Guild Wars 2 Release Date Announced 128
New submitter Woldry writes "After five years in development, Guild Wars 2 has been given a launch date: August 28, 2012. ArenaNet's aim is to provide 'a living, breathing online world that challenges convention, that's designed for fun instead of grind.' There's a beta weekend planned for July 20-22 for those who have pre-purchased the game (and for those who have gotten legitimate beta keys in advance)."
Rock, Paper, Shotgun has a good write-up of some hands-on time during one of the earlier beta weekends, saying, 'Time after time, Guild Wars 2 impressed me with just how carefully no, how smartly everything has been thought out. Those things that annoy us in other games are simply banished here.'
WOOOOO! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Really? (Score:3, Interesting)
not so you'd notice.
by that i don't mean the servers are empty, quite the opposite, but the game is huge and more importantly, what others are doing has no negative impact (imo) on what you're doing.
if you want, they're quite easily just NPC's which add to the world immersion.
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
Thats one of the things I liked about the original GuildWars - I could fill my party up with NPC and not have to deal with other people if I wanted to be anti-social. At other times I could get all my friends along too (before they left for LOTRO)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
I know you were going for a funny mod, but while they didn't actually remove everyone, they made them at least much less painful. You can mute chat and just about ignore everyone if you so desire, but even then they're more helpful than harmful. There's basically no way for an idiot to troll or block you from progressing. Anything they do at the very least helps them, in almost all cases also helps you.
It's a brilliant system and one which removes much of the pain out of MMOs.
Re:Fun and polished game (Score:4, Interesting)
I was/am in the Secret World's closed beta (NDA was just lifted this week :D) and had waited for the game for months, practically peed on myself when I got into CB, and really enjoy the game. But I only JUST this week actually ordered the game, while I ordered GW2 before playing it at all (played the last beta weekend, found it more than a little enjoyable) - and it was because I'm happy to pay $60 to get a game that I might play for 10 hours (I suspect GW2 will surpass Civ by the end of the year in hours played, and I've got a little over 300 into that) but I'm less likely to BUY a game and also pay another $15 a month for access (as with TSW) even if it's a game I KNOW I enjoy and have waited for. Maybe that's a little silly, but the monthly fee (which, granted, is only equivalent to an hour in my paycheck) is still a sticking point, less because of the payment and more because it's yet another thing to worry/think/check my bank account over.
Re:WOOOOO! (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Those things that annoy us in other games are s (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, each class plays distinctly differently. Abilities and play styles are very different between them. The fact each one has a heal skill doesn't alter this. Most heal skills have long cool downs, so you need to really stay alert and use them when you need them the most.
As for the original GW's skill system, GW2's version is significantly different. You can still respec your character in GW2, but there are some costs to do certain kinds of changes.
Re:Endgame (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:WOOOOO! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Really? (Score:5, Interesting)
They had to drop the secondary classes because it was too hard to play balance. In fact, now your weapon dictates your first 5 skills (out of, eventually, 10) and the skills on the weapons have to be unlocked first. This was, IMO, the only grind in the game though - I'd go back to a noob area, kill 40 weak monsters (10 for each skill on the weapon), and then return to harder areas. I did unlock quite a few weapons (and shields and offhands) - my goal for the betas was more to fiddle with play styles, classes, races, etc and see what I liked best, so I went more "broad than long" (highest level I attained in 3 betas was 22/80, and I played a LOT - probably would be 50 if I stuck to a single character).
That said, I like combat in GW2 MUCH better than WoW and its wall of skills you never use. Elementalists don't really become fun until about level 12, however, but then are really fun, especially with a fully unlocked staff or wand/offhand and three skills (haven't gotten slots 4 or elite unlocked yet), or even daggers. They do look like they are wearing trashy bridal dresses, though (some people say hooker, but no hooker I've ever seen dressed like that - and yes, I used to see lots of hookers in one shitty neighborhood I lived in - I also was a working musician paying about $197/mo in rent). I had a blast playing an Engineer in the stress test yesterday and I didn't think I would like that class at all (level 1-9 with no deaths or fight for life was a first for me in any of the betas). Mesmer I still love, but it was last added and worst balanced, so haven't played much since the first beta. Created and deleted a ranger because pet AI was dumb and wanted to try other classes - rangers were favored by my guild yesterday and seem to be well liked now. Guardian was broken by a major change in the last beta, but wasn't too bad from L1-L5 (I deleted a bunch of characters since I only have 5 slots and wanted to try all 8 classes). Warrior can hit really hard, though I've played that least (level 3 - this is my TODO for beta 3), leaving that up to a guildie that loves warrior. Thief... well, I loved leveling from 1-7, but 8-12 was really hard, as neither pistols nor daggers seemed to cut it. My Engineer was dual pistol and rifle swap and that seemed ok yesterday, though. Necromancer was fun, but I decided at level 5 to save that one to focus on after release, though I may play him some more next beta.
Re:Those things that annoy us in other games are s (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Those things that annoy us in other games are s (Score:4, Interesting)
The difference in GW2 is that there are very few spells that just do pure damage. Most have secondary and sometimes very powerful effects attached to them, which means you will want to use them wisely and not just "as soon as your cooldown timer clears".
For example, one spell may have a blind effect which causes your enemy's next attack to miss. Another may have a knockdown effect. Another might launch you forward while leaving a trail of fire in your wake. Hopefully it's obvious how this forces smart use of skills and not just whack-a-mole whatever's off cooldown.
As a side note, I find mana to be a very bad resource system (large pool, slow/cumbersome to regenerate) and it seems to have stuck around only because it's "traditional". It is essentially unlimited in the short-term, and has a hard limit in the long-term, which means that in the heat of battle, you might as well not have a resource unless you are engaged in very long fights. And if you do run out of mana, it's a very unfun mechanic since there's basically nothing you can do except sit there and reflect on your character's poor life decisions that led to this point.
Energy (small pool, fast-regenerating resource) seems like a much more interesting resource for forcing resource management, as it forces smart, controlled skill usage and heavily prohibits button mashing. However, a purely cooldown based system like GW2 basically creates the same thing.