Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Tury123]

THIS GAME SUCKS *Pre-orders and does 300 hours of research, puts up poster of it in room, prays for early release every night, has huge fetish for asuras*

[Alatian]

THIS GAME SUCKS *Pre-orders and does 300 hours of research, puts up poster of it in room, prays for early release every night, has huge fetish for asuras*

How you doin'?

[Anthoren]

THIS GAME SUCKS *Pre-orders and does 300 hours of research, puts up poster of it in room, prays for early release every night, has huge fetish for asuras*

/pet


everything will be alright T-T

[Deleted]

Wow has exactly the same thing, but no one seems to care.

As I said before, you will use a portal ONCE per zone, EVER. After you have crossed a portal into a zone, you will pick up a waypoint there. If you want to travel to that zone, you will use that way point. If you don't understand that, then there's nothing anyone can say to make you understand GW2's travel and server layout concepts.

I thought using waypoints was optional. What I want is one consistent world. They are putting all this effort to exploration yet their world is like a puzzle with pieces missing here and there? I admit that I haven't seen a proper example other than the picture posted earlier but if that is how players walk between zones I'm really disappointed.

And stop the wow comparisons, wow has nothing to do with this game.

[bohapjut]

And stop the wow comparisons, wow has nothing to do with this game.

they're both MMOs, and its on a site focused on WoW so it makes sense to compare it to WoW what people have experience with.

[Mif]

And stop the wow comparisons, wow has nothing to do with this game.

Yet that's basically what your complaint is - a Wow comparison.

The vast vast majority of MMO's do not have seamless worlds. Wow is notable in that it does.
Getting upset because GW2 doesn't have a seamless world is getting upset because GW2 isn't Wow.

[Deleted]

Yet that's basically what your complaint is - a Wow comparison.

The vast vast majority of MMO's do not have seamless worlds. Wow is notable in that it does.
Getting upset because GW2 doesn't have a seamless world is getting upset because GW2 isn't Wow.

It isn't a comparison i just stated my opinion. It shouldn't matter which game has influenced my opinions we aren't talking about major gameplay mechanics after all.

[Milanor]

Yet that's basically what your complaint is - a Wow comparison.

The vast vast majority of MMO's do not have seamless worlds. Wow is notable in that it does.
Getting upset because GW2 doesn't have a seamless world is getting upset because GW2 isn't Wow.

I would disagree (not that I'm speaking for the other commenter in question). I'm also bothered by loading screens in between each zone, but I understand that it's a trade-off for performance and server stability, and I think it's more than a fair one. That said, I'd prefer a seamless world if it were actually compatible with Guild Wars 2 and today's tech. And that isn't because I want Guild Wars 2 to be more like WoW, it's because Loading Screens can easily break flow - an underrated yet vital component to immersion in a game world - and they can do that in ANY game. You saying "the vast majority of MMO's do not have seamless worlds" holds about as much water as a WoW comparison - just as Guild Wars 2 isn't WoW, it also isn't most MMOGs.

I, myself, however am not too worried about the loading screens. The developer team behind Guild Wars 2 seems to have a strong focus on immersion and building a strong game world, and short (emphasis on short) loading screens can serve as a quick little breather between moments. I'm sure that making the loading screens as least intrusive as possible is a priority for them, and given the massive size of their zones and how the screens only pop up when you travel between one zone to the other on foot, I don't see a point in getting worked up over it now, this many months before the game has actually been released.

As for the (potential) jarring climate shift between one zone and the other, I'd take that as a point in it's favor. In WoW, the shift between a volcanic zone and a snowy one was just a small gradient of dirt between the two. Here, the loading screens can be seen similar to the "zeppelin travel" screen - a long journey between the borders of two zones where nothing really happens save for a change in location and weather.

[Deleted]

As for the terrain transitions, you can kinda see how it worked in GW1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zMsVVjatuHs here you have a transition from flowers and sunny terrain to snowy area. As you see, it's not like BAM you're in snow, it's like 300 meters buffer zone.

Loading screens have two very good advantages - first one is to patch the game you are patching in loading screen, you don't have to leave the game to update. Second is, you don't have to download entire game, you can just load zone by zone during the loading screens (and in GW1 future zones downloaded while you were playing, so the loading times were shorter). Of course, you could just download the entire game in one sweep and shrink the loading screens time to minimal amounts.

Another thing could be graphics quality. I don't think there have been any games recently (MMOs) that are streaming the content like WoW does. Perhaps it's not as easy with high quality models, one character model from GW2 is as heavy as 8 character models from WoW. And let's not forget how many models are reused in WoW, like the same scorpion model you encounter every 5 levels except it changes colours.

[DeanyKong]

What I want is one consistent world. They are putting all this effort to exploration yet their world is like a puzzle with pieces missing here and there? I admit that I haven't seen a proper example other than the picture posted earlier but if that is how players walk between zones I'm really disappointed.

I believe the use of portals is limited to instanced areas and moving between regions. Moving between regions being like going from Eastern Kingdoms to Northrend, not from Durotar to the Barrens.

[Mif]

I believe the use of portals is limited to instanced areas and moving between regions. Moving between regions being like going from Eastern Kingdoms to Northrend, not from Durotar to the Barrens.

They're more Borean Tundra to Dragonblight.

[Ashar]

I can't belive people complains about waypoints and loading screens.
I is almost the same way we travel in Azeroth. We take portal to hyal/uldum/twilight highlands/vjash'ir or zeppelin/boat to place closest to our destination point, and then just mount up or take fp. In GW2 the only diffrence is fact that I can take a waypoint to another closest point when I'm done with my stuff, instead of using HS to Orgrimmar to pick another portal.
It makes even less loading screens:
GW2: start zone -> waypoint and loading screeen -> run to destination -> waypoint and loading screen -> run to destination
WoW: start zone -> portal/transport and loading screen -> run/fly to destination -> HS and loading screen -> portal/transport and loading screen -> run to destination

[Sapho]

"this information is to be taken with large forceps pickles" . . . I assume we can thank google translate for that little gem

And given that Anet have stated closed beta will start this year, it isn't really big news to hear that a beta will have started by November. Now if that was specifically open beta . . .

[Deleted]

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by this. I can tell you that all the cutscenes I've seen in videos have had a "skip to end" button, and that there is plenty of in-game dialogue outside of the cutscenes.

Thanks, the dialogues seemed really dull to me due to the character animations etc. So I would rather skip it and imagine the npc screaming instead of seeing an npc talk normally when it's actually shouting. Again this is to do with immersion in the game..

Oh god dammit if the moving between zones is like that... That picture looks really terrible! This is probably my biggest gripe about the game so far... I wouldn't have minded if this was the case with big cities but now it'll feel like someone has taken scissors and cut the world in pieces. That's a huge blow to my immersion in the game...

I think there's alot more people that view it this way. Anyone that has played fable (if you haven't, download fable 3 and try it for 10 minutes and you'll know what I mean) will know that hopping from zone to zone through portals completely takes away the ''one open world'' feeling because often there was no link at all between the two zones and I wouldn't be able to tell you which way what area is relative to another.

Secondly, GW2 is made to have mass grouping of players. You can see 100 to 200 players in some of the shatterer videos, yet there is no server lag. In Wow, during wintergrasp all of northrend would lag, and occasionally crash. In GW2 that won't happen. The trade off is you will have to cross a portal once when entering a new zone to discover a waypoint, after you have that waypoint you will use it if you want to travel to that zone, effectively eliminating the portals existence.

I can't say I have encountered the lag you speak of in WG or northrend.. Also wow constantly updates its game with minor new content or bugfixes, I'm not sure how this works in gw2 but I believe they just release the game as perfect as they can and don't do minor content updates?

The thing about the waypoint and portal traveling is that when people say ''If you don't want to use the waypoint system go walk and explore!'' - Which would be a fine argument if it wasn't for the fact that when I go walk and explore I will still run into portals that take me from one terrain to the next. The worst thing about this is that there is just 1 exit from one zone to the next, instead of a mile long area where you can crossover between zones willynilly. This doesn't feel ''open'' to me. You want to travel from point A to pooint B > move to the exit of the zone to get there. Uh wait what? this zone has an exit instead of just borders to cross? I can't remember my city having 1 specific exit (unless you're on an island).

You're in-game running away from some mobs that have aggrod you, you run through a portal and where did they go? Oh right they can't do portals and you're now in a completely different looking zone. Think of it this way: You're watching your soccer/football/baseball game and the team favorite is about to score, the crowd goes nuts and all of a sudden the channel that is broadcasting the game gives you a message: ''Please give us a moment to load the image from the next camera onto your screen''. - After this, all the excitement and IMMERSION with the game you were watching is gone and has to be restarted. The intensity the excitement of seeing that player score or not is brought way down because you were taken out of the ''zone'' your mind was in to view a stupid message making you think of other things than the game.

If you don't understand the immersion factor on this by now I really wouldn't know how to explain it further..

I think the best way they could do this is have the path to a portal look like a transition from one zone to the next and to not actually show a portal. Just have players run into that mountain path as you can see in the picture, slowly changing the environment to less snow and then give them a quick loading screen, AFTER WHICH when you look back the place will look exactly the same as it did before you entered the portal. Instead of apparently having traveled that mountain pass without walking through it as you can see in the picture I posted.

[Ishu]

I think the best way they could do this is have the path to a portal look like a transition from one zone to the next and to not actually show a portal. Just have players run into that mountain path as you can see in the picture, slowly changing the environment to less snow and then give them a quick loading screen, AFTER WHICH when you look back the place will look exactly the same as it did before you entered the portal. Instead of apparently having traveled that mountain pass without walking through it as you can see in the picture I posted.

That's how they did it in GW1. I assume they will do something similar in GW2 too. Someone posted a video of it a few posts earlier.

[Deleted]

The more I read, the more I get disappointed. I truly want this to be the best next gen MMO to come out and save us from 7 years of repetition. However, multiple guilds per character?! How can one be loyal to a guild like that? Also the loading screens between zones is undigestible.

[Sapho]

I think we need to remember two things:

1) This game grips us for a reason. Fit the small concerns into the bigger picture may cheer up people who are worried.

2) This game is not the holy grail. It will not be perfect. It will not, in one simple step, completely change the genre.

Personally, I do believe it will do a lot, it's gonna be big and it's certainly brave. But it is a game made by humans. It is not going to be perfect.

It's up to each individual to decide what they feel the flaws are, and whether they are game-breaking for themselves.

Me? I don't like the idea of loading screens. I'm coming round to waypoints. I am wondering if I will miss raids, though if any game can pull off "endgame starts at lvl1" it will be this game. So I'm happy to let myself get hyped up. I'm not going to try and convince other people though, unless they actually don't understand how something works or have got their facts wrong. If you've given the game a fair look, and decide it's not for you, then that's cool - there is no way any game is going to please everyone.

[Deleted]

And stop the wow comparisons, wow has nothing to do with this game.

It can and should be compared to wow and other mmo's. In the end this game will have to ''beat'' wow in order to get peoples interest for more than 2 hours and make people shift from one mmo to another. Whenever this newer, ''better'' mmo doesn't have something that another six year old mmo does.. its a big minus.

So compare on!

[Mif]

I can't say I have encountered the lag you speak of in WG or northrend..

They now limit the total number of people in the zone during the battle.
http://wow.joystiq.com/2009/05/06/wi...ter-patch-3-1/

[bladebeso]

i didnt play GW1 so some of these questions may be easy to answer

is there mounts at all in GW2 ??? ground mounts .. i know there arent flying

i have seen in one of the vids tht when the char gets a level he can assign stats points (i was only able to see "power" and "Vitality" ) if tht was the case in GW1 can i safely assume there is a reset/respec option ?