The GW2 Trailer dropped today at gamescon in germany, it can also be found on the website: http://guildwars2.com/en/. Nothing in terms of gameplay but more a preview of the engine, it looks pretty, really pretty.

They also have an FAQ section, not much is revealed there, it will be a persistent world game unlike the zoning of GW1. There will be 5 playable races, maybe more.

They also say:
Also, to allow players the freedom to play together even if their friends are at a much higher (or lower) level, we are planning to implement a strong sidekick system, similar to that used in City of Heroes™.

I am not sure what that means.

Tseng Shinra wrote:The GW2 Trailer dropped today at gamescon in germany, it can also be found on the website: http://guildwars2.com/en/. Nothing in terms of gameplay but more a preview of the engine, it looks pretty, really pretty.

Most of it looked like a concept art flash animation, there might have been a couple parts that were engine rendered though.

Tseng Shinra wrote:They also say:
Also, to allow players the freedom to play together even if their friends are at a much higher (or lower) level, we are planning to implement a strong sidekick system, similar to that used in City of Heroes™.

I am not sure what that means.

Typically a sidekick system gives the lower level player a temporary power/weapon/armor boost so that it can feasibly play in higher level areas while he is with the higher level one.

Amaranth wrote:

Tseng Shinra wrote:The GW2 Trailer dropped today at gamescon in germany, it can also be found on the website: http://guildwars2.com/en/. Nothing in terms of gameplay but more a preview of the engine, it looks pretty, really pretty.

Most of it looked like a concept art flash animation, there might have been a couple parts that were engine rendered though.

Tseng Shinra wrote:They also say:
Also, to allow players the freedom to play together even if their friends are at a much higher (or lower) level, we are planning to implement a strong sidekick system, similar to that used in City of Heroes™.

I am not sure what that means.

Typically a sidekick system gives the lower level player a temporary power/weapon/armor boost so that it can feasibly play in higher level areas while he is with the higher level one.

A good chunk of it was the concept flash, starting around 1/2 in or so it looked like they were touring the zones/actual in game footage.

I like that idea.

Here's hoping that it takes GW to the next level. There are certain things it must have in order for me to even consider it:

• AUCTION HOUSE!
• Ability to make money via some form of daily quest system
• A true leveling experience (I enjoy the journey and the leveling experience)
• API for UI customization

I am very hopeful for GW2.

Flobbit wrote:Here's hoping that it takes GW to the next level. There are certain things it must have in order for me to even consider it:

• AUCTION HOUSE!
• Ability to make money via some form of daily quest system
• A true leveling experience (I enjoy the journey and the leveling experience)
• API for UI customization

I am very hopeful for GW2.

I agree, WoW gives you so many options on gameplay and making money which I would like to see in GW2. GW 1 was basically, if you want some money, go aoe farm a buncha stuff with your warrior or elementalist. I thought was pretty cool when I would take my warrior halfway through the shiverpeaks to the ice cave, aggro roughly 40 trolls and just aoe them down, but it took about 20 minutes to run there, and I was mostly just collecting junk to vendor, so I could only zone once before i had to port back to droks. Anyways, its nice in WoW to say, "Ok, I need some gold, but I dont want to go aoe farm mobs or dont have a character that can do that - so maybe I'll go fishing, farm collecting profession materials, sell some profession stuff, do dailies or work the auction house.

I always felt during GW that I was much more apart of the story than I did in wow, probably because of the mission progression and whatnot.

I sure hope they fix fight mechanics as well, it just kinda seemed that aggro was a bit random w/o any real way to designate a tank

Additionally it seemed much easier to get groups for "raid" content because there were so many different ways to do them.

I also thought that the dual class was really good, it mixed things up a lot and let you play around with the builds. I think that was one of my biggest disappointments in going from gw to wow. It was nice as a ranger to be able to use rebirth, necrotic traversal, splinter weapon + barrage etc...

Flobbit wrote:A true leveling experience (I enjoy the journey and the leveling experience)

I felt like Guild Wars had this when it was first released. When they released expansions, though, the seemed to believe that everyone would want to rush to the end-game content and therefore expedited the process. In my opinion this weakened the game. I was really surprised that I was able to level toons to 20 in a single weekend after Factions came out. It took me at least a month (if not longer) to level my first Guild Wars character. To contrast: In Prophecies I came out of pre-searing at level 6 after doing every single quest I could find there. In Factions I came out of the tutorial area at level 15 (almost 16). This really made the rest of the game rather boring. I still remember being excited in Prophecies when I finally got to ascension at about level 19. In my opinion that was pretty good pacing. In Factions you were hitting the doldrums at level 18, shortly after leaving the tutorial area. The end-game in Factions was OK, but my enjoyment was dampened because by then I had been level 20 for a while, could have played through it in a weekend, and had in fact already played through most of it during the beta preview event. Nightfall was a little better, but I thought that the fun part of that game was in the tutorial area and the rest of the game just didn't live up to that. I can't say I'm all that optimistic about GW2, especially if all we're getting from them after a year of development is concept art.

Tseng Shinra wrote:I sure hope they fix fight mechanics as well, it just kinda seemed that aggro was a bit random w/o any real way to designate a tank

Fight mechanics for melee are really simple: it's first-see first-fight. The tank has to pull and then everyone has to wait for the aggro to set in. Unfortunately it isn't so simple for casting. They seem to target squishy players first. It certainly made healing exciting.

Tseng Shinra wrote:Additionally it seemed much easier to get groups for "raid" content because there were so many different ways to do them.

It was easier until they added Ursan Blessing. This basically killed the game for me. No one would take my ele because even with is anti-demon shield and maxed out Norn rep he was no where near as effective as a real melee class and I hated to go with my monk because chest opening didn't really count for him (because that title was not account wide at the time) and healing a UB group was really boring.

One thing I really like about GW as opposed to WoW is that you rely on your class's specialties to take down bosses. In WoW it's the opposite: most bosses are immune and/or resistant to interrupts and debuffs. I guess this is because in a 25-man raid you could conceivably keep a fear going on any boss indefinitely if it wasn't highly resistant. Every fight in WoW seems to boil down to brute DPS, tanking, and healing with gimmicks like polarity or "dancing" thrown in from time to time.

Yes raids usually work around a dps race of sorts in WoW however it's not just polarities or dancing. I'm not sure if you guys have done any Ulduar or Trial of (10/25 raid...Crusader I think?) The fights have some pretty interesting mechanics. Take the Faction Champions fight in the ToC. In 25 version there are 10 raid bosses and two pets. Every class possible and it's has the exact same mechanics of a PvP fight. There is no agro table so everyone has to be on their toes focusing on the current raid target, which would switch every 30 or so seconds when it died. Crowd Control was made to act like pvp so at most 10 second polymorphs so I can't say that I liked the 'raids' in Guild Wars more. All you were able to do is get the 8 people and go into UW or something like that and just kill a bunch of things over and over again. A few of the fights were intense like Four Horsemen, but I can honestly say I have had more fun doing WoW Raids than GW ever had to offer.

The few seconds of actual game footage looked lackluster. The concept art was cool, but I really don't think GW2 will be able to compete that much. While people might buy it to play for a while, with the constant updates to WoW it feels easy to pick it back up after a few months off because something will be differnt most likely. Area.net broke my heart with GW:EN when they said there was no chance of a major update. I understand they are a much smaller company than Blizzard and they don't have monthly fees to work with, but they should've just gave us one more full expansion while secretly drawing a shit ton of concept art. If that's all they got after almost two years since their last expansion, I would not be suprised if they go out of business when GW2 doesn't become the sucess they thought it would.

It looks good, but I got a distinct feeling of "That's all they had? How long have they been working on this?". I'm hoping most of the time was building an ultimate engine and working out lore, since the art looked like a tiny step up on GW (not even as good as Aion Online).

It didn't feel... epic, like most trailers do.

Davis wrote:Take the Faction Champions fight in the ToC. In 25 version there are 10 raid bosses and two pets. Every class possible and it's has the exact same mechanics of a PvP fight. There is no agro table so everyone has to be on their toes focusing on the current raid target, which would switch every 30 or so seconds when it died. Crowd Control was made to act like pvp so at most 10 second polymorphs so I can't say that I liked the 'raids' in Guild Wars more.

This actually sounds a lot like my first impressions of Thunderhead Keep before all the overpowered Factions skills rendered the mission a joke. I remember having to scramble to keep up with the wave after wave of mobs that kept coming. In fact after leaving The Crusaders the guild I joined contained everyone in the first group that I was able to successfully complete THK with. On my monk I finally gave up on trying to pug THK, sucessfully henching it instead by simply camping the king. This mission made you balance speed and energy management. The later missions in GW were all about speed speed speed, not that you couldn't complete them by going slowly, but because there was no incentive to go at a slower pace.

Area.net broke my heart with GW:EN when they said there was no chance of a major update. I understand they are a much smaller company than Blizzard and they don't have monthly fees to work with, but they should've just gave us one more full expansion while secretly drawing a shit ton of concept art. If that's all they got after almost two years since their last expansion, I would not be suprised if they go out of business when GW2 doesn't become the sucess they thought it would.

My sentiments exactly.

Nice, can't wait to see how it turn out.

Flobbit wrote:Here's hoping that it takes GW to the next level. There are certain things it must have in order for me to even consider it:
AUCTION HOUSE!

Auction house is nice, I agree, on the other hand, I'd be happy with GW style trader merchants that take ANY item in the game and actually fluctuate based upon demand (which I'm not sure the current ones do very well).

Flobbit wrote:Ability to make money via some form of daily quest system

Ugh, WoW's grinding is there to keep you paying money every month to get anywhere. Dungeons/raids/etc should be the way to make money if there is one. The Zaishen missions they added to GW make more sense to me, they force you to go do something different each day, instead of do these 25 quests in this order every day to maximize gold output (boring).

Flobbit wrote:A true leveling experience (I enjoy the journey and the leveling experience)

I really hope they have the infinite levels that were rumored (even if each level gets you next to nothing).

While they won't do it, I wish they'd get rid of classes and just make everything skill point based. Make higher level armor increase the chances of spell failure/backlash/mana reduction/etc. Make each weapon type/armor type require skill points to use it correctly, so if you want a mesmer that can use a sword effectively, but points in the relevant skill chains.

On the other hand, I hope they do keep the 'max' gear like the original had, WoW's gear grind is just obnoxious, pretty much kills 'skill' in PvP areas (someone with better gear will pretty much always win), and is there to keep you paying and playing when they release the new raid of the month with even better gear than before.

Flobbit wrote:API for UI customization

This has its upsides and downsides. The add-on system that WoW has is both good and bad. Some of the add-ons are just visual tweaks that really don't affect game play. Things like threat meters and such are just used to reduce the skill required to play the game effectively. Add-ons like auctioneer/bottom feeder/etc really mess with the economy (such that it is) on the server and allow it to be easily manipulated by just a few characters.

Tseng Shinra wrote:I sure hope they fix fight mechanics as well, it just kinda seemed that aggro was a bit random w/o any real way to designate a tank

Personally I despise the 'tank/heal/dps' trinity of WoW, it makes the fights boring, and its completely unrealistic. While the concept existed in GW, it wasn't as pronounced as WoW. Monsters in the game should act like PvP players at all times, they should attack what they can, not just the guy with the most armor that can't be hurt because he taunts them. You should be forced to use terrain and positioning to avoid getting attacked (more like corner tanking in GW), not just have a guy that sits there and calls the monsters cowards which forces the monsters to attack him. While crowd control spells/abilities can be nice they are very abusable, GW probably had too little, WoW seems a bit heavy in that area to me, Warhammer had way way too much.

Amaranth wrote:While crowd control spells/abilities can be nice they are very abusable, GW probably had too little, WoW seems a bit heavy in that area to me, Warhammer had way way too much.

I have to say I've never found anything in WoW that could match my Churning Earth/Unsteady Ground combo from Guild Wars. With a secondary ele dropping AoE in the midst of that, most groups would wipe in short order. It worked great with corner tanking because mobs have a tendency to cluster around the tank. That combo works because mobs in GW have a tendency to run from AoE so the Churning Earth keeps knocking them down. Span used to get really mad because it broke aggro and he didn't think he could get it back but my experience was that they could never run far enough away to reengage with anyone but the tank.

In WoW mobs tend to just stand in the AoE, but they also keep attacking. I don't know of a way to keep a mob from attacking you while also taking damage in WoW, so it's an either/or proposition. Either you shut them down or you damage them, but not both. In my opinion Guild Wars allows players to be much more abusive with AoE if they're smart about it.

Am I the only one excited about underwater exploration in GW2?
Cant wait to see how they deal with a big open world considering they are using a remixed version of gw1 engine.

It should be cool, I hope they make it look good instead of trying to make it look realistic. Although, WoW is beating them to the punch. Next WoW expansion probably will come out before GW2, and it has an underwater city and zone or two.

I wish all this GW2 stuff had come out a long time ago, I used to be really looking forward to GW2.

http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gc-09-guild-wars-2/55235

So I'm not sure how much you guys actually raid, but it really isn't a 'tank/dps/heal' trinity as you described it. Monsters in WoW aggro based off of threat. http://www.wowwiki.com/Threat

A healer can easily get aggro from the tank especially in the first few minutes of the fight or on any fight where aggro tables are wiped (i.e. Hodir/Others I can't remember) Yes if you have Omen or another threat program it makes it easier but people still have to be vigilant. Guild Wars had a lot of skill combinations that just destroyed everything till they were in turn nerfed, Guild Wars was all about exploiting skill combinations. If you were the first one to think of say barrage/splinter then that's awesome, but if you were one of the million others who just used it because it was the highest dps, then you really didn't experience much. Another example is 55 tanking. Everyone did it but it doesn't mean it was super cool or fun, only that it worked for a time.

The depth of the WoW talent trees and the ability to dual/hybrid spec is just as cool if not cooler than being able to kill everything with a few splinter/barrages.

AlexW573 wrote:It should be cool, I hope they make it look good instead of trying to make it look realistic. Although, WoW is beating them to the punch. Next WoW expansion probably will come out before GW2, and it has an underwater city and zone or two.

I wish all this GW2 stuff had come out a long time ago, I used to be really looking forward to GW2.

Well considering they released EotN 2 years ago, and they're making an entirely new game, using just some of the same lore and whatnot I am not surprised. It took Blizzard 4 years from the announcement date of WoW to finally release it, and they're roughly 10x the size of ANET - granted they do have other projects as well. To me it looks like they're making it look good instead of realistic, but if you;re into realistic, check out the screens for FFXIV: http://www.finalfantasy14-online.com/fo ... nshots.php

Davis wrote:So I'm not sure how much you guys actually raid, but it really isn't a 'tank/dps/heal' trinity as you described it. Monsters in WoW aggro based off of threat. .

Understood, but I think you're missing Am's point. Each WoW fight boils down to this:

• Can the tank maintain aggro, be it through high DPS or threat-generating skills (vigilance, taunt, etc.)?
• Can DPS burn the boss down before the healer runs out of mana and/or the boss enrages without generating enough threat to pull aggro off the tank?
• Can the healer(s) keep the party alive without generating enough threat to pull aggro off the tank?

Fights in Guild Wars are much more diverse. A successful Guild Wars fight combines distractions, interrupts, protection, and aggro management skills. You don't have the concept of team builds like pressure or spike in WoW because there is only one type of team build: Tank/DPS/Heals. You never see stuff like, "We finished Ulduar with an Arcane spike build," or, "We just did VoA with Shadow DoTs." People in WoW never broadcast stuff like, "Need Shadow Priest for xxx." Instead it's "Need <healer | tank | DPS> for xxx." That's because the tough fights in WoW consist of 3 people tanking a mega boss and his mini minions while 17 people beat on it and 5 people heal. The only exception to this right now seems to be the new HToC fight and everyone is up in arms because there is no aggro table (i.e. no tank) and the mobs actually use their skills (which means you have to shut them down for a change). But Blizzard even discourages the use of tactics in this fight by placing diminishing returns on "crowd control."

Guild Wars has gimmicky builds like Splinter Barrage and 55 tanking, but in my opinion those are exploits that they should have fixed, and I started to lose interest in the game when they became rampant (Ursan being the culmination of that trend). When prophecies came out the game was balanced much better.

I haven't done a lot of end game raiding, but I'm pretty sure the fights aren't all "tank sits in front. Healer heals. Dps dps's." Blizzard has put a lot of effort into mixing things up. You have to watch for special attacks, there are different phases instead of the same thing happening the whole fight, and you do have to interrupt some things and dodge others. Unfortunately not much of this is in heroics, but they're getting there.

EoE is an extremely interesting fight that isn't completely centric on tank/heal/dps trio, here's a good video of it

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f206/420 ... lygos.html

AlexW573 wrote:I haven't done a lot of end game raiding, but I'm pretty sure the fights aren't all "tank sits in front. Healer heals. Dps dps's." Blizzard has put a lot of effort into mixing things up. You have to watch for special attacks, there are different phases instead of the same thing happening the whole fight, and you do have to interrupt some things and dodge others. Unfortunately not much of this is in heroics, but they're getting there.

EoE is an extremely interesting fight that isn't completely centric on tank/heal/dps trio, here's a good video of it

http://www.tankspot.com/forums/f206/420 ... lygos.html

Yes, but do you need to knock him down three times at each 1/3 health segment to kill him? Hmm I think not!

No, but here's a basic rundown on the fight:

Phase 1:

Simplest phase, DPS boss. I think this ends at around 50% boss health. There are the usual tail swipes and breath attacks to avoid, and sparks that fly in randomly. If the sparks get to the boss, he gets a big buff (the more that get to him the worse it is for the party). However, when you kill a spark it creates a circle of lightning under where it died that people can stand in for buffs. All ranged dps get in those, and melee if it's in range. I think that this is the phase that he sometimes flies in the air and throws everyone around in a giant tycoon, dealing large amounts of damage. Only instant cast heals can be used, so everyone has to have either enough health (a decent amount, anyone can get there without much work) or have they're fingers on potions. Right after everyone lands, the boss comes right back so healers have to be fast.

Phase 2:

Boss flies away, sometimes shooting orbs that create shrinking anti magic fields (don't ask me why he helps the group with that...) Occasionally he does a giant breath attack, which hits everyone. The only way to survive is to be in the shrinking shields. There are casters floating in a giant circle around the main platform, shooting down at the casters. The casters need to be in the anti magic fields to lower the damage (and spend as little time as possible moving to a new one when the one people are in gets too small). Some melee mobs fly down, and those need to be brought down quickly. As soon as they're down, the melee in the group jump onto the flying platform they drop and head up to kill the flying ranged mobs.

This phase ends when all the flying ranged mobs are dead.

Phase 3:

The platform everyone is on shatters (big surprise the first time you play...). Since the fight is in "space", there is nothing to land on. Almost instantly, red dragons save you (each party member lands on one). Everyone now has a special skill set from the dragons. An attack (stacks a debuff and does damage), another attack that expends the stacked debuff for more damage), a shield for when the boss focuses on you, and a heal. Usually a couple people are the designated to be healers and everyone stands near them to get the aoe heals. There isn't really any sort of tank on this phase, the boss attacks some people who get healed by AoE, and the boss randomly shoots an extra powerful beam sometimes (that has to be blocked by that person using the special shield).


Not very tank/heal/dps based is it?

It still sounds very tank/heal/dps with some extras added in.

That is the premise of the MMO I think you guys are missing. There has to be a tank class that will take aggro and not die instantly. There has to be a class that heals them, and there has to be a class that does damage. Guild Wars was absolutely the same thing and I don't understand why you feel GW somehow managed to do Aggro/killing any better than any other MMO.

Davis wrote:I don't understand why you feel GW somehow managed to do Aggro/killing any better than any other MMO.

I don't think they did aggro any better, to be honest. It's the killing part that I like. You have a wide variety in GW. Sheer DPS isn't going to win a fight (even though it helps). It's important to interrupt and distract too. In WoW they actually go out of their way to favor high DPS over "preventive" strategies like interrupts, knock-downs, stuns, and freezing. Most bosses resist these attempts outright and when they don't they add "diminishing returns" on them so that they're only effective for the first minute of the fight or so. If you don't have the DPS to overwhelm the boss by then you're out of luck. That's what I think GW did better than WoW. Note that in terms of content I think that WoW is better than GW, and that's why I'm going on a year in WoW with no inclination to go back to GW. I just miss being able to use skills intelligently and interactively rather than just optimizing my rotation to max out DPS.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Aggro http://www.wowwiki.com/Aggro

I'll agree that I like the variety of GW skills. However, that variety made it not very balanced (and whenever I settled on a build, it was nerfed). GW did a good job on making boss fights use the interesting skills, but it still was "stand here. Facemash. Mobs/boss dies."

WoW certainly doesn't do very well for non-raid interesting fights, but the higher end fights are a lot of fun and you have to keep on your toes. WoW heroics have been improving, I'm hoping they'll be nearly as impressive as the raids in the next expansion.

If GW2 can bring the variety of GW1 skills, crossed with having to keep on your toes (which I think was mainly limited by GW1's engine), and the dynamic world that they've bragged about, it could be very good. But without a monthly fee, it'll be interesting to see how long they can keep it afloat with new content to keep people from getting bored.

AlexW573 wrote:I'll agree that I like the variety of GW skills. However, that variety made it not very balanced (and whenever I settled on a build, it was nerfed). GW did a good job on making boss fights use the interesting skills, but it still was "stand here. Facemash. Mobs/boss dies."

WoW certainly doesn't do very well for non-raid interesting fights, but the higher end fights are a lot of fun and you have to keep on your toes. WoW heroics have been improving, I'm hoping they'll be nearly as impressive as the raids in the next expansion.

If GW2 can bring the variety of GW1 skills, crossed with having to keep on your toes (which I think was mainly limited by GW1's engine), and the dynamic world that they've bragged about, it could be very good. But without a monthly fee, it'll be interesting to see how long they can keep it afloat with new content to keep people from getting bored.

I just started playing some GW again, I dont have very many EotN faction skills but noticed that to make characters more powerful they just introduce these new uber skills - I have heard of the bear form groups, but the skills such as Alkar's Alchemical Acid and Drunken Master seem like two skills I will have in my build almost always. It is pretty fun though, a nice change of pace from WoW. It is definitely fun to see how skills interact with each other, something I've missed.

I also liked the whole Primary/Secondary/Bonus objectives on missions where it wasnt just Go Kill the Boss guy because he's mean. But then again thats a whole different system then what wow does.

AlexW573 wrote:I'll agree that I like the variety of GW skills. However, that variety made it not very balanced (and whenever I settled on a build, it was nerfed). GW did a good job on making boss fights use the interesting skills, but it still was "stand here. Facemash. Mobs/boss dies."

Unfortunately, they are going to simplify the skill set in GW2. GW's PvP balance focus pretty much made it sure that things were going to get nerfed and changed over time to keep PvP from getting static and boring. Most PvE nerfs were to shutdown bot farmers. In the end, all of these games are stand/fight/kill to some extent, but there were ways in GW to make things challenging and more interesting (that nobody that plays WoW ever seems to want to do) by using secondary professions to run areas with say an all Mesmer team. GW also had its farmer builds for some regions that people wanted you to conform to, but you didn't HAVE to do it (unless you really wanted tormented weapons). In WoW, to progress through the game, you have to farm everything, and as soon as you get something, oh wait, another instance with new better gear to farm for. Another thing I despise in WoW are the dungeon lockouts, you get to pay to not be able to play (what you want).

AlexW573 wrote:WoW certainly doesn't do very well for non-raid interesting fights, but the higher end fights are a lot of fun and you have to keep on your toes. WoW heroics have been improving, I'm hoping they'll be nearly as impressive as the raids in the next expansion.

Non raid WoW is just pathetically simple if you're solo playing, its all about pull one/two things, kill in 10 seconds, pull next thing. Playing a DK with a blood build, I didn't even have to stop between mobs, and could solo most group 3 quests.

AlexW573 wrote:If GW2 can bring the variety of GW1 skills, crossed with having to keep on your toes (which I think was mainly limited by GW1's engine), and the dynamic world that they've bragged about, it could be very good. But without a monthly fee, it'll be interesting to see how long they can keep it afloat with new content to keep people from getting bored.

All they really need to be able to do is to put out an expansion every 6 months like they were planning to do with GW. Unlike WoW they don't need to keep everyone playing and grinding at all times to keep the revenue stream up.

Tseng Shinra wrote:I just started playing some GW again, I dont have very many EotN faction skills but noticed that to make characters more powerful they just introduce these new uber skills - I have heard of the bear form groups, but the skills such as Alkar's Alchemical Acid and Drunken Master seem like two skills I will have in my build almost always. It is pretty fun though, a nice change of pace from WoW. It is definitely fun to see how skills interact with each other, something I've missed.

To some extent, I think the PvE only skills pretty much killed PvE for me in GW, just as Heros killed some of the social interaction in the game.

Davis wrote:That is the premise of the MMO I think you guys are missing. There has to be a tank class that will take aggro and not die instantly. There has to be a class that heals them, and there has to be a class that does damage.

I disagree with that statement, and I think MMO's would be better if they forced characters to be more balanced and realistic, instead of playing towards min/max strategies. I'd love to see GW get rid of the concept of classes completely, and make everything skill point based, make high level armors cause more spell failure (both for the caster, and the target), the guy wearing a ton of plate armor shouldn't be able to move as fast as someone in cloth armor. Every choice you make should have a corresponding disadvantage. I want a battle to be a brawl, where everyone is fighting for their life, not just an elaborate planned dance. To me, GW came closer to that than WoW ever has.

AlexW573 wrote:If GW2 can bring the variety of GW1 skills, crossed with having to keep on your toes (which I think was mainly limited by GW1's engine), and the dynamic world that they've bragged about, it could be very good. But without a monthly fee, it'll be interesting to see how long they can keep it afloat with new content to keep people from getting bored.

Amaranth wrote:All they really need to be able to do is to put out an expansion every 6 months like they were planning to do with GW. Unlike WoW they don't need to keep everyone playing and grinding at all times to keep the revenue stream up.

Agreed. they have many additional ways to make money as well such as buying new storage space, character slots, unlocking skills for pvp etc etc... If they make GW2 half the size of Azeroth, then release an update twice the size of a WoW major patch every 4 months or so they can easily charge at least 20$ for each 'expansion'. Again, one of the nice things about GW is that you can farm in so many places in the world which can keep things interesting, in WoW, you have a couple level 80 spots which are decent to farm, and if you want a better weapon you only get to do ToC once a week, and if you're not in a guild, good luck finding a competent PuG that can do it.


Have you all read up on the 'event' system they plan on implementing? It sounds pretty cool to me:

Guild Wars 2 will utilize a very different system for quests than Guild Wars 1. Instead of the standard green exclamation point above an NPC's head to mark a possible quest, Guild Wars 2 will use a new Event system. In this system, events will happen with or without the presence of the player, and if a player happens to be present at the time of the event, then the player can complete the quest by participating in the event, and the outcome of the event may effect if, or what kind, of event may happen soon thereafter. Three examples were provided to illustrate how this system may work.
The first example shows the arrival of a dragon near a particular town or village. The players nearby that town or village can choose to fight the dragon. If they are successful, the dragon may flee or die, and the players involved are rewarded by the village elder; if the players fail, the dragon destroys a bridge vital to the village. At that time, the village people attempt to build a new bridge, and the players may help them by fending off a group of bandits that see the opportunity to attack.
In the second example, if a player happens to be inside a garrison when a scouting party returns, they may overhear the scouts warning of an approaching column of centaurs, intent on destroying the garrison. The players can then participate in defending the garrison from the attacking centaurs. If the players are successful, the garrison may ask them to participate in a counterattack. If they are not successful, or if they weren't at the garrison in time to save the garrison, they may join other soldiers from a nearby town attempting to recapture the garrison.
The third example involves a player walking along a familiar road, but this time they happen upon a caravan traveling along the road. They can choose to travel with the caravan, and defend it from roving bandits, or not.

Amaranth wrote:All they really need to be able to do is to put out an expansion every 6 months like they were planning to do with GW. Unlike WoW they don't need to keep everyone playing and grinding at all times to keep the revenue stream up.

That's what soured me on ArenaNet. When I first started playing GW I was drawn in by the promise of new content every six months. When it took a year to get the first expansion out I was disappointed but placated by the free Sorrow's Furnace content expansion. They never managed to put out new content every six months as advertised and when they finally announced that they were end-of-lifing the game after only 2 1/2 expansions I was really bummed. I feel like I can't really trust anything they promise anymore because they have a history of not delivering on those promises. At least Blizzard implements what they say they will and if they can't do so they won't release the game (just like they didn't release the Adventures of Thrall game). I would rather pay a little extra for more content.

Also, the skill system for Guild Wars wasn't overly complex. For whatever reason ArenaNet felt the need to add additional classes with every expansion along with whole new skill sets to maintain PvP balance. This was stupid, in my opinion. I wish they had focused primarily on additional content with maybe a couple of new skills thrown in. Then they wouldn't have had the balance problems they did and the new areas might have actually been fun to play through (I really liked the early part of Nightfall but I thought all the other expansion areas were inferior to the Prophecies areas).

Well, at last we have someone from ANet who sounds excited about it:

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/guild-war ... zombie-tv/

I'm a little worried at the mention of NPCs taking down towns if you don't defend it, I remember hearing bad reviews about Tabula Rasa for exactly that problem.

Also, I think his eyebrows have a life of their own in that interview.

There is a new trailer out for GW2 and it seems like the game is coming along finally. It looks nicer and seems to have a different art style going on. Also it looks like guns(musket type) will be in GW2. Might be interesting, either way it looks like stuff is finally rolling along and a beta seems likely.

Edit: Would post the video, but the site it was on seems to have broken.

It's on guildwars2.com, amazing

Edit: From the FAQ:

When are you going to release more information?
We will release more info about lore and races later this year. We will reveal more about gameplay early next year.

Odds are that wasn't the more info and lore about races (if it was, that'd be absolutely pathetic). Hopefully we'll be getting more stuff soon, as well as gameplay stuff "early next year"

Edit #2: Found the race info http://www.guildwars2.com/en/world/races/

Looks pretty awesome, the script was horrible though. All of the races look enticing to me, as opposed to WoW where only a couple seemed to hold my interest as far as looks/lore/background goes.

I'm not to big on the Sylvari now. It seems they are just elves, but instead of being the oldest race, they are the youngest..... yeah not very original.

When the GW2 beta and game start rolling around, were gonna have to set up a big ST reunion.

I'm up for it, too bad we can't start stashing items for a big party in GW2.

I still log on GW a few times a week, but I haven't been gaming nearly as much as I used to. If we schedule things, I can probably get to them.