Guild Wars 2

[Allara]

I'm fairly excited about this one, as I really enjoyed the original. It sounds like they're trying to be pretty innovative with it, and the art is still the signature Guild Wars style which is infinitely better than WoW.

Invitations to sign up for the beta just went out this morning.

And the best part: just like the original, there's no subscription fee.

https://beta.guildwars2.com/


http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FU1JUwPqzQY

[Phaera]

Signed up. Very excited for this one in the future.

[Zeyla]

I signed up too, this one does look promising. The no-sub fee is nice too. I dabbled with the original some, thought it was pretty cool. I was playing so much WoW at the time though I just didn't have the time to sink in to it. I should have more time to dig in to GW2. They are looking to do some pretty cool things in GW2, I'm looking forward to it.

[Parak]

Reddit WvW AMA from the devs:

http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/q45rm/iama_guild_wars_2_game_designer_ama_about_world/

Oh, and yeah, I'll be playing the shit out of this game. And stuff.

[Zappo]

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/preview-hd/727313

[Zeyla]

It kind of reminds me of a greatly expanded version of what they did with the invasions/portals in Rift. With the dynamic grouping and such. I think it is looking pretty cool.

[Loniel Bonewalker]

I would normally be interested, but I have a feeling it will be similar to the first (not gameplay etc) just overall feel. For me and I mean this as in my view only the games initial release was good and just seemed as it went on it declined in quality. THIS is the only thing that makes me leery about no sub fee (or form of payment). Regardless what we think etc at least part of that sub fee is helping pay them for premium content. Whether we all love that content is another story. But then again I am one of those that likes leveling to take awhile etc otherwise I could just go play a rpg imo anyhow.

[Lonskils]

MMO's have just become RPG's with grouping and online play of late. It's getting rather lame to be honest.

[Syana]

MMO's have just become RPG's with grouping and online play of late. It's getting rather lame to be honest.

I lol'd.

Oh wait, were you being serious?

MMO + RPG = MMORPG????

It's just the first M changed. It's Minimally Multiplayer Online RPG, not Massively.

[Lonskils]

That was the point. Wow started out bad enough int he soloing everything dept. But man just gets worse and worse.

[Zappo]

I'm kinda sick of every game since Dark Age of Camelot claiming to give this fantastic dynamic world where the players alter the game drastically. I like games where I can plan to do things and do it. Such as 'Oh, if I do these raids/groups a lot, the chance of X to drop and go to me increases, awesome-ville'. Quest that bounce around and moving-camps bother me some. The less luck that is involved the better. However, I am going to give GW2 a try. I think the public groups will isolate people to never talk and the rewards (in terms of exp) will make mostly piss-poor players do them. But meh... free to play, big woop. Here is to rolling the smallest race available and playing as an engineer, throwing down whatever gadgets I can!

[Trem]

The game looks like a lot of fun, I ran across an artical about it, i knew nothing about it before this post gave a lot of info on it + videos! http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1058358-Guild-Wars-2-Mass-info-for-the-uninitiated.-READ-ME

[Zeyla]

The game looks like a lot of fun, I ran across an artical about it, i knew nothing about it before this post gave a lot of info on it + videos! http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1058358-Guild-Wars-2-Mass-info-for-the-uninitiated.-READ-ME

Damn! I just read through most of that article/forum post, I had an idea about some of the game systems, but didn't know all the details. This games looks freaking awesome. So many cool things, dynamic content, persistent world, group combo abilities, ability to swap to different servers... and many more. Too many cool features to list. Man, if they can pull all that stuff off, this game is going to be so awesome!

I just hope Secret World doesn't release around the same time, I want to try that one too!

[Aindayen]

I agree with Z the read was pretty damn good.

For some reason my persception of GW was simply pvp.

When is this being released?

[Zeyla]

The current guess on a release date is June. I don't think there has been any official announcement from NCSoft/ArenaNet. Just speculation based on where they are currently in the beta process.

[Trem]

I found this link about GW2, its a collection of the beta Video links. http://www.gw2camp.com/headlines/161-the-floodgates-have-opened-over-140-videos.html

[Trem]

Did anyone get a beta invite to this game?

[Phaera]

Nope. Still waiting! ><

[Torrid]

http://www.mmo-champion.com/threads/1058358-Guild-Wars-2-Mass-info-for-the-uninitiated.-READ-ME

Oh my god. A MMO champion thread with substance.

Yeah, this game looks like a must-buy. I avoided reading about it until recently, as I found GW1 to be so bad I quit after about 15 minutes. But after I kept hearing how GW2 will crush SWTOR into a fine pulp, I gave the threads about it a look. If only I could find a description of a game's gameplay like the one in the above link for every game, it would make choosing obscure games to try a lot easier. Instead of convincing me to play their game with gameplay info, every goddamn game's website is just full of concept art and lore. As if I gave a shit. Although L2's "every male is gay and orcs are black people" art was a big turn off.

Anyway, GW2 seems to be the biggest shakeup for MMORPGs since WoW's launch. In fact I was really surprised to see them implement some ideas that I came up with years ago, albeit not precisely how I envisioned them. Equipped weapons determining a skill set for example. A mage's weapons doing nothing but enlarging his mana pool and possibly adding X more points to his fireball is just dumb. If you equip a wand, you should be zapping people with it. If you equip a sword, you should be slashing people. If you equip a mace, you should be crushing them. In WoW and EQ, the only difference between weapons is the word placed before the damage amount in the log, as you use a some generic 'strike' ability for all weapons. Lame.

Also, a biggie is every player having individual loot for every mob he contributes to killing, and the outright elimination of the concept of 'owning' mobs. This is probably the #1 thing I would do. Of course they do it differently than I would; they apparently award 100% full undivided exp and loot for every single player who touches a mob. This has been done before in MUDs. Long before EQ, I played a MUD that did that, and what everybody on the server did was group up into a massive raid, and zerg mobs that were super high level. It's really pretty dumb-- even though another idea I would want to implement is the high end levels only being achievable via raids and raid exp, so I'm not against raiding for exp by any means.

The biggest problem with MMORPGs is the difficulty in finding people to group with, and forging relationships. Forcing players to sit in town shouting LFG is retarded. Having to set up some silly UI derived group with an invite button is a completely unnecessary barrier to cooperative player interaction. Why make players do this? Why can't I just walk up to the battlefield, and start healing injured comrades and kill our mortal enemies without having to ask permission? It makes zero sense. The obvious solution is to have the server reward players based on contribution instead of awarding it all to the player with the most damage or the first to attack. Players can then move on to harder, more rewarding content as more of them show up.

I also love hearing 'persistent world' and 'dynamic content'. Fuck instancing. The reviewer even says "A lack of persistence is something that bothered people in GW1". Lately I hear more and more people waking up to the fact that using instancing to guarantee that everybody wins is incredibly myopic.

WvWvW sounds like old school AV on steroids, HGH, and 5 hour energy. This is pretty much what I'll be doing almost exclusively. Screw those lame 5 man dungeons with terribly written lore and scripted bullshit. I did nothing but BGs in WoW for several years, so I'm all over this.

Sadly they have the same 'the game begins at level cap' mentality every other game does; and they want everybody to win by making the journey to the level cap a short one. Here's a radical idea: why not make your pre-level cap game not shitty? Funny how gear is-- for all intents and purposes-- a second level, but nobody gives a shit when the casuals aren't getting the best gear. People in raid and arena gear were absolutely obliterating scrubs in quest greens in WoW's BGs. WoW's arenas are extremely difficult for people who enter in late and start facing opponents in full sets of current season gear. I've been saying for years that a handicap needed to be implemented that scaled with a team's avg ilevel, but of course nobody gave a shit. Meanwhile on WoW's largest battlegroup, I saw less than 10 BGs running in prime time. Gee, wonder why.

Items in the game seem WoW-like. Tradeskills seem WoW-like. Personal quests seem SWTOR-like. Conquest maps seem WoW BGs-like. Dungeons are WoW-like, although the combat is twitchier and lacks the traditional heal mechanics. Armor graphics look like they'll be meaningless like WoW. Diablo 2-like waypoints will make travel meaningless.

Dynamic events sound very interesting though. The one thing in the last 7 years I would consider a step in the right direction is Warhammer's public quests. It was crude and too 'mechanical' but the idea that a quest could be something beyond a NPC giving the exact same task to every single player in the game/faction and having it not affect the world in any way shape or form was nice to see. Now if they would only take it further and create quests that are only done by a limited number of players, or even just one player, which are given by NPCs that actually NEED something to do something. (i.e. it needs mats to make items to vendor) Or better yet, allow players to construct their own quests for other players.

[Maegwin]

I'll be playing GW2, no question. What you might not know Torrid is that the developers actually considered a system where there were no levels. After testing however, they felt like it was too foreign for people to not have levels and felt like it might be a turn-off for people. So they put levels back in, but made them effectively meaningless. Any player of any level can participate in a fight against any creature. I'm not sure why you think they subscribe to the "game starts at level cap" thing, I never got that impression from anything I read in that thread or about the game. They allow side-kicking, or whatever you wanna call it - so if you group with your friends you scale up (or they scale down) to be the same level so you can play together. The same goes for PvP, you automatically scale to the level of the BG and get BG appropriate gear just for PvP - no more grinding gear just so you don't get obliterated.

[Syana]

Hope it'll live up to the hype.

[Loniel Bonewalker]

I was sort of looking forward to eventually trying it. Though my hope was not for super easy levels. Rather stuff to enjoy at all levels so people would not have the feeling of be max level to enjoy. Which correct me if I am wrong torrid is sort of what you were getting at. Even with what they have put in place they have made it obvious they want you to be able to get to max lvl as soon as possible. Now I may be wrong and Torrid feels completely opposite of what I am saying and what I am feeling. But rather i was hoping as I said for the lvling content etc to be fun engaging and as fun as everything else. With that not needing lvls to be fast etc, but for levels to matter without hindering the fun because of your said level. As I said this is what my views are, and I think similar to what Torrid may have been saying when he said that. Though If I am wrong I am sorry and freely correct me.

[Syana]

Short levels does not mean it's easy. Long levels does not mean it's hard either.

Levels should come as a result of gameplay not vice versa.

[Loniel Bonewalker]

Short levels does not mean it's easy. Long levels does not mean it's hard either.

Levels should come as a result of gameplay not vice versa.

Yes but I think I read where by design they want it to take 90 minutes per lvl after lvl 30. All I was saying is with fulfilling content at all levels There would be no need for developers or players to worry about how fast or more to the point how long it takes to max out level. But as I said its just how I feel about it. Short levels does not mean its easy? I am not speaking about the game in itself being easy. I am just talking about the leveling. Lets just say this is random numbers btw it took 5 hours to lvl to 80 assuming that is max, I would say that would be considered pretty easy as far as leveling is concerned. Would just be nice to play a game again where the goal is not to log on run around solo grabbing quests completing them by oneself just to burst to *insert lvl here*.

[Syana]

Would just be nice to play a game again where the goal is not to log on run around solo grabbing quests completing them by oneself just to burst to *insert lvl here*.

Yet, if levels takes longer to attain as you gain levels, you'd need to kill more mobs (grindy) and or do more quests (kill more shit and pick up more poop and deliver more errands).

Now, I'm not saying that I like the flat linear leveling curve. At the same time, I don't think it'll make the pre-level cap content boring or otherwise bland.

However, I do know that with a linear leveling curve, *I* (and maybe a bunch of other people who don't like playing alts because leveling is a bitch) may be more incline to try different clas.. err professions. God knows SWTOR blowed chunks in this regard. 16 individual storylines! YAY! But you have to do the same fucking side quests and planet quests to level. BOO!

All the hype aside, this game could sink just like any other game. Although, because this game has no monthly fee, I consider it a better investment over SWTOR already.

[Loniel Bonewalker]

Yet, if levels takes longer to attain as you gain levels, you'd need to kill more mobs (grindy) and or do more quests (kill more shit and pick up more poop and deliver more errands).

.


I am not arguing against it being "grindy". I want to be able to mow through mobs to level etc.. Without it being wrong or stupid that I am doing this instead of racking up a buncha quests and banging them out. Where logging on and doing a dungeon/instance/area with some friends is viable/doable/fun, to the point where when I log on there will be people who want to do these things. Instead of saying "fuck no there is no point" that is all. I also for instance like each character to be a sort of investment. Otherwise really why not design a fun as can be game at max lvl give u max characters and just design pure content without worrying about quests from a leveling standpoint. Though it hold true different strokes and all.

[Syana]

• Dynamic Content – Gone are the days of looking for a symbol above an NPCs head to tell you exactly where to go just as everyone else has before you. Content in GW2 is generated by the Dynamic Event system that is completely persistent and changes how everyone in the world sees content based on your action or in-action.

You do realize that's what they say they are doing.

[Trem]

From what i have seen on videos and articles about the game. i get the feeling its much more open game. You enter an area talk to a scout dude who tells you of stuff that is going on in the area and you have to investigate it, when entering in said area quests start to pop up that are single or done by a group of people that may or may not be in a group. that sounds amazing to me coupled with the auto de level or up level with people in the group or by area so you can go anywhere your friends are and play is also sweet. it makes level seem less required and a much more enjoy your play time without having to feel like a min/max road to max level.

I really like the more causal feel to the game it doesn't limit you on the things you can do by level or gear. the pvp gear and auto level is so huge im looking forward to that and wvwvw. its a game i will play and not feel bad about not being able to devote so much time to vs cost.

With all of the good there might be some bad as i do not really see a true end game pve, but then again all the press videos have only been to lv 30 range so how knows what they have in mind. its really hard for me to find bad things to say about it but i haven't played it so its all just speculation at this point. if you pre order they will let you play in some beta weekends so that sounds like fun. pre order starts on April 10th no idea when they might lets people in on a weekend.

[Loniel Bonewalker]

You do realize that's what they say they are doing.

Except it eventually ends up being to some degree a repeat. Further I do not want to have to quest at all any type of quest regardless of if what my quest was changes something and was not what someone else did. I want to run thru the are and only kill shit if i want to without ever having to get quest xp was what I was getting at. Also it seems to be very very geared toward not ever needing to have a group to do much of stuff. But as Trem said not too much of the endgame is known.

[Allara]

Why does questing bother you so much?

[Torrid]

What you might not know Torrid is that the developers actually considered a system where there were no levels

Shame they didn't keep them gone. I'm glad they are at least thinking about being different, although it wasn't a radical idea at all in the pre-WoW era. (see SWG for example)


I'm not sure why you think they subscribe to the "game starts at level cap" thing, I never got that impression from anything I read in that thread or about the game. They allow side-kicking, or whatever you wanna call it - so if you group with your friends you scale up (or they scale down) to be the same level so you can play together. The same goes for PvP, you automatically scale to the level of the BG and get BG appropriate gear just for PvP - no more grinding gear just so you don't get obliterated.

Well even that MMO champion poster said it himself. Also a linear character level progression to a strict level cap means more people will reach that cap, and sooner. The fact that they want to temporarily artificially bring people to the level cap instead of having players earn their power suggests that the 'real' game is at that level cap, and that not being at that cap is unacceptable. I completely understand the desire to not allow lower level players to be slaughtered, but lower level players should have their own content to do and have to earn their way to the big leagues. That lower level content should be just as fun, however. There should be content and rewards that make higher level players who skip them feel stupid for doing so.

I really hate how WoW makes every mob 5+ levels above the player unkillable. Hell, EQ does this too with spell resists. Why not just let lower level players hit higher level mobs without issue? Then they can group up with their high level friends and make a small contribution. EQ also had a means to allow your new friends to catch up to you in the form of power leveling. Some form of mentoring to speed up advancement is definitely something I would implement, however I don't like this magical 'you are now level 80 just for being here!' crap, even if it solves a valid problem. Another thing I would do is reward players intelligently in that if a bunch of lower level players ganged up on a high level one and killed him, then they would be awarded an amount appropriate to the challenge. Not accurately quantifying the challenge of things and failing to reward players appropriately is in fact a huge problem with games IMO.

I also very much dislike that reaching the level cap is not challenging at all, and is just a time sink. Reaching the level cap (if there even is one) should be as difficult as getting the best gear; and the scrubs should not be as powerful as the most skilled and dedicated players.

[Phaera]

Pre-purchasing mine this week sometime. :)

[Loniel Bonewalker]

Why does questing bother you so much?

Not that it bothers me so much. Ok it does bother me but not just because i hate it. It bothers me so much because they have thrown out any other viable way, made all classes excel at solo play etc. What is wrong at having classes that solo better and classes that group better? But back to the main reason I come off as hating quests the most. IT is that they do not allow any other way to be worthwhile. Telling me I can kill for exp if I want but its not going to be really viable unless your bored or perhaps rested and even then not so much so.

[Ophylaela]

Did you play Final Fantasy 11? That was the opposite of questing for exp. You had to party up with 4 other people and then travel to the killzone and chainpull monsters for progress to happen. Yes they had quests you could do, they didn't give you that much of a reward and typically took a group to go do.

[Loniel Bonewalker]

Did you play Final Fantasy 11? That was the opposite of questing for exp. You had to party up with 4 other people and then travel to the killzone and chainpull monsters for progress to happen. Yes they had quests you could do, they didn't give you that much of a reward and typically took a group to go do.

I was still playing EQ1 over FF11 at the time. Though I played FF11 did not like it really. But that's more to do with the fact that I like FF as a console game/single player rpg.

[Zeyla]

Did you play Final Fantasy 11? That was the opposite of questing for exp. You had to party up with 4 other people and then travel to the killzone and chainpull monsters for progress to happen. Yes they had quests you could do, they didn't give you that much of a reward and typically took a group to go do.

I played FF11 for about a year and stopped when WoW came out pretty much. This was my first MMO experience. I had friends that played Everquest and I watched them some, but never got in to it. So in FF11 after the teen levels you were pretty much forced to group to do anything. I remember thinking that I wished I could do more solo stuff, but figured that's just how MMO's were. The group grinding/leveling dynamic was actually pretty good in FF11. There were a lot of good group synergy type abilities where you had to position yourself just right to get off combo attacks. I remember enjoying that a lot. It relied heavily on the macro system in that game, which I actually liked (never really liked the macro system in WoW). And if you had a good group and were quick about killing monsters and keeping them coming you would get good XP bonuses.

The downside of this is that there were "leveling spots" for each level range, and EVERYONE was there in those spots, so you were competing for mobs most of the time. The leveling pace was also very slow. I played the game pretty regularly for a year and I think I only hit the high 40's in my primary job. It was really the forced group leveling in crowded areas that did the game in for me.

I had higher hopes for FF14 when it came out. But it was just a mess, the interface was worse than FF11!

I have high hopes for GW2 bringing back some of that group synergy type gameplay (i.e. mage casts flame wall then archer arrows through the wall gain fire attack). From what I have seen so far in the previews it looks like it will!

[Loniel Bonewalker]

One big thing torrid had mentioned that I think needs to come back, and not in some complicated system either. In EQ1 I liked how originally though obviously "better' you did not NEED to be 50 to raid in the plane or naggy/vox. You could be 45-49 and contribute and the closer you got to 50 you did a bit better in your contribution. Being 49 at the time had you nearly doing what a 50 would etc. This format did at least carry on for quite a bit, and I loved it.

However at the same time I do not want it to be for instance where I would be 50 and there is a system that lets my friend/s who just started join in on my higher endgame lvl raids. there should be other entertaining,engaging,fun shit for them to do till a certain point then allow them to contribute to the raids/highend shit at a certain point in their OWN lvl while not equal to the max lvl gradually increasing the contribution the closer they get.

A game that is not soloable by every single class/profession/skill/*insert whatever name for a class type here* imo is not always a good thing. Why not have classes who excel at solo and arnt super group friendly from a exp grouping point of view but still viable in raid setting? Actually having people consider things like that into their class decision. I get the side of "let them pick whatever they do not have to worry if its a good solo capable class", but I do not agree with it. Again I say what is wrong with someone having a class that solo's that much better then another but not being their equal in groups. Oddly enough we have the opposite now all can solo great and in cases those who are the MORE group friendly class solo better at times (not all times but i find majority of them). Further also being the opposite is since they all solo well the class that may of been in fact the "better" solo class is not that great in a group. Yes they can all function in a group and in a lot of these games it almost does not matter for random grouping. However it would be nice having that uniqueness of a class and advantages/disadvantages.

Anyway just something I was thinking about.

[Maegwin]

I want to play WITH my friends. Not in the same game as them, but in zones/worlds apart because they aren't the right level to play together yet. MMOs are social games, and I want to be social yes, but even moreso with my friends. I can't do that if the game system prevents me from doing it just because we started characters at different times.

[Trem]

or different servers, you can move to another server and play there with them too, you just cant world vs world and comp pvp with them i think.

[Torrid]

I want to play WITH my friends. Not in the same game as them, but in zones/worlds apart because they aren't the right level to play together yet. MMOs are social games, and I want to be social yes, but even moreso with my friends. I can't do that if the game system prevents me from doing it just because we started characters at different times.

Nothing is stopping you from rerolling a new character to play with them. I did this a lot with Coral as our playtimes are very dissimilar.

I'd be the first guy to say that modern MMOGs are too anti-social/single player nowadays, but MMOGs are also about prestige and social status. This is another example of removing an important aspect of the game to fix an unrelated problem. However EQ was much more lax in this regard, unless you were a wizard. On P99 red, we had an underleveled cleric most of the time. A level 35 can get exp with a level 50 in classic. We just powerleveled him to keep him within group exp range.

[Zeyla]

Game Informer video with some decent game footage. It is a bit long but has a good sample of gameplay

http://www.gameinformer.com/games/guild_wars_2/b/pc/archive/2012/04/13/guild-wars-2-video-preview.aspx

[Phaera]

My beta client is ready for Friday. HURRY UP!

[Trem]

So how is the beta?! tell all!

[NormetheGnome]

Questjng bothers us so much because its all the same. Collect 50 rat asses, 12 lich bones...or go bere kill frank type bullshit. Weve qll.played wow and alot of shit after and its all the same now. Give me a dungeon crawl. Id like to return to the wonder of my first dungeons back in eq. Imagine if.lguk would have been a linear run to the king every time you went. It woulda freakin blown and I woulda kept playing wc and duke nukem.
Over the phone..

[Torrid]

Not as good as I was hoping it would be, but I don't regret buying it. I might have if it had a monthly fee however.

I don't much care for the personal quest series. It's a lot like SWTOR in this regard, only not written as well. I don't understand why studios insist on spending a great many resources to implement their single player junk into a 'massively multiplayer' game. I suppose it's skipable, but you miss out on a lot of exp and loot if you do.

What I DO like is seeing a lot of people running around and fighting together. By far the fastest way to progress is by finding the most crowded public quests. In fact they went overboard on this, because you get royally screwed if nobody happens to be around. Soloing is actually rather difficult in this game, and the risk/reward is not correlative at all: join a massive zerg and gain super fast effortless levels; or solo difficult content and gain little.

There are a LOT of teleports in this game. There are waypoints all over the place which are like D2's waypoints, only you can teleport from anywhere. Not only that, but there are portals in every city to a sort of neutral city in the middle of the world, with portals back to every city. There is a PvP lounge area with a portal to the central city and the WvWvW zone, and the WvWvW zone is littered with portals to regions all over the map. It's a little confusing to new players. A lot of this game is confusing to new players, actually. Hopefully somebody makes a MMORPG with zero teleports whatsoever some day.

Your character's level is often not the level you'll be playing at. Your level gets dynamically adjusted so much, that you will never actually outlevel content, ever. When I was level 12, I went to the Norn newbie lands, tried to find a skill point in a cave, and promptly got my ass handed to me by a couple of level 3 mobs. It's hilarious when you kill some badass mob for some personal quest, step outside the instance, and die to low level trash because you've been deleveled.

A lot of events and quests have mobs that are 2 or 3 levels higher than the event itself. This is bad because mobs that are 2+ levels above players become much harder to kill. The very first public quest in human land (a level 2 PQ) spawned a bunch of level 5 mobs, and people were getting 2 or 3 shot and chain dying to trash mobs. One Norn Warrior personal quest had a level 5 mob in it and deleveled me to level 3. I died half a dozen times trying to kill it and the add that came with it. In fact you die A LOT in this game. For a game with very little healing in it, I don't see the point in designing the game NPCs to two shot players everywhere. Some events had mobs that were one shoting people. With no traditional tank and healer mechanics, it's basically a player zerg fest.

This game has some serious inventory management issues. My inventory was constantly full because you have to keep a full set of weapons with you and you get a ton of tradeskill crap. Loot with extremely minor upgrades drops constantly just like in WoW, which I very much do not like, but every game insists on emulating since Blizzard makes lots of money.

This game is hard on the CPU. I had very low frame rates as I'm using a $100 processor bought in 2007. I literally had 1 FPS at one event. I ordered my new Ivy Bridge yesterday.

WvWvW felt a lot like old school AV and warhammer, as expected. I didn't do it much as I was getting a constant 2-3 FPS there. Must suck to die to somebody with 2 FPS.

[Trem]

There are a LOT of teleports in this game. There are waypoints all over the place which are like D2's waypoints, only you can teleport from anywhere. Not only that, but there are portals in every city to a sort of neutral city in the middle of the world, with portals back to every city. There is a PvP lounge area with a portal to the central city and the WvWvW zone, and the WvWvW zone is littered with portals to regions all over the map. It's a little confusing to new players. A lot of this game is confusing to new players, actually. Hopefully somebody makes a MMORPG with zero teleports whatsoever some day.

Gone are the days waiting for a boat to show up, that its a good bad thing. Good that you don't wait 10mins sitting at a dock fishing, but bad that you feel kinda removed from the land scape. Its just the way games are going, moving faster getting into the combat quicker. When i think back on EQ days some of my fondest memories are of foot travel. I dont think i will ever forget my first time running throw that unsafe zone at night time with the undead, I can't for the life of me remember it anymore though, i do remember the sheer terror of being found by them and promptly killed. (Screw it I'm waiting till day break!)



This game is hard on the CPU. I had very low frame rates as I'm using a $100 processor bought in 2007. I literally had 1 FPS at one event. I ordered my new Ivy Bridge yesterday.

I was afraid of this i have a system from way back in 2007 as well and have wanted to up grade but didn't really need to or have the cast to, with any luck I might be able to by release. Its the main reason i didn't pre order i knew my system would not handle the graphic's. And the million people trying to cram into 3 starter areas would not be a good time

I am still looking forward to playing it sounds and looks like a great deal of fun to be had by all.
Thanks for the update!

[Widespreadd Panic]

Monsters a few levels above you are definitely something to fear. Which is a good thing, I think.

I played mainly elementalist, engineer, and ranger. I did pve, wvwvw, and battle pvp.

Changing weapons to change your main spells is pretty cool. It can completely cause you to change your play style, which gives great flexibility.

The skill set spells get kind of overwhelming when you see them at 80. They definitely allow customization for your particular type of game play, since you can only choose 4 - 1 being a heal type. Although you can swap them out using the hero interface at any time, you would just die if you tried to do it in combat.

Pve is a lot of kiting for ranged classes, but the game allows for excellent strafe kiting; mixed with the new mechanic which is a dodge roll. LOS is pretty strict, which is pretty cool to me. You can hide behind something to avoid damage while it's coming toward you or just roll out of the way. You can do 2 rolls with a full energy bar. You will find a lot of death, until you get the hang of the mob toughness and the game play. The game is not very forgiving, and spawn times can be scary some times.

You do have to click on main story npcs to see their cut scenes. They are the only ones that need to be clicked for a quest. They said that the cut scenes were work in progress, so I'm expecting them to look a lot cleaner. Although they look better than some released games already. You can talk to scouts and find areas of interest or you can just roam and see what you find. No matter which route you choose you will run into something to do. Bandit attacks, watering some crops, escorting a caravan or even going on a hunt with some wolves.

The world itself is very beautiful. I played on max settings for everything from pve to wvwvw. I lagged only when I first entered the major city, each time. The landscape is beautiful and I really enjoyed the water reflections, but I love water.

For pvp you enter the mists. In the mists you are level 80, have full pvp gear, and have all of your skills. You can set up different builds and play around with it here. At level 1 you can go in there to find out what your character is all about. From here you can enter into the different pvp battles.

Competitive goal pvp you kept all the stuff you gain in the mists. It's your usual central goal battle ground. Control areas, capture, etc etc. These battles can get pretty interesting. I enjoyed the matches I was in.

WvWvW is entered from the blue portal in the mists. The place is huge. I was able to run around on max settings and never had any issues even when TONS of people were attacking a castle gate or a huge push in the open. It reminded me a lot of DAOC. It gets kind of crazy at times, but it's a lot of fun. Very large scale combat. Like the relic raids or the days of old 6 day av battles on uther.

I'm tired of typing, but that's some general thoughts of mine. I don't regret the purchase, it will be a fun game to play.

[Allara]

Why the hell would a new MMO launch with level 80 as the initial max?

[Torrid]

Gone are the days waiting for a boat to show up, that its a good bad thing. Good that you don't wait 10mins sitting at a dock fishing, but bad that you feel kinda removed from the land scape. Its just the way games are going, moving faster getting into the combat quicker. When i think back on EQ days some of my fondest memories are of foot travel.

If devs want to make a shallow game with a small world full of teleports, then that's fine. I just wish different games would go in different directions so players had some options.

Long distance, "meaningful" travel in a large world can work as long as players didn't have to do it very often or even not at all. If players have plenty of content to hit the level cap on their home continent, then long treks can add a tremendous amount of gameplay for explorers and traders with little downside. And getting on a boat should not require you to sit there and watch for it to arrive, or even get off. Hell, let players camp at the dock and ride the boat offline.


Monsters a few levels above you are definitely something to fear. Which is a good thing, I think.

I'm going to have to disagree on this. Mobs shouldn't go from easy kills to barely killable using every cooldown in one level. The big problem with this is that scripted event mobs spawn that are several levels higher than the event level, which means that even if you are the same level as the event, you will be dying a lot from very strong mobs. It's particularly hard on melee classes.

[Widespreadd Panic]

The only fight that I found truly unfair was the rock vortex thing,when you are first wrapping up the human entrance. The rock golem adds falling down and 1 shotting was kind of blah. Especially if they aren't marking the ground like every other spell that hits a ground area.

I wasn't melee at all, so I could just imagine the difficulties inside a story instance. I did get pinned by a story once, it all unfolded on top of me. I learned to gtfo of story range when in an instance. They still all chase you for a bit, but eventually they always will set up into single mob fights once they give up chase. Makes me curious how ugly future fights can get.

[Lonskils]

The end quest for Sage in SWTOR was insane. Every fight up to that one was meh, then BAM! Stupid.

[Phaera]

Ready for another beta weekend, already! Now that I have a better idea of what to do in the game, I'd like to make some more progress. :)

[Mystrae]

It wasn't that bad actually once you figured it out and was willing to respec. It went from WTF is this SHIT to meh.. oh *yawn*

[Lonskils]

I wiped on that in every spec. I must have been using the wrong damn pet.

[Mystrae]

I wiped on that in every spec. I must have been using the wrong damn pet.

Probably.. it was cake heal spec with heal pet.. you just dott'ed him down and the pet's mez would interrupt his cave in insta-kill move reliably and give you a few to heal up yourself if you were damaged.

[Widespreadd Panic]

Release date is 08-28-12

Guild Wars 2 Release (http://www.guildwars2.com/en/)

[Trem]

So who is all going to play this one on release? I bought it.

[Zeyla]

Looking forward to this one also, I'll prob be playing it at release or shortly thereafter.

Z

[Trem]

They posted the final server names and I an going to play on "Sanctum of Rall" sounds kinda cool, I thought i would pick a server name that was kinda cool not to cool or all the jerks would play on it, how else do you pick a server other then how cool the name is right? That is if i can get my name on that server. If anyone is interested in playing GW2 and wants someone to play with join me! I'll post with the server name once i get my named on it to be sure. I've played in the beta weekend event and its been really great. The pvp and world v world is where its at.

[Widespreadd Panic]

Ive already purchased it.

[Zeyla]

Trem, I believe you can change servers in game fairly easy also. There is some cool down if you do it around the WvWvW battles (i think to prevent folks from jumping over to the winning server). But it sounds like they are going to make it easy to move around and play with your friends. That and the thing that allows you to play with your friends regardless of level (and still gain some xp and rewards for you actual level) is pretty cool.

[Rhedd]

Pics or it's not true sir.


Ive already purchased it.

[Stosh]

I have no self control. I just pre ordered.

[Zeyla]

pre-purchased copies get to play tonight at midnight. We should try to congregate on one server. I'll be on tonight at midnight for a little bit, although my super-stay-up-late powers are not what they used to be ;)

[Trem]

I know this isn't a full poll of everyone that wants to play the game but it sure is interesting on the server section http://www.asuralabs.com/serverPoll.php

[Widespreadd Panic]

I thought I saw some where that the servers will be up 3 hours earlier. I dunno if I like the name of the server term said :)p

[Trem]

Ive done some checking around for server info is seems that groups of people are selecting servers and the Sanctum of Rall is a no go for me after the findings.
Here is a list i found

US:



Anvil Rock: 4chan (?), Team Paradigm NA


Borliss Pass: OMFGCata/Shaboozey (youtuber), Dontain

Crystal Desert: LGBT unofficial server, Brazil unofficial server (?), Reddit WvW, Veteran Reddit, MMOHut, ZAM, MMO-Champion

Darkhaven: Gamebreaker/Guildcast, a pretty big Brazilian community, Massively

Dragonbrand: Legendary White Bunny (Reddit)

Ehmry Bay: Woodenpotatoes, MadCast

Fort Aspenwood: Penny Arcade


Gate of Madness: Reddit (?)

Isle of Janthir: Reddit, unofficial Philippine server

Jade Quarry: MMORPG.com, Ruinous

Maguuma: Something Awful (Starfleet Dental and Goon Squad), Aureus Knights

Northern Shiverpeaks: Team Legacy

Sea of Sorrows: 4chan (/vg/ community), unofficial oceanic server, cybergamer.com.au

Sorrow's Furnace: GuildMag, Bodybuilding.com, vVv Gaming, Alianza Latina Alliance (loads of Spanish speakers)

Sanctum of Rall: unofficial Christian server, Reddit North, Reddit Refugees, Gaiscioch, Polyknights (polygon.com)


Stormbluff Isle: NeoGAF

Tarnished Coast: Unofficial RP server

Yak's Bend: GW2Guru, GW2Hub, Yogscast, Mormon Battalian, TheOlderGamers, GameTrailers, GetBonk'd, Kinda Ferocious

I'm now thinking Fort Aspenwood , Its kinda rough picking a server i dont want to be on one with a lot of people but not an empty one either, also some of those " guilds " / web board communities are really lame. I dont really care about penny arcade but its better than some other others options. But then i dont really care all that much, im not sure how many of us are going to be playing anyways.

[Widespreadd Panic]

Lol unofficial Christian server

[Widespreadd Panic]

Aspenwood is good with me, as long as I get to sex the rhedd.

[Trem]

Lol unofficial Christian server

yeah i saw that was was like nope! Nothing wrong with christians per say but you get enough of them together and its trouble not to mention how annyouning it would get with the general chat with the flame wars on religion and anti-religion zealots yelling at one another. the chat was bad enought with the democrate vs republican banter add in religion and its game over man.

[Parak]

I'll be playing on some yet undetermined server (waiting on word from some friends). Those interested in playing with the Parak when the floodgates open can find me on steam and stuff. Otherwise any splitups will hopefully not be that big of a deal as server transfers will be in effect at some eventual point at least.

[Trem]

servers are live, some jerk took my name WTH!

[Thug]

I got Ducati on Aspenwood. Let me know if you're in, or if you land elsewhere.

[Stosh]

I think I'm on Aspenwood, made a Stoshetta and a Stosh. Never played before, so I'm starting at square one.

[Trem]

I'm going by Tremed

[Zeyla]

I'm on the Fort Aspenwood server also, Zeylee my Engineer and Zeyla Fandir my Elementalist. You can have spaces in your name BTW, found that out after I created my first char. Just poked around a bit tonight, i'll be on tomorrow some more. Prob on my Engineer first.

[Phaera]

I'll pop up there eventually when I have some free time. Still haven't even gotten to DL the client yet, but I might do that tonight after I get home from work. 99% sure I'm sticking with a necromancer.

[Parak]

Henge of Denravi here, FWIW.

[Widespreadd Panic]

I made some characters on ashen wood. Im as clueless as I was in beta on which class I want to play, so multiple names at the moment.

[Maegwin]

I'm on Stormbluff Isle - Asura Necromancer named Zulnar. Myself and a couple of co-workers are there. From what I understand though, it doesn't really matter what server you're on, if you have your friend on your friend list you can "guest" over to their server to play with them for free.

[Phaera]

< Wilted Blossom. Sylvari Necro. Haven't gotten much time to play yet though.

[Berae]

Well, I'm on Borliss Pass with some friends, and noticed some Heroes of the Seven Suns [HOSS] guild tags floating about.

[Zeyla]

Hmm, didn't know we had a guild going, not sure who those peeps are. I know you can party with people on diff servers, I wonder if you can have a guild across multiple servers?

[Andaas]

It's probably some of the old-school Hoss (see other thread started by Parak).

[Berae]

It was some guy from Vindication or something, who said he got the first robe from Plane of Mischief, and that he made the guild because Vindication was taken, lol. He was definitely from the EQ era.

[Ktul]

Lol Vindication

[Parak]

I've started the same on Henge around launch - odd, didn't know it's possible to have identical guild names!

[Torrid]

Torven.1920 on Henge of Denravi

[omnipresence]

I just bought and started the game on the aspenwood server. Who would be a good point of contact there for playing during evening hours?

[Zeyla]

Parak is prob who you want to talk to Omni to get in the Hoss guild. Guilds can in fact be across servers and you can party with people from different servers as well (without actually needing to do a server character transfer or anything). Myself, Kathris, Rhedd and maybe one or two others are on the Aspenwood server. But with the cross-server capability it doesn't really make that much difference.

[omnipresence]

Alright, will do. I just downloaded the game and havent actually created a character yet. Just been reading up on stuff. Any suggestions on the professions or does the guild have a lack of before i get started?

[Zeyla]

I wouldn't worry too much about professions at first, just try to gather as much stuff as you can when you first start (there is a separate bank for storing craft mats). You pick up decent gear along the way and purchasing gear off the AH isn't too expensive. I actually end up spending more leveling my crafting than I have on gear so far.

There are already a few nice guides out there, I'd suggest reading up on the professions a little before you pick one. I wasted some mats not knowing what I was doing when I first started crafting.

[omnipresence]

I'm probably going to take a few of my choices into pvp lobby to try out their skills and decide which one I plan to commit with before I hit y'all up for a guild invite.

[Stosh]

Zeyla, sounds like Omni is talking about the GW2 definition of professions aka classes, and not tradeskills. And Omni, no reason to not get a guild invite now, guild invites (assuming you are in one guild) are account-wide, and when you make a new character you just need to represent the guild in the guild tab and you're good to go.

[Loniel Bonewalker]

Lol Vindication

ryde or die! Cuz I amz Gangstah!

[omnipresence]

I've been playing around and decided to just stick with the plate wearing classes like always. So I got a warrior named Jon Jay on Aspenwood if someone wants to hit me up.

[Trem]

so guilds are cross server, chat and everything, thats freaking cool.

[Maegwin]

For real? If so, someone in Hoss toss me an invite!

[Kikiyo]

Kikiyo.3478

Playing Guardian named Belldandy Aurora

Feel free to friend me. On Yak's Bend.

Which server you are on does matter, if you want to do WvW with friends

[Zeyla]

so guilds are cross server, chat and everything, thats freaking cool.

Yep, pretty cool, and you can switch between your active guild from the guild UI. The only downside is that the guild "perks" or whatever they are called in-game are server specific. I thought I saw somewhere that cross-server grouping would be possible at some time also, which would be really cool.

[Loniel Bonewalker]

So a friend hooked me up with a copy of GW2, however someone has stole my name the bastards. Really who in the hell would take the name Loniel damn them..

[Ktul]

I would! Not because I like it, just to piss you off. <3

[Loniel Bonewalker]

I would! Not because I like it, just to piss you off. <3

Its ok, I became the devil and am now Loníel..