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[Quadrophenic]

I can't think of a time when describing gameplay as being "carrot on a stick" had anything other than negative connotations.

"A sense of progression" seems to be the positive connotation version of that phrase, where progression is the goal is the carrot, and the grind/stick is downplayed.

Though his real question just seems to simply be "does GW2 have lastability?"

 

[BattleMonkey]

I get that, but I've never found a game in which I appreciated the stick aspect.

For many people they have concerns because of experiences in other MMOs. Players reach a point where they just have played everything and without a carrot on stick to lead them onto grinds, they tend to go play something else. People are simply concerned about player retention because of friends and guild mates after going through so many games where players reach the end wall and they quit if they are not given incentive to keep playing. The mentality of many MMO players is going to clash with GW2.

I think people will continue to play GW2 for a lot of the same reasons they play FPS or MOBA games; competition. The competition is going to be a big part of this game whether it is in WvW or PvP. And then you have the other typical MMO draw of gear and other character progression.

Also I think this game is the most alt friendly game of all time considering you can start a new character and be PvPing on a level playing field within about 20 minutes.

PVP focus is GW's strong point, it was the most lasting aspect of GW1.

 

[Teknopathetic]

Essentially, GW2 is looking to be a WvW game and PvE-only players are rather hosed.

 

[Quadrophenic]

Or the pve-only people run dungeons as they would raids....or those pve-only people who just keep endlessly rolling alts endlessly roll alts. Same as other games.

 

[Arken2121]

I strongly believe that while pvp will be will pretty much keep everyone playing for years to come; the PvE content constantly released will trumph it. This is because while fighting other players is always fun, new and exciting content with lore, monsters, story and DE will keep the flavor fresh.

 

[Teknopathetic]

"Or the pve-only people run dungeons as they would raids....or those pve-only people who just keep endlessly rolling alts endlessly roll alts. Same as other games."


The people who constantly run raids do so for the gear progression, which is intentionally hinderered in many MMOs due to weekly lockouts and limited drops per kill. I'm not sure if such a thing exists in GW2? Which means the content is going to get blown through within weeks, leaving PvE only players with not a whole lot to do.

It's a common flaw with most MMO launches.

 

[NeededSleep]

This covers end game discussion, carrot on stick or stick stabbing the crap out of the carrot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=eNw-rx42r7E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=djSkqibwJG4 and a bit more


Really loving woodenpotatoes youtube videos for the lore and Q&A sessions!

 

[Vinci]

I strongly believe that while pvp will be will pretty much keep everyone playing for years to come; the PvE content constantly released will trumph it. This is because while fighting other players is always fun, new and exciting content with lore, monsters, story and DE will keep the flavor fresh.

This is how I plan on playing it, yeah.

 

[Arken2121]

This is how I plan on playing it, yeah.

Content is always more fun when playing with others. We're just so used to playing by ourselves that we assume that everything will become stale or we'll just blow through everything and it will all be stale. I don't think it'll be the case here; there's over 1500 DE's and counting, hundreds of hearts, and other forms of multi player aspects to keep us all having fun with each other.

 

[Helmholtz]

Thanks! Sorry, I remembered someone mentioned one, but it took about 12 separate emails to customer service to get my old account back so I was a bit frazzled.

I actually HAVE Factions (but never finished it). It's basically useless you're saying? I should just grab NF and EotN?

It's not useless by any means. It's just a lot faster paced than any of the other campaigns, and it doesn't have heroes that you can use. So unless you have other people to play through it with, you might not enjoy playing it with the basic henchmen, which are non-customizable AI allies.
I recommend starting with Nightfall because it's more polished than prophecies and factions, it has a better beginner area, has heroes you can use if you play the game solo, and has better pacing. But Eye of the North is really where it's at once you finish one of the 3 main campaigns. Keep in mind you can do any campaign with any character, they're not tied to any campaign in particular. So if you finished Nightfall & EotN you could always check out Factions afterward.
And to be honest, GW1 was really always more enjoyable when played with other people. As a single player game it's not very strong, but it's a great co-op/team based RPG.

A lot of it comes down to preference though. Personally, aside from Eye of the North, the original campaign is my favorite, but I typically don't recommend starting with it because it's pretty dated and slow now, and without heroes or real people allies it can be frustrating iirc. But I have fond memories of that game and I really enjoyed its environments/missions and characters/story, even if it was pretty cheesy at times.

 

[Deitus]

The people who constantly run raids do so for the gear progression, which is intentionally hinderered in many MMOs due to weekly lockouts and limited drops per kill. I'm not sure if such a thing exists in GW2? Which means the content is going to get blown through within weeks, leaving PvE only players with not a whole lot to do.

It's a common flaw with most MMO launches.

The people who rush to the endgame content in the first couple of weeks, and then complain that there isn't enough level 80+ content to keep them occupied for the next 4 years are going to get bored, and they will get bored the same way in any game. There is no avoiding this.

Considering this, there are only two real options. Either you design your content to take as long as possible to get through and to have to repeat the same content over again, in order to manipulate people to keep playing your game long after they've stopped having fun, or you just let these people move on.

GW2 is not being designed to be the one and only game for all of its subscribers for the next decade. There is a substantial, but still finite amount of content in the game, and ArenaNet is not interested in dragging that content out to the point of monotony. If you expend all of your effort trying to be the first one to exhaust all of the content, you are just going to get bored sooner. If you take the time to enjoy the game and explore all it has to offer, the content could well last you a long time, provided you also have a life outside the game.

 

[FutureZombie]

If you have an ability that says "bleed your target with the next five attacks" does that mean each attack increases the intensity of the bleeding?

So with the first attack, the bleeding is doing say 40 damage a tick. Then with the next attack, it's doing 80 damage, and so on until each tick is doing 200 damage? And would the fifth attack reset the timer on the bleeding?

 

[etiolate]

If you have an ability that says "bleed your target with the next five attacks" does that mean each attack increases the intensity of the bleeding?

So with the first attack, the bleeding is doing say 40 damage a tick. Then with the next attack, it's doing 80 damage, and so on until each tick is doing 200 damage? And would the fifth attack reset the timer on the bleeding?

Bleeding stacks regardless of any associated skill. It stacks in intensity. I am not sure how duration works though.

 

[Quadrophenic]

"Or the pve-only people run dungeons as they would raids....or those pve-only people who just keep endlessly rolling alts endlessly roll alts. Same as other games."


The people who constantly run raids do so for the gear progression, which is intentionally hinderered in many MMOs due to weekly lockouts and limited drops per kill. I'm not sure if such a thing exists in GW2? Which means the content is going to get blown through within weeks, leaving PvE only players with not a whole lot to do.

It's a common flaw with most MMO launches.

I think the intent with the dungeons (I am not going to claim they have succeeded) is to make them dynamic and different enough to make them enjoyable to run regardless of reward, similar to Left 4 Dead's pve campaigns (and yes, I am aware that some people find the campaigns in L4D worthless and that the only true mode to play is Versus or something competitive). The talk about multiple paths, dynamic events within the dungeons remind me of how the AI director in L4D would mix up encounters/drops in such a way as to make every run through No Mercy a little different than the last.

I know the people who do it for gear progression will be disappointed, but that gets back to the carrot on the stick, the grinding aspect. Why run raids? To get better gear to run raids better!

If Arenanet is able to create dungeons which are dynamic enough to be enjoyable to run repeatedly without the external prod of gear then I think it will be a success. Perhaps a different kind of success, and one that will probably appeal to different types of players than those who suffer through games they don't enjoy just to get 30 points in their Hall of Monument. But for those who play through raids because they want a challenge in which they are working together with other players to overcome obstacles...I think this could work. The minor cosmetic rewards given out for each dungeon (ie the armor sets, and ghostly weapons from Ascalonian Catacombs) might serve as an initial incentive to get people to try the content, while the quality of the content would be the driving force behind repeated excursions. In theory or intent.

If they don't succeed, and the dungeons turn into the same repetitive slog that most MMO dungeons turn into, then yea. I agree, the pve content will definitely be lacking.

One thing though that other MMOs seem to have problems with is that once people start to get into the gear grind at level cap and it becomes a chore (due to lack of content, poor content, repetitive content, or whatever) is that it quickly reminds the player that they have already done this, already gotten this "gear" in their previous game. If their previous game is still active, say WoW, then why bother sticking out the repetitive limited content in LOTRO, or WAR, or TOR, or whatever at launch? When the only reason to play the content is to get better gear, I can't blame them for ditching the game and returning to their old roost.

But again, I am only talking about the intent. And I am sure all developers intend to make the best crafted dungeons that people will play and enjoy (ok maybe not some of the scammy F2P games), and everyone thinks thier shit doesn't stink. I haven't had a chance to smell Arenanet's dungeons, but I do like what they are saying when they talk about their design goals, so I have hope and optimism.

 

[Deitus]

If you have an ability that says "bleed your target with the next five attacks" does that mean each attack increases the intensity of the bleeding?

So with the first attack, the bleeding is doing say 40 damage a tick. Then with the next attack, it's doing 80 damage, and so on until each tick is doing 200 damage? And would the fifth attack reset the timer on the bleeding?

Yes, you can continue to stack bleeds, and it will increase the intensity of the effect each time. Bleed can be stacked up to 25 times in fact. However, additional bleeds do not reset the duration of the initial bleeds. Although you only see a single bleed condition on the enemy, with a number indicating how many stacks there are, each bleed is treated as an independent condition that will time out X seconds after it was initially applied (with X being the duration of the effect), regardless of how many stacks have been applied since. As such, the only way to get more than a few stacks of bleed at a time is when a large group is attacking an enemy.

 

[Jira]

Yes, you can continue to stack bleeds, and it will increase the intensity of the effect each time. Bleed can be stacked up to 25 times in fact. However, additional bleeds do not reset the duration of the initial bleeds. Although you only see a single bleed condition on the enemy, with a number indicating how many stacks there are, each bleed is treated as an independent condition that will time out X seconds after it was initially applied (with X being the duration of the effect), regardless of how many stacks have been applied since. As such, the only way to get more than a few stacks of bleed at a time is when a large group is attacking an enemy.

I can get about 13 or so with a Rifle/Sword/Sword setup on my Warrior, possibly a few more with Frenzy up.

 

[Deitus]

I can get about 13 or so with a Rifle/Sword/Sword setup on my Warrior, possibly a few more with Frenzy up.

Somehow I forgot about skills that apply multiple stacks at once. I stand corrected.

 

[Weltall Zero]

Alucard will be back August 1st, people will just have to deal with my shaggy hair and "respect-my-authoritah" shades until then.

Yah, I even have my avatar for post-RealGAF July cropped and resized... since like 4 months ago

oh man the mushroom hair sylvari is awesome hah!

I'm off to work but I had to skim the video for that when I read it! Indeed, the mongol hat mushroom is awesome.

Essentially, GW2 is looking to be a WvW game and PvE-only players are rather hosed.

But then, how come I had the most fun with an MMO since WoW's launch all these beta events without barely touching WvW? We're talking over 30 hours of gameplay that were simply magical for me.
I understand the concern (whether it's true or not) that there might not be too much post-cap content. However, saying that PvE is neglected from the get go is simply disproven by what we have already played. Of course, it is perfectly OK to dislike what PvE the game has to offer, but that's a different matter entirely.

The people who constantly run raids do so for the gear progression, which is intentionally hinderered in many MMOs due to weekly lockouts and limited drops per kill. I'm not sure if such a thing exists in GW2? Which means the content is going to get blown through within weeks, leaving PvE only players with not a whole lot to do.

This equates PvE players = raid players; however, if I remember correctly, a recent poll revealed than a small percentage of WoW players actually raid. I played WoW for six years, but I raided for like two months, at the start (Molten Core and Onyxia) before deciding it was not for me. Same with my GF, five years of WoW and must have raided like 3-4 times (and only because she's a competent healer and was begged to; she had and has no interest).

If this thread is any indication, raiding is not as popular as one would believe. The focus in development AWAY for raiding is nothing but good news for me; I'm frankly quite sick of seeing all post-launch development time devoted to content I haven't the slightest interest in. I understand that raid-loving players will burn through the game, get bored and leave; that's perfectly OK and I doubt they will not objectively get their 50$'s worth of content, unless they absolutely hated it, of course.

The people who rush to the endgame content in the first couple of weeks, and then complain that there isn't enough level 80+ content to keep them occupied for the next 4 years are going to get bored, and they will get bored the same way in any game. There is no avoiding this.
[...].

Thanasis nails it again. Raiding will always be a race for developers to add new content and players to finish it, satisfying neither raiders nor non-raiders. This is not a raiding game; nothing wrong with that, plenty of raiding games already.

If you have an ability that says "bleed your target with the next five attacks" does that mean each attack increases the intensity of the bleeding?

So with the first attack, the bleeding is doing say 40 damage a tick. Then with the next attack, it's doing 80 damage, and so on until each tick is doing 200 damage? And would the fifth attack reset the timer on the bleeding?

Each "stack" of bleed has its separate timer. If you bleed a target with consecutive attacks, the number of stacks would first rise, then as each bleed wears off in turn, decrease with the same rhythm. Not sure if that makes sense.

... And I see Thanasis explained it better than I did.

Off to work, I'm late!

 

[XEROWUN]

is there dual wielding in this game? i understand each weapon have different properties, but which class can dual wield if any? traditionally, i would think warriors and thieves can dual wield. i really want to dual wield swords if possible

 

[Quadrophenic]

Equiping weapons affect your skills. Mainhand weapons affect the first three, and off-hand effect the 4th and 5th. Usually the offhand weapons are more defensive.

So, yes, you dual wield, but no, its not like WoW or most MMOs where dual weilding just means more DPS on all attacks.

http://www.gw2builds.org/

 

[XEROWUN]

Equiping weapons affect your skills. Mainhand weapons affect the first three, and off-hand effect the 4th and 5th. Usually the offhand weapons are more defensive.

So, yes, you dual wield, but no, its not like WoW or most MMOs where dual weilding just means more DPS on all attacks.

http://www.gw2builds.org/

ohh i get it, normally i can only choose 3 skills from a weapon, but if i dual weild, i can choose 5... hmmm.... kinda wish there was another set for dual wielding....

 

[Piecake]

ohh i get it, normally i can only choose 3 skills from a weapon, but if i dual weild, i can choose 5... hmmm.... kinda wish there was another set for dual wielding....

2 handers give you 5 skills

you get 2 sets of weapons that you can freely swap during combat. a weapon set basically equals either 1 2-handed weapon or a 1 hand weapon and an off hand. Both will give you 5 weapon skills

You can go with 2 2 handed weapons, or 2 dual wielding sets. It doesnt matter

 

[Jira]

ohh i get it, normally i can only choose 3 skills from a weapon, but if i dual weild, i can choose 5... hmmm.... kinda wish there was another set for dual wielding....

You can...you can have 2 weapon sets on all classes but the Elementalist and Engineer. So you could have a Sword/Sword Warrior and your second set could be Mace/Mace or something like that. You simply swap your set out in combat with a button press.

 

[XEROWUN]

i won't pretend i completely understand this, but the build website really helps show me what you guys are talking about

thanks

 

[Quadrophenic]

ohh i get it, normally i can only choose 3 skills from a weapon, but if i dual weild, i can choose 5... hmmm.... kinda wish there was another set for dual wielding....

You choose the weapon types, not the skills. Unless you only equip one onehander, you'll always have 5 weapon skills.

You do choose your heal, elite, and utilities independent of the weapons you are wielding.

 

[Jira]

Yah, I even have my avatar for post-RealGAF July cropped and resized... since like 4 months ago



I'm off to work but I had to skim the video for that when I read it! Indeed, the mongol hat mushroom is awesome.



But then, how come I had the most fun with an MMO since WoW's launch all these beta events without barely touching WvW? We're talking over 30 hours of gameplay that were simply magical for me.
I understand the concern (whether it's true or not) that there might not be too much post-cap content. However, saying that PvE is neglected from the get go is simply disproven by what we have already played. Of course, it is perfectly OK to dislike what PvE the game has to offer, but that's a different matter entirely.



This equates PvE players = raid players; however, if I remember correctly, a recent poll revealed than a small percentage of WoW players actually raid. I played WoW for six years, but I raided for like two months, at the start (Molten Core and Onyxia) before deciding it was not for me. Same with my GF, five years of WoW and must have raided like 3-4 times (and only because she's a competent healer and was begged to; she had and has no interest).

If this thread is any indication, raiding is not as popular as one would believe. The focus in development AWAY for raiding is nothing but good news for me; I'm frankly quite sick of seeing all post-launch development time devoted to content I haven't the slightest interest in. I understand that raid-loving players will burn through the game, get bored and leave; that's perfectly OK and I doubt they will not objectively get their 50$'s worth of content, unless they absolutely hated it, of course.



Thanasis nails it again. Raiding will always be a race for developers to add new content and players to finish it, satisfying neither raiders nor non-raiders. This is not a raiding game; nothing wrong with that, plenty of raiding games already.



Each "stack" of bleed has its separate timer. If you bleed a target with consecutive attacks, the number of stacks would first rise, then as each bleed wears off in turn, decrease with the same rhythm. Not sure if that makes sense.

... And I see Thanasis explained it better than I did.

Off to work, I'm late!

I've done the math and for any real raiding in WoW (not the raid finder crap), it's only about 5-7% of the population and about 1-2% for the heroic raids. Designing content for the smallest portion of your playerbase is stupid.

The way raiding and gear progression works in MMOs is as if the FPS maps you play decreased every few months until you had 1 or 2 every month and those even got switched out every few months. I don't think anyone would like that and don't understand how people say they like less content in their MMOs.

Instead ANet is going to drop content at any level range they want and it's ALWAYS relevant to you as a player due to level scaling. Even if expansions raise the level cap it's still just as relevant.

 

[Grayman]

i found it odd that dungeons were not in the BWEs are lower levels. Not hitting that content until level 30 is strange.

 

[Alister_McCalister]

i found it odd that dungeons were not in the BWEs are lower levels. Not hitting that content until level 30 is strange.

Why is it strange?

You don't have an elite till level 30, and below that you wouldn't have all of your utility skills.

Makes sense to me.

 

[XEROWUN]

I've done the math and for any real raiding in WoW (not the raid finder crap), it's only about 5-7% of the population and about 1-2% for the heroic raids. Designing content for the smallest portion of your playerbase is stupid.

The way raiding and gear progression works in MMOs is as if the FPS maps you play decreased every few months until you had 1 or 2 every month and those even got switched out every few months. I don't think anyone would like that and don't understand how people say they like less content in their MMOs.

Instead ANet is going to drop content at any level range they want and it's ALWAYS relevant to you as a player due to level scaling. Even if expansions raise the level cap it's still just as relevant.

i feel that number was higher even before raid finder, and was at its highest during lich king. blizzard knows designing so much content for just a small percentage was not good, hence raid finder, and making raiding more accessible. its still a work in progress, but its not like they didn't know about the issue since vanilla

 

[Jira]

Why is it strange?

You don't have an elite till level 30, and below that you wouldn't have all of your utility skills.

Makes sense to me.

I think people tend to forget that dungeons you do in GW2 aren't like dungeons in other games where you just blow through them to reach the actual challenging ones. Dungeons aren't a stepping stone in GW2. That and reaching level 30 takes no time at all and as you said you don't have access to all of your slots till 30. Then you actually don't have to be 30 to enter the first dungeon, you can go in at level 2, but you obviously wouldn't succeed.

 

[etiolate]

Most of the major advancements in this game are on the PVE side. It's hard for me to say this is a PVP game when a lot of the team's attention has been on the PVE side of things. I haven't seen the high level content or how many of those large dragon fights we'll be facing. We've seen pretty much all of what there is to be found in PVP. We've maybe seen 15% of the PVE content in comparison.

It's a rather cynical view of the gaming populace to think that the lack of a traditional gear treadmill will leave PVE players wanting. A small percentage of the MMO userbase raids, and even within that group of players, there is a lot of burnout on the Raid gamestyle. (I quit it myself.)

All I am sure of is how the PVP side of things will persist. On that side, I think WvW will be the mainstay hook for a lot of people. sPVP could get to that point, but its lacking in options and desirable options in comparison to the rest of the game. I would argue its the least robust part of the game. PVE's longevity is a mystery as of now. What I've played has been more enjoyable than the usual fare, but what I've played is just a small chip of the greater game.

 

[Chanser]

Might be official, but damn I like that boxart.

 

[Jira]

Most of the major advancements in this game are on the PVE side. It's hard for me to say this is a PVP game when a lot of the team's attention has been on the PVE side of things. I haven't seen the high level content or how many of those large dragon fights we'll be facing. We've seen pretty much all of what there is to be found in PVP. We've maybe seen 15% of the PVE content in comparison.

It's a rather cynical view of the gaming populace to think that the lack of a traditional gear treadmill will leave PVE players wanting. A small percentage of the MMO userbase raids, and even within that group of players, there is a lot of burnout on the Raid gamestyle. (I quit it myself.)

All I am sure of is how the PVP side of things will persist. On that side, I think WvW will be the mainstay hook for a lot of people. sPVP could get to that point, but its lacking in options and desirable options in comparison to the rest of the game. I would argue its the least robust part of the game. PVE's longevity is a mystery as of now. What I've played has been more enjoyable than the usual fare, but what I've played is just a small chip of the greater game.

They've been asked the very question you bring up about how you've seen a lot of the PvE game and less of a focus on PvP. They said that the reason why they have shown so much PvE is because it takes longer to design than PvP and people tend to associate GW with PvP and not PvE at all and they wanted people to know they're dedicated to both for GW2.

 

[Jira]

Might be official, but damn I like that boxart.

HHHHHNNNNNNNNNNNGGGGGGG. Very nice.

 

[Valnen]

Got a beta key from the curse giveaway. Can't seem to register it, getting a web server error.

 

[CarbonatedFalcon]

Snagged a key from the Curse giveaway. Will register it later (hopefully that won't cause any problems.)

Looking forward to checking this out, as I'm almost certain I won't be there for launch, even if I do hop on the train later. Who knows though, this might convince me otherwise.

 

[Nemesis121]

How they plan on linking GW1 account to GW2?

 

[Valnen]

Keep getting error 502. I have to go to work in 30 minutes, nervous that my key will somehow expire or be not useable due to the error somehow. Ugh =/.

 

[Jira]

How they plan on linking GW1 account to GW2?

https://register.guildwars2.com/

Right there on the page you can link it.

 

[DarkSloth]

How they plan on linking GW1 account to GW2?

I did the linking of accounts when I prepurchased gw2. They have a simple form where you put your username and password, I think.

Darnit. Well what jira linked.

 

[Nemesis121]

https://register.guildwars2.com/

Right there on the page you can link it.

Thanks...

 

[AzureSkies]

Might be official, but damn I like that boxart.

This better be official, that box art looks pretty damn amazing.

 

[Nemesis121]

Anyone else made up their mind on what Sex you gonna play for race/class?

I know Charr and Asuran will be Male, every thing else Female...

 

[etiolate]

All my chars will be male except any Norn char. Jora > Manboobs.

 

[Jira]

Anyone else made up their mind on what Sex you gonna play for race/class?

I know Charr and Asuran will be Male, every thing else Female...

Male Norn
Female Human
Male Charr
Female Asura
Female Sylvari

then maybe

Male Human
Male Sylvari
Female Charr

for my other 3 professions.

 

[HarryHengst]

Oh god, i cant think of a good name to register my account with. :lol

 

[Jira]

Oh god, i cant think of a good name to register my account with. :lol

It has nothing to do with your ingame character or anything, it's just your forum handle. When you login to the game you use your email.

 

[HarryHengst]

It has nothing to do with your ingame character or anything, it's just your forum handle. When you login to the game you use your email.

Hmm, but the popup for the four-digit code says

"You'll use it on the Forums, and in Guild Wars 2 after launch. The name and four-digit code will be your handle on the Forums. The four-digit code does not appear in the game itself unless another player chooses the same name, in which case both your name and the four-digit code will appear."


I figured it would mean that would be your ingame name, but guess not? Its a bit unclear.

 

[Jira]

Hmm, but the popup for the four-digit code says

"You'll use it on the Forums, and in Guild Wars 2 after launch. The name and four-digit code will be your handle on the Forums. The four-digit code does not appear in the game itself unless another player chooses the same name, in which case both your name and the four-digit code will appear."


I figured it would mean that would be your ingame name, but guess not? Its a bit unclear.

In game that just applies to the friends list, not your character name.

So it's like I'm uhh Jira.1234 and if you have another person who chose the account name Jira they might be Jira.2587 and that allows you to have the name you want and friend both of those accounts and you can tell them apart in game on the friends list.

 

[Fonds]

Sylvari Character Creation