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[Deleted member 10571]

Any critical reviews / previews out there?

I know this may sound odd, but I'm sick of reading these overly positive previews of new MMOs and when you finally play it, all turns to mush in bad and stiff animations, boring progressing and lack of soul. After being burned with Warhammer Online, RIFT, SWTOR and a few others I need so much convincing to try a new MMO.

So any cuthroat previews from a guy that actually feels the same as me or am I doomed to gamble as usual?

I never understood how people actually thought Rift, Aion, TOR and sooo many other WoW ripoffs would be the next big thing

I know you're an amazing guy, Sethos, so plese don't take this personal, it's just that I really, honestly can't understand that. You could see those games bomb (or at least losing steam verrrry fast) a mile away. I'll go ahead and say the same about TSW btw, just in case.

Although I have to say I was really surprised at how bad WAR and Conan went out of this.

 

[Cromat]

Guild Wars 1 had a lot of charm and soul and I really enjoyed it.

I hope GW2 manages to recapture that feeling but I haven't really been following it or playing the beta. Not to mention the release date is pretty bad for me since I'm starting university in October.

 

[Keasar]

Guild Wars 1 had a lot of charm and soul and I really enjoyed it.

I hope GW2 manages to recapture that feeling but I haven't really been following it or playing the beta. Not to mention the release date is pretty bad for me since I'm starting university in October.

From my current experience, I hope almost any trace of GW1 burns to death. What it can keep is lore, few-amount-of-skills-per-character-in-combat-thingy and freedom of how teams can be assembled.

 

[Sethos]

I never understood how people actually thought Rift, Aion, TOR and sooo many other WoW ripoffs would be the next big thing

I know you're an amazing guy, Sethos, so plese don't take this personal, it's just that I really, honestly can't understand that. You could see those games bomb (or at least losing steam verrrry fast) a mile away. I'll go ahead and say the same about TSW btw, just in case.

Although I have to say I was really surprised at how bad WAR and Conan went out of this.

Yeah I know man, I've become really naive in terms of MMOs after World of Warcraft. WoW was my first MMO experience and it was the peak of gaming career by miles, the music, the gameplay, the art style and progression all came together beautifully. Obviously the magic is kind of lost by now and you just want to 'go back' and experience it again, I'm so desperate for it that I'll jump on anything. Normally I'm the kind of guy that buys 3 games a year and I'm super critical in terms of what I buy ... MMOs, I just bend over and hope for WoW.

 

[Deleted member 10571]

Yeah I know man, I've become really naive in terms of MMOs after World of Warcraft. WoW was my first MMO experience and it was the peak of gaming career by miles, the music, the gameplay, the art style and progression all came together beautifully. Obviously the magic is kind of lost by now and you just want to 'go back' and experience it again, I'm so desperate for it that I'll jump on anything.

Okay, now _that_ feeling I know
Just.. if you see a new MMO and think "oh wow, this might not turn out that great, if it keeps doing XXX" or "Huh, why should anyone play this as long as there is XXX", or "Even if the press says this will be awesome, everything I see looks like it will not", or even "huh, this doesn't look very exciting" - trust your feelings

Anyways, I think no "new" MMO will ever capture that feeling you had while playing your first one, doesn't matter if it's WoW, Ultima Online or Maple Story. Except maybe if it's something completely different, like playing a Sandbox for the first time, or even something that differentiates itself in a way GW2 does.

Some of those are actually 2 reasons already why I think TSW will fail horribly:
a) "this might not turn out that great if it keeps going with those unexciting and unresponsive battles" and "huh, not very exciting"
b) It's the same old in a different setting. Setting doesn't matter as much as gameplay after 5+ hours of play.

 

[Tambini]

Hey guys I just pre purchased Guild Wars 2 after watching some videos of the beta and I'm wondering if the client they let you download from the site is just for the beta weekends or will it be used to play the game when it launches?

 

[Shining Sunshine]

Armbraces are 27-30e

How much is ecto in terms of plat? Everyone always use ecto as a form of currency.

 

[Vano]

Hey guys I just pre purchased Guild Wars 2 after watching some videos of the beta and I'm wondering if the client they let you download from the site is just for the beta weekends or will it be used to play the game when it launches?

For all

 

[Kos Luftar]

How much is ecto in terms of plat? Everyone always use ecto as a form of currency.

I don't know off by heart but if you check the Rare Material Trader you can see how much it's going for. People usually sell it a few K less than the material trader.

 

[RobbieH]

How much is ecto in terms of plat? Everyone always use ecto as a form of currency.

Usually 7k.

 

[Shining Sunshine]

Looking at all these armors. They're like all 60k each to craft. I only have enough money for 2-3 at the moment, not counting mats.

That's expensive. >_<

Edit: Is Black Moa Chick the only unique pet in the game?

 

[gunbo13]

You know...I was digging into some of my art stuff for another thread and came across something fun.

 

[theMrCravens]

Edit: Is Black Moa Chick the only unique pet in the game?

The only green pet that is easy and basically free to get.

 

[Shining Sunshine]

The only green pet that is easy and basically free to get.

Well, it doesn't seem too easy to craft. 8(

 

[Felix Lighter]

I find myself drawn to MMOs, mainly because I love character customizing and building and RPGs in general, but, in my limited experience with the genre, I also find myself losing interest relatively quickly for a few reasons. I think the biggest issue I have is I end up soloing because the small group of people that I know that actually play the genre play at a pace and efficiency I can't keep up with. Ultimately, the penalties for playing alone become more frustrating than fun and I give up.

I've been reading over some information about Guild Wars 2 and from the information I've read soloing is an option but will it be fun? Will it require being overlevelled at some point or will it require a perfect specific build? Will I miss out on a massive amount of content? The lack of a monthly subscription makes this much more tempting but I don't want to just follow the same disappointing pattern I've run into in the past.

 

[LumpOfCole]

I find myself drawn to MMOs, mainly because I love character customizing and building and RPGs in general, but, in my limited experience with the genre, I also find myself losing interest relatively quickly for a few reasons. I think the biggest issue I have is I end up soloing because the small group of people that I know that actually play the genre play at a pace and efficiency I can't keep up with. Ultimately, the penalties for playing alone become more frustrating than fun and I give up.

I've been reading over some information about Guild Wars 2 and from the information I've read soloing is an option but will it be fun? Will it require being overlevelled at some point or will it require a perfect specific build? Will I miss out on a massive amount of content? The lack of a monthly subscription makes this much more tempting but I don't want to just follow the same disappointing pattern I've run into in the past.

GW2 is different than other MMOs in the following ways:

1) Overleveling while going through content is just not in this game. Anet 'downlevels' your character to match the appropriate level of the area - this means you'll get loot and gold appropriate for your real level as you play lower level content, even if playing with friends.
2) Yea, you can get through the whole game without grouping up. However, GW2 is built different than other MMOs socially: Loot is all individual instead of roll-offs. Enemies are never tapped. There is never a downside to clearing out an area quest with someone else, even if not grouped with them.
3) Same logic applies to dynamic events. You don't have to group up in order to get anything more out of them - you just go to the area and do the objective along with the other players gravitated to the area.
4) Missing out in content is the opposite of what BWE players have been worrying about. To maintain high enough levels to progress to new areas and story instances, you almost have to do content from all over the place and other racial areas that you've missed. There's also a significant focus on exploring than other MMOs: much more XP given to you when finding new waypoints, and skill point challenges all over the map which are rather essential to crafting decent builds.

 

[Shining Sunshine]

When a build is like Me/Mo, can I use a Monk with Mes secondary to fill it in?

I don't see what's different since they end up getting the same skills.

Edit: Nevermind, it looks like I can't. Some attributes are tied to primary.

 

[Felix Lighter]

GW2 is different than other MMOs in the following ways:

1) Overleveling while going through content is just not in this game. Anet 'downlevels' your character to match the appropriate level of the area - this means you'll get loot and gold appropriate for your real level as you play lower level content, even if playing with friends.
2) Yea, you can get through the whole game without grouping up. However, GW2 is built different than other MMOs socially: Loot is all individual instead of roll-offs. Enemies are never tapped. There is never a downside to clearing out an area quest with someone else, even if not grouped with them.
3) Same logic applies to dynamic events. You don't have to group up in order to get anything more out of them - you just go to the area and do the objective along with the other players gravitated to the area.
4) Missing out in content is the opposite of what BWE players have been worrying about. To maintain high enough levels to progress to new areas and story instances, you almost have to do content from all over the place and other racial areas that you've missed. There's also a significant focus on exploring than other MMOs: much more XP given to you when finding new waypoints, and skill point challenges all over the map which are rather essential to crafting decent builds.

Ok, I'm still interested. If can get a deal I'll preorder. Thanks for the tips.

 

[BrettWeir]

Had to post and give a HUGE shout out to CadaveriaIX AND RobbieH. Thank you so much for helping me, and the GAF community in GW, working towards some last minute HoM points.

Greatly appreciated!!!

 

[Reikon]

Finally got 30/50 after nearly 250 hours of playing. Glad to be done with the game. There was just so much about the game that annoyed me.

Luxon is the cheapest, do not do Vabbi or Obby. You can grab Jadeite Shards from players for 800 each.

That's funny since I found Vabbian armor better to get points than weapons since 5 armor statues gets you 2 HOM (and then an additional point for Vabbian armor) points rather than 1 HOM point for 5 weapon statues.

 

[Absinthe]

Hey guys I just pre purchased Guild Wars 2 after watching some videos of the beta and I'm wondering if the client they let you download from the site is just for the beta weekends or will it be used to play the game when it launches?

I'm pretty sure they said the client would be the same at launch. You will just download the update for the current beta client, and log in.

 

[Retro]

working towards some last minute HoM points.!

But HoM isn't shut off when GW2 comes out, so how can they be last minute? Answer me that!

I'm pretty sure they said the client would be the same at launch. You will just download the update for the current beta client, and log in.

Yep, they tweeted about it last week; the client you have now is the client you'll use forever.

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

Is there any fun to be had with the original GW at this point? I owned factions way back when and remember enjoying it a bit, so I'm thinking about picking up something while I wait for the sequel. Dumb idea?

 

[Arken2121]

But HoM isn't shut off when GW2 comes out, so how can they be last minute? Answer me that!



Yep, they tweeted about it last week; the client you have now is the client you'll use forever.

Very cool, this should help a little bit.

 

[Helmholtz]

Is there any fun to be had with the original GW at this point? I owned factions way back when and remember enjoying it a bit, so I'm thinking about picking up something while I wait for the sequel. Dumb idea?

GW1 can be a lot of fun if you're playing with other people. Going solo at this point isn't very much fun. If you're interested in playing though, I'd recommend completing the Nightfall campaign (has the best tutorial/starter areas/pacing) and then doing the Eye of the North expansion. EotN holds up the best and is the most fun. The other two campaigns (prophecies and factions) are hit and miss, and finishing them solo would be difficult without the AI heroes you unlock by playing Nightfall and EotN.
It's still possible to find people to play with in the game itself by looking for a good guild as well, which I'd recommend doing.

Trying to do some PVP to get Balthazar faction points, I get this distinct feeling I am not doing any good at all. My damage is minimal, they just heal, protect themselves, smite me, curse me, hex me, whatever bullshit. I just get sad at how bad I am.

Fuck people and their super optimized builds...
Fuck this game for forcing me to actually win any rounds in order to get any points...
Fuck this game more for not letting me get anywhere without grinding the fuck out of it...

Spoiler

Yes, I am in a bad mood right now.

Why the heck are you doing Balth faction points, or any PVP at all? It's not very accessible to newcomers and there's not really any reason to be doing it. If it's for a PVP title, the easiest PVP title to get is the ZKey one, which can be done by doing a shit-ton of daily missions/bosses/vanquishes. At least that's how I did it. Grinding PVP is the dumbest thing you can do if you're trying to get a PVP title, it will literally take you forever.

And that's pretty much a rule of thumb for anyone trying to do titles like skill cap, vanquish, cartographer, and mission completions. Do the daily zaishen quests. They will give you coins that you can use for other titles or ZKeys, or you can just sell the coins for a lot of money to buy armor and weapons. ANet has made it much easier to get all the PVE titles with the addition of daily zaishen quests and 7 hero parties. The daily quests synergize extremely well with most of the PVE titles. I'm not saying that doing the dailies to get titles will be quick; it will take a very long time, it took me months of doing the dailies before I got everything done. But the gold and zcoins I got from doing them were extremely useful and allowed me to purchase things to complete several other titles. Not to mention having that daily quest gave me a sense of direction and purpose, instead of aimlessly trying to do different things.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Hey everyone! I'm Weltall, the guy Hawkian sometimes posted about. It seems I've finally been approved today, yay! I've been lurking through virtually the entirety of this thread, the one before and the one before that, all the way back to February or so.

This means I've read and enjoyed perhaps hundreds of posts by Jira, Retro, Gunbo, etc. so forgive me if I sometimes post as if I knew you from a while back, while I'm a perfect stranger to you: I realize it could get creepy fast, so I'll try to avoid it.

There's tons of previously discussed stuff I'd love to give my two cents about, but I fear that would pretty much be mass necromancy. I'll try to take it easy and reply on current stuff, bringing up a previous topic occasionally.

I'm Spanish, so I may make grammar/spelling mistakes when using English; apologies in advance. For some GW2 background, I prebought the week it was available, and I think I broke every record of "most hours played in a day" during the first BWE. As I've been playing passionately over the last thirty years, that's quite an accomplishment.

Well, I think that's quite enough for a first post; don't want to hijack the thread.

 

[Hawkian]

Welcome newly activated GAF buddy

 

[Valnen]

Yep, they tweeted about it last week; the client you have now is the client you'll use forever.

So just to be clear, the client link in this thread's OP http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=471075 can be used at launch?

 

[BrettWeir]

But HoM isn't shut off when GW2 comes out, so how can they be last minute? Answer me that!

Oh, that's easy. All my free time will be devoted to GW2!

 

[Zaph]

So just to be clear, the client link in this thread's OP http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=471075 can be used at launch?

Correct. It's the exact same link you get when you buy the digital version.

 

[Kos Luftar]

Very cool, this should help a little bit.

Are you Arkantos from Guild Wars Guru?

 

[Deleted member 10571]

I'm pretty sure they said the client would be the same at launch. You will just download the update for the current beta client, and log in.

but isn't the whole beta client just a giant .exe file you don't even install? I can't imagine they will keep it like that come the live game.

 

[Huddy]

but isn't the whole beta client just a giant .exe file you don't even install? I can't imagine they will keep it like that come the live game.

Guild Wars is the same.

 

[Vano]

The GW2 Soundtrack is on sale: http://www.directsong.com/mobile/productdetails.php?productid=2250
Autographed by Jeremy Soule.

Also there is an ongoing discussion about how the battle against Zhaitan (The Elder Dragon that will be the final boss at release) will be.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/w88ic/on_combat_with_the_elder_dragons_thoughts/

I think we got a sneak peak of the fight in the release date announcement video, that we will fight him on a ship. Its gonna be interesting to see how Arenanet made the fight, i just hope its epic and not a letdown like Deathwing, GW2 manage the scale of monsters very well and the lore says that Zhaitan is massive, so i hope we see something cool.

People in the reddit link are arguing against the idea of jumping on the back of the dragon and fight it (like Deathwing) and i can see why, as he is so massive that 5 people (if it is a dungeon) or more (depending if we see a fight with him in our Personal History, i guess Destinty Edge jump in to help) would be like flies poking the back of an elephant. I'm guessing Flying ships with big cannons and we the players jump in in some place to help doing something.

Hope we see a fight of big scale, with lots of NPC helping and doing stuff instead of the classic only the heroes defeat the bad guy.

Hey everyone! I'm Weltall, the guy Hawkian sometimes posted about. It seems I've finally been approved today, yay! I've been lurking through virtually the entirety of this thread, the one before and the one before that, all the way back to February or so.

This means I've read and enjoyed perhaps hundreds of posts by Jira, Retro, Gunbo, etc. so forgive me if I sometimes post as if I knew you from a while back, while I'm a perfect stranger to you: I realize it could get creepy fast, so I'll try to avoid it.

There's tons of previously discussed stuff I'd love to give my two cents about, but I fear that would pretty much be mass necromancy. I'll try to take it easy and reply on current stuff, bringing up a previous topic occasionally.

I'm Spanish, so I may make grammar/spelling mistakes when using English; apologies in advance. For some GW2 background, I prebought the week it was available, and I think I broke every record of "most hours played in a day" during the first BWE. As I've been playing passionately over the last thirty years, that's quite an accomplishment.

Well, I think that's quite enough for a first post; don't want to hijack the thread.

Bienvenido! Cool tener otro hispanohablante en GW2-GAF

Now you can wait with us for the release date.

 

[Principate]

Guild Wars is the same.

You do actually have to install gw1. GW2 you don't currently have to install. Notice how one comes up in your currently installed programs list and the other does not.

 

[Jira]

but isn't the whole beta client just a giant .exe file you don't even install? I can't imagine they will keep it like that come the live game.

If you grab the client from http://account.guildwars2.com it will now ask you where you want to put the game, though it's not an installation and is no different than you manually making the folder yourself.

 

[Dreavus]

And that's pretty much a rule of thumb for anyone trying to do titles like skill cap, vanquish, cartographer, and mission completions. Do the daily zaishen quests. They will give you coins that you can use for other titles or ZKeys, or you can just sell the coins for a lot of money to buy armor and weapons. ANet has made it much easier to get all the PVE titles with the addition of daily zaishen quests and 7 hero parties. The daily quests synergize extremely well with most of the PVE titles. I'm not saying that doing the dailies to get titles will be quick; it will take a very long time, it took me months of doing the dailies before I got everything done. But the gold and zcoins I got from doing them were extremely useful and allowed me to purchase things to complete several other titles. Not to mention having that daily quest gave me a sense of direction and purpose, instead of aimlessly trying to do different things.

Yeah, the daily quests are a good way to go in GW1 right now. It has the added effect of focusing the player base on certain things each day too, so if a tough mission is a daily you'll likely find people looking for a group to do it in the following couple days.

If you're going for Zaishen keys, it's more worth your while to sell the silver Zaishen coins and buy keys from other players rather than trade directly for a Zaishen key from the vendor (at least it was a few months ago, not sure if prices have changed much.)

 

[Jira]

Yeah, the daily quests are a good way to go in GW1 right now. It has the added effect of focusing the player base on certain things each day too, so if a tough mission is a daily you'll likely find people looking for a group to do it in the following couple days.

If you're going for Zaishen keys, it's more worth your while to sell the silver Zaishen coins and buy keys rather than trade directly for a Zaishen key from the vendor (at least it was a few months ago, not sure if prices have changed much.)

Also, Silver Zcoins can be sold to players for 2k each.

 

[RobbieH]

Why the heck are you doing Balth faction points, or any PVP at all? It's not very accessible to newcomers and there's not really any reason to be doing it. If it's for a PVP title, the easiest PVP title to get is the ZKey one, which can be done by doing a shit-ton of daily missions/bosses/vanquishes. At least that's how I did it. Grinding PVP is the dumbest thing you can do if you're trying to get a PVP title, it will literally take you forever.

And that's pretty much a rule of thumb for anyone trying to do titles like skill cap, vanquish, cartographer, and mission completions. Do the daily zaishen quests. They will give you coins that you can use for other titles or ZKeys, or you can just sell the coins for a lot of money to buy armor and weapons. ANet has made it much easier to get all the PVE titles with the addition of daily zaishen quests and 7 hero parties. The daily quests synergize extremely well with most of the PVE titles. I'm not saying that doing the dailies to get titles will be quick; it will take a very long time, it took me months of doing the dailies before I got everything done. But the gold and zcoins I got from doing them were extremely useful and allowed me to purchase things to complete several other titles. Not to mention having that daily quest gave me a sense of direction and purpose, instead of aimlessly trying to do different things.

Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry are friendly enough, but it’ll still take forever. If 30/50 is the target then the Zaishen title is not worth getting at all. I mean, it’s 1,000k for 3 points. You could probably fill Devotion and Fellowship with that and still have some cash left.

I just think that people are trying to do too much too quickly. Finish the campaigns in normal mode. Equip heroes (this is the most important part). Do War in Kryta. Finish the campaigns in hard mode while doing the daily Zaishen activities. Turn in the storybooks *. When it comes to money the main thing is knowing what other people need to buy in order to max their titles or reach 30/50. Lockpicks, unidentified gold items, war supplies, Zaishen coins, granite / feathers / iron. Let that stuff accumulate as you play the game. Oh, and every account gets 50 tournament points for free, which can be traded for 10 Zaishen Keys.

* You get 65k if you turn in the normal and hard mode storybooks for the campaigns and EotN. You also get about 400k experience, so if you turn them all in at once that's 1/3 of survivor.

 

[Jira]

Fort Aspenwood and Jade Quarry are friendly enough, but it’ll still take forever. If 30/50 is the target then the Zaishen title is not worth getting at all. I mean, it’s 1,000k for 3 points. You could probably fill Devotion and Fellowship with that and still have some cash left.

I just think that people are trying to do too much too quickly. Finish the campaigns in normal mode. Equip heroes (this is the most important part). Do War in Kryta. Finish the campaigns in hard mode while doing the daily Zaishen activities. Turn in the storybooks *. When it comes to money the main thing is knowing what other people need to buy in order to max their titles or reach 30/50. Lockpicks, unidentified gold items, war supplies, Zaishen coins, granite / feathers / iron. Let that stuff accumulate as you play the game. Oh, and every account gets 50 tournament points for free, which can be traded for 10 Zaishen Keys.

* You get 65k if you turn in the normal and hard mode storybooks for the campaigns and EotN. You also get about 400k experience, so if you turn them all in at once that's 1/3 of survivor.

Yep.

7 unided gold items sell for 5k.
Silver Zaishen Coins sell for 2k each
ZKeys sell for 5-5.5k
Feathers are 8k a stack
Iron is 7.5-8k a stack
Bone is 2k a stack

http://argos-soft.net/GwEstimator/

Use that to find prices for stuff, selling in Kamadan will get you the most bites, though buying/selling minipets in EOTN is a good bet too.

 

[aramanKain]

Hey everyone! I'm Weltall, the guy Hawkian sometimes posted about. It seems I've finally been approved today, yay! I've been lurking through virtually the entirety of this thread, the one before and the one before that, all the way back to February or so.

This means I've read and enjoyed perhaps hundreds of posts by Jira, Retro, Gunbo, etc. so forgive me if I sometimes post as if I knew you from a while back, while I'm a perfect stranger to you: I realize it could get creepy fast, so I'll try to avoid it.

There's tons of previously discussed stuff I'd love to give my two cents about, but I fear that would pretty much be mass necromancy. I'll try to take it easy and reply on current stuff, bringing up a previous topic occasionally.

I'm Spanish, so I may make grammar/spelling mistakes when using English; apologies in advance. For some GW2 background, I prebought the week it was available, and I think I broke every record of "most hours played in a day" during the first BWE. As I've been playing passionately over the last thirty years, that's quite an accomplishment.

Well, I think that's quite enough for a first post; don't want to hijack the thread.

Grammar spelling mistakes absolved with me - your Xenogears username gives you a free pass

Welcome aboard, I too am a recent approval who has been following the GW2 threads here for months!

 

[SnakeswithLasers]

Jeez, just watched some of the IGN profession videos for this game. One-click preordered. Kinda glad I had ignored it up until now, only have to wait a month and a half. Looks really good.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Bienvenido! Cool tener otro hispanohablante en GW2-GAF

Now you can wait with us for the release date.

Gracias! I've been waiting for this game for like two years, but as I mentioned to Hawkian, I'm afraid I'll get a serious case of the "singularity effect", i.e. time will seem to pass slower and slower the closest we are to August 25th.

As for how are we supposed to fight the dragons, I've been wondering the same thing for some time. The way their scale is portrayed, it seems unlikely that anything but large-scale, possibly vehicle-mounted armament would so much as make a dent on them. On the other hand, physical combat might not be the way they are taken down in the end, if previous efforts have been an indication.

However, that's assuming they are indeed taken down; for all we know, they might simply be repelled temporarily. Each dragon is a flavored enemy generator, being a convenient source of minions up to and including lieutenants, so it might be in the best interest of ArenaNet to keep them around. For example, if Kralkatorrik were to be definitely vanquished, it would not make much sense for any more Branded to appear, meaning their models could probably not be reused in any further content, including expansions. Same for Primordus and Destroyers, Zhaitan and undead (or at least his brand of undead), and Jormag and its, uh, icy guys.

On the other hand, I guess at some point players will get sick of these kinds of enemies, and ArenaNet will have probably planned for that, so who knows?

 

[Hawkian]

All I know is I want to play as that damn Branded shark I missed out on during the last BWE event.

 

[Retro]

This means I've read perhaps hundreds of posts by Retro

And all of them pointless. That's actually more of my posts than I've read!

Seriously though, welcome to GAF. Be sure to post your GW2 name in the community thread and we'll see you in BWE3.

So just to be clear, the client link in this thread's OP http://neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=471075 can be used at launch?

If you've got a working client, it should be fine. If it's patching and you're able to get into BWEs, then you're good unless something weird comes up.

Oh, that's easy. All my free time will be devoted to GW2!

You win this round, Mr. Weir.

Also there is an ongoing discussion about how the battle against Zhaitan (The Elder Dragon that will be the final boss at release) will be.

I think we talked about this in a podcast, though I don't think Grizz ever got that one up on Youtube.

My thought is that we'll have a huge Minas Tirith-like fight where Zhaitan will attack Divinity's Reach with an army of undead and the player will take part in the battle to defend the city. I seem to recall ArenaNet mentioning that the fight will take place in the personal story, so the player is actually the hero rather than just part of a massive raid. You can still invite your friends, of course.

Since it takes place in the personal story, the battle is seen from a different perspective based on your race, giving a huge incentive to replay the game and see how each race's Personal Story lead them to the Battle of Divinity's Reach and their part in it. For example;

The Charr warbands arrive behind Zhaitan and attack his flank. You get to see their technology roll up over the hill and terrorize the Risen and tear chunks out of the Elder Dragon. Give them a couple parts on an airship too. I love the reversal of roles as the Charr are helping to save a human city when 250 years ago GW1 opened with them destroying one.

The Asura are maintaining the technological front of the battle, and spend parts inside the city setting up shield generators and fighting off any breaches in that defense. They're also responsible for keeping the dragon from taking to the skies, so they have parts aboard airships as well.

The Humans are in the city, striking down undead forces that break in, using siege weapons to take the dragon down and keep humanity's hope alive. It's their city they're defending so it's much more personal and focused on the people. Still, manning siege equipment against a dragon sounds fun as hell.

The Norn, crazy glory-fiends that they are, are in the vanguard, striking out at the risen army and attacking Zhaitan directly if possible. They're down in the thick of things, making brazen attack runs on feet or legs.​

No idea what the Sylvari might do. Since their entire reason for existing seems to be to stop the Elder Dragons, they have to have some huge part to play. I just don't know what. But the idea of seeing the huge fight from different perspectives. And since others can joint your personal story, you don't have to re-roll each race to see it, though it's certainly cool if you do.

For the record, I called most of the details for the Deathwing fight before Arthas was even downed. I'll dig up the post on MMOChamp if anyone wants to see it. So... yeah... heh.

Jeez, just watched some of the IGN profession videos for this game. One-click preordered. Kinda glad I had ignored it up until now, only have to wait a month and a half. Looks really good.

I'm kind of jealous. Some of us have been waiting an agonizingly long time for even a launch date, let alone launch. Be sure to put your name in the community thread too.

 

[Achtius]

Had to post and give a HUGE shout out to CadaveriaIX AND RobbieH. Thank you so much for helping me, and the GAF community in GW, working towards some last minute HoM points.

Greatly appreciated!!!

yeah CadaveriaIX is awesome, he helped me with HoM too

 

[theMrCravens]

The fact that an Elder Dragon fight is in an instance was one of the most disappointing thing I've read from A.Net.

I know why they're doing it this way, but it's still pretty cheap when they got an awesome "Dynamic Event" system in place.

 

[Retro]

The fact that an Elder Dragon fight is in an instance was one of the most disappointing thing I've read from A.Net.

I know why they're doing it this way, but it's still pretty cheap when they got an awesome "Dynamic Event" system in place.

I think we'll see plenty of awesome dragon-based Dynamic events (just look at Tequatl the Sunless), but putting the 'final battle' in an instance means the player gets to be THE hero and means they can do all sorts of cool, huge things without disrupting the world for those who aren't up to that part, have already done it, etc.

 

[hythloday]

I'm OK with the "final battle" being instanced, depending on how they pull it off.

If they did it as a dynamic event, it'd be spoiling it for everyone who wasn't up to that point in the quest.

I'm also not so sure it'd be believable for a bunch of humanoids to pull off killing a dragon of that (reputed) size as a simple event. It'd be like if roaches took down a human with tiny roach-sized weapons, just because there's 100 of them. In an instance I'm imagining they could pull off a lot more "theatrical stuff" maybe?

 

[theMrCravens]

I think we'll see plenty of awesome dragon-based Dynamic events (just look at Tequatl the Sunless), but putting the 'final battle' in an instance means the player gets to be THE hero and means they can do all sorts of cool, huge things without disrupting the world for those who aren't up to that part, have already done it, etc.

The champion dragons aren't as big though.

I was expecting a whole zone dedicated to Zhaitan only, with multi stage DEs advancing toward the kill. Just by entering the zone you would see Zhaitan's massive body in the distance.

Now he's just a solo Deathwing-style instance.
(or groups, but who groups for Personal Stories anyway)