Category Archives: Reviews

Miragelle… Because someone took Miragel. Bastards.

I think it’s only fair to begin this post saying – I originally had no intention of playing Guild Wars 2.  I played the original (at launch) and while it was fun for the first 15 levels or so, the end game content just seemed sort of “meh.”  Fortunately there was no recurring subscription – so I thought little of it. (I may at one point been playing $70/month for mine and my boyfriend at the time’s various MMO habits.)

So I hadn’t really been watching the GW2 coverage, I knew little about it but was looking for a new MMO, after downloading several and not really feeling terribly interested, I popped over to MMOhut.com’s youtube feed and discovered that Guild Wars 2 was in it’s “opening” weekend (for pre-orders and digital downloads at least.)  I purchased two copies and set out into the land of Tyria!

I have to say that if I’d been paying attention to the information about the game I might have taken today off to really get to know the game.  Guild Wars 2 is probably the best surprise I’ve seen all year from the MMO community!  I was shocked to find how polished the product was (even on my older computer), and how well it ran even on launch weekend.  The transitions were smooth, the graphics were well done, and for once I didn’t look like some kind of burlap sack wearing n00b in the starter area.  Added bonus – I could choose a variety of colors for my outfit.  My inner girl rejoiced.  Apparently so did my boyfriend (who is really into character customization).

This is just the clothing customization, the actual starting panels are really interesting, including personality and story points.

I rolled a Human Engineer (I have a soft spot leftover from DOTA for engineers) and was really pleasantly surprised with the flow of the game.  There is no questing system in the sense of say WoW, instead your current “quest” is geo-based.  In other words wherever you are, there’s stuff to kill but there’s a bar that tracks your progress.  You’re still killing X of Y, but you don’t have to store all those pesky quests, they just appear when you’re in the right spot.  Also I don’t have to go tell Timmy’s Mom that I killed 40 basket weaver spiders.  I get the XP when I’m done with the last mob and Timmy’s Mom sends me a nice mote in the mail (a la SWTOR) and tells me how awesome I am, complete with some of her hard earned coin. Wham Bam – Thanks Mam!

Combat is based on the weapon you have equipped in terms of maneuvers, but allows for a fair amount of customization for your preferred gameplay style.  Every class has diversity and can heal itself and others.  I was happy to find that engineers did in fact have turrets, and by the time I hit 11^th lvl I had 3 turrets to micromanage to my hearts content.

That tree had it coming.

Speaking of micromanaging, I’m really happy with the professions and gathering skills in this game.  ANYONE can gather.  Period.  Auction House Whore your heart out! Not enough room in your inventory because you’ve picked up too many dingleberries?  No problem!  Just ship it off to your “collectibles” tab and make more room for loot.  The collectibles tab is like Steve Job’s iCloud on crack.  Store everything in this handy pocket dimension window and craft till your you hit level 80. Yes.  Crafting gives XP in this game.  In fact the first person in GW2 was a crafter in France.  I love crafting, and I’m so happy they included crafting as a viable method of XP gain.  However I sense a nerf to be honest…. So get in there now and pound away.  I know I am.

So you’re asking – what’s the downside?

Well for one the Auction House seems to give me the #failwhale picture all the time. (Yeah, it’s some cute animal asleep but I just keep thinking of the whale).  While this isn’t a drawback persay, I’m concerned what it will do to the player based economy when it opens and the market floods.

This is my other favorite thing – the Google style maps that contain useful fluid information like quest level, completion (open hearts are uncompleted), and where the damn vendors are. Just really w ll done. You can also see events (good xp) that are nearby a la Warhammer Online

The second thing I’d point out is that once you’re on a server – that’s it.  It costs you a fee to move, but on the other hand eventually you’ll be able to guest on other servers for things, and frankly they have the D3 style chat interface that allows you to talk to friends by account, not my character (yes there’s also an invis mode for those nights you don’t want to be hassled).  I’m even in a Guild where no one is on my server.

Overall I have been really impressed with GW2, the polish and care taken to ensure this game’s longevity has been pretty impressive.  They’ve really solved a lot of the annoying MMO quirks we’ve seen so much of in the last 8 years or so.  However I’m not sure what PVP or endgame looks like just yet.  However I’m less inclined to PVP when I can craft my way to the top.  All in all the cut scenes, voice acting, overall system, and extreme customization really swept me off my feet.  Hopefully this is a new chapter of MMO before we inevitably are drawn into the cute and cuddly world of Pandas.

If you don’t know why this is important you haven’t played enough MMOs

I really recommend this game to friends on the basis that they don’t have to pay for a subscription, the replay value is pretty high and because it’s really pretty damn fun. There’s elements of Assasin’s Creed, Diablo 3, WoW, SWTOR, WHO and a few others in there is you’re willing to look. The devs took their time and I really think it shows.

And just in case you were curious – here’s the whole UI -

The full UI