Pledge Your Allegiance to Guild Wars 2 and Win a Free Copy of the Game
If you're willing to recite an ominous oath on camera, you could win a copy of Guild Wars 2.
The folks at NCSoft and ArenaNet are really getting into the holiday spirit. Right now, the companies are giving away 5000 copies of Guild Wars 2, but you must be willing to pledge your allegiance to the world of Tyria.
To enter, contestants will need to create a video of themselves reciting the following oath:
I, [name], renounce [adjective] games and pledge my allegiance to Guild Wars 2. I likewise declare my freedom from [adjective] subscription fees! That I turn my back forever on [noun] which is/are totally [adjective]. That I will take up arms to defend the [noun] and crush evil with my [noun]. I take this oath to Guild Wars 2 freely, without [noun] because I am [adjective].
It all sounds very official, but I get the feeling that it won't hold up in court. Though, I'm not a lawyer who specializes in MMO law.
For those of you might not be comfortable with the oath, NCSoft has slashed the price on the Deluxe and Heroic editions of Guild Wars 2 (40% off). But the sale and the contest will both end on December 3rd at 11:59 PST. So, either way, you don't have a lot of time.
Source: The Great MMO Migration [http://migration.guildwars2.com/en/]
This is a good game. I love that I can just kind of engage it when I want to and never feel far behind. It's kind of the perfect MMO for RPG fans like myself who don't have many hours in a day to devote to gaming, but don't necessarily like to spend all of their free gaming time on various battlefields or heeding various calls to duty.
I already took part in the Great MMO Migration. I migrated the hell away from GW2 as soon as I reached level cap and had nothing to do but grind for prettier dresses, which was fun until I got all the pretty dresses in a few weeks.
If they could have made that more Mad-Libs this could have been funnier, but in all honesty why would I pledge myself to a game I've never played. Strangely enough I would take it seriously, I do that with pledges and promises, so this whole thing becomes very awkward.
VanQ said:
I already took part in the Great MMO Migration. I migrated the hell away from GW2 as soon as I reached level cap and had nothing to do but grind for prettier dresses, which was fun until I got all the pretty dresses in a few weeks.
Meaning no offense, but a person that races through a MMO to either get into the grind cycle or just as bad, hit the level caps, is like a child that chews hard candy rather than sucks hard candy; it just seems to miss the point. Far be it for me to tell anyone how to enjoy a game, but I feel like this is how people get burned out. That's what i liked about the first Guild Wars, not about grinding really, the low level cap and the way you could set your builds made it more about planning, play, and skills than better gear and leveling. For some reason that last part of what I wrote feels redundant.
If they could have made that more Mad-Libs this could have been funnier, but in all honesty why would I pledge myself to a game I've never played. Strangely enough I would take it seriously, I do that with pledges and promises, so this whole thing becomes very awkward.
VanQ said:
I already took part in the Great MMO Migration. I migrated the hell away from GW2 as soon as I reached level cap and had nothing to do but grind for prettier dresses, which was fun until I got all the pretty dresses in a few weeks.
Meaning no offense, but a person that races through a MMO to either get into the grind cycle or just as bad, hit the level caps, is like a child that chews hard candy rather than sucks hard candy; it just seems to miss the point. Far be it for me to tell anyone how to enjoy a game, but I feel like this is how people get burned out. That's what i liked about the first Guild Wars, not about grinding really, the low level cap and the way you could set your builds made it more about planning, play, and skills than better gear and leveling. For some reason that last part of what I wrote feels redundant.
No offense taken, but some gamers just like to game hard and fast. There's no more validity in the claim that racing through content is missing than point than claiming that taking your time is missing the point. Different playstyles appeal to different people. I like to see lots of content and stay ahead of the curve.
I don't mean to derail this into a GW2 bashing thread, I see the appeal the game has for some people, so I'll spoiler the rest of my post. I decided to spoiler it after having typed it out already, since I feel like it would be a waste to just delete it all now.
GW2 has a lot to offer those that like to walk their way through a game, but those of us that enjoy the fun that comes with racing through and ahead of everyone else find very little of value in GW2.
It took me approximately 5 real life days for a total of 40 hours gameplay to get my Elementalist to level cap and then it took me only a few more weeks before I had gathered every armour set and weapon that appealed to me and from there the was nothing to do.
I had nearly 100%'d the entire map and with no quests to do all I had left to do was idle and wait for more content or spam the same events over and over to stockpile currency for any future armour sets or weapons that may appeal to me. I didn't get burnt out on GW2, I got bored of it. I had no goals and no motivation to play, every goal in the game that I had set for myself were accomplished in a few short weeks.
Which is nice for a single player, theme-park RPG with a tacked on multiplayer element, but not a game that claims to be an open and evolving MMO. It's just not what I was looking for.
I don't mean to bash the game, I don't think GW2 is bad. It's just not my kinda game.
If they could have made that more Mad-Libs this could have been funnier, but in all honesty why would I pledge myself to a game I've never played. Strangely enough I would take it seriously, I do that with pledges and promises, so this whole thing becomes very awkward.
VanQ said:
I already took part in the Great MMO Migration. I migrated the hell away from GW2 as soon as I reached level cap and had nothing to do but grind for prettier dresses, which was fun until I got all the pretty dresses in a few weeks.
Meaning no offense, but a person that races through a MMO to either get into the grind cycle or just as bad, hit the level caps, is like a child that chews hard candy rather than sucks hard candy; it just seems to miss the point. Far be it for me to tell anyone how to enjoy a game, but I feel like this is how people get burned out. That's what i liked about the first Guild Wars, not about grinding really, the low level cap and the way you could set your builds made it more about planning, play, and skills than better gear and leveling. For some reason that last part of what I wrote feels redundant.
No offense taken, but some gamers just like to game hard and fast. There's no more validity in the claim that racing through content is missing than point than claiming that taking your time is missing the point. Different playstyles appeal to different people. I like to see lots of content and stay ahead of the curve.
I don't mean to derail this into a GW2 bashing thread, I see the appeal the game has for some people, so I'll spoiler the rest of my post. I decided to spoiler it after having typed it out already, since I feel like it would be a waste to just delete it all now.
GW2 has a lot to offer those that like to walk their way through a game, but those of us that enjoy the fun that comes with racing through and ahead of everyone else find very little of value in GW2.
It took me approximately 5 real life days for a total of 40 hours gameplay to get my Elementalist to level cap and then it took me only a few more weeks before I had gathered every armour set and weapon that appealed to me and from there the was nothing to do.
I had nearly 100%'d the entire map and with no quests to do all I had left to do was idle and wait for more content or spam the same events over and over to stockpile currency for any future armour sets or weapons that may appeal to me. I didn't get burnt out on GW2, I got bored of it. I had no goals and no motivation to play, every goal in the game that I had set for myself were accomplished in a few short weeks.
Which is nice for a single player, theme-park RPG with a tacked on multiplayer element, but not a game that claims to be an open and evolving MMO. It's just not what I was looking for.
I don't mean to bash the game, I don't think GW2 is bad. It's just not my kinda game.
I'm siding with IceHearted here, or at least I don't think you've made a strong enough case for yourself, VanQ.
You capped your ele, but what builds did you use? Where was WvW or PvP[footnote]Arguably the basis of Guild Wars games, though it's currently understandable if you've ignored them[/footnote] in your evaluation? What OTHER professions did you use? You apparently haven't licked the candy, or savored the flavor.
To shove words in your mouth make an amendment, you've played hard and fast in WoW style through Guild Wars 2. All of your achievements are efforts a WoW player makes to get to raids (which is just another grind for epic gear; I'm missing your disconnect here). Funny thing about that, you had a methodology to follow and ran into a dead end because of it, instead of reading the intentions of the game.
But this is all assuming that you like or even played WoW in the first place. Rather, I think this is the general mindset of people looking for an 'MMORPG' (or at least, the base who will bring in the coin). Guild Wars 2 seems to be facing a case of 'WoW-tinted eyeglass syndrome', and it's a bit of a shame for it, too. Especially when the people who have lost interest don't even realize it.
Then again, case in point here; ArenaNet continues to market towards them, so...-shrug-?
I'm siding with IceHearted here, or at least I don't think you've made a strong enough case for yourself, VanQ.
You capped your ele, but what builds did you use? Where was WvW or PvP in your evaluation? What OTHER professions did you use? You apparently haven't licked the candy, or savored the flavor.
To shove words in your mouth make an amendment, you've played hard and fast in WoW style through Guild Wars 2. All of your achievements are efforts a WoW player makes to get to raids (which is just another grind for epic gear; I'm missing your disconnect here). Funny thing about that, you had a methodology to follow and ran into a dead end because of it, instead of reading the intentions of the game.
But this is all assuming that you like or even played WoW in the first place. Rather, I think this is the general mindset of people looking for an 'MMORPG' (or at least, the base who will bring in the coin). Guild Wars 2 seems to be facing a case of 'WoW-tinted eyeglass syndrome', and it's a bit of a shame for it, too. Especially when the people who have lost interest don't even realize it.
Then again, case in point here; ArenaNet continues to market towards them, so...-shrug-?
I also attempted leveling a Warrior but the servers at the time were still under heavy strain from the new MMO rush and it made playing a melee class from Australia rather painful, I suffered a lot of rubber banding and poor framerate as the client was fairly poorly optimized as far as I recall. It was not my PC that was the problem, it was a 1 year old, $3000 PC that I built myself. To be fair, this problem is probably completely ironed out by now.
If you're referring to Crafting Professions, me Ele had maxed out Artificer, Tailor, Chef and all of the gathering skills. I don't remember exactly which builds I used but they all ended up with me just running in circles spamming auto-attack to stay out of reach of that one god damn type of undead that moved really fast and hit really hard (I bet you know exactly the one I'm talking about) or blowing up everything else that got in range. "Stance-dancing" elements was fun for a while but it was pointless because it output barely more DPS than spamming Fireball most of the time.
I found WvWvW to be a gimmick that attempted to be old-Alterac Valley but missed what players enjoyed about AV. My experience of WvWvW was whoever had the larger zerg-force was the winner by default. If you attempted to do anything in a group of less than 10 players, you'd just get steamrolled by a group of 15-20 that roll through like a train running behind schedule.
PvP doesn't interest me that much in WoW or GW2 to be fair though. PvP in a game like TERA, for example, was fun, active and visceral. I've never had so much fun as that battle for life or death between my level 21 Lancer and the level 24 Ranger that wanted to PK me. It was a constant back and forth, retreating to force him to use his movement cooldowns to stay in range, then burning mine to close the gap and force him to burn them to get away, only to retreat and begin the cycle. In comparison, no point and click MMO, GW2 or WoW or any other will satisfy me.
When it comes to PvE, the overworld just seemed like a single player RPG with other people running around in it. There was never a reason to group together except for instances. And the instances just felt like extensions of the overworld that were either woefully under-balanced or aggravatingly overbalanced to make them artificially difficult. The first one I can understand, there is no tank to soak up big damage, the last one is aggravating because there is no tank to soak up damage. I honestly was not given enough personal cooldowns as an Elementalist to cope with a bad group that couldn't support each other. GW2 players seemed to severely lack the ability to track personal responsibility, as taught by the game itself.
I do play and enjoy WoW, for the PvE and currently no other game offers me the kind of candy I enjoy as far as end game progression that WoW raiding offers. I understand what GW2 is offering to its players, and that is a single player, theme-park RPG with a multiplayer option. You never have to join a group, you never have to interact with the community, I made it to level cap on my Ele before I even considered joining a guild. It's funny that an MMO called "Guild Wars" places so little emphasis on Guilds, or groups at all for that matter. And that's why it doesn't register to me as an MMO, let alone one worth playing.
Of course, this is entirely my opinion of the game, as played in open beta and the first 2-3 months of the game's life cycle. I have very high standards for MMOs, personally, and may be jaded from being stuck playing the same poor clones ever since WoW came out. I'm a veteran of as far back as Ultima Online and Tibia, if that's of any relevance to you, and I've played more MMOs I could count.
You're right that GW2 is marketing to the wrong demographic. It's not like I went into the game hoping for the next WoW, I went in hoping for a game that would replace WoW for me as I had been off of WoW due to Cataclysm breaking the Warlock class nearly beyond repair. It got a game stuck in a place somewhere between wanting to be WoW, but not having the depth of WoW's PvE. The sweet little lies it told me about radiant world events and dungeons that could be solo'd by any class if they were skilled enough pulled me in. Too bad all I got was a collect X of Y in Z area dependent on W amount of people in the area. The alternative being kill X of Y in Z area that is as powerful as W dependent on the amount of players hitting it. And the occasional escort quest.
I hope I've made enough of a case now. Man this post ended up long. Maybe I should practice to be a reviewer, I can get quite wordy with my posts. Just don't get me started on the barren waste of potential that was the cash/gem shop. I checked for week after week and nothing of value ever dropped in there, if they ever bothered to add something at all. Don't make a cash shop if you don't intend to populate it, damn it!
I also attempted leveling a Warrior but the servers at the time were still under heavy strain from the new MMO rush and it made playing a melee class from Australia rather painful, I suffered a lot of rubber banding and poor framerate as the client was fairly poorly optimized as far as I recall. It was not my PC that was the problem, it was a 1 year old, $3000 PC that I built myself. To be fair, this problem is probably completely ironed out by now.
If you're referring to Crafting Professions, me Ele had maxed out Artificer, Tailor, Chef and all of the gathering skills. I don't remember exactly which builds I used but they all ended up with me just running in circles spamming auto-attack to stay out of reach of that one god damn type of undead that moved really fast and hit really hard (I bet you know exactly the one I'm talking about) or blowing up everything else that got in range. "Stance-dancing" elements was fun for a while but it was pointless because it output barely more DPS than spamming Fireball most of the time.
I found WvWvW to be a gimmick that attempted to be old-Alterac Valley but missed what players enjoyed about AV. My experience of WvWvW was whoever had the larger zerg-force was the winner by default. If you attempted to do anything in a group of less than 10 players, you'd just get steamrolled by a group of 15-20 that roll through like a train running behind schedule.
PvP doesn't interest me that much in WoW or GW2 to be fair though. PvP in a game like TERA, for example, was fun, active and visceral. I've never had so much fun as that battle for life or death between my level 21 Lancer and the level 24 Ranger that wanted to PK me. It was a constant back and forth, retreating to force him to use his movement cooldowns to stay in range, then burning mine to close the gap and force him to burn them to get away, only to retreat and begin the cycle. In comparison, no point and click MMO, GW2 or WoW or any other will satisfy me.
When it comes to PvE, the overworld just seemed like a single player RPG with other people running around in it. There was never a reason to group together except for instances. And the instances just felt like extensions of the overworld that were either woefully under-balanced or aggravatingly overbalanced to make them artificially difficult. The first one I can understand, there is no tank to soak up big damage, the last one is aggravating because there is no tank to soak up damage. I honestly was not given enough personal cooldowns as an Elementalist to cope with a bad group that couldn't support each other. GW2 players seemed to severely lack the ability to track personal responsibility, as taught by the game itself.
I do play and enjoy WoW, for the PvE and currently no other game offers me the kind of candy I enjoy as far as end game progression that WoW raiding offers. I understand what GW2 is offering to its players, and that is a single player, theme-park RPG with a multiplayer option. You never have to join a group, you never have to interact with the community, I made it to level cap on my Ele before I even considered joining a guild. It's funny that an MMO called "Guild Wars" places so little emphasis on Guilds, or groups at all for that matter. And that's why it doesn't register to me as an MMO, let alone one worth playing.
Of course, this is entirely my opinion of the game, as played in open beta and the first 2-3 months of the game's life cycle. I have very high standards for MMOs, personally, and may be jaded from being stuck playing the same poor clones ever since WoW came out. I'm a veteran of as far back as Ultima Online and Tibia, if that's of any relevance to you, and I've played more MMOs I could count.
You're right that GW2 is marketing to the wrong demographic. It's not like I went into the game hoping for the next WoW, I went in hoping for a game that would replace WoW for me as I had been off of WoW due to Cataclysm breaking the Warlock class nearly beyond repair. It got a game stuck in a place somewhere between wanting to be WoW, but not having the depth of WoW's PvE. The sweet little lies it told me about radiant world events and dungeons that could be solo'd by any class if they were skilled enough pulled me in. Too bad all I got was a collect X of Y in Z area dependent on W amount of people in the area. The alternative being kill X of Y in Z area that is as powerful as W dependent on the amount of players hitting it. And the occasional escort quest.
I hope I've made enough of a case now. Man this post ended up long. Maybe I should practice to be a reviewer, I can get quite wordy with my posts. Just don't get me started on the barren waste of potential that was the cash/gem shop. I checked for week after week and nothing of value ever dropped in there, if they ever bothered to add something at all. Don't make a cash shop if you don't intend to populate it, damn it!
As for myself, I can't consider myself versed in MMORPG's, but I am familiar with their playstyles, my first being (and continue to to this day) Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, which was released in NA around the time UO came out. Most likely personal, but after Nexus, I had no need for such deliberately slow PvE progression through questing and mob grinding, or skill organization through hotkey binding; all of which extends to WoW, which only perpetuated this style for years to come.
Then came Guild Wars, which was a PVP-centered game with light MMORPG elements. The people were there (and you needed them; just try to solo without a specialized build!) but the level cap was low, the story was light, and there were limits on skills; you had to build your utility from 8 skill slots. Such tight game design had me playing for 6+ years.
I still believe Guild Wars 2 has these elements, but it's floundering with them. Level cap may be 80, but besides the fact that the cap is hardly necessary for most challenges, or PvP/WvW, it only amounts to fluff; it's simply a progression meter. I also don't mind the PvE focus, but it's never been Anet's strong point. PvP needs serious work, since (I'll claim) it forms the backbone of their games. But I believe the pieces are still there; even just a UI update or objectives for small groups (which would tie in GW1's spirit) would be a huge step in the right direction.
Really, I think time is a factor in all of this, as well. I'm not sure when in it's lifetime you considered WoW to be as excellent as you do, or if the expansions had anything to do with that assesment, but the fact is, as large a game as it is, it took 2 years for the first established expansion and large-scale adjustment to arrive for WoW. Guild Wars 2 is late at this point for precedence (1 year between its expansions for GW1), but I have faith that those will come in time, too.
Guild Wars tends to need its expansions too; if Prophecies' buggy start said anything, it's that there are a TON of improvements in later installments.
PS: 'Guild Wars' is a term from the lore of the game, but long story short (and awfully butchered), it involves various cities/states warring against each other, some falling apart, then coming together to fight a common cause. That notion extends to Guild Wars 2 a bit through the various races.
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