DeviousJinjo
2012
GW2 is really interesting. It's basically an MMO that hates MMOs. When treated as a huge single player or small group co-op game with occasional updates, it's a great experience. The world is awesome and lovingly crafted. The art style is fantastic and the music is great. The main storyline of the base game is extremely hit and miss, and as a disclaimer, I haven't played any of the expansions so I'm not prepared to talk about them.
If you're looking for something in the vein of WoW, you will not find it here. GW2 absolutely despises the idea of a gear treadmill, so vertical character progression is almost nonexistent beyond level cap. Raids were a very late addition (not even in the base game) and a very hesitant one. There is essentially no incentive to repeatedly run a dungeon unless you fancy the particular armor skins available from it. There is no "holy trinity" of roles in GW2. This means no healers coordinating with tanks, no dps doing anything specific to help out those healers, etc. It's just a group of people jumping around doing their own thing and trying not to die. The actual cooperation between players is almost nil, and encounter design is very limited by this foundation.
Truthfully, I think GW2 fails as an MMO, but not as a game. Just do not go to GW2 if you're looking for a WoW replacement.
If you're looking for something in the vein of WoW, you will not find it here. GW2 absolutely despises the idea of a gear treadmill, so vertical character progression is almost nonexistent beyond level cap. Raids were a very late addition (not even in the base game) and a very hesitant one. There is essentially no incentive to repeatedly run a dungeon unless you fancy the particular armor skins available from it. There is no "holy trinity" of roles in GW2. This means no healers coordinating with tanks, no dps doing anything specific to help out those healers, etc. It's just a group of people jumping around doing their own thing and trying not to die. The actual cooperation between players is almost nil, and encounter design is very limited by this foundation.
Truthfully, I think GW2 fails as an MMO, but not as a game. Just do not go to GW2 if you're looking for a WoW replacement.
If there's one thing MoP deserves praise for, it's its content cycle. MoP was supported very, very well with good patch content at a very good cadence. The music also deserves huge props.
I admit, I played very little of MoP, and that holds true for any expansion in the post LFR age of WoW. I consider everything after Cataclysm to be "modern" WoW, and I can't enjoy it the way I do the stuff that precedes it. As far as "modern" WoW expansions go though, MoP is solid.
I admit, I played very little of MoP, and that holds true for any expansion in the post LFR age of WoW. I consider everything after Cataclysm to be "modern" WoW, and I can't enjoy it the way I do the stuff that precedes it. As far as "modern" WoW expansions go though, MoP is solid.
2006
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2012
Oblivion is a beautiful, hand-crafted sandbox full of lovable weirdos and their interesting quests. It is calming, and it is hilarious. It is also repetitious and eventually tedious. The world may be prettier than Morrowind's, but it leans a bit too hard on its copying and pasting tools. Caves in particular are a bit too similar and Oblivion gates get old pretty much immediately. More importantly the well-intentioned power-scaling goes somewhat horribly awry. Sure, it keeps enemies threatening as the game goes on, but is it really anything positive when every enemy is now a troll that takes eleven thousand hits to kill? Most players just run past every enemy that they can, and they're right to do so.
The joys of exploring this quirky little world ultimately overpower these flaws. Its quests are at least as interesting as those of Morrowind, and it is free from that game's most most craven old-schoolisms. Is it BETTER than Morrowind? I can't say that, but I see the two roughly as equals... and I think they're both better than Skyrim.
The joys of exploring this quirky little world ultimately overpower these flaws. Its quests are at least as interesting as those of Morrowind, and it is free from that game's most most craven old-schoolisms. Is it BETTER than Morrowind? I can't say that, but I see the two roughly as equals... and I think they're both better than Skyrim.
2013