Guild Wars 2

[Carsickness]

Really? No GW2 thread yet?
Well anyways, i'm crazy pumped for this game. Anyone elts?
Probably going to roll a Asura guardian.

Here's some vids if you've been living under a rock:

[Hawki]

Guild Wars 2, and the Guild Wars series in general is something that I've always been aware of, but not really got to know much. It's basically one of the few MMO series that keeps popping up on game news sites and with positive news at that (as opposed to The Old Republic, which, as I understand, had a massive subscriber loss recently). However, one thing I noticed about Guild Wars 2 was that it harkened as being similar to a series of "dragon screws everything up" MMOs that were announced/released in a given period-Cataclysm and Rift namely.

Also looking at the races. I'm not opposed to fantasy tropes being used (for the most part) but I'm not sure whether the tropes being used are competative enough. We've got "noble humans," (speaks for itself), asura (basically gnomes with a Eastern myth name), sylvari (elves), charr (noble savages) and norn (shapeshifters). World of Warcraft has these tropes as well (and others) with its playable races, but at least those playable races were all introduced in games before World of Warcraft itself (except the worgen). Again, I'm not calling this a bad thing in itself, and I'm sure there's plenty of lore for the races, but I'm left wondering if it can stand out.

Anyway, not a player of MMOs myself, so it's kind of a moot discussion. Hope it does well at release-I think the MMO genre needs more diversity, and a story that isn't about "MMO x dropping below y subscribers."

[Noctis]

mists of panderia is coming out in a month....my wow addiction will resurface. i may take a glance at this down the road though.

sorry i cant resist the pandas.

[Hawki]

mists of panderia is coming out in a month....my wow addiction will resurface. i may take a glance at this down the road though.

sorry i cant resist the pandas.

Wait...someone isn't claiming that pandas aren't the worst thing to ever happen to Warcraft?

...I'm pleasantly surprised.

[Sarov]

Also looking at the races. I'm not opposed to fantasy tropes being used (for the most part) but I'm not sure whether the tropes being used are competative enough. We've got "noble humans," (speaks for itself), asura (basically gnomes with a Eastern myth name), sylvari (elves), charr (noble savages) and norn (shapeshifters).

Sylvari: Unlike the traditional variety of elves, the race is only a few decades old. They don't view the other races as 'lesser beings' and are willing to co-operate and to learn from them. They also tend to have a 'diplomacy first' attitude rather than the 'kill the outsider' attitude. They also don't have much understanding of the world around them.

Charr: The Charr are far from primitive. They don't believe in gods and actually kicked their religious leaders to the curb, so to speak (Flame Legion shaman). They are also more technologically advanced than the humans and have a complex society. The primitive, god-fearing Charr are both abnormal and hated.

Humans: They seem more primitive with their blind faith in the six Gods. They also aren't very noble in this game as they drove the Charr from their own lands. So you're actually playing the bad guys in the first game. Oh, and then their king turned around and cursed the land so that the Charr can't return there due to all the ghosts running around. Scumbag humans...

But I see what you mean. Most people assume the Sylvari are elves and the Charr are the orcs of Tyria. Just wanted clarify some lore-related things. :3


OT: I've been paying attention to the game for so long I don't even remember. Love the art direction, the character customization, the fact that I won't be forced into one role, that I can pick a race without worrying about OP racials (Humans in WoW PvP), etc.

The only reason I'm being cautious is because I never played in the beta weekends and I don't buy games on release day unless I've tried them. There's also the fact that I don't like playing MMOs without a group of friends. Just not as fun.

For classes, it's a toss up between the necromancer, elementalist and engineer/mesmer/ranger. I'm going to try them out first though. Most of my characters will be Sylvari or Charr. Definitely the main as well.

[Carsickness]

Sylvari: Unlike the traditional variety of elves, the race is only a few decades old. They don't view the other races as 'lesser beings' and are willing to co-operate and to learn from them. They also tend to have a 'diplomacy first' attitude rather than the 'kill the outsider' attitude. They also don't have much understanding of the world around them.

Charr: The Charr are far from primitive. They don't believe in gods and actually kicked their religious leaders to the curb, so to speak (Flame Legion shaman). They are also more technologically advanced than the humans and have a complex society. The primitive, god-fearing Charr are both abnormal and hated.

Humans: They seem more primitive with their blind faith in the six Gods. They also aren't very noble in this game as they drove the Charr from their own lands. So you're actually playing the bad guys in the first game. Oh, and then their king turned around and cursed the land so that the Charr can't return there due to all the ghosts running around. Scumbag humans...

But I see what you mean. Most people assume the Sylvari are elves and the Charr are the orcs of Tyria. Just wanted clarify some lore-related things. :3


OT: I've been paying attention to the game for so long I don't even remember. Love the art direction, the character customization, the fact that I won't be forced into one role, that I can pick a race without worrying about OP racials (Humans in WoW PvP), etc.

The only reason I'm being cautious is because I never played in the beta weekends and I don't buy games on release day unless I've tried them. There's also the fact that I don't like playing MMOs without a group of friends. Just not as fun.

For classes, it's a toss up between the necromancer, elementalist and engineer/mesmer/ranger. I'm going to try them out first though. Most of my characters will be Sylvari or Charr. Definitely the main as well.

Ya, i'm loving the lore behind the Guild wars universe. I never played (or even heard of) the first game, so I was a little behind when I first got interested in GW2.

Here's my favourite lore explaining video series that got me up to snuff:




Obviously it goes deeper then that, and still leaves room for lore-crafting.
Like how the Sylvari are born from the pale tree as a blank slate and only rise when the Dragons awake, leaving speculation on if they are the planets natural immune system, or if the pale tree is a dragon it self, maniplulated in some way.

Oh, and then their king turned around and cursed the land so that the Charr can't return there due to all the ghosts running around. Scumbag humans...

There's actually a short dungeon intro that explains this:




And in case people are still on the ropes; here's 60 reasons to play in 60 seconds:



some notible points are:

• No subscription fees.
• No healers or tanks.
• No quest givers.
• No loot/mob stealing.
• Dynamic events.
• Action based combat.
• Jumping puzzles.
• Level scaling.
• The same guy that did Skyrim's music.
• Personal story.

The only reason I'm being cautious is because I never played in the beta weekends and I don't buy games on release day unless I've tried them.

I've played the Betas and stress tests and let me tell you, this game lives up to the hype, and then some! The game is so beautiful and I found my self stopping many times just to look at the environments, the Sylvari area being perticularly stunning IMO.

I like MMOs, and have given an honest go at many of them, including Aion, Tera, SWtOR, and even WoW (though I only played WoW for the free month that came with it when it first came out) but they all failed to keep my interest. GW2 is different.
Is it a WoW killer? I don't think so. I can't see how a non subscription based game can kill one with a subscription. The only game that can kill WoW is Wow it self, which Blizzard seems to be doing quite well with the whole panda thing :P

[Hawki]

I like MMOs, and have given an honest go at many of them, including Aion, Tera, SWtOR, and even WoW (though I only played WoW for the free month that came with it when it first came out) but they all failed to keep my interest. GW2 is different.
Is it a WoW killer? I don't think so. I can't see how a non subscription based game can kill one with a subscription. The only game that can kill WoW is Wow it self, which Blizzard seems to be doing quite well with the whole panda thing :P

Admittedly that's more than I've done, having never played an MMO ever. Still, for what it's worth, I don't think the "panda thing" is going to kill World of Warcraft. If anything, it will probably bring in casuals. They've maybe got a bit too much exposure, but hey, the draenei and blood elves were prominantly displayed for The Burning Crusade and the pandaren have effectively been around as long as the latter.

Edit: Nevermind. With the oversaturation of pandas, this can only end badly.

http://au.ign.com/videos/2012/08/16/...ematic-trailer is what got me to see the light.

[Noctis]

The pandaren have been around since Warcraft 3 TFT, ive been demanding they appear in WoW since day frikkin 1. HELL ITS ABOUT TIME.

as for killing WoW Blizzard's been making the game more accessible to everyone, Burning Crusade and vanilla were very hardcore player oriented. demanding raid times and schedules as well as farming a lot of those players just QQ and dont even try to see if they can do anything on heroic mode lol. As for subscription loss most of it is from asia aka china which is a hell of a mess for bringing games to anyway. yeah when they release "Titan" you'll probably see a large user base transfer and gradual as that game gets better. GW 2 i see creating its own market where they arent that big but a variety of players will be on it. problem with most mmo's is people expect it to be WoW from day 1 in terms of polish services etc.

[Sarov]

- Snip for Space -

Same. I like the fact that humans are the bad guys instead of the Charr being invaders. So sick of humans being the good guys. I absolutely love the lore of the Charr, definitely my favourite race.

On the subject of the trinity: the support, damage, control paradigm doesn't count. In a trinity you are forced into one role and cannot switch mid-combat to cover another. Most people think that a trinity is just three different roles.

As for MMOs, I've played WoW (on another person's account in Vanilla/BC and then my own during Cata), City of Villains, a bit of Runes of Magic on someone's account, and a few other, lesser known ones.

The problem is that every MMO company wants a piece of Blizzard's WoW pie so their game comes out as a WoW clone. Why would anyone play that when they could play the real WoW? Not to mention that most companies are unwilling to take risks. No MMO will ever kill another although they could certainly leave a dent in a game's subscription numbers. But I wish them the best because competition pushes developers to spend more time on their game.

The pandaren have been around since Warcraft 3 TFT, ive been demanding they appear in WoW since day frikkin 1. HELL ITS ABOUT TIME.

My problem with the Pandaren is that the females look too cute. I heard they also have the same face too unlike the males. But I won't be playing World of Warcraft anymore. That's right, I was never addicted.

From what I read, Titan is apparently supposed to be casual and WoW is already casual enough...

[DemolitionSquid]

Charr Engineer reporting for duty.



I loves me big 'splosions.