I am lvl 80 you can log in and check ---> Jindrax.9680
Secondly I played 'till lvl 80 because I was hoping I would discover that I'm an idiot and figure out that I was playing the game wrong, or I'll unlock something or w.e. You can't judge a game before you complete it. So I got to lvl 80 at I still didnt like it.
I truly don't understand that. Getting to lvl 80 takes a long time, and if you ABSOLUTELY HATED EVERYTHING.
HATED EVERYTHING.
Then I don't understand why you would even stick with it, out of curiousity. Just smells weird to me.
Now for the rest of your rebuttal.
My opinion on the auctionhouse I actualy got it from something I saw on Joystiq.
http://massively.joystiq.com/2013/04...dgame-economy/
So yeah... not inventing that.
I find it bizarre that you are using an article by an analyst saying its economy is broken. You wrote it like it was your own agenda, but it sounds like you have not used it a lot then.
Nope, it's true, if you sell a green item, it will be one more copper than selling to a vendor. Why does this mean that the economy is broken? The game has an absolute INSANE pre-fix abundance of loot drops. Pre-lvl 80 gear is so easily to come buy by just playing, that's is a pure fallacy to declare it broken just because nobody can sell such a common thing for not profit. It's not World of Warcraft, it doesn't try to be. This games end of all is not stats.
Instead it has a much deeper crafting system, and along with that comes the flipping of items. Buying materials, making something, exchanging things to something else, combining materials, then selling them. As well as playing the market.
Like a real world economy you cant find everyone to agree on what that should be. But there are lots of ways of making money by playing. Salaving your greens and blue items, then selling the materials you get along with upgrades, or building them into other items that have value.
The thing I don't understand is, that how can you have played this game to lvl 80 without realizing these things? It comes so intuitively that it should come as no surprise, yet you seem to not think so, as you are linking to external opinions.
And the whether the skills in guild wars one were slightly different of even duplicates of eichother is beside the point. You had the possibility of equiping two skills that did x dmg and costed 5 energy. Sometimes having dupes was handy. Of the top of my head the Savanah's heat build was based on that... And the Balanced stance Warrior too.
Both of these builds were the meta game at a point in HA. And about the " you couldn't tell the difference visualy which skills your enemy was using anyway ". Who cares? it was pvp. You could recognize the build he was using and counter it. As for the Runes. Yeah those were in gw1 too. And they were used better.
My point is they dumbed it down. A lot. I even remember reading an interview from one of the devs saying he wasnted it to appeal to new players. Because I do agree, you couldn't just jump in Guild Wars 1. You had to know what build, what armor, what weapons, which upgrades and runes or you basically played alone or with other noobs.
I think that last part is completely true, and it was one of the reasons why PvP in GW1 never became Starcraft-popular in Korea.
Barrier of entry was high. The game was complex, but mostly because of bloating, and IMO just adding filler is not a substitute for not having fewer skills that looks, feels and controls much better.
Plus with the inter-combos between skills, as well as the runes, which I completely disgress have been dumbed down in this game. The effects of the runes in this game completely ups the anty on everything. It's very very deep, and has lots of possibilities.
I do think it's an atricious mistake to have skills that look similar. When a skill looses it's uniqueness or ability to stand out or feel like it's own, the only identifier you have is looking at bars and icons under the HP of your enemy. And then you are not looking at the game. your not looking at the characters moves and animations.
And I say: SCREW THAT. I don't wanna look at a interface to tell me what is going on. I love the system in GW2, and while I am eagerly anticipating them adding more skills, I think Its a big improvement all together.
Combined with the active combat tools(dodging/rolling) a better line-of-sight system, I think you end up with a much more fulfilling combat system.
For me, the strangeness of GW2 revolves around the "downed state" skills, which I feel was added to the game (along with underwater skills) to simply increase the number of skills.
It's just like with a good first person shooter. They tend to have fewer weapons, yet feel much more satisfactory to shoot. Quality over quantity.
And just to make a point...
this is the list of guild wars 2 ranger skills. And note: the first 20 skills are based on which weapon you have in your hand... and you can equip a maximum of 2(as ranger) so that's a choice of 10 ( which you don't even choose they're assigned auto of you equip a longbow, sword, etc)
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_ranger_skills
This on the other hand in the list of skills in Guild Wars1 regardless of which weapon you have equiped and you can choose ALL OF THEM
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/List_of_ranger_skills
I know. I have over 1K hours logged into GW1 myself.
However, I don't feel that much difference, as GW1 had lots of filler skills. Skills that had to specific or narrow focus, and many of the skills felt, looked and reacted the same, making the game boring to look at.
In GW2, they have made your skills count and work. Your weapon type describes your class focus. The skills on the longbow is a completely different feel of a class and role in a group compared to the skills of a shortbow.
And the skills of a longbow on a Warrior and the skills of a shortbow on the thief, spices up things as well, serving different roles. Then your other weapon dictates your secondary class.
Want the gap closer? Take the Sword! Want the AoE? take the off hand axe! Warhorn, torch, dagger all give you something different too.
Complexity for the sake of complexity is dumb. And GW1 was to convoluted for it's own good. It's a big misconception to run around and think = abundance of choice is just the 1337. Thats the biggest strawman of them all.
I say its much better to have a better designed system with more choice or possibility to roam withhin that realm.