Wars Of Guild 2

[FatherJack]

Seriously unlikely to kill WoW, but I'll buy it, because hey - no sub.

Although that's perhaps why I don't play GW1 so much, because I don't have to -it's always there and I don't pay any more.

Another reason would be that I never really got on with it, I tried numerous character types and never found one I liked. Never got a char past about level 10, the whole "levels don't matter" thing was utter bullshit, all my characters were basically trapped in the starting areas because the roads onward were too tough to get past.

[Dog Pants]

Well levels may not have mattered, but there was still progression past 20. New skills and better gear were the equivalent of levels really. I had a couple of characters out and about - a ranger at 20 and a warrior at 18 I think. I don't remember having much difficulty with either - I took along a bunch of heroic NPCs who gibbed pretty much everything, but they came with an expansion (Eye of the North?). I think I also remember it being a bit flat soloing after 20 though.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

The problem with GW1 was that you hit 20 and then there was a massive difficulty curve, shaped almost exactly like a brick wall.

Went from being able to solo stuff and take NPCs, to needing a full team of well geared people to go anywhere.

[Grimmie]

I have memories of us fighting trees at 5am, and Roman asking everyone to take a step back.

[Roman Totale]

Take a step back.

[Anery]

The problem with GW1 was that you hit 20 and then there was a massive difficulty curve, shaped almost exactly like a brick wall.

Got easier with the introduction of heroes but then it became more of a solo game.

No PvP. They've stated they want everything to be about positive interaction and teamwork, building up good relations with other players. This worked will in WAR's group quests - you could silently work together with another player without having to actually speak to them and find out they were a tard, then carry on your way. They don't want it to be competitive.

If I remember the original press release and interviews they will be implementing PvP like the original with the addition of an area called "the mists" that is more like a WoW Battleground crossed with Battlefield.
What they were referring to was the persistant world.

[Pnut]

I think I will have to reinstall GW, I had some good fun last time I played it

[Thompy]

(Outdated)

[Anery]

ArenaNet have released an interactive list of what each current Guild Wars account will recieve as bonus items in GW2. Mostly they are just aesthetical but there are some weapons and armour in there that will no doubt be better than the standrad newbiw stuff. I just want that Black Widow spider pet...grinding ugh...

http://hom.guildwars2.com/

From what I can tell you need to have Eye Of The North Expansion pack which is available on steam.

[Dog Pants]

Fuck the spider, I want the fish gun.

[Thompy]

Arise!

I've been following the game for a year now and there's been a ton of info, changes, articles and videos.

Gamescom is probably the biggest new set of info since, well, Gamescom last year, and if you wanted to get a feel for the game now, then:

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f0nCHPl_mEU[/media]

We knew there would be large scale PvE boss fights but jeez.

[Dog Pants]

Bloody hell, that's an impressive boss. There seems to be an awful lot going on to distract you from the job of actually fighting the thing though, and the dynamic scaling could mean that you're always struggling to fend off the adds regardless of how many people you throw at it. I'm not too concerned though, this is high level content and they seem to know what they're doing. And what's shown here is preferable to a raid system for me.

[Anery]

Yeah my first reaction to seeing a giant dragon erupt from the sea would be to backpeddle as well.

Graphics look bloody nice, I like the way that tentacle shattered when it died. I have to agree with Pants though, there's a lot going on in that fight. Not worried about that though, what is a bit worrying is the total lack of raid frames - how does a healer know who to heal and what easy targetting solution will they have for friendlies. Im sure it will be released along with that final class! it HAS to be mesmer.

[Dog Pants]

Might be that they trimmed the UI down to emprettify it. A teaser full of complicated looking bars and counters might be off-putting to the average gamer.

[Joose]

Might be that they trimmed the UI down to emprettify it. A teaser full of complicated looking bars and counters might be off-putting to the average gamer.

My guess/hope would be that when you join in killin' the beastie, some sort of automagical grouping thing comes in to play. A bit like Rift, that seemed to work well.

[TheJockGit]

WANT! HARD!

[Thompy]

I haven't heard anything about raid frames. AN's mantra on the subject is they want people to stop looking at the UI and look at the combat. The reason this is possible is because of the self sufficiency of all characters. Everyone can (self) heal, support, control, res and deal damage at all times, but you may be stronger in one if you lean your traits (spec) that way. Obviously some class and more orientated to one aspect, for instance I don't think warriors and thieves can heal others but that could even be wrong. I think there will be plenty of prompts above peoples' heads to let you know vital information.

In terms of a lot going on, I think it's fantastic. WoW's instanced boss fights require a lot coordination and planning in a small space, get it wrong and you die. That's great and I spent many years absorbed in it, but this just feels more like fun, more like a battlefield. Because it's an open world event and anyone can drop in (and because of the above about self sufficiency) you can just pick a place that looks like it needs help and get stuck in, you don't need to worry about player x on the other side of the boss. If you find yourself around that side at some point though and player x is downed then give him a res and move on. Seems like it will be less strict and more fluid and dynamic. The only problem is the difficulty might never be as high as WoW to accommodate the more relaxed nature, we'll see.

That's my take on it anyway, and I don't have any concerns yet.

Totalbiscuit at Gamescom. Well worth a watch. Not everything he says is accurate but I learnt some new stuff. Having someone properly commentate on what they're doing make a huge difference over the usual "play + interview".

[Grimmie]

So this is interesting. This is the second games journalist (sort of) I've heard say that this is a WoW killer.

[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r_oAx7zg98[/media]

Very interesting interview, especially about underwater combat.

[Anery]

I thought I should knock together a brief, uh, brief on Guild Wars 2.

There are five playable races; Human, Sylvari - elf-alike tree people, Asura - smart arse floppy eared short arses, Norn - shape shifting vikings, and Charr - cat people done properly (fuck you Bethesda)
Each race will have access to all eight classes:

Elementalist - light armour - wields flame, water, wind, earth magics
Warrior - heavy armour melee specialist
Ranger - medium armour, bow specialist with pet
Necromancer - ligth armour, affliction specialist with undead pets
Guardian - heavy armour, warrior with magic (NOT a palladin if you really have to make WoW alikes)
Thief - medium armour, assasin specialist
Engineer - medium armour, creates pets in the form of turrets
Mesmer - light armour, caster, causes confusion among enemies. The signiature class from Guild Wars, difficult to play well but devestating when done properly

Each class is perfectly capable of fulfilling any role of the tank/healer/dps holy trinity of mmos. Skill bars are restricted to ten slots of skills, the first five are decided by your profession and weapon, for example; a warrior can equip his longbow and get 5 completely different skills to what a ranger might get, or the ranger might equip a battle axe and get 5 skills that are different to what the warrior migth get when he uses his battle axe (rangers can use battle axes, true story), the rest of the skill slots are chosen by the player from a pool of unlocked skills, one of these slots is set aside for healing only skills and one is for elite skills (special moves) Players can switch between two equipped weapons during a fight, which will change out the first five slots of their skill bar accordingly.
Combat is a bit more involved. If, for example, an elementalist lays down and aoe flame affect on a mob then the mob takes flame damage from the spell but every attack that moves through the flame will inflict fire damage - arrows will become flame arrows, warriors charge will become a fiery ball of death... Enemies laid down fire aoe? no worries, just lay down some ice or water aoe on top of it to neutralise!
The old system of tagging mobs to get xp from them is done away with as well, if you contributed toward the kill then you get xp for it - this means no waiting around for specific mobs - just kill one that somebody else is fighting, it's not stealing anymore (wonder how long it will take people to realise that and they stop crying about kill stealing)

If you own Guild Wars and the Eye of The North expansion then you can unlock legacy items in Guild Wars 2, these are armour, vanity items, weapons and ranger pets

[Roman Totale]

It's looking good, and those fight mechanics are very interesting. Spike traps are back too! Take a step back...