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Guild Wars 2 Press Beta [Prepurchase Is Live]

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V

Varna

Member
Jira said:
To me it's a new genre I like to call Sandpark. Has the scripted design of a theme park with the freedom and exploration of a Sandbox.

Read the Dynamic Events section in my thread here:

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

Also, watch this:

Note that nothing is telling them where to go, they're just exploring and finding stuff to do.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0jb...xt=C3a74291UDOEgsToPDskLNNmDlcpiofzplkt6e6KSn
Click to expand...

This looks and sounds incredible. Consider me hyped.

Blackface said:
People hyped up TOR in their own minds. They made it something it wasn't.
Click to expand...

In my case I really didn't know anything about the game or it's "lineage." After playing for a while I wondered why so much of it seemed so similar to DCU online. Did a bit of digging I discovered that most MMOs these days were of the theme park variety and they all shared nearly the same exact quest structure, interface, progression and end game... pretty much a 50+ level tutorial that didn't teach you shit.
 
G

Grayman

Member
Ok read the thread and taking a look at some videos now.

I see both sides of the Mesmer discussion. It seems nerfed from the first game and not as unique but at the same time it may have some awesome mind games, like with the two leaps.

Warrior video with dodging looks good that class could be a lot of fun. I really enjoy games that make the combat active and fun. For me and mmo has to make it fun to smack a monster. The jumping crane kick and kiting past the troll out of the cave looked sweet.

Are there any good Thief videos out there? The last few days I have been mostly leaning towards it and Mesmer.
 
J

Jira

Member
Total Biscuit said he's home now and will be commentating tomorrow. He had 90gb of ENCODED (not FRAPSd) video on his dropbox and another 1TB of video on his drives at home. Get ready for a shit ton of compiled video starting tomorrow.
 
Z

zulfate

Member
Jira said:
Total Biscuit said he's home now and will be commentating tomorrow. He had 90gb of ENCODED (not FRAPSd) video on his dropbox and another 1TB of video on his drives at home. Get ready for a shit ton of compiled video starting tomorrow.
Click to expand...

great news i have been waiting all damn day for his uploads
 
G

Grayman

Member
Jira said:
Total Biscuit said he's home now and will be commentating tomorrow. He had 90gb of ENCODED (not FRAPSd) video on his dropbox and another 1TB of video on his drives at home. Get ready for a shit ton of compiled video starting tomorrow.
Click to expand...
Wow he may be watching and editing guild wars 2 for longer than he ever gets to play it!
 
J

Jira

Member
Pinko Marx said:
And traits cost more as your level up or what?
Click to expand...

Here's a video that shows you how traits work:

Here's a write up if you care to read about it:

http://www.necrobator.com/features/a-closer-look-at-necromancer-traits/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=18z7lKQvaOw


List of traits:

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_elementalist_traits
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_warrior_traits
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_engineer_traits
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_guardian_traits
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_ranger_traits
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_thief_traits
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_mesmer_traits
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/List_of_necromancer_traits

Warrior traits seem to be a WIP with the new trait videos, otherwise nearly every trait is there for every class.
 
P

Pinko Marx

Banned
Jira said:
Here's a video that shows you how traits work:

Here's a write up if you care to read about it:

http://www.necrobator.com/features/a-closer-look-at-necromancer-traits/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=18z7lKQvaOw

There's 7 large traits that can be changed out per trait line, 35 in total per class. Small traits are hardlocked into a line. There's a total of 50 traits per class.
Click to expand...


Yeah this helps a lot actually. Much thanks. Its been a while since I've been this excited for a game.
 
R

Retro

Member
Man, what a day. It's like Christmas, except we get to see our presents but can't play with them until some unknown date in the future. Looking at the videos, reading the impressions and comments, a few thoughts;

- It's a Beta, and despite years of MMO Betas being passed around as glorified demos upon which an absolute judgement of the final product can most definitely be based (being sarcastic here, of course), people need to keep in mind Beta still means Beta testing. The performance issues will likely be ironed out the next time we see the game in action; ArenaNet is not stupid and knows how bad some of these choppy low-res Frap'd videos make them look. Luckily, this doesn't seem to be a problem here at GAF (where, believe it or not, we're actually more levelheaded than you might expect) but I've seen people bitching about performance issues everywhere today.

- Mesmers are still a big clusterfuck as near as I can tell; not just on this forum but everywhere. It's an iconic profession that has a lot to live up to. I hope today's reaction to it gives ArenaNet something to ponder and maybe provide some tweaks to the gameplay to get it in that sweetspot. They've done so much else perfectly, I think it's within their power to please both the old and new schools of Mesmer thought.

- I still have no idea what profession I am going to play. I can't see anyone making decisions today not having second thoughts tomorrow or as more details emerge. Every time I think "Okay, Guardian for sure" I see a warrior video, or an Engineer, or a Thief video that makes me start to second guess.

- I need to play some more Dark Souls to get some practice for dodging and evading attacks. Watching the warrior video and some of the better PVP stuff, it's clear that knowing when and where to roll is going to be a skill everyone needs to master. When it works, it looks gorgeous and makes combat look like a kinetic, unpredictable fight (rather than a mob of players awkwardly following dance steps)

- The cities are the best I've seen in any MMO and I swear I've seen pretty much all of em, even the most ambitious. I used to measure MMO cities to such exotic locales as the Port of Khal (Vanguard), but Divinity's Reach is definitely the new benchmark.

- Dynamic questing looks just as good as I thought it would, can't wait to roam the landscape helping to right wrongs and work with other players to build on my play experience (rather than wishing they'd all fuck off so I could level up and get to endgame already).

- This game has amazing art and sound direction. When video hosts shut the fuck up for a second, you can actually hear the wonderful score and the chatter of NPCs. Every single locale I've seen today oozes with charm. Once the performance issues are out of the way, I can't wait to see more videos at max settings.

- GAF Guild is gonna be the place to be. Even the people in this thread who tend to get on my nerves with their pessimism are people I look forward to playing with; they may be cynical, but they still have enough passion for the game to argue their case. I can't think of many gaming communities that will form a cohesive unit like GAF should (Goonsquad, of course, and I'm sure 4chan will have their own little party too). Here's to future nights stomping around in WvWvW representing the Glorious Orange and Gray.

Looking forward to TotalBiscuit's stuff soon, and hopefully some word from ANet about a release date in the near future.
 
J

Jira

Member
In the Mike B dungeon overview he was saying that about 2x in the dungeon his FPS dropped to about 15 with a ton of spells flying, but with Fraps off it ran perfectly fine.

He was running a 2 year old i7, 5750, with uh 16gb of ram I think due to all of the recording he does. None the less, performance will obviously continue to get better as we get closer to launch and Fraps is well known for cutting FPS in like half.
 
Z

zulfate

Member
Retro said:

- GAF Guild is gonna be the place to be. Even the people in this thread who tend to get on my nerves with their pessimism are people I look forward to playing with; they may be cynical, but they still have enough passion for the game to argue their case. I can't think of many gaming communities that will form a cohesive unit like GAF should (Goonsquad, of course, and I'm sure 4chan will have their own little party too). Here's to future nights stomping around in WvWvW representing the Glorious Orange and Gray.
.
Click to expand...


you have my sword! i will be there to fight along side my brothers and sisters!
 
R

Retro

Member
zulfate said:
but....but....damn you are right, MMO gaf dont do so well...
Click to expand...

Most MMOs also have subscription fees, sharp leveling curves and a rush to endgame content that only a certain number of players can participate in. GW2 by contrast is free once you're past the initial purchase, has a leveling curve that plateaus quickly (not to mention sidekicking) and content that theoretically supports more players than we're likely to have even at our peak (both the large-scale world events and WvWvW).

I also think that being able to belong to multiple guilds at once will allow everyone to kind of do their own thing but still have a GAF Guild to participate / yuk it up with
 
Z

zulfate

Member
Retro said:
Most MMOs also have subscription fees, sharp leveling curves and a rush to endgame content that only a certain number of players can participate in. GW2 by contrast is free once you're past the initial purchase, has a leveling curve that plateaus quickly (not to mention sidekicking) and content that theoretically supports more players than we're likely to have even at our peak.

I also think that being able to belong to multiple guilds at once will allow everyone to kind of do their own thing but still have a GAF Guild to participate / yuk it up with
Click to expand...

joking aside i do believe we will have a good guild...we will need good guild leaders to keep it all together

i wonder what jira will focus most of his guild time with? he seems to belong to 3 different websites lol
 
H

Helmholtz

Member
Never watched a Yogscast video before, but I thought their Norn intro stuff was pretty entertaining. Not super insightful but they're new to the game like we all will be.
 
G

Grayman

Member
The multi guild feature means that a gaf guild may not sputter and die within a week. The network effects may make the game really healthy socially.
 
S

SDBurton

World's #1 Cosmonaut Enthusiast
K.Sabot said:
It'll be one of the places to be.

Multiguild baby!
Click to expand...

Word.

I'll be rolling with the gaf guild for sure, but I'm also making connections with old friends just in case things fall through.. something that I doubt will happen with this game.
 
V

Vano

Member
Well PvE Dungeon time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5bbBUFqZ9A

This is one of the best Dungeon videos that i have seen, compared to the others dungeons videos (like the Curse one for example). The difference in knowing what to do (first video, deactivating the spike traps) and not knowing what to do (Curse video, dying a lot) is really notable and makes difference in the presentation of the dungeon. Also the speed which they cleared the dungeon.

The first two bosses (spike trap boss and the duo) seems a bit easy and simple but oh well.

Really dig the traps and switches, if they expand and use this in cool ways it will give a nice flavor to the dungeons. The 3rd boss is cool, made me remember to the Twin Emperor boss of WoW (Temple of AQ). A little bit chaotic with all the spell effects and AOE going around.

The 4th Boss (The king) looks challenging, lots of damage going on, want so see so bad the Exploration mode version of the dungeon. And simply enough, white circle = good, red = bad. Tho there is so much circles in the floor that some people will get overwhelmed :V

Artistically, i like the presentation and design of the dungeon, dark like a dungeon should be, nice small and big areas, nice models and textures, not omfg HR but pleasant to see.

Looking at it, it doesn't seen too bad the lack of trinity in the dungeon. I suppose that in Exploration mode there will be need of more strategic play like assign a class to a healing support mode, kiting or tanking the mobs, dodging spells more seriously, paying more attention and so on. Time and arena net will tell.

One thing that i love and really appreciate is the no need of waiting 30 - 40 min in a queue because i am a DPS. Everybody can jump in and be w/e they want.
 
R

Retro

Member
zulfate said:
joking aside i do believe we will have a good guild...we will need good guild leaders to keep it all together
Click to expand...

I don't think strong leadership is going to be required as much as it is in other MMOs. The guild doesn't need to be managed to meet a quota of specific roles to get things done and most of the high-end content we'd do as a guild is either always on (WvWvW) or requires so many people to be involved that a single guild probably can't do it alone anyways (large world events). So either way, GAFGuild would just be a social structure rather than any kind of active presence. I mean, reading over the SA forums, they're plotting whether to make multiple guilds so they can capture multiple objectives at once; we'd probably just use it to have people to group up with for stuff.

Guild Leadership is probably going to be just keeping things drama free, keeping everyone informed as to what's going on and maybe organizing special events.

You don't need to herd nerds or watch your guild implode like you do in WoW with its raid-or-retire endgame. As far as I'm concerned, just having a group of people to play with is all a GAF guild needs to provide. If people want more organization than that, they can still join another guild without leaving a GAF guild.
 
G

Grayman

Member
Vano said:
Well PvE Dungeon time.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5bbBUFqZ9A

This is one of the best Dungeon videos that i have seen, compared to the others dungeons videos (like the Curse one for example). The difference in knowing what to do (first video, deactivating the spike traps) and not knowing what to do (Curse video, dying a lot) is really notable and makes difference in the presentation of the dungeon. Also the speed which they cleared the dungeon.

The first two bosses (spike trap boss and the duo) seems a bit easy and simple but oh well.

Really dig the traps and switches, if they expand and use this in cool ways it will give a nice flavor to the dungeons. The 3rd boss is cool, made me remember to the Twin Emperor boss of WoW (Temple of AQ). A little bit chaotic with all the spell effects and AOE going around.

The 4th Boss (The king) looks challenging, lots of damage going on, want so see so bad the Exploration mode version of the dungeon. And simply enough, white circle = good, red = bad. Tho there is so much circles in the floor that some people will get overwhelmed :V

Artistically, i like the presentation a design of the dungeon, dark like a dungeon should be, nice small and big areas, nice models and textures, not omfg HD but pleasant to see.

Looking at it, it doesn't seen too bad the lack of trinity in the dungeon. I suppose that in Exploration mode there will be need of more strategic play like assign a class to a healing support mode, kiting or tanking the mobs, dodging spells more seriously, paying more attention and so on. Time and arena net will tell.

One thing that i love and really appreciate is the no need of waiting 30 - 40 min in a queue because i am a DPS. Everybody can jump in and be w/e they want.
Click to expand...

Traps! One thing that AC and DDO taught me is creative use of floor traps can be a lot of fun. The dungeon itself becomes an enemy instead of a slate to fight in.
 
O

Orayn

Member
Man, watching all these gameplay videos is reminding me of how great Guild Wars 2's UI is. It seems a little similar to what Bioware was going for with Dragon Age II, but with much better execution.
 
R

Retro

Member
Jira said:
Some level 12 charr area, level 30 downscaled Elementalist :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wzn8IJbTNg

Blargh...scumbag Elementalist has 20 abilities, spams auto atttack.
Click to expand...

The number of videos today of people standing in one spot and trying to do WoW-like rotations has been irritating, and it hasn't done this game justice. The warrior video earlier and some of the PVP stuff has shown what GW2 will probably look like in the hands people who actually play games, not just write (poorly) about them.

Also seeing lots of people using skills that aren't very complimentary; Hammer Guardians and Greatsword Mesmers knocking people out of AOEs and such because they're just hitting anything off cooldown, etc. Gonna take some time for people to start thinking in terms of teamwork (even when they aren't grouped) and spatial awareness.
 
J

J-Rzez

Member
I don't know why, but something that you would think makes such simple sense to do like the overflow server that all MMOs should do really-really impressed me.

The cities look absolutely incredible, period.

Performance issues will most likely get sorted out in time, as it's still early beta, and by launch there should be some good final driver support out there to boot.

It's pretty amazing how far Arenanet has come. These guys are really pushing the MMO standards way out there. I do wonder what their budget and team sizes are for how ambitious they've made this game.

I'm sitting in first class sipping on the finest teas of this hype train. I need to get into this beta, not just to try it out but to help bug test it, and not by just wasting a hour of game time trying to jump into a chasm.
 
J

Jira

Member
http://www.gameinformer.com/games/g...that-star-wars-the-old-republic-promised.aspx

"ArenaNet has been quietly working away for years now and hasn’t used the weighty words that EA threw around so freely, so allow me to do so for them: Guild Wars 2 does everything The Old Republic promised and then some. This is the actual MMO revolution we’ve been waiting for."

"Even at level one, even in the prologue area, ArenaNet isn’t afraid to throw players into a situation where they need to pay attention, learn patterns, and use skills smartly."

"One of the coolest parts of this system is how quickly and smoothly tasks can transform into random world events. At one point, I was near the bear shrine, performing the task of fighting off trappers and disarming the bear traps they sent. Suddenly an ice drake broodmother appeared marching down a nearby river. I decided to fight it, and three other nearby players joined me. By the time we took the beast down, I ran back to the bear shrine to discover it was under attack. The trappers had mounted an offensive, and I decided to help defend the shrine against waves of attackers.

All of this happened naturally as I explored the world without needing to talk to an NPC and skip a bunch of boring dialogue. It’s a strange system at first, especially for gamers used to the hand-holding nature of the most recent batch of popular MMOs, but I quickly realized how much I prefer it. Guild Wars 2’s quest design rewards exploring the world and helping other people. In other words, it embraces the things that actually make it an MMO rather than just trying to imitate a single-player experience."

"But above all else, what sticks out to me is that Guild Wars 2 is so clearly in love with the idea of being a massively multiplayer game. For a while now, MMOs have been convincing me that all I want is a mostly single-player experience with chat room functionality."
 
O

Ogedai_Khan

Member
Liking the little things such as Chat Dialogue Bubbles, On-screen visual feedback.
And yes...the art direction and character and various effects animation... the game is beautiful to look at.
 
J

Jira

Member
J-Rzez said:
I don't know why, but something that you would think makes such simple sense to do like the overflow server that all MMOs should do really-really impressed me.

The cities look absolutely incredible, period.

Performance issues will most likely get sorted out in time, as it's still early beta, and by launch there should be some good final driver support out there to boot.

It's pretty amazing how far Arenanet has come. These guys are really pushing the MMO standards way out there. I do wonder what their budget and team sizes are for how ambitious they've made this game.

I'm sitting in first class sipping on the finest teas of this hype train. I need to get into this beta, not just to try it out but to help bug test it, and not by just wasting a hour of game time trying to jump into a chasm.
Click to expand...

Their team size is 250+ with about 70 or so artists. For reference their team was ~70 in 2007, 20-30 in 2005, and 6 in 2000.
 
T

TheYanger

Member
Ogedai_Khan said:
Liking the little things such as Chat Dialogue Bubbles, On-screen visual feedback.
And yes...the art direction and character and various effects animation... the game is beautiful to look at.
Click to expand...

Star wars is the only mmo in recent years I can think of that HASN'T had chat bubbles, to be completely fair.

GW2 looks AMAZING but chat bubbles are standard fare.
 
J

Jira

Member
TheYanger said:
Star wars is the only mmo in recent years I can think of that HASN'T had chat bubbles, to be completely fair.

GW2 looks AMAZING but chat bubbles are standard fare.
Click to expand...

I think having them on top of the party frame based on who's talking is pretty damn awesome.
 
T

TheYanger

Member
Jira said:
I think having them on top of the party frame based on who's talking is pretty damn awesome.
Click to expand...

True, but I took that more as a necessity from the dynamic nature of combat, it would be harder to get a read on what was saying what otherwise. I think if it were more stationary that wouldn't be as useful as the overhead bubbles.
 
L

LossLess009

Member
Proven said:
I know you weren't literally trying to speak for me, I was just going through a line of implications in my head and typing out loud.

Anyway, the way I see it, an Ele's versatility is being overblown. The primary conditions they can cause are Burn, Freeze, and Cripple, and then they have some knockback/interrupt moves. The rest is either damage, utility, or healing (and that's mostly just water). They don't have much in the way of tricks and just focus on killing you and keeping you from killing them. It just makes me think of a Warrior in that sense. The difference is that you practically have to constantly swap through attunements just to keep up the pressure in order to keep yourself alive in proper play, while the Warrior just has to worry about adrenaline. And part of me worries that the fire attunement comes with much more DPS than the other three, so you're really just switching out of fire to manage cooldowns or to run away.

It's very possible to make a Mesmer that can do a decent amount of each mechanic, damage, conditions, and interrupt, mainly because his shatters and weapon swap allow him to keep a lot of possibilities open. He can focus on damaging at range or up close like the Ele, and consistently do something else on top of that. It's just that for all of this consistency, it requires clones, and clones are being shoved off as weak gimmicks. But the fact is that you can guarantee damage and conditions like any other class.

As for the playbook comment, what I was describing is what I see in a lot of the PvP videos right now, minus the trait usage. Constantly layering clone after clone and condition after condition while having your shatters ready.

Edit: I chopped up the quote because I figure we're both getting tired of this and I should keep it short. And then I made a post that wasn't short. I should just get off...
Click to expand...

I'm quoting just your latest message, but I have the feeling you're going too much into heavy speculation about how the mesmer is good in combat...

I'll keep it very simple: for a "controller"-type chara like the mesmer, relying on the AI (this is what happens when you cast illusions, you lose any direct control on what they'll do) is simply and completely wrong. It will lead to two consequences: first, most often than not, you'll be playing against your own illusions (meaning, you pray they'll do what you need them to, and then you deal with what they really do), secondly, any skilled opponent will immediately identify who is real and what is not (let's not BS about it, there'll be patterns in behaviour and every decent players will notice that).

That's my opinion, and for a guy who played midliner (mostly mesmer) in a top50 guild from 2006 to 2008, I see this iteration of a mesmer to be extremely less useful and effective. Hardly any fun.

Oh, and lasers, what a cool idea -___-''
 
J

Jira

Member
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/6108/page/1

"All the hype we read from the devs is turning out to not be hype at all, but rather promises kept. Those things they said they wanted to do: the axing of holy trinity, the massive PVP, the more dynamic questing… it’s all true. It’s all here, in beta form, and it’s absolutely fun, fun, fun. It’s been a very long time since an MMO surprised me. More often than not, you know what you’re getting when you pick one up. Guild Wars 2 is doing so many things different from the norm, and at the same time they’re creating a new norm. We often talk about innovation in small steps, but that’s not ArenaNet’s style. If all keeps going as planned, Guild Wars 2 will wind up every bit as revolutionary as has been promised and we’ll all have a new champion to herald. This is just the beginning, just the first taste. And I am drooling for more."
 
J

Jira

Member
Proven said:
This is one of those videos I saw but skipped over linking because it felt like too much of an embarrassment for that class.
Click to expand...

Well I didn't know till after I linked it, but yeah so painful. Best combat footage we've got is that Warrior in 480p....:-(
 
J

Jira

Member
Do we know what this icon is?

WgBd3.png
 
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