Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Deleted]

Someone please ease my thoughts! lol. And don't say, "this game is not for you" because it looks sooo freaking good and i really really want it to work out for me.

I'll say one thing: wait for it and see for yourself. I too am used to trying to obtain better and better gear and likening that to personal progression so I don't know how the system in GW2 will feel like, but I'll try it and only then judge.

[Nikvis]

I really don't understand the "what no end game?!" chase a carrot on a stick argument.

Most of the games you played before the internet came along and pc gaming took off didn't reward you with shiny precious rings and gear with elite stats.

You played because the story was engaging and you wanted to see it through to the end or you were a competitive person and enjoyed the challenge.

This is why wow (especially arena) and the community around it is so screwed up right now. People aren't playing to be competitive or to show skill they just want gear and re-skinned mounts and bragging rights to troll people with.

I'm glad arenanet is getting rid of the gear grind and basing the game around a players skill level and dedication to learn.

[Odeezee]

anyone want to grind out some HoM? i have a level 20 Ele in Factions and a level 14 Ele in Profecies. i am wiling to start fresh in a new campaign if that would help (i have all standalone campaigns and the expansion). FYI, i haven't a clue what i am doing :/

[Barrowmore]

One thing I am worried about, which I guess is more of an issue with myself and not the game, is the fact that you can max out your gear (stat wise I guess) fairly quickly. I am liking everything about this game that I hear, its sounding very very epic, to the point that makes you wonder how they are going to pull it off in some aspects, but this is the one thing that scares me and makes me think that I may not stick with it as long as it deserves or maybe as long as I want to.

I like the RPG feature of games - the fact that you can build you character up and make him/her stronger, better, while at the same time increasing your own skill and the such. The only thing is, I don't see there being very much of this in this game. Yes, you will be upgrading stuff and getting better gear/enhancements and stuff all the way up to lvl 80. What happens, though, when I reach that level 80? Get all lvl80 gear. Then when you get the gear with the best stats in it, your next bet will be to find another piece of gear that just looks.. awesome, and this is where you will probably spend a good amount of time searching, trying to (im sorry to say it like this) dress up your character the best they can look. Only problem with this, though, looks are VERY subjective. So when I get that armor set that looks FREAKING AWESOME, what then? I guess I am asking, what is there to do, aside from continuing PVP and continuing to experience different DE's that will make you WANT to do them? (aside from the fact that they are pretty cool)

The incentive to play at max level is to get better at the game.

[Odeezee]

I, and I will venture to say that everyone else as well, like to get rewarded for something that I do in the game. Wether that reward is pure having fun, or gear, or gold, I want to know that it is helping me to some eventual (perhaps unachieaveable) goal, since that is the premise of RPG (i think). As an example, lets say I go and level up to 80. I get the best gear (and best looking according to me). Now what is the incentive of maxing out blacksmithing at that level? or leatherworking/tailor/blahblah.. While I can understand a profession like the equivalent of an alchemist or enchanter being useful for the different things they provide, I don't see the point of working on a profession that will give me nothing more than a different look (i guess the respose to this would be "then don't work on it" but honestly that's a very weak response). Same with the different paths of the same dungeon. Lets say I do dungeon X thru the story mode. Then i go back and do all the different paths of that dungeon, and get my armor set from it (which will look awesome with spikes and guns and fire spewing out the back). What is the incentive of going and doing some of the other dungeons and their different paths (more than the first time each just to experience it) if not for a reward that will somehow help me achieve what I want to achieve?

Someone please ease my thoughts! lol. And don't say, "this game is not for you" because it looks sooo freaking good and i really really want it to work out for me.

i referred to this as Stockholm Syndrome a few pages back; you feel the need to sympathize with a system that punishes you for not having the best of everything in order to compete. you just have to see that GW2 offers more than just instances and there are many more ways to progress than through stat increases from gear.

[Meledelion]

In Guild Wars people make name for theirselves with the looks of gear and titles.

Although Obsidian armor is very common now, back in the day people who had it were looked upon like people looked at ashes of al'ar.
And in PvP you got animations when someone popped a Bambi in Droknar's Forge people would gather to see it.

[Wolfmor]

About the worries and the "lagfest" etc...

People need to think that the game engine is/was design with that in mind. For example, in wow, there is a lot of lag and fps drop when like 100 players gather casting spells and stuff. A reason for that is that the game engine wasnt exactly built for that (hence why wow is in the big majority instanced), and also, the lag, is due to the fact that every player is able to track every other player around them and all their actions (thats how add ons can track everything :P), when a lot of ppl gather, connections suffer becuz there is a lot of information being sent/received (even more if you are grouped with ppl that share mod/add on information among themselfs).

Nowadays, game designers can very well build a engine to support hundreds of players if not thousands. Ofc having a average/good PC will help, but I wouldnt be too worried about that. Also, the devs already stated that the zones will have player limits, but those limits are so big they doubt ppl will reach them. (was said at gamescon or PAX, dont really remember)

This may be the case but not too long ago a game was released known as Aion, it advertised its epic Fortress Battles but when you finally grinded your way up to the level to do them you were met with terrible terrible lag, we're talking about character models either appearing white and without skin models or just appearing as floating nameplates (Which sucks for pvp... since that's what you're doing...). I had a pretty decent computer at the time too, oh did I mention that the game didn't allow addons?

The point is, even if the developers know a whole bunch of people are going to participate in an event and even advertise it, there's no way of telling how well it'll hold up with 100 people near you till you play it yourself. Both Aion and GW also belong to the same game publishers but have different developers so hopefully it'll do better with large scale events.

[Belial]

I've actually seen several games that can handle that. It's mostly about clever optimization and scaling down on tessellation when the amount of characters increases. Just think back to e.g. Serious Sam: there were several fights where the game could easily throw 100+ enemies at you at once, and it still ran playably on Pentium II - machines. There's also e.g. a multiplayer game for PS3 that can push 64 simultaneous players in the area, and PS3 is seriously underpowered by today's standards. To a computer a model controlled by a player or AI does not make a difference to how fast it renders, so the only limiting factor could be network lag and how good the developers are at optimizing their stuff.

---------- Post added 2011-09-12 at 12:13 AM ----------



WoW is a somewhat poor example in that it has ALWAYS been poorly optimized and its graphics engine was outdated already back when WoW first came out. Ask anyone working in the field and they'll agree.

I don't think people are too concerned about if their PC would be able to handle 100+ players at once (well some may). I think what people are worried about (and I'm one of them) is the great internet LAG it could cause.

[Otaka]

This may be the case but not too long ago a game was released known as Aion, it advertised its epic Fortress Battles but when you finally grinded your way up to the level to do them you were met with terrible terrible lag, we're talking about character models either appearing white and without skin models or just appearing as floating nameplates (Which sucks for pvp... since that's what you're doing...). I had a pretty decent computer at the time too, oh did I mention that the game didn't allow addons?

The point is, even if the developers know a whole bunch of people are going to participate in an event and even advertise it, there's no way of telling how well it'll hold up with 100 people near you till you play it yourself. Both Aion and GW also belong to the same game publishers but have different developers so hopefully it'll do better with large scale events.

Publishers have nothing to do with the game, developers make the game and publishers only publish it... so it depends on the dev's only.

[Deleted]

In Guild Wars people make name for theirselves with the looks of gear and titles.

Although Obsidian armor is very common now, back in the day people who had it were looked upon like people looked at ashes of al'ar.
And in PvP you got animations when someone popped a Bambi in Droknar's Forge people would gather to see it.

A long long time ago... In World of Warcraft, this even existed. Back in Classic, Vanilla, people with the High Warlord title, or even lower, were looked up at as if they were the Gods of PvP. Everyone know the few High Warlords, if even one, that was on their server. Aswell the best PvE'ers were looked up to. The ones that cleared whole AQ / Naxx? That one warrior with full T3, shit. I miss thoose times. But, unfortanely imo, to many people learn to play the game at the end. Or they've just had time enough to farm the best thing up becouse it hasn't been upgraded.


But imo, GW2 seems to be a great game! I CAN'T FRIGGIN' WAIT FOR IT!! <3

[Mif]

And don't say, "this game is not for you"

How about "this game is not wow".

[Odeezee]

I don't think people are too concerned about if their PC would be able to handle 100+ players at once (well some may). I think what people are worried about (and I'm one of them) is the great internet LAG it could cause.

low fps is primarily people's computers as they have to render so many polygons at at once. if the serve is not able to handle that many people all at once then it is a problem with the server architecture, the coding for the game engine or the coding for the servers that's the issue. now server lag is something NO dev can control that would be an issue with our ISP.

as far as Aion i don't really know what went wrong with the NA release because i played in Aion CN and i never experienced lag issues the way i did in NA and on the CN servers there were waaaaay more people participating in abyss pvp.

[Barrowmore]

For those concerned about lag, here's a demo video showing many players in the same area with minimal lag, sans the crappy camera used.

[Fishyface]

Its been a while since ive checked up in guild wars 2, are they done just feeding us lore yet?

I got completely uninterested in the game after spending an entire year of feeding the community little tid bits of lore. I know im not the only one that does not want to hear about lore as much as i want to hear about the gameplay itself.

I want to see how the classes work, i want see what each one brings to the table. I want to know more about combat will be, i want to see how professions work instead of hearing about them through a blog post. I want to see pvp in action.

I havent really seen any of them in form of gameplay trailers yet. Were less than a year from launch where is it?

[Barrowmore]

Its been a while since ive checked up in guild wars 2, are they done just feeding us lore yet?

I got completely uninterested in the game after spending an entire year of feeding the community little tid bits of lore. I know im not the only one that does not want to hear about lore as much as i want to hear about the gameplay itself.

I want to see how the classes work, i want see what each one brings to the table. I want to know more about combat will be, i want to see how professions work instead of hearing about them through a blog post. I want to see pvp in action.

I havent really seen any of them in form of gameplay trailers yet. Were less than a year from launch where is it?

As far as combat goes, you can find everything from attack demonstrations to organized PvP on Youtube nowadays. I recommend going to the official arenanet channel for the attack demonstrations. ImperfectBlock is also popular among the regulars here in the GW2 thread for general combat demonstrations.

[Deleted]

Its been a while since ive checked up in guild wars 2, are they done just feeding us lore yet?

I got completely uninterested in the game after spending an entire year of feeding the community little tid bits of lore. I know im not the only one that does not want to hear about lore as much as i want to hear about the gameplay itself.

I want to see how the classes work, i want see what each one brings to the table. I want to know more about combat will be, i want to see how professions work instead of hearing about them through a blog post. I want to see pvp in action.

I havent really seen any of them in form of gameplay trailers yet. Were less than a year from launch where is it?

I wont tell you to read the whole thread... but at least read the first post in this thread! If you "havent even seen" a lot of stuff... is because you didnt read/search. Everything you are looking for, is on the first page of this thread, or on youtube.

[Odeezee]

Its been a while since ive checked up in guild wars 2, are they done just feeding us lore yet?

I got completely uninterested in the game after spending an entire year of feeding the community little tid bits of lore. I know im not the only one that does not want to hear about lore as much as i want to hear about the gameplay itself.

I want to see how the classes work, i want see what each one brings to the table. I want to know more about combat will be, i want to see how professions work instead of hearing about them through a blog post. I want to see pvp in action.

I havent really seen any of them in form of gameplay trailers yet. Were less than a year from launch where is it?

this should get you all caught up as far as seeing combat in action, for the nitty gritty details/mechanics/systems i recommend ArenaNet's blog: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL3A86A61C6E6956FD

[StationaryHawk]

Its been a while since ive checked up in guild wars 2, are they done just feeding us lore yet?

I got completely uninterested in the game after spending an entire year of feeding the community little tid bits of lore. I know im not the only one that does not want to hear about lore as much as i want to hear about the gameplay itself.

I want to see how the classes work, i want see what each one brings to the table. I want to know more about combat will be, i want to see how professions work instead of hearing about them through a blog post. I want to see pvp in action.

I havent really seen any of them in form of gameplay trailers yet. Were less than a year from launch where is it?

You REALLY haven't been watching any GW2-related news, have you? We've gotten videos for everything from 100-man dynamic events to 10-man PvP matches. It's not very effective to complain about a lack of gameplay footage when you've put no effort into actually finding any footage (which is all over Youtube).

I really don't understand the "what no end game?!" chase a carrot on a stick argument.

Most of the games you played before the internet came along and pc gaming took off didn't reward you with shiny precious rings and gear with elite stats.

You played because the story was engaging and you wanted to see it through to the end or you were a competitive person and enjoyed the challenge.

This is why wow (especially arena) and the community around it is so screwed up right now. People aren't playing to be competitive or to show skill they just want gear and re-skinned mounts and bragging rights to troll people with.

I'm glad arenanet is getting rid of the gear grind and basing the game around a players skill level and dedication to learn.

I don't believe MMORPG's existed before the internet came along. It'd be rather difficult to get the MMO aspect without the internet. Endgame is important in MMORPG's because they shouldn't simply "end" when you reach max level. Max level is (in other MMORPG's) a goal to reach before encountering tougher content, as a way to keep the game going once you've finished leveling.

That being said, I completely agree with the path that Anet is going down and fully support their decisions. The concerns about a lack of endgame are typically fueled by a lack of information about what we can expect.

[Milanor]

Asura Design post is up (omgsoexcited)!

http://www.arena.net/blog/matt-barrett-on-asura-design

[rhandric]

Asura week has started! http://www.arena.net/blog/matt-barrett-on-asura-design

Edit: Beaten by 3 minutes by Milanor