Guild Wars 2

So during the long wait for SWTOR I've been looking into other MMORPGs. The only one that differentiates itself from the pack for me is Guild Wars 2. The design philosophy is doing many of the things I had hoped/still hope SWTOR would do: breaking the trinity, dynamic events where your actions change the game world, branching storylines, a character customization system that just looks to blow everything else out of the water, and a skill system that looks like it would give theory crafters nightmares. The combat system looks interesting, but perhaps a bit too twitchy for my slow non-game keypad using self.

The payment system is also intriguing. The pay for the game (and expansions) with no monthly fee definitely has it's appeal ,and I know my wife prefers that kind of game. I worry that such a system provides little money/incentive for the game developers to continue to work on bugs, balance, and new content once the game is released, but the original Guild Wars seems to be fairly successful. It would seem almost as big as SWTOR, and I would think it would cost a lot of money like SWTOR, therefore, I would think it would need a monthly subcription to recoup the initial investment. However, I'm guessing it doesn't have the VO and music costs or the number of people working on it.

I was wondering what peoples thoughts on GW2 were and what experiences any one has with the original. I may have to check out the free trial for GW in the next few days weeks. It will be interesting if this game releases near SWTOR. I am guessing it will release later since they have release so little information about it so far.

I'm waiting for Guild Wars 2 too and there is a lot more chance my rl friends play that game than TOR.

GW2 dev team is over 200 people and they also have extensive VO (although probably not as extensive as TOR). Both games share voice actors though.

Beside that, my experience with GW1 have been very good so far, but the two GW are going to be quite different from each other, beside the lore, a few class and skills names.

I mostly like Anet dedication to their fanbase, they don't have an official forum, but their community managers are more involved than companies that do have official forums. I also like Anet designs, in the context that they know there are problems in MMO design and they are willing to try to fix them as opposed to do exactly what others do and ignore them. Example, Guild War 1 PvE content was instanced not because the game was B2P, but because they didn't like kill stealers and griefers and now GW2 will make sure everybody is rewarded for participation without the need to be in group. They also understand that MMO doesn't stand for "group" and that you can interact with other players without being grouped with them. They also understand what PvP mean. And finally, they stand for fairness: skills can have 2 version (PvP and PvE), "top" armor is available to all (difference at top level is cosmetic only), etc.

Doesn't mean everything they try works in the end, but at least they try.


Also, I don't expect GW2 to be released in 2011...

As I've been looking into it, I see they may go to a micro-transaction model for GW2. It makes sense for them. As I said, they seem to have a lot of money they need to make back. However, it would make me less likely to play it, especially if I would have to pay for a box first. I don't know why since I could just limit my self to the $15 dollars of MT's, but it would, I think it's because I would always be behind the person who spent more. Then again I would always be behind the person who plays 40+ hours a week in any game.

I'm kind of sorry I never checked out Guild Wars before. I always heard it was just a PvP game. While I like PvP a like to do a lot of other things too. It seems like PvP exists separate from the story of the game (very much unlike SWTOR). Is this true? Does anyone play this game anymore? What would be the best way to find a good guild for someone just starting out?

I've been watching Guild Wars2 as well. It seems there has been a distinct lack of info over the last couple of months?

Godric_Barbarosa wrote:

As I've been looking into it, I see they may go to a micro-transaction model for GW2.

It's not the micro-transaction found in a F2P games, GW1 also have these type of MT (although they should expand the selection for GW2). They sell expansion (and Campaign in GW1), cosmetic content and things like character slots and more bank pane slots (shared by all characters in an account). They don't want to sell things that will make a character better than another character and cheaters are banned in the most awesome fashion in GW1: Banhammer in GW1.

Although, there was an uproar in the community about a stone for applying one gear stats to another gear that was supposed to be MT only (wasn't in GW1). People were piss off that you couldn't find it in-game as a rare drop, meaning that you would need to buy it from the GW2 store. Seems to have caused the dev to rethink a few things, because last time they talked about it they were looking at ways to have it available in the game...

Godric_Barbarosa wrote:

I'm kind of sorry I never checked out Guild Wars before. I always heard it was just a PvP game. While I like PvP a like to do a lot of other things too. It seems like PvP exists separate from the story of the game (very much unlike SWTOR). Is this true? Does anyone play this game anymore? What would be the best way to find a good guild for someone just starting out?

PvP is separate from the PvE, extremely competitive and team based. The good part is that you can train yourself in a specific place for it. There is still people playing the game, although I haven't logged in since October myself (other games to play!!!!) and for a guild check the main fansite forums or log in the game (lots of guild looking for recruits, I used to get 1 or 2 invites per day when I played the PvE content): http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/ and http://guildwars.incgamers.com/forums/

Although, you can't group with a trial account and if you want to buy the game, try to find a Prophecies + Eye of North pack (aka Platinum Edition). The campaigns are standalone (Prophecies, Factions and Nightfall), but the expansion require a campaign to play.

As for lack of info, we should get a new class reveal soon (as in month of January).

Anet is 10 years old: 10 years retrospective of Anet

There's clips of GW2 and GW1 in the background.

I loved Guild Wars 1 and I can rant on and on about how I think their skill system is the best I've played in any MMO for so so so many reasons. While I'm very excited about Guild Wars 2 I'm also very skeptical...and mainly because some of the reasons you mentioned. Mainly "breaking the trinity". I feel that if the game succeeds in allowing all players to heal themselves, with no healers, and no "tanks" and such...the core of the MMORPG fighting dynamic of teamplay will break down to a watered down version of ....say.... a third person hack n slash.

I could be wrong but I'm more on the worried side than I am on the excited side with Guild Wars 2. I'll likely be buying it regardless to give it a shot because I do still have high hopes for it. Sorry to go into the "trinity" discussion I'll try not to derail this so I apologize if you disagree with the whole trinity thing because I know that's a sore point for some people.

BTW I got done reading the novel Ghosts of Ascalon about a month ago and it was fantastic. I'd highly suggest picking it up and giving it a read if you're interested in Guild Wars lore.

Okay I have to add this in because it's just so flipping amazing.

The reason Guild Wars's skill system rocked everyone's socks off is because you could LITERALLY be in a raid FULL of ONE single class and due to the sheer amount of skills/spells available to that single class EVERY single person in the raid could be using entirely different skills that none of the other players were using, thus distinguishing their role and playstyle by their skill set alone.

It was flipping amazing. And no other MMO I've played has ever achieved such customization in skill sets allowing you to distinguish yourself from others.

JedinWaiting wrote:

Okay I have to add this in because it's just so flipping amazing.

The reason Guild Wars's skill system rocked everyone's socks off is because you could LITERALLY be in a raid FULL of ONE single class and due to the sheer amount of skills/spells available to that single class EVERY single person in the raid could be using entirely different skills that none of the other players were using, thus distinguishing their role and playstyle by their skill set alone.

It was flipping amazing. And no other MMO I've played has ever achieved such customization in skill sets allowing you to distinguish yourself from others.

It sounds like they were already well on their way to breaking the trinity. I think it will be interesting to see what players come up with when they are not told: You stand in front of BBEG and get hit, you keep him from dying, the rest of you burn the BBEG down as quickly as possible.

My biggest fears for the game are: 1)scaling makes content too easy for all but the worst players and 2) how are the going to recoup their investment with the GW1 payment model and what that means for bug fixing and updating. I suppose a third concern is what if people cannot handle being told what to do like in other MMOs. I love there inovations but they might confuse other people.

GW1 doesn't have a real trinity, already. There is no "tank-aggro" mechanic and the mobs AI was coded to resemble PvP as well. Tanking was mostly "put protection/buff spells on character A", character A body-block mobs -> success. Body-blocking was more of an exploit though, it won't be possible in GW2. Tanking in GW2 is putting yourself betting the arrow and the squishies (which is tanking like it should be).

As for your concern Godric:
1)Going by GW1, the game will be hard if you are a crappy player and don't pay attention.

2)Not a concern, at least from Anet perspective (the question get raised quite often at GuildWars2guru).

3) They did a lot of user testing already, they added "icons" on top of certain NPCs to indicate an event (different icon for different event type. I know that shield mean protect/escort). Apparently, one testers didn't think about helping poisoned NPCs because he had no quest telling him to do so, there was no glowing "?" above one of their head either, so he didn't think about talking to the one that keep screaming "we are poisoned". Which mean the game will have idiots-proof "hand-holding" features.

Am i thinking of another game or is GW the one with large amounts of pvp?

Az, I guess you saw the same GDC panel I did. The tester not helping the poisoned towns people because "I don't have a quest" makes me wonder what we are teaching our kids. But I still think people will have problems with any system that deviates from what they are used to, even with all the help a dev can put in.

Mongo, that was the impression I always had of GW1 and why I never tried it. GW2 has a lot more PvE by the looks of it.

Which GDC panel? I have seen a lot of GW2 stuff...maybe too much.

GW1 is big on competitive PvP. The PvE was the "training" ground for PvP, but you don't have to PvP if you don't want to, both systems are segregated as well. Prophecies PvE storyline take over 30 hours to complete.

GW2 will probably be a big PvP game as well, just not marketed as such.

GW2 will have 2 different PvP system:
- Competitive, all characters joining are given top everything (all skills, all weapons and armors), etc.
- WvsWvsW: you can enter at any time and lower character receive a boost. Kind of Open PvP with objectives (DAoC style PvP).

azarhal wrote:

Which GDC panel? I have seen a lot of GW2 stuff...maybe too much.

GW1 is big on competitive PvP. The PvE was the "training" ground for PvP, but you don't have to PvP if you don't want to, both systems are segregated as well. Prophecies PvE storyline take over 30 hours to complete.

GW2 will probably be a big PvP game as well, just not marketed as such.

GW2 will have 2 different PvP system:
- Competitive, all characters joining are given top everything (all skills, all weapons and armors), etc.
- WvsWvsW: you can enter at any time and lower character receive a boost. Kind of Open PvP with objectives (DAoC style PvP).

This GDC panel. It is quite long but is packed with info.

GW2 seems to have a lot more PvE than GW1 with eighty levels versus twenty, dynamic events, repeatable dungeons.

I think GW2 will be the real deal.

Heck, I even enjoy GW -- and GW2 is a massive, massive improvement on that.

(Starting off by being a proper MMO in the first place...)

Godric_Barbarosa wrote:

GW2 seems to have a lot more PvE than GW1 with eighty levels versus twenty, dynamic events, repeatable dungeons.

I wouldn't say more PvE then GW1, they just haven't talked about PvP much, beside saying it's there and that they have 2 types, but it's coming, we can see some blurry clips in the "10 years Anniversary" video.


And GW1levelling doesn't stop at 20. You still accumulate XP and skill points, but your level doesn't change.

blur wrote:

I(Starting off by being a proper MMO in the first place...)

Is that a shot at SWTOR? While we admittedly lack some details, I don't understand what a "proper MMO" offers that SWTOR doesn't. Is it that if you choose to solo to max level you can? There are few games on the market that I can't solo to max level. They stress the soloability of there game because they are trying to open it to the market of the single player RPG-which is their bread and butter instead of just splitting the MMO market with all of the other games out there.

I think he mean proper MMO compared to GW1, which isn't a MMO, while GW2 will be.

azarhal wrote:

I think he mean proper MMO compared to GW1, which isn't a MMO, while GW2 will be.

Ah, yes, that would make sense. My apologies. I guess I'm a little sensitive to the all to frequent complaints in the SWTOR forums about it not being an MMO.

ArenaNet have been on a "rampage" lately.

Lots of new information. I really like how they share info and allow "future" client to see their design process.

They revamped a few things, 2 new classes were revealed. And now crafting was explained.

And all of these will be in the PAX East demo.

As good as TOR showing was at PAX East I was really impressed by GW2. The combat seemed really mobile (Note: I live streamed this presentation and the graphics looked a lot better on my laptop with a shitty video card than they do in this video). While you can run and gun in TOR too all the videos I saw mainly had people standing around doing their attacks. Now this may be because of the ability of the people playing or may be because of the class choices (obviously a thief is more mobile than a ranged class) .However, the inclusion of a dodge ability is promising for the mobility of all classes.

Professional combos are very cool too. Much better than just a static buff. I usually play a healers, hybrids, or ranged dps, but the thief looks so awesome, especially leaping death blossom.

I still worry about the long term viability of GW2, I see a lot of prejudice against it on forums. Then again judging by forums all games suck and no one should ever play any of them. Most of that prejudice comes from all the things that GW didn't have, PvE endgame, crafting, ect. I know that this isn't true for GW2 but people don't seem to realize that. People, also, seem prejudice against anything that isn't subscription based. I also think that many of the features in GW2 are just too different for some people, scaling content, no trinity. Of course, these are the features I love about it.

EDIT: Fixed Link

I have seen videos of GW2 with players standing there, spamming their attacks too. Looked just as bad as TOR videos...

And I love that GW2 is simply "different". In a way, both BioWare and Anet found the same problem in MMO, but they went the opposite direction in the solutions.

The mobility, I think, it has something to do with the people playing and something to do with the class, bt I still think GW2 combat animations are inherently more mobile than TOR. Let's take a look at the most mobile class we have seen in TOR, the Jedi Knight. The Jedi Knight has a force leap, which has been often stated as a very cool move (and I'd agree). It's actually similar to the Thief's Infiltrator's Arrow in mobility and coolness (although the animations are completely different).

The next most movement we have for the Knight is the Power Attack move (I don't know what they are calling this move in TOR but it's the Power Attack animation from KoTOR). The Knight jumps, does a somersault and lands in the exact same place from which he jumped. Compare this with the Thief's Leaping Death Blossom (LDB). With LDB the Thief jumps does a twisting somersault over top of the enemy and lands on the other side of it. I am going to roll a Thief and use double daggers for this move alone.

Plus the Thief has a number of other combat animations where the character moves automatically: Retreating Shot, Dancing Blade, Roll for Initiative, Withdrawal , and Shadow Step just to name the ones I've seen.

Now I'll admit that we haven't seen all of TOR's combat animations and very little from the Shadow/Assassin and Sentinel/Marauder.

GW2 class are a lot more mobile, because the dev wanted the combat to be about positioning and mobility. Unfortunately, some people aren't used to that concept.

Although, BioWare did it similar things for the rogue class in DA2, so we might be surprised by TOR...


And the thief's infiltrator's Arrow is just awesome, I feel like having a thief just to use that arrow and reach roof.

azarhal wrote:

And the thief's infiltrator's Arrow is just awesome, I feel like having a thief just to use that arrow and reach roof.

I'm going to roll a double dagger thief just for Leaping Death Blossom. I'm going to have a tough time deciding between Double Pistols and and the Short Bow's Infiltrator shot for my second weapon set. Do you know if it's just two hot swappable weapon sets per profession? It really would be cool to be able to swap between a ton of different sets but the up keep would be murder. I might have to go weaponsmith and huntsman for my craft skills.