Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[degonite]

Was gonna get a completly new PC , my old one is 5years ld and would rather just get all new parts so I would need a new copy of Windows 7 since I only have a Vista disc and Im not using that garbage in a new comp hahaha.

[StationaryHawk]

Have you played an MMO? They are very time intensive, at least if you want to achieve anything. And that is fine, I mean if it doesn't take time and effort then it isn't valued or worth doing. But playing two MMOs at the same time might be a bit much. I'm a really big gamer, I play several hours a day every day, often spending all day gaming, but still, two MMOs is just too much.

The trouble I am having with imaging a game with no raiding at endgame is that there is nothing to do that provides sufficient challenge, nothing that is going to take some time and effort to learn and practice your skills, refine your knowledge and eventually beat. It's a big part of MMO gaming for me. I understand that there are dynamic events, PvP, dungeons etc, but raids have consistently provided the biggest challenges, the best visuals, the greatest lore moments. I cannot imagine dynamic events giving the same feeling of achievement or grandeur.

Also, how is character advancement going to work? In conventional MMOs you have either progressively better gear from tiers of raid content, or alternate advancement. How will it work in GW2?

Essentially what challenges await you once you hit 80 in Guild Wars?

The greatest lore moments occur in dungeons, the best visuals throughout the entire game. I can't say much for the challenge until we've got a to-scale demonstration of the 100+ man dynamic event bosses, or a exploration mode 5-man dungeon, but then, neither can anyone else about how "easy" they believe it will be.

Explain what you mean?

You're assuming that, since other games (such as WoW) have scaled world bosses down to the point where a group who has no clue how to play can still beat them down, that GW2 will follow the same path. It's not an entirely fair assumption to make, considering how many traits of a "typical MMO" GW2 is attempting to stray from.

[Saverem]

What do you mean by going back to SWTOR/WoW? With the no sub fee of GW2 you can easily play a sub based game and this one. You can have your traditional MMO fix with instanced raids in SWTOR/WoW but also come to GW2 to get a more non traditional MMO fix. I just gotta wonder why you would limit yourself to one or the other when you can have the best of both worlds for a very cheap price.

True, but just because I can play both doesn't mean I have the time to invest in both. MMOs are big games. I guess I can go back to GW2s and play a few minutes of PvP every week. But this is a long time away, I haven't decided what to do yet.

[Ishu]

but raids have consistently provided the biggest challenges, the best visuals, the greatest lore moments. I cannot imagine dynamic events giving the same feeling of achievement or grandeur.

I disagree there. The biggest challenge has always come from PvP, not raids. And for the rest, I find that the visuals and lore are far better and far greater in the open zones than in a small, instanced area.
I generally find raiding to be a bore, although I do think the raiding in TBC was pretty big. But that's really the exception rather than the rule, because all other raiding I've experienced has been boring and not very satisfying.

[Deleted]

Also, being a world boss means that the fight itself won't be challenging enough for the hardcore players since there will be novice players mixed in that will also like to down that boss. They will be adjusting for numbers but they won't be adjusting for skill (like normal/heroic difficulty).

They don't need to tune down bosses for novice players, because if that new player fails it wont cause everyone else around to fail also. Balance can be done lot differently in GW2, because there is no set roles like tanks and healers. Arenanet doesn't have to think about possible scenario where players could bring more than intended amount of healers or tanks to completely trivialize encounter. I have no doubt there will be fires that will instant kill you if you stand in it etc, but everyone in area doesn't have to run out and "reset" encounter because that one player was standing in fire, instead they can continue progress encounter and earn points for their reward in the end. Actually you get more point if you help and revive that player who got killed by fire, so you get rewarded for being helpful.

If I understand right events that we have seen on Demos have been mostly mid level which were tuned down on purpose because limited time people were able to play it.

[georgevonfranken]

Was gonna get a completly new PC , my old one is 5years ld and would rather just get all new parts so I would need a new copy of Windows 7 since I only have a Vista disc and Im not using that garbage in a new comp hahaha.

iirc you said your budget was 900 so i would suggest

$700 Build
Case: Antec 200 $49.99
Power Supply: Corsair CX500 $59.99
Motherboard: AsRock Z68 Pro3-M $114.99
Processor: Intel i5 2500k $219.99
CPU Cooler: CoolerMaster Hyper 212 $49.99 == OVER BUDGET
RAM: G.Skill Ripjaws 4GB $38.99
Hard Drive: Samsung Spinpoint F3 $64.99
Optical Disc Drive: Sony Optiarc SATA DVD/CD Burner $19.99
Graphics Card: Asus ENGTX 460 768 MB $144.99
Total: 731.92 USD == 771.91

*some of the prices have gone down its been a while since fuzzy has had a opportunity to update this*

If after you add in the peripherals you have $100 extra i would suggest changing the graphics card out to http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...-565-_-Product

I also would suggest waiting until GW2 is closer to release because prices will continue to go down

[Odeezee]

All of the above. I find it to be an enjoyable way to spend ~4 hours of your night 3 days a week. It gives you big cool monsters to kill in a strategic way while joking around and being part of a group.

You can't really do that with public raids because:

1: There is only 1 event, you'll have to go looking for more if you want to be there for longer than half an hour. Where as an instance raids is a series of events tailored for hours of gameplay.
2: There are strangers you don't know participating. This means they won't be as reliable. They may even be griefers and there's nothing you can do about it. You can't simply kick them from the raid/guild and have them out of your hair.

instanced raids do not equal harder content, just usually more time consuming due to having to manage so many people. for difficult DEs at level cap ANet have said there will be Epic DEs.

1. Epic DE chains

2. you can't really be griefed in GW2 due to their DE balancing system that monitors multiple parameters to check who is/isn't participating so it can scale accordingly.

there is endgame in GW2 it just isn't WoW/SWTOR's endgame and i for one am very happy about that, who knows you may actually grow to like this approach better /shrug

[Barrowmore]

Also, how is character advancement going to work? In conventional MMOs you have either progressively better gear from tiers of raid content, or alternate advancement. How will it work in GW2?

Essentially what challenges await you once you hit 80 in Guild Wars?

The level system is mostly a way to gauge Dynamic Event progress in GW2. Level 1 characters will be able to group up with level 80s, be sidekicked up to level 80, and do dungeons. As far as we know, outside of the trait system, getting your hands on 1 of each type of weapon, and training all the skills for each of your weapons, there is essentially no character advancement in the higher difficulty GW2 PvE. Anet's philosophy is that the player's skill should matter more than their character's gear, so this is GW2's system.

Edit: I remember hearing training skills takes ~10 mob kills per skill

[degonite]

Thanks for that and yeah I will hold off untill the holidays My guess is around december we will have a date or a better idea of specs but if that machine you linked can run that baby good and save me some money if prices drop around that time and save me even more it is what I will go with. Thank you for the reply just figured I would ask now with all the PC talk going on .

[georgevonfranken]

Thanks for that and yeah I will hold off untill the holidays My guess is around december we will have a date or a better idea of specs but if that machine you linked can run that baby good and save me some money if prices drop around that time and save me even more it is what I will go with. Thank you for the reply just figured I would ask now with all the PC talk going on .

Before you order feel free to make a thread in the computer forum for more suggestions

[Deleted]

yeah hopefully PC talk is done, its getting very off topic :P

damn, checked after a month and they still havent revealed final class Im starting to think we will get a suprise, as this huge wait would be a bit of an anticlimax if they just said... yeah its a mesmer.

[Tarien]

I disagree there. The biggest challenge has always come from PvP, not raids. And for the rest, I find that the visuals and lore are far better and far greater in the open zones than in a small, instanced area.
I generally find raiding to be a bore, although I do think the raiding in TBC was pretty big. But that's really the exception rather than the rule, because all other raiding I've experienced has been boring and not very satisfying.

There is no doubt that in an MMO like WoW each zone has amazing visuals and it's own theme and story to tell, but once you've done it, you've done it. Even with GW2s dynamic content there is a limit to the things you can do and see in each zone and eventually you are going to have seen or done it all, or just be bored of that type of content. The same thing applies to dungeons, PvP and yes even Raids. But Raids provide challenge and lore and story in a better way than most of the other content, at least in my opinion. Maybe thats because we keep getting new raids, but we only get zones once every couple years.

Either way, there needs to be something to do at max level that isn't just more of the same thing you did while levelling. If WoW had no raids, it would not be where it is today. Even the most epic 100man dynamic events are going to get old and dull eventually because you cannot tightly control something in the open world, you cannot limit the number of participants. Look at RIFTs system, there are open world invasions and raid rifts, but they just get zerged and while that is fun at first it soon becomes commonplace.

---------- Post added 2011-09-20 at 12:07 AM ----------

Take the original GW as an example, you can reach max level (20) in 4-5 hours or so yet people still play 6 years later.

So what? People still play DAoC, UO, EQ1. Christ people still play SWG even after the Devs took an almighty shit on it.

[Barrowmore]

Even the most epic 100man dynamic events are going to get old and dull eventually because you cannot tightly control something in the open world, you cannot limit the number of participants. Look at RIFTs system, there are open world invasions and raid rifts, but they just get zerged and while that is fun at first it soon becomes commonplace.

Zerging is not an issue in GW2. The bosses and events adjust themselves depending on the # of players there, e.g. a boss is suddenly faced with 30 additional players so it's given additional HP, damage, and an AoE skill to kill them with.

[Deleted]

There is no doubt that in an MMO like WoW each zone has amazing visuals and it's own theme and story to tell, but once you've done it, you've done it. Even with GW2s dynamic content there is a limit to the things you can do and see in each zone and eventually you are going to have seen or done it all, or just be bored of that type of content. The same thing applies to dungeons, PvP and yes even Raids. But Raids provide challenge and lore and story in a better way than most of the other content, at least in my opinion. Maybe thats because we keep getting new raids, but we only get zones once every couple years.

Either way, there needs to be something to do at max level that isn't just more of the same thing you did while levelling. If WoW had no raids, it would not be where it is today. Even the most epic 100man dynamic events are going to get old and dull eventually because you cannot tightly control something in the open world, you cannot limit the number of participants. Look at RIFTs system, there are open world invasions and raid rifts, but they just get zerged and while that is fun at first it soon becomes commonplace.

---------- Post added 2011-09-20 at 12:07 AM ----------



So what? People still play DAoC, UO, EQ1. Christ people still play SWG even after the Devs took an almighty shit on it.

first i must say i agree with you but as is read your post it came to my mind, that gw2 or arenanet maybe isnt going for the"play for your life"-model. im seeing it like a single player game right now. buy it, play it, get the story/dungeins etc. done, leave it. come back when new content is released.

wow and other mmos charge monthly fees, they need to provide something to play for and if we narrow it down its just a BIG HUGE GRIND. i played wow myself a very long time and enjoyed it rly much, but they need to provide this grind in order to keep players playing. gw2 does not need to do that. i think...^^

and btw im too 99% sure that arenat said bosses wont just get more dmg. its a stupid thing anyway. why should the boss 1 shot anyone just cause of more players? they will surely add more abilities, hp etc. but not dmg. would just be stupid...

[Newbryn]

Of course wow needs raids if it didnt have the it would be very bad because point and click gameplay without any skill is boring

[Deleted]

There is no doubt that in an MMO like WoW each zone has amazing visuals and it's own theme and story to tell, but once you've done it, you've done it.

So how does this not apply to raids? This is true for every game more or less, but GW2 is taking it in the right direction from raid based MMOs like WoW in terms of dynamic gameplay

[Smitzelplix]

Have you played an MMO? They are very time intensive, at least if you want to achieve anything. And that is fine, I mean if it doesn't take time and effort then it isn't valued or worth doing. But playing two MMOs at the same time might be a bit much. I'm a really big gamer, I play several hours a day every day, often spending all day gaming, but still, two MMOs is just too much.

The trouble I am having with imaging a game with no raiding at endgame is that there is nothing to do that provides sufficient challenge, nothing that is going to take some time and effort to learn and practice your skills, refine your knowledge and eventually beat. It's a big part of MMO gaming for me. I understand that there are dynamic events, PvP, dungeons etc, but raids have consistently provided the biggest challenges, the best visuals, the greatest lore moments. I cannot imagine dynamic events giving the same feeling of achievement or grandeur.

Also, how is character advancement going to work? In conventional MMOs you have either progressively better gear from tiers of raid content, or alternate advancement. How will it work in GW2?

Essentially what challenges await you once you hit 80 in Guild Wars?

Of course I play MMOs, I wouldn't be on this site if I didn't. I also find the leveling process to be the most time intensive part of the game, max level not so much. Max level to me is a very drop in and out affair, and GW2 looks to cater to my view of max level, if I just want to hop on and do epic events I can or if I want to just pvp for a bit I can, once I get enough of that I can log off or go and play my secondary MMO. What do you constantly do at max level that is so time consuming, the only thing I can think of is gear grinding and doing raids, well for gear grinding in quite a few games that process doesn't seem to last that long and people tend to have scheduled raid nights that are only done for a couple of days out of the week. In between those activities there is down time, and that is where people like me will strive, we will soak up each and every second of that down time to pursue a different game and in my case that will be another MMO.

The vast majority of my leisure time is spent playing games, and I find MMOs far more worth the time and money compared to the single player games that have been on offer for quite awhile, I haven't bought a single newly released single player game in over a year not because I was playing an MMO and didn't think I could balance the two but because I have found the amount of content in most of these new single player games vs how much money you spend on them to be pretty damn shitty and not worth the money, I usually wait till a single player game hits the bargain bin before picking it up.

I mean I totally get where your coming from with that for some playing more than one MMO can be a challenge and that people will choose one MMO over the other, but I'm just not one of those people and there are many like me.

[Newbryn]

So how does this not apply to raids? This is true for every game more or less, but GW2 is taking it in the right direction from raid based MMOs like WoW in terms of dynamic gameplay

My thoughts exactly,I think most people just want to take the parts of guild wars 2 that they like,and mash it with traditional mmos instead of appreciating the game for what it really is.

[Mothhive]

Raids provide challenge and lore and story in a better way than most of the other content, at least in my opinion.

There's no reason 5 man instances can't provide just as much challenge and story as a raid. The only reason they don't in other games is because that's just how they are designed.

MMOs like WoW have you quest to max level, do 5 man instances till you gear up, then completely ignore them for the grind that is Raiding, then get the same story every week in one raid instance until the next tier is released which eventually trivialises the rest of the content. Do you really think that Guild Wars 2 giving you the option to do whatever you want and always have it be challenging is a worse system and that it can't provide as much story just because you don't need to organise 10/25 people to see it?

If WoW had no raids, it would not be where it is today.

The vast majority of WoW players don't even raid though. Wasn't it something like 15% that Raid, and that's including people who only PUG now and then. The rest of the playerbase just quest a little when they can, maybe do a bit of PvP or instances, roll new characters, etc (y'know, fun stuff), all of which GW2 caters to much more than previous MMOs that rely on raids and the dangling carrot of epic loot.

[Tury123]

It boggles me beyond my imagination to believe people can enjoy raiding, 4 hours inside a dungeon with someone yelling at you giving you orders stuck on the same boss and even if you do down him: not getting the loot you wanted to drop.