…if you hate traditional MMORPGs, then you should really check out Guild Wars 2
Anet have started a GW2 blog to celebrate 5 years of GW. The first installment makes for some interesting reading, I've stuck a couple of quotes below to wet your appetite, go read the full blog here
Grouping:
We think of GW2 as the first MMO that actually has a cooperative PvE experience. When I’m out hunting and suddenly there’s a huge explosion over the next hill – the ground is shaking and smoke is pouring into the sky – I’m going to want to investigate, and most other players in the area will too. Or if the sky darkens on a sunny day, and I look up and see a dragon circling overhead preparing to attack, I know I’d better fight or flee, and everyone around me knows that too. With traditional MMOs you can choose to solo or you can find a good guild or party to play with. With GW2 there’s a third option too: you can just naturally play with all the people around you.
I personally spend a big chunk of my time in traditional MMOs soloing, but when I play GW2 I always find myself naturally working with everyone around me to accomplish world objectives, and before long we find ourselves saying, “Hey, there’s a bunch of us here; let’s see if we can take down the swamp boss together,” without ever having bothered to form a party.
Of course GW2 has great support for parties, but they just don’t feel as necessary as they do in other MMOs, because your interests are always aligned with all other nearby players anyway. When someone kills a monster, not just that player’s party but everyone who was seriously involved in the fight gets 100% of the XP and loot for the kill. When an event is happening in the world – when the bandits are terrorizing a village – everyone in the area has the same motivation, and when the event ends, everyone gets rewarded.
Combat
If a Stone Elemental throws a boulder at you, pick it up and throw it back. Or as an Elementalist, use that boulder to create a meteor storm. If you’re fighting an Oakheart with an axe and you manage to hack off a branch, pick up the branch and try using it as a weapon. If you meet a beekeeper outside town, buy a jar of bees from him and see what happens when you lob it at nearby enemies.
If the game is as dynamic as they make it sound it's going to be loads of fun.
Some new info appeared regarding the Professions on the official site, so far they have only unveiled the Elementalist on the new professions page.
Here are some skill animation videos for the Elementalist
Meteor Shower
Phoenix
Static Field
Water Trident
Churning Earth
With the exception of Static Field, these are all skill names that carry on from GW1, I'm hoping the voices can be muted..
Note in the Phoenix there seems to be a buff from getting in to the tail end of the skill, nice touch
"If the game is as dynamic as they make it sound it's going to be loads of fun."
ReplyDeleteI agree! It sounds indeed very promising. We'll have to see next year how fun much it really is going to be.
That screenshot looks very beautiful as well.
"With traditional MMOs you can choose to solo or you can find a good guild or party to play with. With GW2 there’s a third option too: you can just naturally play with all the people around you.
ReplyDeleteSounds a lot like public Quests. Here's hoping it proves a more feasible concept than the Public quests were.
Not that Public Quests were the first attempt at what ArenaNet now blithely claims as a first ever. The trouble usually is player density. The cooperative elements tend to need a certain player mass which exists only at the levelling curve of the first wave of players. After that it's stragglers, Alts and late-comers who just don't make up enough people for it.
Since GW2 is stepping away from their L20 level cap to become more Yet Another MMO game with a level grind I fear for a repeat performance.
Nevertheless will try GW2, I'll be having my usual lowered expactations as for any Sequel though. I popped that cherry once already. It's never going to be the same again.
If you’re fighting an Oakheart with an axe and you manage to hack off a branch, pick up the branch and try using it as a weapon.
ReplyDeleteAnd the tactical sense to this would be?
Bad example for something that sounds awesome and has a rather high potential of turning out to be an overhyped feature with little to no practical use or even effectvely an annoyance in every day game-life.
GW2 sounds very interesting, also very much like Fable III for the Xbox 360. Good if you like Xbox360-style games. Oh well, I am enjoying semi-FPS Fallen Earth as well so there's hope.
Darn, I want to be excited about GW2 but all I get is this kind of jaded sense of let's see what actually comes out of the hype feeling. I have the same problem with SW:TOR.
The upshot is I might actually be pleasantly surprised for once, or twice.
Added the elementalist skill videos..nice effects
ReplyDeleteThe vids look visually gorgeous as usual :-)
ReplyDeleteThe phoenix looks very intruiging. Wonder what the effect of 'catching' the phoenix is. That player moved with the intention of catching it. Maybe some rebirth buff?
I do worry about the insta kill level of some of those spells. Unless those were really weakling mobs GW2 is going down the why kill a hundred if you can have the player kill a thousand? approach from the Diablo series.
Still, looks good though.
On a side node, I got all but commanded to pre order Rise of the Godslayer today.
ReplyDeleteIn the Phoenix video the first mob, standing in water, doesn't get one shotted, it's only when it's out of the water it goes down. In the Water Trident video the players are standing in water, all this seems to point to the conclusion that environment has an effect on skills, a likely outcome considering their emphasis on interaction.
ReplyDeleteCombat articles on the official site:
Skills
Weapons, Professions and Races
THat might be interesting. If you're in/near your element you get more power?
ReplyDeleteHmmm, fire would have issues and Earth might be a tad overpowered :-)
And did you obey the command and pre ordered it? Geeky won me over with a picture from Khemi. I am looking forward to enter Hyboria again.
ReplyDeleteAnd a bit more on topic I have put that picture of the city up as wallpaper at work. So I watching a bit of GW2 all day.
Little bits of information are appearing via various interviews.
ReplyDeleteThe Hero/Hench system has been put to rest, kind of sad about that now we only have the players to blame for their poor healing :)
With the loss of a low level cap, heroes and hench, secondary professions and a brand new skill system GW2 is simply a new game that follows the lore of GW1.
There's a sidekick system to make up for the level gaps (still prefer the original system though), I hope that system is flexible enough to go both ways.
We've also discovered that these public quests will have a scaling mechanic, the amount of mob spawns will depend on the players attending, let's hope that the possible griefing from players turning up then leaving has been taken in to account.
And on an AoC side note - I've returned to that game to get my ToS up to lvl 70 ready for RotGS, the offline advancement system they just introduced helped there, I logged in to find I had five levels to distribute, I gave them all to Nahkti, a double edged sword, he out leveled a lot of the quests he was enjoying in Ymir's Pass, he's now ready to jump in to the dungeon there though which is definitely the biggest highlight.
Sounds like they're beginning to ramp up the pre-release hype. Sounds good.
ReplyDeleteGW exists five years now. You know what that means? THat 85% of the playerbase has been legalized to do one or more of the following:
1) Drive a car
2) Drink
3) Vote
Sobering thought eh? :-)
I'm still not happy about the GW2 title. Especially because it's going to be such a different game from the original. I'm still not sure if it's going to be very close to the other F2P games out there these days and be more classic MMORPG-like r, as some of the vids suggest, they're going more towards a Console (player) friendly setup. It will be interesting to find out that's for sure :-)
On the AoC note, after Phè's subtle hints I decided to pre Order the Godslayer expansion. Not sure abut re-subbing right now. I've got Suhaya at 70+ if need be and I'll probably be more inclined to start a new toon for it. I'm also still having a blast in Fallen Earth.
Just have to wait till Phè gets of the plain in Chicago and begins crafting me my Dune Buggy :-)
Hmm, that craft is going to take about a week isn't it? Hmmmm.,,,
From what I can gather starting a new toon in the expansion will mean taking it over to Tortage to finish leveling, completing the AoC content up until lvl 70 then heading back to Khitai, the expansion is aimed at creating more max level content.
ReplyDeleteThe Khitan professions are:
Guardian
Dark Templar
Bear Shaman
Assassin
Ranger
Demonologist
Herald of Xotli
Necromancer
I was planning on rolling either a HoX or BS next so maybe I will start a Khitai based character
I'm with you on my waning excitement about GW2 now that we know it's a completely different game, aside from the lore there is nothing left of its predecessor.
ReplyDeleteThere have been unsubstantiated claims there is in fact a small team over at Anet looking in to the possibility of a console port.
Ok, then Funcom fibbed in their own advertisement.
ReplyDeleteThey said you could go straight to Khitai from Tortage:
"‘Rise of the Godslayer’ will send you on an epic adventure to the Eastern Empire of Khitai, where you will face new dangers, new challenges and acquire fantastic new rewards. Your adventure in Khitai will start as early as level 20, and soon you will be riding new mounts such as the Tiger, work your way through the new faction system and customize your character even further with the new Alternate Advancement system. You can even choose to play as the new Khitan character race."
I still want to play a spear wielder so my options are either resubbing to LotRO to play a Warden or AoC and play a Guardian. Nether is a 48-ish Demonogolist but not so much fun now she's called Nethra (got ambushed by a name change due to server merges) And Suhaya as 70-something Barbarian.
Tried Bearshaman but didn't really do it for me. Same with HoX. Tempest was ok-ish as I recall. Lani's one. Not sure what level she was. Seemed to need grouping a lot more than the other clases.
I was saddened from the start when they first announced GW2 and how it would mean a break from GW's unique selling points (8 skill bar, sideways progression rather than pure liniair).
ReplyDeleteHowever going by the three examples I know of, doing a #2 that's radically different but sharing lore works better than doing the same thing only more streamlined. I.e. Both Asheron's Call 2 and EverQuest 2 didn't do that well. Too old skool for the 2nd gen players and too Esay Button for the old skoolers or hardcore players. The one that did succesfully make the transition is Lineage II, however they then remade L3 into Aion instead.
More things to worry about concerning GW2 though. A lot of the visionairies of the original game are gone. Granted as McQaid (Eq1 > VG), Garriot (UO > TR) and Emmet (CoX > CHO & STO) have shown it's not guaranteed you can repeat a success. But after the head honchoes of ArenaNet left to rule NC Soft West after the Garriots got ousted (and then got kicked out themselves half a year later) I got the impression the new management really abandonded all gameplay ties to the old game and are running it like just another "Let's re-use this IP because that way we get more money from investors" game. Luckily the art-form seems to suggest some things remain the same.
Mike O'Brian, one of the founding members is still in charge of the game so I have less worries about the vision being too diluted. All of the lead artists are obviously still in place, great team.
ReplyDeleteThey still seem to be attempting to think outside of the box on some levels, revealing of more professions and game mechanics should show us how far.
But yes my thinking has gone from cool GW2 to 'oh another new mmo', as an MMO whore though that's all good :)