Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns [Online Game Code]

Not a great expansion. While the game has been declining since launch, I still had hopes an expansion would make it better. First off for a cosmetic game with pretty poor class balance, adding a new class and not a new race (cosmetic) is pretty absurd. It's almost like they said 'we don't know how to balance theif, so lets give it heavy armor and call it a revenant'. The fractal rewards almost made me do fractals again, but then what's this? time gated legendary content. For a game developer who was so far up it's own *** with "we don't want you to be on this treadmill or chasing a carrot on a stick with gear grinds" they made the most blatant and obvious carrot on a stick with this legendary fractal back piece. It's literally 'collect 28 fractal pages and make a book'. great. no problem. oh you're limited to getting 2 pages a day through daily quests and need to make 3 or 4 total books. So Log into good ole' Guild Wars 2 every day for the next 40 something days and do your dailies! The rest of the collection for the legendary is near braindead easy. I can finish the main parts of the collection on a Saturday afternoon with casual playing, you forcing me to take 40+ days to complete it doesn't make this collection "LEGENDARY". It's a ****** carrot on a stick way worse than any gear grind i've done in other MMOs.the 3 new zones in Maguuma could have been cool. But again, are literally the biggest grind fests i've ever seen in a game, and the community is so busysniffing it's own farts like "THIS GAME ISN'T LIKE WOW YOU DON'T GRIND" that it doesn't even see this. The 3 zones have tons of 'new' events. which, aren't new at all. there is 1 big meta event per zone, defend the city, take out multiple zone wide bosses, and stop the dragon head. to get to this end meta even you go through a ton of normal sized events. Which again, are all 'new'. They are the same escort mission, collect garbage off the ground and hand it to an NPC, kill X of the creatures or defend this little circle for 3:00 type of events that have been in the game since launch. Putting plant like enemies in there instead of ascalonian ghosts doesn't make that a new event. Each of these zones has it's own currency system (thanks for listening Anet, we all wanted MORE currency types.) which you obtain by doing these little and meta events. The rewards with these currencies usually aren't even good. Tonics that transform you into one of the new mobs (so this item can be labeled as "NEW REWARD", when in reality tonics have existed, and the creature was added in the expansion but all they did was give you an item to turn you into something they were already putting into the game so really why is this a new reward?) And new mini pets (same deal, mini pets are old, and they just made mini's of the new mobs) all for this new currency for you to grind out. So the 3 new zones exist for you to literally grind away at hundreds of times (the price on some of the collection items is insane, taking weeks of pure grinding to obtain) to get parts of collection quests. The new expansion brings along I think 2 new sets of armor? (light medium and heavy variations for each) and 3 or so new weapon sets. about a month after the xpnasion launches and there have been twice that number of armor and weapon skins released for microtransactions, which completely coutners the whole "Anet needs to make money somehow" argument that people use because again, if this is a COSMETIC based game then why is every new cosmetic behind a paywall? Why cant you release cosmetics in the expansion people can work towards instead of it always being on the microtransaction store. All in all I would not recommend this, the only reason to get this expansion is to play the revenant class which is WILDLY overpowered, seriously bordering on pay 2 win. heavy armor, great survivability through many healing abilities and blocks like a guardian, evades and invulnerability frames like a thief and braindead easy boon sharing support for your entire party.hangliding is a joke of a mechanic that was done right in some games like cubeworld but GW2? seriously. Anet is trying WAY too hard to be a different non generic MMO that it's just disappointing. it's like "EVERYONE ELSE HAS MOUNTS LETS DO ... HANGLIDERS." it's like the most hipster MMO you can play for that reason "QUESTS!? EVERYONE HAS QUESTS LET'S DO A TERRIBLE EVENT SYSTEM THAT FEELS HUGELY UNREWARDING!". Like no one was complaining that mounts were not fun, and yet Anet has this mentality of "it's been done before so it's bad." no. hangliding is bad. it's not difficult to climb to a tall peak and hanglide off of it to get to a certain part of the zone only accesible through hangliding. it's tedious. not difficult. like this entire game.

I picked up Guild Wars 2 when it first came out, and at the time, thought it was only okay. I returned to the game a few months ago, and I have to say it has improved substantially. Many of the old mechanics have been modified/improved (added way points, loyalty bonuses, exploration bonuses) and there have been some great additions, like gliding. I really like how Heart of Thorns got rid of the cut scenes for story progression, as it feels more natural, and thus gives a more immersive experience. The addition of the mastery point system for max level characters is great. Nearly everything important is linked to the account (magic find, masteries, outfits, boon-bearing items, etc.) The lack of a subscription fee is very nice. The gem shop offers some cosmetic/minor game-enhancing items for a dollar amount. None of these are necessary to enjoy the game, but I can see why many folks would choose to spend some bucks on these items (mostly bag/character/bank slot increases, account-wide inventory slots, etc.)Some of the most attractive features for me are the map events, the fact that you never really "outgrow" a zone, and the sharing of resources and kills. The map events keep things fresh, and provide decent rewards upon completion. If you were to enter say a "starting zone," you'd "level-down" to the appropriate level. Of course, your abilities and improved help out and you will be more powerful than other low-bes, but you'll still earn experience and rewards. Finally, the fact that everyone can mine the same nodes, chop the same trees, and gather the same herbs is wonderful. There are no "tagging of mobs," either. If you land a hit, you get full experience and access to the drops. These features give Guild Wars 2 a more pleasant play experience than some other popular MMO's (WoW, I'm looking at you!)Ultimately, I'm really enjoying the game.

There was nothing wrong with this download. I purchased two of these, one for my PC and the other for my fiance's Mac. We both already had the free version of the game and a free account with Guild Wars 2. Both downloads worked great. Right after I verified my purchases I was given a long code that I simply signed into my Guild Wars Account in my browser and typed in. It was very very simple, no waiting for the game. You do then have to wait for it to download, but that didn't even take that long for it to become playable and continue to download in the background. This is why I give the download game code 5 stars. It worked exactly how it was supposed to.As for the game itself. When I first discovered this game, I was amazed I had never tried it before. It was innovative and enthralling. I couldn't stop playing it! Finally, a game without redundant quests and long runs back and forth. Guild Wars 2 is still a very awesome game because of how unique it is. With that said, we both quickly tired with the game. Even though it is different than others and there are constant achievements you are working towards, it still started to feel like we were repeating the same things. On top of that, the dungeon system was a little confusing for people new to the game. We couldn't even find people willing to do the first story mode of the dungeon so we could start doing it regular. My advice if you're looking at this game. Download the free to play part. Play it. For a while. Long enough to get to your first dungeon, I believe 30. You don't really need the expansion for all of that anyways. See if it's something that momentarily holds your interest or is a keeper before paying for the expansion.