I run hot and cold on this Guild Wars game. Some days I’m like a schoolgirl … I LOVE this game lol, it’s everything I thought an online world could be! lol! Other days, the game can suck me off two times.
So if someone were to ask me if it’s a go, I’d have to ask, which way is the wind blowing?
Is that good? Is that an improvement in gaming? Hell if I know. It is different, I can tell you that.
Examples of different:
1. The Community. I spent the larger part of the race to level 20 (max) with the general chat turned off. It’s a noisy din like I’ve never heard before, and I’m including the East Commons tunnel (pre-Bazaar days in EverQuest) and Ironforge (World of Warcraft) on a Sunday afternoon in that assessment. It’s migraine-inducing chatter.
The problem in living without general chat is, as far as I’ve witnessed, there is no community. In GW, whack out a few quests and you’ve moved on to the next town, and, the idiots you ran into before are long gone … either left in the dust or they popped up in another clone of the Next Town.
That part is good, but I should be more vigilant with adding the good players, the reliable dudes, to my friends list … because there are quests/missions where a real live person is vastly superior to a hired NPC — even a not-terribly-attentive real live person.
There comes a point where the hired NPCs have a death wish and they’re taking the entire group with them.
2. Lack of Other Activities. In GW, there’s few distracting activities to occupy your time while you wait for the guild/friends to log on. No crafting, no fishing, not much shopping or hawking your wares, no harvesting … there’s killing, and lots of it.
Sure you can invite a pack of henchmen and move ahead in the quest line, but then you have to wait for your guildmates/friends to catch up and, of course, you can certainly pharm gold or skills or components, bla bla … again, when the guildmates arrive, they want those too, so away you go to get the same shit for them.
As I mentioned yesterday, you could also spend some time (and a big chunk of change) combining dyes in pursuit of a look that isn’t quite so … brown and fresh off the vendor, but y’know … I like to kill and I like to be rich.
I was never a fan of games that required lengthy To Do lists, but maybe this is going too far in the other direction.
3. No Light at the End of the Tunnel. I’m not saying that I’m not enjoying the journey, because I am. But this game has been so unusual thus far, that I’m not sure where I’m headed. Part of this could be because I haven’t done ANY homework or outside reading on this game … I’m just here for the ride. But the other part is because this game COMPLETELY changes the rules every dozen hours or so.
Thusly: You run around in a verdant pasture occassionally populated with aggro mobs, you do this task, you do that … BOOM! You hit the Searing and now it’s a smoking wasteland and you have to relearn everything. You put out fires here and there, you meet some people, you get some skills, you max your level … BOOM! You face your cloned self and then advance to a PVE area where the mobs spawn in dozens and they cheat! My God, they cheat with elite skills and minions and traps everywhere. (I won’t spoilzorz anymore, you get the idea.)
For what end? I don’t know, I assume in perpetual pursuit of the guild ladder. They say the game opens up at level 20. They do not lie about that. Never have I played a game where the noob levels sucked so badly and the later game was so engaging.
4. New and Improved! In fairness, there’s been a buttload of improvements to the noob levels. About ten days ago or so, I made an alt since my main PvE character has been max level and tricked out with the top-end gear and skills for quite a while. The guild has dabbled in PvP although we are far from having our game on yet, but I like to have a side project.
Cue the alt, and back to the verdant pastures of the pre-Searing lands!
They’ve added about 45,903 new popup help windows to the noob levels which will aid the new players a great deal. I have a bad habit of not reading game popups, quest text — I’m a cinematic skipper (dammit! I like to kill. And loot.) I still would have asked 45,903 noob questions in chat … but I would have gotten answers!
Not just the noob areas received attention, they’ve made a LOT of improvements to GW since release. Just about every week, a patch. Crazy.
There are many things very right about Guild Wars. There are some things kinda off with it. I do know this: I asked for it, I got it.
Some days I wish I would have kept my fool mouth shut. Other days, I’m like a school girl.
lol!!! omg, total!!!