Guild Wars 2

[Crackers]

Guild Wars 2 is coming out in about a month, anyone else going to be playing this? Wanna get a guild going or something?

[ClickClickahShit]

Comes out tonight!!! already preordered it so I get it 3 days early Going to be freaking sweet! Engineer Charr all the way

[Mamora BAR]

I'll be on Emhry bay with a few friends. Wont be able to play much till next week but ya i preordered also. Charr warrior all the way.

[Kirkendall 1st MRB]

I got in on this, very interesting so far.

[Crackers]

What server do you guys play on?

I'm currently on Gandara

[Goodwin 1st MRB]

I'm on Tarnished Coast (as well as a few friends of mine)

I've got a couple toons I play on - great game. Really well done. In comparison to the other online MMO-RPG's out there this one essentially took all the really crappy aspects of the other games, fixed them and sprinkled in guild wars specific goodies.

I am really enjoying it - a lot.

[Luna 1st MRB]

Thats what you guys said about Star Wars....we'll see... lol

[Goodwin 1st MRB]

Thats what you guys said about Star Wars....we'll see... lol

What I like about this one - as opposed to any of the others - is that you can do all the fun stuff I enjoy (pvp) at any level. It automatically bumps you to the max level (80) when you're pvp'ing and ups your gear accordingly. So while you might not be the most decked out person, you can still have some fun.

This has given me the ability to play the leveling portion of the game at my own pace and the way I want. I've been clearing zones in their entirety - which I have never done before in any MMO because I've always felt the 'rush to max level so you can see end game content' pressure. With this game, I don't feel that, and I love it!

[Yamagata 1st MRB]

It seems like a requirement to clear whole areas unless you jump around to every zone at or below your level (and sometimes complete an area and jump to lower level zones) to keep up with the min level requirements for your story. Good re-playability so far, I'm not much of a PVP person, but I'll try it at some point.

And hey, SWTOR was amazing... until you hit the end. Speaking of, I heard Star Wars is going to be free-to-play very soon.

[Kirkendall 1st MRB]

Thats what you guys said about Star Wars....we'll see... lol

I still maintain that The Old Republic is fun, but they did it wrong. As if yet another person saying it will change about the poor job Bioware/EA did. It's almost like a singleplayer game that was made into a multiplayer one, so you run into a wall once you hit max level. Huttball and instances, yay.

GW2, on the other hand, doesn't let you forget it's an MMO. There's numerous ways the PVP works. There's no openworld PVP, love it or hate it, but you can queue up and go into 5v5 style PVP at any time. If you do, you'll find yourself equipped with good PVP gear, be level 80 and have a multitude of skills unlocked, but none of the race-based skills (I assume to keep more even play). Another big form of PVP is the World versus World. Or WvWvW. In World PVP, Guild Wars 2 pits servers against each other in massive PVP. Once you join (and queuing for this I find is tough to wait through) you will be put into a castle with your server team. Outside of your castle, there will be forts, fishing villages, caravans and other things happening. You'll find the two other servers will have their own castles, somewhat mirrored but still usually different based on who's winning. About once every two weeks, the servers will shift, so you'll never have a circumstance where one server just repeatedly bashes on another. At least not for longer than two weeks. But it's cool because you can "follow the zerg" or your main force as it seeks out others for a fight, or maybe band together with a smaller group and attack a caravan or fishing village that another server has just left NPCs to defend. Oh, and you can only create characters on one server at a time, so no spying! If you're server is "winning" you will give buffs to everyone in your server that enhance everything from XP to damage, and usually boosts renown gain for Guilds as well.

I haven't gotten to the max level, mostly because I'm OCD about completion and I haven't had a lot of time. Guild Wars 2 rewards my OCD, giving me a nice chest full of rewards every time I complete a zone. So every race has their "starter area" which you usually stay in from level 1 through 15. But even if you're level 62, you can go back into a starter area, and the game matches your level to the area you are in. So you're still challenged, you still get good experience, and you can still take in more of the game. For zone completion you will need to find all the Waypoints, (which you can then spend money to teleport to) Points of Interest, (which are just basically area identifiers) Vistas, (which sometimes require platforming to get to, then provide a little view cinematic {ooo, pretty}) Skill Points, (Which are mini-quests that give you a skill point, usually constitute of kill this special enemy) and Hearts. The "Hearts" are quests that are around for you to complete. Any zone can have from, from what I've seen, 8-18 quests. As you run around, you'll just get in range of one and it will automatically tell you the objectives, so you really don't have to even talk to the quest giver. On top of all of those, there are random events happening all the time. So you'll be trudging down the road, and you'll see a random caravan that a bunch of people are escorting, and you can jump in and help. In fact, probably one of the most fun events I had was in a level 50ish zone, where I was running along and ran into a storyline event. Which means there's multiple parts to this quest line, and if they are all completed... You get a surprise. So, lucky for me, I jumped in towards the end of the line, with the quest heading stating "Dork BloodHammer (I can't remember the name) is escorting supplies to the front." So I helped escort supplies and I got to this camp with a number of people standing around. The Quest changed saying, "Battle lines are drawn, an ominous wind is blowing..." I said to the people I was with, "Not sure I like where this is going..." Cut to a giant dragon/world boss swooping down and starts attacking everyone and killing a number of us. At the same time, two other camps that all had equal people to ours all charged over and helped us kill the dragon. After a long and interesting tuffle, we killed the dragon and were well-rewarded for our time. Honestly, just the spontaneous nature of that fight puts this game at one of the more memorable and fun times I've had. Plus it was hilarious seeing everyone else who was new to that area freaking out and trying to fight off mobs that the boss spawned, while trying desperately to avoid the dragon stepping on them.

The main storyline... is weird. I can tell it's influenced by the choices you make at the start, as well as the choices you make while you're doing it, but I find that you can miss out on an important tidbit if you hit the "next" button in the cinematics. Who is this guy and why do I care that he calls me a bull's ass? Oh I'm killing him now, well that seems a fitting punishment for verbally insulting me. Still, there are things happening, I can see where it branches off into three different chains that you can follow, and your choices will influence how those play out. Right now, my main quest is glitched, and I was unable to advance it last time I logged on. That made me squint my eyes in anger at the screen, but only momentarily considering how much other stuff I'd done and how few glitches I'd encountered. Don't get me wrong, there are glitches, but very few were game breaking and I could trick the game into fixing itself for me. For example, if you log in and your zone is full of lots of people, you'll be put into an "Overflow" zone where you queue to get into the real zone. The Overflow zone is exactly the same, it's just another instance. You can stay in the overflow if you want to. Anyways, I encountered a glitched out quest, I logged out of the character, then back in. I was then put into the overflow queue as the main instances are frequently filled. Since I was initially in the "main" instance, when I was in the overflow, the quest wasn't broken. So I completed the quest in the overflow, and went on my way. Success!

In short, Guild Wars 2 is a fun game, and since it's free to play (after the initial $60 American) I've found it well-worth my time. I'm not feeling obligated to play, play, play to get my $15 per month worth. Any game that lets me run around with a pet wolf I can name is pretty badass.

TL;DR: I'm bored at work, my work computer doesn't let me play Guild Wars 2, and I'm thinking about Guild Wars 2 while I'm at work.

[Luna 1st MRB]

I've been playing WoW for a long time. With Cataclysm I finally really hit the wall with the game. BUT I still had my friends there and they still raided so I kept playing. Now with MoP coming out it seems only a few are coming back. I personally am not really thrilled with the new expansion but I don't really have anywhere else to go nor was I interested in another MMO. Star Wars I was really on the fence about. Love Star Wars but I had doubts and I had a feeling there wouldn't be a good end game. I love to raid! I'm not really into PvP but with that description that Kirkendall just put up...gdamn it if I'm not tempted to buy the game. Gonna look more into it and who knows, maybe I'll be playing GW2 Thanks to all of you for the heads up on the game.

[Goodwin 1st MRB]

They are trying to balance the wvwvw right now - while you should be playing the same servers for a couple weeks - right now they're switching servers daily in order to find a 'balance', so there isn't a single grouping where one server just owns everything in sight and the other two are useless. I dig they are doing that.

I was a WoW player for a LONG time (somewhere around 3-4 years); I was a raider. On our server for WotLK our guild was 3rd in progression almost the entire life of the expansion - and we prided ourselves on being 'casual' and only raiding 2 days a week. Cataclysm was the nail in the coffin for me. The "new content" wasn't even "new", it was old shit just re-designed. They didn't even bother reskinning half the creatures like they do with the other expacs. And MoP? Don't get me started.

WoW has become a childrens toy - when they started making the raids so easy and making super awesome gear available without virtually any work - I dipped out. I wanted a challenge and WoW failed to provide any at that point. The raids were a cake walk, if not borderline joke and you could afk in battlegrounds and get epic gear that was on par with raid gear. I won't be back for MoP, probably will never be back to WoW.

Guild Wars however has me enjoying the actual game. I'm not sure what it is - but I am really just enjoying traveling around, hitting the group things and seeing the content of the game instead of "go here, grind until level x, then go there and grind until level x, then go here and do this quest chain and grind mobs until level x". The second I find myself getting bored of wandering around doing things in the game, I go do some WvWvW or do some PVP. Or, I go and do a little crafting or gathering. Plenty of little things to do that keep me from burning out. Then again, I'm not putting in 8 hour sessions either (which I did more than a few times with WoW); so perhaps that is helping my enjoyment of it.

Lastly? Free to play. Yes, please. For what WoW was getting every month, there is absolutely zero excuse for how the expansions got worse, and worse, and worse... and now? MoP? Bottom of the barrel - absolutely zero originality. That game is on its way out. Will anything take it's place? Maybe not - but I feel that gamers are okay with spreading out into other things and pulling out of WoW for considerable lengths of time.

[Mamora BAR]

Agreed, played cata...wall hit...grinding rep no thank you. Guild wars 2 ive been preaching about for months. It has exceeded all of my expectations. It really feels like im a world where i can go anywhere and its huge. It feels so alive. Def worth the money and ANet will not disappoint when it comes to fixing what needs to be fixed and bringing forth new goodies.

BTW dont even bother listening to the naysayers who hit level cap in 3-5 days and go WHERES THE END GAME!??!?! FAIL!.....most of us want to enjoy a game...not rush through it and bitch about it. Theres so much to do.

[Goodwin 1st MRB]

[Mamora BAR]

Best picture ever!

vanila wow 40 man raids i miss so much....BWL and onyxia....you had to earn your gear. Although im definitely not a fan of raids anymore lol. Back then they were awesome.

[Goodwin 1st MRB]

Oh man 40-man vanilla was SO awesome!

I think a lot of what took the fun out of it too was all the mods. You had mods that basically made it impossible for you to make a mistake. You consistently know where your aggro is, the dps you're doing etc.

When you have all those mods, it's like using game genie on nintendo - you know everything to make you basically a 'perfect player', and you are only playing a computer that has been pre-programmed with x,y and z things it will do. How people can NOT win in those situations I don't know.

Then when you A) make the raids easier and bring down the amount of people/time/effort it takes to get it done? It's a walk in the park.

I do miss Vanilla.

[H. Stone 1st MRB]

WvW is up an running very smoothly now- If you like Open World PvP now it has happened- just hit B when the game opens and it will say join WvW and click that

Its awesome way to level up and get tons of gold and Karma-----------decked out now and only lvl 32

[Crackers]

WvW is up an running very smoothly now- If you like Open World PvP now it has happened- just hit B when the game opens and it will say join WvW and click that

Its awesome way to level up and get tons of gold and Karma-----------decked out now and only lvl 32

I'm also around that level, what server are you on?

[Goodwin 1st MRB]

I'm also around that level, what server are you on?

Eh hem, if I may - I'm on Fort Aspenwood, we've got a great pvp scene and a rather large guild who always has at least 2-3 people WvW'ing and a lot of regular game play as well. Good group!

However,

Unlike Stone, I do not spend my Karma. Just because the good stuff at level 80 costs a lot (like 20k karma - per item) and that's what I want; so I'm saving.

I just find little upgrades here and there and toss them on my toon.

[Mamora BAR]

Well my server Ehmry bay just got pitted against 2 new servers who are using exploits. WvW has officially been ruined with people teleporting and using a flying cheat/exploit. Huge groups of the other servers people would either be flying all above our heads or porting from location to location. Its gotten so bad that no one on our server wants to even WvW anymore until we get into a new bracket or something. People from the servers were competing against would make characters on our server and use our supplies for stupid shit or sabotage us just to win. Anyone else experience something like this? It seems to be spreading but i havent herd if its affecting other servers.

[Yamagata 1st MRB]

Unfortunately (I guess fortunately?), I hit the grinding phase of GW2 and my interest wandered to another game before the WvW started. Sounds like a nightmare though...

[Goodwin 1st MRB]

I haven't hit the 'grinding phase', I have been doing WvW since 45 (ish) and I'm now 62. I haven't seen any of what you're describing - seems odd/weird and reminds me of some of the games from the late 90's (Delta Force 2 - probably one of the best ever FPS to grace this earth) was absolutely ruined by the cheats/hacks. I can't imagine a game like this having the same issues - but I guess people find weird ways to hack anything these days.

I also have not heard of people creating new toons on other servers in order to exploit the supplies. But to me that seems like it would never work - you'd be talking about at most, maybe 20-30 people? Supplies are fairly fluent and I have a hard time thinking that even on the high end of 20 people trying to ruin it, that it could cause any serious damage to an entire server in wvw. I think realistically you're going to find much smaller groups of 4-5 people trying that - which makes it even less effective IMO. Because of all the time they're going to be "ruining" your servers supplies, the other team will have that many less players to defend their areas and help out - so it seems like at most it would be a wash of effort.

Sounds like you just need to move to a decent wvw server :-D There are a lot of classes that have port abilities - perhaps others are just crying because they aren't quite as capable? Perhaps their computers are junky and they're seeing weird glitches caused by 5 year old graphics drivers and they're seeing people in the sky when they're not, etc. I personally talked to someone who said when his card glitches he doesn't see any water - people are "floating in the air" etc. I haven't had those issues - so I can't say for certain. But I definitely have not heard of the hacks you're talking about - which seem to me that if they were THAT advantageous - you'd have every kiddy on the block trying to get their hands on them.

[Mamora BAR]

Well it was reported by the guild im apart of and about 20 of them witnessed the other team doing all these exploits and shit and were one of the biggest guilds on the server. Theres a thing called the lightening exploit which causes players to fly and something else about people being able to teleport straight to the lord of the keep ect. I didnt see it on hand myself and i think its just server/people related, but my guildies keep reporting stuff like this and were a good WvW server. Past few weeks weve been dominating, but just this recent new pairing with 2 other servers just alot of wierd ass shit and exploits going on.

[H. Stone 1st MRB]

East Coast servers had them do it those players were removed last night while i was playing, never seen a server admin just appear before, this guy named Tamnus [FERG] basically came in and said I found all of you exploiters and Arena is now dropping your accounts a line expect a server interuption, the server counted down from 10 and went offline then back up again, they were all gone.

I think they are handling it case by case but there are always going to be exploiters whatever game you play. I find that how fast the server admins took care of it was refreshing.

[Mamora BAR]

Ya the server who is doing it to us is Magnuuma. I think thats the correct way to spell it. That is definitely refreshing to hear that admins are assessing this ASAP. I hope swift justice is brought to our WvW bracket very soon.

Edited October 2, 2012 by Mamora BAR