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

finally got to play this game tonight ... LOVE IT!! ... never played GW before so controls are gonna take some getting used to but I am for sure going to sink A LOT of hours into this game lol
 
I had a lot of fun during this stress test. Changed my mind yet again, now I'm going to play as a Ranger. I previously thought it was boring but that was because I used it with a Longbow instead of a Shortbow. The shortbow suits my playing style, it's excellent for kiting.

iagpX.jpg
 
Didn't want to spoil any content for myself for release, so I spent the stress test playing around with the character creator and screenshotting slides. Recreated my BWE1 character, and this one who I'll be playing as one of my two mains on release:


Was *really* impressed by the performance this time around! With the settings maxed out I was getting 60FPS except in the busiest boss fights.
 
That shot is freaking miraculous.

Thanks Hawk :) Spent most of the stress test running around exploring with my hud hidden.

Already loved the look of the game, but experiencing the world with the hud off, headphones on, and sound up.... WOW.

Gave me a whole new appreciation for how talented the design team is.
 
I had a lot of fun during this stress test. Changed my mind yet again, now I'm going to play as a Ranger. I previously thought it was boring but that was because I used it with a Longbow instead of a Shortbow. The shortbow suits my playing style, it's excellent for kiting.
I will have to try the shortbow - I like the knockback of the longbow but still felt kiting wasn't optimal - felt "off" to me.
 
So what do we know about Moa racing? Outside of Lion's Arch there is what looks like a track, with a racing gate, downhill, and then a banked u-turn
 
As I guardian, I noticed during PvP especially on the clock tower stage, my opponents would climb up on the roof and rain down arrows/bullets on me. Is there anything I can do or just run?
 
Finally played it today for about an hour and a half. Tried some PVE and WvW.

+Art style is great. It finds a good medium between realism and Tera's crazy rainbow fantasy world.
+ I could easily get over 60 fps most of the time, but it did drop to about 30 during huge WvW battles like castle sieges. I guess that's to be expected, but I hope they keep optimizing the game in the future.
+Very fluid quest and level up system. I didn't have to find a billion people with exclamation marks over their head. I explored at my own pace and joined whatever event was happening near me.
+WvW was a lot of fun. I wasn't quite sure about supplies and building, but it was fun to just roam around and see what was happening. Huge sieges on castles, mini battles against enemy teams and mobs, there was always something to do. At one point this huge grubworm attacked our castle, and it must have been bugged because that thing was invincible for like ten minutes. The damn worms almost knocked down the gates. Even the enemy team backed off and just watched. Somehow it disappeared, and we rushed the enemy team who was completely caught off guard. It was pretty funny.

- Lag and Mario Kart-esque rubber banding. Sometimes it was like I was warped back to where I was five seconds ago. Some people were saying there was more lag than normal, and I know it's just a stress test, but I seriously hope they fix this considering launch is so close.
- It needs a tutorial area. I like how there was a lot of things to do early on, but I had no idea how to initiate battles, combo attacks, or anything. I don't need a level 1-10 tutorial about inane stuff like how to buy things from shops, but I wish it would give you a brief rundown on controls and tactics.

It was a lot of fun, and I can't wait to play more. Any suggestions for playing thief? Also, any control adjustment suggestions? Controlling the camera feels a bit odd and slow, I can't turn around very quickly which will definitely be needed in fights.

Also check out this awesome coat I got.

 
As I guardian, I noticed during PvP especially on the clock tower stage, my opponents would climb up on the roof and rain down arrows/bullets on me. Is there anything I can do or just run?

pretty sure in bwe3 guardians could teleport up there using that utility skill. no idea if that still works
 
Ooph don't know how you guys were able to enjoy the stress test with all of the lag.

Before 7pm EST: "This game has my undivided attention!"

Some time around 7:30pm EST: I was playing a thief, texting, folding clothes and eating dinner.

I miss overflow.
 
Ooph don't know how you guys were able to enjoy the stress test with all of the lag.

Before 7pm EST: "This game has my undivided attention!"

Some time around 7:30pm EST: I was playing a thief, texting, folding clothes and eating dinner.

I miss overflow.

yea, i quit early. the lag was making my eyes wig out
 
all of us here at Anet would like to thank you all for your patience with the lag, our ISP took a shit and now to make things right will let you have the rest of the weekend to play, thank you.

yeah i know i need this in my body!!!!!!!!!!

wait so we'll be to play this weekend?! awesome if true
 
3) Is there a way to manually turn off auto attack?
I read somewhere on YT that you can switch autoattacks on/off for each weapon individually in the control settings. I'm going to look for the comment later on (from the uploader of a pvp vid I think).
so, sexy little gremlins, eh?
 
Ooph don't know how you guys were able to enjoy the stress test with all of the lag.

Before 7pm EST: "This game has my undivided attention!"

Some time around 7:30pm EST: I was playing a thief, texting, folding clothes and eating dinner.

I miss overflow.

Are the overflow servers not in the game at all anymore, or are they just gone for the stress tests?
 
Ooph don't know how you guys were able to enjoy the stress test with all of the lag.

Before 7pm EST: "This game has my undivided attention!"

Some time around 7:30pm EST: I was playing a thief, texting, folding clothes and eating dinner.

I miss overflow.

If I wasn't in mumble and playing with a party I might have just bailed. It was pretty awful.

It was still fun to find cool shit, though. I found a wicked looking greatsword that was as big as Billie was, which didn't make a lot of sense as it was in the Asura area and no Asura could have possibly wielded it. But it looked awesome. Got a pretty sweet new coat too:


I feel like I don't understand the dye system, though. I pick dyes at character creation, but then when running around the starter zone everyone's the same color.
 
I think they just disabled them for testing.

I lot of people probably just went with default dyes to make it quicker.

Right, but I didn't. However sometimes you'd come across people that did have their gear dyed different colors. I couldn't find the UI panel that handled the dyes, though I only spent like five seconds looking then forgot about it.
 
Right, but I didn't. However sometimes you'd come across people that did have their gear dyed different colors. I couldn't find the UI panel that handled the dyes, though I only spent like five seconds looking then forgot about it.

On your character sheet there's an eyedropper above the helmet slot.
 
Someone said pressing escape turns auto attack off?

escape stops auto attacking the target you are aiming at. useful especially for ranged weapons


if you right click (or maybe its shift right click) on a skill, you can make it an autocast skill or turn it off from autocasting

if you mouse over a skill during combat, it tells you what the button to do it is. you can turn auto attack on for skills besides the "1" key if you want, but i'm not sure exactly how the game reacts to that. maybe uses it as soon as its off cooldown? could be useful for pure damage skills like the 2 skill on range greatsword i guess
 
On your character sheet there's an eyedropper above the helmet slot.

So does it just not default you to the dye colors you pick during creation? I didn't understand that part.

More pics from tonight:

THE PROBLEM

THE SOLUTION

Secret Charr racial: Power Overhwelming, seen being charged here. Note the Charr in the back nearly blown backwards by the sheer force of awesome.


...and the inevitable conclusion. The Asura laughing, his mind broken; with this power I can see forever.

 
Damn. I really enjoyed Guardian. It's a more interesting class than Warrior and probably less popular so maybe that will be my main class.
 
Damn. I really enjoyed Guardian. It's a more interesting class than Warrior and probably less popular so maybe that will be my main class.

It really is. All I did was Spvp and I tested a new build. When we first started the BWE's, I first tried all signets, then a mixture of a signet, shout and meditation build and now I figured out a very promising meditation only build. It's amazing how you can be viable with all of these different set ups.
 
Thanks Hawk :) Spent most of the stress test running around exploring with my hud hidden.

Already loved the look of the game, but experiencing the world with the hud off, headphones on, and sound up.... WOW.

Gave me a whole new appreciation for how talented the design team is.

I wish they would add a dynamic UI to the game as an option. Auto hide the hud completely when out of combat, but pop up info as needed. Show dynamic event notifications when one pops up near you, area notifications when going to new areas, mail notifications when you get one, chat bubbles , chat channel text, etc. Auto hide the notifications after they've shown on the screen for 5 seconds or so. Then auto show the entire UI when you enter combat and auto hide it again when you exit.

Would be nice to be able to easily get the info needed, without having to hide and show the UI all the time. That way I'm not hitting my keybind every time I hear an event notification to see what is going on, or wondering if anyone is saying something in guild chat or something.
 
A few friends of mine have convinced me to buy this game. I have a couple of questions, this game has no monthly fee at all? If it doesn't have a monthly fee is it setup like a free2play game in where I have to buy cosmetic things to make my guy look cool? Is this a bonafide mmo or is it heavily instanced like the old republic?
 
Alright new to Guild Wards here, played a bit during this evening's stress test and gave thief a shot. Didn't expect stealth to be more of a brief combat mechanic rather than a constant ability which kind of threw me for a loop. Class seems like a lot of fun but I'm not exactly sure how I'm supposed to approach combat. I admittedly didn't find out until after the test was over that your skills change based on your equipment so maybe duel daggers isn't a PVE spec? Or I could just be bad, which is much more likely.

Also quickly looked into engineer which seemed interesting. Will probably give one a shot if there's another test. What role are they supposed to fill though? They seem to have both support and offensive abilities.
 
First time playing the game in the stress test, and have a few questions:

1) Was the amount of rubberbanding common during the BWE's as well, or was it just unique to these stress tests?

2) Can I drag and move that mini-map elsewhere? Didn't seem to be able to even though I could move most other windows. Coming from WoW, I think I got too used to the mini-map in the top right corner that it's a bit disorienting.

3) Is there a way to manually turn off auto attack? I don't mean permanently disable it, as I saw the option to do that. I mean once I start auto attacking, there doesn't seem to be a way to turn the auto-attack off until the mob is dead or I switch targets. I thought simply hitting the skill again would turn it off. Not really a big deal but I like having control over my character's actions.

4) Not a question, but I absolutely love jumping in this game, especially with Asura. :) I just can't stop bunnyhopping. Probably just a bad habit from back when I used to play a lot of TFC and original Counterstrike, but I love how jumping doesn't interrupt your auto attack.
you can press escape to stop attacking or turn off auto attack all together and press 1 for every swipe

you can move the mini map to the top right. put your mouse on the top of the mini map where you would resize and just drag it up
 
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