Anyone else getting bored already? First impressions, LONG

I understand I'm going to receive a lot of flac for posting this but I just feel it has to be said. I'm only lvl 12 and already the game is aging quite badly for me. I'm going to try promptly outline why that is and we could at least try have an honest discussion about it?

First of all, am I mad that I spent the money on the game? Not at all, and I'm certainly not done with the game so this isn't a ragequit.

Here we go.

I'm impressed, I really am impressed with a lot of things regarding the game. I'm impressed by the level of polish, the graphics, I love the cutscenes, I love the amount of focus on PvP (and RvR) and I quite enjoy the way dynamic events work.

Now on to the bad, might as well make it in list form for simplicity.

1) Combat feels odd, maybe I need to get used to it but it just doesn't feel right to me. It feels a lot closer to button mashing than actual twitch skill. It feels a lot tighter in PvE but the minute you start doing instanced PvP and WvW it turns far too chaotic and turns into a button mashing fest (imo). Combat isn't given room to breath whatsoever. Having played both DAoC extensively and Vanilla WoW both games had a feel and imo made it alot easier to read enemy skills and it felt like combat was a alot more about tact and timing than getting your abilities out as quickly as you can. In short, whenever I **** another player it doesn't actually feel like it had anything to do with my skills just unavoidable game mechanics.

The whole downed state takes away from the experiances if you ask me, call me old fashioned but I guess I wouldn't have minded some more defined roles for classes instead of this idea that they all ultimately are doing the same thing. Trying to put out as much stat effectiveness as quickly as possible.

On a whole, combat feels clumsy, not tight. The auto-attack ability on 1 feels especially *****.

2) PvE, we're still chasing the carrot. as I mentioned I'm only lvl 12 but I don't see the difference in PvE between this game and warhammer online. It's old and dated mechanic given a slight facelift. Remember the very first dynamic event you did? Felt pretty cool right? Just went downhill from there. It's a bit like the transformers movies, I don't care anymore.

You know what I liked about GW1? I liked that the missions actually felt like they pushed the story forward and required skill. I liked the way enemies would start attacking you the minute they came on the screen. It added excitement, it made zones feel dangerous. GW2 IMO is a step back from that, we're back to being able to tip toe around reds in zones and mobs feel and act stupidly just sort of wandering around aimlessly in zones. It feels like you should be grinding them, or ignoring them. Doesn't feel right, feels odd and cheap.

I guess that's why dungeons and instances feel like the only tolerable bit of PvE because it feel you are actually fighting through to get to the other side.

Nothing in the PvE system feels new so far. Honestly with the exception of dynamic events this is step backwards and nothing you couldn't have experianced in warhammer online, which is universally rated as bad.

3) Crafting feels forced and boring. It wasn't until I got to about lvl 9 or so that I realized why I didn't like it. I was a lvl or 2 behind what I should have been which felt odd to me because I had literally done every single quest, found every point of itnerested and done every vista etc. The minute I realized how much exp I was missing out on because I didn't want to do crafting I realized that if I wanted to playthrough the game without having to zonehop or grind I was going to need to do the same boring crafting that everyone else was doing. Nothing to scream about here, I guess if you enjoy the same old crafting mechanics that we've seen since everquest then you won't mind this, except now you don't really have a choice.

Now on to the big one and the only reason I bought this game in the first place. The PvP/WvW

4) The mists - instanced PvP is easy. Am I master? Nope. Irrelevant to me, didn't take me more than 10 rounds or so to realize what was going on. It's a game of nonstop movement and nonstop button mashing. There is very little thought required (if any) and there is no excitement because ***** has barely any consequence whatsoever.

I'm going to do something odd here and make a comparison to a game i think a lot of people have played, League of legends. You know what made the game fun? It was that it really wasn't over until it was over, at any minute the game could switch based on a single act of skill or lack thereof. A bit like DAoC, running in emain with your guild? One bad engage and you could lose a keep because the downtime was big, 1 good mez and you could beat twice the amount of players you were facing etc. There was real excitement, there were gamebreaking abilities to look out for. It was more than about fps-styled stat effectiveness.

All in all, it feels okish at best, mundane in a way. Get the objective, spam your spell on the enemy infront of you, dodge a bit, die, rinse repeat. Do this faster and a bit more than the enemy and you win, I could be wrong but "tactics" didn't feel like a big part of it. Just stay close a bit together and focus target, if you start taking damage evade away and heal yourself and do it again. The downed state feels more infuriating than the "keep the combat exciting and fast-paced" which is probably what the mechanic was intended for.

5 ) WvW - Without a doubt the bit of the game I'm most impressed with. If anyone played DaoC it heavily reminds of RvR combat from there. Sadly not the best kind, it reminds of the NEW FRONTIERS except slightly more watered down. It's very zergy, it's very standoffy. It's quite cool, it's not what emain was.

The main problem is that it feels so impersonal. There's no actual player pride. Examples.

FPS games - A skilled guy kills 5 enemies quickly, everyone sees it. They go damn that guy is good, he can earn a name for himself etc.

Daoc - Stand at border keep see 'Player a has ****** player x, player y, player z...' etc spammed. Everyone knows a skilled guild just facerolled another one etc or pro duo managed to **** some players trying to get to their zerg or something etc.

From what I've seen there won't be any of that in GW2. YOu will be beating on gates and zerging, that's about it. Numbers and time will be rewarded heavily. You'll rez a few ppl, cast a few AoE spells and knock down a few gates. It doesn't feel engaging, it doesn't feel like it is going to hold anyones interest for more than a few weeks. Class mechanics and the downed system really detract from the experiance here, health bars heave no bearing because even if they're at 50%, they're not actually at 50%. They've taken out the classic rock>scissors>papers of class mechanics and as a result everything feels bland and homogenized IMO.

CONCLUSION. This is a great game, especially for people new to the genre but it's catering too much to casual gamers with a lot of time on their hands. It's trying to do everything at once and as a result the whole experiance is a bit, meh. If you've played other MMOs I think everything is going to feel to familiar all a bit too soon and WvW just isn't engaging enough to hold your attention for 4-5+ years the way a game like DAoC did IMO.

I'll keep playing but I'm honestly surprised by how quickly that "Whoa" factor feel off in about 3 days of gaming. No raging from pre-teens please, if I'm wrong then I want to discuss how. If the game drastically changes later on then tell me how. I will be playing this game and I want it to succeed, I didn't hype it at all and I'm still sorely disappointed. Daoc, Guild wars 1 and world of warcraft were all more revolutionary games for their time if you ask me.