…

This game is huge, it’s filled with so much content. I haven’t even had a chance to spend much time playing the game.

I’d really like to experience everything in the game, along with taking up a few character to the level cap. That would kinda be like step 1 & 2 of writing up a review for GW2. (For me.)

I’m not sure when I’ll manage to get one character to even level 50, let alone the level 80 cap. I don’t like to review a game without experiencing all of it.

I’m not sure if you are like me, but I don’t like when someone reviews a video game after they played it for a few hours. I think it’s only fair to complete a game and try to tackle some/all of the bonus content before writing a review.

Doing this can prove difficult with an MMORPG. It really can take months before some players can manage to this. I’m also in no rush to complete or finish the game.

I hope this makes sense. ^^   – Zero

First things first, the question you asked. 

Did you purposely choose Henge of Denravi?

Nope. I only picked this server because a real life friend of mine was playing on it. I honestly had not heard about lots of big name websites going to Henge. (Update – I think I’m actually going to switch servers now.)

To be honest, PVP is not really my thing. I mostly do PVE content in MMORPGs.

I made a few comments above with some follow up content I couldn’t fit in the article. I love the way the game rewards you. I couldn’t agree more with you in that regard. I think the loot system is pretty cool as well.

I haven’t had that much time to play the game I’ll be the first to admit that most folks playing the game probably have more time with it than I do.

With that in mind, it’s tough for me to really speak about dungeons and boss fights.

Part II.

Quick note about Overflow and building parties

While the overflow system is pretty awesome, It can create problems when building a group. ArenaNet is still working out the kinks with this. I failed to mention this in the main article, and it is important to point out that the overflow system is not perfect.

What about the in game Auction house?

When I typed this up, I played during the 3 day Pre-Order headstart and the first two days. When MMORPGs launch, things tend to be a tad bumpy. The auction house system in the game was not up during the time I wrote this article. I haven’t really had time to jump back in the game and test it out.

http://i.picpar.com/aa01b4b5fca70ebfcda73a229fe0a34e76759034.jpg

How does the free to play aspect work in the game?

You can click a little menu to bring up the in game shop. It offers mostly what you would expect. Outfits, accessories, various items/scrolls, additional inventory bags. (etc.) If you want to buy something, you need to purchase gems. The process is very simply, you just click something and follow the steps. I haven’t bought anything, but I did click through the menus a bit to see what choices the game gives you. You can choose between paypal or the standard credit/debit card as forms of payment. 

http://i.picpar.com/b290e06e0aaa9ae4edfb285113379c10843e7ecf.jpg

I’m also pretty sure you can use game cards. You can also trade in game currency for gems. (Which means you don’t technically have to spend any rl money.)

Does it have a bunch of play to win type of stuff? I’m happy to report that the Shop doesn’t allow you to buy 50 levels or anything like that. From what I could tell, it was very balanced. My only purchase was a free Guild Wars 2 in game hat for my character.

http://i.picpar.com/c349214c176b831f8a704088a329a000eb9f2bdb.jpg

(I did read online about some players experiencing issues using the in game shop. Mostly just standard lag issues, like clicking submit when buying an item more than once, which resulted in some players getting over charged. In some rare cases, players were not getting the items they purchased. From what I can tell, ArenaNet has been on top of solving these types of problems.)

I do want to take the time to say thanks to both Sal & Adam. They helped make this all possible. (Thanks a ton!!!)

P.S. – Check out the pictutes I took of the GW 2 Collector’s Edition in the Open Forum. =)

http://gematsu.com/2012/08/open-forum-007#comment-635198169

I really hope everyone enjoyed this – Thanks so much for reading. =)

Part I.

I had a few more things that I decided to leave out of the post. I wanted to keep the article fairly short and to the point. I also wanted it to be about what I experienced while playing the game. Those who read my posts know that summarizing is not neccessairly one of my strong points.

(What did I mean by spoiler free? I basically just chose to leave out some of the small details. I didn’t want to reveal my characters story for example. Someone might make a similiar player and get upset if I spoiled part of their story in Guild Wars 2.)

The following is a few things I couldn’t fit into the article. Some of it was because of in game complications, most of it was just cut to keep the article from getting really long.

Daily Achievements

Guild Wars 2 has three types of achievements. Regular achievements, monthy achievements, and daily achievements. Daily achievements allow you to log in and accomplish a set of goals each time you play. Each achievement you complete nets you experience and gold. If you accomplish all the (daily) achievements for the day, you recieve a bonus reward via treasure chest. I really like the daily achievements system. 

http://i.picpar.com/19fd930e46a01ee41e952afaf50c4caaa750c39c.jpg

What about the various races you can pick in the game? What jobs/classes can you pick?

I included the (What is Guild Wars 2?) video to cover this. I decided to make a video that shows what the character creation in the game looks like. I hope this makes up for me not going into detail about it. (it = Races & Classes)

I decided to pick the Charr class and go step by step in the character creation. I hope you can read everything without having to press pause. =P

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IF5D3-RWArY&feature=player_detailpage

( 10 minute – Character Creation Video. Available in 1080p HD !)

Around the 7 minute mark, it starts asking me specific questions about my character. These questions are very important. They help shape who your character is. Picking different choices even changes the story you experience. I think this adds (another) interesting layer of replayability. 

I wanted to share this chart that comes with the game. It shows the weapons each profession can use. (I think it’s pretty handy.)

http://i.picpar.com/84bc71635adf99f4a8341611c3fd74e84d15e9cc.jpg

(Part 2 coming soon!)

A few things in this game i wish EVERY MMO would do. Party-free multiplayer. Yes, there is parties…but it’s not needed to get EXP. People almost ALWAYS come up and help me when I’m in trouble fight a veteran enemy or boss. There’s no reason not to. In other games your enemy is “tagged” so everyone else will just ignore it since it doesnt benefit them. Another thing is the loot system. It doesnt show everyone what loot drops for you. There’s no fighting over loot because of this. EVERY MMO needs to get rid of the loot-roll system. Individualized loot is the way of the future (thank you Diablo 3 for giving at least some kind of innovation!). I cannot tell you how many Guilds I’ve seen destroyed because of arguments over loot drops. If you get good loot in Guild Wars 2, you don’t have to tell anyone, they’ll never know. You might get nothing too of course but at least you won’t have envy of other players unless they choose to brag about their drops. The exploration bonuses is next. I loooove all the bonus items and EXP I get for exploring. When you get all the Waypoints, Vistas, Missions, and Skill Points on a Map you get EXCELLENT rewards (that are scaled to the difficulty of that zone) in EXP and gear/crafting materials. I’ve probably gained at least 5 levels from exploration alone. Other games give you EXP bonuses but it’s always rather minor and unmotivated. My personal issues with the game are that only thief is any fun for me because other classes are too slow (thief isnt based on cooldown like all the others and is instead a resource-management class), and that melee is apparently TERRIBLE in dungeons and boss fights. Especially thief. Even heavy guardians are dying all the time in dungeons and boss fights because the bosses are not balanced properly yet. Overall, I’m loving this game a lot more than I expected, and I hope newer games look at the strong points of this one. Sorry for wall-of-text,  I just love this game.

I already play Guild Wars 2 as well it’s nice and good mostly but i think it will be better if more people on Gematsu should be told as well by providing this game review.