Thread: Guild Wars 2?

Guild Wars 2

NDA lifts Feb. 20th, with open beta shortly thereafter. I'm guessing a late Summer - early Winter release. Are any TPGers harboring interest in this? My roommate and a few friends plan on playing, so just testing the waters.

Yup, been waiting on this one for a bit.

I am so down for this game.

I'll admit, I wasn't the least bit interested the first time it was brought up. I played GW1 a bit, but had no one to play with so I dropped it even though I liked the system at the time. The more I see of it online the more hyped I become. You have no idea the girl-like squeal I let out when I found out that Mesmer wouldn't be just a CC bitch, but brought even more to the table now. It's going to be a tough decision on what to play though, everything looks fun as hell.

Originally Posted by Alundil

Also looking forward to this one. I was in the same boat Rude. Enjoyed he system in the first one, but never really had a group to play it with and dropped out. Had a level 17 & 19 toon(s). Can recall what they were it's been so long.

Sent via highly charged bolt of electricity.

I pretty much soloed the first one. Made it just past the ascension section in the story. Would love to have an actual group to play with this time around.

Sent from the Dark Side of the Moon.

I solo'd almost all of the content minus a few group instances along the way. In GW1 I played a Mesmer/Monk and a Ranger/Monk iirc.

But about GW2: Every class has cool stuff it can do, here's a short list of misc. coolness I saw from watching dev videos and demo gameplay on youtube so far.

- PvE Dev claims most content will scale all the way down to 1 person, and all the way up to 100 people. (zone/area limit?) Most of the world bosses scale starting at 10 people, and get harder from there. I watched two world boss encounters and have to say that the epicness of the "look" was certainly on par, though I had a hard time figuring the fight mechanics on one.

- Abilities are based off the weapons you are currently wielding, with a swap ability for two predefined sets.

- Every class has a self heal, few have targeted heals, few have combo system heals.

- There is a combo system where two classes will use abilities and there will be a third effect. I.e. Necro + Elementalist can do a neat aoe trick with the necro dot/blind and the earth aoe that hits for metric tons of damage and applies status effects.

- Engineers can rocket jump like a boss! Vertical and horizontal targeting, you basically pick a point within range and it launches you to it. They also have a "lul pyro flamethrower" mode where they can push/pull people and set them ablaze.

- Most of the videos I watched was Necromancer, as that will be my roommate's class of choice. Necro can do things like: summon a mini pet (that will attack) and sac it for health, do a large scale aoe dot (+blind?), change into Lich form which makes them squishier but able to spam all sorts of nastiness, able to change to Shadow form which makes them more durable for a short while, lifetap on a 30ish sec cooldown, and other goodies depending on weapon selection.

- Thief had the highest single target damage of the PvP videos I watched, hitting for over 4k damage at one point (though I couldn't tell under what conditions.) Their vanish is also their self heal. Most of the abilities I saw otherwise was along the "weeee I do damage!" line.

- There is a lot of soft CC in the game involving blocking off or limiting movement and abilities. I.e. walls of varying types. Guardian seems to be a pro at this with a single line wall, a circle wall (allowing you to trap enemies or protect allies inside), and a invuln/pbae bubble ult thingy. They are definitely going to be ass-savers with most of their load outs.

- Warrior flexibility is pretty damn amazing. But, since they can use the most weapons in the game and your abilities are partially based off of what you're wielding, I guess that makes sense. I could see this being a class that is easy to learn but difficult to master within differing roles. They also have a neat dash / air dash ability they can use to get around.

- Elementalist abilities are completely dependent upon what element you are channeling at the moment. An elementalist with a dagger and the fire utility activated will have different abilities than an elementalist with a dagger and earth. This seems kind of taken for granted BUT it means that their ability combinations have a very wide scope of potential, but how different they are remains to be seen.

- You cannot drown, but there are underwater / completely underwater areas. You whip out "underwater weapons" when you swim which are class dependent. It was not mentioned if these weapons took up an item slot or not. Abilities are geared more towards water combat and once again are dependent on which weapon you have out. I saw a a guy sink a boss add to the bottom of a nearby underwater area and then swim away. It was pretty neat.

I'm sure i'll post more about nifty shit i've seen before the release comes, but as always they aren't through beta yet and some of it is subject to change.

NDA lifted yesterday. Gave me things to watch on my sick day off. Been watching GuildWars2Live.com | Guild Wars Fan Broadcast who have been streaming commentary on videos as they are posted around the internet.

So, other random thoughts on what i've seen.

- The dynamic event system looks pretty solid, BUT I have some reservations on the way some of the quests scale. It looks annoying, for instance, for it to scale up in difficulty on a collection type quest. Why should myself and my friends all have to <insert go get this and bring it back> so many times only to have some random show up to pitch in ... only for the guy to suddenly decide he wants an extra 50 more <insert go get this and bring it back> because this randi was "helping." I hope to god they balance these type of events well or have a hard cap for certain quest areas (read: newbie area.)

- WvW is literally it's own Open World PvP Map (not zone, MAP!) It's freaking huge and has mass quantities of keeps, rally points, and side objectives. The ganker in me giggles with glee while he patiently waits for a chance to stalk some one seperated from the herd, right along side him is my little sieger waiting for that epic moment of "ONCE MORE INTO THE BREACH ... CHAAAAAAAARRRGE!" The fact that your server gets buffs for taking objectives and whatnot is just icing on the fat cake.

- The auto level to <insert max level> in PvP is back. In GW1 you had the option to make a max character, here we will see something akin to the SWTOR bolster system. Being as GW pioneered this type of PvP scaling I have hopes for them getting this right but lets face it: They don't have to go far out of their way to make it better than the SWTOR bolster system. It's confirmed that you will unlock MOST if not all abilities for your class/race when you hop into pvp. There is a window for you to set up your character / create presets before the match starts.

- Your first underwater weapon appears to come free. Like all other weapons the more you use it the quicker it unlocks its abilities. Engineers get a harpoon gun and depth charges at rank 1/2 respectively =D No idea on how you attain your other underwater weapons.

- Mesmer footage is finally available. Being as this is my potential main I scoured what I could extensively. Their primary abilities are creating "mirror" clones of themselves that auto attack / act based on the weapon you have equipped. You of course can tell them to go blow up on friend and foe alike for a variety of effects. For Mesmer / General game info I highly suggest the IGN Norn Mesmer vid.

More to come as I soak this up as quick as I do lines off a ... well, nevermind that.

I am really excited for this game..... probably going to pass my L4D2 hour playtime eventually....