Guild Wars 2 Preview
- Thread starter Slycne
- Start date
I'm really looking forward to buying this game...
wow there's something I haven't said in over 2 years.
wow there's something I haven't said in over 2 years.
A few things I'd like to clarify or correct:
1) Gems aren't directly converted into gold. You have to sell them on the player-driven marketplace to other players for gold, which means that if thousands of people buy gems on day 1 hoping to get rich, they're going to be disappointed. You can't get any more money from gems than people can pay for them, and early on there just won't be much gold to go around.
2) Mystic Keys do drop in-game (and they're also given as a quest reward for at least one of your personal story quests). They're just rare. Mystic Chests and Mystic Keys can also be traded on the marketplace, so if you have no interest in buying a Key, you can at least get some gold out of it. As you pointed out, these things mostly give cosmetic rewards anyway.
3) Similarly, transmutation stones, dyes, and XP boosts can be purchased or found in-game. They're just also available via the store. And don't fear the XP boosts; leveling was (in my experience) quite rapid without them, and the boosts only work on monster kills anyway (which give a paltry amount of XP relative to hearts, events, and storyline quests anyway).
4) Your bar may technically only consist of 10 skills at once (plus your profession mechanic), but every class has access to more skills than that in combat. All classes except 2 can equip a second weapon set that they can swap to in combat to give them an extra 5 weapon skills, and there are also many utilities (like engineer kits), profession abilities (like elementalist attunements), and elites (like warrior Rampage) that provide an entire extra skillbar of 5 skills. Plus every environmental weapon (sticks, boulders, rocket launchers...) you pick up comes with its own 1-5 unique skills.
@lancar: it's a common misconception. It stems from (I believe) the fact that PvP is not an after-thought in the game, and they've stated multiple times that they want to make their PvP e-sport worthy...but that doesn't mean the PvE content has been neglected. GW1 was supposed to be primarily PvP focused at launch, but as the game matured they focused more and more of their efforts on building a solid PvE game, and they've built GW2 from the ground up with both PvE and PvP in mind.
1) Gems aren't directly converted into gold. You have to sell them on the player-driven marketplace to other players for gold, which means that if thousands of people buy gems on day 1 hoping to get rich, they're going to be disappointed. You can't get any more money from gems than people can pay for them, and early on there just won't be much gold to go around.
2) Mystic Keys do drop in-game (and they're also given as a quest reward for at least one of your personal story quests). They're just rare. Mystic Chests and Mystic Keys can also be traded on the marketplace, so if you have no interest in buying a Key, you can at least get some gold out of it. As you pointed out, these things mostly give cosmetic rewards anyway.
3) Similarly, transmutation stones, dyes, and XP boosts can be purchased or found in-game. They're just also available via the store. And don't fear the XP boosts; leveling was (in my experience) quite rapid without them, and the boosts only work on monster kills anyway (which give a paltry amount of XP relative to hearts, events, and storyline quests anyway).
4) Your bar may technically only consist of 10 skills at once (plus your profession mechanic), but every class has access to more skills than that in combat. All classes except 2 can equip a second weapon set that they can swap to in combat to give them an extra 5 weapon skills, and there are also many utilities (like engineer kits), profession abilities (like elementalist attunements), and elites (like warrior Rampage) that provide an entire extra skillbar of 5 skills. Plus every environmental weapon (sticks, boulders, rocket launchers...) you pick up comes with its own 1-5 unique skills.
@lancar: it's a common misconception. It stems from (I believe) the fact that PvP is not an after-thought in the game, and they've stated multiple times that they want to make their PvP e-sport worthy...but that doesn't mean the PvE content has been neglected. GW1 was supposed to be primarily PvP focused at launch, but as the game matured they focused more and more of their efforts on building a solid PvE game, and they've built GW2 from the ground up with both PvE and PvP in mind.
I played the beta event and had a blast, I'm loving the game so far, altough not perfect and a bit over-hyped, this is definitely the MMO I'm going to play.
Some of my impressions so far:
- The "work together" concept is perfect. Kill-steal is gone, you're actualy looking forward to play with other players, instead of just try to avoid them so you maximize exp/loot gained.
- Combat is fast paced thanks to the dodging mechanic, downed state, and not being dedicated tanks/healers, although the attacks have a bit of a delay, that can be anoying if you're not used to like me, and the lag doesn't help.
- The hearts quests are sometimes a bit generic and not that exciting, but most of the dynamic events were great, at level 15 you have a really epic "raid-like" encounter.
- Fully voiced-over and with cinematics for your personal story. The scripting is not that good actualy, it's very cliched, but at some points I was able to choose between different paths whitch really added to the game story (while rescuing some minotaurs, attack the enemies all in or trick them to get drunk and fall sleep?)
- Just gorgeous, the world feels alive, the cities are massive and the painted artstyle is beautiful. Even the UI looks amazing.
- No subscription fees. Nuff said.
Looking forward to the next beta event and the final release.
Some of my impressions so far:
- The "work together" concept is perfect. Kill-steal is gone, you're actualy looking forward to play with other players, instead of just try to avoid them so you maximize exp/loot gained.
- Combat is fast paced thanks to the dodging mechanic, downed state, and not being dedicated tanks/healers, although the attacks have a bit of a delay, that can be anoying if you're not used to like me, and the lag doesn't help.
- The hearts quests are sometimes a bit generic and not that exciting, but most of the dynamic events were great, at level 15 you have a really epic "raid-like" encounter.
- Fully voiced-over and with cinematics for your personal story. The scripting is not that good actualy, it's very cliched, but at some points I was able to choose between different paths whitch really added to the game story (while rescuing some minotaurs, attack the enemies all in or trick them to get drunk and fall sleep?)
- Just gorgeous, the world feels alive, the cities are massive and the painted artstyle is beautiful. Even the UI looks amazing.
- No subscription fees. Nuff said.
Looking forward to the next beta event and the final release.
Nice preview video. I too had played the beta and so far the game has not dissapoint me unlike a few people out there. I do got to agree that one of the problems is the indoor battle (I am not going to be a commoner for my human character).
Also for the next beta you should so team up with us Guild Wars group. It would be a blast!
Also for the next beta you should so team up with us Guild Wars group. It would be a blast!
Shouldnt having almost no room to dodge be a tactical disadvantage when fighting in a small indoor space? but i do agree the camera needs to be fixed.Scarim Coral said:
I'm going to copy and paste a post from SomethingAwful's HungryGerbil:lancar said:
PvE in this game is like what happens if you add SWTOR's story (only scaled back a bit) to RIFT's rifts (only expanded a LOT). You start at level 1 and make your way up to cap, just like any other RPG.
"World PvP"--which, in this game, is actually "world vs world"--is set in four enormous maps that are separate from the main PvE world but still include the dynamic events of the PvE world, and in which three servers are paired up every two weeks to fight each other. It's very much along the lines of DAOC's three-faction PvP. You can level to cap doing nothing but this, if you choose.
And structured PvP is your basic TF2-style PvP events. You are leveled up to cap automatically and everyone is on equal footing in terms of gear, so it's more about skill than anything else
You can choose to play any one of those three games, or a combination. And all for $60. You really can't go wrong.
I didn't get into the PvP aspect of the game during the BWE; instead I spent my time exploring the lands playing all three available races, trying out 4 of the 8 classes (Ranger,Thief,Mesmer and Elementalist).
Soloing is like no other soling in any other MMO I've played. I totally agree with...
Add to this that all the resources are shared too, so no more competing players ninja-ing your nodes while you fight a pesky monster who's in the way.
Soloing is like no other soling in any other MMO I've played. I totally agree with...
Helping and being helped when downed or defeated with revives is a great addition. All players regardless of class can do this!if_then_else said:
Add to this that all the resources are shared too, so no more competing players ninja-ing your nodes while you fight a pesky monster who's in the way.
I loved the Beta Event this past weekend. I was watching all the videos of the game over and over again. And I had a blast. I started as a basic warrior Norn and it was fun. Then I tried a Ranger and it was awesome. Put a sword in his hand he is like ninja, the bow skills were awesome, the personal story was a nice touch too. I liked how the death penalty played out. My once concern was the equipment, it seems so frail, but I'm sure that will be balanced out by the time it gets released. Loved it and I can't suggest it enough.
I missed the Beta weekend due to having to work 3 double shifts in a row, but when the next one comes around, I'm all over that. Oh and I'm buying the game as soon as it comes out too, it looks like a great game to start trying out the MMORPG genre.
Not to start a flame war or anything, but I'm not going to prepurchase (or even preorder) this game. Why? I'll tell you;
The first Guild Wars was all about complexity, and adapting your skills and tactics to the situation, and the monsters you were going to be fighting. Are they using mostly fire based damage? Equip fire armour, and bring some skills that alleviate burning. Then perhaps you should bring some spells that target their mages, preferrably damaging them the more skills they use. Are they "fleshy" (as opposed to skeletons, wraiths and so on)? Perhaps some bleeding, disease and poison would be nice? Or perhaps they are melee only, and you should look into making their attacks miss.
With the right amount of preparation, and a good deal of ingenuity, you could complete an area in 10 minutes alone, whereas an 8-man party would spend 3 hours and perhaps even fail. The character level, armour and weapons were so easily maxed, that all you really could judge a person on, was how well they picked their skills, and how adept they were at using them.
Now what do we get?
"Do you want a sword, bow, hammer or a gun? OK, now go out there and hope you manage to dodge their attacks."
To me, it just seems like they dropped all the Magic the Gathering stuff from the game, and that was what really made Guild Wars shine for me. At least I don't have to spend 4000 hours on the sequel.
(and yes, I know that you can have 2 weapon sets, it still seems shallow and simplistic to me)
The first Guild Wars was all about complexity, and adapting your skills and tactics to the situation, and the monsters you were going to be fighting. Are they using mostly fire based damage? Equip fire armour, and bring some skills that alleviate burning. Then perhaps you should bring some spells that target their mages, preferrably damaging them the more skills they use. Are they "fleshy" (as opposed to skeletons, wraiths and so on)? Perhaps some bleeding, disease and poison would be nice? Or perhaps they are melee only, and you should look into making their attacks miss.
With the right amount of preparation, and a good deal of ingenuity, you could complete an area in 10 minutes alone, whereas an 8-man party would spend 3 hours and perhaps even fail. The character level, armour and weapons were so easily maxed, that all you really could judge a person on, was how well they picked their skills, and how adept they were at using them.
Now what do we get?
"Do you want a sword, bow, hammer or a gun? OK, now go out there and hope you manage to dodge their attacks."
To me, it just seems like they dropped all the Magic the Gathering stuff from the game, and that was what really made Guild Wars shine for me. At least I don't have to spend 4000 hours on the sequel.
(and yes, I know that you can have 2 weapon sets, it still seems shallow and simplistic to me)
I was also in the last BWE and really enjoyed it. Yes, it has bugs and issues to work out but I'm really looking forward to release. The game can be difficult as I died several times in a few of my personal story missions but it is fun that it is more challenging than the average MMO.
Also, the holy trinity is finally gone and not a moment too soon. This alone puts it heads and shoulders over any other MMO out right now.
Combat is fast paced but the controls feel mushy. While I dislike that Tera still has the holy trinity, that game's controls feel a bit tigher than GW2's. The characters in Tera feel like they have mass and weight and their attacks have impact. GW2's characters feel floaty and the attacks are nice looking but lack oomph.
Overall, though, I'm still a bit more excited for GW2 than I am for Tera. Though I enjoy both games.
Also, the holy trinity is finally gone and not a moment too soon. This alone puts it heads and shoulders over any other MMO out right now.
Combat is fast paced but the controls feel mushy. While I dislike that Tera still has the holy trinity, that game's controls feel a bit tigher than GW2's. The characters in Tera feel like they have mass and weight and their attacks have impact. GW2's characters feel floaty and the attacks are nice looking but lack oomph.
Overall, though, I'm still a bit more excited for GW2 than I am for Tera. Though I enjoy both games.