I've put many hours into MHW since my last post. Here's some thoughts:

-I didn't expect an amazing story, but the story in the game is very shallow and stupid IMO (haven't finished the game yet - basing my opinion on what I've seen thus far)
-the graphics consistently 'wow' me
-the game IS grindy, but it doesn't feel like a horrible grind as Komo said earlier... at least when playing with other people.
-playing the game solo is boring IMO and very tedious
-the online multiplayer / matchmaking for MHW on Steam is so shitty and needs fixed badly. frequent disconnects, all sorts of issues trying to play with friends, etc
-two players in the same session wanting to join someone else's quest/investigation/expedition/etc can often not view the same hosted games... it's all screwed up
-requiring all players to be past cut scenes to play a quest co-op is stupid and means that one person either needs to constantly be ahead of the next or sometimes two friends who play together simply have to take some time doing stuff solo because the game is dumb
-certain game mechanics only work sporadically / unpredictably, like mounting monsters
-lots of game information regarding crafting and whatnot is not explained at all in the game and unless you want to waste a lot of time and materials you basically HAVE TO look up information online
-you can only carry one weapon on you at a time, which is totally stupid because some weapons are great vs. certain kinds of monsters and they are almost useless vs. other monsters
-I don't see what upgrading my Palico's gear is good for whatsoever aside from a teeny tiny bit of added damage
-battles against new monsters are fairly interesting at first but after I've killed a certain monster type dozens of times I get sick of it
-I'm no where even close to thinking about 'end game' gear yet but I can already tell it's gonna be a massive grind
-the way stamina works in the game makes no sense in certain ways
-the fact that I have to take time in combat to 'sharpen' my club/hammer is f@#!ing retarded
-the bow in MHW might as well be a melee weapon because the range is shit... anything more than like 20 feet away or so and your attack simply won't hit
-certain monster fights are annoying because of them constantly inflicting status effects like poison, bleed, stun, etc. you have to try to hide somewhere and take care of the condition otherwise you'll die
-as I said before, the AI in terms of 'aggro' in this game is basically the exact opposite of how it is in most other games... monsters will completely ignore 3 people in their face doing loads of damage just to run 100 feet away and bite at someone trying to drink a potion / antidote / whatever


Overall I am pleased with the game but I do find it a bit tedious and I really wish the online multiplayer was far less convoluted and stable. (most importantly stable)

If any Wormers end up getting it for PC I'll be down to play. For now it's just me and a friend of mine playing together when we both have matching schedules, which isn't too often.

Well I openly stated that my impressions of the game are based upon very little experience.

Also, it's not a MMO (as I corrected myself) but it's very MMO-like in that you have a hub city that you always have to go to for various reasons, as well as teaming up for quests and lots of grinding for materials.

I played for about 4 hours last night with my friend and bugs aside (very poor co-op that's always disconnecting or now showing friend sessions) I actually had fun. So far I think the monsters are pretty easy to read and I can avoid getting hit most of the time. My friend who I was playing with kept dying because he wouldn't roll out of the way or anticipate certain attacks. My opinion of combat has improved since yesterday, but I still have major issues with the game.

1. The current state of multiplayer is trash. Friends often cannot join my online session, nor can I join theirs sometimes. Even when we do manage to get in the same session I often cannot join quests that my friend posts up, and not because of level requirements. I just get an error and can't join. This is a commonly reported problem>

2. The amount of time that it takes to use items while in combat is ridiculous. You have to put away your weapon and come to a full stop just to drink a potion, which makes you a sitting duck. Also, the monster AI seems to be programmed in such a way that normal 'aggro' keeping techniques from other games simply doesn't work. The monsters seemingly go for anyone who is trying to heal / sharpen / etc rather than whoever is dealing the most damage or being the most annoying.

3. Lack of monster HP bars sucks IMO. I know that damage is kinda shown on the monster models but it's not very accurate and you never know just how close you are to killing anything... you just keep attacking until it dies. Also, the monsters are damage sponges and either have a shitload of HP or player attacks are weak AF.

4. Even after I quit the game there will sometimes be a MHW process still running in Windows that I have to manually shut down via task manager, which takes up some CPU and makes my fan run non-stop unless I shut it down.

5. Friends cannot play through story mode missions together because the game requires both players to be finished with cut scenes before you can join or someone else can join you. What this means is that if you're playing with a friend one of you needs to be higher level than the other to not waste time, or you both have to start the quest individually and then once the cutscenes are finally over one or more people need to exit that quest and then join someone posting the quest. It's really convoluted and shitty.

6. The in-game voice chat is terrible.

7. A lot of 'heavier' weapons are so damn slow that they are nearly useless because by the time your swing even finishes the monster will be in a totally different spot. So far I'm sticking with the dual knives/swords because it's fast and I can actually hit things.

8. Weapons seem to bounce off of creatures a lot doing no damage at all. I can understand if it is a really thick bit of hide or armor but some of the hitboxes are silly, especially when using a slow weapon. My friend was SCREAMING last night about this and also constantly running out of stamina.

9. I haven't been able to upgrade my weapon in some time because I am lacking some material that shows up as at the smithy, and I have no idea what it is or where to get it.

complaints aside my attitude towards the game is improving a bit. I just wish that the combat was better in certain ways and that the co-op wasn't so janky.

Well, I started the game using the heavy bowgun because that seemed cool to me and it was just so slow and plodding that I got irritated and finally tried a different weapon. I switched to the dual knives and it's WAY better. I do way more damage and the combat feels more fun, but it's still not amazing. Basically all you do is just spam a button over and over again while steering in the direction of the monster and then rolling away when it telegraphs some sort of attack... then just run back in and start hacking away. I think it's one of those kinds of games that would be potentially fun if you had a dedicated group of friends who play it together but solo it's very blah. I haven't researched the game at all so I am experiencing it as a totally clueless beginner just figuring things out as I go along.

It just seems like the combat isn't really that deep. There's no skill tree that you can use to customize your play style. There's no perks or feats that I know of that really separate you from anyone else... just different weapon styles. There's nothing about the game that makes me go "wow this is awesome" aside from the first time I see some huge monster... but the novelty of that wears off pretty quick because you end up seeing those same monsters a million times. I was just hoping for more customization... more personalized play styles, as well as more dynamic combat other than "I run up to the monster and spam the A button." I am only a couple of hours into the game and I know that it probably (hopefully) gets better as I go along but for now there's hardly anything to craft and the only items that I can buy are trash. I find myself collecting just about everything I see because I'm afraid that if I don't I will regret it later on, which in turn gets boring because endlessly collecting shit is tiresome.

I've been told that the early part of the game is fairly boring and that it's basically just a tutorial for the "real game" which starts when you hit 'high rank' as a hunter. We'll see. 

In my experience the way most games on roll20 work is that the DM will have a Discord server set up for chat / voice chat during the game. There is built-in chat in roll20 that you will use for shit like dice rolling and whatnot but the voice chat on roll20 sucks compared to Discord. I have little to no experience with games other than d&d 3.5e, but I do have all of the books in PDF if you happen to need them.

So I've been playing MHW today and I gotta say that I'm not loving it. It's basically a MMO. There's a lot of boring collecting crap that you have to do and the combat is basically go to this location, attack the monster, try to evade attacks, and keep chasing it down until it's dead. Over and over. Then you get slight upgrades on your gear. I wasn't expecting it to be like a MMO. I was thinking more of an exploration game that focuses on co-op ass kicking. I'm gonna stick with it for a while to see if my opinion changes but I HAAAATE MMOs.

edit:

So it's not really like a MMO per se, but it does require you to team up with people to get the most out of the game, and to also not spend forever dropping one monster when a group of 4 can do it extremely fast. I've also been told that the end game is extremely grindy. I actually think I'm gonna try to get a refund because I can already tell that this isn't a game that's going to suck me in. I hate games based upon grinding.

Monster Hunter World pre-ordered. 

Unfortunately the game doesn't go live for 7 more hours. >_>

I've actually never played a Monster Hunter game but this looks very cool and I am dying to find something that grabs my attention and makes me want to play. I have a f@#!load of PC games and nothing has kept my attention for more than a week. Everyone raves about how great Path of Exile is when really it's just a huge grindfest.