Jonjonz wrote on Aug 25, 2012, 09:55:
As of 6:30 am CDT Saturday, the game crashed, been offline now for 2 hours plus change.

https://twitter.com/GuildWars2

I did manage to log in last night at 11:15pm CDT Friday and get my character name and server, got back on this morning at around 5:30am CDT and played until the crash. Oh well, have to be satisfied with the mesmerizing log in screen now.

I cracked out for 4+ hours last night before the crash. Good times.

Everything appears to be up and stable now. The patching server is a bit iffy but a few retries gets you in. Looks like they will be in good shape for the official launch.

As of 6:30 am CDT Saturday, the game crashed, been offline now for 2 hours plus change.

https://twitter.com/GuildWars2

I did manage to log in last night at 11:15pm CDT Friday and get my character name and server, got back on this morning at around 5:30am CDT and played until the crash. Oh well, have to be satisfied with the mesmerizing log in screen now.

I love that it started Midnight, Eastern, on the dot.

Fion wrote on Aug 24, 2012, 14:03:
I too thought the combat was pretty 'samey' and not all that amazing at level 5.

By level 20, I thought it was the best MMOG combat I'd ever played.

I felt that way around lvl 14 or so during the BWE's. Now to manage to stay awake til launch.

I too thought the combat was pretty 'samey' and not all that amazing at level 5.

By level 20, I thought it was the best MMOG combat I'd ever played.

Yakubs wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 15:36:
I think people who claim the combat is a massive improvement over WoW and the like are high/delusional. It's very similar. You DO click on your target and use a skill rotation. Yeah, you can dodge around too but, sorry, that's not interesting. That's a twitch mechanic. Yes, there is no dedicated healer which can be good but it doesn't change the fact that you're playing a mini-game revolving around cooldown management where in many cases you spend more time staring at the interface than the game world.

A twitch mechanic is good, it keeps you involved with the combat and gives the player something to pay attention to other than a combat log. Yes, skills have cooldowns, this is still an MMO. You don't really have a rotation though, maybe at level 5 but later on you have to pay attention as the game gets hard pretty fast and those contextual abilities start to matter.

The skill system is lame too. When I hit level 5 and saw that I was now able to pick from a list of 15 skills, I was happy. Then I read the description of each skill and facepalmed. Half of them are clearly useless except MAYBE in rare situations, the other half are simple variations of skills you already have. Every class has like 100 skills and they're all a variation of: Do X damage and/or apply Y status effect.

This one I don't get. Maybe compared to Diablo 3 or something it's boring? What class are you referring to? What is it you are looking for specifically? Over the top animations to accompany them? More flavor in the text descriptions? I don't know, the skills are largely damage or utility based like most other games. Again this is still an MMO. The primary method of dealing with things is to damage them in some form and you need a variety of utility skills to help you deal with different combat sitations. Go play a rifle warrior and a greatsword warrior, they have drastically different playstyles despite "just being a bunch of skills you hit".

q[This ad-hoc party-based system is interesting in theory but in their execution it's kind of dumb. It's not so much an ad-hoc party system, rather it's an ad-hoc ARMY system. An event appears on the map and suddenly you're just a face in the crowd as 100 players all swarm a single giant enemy or a group of enemies and proceed to spam everything they've got.
This is more of a beta thing combined with their scaling system. Everyone (yourself included) was flooding the newbie zones in beta and the events scale largely by player count. You complained that it was hard to assess your personal contribution to a large scale fight and there's some truth to that, it's hard to make a meaningful impact in a crowd of 200 people. That changes quite a bit when you help a group of 5 people struggling to deal with an event somewhere.

This comment was edited on Aug 24, 2012, 09:34.

Yakubs wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 15:36:
I played the last beta weekend and lost all interest in the game. I do think the open areas with free exploration is an absolutely great aspect of the game, and seemingly well-implemented from what I saw, but I disliked basically everything else about it.

I think people who claim the combat is a massive improvement over WoW and the like are high/delusional. It's very similar. You DO click on your target and use a skill rotation. Yeah, you can dodge around too but, sorry, that's not interesting. That's a twitch mechanic. Yes, there is no dedicated healer which can be good but it doesn't change the fact that you're playing a mini-game revolving around cooldown management where in many cases you spend more time staring at the interface than the game world.

The skill system is lame too. When I hit level 5 and saw that I was now able to pick from a list of 15 skills, I was happy. Then I read the description of each skill and facepalmed. Half of them are clearly useless except MAYBE in rare situations, the other half are simple variations of skills you already have. Every class has like 100 skills and they're all a variation of: Do X damage and/or apply Y status effect.

This ad-hoc party-based system is interesting in theory but in their execution it's kind of dumb. It's not so much an ad-hoc party system, rather it's an ad-hoc ARMY system. An event appears on the map and suddenly you're just a face in the crowd as 100 players all swarm a single giant enemy or a group of enemies and proceed to spam everything they've got.

If "apply Y status effect" skills aren't boring enough, they're even further devalued by the fact that you're debuffing an enemy along with 100 other people. The list of debuffs on each monster is so long you can't even see them all and you certainly have no earthly clue if you contributed anything at all to the fight, beyond the fact that you just spent 5 minutes pounding your keyboard and particle effects were emitted from your avatar.

PvP is standard fare for these games. The only "innovation" is that you're increased to max level and given top-level gear upon joining the fight. Which is terrible because any attachment you had to your character is now completely gone. Now you're just playing a multiplayer action game with classes, like Team Fortress 2 or something, not an MMORPG.

I think this game is a great suggestion of ways to evolve the genre but, for me, it was a total failure at actually implementing these suggestions.

I'm sad to say that this is exactly what i felt like during the beta tests... did not get, you know, THAT feeling.. . Interesting? probably, game changing? didnt see that personnaly.

Thanks for taking the time to respond!

OpticNerve wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 22:40:

NoyzRulz wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 22:12:
I get a lot of crap for this but obviously some game makers are listening. I like the social aspect and large areas of an MMORPG but my problem is that I can't do 4-8 hour raids over and over to get gear to do the next level. I got a business to run where I get real money and stuff. In other words I want to play a MMORPG casually and that's where I get crap because hardcore players think MMORPG means long hours of raiding and that massively multi-player means I HAVE to constantly play with others for hours which I can't do. Ever. I can play lots of FPS online where I play for 5 minutes or 5 hours. So, I am on the order page, should I buy this now?

I would think so. GW2 is a very time-friendly game. You can jump in, play PvE or sPvP for half an hour and feel like you've accomplished a lot.

I would say that the later level Dungeons could potentially require an hour or two to finish, but given that they're capped at 5 max players, I couldn't image them lasting for 6 hours like raids in other MMOs.

There ARE grindy elements in GW2, but they're similar to GW1 in that you can easily get top-notch gear stat-wise, but if you want that giant flaming greatsword or the unicorn longbow that shoots rainbows, you will have to grind for specific things. It's all cosmetic though.

PropheT wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 18:06:
If nothing else it has set the level of expectations going into playing the game to a level that I'm not sure anything could really live up to. I haven't even followed the game and it's all I've heard about for months in chat while playing other games. It's part of why I bought it even though my beta impression wasn't positive...when something is built up that much it's hard not to go in looking for what's wrong with it, which pretty much guarantees a shitty time with a game.

Maybe I just don't follow the game as closely as other people but I haven't seen a big hype factor surrounding this since they started the beta events. I played in a few of the beta events and I didnt fall in love with the game but there was definitely a lot of potential. I think a lot of people get taken for a ride because they level a character to 6 and jump to the forums declaring that guild wars hasn't dethroned WOW because there are skills used like most other mmo games.

NoyzRulz wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 22:12:
I get a lot of crap for this but obviously some game makers are listening. I like the social aspect and large areas of an MMORPG but my problem is that I can't do 4-8 hour raids over and over to get gear to do the next level. I got a business to run where I get real money and stuff. In other words I want to play a MMORPG casually and that's where I get crap because hardcore players think MMORPG means long hours of raiding and that massively multi-player means I HAVE to constantly play with others for hours which I can't do. Ever. I can play lots of FPS online where I play for 5 minutes or 5 hours. So, I am on the order page, should I buy this now?

I would think so. GW2 is a very time-friendly game. You can jump in, play PvE or sPvP for half an hour and feel like you've accomplished a lot.

I would say that the later level Dungeons could potentially require an hour or two to finish, but given that they're capped at 5 max players, I couldn't imagine them lasting for 6 hours like raids in other MMOs.

There ARE grindy elements in GW2, but they're similar to GW1 in that you can easily get top-notch gear stat-wise, but if you want that giant flaming greatsword or the unicorn longbow that shoots rainbows, you will have to grind for specific things. It's all cosmetic though.

This comment was edited on Aug 23, 2012, 23:57.

I get a lot of crap for this but obviously some game makers are listening. I like the social aspect and large areas of an MMORPG but my problem is that I can't do 4-8 hour raids over and over to get gear to do the next level. I got a business to run where I get real money and stuff. In other words I want to play a MMORPG casually and that's where I get crap because hardcore players think MMORPG means long hours of raiding and that massively multi-player means I HAVE to constantly play with others for hours which I can't do. Ever. I can play lots of FPS online where I play for 5 minutes or 5 hours. So, I am on the order page, should I buy this now?

Cutter wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 17:06:

Blegvad wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 16:44:
Blues folks going to a particular server?

First post in this thread has a link to the Blue's GW2 stuff. Some of us will be on Tarnished Coast, some other on other servers, so not everyone to one it seems.

I'll be on Tarnished Coast and happily join the Blues guild there. However I will be jumping servers if by the end of Early Access it's full up. I have a number of friends who didn't pre-purchase and I don't want to be stuck on a capped server when they join the game. XX fingers that it doesn't fill up too quickly.

Not being a MMO player, this game comes across as the most interesting of the past months in the MMO area for me. Hope it lives to the hype for everyone getting into it and doesn't turn into another SW:TOR, which is doubtful but still...

Yakubs wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 17:03:

Despoiler wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 16:40:
The X hours thing isn't because of the reason you say, it's because the game is easy while you are learning.

Sorry, but hard != good, hard != interesting, hard != depth, necessarily. You seem to have read my post with enough interest to reply to it yet did not bother to understand the underlying point of it.

Is it really a surprise that you found things to like about the game after sinking, what, 50? 100+ hours into it? And you spent this amount of time on a beta version where your characters aren't even saved! Sorry, bud, but the only thing "measurable" is the fact that you're a biased fan.

I'm sure if you ask someone who spent 100+ hours cutting themselves with razor blades, they'd easily be able to tell you all about why they enjoy it. Still a shit thing to spend your time on.

Lol hard is relative. Personally, I do not think of things in terms of hard or easy. It's just a question of how long it takes to master something. Hard vs easy is a defeatist's attitude. You will never be an expert at anything if you put up artificial walls. High skill cap just means you have to practice to master it because there is depth. As I have said, you cannot just do 1,2,3,4 in this game post level 25. You can't do it at all in PvP. You must use the right skills at the right time. You must use your dodge a the correct times. None of those times are static nor are the visual queues the same. I doubt you even noticed that you can trigger combos with your abilities let alone noticed that there are literally hundreds of skill combos you can do with other professions that all have different effects.

No I am not biased, sorry. I've listed my qualifications in a prior post. I could care less if you or anyone else plays. What I cannot allow is FUD posts like yours. I do beta test games because I like to hit my permanent character with a wealth of knowledge and skill. It's just smarter play on top of helping make the game better. Smarter play isn't your strong point so of course you are trying turn a positive into a negative.

You talk about understanding your underlying point, but I've already pointed out that your premises are all false and therefore so is your underlying point. That is how logical arguments work. They teach you that in college FYI. I wonder if you skipped that too because it's too hard?

PropheT wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 18:06:
If nothing else it has set the level of expectations going into playing the game to a level that I'm not sure anything could really live up to.

Its better if you go through life thinking everything is crap and you will die alone and unloved. Then life is full of pleasant surprises. =D

Or not. In which case, sadness. :C

Dades wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 17:50:
Does anyone really expect every single person to 100% love this game?

I don't think anybody reasonable does, but it's been practically impossible to voice any criticism of it at all without getting jumped on. It's almost like saying something bad about a Blizzard game on their forums, except with this it's everywhere instead.

If nothing else it has set the level of expectations going into playing the game to a level that I'm not sure anything could really live up to. I haven't even followed the game and it's all I've heard about for months in chat while playing other games. It's part of why I bought it even though my beta impression wasn't positive...when something is built up that much it's hard not to go in looking for what's wrong with it, which pretty much guarantees a shitty time with a game.

Yakubs wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 17:03:
Is it really a surprise that you found things to like about the game after sinking, what, 50? 100+ hours into it? And you spent this amount of time on a beta version where your characters aren't even saved! Sorry, bud, but the only thing "measurable" is the fact that you're a biased fan.

Does anyone really expect every single person to 100% love this game? I thought your list of complaints had some very arbitrary items that could be applied to any MMORPG but at least you spent some with it and came to your own conclusions. There are certainly many things they could do better, I don't think this game is the Jesus of MMORPGs.

I'm sure if you ask someone who spent 100+ hours cutting themselves with razor blades, they'd easily be able to tell you all about why they enjoy it. Still a shit thing to spend your time on.

That person would be dead and not have any opinions

Cutter wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 17:06:

Blegvad wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 16:44:
Blues folks going to a particular server?

First post in this thread has a link to the Blue's GW2 stuff. Some of us will be on Tarnished Coast, some other on other servers, so not everyone to one it seems.

Awesome, thanks. Will see you guys there!

Blegvad wrote on Aug 23, 2012, 16:44:
Blues folks going to a particular server?

First post in this thread has a link to the Blue's GW2 stuff. Some of us will be on Tarnished Coast, some other on other servers, so not everyone to one it seems.