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Launch date for Guild Wars 2 has been announced as Tuesday, August 28th.
The next opportunity to play the game will be the final Beta Weekend Event, planned for July 20-22.
The game is still available for purchase.
Yogscast Profession Videos
Warrior Spotlight
Thief Spotlight
Guardian Spotlight
Engineer Spotlight
Elementalist Spotlight
Necromancer Spotlight
Ranger Spotlight
Mesmer Spotlight
General Links:
GWJ Guild Wars 2 Catch-All Thread
Official Guild Wars 2 Site
Official Guild Wars 2 Twitter
Guild Wars 2 Guru
Community Team Lead Martin Kerstein's Twitter
What the Heck is Guild Wars 2?
Arena.net's Guild Wars 2 Manifesto
Guild Wars 2 Trailer
Just out of interest, I looked at the GW guild roster
GW2 is going to be interesting for guilds, seeing how friendly they're saying it is for spontaneous collaboration and the scaling. There should be less 'need' for guilds as a place to make a group to pass a certain mission, but rather first and foremost as a bunch of friends.
Are people being invited to the beta semi-randomly, or is there a place to sign up?
It's wonderful to see this one approaching the live beta stages. This is the first MMO I've been excited to see go live since the original WoW launch.
To be honest though, I really really doubt that the open betas any of us 'great unwashed' have a chance of getting into will have an NDA, more comparable to the beta weekends for GW. There seem to be few secrets they're holding back on (well, so I guess, seeing as it's not open) that aren't just being dripped out for publicity, the amount of hands-on they've given people at trade shows has been encouraging.
I sincerely hope they won't switch to the MMO standard of regional servers for the sequel. Assuming not I'm definitely down with the GWJ massive at launch time.
I sincerely hope they won't switch to the MMO standard of regional servers for the sequel. Assuming not I'm definitely down with the GWJ massive at launch time.
I'm pretty sure GW has regional servers, and not just for the towns. Regardless, even though GW2 has servers/shards, I don't think it's going to stop you playing with whoever you want.
And there are no beta sign ups yet or official preorders?
I will preorder this on steam as soon as it is possible.
Yeah, GW has regions, but the servers are so inter-connected it's nothing at all like other MMOs.
I just hope there are no EU/US clients like Blizzard does for their games. And easy and free server hopping.
I can't even decide what class I'm going to roll first!
It's most likely to be a Charr hunter, or possibly necro, if no race/class restrictions.
My first character will definitely be a Charr, and I'm leaning towards engineer.
Day one purchase for me, and I'll most likely go Engineer. But maybe what looks cool isn't what's the most fun to play. Very much looking forward to this event.
I've been toying around with the idea of guardian, but I'm probably looking towards necro instead. Something I find myself doing in most games is making a b-line for the dps 'just hit it until it's dead' class playstyle, and I'm not sure if I should try and move away from that or stay with it. I guess that's what the beta can be for, working out what you like.
I'm probably going to re-create my first EQ character, Indis Fychan the barbarian warrior, as a Norn Warrior. Given that warriors aren't just "meat-shields" (man I hate that term) and tanks, and can even *gasp* use bows effectively, it should be a fun ride. I'm a serious alt-o-holic, though, so I'll probably have 10 characters by the end of the first month.
Come on open beta!
The thing is that weapon selection will totally change up the class you choose. This is going to make it so much harder. You may love a dagger necro but hate a staff necro. Likewise you may love a gun thief but hate gun engineer who may serve similar roles within different classes. ANd then there is the mesmer, gah! I am going to have altitis like no other in this game.
The thing is that weapon selection will totally change up the class you choose. This is going to make it so much harder. You may love a dagger necro but hate a staff necro. Likewise you may love a gun thief but hate gun engineer who may serve similar roles within different classes. And then there is the mesmer, gah! I am going to have altitis like no other in this game.
I was vaguely aware that weapon selection affects playstyle but I just took a look at the wiki, and holy crap is my mind overwhelmed. While it appears at first glance to be more restrictive than GW1's "Pick anything you want", the combination of weapon choice, extra slot use, traits, and class specific mechanics like life force, animal companions, attunement - it's really insane
It looks like they're making it so you don't have to roll a "melee class" if you like doing things close and dirty as an elementalist, or "support class" if you want to play a support spirit/trap ranger for a while. Just change your build layout.
I'm probably going to be spending countless hours on finding the perfect play style for my first two characters.
I'm probably going to be spending countless hours on finding the perfect play style for my first two characters.
And that's the thing about GW, it's not about cookie-cutter template builds as much as it is watching situations and adjusting your own skills to make a good build for your style.
It's kind of interesting watching other MMOs move gradually from "one spec, and a hefty bill to respec" to "multiple specs and lowering bills to respec". To make it easier for people to play around and experiment.
I"ll probably be going Mesmer again just like I did in GW. I am keeping my eye on Thief and Guardian as well.
There's a whole container ship load of stuff to process over at /r/guildwars2
First impressions of online first impressions:
Checked out the guild, ranger, gathering, mesmer videos
I don't understand the full mechanics yet of course, not totally sure if there's a multiplier on attack. For example, the icon tooltip for a bleeding arrow attack will have 50 damage but 1500 bleeding damage over 6 sec. Seems kinda high compared to base attack, I think it's probably before attributes and weapons or something.
The UI is wonderfully done. I really like the clean layout. Weapon skills are stacked together, and it seems easy to match Main and Offhand icons.
Pet UI has a list of all the potential pets, there's no second guessing what's tame-able. Also, it looks like every pet including animals in the same family (bears, drakes) have their own unique ability which is cool.
Watched a new mesmer video on totalbiscuit channel. They really changed the way it plays for the better imo, it seems like a pretty unique and well thought out system, probably have a more difficult learning curve, but seems really cool. Also if this video is any indication of overall PvE, each class can solo better, rather than dragging along AI companions.
Only minor gripe is that so far I haven't seen any kind of "femshep" outfits for females, all armor seems "ceremonial" over practical. I know this topic has been done a million times so I'll try not to spark another debate.
Only minor gripe is that so far I haven't seen any kind of "femshep" outfits for females, all armor seems "ceremonial" over practical. I know this topic has been done a million times so I'll try not to spark another debate.
There's going to be a load of variation, there's going to be bikinis and there's going to be full plate. Take a scan through these:
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Armo...
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cate...
http://haikai.net/guildwars.html
With the transmutation you can choose the look you want.
Been sifting through all the info and videos today, it is a ton to take in. I think I am leaning toward guardian as the class that I am most interested in. The tome elite skills and the Spirit Weapons look awesome.
One thing I have not been able to find much info on is the racial skills beyond what has already been posted on the wiki. Has anyone seen a new listing of racial skills from the beta event?
GW2 is the most wanted game for me so far. I love the options at customizing your character to your playstyle. Love the 3 sides pvp. Love the ability to choose how you want to look. Really digging the over look and style of the game. Thanks for gathering these impressions!
I think they modified the trait system, the old wiki info seems out of date. For example, Ranger has two trait trees in wiki, but the indepth video look has 5 full trees, I don't see Major/Minor runes anymore, each tree has 30 max points. Three rune slots for anything you desire at the milestones 10 20 30 and a set passive bonus at 5 15 25 points.
God, I dunno why I'm so excited about GW2 all of a sudden hah. Before I was at like a 5 - passively waiting it out, on information blackout, now it's like a 9.5
Shawn Schuster's impressions mean a lot to me because he's such a fan of the original, I even went through a stage of listening to Guildcast before he moved to Massively, so if he's happy I'm feeling confident.
This is kind of cool
Martin Kerstein[/url]]Let me explain what an overflow server is and what it does. It is a technology we also use as our version of a queuing system. When a map or a world you want to log into is at capacity limit, the game will ask you if you want to play on an overflow server - so you can actually play while you are in a queue. Once space opens on your world, the game will ask you if you want to join your friends on your world. And you keep all the progress you made while you were playing on the overflow server.
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