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First review?
grimal
Member UncommonPosts: 2,935
in Guild Wars 2
Stumbled upon this today while doing a general search.
http://www.examiner.com/review/guild-wars-2-not-a-revolution-but-a-renovation
Comments
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Wow, their only complaints are-
1. We don't like jumping puzzles (interesting because EVERYONE else does)
2. Combat is too hard because we don't have unlimited dodge
3. Combat is too hard because we have to track resources/mechanics
Rest is spot on, despite being the most completely ridiculously early review ever.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Hmm, it does go into review territory near the end of the article.. but it's not really a review.
Everything being said along those lines though is completely pointless. The launch patch could render everything said there completely outdated and incorrect.
This is the author's bio at the bottom of the article.
Thomas Knapp has been a freelance writer for the Detroit Sports Rag and the Bleacher Report, with a handful of articles published by CBS Sportsline and the Associated Press.
He should stick to writing about sports. Why? Unsubstantiated claims and misunderstanding the goals of Anet, the nature of player driven hype, and assuming his preferences outway the aggregate player feedback from the betas...oh, and thief weapon skills have no cooldowns...not sure how he messed that up.
The thing that bothered me the most is this:
"The product as presented doesn't quite mesh with the pre-release hype that it is a revolution in the Massively Multiplayer Online genre; it copies many elements of those games and really doesn't change the game the way that Arena.net would like you to believe."
and
"While Guild Wars 2 doesn't always live up to its own hype..."
I can take somebody not liking my favorite game, but that isn't what this is about. This is about the author seeing player driven hype, rife with hyperbole and flagrant fandom vs. hater skirmishes, and seeing it as a legitimate meter of the expectations most people have about the game.
This kind of hype is meant to get people's attention, and get them interested in the game. The actual information about the game has been available for all to see for a very long time, and the features described are in the game, working as intended (at least, that is how I see it). Anet isn't being deceptive about the game.
let us look at this line again:
"...and really doesn't change the game the way that Arena.net would like you to believe."
Funny, I thought making PvE gameplay intuitively cooperative, as opposed to competitive was a HUGE change in how we play MMOs. I thought all the points of interest made it MORE inticing to explore unseen areas, just to see what was there...just because it looks so awesome. Are these changes of only minor impact, or are they actually significant to how people will play this game? Ill let you all decide that
This editorial has been brought to you by Grimm6th, who is usually more than willing to /ignore something like this.
Anyways, its not actually a negative review, just one that has little substance and we have been seeing far superior reviews from community members and gaming sites for months now. Maybe the reason I don't like it is as simple as that this article isn't written for the gaming community, but a broader audience who don't really pay attention to these sorts of games.
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
As long as the jumping puzzles don’t give me platform-game flashbacks it should be ok. If they do, I swear someone is going to be hit on the head with a giant mushroom by a crazy man in red dungarees and a fake moustache screaming “I’ll show you who’s in another castle mother%$er!!”
And I don’t think anyone wants that.
Well, I wouldn’t get too annoyed about it, he admits sport is all he "knows" (how can you know something about nothing?).
One day the truth will come out, that where was a zombie apocalypse long ago, and coliseums (today’s stadiums) where built to keep them occupied and segregated from living people, and that “sport” is a simple, repetitive visual display, designed to distract half rotten brains with minimal cognitive function. Then we can stop pretending sport amounts to anything and treat those that like it as the cultural deadweight that they are and no longer have so much time wasted by nothing, and become a truly enlightened society of geniuses and poets, ruled by a benevolent philosopher king, the likes of which has not been seen since Marcus Aurelius... (vote for me) and we can stop living in a Resident Evil movie.
But until that glorious Utopia of thought and deed we just have to ignore these non-entities whenever they overstep their bounds, and try to dribble words on subjects they cannot possibly understand. Remember, just replace any sports commentary with the word "Braaaaaiiins" and it will suddenly make a lot more sense.
Wait ... what?
I can live with "it's not new" if you want to count war pq as the primitive ancestors of DE but not even " a particularly new implementation"?
First time i've read someone complain about the Vistas too. Weird.
Almost everyone consider vistas (and the evolution Jumping Puzzles) nothing short of a brilliant addition to the game. Quite addictive too.
I find his critique of the dodge mechanic to be very interesting. I can give a million reasons (such as range > melee, skills would need 1 second cooldowns at most etc.) why limited dodge is better than unlimited dodge but it makes me wonder how the game could've played if it was balanced around unlimited dodge. It'd probably be too fast-paced for me lol
I was taken aback when I read, "Some of the combat resource management seems unnecessary superfluous as well. While an elementalist need only focus on the cooldowns of their various skills, a thief has to watch those as well as an additional “initiative” resource as a tradeoff for having shorter cooldowns. While it does add to the “uniqueness” of the class, it feels like it is tacked on simply for that difference rather than a consequence of it."
The thief is the only profession zero (not shorter) cooldowns on their weapon skills and that allows them to use most weapon skills at least twice in a row. This adds an assassin feeling to me and thus it does successfully make the class feel unique in a way that's different from a warrior or guardian and not tacked on at all.
TOR's jump puzzles to get the datacrons were rage inducing because of how horribly unresponsive controls are. If you press W and Space too fast, your character just shuffles forward and falls off the ledge.
I found that the controls in GW2 are much more responsive than in SWTOR. Less gliding around too. I think thing that they could be a little tighter but it's like night and day compared to SWTOR.
Edit: as far at the review goes, how the hell do you review a game that's not even out yet? I mean it's not like a single player game where reviewers get their copy before the players. GW2 is not launched yet and as far as I know the press don't have special access to the live client.
The review, overall, is positive. It is, however, a very transparent attempt at drawing more attention to the article and the writer by injecting innaccurate criticism as flame bait.
I'm really getting tired of this increasingly seen tactic of people effectively trolling for a response via inflamatory titles/subject lines and the injection of trolling comments that seem incongruous to the rest of the post/article/review.
"Ha Ha, got you to look"! This guy might as well have that plastered to his forehead.
Want to know more about GW2 and why there is so much buzz? Start here: Guild Wars 2 Mass Info for the Uninitiated
MMORPG.com needs a just for laughs sub section in every games forums for topics like these. How do you review a game that isn't out?
Do I like this game today for shizzle, Will I like this game 6 months down the line after i've had the chance to completly be immersed into the new world being offered? Who knows? However I strongly feel that no one doing a review before they have even seen max lvl should be takin seriously.
This, imo, is probably the most negative review of Guild Wars 2 that I can forsee and take seriously.
And if this is the worst, I think GW2 is going to be fine.
"As you read these words, a release is seven days or less away or has just happened within the last seven days those are now the only two states youll find the world of Tyria."...Guild Wars 2
All those sites that gave SWTOR a perfect ten or 9 + score are really going to have to bend the laws of reality to explain why GW2 has a lower score if it comes up. But no one will pay attention to a lot of these reviews since they lack any credibility.
A "review" before release is ridiculous.
Not only because it probably gives an incomplete image of the positive aspects of the game, but also because it doesn't cover potentially negative aspects that are revealed by fully stressed and populated servers.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!
LMFAO!!!! Although I preffered his green suited companion.
A sport "journalist" reviewing a MMORPG before it's even released?
Well, if anything, that confirms the opinion I have about the average IQ of a sport "journalist"...
Respect, walk
Are you talkin' to me? Are you talkin' to me?
- PANTERA at HELLFEST 2023
I don't like jumping puzzles.
I am not the author of that "review"
so you hate a minor and completely optional part of the game... good for you
I angered the clerk in a clothing shop today. She asked me what size I was and I said actual, because I am not to scale. I like vending machines 'cause snacks are better when they fall. If I buy a candy bar at a store, oftentimes, I will drop it... so that it achieves its maximum flavor potential. --Mitch Hedberg
Sigh, I think it has more to do with the fact that the kinds of writing you would do for sports and the kinds of writing you would do for games, especially when reviewing new games, are COMPLETELY different. It isn't like sports writers have much opportunity to write about new, but as of yet untested, sports. I mean, sure, there are some opportunities, but It is hardly the same things as trying to analyze the positives and negatives of a game as compared to what you assume your audience likes and dislikes (in other words, comparing it to WoW or another, more recent release that many people have had a chance to experience).
I used to TL;DR, but then I took a bullet point to the footnote.
.... the answer to the question posed in the topic title is 'No. Not a review of GW2'.
Maybe you could stretch it to say it's a review of the betas, but that's about as far as you can take it.
Or you could call it a preview, I suppose.
Too late, I demand reviews to come out as soon as the game is first announced, so I know whether to waste my precious time hyping it or not!!..
What can men do against such reckless hate?
Thanks for basically saying only stupid people that are valueless to the world like sports. Sorry you feel left out.
Steam: Neph
Sport journalists actually have to be very informed about a lot of different things, they often come into contact with sport disciplines that are completely unfamiliar, but still have to come up with some sort of useful commentary.
The writing or reporting style itself is usually very challenging and diverse as well, especially if they work for radio or television (and internet is always a challenge).
In general, a journalist is asked to report and write about all sorts of things outside of their expertise these days, it's not even their own choice most of the time if they're doing contract work.
Feel free to use my referral link for SW:TOR if you want to test out the game. You'll get some special unlocks!