Guild Wars 2: The One Thread

[Trollsbane]

Hope this post help shed some light on some of the issues.

For sure. Thanks. And thanks for not only quoting things that make me look like a dick. Many people will not bother to look at the origional post, and will only answer based off quotes. I appreciate it. =)

[Anthoren]

For sure. Thanks. And thanks for not only quoting things that make me look like a dick. Many people will not bother to look at the origional post, and will only answer based off quotes. I appreciate it. =)

I like that you are bringing up some interesting points but again this game is not that near done seeing as how there are still more classes to be shown and no release date or window mentioned. Also a lot of the demo's are relatively old builds. probably in july is when we will see the next big and finally new build. As of now I am highly optimistic about this game

[Blznsmri]

A Few Questions
-Do you have to have a pet as a hunter, er, I mean Ranger? (c wut i did thar?)
-I'm really big into Role Playing, how will Personal Stories effect the RP aspect of the game? It would be a damn shame for people to just use their Personal Story as a basis for their character biographies rather than make a biography of their own. Let's be real, Personal Stories can't differ too much between characters, right? I'm also pretty sure the class you choose will have very little impact on Personal Story. Correct me if I'm wrong.
-Wait, the Charr were never a playable race in the first game, right? Never mind, I just had a derp moment.

(That damn asura elementalist (sarcasm) beat me too it and I was mostly contradicted so I axed them, I'm leaving the charr thing cause I fucking can.)

Charr were never a playable race in the first game. The only race you could be was human, however, you could have a Tengu (bird-man) henchman in Cantha, and Norn, Dwarf, Charr, Asura, Centaur and Spirit type thing (It's model was human but it wasn't really human) heroes (personal, costumizable NPC that can join your party) in EoTN and Nightfall.

[Snowy]

Re: The Shatterer
I watched the 5 minute Shatterer battle and I'm very impressed. I saw the video laying around the forums many times, but I never bothered to watch it. I just kinda thought, "Meh, it's just a boss battle", boy was I wrong. The sheer size of The Shatterer puts every boss in every other MMO ever created to absolute shame. The one thing that bothered me in the beginning of the video was how stationary The Shatterer was, but near the end when he flew away in aggravation is when I realized that he did not have to move. Everyone attacking him were more like wasps than an actual threat. Battles like that can really make a player feel small. It's like, you're battling for you life while this giant dragon is barely making an effort to defend itself.

A Few Questions
-Do you have to have a pet as a hunter, er, I mean Ranger? (c wut i did thar?)
-I'm really big into Role Playing, how will Personal Stories effect the RP aspect of the game? It would be a damn shame for people to just use their Personal Story as a basis for their character biographies rather than make a biography of their own. Let's be real, Personal Stories can't differ too much between characters, right? I'm also pretty sure the class you choose will have very little impact on Personal Story. Correct me if I'm wrong.
-Wait, the Charr were never a playable race in the first game, right? Never mind, I just had a derp moment.

The Shatterer fight was toned down for the demo because players for the demo were new to the game. So it's unknown by those not from ArenaNet what the real fight will be like at this point. Also, the Shatterer is only a mid-level boss.

As for your questions:
- Yes, you have a pet and currently the Rangers have a Downed skill that lets the pet slowly try to revive them. It is currently called "Lick Wounds" and yes, people have mad many jokes about using it with a Charr Ranger.
- Your Personal Story starts the moment you start making your character. Your characters race and the choices to character customization questions affect your personal story. The way you interact with NPCs and the choices you make during your personal story affect it. In an interview ArenaNet made mention that you can have a fierce character little children run from when you approach.
- In Guild Wars, you could only play as a human. You had henchmen and heroes of different races that could join your party though.

For sure. Thanks. And thanks for not only quoting things that make me look like a dick. Many people will not bother to look at the original post, and will only answer based off quotes. I appreciate it. =)

You have quite the long post so I'll try to respond to your post tomorrow when I have more time. You bring up a lot of concerns that people may have from watching the videos and I want to be able to give the best answers that I can. Just remember though, the game is still deep in development so animations aren't being worked on that heavily. Those are usually done closer to release of a game.

[Castia]

For sure. Thanks. And thanks for not only quoting things that make me look like a dick. Many people will not bother to look at the origional post, and will only answer based off quotes. I appreciate it. =)

I read your original post..you had some good points but jeez dude are we both looking at the same game when we look at TOR? I mean seriously its Star Wars,Bioware and a MMO! it should be fukin awesome...but from what Iv seen so far it looks terrible,for everything you said about GW2 I can pretty much fire back at TOR I think the actual TOR engine looks really bad.

Also don't get me wrong the voice overs for TOR will be epic there's no doubt in that but from what I seen at PAX it makes the game look so slow,for example I watched some guys running the flashpoint instance and it took them almost 8 mins of just watching 2-3 npc's talk before they could retake control of their character and enter the instance....If it was 8 mins of awesome information/story it would have blown me away but seriously it was so dull and boring I was ready to turn off the video.

Meh I dunno I have prolly got my GW fanyboy hat on but as a fan of the movies and Bioware in general I'm disappointed with what Iv seen so far

[Trollsbane]

Sort of relevant to your post Trollsbane - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXVqa675BSI

I was more refering to the "quest givers" and NPCs that interact with you in the story. As far as the ones in that video, yeah, they are good as they better be. lol

[tehmark]

Been following this game for a few months and it looks great so far. I only wish I could see a video of some of their "dungeons" just to see how that aspect of the game plays out.

[Trollsbane]

I read your original post..you had some good points but jeez dude are we both looking at the same game when we look at TOR? I mean seriously its Star Wars,Bioware and a MMO! it should be fukin awesome...but from what Iv seen so far it looks terrible,for everything you said about GW2 I can pretty much fire back at TOR I think the actual TOR engine looks really bad.

Also don't get me wrong the voice overs for TOR will be epic there's no doubt in that but from what I seen at PAX it makes the game look so slow,for example I watched some guys running the flashpoint instance and it took them almost 8 mins of just watching 2-3 npc's talk before they could retake control of their character and enter the instance....If it was 8 mins of awesome information/story it would have blown me away but seriously it was so dull and boring I was ready to turn off the video.

Meh I dunno I have prolly got my GW fanyboy hat on but as a fan of the movies and Bioware in general I'm disappointed with what Iv seen so far

I know, and a lot of people do. It definately boils down to personal preference. For instance, I think Tera's character models and animations, and subsequently GW2 because they are very similar in looks, look very bad. I think Rift and TOR look far better. Without the fact that I am a Bioware and Star Wars fan in general, I think that game looks beautiful and the animations are solid. Like I said, the subtle things really do it for me, and that game is chalked full of em. And the other thing is, I understand that GW2 is still in development. But so is TOR. Both are still able to be judged by it though. But enough on TOR, I answer posts on that game all the time. lol

[iidesu]

Well done, thanks.

[Relente]

I'm gonna go ahead and expand on this a bit. The Personal Story isn't completely instanced, It takes place in your Home District - A fraction of your races city - that is instanced. It also occurs though dungeons and possibly the open world, unfortunately we do not have enough information about that at this time. However, if you watched the PAX East videos, they showed the Vigil Academy/Keep (whatever the hell it goes by, I'm tired) - which is probably part of the zone, or has a portal like cities - where a major part of your personal story will take place.

Edit:

To clarify, not everyones personal story will take place in the Vigil Academy, you have the option, at a certain point in your personal story, to choose between The Vigil, the Order of Whispers, or the Durmand Priory - which will change your personal story significantly as these 3 groups have different views on how to deal with the Elder Dragons.

This is from the Wiki "The personal story is told through character specific instances and is personalized by decisions made before and during gameplay" - I haven't see any open world personal storyline yet, so we will have to wait and see. In the developer walk through they show the Home District which is the instanced personal story of your races main city and dungeons are instanced, so as far as I can see the personal story is mostly instanced. When I say instanced, I mean you can't see other players within your personal story unless they are grouped with you, which the devs have talked about in the PAX panel.

[ManiaCCC]

This is from the Wiki "The personal story is told through character specific instances and is personalized by decisions made before and during gameplay" - I haven't see any open world personal storyline yet, so we will have to wait and see. In the developer walk through they show the Home District which is the instanced personal story of your races main city and dungeons are instanced, so as far as I can see the personal story is mostly instanced. When I say instanced, I mean you can't see other players within your personal story unless they are grouped with you, which the devs have talked about in the PAX panel.

Big part of personal story is also choosing one of the 3 major factions in the game which will change how you will contribute in dynamic events later in the game and also should change (according one interview) experience in Dungeons. I don't know if the whole "choose one faction NOW" will be instanced or not..but you definitely have to meet these leaders in open world..and also, your choice will impact your experience in open world too.

[Relente]

As far as I know, the personal story is fully instanced based off the interviews and what I have read on the Wiki. Every action you choose in your personal story affects it, so I don't know how that would work if it was in open world. Maybe depending on what you choose for an order you will see changes in the open world when you finish it, but I am not sure. We will have to wait and see when they release more information about the personal story.

[georgevonfranken]

Another point to note for the shatterer is he is not a high level event boss. Hes level 40 or 45 while the level cap is 80

[Relente]

Yeah, ArenaNet seems like the have a lot of cool bosses to look forward while leveling

[Valeron]

-The music is great. With the exception of TOR, I think this is an area that MMOs have failed to capitalize on. I hope GW has the high level soundtrack throughout the entire game.

Music is so subjective that I'm not sure how you evaluate it. However, the one aspect that you can judge a game is on the sounds of the game (walking, different environments, etcetera). I know that the developers are taking sound development for GW2 very seriously so I expect it to be well done. Also, speaking of subjective, I think AoC has had the best music of any mmo to date.

-Character models, animation, and movement

Character models are another subjective area. The one thing I will agree with you is about the faces. I believe they did say they are working on that part so it's a wait and see. Animations and movement seemed ok to me. I do hope there are more animations but the ones they have I thought it was well done. It's not at the level of AoC, which is the best animated mmo that I've seen. Even new mmos such as GW2 and TOR aren't at that level.

-Another thing that comes up often with TOR, is the voice overs (and I will lump "quests" here as well). We've heard many people say, well yeah, but GW2 has over 60 full length films worth of voice overs. (This will come off as mean, I'm sorry) I can definatley see why there is no subscription fee for this game. Those voiceovers were horrible. Absolutely horrible. But let's face it. Every other game is compared to TOR. The voices reminded me of the other MMOs that half assed the voices of NPCs just to do so. And that's what I hear here. The voices were added solely because they don't want people needing to talk to quest givers. So the NPCs needed to talk about the happenings so the player understood. So, while there were no "quests", that's almost not true. You just don't have to interact with the quest giver to receive a quest. Calling it a Dynamic event does not change the fact that it IS a quest. You run into this scripted event, and you partake to recieve reward. If you succeed or fail, you get a follow up quest. The only real difference is that the NPCs are yelling the quest text out, and you don't need to click accept.

Some of them are very quest like, but it all changes depending on the circumstances. Quests in other games never change.

The story mode "cutscenes" really need some work. They look horrible. One person talks, and the text comes over. Then they disapear and it repeats with the next person. There is no emotion. This is a feature that was in older single player games, and the looks haven't improved in this game. The example after the human female starting area shows exactly what I am saying. It was truly bad.

A lot of people have said the same, it was the same in GW. Hopefully they work a bit on it. It doesn't really worry me though.

-Combat was strange. There are cool concepts going on here, much like Tera, but they seem forced. Actually, it really reminded me of Tera, but Tera looked better, even with their strange over the top boob shaking hip wiggling. Everything happens SO slowly. There is more than enough time to use the new dodge feature. It looked boring. Perhaps it was players who didn't know what they were doing. I know that is the case with almost every TOR video. But there was so much strange positioning movement that it caught my eye. The animations made it look stale. I hope that things will improve in this department, cause that's kinda all you do in the game is fight. We'll see.

You are watching players playing the game like they would another mmo. With everything toned down for the demo they can get away with it. They will have to change their style of play for the release or they will die a lot. This really is purely a case of the players not knowing what to do.

-No trinity system, or a veil over the eyes. Hmm..

That is your bias coming out. If you prefer the trinity that's fine but there are other ways to do things. Look at other games for inspiration besides just mmos.

-Single player, or MMO... A

It deviates from the traditional system of grouping. The hope is to promote teamwork and community with the scaling and non tagging feature. What I mean by that is that in WoW, for example, you have two players out of group, one hits a mob first and all of the rewards of that mob (experience and loot) will go to him irregardless of how much help the other player does in that encounter. In GW2 this is not the case. Players won't have to be afraid to help out another player because they are scared of kill stealing or whatever. With the overall theme of events and such the goal here is for everyone to work together to complete the goal. Does it matter that they are in a "group" for it?

I tried to answer as best as I could. Quite a bit is subjective on your part and on mine of course. Your mileage may vary with the answers.

[Deleted]

I have been following Guild Wars 2 since it was first announced in 2007 and the info in this thread could be A LOT better presented and structured.

I would also suggest to put some big concept art or screenshots inside the text pieces to make the thread alot more appealing for reading and not just a wall of text.

Finally if the author of the thread proves to be inactive i suggest giving the thread to someone who can actually present all the information in a visually apeling and well structured way.
->on topic: the game plays and looks fantastic
--->>>quote from Malchior from Killtenrats that played the demo at PAX East:"The thing I can share is that combat is fluid, extremely fluid. The way the skills felt. The way the AI responded. The way the character moved. It felt right."

[Trollsbane]

I have been following Guild Wars 2 since it was first announced in 2007 and the info in this thread could be A LOT better presented and structured.

I would also suggest to put some big concept art or screenshots inside the text pieces to make the thread alot more appealing for reading and not just a wall of text.

Finally if the author of the thread proves to be inactive i suggest giving the thread to someone who can actually present all the information in a visually apeling and well structured way.
->on topic: the game plays and looks fantastic
--->>>quote from Malchior from Killtenrats that played the demo at PAX East:"The thing I can share is that combat is fluid, extremely fluid. The way the skills felt. The way the AI responded. The way the character moved. It felt right."

Somehow, I have the suspicion that you are Spawnxxx being that your first post under this name is talking about this post being not up to par...

Anyhow, it's a start. Ampd will keep adding to it when he has time I am sure.

[Blznsmri]

Somehow, I have the suspicion that you are Spawnxxx being that your first post under this name is talking about this post being not up to par...

Anyhow, it's a start. Ampd will keep adding to it when he has time I am sure.

Are you a wizard?

If that's true, and it probably is, this is why they should do IP bans.

And hey, I started a "one thread" for GW2 and it didn't get any attention, and I didn't bitch.

[Trollsbane]

Are you a wizard?

=D

Why, yes I am. Lol

The other guy didn't get banned though. Reading between the lines of posts, it seems that requested to have that thread deleted, and had to talk with the mods afterwards. My guess is that yet decided together via suggestion that starting fresh was a good idea, or he just made a second account.
Either way, I'm probably going off topic too much and don't want to get slapped.

Thanks so far on the responses to my post everyone. I appreciate it.

[LeBoucher]

Thanks for answering my questions guys.
If the Shatterer is a level 40-45 boss, then I can't imagine what a level 80 event boss is like.