Official Guild Wars 2 thread.

[Wraiven]

The leaked pictures of the shop are a massive disappointment for me. I really hoped that they would only be selling things like costumes/minis.

Boosts make it so that certain players have to spend less time playing to get what took you forever to get.

Repair/Salvage kits are probably expensive with gold, and probably set you back far. Whereas if you spent real money you would have that gold to use elsewhere.

Ressurection orbs are going to imbalance high level PvE unless they are obtainable in game too.

Mystic Keys are my biggest gripe. Locking out certain chests to only players that pay real money is a MASSIVE failure. And the way they made it sound in the screenshot was that everyone will see the chests even if they don't have the keys, so it will be like a glaring annoyance that hey, I am missing treasure because I didn't spend money. I sincerely hope these keys are easy-ish to get in game.

[Bloodaxe]

wait, so there is no gear treadmill? what am I supposed to do when my character has all the godly items? then the game just feels like savage....

[Rean]

its a game about PVP not PVE.
you are supposed to go to arena, battlegrounds and mass PVP in WvWvW

[Bloodaxe]

so why make it a Rpg at all? why not make it like bloodlines, just have no levels at all, everyone starts at equal footing..
its a game about PVP not PVE.
you are supposed to go to arena, battlegrounds and mass PVP in WvWvW

[Hat_Truck]

so why make it a Rpg at all? why not make it like bloodlines, just have no levels at all, everyone starts at equal footing..
If your understanding of a "proper" MMO experience means spending hundreds or thousands of hours grinding for the best gear, then you should probably evaluate your idea of fun. And anyway, there are literally hundreds of MMOs that use this gear treadmill model, so if GW2 is the single one that doesn't, I'll be happy to support the refreshing change.

It used to be, back when MMOs were first conceptualized, that a huge part of the experience was just socializing, enjoying yourself, and exploring the world. Back when I played Everquest things were a lot less about rushing to the highest level and grinding for the best gear, while largely skipping most of the game's content. Even when WoW first came out, this was more of the way it was designed; there were no "map markers" for quests, they just gave you the general area and you had to find things for yourself. The idea was that you would enjoy yourself and explore the world along the way, not just blow through the quests like you were playing Diablo 2.

As time went on, the MMO went from being a social/environmental experience, a world outside of the world if you will, to becoming a PvE competition-based grind fest.

Honestly if the point of the game is to run through the same dungeon dozens or hundreds of times looking for a certain drop, then you're not playing a skill-based game, you're really just gambling.

In other words, I don't see how giving the players access to the best gear in GW2 without spending hundreds of hours of farming takes away from the game experience at all. If you've seen how beautiful the environments are, and how deep the character customization is, then you should know what the game is all about. You're just supposed to wonder around the world enjoying yourself in PvE. There is no GOAL, it's just like a huge fantasy playground, and when you see a situation that needs your attention (Dynamic Event), you go help out. You aren't running around the world looking for your level quests, trying to get to highest level as fast as possible; because there's no point in that. You can start a character with the highest level and best gear anyway.

GW2 is an MMO for the people who just want the experience of a new world. If you like farming for gear, you're welcome to stick with WoW or any of the others.

[Reldnahc]

The rewards and titles devalued somewhat, especially so because it's impossible to tell if it was earned legitimately or by buying a crutch with cash.

This is how I feel about the cash shop. I was under the assumption it would be a carbon copy of GW1 cash shop. Town costumes, character slots, perhaps storage tabs and sex changes. Instead they bring out these consumable items that can easily trivialize PvE content. It almost makes me saddened how all the press were raving about the difficulty of the explorable mode of dungeons only to have it demeaned by these cons.

[Tyrando]

wait, so there is no gear treadmill? what am I supposed to do when my character has all the godly items? then the game just feels like savage....

the idea is that whilst the gear built for the hardcore players from explore-mode dungeons simply looks better and more unique

its the same as guild wars one, the expensive armor had literally no advantage over the basic max lvl armor, it just looked better, or in the case of assassin, Spikes... SPIKES EVERYWHERE!

each dungeon comes with a specific set for that dungeon (same theme) completing story mode gives you (and everyone in the party) a token that you exchange for the weapon of the set, you need to do explorable mode for the armor tokens, and you need to do all 3 versions of explorable mode to complete the set.

8 dungeons in total, so 32 routes to run for 8 unique sets, and this is all planned for launch

o and your probably gonna re-run a few of these because your not just going to want 1 weapon, gotta catch em all!

[Bloodaxe]

the issue with one tier armor set has a few issues, while it may level the playing field, in general the vets in an army has the best gear, due to them being the biggest badass. In vanilla wow, if you saw someone walking around in warlord set in pvp, you knew to stick to him, or if he was the enemy, to stay away. vanity armor sets won't have this effect.

While I hate huge differences in gear stats, I feel having two tiers, one for casual, and one a little better for hardcore, gives the player something to work towards, gives a feeling if a bigger epeen( who doesn't like thus?) and rewards players for playing the game. if you dont reward the player for playing a mmorpg, might as well not even launch the game as it will be dead in a year.

[Tyrando]

well there is some differences on the gear, its not all 1:1 copy, obviously its all still subject to change and its only PvE gear that i mentioned.

the 5v5 PvP will always be balanced completely with gear as is the intention, but WvWvW will obviously be different, with the Glory resource and so far its rather dominated ^^

[ProfessorOak]

The other thing that annoys me is that is the £50 price tag for the digital edition. To put things in perspective diablo III preorder boxed edition next day delivery is £27 here. It looks like there's going to unrestricted transfers between realms so I guess I'll buy the U.S. version anyway. y u hate europe ANet? :(:(

P.S. LOL AUSTRALIA.

[ProfessorOak]

http://i.imgur.com/KlPcb.jpg
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Influence

[Tyrando]

Guild Banquet
Spawns a banquet table, keg, and various other party items which players can eat and drink from. Lasts 1 hour.

oh god, its mana-tables all over again

[Rean]

this game doesnt have mana lol.

[Skyve]

Guild Banquet
Spawns a banquet table, keg, and various other party items which players can eat and drink from. Lasts 1 hour.

oh god, its mana-tables all over again

Seems more like a "cosmetic" item to me.

[Tyrando]

its obviously cosmetic and yes there is no mana

why so srs ppl :accu:

[Atrim3ntus]

If you pre-purchase you get to play in all the betas (like weekend betas). Are the weekend betas every week? If you buy the game on April 10 would you be able to play that weekend?

[XxmagiksxX]

If you pre-purchase you get to play in all the betas (like weekend betas). Are the weekend betas every week? If you buy the game on April 10 would you be able to play that weekend?

this information hasn't been officially released, but I have heard 3-4 (prepurchase) betas before release

[Swanker]

After playing throughout the weekend beta, this game has underwhelmed me to the point of not bothering to pre-purchase it. Kind of unfortunate, but it's just not my style of game.

[Tyrando]

u tried Tera?

might be more your thing

[Hat_Truck]

After playing throughout the weekend beta, this game has underwhelmed me to the point of not bothering to pre-purchase it. Kind of unfortunate, but it's just not my style of game.
Explain. What about it didn't you like?

[Tetrispro]

hopefully they won't pull an S2 and make microtransactions=pay to win.

[Numerio]

not prepurchasing it will be the hardest thing I've done in a while,

but I really need to finish my studies.... and continue to attend somewhat to the real world..
also diablo3. god wants me to quit life obviously =(

[Thysios]

Anyone else pre-purchase the game?

[Projanglez]

yeah me for 45 euros :D

but it sucks that u can´t do anything with it :(

[Tyrando]

You authorised a payment of 64.99 GBP to NCsoft Europe Limited

just waiting on Based Arenanet's second email now

[Reldnahc]

Got my Digital Deluxe edition and all the confirmation jazz. Beta here I come.

[ProfessorOak]

Got my pre-purchase for £39.99 from play. I don't want to support microtransactions in GW2 so I won't be buying the Digital Deluxe edition for the elite skill, pet, and (presumably minor) advantage items.

[Atrim3ntus]

Kinda disappointing that the pre-purchase doesn't grant access to a beta every weekend like I thought (which is the main reason I was gonna pre-purchase). According to the official GW2 twitter account, the first beta weekend only starts late this month. And from what I've read everywhere else, these Beta weekend events will only happen once a month anyway.

[Rean]

there were only 2 cbt weekends, and 1 of them was for press only.
so i dont know where you got the idea that every weekend people play the game.

[Skyve]

Got my Digital Deluxe edition and all the confirmation jazz. Beta here I come.

Just waiting for the download link email thingsy.

[Lucian01]

DDE worth the extra 20 bucks?

[Rean]

nope.

[Tyrando]

DDE is mainly for the flavour elite skill, the Rytlock mini will be one of probably hundreds of mini's so chances are your going to have another favourite
the banker thing lasts only 5 days total. and then theres the 2 consumables which no doubt will be in the cash shop

the elite skill will no doubt be like the racial elites, cool for playing around with but if your in pvp/dungeon your not going to want to use it over a class-elite skill.

[Thysios]

As much as i like wolves, and think that the mistfire wolf loks pretty cool.
The rest of the stuff in the DDE is useless for me. I was going to get the CE, but it's $200 in Australia and you can only get it from EB Games..

So standard it is!

[scoutTier]

Beta in 5 days :flin: So insanely pumped ! What profession / race are you guys thinking of going?

[gungergong]

Engineer! So much utility! Flamethrowers, elixir guns, mines, grenades, turrets...

Thief is cool too, but it's starting to look like another stealth rogue with good mobility but very little cc.

[BlueSteel]

I don't know if I'll play the game, but it looks very well thought out and artwork is beautiful. If I played, I'd definitely be either a Sylvari or Charr. Profession-wise, Mesmer looks really cool.

[Tyrando]

Beta in 5 days :flin: So insanely pumped ! What profession / race are you guys thinking of going?

well since i cant play Sylvari i'll no doubt be rolling Human Mesmer, Charr Warrior and Norn Ranger

[Skyve]

well since i cant play Sylvari i'll no doubt be rolling Human Mesmer, Charr Warrior and Norn Ranger

Still no Sylvari in beta? :(

[Projanglez]

a fat norn warrior. come at me bro

[Tyrando]

Still no Sylvari in beta? :(

fraid not bro
http://www.arena.net/blog/the-beta-weekend-event-is-coming

im ok with this, im going to probably main a sylvari so i dont mind waiting, plus the Asura home city looks absolutely stunning and i dont want beta bugs ruining the experience of going there.

[Thysios]

I might go Human Elementalist for the BWE but on release I'm thinking Asura Guardian.

[`Shifty]

I'm so freaking excited

[scoutTier]

Damn. I wanted to go sylvari ranger for the beta, really interested to see how the pet system works in guild wars 2; it's supposed to be more complex than the guild wars 1 system.

[Reldnahc]

Downloading now broskis, check your email.

[Thysios]

Downloaded it last night.

So what server is everyone going to play on?

There's a list here
http://www.arena.net/blog/choosing-and-transferring-worlds-in-guild-wars-2

[Tyrando]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=HkL9J1P95dA

Are you ready for the weekend?

ill probably end up on Vabbi atleast for the beta, though tempted by Underworld for retail.

[scoutTier]

So damn excited ! Even the login screen is epic.

My brother wants to do Droknar's forge so I guess I'm going with that. Spent long hours doing the 4 man green item runs down there (enchant monk, healer/prot monk, necro, pet ranger). Was the best

[Rean]

just a warning - shitloads of russians are going to Blacktide server.
second considered option is underworld

[NagiSoi]

just a warning - shitloads of russians are going to Blacktide server.
second considered option is underworld


How come they are going there?

[ProfessorOak]

de facto 'claimed' servers.

US

Anvil Rock (unofficial Oceanic server,4chan/vg)
Borlis Pass (PIG)
Yak’s Bend (Reddit,Gw2Guru Hub,covenantofthephoenix , Yogcast, Penny Arcade)
Henge of Denravi (NeoGAF, Guild Wars Reporter)
Maguuma (Aureus Knights, MMORPG.com)
Sorrow’s Furnace (VexX Gaming,Hearts of Chaos,GuildMag)
Kaineng
Jade Quarry (Decisive Action)
Fort Aspenwood (RMA)
Ehmry Bay
Ferguson’s Crossing
Darkhaven (Almost Famous)
Vasburg (joO Binder)
Eredon Terrace
Crystal Desert
Tarnished Coast (RP Chosen by gw2roleplayers.com, The Gentlemen’s Club)
Steamspur Mountains
Blazeridge Mountains
Isle of Janthir (Boons & Conditions)
Sea of Sorrows (Downunder, Something Awful, The Australian Cybergamer,unofficial Oceanic server, Aurora Australis)
Deldrimor
Scavenger’s Causeway
Moladune
Eternal Grove

EU

Kodonur
Gandara (Futilez)
Kodash
Blacktide (Midnight Mayhem, Polish community, GuildWars2.com.pl , GoHa.Ru, 4Gamers.be,guildwars-2.ru)
Istan (MMORPG.com ,Sweclockers,Univers Virtuel (FR),Luna Atra (FR),Jeuxvideo.com (FR))
Vabbi (4chan/vg)
Kourna
Fissure of Woe (TKOT)
Underworld (Unofficial Portuguese)
Ring of Fire (The Bulgarians [BG])
Far Shiverpeaks (gw2nl.nl)
Petrified Forest (RP Chosen by gw2roleplayers.com)
Jade Sea (NeoGAF)
Desolation
Magus Falls
Whiteside Ridge (Reddit)
Fort Ranik (Jeuxonline (french community),Canard pc (FR),HFR (FR))
Ruins of Surmia (Guild Wars 2 Online, Guild Wars 2 Spain, Guild Wars Latino (spanish community),Mediavida)
Sharp’s Corner (Guild Wars 2 Online, Guild Wars 2 Spain, Guild Wars Latino (spanish community))
Aurora Glade (Guild Wars 2 Online, Guild Wars 2 Spain, Guild Wars Latino (spanish community),Mediavida)
Riverside
Elona Reach (Onlinewelten and Wartower Community)
Augury Rock (Onlinewelten and Wartower Community)
Abaddon’s Mouth (Onlinewelten and Wartower Community)

Source:http://guildwars2.romank.dk/world-choice-guilds-collection/

[Rean]

might aswell keep an eye on this one too: http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/srmfg/homeworlds_of_various_online_communities_for/?sort=new

[Skyve]

Downloading client right now, yay!

[Tyrando]

feel bad for anyone on Yak's Bend oh god

[Tyrando]

Login is up bro's you can make your characters

[ProfessorOak]

baw i can't login yet ;_;wondering how long it is before the first livestreamer gets hacked because of that stupid chroma-hash at the login...

[sherpa]

Damn! Was looking forwards to playing this but I had to stop after 20 minutes as the frame rates were so bad.

For reference, I'm on:

i7 950 @ 3.2GHz
1.28GB GTX 570
8GB RAM
Win7

I haven't FRAPS'd it, but I reckon it averaged 15-20fps with the graphical settings on low.

What's everyone else getting?

[Skyve]

God, login server overloaded or something now :(

Also only managed to create my character, then the game froze on the end of the intro video.

[ProfessorOak]

^ same here

got disconnected while some guy was talking about bears

[Projanglez]

i could play a little bit before the official start (servers were somehow earlier ready than announced).

yeah, well, not so impressed about gw2 till now :(

[Crap]

Cant connect at all now. Been playing for maybe 30 mins ingame. It ran like ****

[`Fluttershy]

so it's too late to prepurchase a digital copy?

[scoutTier]

0 issues for me so far ( but it may be because I'm an American)

I have to say, this game has far exceeded my expectations.

WvWvW is great.
Swimming was really cool... it was cute seeing my tiger swim with me.
Game is actually quite difficult. I literally died around 10-20 times in the 7 hours or so I played. And I consider myself pretty good at games.
I think melee items seem a bit underpowered, but I may just be bad
Random events everywhere with people doing them everywhere did cause some lag though

[Tyrando]

as general advice for people suffering performance issues

try avoiding large groups of people (not as hard as you would assume)
turn off Shadows, it causes issues

game runs fine for me but around a zerg stomping centaurs i start to feel the fps drop

[ProfessorOak]

Hmm... so I've been afk in a WvWvW queue for 3 hours now. There's no indication of my position, nor that I am actually in the queue at all :(. I would transfer worlds however they want my credit card details (y u want my creditcard details for something that's free? WUT), and apparently that isn't even working even if I wanted to do it. It would be so much nicer if they just gave everyone the 2000 free gems for transfers automatically, or you know, just made the transfer cost 0 gems, but I guess they want everyone to get used to the microtransaction system.

The standard PvE gameplay however looks really promising(based on norn starting area). It's certainly a refreshing break from the dull PvE content of many MMOs I've tried recently (RIFT, Warhammer, and to a certain extent EVE). It's generally engaging, runs fluidly between events, and scales with the number of available players (The voice acting is good too). It's a paradigm shift really, or at least a small one.

Graphically the game is running smoothly for me, even with everything maxed via the in game UI (i5 processor and ATI 7850). The environments themselves are beautiful, well styled, and evocative (i.e holy sh*t look that! ). One criticism I do have is that it does feel as if the camera is too zoomed in (I expect they are doing this for similar reasons S2 and the g_camDistanceMax limit in HoN).

The skills are a bit underwhelming (playing thief). I am basically using the same ones all the time. Maybe this gets better as characters progress. Not sure about that.

[Hat_Truck]

In GW1 you used the same skills for quite awhile, but then you start unlocking a ton of new ones and everything changes. Specifically, when you start having more weapons sets available to you (and elite skills), it should open up a plethora of options.

[nigmorris]

Let's just break this down.

Most hyped up game next to diablo3.

PvP is pretty much press the same buttons over and over, then switch weapon set and repeat.
The leveling is boring and worse than in pretty much any other MMO that I've played so far.

The combat feels okayish. Nothing great. Worse than Tera by far (if you can compare them).

The graphics are nice looking on maxed, so far it is only dx9 tho. So let's see whats going to come in the future.

[Projanglez]

unfortunately, i have to agree with nogmorris in every aspect.

i´m really disappointed. the "revolutionary" leveling/questing system is bullshit. there are almost no ordinary quests and if u are not lucky with dynamic world events, you can forget lvling.

man, unbelievable, but i miss tera´s grindfest.
pulling large groups of mobs and killing them in a few seconds is way more exciting than running behind some npc´s/defending some places

[Casshern]

Tera fanboys at their finest.

As for me this game is great, especially the scenery. Rather have dynamic events than your typical grindfests like Tera/WoW.

[nigmorris]

Tera fanboys at their finest.

As for me this game is great, especially the scenery. Rather have dynamic events than your typical grindfests like Tera/WoW.

Pretty sure thats blind fanboyism - again.

I only mentioned it to compare the combat - since it is kinda "smiilar".
And Gw2 combat feels bad, delayed, stacks up - feels like no spell actually does anything (useless button smashing).

The "dynamic events" are the same things over and over - pretty boring actually. The world of warcraft quests are more entertaining than that.

[Tyrando]

prefering grinding over an actual living changing world

ok w/e to each to their own

enjoy your fetch quests

[Projanglez]

tera fanboy who prepurchased gw2. hahahaaha

logic, what is it and how does it work?

sorry, but for a game which was developed for 7 years or so and constantly delayed, gw2 just performs badly, even against a asian farmer grindfest mmo like tera.

furthermore, frogster and enmasse could at least provide stable servers ;)

@tyrando: so, can you explain me, what i can do if there´s no event happening? and the impact on the world isn´t even worth to be mentioned

[nigmorris]

prefering grinding over an actual living changing world

ok w/e to each to their own

enjoy your fetch quests

I don't know bro.

It seems like a try to simulate a living in changing world, but in the end it's just "oh hey, walked into a zone and they gave me a quest i can do".

I expected more, even with my low expectations.
I like how other people are calling ToR the Titanic and Gw2 the Gigantic (doesn't make sense, but still funny).

[Casshern]

Never heard of Gigantic, even on dare I say 4chan.

[Tyrando]

people refer to it as tortanic2 because they cant into original

explain to me how there is no event happening, there's stuff going on all the time and you seem to not realise that your not even bound to the starting area you start in, there are Asura gates in the city's that will take you to the Norn/Charr/Human area quite easily, you literally have 3 zones to play with right off the bat, and on release that makes 5

but oh look Tera has 1 starting area wow...

complaining about nothing to do is just plain retarded, your obviously not paying any attention to the game world and seem to expect the events to constantly come to you, there are scout npc's, use them.

once you get past the massive zerg fest of players in one area just zerging everythin with 0 fps, you'll find the world is enjoyable.

i've already done 4 characters, never had a single issue with finding stuff to do in any of the 3 area's, though charr area was one hell of a zergfest.

also Tera is stable because the game has been released in korea since last year.

[Numerio]

I don't know bro.

It seems like a try to simulate a living in changing world, but in the end it's just "oh hey, walked into a zone and they gave me a quest i can do".

I expected more, even with my low expectations.
I like how other people are calling ToR the Titanic and Gw2 the Gigantic (doesn't make sense, but still funny).

I cant agree,
it never felt like stupid quest hunting.
more like getting rewarded for exploring and diving into the world

and I had never a lack of events, maybe you should run around a bit and not just farm a certain area...


didnt prepurchase yet, since I dont have time for the beta events atm
but I really had a blast in the last event,
the things you said you are dissapointed with pretty much blew my mind, its probably personal preference I guess..

[nigmorris]

I cant agree,
it never felt like stupid quest hunting.
more like getting rewarded for exploring and diving into the world

and I had never a lack of events, maybe you should run around a bit and not just farm a certain area...


didnt prepurchase yet, since I dont have time for the beta events atm
but I really had a blast in the last event,
the things you said you are dissapointed with pretty much blew my mind, its probably personal preference I guess..

For me it's actually worse than questhunting.

I played a lot of MMOs, pretty much all known once.
And Gw2 has had the worst leveling experience so far. I don't feel that I have to follow some storyline, since it's not important and doesn't interest me at all. So I just randomly go around and do the stuff it says top right. That's like accepting a quest and doing it. And in my honest opinion it's even worse than WoW. Would probably be different if there was a nice storyline that would interest me or something like that. But sadly.. that's not the case.

The combat system is well.. mediocre at best and pretty much just a buttonsmashing fest. I expected some strategy stuff like people have been saying.. but yea, that didn't really happen. First place in every battleground by just pressing 1-5 then ^ and 1-5 again. Then again, spells seem to have nearly no impact on anything. No "oh, I have to counter spell xyz" or something similar to it. Everything does around the same damage. The combat system is actually quite WoWish. Your spells just seem to hit always. The tabsystem to select units is horrible. Selects turrets/pets before heroes. (that's probably a betathingy, but whatever).

Overall this game disappointed me, and the 2 friends that bought it with me completly. All of us played A LOT of MMOs, all known ones pretty much. And nothing was as bad as this just from the gameplay. I really don't know if Guild Wars 1 was as bad as this, but if so - then it's really all some weird fanboyism. I don't think I know anyone that played a lot of MMOs that likes GW2.

[scoutTier]

For me it's actually worse than questhunting.

I played a lot of MMOs, pretty much all known once.
And Gw2 has had the worst leveling experience so far. I don't feel that I have to follow some storyline, since it's not important and doesn't interest me at all. So I just randomly go around and do the stuff it says top right. That's like accepting a quest and doing it. And in my honest opinion it's even worse than WoW. Would probably be different if there was a nice storyline that would interest me or something like that. But sadly.. that's not the case.

The combat system is well.. mediocre at best and pretty much just a buttonsmashing fest. I expected some strategy stuff like people have been saying.. but yea, that didn't really happen. First place in every battleground by just pressing 1-5 then ^ and 1-5 again. Then again, spells seem to have nearly no impact on anything. No "oh, I have to counter spell xyz" or something similar to it. Everything does around the same damage. The combat system is actually quite WoWish. Your spells just seem to hit always. The tabsystem to select units is horrible. Selects turrets/pets before heroes. (that's probably a betathingy, but whatever).

Overall this game disappointed me, and the 2 friends that bought it with me completly. All of us played A LOT of MMOs, all known ones pretty much. And nothing was as bad as this just from the gameplay. I really don't know if Guild Wars 1 was as bad as this, but if so - then it's really all some weird fanboyism. I don't think I know anyone that played a lot of MMOs that likes GW2.

Not sure if srs. I have heard much more positive reactions to Guild Wars 2 than negative ones by far. Sure there are some negatives such as the quests respawning too fast, or not scaling properly, but that's why it's beta. Personally, I found my charr / norn storylines to be quite interesting, and I assume it's going to get much more exciting as soon as I move out of my respective homelands.

As for the skills, I wasn't sure how I would like the weapon set system going in, but people would only use the viable builds anyway in Guild Wars One. Also, there are plenty of other ways to be a unique character. Everything does around the same damage???????????????????

This is by far the best MMO I have ever played, and it's also incredibly difficult. In about 20 hours of playing I probably died around 40 times. I'm not sitting in WoW being a tank with no fear of death, or a healer just watching red bars. There's actual skill required in this game.

[ProfessorOak]

The combat system is well.. mediocre at best and pretty much just a buttonsmashing fest. I expected some strategy stuff like people have been saying.. but yea, that didn't really happen. First place in every battleground by just pressing 1-5 then ^ and 1-5 again. Then again, spells seem to have nearly no impact on anything. No "oh, I have to counter spell xyz" or something similar to it. Everything does around the same damage. The combat system is actually quite WoWish. Your spells just seem to hit always. The tabsystem to select units is horrible. Selects turrets/pets before heroes. (that's probably a betathingy, but whatever).Got to agree with this. I mean the PvP is just plain bad, horrible in fact. For example if you stand in an enemy spell for several seconds it's not even big deal because you'll often only find that you've lost 1% of your health(not even an exaggeration either - and most classes typically heal 25% every 20 seconds anyway). The downed mechanic is really silly too - and essentially exploitable by some classes. I mean a friend and I both went guardians, and every time one of us died the other one just popped that bubble spell that gives invulnerability and knocks over nearby enemies and rezzed the other one up(made holding control points a joke regardless of the number or skill of the enemies attacking). Besides from obvious loopholes like that which may get patched, you still might as well just mash keys because it's not actually going to make much difference anyway. You'll also need to be a jedi to actually be able to target enemies as the tab system is horrendous, and if you try to click them you'll probably miss because characters will glitch out every time they jump. I was expecting blood line champions meets the MMO genre, but instead I got disappointment meets disappointment meets disappointment. The worst part is a lot of people actually think that the PvP is good so I don't see it changing all that much.

WvWvW is a different kettle of fish, although still horrible. It's incredibly laggy and full of bugs (Yes, I know it's beta.). Melee classes suck. Team fights are aoe spam on players you can't see. There's no communication because the chat system doesn't work well at all. http://img842.imageshack.us/img842/6144/gw013a.jpg (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/842/gw013a.jpg/)

^my character King Joffrey the Second (King Joffrey the First logged out in a busy area and was locked out of the beta) watching with complete apathy. There are a good 50 enemies on the other side of that bridge and on the steps but you can't actually see them until you get into melee range. King Joffrey does not care for such antics. If you're wondering why it looks so bad I lowered the grapphics in an attempt to get more than 30fps (using intel i5 + radeon 7850 - although I am sure this will get optimised as the development progresses).
Overall this game disappointed me, and the 2 friends that bought it with me completly. All of us played A LOT of MMOs, all known ones pretty much. And nothing was as bad as this just from the gameplay. I really don't know if Guild Wars 1 was as bad as this, but if so - then it's really all some weird fanboyism. I don't think I know anyone that played a lot of MMOs that likes GW2.The PvP in guildwars 1 was actually good.

@scoutTier yeah the PvE was pretty good. I did the Human and Norn starting areas.

[Hat_Truck]

I honestly think some people are just fanboys of the old MMO-archetype that pretty much every other MMO still subscribes too, and they're afraid of change.

Pretty much everything GW2 has done is an improvement over the old, tired formula.

The battle system in particular is better in almost every way. You have to be engaged in the combat, aim your attacks, dodge enemy blows, block if you have a shield, and most importantly, the bar that you choose makes a huge difference in the role you play.

If people are complaining about lack of skills I would venture to say they've chosen the wrong class. Elementalists for example have 4 different elements with 5 skills a piece in just their first bar (each class has two bars of skills). The skills for each element differ greatly depending on what weapon you've chosen to wield, as well, and there are 5 different combinations of weapons to use, so you literally have a choice of over 100 skills just right there. This isn't even including your second bar.

Engineers are similar in that they can equip tool belts with multiple active skills onto their bar.

The fact that you are limited to 10 skill slots is what makes GW combat so much better than the other MMOs. You have to come up with the best combination of skills that fits the party or the scenario you're facing. It's like DotA while picking your hero; if you pick a bad hero for the team comp. you have, you're going to feed.

In other MMOs every class has access to all of their skills with a few exceptions. This limits the diversity and unique individual options of each player, because everybody is just using the same skills as everybody else. In other words, the fact that GW limits you and makes you choose your skills, is what makes the game better.

In addition, like scoutTier said, it's a much harder MMO than the rest. You'll die a lot. You can't just stand there and herp derp press buttons, if you're not actively engaged in the combat, you're going to get face-rolled.

Look, I know some of you will never move on from the Diablo/World of Warcraft formula of standing in one spot and pressing buttons, and that's fine, but you should recognize a positive revolution when you see it, and that you're just content to live in the past.

edit: Of course WvW and PvP is still buggy, it's beta...

[scoutTier]

Got to agree with this. I mean the PvP is just plain bad, horrible in fact. For example if you stand in an enemy spell for several seconds it's not even big deal because you'll often only find that you've lost 1% of your health(not even an exaggeration either - and most classes typically heal 25% every 20 seconds anyway). The downed mechanic is really silly too - and essentially exploitable by some classes. I mean a friend and I both went guardians, and every time one of us died the other one just popped that bubble spell that gives invulnerability and knocks over nearby enemies and rezzed the other one up(made holding control points a joke regardless of the number or skill of the enemies attacking). Besides from obvious loopholes like that which may get patched, you still might as well just mash keys because it's not actually going to make much difference anyway. You'll also need to be a jedi to actually be able to target enemies as the tab system is horrendous, and if you try to click them you'll probably miss because characters will glitch out every time they jump. I was expecting blood line champions meets the MMO genre, but instead I got disappointment meets disappointment meets disappointment. The worst part is a lot of people actually think that the PvP is good so I don't see it changing all that much.

WvWvW is a different kettle of fish, although still horrible. It's incredibly laggy and full of bugs (Yes, I know it's beta.). Melee classes suck. Team fights are aoe spam on players you can't see. There's no communication because the chat system doesn't work well at all.


I definitely agree that the PvP with the capture points is pretty horrible. I didn't really have any fun at all doing that, as there was such a strong lack of communication which seems essential for that game type. Imo also with the downed mechanic it shouldn't take like 3 seconds to stab that flag in a guy, but more like one.

Damage imo is a result of us being such low levels going into WvWvW. I noticed a difference of about 400 - 500 damage / hit going into it from when I was level 10 to 15 when I put all my skill traits into power and got a new hammer.

Agreed that communication and chat systems need a huge improvement. Also binding c to target closest enemy helps a bit with targeting (like it was in guild wars 1).

[nigmorris]

There really is no "dodging enemy blows" because their "blows" only deal like 500 damage away.

I like to compare this with Tera. Since the combat system is about dodging/hitting stuff too.
In Tera they have spells that actually damage someone. And as I and ProfessorOak said - it doesn't really matter what skills you choose. The skills are more or the less ALL THE SAME.

There's not this "one spell" that actually does something. They are more or the less -ALL- the same. They all do their like ~200-300 damage.
Yea, your idea looks pretty nice on paper. All those different skills, to counter stuff and do something special. Dodge those dangerous spells and hit yours.
But I don't know if you actually played this game - it isn't like that. It's all more or less the same, you smash your buttons and you are happy.

All cool and nice that you got so many spells, too bad they are all more or less the same with a different animation and the same damage.
A green book is a book. A red book is still a book, just a different color.

But yea, so far pretty much only heard "yay, wasted 50€" from all my friends and me.
Disappointing. Even worse than ToR, and that says a lot.

The experiences all come from the battleground mode, since I won't spend time into lvling - as I mentioned, it's worse than in pretty much every other MMO.

[ProfessorOak]

Imo also with the downed mechanic it shouldn't take like 3 seconds to stab that flag in a guy, but more like one. I agree. It's not very fun how it is at the moment, at least in organised PvP. It's actually possible to leave enemies in a downed state and periodically hit them so that they can't die proper and can't heal up either. Well, so long as they are trying to heal themselves up (and provided they're not a class with some annoying downed state skill in which case you finish them ASAP). The main flaw for me was being able to rez people in such a short time compared to the ridiculous amount of time it actually takes to actually kill someone. Even if we're heavily outnumbered it still takes forever to die if you're playing warrior, guardian, necro or thief, and then when you finally die you just have your buddy rez you up (and they can't do sh-t if your team happens to have an area denial skill).
There really is no "dodging enemy blows" because their "blows" only deal like 500 damage away.Yeh, dodging isn't actually all that useful. The default double tap key configuration was really awkward to use too. Well, there were two skills that I can think of that are really worth dodging, but everything else were paper cuts. The warriors eviscerate which will commonly hit for over 5k, and that Necro damage over time skill(sorry, forgot the name) which bizarrely does 3k damage per second. The first you're not going to have time to dodge, and the second you can't actually dodge because it just does the damage regardless. Better off just kiting so you don't lose damage because of your excessive roly polies.

[Numerio]

I think dodging gets alot more important on higher levels,
I didnt really care much for dodging untill I had to face enemies who almost 2hitted me,
like scoutTier said, it gets really hard - atleast it was as an elementalist (not so much with my necro)


I didnt check out much of the PvP to be honest - except from WvW, which ranged from boring to amazingly fun moments.
its an aoe fest indeed, and it can become very boring when there are huge zergs going on (where nothing really happens),
but i never had the lags/fps problems other people complained about, so maybe Im blessed =)

its not much about individual skill there obviously, but more about the general strategy, about surprising, scouting, etc
...it actually felt like war
(our server was underdog all the time, but we tried our best to take some strategic points - sometimes failed hard, sometimes succeeded.)

it was one of the highlights for me,
the best open pvp experience I had so far

but I totally understand why people dislike it

[Okuu]

God this game is awesome lulz

[ProfessorOak]

So I set my gw2 process priority from low to normal and now I have much better fps. It was low by default.

[scoutTier]

There really is no "dodging enemy blows" because their "blows" only deal like 500 damage away.

There's not this "one spell" that actually does something. They are more or the less -ALL- the same. They all do their like ~200-300 damage.
Yea, your idea looks pretty nice on paper. All those different skills, to counter stuff and do something special. Dodge those dangerous spells and hit yours.
But I don't know if you actually played this game - it isn't like that. It's all more or less the same, you smash your buttons and you are happy.


The experiences all come from the battleground mode, since I won't spend time into lvling - as I mentioned, it's worse than in pretty much every other MMO.

I'm not sure how you can have insight into WvWvW if you're not doing the PvE, which is essential to the WvWvW process. Like I said, your damage output increases substantially per level. Also, you will have access to more skills that will make it easier to kill. Sure if you go into WvWvW at level 3, you're going to only do 500 damage. But at level 15 I was hitting for around 1000 with my hammer, with 1500 crits. The leveling system is quite nice too imo, but I wish it was easier to organize groups

[haddon]

I'm loving GW2 :) Personal stories are great, having a lot of fun. PvP/WvW looks a little wonky though.

[nigmorris]

I'm not sure how you can have insight into WvWvW if you're not doing the PvE, which is essential to the WvWvW process. Like I said, your damage output increases substantially per level. Also, you will have access to more skills that will make it easier to kill. Sure if you go into WvWvW at level 3, you're going to only do 500 damage. But at level 15 I was hitting for around 1000 with my hammer, with 1500 crits. The leveling system is quite nice too imo, but I wish it was easier to organize groups

Please read my post again.
I said this all comes from battlegrounds, where everyone is the same level and has the same gear, right?

[scoutTier]

Please read my post again.
I said this all comes from battlegrounds, where everyone is the same level and has the same gear, right?

Oh by battlegrounds you mean the 5 man PvP capture point thing? I agree that that thing is awful, tried it for ten minutes and had very little fun due to the poor communication.

[nigmorris]

Oh by battlegrounds you mean the 5 man PvP capture point thing? I agree that that thing is awful, tried it for ten minutes and had very little fun due to the poor communication.

It's more than 5v5, sometimes its like 7v7 or something like that.

But yea, that's where I got my PvP experience from since everyone is the same level, has their spells and the same gear. And it's horrible.

[Skyve]

and most classes typically heal 25% every 20 seconds anyway). The downed mechanic is really silly too - and essentially exploitable by some classes. I mean a friend and I both went guardians, and every time one of us died the other one just popped that bubble spell that gives invulnerability and knocks over nearby enemies and rezzed the other one up(made holding control points a joke regardless of the number or skill of the enemies attacking).

That's called strategy.
I like using my "medi tent" in PvE boss enounters. It's often even the only thing you can do to actually get a full incombat-ressurection.

Underwater combat is incredibly hard btw, or at least the Sea-Witch is (in the second human zone, near the center of the map).


Even if we're heavily outnumbered it still takes forever to die if you're playing warrior, guardian, necro or thief

I managed to tank 2 people as an elementalist today.
Constantly swapping between water/earth/air attunements (air mainly for the dagger mainhand ability that stuns melee attackers, earth because of protection on swap, water for healing on swap + healing skills).
Although admittedly, they weren't too smart, considering they were 2 and could just have been standing on the capture point to get it.

I did PvE as Guardian (up to lvl25, at that point I just didn't know where I could find the next zone, and I was just running into disabled portals everywhere). I also managed to get my armor smithing up to 118 (takes a bit longer than it should to get to 75, from then on it was really easy).
The collections part of the bank is a nice feature.
Personal story is decent.

Proper skill use is also more important than you might think. Doing it properly as a guardian (with Mace + Focus, Greatsword) allowed me to get a "Champion" level mob to about 60% health before I had to run away because I was going to die.

The events kinda get somewhat annoying after a while. In the second human zone on the northwest there's a centaur/human eventchain that seems to be constantly active, repeating the same "kill 3 centaur lieutnants" followed by a "kill the centaur leader" (+defend the centaur encampment you cleared out previously, if that fails kill the siege weapons that try to get fort salma, or prevent centaurs from rebuilding a bridge).

Also, after trying out ever single class in PvP (you get to choose from all currently available skills, traits and weapons + sigils/runes/gems/armor sets, even one rune set that proccs beards when you get attacked) I have determined that Engineer is the most awesome class in the game.

[Evil_Andrex]

To me structured pvp felt a lot like the situations we're used to in many ARTS/MOBA games. If your team if bad, you can't carry them solo. Many times I've encountered teams that focused only on fighting and ignoring the fact that capture points are needed. I'm hoping to see a better matchmaking system for that.

[Skyve]

If your team if bad, you can't carry them solo.

That's actually not really true :)

I managed to do that with my tanky/healer elementalist build. Using Dagger/Dagger and jumping around the map like I'm stormspirit I capped lots of places solo and then defended one for ~5 minutes solo against 2 enemies (on both maps) so we got lots of points advantage already, and then additionally the enemy didn't do anything because they wanted to kill me, but couldn't even manage to make me move. So even completely retarded teammates should be able to keep 1-2 points while I'm holding the one against 2 people and win this.

(Which happened on both occasions. Also Ride the Lightning is awesome).

I wonder though what that flying castle is supposed to be, and why the people in the town next to it are talking about kidnappings happening. There was even some talk about people getting invited to the floating "island" (which reminded me somewhat of the movie "The Island" and their lottery where you'd "win" your spot on the island). Seems like a dungeon later on in the game or something.

[Tyrando]

i get the feeling Ride the Lightning is going to be nerfed, the cooldown is incredibly short for such a massive teleport, pretty hard to die when you can use this to escape every 15 seconds and in the case of needing another short burst boost you switch to fire and huzza flame charge.

as for the floating castle it's in GW1, in Kessex Peaks no less, just behind where you slay Galrath
http://guildwars.wikia.com/wiki/Wizard%27s_Tower

interesting to see what could of changed about the castle in 250 or so years
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Wizard%27s_Tower

[Skyve]

Was that in Prophecies? I can't really remember seeing it, but it looks like I should have.

Well, I made a couple screenshots:

http://www.abload.de/img/gw0028pjtb.jpg

That's the floating castle.

http://www.abload.de/img/gw0037xjwq.jpg

View onto Isgarren's view from where I first got to the place.

http://www.abload.de/img/gw0066jk9x.jpg

And that's the two ladies we can clearly see on the previous screenshot to the right of my character, but this time much closer.

http://www.abload.de/img/gw0086jkkn.jpg

Some random room in one of the houses of Isgarren's View.

Didn't make any screenshots of the elemental servants that are all over the town.

[Evil_Andrex]

That's actually not really true :)

I managed to do that with my tanky/healer elementalist build. Using Dagger/Dagger and jumping around the map like I'm stormspirit I capped lots of places solo and then defended one for ~5 minutes solo against 2 enemies (on both maps) so we got lots of points advantage already, and then additionally the enemy didn't do anything because they wanted to kill me, but couldn't even manage to make me move. So even completely retarded teammates should be able to keep 1-2 points while I'm holding the one against 2 people and win this.

(Which happened on both occasions. Also Ride the Lightning is awesome).

I wonder though what that flying castle is supposed to be, and why the people in the town next to it are talking about kidnappings happening. There was even some talk about people getting invited to the floating "island" (which reminded me somewhat of the movie "The Island" and their lottery where you'd "win" your spot on the island). Seems like a dungeon later on in the game or something.

Oh! Then no one in the game was competent to see your pattern to stop it. I also played dagger dagger elementalist and that is something I would do though I've seen teams that can actually stop me in that.

[Skyve]

There isn't really much of a pattern.

You swap to Air to get your melee stun barrier thingy, to earth for a short time defense boost and to water so you can regain lots of health. Constantly swapping basically keeps you alive since changing to water immediately heals you for quite a bit.
Outside of that you still always have your heal (used the healing signet, and got the "Set in Stone" trait that allows for me to have the passive effect of the signet even when I use it).

And well, they can't really prevent you from changing attunements.

[Reldnahc]

Was that in Prophecies? I can't really remember seeing it, but it looks like I should have.

Well, I made a couple screenshots:

http://www.abload.de/img/gw0028pjtb.jpg

That's the floating castle.

http://www.abload.de/img/gw0037xjwq.jpg

View onto Isgarren's view from where I first got to the place.

http://www.abload.de/img/gw0066jk9x.jpg

And that's the two ladies we can clearly see on the previous screenshot to the right of my character, but this time much closer.

http://www.abload.de/img/gw0086jkkn.jpg

Some random room in one of the houses of Isgarren's View.

Didn't make any screenshots of the elemental servants that are all over the town.

Yes that castle was in GW1. http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Wizard%27s_Tower

[Skyve]

I mean prophecies, as in "vanilla GW", so not in nightfall/factions.

[Reldnahc]

I mean prophecies, as in "vanilla GW", so not in nightfall/factions.

It was in Prophecies, in Kessex Peak. Villainy of Galrath

[Skyve]

Guess it's just been too long then.
I mean it did start playing GW 7 years ago.

[Evil_Andrex]

All it takes to stop a wandering capper is to keep tabs on him/her. Thieves that play well usually beat me.

[Okuu]

Some gameplay footage (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_MYuBexPCk&list=UUllCwFgE-GspfatSRWf8TCw&index=1&feature=plcp) I recorded during an instance that turns me into a mighty Minotaur!
Really enjoyed my weekend :P

[Tyrando]

I could outrun a Centaur

[Evil_Andrex]

Eat my dust!

[Gohka]

I think the only issue I had with the beta was with the servers and the overflow areas outside of town. I found it fairly difficult to play with my friends.

Aside from that though, I had a blast. I'm more excited for the games release than I was before.

[Casshern]

Urge to kill RISING!

[Reldnahc]

I loved the PvP. Favorites were Mesmer and Guardian. Necro and Thief were my seconds. Ranger/Engi didn't do it for me and had no motivation to play War.

http://i.imgur.com/jLyHW.jpg

so close...

[nigmorris]

So yea, since this game is a big disappointment to me and my friend we are both looking to sell our account. We would be willing to sell it for around 20$.

[Okuu]

http://puu.sh/seYx
lulz, 24 hours in 2 days

[Gohka]

My body is ready for this game, I got the CE just so I could fight my Rytlock against my boss Finn action figure on my desk.

[Tyrando]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=H11WUG3EnkQ#!

[Evil_Andrex]

Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Primer (http://evilandrex.blogspot.ca)

A little something I worked on for the upcoming beta weekend. Best of luck in Tyria everyone!

[Tyrando]

nice concise guide u got there bro, especially for telling people how to get into the MISTS, i really dont know how people missed this whilst playing.

[scoutTier]

Really neat guide for people new to the beta :). Wish it got a little bit more into the trades though ( crafting and cooking and stuff) , but I suppose I can find those somewhere else!

This beta seems like it's going to be huge. I got like six beta keys from all the contests there were to give to my friends. Imo this will be the last beta before release

[nigmorris]

Still selling my guildwars account - 30$.

[Rean]

Imo this will be the last beta before release
yea, without sylvari and asura, thats totally last beta.

[scoutTier]

They still have to keep some things a surprise! Also, they have tons of testers that aren't in the BWE's. I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that those areas are finished already, so why aren't we testing them now?

[Tyrando]

they do have testers outside the BWE's yes because patchnotes leaked around the 15th of may or so with all the changes from after the BWE

but again, they dont want everything spoiled before release and ofc it's ready when it's ready, personally i can wait for my main Sylvari because this was one MMO i found Humans to be really fun to play

havent really got an urge to play Norn/Charr tho, feels clunky.

[Casshern]

I just want my Asuran Warrior. He'll be a ankle biter lol. Heres hoping for a August release.

[Daeric]

I just have to promise myself I'll play something other then my guardian, damn class sucked me in from the start and I've only really given the ranger a fair shot.

[Skyve]

Guardian is pretty cool. Engineer is also really, really awesome.

Kinda disappointed by Elementalist tbh. Having 20 skills is nice and all, but you only get 1 weapon set to choose from, which kinda sucks, since not all staff skills are what you'd want for every element (Ride the Lightning is just too awesome to not have it for instance).

[scoutTier]

I found the hammer warrior to be so damn sweet. Even though melee is/was really underpowered in PvE, watching the earth explode was awesome. One of the first MMO's that made me feel like I was a super strong guy with a powerful hammer.

Elementalist would be really imba though if it could weapon swap unless if they introduced shared cooldowns, which they said would never happen.

[Projanglez]

i will continue playing my dual axe warrior and will be hopefully able to enter the dungeon. 13 lvls to go :)

[Rean]

btw leveling in WvWvW is way faster than in PVE if you know what you are doing.

[Tyrando]

http://www.arena.net/blog/the-big-beta-weekend-preview

those fixes, feels good

also make sure you've opened the client recently, theres a massive patch

[scoutTier]

Holy ****. This is one of the best games I've ever played tbh. I just got done playing it for 14 hours with some friends. They did great fixes since the last BWE ( much less lag, less bugs with respawn rates being too high). Just a great time all around.

[sherpa]

Massive performance increase, too.

[Daeric]

Currently testing out an engie, and I feel like such a dandy with my fancy coat and leggings blazing pistols into stuff while a flame turret does all the hard work. Fun times.

[ProfessorOak]

WvWvW much smoother this time around, but the pvp there and in the organised pvp is still pretty dire. I had fun questing.

[Rean]

highlight of this BWE for me - mesmer nerfed down from "balanced" to "useless crap" tier

[Atrim3ntus]

I found the hammer warrior to be so damn sweet. Even though melee is/was really underpowered in PvE, watching the earth explode was awesome. One of the first MMO's that made me feel like I was a super strong guy with a powerful hammer.

Elementalist would be really imba though if it could weapon swap unless if they introduced shared cooldowns, which they said would never happen.

So I won a beta key for this weekend and decided to try out the Ranger which I thought was fun until I got my hands on a warrior. I'm using hammer and rifle which are both pretty sweet. The whole time I was attacking with my hammer I kept thinking that same exact thing! It really does make you feel like you're doing some damage and crushing people's bones - the feelings enhanced when you cripple the enemy and you watch the limp...or when you knock em down with your hammer. TOO AWESOME. I'm actually impressed by how well made this game is and how smooth it runs (though I have crashed plenty of times but that's to be expected from a beta). I never played GW1 so I'm no fanboy of the series but when I say every MMO will have no chance against this one I really mean it. At this point I'm pretty much trying as many things as I can and holding out on those like the stories because I feel like this is gonna be a purchase for me so I want to REALLY play it then.

[Tyrando]

have you launched an enemy yet?

something really satisfying about launching a centaur through the air

currently doing jumping/platform puzzles myself, just about done all of them that are in the game atm

[scoutTier]

So I won a beta key for this weekend and decided to try out the Ranger which I thought was fun until I got my hands on a warrior. I'm using hammer and rifle which are both pretty sweet. The whole time I was attacking with my hammer I kept thinking that same exact thing! It really does make you feel like you're doing some damage and crushing people's bones - the feelings enhanced when you cripple the enemy and you watch the limp...or when you knock em down with your hammer. TOO AWESOME. I'm actually impressed by how well made this game is and how smooth it runs (though I have crashed plenty of times but that's to be expected from a beta). I never played GW1 so I'm no fanboy of the series but when I say every MMO will have no chance against this one I really mean it. At this point I'm pretty much trying as many things as I can and holding out on those like the stories because I feel like this is gonna be a purchase for me so I want to REALLY play it then.

I actually did pretty much the same thing. I started with a ranger with some tiger guy, but I was really not having as much fun as I expected to after being so excited about the game. Then after playing the warrior, I felt like some kind of super hero. I use the rifle and the hammer too, it feels like the perfect combo. Once you get it, frenzy may be the coolest skill ever, highly recommend beating **** up with it.

I got pretty far in the story and in every PvE area, but it feels a bit now like I'm getting too attached to my character and spoiling it for release. But, my WvWvW is so imbalanced (like 90k to 100 point wise). Kind of sucks.

p.s. nice join date/goldshield

oh...also what would you say is the best jumping puzzle tyrando? haven't really tried those yet. (and where do i find it)

[Skyve]

currently doing jumping/platform puzzles myself, just about done all of them that are in the game atm

Where are those? I'm a level35 Human Guardian and have completely completed all the 3 Human areas, with some parts of the 15-25 Norn area.

Ascalon Ruins dungeon is pretty tough btw.

[Gohka]

I'm wishing I had more time to play this weekend. Oh well, I'll just play on release.

[Tyrando]

theres a jumping/platform puzzle in every pve area, there are currently 4 in WvW though 3 of them are exactly the same only in each of the Factions specific area, the 4th is in the center, the best one is probably the WvW one, you have to gather 2 halfs of a key before you can open the vault for the loot.

this video shows the location and how to complete the WvW puzzle, though obviously it'll ruin the satisfaction of figuring it out yourself, so you may just want to see the location of it, but it's up to you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81mwQ4i_AwE&feature=related

just recently finished doing AC exp mode, not worth the trouble, seriously dont even bother it's not worth losing your hair over.
I feel like they have the mobs scaled way to high to expect level 80's entering the dungeon and not lvl 35+ (obviously your scaled down, but there is a massive difference between a lvl 80 scaled down and a lvl 35)
overall reward was 41 (no doubt slightly random amount as opposed to a set amount each run) of the tokens used to buy the dungeon gear, and the cheapest piece is 80 (helm is 25 but you get it automatically from storymode.. which you need to complete to access Exploreable)

i felt the satisfaction from completing the incredibly hard content just wasnt worth the stress you go through to get there, prepare to die.


no doubt the dungeons will undergo changes because as they are currently just wont stand up at all

[Skyve]

I tried the exploration mode once in AC, but god damn it those spiders just one-hit everything...

(we also only had one guy at lvl35, rest below that :P)

[Daeric]

What is about having a flamethrower and running around giggling as you unleash flame into zergs in WvWvW. Also found that an engineer is really really hard to catch if he doesn't want to be caught.

[Projanglez]

overall i quite liked the 2nd beta, but that ****ing dungeon. srsly, did arenanet even test it? unbelievable, getting stomped by 3 trashmob grp is very frustrating. we had to try to pull them one by one.

and nc on that ridiculous retarded couple. i don´t get how they can implement such a mechanic without a proper aggro system. way to go arenanet.

[Skyve]

overall i quite liked the 2nd beta, but that ****ing dungeon. srsly, did arenanet even test it? unbelievable, getting stomped by 3 trashmob grp is very frustrating. we had to try to pull them one by one.

It's more about getting people to work together and properly use what they have. Although dodging isn't easy when you see nothing because of all those explosions of colors going on :P

[Tyrando]

they dun-goofed the lover mechanic fight, previously they wernt immune to the boulder knockback which was essentially the key to seperating them, now you either just let them stay together and everyone uses ranged weapons, or attack from both sides and keep them on different targets

personally i prefer everyone to just go ranged.

edit: Recently did another puzzle hidden in Diessa, aswell as the new puzzle in WvW under the eternal battlegrounds area that was added in this beta, god damn that puzzle room was the best thing i've experienced in the beta

absolutely massive, has traps players can use, eventually you'll come to a Dark Room, you'll need a torch from outside the room to see where your going, make sure you play smart and actually use the skills the torch provides, specifically the Throw, after that it's more climbing and your done.

easily my best experience thus far

[Projanglez]

rytlock went missing first grp and we wiped way too often to that couple.

2nd group we managed to get there with 4 people (5 formerly, but that arsehole of lvl 27 ele went offline during nante) and had once a pretty decent try, but unfortunately our dmg on the bosses was fairly low.

dodging is sooo useless in my opinion. you can only dodge aoe and slow projectiles. no comparision to teras dodging... .

[Skyve]

When you're a guardian going ranged is kinda absolutely no fun. Especially because you have no proper ranged off-hand weapon. Torch has too small AoE, shield could work, but is very limited in its use as a 20ish seconds protection buff, absorbing projectiles on SoA is nice, but 4 seconds with huge CD and channeled... not so much.
Leaves focus which can't use its 5 for damage, but at least 4 is decebt with either blind or regen on up to 3 people on decent range.

I ended up doing more running around amd using my seal with mace (+bigger seals trait) to apply regen where needed.

And ofc i used my 'Hold the Line' (protection and regen) and 'Retreat' (Aegis and Swiftness) for overall support. And then I just ran around rezzing people wherever possible.

[Rean]

i loved sword+torch guardian. blink, stab stab, flames everywhere.
not as fun as mesmer, but still fun.

[Reldnahc]

highlight of this BWE for me - mesmer nerfed down from "balanced" to "useless crap" tier

Hell no. Although there was a bug with Phantasmal Haste that made Phantasms have no cooldown on their attacks. So use Illusionary Duelist and lol as he unloads constantly. Was broken but so was everything else on the Mesmer.


When you're a guardian going ranged is kinda absolutely no fun. Especially because you have no proper ranged off-hand weapon. Torch has too small AoE, shield could work, but is very limited in its use as a 20ish seconds protection buff, absorbing projectiles on SoA is nice, but 4 seconds with huge CD and channeled... not so much.
Leaves focus which can't use its 5 for damage, but at least 4 is decebt with either blind or regen on up to 3 people on decent range.

I ended up doing more running around amd using my seal with mace (+bigger seals trait) to apply regen where needed.

And ofc i used my 'Hold the Line' (protection and regen) and 'Retreat' (Aegis and Swiftness) for overall support. And then I just ran around rezzing people wherever possible.

Ranged was the only way I pvped on the Guardian and absolutely loved it. I went with a Scepter/Focus Spirit Weapon build focused on Burning and and the power of the Spirit Weapons. I could command the Sword and get easily 2700 hits and up to 3.6-6.3k crits. I have a lot of footage that I will try to upload sometime.

One thing that I absolutely hated that Arenanet was dumb enough to implement was the Thief downed state. They had a trait that let them gain a longer stealth duration, and their 2nd skill in downed state is a random shadowstep/stealth. Well the downtime between the stealth and the cd of that skill is shorter than the cast time for the finishing blow. So you would either sit for 45 seconds trying to catch a thief and having to auto attack them down or you let them rez themselves(through stealth too might I add). I played against an Arenanet employee who was in full abuse of this and I was quite frankly pissed.

[Rean]

Hell no. Although there was a bug with Phantasmal Haste that made Phantasms have no cooldown on their attacks. So use Illusionary Duelist and lol as he unloads constantly. Was broken but so was everything else on the Mesmer.
out of all viable builds from BWE1 there was only 1 left - phantasm one (not because of the bug)
condition? - useless
clone? - useless
shatter? - useless

[Reldnahc]

out of all viable builds from BWE1 there was only 1 left - phantasm one (not because of the bug)
condition? - useless
clone? - useless
shatter? - useless

Was saying Hell No because it wasn't the highlight of my BWE2, was the downfall. Like I had no idea they could regress so much on a class that was supposed to be getting love. Instead they beat it worse than Chris Brown on Rihanna and I would have been embarrassed showing Mesmers in the state they were in. It was pathetic and they honestly should have just kept most of the balancing regarding first BWE for Mesmers because there was no way the stuff they had going would fly. Mesmers were literally the only prof that got boned hard by the trait tiering. Other professions had amazing traits and then strong ones to choose from and could still make viable builds. Mesmers had strong ones and then random useless crap. Well they stuck the strong ones on the end and the random crap was filtered thoughout. Tier 1 of Chaos line literally had nothing that could be viable in sPvP. Like literally nothing. This BWE just about sealed the deal on me maining Guardian because of how they handled the Mesmer. I ran a condition based Mesmer first BWE and loved it. They said on Guardian forums that it is too late to add more weapons to professions so I doubt mesmers will get the attention they deserve because the entire class needs overhauled. I thought that they were about 60% of the way there last BWE but now they are about 30%.

[Tyrando]

considerin how nerfed the mesmers where between last BWE and recent i doubt it's going to be a problem on release, no doubt the mesmer players backlash will give Arenanet more to think about, that isnt to say they listen to whiny babies but if what your sayin is justified then their going to notice.

not a fan of the new skill-tiers like myself, felt like i had to pick up skills i wouldnt use just to get to the skills i would, that said even the limited pool of skill points avaiable in the BWE was enough to get all the skills you needed and come release there are far more skillpoints than actual skills so more will be added down the line.

i also love how you can just enter the mists and test out any skills you want to see if it's worth spending skill points on.

come release i feel im going for
Sylvari Guardian
Human Mesmer
Charr Ranger
Norn Warrior
Asuran Elementalist

not too sure about Necro/Thief/Engineer, the idea of a plant wielding a Flamethrower is pretty cool but im probably going to wait to see the casting animations for the new races to decide.

[Skyve]

Probably will make a human engi, asura ele, sylvari guardian and charr necro.

[Aguile]

Already pre-purchased it...wonder how many more BWEs there'll be...

[Skyve]

I am at a point were I'd still expect 3-5 more. Arenanet seems to be putting a lot of effort into getting feedback, especially from their forums. They do test a lot of things on these beta weekends, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were actually going to end up beta testing their complete content. Especially their dungeons :P

[Reldnahc]

Thinking

Asura Elementalist
Sylvari Thief
Charr Ranger
Human Mesmer
Human Guardian
Norn Warrior
Sylvari Necro
Asura Engineer

[Rean]

I am at a point were I'd still expect 3-5 more. Arenanet seems to be putting a lot of effort into getting feedback, especially from their forums. They do test a lot of things on these beta weekends, and I wouldn't be surprised if they were actually going to end up beta testing their complete content. Especially their dungeons :P
3-5 more means release will happen in 4-6 months (their plan is 1 bwe per month). which is doubtful.
1 more BWE 100%, 2 is smth like 70%, 3 is 30%. but i dont think there wlll be more than 3.
they plan to release the game in 2012, worst case will be 4 more BWE (july,aug,sept,oct + 1 month for final fixes)

[`Fluttershy]

I heard the one that just ended was the last one. I hope not because I prepurchased over the weekend but wasn't able to download in time to play.

[Daeric]

You should get one more as the Asura and sylvari races have being unplayable in the others BWE and stress test events. So I fully expect them giving us at least one to test those out.

[Projanglez]

I heard the one that just ended was the last one. I hope not because I prepurchased over the weekend but wasn't able to download in time to play.
well on the one hand it´s bad, especially for you, but on the other hand it means that the release date is close.

[Rean]

You should get one more as the Asura and sylvari races have being unplayable in the others BWE and stress test events. So I fully expect them giving us at least one to test those out.
not really, they have to save some stuff for release.
i dont think we'll be given a chance to play them.

[scoutTier]

I heard the one that just ended was the last one. I hope not because I prepurchased over the weekend but wasn't able to download in time to play.

http://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/uodjr/im_a_guild_wars_2_developer_ama_about_the_next/

Here is a Guild Wars 2 developer AMA from reddit. In one answer (which I can't seem to find right now by quickly skimming it :'( .. ) A developer implies that there will be a BWE 3. It's a really interesting read.

Imo there will definitely be 1 more BWE and then another one max. In that AMA, a lot of questions are answered with something along the lines of 'we'll finish this after release.' This leads me to think that they are content with delivering a product that is free of a lot of bugs, and is polished to their best abilities, but they know that it will not be perfect.

Just pure speculation on my part, but I've been looking up quite a bit of Guild Wars 2 stuff in my free time. Definitely could be wrong though.

[Reldnahc]

All I know is that their class balance is in a terrible state right now and needs thoroughly addressed before release. A MMO launch is a very fragile thing and with the way BWE 2 was in terms of balance, if they shipped as such, that ship would have sailed straight into a typhoon.

[Daeric]

Another Stress Test coming up this Wednesday. Should be enough time to give one of the casters or a thief a proper whirl I think.

[Tyrando]

stress test is only 4 hours wth, this wont tide me over.

Guess ill be spendin 4 hours practicing all the jump puzzles again, its amazing how difficult it was the first time and then doing it again in a fraction of the time, definately doing the Darkroom one again, absolutely fantasic.

[Tyrando]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=t-CB0hheQRg
Release Date announced, 28th of August

[scoutTier]

Awesome! Sucks that it's just before school starts though

[Gohka]

Trollface anet.
I'm gonna be moving into my new apartment around then as well. Looks like I wont be able to play on release... but oh well.

[Tyrando]

well Headstart is the 25th on a saturday :D

but yeah, sadly all summer to wait.

[scoutTier]

So do you guys know which server you're going to play on? I'm really hoping I pick the right one for WvWvW. In the last stress test and BWE, the WvWvW's were all completely imbalanced in favor of my enemy. They ended up beating my server by about 90,000 points with control of every point...

[Tyrando]

http://www.arena.net/blog/mike-ferguson-on-wvw-updates#more-8463

choose a server from that listing

i'll be on Vabbi with /vg/ serves as good a starting point as any and nothing prevents me from moving servers in future if i see fit to change, that and if a friend rolls on another server it's just as easy to use the guest system.

[Thysios]

Damn, wrong thread.

[Rean]

http://www.arena.net/blog/mike-ferguson-on-wvw-updates#more-8463

choose a server from that listing

i'll be on Vabbi with /vg/ serves as good a starting point as any and nothing prevents me from moving servers in future if i see fit to change, that and if a friend rolls on another server it's just as easy to use the guest system.
forenote: vabbi will be full of russians

[Daeric]

Just noticed this posted on the GW2 facbook page.

Yes, asura and sylvari will be playable in the next Beta Weekend Event! Keep an eye on www.arena.net/blog (http://www.arena.net/blog) for all the details later this morning. ~RB2

[scoutTier]

Just noticed this posted on the GW2 facbook page.

Oh man I was wrong :(. Gonna play an asura in BWE3 but definitely saving sylvari for release. Don't wanna spoil it too much

[Gohka]

Asura > Everything

[Skyve]

Asura > Everything

Asura < all other races.

Norn > all other races.

[Gohka]

Must be another bookah.

[Libra]

I am looking to roll a asura but I'm not sure if I should play the next beta... spoilers and all... :o

[Tyrando]

play something you wouldnt normally play plus you only get a taste anyhow

for BWE3 i'll go Asura, leaving Sylvari for Release cause it'll be my main but with regards to previous BWE's i've experienced alot of Human stuff and i can say im definately going with the Sister storyline.

not really looked into Asura too much so it should be fun.
"An Asura once called me a Bookah, i think she was hitting on me".

[Gohka]

I'm gonna be feeling 6 feet tall when I play my asura BWE3.

[Libra]

play something you wouldnt normally play plus you only get a taste anyhow

for BWE3 i'll go Asura, leaving Sylvari for Release cause it'll be my main but with regards to previous BWE's i've experienced alot of Human stuff and i can say im definately going with the Sister storyline.

not really looked into Asura too much so it should be fun.
"An Asura once called me a Bookah, i think she was hitting on me".

I have played the first beta, tried out WvWvW and tested some classes, but I have no idea on what class I am going to roll.

I really liked the warrior though my first choice was ranger, did not really play that well to me.

So what are you guys going to play? :o

[Tyrando]

try other classes out, i found myself not wanting to even bother with the Engineer/Thief but when i played them i enjoyed them immensly.

i'll be maining a Guardian, the amount of bro-tier things a Guardian can do just fits my playstyle perfectly.

Ranger's main letdown is the pet, the AI for them is pretty retarded to be fair, Anet really need to work their ass off and fix them or remove them and give rangers another class specific skill.

as for classes to play i'd suggest Engineer, the class has alot of diversity, just make sure you pick up the Kit abilities and test them out as this is the main advantage of the Engineer, my personal favourite being the Grenade kit.

also as a general tip, especially for something AoE heavy like the grenade kit or Elementalist, in the options you'll find a box that enables spells to be cast on mouse cursor rather than having to aim them, i strongly advise using this and getting used to how it works, it makes AoE attacks alot easier to control.

[Baarak]

Going to pre order tomorrow. Been super excited about this game for about 2 months now. Just bought a new computer to play it. Gonna play a Charr warrior or engineer(still stuck between them). The dynamic event system sounds absolutely ridiculous.

[Daeric]

I'm going to really buckle down with a mesmer or elementalist during the event as casters are still the only one I haven't given a proper run at in pve and both kinds of pvp.

[I_PICK_CARRY]

anyone have a beta key they're willing to spare please? :)

[scoutTier]

I really hope that the thief downed state has been nerfed a bit. It was incredibly ridiculous trying to finish off a thief in Pvp...

[Tyrando]

people just need to learn not to use the finishing move on a thief, no doubt the amount of stealth will be nerfed at one point, but theres nothing stopping people from just beating them down slowly.

[Krino]

i didn't read all of the post in this thread but if may i ask, is there an HoN fan guild for GW2?
and what server are you guys going in? : )
I'd understand if no one wants to play with the HoN community, but still i would love to hear on which servers you guys are staying
mine's in Yak's Bend!

[orbitalx]

So who is all going to be playing this weekend? I tried a Human Thief last time. I will probably try an Asura Guardian this time. Have always planned to go with a Sylvari Ranger at full release!

[Skyve]

I'm gonna go with a Sylvari this BWE. Not sure what class though.

[Tyrando]

having learnt my current chars are deleted im going both Asura & Sylvari

Asuran will be a member of the College of Statics.
Sylvari will be born at Dawn.

[Skyve]

a.) Servers are up.
b.) Sylvari. YAY!

[scoutTier]

Wow, the Sylvari zone is just gorgeous ! I am finding it hard to resist going through more of it as not to spoil release, but damn.

[Daeric]

I'm a tree who makes illusions ***********. Why did I wait so long to make a mesmer I do not know. Great fun in aggroing big packs, throwing down brambles and then storm of chaos on top of the stuff stuck in it.

[Skyve]

Not gonna lie, Asura are pretty awesome.

[Baarak]

Having credit card trouble with the prepurchase. I have a visa debt card, I've never had a problem with it before this. The page is saying the information isn't valid, but I just checked it via steam. Anyone know of any workarounds I'd like to try out the beta this weekend.

[scoutTier]

Having credit card trouble with the prepurchase. I have a visa debt card, I've never had a problem with it before this. The page is saying the information isn't valid, but I just checked it via steam. Anyone know of any workarounds I'd like to try out the beta this weekend.

I'm not quite sure what the problem is, but I recommend first trying a different browser. Then if that doesn't work, contact customer support. They usually respond very quickly and professionally.

OT - Does anyone else hate the mob / almost disconnected feeling from combat with big zergs? I was playing an asura engineer and the zergs just killed every monster for me while i sat there shooting people to no affect

[Tyrando]

Not gonna lie, Asura are pretty awesome.

not a big fan personally atm

i love the attitude with the combat skills, the way they hold a Greatsword and generally float with certain attacks is great but the Asura starting area is probably the worst out of all 5.

not really feeling this whole genius thing either, generally speaking it's hard to feel like a genius when all your personal story thus far is interacting with other genius', when do i get to the part where i call people Bookah?

[Skyve]

i love the attitude with the combat skills, the way they hold a Greatsword and generally float with certain attacks is great but the Asura starting area is probably the worst out of all 5.

But you get to play in a robot battle arena. A ROBOT BATTLE ARENA!

[Tyrando]

dang you guys played Keg Brawl? amazingly fun
http://i.imgur.com/gcGhl.jpg

[Daeric]

I knew there was something I had being forgetting to do, the ye olde keg brawl. I've just being WvWvW for the last few hours despite at times insane lag.

[Skyve]

No, I have not played Keg Brawl. Where is that?

[Tyrando]

in the Norn City Hoelbrek, top NW corner.

after you talk to an npc your put in an instanced area (you wont see people actually playing in the city itself, just NPC's)

your skills are essentially
Daze punch
Keg Punch (you use this to get the keg off other players)
Dodge Roll (independant of actual dodge, travels far)
Charging Kick
Stomp

with the keg it's
Short Pass
Long Pass
Dodge Roll, see above
Keg Stun
Slippin Slidin Away, drops ice on the floor enemies go flying.

great fun it's like all the satisfaction of PVP but without the annoyance of dying.

[Daeric]

apart from when you get chain charging kicked, man that gets annoying.

[SFCLUB]

I'm getting a new computer within the year and I'm trying to decide whether to go back to WoW (I played religiously, top 25 US guild, top 10 ranked PvP in whirlwind BG) or start anew with Guild Wars 2 (I wouldn't play as much, but I would play with the same intensity). I stopped playing WoW after Cataclysm got released.

I've been doing some video watching about GW2 and reading some stuff, but what do you guys think? Is GW2 going to be the next big thing?

Will I be able to feel the same dedication to GW2 that I felt with WoW? I'm a bit confused with all the acronyms getting thrown around, but how is balance so far? What is the end-game content? What's PvP like?

[Libra]

I don't know... WoW whilst being familiar it is just that. GW2 is new and shiny, I haven't looked much into the end game. I did enjoy the PvP a lot... but yeah opinions and stuff... :/

[Apostate]

I'm getting a new computer within the year and I'm trying to decide whether to go back to WoW (I played religiously, top 25 US guild, top 10 ranked PvP in whirlwind BG) or start anew with Guild Wars 2 (I wouldn't play as much, but I would play with the same intensity). I stopped playing WoW after Cataclysm got released.

I've been doing some video watching about GW2 and reading some stuff, but what do you guys think? Is GW2 going to be the next big thing?

Will I be able to feel the same dedication to GW2 that I felt with WoW? I'm a bit confused with all the acronyms getting thrown around, but how is balance so far? What is the end-game content? What's PvP like?
The end game content is me and you trolling together while cuddling in my bed <3

[scoutTier]

I'm getting a new computer within the year and I'm trying to decide whether to go back to WoW (I played religiously, top 25 US guild, top 10 ranked PvP in whirlwind BG) or start anew with Guild Wars 2 (I wouldn't play as much, but I would play with the same intensity). I stopped playing WoW after Cataclysm got released.

I've been doing some video watching about GW2 and reading some stuff, but what do you guys think? Is GW2 going to be the next big thing?

Will I be able to feel the same dedication to GW2 that I felt with WoW? I'm a bit confused with all the acronyms getting thrown around, but how is balance so far? What is the end-game content? What's PvP like?

I can't really compare it to WoW because I have no gameplay experience, although GW2 doesn't have a subscription fee.

Arena net has some of the best customer support / patches I've seen. They are planning to continuously update the PvE content (new dynamic events, and heart quests) as well as the PvP content. At the moment balance isn't the greatest, but I read on the forums from a developer that they just had 1 guy working on it for a few days, where in the coming weeks they're going to have a team working on balance up until release. GW2 will probably also have separate balance for PvE and PvP. What I mean by this is that although all the skills will have the same function, there may be some numbers tweaked between the two.

The PvP is great in that it feels fluid. The 5 man PvP is at the moment a capture point style, with all gear being equal. A lot of strategy comes in to play involving splits, and builds. The fighting itself involves quite a bit of dodging and anticipating/ reacting to what your opponent will do next. There are no cast bars so on-the-fly decisions will have to be made. As for build variations, some people people are complaining about this. You get 10 skills total, and 5 are from your weapons alone. You get two weapons that you can swap in combat. That leaves a heal skill, 3 utility skills (there's about twenty for each class), and an elite (maybe around 5, single digits). There are also trait points to specialize into. There is a lot beneath the surface though in regards to specialization.

We're not really sure about the end game content, with it being locked until release.. but five man dungeons are scattered throughout the world. I hear that the final mission will be an instance, which is you by youself unless you invite some friends along. There is also leveling down in PvE, so if you're level 80 they will lower your stats to that of a lower level if you go into a lower level zone to play with friends. The best thing I'm going to do endgame is the World v World v World. This is like a 3 server free for all where your PvE stuff actually matters. It consists of gaining points for your server by doing things like capturing keeps, or making the local npc's your friends by helping them. The map is huge and there are hundreds doing this at a time.

typed this all out in a rush, so apologies if any of it is unclear. I really think Guild Wars 2 is gonna be huge, but I was playing Guild Wars 1 back in like 2005. I'm a pretty big fanboy.

[SFCLUB]

Thanks for the info so far, it's helping a lot.

Part of what drew me to WoW was the objectives and competition of guilds. I see you mentioned you don't know much about endgame content - but will there be instances of 10-40 people who all know each other well because of long-term commitment, smashing and killing monsters?

Or is it more of a server wide come-together to kill a boss when it spawns, with 5 man dungeons on the side?

[TaeYeon]

I was disappointed during my play on BWE2 (did not play in BWE1 or 3).

All of my friends played since BWE1 and naturally had a higher level char than me so I was left to roll solo. Made a Human Mesmer. I generally felt that quests were too generic and boring, kill x amounts of bandits or collect y amount of z on the ground. Heartquests felt like regular questing only with no quest-giver and dynamic events weren't what all the hype had made me think they were. Pretty much same generic stuff only on a scripted timer. Quests would start over again once I finished them which kinda sucked. I didn't like the gameplay at all and combat (being tab-target which I despise) felt unengaging. The only notable, fun quests I did was Shadowbehemoth and some Cavetroll event. Nonetheless I completed Queensdale and Divinity's Reach 100% (being a completionist) in hope for better, more intuitive content in the next area. So I moved to Kessex Hills. Nope, same old, generic quest. I really didn't feel the inovation or revolution in questing or whatever. I thought to myself if Kessex was gonna be QD all over again there's no point in playing - I don't like this game. So I decided to go solo exploring and not following the mindless zergfest doing heartquest in order and exploring the beauty of Kessex was what I felt like doing. Well forget it. Remember how I said I completed QD and DR 100%? I was lvl16 and met mobs 6 levels higher than me in Kessex. Yeah I was pretty much dead in a few seconds and after trying countless times I gave up and quit the game in frustration.

I consulted with my friends and they said go WvWvW or the other races' starting zones. Well I'm really extreme when it comes to RP and I don't want to lvl up in WvWvW - I want to do it the "natural way" if you get me. And I wanted to have this policy where if I want to see Norn/Charr areas or Lion's Arch I go there first - no skipping thru Asura Gates. That's just how I RP so I didn't want to go do Norn and Charr starting zones - besides why should they be any better than Queensdale all over again?

I really have to say I did not have a positive end user-experience. Call me out if I'm doing something wrong, but I was lvl16 in Kessex facing mobs at lvl22 after 100% QD and DR which means there's nowhere else to go unless I wanna use Asura Gates. Go back to Queensdale and "grind" old events over and over again? I mean that's just silly. Pretty much the only thing I enjoyed was the Personal Story because lore-heavy quests are actually engaging compared to all those generic quests out there. But the game didn't let me do more than one or two instances of the PS because there's a freakin level cap. I mean, seriously... People say classes are not restricted to races because it's just better if the players get to decide what class-race combos fits the most - why shouldn't this principle apply to the questing. Why is the game forcing me to go grind boring heartquests before I get to digg deeper into my char's PS. One of the reasons I loved Skyrim was because _you_ chose how long you wanted to dig into each questline before moving to another. This is good because it is more engaging. Compare this to reading a book - it's more enjoyable to read until you're satisfied, than being forced to reading one page per day, right?

Will probably not be playing this game.

[scoutTier]

Thanks for the info so far, it's helping a lot.

Part of what drew me to WoW was the objectives and competition of guilds. I see you mentioned you don't know much about endgame content - but will there be instances of 10-40 people who all know each other well because of long-term commitment, smashing and killing monsters?

Or is it more of a server wide come-together to kill a boss when it spawns, with 5 man dungeons on the side?

If you have a big group of friends you can play together and smash monsters whenever you want as its an open world. You may see other players a lot during the lower levels around you and your friends, but as you gain higher levels you probably won't see too many people if you just want to play with your friends. There is a ton to do PvE wise with people. Imo the world looks really great and dynamic events are always popping up. Dynamic events are events that just happen whether you're there or not (though the more people the more that spawn.) For example, during beta I was running around by myself and I came upon a village with this giant golem that had killed all the villagers (there were bodies everywhere xD) and I needed to kill the golem. I couldn't really do it alone and I died though :(. At the lower levels though it will just be a massive zerg fest of new players, something that I dislike.

WvWvW, the thing I mentioned previously, is best suited for what you're describing though in my opinion. Everyone is scaled up to max level, though they're not as strong as a max level character. WvWvW combines PvP and PvE. There are monsters throughout the map, and the map is HUGE. There are four areas in the map, and they are each very very big. Each has their own castles to take, supplies to capture, npc's to help, dynamic events, and skill quests. There are massive zergs trying to take keeps, and there are small groups going around taking supply camps or gaining npc favor. There's also a dungeon at the bottom that grants some kind of bonus, I'm not really sure what at the moment, that each side races to whilst sabotaging the other side with traps.

There are also jumping puzzles, which are pretty neat to do with a smaller group (maybe 5-10). Not many people do these at a time because they're pretty hidden and there's some treasure at the end.

This link has a video where the developers talk about it, and some summarization of the "endgame".

http://www.darkshogun.net/topic/4808-endgame-details/

[scoutTier]

I was disappointed during my play on BWE2 (did not play in BWE1 or 3).

All of my friends played since BWE1 and naturally had a higher level char than me so I was left to roll solo. Made a Human Mesmer. I generally felt that quests were too generic and boring, kill x amounts of bandits or collect y amount of z on the ground. Heartquests felt like regular questing only with no quest-giver and dynamic events weren't what all the hype had made me think they were. Pretty much same generic stuff only on a scripted timer. Quests would start over again once I finished them which kinda sucked. I didn't like the gameplay at all and combat (being tab-target which I despise) felt unengaging. The only notable, fun quests I did was Shadowbehemoth and some Cavetroll event. Nonetheless I completed Queensdale and Divinity's Reach 100% (being a completionist) in hope for better, more intuitive content in the next area. So I moved to Kessex Hills. Nope, same old, generic quest. I really didn't feel the inovation or revolution in questing or whatever. I thought to myself if Kessex was gonna be QD all over again there's no point in playing - I don't like this game. So I decided to go solo exploring and not following the mindless zergfest doing heartquest in order and exploring the beauty of Kessex was what I felt like doing. Well forget it. Remember how I said I completed QD and DR 100%? I was lvl16 and met mobs 6 levels higher than me in Kessex. Yeah I was pretty much dead in a few seconds and after trying countless times I gave up and quit the game in frustration.

I consulted with my friends and they said go WvWvW or the other races' starting zones. Well I'm really extreme when it comes to RP and I don't want to lvl up in WvWvW - I want to do it the "natural way" if you get me. And I wanted to have this policy where if I want to see Norn/Charr areas or Lion's Arch I go there first - no skipping thru Asura Gates. That's just how I RP so I didn't want to go do Norn and Charr starting zones - besides why should they be any better than Queensdale all over again?

I really have to say I did not have a positive end user-experience. Call me out if I'm doing something wrong, but I was lvl16 in Kessex facing mobs at lvl22 after 100% QD and DR which means there's nowhere else to go unless I wanna use Asura Gates. Go back to Queensdale and "grind" old events over and over again? I mean that's just silly. Pretty much the only thing I enjoyed was the Personal Story because lore-heavy quests are actually engaging compared to all those generic quests out there. But the game didn't let me do more than one or two instances of the PS because there's a freakin level cap. I mean, seriously... People say classes are not restricted to races because it's just better if the players get to decide what class-race combos fits the most - why shouldn't this principle apply to the questing. Why is the game forcing me to go grind boring heartquests before I get to digg deeper into my char's PS. One of the reasons I loved Skyrim was because _you_ chose how long you wanted to dig into each questline before moving to another. This is good because it is more engaging. Compare this to reading a book - it's more enjoyable to read until you're satisfied, than being forced to reading one page per day, right?

Will probably not be playing this game.

There's not a level cap to the personal story quests :O

[TaeYeon]

There's not a level cap to the personal story quests :O
Well it's not technically a cap, but there's a recommended level so you'll just get toasted unless you're at the proper level, right?

[scoutTier]

Well it's not technically a cap, but there's a recommended level so you'll just get toasted unless you're at the proper level, right?

I would say you could do it one or two levels below it but ya it's a recommendation.

I'm not really sure why your friends didn't play with you though, that's a lot of the fun right there...there's even down leveling to encourage them to come back and help you

[TaeYeon]

That's true and we've agreed in aftermath that it was a poor decision by them (they're the ones pushing GW2 on me - I've generally hated MMOs). They were doing Ascalonian Catacombs and stuff back then so I guess that was more of a selfish choice which I respect (altho as I said I was pushed into this so really they should have the decency to start new chars with me :p).

I must say I was also playing Mesmer which I've heard is a tough choice for your first char, but the Mesmer was really one of the things that made me want to give GW2 a shot - it's a gameplay exclusive that never has existed in other RPGs. But I'm still baffled as to why I'm so underleveled even after completing everything possible before moving to Kessex. Am I just a noob or is that intended. Either way it did not result in a positive experience.

[scoutTier]

That's true and we've agreed in aftermath that it was a poor decision by them (they're the ones pushing GW2 on me - I've generally hated MMOs). They were doing Ascalonian Catacombs and stuff back then so I guess that was more of a selfish choice which I respect (altho as I said I was pushed into this so really they should have the decency to start new chars with me :p).

I must say I was also playing Mesmer which I've heard is a tough choice for your first char, but the Mesmer was really one of the things that made me want to give GW2 a shot - it's a gameplay exclusive that never has existed in other RPGs. But I'm still baffled as to why I'm so underleveled even after completing everything possible before moving to Kessex. Am I just a noob or is that intended. Either way it did not result in a positive experience.

Ya by your post it did really seem like you didn't like MMO's much. But that is kind of understandable I guess, a poor choice though imo by them.

The underlevel thing is a pretty big complaint from people, but there is more things to level from in Guild Wars 2 than just quests. You can level by exploring the different areas a lot, or just by crafting / gathering things. You can actually get to level 80 by pure crafting alone. The leveling progression takes into account that people are doing the dynamic events, heart quests, exploring, and crafting at once. If you did all that stuff you'd be over leveled.

Though if you don't like MMO's and didn't like Guild Wars 2 after trying it, no reason to force yourself to play

[Libra]

The underlevel thing is a pretty big complaint from people

Do you mean that you scale down to zones/quests? If so I love that feature! Thing in WoW is that there are many different zones where you can level, and once you are past a certain level the zone becomes obsolete in terms of progress. Sure there isn't much gear progress for you once you've done a level 10 zone and go back to a level 5 one... but it is still challenging! But I might be one of the few people who enjoys that... I love questing/lvling (also alts!) in games... so yeah I might be a niece audience ;p

[scoutTier]

Do you mean that you scale down to zones/quests? If so I love that feature! Thing in WoW is that there are many different zones where you can level, and once you are past a certain level the zone becomes obsolete in terms of progress. Sure there isn't much gear progress for you once you've done a level 10 zone and go back to a level 5 one... but it is still challenging! But I might be one of the few people who enjoys that... I love questing/lvling (also alts!) in games... so yeah I might be a niece audience ;p

Oh my bad on choice of wording. I meant being too underleveled for the stuff that they want to do next and then being owned by higher level monsters. I actually like the downleveling too, though I think it needs to be even more severe. For example, I was level 25 going through killing level 6 monsters with my buddy, and although I was downleveled I could still rape them pretty hard. Still better than not being downleveled at all though :>

I seem to be posting a lot in this thread, but I just can't wait for this game xD

[KingSaber]

Oh my bad on choice of wording. I meant being too underleveled for the stuff that they want to do next and then being owned by higher level monsters. I actually like the downleveling too, though I think it needs to be even more severe. For example, I was level 25 going through killing level 6 monsters with my buddy, and although I was downleveled I could still rape them pretty hard. Still better than not being downleveled at all though :>

I seem to be posting a lot in this thread, but I just can't wait for this game xD

I think thats a silly mechanic. MMORPGS are all about progression.

[Libra]

I think thats a silly mechanic. MMORPGS are all about progression.

Let's be fair though most MMORPG's are about linear stat progression. Now you don't have a stat progression (at least from what I have heard) but different looking gear. This could be the next thing...! :O

I mean if you see how TF2 goes with hats... GW2 has multiple (I think?) gear slots you can wear!

[Tyrando]

the downscaling system is actually genius it's just that all other games before it had to stick to the standard model of stupid progression

basically look at everythin from a lore perspective, silly for an mmo perhaps but it works
each area had it's own little storyline and was essentially always under threat despite how fast you could slay every enemy in the area

if you think of old Eastern Plaguelands, because WoW's world doesnt change until Blizzard make it, the area was under constant threat from the scourge, nothing you did would change that, wether you were killing them all in 1hit or not.

yet this was just as big as a problem as say Molten Core where the Firelord was getting ready to wipe out Azeroth, both issues were from a lore point incredibly threatening, but one was vastly easier than the other because of the levelup system.

hell look at Northshire abbey, for the longest time Orcs had a camp right next to SW, but you couldnt do anything about it despite 12419417 players killing the leader and 8 orcs to boot.

the downscaling allows you to enjoy all the content in the game at all times, everywhere feels like it's under constant threat because it actually is due to how events will take place regardless if your there or not, but dont think for a second that a lvl 80 downscaled to 5 will play like a level 5, you will stay have a damn good advantage over the enemies it just keeps the flow of having to work for your kills rather than lol round them up aoe all dead rince repeat.

it takes people awhile to adjust but i much prefer it this way as the Downscaling was intended to prevent griefing of people just 1shotting everything in the starting zones and such, also level 80's cant literally carry you through the whole game if your just starting out.

as for the speed at which you level up dont expect to be able to complete 1 area and be ready for the next tiered area, the game gives you the ability to go to all of the other cities right from the start and you should be doing at least 2 area's per tier if all goes to plan, hell the Sylvari/Asura starters are right next to each other.
remember that other area's all have skillpoints for you to gather.

[Skyve]

everywhere feels like it's under constant threat because it actually is due to how events will take place regardless if your there or not

Actually that's not necessarily true. In some areas, clearing up the right events leads to events that have little to do with "being under threat" and rather end up in "help at this farm" and similar stuff :P

Although I doubt that that goes on much beyond the starting areas.

[KingSaber]

Never saw a problem with character progression. Interested to see how this works out.

[Rordarok]

Anyone from EU here that will be playing?

[Libra]

<----

[Skyve]

I'm EU

[Rordarok]

Hmmkay. My friends and I will be building an EU guild on the Far Shiverpeaks server, so if you're interested hit me up.

[Bloodaxe]

I'm really on the fence here, I know like 5 of my friends are going to player, but I think I might be mmo'ed out.

[Libra]

Hmmkay. My friends and I will be building an EU guild on the Far Shiverpeaks server, so if you're interested hit me up.

I'll poke you if I go for that server :)

Also can I ask why you go for that server? :o Anything special about it?

[`lorko]

Iwould join your guild once i get gw2 :-P

[Bamsemums]

Just that the option to do PvP right after the tutorial is enough for me to get the game. I hate MMO's that forces me to get max level and get decent/good PvP gear before I can actually have a shot against other peoples. In WoW, you can't PvP pre-max lvl at all if you don't have full heirlooms and enchants on them. If you don't have any, you will be raped so hard, it will hurt irl.

I just hope this doesn't turn out to be overhyped game.

PS. I'm also EU, but I don't know what server to play on. Would be great to have some sort of community to join when I get into the game.

[BaaI]

i'm liking gw2 very much, especially the tournament games, pvp in general is fun.
the pve that i did was kind of disappointing though. upgrading gear and looking better is probably my favorite part about pve in mmo's. i didnt feel like there was anything cool to go for, and like my character stuck out even being decked out in tournament gear. theres a lack of varying stats on items and overall i just dont like the pve.

[Bloodaxe]

Gw was a over hyped game that failed you meet what was promised, I hope they did not do the same with gw2

[scoutTier]

i'm liking gw2 very much, especially the tournament games, pvp in general is fun.
the pve that i did was kind of disappointing though. upgrading gear and looking better is probably my favorite part about pve in mmo's. i didnt feel like there was anything cool to go for, and like my character stuck out even being decked out in tournament gear. theres a lack of varying stats on items and overall i just dont like the pve.

The gear looking cool is pretty much what it's all about in Guild Wars 2 xD. Most of the end game gear in Guild Wars 2 has the same stats, just the rare stuff that people go for looks really really cool.

Really really pumped for this game. I'm wondering how much of HoN's playerbase it's going to take.

[Tyrando]

i'm liking gw2 very much, especially the tournament games, pvp in general is fun.
the pve that i did was kind of disappointing though. upgrading gear and looking better is probably my favorite part about pve in mmo's. i didnt feel like there was anything cool to go for, and like my character stuck out even being decked out in tournament gear. theres a lack of varying stats on items and overall i just dont like the pve.

all the dungeon gear
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sEJDW8KjVos

my personal favourite is the Manor Heavy set, gonna look great on my Sylvari, which you can see at 25:12.
theres also more armour sets here
http://dulfy.net/2012/08/11/skimpy-armors-in-gw2a-list/
http://dulfy.net/2012/08/09/gw2-pvp-armor-collection/
http://dulfy.net/2012/07/21/gw2-armor-previews/

if you have HoM points you can also roll with the Heritage armour right off the bat which looks pretty great.

[Skyve]

The Twilight Arbor dungeon set for females is awesome.

[Baarak]

Cant wait for Saturday! I will be on Jade Quarry. Still stuck between warrior and engineer tho : /.

[Apostate]

I'm still on the fence about buying this :/

[Libra]

I'm still on the fence about buying this :/

Best to wait on (user)reviews then! since it is a 60 dollar game and that might be a lot of money. I can't wait for release though.

[Rordarok]

I have a few friends that have played in some tests and they say that the game is absolutely amazing. Basicly the same epic feeling everyone had when WoW was on it's top.

[RedZone`]

Gw was a over hyped game that failed you meet what was promised, I hope they did not do the same with gw2

What, what?
Did you even play guild wars? It wasn't hyped at all and it overcame all my (and many other's) expectations, the game was incredibly successful for a reason, I've played most of the p2p "pvp" mmos and none had pvp that could match what gw1 had at release.

Gw2 is over hyped though, yes. And from what I've played of it thus far has not convinced me at all, it doesn't have this straight up awesome pvp system anymore and feels as if they tried to be overly innovative. Straying from the previous path in pve and pvp mechanics is fine, for my first impression though the removal of healer classes and gvg's (frikking GUILD WARS) is a huge missstep though.

[Bloodaxe]

What, what?
Did you even play guild wars? It wasn't hyped at all and it overcame all my (and many other's) expectations, the game was incredibly successful for a reason, I've played most of the p2p "pvp" mmos and none had pvp that could match what gw1 had at release.

Gw2 is over hyped though, yes. And from what I've played of it thus far has not convinced me at all, it doesn't have this straight up awesome pvp system anymore and feels as if they tried to be overly innovative. Straying from the previous path in pve and pvp mechanics is fine, for my first impression though the removal of healer classes and gvg's (frikking GUILD WARS) is a huge missstep though.

Yes I did play GW. It was over hyped. Same reason why Fable was over hyped. They devs over promised and under delivered. Does not mean it was a bad game, just over hyped.

[ProfessorOak]

GuildWars 1 is the best MMO I've ever played.

[SFCLUB]

someone buy me a new computer so i can play this game.

[Blueflash]

Just got it (pre-ordered)

I suppose i'll be human. Generic, as always.

[Bloodaxe]

I always play the smallest race, Oddjob effect in play

[Tyrando]

get hype
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=sv96KijXEC8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=R5w1lauxkVA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tcrsgm4T7Wk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=mYxGnl-1hfk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-sSXXxLdfC0

[scoutTier]

What server you guys going on? Going stormbluff isle myself.

Sylvari ftw. Starting area was just gorgeous

[Tyrando]

Seafearer's Rest

[RedZone`]

My friends said riverside, so riverside it is.

[scoutTier]

Prepare for total destruction in WvWvW