Reply With QuoteAnyone else feel that the thief's function-key skill is really underwhelming compared to pretty much all others? It almost feels like a temporary placeholder.
The difference here is that everyone's free to kill any apple/centaur without being penalized for being late to it. Everyone's progress counts towards the bar, so when you help others (or vice versa) everyone benefits.Originally Posted by blah!
Compare to traditional questing, where the moment a mob turns gray, a power-leveler turns away and goes to find his own. Traditional quest design is positively antisocial.
However yeah, WAR's PQ design is pretty much spot on, difference being that these are easier to find, easier to track, and even less competitive. I keep getting gold participation medals and frankly I don't even know what they mean. In WAR, there was always only one Gold Reward Bag, One Silver and one Bronze, I think? Definitely encouraged you to wait for the entire event to start, and if you came in on the tail end you probably didn't get a whole lot.
Also, they're a lot more organic in how they loop. PQs just reset - GW2's tend to loop around. But yes, the core is definitely familiar.
I'm definitely in for the long haul, floaty movement or not (it's definitely there, but not nearly as bad as the original game). The world is gorgeous and the combat variety is mind-boggling (as in, how did they get all this complexity with so few active skills on the skillbar - even if the oft claimed 5 basic skills isn't really true, most classes have the F keys as well).
Anyone else feel that the thief's function-key skill is really underwhelming compared to pretty much all others? It almost feels like a temporary placeholder.
I have spent very little time with the Thief, but the idea doesn't appeal to me much. Apparently every monster type has a specific skill that you steal, so once you do some experimenting, you should know what you're going to get and how to use it effectively. Really, though, I think it's primarily intended to be used as a teleport -- the skill you steal is just a bonus.
I only played the thief a few minutes, but the Centaur steal was this awesome whirlwind blade attack. Totally worth it.
It's good for the teleport, but rarely do I have time to figure out what the stolen effect will be. The thief has plenty of other shadow steps already, though.
WAR did this with public quests and everyone loved them for about a week, then they became barren and tedious to do. These will be no different. That quest where you had 50 people picking apples will be just you a month after release and you'll get sick of having to move that bar all by yourself.
And as far as exploring the land, you are still going to be funneled through the game just like every other MMO, from point A to B to C. You can't skip the content and expect to be able to do the next event you see, so you are essentially going through quest hubs.
And you do have to run back and forth to quest givers. Just about every quest area has you harvesting something and running it back to a quest giver. Many times this involves only being able to carry one item at a time, resulting in you going back and fourth repeatedly. Other times you have to talk to NPC's to move a quest forward.
ArenaNet has done a decent job disguising it, but much of the hype about this game has been about this dynamic and revolutionary questing system, and it's pretty much neither.
Anyone able to play the dungeon? I got a party together and we are just standing around at entrance =[
I believe they all scale with the number of players in the area. So while you will be moving that bar by yourself, you won't have to pick that many apples.
The difference from WAR is that there are a ton of dynamic events in GW2. WAR only had a couple.
And the difference from Rift is that they aren't all identical kill 10 monsters, kill 20 monsters, kill boss monster. They aren't randomly generated, and many have little twists.
These aren't terribly like WAR's PQs. WAR's PQs were static, and when stage 3 ended, it looped back to stage 1. They almost all involved staying in one fairly small area and killing mobs. If you succeeded or failed it went back to the beginning.
These dynamic events spawn based on something - sure, time is a part of it, but player density plays into it too. They often involve escorting people - not just caravans, but accompanying soldiers making an assault, retaking areas, defending towns, taking towns back when they're occupied - there's a lot of variety. Success or failure matters - if you succeed you may get a follow on event; if you fail, there may be a different follow on event.
WAR's PQs didn't scale and could be very difficult if you didn't have enough players. These dynamic events scale to a large number of players, and if you're by yourself you can probably do it (though not always).
WAR's PQs required you to group, to ensure you got credit (through tagging the mobs)) though it automatically grouped you. These events don't require you to group up, and you don't have to tag the mob first to get credit.
Here's an example of one of my favorite quest chains: I was traveling near a lake and I saw one of those "collect stuff from the bottom of the lake for Merchant X" - since nobody was around, I figured "why not?" So I swam around underwater, collected a bunch of items, and turned them in. When the merchant had enough he started walking back toward a settlement. And I figured I'd follow him. He went back to the settlement and started talking with an innkeeper. They discussed how one of the items was a valuable relic. Then all of a sudden a neutral bad guy comes up and says "that IS valuable, and I'll take it, thank you" The merchant says "no way" and the bad guy says "ok, we're going to take it by force."
So a second quest starts, to defend the items from the bad guys. I succeeded (this included defeating the main bad guy at the end). They ran off saying "you'll be sorry!"
The merchant then said "this is too valuable, we need to get rid of it. I'll send a bird to transport it to <nearby city>." And a bird flies off.
So I stood there, thinking "is that it?"
No! About 30 seconds later a pack dolyak and 2 guys come around the building and say "we were summoned to transport an item to <nearby town>" So starts the third quest: an escort quest. Defend the goods, fight off mobs... eventually we reach the next town. A guy runs up to us and says "hey, here's the money for that shipment. I was told it's a summoning stone, and it needs to be destroyed." The transport guys say "ok, we'll help you with that. So we all walk just outside of town; he throws the stone on the ground and we start hitting it. All of a sudden a veteran flame demon springs out saying "thanks for summoning me!" And the final quest in the chain was to destroy the demon.
All that from fetching a bunch of items off the lakebed. No way WAR's PQs can even touch that.
(Incidentally, I did it again later and failed the second quest. What happens is that the main bad guy and his pals get transformed into flame demon guys, and you have to defeat them... which I was unable to do - so there may be a multi-part failure chain associated with the area too).
The "events will be stupid work alone" argument does not hold water. I did one just now where I was alone. I had done the same one with around 10 other people yesterday evening. Alone I only had to herd around 4 cows, yesterday evening we needed many many more together. They scale quite nicely.
Yup. And from what I've heard, they scale based on participation, which means Joe Schmoe over there who is AFK will not add to the difficulty of the dynamic event.
Also keep in mind that we're just seeing a small glimpse (LVL 1-20) of what the dynamic event system can offer, so I have to imagine that the "world impact" rating will go up from picking apples to (by the end) averting the world from destruction.
Last edited by Nephrinn; 04-29-2012 at 01:41 PM.
FYI, you're talking to blah. His MO is to pop into a thread, be aggressively wrong, insult people who disagree with him, and then disappear until he does it again in a new thread.
So, y'know. Just ignore it.
I am wondering if someone smarter than me knows if this will run on my laptop. I am above the minimum for everything, but I am not sure about the graphics card. I have an HP pavilion g6, and unders specifications it just says Intel(R) HD Graphics.
That isn't listed on the Guild Wars 2 website, so I have no idea if it works. I think I might want to check this out since a friend of mine is super into it, but I have no idea if it will work or not.
For a point of comparison my computer will run WoW pretty nicely (good enough for me anyway) and it will also run DA:O, but a bit too hinky for my taste.
The minimum intel graphics for GW2 is the HD3000. If you have a sandy bridge, there's a fair chance it'll work. Get GPU-Z to be sure.
Now how well it runs with a HD3000 is another question entirely. But it will run.
Well I checked too see if I could determine what I actually have, and still no luck. I guess I just turn on my XBOX. Thanks for the advice though, I just wish PC games weren't such a pain in the ass.
How is this a product of PC games being a pain in the ass?
I wish Guild War 2's weapon/skill stat system is less opaque, I get a weapon that deal 150-180 damage, yet none of the skills that's associate with it deal anywhere close to that amount....
GPU-Z didn't work?
I'm not drinking the kool-aid, I'm guzzling it down! I find the "dynamic event system" and the "task hub" system to be interesting evolutions of previous systems. Yes, the dynamic events aren't much more than glorified Public Quests or slightly advanced versions of Rift's dynamic systems, but the execution is done much better. The world really feels alive.
On the class front, I feel they've done a great job of providing a wide range of gameplay for each class (granted I've only played guardian, elementalist, and thief). I enjoy the fact that it seems that all classes get viable ranged attacks, particularly in WvW.
And speaking of WvW, I can't get enough of it. As an old DAoC player, it brings back a lot of memories. And it's obvious a lot of effort has gone into it because it all works (yes, I'm looking at you SW:ToR and your silly Ilum). It is not an afterthought. I only have two real complaints about WvW: 1) Arrow carts could use a downward damage adjustment; 2) I wish the three Borderlands zones had different terrains.
The only real disappoint I've had with GW2 is the lack of a release date.
Thus far I've not found that to be the case, I'm already seeing instances of being one or two people around and getting swarmed by way more mobs than we could handle. If that's true that they are supposed to scale that would fix many of the issues. I guess time will tell, but I just don't see how some of these things will work with less people. Especially ones that go in stages and will lead to fighting to epic creature.
And your MO is to follow me into every thread and post some lame ass snarky comment.
Well played!
And when did i insult anyone before this very post douche bag? I know you got all butt because after you insulted me, in my very first post on this site, i fired back but you're just fucking pathetic...get over it.
Or did you have something to say about GW2?
Can we not call people out please?
.... back to GW2, dynamic events are supposed to scale with the number of players in the vicinity, yes.
So I was wiki-ing after all the beta testing hype I read here, and so this game has no monthly fee? How does that work? Is there a cash shop in game? I though all MMO's that aren't F2P have a monthly fee of some kind.
Why aren't more mmo's going this route?
Cool.
On a lighter note, the Elementalist is one of the most impressive caster types I've ever played in an MMO. The sheer amount of skills and variety of this class is amazing. So far I'm finding the staff to be ridiculously powerful. This is definitely the class I'll be playing when the game comes out.
The public quest scaling system is somewhat broken in this beta. It has been widely reported by beta testers before this weekend and the devs have acknowledged there is an issue. The problem is the scaling system is also counting people outside of the quest circle but in close proximity and also failing to reduce the size of mob raiding parties once people leave. This is most notable when doing the escort wagon quests.
Some public quests are scaling correctly. Hence why this is a beta weekend and the sole reason for the widespread testing. Too many people are under the assumption the beta test is actually a final code test. Not so. The game is still far from complete.
On release the devs will also have a team of guys who are responsible for removing and injecting new dynamic quests into each map area on a weekly basis. This will keep the content fresh and randomize some of the locations. How this will happen with some fixed locations (eg. buildings/forts) remains to be seen.
There is a cash shop, yes. I don't understand your last 2 sentences, though. Just about every MMO except WoW and SWOTOR are free to play: DDO, LoTRO, EQ, EQ2, Vanguard, DCUO, CO, COH/COV, STO.... ?
You didn't read wrong. It has no sub, just like Guild Wars 1. Unlike Guild Wars 1, it's a full blown MMO. It does have a pseudo cash shop, but there are no pay-to-win items and everything on the cash shop can be purchased with the things you earn in game. It's mostly just stuff to make your character look better (hats!).
I was just confused by the pay model for this MMO, but you both explained it very well. I never plays Guild Wars 1, I am going to keep following and try to get into Beta I guess. :)
Man, GW2 is so awesome where it never feels like you are running meaninglessly for stretches on end through lifeless zones full of trash mobs just to transit somewhere. ie SWTOR.
I hope this will be a wake up call for Bioware but I fear they are locked to the existing gameplay due to the core engine driving their game. Their game engine doesn't even support phasing (eg. that was introduced into WoW).
Simutronics HeroEngine?
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