Review - Guild Wars 2

[Badfur 13]

Guild Wars 2 was a much anticipated game. Over 1 million copies of the game were sold prior to the game's release, and

during the head-start period, there were about 400,000 users concurrently online. It's safe to say people really enjoyed the game; after putting over 140 hours into the game myself, I fully understand where people are coming from with it.

Unlike other Massive Multiplayer Online games, the

leveling curve in Guild Wars 2 plateaus. Letting the players actually see the progress towards the next level be substantial after a session? Yes, we'll accept it. Many players, myself included, come from games such as Star Wars: The Old Republic, Rift: Planes of Telara, and World of Warcraft. In these games, as you progress in level, it would take much longer to get to the next level, often you would not see the progress you made towards the next level unless it was quite significant. Towards the end of the leveling progression, it would take multiple days just to reach the final level. Allowing players to see the effort we put into the game visibly make a difference on our level is a step in the right direction, with fun being the end result.

After having fun in the head-start access, and as launch day came upon us, several issues sprang up. The first issue is that the game was unavailable for a few hours in the morning. The login servers were down; and while e-mail verification wasn't working, they found a work around for it shortly, making sure that it didn't affect a player's access to the game. The login servers being down was a little unexpected due to them being fine during head-start access. It only took a few hours though, and by noon EST the game was playable again. This, however, brings us to problem 3, the Trading Post. The Trading Post is the auction house. This has been down for maintenance since head-start access started. There was some glaring issue with 1-2 million people trying to access it at once, and they took it down for maintenance. While they did bring it up for a little while for 15% of the population (causing #occupylionsarch to spread around twitter for a bit, for the other 85%), that shortly went down as they continued testing it. It has been brought up for short periods of time for a portion of the population, usually, though after a fixed amount of time it goes back down. Not having an auction house isn't the end of the world, however. You can still use global chat and sell you goods player to player...except that you couldn't for a while. There is no trade option, no C.O.D, and so the only way to transfer between players is regular mail (trusting that they won't skimp out on the deal, and just take the item / currency without providing their end). They took down regular mail for a few days, preventing items from transferring between players, though it has since been brought back up, it left a good many people with full bags and bank space, being unable to trade with guild mates or other players.

Another issue is e-mail authentication, which wasn't activated. A variety of people got hacked (through hackers finding breaches in other systems, and then comparing that information to guild wars 2 logins), and so email authentication services were put into gear and are currently being spread through the population.

In a reddit post addressing several issues that are currently being worked on, Mike O'Brien, the Founder of ArenaNet, explained that they are keeping the mail system down until email verification is solidly in place. The reason being that hackers can't send player's objects, currency, etc. elsewhere with in-game mail down. It is a good initiative on their part, and after sorting it out, they brought in game mail back up.

While the beginning was a bit rough in a few areas, the game is still amazing. The sound and music, while often ignored, is quite brilliant. It adds a sense of realism; when out in the wild, you hear sound and music appropriate to that area. It is done well enough that many people may not even notice it is there, simply because that is what they expect to hear when out in the forest, or traversing through a snowy wasteland. The music fits the environment, and the sound fits wonderfully with all the various tools, weapons, and hazards the game contains.

The game has had a few rough areas, but with support available around the clock; from

the community team on twitter, to the various programmers that work around the clock, the game is constantly being updated. The wiki is being used as a source of information, providing constant updates about various issues being fixed. Considering all the ups and downs of the launch of the game, and the game itself, ArenaNet has done an excellent job with Guild Wars 2. Minor issues aside, the gameplay, the music, the sound, the story, all of it is superb, and I highly recommend this game to everyone.