Guild Wars 2 - Standard Edition (PC DVD)

Guild Wars 2, had everything to make it right, but the boat is sinking fast.Game is gorgeous, large world, graphics perform fast even on older cards, except for WvW zerg-fests, but more on that later.Concept is the same as other mmorpgs, don't be mistaken. You choose a class, jump in your boots and off you go leveling and quickly discovering this is another grind-game with you completing quest after quest, killing the same things over and over again.You won't kill many "rabbits" but the same old repetitive quests are there. You go to a zone, enter a quest area, kill the bad guys or fetch the water and move to the next one. This happens in every map and the only difference is that you are automatically rewarded in your game-mail (no need to talk to npcs or ride back to receive your reward.Did I say ride? Or rather walk/teleport. There are so many portals in game you don't feel the need for a mount... but is that a good thing? I think not, part of the fun in mmorpgs is seeing your Warrior above a nice imposing steed.... no ground mounts, no air mounts, nothing.The landscapes are varied and cover almost every type of terrain, from snow to deserts, to lava mountains, swamps, etc, problem is you will quickly move from one quest to another without caring much about the story, since npcs like i said, are not necessary unless you want to buy items from them or sell your findings.Now to classes... like someone already said, your main skill choices are made for you, you learn to use a sword and skills are uncovered, with fixed slots in your hot-bar. You still have dozens of combinations with remaining skills and Trait trees, leaving options for "unique" class/choices that in the end and narrowed down to 2-3 "best" combinations.Some animations are utterly ridiculous, like sword animations for instance, when developers prefer to use impossible whirlwind movements instead of finely animated sword-chops... oh well.. reminds me of Diablo3 Barbarians or something.You have 2 forms of PVP, Structured PVP and World vs World. sPVP is a team vs team game, where you battle in rotating maps, capturing points and plagued with unbalanced class issues. When you score, you gain rewards that you can trade for PVP items, "fashion" items & gain ranks.... "fashion" names.One thing that irritates me is that, when you fall in PvP combat, you have the option to stand up again using a limited number of skills (attack, heal or "stun") problem is, some classes can "teleport" themselves at this time, leaving the "winner" sometimes frustrated as hell and many times loosing to a player that was previously downed.This might work in PVE, but in PVP it feels utterly ridiculous and frustrating, adding more of a cheating feeling than a new possibility towards what is already an unbalanced game.WvW will take you on huge maps, conquering strategic points, intercepting caravans and using siege equipment. This is where i put my faith on PvP in this game and yet, when your "zerg" group encounters another, be prepared for some seconds of "Powerpoint" animation, were you can't even move due to the excess of lag & heavy computer requirements - it is that bad.Still, it is the closest effort in doing mass-scale PvP since Dark Age of Camelot, that game had the best PvP mass-battles that i ever experienced.Also, PvP wise, the game is unbalanced as hell, having classes in almost "god-mode" against other classes that have just 1 good build to show for... and guess what? ANet already "nerfed" that build to hell, so the Warrior class for instance, in Structured PVP is now even more lower on the food chain.So.... the nerf-hammer already begun, a plague that in this game won't be easy to surpass, since ANet wanted to get rid of the holy trinity of classic classes (healer, tank, damage), but things are not working out as they should be.Guardians are being requested for favorite "Tanks" since they can heal, regenerate and have protection like hell... while a classic "tank-class" like the Warrior has a role mainly for DPS only with very low survivability if you spec for that... if you spec defensively, you will have equal to worse defense than a Guardian but much less DPS to show off... go figure (so why tank as a Warrior anyway).You see Thieves and Eles avoiding more damage than a Warrior & having more hit points means nothing to a class that has few means to avoid damage at all. Sure, you have the dodge button to evade but so does every class out there....So, if you're a Warrior like me, who loves melee, things are not shiny at the moment for the class, at least in the PvP department and that itself was a huge let down to me.Last but not least, this is a "barbie goes shopping" game. "Look at my new shoes, aren't they pretty?" - "They sure are, but do you walk better with them?" - "er..... no?".That's right, you gain ranks just for titles, all high level armour is just for looks, the stats are equal to every armour out there, the same goes for the weapons.Sure, you have legendary weapons to show off, with exactly the same stats as a normal Epic weapon out there, just looks cooler... so it's a vanity show out there, where players spent thousands of playing hours, completing every quest, searching every corner in the world, crafting like a madman and grinding like a lunatic just to show off a cool weapon that does exactly the same thing as any other weapon out there.To me, this kills the game. Sure, you can have more balance between players like this, you are more "skill oriented" instead of being "gear oriented" but the grind is there, whether in form of daily quests, daily farm for gold, daily discovering every quest, daily killing every mob that you killed before just to complete that map, etc... etc.. daily etc....And let's be honest here... "skill oriented game"? I'm still to see a skill oriented mmorpg that mimics properly the skill actually needed in melee combat for instance (yes, I'm a melee oriented player).Regarding dungeons, they are well made, but don't venture alone in them (except for maybe 1 or 2 classes that actually can "solo" them), you're very group dependant in this game, to venture alone on a dungeon.Perhaps I was spoiled in EQ where you could explore solo dungeons if you wanted to (and had a great dungeon system), I miss my dungeon crawler days, where I venture alone in a special dungeon just for me to explore and play my casual hours of gameplay.I don't know the direction this game is taking, whether regarding classes, grind system or reward system, it seems "free" and it can be, but ANet is making a lot of money with a clever market system (and that's not bad).Just don't think its perfect, they didn't invent the wheel at all, some classes are very poor in playing options compared to other games and balancing is very fragile here, specially in PvP.Let the grind/nerf fest begin, GW2 is here to waste hours of gameplay doing the same thing over and over again.... I think I will take a break for a few months and check it out later... game is getting dry on reasons to login & the latest 8 bit dungeon is a poor excuse to play a broken class/out of goals game for the moment (again, another grind to get a 8 bit looking weapon just for looks!).I sure hope things get better, but either ANet does it right ASAP, or this will sink like old AOC did pretty fast (btw, Im returning there for a while, at least it has some consistent fight system, melee system!)

Hello,I've been a long standing MMORPG player, I've played WOW and SWTOR to the death since they came out, and had good goes at Rift, Aion, Warhammer, Conan, Star Trek Online, even Lego Online so I know the jist of how the basics work and GW2 is no exception. Your thrown into the game to pretty much get on with it, with the "Hints" helping you along the way and teaching you the ropes. I bought GW and a few expansions in a bundle pack a few years ago for cheap but never got around to actually getting to grips with the game or actually enjoy it. Seemed too difficult for me, so went back to WOW (which is most probs the easiest of the MMORPG's to play) so maybe I didn't give it enough time, but got told to try GW2 and that it was going to be one of the best MMORPG's to date. So, here we go:I love the visuals of the game so far and the customisation of the characters seem vast, seem to be a good choice of class's to choose from and looks like it's not all about Tank and Healer, but more of Hybrids. But I choose an Engineer as I love ranged (Main was a Hunter in WOW and Sniper in SWTOR)Having played for it for a good couple of hours as the Engineer, it seems pretty good so far, liking the fact there seems to be world boss's, boss events, quest events or whatever you may wish to call them, but in turn many people just join in and help. This is a welcome change from the standard quest lines of pick up elite/2+ player quests and then find help to combat these.The skills seem pretty decent, not sure on if there is a "talent" tree as such, but have got skill points and just used them as I see fit but not actually understanding of what "tree" if any I'm going down. Was using 2 pistols and now a Rifle and my abilities have changed and had to "learn" the new ones whilst in combat.Also, loving the "Near Death" part. You can just like in Borderlands, save yourself (with a penalty) by fighting and killing a mob or obviously get revived by another player.This game looks like it rewards exploration and other activates from questing, in both finding skills points, you get exploration (in both exploration and finding Vista's) XP and new quests, as I've explored, I've "started"/"joined" an event, so this is again, trying to get people involved and worked as many players killed the event and end resulting boss.With the above positives though as always, I have a few negatives to point out:1 - The amount of players is vast in game, and seems there is overcrowding, I am only level 10ish (when writing this review) so at the starting point and starting zone/area of the game, although you must expect a high amount as the game is fairly new but it will obviously get less as the game progresses onwards and more people hit 80/end game, so this is a semi-negative.2 - I seem to keep getting put in a queue for some reason, happened a lot last night, not sure what this means as I start in the same-ish position as when I entered the queue, so whether this is to try and help the amount of players logged on or what, but gets rather annoying when it keeps popping up when questing and you keep getting moved. Also happened whilst I was on a boss fight, and moved me to the same area but with no boss, not sure how to eliminate this but when you're in combat and just click any button, does get extremely annoying.3 **UPDATE** - The "Professions" - There is not really as basic tutorial on what's best for each class (like in Star War The Old Republic) and what helps what and works best with another profession. This was brilliant in SWTOR and loved this feature. Having worked it out now playing it for a few hours, but it's not that simple to work out and what you need, but once people get into the game it will no doubt be easy to work out. **UPDATE - Still struggling with these professions. Having Taken Leather-working and Huntsman, i'm having to buy mats on the AH to get my skill up as im struggling to find nodes, tress etc.. without farming all day.. I am Level 22, and have skill of 19 in LW and 23 in Huntsman - Only because i used the AH to buy mats. You may have to farm the particular map section your currently leveling to get your skill up per char leveling stage.4 **UPDATE** - The Story Line quest seems very difficult, I've just followed it and explored aswell and come across some of the events/pop-up quests and every time I progress with the story I'm always about 2 levels below it. I eventually can overcome the mobs but usually either have to kite and heal and let the NPC's do the killing or respawn and try again.. Not sure if I'm actually doing something wrong or that I've missed quests out so am under levelled, but am I just following the story as I would of in SWTOR and seem to struggle at times. **UPDATE - Also i find that its best to complete the event quests, area quests etc before tackling the Story Link Quests, and you'd get scaled down level for the Main quests anyways by completing all the vista, skill points etc will put you in very good sted for the main quest lines and be on the right level for it.5 - Bugs - Whilst doing some quests I had to throw some snowball's at kids (how irresponsible :D ) and that 2 kids just ran and then stood still and shook, whilst trying to throw snowballs at them they just flew over them not actually knocking them down or registering on the event meter.Also whilst trying to mine a node, it was mineable, but wouldn't do anything, I keep clicking it with the cog appearing but nothing happened.I can accept these bugs as the game is new and not a game breaker for me, obviously they might be more bugs I haven't experienced but I ignored them anyways.These negatives don't out-way the positives and I am very much enjoying the game and will add to this review once I have gone through the game a bit more.**UPDATE - Still loving the game, have a 22 Engineer and have started a Warrior as to get to grips with both ranged and melee within the game and is still very much fun to play and loving it so far.***UPDATE - Having played as an Engineer till level 22 and a Warrior till level 21 - I am now more aware of both scenarios. The Engineer is very hard for survivability and the warrior is perfect for this. Having Done a Main Story Quest 4 levels below me as a warrior and coped pretty easily. So it all depends on the class i think on how well you level and cope with the surroundings.Recommend by far from me.