Update - Thursday, July 7, 2011

I've only done the first couple of quests, but from the stated purpose of cleansing the city it makes sense that they are kill x quests. Like many have said this is only the first part and there is nothing that says we have to do it. I've enjoyed what I've done so far and look forward to the challenges that others have talked about.

While the new quest are as most point out tedious and repetitve...I do applaud the new afflicted skill sets/usage. Their use of SoA is top notch, enabling them to stick around long enough for persuant mobs to overrun poorly prepared groups even in nm.

It would be nice if there was an added touch like the confessors orders and or possible mini drops that WiK had...but oh well.

I think a lot of the response has a lot to do with the level of anticipation growing too high over too much time. Ramping up too much anticipation can backfire...and appears to have done so with this release. Idk....maybe this is all tired talk...as it is early and I am only up to go fishing>woc.

I've done them all. Apart from the flavoring in the form of dialogue, you only have elements of:
-travel to/talk to (same thing)
-make sure X lives (sometimes X being you)
-kill enemy Y
-pick up item Z and deliver to W

I actually doubt I've missed any. The whole game is all about combat. So, by combat you achieve your goal. It's not a puzzle game.

All else is flavoring. But that flavoring is the important part!

I haven't played the WoC yet, 1 more hour of work before I can, but that the quests are made of these components is not a problem - that's probably the engine's limitation. It's whether there is enough flavoring that is the issue.

Most certainly, however, any properties of GW1's quests do not imply anything, since GW2 takes a different approach to the way these things are done.

You are doing pve. What are you guys expecting? You killed mobs in proph, you killed mobs in factions, you killed mobs in nightfall, you killed mobs in eotn. And now you expect there to be something more to it? Either you enjoy this or it's time to move on from pve.

So, am I the only one who kind of expected/hoped to get Imperial faction as one of rewards for new quests?

Anyone else noticed that the allies such as Zan Hei will spawn outside the outpost with you despite which one you started from. That's a nice touch

No he won't. He spawns only if you have a respectable area quest active.

I mean, it doesnt matter which outpost you start from he will spawn next to you if you have the quest

I think BenjZee meant that you could enter a quest-related explorable from any direction and he'd be there.

The quests are pretty much standard GW1 fare. Of course, so were WiK's, save for a few later on....I'm having a hard time figuring out why WiK was so much more exciting for me. In any case, I'm positive we'll have more "interesting" mechanics later on in the series, just like WiK, but for now, I'm at least enjoying the challenge of some well-designed skillbars.

I must say, I'm really liking WoC so far. Finally fun mobs using fun builds. Normal mode is a nice level, cruised through it, but you do need to invest some in builds, just the way I like it. I honestly don't understand the complaining about the level, just take some time figuring out your builds.

And about the 'its only killing stuff', like others have said, thats what PvE is. Killing stuff. I honestly don't understand what they expected, building a flying machine to follow the rainbow for adventure? Beside that, everyone is fairly early with the moaning and complaining, we've only got a few quests thus far.

I guess the big question is: will we need the Ministerial Commendations to get the Imperial Weapons? Otherwise im just gonna sell them for the current ridiculous price.

I have a hunch that in the next updates we'll get a npc which let's you trade Ministerial Commendations into Imperial ones at certain ratio.

My impression after completing the 17 quest, quest chain:

Overall I have to say I'm finding WoC quite boring. I don't mean to just shit on a free update, and I don't want to sound ungrateful, but my current opinion is that these quests are just boring.

The quest can pretty much be summed up to, go kill these afflicted, or go kill these jade. The majority of the quests don't even have anything special that you are killing, just some random afflicted/jade groups. In WiK at least it seemed like you had more of a goal with who you were killing.

Along with the rather boring tasks of the quests, I found the new skill bars to also be boring/annoying. Doing the 17th quest on a warrior was pain. The number of weapons being cast on people, the sources of blind, and prevention of adrenaline gain was a bit much. I didn't not find the fights to be much more challenging, but rather elongated and boring.

The rewards for the quest are all the same, or close to it. Currently the only use for the Ministerial Commendation is for the purple weapons with recycled skins. I don;t mind the fact that they are allowing people to get old skins with inscriptions, but it doesn't feel like we are discovering anything new. In WiK, the rewards were much more interesting. With items like the Royal Gift, at least it seemed like we were discovering new items. Obviously there is more to come, but the rewards for part 1 are lacking any excitement.

This isn't specific to WoC only, but I am not currently a fan of having both NM and HM versions of the quests. I know this was implemented because people had been requesting a challenge, but the option was already there. If people really wanted a challenge, they could just do the same quests and go out in HM. If the fact that there was no extra reward for it was holding you back, than was it really the challenge you were seeking out anyway? Obviously there is nothing telling me I need to do both versions of the quest, but I just don't think this is something time should be focused on.

So in the end I have completed the quest chain on one character but I do not feel the motivation to did it on another. My thoughts are that WoC is pretty boring and is currently nothing special. For me WiK at least gave me that feeling that we were discovering something new. I don't want to come across like I am just hating on ANet for what they released, I'm just voicing my opinion of what I have seen so far. The fact that we have gotten some new, free content is great, I just hope it will get more exciting than we are seeing so far.

Edit:

Rather than just coming across negative about the al of the updated I figured I'd share a few thoughts on what I liked as well.

The larger afflicted bosses were a nice touch. Although it wasn't much, it gave a little meaning to the quest in my opinion. Just the fact that they were bosses and quite a bit larger made them feel new and exciting.

I ok with the purple recycled skins as rewards, I just wish that was not all we were seeing right now. In WiK we got MoH to trade for weapons as well as decent gold, experience, and gifts as our rewards. This time the gold amount isn't too much, and we are getting one item that we know of only one use for. If we are not interested in the purple skins, the rewards for the quest now become meaningless.

The new costumes and npc seem pretty cool. It's nice to see that they did spend some time on creating new character models rather than just recycling for all of the content.

I'm still excited to see where this goes, and hopefully part 2 will pick up my interest once again. It's great that we received some new content, but right now it's just missing that something to make it exciting and special. At this time though, I will just go back to what I was previously doing in GW, or playing other games all together.

Free new content is great because it's free and new. Plus: getting inscribable daggers that deal blunt damage and look like two sword is worth hacking through the damn Dragon Throat (and killing billion Jade Brotherhood practice dummies), isn't it?

I'm dissapointed with WoC so far and it seems to me that the Hard Mode versions are almost exactly the same save for a 2 level boost.

Haven't started WoC, how about Banishing Strike for those spirits? The costumes look nice, but I learned my lesson linking a Guild Wars account. They need to make the e-mail changeable again.

Don't forget move and attack 33-50% faster, elite skills on every bar, and reduced activation times. The enemies are under a constant consumable set

Read the thread, it was already stated that rather then the HM mobs being harder, they made more of them. Since the putrid explosions from more foes dying would be more of a challenge then just better mobs.

After some sleep and thinking back about all the quests. The cleansing ones are the only ones i have an issue with. If they had made 1 cleansing in the city, kurzick and luxon area it would have been the same thing. The quest to kill the bosses in the kurzick area was fun as it was unique!

That being said though the following quest chains with the Jade brotherhood were great fun with the giant groups and 100's of enemies to kill. And the story is looking good also, cant argue with a cliffhanger.

Cant wait for part 2!!! though I still have 9 characters to do part 1 on.

... oh and the hard mode ones!

I'm also finding this 'epic piece of content' underwhelming. The new build are plain annoying and OP as normal when used with buffed monster attributes. All it does is mean you have to use standard OP builds to counter them (with a few variants like ench removal). Nothing special frankly.

Enemy skills will either be too easy or annoying. Because if you get interrupted that's annoying. Its just like the weather, the sun must shine, but once its shining its too hot.

I'm having trouble finishing the Dragon's Throat quest. Because of sheer boredom. I've gone afk twice now, and I have a feeling I'm not even half way. It drags on and on and on, without variation. Going to have a bite to eat now and hope to still be connected when I get back to it because I don't have it in me to start over.

If I were to get to a boss and the fight is longer and has some annoying aspects to it such as rupts I would be fine with that. What is making the WoC quests boring is that it is every single encounter. The last quest was so boring for this. The fact that there were so many weapon spells, over healing, proting, blind, reduced adrenaline/attack speed etc was not fun. At the end for fighting a boss it would have been fine, still annoying, but fine. For every fight it is no longer a challenge at all. It just made for boring, dragged out battles.

After reading so many pages of complaints i feel depressed now.Are you people ever gonna be happy about anything in this game ? Good lord....

Since I'm lazy and this pretty much nails it;
QFT:

I've found the HM versions easier then when i did them in NM , i am yet to use any type on consumables and i'm pretty happy about it so, especialyl the ending we shouldve seen coming. I'm not too much a fan of how am i sposed to do Cho's mission in hard mode though,

thb you cant really fault them. didnt they say it wouldnt be like wik? with the travel to spot kill rinse repeat? (cant remember if they did or not) but i really wanna know if i can repear these quests (even thought i dont) on the same char? and i dont mean hm. cause i only have 8 girls and at 15 minst. chits per weapon it will be hard to get all the ones i want. and already i see them being sold at high prices on and off guru. o.o

I think you mean it would be more of a challenge for the Live Team to make mobs better than simply just make more mobs. It is the Guild Wars way. Rather than create better opponents, they just create more opponents forcing players into niche builds and play styles rather than encouraging intelligent use of balanced parties and builds.

This pretty much sums up my thoughts.

The rewards are underwhelming and the quests are boring with no storyline besides we need to clean up here and there so go kill them. As for the rewards, we have to do 15 quests to get a purple weapon that we have to slot our own mods, big deal. I don't care about weapon skins anyway. They have the same mods as any max weapon anywhere else. The WiK quests are more generous and better done than these, which look like rushed jobs.

i did 5 quests or something(thx to my old laptop , my pc is in store for a SSD ) and my feeling about is that WoC is good IF you got a good group combo, use 2 healers instead of 2 mesmers :P
but nerfs are welcome for me (i'm not a whine kid thats thinks its to hard)

You know, i only have one pve character and i no longer replay the missions...

So that means...i erase all those annoying afflicted PERMANENTLY. I never EVER have to see one of them again! No more exploding meatbags!

This is so much fun if you have the right mindset:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0BWU...eature=related

Tbh clearing it makes vanq easier and faster

You can't look at all criticism as negative. We are players simply voicing our opinion about the content that was released. It's not about trashing the game or saying that Anet is doing a bad job. Its about pushing them to do better. If someone gives you free food, and its moldy, are you going to just be happy about it and eat it? Without letting people know what you think, they aren't going to know what you like or dislike. Voicing your opinion is extremely important if you care at all about something.

That being said, yes some people are just going to talk shit about the update for the sake of it. Does this do much good? No, just plain trashing something will put Anet on the defensive, where we should actually be want them to step it up a little. Anet isn't doing a bad job, and the WoC update doesn't doesn't suck, it just needs that extra kick to making it interesting and meaningful.

So yes , exactly like i said few months ago , it's few quests boring and repetitive, and a way to introduce new costumes....

I am quite disappointed though with the rewards ( which are for most items that weren't really inscribable ) and the quests , which are really all the same and have 0 originality ...

I found War in kryta amazing , hearts of the north less good but still correct , but this is just not fun and pure hack and slashing

I was two quests away from finishing WiK on my main when WoC came out.
Now, after six WoC quests, a few contrasting issues stick out.

1) WiK felt like a natural progression from the Proph/EoTN storylines, especially after Evennia's and Livia's dialogue in each.
WoC seems trumped up, since the only after-party dialogue in Factions was "Live a long, and fruitful life." from the Envoys.

2) Because of that natural progression and anticipation, I already had a vested interest in Kryta's fate, since it was basically left on a cliffhanger.
With Shiro's death, it seemed like Cantha would be fine and dandy from then on, even though the Lux/Kurz war was still going on.

3) WiK has an overarching plot goal, easily determined from the start: Defeat the White Mantle and reinstate Salma as queen.
The goals in WoC seem conflated and confusing, even though we know it's main point is to segway into GW2.

Also, Kryta > Kaineng, hardcore.
How many of us were soooooo glad to get the hell out of that endless city when we first played through Factions, and rejoiced at seeing Pongmei Valley?


On a positive note, WoC has one potentially amazing one-up on WiK:
WoC happens over an entire continent.
I say potentially, because this could mean the content is epic in scale.
OR it could mean WoC is going to be a bloated mass of pointless overpowered mob busting.

Personally I enjoyed Winds of Change Part: 1 a lot more than War in Kryta (except for the Battle for Lions Arch). It feels right as the next part of Cantha's progression that we remove the afflicted. So much of the campaign's story as well as many of the quests were built around the huge problem that was the afflicted. By removing them from every map in Cantha I actully felt like I was doing something that was more meaningful than defeating a big bad guy.

I'll admit the actual gameplay was pretty generic, but at this stage of the game, everything they do is going to be generic; there are no new combat scenarios to create in a 6+ years old game. I do wish they had a lot more story tied into the scenes we did see; giving some of the Ministry of Purity members names and personalities during the fights wouldn't have taken a lot of time and would have kept me more invested in what was going on, but I do appreciate that there is a subtle story being told with Initiate Zei Ri and his reasons for doing the things he does.



Having said all that, I was just glad to return to Cantha and accomplish something there. It was always my favourite campaign and cleaning out the city of afflicted and seeing the power vacuum that created with the new mobs that moved in was rewarding enough. I wonder how long we will have to wait for part two?

so far its tidious and uninspiring.Hopefully the 2nd set of quests have something too do,not just killing reused mobs with pvx bars in the same old areas

I'm wondering when exactly does the Jade Sea begin to melt?

I said when WOC was first talked about that nothing good could come from a Ministry of Purity. Nothing in the quests has convinced me otherwise.

Overall it's not bad. No, I was not thrilled with all the cleansing quests but I did really enjoy the last 5 of the chain. Probably won't do it more than 1 character on each of my 2 accounts and maybe once in hm. But it was good enough entertainment for one time through.

I am a bit confused though - 17 quests from the ministry of purity and 3 quests from the imperial guard (2 of which no one seems to be able to access). That only adds up to 20 quests - 40 when you figure in hm. I though there were supposed to be 42 including hm version. So we seem to be one quest short.