But anyway this game blows any other mmorpg’s right now out of sight imho and everyone i have spoke to at work and peers say the same except one who is a wow fanboy; But i think hes turning since i haven’t seen him off it for over a week now after convincing him to buy it :p

I like how how you say gw2 has a unpleasant community, thats not rightly true as you may know within the gaming community there are fanboys and wow has definitely the worst as 80% of the population seems to be kids.

Gw2 is certainly a worthy contender and i think wow seems to be more kid/teen focused with its pandas?

BRING ON WARCRAFT 4

I didn’t see anything really awful about it but it didn’t knock my socks off. Maybe…the Charr, I have to say the Charr are like nothing I’ve ever seen in MMORPGS. I was impressed by them, their design, story and game play. But other than that, it’s all just okay.

I think the majority of my enthusiasm was dashed due to the awful armor for female characters. The fact that they look underage paired along with the mini-skirt/bikini look really disgusted me. And that ArenaNet doesn’t address it also gives me pause. TERA had the same deal going and they are struggling now to hold players.

Women are 50% of the playerbase and that is a lot to lose. I don’t know why game developers don’t understand this fact.

The design manifesto sounds so amazing, but the gameplay is not that amazing at all. The combat that’s been touted as so outstanding is not any more active than, say, combat in TSW. In TSW you dodge out of effects as well, just like in GW2, and it’s your standard 7 buttons hotkey game. Just like in GW2! Nothing revolutionary about it.

The asura are one of the few highlights I experienced during my playtime. They’re fun and the ultimate engineers. I think most people will be able to get their mileage out of the box price, as it’s not a terrible game. I just think I’ll be happier playing other games.

Like you though, I havent seen the hype lived up to in gameplay previews. Ive been keeping an eye on video footage and Im more and more uncertain of GW2. Im still getting it though. It feels to me my last chance to enjoy a high fantasy MMO and Im really, really crazy about the Asura Just love the idea of tiny people who are the worldest greatest engineers. Oh and the novels aren’t bad at all. I haven’t gotten through the second one yet but Ive started it. Theyre definitely teenage level, but I think they’re enjoyable nonetheless.

I agree that getting away from the “holy trinity” is a double-edged sword, but I personally disagree that there should be more tutorials or hand-holding. When I first played WoW seven years ago, I had never played an MMO before (I bought the game as a fan of the RTS games) and I had no idea there was even meant to be a trinity, yet I made my way through the levelling and early dungeons without too much hassle. In fact, part of the joy of being a newbie to it all was the excitement of discovering this system – some MMO veterans knew how it all works and could give pointers to people like me, but I’d be prepared to believe the majority were in my camp of “never played an MMO” and were bumbling about until we worked out/were shown that a trinity exists and what each role does. WoW also never came with any tutorials as far as roles were concerned, yet we all survived. As I imagine a lot of GW2 players will be ex-WoW players I expect a similar situation – everyone once again bumbling about adapting to the new system of NOT having the trinity anymore. While WoW’s launch players were mainly MMO newcomers, thanks to WoW (and GW1, of course), I expect GW2′s launch players to know the basic concept of what an MMO is and how it works, which should help them get to grips with ditching the trinity. It will still be a jarring experience at first, but I believe people will be able to adapt.

As for the lack of endgame con, I mainly have a problem with the wording. Nobody knows exactly how much there is, and while you are absolutely free to make assumptions based on what you’ve heard, seen and experienced, phrasing the con like an absolute is a little misleading (and the sort of thing to get fanboys skimming your post on your back). Personally I think it’s a little early to condemn endgame in any case.

I will have to agree with you on point #4, though, despite having no personal experience of any rabid GW2 fanboys. I don’t read many forums or blogs and I tend to try and evade too much information about any game, firstly to avoid the hype machine and secondly as, if I decide I want to play the game, I like as much of the world and mechanics unspoiled as possible. However, based on what I’ve seen from other MMO launches, I can only imagine GW2 suffers the same problem. For example, when I played Age of Conan at launch any criticism made at the game in the general chat was instantly hammered down by a chorus of “gb2wow” “lol wow fag” “wow baby” and so on, and I’d be honestly shocked if GW2′s launch wasn’t similar. Sadly, assholes are everywhere. On the other hand, WoW’s community is far from pristine as I’m sure you know, but it’s still always saddening when people have to ruin it by being… well, people.

I also agree that GW2 is probably not for you or anyone with little to no interest in PvP. I won’t make any sweeping claims like “endgame is all about PvP” as I don’t know how many endgame dungeons there will be or where the focus will be in any content patches that come out, but I do believe PvP is a significant chunk of GW2 that enjoyment and longevity will be significantly reduced for people who are mainly PvE players. Of course, the upside is you only pay for the box and as you said, there will be enough content to justify the admission alone.

I will also agree to the quests, and their potential to possibly go stale. I did, however, like that each heart on the map is gained by filling a bar, and the bar is filled by completing any variety of objectives for that bar. When you need to kill critters, clean pools and open cages, it’s nice to know any combo of these three objectives will get the job done, while a WoW-like system could end up with you having 10/10 critters, 3/6 pools and 4/6 cages, and you wander around for an extra 15 minutes mindlessly slaying beasts that spawn hoping to right click a rare pool or cage spawn before somebody else. I didn’t play the beta weekends too much (again, that aversion to pre-release spoilery) but I do hope the quests vary some in later levels. On the other hand, I don’t dislike the system (at the very least it’s no worse than WoW’s) and the dynamic events do add a little flavour to proceedings.

Overall, I am excited for GW2, albeit from a combination of the game itself (and I do think it does a lot of things right, and I have had some “why has no other dev thought of this before?” moments while playing the game), and the social side I look forward to because of my particular situation. I liked the combat and while the two weapon system also felt somewhat limiting to me at first, “pushing five buttons” is an oversimplification of what you can do and is again not worse than WoW, where questing can also be a 3-4 button mashathon. Here, at least, are 2 x 5 standard abilities from your currently equipped weapons, plus 4 unique abilities from your skill slots. Trying out different weapon combinations with different skills offers a lot of combinations. I wouldn’t call it a “spec” per se, but more like a loadout, and would approach the skills system with that in mind. I do like the traits system however, and believe it offers more than enough RPG flavour customization to make my character feel like my own.

One last addendum: I assume your grievance with the armour is the lack of it on female humans and norns. Well, I like boobies as much as the next heterosexual male, but I appreciate it may not be comfortable for all female gamers and also that I will never fully be able to put myself in the shoes of a woman. I agree some comment from ArenaNet would be nice, and for me it wouldn’t matter if they got sensible light armour at the end of the day. What I do despise are the neanderthals who treat all criticism of skimpy armour as “feminazism” and proceed to tell the women to get back to the kitchen. But see above, arseholes are everywhere. And, sadly, the practice of skimpy armour is far from limited to GW2, and I imagine WoW will continue to also be guilty in MoP.

So, yes, that went on somewhat longer than I thought. Maybe I should start my own blog :p I’ll probably get MoP and dabble in it anyway (GW2′s lack of sub means I have the freedom to do so!) but I am mainly looking forward to GW2, a fresh start, and hoping it won’t go down like the tortanic.

Having said that this game is hyped to no end and the biggest turnoff for me on this game is #4. I can see how this can become toxic to the community from 10 thousand miles away.

Re: Con #1 – I never really excitement over the game’s PvE and questing either. The mode is different, but my actions are still the same. And the story is not awful, but is waaay below the standards set by SWTOR and TSW. Re: Con #2 – I like that they are getting away from the trinity, but I have a feeling I’m going to miss being a tank or healer, one of those situations where I realize how much I appreciate something only once it’s taken away. Re: Con #4 – This. Scares. Me. Shitless. I don’t know what these people are thinking, but the zealotry I’ve witnessed from some of the fans of this game will do it more harm than good in the long run, imo.

WoW’s overall community is toxic, and I am not sure it can be fixed. LFD and LFR, gearscore and ilevel requirements, they have created this monster with a go-go-go mentality. Group content is something I would only consider doing with my guild now. I saw it coming in WotLK, and I still feel LFD is the worst thing that ever happened to WoW as a community. Of course it’s also the best thing that ever happened for accessibility of content, but that’s the price that was paid.

Anyhow, because of the whole levelling down mechanic, it’ll be easy to play together if you ever want to. I’m … now more ambivalent about WoW than I have ever been, even when I was taking long breaks from it. It seems that being back in the game and facing that I actually don’t have the confidence to queue for random groups any more, when everyone expects you to do random groups, is really hammering home that it may not be for me any more. I feel like I’m not good enough to play WoW