Guild Wars 2

Or you can get a better computer.

One of the problem is the loading time varies. Some people practically have none.

Judging from my time doing frostgorge train. Some people have “really really” long loading time(and they start complaining about other people killing the boss too fast) and some people practically have none.

I wonder what would I do for 1 sec load. :/

I’m all for it. I think some general gameplay tips would be very helpful, either for newer players or for highlighting some less-then-obvious details. For example, they could have reminders like “Might increases both power and condition damage.” There are a lot of details in GW2 that are not communicated to the player effectively enough.

As for people who have very short load times… well, they are just general tips, after all. You wouldn’t be missing anything crucial, and the information is technically out there for you to find. All the tips they use could also be posted to a page somewhere, to read at your leisure.

During the betas they actually had lore in the loading screens about the current map you are loading in to. Also a progress bar that shows how much has been loaded.

Get an SSD. LA loads in about 10 secs for me.

Agreed. The loading screens should contain a small google map window to the nearest hardware store that sells SSDs. That’ll give you something to do while it loads.

I DO have an SSD… It doesn’t have much space however and I never install anything other than my Windows there. The ones with more space are very expensive.

Purchased a second SSD for my games, makes the loading times much shorter in everything I’ve played. I know most people don’t have money to throw around, but GW2 on an SSD does see improvement.

Meehael.8240:

Get an SSD. LA loads in about 10 secs for me.

This is no doubt the difference in load times, the SSD haves v. have-nots.

certainly people would love a round of Asteroids! for 1 second… seriously, if you even notice the loading screens in GW2, you must be running a toaster – and that is neither “elitist” nor an exaggeration.

I load in most places in 7 to 10 second it’s all about having an SSD and having windows stripped down for gaming and not running any apps in the background. Also SSDs are dirt cheap right now I just got one for my laptop a 240G for $89 at Microcenter only paid $69 for the 120G that’s in my gaming desktop but it was part of a bundled deal at Microcenter about a year ago. A 120G SSD is plenty for your OS, GuildWars, and a couple of other games and apps just don’t jam it full with every thing, get a second standard drive for every thing else. You can get a 1TB $59 for data like music and videos, also apps that don’t need the speed boost that the SSD gives

There’s plenty of things that should still be working while loading.

• friend list
• chat
• inventory organisation
• hero panel (including: equip, dye, achievements panel…)

Etc…

Have Rytlock’s Critter Rampage on-screen as a playable mini-game while you wait.

Kite.2510:

While the art is nice, it only takes seconds to see all there is to see to a loading screen. And this game has many!

Here are a few ways to make Loading screens a bit more… interesting.
1. Give in text the lore and back story of each area you are visiting.
2. Leave the chat open when loading.
3. Give a random tip to the player in each loading screen.

Loading does take a bit longer than I’d like for me. However it certainly doesn’t take that long. Also I hate it in games when they have lore text on loading screens but it’s too long to read before the loading is over… Still some gameplay tips might be nice.

Mugiwara Luffy.1087:

During the betas they actually had lore in the loading screens about the current map you are loading in to. Also a progress bar that shows how much has been loaded.

The progress bar at least would be great. Why would they take it out?

Good Idea.

I wish me Tetris and The Legend of Zelda ^^

I myself am an SSD user and I agree. Depending on where I load in, loading times vary from 1-10 seconds. Even at that small loading time, it’d still be nice to be able to read some lore, or some quotes. Or even small tips about the game.

Not everyone can afford an SSD.

My SSD got destroyed by playing GW2, replaced and asked a friend. He told me, the SSD is for the operating system only. So I installed it on my Hard Drive. It’s ok. The first time I load LA it takes 30-40s, but after that it takes 10s and other screens take 5 seconds.

Actually they have something.You can play with Options Menu while loading.

Go take a bathroom break…

ProtoGunner.4953:

My SSD got destroyed by playing GW2, replaced and asked a friend.

Your friend is clueless. Only bad caching (WoW/D3 MPQ cache has the potential to do so, GW2 doesn’t cache) or using a swap file on your SSD can destroy it. If you wish to run your OS on your SSD (not recommended, the speed gain is only on booting), disable swapping and get at least 16 GB of RAM.

My loading time varies but it doesn’t bother me. Because I play in windowed mode I can just check Facebook or the forum or whatever while it’s loading.

Although even my longest load times are only a few seconds.

I’d really like the idea of having a bit of lore displayed on the loading screen (and also on the full map). Personally I’d also like to add a couple of lines of relevant lore to the POIs in the game, so you know why are they actually points of interest in the first place. The text displayed on the loading screen could be from a random POI inside the map.

I used to have SSDs, then Intel put out an automatically-downloaded driver update that turned them into 16MB bricks.

Since then I’ve gone back to using 11000 RPM Hard Drives. SSDs are nice for something things, but are too risky for me thanks to their reliance on software over hardware to function.

Granted, I’ve got more than just game files to worry about so your mileage may vary.

Well, if we get chat options during loading screens…

Why not also have option to display prompt “press ??? key to continue”, when loading completes, this prevents the character from actually entering the world until they are ready and confim the prompt, of course it should be optional, either on or off through settings.

This way we don’t miss some chats that might go on and some other things, while on loading screen.

DJRiful.3749:

I wonder what would I do for 1 sec load. :/

I know, right?

Shame on ArenaNet for breaking the immersive feel of the game for people. Sheesh. We shouldn’t be forced to take a breath and realize we’re not IN-GAME, but instead staring at a computer screen. Kitten it all!

mtpelion.4562:

I used to have SSDs, then Intel put out an automatically-downloaded driver update that turned them into 16MB bricks.

Since then I’ve gone back to using 11000 RPM Hard Drives. SSDs are nice for something things, but are too risky for me thanks to their reliance on software over hardware to function.

Granted, I’ve got more than just game files to worry about so your mileage may vary.

What drive was this intel release a firmware update that will restore these drives but you will lose all you data, can’t find the link right now also I think you can RMA it also but it was a limited time offer.

Pah, back in the old days, you’d stick a cassette in a computer (yes, really), type LOAD "", press play and go off and do something else for half an hour while the game loaded.

uknortherner.2670:

Pah, back in the old days, you’d stick a cassette in a computer (yes, really), type LOAD "", press play and go off and do something else for half an hour while the game loaded.

Some things are not meant to be remembered. * shudders *

I liked the lore tidbits on the loading screen, those were a nice touch.

It seems like zones are taking longer and longer to load these days.

If you have a Solid State Drive the loading times take between 7 to 10 seconds.

CureForLiving.5360:

Mugiwara Luffy.1087:

During the betas they actually had lore in the loading screens about the current map you are loading in to. Also a progress bar that shows how much has been loaded.

The progress bar at least would be great. Why would they take it out?

I’ve never tried it, but if you make a shortcut of Gw2.exe, right click and go to properties, and insert “-maploadinfo” you should get some sort of progress bar when you open the game via that shortcut.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Command_line_arguments#-maploadinfo

I don’t have an SSD but my game always loads quite fast, but lore in the loading screen is an excellent idea! However, then I’d also like to see a ‘click to enter zone’ button, since it would be quite annoying if you’re reading and suddenly, poof!

heh for me gw2 is on a 5400 rpm 1tb hd, load times are like 4 seconds for most zones. i don’t think hdd speed is super relevant for the way gw2 loads stuff. i think ram and cpu speed is more relevant for gw2’s methods.

First load is always going to be lengthy (due to buffers being loaded for the first time).

I wouldn’t be upset if they gave some variety in the loading screens, however. There is plenty of unused concept art out there (but it would bloat the .DAT file).