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Guild Wars 2 |OT| Buy Once, Sub Never, Fun Forever
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RepairmanJack
Member
By any chance did you roll a Sylvari?
I'm curious if the Sylvari starting zone changed at all from the BWE in regards to events. I struggled to stay up with the level of content during the BWE a lot.
Dries
Member
So what are the other three quarters of the game? This kinda ties in to a question I had earlier:
Easy and I got ours in WvW. Live on the edge, rake in fistfuls of XP. Just watch the cows, and don't get lost.
flyinpiranha
Member
That's the one I was looking at. But I'd have to switch and use the Pull from Greatsword and not sure how weapon swapping and chaining skills like that works. Haven't really paid attention to the weapon swap cooldown. I think this may be my answer though. Anybody tried this?
Nah, I rolled a Norn. Then went to the Charr area after I ran out of shit to do for my level.
Well, I guess i couuld do a dolyack run (sounds horrendously boring though), but anything over a group of 20 and my fps just sputters. Id die simply due to 2 fps a second if i did any big battles
Does pull even work with other abilities? It's the second ability under binding blade, so doesn't it require binding blade to be triggered first?
Wouldn't work. The immobilize is two seconds, weapon switch is .5, but the Greatsword's pull is:
1. Low (600) range.
2. A slow projectile.
arts&crafts
Member
What is this cultural weapon bug? Not that I am going to use it I am just wondering how people are selling lvl80 exotics already
Ironic that the only time I actually look for leather, I can't find any. It used to just fall in my lap. Maybe it's more common in the human areas?
My master minepick is helping with rare jewels, I am just trying to grind out items that will give me some level boost. Almost to 50 in jewel crafting and leatherworking. At this pace my character will hit level 50 before my skills reach that high.
My master minepick is helping with rare jewels, I am just trying to grind out items that will give me some level boost. Almost to 50 in jewel crafting and leatherworking. At this pace my character will hit level 50 before my skills reach that high.
arts&crafts
Member
Agreed level 35-50 jewel crafting is insane,
Only 3 jewels I think can be used before level 50 and you need at least one for each item and like 3 or 4 items for a skill up! I am 35 and my jc is 40
Ikuu said:
Sometimes I feel like I am playing an entirely different game, rather than just playing the game differently- and not just because I'm using a gamepad.
You can certainly argue that the changes ArenaNet has made to the formula don't go far enough, and that you don't find the quests themselves interesting, but I don't see how anyone could legitimately describe what you are presented with in this game as "usual." Everything has been designed to obfuscate the traditional MMO cycle of "quest giver->complete objective->return for reward." At level 29, I feel comfortable describing their efforts as a success and feel confident arguing that their mechanics are largely revolutionary, and likely to be frequently copied. Let me go through each kind of "quest" and how it differs from the standard fare.
Hearts: while these are the most similar to a traditional MMO quest, they differ in some pretty key ways.
1. You don't pick them up
2. They always have more than one objective to choose from, and you can mix and match objectives to completion
3. You aren't shown the exact number of objective steps required for completion.
These seem like subtle changes, but everything feels different now to me. The artificial layer of "accepting" a quest and having it removed from your log on completion is gone. Futhermore if you talk to a scout NPC, you can get some (voiced!) context as to how the heart fits in with the general story of the area and other nearby hearts. This makes the world feel alive, as thought there's something going on in the area you're participating in, not something that someone was waiting around for you to accept.
Finally, even though the hearts are not dynamic, they still sometimes carry consequences for the game world (in that the zone with the heart complete or incomplete will look a bit different). The clearing of the tarred-up lake in the Plains of Ashford is one example.
Dynamic Events: Something happens and needs doing right then and there. Just being in the area when an attack on a village occurs, then participating in the defense of the village, or seeing a scientist NPC wander up to a lake and start soliciting people to collect eggs for him, feels a lot more compelling to me than picking up a quest in town that says "Help! The nearby village is under attack!" and then going there.
When a dynamic event pops up, you choose whether or not to be a part of it by either doing something or just going on your way. If the event is successfully completed, oftentimes something will happen afterward: an NPC will start selling a unique item, the event will chain into second and third and events and so on, certain areas will be accessible or safe for a while afterward, etc.
Oftentimes, if you don't set out with the mindset of "I'm gonna do this heart then this one then this one" but just set out to explore the world, you'll find that completing related dynamic events will fill in the heart in the area, sometimes all the way. These moments, to me (when you're doing a DE and find that you've completed a heart at the same time) are when the PvE truly shines.
World Events: These are just cool... the static "calm state" messages are ominous, and let you know that at any moment something could go horribly wrong with the zone you're in. When it does, you know it'll be on an epic scale. I've only succeeded in two so far, and both times the group of players felt suitably overwhelmed and like we had to truly struggle to succeed (I must have died 12 times to the Fire Elemental).
Personal Story: An instanced, branching story guided by choices you made during character creation and some you make during quests themselves. Here you get something your character legitimately cares about that begins to tie in with the overarching lore of the world.
This stuff all amounts to a lot of options which are pretty uncommon to me in an MMO. But are the actions you do during any of them still just typical MMO fare? While the game doesn't eliminate the notions of killing things, defending things, escorting people, or collecting things at all, plenty of quests do have unique mechanics. There's a heart where you're given a special gun that replaces your skill bar and have to weaken certain creatures to below 50% health, then use a capture skill to send them to be used by the army for training. In one event, you're transformed (with special pig magic) into a pig with the ability to sniff out truffles underground.
Of course there's still plenty of killing and collecting to do in Guild Wars 2, but the overall presentation of the notion of a "quest" has been pretty radically altered.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
If we are still talking about "is it really different from other MMOs" I wonder if the real question is "does it pervert western RPGs like MMOs typically do in order to make a boring timesink".
If we get reductionist I don't see how the fundamentals are different from your typical open or somewhat open western RPG. You talk to an NPC, get a fetch quest or kill request, go do it, and maybe pick up an item to bring back. You go into dungeons and kill everything and kill a boss, get loot along the way. You explore a world and find points of interests or small secrets, and fill in a map.
My view is that Everquest and its descendants took these basic structures and turned them into a massive time sinkhole in order to keep you playing and extract a monthly fee. That may have perverted these concepts in the eyes of many so now they're "just MMO stuff". But they're not fundamentally different from single player WRPG content. A single player game may simply hide it better in a more oblique wrapping, because it doesn't have to deal with multiple players questing asynchronously.
So far, my experience is that this game reigns the core experience back in since they're not concerned about locking the player into a subscription. And if we accept that a video game is ultimately a video game, and you're going to be doing the same darn things in an abstract sense, it actually does innovate to a fair degree in terms of how you handle quests, and the way the game world is alive and elastic with more dynamic events than most fully single player games.
And the personal story system does allow the game world to move forward for each individual player in a way that most MMOs I am aware of have never quite achieved.
If we get reductionist I don't see how the fundamentals are different from your typical open or somewhat open western RPG. You talk to an NPC, get a fetch quest or kill request, go do it, and maybe pick up an item to bring back. You go into dungeons and kill everything and kill a boss, get loot along the way. You explore a world and find points of interests or small secrets, and fill in a map.
My view is that Everquest and its descendants took these basic structures and turned them into a massive time sinkhole in order to keep you playing and extract a monthly fee. That may have perverted these concepts in the eyes of many so now they're "just MMO stuff". But they're not fundamentally different from single player WRPG content. A single player game may simply hide it better in a more oblique wrapping, because it doesn't have to deal with multiple players questing asynchronously.
So far, my experience is that this game reigns the core experience back in since they're not concerned about locking the player into a subscription. And if we accept that a video game is ultimately a video game, and you're going to be doing the same darn things in an abstract sense, it actually does innovate to a fair degree in terms of how you handle quests, and the way the game world is alive and elastic with more dynamic events than most fully single player games.
And the personal story system does allow the game world to move forward for each individual player in a way that most MMOs I am aware of have never quite achieved.
While I agree that GW 2 mixes things up a bit I still agree with the others you quoted that there are great similarities to other MMOs. Yet, this is no problem for me, as I am fine with the formula, especially with all the welcome additions and refinements.
However, the one thing I truly appreciate is the lack of a monthly subscription fee, which for me is the game changer. I usually tried to be done with an mmo (post-WoW) within the free period or perhaps after 1 month. This added constant stress and hectic. The end became the goal instead of the journey. I feel none of this in guild wars 2 and this makes the game so very relaxing and fun to play!
Norn T2 weapons are 21 karma, people are buying them and reforging them.
You've got it, man. I'm really impressed with ANet's attention to the detail in this game. They've created something with a really different feel in one of the most stagnant gaming genres.
RepairmanJack
Member
Has anyone else seen the lost girl by the grave site in the second Asura zone? I was figuring there was something to link with her or somehow trigger an event but I couldn't find anything. She says she is from a town and that she senses her husband close by but that's about it.
Someone already answered on the exploration part so i won't go further on it.
The base is MMO 101 you can't really disagree with it, but still the 'feel' of it is completely different from Wow.
The fact that quests give you multiple objectives to be able to complete the same quest is quite a big thing combined with the fact that you can't tag mobs, you're basically never stuck in the advancement of your quest because the area is crowded with other people.
Events that pop up from time to time are a good diversion of your normal 'questing' even if they are based on the same activities and since exploration and crafting are quite well rewarded, you can simply diverge from questing from time to time and still be able to progress in a normal way.
I'm still early in the game (lvl6) but so far it really did not feel like the usual grind that Wow was.
shysaursoft
Member
It really depends on what you like to focus on, but in reference to your earlier question:
The Personal Story is the most "single-player" esq thing, with a narrative that spans from level 1 to 80 at specific intervals. There are mild branching paths to the plot, and the plot differs depending on the choices you made while creating your character. If you like, the "goal" is to get to 80 and finish your "story". In a way, it's like Guild Wars 1 in that sense: once you've seen all the plots, you can call it a day and walk away, having "finished" the game. Personal Story events take place in an instanced zone, so it's just you and whoever you bring along. You do need to run through the open, persistent world to get to these points, so it's still an MMO around the sides.
If you want to do more, there is getting 100% for each of the zones. Zones contain Hearts, Point of Interests, Asuran Teleporters, Skill Challenges and Vistas. Finding them all is no easy task in some areas, but they're worth a lot of experience points. I've gained several levels just running through an area, nabbing the teleporters and any vista points I see along the way. Some vista points and skill challenges are difficult to get to, requiring a few minutes of platforming to reach. I find these a lot of fun. When you 100% a zone, you get a reward of randomized loot.
Hidden Puzzle Dungeons exist throughout the world, that involve platforming and sometimes, puzzle solving. (The one in the Ashford Plains is a lot of fun, since it has a "trick" ending). These usually get you a nice chest at the end, with some randomized goodies.
If you still want to keep playing after that, you can do the Heart events repeatedly for money, karma and experience, or just to help out others doing them. It's fun to play "cop on patrol" sometimes, walking along with more inexperienced players and helping them finish events.
If you still want more, there's crafting, which is a whole system of it's own and nets tons of experience and money. There are 7 crafting professions, you can have 2 active at a time, if you decide to switch to different ones, you don't lose the progress you made.
Then there's the usual PvP, which is a bit different in Guild Wars compared to other MMOS - it's basically a separate game mode. You have different gear, you don't gain XP, instead you gain Glory which is used to rank up and buy chests which contain random PvP related loot (and some things you can use in PvE, like bags and dyes). Servers are hot-joinable, so you can just join a match and keep rolling with it until want to leave. You are automatically level 80, with the "best" gear and weapons, when you're in PvP.
World vs World uses your PvE character, and is a kind of event system all its own. There's things to do, like assaulting/defending keeps, escorting supply trains (exploitable, as some unscrupulous people have discovered), and fighting off player invaders.
Your level of engagement is really up to you, though. If all you want to do is craft, that's possible. If all you want to do is finish the story, you can do that all by yourself and pretend it's an online-only single-player game, and just ignore the other people running around screaming about the trading post being down. Some people are playing it only for the PvP, and will likely never leave The Mists.
Personally: I enjoy the personal story. When I'm too low level for the recommended level for the next part of my personal story (it tells you what level you should really be before attempting it), I explore the zones, looking for vistas and skill challenges, and hidden dungeons with treasure chests. All the crafting materials I pick up along the way, I use to craft occasionally, which boosts me a few more levels, and by then I'm 2 levels above recommended for the next personal story mission.
As far as MMOs go, Guild Wars 2 is the most approachable there is, provided you get to grips with the combat system, which has an active dodge. If you don't learn to dodge, you're gonna have a hard time. Also, you don't need to watch for enemy skillbars, most enemies have "tells" in their animations, indicating when you should ready for a dodge.
If Guild Wars 2 were an amusement park, yes: it has all the amusement park things. You go on roller coasters (like every other amusement park), there are mascots running around, like every other amusment park, there are restaurants, like every other amusement park.
But, if you've ever been to amusement parks, they're all the same, at the base level, but the level of quality, the layout, the design of the rides, the cost of rides (pay once, or pay per ride), the attitude of the staff, etc, makes the world of difference.
I love the sensation when you SEE a mob of people fighting or doing something in the distance and wander over to find an event you can participate in. When it works, it's really natural in execution.
BattleMonkey
Member
The quests an activities have been done countless times by other MMOs, presentation is a bit different but for many it will seem to just be more of the same and they are correct. But really what is most unique about GW2 is that they took out the linear nature of MMOs. Pretty much most MMOs hold your hand and have you progress from point a to point b, while locking content like quest givers away till you have done somethign else or reached a certain point. GW2 removes that for freedom to approach it all as you like, its no longer a set structure of tasks that have to be done in order. That is where things have changed the most truly.
Kai Dracon
Writing a dinosaur space opera symphony
It's also worth pointing out that the the lack of a subscription model doesn't just affect one's personal attitude towards playing, but may change the overall character of the player base. People are not generally viewing the game as a monetary investment which they must fixate on optimizing to get a good 'return'.
I really do think there's an overly negative spin attached to anything that can be likened to an MMORPG due to the history of the genre being tied up with subscriptions and games that usually try to trick the player into wasting time so as to keep forking over the monthly payment. If you extract that mentality from the game concepts the genre is based on, it merely becomes a variation of a conventional offline RPG, with a lot of basically enjoyable play mechanics. For example, some hardcore WoW players may feel the basic combat is simplistic but by the same token, it's actually a lot of fun and doesn't feel like work. ANet did live up to their claim that "the fun part" starts immediately, rather than 100 hours later after you've 'earned it'.
Actually, related to this point I wonder how many folks have realized the consequences of the level scaling and quest/event system: you are not locked into a progression through your race/faction's set of zones in the same way as other games. Right from the start you can travel to other areas and engage in the same lower level events, but still get appropriate rewards (a big point). And later on you can go back to earlier zones for other races and still experience the content in a fair manner. The game encourage this by giving you completion stats for ALL the hearts in the world. Not just a specific linear string of them that begins at your race's starting point and goes to their end game. You really only have to go to a specific place, in a specific order, for your character's story. And there you have a lot more freedom than most games I know of, since again, you can come back any time and just get scaled down to the appropriate level to play through the instanced story mission.
flyinpiranha
Member
I thought it was an either/or affect. Like it would do damage but if they're bound it would pull them to you.
Damn. I'll have to run around with a class that has a bind or keep my eye on targets on the wall that are bound or something. I knew Guardian was too good to be true!
Dries
Member
Thanks bro, just the kind of info I was looking for.
arts&crafts
Member
I guess I will stick to cooking even though end game it will be pointless probably
But how late in the game do you get to discover stuff? Harvesting and salvaging everything in the starter zones only gives me one or two combinable objects in the discovery panel. I've no idea how people are getting three or four item discoveries.
Gah, I need to finish Prophecies. My girl deserves better than boring chain and scale stuff!
I am stupid. Having the headstart code AND the serial code that came inside the DVD case, I didn't realize that the headstart code only lasted temporarily, and by the time I found out the grace period ended I had given the actual serial code to a friend and he's used it already. Wow.
Teknopathetic
Member
"I guess I will stick to cooking even though end game it will be pointless probably"
There's no reason not to get it. It's the easiest profession to level and it's a free 10 levels in 5 minutes from 60-70. The buffs are super nice as well.
There's no reason not to get it. It's the easiest profession to level and it's a free 10 levels in 5 minutes from 60-70. The buffs are super nice as well.
Huh, I'd think it would be one of the tradeskills that would remain useful forever, since you produce stat-boosting food. More stats is always good.
arts&crafts
Member
I guess you are right, also mats are plentiful and discovery is fun for cooks.
Has anyone tried any of the structured PVP? It seems most folks are enjoying WvW (as am I), but I dipped into the sPVP a few nights ago and honestly had a blast with it. Only downside is that there's only a single mode, but that's nothing that can't be remedied with patches/expansions.
arts&crafts
Member
What are hackers going to do, steal my 70 silver? Obviously later on it is going to be bad so I am glad they are wasting their efforts now
BattleMonkey
Member
Many people have cards on files for the games cash shop, a hacker getting into your account and starts spending all your money? And also it will suck if someone gets your account and suddenly you can't play the game since they changed the password and account info on you? Or they strip your character of all it's belongings.
ttocs
Member
Quite a lot if you have a CC on file. Or even PayPal for that matter.
Rockandrollclown
lookwhatyou'vedone
sPVP is pretty much all I've been doing. I like it, but like you said just one game type sucks. I am really hoping they add more sooner rather than later. I prefer it to wvwvw just due to it being more instant gratification and I can see my toon's impact more immediately.
yeah, there use to be something else you did between 25-50 but apparently it was changed to skill 50. So I figured I'd wait for the trading post to work on my jeweling, but that hasn't gone over well.
RepairmanJack
Member
I think a lot of people aren't realizing that some events aren't just random and don't just automatically occur at a random time. You have to do exploring and find things to make some occur. If people are just going to go from heart to heart and do the random events that pop up along they way then a lot of the events in the game will most likely be missed. Exploring is the key.
ttocs
Member
That's how this past weekend was for me. It was an amazing time.
I know I'm a few days late, but is there any way to start playing on a "full" server? The GAF server and another server my WOW friends are playing on are both full. I would just create a temporary character on another server, but the game seems to be telling me that server selection is permanent, account-wide, and costs money to change later. What should I do? The game is literally unplayable for me at the moment.
Yeah, I enjoy the WvW stuff because it also helps me lvl my character, only real problems I have are queue times and the fact that my comp crawls when we're storming a gate.
Piecake, if I you see this, I really want to troubleshoot your Gamepad issues! Please post in the controller thread on gafguild what issues you had with my suggestion (getting AHK from the web and opening up the script).
http://gafguild.com/index.php?threads/controller-gaf-configs.52/page-4
http://gafguild.com/index.php?threads/controller-gaf-configs.52/page-4
For a while (A week or so) server transfers are free.
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