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

Any idea what time the beta starts?

Wow, weird, i posted this on Friday at 11 am. It also showed up here. How confusing.

Yeah, the visuals in this game really makes me wish someone would come up with a camera that works well for gameplay (looking down, strategic view) and also points in the direction of the awesome views (up generally). The ideal is that the designers make what's normally framed in the camera pretty. It seems like a crutch when a game has to take the camera away from you to say "here's the pretty stuff", almost a shame when the views are almost hidden away.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/FUYSu.png)

Scratched wrote:

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/FUYSu.png)

So in your mind is the red mark makeup, or an area where the flesh has been ripped away? Joker Asura or Zombie Asura? Or just a birthmark?

Corrupt Boon is making me love necro so much. Thanks for doing a triple boon on yourself, now they're all conditions. I get a sick sense of satisfaction on casting it on guardians right after they gain every boon.

So, I have been having a really bad time with altitis with GW2. This beta I wanted to see the engineer changes and I wanted to try out an asura thief. I got my engineer to almost level 8 and my thief is almost level 6.

So, what do I do? I decide to roll another guardian just for kicks. And while I was doing the intro quest, not even level 2 yet, I fell in love with the class. I barely got the 3 main hand mace skills before my choice for launch main was settled. I am going to have to find an offhand that either gives me a ranged pull or a leap attack, but playing that class was instantly awesome.

fangblackbone: Thanks for reaffirming my decision to not try the Guardian. During BWE1, I decided to save one class and race for launch. I knew I would love the Sylvari, so that had to be the race, and Guardian is the only class I haven't tried, so it kind of became my choice by default. It's great to hear that people love it.

Of course you still have to decide what weapon to go with ;P

I am leaning towards greatsword or scepter/focus or scepter/torch. Hammer is good too.

It's weird. I kind of fell out of favor with the Ranger. I tried it again, and yeah it does solid damage, has good kiting abilities, but ...that's it I suppose. Also, with the major nerfs to the dodge-remove condition trait that was godly in the earlier BWE (It got set to Tier 3 trait, and only removes certain conditions), it's just a lot more susceptible to conditions/many popular builds.

I've been loving my necro. I finally got the hang of it with a solid build, and figured out how to use the death shroud fairly well. I only assigned a single trait to it (Life Transfer heals allies), and it's still immensely useful. I've learned to pop it right before a big attack, and it can really save your life.

Looks like I'll be rolling a charr ele and sylvari necro as my mains. Both just have such insane versatility and can do so much "cool stuff".

I did get to try the WvW dungeon but had a bug in the actual dark room section, where the textures wouldn't stay loaded, which meant that I was jumping to black platforms in a pitch dark room.

Still managed to get to the second section of the dark room before falling.

I played some warrior, and I think I just like hitting stuff, none of this mind game malarkey. It's tempting to go with the 'kill it before it kills you' strategy for a main class.

whats the arenanet number next to peoples name in your friends list?

Holy sh*t Engineer is fun. Before I got an extra kit, it was kind of humdrum, just shoot things with your pistols, that's it, kay? But then, grenades. And then, flamethrower. And then, I use it all during the same battle and it's f*cking insane.

Hyetal wrote:

Holy sh*t Engineer is fun. Before I got an extra kit, it was kind of humdrum, just shoot things with your pistols, that's it, kay? But then, grenades. And then, flamethrower. And then, I use it all during the same battle and it's f*cking insane.

I found the flamethrower to be a bit of a let down. Grenades were really fun and they have great range... really hard to use while "solo" however.

Still no idea which class I will pick for a main but I think I have at least 7 secondaries. I'm in trouble.

The bow warrior is no joke! Lots and lots of fire means its intended for AOE but is no slough in 1 on 1.

Going to feel like a very slow month to come, but at least the Hunger Games final event was fun.

ranalin wrote:

whats the arenanet number next to peoples name in your friends list?

Just a number. It seems similar to the Battlenet way of doing things where you choose the name, but the number is assigned so many people can choose the same name, and then you'll have Bob.1234 and Bob.4321.

And now, the waiting. 33 days to go.

Thank God for that... too much to get through before GW2 comes out.

Scratched wrote:
ranalin wrote:

whats the arenanet number next to peoples name in your friends list?

Just a number. It seems similar to the Battlenet way of doing things where you choose the name, but the number is assigned so many people can choose the same name, and then you'll have Bob.1234 and Bob.4321.

Not that... that's the obvious one. There's a column with a the arenanet symbol and a number underneath.

I'm starting to suspect it's how many achievements you have.

I'd ask for a screenshot, but now... If it's the symbol I'm thinking of (yellow-brown/orange circle) then that is the achievement thingy, which does seem to be totalled on an account basis.

So, I played this over the weekend. I didn't get too far into it, I don't think. I only got to level 8. How much of a feel for the game did I actually get? I liked it, but not as much as I was hoping I was going to. I'm having trouble putting my finger on what about it I wasn't thrilled with. I know one thing I wasn't expecting was just how densely packed the areas I was in were. I never made it out of the race specific areas to Lion's Arch other than to join up with some friends. I didn't hate it, though. That's good, right?

Wembley wrote:

So, I played this over the weekend. I didn't get too far into it, I don't think. I only got to level 8. How much of a feel for the game did I actually get? I liked it, but not as much as I was hoping I was going to. I'm having trouble putting my finger on what about it I wasn't thrilled with. I know one thing I wasn't expecting was just how densely packed the areas I was in were. I never made it out of the race specific areas to Lion's Arch other than to join up with some friends. I didn't hate it, though. That's good, right?

I am in the same boat as you. I have heard so much feedback about how wonderful and innovative it is I was a little disappointed in it. That said though I still really enjoyed it and would never even hint that it wasn't good.

The thing that I didn't like the most was the combat, I found it very clumsy and chaotic. Not sure why though, I just know whenever I was engaged with something in a non instance area with others running around I always felt like i was struggling to keep up with what was going on. Instances where it was just me was fine though.

That's the thing with any MMO, it's really hard to tell how it's going to feel months or years down the road. I haven't progressed past 'newbie' in any class, but I think I know enough to get a good start.

Wembley wrote:

So, I played this over the weekend. I didn't get too far into it, I don't think. I only got to level 8. How much of a feel for the game did I actually get? I liked it, but not as much as I was hoping I was going to. I'm having trouble putting my finger on what about it I wasn't thrilled with. I know one thing I wasn't expecting was just how densely packed the areas I was in were. I never made it out of the race specific areas to Lion's Arch other than to join up with some friends. I didn't hate it, though. That's good, right?

I think that overcrowding will thin out a little once actual launch is here; not the first day or two of course. Every major MMO is going to suffer that initial crush of people in the starter zones, it's unrealistic to expect otherwise. I do think that after a few days the more hardcore players will be out of the starter zones which will ease it up a little. The WvW/PvP-exclusive types will be there to grab skill points from the starter zones, then they'll be gone. Also, there are things like crafting that frankly I don't think many people at all bothered with in beta but will do much more of in the actual game, moving some of that traffic into the capitols. I still think it'll be fairly crowded, but hopefully not as bad as the beta made it seem.

As for this BWE, did you by chance play Asura or Sylvari? I didn't check the other zones, but with the other 3 races being "old news" and all characters being wiped so people had to do one starting zone or another I'd imagine that the Asura and Sylvari zones were even more packed than should be expected come launch. Now if you played Human, Norn, or Charr and it was super-packed, that'd surprise me.

Cobble wrote:

The thing that I didn't like the most was the combat, I found it very clumsy and chaotic. Not sure why though, I just know whenever I was engaged with something in a non instance area with others running around I always felt like i was struggling to keep up with what was going on. Instances where it was just me was fine though.

This is perhaps my biggest concern, especially in WvW I have difficulty keeping track of needing to dodge the player I'm engaged with, while also watching for nasty red circles to move out of, while also keeping track of where everyone is going. I'm hoping that eventually the red circles will become second nature and I won't even think about 'em anymore, just move. Also, I think part of the problem is the number of mobs were higher than they'll be come launch and respawn timers are sped up as well. Hopefully there will be a bit more room to maneuver come launch day.

Just wondering, does anyone have any predictions of doom for GW2? Right now there's the new game, 'saviour of MMOs' buzz going on, and although subs aren't important for GW2 what downside do people see for after launch?

The one I'm concerned about is event scaling, with either a too small or too large population events might be a bit anti-climactic.

Outlandish wrote:

This is perhaps my biggest concern, especially in WvW I have difficulty keeping track of needing to dodge the player I'm engaged with, while also watching for nasty red circles to move out of, while also keeping track of where everyone is going. I'm hoping that eventually the red circles will become second nature and I won't even think about 'em anymore, just move. Also, I think part of the problem is the number of mobs were higher than they'll be come launch and respawn timers are sped up as well. Hopefully there will be a bit more room to maneuver come launch day.

I assume you spent most of your WvW time in the pitched battles between sides that were basically playing tug-of-war between two points? Usually those battles were about a hundred people spamming spells and siege weapons. I would expect that to get chaotic. And while it was fun to participate in that for a bit, if you want better fights, just travel to the supply depots and smaller objectives that would be near the battles. I was almost always able to find smaller 5v5 battles that were less hectic and much more enjoyable.

Outlandish wrote:
Wembley wrote:

So, I played this over the weekend. I didn't get too far into it, I don't think. I only got to level 8. How much of a feel for the game did I actually get? I liked it, but not as much as I was hoping I was going to. I'm having trouble putting my finger on what about it I wasn't thrilled with. I know one thing I wasn't expecting was just how densely packed the areas I was in were. I never made it out of the race specific areas to Lion's Arch other than to join up with some friends. I didn't hate it, though. That's good, right?

I think that overcrowding will thin out a little once actual launch is here; not the first day or two of course. Every major MMO is going to suffer that initial crush of people in the starter zones, it's unrealistic to expect otherwise. I do think that after a few days the more hardcore players will be out of the starter zones which will ease it up a little. The WvW/PvP-exclusive types will be there to grab skill points from the starter zones, then they'll be gone. Also, there are things like crafting that frankly I don't think many people at all bothered with in beta but will do much more of in the actual game, moving some of that traffic into the capitols. I still think it'll be fairly crowded, but hopefully not as bad as the beta made it seem.

As for this BWE, did you by chance play Asura or Sylvari? I didn't check the other zones, but with the other 3 races being "old news" and all characters being wiped so people had to do one starting zone or another I'd imagine that the Asura and Sylvari zones were even more packed than should be expected come launch. Now if you played Human, Norn, or Charr and it was super-packed, that'd surprise me.

I did play Sylvari. I forgot to account for that, I suppose. I realize that overcrowding more than likely is just temporary and that on launch it'll probably spread out pretty quick given the different rates of play for different people. I think my overall impression of the game initially was just confusion. There was a lot going on and not a lot of guidance. I've played various MMOs before, so this kind of game isn't new to me, and I was still lost for the first hour or so of play as I tried to figure everything out. Even after the initial confusion wore off, I was still stuck with the vague feeling of not being quite sure what was going on.

I logged in a few times over the weekend but did not really play at all. Just looked at character customization for the new races and then check to see what kind of skill changes where made for the classes while in the Mists.

I am still up in the air on what I will end up playing. Bow warrior is up there. Also like Sword and Pistol thief and dagger necro.

Played about with a Sylvari Engineer and I love the class. Right now my main will still be a Aszura Elementalist but Sylvari Engineer will be a close 2nd.