Questions About Guild Wars 2

[mikey7339]

I haven't been paying any attention to this game. I played the first one and did not get into it that much. At first I enjoyed it but after only a month I quickly lost interest in it. The main reasons, were among other things, how the world and leveling system was setup.

In the original (if I remember correctly) you did not get to share the outside world with everyone else like you could in EQ or WoW; you could pick up party members in towns but once outside a town the only people that would follow along were your party members. Also, the game seemed really, REALLY linear for an MMORPG, you were basically trekking one set path from town to town that you absolutely could not deviate from if you wanted to progress in the game. Another thing that turned me off was the level cap, when I left I think it was set at a ridiculously low level like 20.

Can anyone tell me if these same elements are going to be in GW2? Or if not, what will be changing from the original?

EDIT: Also, raids. Will you be able to group with more than just a half dozen or so people? And please keep in mind, if any of what I asked or cited seems off, I am going on extremely faded memories from when the game first came out so I may not be remembering things correctly.

 

[Qitz]

From what I've heard from the BAJILLION of press beta videos floating around, composed in two threads on the forums as well, GW2 uses the open world system that almost all MMOs use now, you won't be locked into your own instance of an area anymore as that wouldn't make any sense what with public quests being implemented.

As for its linearity, again, from what I've heard on press videos, is you're not constrained to "follow this path and no where else" instead you're allowed to wonder around and quest in different areas and can even jump into lower level public quests, which will temporarily de-level you to match that zone (You can't be lvl 50 and clear a lvl 5 public event, you'll be dropped to lvl 5.)

 

[mikey7339]

From what I've heard from the BAJILLION of press beta videos floating around, composed in two threads on the forums as well)

Yea, sorry about making another thread, it was pretty much laziness on my part. Glad to hear they are making it open world and non-linear. The first one felt really lonely & almost like a single player RPG at times.

Also, I take it from what you said that they also upped the level cap to 50?

 

[Qitz]

Also, I take it from what you said that they also upped the level cap to 50?

Actually they've upped the level cap all the way to 80 this time around.

 

[GrandmaFunk]

max level is 80, closest things to "raids" are the 5 man dungeons.

the PVE is split into the instanced Personal Story, which is mostly linear and based on choices you made in your character creation, and Dynamic Events which is scaling event chains that happen all over the game world..these can go from helping a farmer put out some fires to joining hundreds of players into fending off a siege or trying to take down a dragon.

 

[mikey7339]

the PVE is split into the instanced Personal Story, which is mostly linear and based on choices you made in your character creation, and Dynamic Events which is scaling event chains that happen all over the game world..these can go from helping a farmer put out some fires to joining hundreds of players into fending off a siege or trying to take down a dragon.

What about PvP? How will that be setup?

 

[GrandmaFunk]

at this point it's probably worth it for you to just go check out the other two threads as we're repeating stuff that's been discussed there at length.

 

[Qitz]

The guys over at Guild Wars 2 Guru [http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/press-closed-beta-test-t27964.html] have a whole list of both regular PvP (capture the point and keep them till your opponent loses all their tickets) and World Vs World videos you can check out.

 

[Berenzen]

Don't forget about the Mass Info for the Uninitiated [http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/guild-wars-2-mass-info-t25557.html]

A great summary. There is a little bit of outdated information, but it's still pretty accurate.

But to answer some of your questions. The world will be persistant, though there will be portals connecting various areas. They will be few and far between however, as the areas seem to be quite large. The level cap will be at 80 as well.

As for linearity- You can choose to explore and do a whole bunch of dynamic events in the open world, which will not feel all that linear. Or you can do the Personal Story, which, due to it's nature, will be linear, doing instanced content personalized to you.

For your third question, the answer is no. The party is capped at 5, though there will be many events that can scale up to 100 people. But in terms of grouped raids, you will not be able to do a dungeon with more than 5 people. Anet feels that having larger amounts of people restricts the accessability of the content, and that having 25-man raids would be overly restricting on them, particularly considering that all dungeons have a 'story mode' which enhances the players story as well as the much more difficult 'explorable mode'.

As for PvP, you will go into an area called the Mists, which automatically bumps you up to level 80 with all skills and traits unlocked. Furthermore, you will be able to customize your armor and choose the weapons that you want. It will be perfectly balanced in terms of gear, instead focusing more on skill and team compatability. This is for the hot-join and competitive PvP. There is a second type called World vs. World or WvW, which is a lot more imbalanced.

WvW is a highly unbalanced, 3 world battlefield taking place over 4 maps over the course of 2 weeks. Each map can hold up to 100 people from each server, meaning that it is possible to have up to 300 people on each map or 1200 people across the whole battlefield. In WvW, the character is scaled up to level 80, but only has what they have unlocked available to them. So if you stepped in at level 2, with just 1 skill unlocked, you would end up with the stats of a level 80, but you wouldn't have any access to any of your skills except for just that one. In WvW, you can level up and unlock stuff, gaining skill points and traits as you level. You can also purchase new armor and weapons from vendors, giving you the ability to upgrade your gear. You can also find gear drops after you kill a player- but it won't come from their inventory, it will be a randomized gear drop based on that players class. If your server is doing well in WvW, all players in that server will get buffs depending on what keeps/towers/supply depots they have.