Guild Wars 2 = Daoc 2 kinda?

[svartalf]

Look what happened to WAR - it's pretty much dead.

It's dead because of the devs. They tried to milk the player-base because EA Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello said he wants to make every EA game micro-transaction-based.

So the devs made the non-compulsory "progression pack" (I could not believe it myself). Level 100 completely screwed everybody who thought they were already at end-game. The 20 extra levels made the hardcores godlike.

For players new to T4, the power-gap was already too great for new 40s, but with another 20 levels the power gap was/is insane.

Thus newer players gave up trying to get into T4, but also a lot of existing end-game players were saying "another 20 levels? And all the while being battered by people who are already there? Screw that!".

The blame for the death of Warhammer goes straight to EA Chief Executive Officer John Riccitiello.

But to bring this subject back to SWTOR, I'm intrigued to see their co-CEO saying they DON'T see their game having microtransactions.

Originally it was thought it would be microtransaction based

A two faction system just didn't work in WAR. You have a winning side and a losing side which gets raped so badly that most of the players did so badly that they just logged. Why stay logged in when you gain absolutely nothing from it? On occasions you had a "losing" realm which had a small minority of hardcore players who could dominate in scenarios - but that really was the exception and not the rule.

Even if one realm does dominate in a three faction system - the huge difference is that it doesn't feel hopeless for the other two realms.

I don't disagree with this, but I think this is the nature of combat, RL and Online. Larger forces, better tactics, superior *cough*imba classes/technology whatever will win the day. I remember in DAoC whole zergs being wiped by 2 groups of mezz-assist macroers. What fun it was to be wiped there eh? Ho ho such larks. /rosetintedglasses off

If I remember DAoC correctly, the forces were never even. And this is the best PvP that people reminisce about. I suspect that they were the ones doing the mezz-assisting.

I think we expect too much from our games. Warhammer is a lot of fun even when the sides are not even. The defenders can definitely make a difference in big battles with siege weapons, aerial bombers, coordinated attacks from behind, holding the line at a doorway (although that last tactic was less effective by the time I quit). The game was a massive improvement on DAoC and I think people need to give Warhammer the credit it deserves.

 

[Xandax]

3 realms kept it balanced though Xandax. If one realm ever gained an upper hand, the other two would instinctively band together to bring them down a peg or two.

Contrast this with every other server in games with only 2 realms, where you find one realm dominating the other for years on end.

Midgard went as much after Hibernia on Excalibur as otherwise. Some tried to create "alliances", but they didn't hold. We killed as many Hibernia as we did Albion as Midgard - despite Albion most of the time had "the upper hand".
If Hibernia got a relic, they were a target from both Alb and Midgard because they had less chance to defend it.

There are no automatic balance factor involved in multiple realms. It's an utopian dream that it happens, and it wasn't how it actually played out in DAoC either. At least not the years I played.

 

[Xandax]

Two factions doesn't work, end of story. You only have to look at the server merges, closures, transfers and bullshit 'faction incentives' that are doled out month after month to relatively new games that follow this model. Warhammer and Aion are prime examples. How long did it take for DAoC to even consider server merges, 5+ years? (Total guess, I didn't play DAoC when the merges happened.) Warhammer was merging servers in the first few months of its existence as well as adding faction-based incentives etc.

If absolutely baffles me how game developers don't see this.

DAoC existed in a completely different time of both players and technology and competition. DAoC was all but dead when they decided to merge servers. We had 2 UK English servers in Europe. With a capped population of 5000 (IIRC) per server.
It was a completely different scale than Warhammer and Aion. It's hard to merge servers when you only have 2.

War failed for a number of reasons, most noticeable the technical problems with the engine.
It'll be pretty difficult giving the actual blame on 2 factions instead of having 3 when there was so many obvious problems with the game.
Having a third faction in Warhammer would have done nothing to the problems the game faced.
There were just too many problems with too inept developers.

3 faction is a dream because people liked/like DAoC and they think that it will automatically create a similar feel. Nostalgia is powerful, but it is also one of the main dangers for new games.

 

[Chosen]

Midgard went as much after Hibernia on Excalibur as otherwise. Some tried to create "alliances", but they didn't hold. We killed as many Hibernia as we did Albion as Midgard - despite Albion most of the time had "the upper hand".
If Hibernia got a relic, they were a target from both Alb and Midgard because they had less chance to defend it.

There are no automatic balance factor involved in multiple realms. It's an utopian dream that it happens, and it wasn't how it actually played out in DAoC either. At least not the years I played.

That is not exactly what he meant.

If Midgard had all the relics because of having the strenght. Both Albion and Hibernia went to midgard frontier to ripthem apart and get their relics back(This have nothing to do with Albion & Hibernia creating a alliance, but noone wanted one realm getting to strong and would ofcourse do everything to get the relics back).

In more then 1 occasion, you saw a realm having almost all relics. Where the other two realms cooperated in taking it back, some occasions they even dropped the relics to eachother to make sure that the single realm didnt hold to much power).

This can only be done with a 3way warfare. In a 2 way warfare, the realm/faction beein dominated have little to nothing to stand up and fight

 

[Chosen]

DAoC existed in a completely different time of both players and technology and competition. DAoC was all but dead when they decided to merge servers. We had 2 UK English servers in Europe. With a capped population of 5000 (IIRC) per server.
It was a completely different scale than Warhammer and Aion. It's hard to merge servers when you only have 2.

War failed for a number of reasons, most noticeable the technical problems with the engine.
It'll be pretty difficult giving the actual blame on 2 factions instead of having 3 when there was so many obvious problems with the game.
Having a third faction in Warhammer would have done nothing to the problems the game faced.
There were just too many problems with too inept developers.

3 faction is a dream because people liked/like DAoC and they think that it will automatically create a similar feel. Nostalgia is powerful, but it is also one of the main dangers for new games.

I know certain games such as Rift now, where one of the sides got dominated to much that more of them quit then players joining in.(One reason for the early servermerge), where this is something that could've been preventet by having a 3d faction in to balance it out.

 

[svartalf]

In more then 1 occasion, you saw a realm having almost all relics. Where the other two realms cooperated in taking it back, some occasions they even dropped the relics to eachother to make sure that the single realm didnt hold to much power).

This can only be done with a 3way warfare. In a 2 way warfare, the realm/faction beein dominated have little to nothing to stand up and fight

I'd like to point out, as an aside, that I believe
1. the reason the two realms appear to be aiding one another is that the 3rd realm is taking advantage of the other realms fighting at one relic keep by raiding their other (unguarded) RK.

and
2. the reason for dropping a relic is so that you don't become the next victim of 2vs1.

I'm getting off track here, but I can understand how in these instances the third realm seem to make a lot of sense.

When you compare this with two-realm warfare the difference becomes not one of massive fun RvR battles, you get those in both types, but of larger scale STRATEGIES. The tri-realm system seems to allow for more elaborate efforts.

I thus conclude that while I suspect the new warhammer game (with 3 realms) may be lots of fun, it probably won't capture the magical essence of DAoC because the key was the larger scale stuff (even if it was very rare).

 

[eksdee]

DAoC existed in a completely different time of both players and technology and competition. DAoC was all but dead when they decided to merge servers. We had 2 UK English servers in Europe. With a capped population of 5000 (IIRC) per server.
It was a completely different scale than Warhammer and Aion. It's hard to merge servers when you only have 2.

War failed for a number of reasons, most noticeable the technical problems with the engine.
It'll be pretty difficult giving the actual blame on 2 factions instead of having 3 when there was so many obvious problems with the game.
Having a third faction in Warhammer would have done nothing to the problems the game faced.
There were just too many problems with too inept developers.

3 faction is a dream because people liked/like DAoC and they think that it will automatically create a similar feel. Nostalgia is powerful, but it is also one of the main dangers for new games.

Clearly there are other factors involved, and Warhammer was undeniably a game crippled by a bad engine. However, if you really don't think the inherent imbalance issues caused by having just two factions causes huge issues then it's clear you never played a game like Warhammer. On my server, the population imbalance was so bad at one point that one faction was running around with something ridiculous like 150 people on stick night after night, dominating the whole server while the other faction just got mowed down. As the game settled down and the inevitable situation where both factions had broadly equal numbers of max levels came about, it got to the point where each faction more or less had unofficial nights on and off. You could log on one night as Destruction and see almost no Order, then the next night it would be completely the opposite.

In Aion, Elyos on Spatalos controlled all of the Upper Abyss forts for months on end, giving the whole faction an insane advantage in terms of potential to acquire gear. In a game that is MASSIVELY gear dependant in PvP, this more or less killed the server. Asmodians became a PvE faction almost entirely.

Aside from those examples, that I experienced personally, I know of personally, and have read threads about on forums for Warhammer, Aion, Rift and other games, an insane amount of people who have quit due to these issues. Quite simply people want a chance to win and it's a very small minority of players who enjoy being on the 'underdog' side. So please don't tell me two factions isn't a problem.

The average player quite simply only wants to play when they have a conceivable chance of 'winning' or at least being in the ascendancy. Having just two factions can only make this problem worse and makes absolutely no sense in any way, shape or form.

 

[Ctuchik]

I thus conclude that while I suspect the new warhammer game (with 3 realms) may be lots of fun, it probably won't capture the magical essence of DAoC because the key was the larger scale stuff (even if it was very rare).

Large scale rvr only became properly rare after people "invented" opted groups and started bashing each other for adding.

After that, every time a zerg formed, they got flamed by said opted groups and got accused for god knows what retardedness they could come up with.

But at the same time they never hesitated to zerg surf to leech RP's, fucking hypocrites that they were....

 

[Gahn]

Clearly there are other factors involved, and Warhammer was undeniably a game crippled by a bad engine. However, if you really don't think the inherent imbalance issues caused by having just two factions causes huge issues then it's clear you never played a game like Warhammer. On my server, the population imbalance was so bad at one point that one faction was running around with something ridiculous like 150 people on stick night after night, dominating the whole server while the other faction just got mowed down. As the game settled down and the inevitable situation where both factions had broadly equal numbers of max levels came about, it got to the point where each faction more or less had unofficial nights on and off. You could log on one night as Destruction and see almost no Order, then the next night it would be completely the opposite.

In Aion, Elyos on Spatalos controlled all of the Upper Abyss forts for months on end, giving the whole faction an insane advantage in terms of potential to acquire gear. In a game that is MASSIVELY gear dependant in PvP, this more or less killed the server. Asmodians became a PvE faction almost entirely.

Aside from those examples, that I experienced personally, I know of personally, and have read threads about on forums for Warhammer, Aion, Rift and other games, an insane amount of people who have quit due to these issues. Quite simply people want a chance to win and it's a very small minority of players who enjoy being on the 'underdog' side. So please don't tell me two factions isn't a problem.

The average player quite simply only wants to play when they have a conceivable chance of 'winning' or at least being in the ascendancy. Having just two factions can only make this problem worse and makes absolutely no sense in any way, shape or form.

Fuck i have to spread around some rep .... soz :s

 

[Himse]

After watching the videos, can't wait for this game.

I love some of the features, the pvp does look kinda wow ish but it looks alot more fun.

 

[Chosen]

After watching the videos, can't wait for this game.

I love some of the features, the pvp does look kinda wow ish but it looks alot more fun.

Was planning to start up Ancient Reign again there(Did so on Rift), to have some old good chats

 

[megadave]

I remember Hibs on Prydwen attacking Midgard who had 6 relics, they came and dropped the alb relics off at APK in Odins to balance the server <3

 

[Soazak]

Was planning to start up Ancient Reign again there(Did so on Rift), to have some old good chats

Do both GW2 and SW:Tor and see which works for everyone

 

[Soazak]

..though so far GW2 looks and sounds a lot better than Starwars.

 

[Helme]

You've also got the added bonus with GW2 in that you don't have to pay a subscription fee allowing you to play whenever you feel like it rather than feeling obligated to get your moneys worth after re-subscribing for a month.

 

[Chosen]

Do both GW2 and SW:Tor and see which works for everyone

Yeah, ofcourse Carl. But right now, we want something "newcoming" when it comes out trying a different direction, and at the same time using the 3 way PvP setup in DAoC GW2, seems alot more interesting then SW:Tor at this point. But we can rally up the people and see what we decide

 

[Ctuchik]

But GW2 isn't that much different from SW:TOR though.

In fact, GW2 is probably a lot more closer to mainstream MMO's then SW:TOR is.

When it comes to "newcomming" in terms of MMO's, i still don't think we will ever see anything properly revolutionizing(sp?) again because everything has probably already been done.

All we can do i guess is stop comparing new games to old ones and take them for what they are.

If we don't then were not ever gonna be able to enjoy a new game.

Or maybe what we really really need is for the MMO market to utterly crash for 15 years or so to make players and devs alike start to look at it with fresh eyes again.

 

[Chosen]

But GW2 isn't that much different from SW:TOR though.

In fact, GW2 is probably a lot more closer to mainstream MMO's then SW:TOR is.

When it comes to "newcomming" in terms of MMO's, i still don't think we will ever see anything properly revolutionizing(sp?) again because everything has probably already been done.

All we can do i guess is stop comparing new games to old ones and take them for what they are.

If we don't then were not ever gonna be able to enjoy a new game.

Or maybe what we really really need is for the MMO market to utterly crash for 15 years or so to make players and devs alike start to look at it with fresh eyes again.

Tell me what is actually newcoming with SWTOR ? Its more like WoW in space, when it comes to GW2 it have both live events(no quests/grinding) and a dynamic world(The city you knew a week ago, might not be there anymore etc).

It is also one of the few MMOs that will use the 3 way fighting system that DAoC had, which imo is the best way to balance out open world PvP fights.

 

[Soazak]

The one thing that concerns me though is the no healing class thing as they didn't want to make healers necessary as it's not team based or something ?

I'm not quite sure I understand that as I thought that team based (guilds) were the foundation of the game. I hope it's more a case of everyone has the ability to spec as a heal class rather than they're just not needed (as DPS outdamage healing so much it's pointless like in the wow 2v2 arena where 2x dmg classes rules supreme)..

 

[svartalf]

Tell me what is actually newcoming with SWTOR ? Its more like WoW in space, when it comes to GW2 it have both live events(no quests/grinding) and a dynamic world(The city you knew a week ago, might not be there anymore etc).

It is also one of the few MMOs that will use the 3 way fighting system that DAoC had, which imo is the best way to balance out open world PvP fights.

Obviously you've only been getting snippets of information about both games.

What I like so far about SWTOR;
It is fully-voiced. This is a massive issue for me, I've seen too many walls of text.
I believe there will be a personal story and group gameplay doesn't interact with it, so all those choices you make in the personal story are yours alone (as if a single-player game is embedded in the multiplayer game).
WoW-like gameplay in scenarios/battlegrounds/whatever you want to call them. Say "WoW in space" with a derogatory tone if you will, but I loved vanilla WoW.
NPC companion system like in other Bioware games - apparently there will be some PvP where you could bring a companion along.
The crafting system is interesting, with lots of options and the ability to get your NPC companions involved.
You get a space-ship (housing) as part of the core game.
There is space combat - ok so it might be a bit of a space-invaders game but it looks like a fun distraction.

What I like so far about GW;
There is much voice-work.
All the sides get the same classes, not different classes each side.
The grinding is disguised very well, and the options to complete one of several objectives in order to complete a quest is exceptional.
Each class can fulfill several roles, so you don't need to look for specific classes when finding a group.
The dynamic world seems like an excellent concept and I am very excited to see how it will play.
The mini-games look fun.
Everybody can revive their allies.
3-way Server-vs-server-vs-server combat looks interesting.
No sub fee.

I have a few little concerns about either system but they both look very solid to me.

 

[Ctuchik]

Tell me what is actually newcoming with SWTOR ?

That's the point i was trying to make, there isn't much of it.

What i meant was that SW:TOR is sci-fi and GW2 is fantasy.

That's what's making GW2 more mainstream then SW:TOR.

Just compare the amount of sci-fi MMO's there are to the amounts of fantasy ones.

It's a damn shallow comparison yes, but can we really dig that much deeper nowadays without ruining it for ourselves?

We need to start taking games for what they are when they release. Not comparing them to WoW and claim its a "clone", because it doesn't serve any purpose at all doing that other then ruining it for ourselves.

No matter how you look at it there will always be bigger or lesser parts of a newly released game that look like another one (usually WoW because it's so friggin big).

And yes, GW2 does use a 3 way pvp systen, but that's just server versus server. Not faction versus faction or realm versus realm.

So basically they have taken DAoC's rvr and stupified it down to nothingness if you really want to be harsh about it.

I know it's the "3 part war" thing most ppl here have been raving on about being the most important aspect, but i'm personally starting to doubt that now.

There needs to be more then just 3 sides fighting each other i think, there's not even any lore involved in GW2's pvp for crying out loud. At least none that i've heard of that's worth mentioning.

 

[svartalf]

Move Guild Wars 2 news from Massively.com:

PAX 2011: Massively's hands-on with the Guild Wars 2 Asura

by Rubi Bayer on Aug 29th 2011 3:00PM
Fantasy, Events, real-world, Previews, PvE, Guild Wars 2, Hands-on, Races

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The new demo has arrived to the United States! ArenaNet unveiled the newest demo version of Guild Wars 2 last week at Gamescom, and it was filled with new surprises. Orrian undead, one of Zhaitan's underlings, the Charr starter area, playable Asura and Sylvari, and much more captured the attention of fans.

ArenaNet has returned to its home turf and was presenting the demo at PAX this weekend, and I had the privilege of diving into the game's new content. Follow along after the jump for the latest look at the Guild Wars 2 demo!<a

If I had my way, I would have spent hours reveling in gameplay -- checking out the Charr starter area, playing with a Sylvari then an Asura, crafting, and of course indulging in some serious character creation time. Since that wonderful unlimited gameplay day is not here yet, I had to pick and choose. It was a Sophie's Choice moment, but I decided to check out some high-level gameplay. Just like other Guild Wars 2 enthusiasts, I was eager to get my hands on a race I hadn't played yet, so I chose an Asura, creating a diminutive Thief and putting her through her paces.

Character creation was as much fun as gameplay, so I spent a fair amount of time pondering my choices. The visuals are great, but Asura also have some entertaining options for their background and preferences as well. The three colleges -- Synergetics, Dynamics, and Statics -- reflect a variety of playstyle preferences. Synergetics students "devoutly research the true nature of the Eternal Alchemy." They're the thinkers, the bookworms. Those who choose the college of Dynamics are the ones who aren't afraid to experiment: "Energy, enthusiasm, and boldness are our best qualities [...] If a prototype explodes, it isn't a failure unless the lesson goes unlearned." Finally, there are the traditionalists of the college of Statics. As the description says, some call them conservative, but they work well with what's known and what's come before, using existing knowledge and designs to build and create.

The Asura, of course, are brilliant inventors, and another character creation step is choosing your favorite invention. There are three inventions to choose from, each distinctly different. The Valet-123 Golem is a service golem that both revolutionizes lab cleanup and mixes a great cocktail. Handy! The Transatmospheric Converter is all about power. "What unmitigated joy to be able to change the weather at my whim!" Finally, the Infinity Ball taps into the sense of fun and whimsy that the Asura radiate despite their best efforts: "My invention predicts the future! So what if it doesn't predict it correctly every time. That's irrelevant! Could it give me an advantage? Reply hazy, ask again later."

The clock was ticking, so I wrapped up character creation and got into some actual gameplay.
I have to say that the Asura race is easily the most charming from a gameplay perspective -- the animations are completely appropriate for the race's stature and build. The Asura are top-heavy with short legs, and every detail of their movement is designed with that in mind. No matter what my character was doing, her way of doing it brought a laugh. When she jumped from a standing position, she made a little high-pitched grunt of effort. When she jumped while running, she windmilled her arms in the air to keep her balance. When she came to a halt after running, she sort of skidded to a stop and wobbled to stop herself from falling. The list goes on and on, adding so much to the charm of these little guys.

Demo players choosing an Asura character are sent to fairly high-level content, so I was level 59 right out of the gate. I've logged a few hours of Guild Wars 2 gameplay through various demo opportunities, but nothing near what it would take to level a character to 59 in the live version. However, the mechanics and methods of combat are fairly intuitive as long as a player knows the basics. ArenaNet has done a pretty good job of making a game that's easy to understand while still being varied and exciting, so I was able to jump right into combat without getting stomped over and over because I didn't know how anything worked.

"Undead" was the word of the hour, thanks to the location of the Asura lands -- the Orrian undead were coming up from the water and attempting to take over. I was offered a task (not a quest!) from a nearby Hylek NPC when I loaded in, and while I accepted, I was really more interested in running around exploring. My goal was to see how the world felt with the Guild Wars 2 dynamic events system. Could I really run and explore -- without staying on a constant quest chain path -- and still find plenty to do? I also wanted to get a good look at the environment and soak up the ambiance a bit, since this was my first foray into the Asura part of the game.

The first thing I noticed was the realism... well, as realistic as you can get under the fantasy-setting circumstances. There were various types of trees, flowers, brush, moss, and more everywhere. The setting of this area of the game is swampland, and the plant life spoke to a low-lying, wet area. There was also a constant background hum of cicadas that provided a nice addition to the overall feel without being irritating.

I wandered around checking things out and killing some creatures here and there as I stumbled into their aggro range. I was also helping an NPC who was plagued by these creatures, so it was nice to get a little bonus as I explored. My real interest, however, was in dynamic events. I was hoping for a good balance between allowing me time to explore and giving me plenty to do. I'll take a moment here to say that designer Colin Johanson did mention that the background mechanics of dynamic events are changed in some fairly significant ways during convention demos to allow for the way players jump in and out. When you have thousands of people playing constantly in 40-minute increments, you have to make sure that there's something good going on for each of those players. Undead dragon Tequatl the Sunless was set to appear on a predetermined schedule, for example, but that's not how it will work in the live game -- he'll appear in direct response to a large series of player events.

Because of the way this was set up, I had high hopes of finding some exciting events. I played through two demo sessions as an Asura and came across several pretty exciting events. I also found out the hard way something I heard Colin explain later on Sunday: Dynamic event scaling has its limits. While there are many, many dynamic events that will scale all the way down to accommodate a solo player, the truly epic events need a lot of players.

I was running around when I got the "New Event Nearby" notice. In the distance, I could make out the huge decaying wings of Tequatl. Yes! Excited at the prospect of participating in a battle royale, I took off as fast as my short little Asura legs could carry me. I arrived in the area, came tearing over a hilltop, and screeched to a halt when I saw the beach swarming with enemies. Scattered here and there were the corpses of NPC allies, and there wasn't a single player character in sight. Whoops. I backed off quickly before they saw me and thought for a moment. It seemed like a good time to test the limits of Guild Wars 2's scaling system, so I started strategizing. The first order of business was to clear Tequatl's Orrian friends, so I snuck around the side looking for some loners to pick off.

In a one-on-one battle, or even two or three on one, it was a decent fight and I emerged victorious. But I learned pretty quickly that Colin was not kidding: These big events are designed for multiple players. I picked off a few enemies and moved forward, but more arrived behind me to take their places and I soon found myself fleeing for my life, forced to admit defeat. I understand this mechanic and it works, even though it's a little disappointing. Who wouldn't love the bragging rights inherent in taking out Tequatl solo? Guild Wars 2 is an MMO, though, and part of the experience is having huge events like this to bring a large number of players together.

That sounds a bit like I'm talking about a raid, which brought to mind one of the things I'm most anticipating about GW2. I needed more people to finish this off. A lot more people. But unlike the situation in a traditional raid, it didn't matter who those people were. I didn't need to put out the call for anything specific. Anyone who wanted to play could have come running with any race, class, weapon, and skill set he fancied and the job would have gotten done. Offering players the chance to participate in something epic on their own terms is a pretty huge deal.

I came across one more large-scale dynamic event in my travels and one slightly smaller one. In the large one, I got a taste of two things: how exciting these events can be when lots of players are participating, and how crazy it can be when those players are new to the game. Our enemies were Orrian undead of various races who were storming the beach after emerging from a nearby ship, the Ash Horizon. Several demo players were participating, and it was chaos of the best kind as undead waded ashore and we ran every which way taking them out. The convenience of ground-targeted skills like buffs and heals really hit home to me during this fight. Several times a healing circle on the ground caught my eye at a critical moment and I dashed toward it in time to avoid going into a downed state.

I also got to have a little fun with environmental weapons here. At some point during the festivities, a fallen enemy dropped an undead arm on the ground. I picked it up and found it was a weapon! My skillset changed to reflect it, and I had the ability to throw it at a foe. When it hit, it exploded in a cloud of poison. It was a single-use item, of course. Once I threw it, my normal weapons and skills returned, but it's a fun addition to the game. I can easily see players making very clever use of this after launch as people learn strategic gameplay. There will likely be skills and attacks that synergize well with a poison effect, and having the ability to inflict that at a critical moment is going to add some fun new twists to combat.

There was one false note in all of this fun, and I'd be remiss not to address that as well. I played two character classes in my demos: a Thief and an Elementalist. I favor caster classes pretty strongly, so I was anxious to get a feel for the Elementalist most of all. I spent a fair portion of the 40-minute demo experimenting with her abilities, cycling through all four attunements, and found that I felt very uncomfortable with her range.

A caster is a strong midline or backline character, depending on the circumstances, and the Elementalist's range felt extremely short. I approached an enemy and started launching lightning attacks, only to find my screen fill with the word "miss" over and over. I moved in a bit and tried again, with the same result. I didn't start connecting with my attacks until I was in what felt like near-melee range. At one point I had three enemies in melee range at once and used a skill to knock them back, thinking I could push them off of me and finish them off with lightning attacks as they ran back. It didn't work because they were out of my extremely limited range. They recovered from their KD and started running toward me again, and I was able to make only one hit before they were back in melee range.

After that I began experimenting with positioning and switching attunements, and overall it felt like the class was on an extremely short leash when it came to attacks. I was playing solo this whole time, so I'd be very interested to see how it feels in a group setting with sturdier companions to take some of the attention from me. It might not matter as much, but since GW2 doesn't exactly have traditional tanks, it's a bit of a concern.

On a similar subject, something else that was driven home to me during my gameplay was how incredibly important positioning and situational awareness are in Guild Wars 2. Combat is so dynamic that it's easy to get overwhelmed fast -- or wind up in some fairly embarrassing positions if you're not paying attention. My Thief character had a skill that allowed her to fire her pistols at an enemy and use the corresponding recoil to fling herself backwards out of harm's way. I was getting smacked around pretty enthusiastically by a foe, and I thought I'd be clever and use that skill to buy myself a few seconds for a self-heal. So I fired it off and shot backwards... straight into the ocean. Suddenly I was five feet underwater with a shiny new skill set and no clue what had just happened. Once players get used to the way all of this works, there's going to be an exciting element of strategy added to battle, but there's a definite learning curve here in the meantime.

Overall, both of my gameplay sessions showed me a fun, well-designed game that is progressing steadily toward launch. (When it's ready.) I feel like there is a fair amount of tweaking to be done, and obviously the developers do too or we'd see it on the store shelves by now, but for a game that's still in development, it's polished to a high gloss.

Massively's on the ground in Seattle during the weekend of August 26-28, bringing you all the best news from PAX Prime 2011. Whether you're dying to know more about SWTOR, Guild Wars 2, City of Heroes, or any MMO in between, you can bet we'll have it covered!

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Tags: anet, arenanet, asura, character-creation, dynamic-events, featured, Guild-Wars-2, gw2, hands-on, impressions, ncsoft, pax, pax-prime, pax-prime-2011, race, races

 

[Chosen]

Move Guild Wars 2 news from Massively.com:

A very interesting article. And makes me even more anxious to get a hold of the game Love the way how the fighting is supposed to be more dynamic then the standard MMO out today.

 

[- English -]

still no release date? not looking good for q4 2011

 

[Ctuchik]

No i doubt it will be released this year.

Most likely summer next year would be my guess.

 

[Soazak]

I hate waiting for new games. I miss the times when the first you heard of a new game was the free demo on the front of some shitty mag, or you saw the game in a shop an thought it sounded good. Now they all have preview movies 2 years before the game is released, that is pure bullshit as its nothing like the game (hi warhammer)

Summer 2012 sounds a little distant, weren't they aiming for a 2011 release?

 

[- English -]

Yea and thats another annoying thing, im sure they "plan" for a release way before possible. I remember 2 years ago saying it would be ready for q4 2011, but godknows how they come to that sort of date.

 

[Ctuchik]

I don't mind waiting for this game, gives me more time to replenish my batteries so i can actually enjoy a MMO again...

 

[Fefner]

The one thing that concerns me though is the no healing class thing as they didn't want to make healers necessary as it's not team based or something ?

I'm not quite sure I understand that as I thought that team based (guilds) were the foundation of the game. I hope it's more a case of everyone has the ability to spec as a heal class rather than they're just not needed (as DPS outdamage healing so much it's pointless like in the wow 2v2 arena where 2x dmg classes rules supreme)..

This is what my main concern is. When i watched some of the videos from over the last few weeks from gamescon, there was a lack of healing. I have expressed this over on the GW2 facebook but ppl are saying there are spells that do very nice heals. This is all well but what i've saw is that if your outnumbered 2v1 the heals do not help at all. This system is ok for the arena battles since it will be more even but my greatest concern is in the open world pvp where you can come across 5v20. In Daoc, you had nice CC and interupts so it was always possible to win against a higher number of players but in GW2 there does not look to be any interupt or CC system and with the lack of healing the lesser group will always lose. Take a look at WAR when that came out, that was the same, the lack of good CC and no interupt system made it almost impossible to beat a group twice the size of your own (and im not counting that magnet + area nuke as CC).
I was really looking forward to this game but i really do hope they make a healing class with some good CC as their last class, it's been delayed for quite a while now so maybe they have thought about it.
I do like how anyone can revive their allys, thats new and everyone has somekind of heal but they do need to think about the bigger scale battles not just the arena.

 

[Ctuchik]

This is all well but what i've saw is that if your outnumbered 2v1 the heals do not help at all.

That default heal is not intended to be an "iwin" ability against unfavorable odds.

You're skill at playing your character should determine if you win or lose, that heal is as you say not really helping because every class gets it.