The Guild Wars 2 Official Thread

[Ondo]

Originally Posted by Savok

They said check it out, not to suck their dicks. It's based around the painfully static bullshit we've had to deal with since WoW, GW2 is part of the generation that changes that. If you're totally averse to the idea of playing with other people then yeah you're gonna be fucked. Also no sub fees, lot of people hate those.

Are there people who hate MMOs but like GW2? (Are you one?) I'd be surprised to find one; I'd recommend GW2 to people who like MMOs or haven't tried them much, but not someone who hated them. (Unless they'd only played WoW, or something like that.)

And yeah, GW2 is less painfully static than WoW, by a lot - but not by as much as the hype suggested. They spent almost no time talking about Renown Hearts, which are still painfully static IMO.

And hating sub fees isn't enough to say you hate MMOs - it's just not a defining feature of the genre anymore.

[Widgetcraft]

I've just been using these stress tests to PVP on my warrior, for the most part. Lots of fun. Almost rank 10. During the ultra-laggy stress test yesterday I explored quite a bit, and may I say that the game is fucking beautiful. I especially love the water around Lion's Arch, I swam around there quite a while, found some cool shit.

[Ghostbear]

I think I've settled on Elementalist, I like the flexibility.

[Farsight]

Originally Posted by digitalErich

So I wrote off the Ranger since it's a pet class, but I did want to try one, but couldn't play more than an hour or so during that stress test.

Has anyone spent any time with one? Is your pet pretty integral to your play style or are there "builds" (not sure what the GW2 term is) where you don't need them or they are there just for flavor?

I've played one some. Your pet is integral, not flavor. Without it, you're probably the weakest class in the game. If you don't like pets, don't play the Ranger.

Personally, I like feeling like I have a companion while I play. I like having a second character to manage, and the strategy involved in picking which pets to use (they each have some important unique abilities). And I really like that this game has a sort-of pet-collection mini-game to it, adding a whole other objective to the game. That was probably the kicker for me. The personal story is all well and good, but I'll be the guy building a zoo!

[Savok]

Originally Posted by Ondo

Are there people who hate MMOs but like GW2? (Are you one?) I'd be surprised to find one; I'd recommend GW2 to people who like MMOs or haven't tried them much, but not someone who hated them. (Unless they'd only played WoW, or something like that.)

And yeah, GW2 is less painfully static than WoW, by a lot - but not by as much as the hype suggested. They spent almost no time talking about Renown Hearts, which are still painfully static IMO.

And hating sub fees isn't enough to say you hate MMOs - it's just not a defining feature of the genre anymore.

Yes there is and I'm half one at this point as I've come to hate WoW and its badly designed clones. I'm really not sure why you find it hard to believe people prefer more action based gameplay over standing on the spot and watching your global cooldown but whatever.

The static I meant was in the action but if you want to talk about "quests". Renown Hearts are there so there's always something to do early on while you're still learning the game. As you move into later zones there's supposed to be less and less emphasis on them, shifting more towards dynamic events. Orr is said to be made entirely of dynamic events.

Sub fees still exist for MMOs worth playing. F2P is still a result of a MMO being very bad and/or very boring.

[Ondo]

Originally Posted by Savok

Yes there is and I'm half one at this point as I've come to hate WoW and its badly designed clones. I'm really not sure why you find it hard to believe people prefer more action based gameplay over standing on the spot and watching your global cooldown but whatever.

Oh, I absolutely understand preferring GW2 to other MMOs - I just didn't expect the difference to be enough to cause people who hate other MMOs to like Guild Wars 2.

OTOH, I suppose people who don't like anything about MMOs won't hate them - they'll just avoid playing them. It's probably only people who like some things and despise others that would actually hate them, and I suppose those people should check out GW2, to see if the things they hate are among the things changed.

[Blue]

Originally Posted by Ghostbear

I just said hi to Blue in game and he spurned me!

*runs off weeping*

I didn't even see a message, I'm sorry! In my defense, I was busy feeding cows.

[SilentScreams]

I'm bored of modern MMOs and GW2 hasn't shown me anything new. There's no hate involved, it's just that I won't be getting back into MMOs until somebody tries something different.

[digitalErich]

I just read through the wiki looking for an answer I didn't find: for the WvWvW stuff, are the battle groups fixed or is there some kind of rotation so that the two other servers you're competing with change at certain points?

[Widgetcraft]

Every two weeks the battle ends, and the groups are shuffled. Servers are matched up based on their performance, so hopefully really bad servers will only play other bad servers, and really good servers will only play good servers.

[digitalErich]

Good to know, thanks.

Are we pretty set on Ehmery Bay? I ask only because if it wasn't for CoG, I would be following the WarHammer community over to Jade Quarry. Not because I think that will up my odds of winning WvW stuff, just because of all of the MMOs I've played WarHammer players more easily and readily fell into group-oriented play in PvP, even in a mass of randoms.

I ask only because I took the time today to read through the thread and I didn't see a poll go up or any reason to use of Ehmery Bay other than Ghost suggesting it (which is not a bad reason, just curious).

[Ondo]

Originally Posted by Widgetcraft

Every two weeks the battle ends, and the groups are shuffled. Servers are matched up based on their performance, so hopefully really bad servers will only play other bad servers, and really good servers will only play good servers.

They've also said that at launch battles will only last a day, in order to get some ranking data before switching to the two week battles that will be standard after that.

[Blue]

Originally Posted by digitalErich

Good to know, thanks.

Are we pretty set on Ehmery Bay? I ask only because if it wasn't for CoG, I would be following the WarHammer community over to Jade Quarry. Not because I think that will up my odds of winning WvW stuff, just because of all of the MMOs I've played WarHammer players more easily and readily fell into group-oriented play in PvP, even in a mass of randoms.

I ask only because I took the time today to read through the thread and I didn't see a poll go up or any reason to use of Ehmery Bay other than Ghost suggesting it (which is not a bad reason, just curious).

I'll be on Ehmery for sure, though I'm not a big PvP person. Not that I won't, but it's lowest on the totem for me and I likely won't get around to it until I hit the level cap.

But you're right, perhaps a separate thread should be created where we can all list our accounts, choose a name/server, etc.

[digitalErich]

Yeah, I guess I assumed that everyone was interested in WvW, but if you aren't then it does really matter what server you roll on as WvW is the only activity you can't do cross-server.

I guess server choice really only matters to the people that want to play a lot of WvW together.

[Blue]

Who knows. I really enjoy the dynamic events and they weren't something I was even aware I'd be drawn to. There's a good chance I may find myself in WvWvW and enthralled by it. Already I'm finding there are a good amount of things new to GW2 I didn't even know I'd be interested in. Stranger things have happened.

[Ghostbear]

I have about 7 or 8 people playing with me on Ehmry, most of them are going to playing a lot of pvp.

[digitalErich]

Ah ok, that's a good enough reason for me, assuming you'll let me into the guild

[Ghostbear]

I dunno, I heard you smell weird.

[digitalErich]

That has nothing to do with my ability to play this game.

[Ondo]

I'll probably go Ehmry Bay as well, though I don't want to make a final choice until the final list is out, and I find out more about where other people are going. I'm not planning on playing a lot of WvW, but I definitely want to try it out, ideally with a group using voice chat.

Random fact I noticed on the Wiki: the chef profession has recipes for dyes as well as foods. This makes me happy.

I've decided on my starting characters - Norn Elementalist, Sylvari Guardian, Human Thief, Human Ranger, and Charr Mesmer. I think I've got their looks set as well - images here, if anyone cares. (All from the character select screen in the starter outfit, though.)