Guild Wars 2 rumblings

[Dog Pants]

I've just read some interesting stuff about Guild Wars 2, which coincides nicely with its slight renaissance on 5punk. Seems they've combined several things we've all decided are the best bits of several MMONGs;

A persistant game world, only becoming player specific in plot incidents. This makes GW2 a little more like World of Warcraft, in a good way, as you'll be able to encounter folk out and about and not just in cities.

A sidekick system, as in City of Heores. This is a stroke of genius and I think it will make the game very accessible to 5punkers. More MMONGs should have this.

As with Guild Wars, it will have no monthly subscription. I don't know how they manage to keep the game as good as it is without their constant income, but I'm glad they do.

This all amounts to me getting unusually excited about the game. Something I'd have liked to have seen is one persistant world spread across servers, like in Eve, but at least you'll be able to move between servers at will. That's an acceptable second place. Now if they can only make a compelling PvP driven political system as Eve has they'll have made MMONG crack.

[Lateralus]

Well if there is no monthly fee, and if you don't need to play an obscene amount to keep up to speed on it, then I may be interested. Probably won't get the original though, unless a lot of people try to convince me that it's worth it.

[Baliame]

If it's correctly spiced with magical faaabulous fairies, then you don't have to. 21 hours a week should do it then.

[Dog Pants]

The original is a platform for us fannying around while drunk more than anything else. It's not a bad game to play through alone, and can be played like a co-op RPG effectively. With the added bonus of being able to bait random MMONGers inbetween.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I'd have liked to have seen is one persistant world spread across servers, like in Eve, but at least you'll be able to move between servers at will. That's an acceptable second place. Now if they can only make a compelling PvP driven political system as Eve has they'll have made MMONG crack.

Frankly, Pete, I think both of those would be too far, you'd end up needing a fucking *huge* world, if they were going for the single world thing.

and the whole pvp/politics stuff probably wouldn't fit well in the GW style/world.

[Lateralus]

MMONGS as a whole are a total unknown for me, so I guess I should try a free trial or something first.

[Dog Pants]

Frankly, Pete, I think both of those would be too far, you'd end up needing a fucking *huge* world, if they were going for the single world thing.

and the whole pvp/politics stuff probably wouldn't fit well in the GW style/world.

I did consider this while writing it, but Eve has something compelling that other MMONGs could benefit from. Copying it verbatim probably wouldn't work, but something similar and in character with GW might.

Also; Pete? I'm not the one with a cavalier approach to punctuation in this thread.

EDIT: Ah, I think I see now.

[HereComesPete]

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[FatherJack]

Servers and worlds are different things. Not sure how "shards" fit in. IIRC Guild Wars was a single world, so that if you created a character/guild hall/etc you could play on any of the localised servers and still access the same content - you just had to make sure your buddies were on the same server to meet up.

I like the Guild Wars approach, free to play (I discovered a two-year-old birthday present on logging in), assigned loot, shared (limited) stuff with your alts, "low" (compared to others) max level.

The persistent game world is a plus - I always found it very lonely out of the cities - with other people around it makes it a lot easier to get to places with a bit of help with others thinning out the enemies, without treating every excursion like an instance and having to form official teams - it made casual play virtually impossible. Hugely annoying to have to deal with exactly the same spawns every time you went outside.

Sidekick is probably the best innovation in the genre - I've witnessed the ridiculous hoops WoW and other MMO players have to jump through when trying to help out a lower-level friend.

Something which you don't have to play every waking hour to keep up and can still join in with and not pay any extra is the maximum of win for the 5punky demographic. I don't like the way so many MMOs only seem to release new material for the loud-voiced high-level characters, most players probably don't have the time/inclination to benefit from them, but merely silently stop playing.