Reply With QuoteI haven't done any beta events since that first E3 preview weekend a year or two back; been looking forward to it since then.
So IGN reports. I'm pretty excited about this game. I haven't participated in any of the beta events so this one's gonna be a surprise for me.
I haven't done any beta events since that first E3 preview weekend a year or two back; been looking forward to it since then.
Same for me. Sounds like WoW without the time investment and more streamlined for combat. Perfect.
Sort of, but also has a pile of problems WoW doesn't have.Originally Posted by JM
There is no jumping, meaning you have to run around even the smallest ledge. Highly annoying, although you kind of get used to it.
Quest system. Can't delete quests, can't share quests, and many of them don't have key information (like where the end NPC is actually located). I like to be a completist with quests usually, but Guild Wars really doesn't lend itself to that and I ended up just ignoring a lot of them. The rewards are crappy anyway (usually just some exp).
Mini map. It's very difficult to see your party members when you're in areas with other people or NPCs (they are shown as tiny green triangles, hard to tell from the tiny green circles of your party members), or if they wander off your mini map (no arrow showing their direction). You can draw on it though, which is handy.
Party system. If one person in the party moves into a new area, the entire party is moved there. So you might be in the middle of a transaction or whatever and you're suddenly wisked away because someone moved (accidently or not) to a new area. Also, you are broken off from the party if you need to teleport to a location. It's a pain to get it hooked back together. And unless I'm blind, I didn't see any way to simply invite people from your friends list. You have to be in the same town (and district) and actually see them, select and invite them. Or type in a command(?). And it doesn't help that the minimap is virtually worthless to find your party members in towns.
The player base will probably be the worst ever. MMOG + no monthly fee + several highly generic/lame character models/dances? The towns feel like a teen chat room more so than anything I've played. Immersiveness begone!
Selling/buying/crafting with NPCs. Uses a separate selling window instead of your inventory (like Diablo or WoW, etc does). Wha? Makes it difficult to keep track of things. Have no idea why they did it that way...really a pain.
Longevity concerns. Quick to max your character (lvl 20) from what I've heard (I only played to lvl 8 in the last beta wknd - and that didn't take long). Crafting is very limited/streamlined, good or bad depending on your tastes.
All that said, I still think it's a good game overall and will probably end up getting it. Unless I get back into WoW, it's the next best thing to a Diablo 3. It plays really well and looks great. Also loads surprisingly fast. When you have a party together and get out of town it's a lot of fun. It's just not going to be nearly as smooth of a ride as WoW or such is... of course you're also not paying out $15/mo for it.
I'm definitely interested in this. The problems Reed's talking about are kind of disheartening, but I'm hopeful that GW will be good and I'm always happy to see people trying new models for MMOs. I don't think anything will pull me away from WoW at this point, but more games = good and more games with new ideas = better.
If you play GW for the PvE content, thern you're probably going to be disappointed. GW seems to have been designed with the end game, the 'guild wars' in mind. Getting your character to the max level isn't where the game ends, it's where it starts, for me at least.
The guild vs guild fighting is like nothing else out there. It's like playing speed MtG with 7 of your closest friends all teamed up against 8 yahoos. The possible character and team builds are amazing, and according to the top beta guilds, every build invented thus far has been counterable.
PvE in GW is fun, but the little things that annoy people in PvE, like the actual edges to terrain, allow for tactics in GvG. Perch an archer on a bridge that takes 30 seconds to run up to and they can shoot from relative safety. However, you don't have to choose to stand under them. It allows people to take advantage of terrain instead of just running up and down the vertical surfaces like so many games allow.
I agree that the common areas will be full of idiot bnet style kids, but once your guild has its guild hall, you can pretty much say goodbye to the common areas. You definitely don't have to hang out with the trash talking 12 year olds if you prefer not to.
Without a guild of friends you like to hang out with, I think the game would be frustrating, as pickup groups generally have low teamwork and haven't been designed to work together. Plus, you have to listen to whatever the members of your pickup group have to say, which puts you right back in bnet land. My advice - find a good guild and leave the idiots in town.
The guild I'm in is full of MMORPG veterans, and we spent about 10 minutes out of the last three day event in a common area, and none of us played in a pickup group. We're jaded vets, but the design of GW makes it a brand new paradigm, and we're giddy like a 13 year old girl with a crush. Fast levelling, incredible character and team customization, true skill/smarts based fighting, no travel time, highly casual friendly, no need for bots, and there's no monthly fee. Wow, I think I just had one.
Actually, your guild doesn't acquire a guild hall, as soon as you are in a guild you can teleport to the guild hall.
Or that's how it was a few beta weekends ago, anyway.
Yeah, that's how it was in some older betas.
Now I'm pretty sure that your guild needs to win in the hall of heroes and/or buy a special guild hall permit thingy in one of the late PvE cities in order to get a hall.
Some things have been changed with each beta weekend though, so it wouldn't surprise me if there's a new mechanism in place for release.
You need to buy a guild hall in live, I think.
All of Reed's comments are valid, probably, but they are all about the downtime. He devotes only two sentences to the actual playing part of the game, just enough to say that it's great.
It really is a fun game once you get into the game part. If you are looking for an immersive world, with NPCs, quests, etc, than GW is not for you. I wouldn't call it an MMORPG in the standard sense, it's not about character and world.
It's more like a Phantom Dust sort of game, with an MMO-style game matching system and chat lobby, and co-op PvE. I've been having a great time during the beta events.
Not all of Reed's comments are actually valid I'll stick to commenting on objective things instead of opinion items...
Quest System - You can delete quests. All of them at least tell you where the end NPC is, 90% of them will show you a green dot/arrow on your compass indicating where they are. The rewards are not crappy and are 95% of the time not just experience. In fact, more than half of all the skills in the game can be gained through questing and we'll certainly be adding more post launch.
Party System - you can invite people to group by typing in their name (true that they do need to be in the same instance as you)
Longevity concerns - When you reach level 20 in the single player game you are about 70% of the way through the game. The main point of the game is of course the competitive part of things. We made it so a player didn't have to complete the game before they are on an even ground with others. If you need to see your experience bar moving and gain levels in order to keep playing the no the game doesn't have a lot of longevity. If you can have fun advancing your character by collecting new skills, equipment, competing in PvP, tinkering with builds and strategies then the game has a ton of longevity.
I'm sorta brain dead atm so forgive me not hitting all your points.
I noticed the arrow, but thought it was just for the most recently aquired quest? Or is there a way to select any quest you have to have an arrow show up?
And I could have sworn most of the quests I did only gave exp. Does it change further into the game or was I just not paying enough attention? ;) I didn't do that many beyond the first area.
I mentioned that, but wasn't sure if it was in there. Regardless, I wouldn't say it invalidates my point. Especially when everyone has a first and last name. Typing in /invite Fr3d Fl1ntston3r0cks all the time would get old real fast.
Makes sense and good to hear. Was wondering how much there would be left once you hit 20.
I think MikeSofaer summed it up pretty well. It did actually have a Phantom Dust vibe to it, since you're only able to go into battle with a set amount of skills at a time and are trying to collect as many as you can. And there's certainly some longevity to that aspect.
With the default controls press L to open up your quest menu, then use your mouse to select the different quests. When a different one is selected the arrow will change so that it fits the newly selected quest.
Most quests do only give XP, though if they are for a trainer then many times you will get new skills before/after completion. Also sometimes you get gold too, though it is mostly just experience.
Not anymore. We hadn't populated all the quest rewards as of the last BWE.With the default controls press L to open up your quest menu, then use your mouse to select the different quests. When a different one is selected the arrow will change so that it fits the newly selected quest.
Most quests do only give XP, though if they are for a trainer then many times you will get new skills before/after completion. Also sometimes you get gold too, though it is mostly just experience.
It sounds like you guys didn't get that far or didn't look around that hard during the beta weekends. This past beta, they added many many many quests in lots of the later outposts. In Yak's bend alone, there were two class-specific quests, one for your primary and one for your secondary, and each of them gave you experience, money and three skills.Most quests do only give XP, though if they are for a trainer then many times you will get new skills before/after completion. Also sometimes you get gold too, though it is mostly just experience.
I didn't play for more than a few hours this time around, but in jumping around to various outposts, I saw LOTS of available quests that weren't around last month that appeared to be class-specific. Or at least the rewards appeared to be class-specific.
There are a lot of class specific quests in the games "newbie" area.
Yeah I saw those, I just didn't notice the influx of gold into my account.It sounds like you guys didn't get that far or didn't look around that hard during the beta weekends. This past beta, they added many many many quests in lots of the later outposts.
Though that's true, I haven't played in Pre-searing ascalon since the weekend they introduced it, and that's not what I'm talking about. I'm referring to Snow country and beyond.
Since they changed the skill-aquiring model (got rid of skill traders, charms, etc), class-specific late-game missions are the way that the majority of those skills are going to be delivered. That's most of the 30% of the post level 20 game that EFlannum was talking about, I think.
I haven't played this yet, is combat at all twitch based, strategy based, or is it all about who has the better character?
About who can use their skills better, some skills do rely more so on twitch then others, though it's not very twitch. However it is very fast paced and if you're gonna do well strategy is a must.
It's a lot like Magic. You can only carry 8 skills into combat from a pool of well over one hundred possible per Dual-Class pair. Combat plays out in real time, and it's twitch based in the sense that it's possible to dodge certain attacks (AoE spells as well as some melee attacks, I believe). Non-melee attacks are timing-based -- mana recharge and spell cooldowns are what you'd be paying attention to.
There definitely is a difference between a level 10 character and a level 20 character, but the time investment required to get to level 20 is ~20-30 hours, so the pre-competitive "grind" is minimal. Also, it's by no means impossible for a well-designed, well-played level 15 to kill a level 20. If that's not good enough, there are arenas that are limited to characters level 10 and below, so if you want to PvP earlier in the game and still have a real fighting chance, there's that.
Edit: Level 20 is the cap, by the way.
Should we try and coordinate on a QT3 server for this?
There aren't multiple servers.
During the last beta weekend, I did make a Quarter to Three guild, just in case they somehow carry over into retail. We'll find out next week.
I think that makes 3 QT3 guilds now :)
Maybe if we do so RIGHT NOW people will stick to it, and we won't get two dozen people randomly starting on different servers.
There are no servers, so it's not necessary.
I don't know what you people called yours. Mine was "Quarter to Three" with the tag "QtoT" (no number allowed)I think that makes 3 QT3 guilds now Smile
It's possible the previous iterations were disbanded. I think the first one was in September, I was the guildmaster for that one.
Kinda makes me wonder though how busy the start towns are gonna be.
--- Alan
Any town or gathering area such as the entry areas for the dungeons are instanced. A new one is created when the previous one fills up. You can switch between instances at will, however, so when your group recalls back to town to sell gear, you can all meet up to trade by saying "Go to District 23" or whatever.
I thought that groups stayed assigned after mission completion? I guess they do after explorable areas but not missions.
I'm anxiously waiting for the box to appear here, so please coordinate
a guild if I bump into any of you then :)
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