Guild Wars 2: Have the first 48 hours lived up to the hype?
By Patrick Vuleta on August 29, 2012 at 1:27 pm
What’s bigger than Duke Nukem’s ego? Why, the hype surrounding Guild Wars 2. Promising a revolution to shake the MMO genre to its core, Guild Wars 2 is now, finally, live.
According to its design manifesto, Guild Wars 2 will be fun from the start, force no grinding, possess a compelling story, be a grand box social, and should be, in fact, the best MMO ever. Bold claims. So let’s look at how the game stacks up just after release. Are ArenaNet making good on their promises, or is it too early to tell?
Fun from the start?
Guild Wars 2 promises you fun from the start. You won’t be dragged through a gear treadmill, getting ready to have fun. Well, after a couple days play, I have to say this is one of Guild Wars 2’s strong points. The game makes jumping in and playing fun right away, with lots of skill unlocks and combat experimentation at the start. Supporting this are great animations that make it a joy to watch as well. So yes, Guild Wars 2 is a lot of fun.
No grinding?
Guild Wars 2 promises no repetition. Unfortunately, without the narrative quest structure of other MMOs, Guild Wars 2 can feel like a big chain of all-too-similar dynamic events strung together. You’ve got the escort quest, the fight enemy commander quest, the fend-off-waves quest, and the gather items quest.
To the game’s credit, the art is gorgeous, making random wandering enjoyable as a grindless alternative. Indeed, I really started to enjoy myself when I went on a grand adventure through all the different starting zones. I am concerned, though, that after another week’s play, repeated events will start to have a feeling of ‘been there, done that’. We’ll have to wait and see.
A compelling story?
So… I have no idea why centaurs are attacking the humans. Anyone? I also have no idea why whenever I talk to Logan Thackeray, I’m treated to a backdrop of flowers blowing in the wind while we talk about people dying.
I loved the original Guild Wars story. By contrasting the peaceful Tyria with the burnt-out Tyria after the Charr invaded, the opening set the backdrop for everything to come. However, I’ve not yet been treated to any such ‘wow’ moments in Guild Wars 2.
A grand box social?
The game is the definition of social — servers are packed! Dynamic events give a great multiplayer feeling that other games have tried and failed to achieve.
However, I also feel that true teamwork has been replaced by skill spam. With so many skills going off all over the place, it almost becomes a race to see who can spam attacks fastest, and true tactical coordination between people is missing.
I’d really like to see how the social side of the game plays out in dungeons. But with the first dungeon coming relatively late at level 35, I’ve a long way till I get to play what I enjoy most in an MMO.
Best MMO ever?
Guild Wars 2 is one of the most polished, fun MMOs to date. It’s just very entertaining. However, the game does make sacrifices. In particular, the lack of group tactical play and true story is noticeable at this early stage.
Just like all of you, I’ll be playing the game through the week to see how it continues to shape up. Hopefully, it will get over some of these initial teething problems and start to really shine.
ArenaNet permanently lowering price of Guild Wars 2
Starting at $50.
Custom arenas and spectator mode coming to GW2
ArenaNet announces beta for new Guild Wars 2 features.
World vs. World culling soon to be a thing of the past in Guild Wars 2
Various WvW-specific graphics options to be introduced to compensate.
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It’s hard to expect group tactical play when every mob in the starting zones is being zerged by hundreds of players bottle-necking through the first content.
for the hype i have had :D its lived up to it. but i never hype up to much :( so maybe i just enjoying it greatly :D cant wait to play more !
just sucks i need to break so much :(
I agree to get a fair assessment you will probably have to try the starting zones again after the rush of new players dies down. I also personal enjoy the story it dose it a lot better than most mmo’s out there without having bad gameplay because the devs only worked on the story. Also later event boss’s like the krit blood witch require more tactical fighting you have to keep her away from the entrance otherwise veteran krit join the fight and start to kill you off, meanwhile you also need some people going around a reviving others cause your underwater this can get real hard.
I agree with Shadow and Matt where it’s probably a little early to be calling group or social experiences. Starter areas are always especially spammy, particularly when it comes to dynamic events, since you’re essentially dealing with 2-3x the number of people who would usually be around (5-6 if you’re lucky).
I find it interesting that you didn’t mention anything about WvW, which I’ve discovered is probably one of the most exciting aspects of the game to play.
The first dungeon wouldnt even work for me last night, no matter how we zone in we just all get put in different phases.
TBH I’m rather disappointed in the skill spam too, I also feel like their “skill trees” are rather lacking as well, it’s all just a bit samey compared to something like BC era WoW (sorry) and the multiple different play styles and gear focuses for each class.
For an MMO GW2 is also spectacularly lacking in its social functions, the entire chat system has less features than those in games released a decade ago and the LFG function is rubbish and the whole game suffers as a result.
I had a friend on TS last night mention how dead the guildchat seems compared to in other games simply because it doesn’t pop out at you, unless you really pay attention then it’s not obvious someone is communicating at all. I’m also not particularly happy with how hard they make it to notice guild members and party members in the world, I don’t know if it’s the colours or the text or what… but it’s terrible.
I’ve also had problems in some areas with the way they did the lighting, it seems like the ground textures (im talking to YOU orange flowers) are the source of the light rather than the sky, in some places it results in everything that’s NOT ground being really hard to see, especially names etc.
Sheer numbers is a valid criticism of dynamic events I feel, just like ArenaNet takes every opportunity they have to say “Other games aren’t populated enough to make the holy trinity work because you can never find healers”. If they want to make that call, they need to be open to the pitfalls of a system with the opposite problem.
I’ve also had reports that the game isn’t letting people group up with friends, as they all go into different overflow stack servers. This was a bug meant to be fixed months ago in beta, when it was first reported. Not something I could mention as I didn’t get a chance to experience it, but Nekosan’s experiences seem to back up this.
Of course we’ll take another look in a week or so.
There’s a bit of a difference though, one will sort itself out given a bit of time as the influx of new players goes down and the population is spread into new areas. The other one just gets worse and worse as time goes on.
Patrick Vuleta,
Fair call, look forward to your next post :)
Well thanks for the comments. :)
About the WvW thing… honestly I didn’t try it in time for this article. GW2 has a big thing of doing what you want, and what I wanted to do led me around all the starter areas…
I also wanted to do crafting, but was a bit bummed because the marketplace was down all the time, and so I couldn’t get the mats needed. So I wasn’t really in the mood to go do WvW because what I actually wanted to do wasn’t working.
Of course over the next week I’ll be playing it a lot more and some of these issues will have sorted themselves out.
The Overflow issue is somewhat fixed with you being able to join there overflow by right clicking on the party members icon, I have been able to play with my friends all the way. Granted that arena net might need to make this feature more known. Though for the most part as the population spreads out theirs not going to be as many overflow severs of 1 area.
I’ve been around the traps quite a bit now and i have too say this is a fantastic game. It’s the most polished and finished game i have played at launch in years. As to be expected their has been some gaming difficulties here and there but on a whole it’s been nice.
The biggest downfall at up till now has been the separation of new characters of different races, this is however an issue i have with MOST mmo’s it goes to an awkward start towards team play. Mostly though the different instancing has been annoying and it dosn’t let me change instance by choice i have to be invited.
pvp and WvW is fantastic and is a refreshing change to the mmo gaming model. The hidden bonus of which is pvp launches you into battle at max level and all skills so it allows you to get a feel early on fir if your class is for you, who here hates getting to max level then finding your class sux ?? i know i do. this also reliees the pressure to just get to the max level to play in a fair battleground and just allows you to enjoy your character regardless how long it takes.
One thing i’ve found with each character I have played so far is that no matter what I do I am consistently underlevelled for the zones content – to the point that it’s becoming annoying. I do everything in each zone – explore each location, do each task, collect goods, craft a bit etc so that the map is almost or completely completed, yet still remain almost consistently two levels below the next heart.
The only solution is to either grind on mobs for a while – or better, just change to one of the other races starter zones and start to work through it. This isnt a huge issue – but i shouldnt have to be doing that. My inner anal completionist that likes to do things in order gets a little phased having to go to another races area when I want to save that for a new character etc – kind of immersion killing.
Beyond that I love the game. What you’re getting without a subscription fee is seriously impressive.
i have read that on the forums a bit marcus, strange is that i am the opposite im always above lvl just from my travels around :O
As somebody who was incredibly pumped for the game after the first few beta weekends, I have to admit that I’ve been rather bored during my first 20 hours of GW2. After spending 130 hours soaking up The Secret World’s amazing storyline conveyed via gorgeous cut scenes, I’m finding GW2′s weird character-in-front-of-cartoon method of storytelling far less involving. The writing doesn’t compare either, and as a result I’ve started skipping quest text.
As for said quests, again I have to tip my hat to The Secret World’s puzzlers – after having to research medicines to heal wounded soldiers and decode Morse code in realtime, I’m finding the “switch-flicking” nature of GW2′s quests rather mindless. I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority here, as most players don’t want to have to solve a virtual Rubik’s cube every time they do a quest, but that’s how I roll.
Finally, the combat is utterly basic thanks to the huge number of players in every area. I’m lucky to get a hit on an NPC, let alone have to figure out which of my tiny set of skills I need to use. I’m sticking with it to see if it gets more challenging past Level 20 (I’m level 18 Charr Guardian atm), but I’m pretty sure The Secret World has it pipped for somebody of my tastes.
By far the biggest fun is definitely coming from the WvW thus far for me…
If there’s a singular biggest problem with it though is that the war is not in the 2 weeks period yet and still in the 24 hour period in order to let the matchmaker get their initial server match score so it can actually match servers to fight…
that and my server is WAYYYY too strong and are demolishing the other 2 servers so badly that it’s less of a fight and more like a cat toying with the mouse.
The last time the other server held a castle they got sieged so hard with trebuchet and catapults you feel pity for the other server for the royal pain coming to them.
I never touched WvW in the beta weekends or the release game so far. I keep hearing good reports about it though..I shall take a dip sometime soon!
Some tips for WvW, if your server is holding fine and there are locations where stalemate positions occur? Get a siege engine blueprint, cheap ones will do.
hell even an arrow cart is enough to tip the balance on a stalemate…
my server is not particularly that extensive in numbers, but we certainly are more liberal in deploying siege engines anywhere a stalemate occurs, and it’s paying off in massive amount.
Thanks Bennett, I knew I wasn’t hallucinating. :P
I have the same issues. After playing The Secret World’s unique quests, I *hate* the event templates you find in every Guild Wars 2 zone. If I have to escort another caravan, my thief will shoot the donkeys herself.
That said, I do think the game has potential, and is very fluid to play. So it fills a niche for me.
i cant say i have had any problem levelling at all, i have been over the level everywhere i have been so far.
Hey guys
Just wanted to check back in after playing for a few hours last night. It’s amazing how quickly my opinion on a game can change ;)
Now that the starter areas aren’t flooded with a maelstrom of players, I’m starting to find the quests far more challenging. I’m having to actually think about which skills I use, which has improved the experience for me significantly. I like my MMOs to be a challenge, and now it is. It’s still not quite up there with The Secret World in terms of interesting quests, but I’m having a far more enjoyable time with GW2 now than I was just 48 hours ago.
It’ll be very interesting to see how Dynamic Quests play out when there are very few players around…