I commented on In an Age that “But the more I play, the more GW2 feels to me like playing in a casino. I feel that I’m playing against the ‘house’ as much as the other players.” — and the anti-immersive elements are starting to nag at me (just stuff like — why can I mine iron with an iron pick in one zone but I need a darksteel pick in another zone, it’s the same ore? The answer is ‘because Anet want this to be a money sink, they know bag space is limited, and they know most people won’t walk past a node without mining it so you’ll tend to equip the most expensive gathering tools for the zones of your level, all the time’). Because they’re in the game of selling gold, the game has to be balanced to suck lots out of the economy — so all the travel costs, repair costs (enjoy those graveyard zergs in those dodgily balanced end game instances), are all part of a system designed to keep the money supply tight for players.

I don’t care about the economy being tight (if it is too hard to get gold then Anet risk players being discouraged but that’s their problem really), and all MMOs require an effort of will to be immersive, but this particular type of design kind of bugs me. I also find I’m getting some conflicting messages from the game – in particular about difficulty and how people are intended to play. Will probably write more about that sometime. So we don’t always agree about MMOs but I can see where you are coming from with this.

The game is fun though, there is fun to be had. So I don’t hate it, I just don’t love it either.

Off to a good start

“games like Skyrim, GW2, and this kickstarter, I hope the industry is getting a strong message that there is a really solid audience for open world fantasy games”

Did you just put Skyrim and GW2 in the same sentence about open worlds? Come on now. Skyrim has dungeons bigger than some GW2 zones.

“Syncaine not being able to summon a full-on rant actually counts as high praise from him”

That’s a great line, and not just because it’s about me (but mostly because it’s about me). It’s true though, GW2 is not completely rant worthy, but it is frustratingly mediocre and massively flawed while still being ‘neat’ enough to not make you outright hate it. I wonder how people would feel if it was a sub-based MMO?

I’ve been meaning to write something on WvW from the viewpoint of an old DAoC player now that I’ve had a chance to get out there and participate a few times. It might go up tonight, or if not then later this week – I’ll be back with a link when it does. I’ve deliberately not touched sPvP because I’ve had my fill of battleground style PvP in WoW, WAR, Rift and SWTOR and I hunger for old-style RvR or the nearest equivalent. However, I do seem to have earned a few points towards PvP rank from playing a couple of matches of Keg Brawl

As for ‘revolutionizing the scene’, I think this could perhaps take a little bit. The current MMO ship is VERY VERY big, and it takes a long time to turn a big ship, so to speak. (For the record, I don’t think GW2 is going to revolutionize the scene, but I do think it’s going to be successful enough-hell, it already IS very successful-to at least make other potential developers perhaps not as afraid to try something new.)

While I do have a lists of the ”highs and lows” of GW2, I suppose I managed to ride under the hype train a bit. Back in the dark ages of 1996, I had gotten very very hyped about a game called Final Fantasy 7-mostly because I loved the series since the first one(I had played the real part 3 on an emulator even already.) Well, it came out, and to this day I feel the game is simply ‘okay.’ Not the disease-curing savior, not the bane of RPG existence-simply okay. But, having been SO hyped up when I was 18…I learned a lesson about hype. Ever since then, I always make sure to keep my excitement measured…which is why, I suppose, I escape the more scathing let-downs.