Zero Punctuation: Guild Wars 2

[Makhiel]

I'd heard about this game, but I didn't realize it was a mummorpugger. Strange that they're releasing an MMO that's a sequel to another MMO; you don't generally see that. Usually they get patches instead.

They wanted an expansion, but they came up with so much stuff they had to do a sequel.

I suppose the original wasn't getting a lot of notice from the public, and releasing a new game would give them an excuse to advertise. (Kind of hard to justify suddenly putting out ads for a game that's already been out for years.) And considering I'd never heard of Guild Wars before this one came out, that was probably a smart decision.

Just so you know, Guild Wars (1) has sold 7 million copies over the years.

 

[Scars Unseen]

M'kay, I try to give Yahtzee some leeway, and I'll admit of his MMO reviews, this one is definitely the least scathing. However as someone who's playing GW2, I think his criticism that there is no plot is a complete load. GW2 has just as much plot as WoW did at the start of its release. Yahtzee says the only thing resembling a plot was the fact the elder dragons have woken up and are threatening the world, but outside of that there's no real sense of what your role in it is. Well what did the base WoW game start you out with? Hell, I don't even remember them announcing the primary antagonist with that one, you were just supposed to follow the quest lines until you eventually were lead up to Ragnaros, or whatever his name was. It wasn't until the expansions they began letting you know who you would ultimately be fighting at the end.

The problem here seems to be Yahtzee is completely ignoring the back story in the game. I wouldn't expect him to read both of the novels they came out with and give a full synopsis of the backstory in his video, but he could at least acknowledge it. He says there's no plot outside the elder dragons, completely ignoring things like the 250 years of conflict between the humans and the charr and the tentative alliance they're now forming, the creation and emergence of the sylvari, the doom of Ascalon, I mean holy crap that's a lot to just gloss over.

Which part of your explanation am I supposed to find reasonable: that I should be willing to wait for future expansions for a plot to emerge(and no, the state of previous games does not excuse this one), or that I should have to buy and read a couple of novels to understand what's going on?

This sounds like the sort of reasoning people use when they try to convince Yahtzee that it's okay for the single player mode of a game to be shit if the multiplayer mode is good.

 

[RedFeather1975]

I agree with Yahtzee that all these games saying dragons are the big bads is starting to feel tiredly cliched. Hopefully fantasy mmorpgs games can find something new and take a break from it.

The elder dragons aren't really a world destroying threat. They are just massive apathetic forces of nature. They are forcing the races of Tyria to revolve around unpredictable destruction. So it's something that eventually is made to feel urgent through each character's personal story, but I played a character to 80 and haven't bothered caring about the big dragon at all.

 

[Nelires]

Oh Yahtzee, you poor man. You never got out of the "getting to know your character" bit of the personal story to actually get into the meat of the game. Skill points are more valuable than just "I want only these skills, there I have them" (30 sp cost for 2nd tier elites is a *****).

It was a funny review, but I'd have liked a more informed opinion of it. Maybe one from someone who made it past level 25. =/

 

[Jman1236]

Figured you've play it safe and go with the GW2's elementalist since it's basically the mage class from wow. I rolled a necromacer for my first toon as well during the early access, didn't like it so I've been experimenting with each of the classes and so far my favorites have been the ranger and thief. Mostly since I'm a huge fan of pet based classes and the thief's skills don't have cooldowns aside from needing to build up combo points.

 

[Burst6]

As to the gameplay discussion, yeah, Yahtzee's pretty much on the ball there. The controls are nice and tight without copious hotkey bars cluttering the screen, but once you get a comfortable loadout, you'll only need to swap skills for very specific situations. And yes, some of the skills are a little head-scratching in their nature (like why does my thief need a tripwire trap when the poison trap immobilizes the enemy anyway?)

I don't agree. Most of the utility skills seem to have a special PVP build they're designed for.


Like yatzee's example, having a heal that increases the more conditions the enemy has is perfect for a condition damage based necromancer.

Or for your example, having both a powerful immobilize and a powerful trip at the same time is perfect for a sword/pistol thief because the 3 seconds they disable is enough to pull off a full pistol whip. Enemies in PVP almost never stand still so having 2 ways to stop them is perfect.

 

[RedFeather1975]

I think the reason why Yahztee thought some skills for necromancer were really lame was because you can't see skill descriptions in PvE in the tiers you haven't unlocked yet. So you can't know potentially cool combinations that later skills can make with each other. I really don't like that skill tiers roadblock, but maybe people can petition to change it.

 

[angel85]

Your joke about the necromancer doing the gardening is one of my favorites.

 

[Zakarath]

Yeah, That's why I don't make humans. They've got by far the blandest start. Sylvari in particular seem to get right into the 'adventure is calling' phase.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

I played both WOW and GW1 and both bored me to death within 2 weeks. I really dont understand why people play these games for years. I guess others do. At least GW2 is free, that at least makes it better cos you can do what you want and then bin it without the monthly fees. I wonder how long it will be before WOW players feel ripped off with their fees?

 

[SpectacularWebHead]

No catzee? Awww....

 

[Furrama]

While in the later areas the dragons being an issue is far more prevalent, and helping heart farmers weed out worms completely ends and everything is a dynamic event, there are defiantly story issues. I love the game to death, but the story and how it's presented needs a bit of work. But only a bit. There are many little moments that make me laugh, sad, happy to have a certain character around.

I was digging the personal story up until the "Vigil/Order/Priory bit" ended and you get Traherndaphan. And while I don't dislike him things feel like they're going too fast and it hits you about then. They could have stretched the story out past when you would have hit level 80 (about) and it probably would have been stronger. And the final boss fight in story mode Arah has no mechanics. It doesn't have the epic feel that the game has led you up to. It looks visually stunning, it should be epic, but it doesn't feel epic. FFX did a better job of this with the Sin fight. FFX people! It doesn't have to be uber difficult, it is story mode and supposed to feel accessible to the casual player, but the mechanics don't do the scene justice.

But that's only the story. The rest of the game is amazing. Go play. I think the charr have one of the strongest starting areas and beginning personal stories, so defiantly try that out.

 

[Mike Fang]

Which part of your explanation am I supposed to find reasonable: that I should be willing to wait for future expansions for a plot to emerge(and no, the state of previous games does not excuse this one), or that I should have to buy and read a couple of novels to understand what's going on?

This sounds like the sort of reasoning people use when they try to convince Yahtzee that it's okay for the single player mode of a game to be shit if the multiplayer mode is good.

No, I never said you should have to wait for future expansions or read novels for a game's plot; the plot of GW2 is all around you from talking to NPCs, listening to NPC conversations, readings in-game flavor text from books, and so forth. And before you go saying that's too much work to do to get the backstory, fine, you don't have to, but don't say it isn't there at all, just admit you're too lazy to bother with it.

 

[RedFeather1975]

I felt the same way Furrama. The personal story starts off as being about your character, but then it moves toward plopping your character in the backseat and letting NPCs take the spotlight to get it done and over with faster. Made me feel like a gear in someone else's clock. Is why I couldn't finish the story.

 

[Mike Fang]

I don't agree. Most of the utility skills seem to have a special PVP build they're designed for.


Like yatzee's example, having a heal that increases the more conditions the enemy has is perfect for a condition damage based necromancer.

Or for your example, having both a powerful immobilize and a powerful trip at the same time is perfect for a sword/pistol thief because the 3 seconds they disable is enough to pull off a full pistol whip. Enemies in PVP almost never stand still so having 2 ways to stop them is perfect.

That is possible; I haven't tried PvP yet, so I couldn't say for sure. But that could make sense.

 

[Techno Squidgy]

"Like a man sending his Gazpacho soup back to be warmed up"
His name was Arnold, Arnold, Arnold Rimmer, without him life would be much grimmer...

I sincerely hope that joke was a Red Dwarf reference because if it is Yahtzee has just propelled himself to be perhaps my favourite internet person ever. Thinking about it, he was anyway, but now he's just that much better.

 

[RedFeather1975]

That skill being talked about was probably designed to work with things like this.
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Plague_Signet
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Deathly_Swarm
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Signet_of_Spite

 

[toapat]

I sorta got the feeling he'd like it more than previous mmorpgs, seems more like his thing

no, it isnt. he still prefered WoW over it except for the subscription fee. Everything he praises in GW2 he is pointing out those are the "good ideas"

on the other hand, he then immediately counters that praise in that he feels an even larger waste of time in GW2 then in WoW because at least you feel like you are doing something with WoW

 

[Mike Fang]

I was digging the personal story up until the "Vigil/Order/Priory bit" ended...

Actually I that was one other thing I didn't like abut the personal story. I found an issue with each faction that made me have to chose the lesser of three evils. Playing a thief, you'd think my natural place would be with the Order, but I didn't like how they were so hands-off and willing to let innocent people die while using that cockamamie "The Greater Good" argument some people use to justify doing what they know is wrong (or not doing what they know is right). Also, putting the dragons back to sleep? Really, that's the best the could come up with?

The Priory would've seemed like my second choice, but again, they seemed to have their noses buried in books too much to really do anything productive about the problem staring them in the face. I don't care about raiding tombs (unless there's a big titted woman with a sexy accent coming with me) when there's armies of the undead massing.

So that left me with the Vigil. As brick-dense and stupid as I think running straight at a giant dragon and his army of walking corpses is, at least it's something proactive and attempting to give people in harm's way some kind of protection. There's a time for research and a time to kick ass. And while the greater good does need to be kept in mind, if you spend all your time looking for the source of the water and don't plug any leaks, you'll be flooded up to your ass by the time you find it.

 

[Furrama]

I felt the same way Furrama. The personal story starts off as being about your character, but then it moves toward plopping your character in the backseat and letting NPCs take the spotlight to get it done and over with faster. Made me feel like a gear in someone else's clock. Is why I couldn't finish the story.

That's not what I was saying at all. I don't mind taking a back seat, but they try to have it both ways. At first you're so awesome that world leaders sit up and take notice. Then you rise to a really high level in your chosen order really really fast, even over those who should have seniority, (I don't think this should have happened after you were promoted from recruit). Then Mr. T shows up. It makes story sense that you should be his second and not in command, but it breaks this flow they've had up to that point. But at the same time it would feel really really ridiculous for you to be leading the combined orders. All the dungeons are set up to be about Destiny's Edge, and I love those for the most part. But I feel as though we shouldn't be quite "so" special so early on, only to drift into the faceless mass of Tyria to be an important cog. This is an MMO after all, I don't mind being an important cog, but it feels disjointed.

They need to better balance you being a singular competent trustworthy person and being part of a unit with buddies and allies that grow strong together. That and pacing.