What makes Guild Wars 2 different from generic MMOs?

[BloatedGuppy]

Mmmh, well that's to be expected of an MMO at launch. I'll see for myself when this download has finally finished (still at 58% despite a steady download rate of 2.5-3MB/s, how fucking big is this game?), but I think I'd probably be more worried if the game WASN'T suffering from some server overloads and the likes right now.

If the servers are struggling now, they will probably recover during the next week. If no one was playing (and the servers were fine), it's very unlikely the game would ever get a proper population.

400K concurrent users during head start, which is an MMO launch record and likely way north of their wildest expectations. It has resulted in some serious creaking on their back end though.

The game is huge. Something like 25-27 world zones, six cities, eight dungeons. The average zone is Barrens sized, using WoW parlance. The cities are 2-3 times the size of their WoW equivalents. Easily the most content rich MMO launch since WoW, and the largest world size since Everquest.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I wonder how much it cost them to make the game. Between the world size, how long it was in development, the advertising, the hundreds of tiny and big innovations that took a lot of work to perfect... I mean, the budget must be massive. It'll be interesting to see if this game makes it's money back.

I've never really been able to find an official budget number in my lazy Google searches. GW1 was a pretty solid hit for NCSoft, so I imagine Arena Net had some budget leeway along with all the development time they were given. I've heard it guesstimated at about 1/10th of TOR's cost, which would put it around 30M, which seems low to me. If I had to make a completely uneducated guess, I'd say somewhere in the realm of 50M to 75M. If it had broken 100M we'd have heard about it, that would put it up there as one of the more expensive games ever made.

They're using their own engine, and they relied predominantly on community buzz for marketing, and they don't have to pay TOR's staggering IP fees, so I imagine they've kept costs manageable for themselves. If the game had been too expensive to develop, I would've anticipated a more punitive cash shop.

 

[zumbledum]

I think its the lack of choice rather than the number i mean GW let you have 6 or was it 8? been a few years since i played but you got to pick them, i started as a necro and i basically have 3 sets to choose from and well im a bit bored of them already at level 12.

GW1 gave you a deck of 8 skills, in which you chose all 8.

GW2 gives you a deck of 10(15) skills, in which you elect the first 5 from a choice of 2-10ish, elect one from a choice of 3-4, and elect the last 4 from a choice of 25. These are further altered/effected by traits.

You don't have access to all your skills until level 30, and even then you won't have access to all of them until you've picked up sufficient skill points to unlock them, which can take quite a long time. The top rung elite skills take 30 skill points to unlock.

yeah i know it sounds better but in practice im finding it extremely limiting

take my necro's first 5 skills which are the meat of the combat abilities
gw 2- 10 possible combinations
gw 1- 78960960 combinations for basic set and taking all xp's in it rises to 50035863369 possible combinations

then the heal and elite which are limited to 3 options each mostly, just leaves you 3 free picks and these are limited almost exclusively to utility/rare use

obviously a lot of those GW1 builds wouldnt be at all viable but still i feel theres painfully too little choice in GW2.
And GW2 offers a weapon swap but how practical is that? once you have all the traits picked to match one weapon combo swapping to another is going to cripple you.
But even if we add them in that only raises the options to 90 which is over 800 thousand times less than Gw1 offered.


i want to see them add more choices in the weapons give each a pool and let us pick the 2,3 or 5 we want, adding in some late game "elite" skills to the weapon pools we get from dungeons or whatever. would also leave something to get after level 6
sure we have the elite skill to unlock at 30 but they are all mostly long cooldown +dps buttons anyway. the type of skill i had the freedom to avoid before.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

And GW2 offers a weapon swap but how practical is that? once you have all the traits picked to match one weapon combo swapping to another is going to cripple you.

Not only practical but outright necessary for some classes, like Elementalist attunement swapping. Weapon swapping is built right into many trait lines. I have no idea how you came to this conclusion, but it's way off base. I would go so far as to say never weapon swapping will cripple you.

But even if we add them in that only raises the options to 90 which is over 800 thousand times less than Gw1 offered.

Ah, the illusion of "choice". First, in reality, 99.999999999999999999% of the 80 billion possible specs are not going to be remotely viable in anything resembling a competitive environment. Second, 95% of players generally adhere to a tiny handful of communally recognized optimal specs in the end anyway, and those who don't struggle. This is a problem currently faced by TSW. It's all well and good to give people a million choices, but if you've not balanced all million choices with one another and accounted for all possible issues, then all you really have at the end is a tiny handful of good choices and a whole fucking ream of terrible ones. Sometimes a simple, clean and BALANCED system can allow for great tactical depth. Look at chess. That said...

i want to see them add more choices in the weapons give each a pool and let us pick the 2,3 or 5 we want, adding in some late game "elite" skills to the weapon pools we get from dungeons or whatever. would also leave something to get after level 6

Yeah I'd like to see this too. They need to balance what they've got first, but down the road I would very much like to see this. Again though, enough with the level 6 nonsense. You can make an argument for level 30, and realistically it's closer to level 40-50 when you'll have the full breadth of your abilities available, if not your talents. But at level 6 you've barely scratched the surface. I have a hard time even unlocking all my different weapon skills by level 6.

The game is a bit of a cash grab. Maybe that's an understatement.

How exactly is it a "cash grab"?

 

[Croaker42]

You use the same skills in interesting ways, rather than accumulating five hundred and firing them off as soon as they cool down.

Levels are something you gain no matter what you do - exploring, crafting, questing, etc. - and are just a factor of progress rather than the point of the game.

Quests are something that happens when you're there, not something you chase down, queue up, and hammer out. You happen upon a patrol, or a travelling cart, or a horde of (ever-so-common) marauding centaurs... and you just naturally fall into the rhythm of the task at hand.

Monthly fees are what you pay for non-"i" pads, not a continual price hanging over your head, marking down hours.

There are never too few rabbits to kill, or too few trees to chop. There are never too many people in an area for you to have any fun. This is an MMO - the ONLY MMO - where no matter what you decide to do, you can do it. Without waiting, without competing with other players - this is an MMO for the single-player gamer. And I'm damn happy with it.

Nicely put.
So many little things make GW2 stand out that it become difficult to point at one overarching reason and say "That". Best thing OP can do is play the game and understand.

 

[auron200004]

Hm. In the opinion of those who've played GW2, will there likely be a point - similar to SW:TOR - when many players decide there's nothing more to do, and leave?

The best part of it, in my opinion, is that they actually can leave without worrying about it. And then come back, months later if need be, without having to pay for the time in between. No subscription. So you can play it when you want, without worrying about wasting any money. It feels less like a job in that regard, much like WoW became after a while. You show up because you want to, not because you feel obligated.

 

[Friendly Lich]

Hm. In the opinion of those who've played GW2, will there likely be a point - similar to SW:TOR - when many players decide there's nothing more to do, and leave?

The best part of it, in my opinion, is that they actually can leave without worrying about it. And then come back, months later if need be, without having to pay for the time in between. No subscription. So you can play it when you want, without worrying about wasting any money. It feels less like a job in that regard, much like WoW became after a while. You show up because you want to, not because you feel obligated.

This ^

 

[afroebob]

The tone of this post sounds a tad confrontational, like you're spoiling for a debate, so I'm hesitant to weigh in here, but I'll give it a shot.

I'm not trying to be confrontational, I'm just extremely skeptic about it. I hope its everything its hyped up to be, though.

 

[BloatedGuppy]

I'm not trying to be confrontational, I'm just extremely skeptic about it. I hope its everything its hyped up to be, though.

Rock Paper Shotgun discussed the hype in their glowing review:

None of these are deal-breakers, of course. It?s simply that when the hype around a game is this heavy, it?s easy to expect perfection. Guild Wars 2 is not perfect. It is however the most fun I?ve had with an MMO in a very, very long time, and the first to turn social questing into something even solo-minded misanthropes like myself can do on a whim. That alone makes worth it playing, and this is just the start of its story. I can?t wait to see where it goes next?

Pretty much echoes my own feeling on it. I've never really been one to hold hype against a product, though.

 

[Glademaster_v1legacy]

I think its the lack of choice rather than the number i mean GW let you have 6 or was it 8? been a few years since i played but you got to pick them, i started as a necro and i basically have 3 sets to choose from and well im a bit bored of them already at level 12.

GW1 gave you a deck of 8 skills, in which you chose all 8.

GW2 gives you a deck of 10(15) skills, in which you elect the first 5 from a choice of 2-10ish, elect one from a choice of 3-4, and elect the last 4 from a choice of 25. These are further altered/effected by traits.

You don't have access to all your skills until level 30, and even then you won't have access to all of them until you've picked up sufficient skill points to unlock them, which can take quite a long time. The top rung elite skills take 30 skill points to unlock.

yeah i know it sounds better but in practice im finding it extremely limiting

take my necro's first 5 skills which are the meat of the combat abilities
gw 2- 10 possible combinations
gw 1- 78960960 combinations for basic set and taking all xp's in it rises to 50035863369 possible combinations

then the heal and elite which are limited to 3 options each mostly, just leaves you 3 free picks and these are limited almost exclusively to utility/rare use

obviously a lot of those GW1 builds wouldnt be at all viable but still i feel theres painfully too little choice in GW2.
And GW2 offers a weapon swap but how practical is that? once you have all the traits picked to match one weapon combo swapping to another is going to cripple you.
But even if we add them in that only raises the options to 90 which is over 800 thousand times less than Gw1 offered.


i want to see them add more choices in the weapons give each a pool and let us pick the 2,3 or 5 we want, adding in some late game "elite" skills to the weapon pools we get from dungeons or whatever. would also leave something to get after level 6
sure we have the elite skill to unlock at 30 but they are all mostly long cooldown +dps buttons anyway. the type of skill i had the freedom to avoid before.

Yeah sure Guild Wars 1 had lots of skill choices most of which were completely nonviable useless builds that completely dragged your team down into the dirt. At least everything in Guild Wars 2 has a use and when used properly just that bit more effective. Guild Wars 2 require much more thought than the skills of Guild Wars 1. The only thing that has really been lost is stuff like 1/4 knocking and true interrupts. Then again the game isn't out that long so we will see such techniques return in other forms.

 

[Burst6]

My favorite part is the skill. It really depends on what class you play and what weapon combination you use. Certain classes play more like the classic "stand in front of your enemies and attack" like guardians, while others rely on timing.

Take the thief for example. If you use certain weapon combinations (like for example, a sword and a dagger), your character gets a special attack that dodges and attacks at the same time. With proper timing and strategy you could go through any 1-1 fight without getting hit. It looks really cool spinning behind the enemy and stabbing him in the back while he's attacking.

Another thing i find cool is that every single hit has some AOE to it. If i hit something with my greatsword's normal attack and there's another enemy nearby, they get hit too.


One thing i don't like is how major bosses tend to become clusterfucks of special effects. it becomes very hard to dodge and see which way the boss is facing if i can't see the boss at all through all the meteor storms and mini apocalypses happening on him.

 

[ThriKreen]

I love the combo system, being able to put up a fire wall and letting ranged players shoot though it so their arrows now inflict fire damage.

 

[zumbledum]

Not only practical but outright necessary for some classes, like Elementalist attunement swapping. Weapon swapping is built right into many trait lines. I have no idea how you came to this conclusion, but it's way off base. I would go so far as to say never weapon swapping will cripple you.

As an example back to my necro who i want to play as a dot build, means i take curses as my main tree and sceptre as my main weapon the bonus's the tree gives me are
+crit
+condition damage
critical hits cause bleeding
20% increased bleed duration
fury on using death shroud (the one universal buff )
well skills use ground targeting
2%increased damage per condition
conditions from sceptre skills last 33% longer

now if i swap to axe or dagger the majority of these benefits including half the trees stat point allocation drop off to being useless. staff does a little better but as it doesn't cause bleeds its still massively gimped.

Of course the counter argument is to not use the specialist skill and take the crap generic option but thats like cutting off your right foot so the sprained left ankle doesn't slow you down.

so really the only weapon swap available is to take the staff to use marks as ae tag spam in public quests its not a viable choice for performance , which is your argument to the rest of my points oddly enough

Ah, the illusion of "choice". First, in reality, 99% of the 80 billion possible specs are not going to be remotely viable in anything resembling a competitive environment. Second, 95% of players generally adhere to a tiny handful of communally recognized optimal specs in the end anyway, and those who don't struggle. This is a problem currently faced by TSW. It's all well and good to give people a million choices, but if you've not balanced all million choices with one another and accounted for all possible issues, then all you really have at the end is a tiny handful of good choices and a whole fucking ream of terrible ones. Sometimes a simple, clean and BALANCED system can allow for great tactical depth. Look at chess. That said...

ah the illusion of "justification", 20 years ago i played quake 2 on a pro level internationally, i haven't cared about pro level since because i dont play there nor do 99.99% of people, second just because a lot of people bottom feed there build/spec doesnt mean some of us dont. i was ranking up server firsts including Illidan in wow as a an avoidance tank when your common wisdom said EH or gtfo, my build was rated lower than anything and most guilds wouldnt of taken me, the same guilds that asked me how i managed it after oddly enough.
there is nothing wrong with gimped specs, this is meant to be a game , games are meant to have failure states, if you cant make a wrong choice you cant make a right one either. i havent looked up a single GW build nor will i . its one of the most fun aspects of the game to me and its been heavily gimped in GW2 which makes me sad!

Balance is an aim a goal , its never been achieved in an MMO , take a game with two skills if they are different they will be unbalanced in some way. people cling to it but its an illusion. what actually matters is can you get the job done with the tools at hand. and the margin of error is HUGE not the tiny strip of land where balanced lives. sure taking the perfect op build has bigger margins, but none are big enough to let you stand in the fire all raid long.

Yeah I'd like to see this too. They need to balance what they've got first, but down the road I would very much like to see this. Again though, enough with the level 6 nonsense. You can make an argument for level 30, and realistically it's closer to level 40-50 when you'll have the full breadth of your abilities available, if not your talents. But at level 6 you've barely scratched the surface. I have a hard time even unlocking all my different weapon skills by level 6.

well every time you go to a one of the ae spam fest public quests just swap to a new weapon combo its easy to max one per event. and we shall just have to disagree on the rest here, i view the combat skills as the meat and by level 15 i have unlocked nearly all the utility skills which are minor use anyway and i just have the elite to go (and ill have the points for it at level ) which for my classes seems to just be a dps timer button. and the traits all seem to offer my classes percentage modifiers and passive or on hit affects not new skills or methods just improved returns on what i do already.

 

[Aprilgold]

snip

snip

another snip OH MAN IT KEEPS HAPPENING WHEN WILL THIS END

Obviously I prefer the current state of Guild Wars 2 to the state Diablo 3 was in on launch. I guess it's reasonable. But hey, a mans gotta rant when a mans gotta rant.

Go to Amazon or Impulse.

That's what I did when I bought my wife's account.

I really don't get what the point of that was, really. I wanted to give Arenanet all the money, but they wouldn't let me. Suit yourself AN.

I actually used my super MLG pro leet 360 no scope hacking skillz to locate an online store that still had keys. (Read: checked the official Guild Wars 2 website again and got linked there.)

GamesRocket.de or something. Actually legit as fuck. I am downloading the game as we speak. (And FUCK this is taking a long time. I want to play, dammit.)

I.... Didn't say that. Did you get that right?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

ah the illusion of "justification", 20 years ago i played quake 2 on a pro level internationally, i haven't cared about pro level since because i dont play there nor do 99.99% of people, second just because a lot of people bottom feed there build/spec doesnt mean some of us dont. i was ranking up server firsts including Illidan in wow as a an avoidance tank when your common wisdom said EH or gtfo, my build was rated lower than anything and most guilds wouldnt of taken me, the same guilds that asked me how i managed it after oddly enough.

there is nothing wrong with gimped specs, this is meant to be a game , games are meant to have failure states, if you cant make a wrong choice you cant make a right one either. i havent looked up a single GW build nor will i . its one of the most fun aspects of the game to me and its been heavily gimped in GW2 which makes me sad!

Balance is an aim a goal , its never been achieved in an MMO , take a game with two skills if they are different they will be unbalanced in some way. people cling to it but its an illusion. what actually matters is can you get the job done with the tools at hand. and the margin of error is HUGE not the tiny strip of land where balanced lives. sure taking the perfect op build has bigger margins, but none are big enough to let you stand in the fire all raid long.

well every time you go to a one of the ae spam fest public quests just swap to a new weapon combo its easy to max one per event. and we shall just have to disagree on the rest here, i view the combat skills as the meat and by level 15 i have unlocked nearly all the utility skills which are minor use anyway and i just have the elite to go (and ill have the points for it at level ) which for my classes seems to just be a dps timer button. and the traits all seem to offer my classes percentage modifiers and passive or on hit affects not new skills or methods just improved returns on what i do already.

Uh...yeah.

Look, you and I are going to have to agree to disagree. I don't think of balance as some phantom, unattainable state, and I have no idea how someone who has been gaming as long as you can say that and keep a straight face, so either I'm completely misunderstanding you, or we're diametrically opposed on this issue.

As for the "spam fests" and your necro, sounds like perhaps you just don't enjoy the game.

 

[zumbledum]

Uh...yeah.

Look, you and I are going to have to agree to disagree. I don't think of balance as some phantom, unattainable state, and I have no idea how someone who has been gaming as long as you can say that and keep a straight face, so either I'm completely misunderstanding you, or we're diametrically opposed on this issue.

As for the "spam fests" and your necro, sounds like perhaps you just don't enjoy the game.

i am just talking about MMO's when i refer to balance, ive never seen a balanced one, ive never seen the devs think it was balanced and stop tweaking in patches.

and i think your right GW2 doesnt appear to be my game. tried a warrior and thats better than the necro but the combat is just too repetitive and lacking in options, its quite fun but its not going to hold my attention for long. still 3 weeks or so to borderlands 2 so no biggy

 

[Agayek]

Not only practical but outright necessary for some classes, like Elementalist attunement swapping. Weapon swapping is built right into many trait lines. I have no idea how you came to this conclusion, but it's way off base. I would go so far as to say never weapon swapping will cripple you.

Ehh.. Maybe my class is just an exception, but as an Engineer, I'm finding it unnecessary (and often outright harmful) to swap weapons in something like 95% of fights. Dropping my Flamethrower severely hampers my DPS in every situation but fights where extreme range is necessary.