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The Official Guild Wars 2 thread

elvn said:
...I think there are different genres coming out this year (GW2, firefall, etc). Some of them are more fps/3rd-person-"console"-combat with mmo framework than rpg-mmo with a 3rd person adventure interface. If people gravitate to one or the other that suits their taste better that sounds good to me. Coming from a long history of rpg geekdom that goes back into pencil and paper stats and dice, and all through console and computer generations of stat(stat/gear and leveling abilities) based games + action.. I like the mechanics that lean more toward the rpg style while still requiring adroit action deployment and player performance from a myriad of abilities. There are other games I play that rely more heavily on arcade/fps style action, but they aren't my mmo-rpg.
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You can say innovation isn't everything, however in my opinion:
While I did like some of what GW2 had to offer I found its backbone ~ interface ~ "operating system" so to speak --- in game "file manager"/inventory and interaction menus of all sorts, overall customization ability, etc very, very primitive compared to modern mmos. That along with very limited/archaic keymapping, targeting, camera control, retarded minions/inability to manage them, and overall lack of sophistication were a huge turnoff. If you are not going to push forward I would have at least hoped you would hold the line on these things. To me the backbone/"OS" of the game seems console/indie/clunky and several steps backward .
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........ I bought it ahead of time to get in on the beta (beta+s?) but I'm on the fence and might sell my key when it comes out, if I can. If the rest was more refined I'd prob keep it and play some skirmishes/battlegrounds like some sort of TF2/console-fighter+mmo-lite game for lightweight fun.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5hfYJsQAhl0
 
Adam sandler is a hack.
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elvn said:
You can say innovation isn't everything, however in my opinion:
While I did like some of what GW2 had to offer I found its backbone ~ interface ~ "operating system" so to speak --- in game "file manager"/inventory and interaction menus of all sorts, overall customization ability, etc very, very primitive compared to modern mmos. That along with very limited/archaic keymapping, targeting, camera control, retarded minions/inability to manage them, and overall lack of sophistication were a huge turnoff. If you are not going to push forward I would have at least hoped you would hold the line on these things. To me the backbone/"OS" of the game seems console/indie/clunky and several steps backward .
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People brought up innovation and I stated my opinion that in some facets GW2 is actually several steps backwards. I stand by it.

Its not the simplified action bars and action loadouts, nor just that it lacked customization of the interface/readouts itself - (though in a modern pc mmo game that is expected and would not be considered an innovation) . The whole menu system and interactivity/vendoring/inventory menus etc "operating system" is almost like a clunky console or indie game. Or perhaps like a fps with a mmo inventory/item/menu mod applied to it (woodenly)
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Like many console games/ports and indie games, you can't use mod keys and/or some keys are "stuck" and can't be remapped at all. In GW2 can't save a target in a focus to snap back to it with ranged. You don't have key-able saved camera zoom states nor the ability to keep your camera free without it snapping back to front. Another advancement I miss is AoE looting, a single loot click looting every "pile" in the vicinity of the character. There are so many of these and other things modern mmos do better now.
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So in ~some~ facets, it is the opposite of innovation. GW2's backbone~"OS" interactivity is a throwback imo. To be fair, even games like dragon-age2 and witcher1/2 have really clunky interfaces which are very annoying. I held GW2 to a higher standard than 1996 pc rpg game's or console backbone/interfaces and was shocked at how unrefined they left several aspects of the game.
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As for minions ... minions not even having "passive/attack/defend ..stay/follow" control as an overall state is ridiculous, even if that state applied to a band of them as a whole if you chose to have several. When you take more minions, you trade out those slots that would otherwise have other abilities, so saying overpowered having more minions, many of which might be the weaker variety, may not be an accurate statement as they are tradeoffs taking other ability slots out. You swap the slot out, the minion despawns.
....Personally I wouldn't be the all out army of minions type with some many other powerful abilities avail in the action slot loadouts. Having them randomly aggro the wrong mobs, randomly attack the wrong mobs, stand idle during pulls.. not having the ability to start their march to attack before you start casting, not able to set them on one target (even as a full minion group command in the case of multiple minions) while you attack something else (boss, adds, healer, whatever), not being able to make them passive and run away with you... etc. etc. All major turnoffs for a class I was looking forward to.

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elvn,

I honestly don't get your criticism of GW2.

Probably because I have very little experience with the games that you are comparing it to. (Dragon Age, Witcher, and I assume WoW?)

It's hard for me to understand your expectations and where you think it is falling short.

Did you play much Guild Wars 1?

I think some of the problems you describe are simply due to the gaming being in beta (minion performance / control and key / customization) as GW1 had a lot of what you seem to be missing.

I'm not sure this is in sync with what you are saying, but GW has always been pretty simple in terms of your available skills and control options - the meta game has always been about achieving interesting results from a limited deck of options.

GW2 seems to be limiting us quite a lot compared to GW1 in terms of deployable skills (especially since you cant have a second profession) but I suspect much of the emergent game play will come from players combining their skills (ranger shooting arrows through a wall of fire, etc) and Arena has said as much.
 
elvn's text is really hard for me to read. It's like he used Google Translate from another language to English. I don't mean to be rude, but like I said, it's super hard to read.
 
I don't think its rude, it is to you what it is. I do tend to use and/or's and other parallel thought streams in my sentences, covering several bases in the same line. I also use a lot of introspective thoughts and afterthoughts to summarize or otherwise fill out a theme as it occurs to me, and I'm not averse to using parentheticals and layered explanations either.

To extract some of it in simpler terms..
--- I can't control my interface (can't mod the layout much at all).
--- I can't control my camera
.......(No true free-look, always snapping back to front infuriatingly. No keyed camera zoom states)
--- I can't control my controls (no mod keys, lackluster control customization interface)
--- I can't control my targeting
............... (no next/previous enemy key-able, no storing target in a focus to re-target on keyed press after dealing with off targets, support, or loss of target, etc.)
--- I can't control my minions, even as a simple set of overall minion blanket commands or states (as already described in detail)
--- The interface or what I was referring to as an in game "psuedo-operating system" is console-ish and unrefined, clunky in my opinion in both look and function.

It has(?) potential as a romp, and I do love rpg themed games. I won't say it wasn't any fun playing the beta. Those issues are very pervasive to my play style though so it was very aggravating to me at the same time - so much so that I don't know if I could keep playing it as it is.
 
Other than modding the UI (which IMO is fine) most of the problems you listed will be fixed in subsequent betas and certainly by release.
 
hope you are right. I'll believe it when I see it :p
 
I'm sorry Elvn but your posts are difficult to read and understand. Some of your experiences in GW2 are similar to mine but then you have some that are just way off base.
 
elvn said:
To extract some of it in simpler terms..
--- I can't control my interface (can't mod the layout much at all).
--- I can't control my camera
.......(No true free-look, always snapping back to front infuriatingly. No keyed camera zoom states)
--- I can't control my controls (no mod keys, lackluster control customization interface)
--- I can't control my targeting
............... (no next/previous enemy key-able, no storing target in a focus to re-target on keyed press after dealing with off targets, support, or loss of target, etc.)
--- I can't control my minions, even as a simple set of overall minion blanket commands or states (as already described in detail)
--- The interface or what I was referring to as an in game "psuedo-operating system" is console-ish and unrefined, clunky in my opinion in both look and function.
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1. There's no need to mod a simpler / cleaner UI. The biggest issue is that you can't move anything around right now which I suspect will change later since you could do that in GW1. Again, the WOW UI modding was spawned from WOW's terrible Vanilla interface and overall monster amount of clutter in the game.

2. I'm not sure what you did wrong. My camera control was completely fine and did not snap back.

3. All keys were mappable to me. I'm not sure what else you wanted.

4. Press tab to cycle and shift tab to cycle previous. There is no focus target because part of this game is the ability to select your target without it. I played with a focus target a lot in WOW and don't miss it. They want to emphasize player interaction in the world rather than simply staring at target monitors and HP bars.

5. Ranger pets have passive / aggressive etc. There was ability to further control henchmen / heroes in GW1. Necro minions were never controllable in this sense. That's just how they are.

6. It's a beta interface first of all. Second of all, it's much cleaner and simpler than WOW because the game doesn't want to focus on 6 skill bars and 25 party icons etc. It wants to focus on core gameplay and player skill rather than UI management. You can't go into GW2 expecting WOW-like features when the whole purpose of the game was not to be like WOW.


This does bring up something though: Bottom line is if you love WOW and want another game like WOW out of GW2, you will be VERY disappointed.
 
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I'd love to be able to customize the hot bar buttons if only to better match it up to my gamepad. Makes it easier for me.
Also having the target at the top of the screen is rather annoying. I'd rather have it near my own health bar.

The issue with targeting is that if you target something but instead end up attacking something closer it doesn't change the mob's health bar to the new target you are attacking. Instead it stays on what you selected in the first place. I'd much rather that bar represent whatever it is i'm attacking.
Not an issue when fighting single mobs obviously, just groups of them.

You are supposed to be able to map all buttons. However it wouldn't let me map jump to my middle mouse button. I'm just going to assume it's a beta bug. All other mapping worked fine.
 
fattypants said:
Stress test Monday 11AM-6 PM PDT.

They'll be testing some fixes to issues identified in the BWE.
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They really shouldn't hold a stress test during normal working hours on a weekday. I hope they get adequate numbers to stress the system enough.
 
zoobaby said:
They really shouldn't hold a stress test during normal working hours on a weekday. I hope they get adequate numbers to stress the system enough.
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No idea why they didn't do it on Sunday or something. I can be there for less than half of it since I'm central... sucks if you have to work on pacific time.
 
stewartjm said:
I've also seen some reports that you get some items when you completely explore a region. Something about 2 greens, and I think it happened to me but I wasn't paying close attention.

However... if true, that probably means it's best to be very careful to NOT finish exploring, until you're level 80, since the rewards seem to be based on your level. Unless of course the items have no chance to be top tier...
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Not sure how this would work. Even if you are level 80, your level is modified to fir the zone. So a lvl 80 will still be a lvl 4 in the first areas. So the green will probably match the modified level
 
That level matching is really weird. If everywhere you go, you're level is getting changed--why have a level at all? lol
 
doug_7506 said:
Not sure how this would work. Even if you are level 80, your level is modified to fir the zone. So a lvl 80 will still be a lvl 4 in the first areas. So the green will probably match the modified level
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That's what I was thinking.
 
Vorret said:
Who likes working on weekend?
I know I don't so I won't blame them.
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What...

The issue isn't working on the weekend. The goal is to have a stress test. I know I wouldn't want to waste time on something that wouldn't accomplish the goal at hand. It's their problem if they want a meaningful stress test, not mine or yours. Ultimately it could come back to bite them on release as well. Work on a Sunday or work overtime at release to resolve server stress issues? Your call.
 
They don't have to fill all the servers as they are just carbon copies of each other, they only need to stress one and that won't be hard to fill then.

This Sunday is also mothers day so perhaps that factored into it.
 
Intel_Hydralisk said:
What...

The issue isn't working on the weekend. The goal is to have a stress test. I know I wouldn't want to waste time on something that wouldn't accomplish the goal at hand. It's their problem if they want a meaningful stress test, not mine or yours. Ultimately it could come back to bite them on release as well. Work on a Sunday or work overtime at release to resolve server stress issues? Your call.
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There is no release date yet so they still have time to iron this out. Besides, any gamer that has played mmo's in the past knows not to expect 100% uptime or great performance day one. Give it a week or so. Same with D3. Servers will take a dump the first few days while they add capacity.
 
chockomonkey said:
That level matching is really weird. If everywhere you go, you're level is getting changed--why have a level at all? lol
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Because you go to new places when you level up. It better helps the flow of exploring zones. Your level only decreases to the zone, it doesn't increase. So if there were no levels, where would you know to go? :)
 
http://www.arena.net/blog/mike-obrien-on-the-guild-wars-2-beta


The other week we hosted our first Beta Weekend Event, when hundreds of thousands of players who pre-purchased Guild Wars 2 got their first chance to play the game. This was a huge milestone for ArenaNet; with no NDAs and no press embargoes, the beta version of Guild Wars 2 would have to stand on its own before the full force of the Internet.

I think it’s safe to say that the response was overwhelming in more ways than one. Firstly, the number of people who pre-purchased the game far exceeded our expectations, and we had to temporarily disable pre-purchases. In the end that wasn’t enough, and even with 48 worlds we didn’t have enough server capacity to meet the huge demand.

Fortunately, the vast majority of players were able to get into the game and experience Guild Wars 2 in all its glory. Seeing Tyria come alive, with players interacting with dynamic events or engaging in epic World vs. World battles, was an amazing experience. We’ve highlighted some of the great coverage coming out of the Beta Weekend in another blog post, but suffice it say that we were blown away by the reaction from the community. The positive feedback just strengthens our resolve to deliver the best game possible.
This was definitely a real beta, designed to find problems, gather player input, and learn what work still needs to be done before we ship the game. We’ve listened to your feedback and we’re making some important improvements to the game for the next Beta Weekend Event.

At the same time, we’re also working on server capacity to make sure that we’re prepared for the even greater flood of players who will participate in the next Beta. To that end, we’ve announced a Stress Test on Monday May 14th to test some changes we’ve implemented. This 7-hour test event, which runs from 11 AM to 6 PM PDT (-7 GMT) is open to all players who have pre-purchased Guild Wars 2. The good news is that we’re not wiping characters for this test; we’re using the same build that we used in the first Beta Weekend Event, so you’ll be able to pick up right where you left off. For more information about the Stress Test, log in to the Beta Forums. Please join us on May 14 if you can.

I want to thank each and every one of you for your support—every time you participate in our test events you help make the game better. We’ll see you in-game!
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I suggest that if you have very vocal issues to post them on the official Guild Wars 2 forum. They will read every post in there. Some of them are very good and get a lot of community support. I won't be surprised if we see some of those changes in the future.
 
So, what's everyone planning on doing during the stress test? I think I might try out the mesmer class this time around and do more WvW.
 
Probably working myself/preparing for D3. Can't wait for GW2 but it's still so far off. Who the hell does a stress test on a Monday anyways?
 
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