im.. taking hints that theres a lot of pressure on the pvp, i find pvp interesting, but i've never really been much for it as secretly, i always get my -censored- whooped ;D -and in some ironic way i've started playing league of legends (completely out of place here) -is all pvp,
PVP and PVE will be kept mostly separate in Guild Wars 2. If you want to do only PVE and never even attempt PVP, then you can. If you want to do only PVP and never do anything in PVE, then you can do that, too. Or if you want to take a single character and participate extensively in both PVP and PVE, you'll be able to do that as well. But there won't be open-world ganking, as PVP will be off in separate instances.
"yeah i agree, but how will they make the mobs smarter without causing a complete massacre as generally the mmorpg community seems pretty light headed when it comes to the button pushing?"
Probably kind of like how Guild Wars did. Mobs target whoever they think they can kill the fastest. That's a combination of current health, armor rating, and how close you are. There's a slight bias of mobs preferring to attack someone who is attacking them, but that's only a slight bias.
What happens is that everyone has to build to be able to survive a decent bit of damage. You don't end up with situations where the tanks would take 5 times as many hits to die as the healers.
im sceptical about the quests effecting the world as if everybody did this (or took alternative choices) would mess up the world? im obviously looking improperly at the picture,, but im guessing theres a lot of how npcs act towards you personally
The best explanations of Dynamic Events you could probably ask for. Be warned, the first is a long watch and the second is a long read.
your right xD thats a really long watch, im nipping a bit at it, thank you
edit: the event system about the events happening if you're there or not seems REALLY cool, the whole process of places being taken over by creatures and other things if nobody interacts seems great
Oh, just as an FYI, GW2 hase been playable at a couple conventions so far, so there are a number of player-based reviews of how its coming along.
I'm a longtime GW fan, so I've been sold on it forever, but I'll also be the first to admit that there can often be a vast gulf between the promises of developers and the reality of the products they deliver. These demos only lasted 40 minutes, so its hard to really get a comprehensive feel for how its all shaping up, but I think most reponses from people who have played has been cautiously optimistic, to gushing (I've only seen one or two that really didn't like it).
Here's mine from last year's PAX West (some of this is already out of date, I think):
I'm going to PAX again this year to see how its going. I suspect my last comment about convention-play being a less than ideal setting will still stand this year. I like to just sink into my chair and let the world wash over me, which of course can't happen at a convention
EDIT: Oh yeah, one other reason I think it might be popular is simply the open approach Anet has had with their blog posts. Its obvious that they really enjoying sharing stuff when its ready to talk about...
Lets see if another page gets entered by the time I finish typing!
As far as PvP and PK stuff is concered, you don't have to worry about it like you did in Aion (I was there too, and was a pretty bad PvP player). The PvE world in GW2 is all cooperative, so there is no PK'ing there. And when I say cooperative, its also "casually" cooperative, in that there is no kill-stealing or XP drain if someone else kills your mob. If you both participated killing an enemy, you both get the XP and the loot. In this manner, they are trying to encourage the idea that other players can only HELP you, instead of being an unintended annoyance like they can be in other games.
^ i've seen stuff related to PvE (basically IS this)related to this 'help'/'assistance'/'teamwork' system which i find really great, as any gamer i can relate to the pain in the censor of playing games with other people when they're actually a problem when they're around, lol
So there is no PK in the PvE world, BUT, there is a "casual-friendly" PvP mode called world vs. world vs. world. You can choose the enter this area, and it will be a bit more of an open PvP situation, where three servers battle eachother for control of keeps and control points. Here, there is risk of PK, but again, its your choice to enter, and you can always go in with a full guild to try to capture a castle or something. There are also smaller objectives single players can do, like helping protect supply lines, etc.
Then there is structured PvP, which is where all the leet tournament PvP play is going to be.
overall im really interested in this type of pvp and if i ever get into the game it'll be interesting, it seems like great ideas they have!
Dynamic events system. Briefly... instead of traditional WoW quests, there are a bunch of events running all the time whether players are there or not. They're a vast improvement because they're fully cooperative, you don't have to pick up the quest and turn it in, they scale up in difficulty when more people show up. I could go on and on. Here is a very long but fantastic video that describes them.
Personal storyline. The idea is to give everybody their own story that is affected by choices made at character creation as well as during the story. The purpose is to put a story back in an MMO that would rival what you'd find in a single player RPG. They're instanced so they can reflect the choices for each player.
Combat. In a traditional MMO, you've got this holy trinity idea where players focus on being a tank, healer or DPS to the exclusion of everything else. In GW2, you've got players shifting roles on the fly depending on how the fight is going. You've also got dodging attacks and projectiles and casting on the move.
Buy to Play. Instead of a $15 a month subscription, you pay for the box once and you can play for like ever. I'm playing a GW1 game I bought in 2006. There will be expansions and there will be a vanity cash shop, but even P2P MMOs make you pay for expansions.
I'm going to try to wrap this up, but it just goes beyond the big features. I think ArenaNet is just really trying to make the best game they can and they means not only questioning everything, but having the guts to scrap entire zones or their Sylvari race model and start over if it means making it better. One thing that really stuck out for me is their wanting to make towns more social so they added 5-6 minigames per town to give things people to do. There's 6 gorgeous cities, each with a unique feel. There's dungeons with a solo story mode you do first and then an explorable mode you do in a group, so that people aren't pressured to skip the cutscenes that were all over GW1. There's no grinding out levels. There's 3 faction large scale PVP that people have been longing for since DAOC.
And finally, nobody from ArenaNet will talk about a feature that their game will have unless it's already in the game and working. There is a lot of hype for GW2 and it's coming from ArenaNet promising innovation and giving every indication that they're going to deliver a very high quality product.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it."-Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
im.. taking hints that theres a lot of pressure on the pvp, i find pvp interesting, but i've never really been much for it as secretly, i always get my -censored- whooped ;D -and in some ironic way i've started playing league of legends (completely out of place here) -is all pvp,
PVP and PVE will be kept mostly separate in Guild Wars 2. If you want to do only PVE and never even attempt PVP, then you can. If you want to do only PVP and never do anything in PVE, then you can do that, too. Or if you want to take a single character and participate extensively in both PVP and PVE, you'll be able to do that as well. But there won't be open-world ganking, as PVP will be off in separate instances.
"yeah i agree, but how will they make the mobs smarter without causing a complete massacre as generally the mmorpg community seems pretty light headed when it comes to the button pushing?"
Probably kind of like how Guild Wars did. Mobs target whoever they think they can kill the fastest. That's a combination of current health, armor rating, and how close you are. There's a slight bias of mobs preferring to attack someone who is attacking them, but that's only a slight bias.
What happens is that everyone has to build to be able to survive a decent bit of damage. You don't end up with situations where the tanks would take 5 times as many hits to die as the healers.
its great that PvE and PvP are kept seperate but you can join in anyway unlike with games where theres pvp and pve servers and the only chance of player vs player interaction is if they actually have an arena or something of some sort up
i like where its going with the mobs picking smarter moves but i dont understand what tanks will do then, will they be sacrificing the sturdiness for damage/other abilities and still somehow do a better job of warding off the team mates from being attacked by the mobs? (i probably shouldnt ask such concrete questions as the games not even out in its full form yet xD)
im.. taking hints that theres a lot of pressure on the pvp, i find pvp interesting, but i've never really been much for it as secretly, i always get my -censored- whooped ;D -and in some ironic way i've started playing league of legends (completely out of place here) -is all pvp,
PVP and PVE will be kept mostly separate in Guild Wars 2. If you want to do only PVE and never even attempt PVP, then you can. If you want to do only PVP and never do anything in PVE, then you can do that, too. Or if you want to take a single character and participate extensively in both PVP and PVE, you'll be able to do that as well. But there won't be open-world ganking, as PVP will be off in separate instances.
"yeah i agree, but how will they make the mobs smarter without causing a complete massacre as generally the mmorpg community seems pretty light headed when it comes to the button pushing?"
Probably kind of like how Guild Wars did. Mobs target whoever they think they can kill the fastest. That's a combination of current health, armor rating, and how close you are. There's a slight bias of mobs preferring to attack someone who is attacking them, but that's only a slight bias.
What happens is that everyone has to build to be able to survive a decent bit of damage. You don't end up with situations where the tanks would take 5 times as many hits to die as the healers.
its great that PvE and PvP are kept seperate but you can join in anyway unlike with games where theres pvp and pve servers and the only chance of player vs player interaction is if they actually have an arena or something of some sort up
i like where its going with the mobs picking smarter moves but i dont understand what tanks will do then, will they be sacrificing the sturdiness for damage/other abilities and still somehow do a better job of warding off the team mates from being attacked by the mobs? (i probably shouldnt ask such concrete questions as the games not even out in its full form yet xD)
There actually are no tanks in the game. GW2 doesn't use the holy trinity and scrapped tanking and dedicated healing. People are going to actually have to use cooperation now for group content.
im going to bed! will read up on everything im missing tomorrow, sorry its 7:20 am and i was just rudely woken back to life by 3 birds raving outside my window O.o and i'll have to agree with them, i should be asleep
edit: thanks with the heaps of co operation so far!
The game itself does quite a few things to be different then other games. It sounds like you have not looked into it much if you don't think otherwise. The short list of reasons to be hyped about the game would probably be:
1) Sequal to the successful Guild Wars
2) Dynamic Content/No quest system
3) No holy trinity, play with whoever you want, however you want
4)It is free!
I can't begin to express why #4 is so important! This game is going to cost a one time fee up front and have no monthly subscription. The "item shop" will be similar to WoW's in the sense that it is for purely cosmetic purposes. (One of the lead developers himself said that he would not ever use an item shop, even in their game) That is one of the small areas of income they will have for the on-going business model of the game.
If it is like the first game, they will have expansions come out (may be stand-alone products, they have not announced expansion plans yet) more frequently (usually once a year) then other MMOs with nearly as much content as the original product which would be the primary source of income for the game's live service.
Just to add to that, they could do it the same way as the first game for expansions as well..
In the original Guild Wars the expansion packs were more like stand-alone games. You could buy all of them (cept the last one, it was an expansion that required the original game) without buying the original product and still play the game. You would just only have access to that expansion's content.
The success of the original guild wars did not phase developers much back then because it felt much less like an MMO and could barely be called one since it was pretty much all instanced content. (Similar to Diablo in a sense, except the chat room would be the towns)
NOW with a full blown MMORPG for the same price and with tons of F2P Hybrid/Item shop MMORPGs around it could have a significant impact. If the game is wildly successful you might see some future MMOs (or even current) go down this style of development as well. Did I mention it will have free content patches just like every other MMO as well?
We will have to see how it all pans out, but as it stands, it is pretty unbelievable what they can accomplish if this goes right.
It's a AAA MMO, by an experienced dev team, with a huge following and a huge budget. That's enough for me, really. Been a while since we've seen a new one of those.
Plus, doesn't hurt that the videos we've seen of it look pretty. Less concern about the style than, say, SWTOR. Also, the dev team's experienced with an MMO that's attracted both PvE and PvP fans, and they've so far shown themselves to be relatively innovative.
Does any of that mean it'll be a great game? After looking forward to WAR for years, I'm going to say.. I hope so, but we'll see. Could have said all of the above about Mythic, once upon a time, too...
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Anyway myself what I prolly like most is that in combat you have to keep looking at the game. Your not staring at the UI prtty much at all. Friendly skills are not ''Target friendly player from party UI and press skill''.
If you want to protect your team mate, for example as an guardian. You have to look where your mate is who is under attack, jump/run between him and the line attacks are coming from, block the attacks with your shield or make an protective wall on the ground with your abitily.
If some enemy is between you and your enemy target you want to attack, the attacks go to the enemy between. You rlly have to move and position yourself well. You have to dodge incoming attacks and not stand around or your prtty much dead meat.
Alot more action based game than most MMORPG's where you look at the game not at the UI.
Will be awesome! (If the game is what they are promising it to be that is... tho arenanet seems to be very reliable producer)
It's a AAA MMO, by an experienced dev team, with a huge following and a huge budget. That's enough for me, really. Been a while since we've seen a new one of those.
Plus, doesn't hurt that the videos we've seen of it look pretty. Less concern about the style than, say, SWTOR. Also, the dev team's experienced with an MMO that's attracted both PvE and PvP fans, and they've so far shown themselves to be relatively innovative.
Does any of that mean it'll be a great game? After looking forward to WAR for years, I'm going to say.. I hope so, but we'll see. Could have said all of the above about Mythic, once upon a time, too...
I agree completely. These guys know what they are doing and it has been a long time since we got a title from a strong developer. It is great to see ArenaNet and Bioware making a strong effort towards AAA MMOs within a pretty close timeframe.
You are right about Mythic, I was more dissapointed in that game then well, anything else. I doubt either one of these titles will go down such a severely darkened path, but you never know what will happen.
I've been fooled by Aion and Final Fantasy XIV as well just because I was suckered in by the visual aspects of those games. The major difference is that I get to see a lot of Guild Wars 2 videos of actual gameplay. I see examples of what they're talking about. I see explanations of mechanics. I get a lot of information about the game. I'm given specific examples of skills. I'm shown the various promised activities. I see enough to the point that I actually want to play just those bits of the game shown. I did benefit from playing a lot of the original Guild Wars PvE and PvP, so I understood the background history of the game. I see a lot of feedback of concepts that are made reality and shown during convention videos. Developers talked about feature Y, so they mention feature Y in passing while describing the game. I have a general idea what I'm getting into if I choose to play this game. How often can I say that about the other games I've paid for in the past? Everquest, DAoC, (Long break), World of Warcraft, Aion, Final Fantasy XIV, APB, Brink. I got to play a lot of the original Guild Wars during beta phases before it came out.
I wasn't given these examples when I started playing Aion. I saw a few characters flying around. I didn't see much of the combat. I saw a lot of character customization with no promise of fun gameplay. After watching gameplay videos of other players half a month in, I realized that I never would enjoy Aion.
When I saw Final Fantasy XIV, I had the same problem. I only watched the visuals. After the intro videos and learning the interface and playing for a few months, I found the game very very boring. It's got an amazing crafting system. Being able to use everything you pick up for some aspect of crafting is amazing. It's got beautiful scenery, but it just felt boring for a while, and I was given no examples of what kind of fun gameplay I'd be able to experience. A few peeks at the current system show a lot of improvements compared to the original, but the bad taste from paying for a game that didn't deliver on day one prevents me from wanting to go back. It actually does look promising now, but I am not inclined to play any longer because of how long it has taken since release to do anything that made me really want to continue this game. I still liked the linkshell I joined and I chat with them on vent, but I don't enjoy the game enough anymore. Maybe a long break will build some interest in the game.
1) It's cheaper than the other MMO's which promise to be of equal or lesser quality.
Won't argue there. The lack of a monthly fee is attractive.
2) PvP
You'll need to expand on what you mean by this. You can pvp in any mmo. If the pvp doesn't have any political meaning for the game then all pvp is equally boring.
3) They actually are doing new things with combat and how story works, in addition to having that whole "story" thing that the boys over at Bioware so stupidly think is unique.
What story are you talking about? I haven't seen anything from Anet that tells me their stories are anything all that special. If anything all their particular brand of 'story' does is ascribe to the current theme park model even more stringently than other games.
4) PvP
5) Guild Wars is one of the few balanced PvP MMO's with compelling PvP of the past many years, and it had people hooked with the GvG system.
It's at best maybe more balanced than other mmo's, but it's not perfectly balanced. No game is. Saying any form of pvp is perfectly balanced is both foolish and naive.
6) Mass PvP.
I define mass PvP as at least 40 vs 40. Anet hasn't advertised that they will have anything like that. Anything less than that is normal pvp.
7) PvP
8) Unusual questing style which is said to affect the world instead of pretty much nothing.
Again, I haven't seen anything from Anet that signifies they'll do anything unique here. What game doesn't claim that your story will impact the game? Anet isn't making a dynamic world because making such a world would require far more resources than Anet can commit while maintaining a subscription-free game. Also, NCsoft isn't going to put that kind of money up if they aren't going to expect to see it back.
Is this the same 'world changing' questing style from GW1? If it is then they're lying through their teeth. That crap isn't dynamic at all. So far ANet hasn't actually SHOWN me that they can even pull off what they claim they can.
That's the only actual footage of dynamic events I've been able to find and what it shows me is two things:
1. That crap isn't any different than a Public Quest out of Rift, Warhammer and a couple others. Not new. Not innovative.
2. With every class having a self heal that appears to have a fairly low cooldown and heals for quite a lot it's going to be that much harder to balance PvP.
You know what it DOESN'T show me? The ability to persistently affect the game world. And GW 2 won't have it. Truly dynamic worlds are difficult to create and even more difficult (and expensive) to maintain in an online environment.
Because it just may take the holy trinity and smash it on its head.
Really take a look at the way GW 2 plays in the good gameplay videos out there. Turn off the volume so you don't have an Anet schill talking about the game. Focus ONLY on what is going on on screen.
Ok, so what Anet has said is that they don't want dedicated healers so that people can get right back into the action. Admirable aim.
Now let's look at how this actually plays out:
Ok, now just watch what the thief does in the first half of the video. So apparantly there's no tank and we already know there's no healer. Do you see how quickly the thief gets raped? Then when someone tries to get her up, he goes down too. And even without a tank or a healer that little boss there is basically taking no damage at all.
Could be they don't have enough people. Could be that Anet needs to tweak boss encounters. Who knows? I'm just going off what is in the video. Anet made it to show stuff off and that's what I'm going off of.
Apparantly there was a Guardian there, but he didn't appear to actually be able to do anything. Whenever the thief got close to try to dish out some damage the boss just turned around and started attacking her.
Again, this could be any number of things. However, if the trinity is gone, then this is how things are actually going to play out.
You're going to have a game whose CORE is designed to interface with the trinity, but there is no trinity for players to try to play around with. That's really where GW 2 is heading at the moment.
I'm not trying to defend the trinity, but for games that are at their core designed like this you have to either use the trinity or break your game. Or make a game that is going to be too difficult for most people. I'm the kind of person that digs a difficult game, but a LOT of people don't. And there's no 'difficulty' setting on mmos. Sure some encounters have a 'hard mode', but there is no way for an individual to change the baseline difficulty.
Anet has designers that are still making encounters with the trinity in the back of their minds, but at the same time they are actively trying to do away with that same trinity. The end result isn't going to go well for anybody.
1) It's cheaper than the other MMO's which promise to be of equal or lesser quality.
Won't argue there. The lack of a monthly fee is attractive.
2) PvP
You'll need to expand on what you mean by this. You can pvp in any mmo. If the pvp doesn't have any political meaning for the game then all pvp is equally boring.
Subjective.
3) They actually are doing new things with combat and how story works, in addition to having that whole "story" thing that the boys over at Bioware so stupidly think is unique.
What story are you talking about? I haven't seen anything from Anet that tells me their stories are anything all that special. If anything all their particular brand of 'story' does is ascribe to the current theme park model even more stringently than other games.
5) Guild Wars is one of the few balanced PvP MMO's with compelling PvP of the past many years, and it had people hooked with the GvG system.
It's at best maybe more balanced than other mmo's, but it's not perfectly balanced. No game is. Saying any form of pvp is perfectly balanced is both foolish and naive.
He isn't saying it's perfectly balanced.
6) Mass PvP.
I define mass PvP as at least 40 vs 40. Anet hasn't advertised that they will have anything like that. Anything less than that is normal pvp.
They did, do more research.
7) PvP
8) Unusual questing style which is said to affect the world instead of pretty much nothing.
Again, I haven't seen anything from Anet that signifies they'll do anything unique here. What game doesn't claim that your story will impact the game? Anet isn't making a dynamic world because making such a world would require far more resources than Anet can commit while maintaining a subscription-free game. Also, NCsoft isn't going to put that kind of money up if they aren't going to expect to see it back.
Is this the same 'world changing' questing style from GW1? No. If it is then they're lying through their teeth. That crap isn't dynamic at all. So far ANet hasn't actually SHOWN me that they can even pull off what they claim they can.
That's the only actual footage of dynamic events I've been able to find and what it shows me is two things:
1. That crap isn't any different than a Public Quest out of Rift, Warhammer and a couple others. Not new. Not innovative.
Events are chained, they scale, they use different scripts and an event chain such as the one shown in your video start off regardless of player action. Most of these chained events however do not reset and require player interaction to start over. There's your crappy differences from Rift and Warhammer.
2. With every class having a self heal that appears to have a fairly low cooldown and heals for quite a lot it's going to be that much harder to balance PvP (as in balanced/equal classes?).
Nice contradiction you've got there.
You know what it DOESN'T show me? The ability to persistently affect the game world. And GW 2 won't have it. Truly dynamic worlds are difficult to create and even more difficult (and expensive) to maintain in an online environment.
You have shown footage of ONE event from a chain of events. What would happen if they fail the event, and what if they succeed? I trust you to figure that one out by yourself.
Because it just may take the holy trinity and smash it on its head.
Really take a look at the way GW 2 plays in the good gameplay videos out there. Turn off the volume so you don't have an Anet schill talking about the game. Focus ONLY on what is going on on screen.
Ok, so what Anet has said is that they don't want dedicated healers so that people can get right back into the action. Admirable aim.
Now let's look at how this actually plays out:
They died because they didn't dodge roll, they didn't bother to evade projectiles and attacks even though it's possible and you seem to be unable to understand that the people playing there aren't really skilled.
I'll go along with the "unskilled players" comment, given that getting thrown into a demo on a convention floor with only 40 minutes to play isn't all that conducive to having a shining first outing. Actually in that video (and the 10 minute PC Gamer version), the main thing that is kind of a bummer for me is just how stationary that boss is. I'd kind of like to see him dodge around a bit or jump to targets, but thats just me.
As to "permanent changes to the persistent world," events (and their repercussions) are cyclical, so its actually kind of a half-and-half system. If that village in that video finishes getting burned down, it stays burned down until a successful event takes place that can rebuild it. Before that can happen, there are likely in-between events that happen, where you need to drive the pirates back out of the village, and maybe others helping supply caravans with materials for the rebuilding. So yes, the city isn't permanently wiped out, but neither does it just "respawn" on its own. It needs help from the players to return...
I can't speak for anyone else, but as someone who didn't even consider GW1 and as a PvE player, I am very interested in GW2. Why, someone might ask? Well mostly because not only am I seeing interesting ideas coming out of the GW2 camp, I am seeing some of those ideas manifest themselves in actual gameplay footage, plus there is the lack of a sub. There is a lot to look forward too for certain. I'll buy some of the hype, not all of it, but certainly enough for me to watch closely which I guess would make the game towards the top of my "popular" list.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
I personally am not very excited about this game. I see some videos and they look pretty cool, but it still seems as though it will be a little more co-rpg than mmorpg. From what I read early on, I was expecting a seamless (outer)world with some instanced stuff. Seems now as though that may not be the case unfortunately.
I feel like a cynic, but I doubt GW2 will be the second coming like everyone thinks it will be. Because it has no monthly fee, I see GW2 as being a collection of quasi-Warhammer public quests woven through the gameworld with some dungeons thrown in here and there and nothing more. I also don't believe that the holy trinity has been entirely done away with. It has been merely redefined. There are some classes that are still meant to take more damage. There are some classes that are still meant to dish out more damage. There are still classes that are meant to heal more damage.
It will be a great game, but like the original, I doubt it will be anything anyone would consider worthy of paying a monthly subscription fee to play nor will it give players the same sense of fulfillment they find in a pay-to-play subscription based game like World of Warcraft.
Comments
PVP and PVE will be kept mostly separate in Guild Wars 2. If you want to do only PVE and never even attempt PVP, then you can. If you want to do only PVP and never do anything in PVE, then you can do that, too. Or if you want to take a single character and participate extensively in both PVP and PVE, you'll be able to do that as well. But there won't be open-world ganking, as PVP will be off in separate instances.
"yeah i agree, but how will they make the mobs smarter without causing a complete massacre as generally the mmorpg community seems pretty light headed when it comes to the button pushing?"
Probably kind of like how Guild Wars did. Mobs target whoever they think they can kill the fastest. That's a combination of current health, armor rating, and how close you are. There's a slight bias of mobs preferring to attack someone who is attacking them, but that's only a slight bias.
What happens is that everyone has to build to be able to survive a decent bit of damage. You don't end up with situations where the tanks would take 5 times as many hits to die as the healers.
your right xD thats a really long watch, im nipping a bit at it, thank you
edit: the event system about the events happening if you're there or not seems REALLY cool, the whole process of places being taken over by creatures and other things if nobody interacts seems great
Oh, just as an FYI, GW2 hase been playable at a couple conventions so far, so there are a number of player-based reviews of how its coming along.
I'm a longtime GW fan, so I've been sold on it forever, but I'll also be the first to admit that there can often be a vast gulf between the promises of developers and the reality of the products they deliver. These demos only lasted 40 minutes, so its hard to really get a comprehensive feel for how its all shaping up, but I think most reponses from people who have played has been cautiously optimistic, to gushing (I've only seen one or two that really didn't like it).
Here's mine from last year's PAX West (some of this is already out of date, I think):
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/ultimate-pax-thread-all-your-t7870.html?p=332135#post332135
I'm going to PAX again this year to see how its going. I suspect my last comment about convention-play being a less than ideal setting will still stand this year. I like to just sink into my chair and let the world wash over me, which of course can't happen at a convention
EDIT: Oh yeah, one other reason I think it might be popular is simply the open approach Anet has had with their blog posts. Its obvious that they really enjoying sharing stuff when its ready to talk about...
The reasons people are hyped about GW2:
Dynamic events system. Briefly... instead of traditional WoW quests, there are a bunch of events running all the time whether players are there or not. They're a vast improvement because they're fully cooperative, you don't have to pick up the quest and turn it in, they scale up in difficulty when more people show up. I could go on and on. Here is a very long but fantastic video that describes them.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1013691/Designing-Guild-Wars-2-Dynamic
Personal storyline. The idea is to give everybody their own story that is affected by choices made at character creation as well as during the story. The purpose is to put a story back in an MMO that would rival what you'd find in a single player RPG. They're instanced so they can reflect the choices for each player.
Combat. In a traditional MMO, you've got this holy trinity idea where players focus on being a tank, healer or DPS to the exclusion of everything else. In GW2, you've got players shifting roles on the fly depending on how the fight is going. You've also got dodging attacks and projectiles and casting on the move.
Buy to Play. Instead of a $15 a month subscription, you pay for the box once and you can play for like ever. I'm playing a GW1 game I bought in 2006. There will be expansions and there will be a vanity cash shop, but even P2P MMOs make you pay for expansions.
I'm going to try to wrap this up, but it just goes beyond the big features. I think ArenaNet is just really trying to make the best game they can and they means not only questioning everything, but having the guts to scrap entire zones or their Sylvari race model and start over if it means making it better. One thing that really stuck out for me is their wanting to make towns more social so they added 5-6 minigames per town to give things people to do. There's 6 gorgeous cities, each with a unique feel. There's dungeons with a solo story mode you do first and then an explorable mode you do in a group, so that people aren't pressured to skip the cutscenes that were all over GW1. There's no grinding out levels. There's 3 faction large scale PVP that people have been longing for since DAOC.
And finally, nobody from ArenaNet will talk about a feature that their game will have unless it's already in the game and working. There is a lot of hype for GW2 and it's coming from ArenaNet promising innovation and giving every indication that they're going to deliver a very high quality product.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." -Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
its great that PvE and PvP are kept seperate but you can join in anyway unlike with games where theres pvp and pve servers and the only chance of player vs player interaction is if they actually have an arena or something of some sort up
i like where its going with the mobs picking smarter moves but i dont understand what tanks will do then, will they be sacrificing the sturdiness for damage/other abilities and still somehow do a better job of warding off the team mates from being attacked by the mobs? (i probably shouldnt ask such concrete questions as the games not even out in its full form yet xD)
There actually are no tanks in the game. GW2 doesn't use the holy trinity and scrapped tanking and dedicated healing. People are going to actually have to use cooperation now for group content.
http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/healing-death/
http://www.arena.net/blog/jon-peters-talks-combat
im going to bed! will read up on everything im missing tomorrow, sorry its 7:20 am and i was just rudely woken back to life by 3 birds raving outside my window O.o
and i'll have to agree with them, i should be asleep
edit: thanks with the heaps of co operation so far!
3 sided pvp, it is the closest thing we will probably ever get to a DAOC style system since DAOC 2 will never happen.
The game itself does quite a few things to be different then other games. It sounds like you have not looked into it much if you don't think otherwise. The short list of reasons to be hyped about the game would probably be:
1) Sequal to the successful Guild Wars
2) Dynamic Content/No quest system
3) No holy trinity, play with whoever you want, however you want
4)It is free!
I can't begin to express why #4 is so important! This game is going to cost a one time fee up front and have no monthly subscription. The "item shop" will be similar to WoW's in the sense that it is for purely cosmetic purposes. (One of the lead developers himself said that he would not ever use an item shop, even in their game) That is one of the small areas of income they will have for the on-going business model of the game.
If it is like the first game, they will have expansions come out (may be stand-alone products, they have not announced expansion plans yet) more frequently (usually once a year) then other MMOs with nearly as much content as the original product which would be the primary source of income for the game's live service.
Just to add to that, they could do it the same way as the first game for expansions as well..
In the original Guild Wars the expansion packs were more like stand-alone games. You could buy all of them (cept the last one, it was an expansion that required the original game) without buying the original product and still play the game. You would just only have access to that expansion's content.
The success of the original guild wars did not phase developers much back then because it felt much less like an MMO and could barely be called one since it was pretty much all instanced content. (Similar to Diablo in a sense, except the chat room would be the towns)
NOW with a full blown MMORPG for the same price and with tons of F2P Hybrid/Item shop MMORPGs around it could have a significant impact. If the game is wildly successful you might see some future MMOs (or even current) go down this style of development as well. Did I mention it will have free content patches just like every other MMO as well?
We will have to see how it all pans out, but as it stands, it is pretty unbelievable what they can accomplish if this goes right.
It's a AAA MMO, by an experienced dev team, with a huge following and a huge budget. That's enough for me, really. Been a while since we've seen a new one of those.
Plus, doesn't hurt that the videos we've seen of it look pretty. Less concern about the style than, say, SWTOR. Also, the dev team's experienced with an MMO that's attracted both PvE and PvP fans, and they've so far shown themselves to be relatively innovative.
Does any of that mean it'll be a great game? After looking forward to WAR for years, I'm going to say.. I hope so, but we'll see. Could have said all of the above about Mythic, once upon a time, too...
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Video to tell little about GW2 PvP system:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4VKhrCDWfg&feature=relmfu
If you watched the ''top 10 things to be interested'' video on the first page, heres 10 little things more:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3uMlHSbPSY&feature=channel_video_title
Anyway myself what I prolly like most is that in combat you have to keep looking at the game. Your not staring at the UI prtty much at all. Friendly skills are not ''Target friendly player from party UI and press skill''.
If you want to protect your team mate, for example as an guardian. You have to look where your mate is who is under attack, jump/run between him and the line attacks are coming from, block the attacks with your shield or make an protective wall on the ground with your abitily.
If some enemy is between you and your enemy target you want to attack, the attacks go to the enemy between. You rlly have to move and position yourself well. You have to dodge incoming attacks and not stand around or your prtty much dead meat.
Alot more action based game than most MMORPG's where you look at the game not at the UI.
Will be awesome! (If the game is what they are promising it to be that is... tho arenanet seems to be very reliable producer)
I agree completely. These guys know what they are doing and it has been a long time since we got a title from a strong developer. It is great to see ArenaNet and Bioware making a strong effort towards AAA MMOs within a pretty close timeframe.
You are right about Mythic, I was more dissapointed in that game then well, anything else. I doubt either one of these titles will go down such a severely darkened path, but you never know what will happen.
I've been fooled by Aion and Final Fantasy XIV as well just because I was suckered in by the visual aspects of those games. The major difference is that I get to see a lot of Guild Wars 2 videos of actual gameplay. I see examples of what they're talking about. I see explanations of mechanics. I get a lot of information about the game. I'm given specific examples of skills. I'm shown the various promised activities. I see enough to the point that I actually want to play just those bits of the game shown. I did benefit from playing a lot of the original Guild Wars PvE and PvP, so I understood the background history of the game. I see a lot of feedback of concepts that are made reality and shown during convention videos. Developers talked about feature Y, so they mention feature Y in passing while describing the game. I have a general idea what I'm getting into if I choose to play this game. How often can I say that about the other games I've paid for in the past? Everquest, DAoC, (Long break), World of Warcraft, Aion, Final Fantasy XIV, APB, Brink. I got to play a lot of the original Guild Wars during beta phases before it came out.
I wasn't given these examples when I started playing Aion. I saw a few characters flying around. I didn't see much of the combat. I saw a lot of character customization with no promise of fun gameplay. After watching gameplay videos of other players half a month in, I realized that I never would enjoy Aion.
When I saw Final Fantasy XIV, I had the same problem. I only watched the visuals. After the intro videos and learning the interface and playing for a few months, I found the game very very boring. It's got an amazing crafting system. Being able to use everything you pick up for some aspect of crafting is amazing. It's got beautiful scenery, but it just felt boring for a while, and I was given no examples of what kind of fun gameplay I'd be able to experience. A few peeks at the current system show a lot of improvements compared to the original, but the bad taste from paying for a game that didn't deliver on day one prevents me from wanting to go back. It actually does look promising now, but I am not inclined to play any longer because of how long it has taken since release to do anything that made me really want to continue this game. I still liked the linkshell I joined and I chat with them on vent, but I don't enjoy the game enough anymore. Maybe a long break will build some interest in the game.
Because it just may take the holy trinity and smash it on its head.
Really take a look at the way GW 2 plays in the good gameplay videos out there. Turn off the volume so you don't have an Anet schill talking about the game. Focus ONLY on what is going on on screen.
Ok, so what Anet has said is that they don't want dedicated healers so that people can get right back into the action. Admirable aim.
Now let's look at how this actually plays out:
Ok, now just watch what the thief does in the first half of the video. So apparantly there's no tank and we already know there's no healer. Do you see how quickly the thief gets raped? Then when someone tries to get her up, he goes down too. And even without a tank or a healer that little boss there is basically taking no damage at all.
Could be they don't have enough people. Could be that Anet needs to tweak boss encounters. Who knows? I'm just going off what is in the video. Anet made it to show stuff off and that's what I'm going off of.
Apparantly there was a Guardian there, but he didn't appear to actually be able to do anything. Whenever the thief got close to try to dish out some damage the boss just turned around and started attacking her.
Again, this could be any number of things. However, if the trinity is gone, then this is how things are actually going to play out.
You're going to have a game whose CORE is designed to interface with the trinity, but there is no trinity for players to try to play around with. That's really where GW 2 is heading at the moment.
I'm not trying to defend the trinity, but for games that are at their core designed like this you have to either use the trinity or break your game. Or make a game that is going to be too difficult for most people. I'm the kind of person that digs a difficult game, but a LOT of people don't. And there's no 'difficulty' setting on mmos. Sure some encounters have a 'hard mode', but there is no way for an individual to change the baseline difficulty.
Anet has designers that are still making encounters with the trinity in the back of their minds, but at the same time they are actively trying to do away with that same trinity. The end result isn't going to go well for anybody.
They died because they didn't dodge roll, they didn't bother to evade projectiles and attacks even though it's possible and you seem to be unable to understand that the people playing there aren't really skilled.
I'll go along with the "unskilled players" comment, given that getting thrown into a demo on a convention floor with only 40 minutes to play isn't all that conducive to having a shining first outing. Actually in that video (and the 10 minute PC Gamer version), the main thing that is kind of a bummer for me is just how stationary that boss is. I'd kind of like to see him dodge around a bit or jump to targets, but thats just me.
As to "permanent changes to the persistent world," events (and their repercussions) are cyclical, so its actually kind of a half-and-half system. If that village in that video finishes getting burned down, it stays burned down until a successful event takes place that can rebuild it. Before that can happen, there are likely in-between events that happen, where you need to drive the pirates back out of the village, and maybe others helping supply caravans with materials for the rebuilding. So yes, the city isn't permanently wiped out, but neither does it just "respawn" on its own. It needs help from the players to return...
I can't speak for anyone else, but as someone who didn't even consider GW1 and as a PvE player, I am very interested in GW2. Why, someone might ask? Well mostly because not only am I seeing interesting ideas coming out of the GW2 camp, I am seeing some of those ideas manifest themselves in actual gameplay footage, plus there is the lack of a sub. There is a lot to look forward too for certain. I'll buy some of the hype, not all of it, but certainly enough for me to watch closely which I guess would make the game towards the top of my "popular" list.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
Replace "Popular" with "Hyped". Game is not even out yet.
I personally am not very excited about this game. I see some videos and they look pretty cool, but it still seems as though it will be a little more co-rpg than mmorpg. From what I read early on, I was expecting a seamless (outer)world with some instanced stuff. Seems now as though that may not be the case unfortunately.
I feel like a cynic, but I doubt GW2 will be the second coming like everyone thinks it will be. Because it has no monthly fee, I see GW2 as being a collection of quasi-Warhammer public quests woven through the gameworld with some dungeons thrown in here and there and nothing more. I also don't believe that the holy trinity has been entirely done away with. It has been merely redefined. There are some classes that are still meant to take more damage. There are some classes that are still meant to dish out more damage. There are still classes that are meant to heal more damage.
It will be a great game, but like the original, I doubt it will be anything anyone would consider worthy of paying a monthly subscription fee to play nor will it give players the same sense of fulfillment they find in a pay-to-play subscription based game like World of Warcraft.
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