Guild Wars 2 Way Over Rated
Seriously, what is with all the huge review scores surrounding Guild Wars 2? I’m not sure if ArenaNet have managed to bribe themselves into the pockets of the big review websites, but when searching I was shocked at the scores given. Don’t get me wrong, Guild Wars 2 is a good game and rivals the majority of MMO titles released recently. There’s no competition when it comes to titles like The Old Republic, The Secret World or TERA Online, but it’s not even close to being the “perfect” game.
Atomic Gamer 10/10
There are still many annoying or silly things we’ve seen in the last decade-plus worth of MMOs that Guild Wars 2 didn’t fix.
Digital Spy 5/5
In closing, Guild Wars 2 is a staggeringly ambitious project that makes a bold statement about the future of the MMORPG.
G4TV 5/5
I have to say that Guild Wars 2 is just fresh. It’s new, it’s innovative and more than anything, it’s a welcome change for fans that may want something different.
These are just some of the reviews I read when browsing the internet, and all 3 of these websites give the game a perfect score. More shocking, they actually talk about the negatives of the game in the articles. Please explain how a game can be “perfect” and still have flaws? That makes absolutely no sense.
People are raving on about how awesome the quest system is, and sure, it’s great not having to go back and forth picking up and handing in quests, but it’s not all that different. Remove the pickup and collect aspect from many MMO’s and the basic foundations of the quests feel exactly the same. The ability system is seriously flawed, you can go 5-10 levels without getting any seriously noteworthy abilities and once you’ve found your favorite weapon type for PvE, you’ll rarely switch. So you end up rinsing the same 4-5 abilities over and over.
The WvW is arguably one of the games best features but compared to Dark Age of Camelot and Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, there’s not exactly that many advances. Sure it’s nice to have to worry about supplies, and the bracket system is innovative, but it’s not exactly a “brand new PvP concept” as many are saying.
And of course, no new over-rated MMO release is complete without the thousands of “Omg it’s going to kill WoW” topics and posts. It will not kill World of Warcraft, no MMO will kill WoW other than itself. People won’t stop playing a game they’ve sunk 5+ years into unless the updates stop.
Bottom line, sure Guild Wars 2 is a great MMO game, but it’s not the perfect title every site is portraying it to be. If you’re looking for honest reviews, find some user reviews and ignore the big name sites.
go see the Angry Joe review and you’ll understand Why this game got a 10/10
Wow, this was a great post! He did a great job explaining the game (even if I did find Angry Joe’s explanations a little too emphatically punctuated).
You are mad because it has a perfect score but is not completely perfect in your mind. I can think of plenty of things not perfect that people will give 100%. It isn’t about being perfect. NFL teams give 100%. Space flight wasn’t perfect. Olympics aren’t perfect, but you can see the effort and you clap anyways. No one expected a flawless performance but great undertakings receive great scores. You could cut up WoW to make it like Guild Wars 2 and I suspect they will if and when their player base contracts even more. Then again you could just start playing GW2 now and be a 100% glad you did.
I’ve played it, I still play it and I really enjoy it. I love the fact I don’t have a quest log spammed every time I reach a new area. I enjoy the PvP and like many other aspects of the game. But I’m not blind to the flaws. The auction house system still isn’t working 100%, any other game does that at launch and it would get torn apart. There was a number of exploits, that were reported in beta, but still exist that allow players to kill mobs 2x their level. Not to mention the monster pathing that can also be easily exploited. I don’t use any of these, but I’m aware of them which is why I couldn’t give the game a 10/10 rating.
It was clear from the very beginning of game production that GW2 was special. The art direction was fresh, crisply utilizing a stylized and layered visual appeal which turned fantasy geek into art school cool. Names like Jeff Grubb, a man worthy of his old school credentials, provided further proof that the producers of this game were giving serious credence to the content being paired with their stunning visual vehicle. Perhaps it is too generous to say that GW2 got everything right. However, its an easy argument to state that there are a myriad number of attenuated game dynamics that make the sum of the parts generally engaging and significant. For example, streamlined questing, rich contextual ambiance, and fully realized class styles reconstructing our conception of MUD trinities all present the promise of many hours spent getting to know a new friend whom shall be remembered fondly years later.
The fawning and praise being heaped atop GW2′s golden brow does seem to be a bit exaggerated. The tantalizing subject of interest I found in Blaine Smith’s article is in the implication that the gaming industry’s trumpet might be a bit crooked. Every troll knows the difference between qualitative and quantitative expositions. The very act of ranking the qualitative elements of a game on a scale is itself a quantitative action. It appears to me that the author of this article is simply stating that one should expect to see more balanced quantitative scoring results as the filters for subjectivity become more refined. This has not been his experience in reviewing what other reviewers have had to say about GW2 in an official capacity.
Sigh, I would write more but I’ve used all of my big words and stuff. Bye
Well Forgotten, thank you very much for such a productive and thorough reply. I’m so happy to finally find someone that actually understood the main point behind the article