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

Am I the only one who has no idea how to name characters, doesn't really care and just picks random names then never think about it again?

Male Sylvari Thief main = Klyka Klywood
Female Asura Ranger = Klykaria
Male Human Mesmer = Klykeus
Male Charr Warrior = Klykor Klymane

I don't see a problem :)
 
ArenaNet really should pull a Volition and let us use the Character Creator until the game is launched. Not being able to fuck around with sliders is killing me.

Edit:

guideguildwars2.jpg

Guild Wars 2 guide.

http://www.jeuxvideo.com/news/2012/00060248-un-guide-pour-guild-wars-2.htm
 
ArenaNet really should pull a Volition and let us use the Character Creator until the game is launched. Not being able to fuck around with sliders is killing me.

Yes please.
Won't happen :(
 
ArenaNet really should pull a Volition and let us use the Character Creator until the game is launched. Not being able to fuck around with sliders is killing me.

Since there is going to be a 24 hour name reservation system allowing for the poaching of 5 names in quick succession, I don't mind there not being a custom character creator beforehand. Hell, there are some names that I want that will only fit certain looks, so I'll want to only delve deeply into those looks if I secure the names I want.
 
Since there is going to be a 24 hour name reservation system allowing for the poaching of 5 names in quick succession, I don't mind there not being a custom character creator beforehand. Hell, there are some names that I want that will only fit certain looks, so I'll want to only delve deeply into those looks if I secure the names I want.
What's this now?
 
Since there is going to be a 24 hour name reservation system allowing for the poaching of 5 names in quick succession, I don't mind there not being a custom character creator beforehand. Hell, there are some names that I want that will only fit certain looks, so I'll want to only delve deeply into those looks if I secure the names I want.
I wasn't complaining about reserving names, I just wanted to try and decide on the looks of my characters.
 
Somebody took my damn handle that I've been using for like 5 years (TheDarkStark either spaced or non-spaced), I have to assume it was a g'damn Game of Thrones fan.

If it's non-spaced, there's still a chance to claim it back on Launch!
 
Not sure who would buy a printed guide for an MMO, especially one with quests changing as frequently as GW2. It's guaranteed to be out of date practically instantly.
 
Not sure who would buy a printed guide for an MMO, especially one with quests changing as frequently as GW2. It's guaranteed to be out of date practically instantly.

It's still a license to print money right now :)
 
It's probably been asked, but...

Will we need to download a different client when the game launches?

Also, what server will GAF pick as it's home?
 
I hope that's what it's saying. Can someone else clarify?

Yes, that's exactly how it works :) Go rush through the editor and claim a name. You then can delete the character whenever you want and have 24 hours after deletion to build a new one and use the same name. It's reserved for your account for that time.
 
I'm not particularly concerned with my names being stolen. I plan on making all my names 2 word names with the last name being Thanasis, so its unlikely any will be stolen. I know it doesn't make much sense from a role playing perspective for a Charr, a Human, and a Sylvari to all share a last name, but who cares, I wasn't planning on role playing anyway.

I mostly just want to be able to switch to an alt and not have people go "Wait, who are you again?" Well, that will still happen I'm sure. But if I'm going to be unmemorable, it will be on my own merits, and not because I have 5 names for people to keep track of.
 
Somebody took my damn handle that I've been using for like 5 years (TheDarkStark either spaced or non-spaced), I have to assume it was a g'damn Game of Thrones fan.

Is that an implication that Game of Thrones is younger than 5 years?

Yes, that's exactly how it works :) Go rush through the editor and claim a name. You then can delete the character whenever you want and have 24 hours after deletion to build a new one and use the same name. It's reserved for your account for that time.

Although I knew about this, I just had a though; does the system save all character names you've created the past 24 hours? If so, there's nothing preventing someone from reserving hundreds of names with a single account. :D
 
Although I knew about this, I just had a though; does the system save all character names you've created the past 24 hours? If so, there's nothing preventing someone from reserving hundreds of names with a single account. :D

So you're going to reserve all the GAF names and then sell them back to us?
 
I mostly just want to be able to switch to an alt and not have people go "Wait, who are you again?"
Can't you give nicknames to your in-game contacts anyway?

Although I knew about this, I just had a though; does the system save all character names you've created the past 24 hours? If so, there's nothing preventing someone from reserving hundreds of names with a single account. :D
Wouldn't this count as abuse and get your account terminated?
 
Although I knew about this, I just had a though; does the system save all character names you've created the past 24 hours? If so, there's nothing preventing someone from reserving hundreds of names with a single account. :D

In theory, no there isn't anything stopping that (unless maybe ArenaNet thought of that and put limits in place). On the other hand, I can't think of many reasons to do so. I guess you could reserve names you don't want people to take like Sephiroth and Legolas, but thats not going to stop XLegolasX and SeFoRaTh, or any other of the thousands of even more annoying variations. And 24 hours later, a newcomer would take the names anyway.

Can't you give nicknames to your in-game contacts anyway?

Can you? How does that work? Does it replace their name in chat with the nickname, because that would be awesome if it did. My concern is guild chat. I would switch to an alt, and there would be no way to tell from the chat window who I was, unless you went to the guild tab, found my name, and checked my account name, and that was assuming you knew my account name in the first place.
 
Can you? How does that work? Does it replace their name in chat with the nickname, because that would be awesome if it did. My concern is guild chat. I would switch to an alt, and there would be no way to tell from the chat window who I was, unless you went to the guild tab, found my name, and checked my account name, and that was assuming you knew my account name in the first place.

I'm pretty sure it does. They tie the nickname to the account so no matter what character they're using you will always see the nickname you designated.
 
Having finished Winds of Change (last thing in the game I hadn't done) and a bunch of the daily Zaishen stuff, I've somehow accumulated 344k + 10 ecto. So, same as last time; if you're working on HoM and need cash, message me on here and we'll arrange a time to meet in game.
 
What time does the game start on the 25th? Is it at noon or at midnight?

midnight release in the US, early in the morning in Europe

e: can you use racial skills in sPvP? I don't think I've ever seen anybody use them.

- to answer my own question
Q: Are racial abilities allowed in structured PvP?
No. It’s purely for PvE, but it is allowed in non-competitive PvP.
 
So you're going to reserve all the GAF names and then sell them back to us?

... what an awesome idea, thanks! :) I'll give you 15% of the earnings in exchange.

In theory, no there isn't anything stopping that (unless maybe ArenaNet thought of that and put limits in place). On the other hand, I can't think of many reasons to do so. I guess you could reserve names you don't want people to take like Sephiroth and Legolas, but thats not going to stop XLegolasX and SeFoRaTh, or any other of the thousands of even more annoying variations. And 24 hours later, a newcomer would take the names anyway.

Seriously now, I was kind of worried that trolls (not just one person, but several) would reserve way more name combinations that they'd use. Even if it's for 24 hours, if the name you want at launch is taken, are you going to wait until it might be free before making a character?

This is, however, ArenaNet, so I'm sure they've already thought of that. Most likely the game only reserves the 5-10 last names you've used, perhaps even less, like "as many names as free slots you have".

I was actually thinking the opposite; for people who really, really want to have a particular name (especially ones that are single-word or otherwise popular), they could have someone or several people they trust try to reserve that name as well, therefore raising chances of getting it (especially if for some reason they have trouble getting in, etc.). If the one who doesn't actually want the name ends up getting it, he can delete it later on, and take note of the time, so that the one who wants it can pick it up 24 hours later. This could be particularly helpful for people who don't have early access.

I don't know if it sounds like a crazy amount of work. I don't have any particular name I want, as I'm probably going to make all characters with original names and surnames, so...

Can you? How does that work? Does it replace their name in chat with the nickname, because that would be awesome if it did. My concern is guild chat. I would switch to an alt, and there would be no way to tell from the chat window who I was, unless you went to the guild tab, found my name, and checked my account name, and that was assuming you knew my account name in the first place.

Yeah, I was a bit lost in Guild Chat at times too. My GW2 account is pretty much the same as my GAF one, fortunately for others (so that they can safely ignore my ramblings).
 
If you have ever posted on this thread. Your mission from now till release is to keep this thread on the first page of Gaming Discussion!

Don't fail me!

Also to celebrate the release of Guild Wars 2, I think we should all take a screenshot of main characters (shoulders and up) and make that our avatars for a month. Who is interested in this?
 
I was actually thinking the opposite; for people who really, really want to have a particular name (especially ones that are single-word or otherwise popular), they could have someone or several people they trust try to reserve that name as well, therefore raising chances of getting it (especially if for some reason they have trouble getting in, etc.). If the one who doesn't actually want the name ends up getting it, he can delete it later on, and take note of the time, so that the one who wants it can pick it up 24 hours later. This could be particularly helpful for people who don't have early access.

I don't know if it sounds like a crazy amount of work. I don't have any particular name I want, as I'm probably going to make all characters with original names and surnames, so...

Yeah, I thought of that as well, like having someone (or multiple people) in the guild reserve names for people who can't log on when the game first launches. However, I think having to wait 24 hours for the name to be available is going to make that too much of a hassle to be worthwhile. I just don't see people actually doing that.

But I agree that ArenaNet should put some limit in place to prevent trolling, even if that trolling is unlikely to be very common or effective.



Yeah, I was a bit lost in Guild Chat at times too. My GW2 account is pretty much the same as my GAF one, fortunately for others (so that they can safely ignore my ramblings).

It would be nice if you could apply nicknames to guild members and not just contacts. I probably won't have everyone from the guild on my contact list (I barely have any as it is), but I would like to use the nickname feature to change everyone's names to their GAF name whenever possible.
 
If you have ever posted on this thread. Your mission from now till release is to keep this thread on the first page of Gaming Discussion!

Don't fail me!

Also to celebrate the release of Guild Wars 2, I think we should all take a screenshot of main characters (shoulders and up) and make that our avatars for a month. Who is interested in this?

Should we listen to him?
 
If you have ever posted on this thread. Your mission from now till release is to keep this thread on the first page of Gaming Discussion!

Don't fail me!

Also to celebrate the release of Guild Wars 2, I think we should all take a screenshot of main characters (shoulders and up) and make that our avatars for a month. Who is interested in this?

I've done that before for games, so yeah, I'll use a shot of my avatar. Might change it to alts occasionally though, just to keep things interesting.

EDIT: Actually I have a shot of my main, more or less, from BWE3. I might switch to it here in a day or two, for the last month leading up to the game's release.
 
Also to celebrate the release of Guild Wars 2, I think we should all take a screenshot of main characters (shoulders and up) and make that our avatars for a month. Who is interested in this?

Sounds like a plan! I'm in!

Sooooooo nice to be back home!

Any good BWE3 videos? NOT sPvP please. :)
 
I need another screenshot of my character where she's not bending her left leg
I have one of my guy in Lion's Arch where he turned his head to the side and looked at the camera. Only lasted for a moment, but I got it. I quite like that shot.

EDIT @ Brett: TotalBiscuit and WoodenPotatoes have some decent ones. Also, Dontain, if you can get over how annoying he can be. That said, he invented a dance for an Asura in the game that is legitimately fun to watch, so there's that.

And if you go to Twitch and look up Freelancer from Team Legacy, he has some long recordings of WvW.
 
I'm happy some of you guys are interested. It should be awesome. I have screens of the characters I made in BWE but I didn't spend any time customizing the way they look because I just wanted to get in and play.

For the guys who made Charr and Asura characters, was there like a "Random" button where all the features get picked randomly? For the Sylvari I didn't see something like that even though I wanted that option.

I like making my main look slighlty like me, but that is only viable with Human or Norn.


Only if I can make a convincing Angela Merkel lookalike.
You can probably make a younger looking Angela Merkle with the hair style hair style located in 2nd row, 3rd column of this picture: http://wiki.guildwars2.com/images/4/47/Human_female_hair_styles.png
 
I made one of each race and never saw a Random option in the creator.

Bah, because if you don't change anything you will just make the stock character that anyone would make if they just clicked next all the time. I guess I'll have to invest in the look of all my characters not just my main.
 
Bah, because if you don't change anything you will just make the stock character that anyone would make if they just clicked next all the time. I guess I'll have to invest in the look of all my characters not just my main.
I'll use stock for name-snaggIng purposes, but I have never used a Random option in any character creator. I enjoy making characters too much. Even during the BWEs, knowing they would be wiped, I still spent time on each one. Can't help it.
 
OK, mega-post incoming. I typed up a Keg Brawl guide (from the little knowledge of it I gleamed this BWE). Let me know what you guys think, and if you have any corrections, don't hesitate to shoot! Replies to other posts tomorrow, as I'm off to a friend's house.

***************

Last BWE (that would be BWE3) I had the chance to play some Keg Brawl. For the uninitiated, here's what you need to know:
1) It's pretty much American Football with a beer keg for a ball.
2) It's the most fun minigame you'll play on an MMO until WoW releases "punt the gnome".

Your objective, as you might imagine, is to score more goals than the opposing team. You do this by bringing the keg to a sort of "reverse goalie", who is the same color as your team, and pressing F; this will score a point, and after a few seconds, a new keg will be dropped around the middle of the field. You can also actually THROW the keg to score; more on this later. The game is over when one of the team scores 11 goals, which obviously makes them win. There's also a timer that counts down from 10 minutes; if no teams have reached 11 goals by the time it hits zero, the one with the most goals will win. I have no clue what happens if both teams are tied when the timer expires, as it never happened to me.

The game also keeps track of each player's contributions and plays, be it steals, goals, etc, and even seems to assign a MvP achievent of sorts, but I don't know if it does anything (it showed briefly for me the couple of times I was MvP, ahem. :) ).

First things first; to play Keg Brawl, you need to go to the frozen lake that's all the way to the west of Hoelbräk. You'll find several NPCs beating the crap out of each other there, plus another one with a symbol over his head that's something like two banners crossed. He'll give you two options: practice or match.

It's in your best interest to select practice first; this will immediately replace your 1-5 abilities with those used in Keg Brawl. These abilities are used both to steal the keg when the enemy team has it, and protect the player with the keg when it's your team carrying it. You can try all of these abilities against the NPCs around the area to get a feel for them.

You can also pick up any of the kegs; this will cause your 5 abilities to change again to the set used while being a carrier. When you're ready, talk to him again and select "begin match". This will port you to an instanced version of the lake, where you'll be pitted against other human players; these will hot-join, be assigned teams, and be eligible for auto-balancing if one of the teams has more players, exactly like in structured PvP. You can also bring up the roster (with B), and click one of the plus signs next to a team's name to swap teams (only if your team has more players, of course).

The abilities you have while not carring the keg are as follows:

1) A single punch that didn't seem to do much (this is the only skill I don't know the real usefulness of).
2) A powerful punch with some windup (1-2 secs). This is your main keg stealing ability; if you hit any played with it, you will either make them fumble the keg, or outright steal it. It's also a decent ability to protect the keg-carrier, if all others are on cooldown. Landing it is a matter of skill, as the windup means you have to make sure the opposing player is in range by the time it lands, and hopefully not in their dodging animation.
3) A forward roll. This makes you invulnerable while rolling, and also seemed to steal or make opposing players fumble the keg occasionally. It seems much less reliable than the 2 skill.
4) A targeted skill that makes your character run at insane speeds towards a player and kick them, sending them flying. This skill is amazing and has so many uses it isn't funny. For one, its range is insane, allowing you to cross half the field in a second if an opposing character is there. It's also an awesome tool for catching the keg carrier when it's otherwise impossible; this has the added bonus that while knocked down, they can't use any of their dodge rolls, making a steal attempt almost guaranteed to succeed. Finally, it can be used just as well to protect your keg carrier from harassers, or getting into the action from far away and releasing the stomp (see below). Beware that it has a quite long cooldown and good players will anticipate and dodge roll to make you miss entirely. Also, kicking a running keg carrier from behind might be counterproductive, especially if they are close to the goal, as they'll be propelled further forward. Be ready to steal or you might have helped them score.
5) A ground stomp that will launch and knockback all opposing players. Great for both offense and defense, but accordingly has the longest cooldown. Get very close to the action before using it, as typically people are running in one direction and you stop for a split second before actually using it, often causing most of them to get out of range.

While carrying the keg, your abilities are the following.

1) Throw the keg rolling along the ground. Seemed to be not too useful, as the keg traveled slow and not too far
2) An arcing throw you can aim with an AOE reticle. This has several uses; you can use it to pass the keg to someone who's further down the field, for example; properly aimed, they'll catch it immediately out of the air. Beware! Enemy players can and will intercept your passes (and so can you), just by being in the trajectory of the keg. You can also use this to score, if you get the keg to land on the goalie NPC.
3) A forward roll, very similar to the one you use without the keg. It's more useful here, as anything that gets you invulerability seconds while moving forward is invaluable.
4) Smashes the keg on an opposing player, stunning them for a couple of seconds. Somewhat risky to use as typically you'll be running away from them, and using it makes you stop for a second, but very effective to stop a lone pursuer.
5) Pour some ale from the keg on the ground, where it'll freeze creating an ice puddle that makes all opposing players slip and be knocked down. As you can guess, it's an amazing ability to get a large group of pursuers off your back, and again, it has quite a long cooldown. Don't let that stop you from using it, however; more often than not, it makes the difference between scoring a goal and getting the keg stolen from you. The best time to use it is usually right after you get the keg, actually; typically you'll be surrounded by a mob of players from both teams trying to get the keg you just picked up.

Notice that carrying the keg will make you move quite a bit slower; that's why teammates covering you and you passing it to teammates further down the field is so important.

There is also a hugely important detail that I somehow missed the first game I played; your dodge roll is ENTIRELY FUNCTIONAL while playing, and in fact, it becomes one of the, if not THE most important tool when you're carrying the keg. Managing your three dodges (the two regular ones and the 3 skill) becomes as important (or more) as zigzagging to get players to whiff their keg steal attempts.

There's also an interesting mechanic, in that sometimes, two kegs will spawn at once. This adds another layer of strategy, as you can focus on trying to score both of them, or focus on one and leaving the other unguarded. Near the end

Well, I think this about covers it all for the basics. If I remember something important that I've missed, I'll update this post.
 
Now THAT is something we should do as a guild - KEG BRAWL!

Put everyone in a particular match in a separate room in Mumble so opponents and teammates can talk to one another.
 
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