Guild Wars 2

Romeo.4378
Calm your nerd rage, young keyboard warriors.
Yes, I’ll say it again: I never seem to play Guild Wars 2 for longer than an hour a day – but I’m not saying this is a bad thing …

I find your very healthy approach to gaming, and life in general it seems, to be out of step with MMO forums. If you wish to remain here with the rest of us, I believe you should re-think this approach and rage at the game designers for not locking you into an addiction cycle.

Cuddlesworth.3187:

This all of course doesn’t account for any and all wizardry and goddidits.

Yeah … this … I imagine beings infused with shape shifting magic, in a world of active magic and knowable gods, plays havoc on sober scientific study of Tyrian evolutionary models.

I was vaguely aware of the GW2 discussion (hype?) buzzing around in the background, but didn’t pay much attention to it – I was too busy rotating between Tera, TSW and Rift. One particular night, a bit bored, I saw someone on one of those games forums talk GW2 up. So I said “sure, why not, it might last me until the Rift expansion.”

Very glad I did. Not so sure I’ll be getting to that Rift expansion for quite some time after it comes out.

“Wait. Who ate the last piece of pizza I was saving?”
Dodge roll.

“Let me show you these pictures of my vacation I took on my phone.”
Dodge roll.

“Vanessa needs a ride home from the airport.”
Dodge roll.

“Introducing, Windows Vista!”
Dodge roll.

“Normally I wouldn’t ask, but I’ve seemed to have misplaced my wallet …”
Dodge roll.

“Something something endgame something something bored …”
Dodge roll.

“I know this vegan restaurant, great tofu …”
Dodge roll.

cesmode.4257:

I agree whole heartedly with the OP. If you listen to the bickering and chatter between NPCs(which is often funny and interesting), youll realize an event is coming and for what reason. You follow them, complete the event, and follow them back to listen to the results. Another event might insue, and before long you understand the dynamics of that area, and learn a little bit about the NPCs and their history.

Yep. Look, follow, listen.

Many times the NPCs spell out quite clearly what they’re up to “hmm … maybe if I build an Ettin destroying suit?” This isn’t idle chatter. A suit will be built, something will come from this. Likely, an attempt to destroy Ettin with said suit. Your assistance may be required.

Shields aren’t great with clipping. Certain female Norn hair styles clip through the shield during movement in a fairly distracting manner. I have a keybind for sheath/un-sheath, because I always have to have the character run with her shield in her hand – never on the back.

Forums attract those with legitimate complaints. So, you’re going to get that.

It also attracts those who, when they see people having fun, it eats away at some sad angry core within them, and they come over to kick sand around to try to keep others from having fun. If you can stand the trolling, these people are the most entertaining – spilling their obvious dysfunction on every thread for all the world to see.

More or less just like this. Actually a bit more. This one is more heavily moderated, and the lack of the subscription fee seems to have dialed back the “paying customer” entitlement threads and “I won’t renew my sub” threat threads.

Bear.

“I’m as strong as Bear!”

Disclaimer 1: I’m digging the game. A great deal.

Disclaimer 2: I find long, autobiographical essays on why someone quit playing a video game – written with all the gravity and self importance of a world leader resigning from office – to be tiresome. Particularly as they are always just another list of problems (real and imagined) about the game that could be gleaned from one or more of hundreds of threads. Rarely an original thought to be found.

delmarqo.5038:

Having said all that, we’re at a stage in a new MMO launch where the official boards will feature a lot of ragequits, complete with manifestos about what’s wrong/broken/stupid about the game. This will lead to an echo chamber for a bit until the last of the disillusioned move on. Once the remaining dedicated fan base is established, they’ll be the veterans to usher in new players and explain how things really work here.

But they don’t move on, do they? They engage in the bizarre and deeply unhealthy habit of spending all their time hanging around battling about something they profess to hate and have quit, as opposed to spending their time somewhere else, any where else, discussing something they like.

On topic: Dynamic events, lack of quest givers and the rest … no, in fact, GW2 didn’t invent the wheel. Many of these ideas/concepts were in place in other games. And? Integrating and executing concepts successfully also makes for a quality product. And integrate enough of them, and you do create something unique.

An Audi R8, after all, is just a collection of car parts. Yet it so much more.

Here’s what amuses me. Prior to this game, I played a certain struggling MMO set in the present day, full of secret societies and a Lovecraftian influence. Dig around the forums there and you will find the number one complaint about the character creator was:

Can’t make characters attractive enough.

Again, this is not an unreasonable concept:

First Dungeon: Introduce players to the concept of dungeons. Make it clear that team work is required and that the difficulty will exceed anything seen in PVE thus far. Make it doable for even moderately/low skilled Pugs.

Every Other Dungeon In the Game After The First: as hard as the game makers want to make it, now that the basics have been introduced.

That’s it. Nothing complicated. Just introduce dungeons like every other concept in a game is introduced, before ramping it up in difficulty.

The past: whenever I would log out and back in there were, on average, three messages. Every time. Oddly, I never received messages while in actively game.

The present: One message in the past week or so I would say.

So … thanks a bunch ArenaNet for stealing my guaranteed income of three coppers a day! As hard as gold is to make in this game …

No. In reality it’s good to see you’re on top of the spammer issue.

The two real questions:

1. Does the game have enough players to run the group dynamics and PvP as intended, and keep the players playing the game happy?

2. Is enough money being made to keep content updated, bugs squashed, servers open, and expansions coming?

Everything else is noise.

Huh. I would have said “Ranger” based on what I see.

More people buying the game speaks well, the “wait and see” buyers who just don’t jump on the newest thing, but move by word of mouth or favorable press. I also suspect (based on anecdotal evidence only) that the majority of “content eaters” are the ones standing at the door when an MMO opens for business*. We may see these later purchasers taking their time through content and hanging around.

*Don’t see the point myself, but I have no problem with people blowing through content.

Lorelei.7809:

My Norn female characters are offended! Haven’t you looked one in the eye? Don’t they have that intimidating look to them? I love it! They look like they could stare you into the ground. Even with makeup and star tattoos. I made an ele Norn with star tattoos just for kicks and I found her in that frilly miniskirt and star tattoos still with a very determined look on her face like she could beat you up if she so desired.

Yep, attractive or not, they are no joke.

Arsenal.2601:

15 hours a day on average for a little less than month and a half, before significantly slowing down to a mere three or four hours day? If your post would have started with anything other than “im deeply in love with this game” I would label you a mad man.

Even so, step away from the keyboard. Really, just step away. This is a fantastic game, built to last, it will be here when you get back. In fact, I promise I won’t kill all the monsters and leave plenty for you when you return.

You still here? No seriously, outside with you.

Edit: ah …. injury…. I see now …

15 hours a day on average for a little less than month and a half, before significantly slowing down to a mere three or four hours day? If your post would have started with anything other than “im deeply in love with this game” I would label you a mad man.

Even so, step away from the keyboard. Really, just step away. This is a fantastic game, built to last, it will be here when you get back. In fact, I promise I won’t kill all the monsters and leave plenty for you when you return.

You still here? No seriously, outside with you.

I think it’s an issue that the dungeon content isn’t graduated, which is at odds with general game design, in this game as well as others.

All MMOs, including this one, bring players up to speed with the mechanics of the profession, the world, crafting, and everything else before throwing anything too complex or difficult at them. And unless this is a game expressly for MMO veterans, which clearly it is not, it is a strange choice to make the first step to any type of content, be it story modes, dungeons, or even entry level PVE, to be a barrier for a high percentage of players (I assume).

No one complains starter areas aren’t overly difficult. Why should starter dungeons be any different?

That said, I’m okay with the dungeons being as difficult as the designers want them to be, within reason, once the mechanics and concepts of a dungeon are introduced to the player base. I feel not every player is entitled to access all content if they don’t master the skills to do it. But they must be given a chance to master those skills in a reasonable fashion.

I have no idea if this could be done in the context of the bigger story, but I feel another dungeon at level 18-22, say, should be placed in the game. Something in-between the ease of the PVE content at that level, and the difficulty of AC.

18 – 25 years old sounds about right in context, based on the way the characters look and snippets of dialogue here and there indicating youth. I mean, Eir Stegalkin is the wise old head at what, 27?

I’m also amused that Norn children seem to be the same size as human children. Wonder what those growing pains must feel like?

Travleer.6301:

i’m guessing they change dungeons up a bit when after another month or 2 their metrics still show that nobody is completing dungeons.

This. Doesn’t matter what a bunch of us hanging around the forums think of the difficulty, almost by definition we’re outside of the “norm”. They’ll look it over, likely, and determine based on what is actually happening with the majority of players if the dungeons are balanced or not.

I would guess more people are having serious problems with the starter dungeon than was their intent, learning curve or not.

Just started playing a Guardian a few days ago. Level 20-something. I couldn’t tell you if the details/minutiae of this guide are all correct. Don’t care either. What I can say is it is quite awesome to get a comprehensive overview of the class in a readable, amusing form. Thanks for this.

I didn’t have Google accounts set up with this system prior to this. That sounds like that may be an issue. But in my case, it was as easier to set up and easier to use than expected. The extra level of security gives me a degree of comfort.

This can be an issue when trying to lay a small AOE circle on a boss like, say, lava font.

In fairness, this doesn’t differ from any other form of media that isn’t trying to portray realism, and its is particularly common to anything in the fantasy realm. In most visual media, the idea of unattractive means taking a highly attractive person and putting them in glasses, a sweatshirt, and maybe down playing their $400 hair cut by tying it into a bun.

I think where some players (certainly not me) have trouble is, in games, these are characters one has a hand in creating. And despite having a narrative laid out for your character through a story arc, the ownership, and a large part of the authorship, belongs to the player. Accordingly, we become more specific about what constitutes the right look of character we’re playing. And Norn are supposed to be a big rugged sort, so I can see that view point.

Then again, I played Tera Online prior to this game. The Elementalist’s bikini armor seems like burkas in comparison to the garb over there. Even the heavy stuff.

But whatever one thinks about the looks, the voice actress portraying the female Norn PC does so with a husky confidence that fits right into character.

Transferred to TC once I found out the RPers are there. Don’t RP one whit, not really my thing, but whatever they’re up to, seems to involve being invested in the community aspect of the server. And that can’t be a bad thing. I also like that a bar is a bar, full of people chatting it up. Chatting it up with very dramatic flourishes at times, but still.

Out in the game world, the mechanics work as designed. People are helpful, group well, and seem to go out of their way at times to help one out of a bind. And ….as an added bonus having moved from Blackgate (a/k/a Botgate) I see far fewer bots which has generally brightened my entire outlook on the game.

Good server, good community.

The overwhelmingly self confident declarations of the female Norn amuse me (in a good way) to no end, enough so I put one in my signature a while back. Another one that makes me laugh out loud: when you trigger certain percentages on the daily achievements, it will also trigger certain shouts. So I occasionally have moments where this nine foot Norn, winner of the Great Hunt, Slayer of Issormir, kills a small, helpless bunny with a flaming Great Sword imbued with powerful Guardian magic, and will cry out joyfully for all the world to hear “another proud moment!”

Yes. Another proud moment indeed. Tickles me every time.

I’m seriously ok with it.

For Faux Sake.8457:

draylore.2837:

Something like what Rift implemented would be awesome. I really enjoyed puging in Rift because of how easy/quick it was to form up a group.

What did Rift do?

Automatically pulls LFG members from any server and throws them in the dungeon by role. Quick and easy. Not sure it could be used here though, because I’m uncertain – with the lack of defined roles – what criteria, if any, would be used to create a group.

I haven’t run any dungeons (well, one that imploded and didn’t finish out of frustration. Although credit to this community, very polite frustration) so I’m unclear if they could be run with, say, all Elementalists. I suspect not. And auto-grouping taking professions in account, implicitly admits all roles can’t do all things. So I can’t see that happening.

A bot suicide cult. That’s certainly different.

I imagine the worst part about making games is that you have to make them for gamers.

Latest alt: Guardian around level 16 to 19 when the screen shot was snapped. As a side note, having great fun with this profession.

Which server is that?

Once my Tailor crafting got high enough, I was able to turn a small profit. But, because of the scarcity of craft items out in the world and I could not seem to collect enough of the right things, it took my putting real money in, before I got any money out. But as craft items are dirt cheap (thanks bots!)** it wasn’t too bad.

A couple quick and dirty rules:

I never craft or sell anything there is a ton of.

If there two or three items selling at a ridiculously low price, I will set a price far above that. Once those items move, I’ve noted that buyers will meet my price – even if I have to wait two or three days – as it is fairly reasonable, without giving the item away. This also “normalizes” the economy somewhat, by making current market value of a quality item something other than a few coppers.

I’ve found items with survival stats sell better than items with damage stats (thanks super squishy Eles!)

**The author of this post does not endorse botting, farming, gold selling, flooding the market with cheap goods, or other practices that violate the terms of service, circumvent the developers intent (stated or implicit) destabilize the Trade Post and/or the economy, or generally lessen the enjoyment of the game for other players. This author diligently reports such illegal activities, and would not knowingly, directly or indirectly, engage in practices that benefit the practitioners of such illegal activity.

Between levels 55 and 60 (current level). Played a bit over 104 hours with this character. Not sure if I’m leveling slowly, or if that is about the norm. A bit of a mix and match between crafted gear and TP. All has been transmuted.

You’ve ever wondered what a bathroom design must look like to accommodate Sylvari, Charr, Norn and Humans.

You think of food not in terms of nutrition or calories, but XP.

You no longer find it deeply creepy when a character rotates in place to turn.

You’re pleasantly surprised at the lack of loading screens whenever you leave your front door.

You’re jealous that your hometown isn’t a hopelessly complex multi-level illogical maze.

Norn mages living in a winter wasteland, wearing bikini armor made of silk, somehow makes perfect sense to you.

Insist on calling your dry cleaning fee the “armor repair costs”.

Explain death to a child not as the “end of life” but “something elementalists do many times an hour”.

Some gamers fixation with stealing that other game’s crown, clouds thinking at times.

The question is never if that other game can be toppled. It is a long standing juggernaut with a highly devoted fan base going back years. The answer for the foreseeable future is clearly “no”, and the landscape is littered with failed clones which stand as evidence.

The real question is: with that other game’s undoubted success, is there enough market share left for games such as GW2 – ones which take a different approach and try to breathe new life into a stale genre – to do well? Two million plus box sales seems to indicate the answer is a unqualified “yes”.

The thinking needs to be more along these lines: if I were to launch a new soda product, my dream may be to overtake Coca-Cola with their 28 billion dollars sold in soda each year. But that is a dream. And a long term one at that. But it would be madness for that to be an immediate goal. My goal would be to have success and survive in a market place which has Coca-Cola by creating an alternative.

The team behind GW2 may state that they want to make a superior, more innovative game, but I doubt you’ll find – in public or private – any financial model built on promises of toppling the other game. Draining some disaffected players? Sure. Maybe.

And none of this takes in account that the two games have drastically different business models. GW2 has a business model which largely insulates itself from what caused many before it to fail – the subscription fee. The choice between GW2 and the other game is an artificial one. They are not competing for the same dollars one for one. GW2 competes for overall gaming dollars in the same way the Mass Effect series does. Box sales. Box sales supplemented by an in game store.

And what about this Gem store? I think we would all be surprised if we were to see the numbers actually going into the Gem Store. With a dedicated credit card converting – by a simple click of the mouse – unseen cash into a make believe currency (Gems) , which in turn can be traded for another make believe in game currency (Gold), goes a long way toward obscuring from some players how much money they are actually pumping into the game.

1. It is in terribly poor form to show up to a dungeon party wearing the exact same armor with the exact same dye pattern as another player. If this happens, quickly excuse yourself, and change your colors.

2. When hopping upwards toward Vistas or other elevated areas, a gentleman never follows too closely behind a woman in skirted armor.

3. In a similar fashion, for heaven’s sake, an Asura should go around a Norn in skirted armor, not underneath.

4. If defeated repeatedly to the point where one finds oneself no longer wearing a single stitch of armor, a quick switch to town clothes and making haste to the nearest armor repair is in order.

5. All value their personal space. So do not be that person who stands inside of another person merging bodies together like some awfully grotesque Star Trek teleportation accident.

6. Respect your vanquished foes, for they have died honorably at your sword. Do not engage in victory dances above their slain corpse.

7. Additionally, if one sets a foe on fire, and this goes for the Norn in particular, it is not an invitation to use the burning bodies to light your tobacco pipe.

8. When receiving an invitation to a guild one would rather not join, “get lost!” is a highly inappropriate and ill mannered response. The correct response should be “No thank you, get lost.”

I more of a fan of the second set.

Yes, it’s ArenaNet’s fault, not the criminals who are hacking accounts and/or violating terms of service.

“Hackers, Bots, mail spams, gold sellers, etc exist because of 1 very simple reason”. Yes. That reason is people believe rules do not apply to them, on both the selling and buying side.

Is it worth slightly less than 30 cents (and getting cheaper) an hour I’ve paid? Yes.

I was actually impressed with the variation in the female Norn body types. Seeing a visibly stocky woman in a game of this sort is a first for me, any way. And even if they are not playable body types, I was pleasantly surprised to see women of varying sizes at least existed all over Tyria. There are clearly women in Hoelbrak who prefer a life of worldly pleasures over hunting, running and killing. I find that to be a bit more immersive actually, than Barbies everywhere.

What is a bit off though, is the age/voice matching in some places. The armor repair vendor in Hoelbrak sounds to be about 150 years old, may even have typical “old woman” dialogue, but has a portrait of a 20 year old. The elder woman outside of the one of the lodges (Wolf?), similar. Sounds ancient, but has the body of a young woman. Not complaining, mind, just amused.

From Tera to The Secret World to GW2. So I’ve been leaping and rolling around for months now. But I play so many single player games, my brain still wants to hit “F5” autosave every time I’m in an instance and am about to take on the boss.

I bind healing to the center button of the mouse.

My question is, I have a gaming keyboard with twelve additional “G” keys. It is entirely possible to bind those key with two keystrokes apiece (mini-macros, I guess you could call them). So, for example, instead of hitting F4 then 2 for to switch to an earth ability from, say, air, I could simply hit G16 and call that ability up with a single key stroke.

I’m a law abiding sort. Is this against the ToS?

Google “Sales Numbers Mists of Pandaria” for a round up of analysis. But, in short, box sales of the expansion fell well below expectations (down 60% from Cataclysm). At this point, they seem to unsure it that is due to poor sales overall, or a shift to digital sales, or both. In fairness, I can’t remember the last game I bought in a store.

I am not privy to any real numbers, so I will not begin to speak in empty authoritative tones about the health of the game, although I do suspect it is healthy enough.

I will say this: not being at peak popularity is far, far different than dying.

Thanks for the input. As I kind of suspected, for one reason or another, there aren’t a ton of people playing this weapon combination. I’ve been playing around with it a bit more, and abilities and stats aside – as important as they may be – it has some particularly satisfying animations and a nice “feel” to it, especially in air.

RP1: My word! Do you hear that? What is that sound?

RP2: Oh, that? Nevermind that. Those would be Krait. Filthy, ill mannered creatures, one and and all. They come in from whatever hole they call home and enslave the villagers.

RP1: Enslave the villagers? Shouldn’t we do something?

RP3: Oh heavens no. Look outside the window. There are plenty battling away as is. More tea?

RP1: Delightful tea by the way, but I believe I have had my fill. But to remain on point – doesn’t our mere presence here increase the number of Krait? Aren’t our sheer numbers making it more difficult for them to fight the Krait off?

RP2: Perhaps. But that isn’t our concern. We here to have civil conversation, not fight slimy brutes in the street like common mercenaries.

RP3: Yes, it isn’t our concern at all. And if you knew the price I paid for dye at the auction house to get these town clothes looking just so, you would not be asking me to switch into that horrible looking armor right now. More cake?

I was wondering if anyone has any thoughts on the dagger/focus combination in PVE play? I took quick look around and didn’t see much (or missed) discussion on this combination.

I’ve played primarily with the staff and – as much as I like to kid that I die all the time – have had fairly decent PVE results with it through about level 48. But even running madly through attunements like a meth addict playing piano, the staff still puts me in deeply uncomfortable (read: fatal) situations, depending on mob density, available movement space, etc. Plus, with the variety available to players, it seems a waste to not try to master more weapon choices.

The dagger/focus seems to have some nice abilities, if lacking the AOE punch that I’ve become quite used to using staff, and it fared well enough when I scaled down to run it through some lower level mobs to learn the abilities. But I’d be interested in opinions, before committing to it whole heartedly.

Thoughts?