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:WOOOOO! (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:WOOOOO! (Score:5, Interesting)
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Really? (Score:5, Funny)
"Those things that annoy us in other games are simply banished here."
There are no other people?
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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)
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I believe a lot of people who like WoW will a
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.
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GW1 is much closer to WoW (not saying its close. Nowhere close, but "closer") than GW2. GW1 has the party mechanic with healers/support, the guy in front taking the hits, and the constant running of areas for loot.
GW2, aside for a select few dungeons, is all open, all the classes can do all of the roles to most extent (just with totally unique skills), the classes are different to a fundamental level (often with totally different engine mechanics, as opposed to just different numbers and variations of summo
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In many popular GW1 PvE team builds you don't have someone in front taking the hits.You could have minions in front taking the hits, or pets, or spirits. In PvP anyone could be taking hits - there's no taunt mechanic. Just because you could have tank+healer+DPS doesn't mean it's closer to WoW otherwise TF2 would be closer to WoW too.
And there are very pow
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.
Those things that annoy us in other games are simp (Score:1)
Those things that annoy us in other games are simply banished here..
What are they to you ? that wasn't mentioned and I'm curious to know what they are
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Those things that annoy us in other games are simply banished here..
What are they to you ? that wasn't mentioned and I'm curious to know what they are
I stopped reading after he mentioned that there was no concept of a Mana pool for spells, just cooldown timers. I was actually looking forward to this game, but not any more.
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From a game design stand-point, a mana system is fundamentally a way to prevent players from activating too many skills too quickly...which is the same thing that cooldown timers do. However, cooldown timers don't force players to channel funds into a gold sink like mana potions, or waste inventory slots to carry them. Having played many games with mana pools, I find the cooldown system in GW2 to be vastly superior.
Obviously, those players that really enjoy buying, c
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You also have the serious problem of, say, one ele causing constant AoE knockdown (aka knocklock) and another doing constant AoE damage. Without a timer, the first ele can dedicate their mana to just doing AoE knockdowns and counting for casting time. The only fix for this would be to increase casting time to be greater than knockdown time, and then you get 2 or 3 people working together over Vent or TS (or Skype or whatever) doing the exact same thing and just counting out loud and knowing the order. This
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Try the ele with air (lightning) magic. That first skill once fires keeps on firing constantly until you move out of range or what you are fighting dies. Or you die. You can also fire other skills while the first one fire is still going. I really thought it was cheating it was that simple and fun.
*note they may have changed this. I have not tried the beta in a few months
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I stopped reading after he mentioned that there was no concept of a Mana pool for spells, just cooldown timers. I was actually looking forward to this game, but not any more.
Why? I played casters in most MMO's since the original Everquest, and the mana pool was simply another form of cooldown timer. You needed to manage your casting rate, your regen rate, your meditation (when it was a factor), etc. against the size of your mana pool. The only thing that a mana pool actually allows that this wouldn't is the quick burn and I'd be surprised if they didn't put some kind of special ability or skill that would allow that, too.
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Also, each class plays distinctly differently. Abilities and play
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Lack of mana pool removes some of the complexity and resource management. Without the mana pool it just becomes "click this button as soon as your cooldown timer clears."
Maybe if you're playing a mana-pool-oriented game onto which some misguided developer shoddily stapled a cooldown-timer-oriented magic system, sure. But as soon as the fights become more involved than just "DPS this thing to death before it DPSes you to death, oh and sometimes cast a buff so you can DPS more or so that the thing DPSes less, and maybe bring more people in to increase DPS so your DPS can DPS and DPS DPS DPS DPS", things change QUITE a bit.
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.
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Usage of PowerStones and the very detailed Magic (item) creation syste
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The "click this button as soon as your cooldown timer clears" method will easily cause you to lose. You only have 10 skills on a bar at once. You make yourself vulnerable if you get yourself into a situation where 6 skills are cooling down at once.
Most of the combat is based around being flexible while on the move. Blindly having all your skills be in cooldown is incredibly dangerous.
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Yes there is a quick burn for elementalists and thieves (initiative, which actually works pretty much exactly like mana). Mesmer isn't fully realized, so we'll have to wait and see, but you may be able to do it with a weapon swap, which I haven't unlocked yet on my mesmer. For elementalists, you can burn your entire fire bar, then switch elements to, say air (F3 key) and burn that bar, switch back to fire (F1 key), etc. For defense with less offense or snaring use the Earth and Water bars (these are all tie
Re:Those things that annoy us in other games are s (Score:4, Interesting)
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WoW - Mists Of Pandaria release date (Score:3)
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Most pre-order companies put it middle of September, so that seems a fairly reasonable bet.
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They're just starting into raid testing. So probably september/october range. They probably want to get it out before the christmas rush (which would cannibalize other activision product sales). Which sounds out of place in the games business, but WoW lives in its own ecosystem within the games business.
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They've publicly stated they announce there release dates about 60 days ahead of time. It'd be pretty tight at this point to match that date.
Fun and polished game (Score:5, Informative)
I started seeing excitement about this late 2011, as Guild Wars 2 started to do its road show, demoing it at various conferences. There was a lot of hype behind GW2, but when they did their first Beta Weekend Event, it really blew me away.
ArenaNet was smart and didn't show the game off to people (in beta form) until they felt it was really ready to show to the public. Their beta wasn't a place to test it while it was still alpha quality. Their beta events were there for people to experience the game, stress the servers, and test some of the more detailed mechanics that needed work.
Even in the beta events, it's a well polished game with very few rough edges. All the classes feel unique, and have a lot of different play styles available to them (depending on how you equip/spec your character). It's really hard to describe a large MMO in just a few words (as there is so much content), but it is really worth giving it a try if you like MMOs.
The biggest selling point that I've been using with friends is how they split up PvP. In the PvE (player vs environment/enemies), there is no fighting other players (pvp, player vs player). When I run around the PvE world, it is really one of the first games where I will help out random people. They did a great job to guide you into helping others. It really helps build a feeling of community within the PvE adventure.
For PvP, it's all in an instanced area. So you never fight against people in the PvE world. They have 2 PvP modes. One is a battleground style PvP (much like they have in World of Warcraft with battlegrounds). These are quite fun. But then they have a persistant PvP zone (a massive zone at that), where 3 servers fight against each other for control of the areas. For people that played DAoC (dark age of Camelot), it feels much like the RvR in that.
The story and lore of the universe is quite fun (I started reading up on GW1 lore, it's a pretty decent fantasy story). But it doesn't get too much in the way for people that don't want to take part in it.
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.
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the biggest selling point for me was the free-to-play.
This. Especially considering the huge amount of money and talent they put into it. You would not expect this level of quality out of a free-to-play game.
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I've had preorders of both Guild Wars 2 and Secret World, and have just cancelled the TSW order and will be buying more family copies of Guild Wars.
The world, story and especially fantastic writing for NPCs seem to put TSW ahead, but the gameplay mechanics are so frustrating that I had no enthusiasm for logging on any more. It would work well as a single-player RPG but the game mechanics and monthly fee limit its appeal in its current form.
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When I run around the PvE world, it is really one of the first games where I will help out random people.
So, they got rid of the instanced world in Guild Wars 2? Or by "run around the PvE world" did you actually mean "when I stop back at town for some reason"?
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GW1 isn't massive? I've played on and off since the Beta and I still haven't visited all the zones.
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That's because only twelve year olds think that ambushing and massacring players twenty levels lower than you is fun.
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The MM in the acronym MMORPG refers to Massively Multiplayer. The massively refers not to the size of the world, but the size of multiplayer, as opposed to a game like those in the Battlefield series, where a battle has a limit of fewer than a couple hundred players in a battle. The size of the world only needs to be massive in order to fit the number players.
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So Everquest isn't 'Massively Multiplayer' because I've never seen more than about 250 people in a zone?
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So, they got rid of the instanced world in Guild Wars 2?
I believe it's still instanced, but most instances hold far more people and you don't need to be grouped. In the Beta I was certainly in events with 30-40 other players in one small location in a zone when the event started as I was randomly running around.
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Sort of. It's an actual persistent world now, just like other mmos.
The world is broken up into zones, like the continents in WoW (only not quite as big); but for pretty much all purposes you will actually notice in playing, it's fully persistent.
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Instances are limited to some dungeons, personal story, and overflow. "Overflow" means that when there are too many people in the area, instead of making everyone else that wants to go there on that server sit in a queue watching a timer, a new copy of the zone is spawned, they're put in the overflow, and can move to the "real" zone as space is available, or just stay in the overflow.
Now we know why the world ends in 2012 (Score:1)
At least we'll die having fun.
shadow boxing didn't annoy them? (Score:3)
Perhaps my biggest annoyance with the game so far is combat. In so much as your attacks will execute, animations and all, even when your not in range of your target. This leads to it looking like shadow boxing.
Shadow boxing is that old nemesis of immersion, it is when your and your opponents moves do not synch up. When neither seems to respond to the other. WOW for all its faults does not suffer this.
Another combat issue is their world and event bosses then to be zerg fests. Its fun once or twice but after awhile your buried under rendered effects without any real organization. I am sure groups will eventually organize for these but with the come one come all its not bound to be anything but the zerg fest.
The abilities system where each weapon provides different abilities will lose its luster once the players settle on whats best and there is always a whats best is such flexible games.
So a very pretty world with a great new take on cut scenes art and distance drawing. The voice acted dialog is very stiff and cheesy for the most part, again the actors don't seem to be talking to each other - they instead are talking to a fixed point in the distance. Gee, just like combat.
I haven't found an open world with this ease of traveling that looked fun to just explore since Asheron's Call.
Re:shadow boxing didn't annoy them? (Score:5, Informative)
Shadow boxing is that old nemesis of immersion, it is when your and your opponents moves do not synch up. When neither seems to respond to the other. WOW for all its faults does not suffer this.
I'm sorry, but WHAT?
The amount of times I've fought a dragon, or Ragnaros, in WoW and been hitting some piece of space between a circle drawn on the gound and the polygons of the creature I'm fighting are too numerous to count. How often have you heard "The boss has a huge hitbox" in WoW?
Have a look at This Youtube video I made [youtube.com] and you can see the 2 most annoying things I ever faced in the game. 1) My character being INSIDE the boss and 2) My character hitting the boss from a distance greater than the length of my weapons.
WoW doesn't have shadowboxing? Don't make me laugh.
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Mod parent up a lot. Back when I used to play WoW (and such a great feeling, being able to say that), and more precisely, back pre-Cataclysm when my main was a rogue, that was often the toughest part of boss fights, figuring out where the enormous boss's hitboxen were, so I could melee it appropriately. It wasn't always where you would expect it to be. Stabbing the air a couple feet in front of a dragon in order to hit it was always fun.
Now I'm free! Free from MMOs! (Every once in a while I feel a momentary
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Want EVE, but single player? Check out the X-Series. Very similar, AND moddable. Some of them available for Linux too - check the developer's site's store for those.
http://store.steampowered.com/search/?developer=Egosoft [steampowered.com]
http://www.egosoft.com/ [egosoft.com]
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Heh. While neat to know, most of the draw of Eve for me is that I hear frequently about how it implements massively-pvp mechanics particularly well. I'm not usually into pvp, so it would be a novel thing for me. Can't really get that in a single-player game.
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The fact that you can activate skills without a target is actually one of the biggest selling points. It makes the game feature more "action-like" combat rather than standard fare turn-based mmo combat.
And honestly, I don't see how this would affect immersion negatively. What's less realistic, being able to shoot your gun, regardless of whether it hits anyone or not, or your gun telling you that you're out of range if you try to shoot it from too far away?
Re:shadow boxing didn't annoy them? (Score:4, Informative)
Yep, it's much better in the real world, where you can only swing a sword or shoot a gun if it will hit a target.
The fact that your char will still do the attack (but if nothing is in range do no damage) even with out of range target or no targets.... That's actually lovely. And helps making the game harder, in fact. When you got 15 second cooldown on your only slow spell, and miss with it because you were too far away just then.. And mobs can kill you in 5-10 seconds...
Also, it lets you do and react to things without targeting first. That can buy you some valuable time :) Like a warrior ability that takes 0.5 seconds to "get going", but rape everything in front of you.. When the mob comes running, start it just before he's in range. Then he'll arrive just in time to feel the pain :D
And to the weapons.. Most weapons have a specific goal. For warrior..
2handers:
Greatsword = Mobility, multiple targets
Hammer = Control, single target
Rifle = Single target ranged
Longbow = AOE ranged
1handers:
Sword = Bleed, counter/interrupt
Mace = Stun, counter/interrupt
Shield = Block, stun
Warhorn = Buffs/Debuffs
Axe = AOE, vulnerability
Which one of these is the One True Weapon? Depends a lot on what you're going to do, and your personal play style, if you ask me.
Only one way to fix that (Score:2)
Grid based combat, then you can match units up, especially in a multiplayer game. With free movement just doesn't allow proper martial arts. The Sims 3 shows this to an astonishing degree, its martial art combat is the most realistically animated because the characters are precisely placed so the animators can completely put them in sync.
Anything else, and it just don't work. Age of Conan showed this with its kill moves, lots of sidestepping to get the "actors" in position, large humans even shrinking on cu
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The voice acted dialog is very stiff and cheesy for the most part, again the actors don't seem to be talking to each other - they instead are talking to a fixed point in the distance. Gee, just like combat.
Can't disagree, but notice that every cutscene in every beta so far had the big "Work In Progress" stamp in the corner. It's a safe bet they'll tighten it up by 8/28.
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The one thing i'm scared of is that the content that is similar-ish to what more typical MMOs in the last few years offered (the dungeons) are designed for specific levels. You can overlevel them and get scaled down, but you don't get scaled up and can't really participate until you are of that level. And when you hear that the big bad Elder Dragon boss that will be available at launch is in the highest level dungeon, that will require you to be 70+, a lot of people will get the wrong idea, rush to max leve
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I don't know about Guild Wars 2, but in Guild Wars 1 about 75% of the content was designed for max level players; leveling there was just a tutorial, not a grind.
As someone else mentioned, in GW2 you also effectively 'delevel' when going to low-level zones so you can still go back and do old stuff that you missed while leveling without it being too easy. They do still need to fine-tune that code though as I sometimes found I was fighting mobs several levels higher than my effective level even though my real
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They do still need to fine-tune that code though as I sometimes found I was fighting mobs several levels higher than my effective level even though my real level was much higher than the mobs.
They really don't. Most enemies are at or higher than your effective level and it's supposed to be like that. This becomes an issue when you are soloing and can't kill them fast enough before respawning becomes an issue. But if you want to solo, you really need to pick a damage class instead of a support class. That said, what they need to do is prevent enemies from 'crossing' their intended zone.
Downscaled to level 5, I faced a level 7 veteran which is possible, with some difficulty. Retreating to get more
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In my case, I think I was down-leveled to 5, was fighting level 7 mobs, then as soon as I went past them I leveled up to 7 and started fighting their level 7 friends. That's silly.
Well, Damn. (Score:2)
Speaking of which, anybody want to buy some blood? Like, lots of it?
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It's quite fun and plays fine on my two year old laptop so a four year old desktop would probably handle it. The minimum requirements aren't particularly high.
Fortunately it now looks like it will be released when I'm not on a business trip so I can actually get my old character names :).
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Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or better Intel® Core 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Core i3, AMD Athlon 64 X2, or better 2 GB RAM NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800, ATI X1800, Intel HD 3000, or better (256MB of video RAM and shader model 3.0 or better) 25 GB available HDD space Broadband Internet connection Keyboard and mouse Note: Due to potential changes, system requirements may change over time and you may be required to upgrade your current system (or obtain a new system) to continue to play the game.
Emphasis mine. So, at the outset it should easily play on my older rig (and my antiquated lappy too, hooray!), but judging from the note at the end, I may not be able to play it forever without upgrading my equipment...
Not really sure how I feel about that statement... Buy a game today, have to spend boo-koo bucks rebuilding my machine just to keep playing it? Something tells me that dog won't hunt.
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That's the norm with MMOGs. Graphics engines get upgraded and old machines won't play it.
Everquest, for example, is on its second or third graphics engine. I believe they also dropped Win 9x support a few years ago.
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That's the norm with MMOGs. Graphics engines get upgraded and old machines won't play it.
Everquest, for example, is on its second or third graphics engine. I believe they also dropped Win 9x support a few years ago.
Explains why I'm not an MMO kind of guy... well, that and monthly subscription fees, endless grinding, repetitive gameplay, hobbies that involve sunlight...
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Then you'll like GW2, as there's no monthly fee and therefore there's no incentive to force people to grind.
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Not usually an MMO kind of guy, but the more I read about GW2, the more I think I actually have cause to finally upgrade/replace my 4 year old gaming rig... funding, however, is a different matter.
What hardware do you have? My 4 year old gaming rig (purchased 08/2008) has no issue with anything even today. I've upgraded the video card once (Nvidia 260 -> Nvidia 460) and now have some SSDs. Intel 9550 with 8GB RAM. GW2 runs great, same with Skyrim (with most graphical features on high) for another example. Even 4 years ago I don't think that rig was bleeding edge.
Good primer for Guild Wars 2 (Score:4, Informative)
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Unfortunately, playing GW1 will tell you almost nothing about GW2.
GW1 was a very unique game, designed before WoW basically defined what the standard MMOG interface was going to look like, and it works very differently compared to most other games, and especially when compared to GW2 which is much closer to WoW (in good ways rather than just copying stuff as most other games have done in the last ten years).
GW1 was an annoying, frustrating game for many people who tried it over the years, so I would NOT rec
SWTOR spoiled me rotten (Score:3)
Does GW2 have 100% spoken dialogs?
Ever since I played SWTOR, I no longer care for a story that's presented in text form (like most current MMOs and computer RPGs from the 80s/90s. Between countless hours of Mass Effect 3 (when my wifi didn't wanna play nice) and SWTOR, no matter how good the story is, I just don't care if it isn't 100% spoken dialog (hello, Dragon Age).
If I want to read a great story, I'll grab a book. I own over 20 dead-tree books that I man to start reading eventually (not to mention over 100 e-books), and my eyes can definitely use some time away from the PC screen after a full workday.
So, unless an MMO wants to become the next Korean fetching grindfest (hello, Tera Online) my next MMO will need to have spoken dialog to draw me in. Sorry, SWTOR may have been a lame WoW clone after all is said and done, but it pushed the envelope in MMO storytelling, a new bechmark by which all future MMOs will be measured.
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Does GW2 have 100% spoken dialogs?
Nope, although in general there is a lot less speaking going on as you don't need the lengthy exposition to understand what's going on. You *see* what's happening, and so it all flows a lot more naturally than the "Here's my problem: go solve it for me by picking up 10 items/killing 10 creatures" that most MMORPGs provide.
Oh, and if you managed to reach end-game in SWTOR then GW2 will be a revelation. Big world Vs. world battles with 100+ players on-screen and no noticeable lag during the last beta event.
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Re:SWTOR spoiled me rotten (Score:5, Informative)
GW2's story telling is far better, with choices during your story quest that actually change the quest in a meaningful way (so 2 people of the same class/race who made the same choices during character creation, can still end up with a different main quest).
As for the dialogue? GW2 has about the same percentage of REAL spoken dialog as SWTOR did. SWTOR just "cheated", and reused a ton of lines, and used alien dialog for the rest. That ended up being pretty annoying after the 15th time in a row you hear "The jedi way is to serve!" and "Dying wasn't in my agenda for today!" (the further in the game you got, the worse it got). In GW2 that stuff is text based. Still, the majority of the story driven content is spoken dialog, in about the same ratio.
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They just need to put THAT combat system in SWTOR. Well that and arms flying off when you hit a guy with a light saber. We learned how light sabers should work in the first movie, and it's not how they work in SWTOR.
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All the personal story quests have short cut-scenes with spoken dialogs. A lot of dialog can be heard just running around towns too. It really brings the cities to life hearing snippets of conversations everywhere you go. That was one thing SW was lacking I think, the cities and environments didn't feel alive.
You'll also hear some of the spoken dialog as NPCs rush over to you and call out for
Open beta? (Score:2)
Will there be an open beta for us to try it?
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Nah, I don't want to give stores my money. Plus, I don't have a credit card.
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Lost momentum (Score:1)
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The best thing Obama could have hoped for would be that Obamacare would be tossed out. Now the Republicans are outraged and far more motivated to turn out and vote.
Fortunately in GW2 every class has a heal spell and resurrection only costs a few copper pieces when you die, so health care isn't a big issue there.
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Man, and here I expected to read a nice, distracting, article about a good looking game... Nope, more political bullshit handwavy crap.
I don't care anymore. The government can do whatever it wants to, or doesn't want to... I don't give a shit. My life will go on. What the hell does getting my panties in a bunch (on Slashdot, nonetheless) DO? Nothing. The people who agree with you will feel a nice and justified, the people who disagree with you will ignore you and keep believing in whatever they want.
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WTF do I care if it's the state government or federal government?!? I still have to pay it.
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I've been playing the PoE beta for awhile now and it just doesn't grab me. I like what they did, I like the atmosphere, the skill and attribute systems are interesting and fun for the most part. There still is something off about it... I'm not a big fan of the item economy, the classes are rather pointless feeling, and zones are a bit meh. The combat is bog-standard ARPG combat. And the "multiplayer" bit is a bit lame feeling, or at least terribly lonely. And it doesn't rectify the "I can't play on th