Guild Wars 2 and GWJ: Launch Date And Final Beta Weekend

Scratched wrote:

It's not rotating, but servers are ranked, so (hopefully) as time goes on like-ranked servers will fight each other. It's ambitious and I hope it works, but the phrase "no good plan survives contact with the enemy" exists for a reason.

Hopefully they keep an eye on it, with 96 servers at last count it shouldn't be not too much work for manual tinkering match-to-match if needed. I also hope they don't just throw their hands in the air and say "We tried, but it's too complex to change now" and abandon it with no plan B. There's great potential in WvW I think.

Sorry, that's what I meant. I know they are matching the servers up based on previous outcomes. I'm just worried it will take a month or two (2 - 4 matchups) before we see matchups that are somewhat equal and not steamrolls.

Tkyl wrote:

Sorry, that's what I meant. I know they are matching the servers up based on previous outcomes. I'm just worried it will take a month or two (2 - 4 matchups) before we see matchups that are somewhat equal and not steamrolls.

I don't think there's any way around that, because not only are people new to the game but there's going to be an unknown mix on servers. The only way I could see around it is individual assessment before being assigned permanently to a server. The other thing that will mess it up is uber communities like SA or reddit which pile onto an assigned server, so I hope Arenanet allow themselves to 'influence' things a bit for the first few rounds.

I just want to see if some server/servers being beaten manage to coordinate a comeback within a match.

Also, it's hardly as though WvW is the only thing to do.

I've heard it discussed on a few podcasts that one big element for WvW balance will be the "Oceanic factor". Some of the larger communities and alliances are actively recruiting Aussie guilds and players, building up a second shift for their servers.

This could lead to a situation where unless you have enough of those players on your side, you could wake up to find all your gains from the previous day wiped clean.

It also would depend how quickly the balance of power in a WvW can shift. With things like needing to spend resources/money to get siege, I can see that timing them to make them most effective would be a valid tactic.

Hopefully it'll take a good while before people know exactly what they're doing and have tactics worked out. I think the worst thing that could happen is that a WvW match just becomes routine and not reacting/planning based on the current situation. Time will tell.

I didn't see this posted before, so wanted to add that Asura and Sylvari will be playable in the last beta weekend. I think that's awesome and a welcome relief as a potential Asura player - I didn't want everyone rolling Asura at launch just to try the new hotness.

http://www.arena.net/blog/play-asura...

I think it also lets them preload a bunch more content, leaving the remainder as the high level zones I think.

I like the look of the sylvari, probably will assign that to my necromancer. Makes sense lore wise too, they're fascinated with death

Definitely still leaning strongly towards Charr for my main character, just need to nail down the class. People were complaining about Engineer after BWE1, how did people enjoy it during BWE2? Was the Charr area decent?

I think the character design is great, because I want one of everything, all classes, all genders, all races, so I'm going to have to roll the dice a bit as 'one of each race' is the only one I can have with the current amount of provided character slots. Even so I'm going to have to main with something and I have no good idea what class yet.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Definitely still leaning strongly towards Charr for my main character, just need to nail down the class. People were complaining about Engineer after BWE1, how did people enjoy it during BWE2? Was the Charr area decent?

I played engineer quite a lot BWE#2, although the spec I was running may be outdated by BWE#3. I was running twin pistols with the piercing trait, but some patch notes floating around that are allegedly real says the pistol explosion doesn't cause the bleed anymore, it's just the bullets, which is much more narrow. At that time, the aoe explosion would cause a gigantic piercing aoe bleed bomb that would hit multiple mesmer clones, ranger spirits, groups, etc.

It was a lot of fun. It would be pretty cool to do a lot of cool pistol moves, bomb them, kit up to another thing. A bit like the elementalist, my favorite profession.

Nonetheless, Jon Peters says the engineer is being revamped quite significantly, with engineer and mesmer needing the most work. He said the kits and turrets being seriously revamped, so my experiences are likely even more outdated.

damn you moo, I'm going for Sylvari Necro too!

ever since the first lore article they released for them I really dug the idea of corruption/rot from the "cycle of life" perspective.

mooosicle wrote:

Nonetheless, Jon Peters says the engineer is being revamped quite significantly, with engineer and mesmer needing the most work. He said the kits and turrets being seriously revamped, so my experiences are likely even more outdated.

That's another thing, I'm not taking class choice too seriously right now until the final game. I think I've got a rough idea of what they're all about, but I'm not even thinking about making builds right now.

On that note, I know "Beta is beta", but does anyone think it's it unfair to look at BWE3 as how the game will probably launch (to a sensible limit), like a release candidate? I'm thinking that it's foolish to think that there will be major changes held back, or that there's going to be significant performance improvements at this point. That's not to say I don't think they'll suddenly stop trying to fix/improve things, including after release, but that it's unwise miracle changes to anything you think is not quite right.

Asura Elementalist for me!!! Memories of the TaruTaru

Also going against the grain of the technology inclined Asura, gonna be a rebel.

emyln wrote:

Also going against the grain of the technology inclined Asura, gonna be a rebel.

The thing with the asura is that they're not real technological, it's a weird mix of all kinds of things that add up to what they are, kind of a scientific approach to the arcane. Charr are supposed to be the most technologically advanced having gone through an industrial revolution. I guess they're different sides to the same coin.

I have an extra key for the upcoming beta weekend. First PM gets it (sorry, I don't want a lurker to snag it, it's a pet peeve)

This just in - When you get to 80, you don't stop earning xp, it resets. Like GW1 you continue earning skill points, and those skill points are also spent on things other than skills.

Other copypasta from reddit:
-Orr is described as a beachhead like Normandy that players storm.
-Orr has no Renowned Hearts but double dynamic events. And many are very large.
-Orr featuring twice the events as any other map! Also No renown hearts in Orr.
-Mad King Holiday event confirmed!
-New content can be rotated into the DE system.
-Existing DE can be altered to add variety.
-You can spend Skill points like currency.
-New dungeons can be deployed at any level, and players can enjoy them at any level
-You can craft legendary items in the Mystic Forge
-Legendary items are cosmetic. Mostly for showing off.
-A Legendary Greatsword
-A Legendary Bow that shoots Rainbows ("Rain-Bow")

While the idea of a rain-bow sounds cool, I know it's going to be really annoying in WvW

mooosicle wrote:

While the idea of a rain-bow sounds cool, I know it's going to be really annoying in WvW

Plus a #1 target heh

Video that produced the Reddit info: http://twitch.tv/guildwars2

The devs start talking about 7 minutes in.

The idea of the Orr DE's potentially being equivalent to the end game missions of GW1 is starting to sink in. I'm trying to think how different and awesome the ring of fire would have been with an open zone and live players.

Looks like this weekend is the wintersday in july event for GW1, if you're going to be adventuring and completing quests anyway it's a great time to earn incidental coin by selling your wintersday drops to players who are maxing titles.

Quite a large update on the launcher, looks like around 2-2.5GB. I'm sitting at 21% done with 450MB downloaded so far. Also, it no longer remembers my account name/password which it did before. Chance of character wipe to encourage heavier Asura/Sylvari testing maybe? Anyway, that's just speculation. The update is fact, might want to start getting it ahead of time, updating on BWE day will probably be quite a bit slower.

Does anyone here have a key for the last BWE? I'd appreciate if I could get one, thanks!

Outlandish wrote:

Quite a large update on the launcher, looks like around 2-2.5GB. I'm sitting at 21% done with 450MB downloaded so far. Also, it no longer remembers my account name/password which it did before. Chance of character wipe to encourage heavier Asura/Sylvari testing maybe? Anyway, that's just speculation. The update is fact, might want to start getting it ahead of time, updating on BWE day will probably be quite a bit slower.

Thanks, you probably saved me from a big headache on Thursday/Friday.

KillTrash wrote:

Does anyone here have a key for the last BWE? I'd appreciate if I could get one, thanks!

The big sites are giving away a few thousand keys each, although they tend to go fast. I guess you can check with them.

I always arrive late on those key giveaways. I'm good though, I got a spare key from a friend. Thanks!

Update your clients. Over 1 gig worth of files added. I really don't wanna spoil anymore of the game for myself, but I'm not really playing anything else at the moment other than Civ 5 and some occasional TF2.

Scratched wrote:

On that note, I know "Beta is beta", but does anyone think it's it unfair to look at BWE3 as how the game will probably launch (to a sensible limit), like a release candidate? I'm thinking that it's foolish to think that there will be major changes held back, or that there's going to be significant performance improvements at this point.

No I agree, the only changes between now and release will be bug fixes and balance tweaks.

They wouldn't have committed to a release date until 100% of the content was done and that all the core mechanics were locked down.

so we'll probably see numbers getting changed, but not much difference in how things functions.

And confirmation on my speculation that there'd be a wipe. Wipe both before and after BWE3, though your beta account contact information will be preserved so you can get ahold of friends easily come headstart/launch day.

edit: also noteworthy from the blog is that gem store is active; anything you buy will be wiped, but any gems you buy will be kept track of and given again come launch.

Interesting, so it's a partial wipe, I guess as a dress rehearsal for the real thing with zillions of people swarming the world as level ones.