Guild Wars 2 Beta Preview
- Thread starter Slycne
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I really don't see how this is supposed to REVOLUTIONIZE the damn MMO industry, its another hotbar based MMO, while obviously a well made one its just another part of the problem and not the solution.
Edit: You can all stop quoting me now, I really don't care anymore why you personally believe this game is god, as I see I'm throwing myself against a fanboy wall here.
Edit: You can all stop quoting me now, I really don't care anymore why you personally believe this game is god, as I see I'm throwing myself against a fanboy wall here.
I like the game well enough, but the engine is garbage. They could have made a far better game if they'd bought a license and spent the extra development time rethinking blunders like zero player collision and check-based Y axis hit detection.
Animation based game.
No collision. Good luck reading those animations.
Tabbing targets based on nearest-farthest.
No minimap tracking. Good luck predicting where your next tab will jump to. Did you just waste a critical skill on a downed player that your true target was standing in? Such a pity.
And A-net said they had e-sports hopes for their PvP. I had no idea they were such great jokers.
Animation based game.
No collision. Good luck reading those animations.
Tabbing targets based on nearest-farthest.
No minimap tracking. Good luck predicting where your next tab will jump to. Did you just waste a critical skill on a downed player that your true target was standing in? Such a pity.
And A-net said they had e-sports hopes for their PvP. I had no idea they were such great jokers.
Nice write up - I do agree that GW2 will have an influence on new MMOs, in particular questing and leveling structure.
Had an amazing time playing the beta, even though timezones stopped me from playing the closing event. Next 31 days can't pass quickly enough IMO.
Had an amazing time playing the beta, even though timezones stopped me from playing the closing event. Next 31 days can't pass quickly enough IMO.
For me it's potentially evolutionary in the space that it exists, less so about some ground breaking divergence. The bittersweet fact is we simply are not going to see something revolutionize the entire MMO industry on say the same level of when MMOs first came out, at least not soon. At our current technological level, we are still a ways off from anything like that. What we can do, and what Guild Wars 2 does, is take a close look at a number of the game mechanics that have been stagnate in the MMO space.Saviordd1 said:
elaborate? Examples? what would you rather see instead of a hotbar mmo? a hotcircle mmo? There's really only so much you can do with combat skill placement.Saviordd1 said:
I agree with the e-sports thing, since guild wars just doesnt seem to fit right in that aspect. Tabbing works exactly how it did in gw1, how else would you have it switch between targets? Switching to the one in the center of your screen won't work if you have more than 1 enemy there. If there were collisions, do you realize how impossibly annoying WvW would be? The engine works just fine, and it's not even optimized yet. Also, I can guarantee you that Anet has considered adding collisions because it was in gw1. They clearly made a decision not to, which means it's not a blunder, it's a choice. I will also agree that minimap tracking would be nice, especially since it was in gw1.Candidus said:
It would be nice if people would point out things that can't be fixed through player skill. Stuff like spectator for pvp and wvw, particle effect scaling, performance optimization, and those sorts of things.
How about, and this is a crazy idea here, an MMO that actually relies on skill and aiming! (Oh god doesn't that idea just shake your britches)the doom cannon said:
I mean I've heard Vindictus had good combat, but I also heard that's basically just a RPG with mulitplayer zones.
The first MMO developer to actually have a good combat system with less grind and actual content would be king of the god damn world for years...yet no one can grow the brain cells to NOT copy WoW and its predecessors.
Edit: Again, no quoting please, I ceased caring against the wave of people who claim GW2 is going to be god.
Well, GW2 would be a step in that direction as many of the skills require aiming where they are going and can be dodged by moving out of the way. Just because the skills you can use are selected by numbers by default doesn't make it a hotbar system like you describe. They also have made large strides towards player skill being a key factor in combat and removing random number generators from determining combat.Saviordd1 said:
Further, the combat in GW2 is fun, at least in my opinion, and the grind apears to be non-existent. I am genuinly curoius what you would define a grind as these days, as there at no point in GW2 is there a lack of things to do and everything can help you level up. Have you had a chance to play the game at all? or are these opions based off of watching videos of the game?
I do agree that this will not be a revolution in MMO's but it is a step forward.
Then you get into first person mmorpg, which quite honestly doesn't work. You can't really "aim" if you're in third person, which is the most popular and most effective way to do an mmorpg. don't get me wrong, I'd get right behind a good first person mmorpg, but I've never seen one and I doubt I ever will. Also, I don't really understand how aiming with your mouse requires skill....GW2 has projectile, ground targeted, and directional skills. There are only a handful that will always hit, the rest can be dodged. I feel like there is some skill involved there.Saviordd1 said:
EDIT: Kordie you ninja, you
Vindictus is actually a really great example here. The issue is not a lack of creativity (though indeed the games industry is often too willing to play it safe), it really is a technological hurdle in the MMO space. The current limitations of bandwidth and server structure means that you can't have everything. Vindictus might feature combat more akin to an action game, but it's not able to do this in large zones with hundreds of players, hence the limitations. Likewise, games like Planetside can only be pulled off with certain restrictions, like a single hitbox. No matter what you're always going to be fighting with how much packet information can be sent back and forth to so many players.Saviordd1 said:
All that said, as other have pointed out, Guild Wars 2 does a good job of taking combat from just feeling like what we're used to. TOR felt very WoW-like, Guild Wars 2 doesn't. It's probably better demonstrated in my first preview though.
Have you ever thought that most people like hotbar MMOs? I wouldn't play an MMO that isn't hotbar based. That is what I have Single player games for.Saviordd1 said:
GW2 does have Hotbar, but it isn't like WoW, where you just stand there following your rotation and getting healed by the healer and not worrying about aggro because of the tank. You have to aim your skills, you have to manage your own health and damage mitigation, you have to dodge out of enemy attacks and abilities, and you have to always be aware because the enemy can turn on your at any second because there is no tank absorbing aggro.
The gameplay in WoW and GW2 is completely different. Sure they have hotbars, but both are really different.
I'm with you. Like I said on the Facebook feed:Saviordd1 said:
I thought the beta as a whole was lacking. there was nothing to really engage in. Yeah all that stuff was there, but there was really on incentive.
The Sylvari weren't "similar" to elves, that's all they were. Literally. Elves with leaf hair. You could have thrown them into Amalur or something and no one would bat an eyelash
the only race done well was Charr, but the stories were all B-grade fantasy novel cliches, with no real choices besides "let this traitor live or die?". There was no real choice. I tried the Sylvari, and I hated all the NPCs, I would have rather joined the evil faction, the Nightmare Court, but alas, no such choice was there, making each small choice you got to feel just kind of... "About time I got to do something."
Combat was fun, but lacked any real impact. There was no real impact on anything I did. I never felt my sword hit a creature. I never saw a "tell" when a giant skill was coming, hence a sign to dodge. Speaking of dodging. It sucks. Period. It's way too imprecise and there was no reliable way to strafe and dodge without being a melee-based Ranger.
Really, the combat's fun, and the world's pretty, but just about everything else needs to be redone from the ground up. because aside from the combat and the "dynamic events", which aren't really all that dynamic, there's nothing new in this game.
No, tabbing doesn't work exactly as it did in GW1. I'm very surprised you'd say that without realising your mistake on reflection.the doom cannon said:
In GW1, the minimap tracked all players at all times. You could keep the minimap on your peripheral vision and know roughly to which dot the next tab would take you. That is no longer the case, and a feature-sparse minimap DIRECTLY undermines the target tabbing function in much the same way as a lack of collision does. It makes this core interface utility unpredictable. That's pretty big shit.
EDIT: It might be more accurate to say that while tabbing is technically the same beast, the ways in which it can be utilized have been fundamentally changed for the worse. Unless you think making a core system unwieldy is arguable as "simply a difference". I'd be looking at you with a pretty skeptical face if you did.
A highlighted cone that represents the users' target tabbable FOV should be projected from your own dot on the minimap. In that cone, other players' dots should be visible and your current target should be highlighted. That doesn't solve the similar problems caused by a lack of collision, but who cares? Right now, the two problems compound each-other to the point that you could quite legitimately call the arrangement broken. If you don't fix either one, you won't even have a worthwhile competitive passtime, let alone an e-sport.
As to your notion that zero collision was a design decision: I agree. It was a terrible design decision. That's a blunder.
The game is animation based. There are no casting bars and no means of following targets you don't have on-screen. Skill casts often do NOT have visually distinct tells; many skills are represented by artistic blurs shrouded in movement (death blossom). Add to this the fact that without collision, these blurs can stand inside other blurs.
The current situation (in my opinion) is that the game does everything it can to make sure that you can't pull any meaningful information off the screen from one moment to the next. I know what I need to play the game as a worthwhile competitive passtime, perhaps even as an e-sport. I also know that right now, GW2 doesn't provide anything like it.
Just because they took decisions doesn't mean they didn't blunder.
I'm suprise that you did another preview for this awesome game. Also ha I know which Universities you took for your Asuran character (that cutscene did made me chuckle).
Once the game is up and running, I suggest you join the Escapist Guild that the group leader is planning to make.
Once the game is up and running, I suggest you join the Escapist Guild that the group leader is planning to make.
ok lets agree that the minimap needs dots. Agreed? ok good. I also believe that this whole thing could be fixed by adding an icon under the enemy's name that indicates what skill they are using. Not a use bar, just the icon. I feel like this would make competitive play infinitely better, especially since a lot of elite skills have no visual effect on the players. PvP needs a lot of work before it's ready to be an e-sport, and quite honestly I don't think Anet has it in them to pull it off. Now that doesn't mean it won't be awesome and fun though. Their PvE content is also amazing.Candidus said:
As for the tabbing, it DOES work exactly the same. However, it is not represented the same. It still goes to the next target based on distance, but there is no visual indication as to where it will go next. The mechanic itself is the same.
Maybe I should run over to the beta forums if they're still open and add this icon suggestion.....something to think about at least.
question. I know this game doesnt have a subscription structure so...how do they afford to keep servers running???
Are the standard sales of the game enough?
Are the standard sales of the game enough?