Beware before considering buying this game. *(NOT bait/troll thread)*

[phosTR]

I can't deny that i had a lot of fun with this game and i bought gems (currency that you can buy with REAL MONEY and with GOLD you make in-game) with real money and i don't regret it. The world is beautiful, the world map is MASSIVE and you have an amazing soundtrack to go along with the fun and interesting exploration and the fast paced combat.

BUT...

The game has these issues and you should know:

1) It runs with DirectX 9 and the engine doesn't make use of CPUs with multiple cores. That means poor performance even with good hardware.

2) The "free to play" version is very limited and if you want to experience ALL the content in the game, you gonna need to buy the Expansion and the Living Story chapters. You will also need to buy more BAG SLOTS to have a bigger inventory after some time and SLOTS for your personal chest/bank. YES, you can use GOLD you make in-game to buy GEMS, and with the GEMS you will be able to buy the Living Story chapters and the SLOTS but i will say why buying GEMS with GOLD is bad.

3) GOLD. Ok, so, GOLD in this game is RIDICULOUSLY HARD to make. First off all, it will take an eternity to get enough GOLD and MATERIALS to buy or craft the stuff you want by farming or playing the game in a casual style. Like, you can't just farm mobs in the world and expect them to drop crafting materials so you can craft gear. The drop/loot from the mobs are 99% JUNK that sells for nothing and 1% a LOW TIER crafting material. Farming monsters is not viable, AT ALL. You can only make gold in this game by doing WORLD EVENTS/BOSSES that usually give raw gold as reward and doing DUNGEONS, FRACTALS (which can be called as some type of HARDER dungeons) and the new RAIDS (which require 10+ people, a TON of organization, experienced players and good gear too) or by playing the MARKET/AUCTION HOUSE.

Except, last i checked, DUNGEONS were dead in the water because of bugs and the devs not caring about them. FRACTALS are RIDICULOUSLY hard and annoying to farm and RAIDS are the worse. You need some GODLY team with experienced players, good gear, everyone buffed and using voice chat for coordination. And they have TIME-GATED ♥♥♥♥ in it too.

4) The level of grinding in this game is something that can make any korean MMORPG blush. You need SO MUCH crafting materials and gold to craft the good items/gear that you what will happen is simple. You gonna just grind the GOLD to buy the weapon from the AH directly. Which kills the fun of crafting. Hell, the "LEGENDARY" weapons (lmao, what a joke) can be bought from the Trading Post/Auction House which defeats the purpose of YOU, the player, creating a character to travel this world and fight and explore all that exists in that world. The devs added some new ways to grind for a legendary weapon but it is still a GIGANTIC grind and with something very annoying: TIME-GATED materials. Yep, you wanna craft that piece of gear so you can make your character stronger or because you want the look ASAP? Too bad, a LOT of materials are TIME-GATED, you craft one time in the day, then you need to wait till next day to be able to craft again. No joking, it can take MONTHS to be able to get all the gear you want.

5) This game is often called Fashion Wars 2 for a reason. You have HORIZONTAL PROGRESSION instead of VERTICAL PROGRESSION (which is not 100% true, i will talk about this next). You will grind for GOLD to buy DYES and to buy a piece of gear to get the SKIN/LOOK for your character. And be advised, the best looking skins of the game are the ones from the STORE (bought with the currency called GEM that can be acquired with in-game GOLD or REAL MONEY) and the good looking skins from the stuff in the Trading Post / Auction House are SUPER EXPENSIVE. 98% of the gear skins are rotted wood, some animal skull or some dead animal carcass, which sucks if you want your character to look good without becoming poor in-game.

6) People who say that you only need EXOTIC gear to be able to do the hard content of the game are LYING. If you don't go with full ASCENDED GEAR (gear that is crafted with TIME-GATED materials and it is more powerful/stronger than ascended) you gonna take way more time to finish the content and the chances of being KICKED from the group is HIGH.

7) This game tried to remove the TRINITY (DPS+TANK+HEALER) and it failed miserably. They added some new skills for some classes that can make some of them act like HEALERS, but it is far from working right/great in comparision to others MMOs like FFARR and WoW. Pretty much people used to go with gear with FULL DPS/OFFENSE for dungeons and fractals, but this changed a bit with the RAIDS.

8) This game has a TON of different currencies and they are all HARD to get, just like GOLD. The conversion rate from GOLD to GEMS is terrible, so, if you don't wanna pay with REAL MONEY to acquire GEMS, good luck farming for hours and hours and "playing" flipping the market/AH.

9) Being able to farm the rewarding content of the game, will require that you have a very STRONG and EXPERIENCED group, otherwise you can forget about making enough gold to buy that 500-600g weapon from the TP/AH.

10) The Guild Wars part of the game, which is called World vs World (massive PvP) is, i mean WAS, super fun but it is dead in the water too. You still have some action but it is nowhere NEAR what once was and it was insanely fun to raid and destroy forts and see those LARGE SCALE fight with tons of players.

(11) The story is mediocre at best with some devs self-inserting as characters + SJW agendas being put in the game.


The PvP is fair because you don't need to buy gear or runes/sigils and you don't lose anything if you die + you can get some nice rewards from PvP that can be used in PvE and this game has PvP and PvE separated which is great.
Another good thing are the mounts. They are very well done and the flying in this game is one of the best out there, but like always, to get a mount, the grind is atrocious.

[Ramon]

Oh, I know why; because whiners and crybabies can't handle an honest opinion, so they try to gaslight, project, and deflect by criticizing "tone", language used, etc as a new sort of ad hominem argument against the content of the statement, and a justification for extreme censorship. But, some of us just dont care if anyone is "offended" by stuff we say or not. I am one of those people. I also have the luxury of being self-built, and I cannot be "canceled", fired, or otherwise harmed into submission like so many folks are today (another great reason not to have kids, by the way). Hell, I don't even have a phone - which is pretty fun when government, corporate, and other flunkies ask for a number to do any sort of transaction.

[LoliNoxTan]

Originally posted by Ramon:

Oh, I know why; because whiners and crybabies can't handle an honest opinion, so they try to gaslight, project, and deflect by criticizing "tone", language used, etc as a new sort of ad hominem argument against the content of the statement, and a justification for extreme censorship. But, some of us just dont care if anyone is "offended" by stuff we say or not. I am one of those people. I also have the luxury of being self-built, and I cannot be "canceled", fired, or otherwise harmed into submission like so many folks are today (another great reason not to have kids, by the way). Hell, I don't even have a phone - which is pretty fun when government, corporate, and other flunkies ask for a number to do any sort of transaction.

You're fun at parties aren't ya

[LuckyN13]

never bought gold once the entire time I played it and I had no trouble.
Just participate in the game.
Do the main story, it will 1-80 you with exotic gear and tonnes of gold and crafting materials.

Doing your dailies nets you tonnes of gold.
Participating in holiday events can get you unique stuff which can/will be much more valuable later down the road.

All exotic/ascended gear is essentially the same, you dont have to grind, once you have it, you have it. The bulk of the money spent in the game is on COSMETICS. They call this game "Fashion Wars 2" for a reason.

[Tiberius]

Some of it are intended choice. The horizontal progression for example: most players will probably be very mad if anet starts introducing vertical progression. It's what makes the game stands out from other mmos.

Regarding gold and grinding, i presume OP is a f2p player if he came to this conculsion. If you're a f2p player, you are not allowed to use the trading post/TP (to prevent bot from ruining the economy).

Gold is stupidly easy to farm, and you can get around minimum 15g or more/hour depending on how much rngeezus loves you. With TP tho, crafting legendary (most expensive one/eternity 3.8k gold) wont take you more than roughly 200hours of grind. Honestly it's one of easiest grind of all mmo iv played.

Altho i hate token system, point 8 is simply bs. And so is the argument abt exotic wpn. Nonetheless, ascended equipment is really easy to get since s3 and s4 of living world.

Wvw indeed lost many of its players, but during prime hour (7pm server time), u will definitely find large fights (for us server)

[toot]

I have like 2k hours in game been playing casually since launch and this post is just hilariously wrong on so many levels. It may not be the perfect MMO because none of them are but, to me its been by far the best effort

[jP]

@Arenanet.
Do not offer this product to regions outside of NA and EU. If a customer's ping to both Frankfurt (EU) or Ashburn (NA) is 100-150+, then GW2 is a BAD purchase, and negligent sale on ArenaNet's part.
I live in Western Australia and play on 215ms to Frankfurt. I have muddled through enough content to earn legendary raid armor. I've played enough fractals to have a personal fractal level of 100. I am on the cusp of Platinum in sPVP. Those who have spectated elite NA teams vs elite EU teams during Teapot's Global MOTA tournament will understand what I am talking about. Ping is a serious issue in high-end content. It is an insurmountable disadvantage in PVP.
@Arenanet do not offer the product to us without the necessary infrastructure for >150 ping.

[Slapped_Chimp]

Originally posted by Angoril:

11) The story is mediocre at best in 99% of the MMOs out there so it's kinda the expected for anyone that plays them. SJW agendas... I will advice you to go play some older games and stop following the sheep mentality. the "SJW" things always existed in games, people were just smarter back then too... nowadays, lack of research and taking everything at face value seems to be the norm though.

One of the main writers freaked out against a streamer and got herself fired because the streamer didn't even do anything against her, not even her superiors could vouch for her actions.
Couldn't be more a perfect representation of "SJW".

I get what you're saying about the original but no, he's right.
"Oh boy..." "Yikes" "Y'all toxic." "I literally can't even." "Let's unpack this."
Lol...

[Slapped_Chimp]

Originally posted by phosTR:

Originally posted by Savathun's Onlyfans/LoliNoxTan:

So much wrong with this I'm not even going to bother. You've made up your mind

Word of warning to new people who read OP's post. Take it with a pinch of salt

Arenanet fanboy doesn't have any arguments. Color me surprised.

Wow... Just wow.
Who hurt you?
You do realise maybe just maybe just shut up and listen.

Jk

[LoliNoxTan]

Originally posted by Slapped_Chimp:

Originally posted by Angoril:

11) The story is mediocre at best in 99% of the MMOs out there so it's kinda the expected for anyone that plays them. SJW agendas... I will advice you to go play some older games and stop following the sheep mentality. the "SJW" things always existed in games, people were just smarter back then too... nowadays, lack of research and taking everything at face value seems to be the norm though.

Lol one of the main writers freaked out against a streamer and got herself fired because the streamer didn't even do anything against her, not even her superiors could vouch for her actions.
Couldn't be more a perfect representation of "SJW".

I get what you're saying about the original but no, he's right.
"Oh boy..." "Yikes" "Y'all toxic." "I literally can't even." "Let's unpack this."
Lol...

I wouldn't call Jessica Price one of the main writers. She worked there for a year

If you're talking about Jennifer Scheurle then she never worked on GW2

[Slapped_Chimp]

Originally posted by Ramon:

Originally posted by Savathun's Onlyfans/LoliNoxTan:

You do know that if they wanted to play "Nazi" (Seriously... What age are you?) they could on the Steam Forums. Devs has full control of them

Old enough to have played EQ1 and seen hardcore censorship by game companies (and many other corporations) become a thing like it is now. And if you aren't familiar with the term "forum Nazi" (relatively recent), then you might not even meet the recommended age to play EQ2. On their home forums, my comment above would have been removed, and I'd have gotten a warning. Happened many times, so I am pretty clear on what sets them off, even though it's mostly arbitrary. Their heavy-handedness is a main reason why the forums are low traffic, and has been remarked upon in plenty of other places - easy to find if you put forth even a little effort. I do think that Steam and others linking to reviews from 2012 is pretty laughable too.

I prefer the term "Gulag hostess"

[Slapped_Chimp]

Originally posted by Savathun's Onlyfans/LoliNoxTan:

Originally posted by Slapped_Chimp:

Lol one of the main writers freaked out against a streamer and got herself fired because the streamer didn't even do anything against her, not even her superiors could vouch for her actions.
Couldn't be more a perfect representation of "SJW".

I get what you're saying about the original but no, he's right.
"Oh boy..." "Yikes" "Y'all toxic." "I literally can't even." "Let's unpack this."
Lol...

I wouldn't call Jessica Price one of the main writers. She worked there for a year

Tbh I didn't take the time to memorise her name.
I was going by what she said, to be fair, not by any official record.
If you are the sole writer for x amount of episodes, I consider that to be 'main,' I didn't mean "lead."

Either way, it means the criticism isn't unfounded.

[Angoril]

Originally posted by Slapped_Chimp:

One of the main writers freaked out against a streamer and got herself fired because the streamer didn't even do anything against her, not even her superiors could vouch for her actions.
Couldn't be more a perfect representation of "SJW".

I get what you're saying about the original but no, he's right.
"Oh boy..." "Yikes" "Y'all toxic." "I literally can't even." "Let's unpack this."
Lol...

How is that relevant to the quality of the final product? Apple is a horrible company when it comes to ethics and so is Google, does that reflect to their final products? Or is every single person in the company you work for a saint and representing the best humanity has to offer? He was talking about something completely different than the Price situation though.

The "SJW agendas" is something that I always use to determine how smart a person is and their ability to think for themselves. Those that are smart know that the "SJW agenda" was around ever since gaming started and only became an issue when the internet hivemind decided it is one. OP is an idiot.

[LoliNoxTan]

Originally posted by Slapped_Chimp:

Originally posted by Savathun's Onlyfans/LoliNoxTan:

I wouldn't call Jessica Price one of the main writers. She worked there for a year

Tbh I didn't take the time to memorise her name.
I was going by what she said, to be fair, not by any official record.
If you are the sole writer for x amount of episodes, I consider that to be 'main,' I didn't mean "lead."

Either way, it means the criticism isn't unfounded.

So wasn't a sole writer though. There's multiple writers an each episode

[Doragor]

I agree with every point made by OP except the PVP being fair

It ain't. It's cookie cutter cheese and you will always see the same class builds for every profession, PvP is incredibly unbalanced and I'm sure it will get worse once they release EoD.

[LeftPaw]

The OP is right on most things. Now take the bank and bag slots. When you first start playing it looks generous, but this is where A-net are clever, they will dump stuff on you like there is no tomorrow and those bags will be full before you know it and we haven't even started on your crafting mats. Your going to need a load of space for those too.
So get your wallet out, time to buy gems. Before you know it you will have bought the game 10 times over. :D

I must have spent over a £100 on gems before I put the brakes on, and I'm still short on space and have very little to show for it.