GW:EN User reviews, feedback and opinions Thread

Hello,

With the increase of both positive and negative review threads, I think its about time we had a single thread to discuss GW:EN as a whole.

We welcome comments from both sides, but please remember flaming and trolling is not acceptable, so don't do it.

Also remember that flaming a flamer is also not smart or recommended, and only leads to more e-drama, so again don't do it.


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Finally all future discussions posted in new threads will most likely be shut down and linked to this thread, thread merging doesn't work, so that is not an option.

Thank you.

first to post, yay

all your base is belong to us


as for a review, thumps sorta up for gwen

the good: some beautiful scenery, some cool monsters (dinosaurs, lol), some nice standalone armor (sunglasses, lol), some awesome dungeons (snowmen, lol)

the bad: main storyline too short, nothing new for pvp

the ugly: (yall knew this was coming) RESKIN FTL

Ok first my opinions and reviews of the 3 campaigns first to follow up GWEN. Its easier to see that way.

1. Prophicies- 8.5, Pros - The lands were awesome, pre searing is a fad, freedom to move around, creation of guildwars of course and story wasnt half bad. Cons- Graphics were stale, Alot of clipping and glitches.

2. Factions- 7.5, Pros- Alot of the new armor was nice, elite dungeons added flare, new skills really complimented the new campaign, Rits are an excellent class when used properly. Cons- The city area was horrid, No actualy story line what so ever, poor or stuborn a.i.

3. Nightfall- 9.0, Pros- Dervish class rocks, beautiful lands, great storyline, some more new armors added, more rare items in it, added sigs and inscriptions, heros. Cons- Paragons fell short, some of the ancient and primevil armor was a lil too outrageous.

I know GWEN in an expansion, just thought i throw a review to help better sense what i was expecting, seeing how Nightfall the last campaign, was done rather well.

GWEN- 5.5, Pros- New Heros and their exciting armor, Decent Story, Beautiful explorable scenary, consumables, better a.i. with dual professions
Cons- Most armor is reskins and reskins with mix and not match, Short story, Ending was horrible, no content to better your character, stand alone pieces just dont cut it for the promised ways to customise, reskinned weapons, rarity of weapons now gone ex..reaver, dwarven axe, Dungeon chests drop rate low (ex one or two diamonds), extremely low replayability, no end game content, to expensive for what i paid for it.

Probaly some more pros and cons it i can think about it. GWEN is enjoyable, hands down to Anet on the scenary and hero department, had fun for a short time, I got revved up on all the excitement of an expansion and got something totally different than what i was expecting. Wish i was told directly that armor, weapons, monsters were reused. All in all i think that they messed up on this one really bad, i never had complained in the forums before until this was released.

More in the feedback/opinion category...

Monument of Devotion - I'd like to see the customization changed to account based, or something along the 'festival hat guy' line done.

Monument of Fellowship - I'd like to see a statue of my particular pet rather than a generic one of a wolf, bear and lynx regardless of what kind of pet it happens to be. I think it take just as much effort to level a standard pet up from level 5 to level 20 as it does to acquire one of the special three that get their own statues (spider/black moa/phoenix).

Monument of Valor - The list of accepted weapons needs to be expanded for sure. If limitations must be set at least they could span campaigns...ex. Prophesies - greens from Sorrow's Furnace; Factions - end game weapons and those greens dropped by Kanaxi and Urgoz; Nightfall - end game weapons, Tormented weapons and those greens dropped by Mallyx; EotN: end game weapons and Destroyer weapons.

I'd like to mention, as from the other threads, that GW:EN is a continuation of a problematic recent trend - that super powerful skills are gifted to players who simply grind by accepting "hunts" from NPCs near the Rez shrines and then clearing zones, or as an alternate in the case of factions who repeatedly do quests like Duel of the Houses.

This is not a good trend and breaks away from the original premise of Guild Wars, with promised "no grind" and the catchphrase "skill > time".

A paraphrasing from the rest of the threads is that Prophecies was obviously a successful paradigm as its own game and stood apart from the pack. Other MMOs which were designed and built with grind in mind do the job of fulfilling a grind-based-game do so better, so GW shifting its character development focus from "grind for vanities" to "grind for character development and further empowerment" is ill advised, as it is easily bested by its competition.

Besides, the idea of doing Duel of the Houses twelve thousand, five hundred times to max the title seems a bit.... ridiculous?

Thanks!
TabascoSauce

Good:
Good Soundtrack
Good artistic work, though the engine is getting a bit dated with the advent of DirectX 10 apps.
Some decent new "game within a game" pieces (Boxing, Norn Arena)


Bad:
Grind, grind, grind, grind, grind, c, space, c space, grind, grind, c, space, grind
Beating the game and having half of the NPC's not give you the time of day
Heavy reuse of the same maps for different dungeons and missions.
Monuments seem half-baked... a good idea poorly executed.
A majority of their 40 so called "new" armors are bizarre combiniations of reskinned pieces from old sets.

Pros:
-A pretty nice soundtrack overall, annoying in Norn territory at times, though.
-Beautiful Environments.
-Interesting Mini-games.
-Dungeons are interesting at times.
-Cool heroes.
-Voice Acting for NPCs (not in cutscenes)

Cons:
-Armor, on a whole, is pretty undesirable.
-Combat music not only gets easily repetitive but can break the feel of an area.
-Story is short and more importantly unsatisfying.
-Dungeons seem to be reused at times.
-Offers VERY little in terms of PvP, not even any new elite skills.
-No new Guild Halls.
-Little incentive to grind the ranks.

I give it 3/5 stars.

Good

- Quests, not missions. How many times you were defeated at the end of a mission and had to start all over again? In GWEN, if your party is destroyed, you can get another chance after a resurrection at a shrine and complete an objective. It is casual player friendly, but experienced people found GWEN too easy.
- Dungeons. Multi-level dungeons that can be cleansed with any balanced team and have rewards at the end are fun.
- Mini-games. Pokemon on steroids, Norn Tournament, and Kilroy's Brawling Tournament are fun solo activities, but not attractive enough to keep participating in them. Give Gamer points for wins and implement pvp version if possible.
- Stand alone, any profession gear. Special gloves, blindfolds, ninja masks, and even glasses are very nice
- Hall of Monuments. It is good to have some benefits in GW2.
- Quests. Quests that reveal more lore details about the previous campaigns. You can earn green items via quests. Cross-campaign black moa chick quest.
- Beautiful scenery
- Nice music
- Gwen is a mesmer hero <3

Bad

- Monument of Fellowship. Heroes must have elite armor to be added to the Hall of Monuments (read grind)
- Monument of Honor. A map is fine for a Grandmaster Cartographer, but does not suit very well Protectors, Heroes, Gladiators, etc... FoW statue does not register for all people for some reason.
- Armor. Many armors look similar to existing armors (This is not a problem to me because I don't care about armor, but many people are upset about it). Since rank five is required to gain access to armor, many people find it quite frustrating because they have to grind for points (it is possible to reach rank five via quests and dungeons, but would take much longer).

Here's a thought!
I think EotN is ANet's deliberate way of killing the existing guild wars economy to ensure that players all purchase guild wars 2 upon realease!

They made everything available to everyone; with exception of some ultra rare unattainable minpets of course. There's no where to climb once you've reached the top. One thing's for shure all those faithfull players that spent gazillion of hours farming trading and collecting those rare goodys all lost intrest in the present game, and are now most awayting the release of guild wars 2.

It was a quick way to make a cheep buck at the hard core gamers expense. Its as clear as daylight that ANet is investing all its time and resources in the development of guild wars 2. The release of GW:EN was just a quick way of creating revenues.

Lets just hope they release it before all those boared gamers start buying gameconsoles.

That doesn't make sense, they said many times they plan to continue to support GW1 even after GW2 is released, at least for a time.

Don't try to create silly conspiracy theories without any solid proof to back you claims.

I'm just taking my time and enjoying GW:EN, although I see room for improvement (see most other threads about what needs to be improved).

My biggest complaint is the current responses from ANet PR to customer complaints/suggestions.

Second biggest complaint is HoM. Glad to see they made some improvements, but I'm disappointed in not being able to show my 27 month old Melandru Stalker, or any of my green weapons. I would also like to see a checklist for the title monument, so I can arrange titles the way I want.

Its not a claim but a thought. And no, I dont have any proof,; but I'm shure I'm not the only one that feels this way.

Last but not least support is a relative thing. Did you know Microsoft still supports Windows Me? I think the last update dates from 2001!

GWEN Pros: Awesome Enviroment no way to go around it its a job well done credit to anet for this!
Grind though they added grind titles they made it more fun then farming lightbringer or sunspear plus you get collectables for custom armor.
Custom armor awesome add every piece hasnt dissapointed me in anyway.
Quests seem more fun to do now rewards are worth doing them big pro!

Cons: Armor what a huge letdown by anet in each campaign i like 70% off all the armors available i havent seen even 1 eye of the north armor worth getting, reskinning is fine but do it with just a few armors not every possible armor there is Hero armor looks better then Player armor in gwen thats injury to insult how can you stab us twice with the same knife?
Asuras what i just hate the anoying shrimps wish i could kill them, no im not joking we should have the choice to engage one or even all 3 of the races in gwen. Being able to uncustomise weapons would be a nice change to implement.

Overall: i give GWEN a 3 out of 10 just because they produced a horrible job on the armors i thought it to be impossible to not like even one armor but these look ridiculous if gwen is supposed to keep us busy till gw 2 then make the armor actually worth getting.

Things they got more or less right:

The little details - love the hench soap-opera rather than just having the lined up like dummies by the exit. How in the pre-sear type landscapes there's red isis flowers dotted around. The frozen dragon in the lake. Things like that.

That some solo quests are mini-games in themselves.

The dungeons.

Riding siege devourers.

PvE skills.

The mini moa scavage hunt. Now this is the kind of stuff I would have liked to see more of. Big task, perhaps. But most of it rather fun an adorable minipet as a reward.

Complaint list:

No extra storage tab. Yet GWEN is one with the heaviest storage needs. All the extra stuff to lug around. The books, the quest items, the new collectables and consumables, etc. etc.

Thunderfist Brassknuckles - those gold, value 0, ones you win in Kilroy's brawl solo quest/mini game thing. Having a req of 9 dagger mastery.
Make them customized to the character, but for heavens sake make them useable for the one that wins them if they want to go on with the tournament. No matter what profession they have and perhaps more so, or whether or not they own factions.
At the very least give them a merch value so that they are not just a piece of worthless junk.

Grindwars. It's all getting a bit ridiculous now.

The hall of monuments. You've gone so wrong with this one.
It should have been a place to display your personal achievments.
I have no issue with that only certain things carry through to GW2. But people should be able to display what they consider as their personal achievements, whatever they may be. Not just Anet approved ones.
The melandrus stalker animal companion tamed in pre-sear on the first day playing guild wars and have been with you ever since.
The first green weapon dropped that has been kept for sentimental reasons. Or that was a gift from someone.
A non-max title that wasn't earned by grinding and thus might be more of an achievement than a max-rank one that only means you've had X hour of free time to grind, grind, grind, and grind some more. etc. etc.

** Having to repost, did not realize I posted in wrong area, new to forums. Accept my apoligies please. **

I have been reading post in all areas of EotN. I have to admit, I am somehwat taken by surprise of all the complaints.

This is what I mean:

Before the game was released, we heard about how harder it would be(hence having to be LvL 20's). We were told there would be better top end items. I myself have realized, some of these items you really really have to work for and save materials just for the chance to own them. EotN is a different flavor, no friggin doubt. Would I change anything? Be lying if I said no. I wish same things were less demanding to get, example the Chaos Gloves, I am working so hard for. Those things are going to cost me in the neighborhood of 6 to 700k to own. Am I upset, disappointed, yes, but only because I cant have them right this minute.

Seems in EotN to me, you want something, you better get busy and do something about it. EotN has turned into a job. The harder you work at it the more you save, the better stuff you get. I myself dont concern myself with not being able to see all the armor crafters. I am a warrior class, and most times, armor is not that great anyway, but some are. I was hoping armror would be better, but at least they are different then the other same ol' boring armor.

Whole idea of EotN is keep us busy until GW-2 comes out. Which brings me to another point. Stop and think about what you really are doing in EotN. Who does it really benifit everything you do anyways? YOU? Ummm...yes and no. You are setting up for your Chars that will be created under GW-2 and they will benifit from your hard work, work in progress if you will. For me that changes the outlook. Fine, somethings may be a pain, expensives, "not what I expected", and etc. But down the road, what I do, will finally pay off.

All three campaigns have there own challenges, we have all over-come them. EotN, isnt by far, any different then the other campaigns. Anet seems to be asking us in playing EotN, "lets see just how far you will go to obtain something you want, what will you do for it, because we are not handing anything out this time. You are going to really have to work for it". I have noticed for myself I spend alot more time in EotN, then the other campaigns, "grinding" away at the titles.

I am sure Anet, as always, will make needed changes over time.

In MY OWN OPINION: I love the game, keeps me busy and always have something to do, new goals, accomplishments and so on so on. I would change somethings as stated, but overall, I think the $40.00 I spent, is very much worth it. But then again, I dont mind having to do what it takes to get something I want, and am willing to work for it, even if it is just say, "I did it". Again, this is just my opinion and I am not saying people are wrong or right. I myself in general, do not have major gripes about the expansion as a whole. In the meantime, will enjoy what is in front of me, and keep busy, alot to get done before GW-2 is released.

The good:

-Soundtrack. Jeremy Soule FTW.
-The scenery. It is very pretty.
-The new heros are cool.
That's about it :/

The Bad:

-Length. It was so very short. Yes, I know the fanboy response of "it's an expansion, not a chapter". But....it was a $40 expansion. Almost costing as much as a chapter, one would expect (at least I was) much more quality content than what we got. :/
-Grind. The grind introduced to make the very short expansion seem longer was a cheesy way to go about doing things.
-Reskins, reskins, everywhere. The mobs (most of them) are reskins. The armor sets are reskins. The end-game rewards?....yup, reskins.
-The loot and drop rates are deplorable, amplified by the fact that lockpicks are required in Normal Mode.
-The lack of Hard Mode.
-The Hall of Disappointments.


Overall, I am let down with it. It makes me sad to say that, as I never thought I would. There was so much less quality content than I expected. People say "it's an expansion, of course there'll be less content than a full chapter", and if it were say....a $20 expansion, I might agree with them. EotN to me, feels rushed, or unfinished. Slapped together in a hurry, maybe. It could have been so much more than it is...

Quote: Originally Posted by Stolen Souls

I call it the Hall of Unfulfillment.

Some threads have been erased where many have commented on the good and bad of EotN. I can't remember what I said so it'll be brief.

Good:
Scenery and non-subscription play.

Bad:
Drops. Lockpicks and locked chests.

Still have the issues of preview doings not reflected in official release. Hero/Dungeon books have what reason for not being present in the preview? Reward and quests could not have been completed during preview anyway so there wasn't a reason to not have it then. After release it's not reflected in the books. To repeat it just because it's repeatable doesn't give me back my 5 hours or so of time spent doing them during preview. So far not doing anything about it tells me it was time wasted. Just like grinding and farming is to me, time wasted.

The Hall of Monuments and all its various problems.
I think non-maxed titles should be included but obviously only hardcore grinders should be considered. Why bother retaining loyal fans who were told grinding isn't necessary and titles did diddly squat?
Why not have mixed armor pieces? Why can't it just be max armor instead of 15k sets? Does this not betray those who were told collector armor is just as good as 15k armor?
For weapons, it'll be better if any max damage weapon could be put in. I thought you won't be able to get the exact skin in GW2 anyway so why not just allow anything to be put in? Does this not betray those who were told blue/purple/crafted/collector weapons are just as good as vain, overpriced weapons? Just have it where GW1 Axe = GW2 Axe.

Title grind for crafters. To have the option of using certain npcs I have to have some kind of rank? I'd rather they be endgame crafters than rank based crafters.

The trend that is continuing with GW is pandering to the grinders/farmers. If all the crap in HoM gives you an iris flower in GW2 it'll be grand. If it leads rank based crafters like in EotN it's total RED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GORED ENGINE GOing bullshit.

P.S. Those are rhetorical questions.

Pros:
Voltaic spear and a couple other nice weapons skins
Dungeons
Cons:
Everything else

For one wtf is up with heros gettin such kick ass armor and then leaving us human players with some ugly reskinned crap. I mean come on GW, heros are not the ones buying your products.

Another thing is that some nice new pets were added, but there is no place to store your old trusty companions. I mean it would not be that hard for GW to just make a pet storage guy in a GH or HoM and it would save many players the heartbreak of parting with a old trusty sidekick to get a new one.

Those are just a few of the many complaints that I have with GWEN, but im tired of typeing so this will have to do.