Guild Wars 2 Roll Call

[Martinus]

MacOS Beta available now. 

[Eddie Teach]

MacOS Beta available now. 

Yet you've been playing for over a month? 

[Martinus]

MacOS Beta available now. 

Yet you've been playing for over a month? 

Boot camp. I'm glad now I can move back to my native OS without having to restart my computer every time I want to play.

[Martinus]

My necromancer, Dustyn Crowe, raised in the streets of Divinity's Reach, now a novice of the Durmand Priory.

[sbr]

Patch notes:

"Discovery crafting may now use items directly from a players bank"

[katmai]

Thank heavens. Tedious moving shit back n forth.

[Martinus]

Yeah, great addition. I actually discovered three potion recipes on my artificer that I didn't notice earlier thanks to that.

[Eddie Teach]

My necromancer, Dustyn Crowe,

Looks like a member of an emo rock band.

[Martinus]

My necromancer, Dustyn Crowe,

Looks like a member of an emo rock band.

He is a necromancer. What did you expect?

Edit: Btw, do you actually have the game or do you just come to this thread to troll?

[katmai]

Teach is mighty troll

[Eddie Teach]

Edit: Btw, do you actually have the game or do you just come to this thread to troll?

Neither.

[Martinus]

Here's a fun little article why GW2 is the best MMORPG for busy adults:

According to a study from the Entertainment Software Association presented at E3 2011, the median video gamer age is 37 and has been gaming for well over a decade. This is a far cry from the image many outside the industry have of a teenager-dominated market. The fact is, as the gaming generation has grown older, we've kept right on gaming. Our lifestyles may have changed; we may have increased responsibilities at work, less free time due to family obligations, and busy social lives outside of gaming, but we still make time for our favorite hobby. The great news for players like us is that ArenaNet may have created the perfect MMO for busy adults!


Let's face it, MMOs aren't exactly known for being a casual-friendly gaming experience. There have been steps taken in that direction in recent years, but the tired old grind is alive and well in subscription based titles. You still need to log on consistently night after night for hours at a time to earn the best raiding or PvP gear. Since those same games are all about gear, and the ever-increasing stats they possess, if you don't sink time into earning the highest tier of available gear, you'll never be able to compete on the same level as players who are. While some free-to-play titles have earned the pejorative term "pay-to-win," many subscription-based titles are essentially "time-to-win." It really isn't your individual skill that determines how successful you are, but rather how much time you dedicate to playing. More time equates to more money, so anything subscription MMOs can do to gate your content and slow down your experience is in their best interest. It keeps you playing and paying, not because they offer the best gaming experiences on the market, but because you have to grind if you don't want to fall behind the gear curve.

Guild Wars 2 breaks away from this sort of design in several ways.

NO RAIDS

While some detractors attempt to use this fact as a criticism of something Guild Wars 2 is lacking, the truth is that it's actually one of the game's strengths.

Let's start by dispelling the myth of raiding as the ultimate in PvE endgame content. I enjoyed raiding in other MMOs for a number of years, but that doesn't change the fact that it's designed to force players to spend their time on repetitive, scripted tasks purely for the sake of advancing to the next tier of repetitive, scripted tasks. Because of their static nature, and because they rely on the holy trinity of dedicated tanks, healers and damage dealers, raid boss encounters are like a puzzle, but it's a puzzle you only need to solve once. Where does the tank stand? How many healers do you need? Can the DPS stay out of fire? Once you solve the puzzle, or have it solved for you by reading a kill strategy step by step, it's really little challenge to repeat it over and over again.

And you WILL need to repeat it over and over again. Subscription MMOs need to keep you coming back to do the same thing week after week, long after the novelty has worn off, and the only way to incentivize the experience is to gate the rate at which everyone acquires gear. That's why gear is randomized when it drops and why not everyone who participated gets a reward. That's why content has weekly lockouts, preventing you from running it over and over again as much as you'd like. Similar to a Las Vegas slot machine, raiding is designed to give you a gambler's high every so often so you'll keep chasing that high night after night. The time you sink into raiding can really start to add up for adults with college courses, full-time jobs and families. Having to put your social life on hold, or to sacrifice time spent on other hobbies or with friends and family just to chase pixels with better stats, shouldn't be considered the ultimate endgame experience.

Thankfully, Guild Wars 2 doesn't have raiding. What it does have are other forms of large-scale, cooperative content that are far more dynamic, and far less monopolizing of your time, than raiding. The best part about all of this content is that you can participate and compete in every bit of it on a level playing field, without the barrier to entry of gear grinds, regardless of how much time you have to play.

WORLD VERSUS WORLD



The World versus World  game mode in Guild Wars 2 is an epic two-week long battle for dominance between three servers across four massive and interconnected maps. The rewards from WvW include buffs called Powers of the Mists which provide bonuses to things like  health, experience gain and gathering. These bonuses carry over to PvE, so the more effective your server is in WvW combat, the more the entire server benefits. The siege of a large keep is a huge undertaking that can include dozens of players on each side, and the strategic use towering siege equipment.

Regardless of your group size, there is something you can contribute to the war effort. Individuals can take out enemy sentries and supply caravans, robbing their enemies of resources needed to maintain their defenses. Small groups can capture enemy supply camps or reinforce their own. Larger groups can fight in battles over fortifications that would make Peter Jackson want to bust out his camera and start filming. Because your opponents are players and not giant, scripted NPCs, each and every time you enter WvW you'll have a different experience.

The best part about WvW is that you can come and go at will. If you only have 30 minutes to play, you can jump into WvW and have enough time to take a supply camp or defend a tower. Even if you simply run around gathering ore, wood and herbs for your crafting, ambushing enemy players along the way, you're still contributing to the war effort. If you can stay longer, then consider joining a squad under the leadership of an experienced Commander. This will allow you to join forces with your fellow players in larger scale battles for as long as you're able to play. When the time comes to leave, there are no strings attached. Another soldier will rise to take your place in the ranks.

DUNGEONS

There will be eight dungeons in Guild Wars 2 at launch, offering a total of 24 different dungeon experiences once you factor in that each has a single Story Mode and three Explorable Modes. If you've played other MMOs, dungeon are still the instanced, team-based PvE zones you know and love. The main difference with dungeons in Guild Wars 2 being that, without the need of dedicated tanks and healers, it shouldn't take you longer to find a group to run the dungeon than it does to actually finish it. All you need are four other players and a couple of hours dedicated to exploring their depths. Also, because you aren't hindered by those traditional roles, it places far more emphasis on true cooperation and skill rather than one player doing all of the boss management, one player doing all of the healing,  and the other three doing all the damage. In Guild Wars 2, each of you will be able to contribute equally. Each new group composition will require its own strategy, making each dungeon run feel far more unique and challenging than in other MMOs.

The best part for the busy adult gamer is that these dungeons will always scale you down to their level, meaning they never become obsolete. The gear they reward you with is comparable with other gear of the same level found elsewhere in the game through crafting or normal PvE play, and will scale with your actual character level. If you want to run Ascalonian Catacombs (a level 30 dungeon) when you're level 80, you can do so and still find a challenge and rewards that are just as meaningful as if you had ran it at level 30. There's no grind here. There's no need to run them repeatedly in order to "gear up," since the only thing unique about the gear is the cosmetic look of weapons and armor coming from each dungeon. Dungeons offer a unique set of challenges and rewards without requiring excessive time commitments.

STRUCTURED PVP

One of my favorite cases for why ArenaNet has created the perfect MMO for adult players is Structured PvP. Other MMOs may have PvP battlegrounds or warzones that you can compete in without being max level, but even that comes down to who has the best gear and who is the highest level. If you have better stats or more abilities at your disposal than your opponent, then you're going to win. In many MMOs, the "real" game doesn't even begin until you're max level. Any PvP done before then won't reward you with the best gear, nor does it offer the same complexity since you won't have your full complement of abilities at your disposal.

These other MMOs also have specialized PvP stats on their gear, like resilience or expertise. These stats are completely arbitrary in nature, and are placed on gear to increase your damage done and reduce the damage done to you in a PvP setting. The only reason stats like this exist is so you can't bring the gear you've acquired elsewhere in the game into a PvP setting and be competitive. This means you have to sit through another gear grind if you want to level the playing field. More time spent getting gear is more time spent on your subscription.

Guild Wars 2 unshackles players from this kind of nonsense. In Guild Wars 2 you can enter the Mists very shortly after character creation. This zone is a PvP lobby where you can access your max level character for organized PvP play. In sPvP, you have full access to all of your weapons, armor, skills and traits. You can participate in Hot Join matches, jumping in and out at your leisure without restrictions, or get together with friends for more organized Tournament play. The great thing about sPvP is that it can be as casual or hardcore of an experience as you want it to be. Spend 15 minutes or spend an entire afternoon, it's up to you. The only determining factors of who wins are communication and skill. Even the most hardcore player will only be rewarded with cosmetic upgrades in gear. His stats will be the same as yours. There's no grind to concern yourself with. If all you want to do is hop in and run some matches, this is a perfectly viable way to enjoy doing so without needing to spend days or weeks leveling first.

NO SUBSCRIPTION

It may sound like I dislike the subscription model a great deal, and it's absolutely true. I consider it a bit of a trap. The payment model of any game greatly influences game design decisions which support that model. Raiding is certainly a byproduct of subscription MMOs, and one which we've already covered.

Flight paths and travel time between zones is another. The first time you hop on a mount and it takes 5-10 minutes to get to your destination, it may seem like a grand way to get a sense of the larger world. The 10th time you do it, it's a convenient way to work in a bathroom break. The 100th time you do it, it's just a frustrating waste of your time. If you want to instantly port from one area to another, you can, but it's normally on a fairly long timer to make sure it isn't too convenient. The goal is to stretch your playing time.

If you sit down to do crafting in another MMO, the time it takes to smelt a single copper bar is exactly the same amount of time it takes to smelt the 500th. If part of your crafting sessions in other MMOs has ever involved turning on a TV show or surfing the web while your progress bar slowly ticked by, then you know what I'm talking about. You aren't even playing the game at that point. It's playing you.

Things like this are just not found in Guild Wars 2. Once you discover a waypoint, you can fast travel between them at will for a small fee. When you sit down to craft, not only will your progress bar tick by exponentially faster for each of the same item you make, but you'll gain experience towards leveling up just from doing it. ArenaNet wants you to spend your time playing their game, and rewards you for doing so at whatever pace and in whatever way you choose.

If you have kids who want to play with you, it's as easy as purchasing another copy of the game. You're not forced into paying another monthly fee for something your child may only pick up and play a handful of times per month.

If you want to play with friends who are new to the game, you can take your existing character and be scaled down in level so you can enjoy the game right beside them at a moment's notice. You don't even have to both be on the same server, thanks to Guild Wars 2′s guesting system.

ArenaNet can provide you with all of this convenience because, unlike a subscription MMO developer, they don't need Guild Wars 2 to be the only game you ever play. Once you've purchased the copy, you're done. It's all about getting your initial investment's worth of entertainment. If you stop playing for a couple of weeks to try out another title, or to take a family vacation, or to handle a business trip, it doesn't matter. Guild Wars 2 will still be waiting for you when you get back without costing you an extra penny.  Guild Wars 2 doesn't need to get you to play out of guilt. You'll never have to think to yourself "Well, I'm paying $15 a month for it, so I'd better log in." Just like any other non-subscription game you have loaded on your PC or console game that is sitting on your shelf, the only thing making you play Guild Wars 2 is your own enjoyment. Play it because you want to, and not because you have to.

Guild Wars 2 is an expansive, dynamic game with numerous fun and rewarding ways to experience it. Play as much or as little as you want, whenever you can. You are completely free to explore and experience the game at your own pace, without penalty. It's the perfect MMO, regardless of how busy your life outside of gaming is.

Personally I like the fact that there are no raids - I hardly raided in WoW, and preferred to work on completionist-style achievements (like Loremaster) or to restart the game as another character - something GW2 encourages you to do, by giving you a different personal story (you can have at least 3 characters with a personal story which does not share a single personal quest together - even if they are all of a single race, you can build your characters so the only quest you share is the tutorial).

[Martinus]

Ok guys I need an advice.

I now have a guardian and a necromancer (with the Vigil and the Priory, respectively) and looking to start a third character who will be in the Order of Whisperers. I originally thought about making him an engineer but a bit less keen on them now - so the options I am considering are either a thief or a mesmer. Which, do you think, would be more fun to choose and offer a gameplay experience that is more different from a guardian and a necromancer? A thief seems to have a slight edge in this, because it is a medium armor wearing class (as opposed to a mesmer who, like a necromancer, also wears light armour) but beyond that I don't know.

[frunk]

I've started characters of both, and I like both.  The thief has tricky initiative management, but the mesmer is about tricky clone management.  I think the mesmer might be somewhat similar to necro as it is kind of like a pet class, but I wouldn't say it plays in the same way.

[Martinus]

Ended up going with a thief. A mesmer is too much like a necromancer in the end - a lot of their weapons overlap, and the only different part is a sword-wielding swashbuckling mesmer - which I also have as a thief (but a thief also gives a lot of cool stuff that neither a guardian nor a necromancer has, like dual pistols and the like).