This video is an hour long, just thought I'd say that before anyone went to look.
I'm posting this to cover any questions anyone might have on the game, and I hope that it'll clear up any skepticism that anyone has on the aweomeness that this game will have. I personally think that Anet are going to do an amazing job (if my opinion isn't obvious already), since I found GW to be extremely enjoyable. I have faith that they'll make GW2 just as interesting and fun.
The video answers a lot of questions on combat, mob scaling, side-kicking, dungeons, guilds, player cooperation/interaction, armour, loot and more; so I hope this can put any queries about the game to rest.
I'm not sure how many people in TBO are interested in this game, but I do hope to see a lot of you there. I have a guild in Guild Wars who will be recreating their guild in Guild Wars 2, so I'll not be lonely, but it would be nice to see some more familiar faces there though.
Interesting video although I dont think it really brings up too many new points or answers too many questions that havent already been shown before in some form or other in youtube vids.. I dont agree at all about the dynamic events making people interact. In WoW for example, if you have a group quest, or a hard quest, you find someone locally who looks like theyre doin the same thing, and you group with them/play a bit and chat a bit and maybe make a new friend ingame. Ok less so nowadays but it used to be pretty common back when questing was hard and the game was newish. In fact without that system I'd haven never joined OoS and then TBO. GW2 seems to be taking the interaction totally outta the game by making it so ppl can just turn up, join in an event randomely, kill their **** and move on without even talking to one another.
Sidekicking. I dont like that idea I think. I pref my high lvls to stay high lvl, not auto adjust to suit what content im at. Might work out to be more fun than it sounds I guess, hard to tell.
'Holy Trinity' of healer/tank/dps. As ive said before I like the system and I think moving away from that is a step backwards not forwards as far as content play and progression goes. I think it would be nice to maybe make it a bit more flexible, but I dont think making any group of any classes viable is the best way to go. I guess if theyre really clever with their content, this may work. Nothing showing either way yet tho. I still get the impression that arenanet are pushing for 'its better because its different' rather than thinking is it actually better.
Dungeons- Explorable mode where dungeons change sounds interesting, but I'd be interested to see how it works in actuality. I'm not sure about giving tokens instead of loot, so everyone gets loot.. Might mean that after not very long you dont need to go to dungeons?
Multiple guilds idea, where you can be in as many guilds as you want with all your toons. I REALLY dont like that idea, sounds to me like it takes away all guild loyalty as you can pick and choose what guild you want to be in on any given day.
Overall, this vid is turning me towards not wanting to play the game.
Hopefully I didn't waste too much of your time with it, since it is really long.
The dynamic events, I think, will bring people together in a new way. Instead of spamming "LF2M UBRS" over trade chat, you'll just all of a sudden be playing with everyone around you. I'll bet that if Stormwind was suddenly attacked by an army of undead, all the idlers would band together and fight them off, and if they failed and the undead took Stormwind over, everyone would want to charge in and take it back. It's content that I think will bring people together in a way that looking for groups and spamming guild chat can't; by putting you in a situation where getting straight down to working together with each other is essential to overcome what's happening, without the time to pick and choose who's preferred. Because of this, you'd be meeting more and more people. And on top of that, there's still the ability to shout into guild chat "There's this event happening, if anyone wants to join in, they should come 'here'."
The larger events will be a little more difficult for player interaction in terms of having a nice chat about the weather that day or complimenting each other on smart dye choices for their armour, because there's a lot going on around you, and less time to stand around talking. However, you might find that if you're getting someone back on their feet often, because they keep getting knocked down, they'll probably remember you, and if someone's diving in front of you and taking bullets to prevent you dying, you'll probably remember them. Not needing to waste time picking up a group before getting stuck in means you can have more of an experience with other people.
I wouldn't say interaction is being taken out -- just changed. However, I do see your point, I just don't agree with it.
As for side-kicking, I've had it in other games, and it's really useful. I'm normally 50 levels above everyone else in any game I play, so when I come to something I can't do on my own, I have to wait around for other people to level up. With side-kicking, I can just grab anyone and get on with it. I would like to experience it again though, and see how it works, like you said. As they said on the panel, it's to stop people walking into a low level area and massacring everything, causing grief for the lower levels that now have no mobs left alive to get their experience from, or in GW2's case, participation.
The 'Holy Trinity' being removed is a good thing, in my opinion. I can't see it being a bad thing at all. In GW, there was no tanking class. There were classes with shields and high armour that could block and take a good hit or two, but they just had a different play style. The other classes had their own ways to defend themselves or not take damage. Healers existed too, but not everyone had their own healing spell, so without them, the game would have been way too unforgiving. It worked well not having a tank, and I think it'll work fine in GW2. The point in removing the trinity is to eliminate the problem of not being able to play with who you want to. I've already said this, but if I had four friends in WoW that I always played with, one of them would HAVE to be a healer, and one would HAVE to be a tank if we wanted to do dungeons, otherwise, we evict two people from the group and find other people. Anet want us to play with whoever we want to.
Another way to look at it is to say that the trinity is still there, except the tank and healer have been integrated into the DPs classes. You heal yourself, and you avoid taking the damage, instead of having someone else do it for you. You might not always be able to avoid the damage, and you heal might not always be enough, so that's where you rely on the other people in your group to back you up, and that's where the teamwork aspect of the game isn't lost.
In WoW, we stop doing dungeons once we don't need them anymore anyway. The loot we want doesn't always drop on the first try, but it does eventually. If it takes 5 attempts to get a drop, then it takes five attempts. Let's say that you need five tokens to get the item you wanted in GW2. It would be no different. If you got lucky in WoW and got your drop on the first go, then gratz, but I bet there'll be a time where you need to go 9 times to get what you want, which balances it back out. You're guaranteed the item in GW2, but odds are, you're guaranteed to get what you want, or something adequate, in WoW and most other similar games anyway.
I agree to an extent on the guild loyalty part. However, since I've been playing in lots of guilds for a long time in WoW, I'd kinda like the ability to move my Paladin across to help out with a guild run somewhere, then move it back later. I reckon it'd be nice if I could log in as my Paladin, playing the class I want, and say hi to the people in my horde guild, without having to level up another Paladin.
But as far as loyalty goes... yeah... it decreases the value of loyalty somewhat.
As I'd promised, I've been keeping my eyes out for a demo. Just less than two weeks ago, closed beta started. Anet have said that depending on the feedback, open beta will begin shortly after. I've subscribed to as many news-thingies as I can find so that when open beta opens, I'll know about it. When I know about it, I'll let everyone else know, so we can go and take a free stab at the game to see what it's like first hand.
Finding out how good this game is is kinda like buying a car; the dealer is going to tell you how amazing it is, but you won't know until you start driving it. Hopefully the test drive will put some minds at rest.
I disagree a bit. I do agree that the dynamic events/dynamic quest system might well make people play together, but, it doesnt promote any social interaction whilst doing this, as you can get on with your stuff whilst totally ignoring those around you. So whilst you might have a lot more ppl killing same mobs/doing same events, they probably wont be talking to one another, or adding to their friendslist.
Sidekicking, from what I understood lvls you down not up? So it wont solve your waiting problems
Good thing about the holy trinity is the epic feel it creates. Think back to Mc/BWL/Ony, where you have a guy in the best armour he can get, with a big shield and sword, being spammed with spells to keep him alive whilst using all his abilities to keep threat/not die, whilst tanking a huge dragon, or demon. That stuff felt good to me, and having huge bosses who cant pretty much 1 shot anyone who isnt loaded down with huge armor and defensive abilities kinda belittles that feeling, imo at least. For regular 5man stuff and quests etc, it would be nice to have some more flexibility in gameplay and maybe less need for all the classes to be present I guess, but then thats where we get our practise in for raids atm. Will wait and see how it works out before I write the concept off totally, but, I do have strong reservations.
Youre right, the tokens instead of chance system in dungeons, is just another way of distributing loot, so in practise theres probably not a huge difference overall. It does seem a bit like blizzards more recent ideals, of making sure everyone gets loot all the time, instead of making it hard to get and therefore more worthwile to own?
Multi guilds? BAAAAD. Login to TBO, 'are we raiding???' <logout> login to next guild 'are we raiding????' <logout> login to next guild.. Yeah, you see the pattern emerging. Fun for the player, bad for friendships and guild spirit and the necessity of relying upon one another to achieve the goals of the game.
Let's agree to disagree I've grouped with one guy to do a quest before, where he's been completely silent and left after we were done. And I've spoken to people in an area through whispers without grouping with them, after helping out with a heal as they tried to take down an elite solo or something. Predicting how people meet is difficult, because it's all down to the people meeting.
Sidekicking works both ways. If a low level guy goes to a high level area, he'll be scaled up, as long as he's with a high level friend. So you can't just skip half the game, go to a high level place as a level 1 and be level 50 suddenly, but you can still go help out your level 50 friend at level 23 or whatever.
Look at the last phase of Chimaeron. The tanks and healers are made useless, and everyone is doing what they can to survive. Life grips, blinks, sprints, bubbles, ice blocks, feign deaths, etc. All that because the tanks can't tank and the healers can't heal during that phase. In my opinion, everyone thinking about their classes other abilities and how to utilize them to stay alive feels damn epic. Killing Chimaeron felt awesome because of that.
Not only Chimaeron, but other bosses too. There are loads of times I've done something outside of the normal rotation to stay alive, even when I'm not a tank. Being able to bubble through a boss CD when I was a healer was fun, because not only did I avoid damage I would have taken, it was another way around the trinity. Using blessing of sacrifice on a DPS that I knew wasn't going to get out of the fire, so that I could ease the damage he was going to take felt fun too, because I wasn't just mindlessly healing it up, and I didn't have to be a healer or a tank to provide this. Even small things like having to run away on Hagara so Focused Assault doesn't kill me, instead of just leaving it down to the healers to take care of, or being on my own on Ultraxion and using a big cooldown to save myself from Hour of Twilight. These are all things that I wish we were more dependent on, instead of just letting someone else take all the damage, and having someone else heal it up when we do take it. Removing tanks and healers is going to keep everyone on their toes, instead of just leaving someone else to worry about it. As for the teamwork aspect, that still exists, since as I said on TS yesterday, you can't heal up and avoid 100% of the damage, because people aren't perfect. When the **** hits the fan, you're going to need your teammates to back you up, get a mob off you somehow, shield you or supply some kind of heal. (Just gonna note that the heals from other classes are no where near effective enough to depend on, but they're useful if you're not standing in the fire for 20sec; kinda like a Ret throwing you a WoG).
If you remember how fun it was using five Amber Drakes in Occulus for the achievement, then you might see what I'm saying.
I can't really answer your question on the tokens, because I've got no idea how many tokens are needed to get something. Might be one, might be 100. Might be five to get something small, and 500 to get something awesome. Since I don't know what they're spent on, or their value, I can't say much, but it will probably be balanced so that good things take some effort. As for GW, I can say that the armour sets that the art team clearly spent a bit of time on are a bitch to get. I can think of one set right now that would take me months to get if I wanted it. The set I'm already wearing took a good few weeks to get.
I agree with the guild loyalty issue. However, I think that Anet are trying to recreate what we have in GW at the moment, which is that you can be part of a guild, but that guild is part of a huge alliance. In the alliance I'm in, there are 10 guilds. The alliance has the policy that you can move between guilds freely, but as long as it's not every other day (since it costs 1000 gold to invite someone). I don't know if alliances will exist in GW2 (I have a feeling they won't, but it's early), but I think ArenaNet are trying to think along these lines.
Raids and other runs and events happen exclusively to each guild, but it's as simple as asking in Alliance Chat for an extra guy if you need one to make up the run. If you can be a part of lots of guilds, then you can easily switch over to where you're needed.
As for logging in to see what's happening, then logging out if nothing is, that's not much different to what happens in WoW at the moment. People log in to raid, see nothing happening, then log out again and go do something else with their time. It doesn't happen that often, but it does happen. Even with the option to pick the guild you're in, I'll bet people will eventually stick with just one as a main guild, and go to others just to help out or say hi. It's too much hassle to remember who everyone in one guild is, how they play and how good they are, than to remember the people from 50 guilds.
How about you ladies stop discussing such irrelevant matters, and come fight my lvl 12 obese Jedi Councler? He comes prepared with a lizarddude boyfriend, a double Lightsaber (oh yes, Double lightsaber) and ofc, The Force itself.
Ill be waiting for you ladies in my spaceship, and pleasuring myself to my hologram strippers. Yeah you heard me, bitches - Hologram stripers. nuff said
Much love
Hit them little niggas with a freeze-pop, represent
Another Famous quote by Org when he's healing - "Its not my fault the tank dies. its his own fault. He got hit to much"
I know your mind is weak and hollow at the moment. All you need is training. Ill be your Jedi master. Meet me at the Jedi Temple on Tythos, and your training will begin.
May the force be with you.
Edited by Gangsta on 29-12-2011 19:34
Hit them little niggas with a freeze-pop, represent
Another Famous quote by Org when he's healing - "Its not my fault the tank dies. its his own fault. He got hit to much"
Hehe SWTOR looks 'ok' I guess but I dont rly have the time to play another MMO right now
And Joe, back to GW2 again a little bit.. The fights you mention where the holy trinity isnt so much used, are on the whole gimmick fights, and yeah gimmicks are fun, but I wouldnt want all fights to be like them. And dont forget, all the 'fun' stuff like using blessings, buffs, stacks of different things like shields, combat resses, threat reductions etc, prior to and whilst in combat, used to be a lot more prevalent in WoW, whilst still using holy trinity... But, recently has been reduced loads, I guess due to complaints about having to keep buffing ppl, pressing buttons other than your few main heals/dps/threat rotation. Its not a new idea, its just something blizz has moved away from.
haha, this is one *"# of discussion.
Looks Like Joe have tried to get everyone interested in GW2 for a long time now with his posts, and Alchy have said in about every post hes not interested. Think u have to try it for yourself when its released to make your opinion right on how u think the game is!? =)
I think the game looks good, but im abit unsure how the systems they are gonna use will work out.
So I agree with Alchy with what he writes, but it looks good on the screen so still interested
Everyone's entitled to their own opinion on the game, and I accept that. I'm just trying to show and explain what I think is good about it.
I agree the Holy Trinity was a bit different at the start of WoW, and that it's been dumbed down to a faceroll now, but that's probably only because Blizzard one day thought: "Hold on, what if we make this game so painfully easy that any moron can play it? Then, every moron will play it and hand us more money every month! Brilliant!" It's a good move business-wise, but as for providing a good, fun game for the real gamers, it sucks. Think for a second about the kind of morons you have to put up with in LFDs and LFRs. Exactly. And then, with the Holy Trinity there, the moron DPS that can't understand why fire kills them, have the tanks and healers to blame, because the trinity relies on them to do what everyone assumes their job is: to heal and stop everyone from dying, or to keep mobs from attacking the squishy DPS, regardless of the real reason for someone's death.
People are always quick to blame someone else for their death, and it's not always down to arrogance, but ignorance. I'd prefer to play a game where your death is more likely your fault, and GW2 seems to be offering that. If I play well, then I'll stay alive, if I fail, then I'll die. I can live with that.
As for the gimmick fights, well, for leveling up, maybe. The Holy Trinity isn't used there, but then, it's not usually used in any other games during solo play. That's mostly because you're soloing. As for the big events, the trinity isn't there because if a boss suddenly appeared, and there are no tanks around because no one wants to level as a tank, you're screwed.
In the dungeons -- content that can't be soloed -- you need to work as a team, but without the trinity. This is an idea I like, because while my death is still my fault, I can help to keep others alive, while slightly relying on other people in sticky situations.
There are no tanks in GW, and there's very rarely an encounter that's 1v1. Looking around and seeing someone with two mobs on them, seeing someone being locked down with interrupts, body-blocked against a wall and running over to knock a mob down, interrupt them, body-block them, etc. to save the guy, makes it really fun, because it's not as easy as pressing taunt or throwing on a quick heal while waiting for the taunt. You can resurrect in combat, which... sounds like it makes it easy, but not really, since there's a death penalty of -15% health and energy (stacking up to -60%) each time you die, which is worked off by gaining XP. When that death penalty builds up, things become difficult, so you still want to look out for the people around you and help out. This doesn't exist in GW2, but it's clear that things will be easier, and more fun, when you need to constantly improvise mid-combat. In WoW, everything is premeditated. The only improvisation you need to do... if you can call it that, is choosing who to use the combat res on.
Back to Blizzard thinking about the money and not about the players: well... it's clear what they're after now. Anet on the other hand, I think, are trying to make a good game, for the gamers. There's no monthly fee because they don't want to grab money, they just want to make a good game that breaks the mould and is fun. I want to play a game like that, where the devs CAN be assed to make it good.
The beta will be soon, I'll let you all know when that is. If no one wants to try it; I'll let you know how awesome the game is when I do.
Hehe funnily enough I'm not trying to knock your game or put anyone off it Joe, I'm discussing my own reservations to certain aspects of the game, and am quite interested in your (and whoever else might contribute) answers and thoughts on them. If I see anything I especially like about the game/gameplay I'll comment on that too. If this was an official GW2 forum I'd likey post similar questions there too, but, as I guess youre following GW progress quite closely I guess I can hope for similar answers from yourself. I also dislike the dumbing down, and blatant commercialism of Blizzard with regards to WoW, but for me thats not a strong enough reason alone to move to another game, I need to know that if I move, that game will be strong enough to build a decent community, and have a decent playlife, otherwise its move-move-move and then have to start over again building up new friends online, as its rare to get a lot of people moving from game to game to game.
I enjoy reading, watching, and giving my (personal) opinion on the progress of GW2, and assuming there is some kinda beta system I'd be very interested to give the game a try
I know mate and I enjoy discussing the game with you. As for the amount of people playing: GW did exceptionally well. The only real reason anyone has stopped playing in the last few years is because Anet have stopped releasing content for it. In its prime, GW was easily on par with WoW with the number of players playing. Thing is, most, if not all, of these players will be going to GW2, and people that didn't play on top of that. There are some things about GW2 that still have the GW vibe, and I think a lot of the GW players will be hooked on that.
To be honest, what I'm most worried about will be the inevitable "I came from GW, you came from WoW, so I'm better than you" wars that'll crop up in GW2. "WoW" was mentioned in my alliance chat the other day, and it took about three guild leaders and officers an hour or so to calm the debate. Some GW players are really biased and hate the game and the players, although, these people tend to be morons that I usually avoid anyway. Ignoring that though, it's gonna have a good community I think. 2.5 million people bought and played GW, and I bet a pretty high percentage of them will get GW2.
I played Classic until I was nearly level 60. It needs The Burning Crusade really for me though. I am lurking around Daggerspine again for a while, trying to get used to the changes lol
3,449,924 unique visits 
I've grouped with one guy to do a quest before, where he's been completely silent and left after we were done. And I've spoken to people in an area through whispers without grouping with them, after helping out with a heal as they tried to take down an elite solo or something. Predicting how people meet is difficult, because it's all down to the people meeting.
