Guild Wars 2

[Ian]

Any of the video game geeks planning on playing Guild Wars 2?  I'm going to give it a go I think. Looks like they've tackled a lot of the stale mmo features with some interesting innovations.  They've moved away from the kill x boars, and gather y bundles of sticks. Quests will instead be dynamic events. For example, a villager screams for help with an impending ogre attack, and if you don't do anything ogres come and destroy the village and since it's a persistent world, that village is now destroyed. They claim to have solved quest camping and kill sniping with this system, sounds interesting.  A potential breath of fresh air in a world of WoW copies.

[Sir Edward]

I never played the first one, though my brother-in-law has played it for quite some time. I'm cautious about joining new MMOs at this point just because of how much of a time sink they are, and I do tend to get myself pretty well hooked.

It looks interesting enough. I think I'll grab a copy.

I'm not overly familiar with it, but I've heard good things, so it's worth a shot. I'll grab a pre-order.

[Ian]

GW has historically been and will continue to be in GW2 a non subscription game, so even if it's a dud, at least all you bought was the box

[Ian]

Vid on the removal of the holy trinity of DPS/TANK/HEALS


Dynamic Event system

[Ian]

Oh, and if you pre-purchase (not to be confused with pre-ordering a copy through amazon or something), but a digital copy through their website, you get a 3 day headstart on launch, and automatic access to all beta events.  Figure it's worth a shot!

[Sir Edward]

Yeah, I picked up the Digital Deluxe, and downloaded the client last night. They've already invited me to this weekend's beta, but this weekend is spoken for, so I can't do it yet, sadly.

Those videos are great! This actually has me pretty excited now. I need to start reading about the classes/races, and see what's going on.

Breaking the trinity and switching to a dynamic world-driven quest model with level-scaling has me REALLY INTRIGUED. I'm completely tired of the WoW way of doing things.

I need to figure out what class will fit my playstyle best. In WoW, the druid fit me best, and in SWTOR, it was the Jedi Shadow. I need to see how the races play into those classes too. And since there's some sort of world PVP, I guess I need to figure out what the factions are, etc as well.

[Sir James A]

I saw some videos of it back in March'ish, and it looked great. I love the "non subscription" games since my game play time fluctuates heavily and some months are 0 hours. The lack of the 'holy trinity' looks very intriguing. Very cool!

[Sir William]

I still can't get into MMOs...maybe its the amount of time required to fully enjoy the experience?  I know I have little room to talk w/regard to time considering how much I give to my consoles...lol

[Sir Edward]

These days MMOs tend to hold my attention a lot better than single player games, for some reason. But that's a double-edged sword.

I looked at it a bit more, and the world PVP is actually "World vs World", so there are no "factions" within a world. Very cool.

I'm having a hard time picking a class just by reading and watching some youtube vids. Several look appealing. I'm tempted to play one of those cat characters though (Charr)... they sort of appeal to me the way the Worgen did in Wow.

[Ian]

Test out some various classes in the beta weekends.  I downloaded the digital deluxe this morning.  I should have some time to play around this weekend with it.  I'm going to try to get my hands on as many classes as possible prior to release.

[Sir Edward]

I'm on travel this week, so I may miss this beta weekend, though I'm going to try to get in a little on Sunday before they close it down.

After reading up on things, I'm actually tempted to go with a Sylvari. The Charr, as awesome as they look, are actually pretty big and lumbering (9 feet tall) and I'm not sure I like their culture and background. Whereas, here's an in-game description of the Sylvari: "They struggle to balance curiosity with duty, eagerness with chivalry, and warfare with honor. Magic and mystery entwine to shape the future of this race that has so recently appeared." .. And they're plant people, which is neat.

I normally play mage classes, but I'm tempted to step a little outside of that. Elementalist still looks like a natural choice to me, but the Ranger looks really fun too.

[Sir Edward]

Did you get a chance to try out the beta weekend? I only got in for a couple of hours on Sunday.

I made use of the time to play about 30 minutes on each of 4 different classes. At first I pretty well talked myself out of Elementalist, and started considering Mesmer or Ranger. But I think I'm swinging back to Elementalist.

I was hoping for another beta weekend before launch, but since they shut down the forums with a note saying "see you at launch!", I guess that was it.

My brother-in-law and some of our renfaire friends will be playing too. We'll have to try to coordinate which world server to play on.

[Sir Edward]

This guy's Elementalist build is pretty impressive. Able to handle 2-vs-1 in some cases, and doesn't start losing until 3:1 or 4:1. Wow.

http://www.guildwars2forum.com/threads/5864-The-ROCK

It's from an earlier beta though. It may no longer work.

[Ian]

I did get some time to play.  Played a human thief, silvari elementalist, and a norn ranger.  I really enjoyed the norn ranger a lot.  The thief felt a little chaotic to me and the story didn't grab me, and I didn't get much time with the elementalist because I just enjoyed the Norn so much.  The environments were really cool, and I enjoyed the 'dynamic event' questing system.  There were only a few moments that felt 'grindy' to me.  Instead most things just felt like they were happening and in real time and I could just join in on the fun.  I liked that you don't 'tag' mobs so you don't have to compete for stuff, which encourages helping others and not being a jerk.

Also liked how your abilities are based on the weapons you have equipped.  Weapon switching makes for some interesting gameplay since it alters your abilities on the fly.  The skill tree is cool too, and it seems like you can get away with a lot of viable build diversity with the skill points.  Initial glance seemed like they kept a decently complex RPG skill build as part of the game instead of making everything uber simplified a la Diablo 3 and the direction WoW seems to be going.

Overall, I came away from the beta with a very positive impression and will definitely be playing.  Since you and I pre-purchased we also get a 3 day head start on release.  Definitely need to coordinate servers.

[Sir Edward]

Overall, I came away from the beta with a very positive impression and will definitely be playing.  Since you and I pre-purchased we also get a 3 day head start on release.  Definitely need to coordinate servers.

I think that 3-day head start puts it at Saturday the 25th, which is also MDRF opening day. I may not get to do much over that weekend other than create my character, unfortunately. I'll have to make more time during the week, and use the Monday night as my real head-start.

I liked the Ranger too, and came within an inch of convincing myself to play that as my main. But from prior game experience, I know that while I work with pet classes well enough, they don't keep me as entertained in the long-run usually. For instance, in WoW I started out as a Warlock, but ended up enjoying the Druid a lot more, because it was faster-paced, and more self-contained... not to mention that the shapeshifting and self-heals made it more dynamic and adaptable.

GW2 has some of the dynamic adaptation and self-reliance built into nearly every class, of course. But even so, the I think the elemental attunement system will work better for my playstyle than most of the other choices.