decisions to let the game be accessible to those who don't have the time to play every day, and as a result there is a definitely lack of a WoW-style endgame (massive raids with gear-check mechanics, true vertical gear progression). I honestly only play because of the BOMB guild and the various duders who hang out on the Lincoln Force mumble server: GW2 is still a MMO, and it's all about the people you play with in MMOs.

If they made sPvP more enticing (adding more varied PvP modes, adding guild vs guild modes, balancing class PvP so classes other than Thieves and Mesmers are actually fun to use) and made WvW less of a boring zerg-fest more people would have a reason to be more invested in the game.

Honestly, Guild Wars 2 is very much a kind of MMO for people who liked what Guild Wars 1 was doing in terms of loot, progression, etc.

I've actually found myself jumping back into it in a big way, mainly because of the dungeons as well as FOTM and the crafting. Now that people have had some time with the guy to discover some of the other recipes in there, it's become this interesting living thing to me. I'm in three piece CoF gear with Draconic filling out my other parts, and I just made Naegling the other night. I'm feeling more and more like a badass. Now it's time to hit FOTM harder to get some Ascended rings and such.

@halcyonTwilight said:

GW2 is still a MMO, and it's all about the people you play with in MMOs.

This really is the most important thing in terms of long term MMO enjoyment. I played WoW on and off (mostly on) for about 5 years, and it was really only during the few weeks around expansions where I was playing primarily for the game itself. After that the main thing that kept me playing was the guild that I had been a part of since vanilla and the people in it. It's surprising how quickly doing the same thing over and over again can go from extremely boring to really fun when you've got a bunch of people hanging out and acting like idiots having mature intelligent discussions in chat or on mumble.

I also think one of the nice things about GW2 is that it really allows you to start and stop playing as you feel like it. If you get bored it's pretty easy to stop and come back a few months later to new stuff without being behind in any significant way - unlike other MMOs where you may come back woefully under-geared and unable to participate in new stuff.

All that being said, I am hoping that we see some more actual game-play content coming from ArenaNet now that they are through the main holiday stuff.

Latest update broke my client. Constant lag-outs and disconnects and crashes. I was doing the Wintersday jumping puzzle last night and finished it six or seven times only to realize that I had lagged out when I got to the end.

:<

@sdharrison said:

Is GW2 REALLY that different from other MMOs?

No, and it never was.

@psylah said:

I cannot bring myself to play more GW2.

I started playing TERA again instead.

How is the population in TERA these days? I liked that game in many ways.

@Karkarov said:

@sdharrison said:

Is GW2 REALLY that different from other MMOs?

No, and it never was.

It's a little bit different. I have a few points:

1: Instead of going to a town and talking to everyone with an exclamation mark over their heads, then running to the marked place on the map to kill 10 wolves or whatever, I kind of just run around the map at random and things just... happen around me. I get a lot of my XP from plain exploration which is not how it usually goes.

2: The combat is a bit more active, moving around is key to being successful, at least on my thief. My warrior is much more of a traditional fighter where you just stand around trading blows with the enemy until one of you dies (usually the enemy). The thief is definitely more interesting to play, but the warrior is nice for when I just want to relax some.

3: Anet seems to have eliminated a lot of the pointless timesinks such as allowing you to put items on the broker directly from the backpack. Same with moving crafting materials to your "central storage" with a single click. You can also teleport all over the map instantly, no drawn out travel times.

4: The leveling speed is very humane. I spent sunday evening and a bit into the night playing and I got from 57 to 64 without too much effort.

GW2 feels like a very casual-friendly MMO which is good for me, because I am the definition of a casual player. Now, it's still an MMO. If you don't like MMOs you will not like GW2, it's as simple as that, but they do do some things differently.

@Anund said:

@psylah said:

I cannot bring myself to play more GW2.

I started playing TERA again instead.

How is the population in TERA these days? I liked that game in many ways.

Population was light last time I had a chance to get in there, but chat was always lively even though I didn't see many people.

The totally F2P announcement should bring in a new influx of people, though.

@psylah said:

@Anund said:

@psylah said:

I cannot bring myself to play more GW2.

I started playing TERA again instead.

How is the population in TERA these days? I liked that game in many ways.

Population was light last time I had a chance to get in there, but chat was always lively even though I didn't see many people.

The totally F2P announcement should bring in a new influx of people, though.

Yeah, my wife was all excited about that. She's not an avid gamer, but she really enjoyed her time in TERA. Not enough to pay for a monthly subscription, but that's more out of principle than anything I think. She'll be back playing her Elin as soon as it goes free to play and likely that means I will be playing too, hehe.

@Anund said:

If you don't like MMOs you will not like GW2, it's as simple as that, but they do do some things differently.

I'd rephrase that to "depending on what you can appreciate in an MMO, you may either absolutely love or be bored to tears by GW2." Just as someone who adheres entirely to the WoW design philosophy will not feel comfortable with this game, someone who hasn't gotten any enjoyment whatsoever from the genre won't fully appreciate it. I've said it before, though: it's the first legit one of these games that I can invest myself in beyond the initial novelty of the world and the community, so the stars can align for people who have never quite liked MMOs.

The whole "there is no end-game" was a big positive for a lot of people but at times it does seem like a negative. The fact you can do most things from level 1 means that there really doesn't seem to be much of a point in levelling. Even at level 80 you'll still be doing most of the same shit and you'll have your level altered to match everyone elses. I think maybe Guild Wars 2 focusing so much on equality got a lot of elitists butthurt, but I've got to confess it is nice to actually feel powerful at some point