So about GW2

[Tecmos Deception]

So I tried to read some developer blogs and some reviews and some random stuff to try to figure out what's up with GW2. Is my impression of the game, which remember is based just on what I can read from both ridiculously positive and ridiculously negative sources, relatively accurate?


GW2 consists of a totally PvP-free game world; esport PvP wow-ish FPS-ish arenas; and an instanced, server vs. server vs. server, "wvwvw" PvP battleground.

The game world awards xp for everything you do and has the now-ubiquitous "kill 10 rats" quests and typical-ish tradeskill systems and a personal storyline coupled with dynamic events that aren't unlike the little rift things in rift.

The arenas are wow arenas/mmoa on steroids/counterstrike with RPG stats and are for competitive esport.

The wvwvw is entirely separate from the actual game world and is basically a fancy wow battleground meets a game of battlefield 3, except that is has 3 teams and lasts for 2 weeks at a time, where holding objectives that are basically wintergrasp keep/either teams keep in AV in WoW accumulates points for your server that impart "bonuses" to the real world so you can do your solo, instanced, pve thing better.


Grats arenanet on combining mindless-ish PvE for the ultimate casual gamer with meaningless PvP that takes place inside instances with esport lameness?


OH BUT I FORGOT TO MENTION THAT GUILDWARS 2 HAS A DAY/NIGHT CYCLE AND WEATHER SO IT IS TOTALLY REVOLUTIONARYYYYYYYY!!!!!

No but seriously, why does every new game insist on mentioning that it has a day/night cycle, as if that is a selling point, as if that wasn't included in 15-year-old RPGs (and more realistically, too, I might add) because it'd be fucking retarded to have an RPG that did NOT have a day/night cycle? And yet these new companies think it is something to talk about as a selling point for their game?


Thank God P99 is fun.

[Tecmos Deception]

And yeah, I'm obviously a hater. I wasn't a hater 30 minutes ago, though. I became a hater by reading about the devs talking about how great their game is, about how awesome they are that they were able to make the same crap from the last decade into something that isn't crap.

If you have something to tell me about the game that shows that all of the advertisements about the game being a "revolution" aren't actually just false advertising, then please, do tell.

[Bohab]

Got the game for free so I jumped on it for the first time over the weekend during the head start.

My first impressions were disappointing. Typical theme park mode mmorpg... head to this camp complete task, head to this camp complete task, etc etc... While you're doing this you may encounter events. The NPCs will interact with you asking you to help fend off some raid on the camp. These are sorta neat at first but they repeat so often you realize they are not too important, just part of the theme park. Anyhow this is all low level stuff so I don't have too much to share regarding group dungeons or raid events at this time.

The good stuff... the environment, at least for these 'plant people' is some good eye candy and can be rather immersive. As for controlling your character in fights, this is my favorite part of the game. I play a Thief and it can get rather technical.

Basically you get 5 weapon attack skills based on the weapon(s) you're holding. If you're using a pistol in mainhand and dagger in offhand than you get 2 mainhand pistol attack skills, 2 offhand dagger attack skills and one attack skill that is unique to dual wielding those two weapons in that order. You don't just have these weapon attacks skills... you also get to slot 3 'skills' which basically add synergy to your attack skills, one healing skill (no pure healers in gw2, every class heals), and an epic skill. So you have 10 skills to use in fights all with different functions, some skills change based on your position of your target or whether you're in stealth or not... Oh wait not done... you can weapon swap to a different set of weapons whenever you like. Now you have 5 new weapon skills to use. Want to AOE? Swap to short bow from your pistol/dagger for those weapon skills and then swap back when you want to. By the way the Thief can't tank and dies in like 3 hits... so you have to use manual dodges, shadowsteps, stealth, and always be moving around the mob to avoid dieing. In other words it can get tough to manage all this as fast as you can especially in PvP but the challenge is fun and to me it's the best part of GW2.

Then I come back to p99 and stand face to face with a mob while my autoattacks swing... yay fun!

[Lucky]

Game is pretty cool worth checkin out, I think even the harshest critics (panda fanbois) will get their money worth.

all the quests are like mini-raids because the group system is kind of like "anybody nearby" and quests just randomly happen and ppl swarm to them. The pvp is bg/wvwvw which is like w/e. It would be cool to troll them into a pvp server though. You can level entirely doing pvp.

It does have different combat/quest/advancement/feel, so it's like the 1st non-wow clone in forever. It's as much a WoW clone as ppl said WoW cloned EQ (aka like .2%).

EQ/WoW was MMO 2.0, this like MMO 2.5 -boogie2998 (Fat Francis)

[Barkingturtle]

I'm probably just old, but to me the hyper-involved combat sounds like it would devolve into whack-a-mole pretty quickly. I can't stand that, when I'm just reacting to my interface--pressing whatever button lights up as the next logical step in the rotation. I'm sure I'm just old. My wife doesn't get as pissed as I do playing WoW or RIFT, etc, but I just prefer my MMO slow-paced so I at least have the illusion I'm making tactical decisions.

[Bohab]

I'm probably just old, but to me the hyper-involved combat sounds like it would devolve into whack-a-mole pretty quickly. I can't stand that, when I'm just reacting to my interface--pressing whatever button lights up as the next logical step in the rotation. I'm sure I'm just old. My wife doesn't get as pissed as I do playing WoW or RIFT, etc, but I just prefer my MMO slow-paced so I at least have the illusion I'm making tactical decisions.

Yeah in a way but I'm not sure if you are assuming it's like a faceroll game or not. You don't really use one rotation bound to 1 2 3 4 5 and and wait for cooldowns.

In regards to the Thief the weapon skills don't have timed cooldowns. They cost initiative points to activate so you need to manage the regeneration of initiative and actively know how much each skill costs to decide is it worth it to blow say 6 points of initiative at that given moment to use that skill. Not only do the skills do melee damage they also apply conditions on the target (bleeds, poisons, debuffs) and you want to keep those ticking away during a fight. Some skills also stun, interrupt, silence and snare your target so that's even more to manage. This all happens so fast and the animation of the fights look great.

[Diggles]

wvwvw reminds me of frontiers

with a queue

which upsets me

[Tecmos Deception]

wvwvw reminds me of frontiers

with a queue

which upsets me

Reading about it makes me picture a 2-week-long game of Battlefield 3 but with RPG settings/stats/gear.

Also: PvE downward level scaling? Hahahaha.

Wtf?

[Diggles]

that's what frontiers are, but permanent

fight for control of keeps and towers, try to steal enemy relics for bonuses to your faction's PvE, exp out the ass

[formallydickman]

I think the reason they mention the day/night cycle is because SWTOR didn't have one and a lot of folks made a big deal about it.

[Tecmos Deception]

I think the reason they mention the day/night cycle is because SWTOR didn't have one and a lot of folks made a big deal about it.

Heh. Did not know that.

[choklo]

I've been playing since the 3 day head start. The game is not revolutionary, but definitely evolutionary. It's improving upon the old formula's and adding some new ideas.
1) combat is a huge improvement. You can and should strafe and dodge. You can interrupt, slow, stun, confuse etc. mobs or pc's. You have many skills to choose from and can spec many, many different builds. Geography matters. Graphics are great, especially combat animations. It sounds confusing, but it's easy to play, just hard to master.
2) Every skill is important and interacts with other skills for combos or bonuses at times. This includes other class skills that work together. You can spec your char. to be a tank, healer, dps at the expense of becoming a glass cannon or too defensive etc. You can respec your char for a modest fee, so you're not forced to re roll. This is perhaps the hardest part of the game to master, since there are so many skills that all interact in some way.
3) There are no defined roles like healer, tank, cc or dps. Any class can do any role depending upon how you spec your skills. You don't have to wait 2 hours for a cleric or chanter. My elementalist can heal probably better then any other class(if spec'd right), and can aoe the best as well. I can do both well if spec'd right.

4) You can jump to max level pvp anytime you want, without leveling. You can also pvp with your pve toon. The pvp in GW 1 was the best I've ever seen. I haven't tried it yet in gw2, but I hear it's good.

5) There are many dungeons to explore with groups that are a lot more difficult than the rest of the pve game. I've read good things about them from beta, but I'm too low for most of them now.

6) There are no major time sinks. You regen all your health a few seconds after combat. There is no mana to regen, just cool downs which are short.

7) The staff support the game well and have good customer service. It's also free to play after your 60 bucks.

It seems a bit confusing reading about it, but it's not bad, even for old people like Barkingturtle. I'm older than him and I enjoy it. You just really need to learn the skills and classes well to be good at pvp.