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Guild Wars 2 Launch Date announced: August 28th, 2012

Id simply rather play on a server where I know i can play WvW any time i want to. If that server turns out to be medium to low, then fine by me since our server will be pitted against other mid-tier servers. I really dont care about being on the best server.

If its completely dead and its only us, well, im sure free transfer services will come our way eventually

bwahaha. Not happening.


Something to remember is that for PvE/sPvP, your server literally doesn't matter because you can hop servers and even continents and you can play during prime time somewhere. For sPvP it's region wide anyways so that's not an issue. For WvW, let's say you're on a Med pop server and there's say 30 Med pop in your region. You will be ranked up against those med pop servers based on how you do each week, so your server can become the best Med pop server in your region and that's nothing to sneeze at. Even populations in WvW and actually getting to play is far better and far more important than rolling on a server that everyone and their mother rolled on and you don't actually get to play WvW, but instead you queue up and wait.


Theres more than one WvWvW zone. If one is full you queue for another. I like the idea that no matter what zone I go there will be action. And not going into a WvWvW and being completely helpless like hedge.
 
This. How many have Gaf communities actually done squat in an MMO? Most last a few months then dead. There is a chance since this isn't a P2P title that it will retain. But I wouldn't bank on it either.
I'd go with a high pop server or one of the less popular full servers. At least that worked for me in every MMO prior.

I know the GAF WoW Guild on Area 52 never really got started because it fired up during WotLK after most people already had their mains on other servers and nobody wanted to transfer. I wasn't part of GAF at the WoW launch though.

Most of the other games, the guild died out because people lost interest in the game and/or didn't want to pay sub fees. And without starting another one of those arguments, a lot of those games were crap and GAF was not unique in abandoning them.

The sad thing is i doubt cross world guild chat works.

Yes it does, as long as you're representing. We had guys on the EU server in guild chat.

Also i just started reading the GW: Ghosts of Ascalon. Pretty decent so far.

Ghosts was pretty good, but I've heard Edge of Destiny is pretty bland. Ghosts is also pretty short, I blew through it in a day.

It may or may not. But I'm not given much confidence when the server selection is based on something so arbritrary. The server population will make or break the game. Like you guys didn't learn anything from hedge or any past MMO before.

1. Beyond "Group X is rolling there", there are zero indicators of what server populations will be at launch. Picking one at random or based on name is as good a means as any. Also bear in mind that basing your decision based on what guys are doing during the Beta may not carry over to launch (that list is already wrong for GAF, how many other communities have changed?)

2. Selecting a server was based on such an 'arbritrary' method because at the time the guild leadership was working to make sure everyone got the memo in time for the BWE, there was no server list.

3. Other MMOs didn't have strong guesting features like GW2 will, meaning that server choice is not as big a deal.

4. Server choice really only affects WvW, and even then population plays a huge part in pairing. They don't just match up a Full server with a low pop server randomly, and even if they did WvW has a cap of ~500 players, so even a low pop server can still compete at the same level as long as there's 500 people. And that cap may actually be a lot lower, they said it was 100 per server last year during an AMA on reddit (300 total). We can't be sure on the cap until launch.
 
bwahaha. Not happening.





Theres more than one WvWvW zone. If one is full you queue for another.

There's four yes, but if you roll on a REALLY high pop server there's a good chance you may not get in regardless. Overall that we know if WvW can hold about 1,200 people.
 
At the same time, you could very well be stuck on another Henge of Denravi. Always in last place.
People are forgetting that there were bugs affecting the balance of the WvW populations that have since been fixed. Let's see how BWE3 shakes out before judging. Don't make me break out my jump to conclusions mat again.
 
The real question is, how many people did it take for a server to become full? 10,000? Do we have any idea?

We don't know any details about that. I suspect that ArenaNet temporarily lowered the maximum capacity on servers for the last Beta, in order to funnel more people into the newer servers. So as far as we know, no servers are at capacity, just capped for now.
 
The real question is, how many people did it take for a server to become full? 10,000? Do we have any idea?

10,000 is unlikely. The only metrics we can even guess at is with the first BWE they said they had hundreds of thousands of people. So assuming 200k people and at that point they had 48 servers. So that's a bit over 4,000 per server assuming an even split. So let's say they actually hold 4.5-5k per server? During BWE2 they said they increased server sizes while we were playing so who knows what it actually is.
 
I know the GAF WoW Guild on Area 52 never really got started because it fired up during WotLK after most people already had their mains on other servers and nobody wanted to transfer. I wasn't part of GAF at the WoW launch though.

Most of the other games, the guild died out because people lost interest in the game and/or didn't want to pay sub fees. And without starting another one of those arguments, a lot of those games were crap and GAF was not unique in abandoning them.


Actually Cataclysm. Unless you're referring to a different failed attempt. Starting from scratch with a new game like GW2 is different, but the current goal for WoW with MoP is to just get more people with their mains on the same (high-pop) server, rather than necessarily having a guild together. This would allow us to play together if we wanted to, but able to easily find PUGs or other opportunities to fall back on, as well as having a healthy economy to interact with. Better than being stranded on a dead or half-dead server like about half of us are now. The guild on Area 52 otherwise was always over 50% alts. With a more organized effort, Mists will allow people to reset by transferring to another server easier than at any other time since they won't be entrenched by other commitments. Everyone tends to shuffle around a bit at expansions anyway.
 
Actually Cataclysm. Unless you're referring to a different failed attempt.

It's been so long since I read the WoW Thread, I doubt I could even tell you who was organizing the damn thing. But yes, trying to get a guild going after launch is next to impossible, especially if people are already settled with their friends elsewhere.
 
Basically, a crappy server wont be put up against the best server.

Medium population is probably the sweet spot for a guild like GAF: we're not lost in a crowd and getting queued out of WvW, but we're not completely alone either. Also, remember that servers will be matched based on ranking AND population, so it's very unlikely that you'll be overwhelmed by other servers once the game actually launches. There will be few instances, once they get the kinks worked out, where a weak, low-pop server will be paired against a huge server that can just stomp all over them.

Thanks for pic and I get it more now, thanks for poitning out.
I still think some servers will have the best PvPers but with all the things that can be done we'll see how it will work out :)

At the moment I'm between Desolation or Far shiverpeaks, 2nd one because I'm planning to moving to either NL or Sweden so a lot of local guilds will help practice the language heh
 
I'm sticking with GAF so long as the decision of which server to join isn't based on riding the coattails of some other guild(s). It's no more fun to utterly dominate than it is to be dominated. The matching system should keep that from happening too often either way, but it's good to keep in mind.
 
Damn. I just read the lore and etc and think I'm going to settle with a Asura Guardian!

What do you think will be the least played combo of race/proffession?
 
I'm definitely rolling asura at launch, don't know which class though (guardian or thief are the only ones which appeal to me).

I refuse to play an asura in the next beta (as to not spoil anything) which poses a problem. I'm going to spend the whole weekend watching people play the race that I want to play, it will be so tantalizing :P Thinking I will just skip this beta weekend, i've waited a long time so i'm sure I can wait abit longer :)

Unless you're planning on having three Asura characters at launch, if you love the Asura it's actually in your best interest to make one in Beta and choose the choices for personal story (two questions with three choices each; each question determines a segment of your story, and you can complete the first segment easily, it ends about level 15ish or earlier). What I mean is, take choices you're NOT going to be taking in retail.

Skip Renown Hearts if you want (the only content that is always there for you), and do any events you come across, because I can guarantee you're going to find at least some on that character that you're not going to see on your other Asura. If you need more EXP for your next personal story step, play WvW (available since the beginning), or if you feel inclined, take a tradeskill you WON'T take on release, then gather and craft (both sources of lots of EXP).

I was thinking about the new Vistas and I think I know why they put them in. I think they put them in as a part of map completion for those people who think getting 100% on the zone means they've seen everything there is. I think they're going to purposely put Vistas away from Hearts so those people actually explore and run into more events and potentially understand that Hearts are supplementary.

That actually makes a lot of sense. Although POI already cover some of that functionality, it doesn't make sense to put POI on places that are just an unnamed hill in the middle of nowhere, no matter how beautiful the vista is. By having these, they now have two tools at their disposal to pull people into places where events may be happening. Good thinking, Jira. :)

That's the Nightmare set, right? Yeah, it's pretty much the only one out of the lot Jira posted to that I immediately connected with. I'd even keep the helm, honestly. Reminds me of the Death Dealer.
Metallic armors in GW2 loow awesome. I also love them precisely because of how realistic (or at least remotely grounded on reality) they look. One of the many aspects where WoW shows its years is that every single armor has the exact same model, a skin-tight, symmetric suit with a texture (a plain one with no material shine to it), with only shoulderpads and helmets having actual models.
That nightmare set looks particularly amazing. More so, indeed, because it being on a female and not magically turning into a goddamn chainmail bikini. I loved that in Dark Souls for example, you couldn't tell my character was female unless you removed the armor or at least helmet. This one helmet in particular is perfect to instill fear in the hearts of a Warrior's enemies.

Runner up is definitely the set from Caudecus's Manor;

That's a Guardian helmet indeed if I ever saw one, what with the wings and all that. Dye it light blue or white and voila.

Aside from that "switch to/from town clothes" keybind, I officially now want a "remove helmet" keybind, complete with animation of my character actually reaching for it and removing it.

Off to work! More later!
 
The sad part is, I've seen almost all of those already. While not technically Thread Topics, we've seen half of those complaints in this thread alone.

I'm sure we'll see them again too.

Never used mumble before, but looking to in this next BWE. Is it just a giant chat channel where everyone talks over everyone else? And does GWGAF have a mumble server?

his crafting video is quite good

Yeah, his crafting series was amazing. I'm looking forward to more like that post launch.
 
You don't understand WvW balance AT ALL.

Yes, that's because an instant action respawn point would be *really terrible* and nothing would ever get accomplished by any side.

Take a look at Planetside. You can instantly go into action via HART or that instant action button.

Sure, they would need to redesign a whole lot of other things to make travel a lot shorter, but if "balancing" means to force player respawn to walk ten minutes to get to where they need to fight, then it's not fun at all. No mounts, no vehicles, nothing but a few skills that will boost speed for marginal amounts of time.

Now it's just die to a zerg, walk for ten minutes, get ganked, walk for ten minutes...

I'm not going to play WvW if it stays like that.
 
What do you guys think?

humandemo.png
 
I think transparency instead of white might look cooler, but that's just me :)

edit: yay, I like it, even if the splatter effect did indeed come off better with the white background. Conundrum!
 
A little hard to sometimes see the text against some of the darker parts of the background, not so much it goes invisible but it requires a bit of strain I feel.
 
Any words about the optimization?
I read something about the game running just on the cpu not making use of the gpu, and given how i run the whole show at barley 40fps i see how this could be the case.

With the release date just a little over a month away i would like to see the game run smoothly during this last beta weekend....
 
Take a look at Planetside. You can instantly go into action via HART or that instant action button.

Sure, they would need to redesign a whole lot of other things to make travel a lot shorter, but if "balancing" means to force player respawn to walk ten minutes to get to where they need to fight, then it's not fun at all. No mounts, no vehicles, nothing but a few skills that will boost speed for marginal amounts of time.

Now it's just die to a zerg, walk for ten minutes, get ganked, walk for ten minutes...

I'm not going to play WvW if it stays like that.

I love when people complain about '[dying] to a zerg' and seen resigned to that fate rather than attempting to come up with ways to keep it from happening. Of course there's no 100% solution to the problem of zergs, but it's not exactly a problem that cannot be avoided or dealt with in some capacity.
 
A little hard to sometimes see the text against some of the darker parts of the background, not so much it goes invisible but it requires a bit of strain I feel.

Any one in particular? I can fix it.

Any words about the optimization?
I read something about the game running just on the cpu not making use of the gpu, and given how i run the whole show at barley 40fps i see how this could be the case.

With the release date just a little over a month away i would like to see the game run smoothly during this last beta weekend....

Yep, they're continuing to optimize and actually the majority of their programmers are working on performance right now. They'll continue to do so even after BWE3 so performance will continue to increase leading to launch and beyond.
 
I sure hope so, not that the game is ugly or anything, but given the overall graphic quality there is no reason i should not be able to have 100+fps on a 480gtx.

Moreover if WoW and Age of Conan, for good and bad, ever had a point in common is that a smooth experience graphic-wise while playing a mmo makes for big sales and keeps the subs going, a big chunk of the mmo userbase is carved out of "casual" pc players that may or may not have a top notch gaming ring.
 
I've been ignoring this game entirely since I saw it announced.

I just looked at the info and some videos. Holy shit I want to play!
 
I sure hope so, not that the game is ugly or anything, but given the overall graphic quality there is no reason i should not be able to have 100+fps on a 480gtx.

Moreover if WoW and Age of Conan, for good and bad, ever had a point in common is that a smooth experience graphic-wise while playing a mmo makes for big sales and keeps the subs going, a big chunk of the mmo userbase is carved out of "casual" pc players that may or may not have a top notch gaming ring.

Another thing I should point out is the client in past BWEs has been running DX9, so we don't have the DX10 client yet so that will boost performance too. Hopefully we should have the DX10 renderer for BWE3.

I've been ignoring this game entirely since I saw it announced.

I just looked at the info and some videos. Holy shit I want to play!

Lucky you /cry
 
Take a look at Planetside. You can instantly go into action via HART or that instant action button.

Sure, they would need to redesign a whole lot of other things to make travel a lot shorter, but if "balancing" means to force player respawn to walk ten minutes to get to where they need to fight, then it's not fun at all. No mounts, no vehicles, nothing but a few skills that will boost speed for marginal amounts of time.

Now it's just die to a zerg, walk for ten minutes, get ganked, walk for ten minutes...

I'm not going to play WvW if it stays like that.

With your grasp of WvW mechanics, that's probably the best solution for everyone.

If you're trying to defend a keep and the enemy can just instantly reappear at your gates as soon as you kill them, you can't possibly ever win. You need that travel time to give players room to breathe and actually complete objectives. If you could just respawn at the front lines automatically, nothing would ever get done except by zergs.

The way it is now, you can hold the line or use siege gear like Arrow Carts to break up a zerg at your gates or trying to push a chokepoint, and they come back slowly one at a time instead of all at once (which would suck) or right on top of you again (which would really suck).

Does a long trek back to where you died suck? Yeah. But making zero progress would suck harder.

What do you guys think?

humandemo.png

I think the title (Human, Norn, Charr, etc.) needs to be a little bigger. And remove the dashes as well. Also, you have grey borders around everything. Probably can't go completely transparent because of the semi-transparent line strokes, but you could soften them a bit. It'll look okay against the grey background of a post, but what about the mobile app or different themes (I seem to remember GAF having them)?

Edit: You made things a bit more transparent later, though there are issues with it around the artwork. Dunno what to suggest other than take the grey background GAF uses and build your transparency around that. First post is always grey.

Any words about the optimization?
I read something about the game running just on the cpu not making use of the gpu, and given how i run the whole show at barley 40fps i see how this could be the case.

With the release date just a little over a month away i would like to see the game run smoothly during this last beta weekend....

Optimization is one of the last things they do, and they're doing it from the ground up, getting old (practically ancient) GPU support in before they get to the newer stuff that's probably easier to deal with. I would expect performance to improve a bit in BWE3, but if not I'm sure it will be fine by launch. ArenaNet knows better than to launch a game with issues like that.

Any one in particular? I can fix it.

All of them have a few spots, but human and Sylvari especially. Add a faint outer glow to the text or just go in and increase the brightness of your backgrounds a little.

a big chunk of the mmo userbase is carved out of "casual" pc players that may or may not have a top notch gaming ring.

ArenaNet has stated that they've been buying graphics cards that are no longer available at retail via eBay for testing purposes.

I've been ignoring this game entirely since I saw it announced.

I just looked at the info and some videos. Holy shit I want to play!

Welcome to the party. BWE3 is in 9 days. Pre-Purchase now to get in.
 
Jira, are the usual suspects like Rajn Cajun going to be playing GW2?

I know I'm rolling with the GAF guild because of the people in it. I don't know a single person IRL that is going to play GW2 so I have no commitment to any server or anything. GAF is the closest I've come to talking about the game with others and plus I've played MMO's with some of the people that will be in the guild so it's kind of a no-brainer.

EDIT: Holy shit, only 45 days left!
 
Any words about the optimization?
I read something about the game running just on the cpu not making use of the gpu, and given how i run the whole show at barley 40fps i see how this could be the case.

With the release date just a little over a month away i would like to see the game run smoothly during this last beta weekend....

Mike Z, the developer that did the Asura Gamespot video, said that they were working on it and the BWE3 should have better performance.
 
Instead of doing borders I had an idea you could try by throwing some brush strokes across the images to try and blend it into the background, so you don't have to mess around with transparency.

Just did this as an example of what I mean...
raceshuman.jpg


EDIT: Just thought I would add, I don't want this to appear as being rude or disrespectful toward Jira by showing something visual, this is intended purely as a suggestion.
 
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