Hey all, finally after a few weeks of being away from mmosite.com blogging, I took the time to play GW2 final release. There are some things I wanted to talk about, some things I wanted to scream about, and some things that... well... Just irritate me.

    I started out playing GW2 on the 3 day head start, and I absolutely could NOT wait to play this game. But after rushing to 80, my fears have come true. I remember when playing EQ2 it took me literally 4 years to finally get 2 of my characters to level cap (procrastinating, a lot of grinding, etc). But upon jumping in to GW2, I never thought in my wildest dreams I would hit max level (80) in less than a week. Now, for anyone who thinks that is AMAZING, then let me inform you: Do not rush this game. Take the time to do everything that you need to do in it to keep your character's progress top notch. I started out basically doing all the events and hearts (Public quests) I could do. I hit level 45 after some awesome goofing around with a guild I had created called "Belligerent and Mediocre Family" or BAMF for short. I ran CM (Caudecus's Manor) at 45. Little did I know that this would be the ending of my game time in GW2. I ran CM over and over and over until I started to realize something... I was gaining more and more experience for each time I ran, along with silver from the ending reward. What a mistake. I literally passed up my entire character's progression in less than a 5 days of playing. It took me 2 days of the 5 to hit 80 from level 45. I was sooo excited. I have never maxed leveled a character in under a week! I immediately did some research to determine what it was going to take to build up my character's armor. Low and behold, my father, Graii in game, was a 400 Armorsmith/Weaponsmith so nothing that I needed was unattainable. But I think that was the problem. Everything a crafter can make, is equal, if not better, than more then half the end game gear you can buy for outrageous amounts of Karma. (Karma is currency you get from doing events, WvW, and others.)

    So, upon hitting 80, I got all the Globs of ectoplasm I needed to make the armor. Spent a few hours farming for the Orichalcum Ore that I needed as well, and I got everything made. Where I made the mistake was thinking that the first two stats of armor were the only thing that matters.. Maybe I was just so crazed that I was 80, I overlooked the fact there is a 3rd stat on the gear. Just recently, as of last night around 12:00 am est, I bought 2 salvage kits and salvaged all my armor and weapons. I needed a fresh start in order to find out how I really needed to build my character. Well, I took the money I made from selling the materials and bought rare yellow gear off the trade post so I could get the proper stats. FINALLY! I got exactly what I need to play my warrior effectively PvE, and WvW. But the issue I'm running in to is the fact that now that everything has been "fixed" such as: You cannot multi run dungeons anymore. You cannot expect to get level 80 in a day, and now just about every other zone has a bugged skill point. Now what I mean by "multi run dungeons" is you cannot go in to CM, for example, and run it to get to 80. All zones now have diminishing returns, which means, your loot, your money, and your end reward all decrease the more you run it, almost to the point where you don't get anything.. In no way do I find this irritating, mainly cause I'm 80 now, but, now my dungeon gear is harder to attain. I'm not a player who looks for a hand out by any means, but the changes they have made to the level 80 dungeons have really made this game... Pathetic. Dying is now a MAJOR part of level 80 dungeons. There are places in zones such as CoF, Citadel of Flame, that you have to kite mobs around as a group to pass the event. These mobs spawn incessantly. It's ridiculous.

    One thing I want to talk about is the awesomeness of crafting. I now, in less than 2 days have a 400 Leatherworker, and a 400 Jeweler. Nice to have those crafting professions, love it. And the cool thing is, I only crafted on my alternate character, my Ranger, and she got an easy 15 levels in less than 1 hour. Not bad, I thought it was pretty neat. Now the cool thing about GW2 is the economy. The economy is awesome. Nothing is to ridiculously priced, other than some of the end tier exotic weapons and armor, but everything you need to craft is cheap cheap cheap. I spent maybe, 3 gold, just getting to 400 Leatherworker. That is really almost nothing. So, I have to awesome professions and working on more, and yet, crafting in this game is almost my most favorite thing to do.

My irritations: 1. No end tier content. The end tier content basically consists of either grinding events to get karma, which at this moment there are a crazy amount of AoE bots. You can't get any loot from events because you can't bloody kill anything! 2. All end tier armor is pretty much worthless. You might as well spend the 10-15 gold it takes to make a full set of exotic gear, jewelery and all. 3. WvW/PvP is all that you pretty much have to look forward to after you hit max level. I know this game just got released, but me and my father both agree that this game was released WAY to soon. They should have taken the time to make sure all bugs were fixed, so on and so forth. I understand that usually to test a lot of this stuff they have to release the game, but seriously? Trading post was down for days. That is a major aspect of the game, and the mail was also shut down for an extended amount of time. Both being shut down was a economic catastrophe. People would spam chat with their items expecting people to buy them, yet, they weren't even aware that the mail was down! Arenanet has had to deal with hackers, exploiters, and a lot more since the release. My only question is, why did they not test hacks, exploits, so on before releasing the game? Players don't just magically find this stuff out day of release, they had to look for it. I've enjoyed this game, and I will continue to probably play it on the weekends, but nothing more. Not everyone is a PvP fanatic I hate to say. WvW is actually quite enjoyable, but, I like to spend some time in PvE to really get the knowledge of my character I need before I go in to WvW and start cracking heads. My last irritation is the gold spammers. There are THOUSANDS of them. Thousands of the gold spammers constantly spamming chat with their gold spam. How lame. I know this game is technically Free-to-play, but honestly? Do we really have to make it THAT Free-to-play? I did just spend $65 US to play a game I have been waiting for for awhile now. I trust the Arenanet will have that under wraps in no time. They have been through a lot since release, they have had to fix a ton of stuff and still continuing to do so, and with the hacking and the exploits... To anyone who does that, we appreciate you guys ruining GW2's release for us. You have made it, in my opinion, the worst kick off of any game I have ever played. (It got better, way better) But still....

    Anyway guys, I appreciate you reading my blog, and if you have an opinion or otherwise about the game, you can contact me in game, Arsuul (80 Warrior, Fort Aspenwood) or contact me on here! Thanks!