Support NeoGAF

[LiquidMetal14]

This is one son of the bitch game that any son of the bitch should be anticipating up in this bitch.

I know it's my most anticipated son of the bitch, bitch.

 

[gunbo13]

But, in majority opinion, more fun.

An opinion that means nothing to me.

 

[Riptwo]

This is the first time that an MMO has really looked like something I could get into. I can't wait to check it out!

 

[TimeKillr]

Sorry, I guess I should've specified, while their beta was long I don't think it helped them any. They ran it until basically a week before launch and didn't do anything about it. Anet, or I expect them to, will do a better job and probably cut it off and have a long window of coding and working out to do.

I don't think you understand how betas work, especially not like TOR's "a week before launch" beta worked.

That was not a beta, it was a stress test. You know, to see how the servers would behave under heavy load?

 

[Vano]

I am curious to know if they will release info about Guilds and PvP modes before the Betas or we will get info when the press play it, i am really interested in seeing more about WvWvW and others PvP maps.

Also:

more: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/gw2-art-update-t1701p63.html

 

[Ultimatum]

Mass PvP obviously has elements of organisation, but it's clearly being used as a bridge between PvP and PvE to get more people involved. A lot of PvE players don't ever experience PvP, so they can never get into it because the barriers of entry are just way too high. I'm sure the mass PvP will be fun, but there will be so many factors that are out of your control that competitive players won't take it seriously. That's not a bad thing, it's just not for me, and a lot of other PvP players.

Anything that doesn't come day1 loses a ton of steam. I'm aware of the modes but the play-style is the concern.

That's wrong. Moving the style towards FPS style doesn't not automatically entail more skill based gameplay. Build wars gets a bad stigma because people incorrectly assume it is a game of math. Tactical skill usage is not objectively simpler then the shown FPS style. They are both simply different. And the concern is not about skill based gameplay but coordination. Different styles entail different types of possible coordination. The general idea being that poor map spacing and very fast paced gameplay will lower coordination. It is a valid concern.

I'm not discounting any mode as being unable to have organized gameplay. Again, it comes down to how the play-style works with it. In GW1, every tactical action was coordinated in high level play. If GW2 is more about player observations rather then strats, it is a step down in coordination.

I love pvp and have the exact same concerns as you A lot of GW1 gameplay traits were taken out because they were deemed too complicated. I still have faith in ArenaNet though, they're a very competent studio, and I think the only MMO devs other than Blizzard who can pull a game like this off.

Their business model is consistently adding expansions that add both pve and pvp content so I wouldn't be surprised at all to see some of the things you guys are concerned about be added down the road. And you know the new campaigns are coming because they just won't make enough money otherwise.

There's three sorts of pvp I think at release, that's wvwvw, 10 v 10 and the thirds called structured 5v5 and that's where you'll get your team chat ultra coordination games.

Yeah, and the expansions result in ridiculous amounts of fragmentation in the player base. Hopefully a solution to this will be thought of.

 

[Complistic]

oh man is that the concept art for my undead orian chicken minipet?

wait the hom reward is for a baby chicken. That's not a baby

 

[Vano]

oh man is that the concept art for my undead orian chicken minipet?

wait the hom reward is for a baby chicken. That's not a baby

Its the leader of the Dragons :O

Foud this video in the same thread about weapon effects: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNoWg2rENIo&feature=youtu.be&t=2m5s

looks really nice :O, Weapons that glow when enemy are near(LoTR vibe), the clockwork weapons with cool effects, drool~

 

[Midou]

But, in majority opinion, more fun.

I think the skill combinations sound like a hell of a lot of fun personally, even if they are not as stat based.

 

[Escape Goat]

Anyone else less than thrilled with the human models? They seem kind of lifeless and rigid to me. I used to not have any interest in the Charr but now I think I will try to have that be my first character. A Charr in plate mail looks pretty awesome but none of the melee classes seem to have much visual flair to them besides the Guardian.

 

[Elginer]

Looks awesome, already have mine preordered. I can't wait to give ArenaNet my monies.

 

[Vano]

Anyone else less than thrilled with the human models? They seem kind of lifeless and rigid to me. I used to not have any interest in the Charr but now I think I will try to have that be my first character. A Charr in plate mail looks pretty awesome but none of the melee classes seem to have much visual flair to them besides the Guardian.

Well for me they look rare because they look more "human like" than most humans in MMO's that i have played, i want to see the different looks that you can get with the editor.

But i got to say that its the first MMO where i like the looks of all the races, i'm waiting eagerly spending time in the customization screen

 

[Gunmonkey36]

Nice! A three way race to release with Guild Wars 2, Tera, and Secret World. This is going to be a great year for PC gaming and a terrible year for getting anything done.

Just to put this into perspective a bit. The secret world is in early to mid stages of closed beta currently.

We know that Tera has a release date of May 1 and needs less of a beta period just b/c its more of a "region port".

Obviously Guild Wars is prepping for beta.

It's looking like it will be Tera releasing first.
I think The Secret World will be released in late summer/early fall.
Guild Wars 2 I'm guessing anytime Q4.

 

[satori]

Ok, I have not followed this game at all. Going through the OP info....holy mother of.....it shot my anticipation of this game through the freaking roof....cant wait.

 

[Trey]

Ok, I have not followed this game at all. Going through the OP info....holy mother of.....it shot my anticipation of this game through the freaking roof....cant wait.

Yes, join us.

 

[Midou]

Just to put this into perspective a bit. The secret world is in early to mid stages of closed beta currently.

We know that Tera has a release date of May 1 and needs less of a beta period just b/c its more of a "region port".

Obviously Guild Wars is prepping for beta.

It's looking like it will be Tera releasing first.
I think The Secret World will be released in late summer/early fall.
Guild Wars 2 I'm guessing anytime Q4.

PSO2 might sneak in there too!

 

[Vano]

Ok, I have not followed this game at all. Going through the OP info....holy mother of.....it shot my anticipation of this game through the freaking roof....cant wait.

Lucky you that haven't suffered the long wait , welcome aboard!

 

[FrontalMonk]

PSO2 might sneak in there too!

I still have nightmares of people sniping boxes while I'm trying to kill stuff and level up

 

[SDBurton]

I used to follow the game early on but I have no idea what the hell happened to me. I looked through the OP and the Guardian profession seems pretty awesome but does anyone know if they'll become a viable healer for groups and whatnot? If not that's no problem as I'm just as happy to go with an Engineer.

 

[Orayn]

I used to follow the game early on but I have no idea what the hell happened to me. I looked through the OP and the Guardian profession seems pretty awesome but does anyone know if they'll become a viable healer for groups and whatnot? If not that's no problem as I'm just as happy to go with an Engineer.

There are no healers, or tanks for that matter.
Everyone gets a self-heal skill to keep themselves alive, and enemy AI doesn't lend itself to "aggro." That said, Guardian is definitely a good profession for keeping your allies safe by placing wards and barriers.

 

[Helmholtz]

Has there been any mention of a day 1 steam release at all? That would make me so happy. I know the original games were added to steam much later.

 

[SupaNaab]

Question for anyone whom has really been following this thoroughly. Any ideas on good class duo's? or trio's? In all likelihood I will be playing with 1 of 2 people at all times, occasionally the three of us will be able to meet up. The skill combination system really becomes kind crazy given these circumstances. I was thinking about rolling Mesmer since one of my friends would like to be an Engineer. I figure confusing and distracting opponents near turrets could be really viable.

 

[Retro]

I used to follow the game early on but I have no idea what the hell happened to me. I looked through the OP and the Guardian profession seems pretty awesome but does anyone know if they'll become a viable healer for groups and whatnot? If not that's no problem as I'm just as happy to go with an Engineer.

As Orayn mentioned, there are no longer any dedicated healing classes. Every profession has a selection of self-healing abilities (it looks like some can affect more than one player though) and all can rez a downed character mid-combat. Some professions also have strong support abilities. The Guardian, for example, has three Virtues that act as self-buffs, but at any time can be sacrificed to spread the effect to all nearby players (but not the Guardian). One of those (Virtue of Resolve) causes health to regenerate and removes conditions when canceled. The GW2 wiki also says they have a Greatsword skill (Faithful Strike) that regenerates nearby allies when an enemy is injured. Might be a few others in there I'm not seeing.

I also seem to recall reading that projectiles that pass through one of the Guardian's barrier spells can cause healing to anyone nearby the target. Could be confusing that with the Elementalist's AOE heal though.

The engineer also has a Med Kit option for their toolbelt which allows them to drop bandages and a weapon kit ("Elixir Gun") that can be used to heal.

But, it's worth noting that the emphasis in the game is self-sufficiency and evasion rather than getting healed all the time. One of the developers said on twitter that "[the] goal is you're your best healer"; you can't just stand there and do your thing and expect some other player to get stuck keeping an eye on your health gauge.

Instead of Tank/Heal/DPS ("The Holy Trinity") there is now Control, Support and Damage. Control abilities (which the Guardian excels at but any class can do to some degree) is all about preventing the need to be healed in the first place, but controlling what enemies are doing, where they're standing and who they're attacking. Support seems to be more about buffing and cleansing with lots of regeneration-type effects thrown in to sort of soften the need for healing. There are no direct healing spells, but there are AOE healing fields that heal anyone standing in them.Damage is... well... stabbity-stabbity-stab, as usual.

Question for anyone whom has really been following this thoroughly. Any ideas on good class duo's? or trio's? In all likelihood I will be playing with 1 of 2 people at all times, occasionally the three of us will be able to meet up. The skill combination system really becomes kind crazy given these circumstances. I was thinking about rolling Mesmer since one of my friends would like to be an Engineer. I figure confusing and distracting opponents near turrets could be really viable.

From what we've seen, any profession can compliment the others through strategy and cross-class combos. There was even an example early on where the devs were running dungeons with five elementalists.

I would say play pretty much whatever tickles your fancy.

 

[Jira]

To those unaware as to how ANet runs their Alphas/Betas they don't work like every other MMO dev. Most devs run 6 month - 1+ year Betas while still implementing tons of features as the public plays the game and complains. ANet enters Beta as either fully feature complete or damn near. ANet does their bulk Beta testing while in Alpha for 3+ years, they push out 10+ builds a day with external testers, get their feedback and make changes right then and there, they don't wait a month to push out new builds based on feedback. So this allows them to iterate and reiterate on their design to see what works and what doesn't very quickly. What this means for us is when we get our hands on the game, ANet has said that "We want it to blow you away when you get your hands on it for the first time." They've also said Open Beta will be short and right before launch. If history shows us anything from GW1, Open Beta will likely be in mid to late May with a early June release which would coincide with my birthday.

To give you an idea of just how much they iterate, the human starting zone has seen 260 versions as of some time last year, probably more now.

 

[Orayn]

That just means ANet adheres to the correct definition of alpha and beta, where the project has to be essentially feature-complete to qualify as beta software.

 

[Vano]

If history shows us anything from GW1, Open Beta will likely be in mid to late May with a early June release which would coincide with my birthday.

But in the blog post they said March and April or are you talking about something else ? as everyone can sign in for the beta?

 

[SteveWD40]

Has there been any mention of a day 1 steam release at all? That would make me so happy. I know the original games were added to steam much later.

No, but I would hope so since Steam is now so much bigger than it was when the first games game out. Steam on day one would really help drive sales and give them plenty of exposure.

 

[Nirolak]

But in the blog post they said March and April or are you talking about something else ? as everyone can sign in for the beta?

The beta in March/April isn't truly open, which is why I updated the title to "Large".

 

[King Boo]

never played guild wars 1, because i was playing diablo 2 at the time.

but it seems i might abandon d3, for this. don't have time to play two giant games now, so i should go with what looks like to be the better one. i really like the illusion class and necromancer (which isn't in d3!)

 

[Vano]

The beta in March/April isn't truly open, which is why I updated the title to "Large".

Welp, true. So then it could be 2 months of "Large" Beta and then in May an Open beta? tho i guess it depends in the type and openness of beta events that they will do in March and April, as they only mention just mention the beta events in May and April in the blog post and not a Open beta per se. Nevertheless, good news all around.

And i would love GW2 in Steam, they can get a nice boost in sales selling it in Steam but i guess we will be informed about it close to the release date.

 

[Arpeggio23]

To those unaware as to how ANet runs their Alphas/Betas they don't work like every other MMO dev. Most devs run 6 month - 1+ year Betas while still implementing tons of features as the public plays the game and complains. ANet enters Beta as either fully feature complete or damn near.

ArenaNet has released a grand total of ONE (1) game. Expansions do not count.

I will be absolutely shocked if we see Guild Wars 2 before 2013.

 

[Nirolak]

Welp, true. So then it could be 2 months of "Large" Beta and then in May an Open beta? tho i guess it depends in the type of beta events that they will do in March and April, as they only mention just mention the beta events in May and April in the blog post and not a Open beta per se. Nevertheless, good news all around.

It probably depends on how the beta goes.

The main point of this seems to be scalability testing and balancing instead of bug fixing, so this should theoretically be a rather short beta.

 

[Orayn]

ArenaNet has released a grand total of ONE (1) game. Expansions do not count.

I will be absolutely shocked if we see Guild Wars 2 before 2013.

Factions and Nightfall each had about the same amount of content as the original Guild Wars, though. You can purchase any GW campaign to play, so they're not expansion packs in the traditional sense.

 

[Complistic]

ArenaNet has released a grand total of ONE (1) game. Expansions do not count.

I will be absolutely shocked if we see Guild Wars 2 before 2013.

I'd be shocked if it doesn't release in the first half of this year.

 

[etiolate]

Releasing a MMO at the start of summer break makes sense. I know ANet says they'll release it when its done, but I know they have some sense of planning and like money. A May open beta, with early June early access for reservers, and then a mid-to-late June release would not surprise me.

 

[Xiaoki]

It probably depends on how the beta goes.

The main point of this seems to be scalability testing and balancing instead of bug fixing, so this should theoretically be a rather short beta.

If Guild Wars 2 has a "rather short beta" then I will most definitely be waiting on it for at least a month.

Dont really feel like being burned by yet another buggy MMO launch that was pushed out the door too early.

 

[ShaneB]

I was one click away from buying TOR. I need this game now to satisfy my MMO need

 

[Retrofluxed]

I'm excited to play. It'll be a great "second" MMO to play when I'm not raiding in SWTOR.

 

[Jira]

If Guild Wars 2 has a "rather short beta" then I will most definitely be waiting on it for at least a month.

Dont really feel like being burned by yet another buggy MMO launch that was pushed out the door too early.

You CLEARLY haven't followed this game. ANet IS NOT every other MMO developer. When other MMO devs Beta test their game, ANet has already done that for YEARS in their Alphas, they don't wait till Beta to invite tons of people to test the game nor wait months to get out a new build based on feedback. They invite tons of external (Friends & Family) testers during Alpha to get feedback while early in the design process to see what works and what doesn't. They'll push out 10+ builds a day with changes based on feedback directly to the testers so they can give feedback.

They showed the game in playable form 1.5 years ago now, the polish it had back then was astounding for only having been in development for about 2.75 years at that point. It's now even more polished and iterated on by a large margin, they do not run Betas like other devs and they do not release half-assed games. They've been at every convention since that point outside of E3 and have had it playable at EVERY SINGLE ONE. Awards are thrown at them for not only best MMO of the show, not only best RPG of the show, not only best PC game, but best GAME of the show. Name another MMO that has garnered that much attention prior to entering Beta and has non MMO sites saying that it's their most anticipated game of the year. You can keep thinking it's buggy or being rushed out the door, but don't be surprised when you find out that's not the case at all.

I can't stress this enough, this is not the same MMO you've been playing made by the same companies. ANet was founded by 3 of Blizzard's best ex-developers. Mike O' Brien (current CEO of ANet) wrote Battle.net, he created and wrote the MPQ format Blizzard still uses today, he wrote the rendering engine for Warcraft 3, he was a lead programmer on Diablo 1/Diablo 2/Starcraft.

Jeff Strain was the team lead and lead programmer of World of Warcraft, senior programmer on SC & WC3, programmer on Diablo, and created the SC world editor program.

Patrick Wyatt was Vice President of Research and Development. He was producer and lead programmer on Warcraft I, producer and senior programmer on Warcraft II, and senior programmer on Diablo and Starcraft. He also created revolutionary networking for Guild Wars that hasn't been replicated in gaming since.

 

[Mulligan]

If Guild Wars 2 has a "rather short beta" then I will most definitely be waiting on it for at least a month.

Dont really feel like being burned by yet another buggy MMO launch that was pushed out the door too early.

They've essentially been beta testing for 3 years, it will probably the most smooth MMO release to date in terms of bugs, in theory..

 

[kayos90]

If Guild Wars 2 has a "rather short beta" then I will most definitely be waiting on it for at least a month.

Dont really feel like being burned by yet another buggy MMO launch that was pushed out the door too early.

I can't tell if you're trying to point to a certain recently launched MMO or not. Anet doesn't roll that way dude.

 

[SDBurton]

There are no healers, or tanks for that matter.
Everyone gets a self-heal skill to keep themselves alive, and enemy AI doesn't lend itself to "aggro." That said, Guardian is definitely a good profession for keeping your allies safe by placing wards and barriers.

Say whaaaa? That is crazy. Thanks a lot for the info. You too Retro, I appreciate it.

Will there be a GAF guild for this game?

 

[gunbo13]

snip

Yea but air eles were way unbalanced with the GW1 launch. I demand reparations.

 

[Helmholtz]

No, but I would hope so since Steam is now so much bigger than it was when the first games game out. Steam on day one would really help drive sales and give them plenty of exposure.

Yeah, I feel like a day 1 steam launch could help them a hell of a lot. It could become steam's flagship mmo or something. I know I'd get it on steam.

 

[Ferny]

Will there be a GAF guild for this game?

For sure and i'd be willing to coordinate it if no one else has said they wanted to. I have been waiting for this since news first broke out. The way it's evolved has been amazing.

 

[Retro]

Say whaaaa? That is crazy. Thanks a lot for the info.

Will there be a GAF guild for this game?

Nothing official yet on the Guild front, but I wouldn't be surprised if GAF had a guild and preferred server (since characters can transfer between servers with relative ease but we'll probably pick one as 'home' like we did for PSO).

The best part of any MMO is having good people to play with, to develop a sense of camaraderie and community. The worst part of any MMO is having to deal with idiots, fucktards and random douchbags.

A GAF guild pretty much ensures more of the good and less of the bad.

 

[kayos90]

For sure and i'd be willing to coordinate it if no one else has said they wanted to. I have been waiting for this since news first broke out. The way it's evolved has been amazing.

I'll join in and help build the GAF guild as well. This will probably be my most played game this year.

 

[Guesong]

What's even more exciting than the actual beta is that we'll finally get a better look at all the skills, traits and professions.

I mean, I want to roll Engineer, but I look at the current wiki and frankly, it's very, very barebones. We don't know how the Elixir Gun works, we don't know if all the skills are there. And what about Cooking? How big a buff are we talking about? Etc.

It's all those details that will finally trickle down on us in the upcoming months, and if the launch is to be early summer, then I cannot imagine a better way to get everyone hyped for it.

 

[gunbo13]

I'd be willing to run PvP.

 

[Mulligan]

Count me in for Gaf guild, hopefully people will stick around.