I win...Then again..I still play Guild Wars on a daily basis.
for now..
jesus christ thats almost two years of play time
how the heck
I win...Then again..I still play Guild Wars on a daily basis.
for now..
jesus christ thats almost two years of play time
how the heck
are you a machine
Dynamic quests because I don't like coming in late to an awesome event and only catching the tail end of it (seeing the "end boss" die as you run to help out, everyone cheering how awesome it was while you're crying 'cause you missed it), irritates me no end in other games that do something similar.
And the holy trinity because there's nothing worse than not being able to drop aggro on a mob when your low on health. A couple of dungeon vids had me worried for this.
Interview with Colin Johanson said:Q: How the AI of enemies will work? Specifically, how enemies will chose their target? Will they be capable of complex behaviour and combat strategies?
A: That’s a great question, because it’s something we don’t necessarely get asked details a lot. There are very few creatures in the game right now that have kind of their final skills and abilities that we intended them to have. For example, in the demo that we’re getting here at Gamescom… the undead army in the high level map is probably the closest thing to what I would consider to be in an army that has a lot work done on it at this point. Our creatures are going to be getting a lot of work between now and release. We have really been focused mostly on the players side of things at this point and on getting all the contet put together on. So creature balance will be kind one of the next things that we tackle, and we’ll be moving army by army in trying to give them themes and skills and AI details to each army specifically. In regards to AI and aggro… simple creatures will use an AI system to determine who attack, and one of the most important criteria will be who is the closest target to them, but there are also criteria like who’s doing damage, how much damage they’ve done… and other things like that. These are basic things that most creatures would use. Then there will be unique AI for a number of different creatures that will use specific skills or the entire creatures will do different things than that. There may be creatures, for example, who attack the furthest away player in the party. There may be creatures who try to focus on people wearing medium armor or light armor, and try to chase them around. There may be creatures that run away, there may be creatures who get out of the way of attacks, there may be creatures who specifically only use skills on people at specific times. So, all of these are aspect on which we’re going to work as we get closer to the release of the game.(Source)
Coming from WoW I love seeing skills numbers kept to a minimum. That game is absurd in this sense, having a 40 button ui full of skills.
Not sure which class I want to play yet. I barely know any :lol. I'll just play them all till one sticks I guess.
I win...Then again..I still play Guild Wars on a daily basis.
for now..
Talking about enemy AI, I'd like to see at least 1 boss that went for the healers.
my guess - old farm bot account
Talking about enemy AI, I'd like to see at least 1 boss that went for the healers.
Andrii's Tips and Tricks for "Getting the Most out of Your Beta Experience"
- Don't just skip through the questions after you design your character. Your answers impact your story and will also impact some NPC interactions in different areas.
- Guilds can be created the second you are out of the cinematic. Hit "G" to create a guild or to represent/stand down from a guild.
- The intro instance boss encounter WILL down you. This is so you can see how downed works. Even if you stay downed, the NPCs will win the encounter for you. For most classes, the 3 button will get you back up.
- Right away, hit H then select the PVP tab. Hit "Be in the Mists". After you port, there will be an Asura Gate in front of you. Take it to Lion's Arch. After this port, cross the bridge to Lion's Arch. At the fountain make a left. Here there are Asura Gates to every major city. The gates to Asura and Sylvari land will be blocked. Port to each major city and get the waypoint for zippy travel around the world. (This of course will also let you choose your newbie leveling zone)
-Waypoints are graveyards. As you begin exploring and leveling, you want to collect waypoints as fast as possible. Before you start working on a heart or dynamic event, get the closest waypoint or you will be very sad when you die and have to schlep all the way back.
- Go to Divinity's Reach because... god drat it's amazing. Best city in any MMO ever.
- Your weapon skill unlock makes progress by killing a mob. When you get a new weapon, grinding out the unlocks real quick will make for a more varied and strategic game experience early on.
- You can buy AND sell to the auction house (trading post) from anywhere. You have to go to a city to pick up what you have bought or sold however. You can also place buy orders.
- There are no breadcrumbs and no quest hubs. You progress in this game by EXPLORING. Pick a direction that looks good and you will stumble upon adventure. Getting sidetracked is how you will spend most of your time.
- There is no character trading. The mail system is instant, can be done from anywhere, requires no mailbox, and is the primary method for exchanging things between characters.
- You want to gather. There is no gathering skill. If two people hit a node, both get full reward. You can get upgrades for your equipment in the form of crystals from gathering. Even if you don't intend to craft you should gather for the crystals. You will need a consumable to gather. Axes are for logging, picks are for mining, sickles are for herbs and veggies. Most merchants sell these.
[Edit: Retro here; I think he means in order to get the crystals, you will need one of the consumables, as we've seen players without these tools still gathering from nodes.]
- You will start getting karma quickly. When you fill up a heart, the NPC will sell you gear or other goodies for karma. DO NOT BANK KARMA. Keep in mind you aren't getting gear quest rewards... because there are no quests. If a karma vendor has an upgrade for you, buy it then and there. This will insure that your relative power stays above the mobs you are fighting.
- DO NOT RUN AWAY AFTER COMPLETING ANY DYNAMIC EVENT. This is the best advice I can give. Most of the time, after a dynamic event completes, the NPCs will chat for a minute and then another dynamic event will start. You owe it to yourself to hang out and see what the next bit is. If you stay in a place for 3 minutes or so and nothing happens, it is safe to move on. The world around will change A LOT. Whether you are there to see it, is entirely up to you.
- If you have no idea where to go, look for a scout. They are marked with binoculars. They will reveal hearts for you. Also sometimes NPCs will beckon to you or run up to you and say "hey jerky, help a bro". Talk to these NPCs. They will reveal previously hidden dynamic events.
- If you see a different looking dynamic event box that has a background and stays active in a wide area, this is the zones meta dynamic event and requires coordination over a wide area to progress. The end of these events are usually really really satisfying. For instance in the human zone, there is a gigantic scary netherworld monster.
- There is no reason why you have to go to a higher level zone. You will automatically downlevel for an area and get appropriate rewards. If you finish a 1-15 zone, consider going to another 1-15 zone.
- Combat: Your 1 skill is autoattack. Everything else has a cooldown. Since you have a small number of skills this means you can do something you've probably never done in an MMO: look up. The primary thing holding your attention should be where and how you are moving and tells from the mob. To take care of that, you've got to watch carefully.
- Combat: Circle-strafe is your friend.
- Combat: If you run up to a mob, usually they will pause for a split second to punch you or to wind up a big attack. Use this to your advantage.
- Combat: Look at your skill tool tips and check for conditions. Conditions are fight changers. Sure you can just spam 1 and win, but proper use of conditions will greatly increase your survival and speed of killing.
- Combat: COMBOS - If you pull off a combo (a special attack combining your skills with another players skills) you will see "combo" in the heads-up combat spam. Experiment with this for hilarity and hi-jinks. The easy combos involve a field + a projectile or a field + a jumping/leaping attack.
- Combat: Move, move, move!
- Your 7, 8, 9 skills unlock at 5, 10, and 20 respectively. To get skills you need skill points. Do skill challenges for skill points. Every major city has a few skill points that you can just buy.
- Traits unlock at 11.
- In combat weapon switching unlocks at 7.
(Original Post)
Minorkos said:- PvP: You can do structured PvP from level 1. You will be sidekicked to level 80 and given access to every ability and trait in the game. Technically, you can do WvW as a level 1 guy as well but it's not really a good idea. Unlike in structured PvP, you aren't fully sidekicked to level 80. You should unlock some of your utility skill slots before you dive into WvW.
- PvP: The PvP in GW2 is quite different than in other MMORPGs. Your gear and level are completely meaningless in structured PvP. Like mentioned before, everyone has access to the same stuff. There is no stat comparing, PvP armor or any other typical MMORPG PvP bullshit. If you lose a fight, it was because the other guy was better at PvP than you. No excuses. Of course, this also means that if you beat a guy in PvP, it was because of your own ability. This isn't a big deal for many of you, but for a PvP guy like myself it's very important. I just really hate it when someone in PvP has a number advantage over another person! However, if you really like number comparing contests, look into WvW! In WvW, your PvE gear is still relevant. You will be stronger than lower leveled dudes too, but not by too much.
- PvP: There's a lot more thinking involved in GW2's PvP. Rather than playing whack-a-mole with your cooldowns, you actually have to look at your enemy and see what he's doing. If he's dueling with you 1v1, stack conditions like vulnerability, weaken, and blind on him (limit his DPS, buff your own). If he's trying to escape or kite you, use cripples and immobilizes. If he's channeling stuff, interrupt him with a daze or a knockback. Stuns are always useful for every situation. There is no resource (except for thief's initiative), so the only thing that limits your abilty use is time. You can only use one ability at a time, so make sure you're using the right one at the right time. You will most likely have only a few abilities that deal pure damage. The rest have at least some utility aspect to them, so always check what exactly your abilities do.
- PvP: Also, remember that you can change your abilities and traits whenever you want to. There is no reason not to constantly experiment with different builds.
- PvP: Even if you don't usually like PvP in MMORPGs, you should try WvW anyway. According to testers, it's apparently like PvE against intelligent opponents. There's a bunch of things that make it a lot less stressful than typical PvP. You can't see the enemies' names and they can't see yours, so you're basically anonymous. Also, the overall pace is much slower than in structured PvP. You can just chill out and defend a keep all day if you want to.
(Original Post)
From the article:
"...I encounter four familiar NPCs in the middle of an argument: the descendants of Guild Wars 1s NPC henchmen, squabbling over what adventure to go on next."
That is awesome. I cannot wait to see who hooked up with who.
I think that sidekicking down may become standard for MMOs after this. It makes way too much sense and keeps all zones current in some way. Even if the quest system is traditional, sidekicking down means you can never outlevel quests.
Hopefully a LOT of things become standard for MMOs after this (i.e. Overflow servers, no server restrictions, etc.). Not that it matters since I've found my MMO for the next decade and a half, but.... yeah.
You can play other games and other MMOs when you want, but you can also come back to GW2 any time you want.
Hopefully a LOT of things become standard for MMOs after this (i.e. Overflow servers, no server restrictions, etc.). Not that it matters since I've found my MMO for the next decade and a half, but.... yeah.
I put more time into GW than I would've in any other MMO as a result of how much less money I had to put into it. I'd say I've spent roughly 150 bucks on Guild Wars total. I've been playing it to some degree for 6.9 years. And that's not counting time from the beta, which I played a LOT.Well one of the cool things about GW2 is the no subscription fee. You can play other games and other MMOs when you want, but you can also come back to GW2 any time you want.
Everyone in here saying "oh you guys are crazy for playing this 5'000+h" just have to wait a few years and then look back at how much you've been playing GW2
You know what? I actually said "Decade and a half" when I meant "Half a decade". I think my hype is showing.
on that note, what do you guys think IS the lifespan of a MMO?
We all know you really meant 15 years, it's okay.
If the engine is built well enough to accommodate improvements, the visual style is such that it can age well without looking dated (see: WoW's now-hideous low-poly vanilla races), and the gameplay is solid but expandable... I think 10 years is completely reasonable. I see them adding new content to GW2 in the form of new weapon types, maybe a new Profession or two, but lots of new content in terms of dungeons, continents, PVP maps. Maybe a new race? Not sure how they might expand WvWvW though, unless they add new maps and you switch between them each week, or they simply drop the old map and add a new one with more unique terrain or something.on that note, what do you guys think IS the lifespan of a MMO?
I expect that we'll get expansions every two years. However, we'll get major game content every 3 months or so.
Two years seems like quite a gap, but it really depends on how major those content updates are. Knowing ArenaNet, their future content plan for the game might be something completely unexpected and possibly quite amazing.
It feels strange to be discussing the future of a game that isn't even out yet.
Two years seems like quite a gap, but it really depends on how major those content updates are. Knowing ArenaNet, their future content plan for the game might be something completely unexpected and possibly quite amazing.
It feels strange to be discussing the future of a game that isn't even out yet.
Didn't they say they wanted to bring expansions more often to make up for not having a subscription fee? because that seems to be their major source of income after the main game...
But, in fact, the restrictions of the every-six-months model meant the team found itself perpetually wistful over what didn't make it into the game.
“We sat down to discuss what was going to go into Campaign 4 and realized we couldn't do all the things we wanted,” says Game Designer Eric Flannum. “Why? Partly because we’d need more time [than six months], and partly because some ideas wouldn't work well with things we’d done before.”
At that point, there were still no plans to fix a system that didn’t seem broken. But ArenaNet Co-Founder Jeff Strain decided to let everyone “freestyle a little bit,” he says. “And the more we talked, the more excited we got about what we could be doing.”
What the team felt it couldn’t do was implement its exciting new ideas in the game’s current campaign-every-six-months plan. While the promise of fresh standalone content twice a year sounds great to players, its requirements have actually caused Guild Wars to become somewhat convoluted from a game-design perspective.
“With each new campaign, we’ve been trying to introduce brand-new mechanics that change how the game plays. That’s led to the need for larger and larger tutorials to explain the new mechanics, and it’s made each campaign’s beginning experience much more bloated,” explains Flannum. “And since every new campaign was aiming to bring in new players—thus requiring bigger and bigger tutorials—plus aiming to give stuff to older players, the list of skills just kept growing.” Each campaign that’s been added to the Guild Wars world—three in total—has added another layer of design that, in the name of making things easier for new players, has actually ended up creating barriers to entry as they try to sort through multiple training areas, increasingly intricate tutorials, and an ever-ballooning list of skills.
The gap between Prophecies and Factions was exactly 1 year, Factions to Nightfall was 5 months. and Nightfall to EoTN was 11 months and the only true expansion. ANet are 12 times larger than when they launched Prophecies and 3 times larger than when they launched EoTN. Even in just those 2 years where content was flowing, they managed to release a ton of content and features/balances. They have the first 2 expansions already roughed out, they're splitting the team into a live team and an expansion team. Now that they're a much larger team that has had many years working with the same engine and tools they've become extremely proficient. They've said they can pump out new events as fast as 2 days - 2 weeks depending on the QA testing involved and will be patching in new DEs without telling us so the world is always going to be changing whether we know it or not. Beyond that it's important to recognize that content will always keep coming, they're forced to produce content and a timely rate and good content at that because if they don't then people may be less likely to buy an expansion which is a huge chunk of their income. They have no subscription to fall back on and so this means they can't become complacent like other developers.
I'm expecting an expansion every year at the very least. They wanted GW1 campaigns to be released every six months, even though they didn't hit it for every one.
The campaign every six months restricted them in what they could do, so I don't think they'll go full expansions every six months. I'm guessing major expansions every year, and maybe mini missions/expansions in between or something.
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Utopia
Don't forget they have cashshop. You are right though. I retract my previous statement. We'll probably get yearly expansions that cost around 40 bucks. If it's more I'll be shocked. They will also all come out in November.
The gap between Prophecies and Factions was exactly 1 year, Factions to Nightfall was 5 months. and Nightfall to EoTN was 11 months and the only true expansion. ANet are 12 times larger than when they launched Prophecies and 3 times larger than when they launched EoTN. Even in just those 2 years where content was flowing, they managed to release a ton of content and features/balances. They have the first 2 expansions already roughed out, they're splitting the team into a live team and an expansion team. Now that they're a much larger team that has had many years working with the same engine and tools they've become extremely proficient. They've said they can pump out new events as fast as 2 days - 2 weeks depending on the QA testing involved and will be patching in new DEs without telling us so the world is always going to be changing whether we know it or not. Beyond that it's important to recognize that content will always keep coming, they're forced to produce content and a timely rate and good content at that because if they don't then people may be less likely to buy an expansion which is a huge chunk of their income. They have no subscription to fall back on and so this means they can't become complacent like other developers.
Nicely said. I had forgotten that they've already planned out the next two expansions. In theory, this should lead to some interesting foreshadowing and a steady build towards events rather than "LOL, here's a new villain, surprise!" approach Blizzard loves to use.
Discussing our second and third helpings of the game when we haven't even had an appetizer yet makes me feel guilty, like we don't appreciate all of the stuff that's going to be in the game at launch...
4 days, 22 hours, 50 minutes, 40 seconds... gonna be a long week.
Seeing as Meridian 59 is still running after 16 years, at this point we have no idea what the average lifespan even is because so few have ever "died".
Who of you guys is going to take the best (preferably high-res) videos/screens and do writeups? If not here, then where?