29th June 2005, 3:54 PM
Oh, WoW is a fine game, but GW is fantastic and one of the best games I've played in years... I played beta probably 150 hours and now I'm 80+ hours into the release version (after having it for a month; they reset characters before launch.) and definitely still loving it... sure, I might not play it every day for the next fifteen years, but without a monthly fee I don't have to... I just have to play it and have a huge amount of fun doing it, which I do.
And besides, it's a fantastic, fantastic game. As for running around and running into people, sure, there's something to be said for that... but there is also something to be said for doing quests which actually feel like single-player RPG quests ("kill fifteen enemies of type X (which continually respawn) and return" is not an example of that, for instance... in GW they don't respawn unless you leave the zone. And most of the quests are more interesting than that (they do often involve getting to locations and talking to people, but because of the game structure this is a challenging thing... you can't just run forward, wait for other people to clear the path, and beat the area without fighting anything, as you could in a WoW (which means such games cannot do "get to location X" quests much)... and that's just one example.), and something to be said for easy, very fun PvP arenas, and for being able to go where you want quickly (via maptravel), and having a deep, well-balanced skill system, etc, etc... if you really wanted to press me for flaws, all I can think of is that the story has some logic flaws in it. But it's still pretty good so I can easily look past that. It's awesome. :)
And besides, it's a fantastic, fantastic game. As for running around and running into people, sure, there's something to be said for that... but there is also something to be said for doing quests which actually feel like single-player RPG quests ("kill fifteen enemies of type X (which continually respawn) and return" is not an example of that, for instance... in GW they don't respawn unless you leave the zone. And most of the quests are more interesting than that (they do often involve getting to locations and talking to people, but because of the game structure this is a challenging thing... you can't just run forward, wait for other people to clear the path, and beat the area without fighting anything, as you could in a WoW (which means such games cannot do "get to location X" quests much)... and that's just one example.), and something to be said for easy, very fun PvP arenas, and for being able to go where you want quickly (via maptravel), and having a deep, well-balanced skill system, etc, etc... if you really wanted to press me for flaws, all I can think of is that the story has some logic flaws in it. But it's still pretty good so I can easily look past that. It's awesome. :)