Anyone agree with this ?
I can certainly see his point. I had four GW2 pre-purchase cancels after the beta. Each one said "It's not fun to play."
Anyone agree with this ?
How did everyone feel about the waypoint system?
One thing I've loved about MMOs is the sheer scale, having to take time to travel, etc. It might be annoying to realize you have to travel so far to get to a specific place, but it added to the immersion.
I can understand the appeal of the waypoints, and it was neat zipping around, but it did take away that sense of scale and made everything feel like it was just a load screen away, instead of a vast distance.
Anyone agree with this ?
Well I thought it was a blast to play at its core, especially with gamepad control and learning WvW. But I think that's a pretty funny comic. Wish he'd expanded it into The Exiled Realm of Arborea Wars of the Old Republic 2 for maximum ridiculousnessAnyone agree with this ?
I'm sorry; you can get your money back for a pre-purchase even after registering and playing the beta?I can certainly see his point. I had four GW2 pre-purchase cancels after the beta. Each one said "It's not fun to play."
How did everyone feel about the waypoint system?
One thing I've loved about MMOs is the sheer scale, having to take time to travel, etc. It might be annoying to realize you have to travel so far to get to a specific place, but it added to the immersion.
I can understand the appeal of the waypoints, and it was neat zipping around, but it did take away that sense of scale and made everything feel like it was just a load screen away, instead of a vast distance.
Anyone agree with this ?
Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction.
Albert Einstein
Hey guys!
Id like to start off by saying THANK YOU SO MUCH for taking time out of your lives to play GW2 and give us feedback. You gave up the most valuable resource you have on this planet your time. Due to that, I wanted to give you guys some of my time to show how much we appreciate your feedback and criticisms. Rather than posting individually to your multitudes of concerns, I tried to consolidate them into broad categories, and respond to them all here. Ill do my best to try to cover as many issues as quickly as possible.
Feedback
We may not have time to reply to every thread (some of these, as you guys know, are many pages long), but we do read them all. We have many people (other designers, programmers, QA, artists) who read the forums, and we bounce emails around internally to talk about issues and ways to fix them. So even if you dont see responses, please know that were reading your feedback and taking it into consideration! I get many messages/emails/people walking by my desk who say, Hey Chap, did you see X thread? They had some good points. Even if I cant respond to everything in the PvP forums, please know that I still greatly appreciate your feedback!
Conquest as our only game type at launch:
We feel that Conquest will be just fine as our only game type at ship! It does a lot of things for us, and Ill talk more about this in the esport section. But quickly, conquest allows new players to quickly understand how they can help their team. It also creates great tension thats easy to follow for spectators/announcers. Our scoring system makes it very easy for observers to follow with a quick glance up at the score screen, you know how close the game is.
The secondary mechanics really change the flow/feel of the map. Our maps all have different strategies/builds that work well on them, and we feel that the secondary/layout really show what conquest is a strong backbone for our competitive play.
Organized pvp/playing with party:
I think a lot of people are enjoying our PvP, especially people who are new to PvP in general, or new to Guild Wars PvP. This is great! This weekend was a great test for us, and showed that its pretty welcoming to new players. But what else is there to the game type? This is where organized play/playing with organized teams/using voice communication/tournaments come in. Keep in mind that this weekend allowed you to join games and play with random teams in order to learn the game. Down the road youll be able to play in organized 5on5 squads, and thats where the game will become deeper and more complex. Youll need to start thinking about 5 person builds, class synergies, battlefield tactics, controlling secondary objectives and conquest points, etc. The game really changes when you start to play in a 5 person organized team vs. an opposing 5 person organized team. We want both to be fun! Ill talk about this more in the Esport section.
Tournaments:
Tournaments will allow you to play with an organized 5 person team and see your results as you make your way through a tournament! We didnt show them this weekend, but theyre something we think a lot of you will really enjoy. Sit tight, theyre coming!
Balance:
First off, balance is not yet final. A lot of us played with you this weekend (even if you didnt know we were there) and many of us know how to deal with some situations that may not be salient to our newer players. The game is still evolving, even on a daily basis. Things are being added/tweaked/fixed/iterated upon EVERY DAY, and due to that, the game is still in flux. Lets give an example the Thief.
Thief. I saw a ton of posts this weekend about the Thief being OP (overpowered) and imba (imbalanced). The Thief can be very strong in some 1on1 matchups, and is weak in others. The Thief is also great in some team compositions, and very weak in others. Well keep an eye on Thief balance, but overall they are pretty balanced in the grand scope of things. There are many great Thieves in the office who still run from other classes if theyre well played. Once you learn how the Thief works, you learn how to counter them. As your knowledge base a community matures, youll learn how to deal with the Thief as well. Keep in mind you guys only played for a few days, youll get better every time you play it, and your view on whats balanced/imbalanced may change in time.
Melee vs ranged. I also saw a lot of threads on melee vs ranged. I think ranged abilities are much easier to use than melee ones. Its easier to pick a ranged class, back up a lot, and keep hitting your opponent .but once a good melee character figures out how to disable your movement, dodge your attacks, and then get you in range, YOU ARE IN TROUBLE. There are many melee builds that destroy ranged builds, but the trick is getting there. Once melee players learn how to work together, youll see them dishing out a ton of pain on ranged foes. BUT, having said that, dont worry balance isnt final, and were still tweaking things. Well keep an eye on the balance, as we always do.
Secondary mechanics. So ya. Svanir and Jotun on the forest map are a little easy. They were way too hard for a bit, and I toned them down, but with the data I collected this weekend, I can safely say they need to be bumped up a little bit. Ill keep watching the balance on those guys, and the buff they give you, and make sure that they are hard to attain, but well worth the effort. They definitely still need some balance, so Ill keep looking at that.
E-sport aspirations:
Lets start this with a question: What does it take to make an Esport? Id say you need a few things:
Fun. It has to be fun. This is pretty obvious, but lets be sure to add it to the list. If people dont enjoy your game, they wont play it. And fun is different from player to player. We need to make a game (with the help of our community), thats fun for new players as well as professionals. It cant just be good for one or the other.
Accessible. It has to be something new players can get into. Magic the gathering. Starcraft. Counterstrike. Basketball. You need the entry level game to be accessible to new players, or youll lose your playerbase! You need to feed the pro levels with good players, who in turn come from the mid-tier level, who come from brand new players. And dont forget, the only way that you get sponsored, if youre an aspiring pro gamer, if it a LOT of people want to watch your game of choice. Because then they create a spectator base, and sponsors take notice, and want to sponsor athletes in those games. New player accessibility is CRUCIAL to an esport. League of Legends is a very newb-friendly game (mechanically) and it has had great success. Thats why there are so many sponsors the spectator base is MASSIVE.
Easily understood. Capture points and secondary mechanics are pretty simple. Thats why weve based our competitive game on them. Now, once you start to play in 5on5 teams, you learn how far you can push the game, how much you can do with your team, and how skill is involved.
Skill cap. In order for a game to succeed, there has to be a skill cap where a good player can exert dominance over a lesser-skilled opponent. This weekend I saw my share of 1on2s, 2on3s, 2on4s, etc. where skill > number of players. I know a lot of you guys are good at other games, but we have some people internally who have played hundreds of hours in PvP. I took my share of 1on3s at a cap point this weekend, and Im sure the guys on the other team thought something was broken. The point is when skilled players start to make teams, and they start to play other organized teams, youre going to see some amazing stuff. Thats where well start to see players like SlayerS Boxer (SC), Heaton (CS), [Evil] (GW1), and Daigo (fighters).
Support. This is where we come in. Well keep balancing the game after ship. Well keep listening to feedback from players. As we make new maps, well be listening to the community to see which of the existing maps they like the most, which maps theyd like to see in the future, etc. Our job doesnt end once the game ships in many ways, thats when it starts.
So ya, thats it. I need to get to work on stuff for our next weekend event! We learned a ton this weekend from watching you guys play, and from reading your posts. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR GIVING US some of your time, love, and effort. Well keep working to make the game the best we can, so that new players and pros alike are able to enjoy GW2. We are a company built on iteration, so now its time to do another iteration of PvP and balance! Thanks for supporting us and giving us so much constructive feedback to go on!
-Chaplan
I'm sorry; you can get your money back for a pre-purchase even after registering and playing the beta?
I have not suffered from game withdrawals in a very long time. And I didn't even get to play that much!
But, yeah, I want beta back.
I can certainly see his point. I had four GW2 pre-purchase cancels after the beta. Each one said "It's not fun to play."
I'm assuming he works at a GameStop or something and the customers came in or called to have their pre-purchases canceled...I guess you could if you spoke to your credit card company.
I'm sorry; you can get your money back for a pre-purchase even after registering and playing the beta?
Yeah. At Gamestop's it is called a "pre-order" and you can get your money back. No such thing as locked in pre-purchases. I'm sure you could get your money back directly from Arenanet if you wanted to. After all, you haven't received any product yet. Didn't people argue that they pre-purchases the final game? You're definitely entitled to your money back. =)
Edit: Yes, I'm a DM at Gamestop.
I'd love to know which MMOs someone finds fun to play, yet doesn't think GW2 is fun to play. Just curious to know what it is about the others...
Does anyone know if you can level a profession using a level 1 toon? Or is it like WoW where there is a level requirement too? Interested in making an alt simply just to explore cooking but I wouldn't like it as one of my main skills on my primary toon.
The TP sounds a bit like Eve-online.
Does anyone know if you can level a profession using a level 1 toon? Or is it like WoW where there is a level requirement too? Interested in making an alt simply just to explore cooking but I wouldn't like it as one of my main skills on my primary toon.
Does anyone know if you can level a profession using a level 1 toon? Or is it like WoW where there is a level requirement too? Interested in making an alt simply just to explore cooking but I wouldn't like it as one of my main skills on my primary toon.
It was jumping for me, but yeeep.GW2 has ruined other MMO's for me. I even went back to GW1 only to be frustrated I couldn't dodge.
you still retain the level you got it to.
Anyone agree with this ?
... Good fucking lord they've thought of everything.
I'm glad to see them say this. I don't want to play another nerfwars or re-balancewars as it came to be later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUP1TKM9k5o
He has little MMO experience, starts as a War and doesn't like the game, then switches to a necro and has a great time.
I haven't played Tera or GW2, so I don't yet know if one is fun and one isn't, but I don't think I've agreed with more than about 2% of anything from Penny Arcade. So I guess I'll just say I'm hoping that'll hold up in regards to GW2 as I'm pretty invested in it being my next long term MMO.
But aren't pre-purchases different from pre-orders? You have to register your key to play the Pre-purchase. At that point, what exactly are you refunding? Canceling a pre-order is certainly possible, but I don't think a pre-purchase -- what you needed to play the beta -- works that way.
It's like getting a refund for a Steamworks game.
We do not have a date for BWE2 at this point. The BWE goal is *roughly* once a month, but subject to change. ~RB2
But aren't pre-purchases different from pre-orders? You have to register your key to play the Pre-purchase. At that point, what exactly are you refunding? Canceling a pre-order is certainly possible, but I don't think a pre-purchase -- what you needed to play the beta -- works that way.
It's like getting a refund for a Steamworks game.
*Launches GW2*
*Clicks play*
*Listens to awesome music*
*Dies a little inside*
...
Anyone else found the climbing challenge on the second Norn area? It was a cave a little to the southeast. It had 2 explorer NPCs and some "looter" enemies. It was very cleverly done. There was basically a long path to the end boss and a short path. The long path had pipes and beams you had to walk/jump through and the boss (veteran mob) had a knock back ability that could drop you to the bottom of the area. The short path had these 'spark' monsters in a couple of ledges but they didn't attack. One of them was positioned in such a way that by doing some clever jumping and using a blink/jump ability you could attack them and basically climb to the side of the room the boss was on with less probability that he would drop you back down. There was a chest at the end (the loot was crap) and another NPC belonging to one of the factions I assume you'll be able to join later on so probably there will be a quest involved.
That was the only one I found but I heard there were other more elaborate ones. Who found one of these?
No, Gamestop works purely on pre-orders. You can fully pay off a game, but can get your money back whenever. Even after the game is out.
Online companies obviously work differently, but as long as you haven't received your porudct (hasn't shipped, or been downloaded, etc) you can always demand your money back. They can not say no to you. Otherwise, they would be opening themselves up to something much bigger.
That's why the "pre-purchase" thing is and was always pure bullshit.
Err, no. If you bought digitally through Arenanet, you have no legal grounds for a refund.
I got to the one in the Human starting zone, but I was too low to do it. I could have probably beat the mobs along the way but trying to dodge and kite on small ledges is hard. :/ I hope on release these things will have more traps and less enemies on the way up.
Are you talking about Demongrub? The lvl15 slimes suck to fight. They use immobilizes and you have to take on 2 or 3 at a time. I got a really nice green quality sword from the chest there on my thief.
Err, no. If you bought digitally through Arenanet, you have no legal grounds for a refund.
The grubs....then the spiders....then the bats.... I don't know if there is any past that, I gave up trying because I was only 11.
Anyone agree with this ?
Um, yes you do. You do as long as you have not received your product. A product which has no release date. Unless they claim the beta was part of the product, in which case, they would invalidate any claims of this being a "true beta" and we're now into "paid beta" territory and gamers get nasty.
Um, yes you do. You do as long as you have not received your product. A product which has no release date. Unless they claim the beta was part of the product, in which case, they would invalidate any claims of this being a "true beta" and we're now into "paid beta" territory and gamers get nasty.
You could try to say that, but it doesn't really work. As soon as someone has registered for the pre-purchase beta, they own the game. That product key gives them the full game. All they have to do is click the download button when it releases. The only legitimate way would be to contact NCSoft or Anet and tell them to disable the account of the person who "cancelled" their pre-purchase, which I doubt they would be willing to do anyway. Otherwise you're giving away copies of the game. Regardless of whether you gave people their money back, they still have the game registered to their account.
So this guy registered his key, downloaded the beta. But still got a refund? Despite having registered the game. It's now attached to his account you know that right?
So this guy registered his key, downloaded the beta. But still got a refund? Despite having registered the game. It's now attached to his account you know that right?