f13.net

Just a heads up to all of you not in the know....

The game kicks ass, go get a pre-order box and play a bit before it's too late.

This is the first night I have ever played the pvp....and it was some of the best online gaming I have ever had, and it all seems pretty balenced.

Don't cheat yourself - Go Get Some.

Note: Unfortunately, the PvP is nto for those who are a bit sluggish on the keyboard.

I don't know. It's all mediocre. I'm still picking it up, though I'll have little time to play. I'm more excited by the fact I can just play whenever I want since it's sub-free.

Don't know if I care about the Ltd Ed though. Maybe. Maybe not. Art Books are niiiiiiiiiiiiice though.

I'm suprised more people aren't interested in this game. Minimal grind, balanced pvp, low catassing. Shit I've mostly played the pvm stuff and I love the world and quests. The pvm content is worth $50 in itself, there's a whole nother game you get for that price that I haven't even tried.

I was prancing around in this bloom filtered fantasy world (reminisent of the elves in the LOTR movies) thinking I had already seen everything, turns out the whole world I had explored is like a square inch on the world map. Then everything got blown the fuck up and it all changed, turns out I had spent all day and 1/3 of my whole character development in the newbie area. I'll stop now because I've become a total fanboy.

The PVM/PVE shit bored me to tears last month.

I'm considering cancelling my pre-order.

This game is still crashing with a graphics driver error after a few minutes of play on my main machine. Ah well...

Yah, I know 1 person who had the beta crash on him. I honestly can't figure it out, because it works flawlessly on my machine.

Wow, the wind really went out of the sails on this one.

It took forever to come out, and from what I've seen/heard the final version isn't really all that much better different than it was 6 months to a year ago.

PvP seems nice but for someone like me who doesn't play too often I'm sure it would be find random crappy group, get owned, repeat.

Yes, it's not as shiny as it seemed it might be in the beginning.  I enjoy the little bit of PvP I've done but the rpg side is rather "meh".  Hopefully, it'll improve as expansions are released.  I don't think I could use this as my main mmog... but I sort of knew that from the start.  I agree, however, it's nice to have a game that doesn't require a subscription and that in itself will probably make this game a big hit.  Especially with non CC holding population. (teens)

I played most of the Pre-Charr Ascalon stuff, and I thought it was alright, somewhere between WoW and EQ2. I'm just going to miss playing with lvl20 characters to experiment with different builds I think of.

And we all sure love them from b.net.

I loved the PvP the first beta weekend I played.  Unfortunately, the past few beta weekends I have realized just how important being in a 'hardcore' guild is for this game, and am thus quite a bit less interested.  I actually enjoyed to some extent the PvE, but not enough to justify it being in a primarily PvP game.  I can't help but think that the resources they are squandering on that side of the game should be put to better use elsewhere.

Overall, I still think the game is fun, but I am definitely less excited about it than before.  Maybe if I can find a good competetive guild I could have some fun with this one.

Unfortunately, catass guilds are important for any game these days. You should still be able to do well in the random team games.

I don't agree. 

Catass guilds are definitely necessary in some games.  This one, perhaps, SB, Lineage2... but not in the more popular recent games such as WoW, CoH and EQ2.  In fact, except for the indie games coming out...  DnL, Darkfall, etc...  I think you can get along quite nicely with more casual guilds.  With WoW, you don't need a guild at all.  EQ2 is very group oriented but even they are adding solo content and I have a feeling that 'casual' is a trend that mmorpgs are leaning towards... at least the ones made by big name companies.  WoW will probably have set this standard for anyone who wants huge numbers of subscribers.  If we want to play a game with full PvP that gives rewards, we might have to turn to those little indie games that seem to be having such a difficult time even getting themselves released.  Wish and Mourning sort of proved that to me.  Even though there might be a part of the gaming population that has a desire for that sort of game, they are not a large enough group to actually successfully sustain one.

WoW proved that casual guilds and anti-social loners are the money makers and any company with capitalistic tendancies will accomodate them.  I've also noticed that many of the indie games I follow, the ones that some of the more hardass SB and UO guilds would be attracted to, are filled with many more Europeans than I'm used to seeing.  A lot of the games are originating in Europe, too.  The need for casual and loner doesn't seem to have invaded Europe as much as the US.  I think we've become a nation of apathetic carebear gamers and the only thing that gets our dander up is someone who tries to interfere with our casual loner carebearness.  That's when we complain to mommy and... guess what?  For once she seems to be listening.

Dammit.

(Shockeye, what the hell is wrong with your avatar?)

That explanation for WoW works until you hit level 60.  At that point, the need for a raiding guild simply rises and rises until the player either joins ones or quits.  There is very little else to do at that point and WoW seems to totally change focus at 60.  Just like in EQ, you don't need a guild at all until you are high level.  Just like in EQ there is an end-game which requires catass raiding guilds.  The game is 100% a total EQ clone, and is nothing different whatsoever other than polished execution.  Thus, as far as WoW goes, there is no lasting change of focus from the group player to the solo player.  The game basically is a solo game which turns into a hardcore raiding game, instead of a group game which turns into a hardcore raiding game.  So to recap:  Nothing has really changed.

Battlegrounds may change this, but they are still aways off.

Signe, I'd agree with you on WoW right up until level 60.  At that point, there is nothing to do but PvP (just for kicks right now) or do the high level raids.  Unless you want to do high level raids with a bunch of idiots that either get you killed repeatedly or ninja loot all the goodies afterward, you need to join up with a very good sized group of people you can trust.

You can be very independent from 1-60 quite easily, but unless you plan to just quit at 60, you'll need to make friends in uber guilds.

Oh yeah...GW.  Yep, I'll be getting it and I do like the PvE.  Yes, it is nothing different, but there is a lot of it and I can play it when I want and as slow as I want.  The PvP is going to be the icing that tastes oh so good. 

I take it I missed another Beta Weekend?  I knew I forgot something.

If you're talking about "hardcore" in the sense that you need a catass guild that spends lots of time beating on uber mobs for uber loot to compete in PvP, then

1) I totally agree with you, and
2) GW has flubbed its major design goal of skill-based pvp.

But if you're talking about a hardcore guild that practices pvp a lot to hone their teamwork and pvp "skills" as it were, then thats just the nature of competitive games.  Its no use to ask that other humans stop trying so hard to win in direct competition. 

I'm with Mesozoic on this one, its not catass'ing or uber guilding when you are doing it for non-zerg pvp.

There is little to no advantage to having 20+ people in your guild and unless something has changed dramatically getting all the skills for your two classes will not be too hard or time consuming and definately will not require a "uber guild".

Anyways, thats like saying you need an uber guild for tribes, you dont unless you want to be top20 and involved in the highest levels of competition.  The real question is, will there be a middle ground for lower committment pvp'ers, but I would hardly say that makes this a catass required game.

Maybe this thread should be moved to WoW forums  :lol:

Going back to GW now ; ).

The real issue I had with the recent weekends is that I had alot of trouble having any fun in the game solo.  If I cannot have fun soloing or in pickup groups, then I will need a coordinated guild, who will always be on when I am, who I always like to work with, etc.  By 'hardcore' I basically meant guildmates who play the game all the time.  Because if I get on and no one from my guild was on, I would have little fun in the game.

So no, it had nothing to do with massive numbers, or PvE grinding.  It has to do with finding a guild that is A) active, and B) enjoyable to be around, a close-knit group that knows what they are doing.  I have alot of trouble finding guilds like these for some reason.

Again, this isn't a real gamebreaking issue for me, especially when the game goes live.  I do prefer games where I can solo and have fun if I so choose.  Guild Wars is right on the edge of that line.  Since there's no sub-fee, I'll be much more inclined to buy it and see how it goes in the live version.

Does anyone have any new info on how GW plans on staying profitable? Everyone keeps saying how they like the no sub fees, but I'm still trying to wrap my head around how they will pay for the server infrastructure upkeep costs.

Most of the people are saying that they will play for pvp but not much else, and only casually--do you plan/will you purchase the expansion packs as they come out, since this is how GW appears to plan on funding continued costs?

I'm going to guess that there'll be expansion packs every 3-4 months probably running around $29.99 or so.

Yeah, that's what they suggested (although not sure on the rate of release), but with everyone talking about wanting to play it pretty much just for pvp, and only casually at that, I'm wondering if the revenue model is going to work.

GW is one of the first MMOG's to try a seriously different revenue model, and it's got a lot of attention in various forums...if it works, it opens up a lot of options, but overall not many seem to positive it's going to work (me being one of them).

Well, as I've stated before, if the expansion packs have uber items that will help dominate in PVP, then people will buy them without question. See Trials of Atlantis.

I really wouldn't give a shit if it had subscription fees or not. I'm going to have to catass either way, so it's already DOA to me.

Still not seeing any catass'ing.  Unless you consider playing the game, learning the maps, having a mic and practicing/discussing pvp strats catass'ing.

Also hopefully they will not just power creep everything (they will) with the expansions.  Instead due to their system I expect them to add 1-2 new classes per expansion as well as some skills to all the existing classes.  Eventually there will be a major power creep ala TOA but I doubt it will come with the game b0rking grind o doom...

I look at GW like I look at UT. You'll have the first few weeks of hardcore playing, which in GW will amount to levelling up and getting as many skills as you can. Then after that, you can either become a dedicated hardcore player, at which point you will need a guild/clan, or you become casual and play it when you want to. Since it doesn't require a sub, unless you have to be the bestest of the bestest and the smelliest of the smelliest, I don't see where you will need a solid ubah type guild.

My problem is that a team-based competitive game requires a team to practice together a lot, especially in a game like GW where is seems like coordination is more important than individual skill. I just don't have time for that. I guess I'll stick to things like SF:AE for XBox.

As far as it being soloable to 20th...probably not.  Afer all, the focus of the game is pvp, and the pvp is totally and deliberately a team exercise.  One would expect that design mindset to express itself in the pve as well.  What good would it do to have a 20th level character in GW with no regular friends or reliable guildmates anyway?  You'd need solo-able pvp, but the devs have explicitly stated that the pvp is balanced and focused on the 8v8....its just not looking like a solo game. 

I for one fear that each successive expansion will be more or less required to stay competitive in pvp.  That has to be a huge temptation for the devs.  Developers going out of their way to make sure that people can get by without their newest product runs counter to every business instinct.

As long as it comes with entirely new classes and new shiney does that matter though?  I mean I'd rather pay $30 every 3 months for a box or a download where I know there are tons of new shit then $45 for 3 months of Blizzard telling me they may or may not patch something eventually...

I'm not sure this revenue model is perfect, I'm surprised they didn't go w/ a small (like 2.50-$5) sub fee that could easily be purchased by kids via some gamecard system at the local game store just so they can make good expansions and aren't in too much of a timecrunch to get them out.

Also I hope they are smart enough to see this is a GREAT lancenter game, all metropolitan Gaming places should have a guildwars guild or two, if they can pry their idiot customers away from SC or CS long enough to try something that hasn't been the same for 5 years...

Hasn't combat in MMORPGs just been variations on the same things for 10 years?

I think I'm missing the point. I mean, I see the point, I just well, shit, I'm very jaded.

I want to play Guild Wars. Really, I do. I enjoy what it does, I enjoy the casualness, I enjoy the content. Simply put, I'm enjoying this modern Renaissance we're currently experiencing whatwith titles like God of War, Jade Empire, and a host of other things I can't seem to put down.

God, I wish I had made videos of my PvP action just to showcase the beastly potential of the play.

Here's a big plus: this is the first game where I have actually Liked healing.

Did you ever play Shadowbane?

Btw, I haven't played GW in quite a while --- Any other SB vets enjoying it?

No.

I know a few SB vets outside f13 who are playing or have played GW and some of them quite like it, but none who have talked about it think it compares favourably to even SB beta and none are making it the focus for their primary game.  Two of those people were in naughty SB guilds and both hate it.  I suppose they don't see enough good 'sploiting possibilities. 

As I said before, I can't see this as more than a 'once in a while' thing to do.  I probably won't play at all if there isn't a significant number of people I know playing it.  Well, at least enough to make a decent group.

I'm 95% sure I'm cancelling the pre-order. I have no real desire to play this game anymore due to the preview weekends. It's not because I got burned out, it's because I was underwhelmed by it.

Wow.  I don't get the negativity.  Seemed like fun to me...sure there were fucktards galore running around Ascalon, but thats par for the course.  At least they go away when you leave town. 

From what I understand from my weekends playing you will be able to, at launch, create a character that is fully developed to level 20 from the start and be locked into the PvP arena area.  Plus, I can start another character at level 0 and go through the PvE areas along the way AND PvP at level appropriate tournaments.

Pure PvP = 20 to start.  Limited items.  No PvE.
Start at 0 = Work on character. Item centric. Quest driven. PvP possible when wanted.

I can have more than one character saved so I can dabble in each.

I didn't get to play the PvP "only" section so I'm probably wrong there.  How close to right am I?

That is my feeling too.  I don't get the hate generated.  Thus my questions above.  Maybe I'm missing something...

Well, that clinches it!  If Shockeye isn't going to play, then I'm not playing.  I mean, what would be the point if there's no hot sweaty animal cyb0rs3x?

It's all about the drive-by ♥, innit?

How's this revenue model any different from battle.net?

I'd even think that this model has more potential than battle.net because they intend to release expansions more frequently.

Nope. It came out at when I was in high school, with no job or money. And I was playing EQ at the time, financed by my mother.  :|


I am not sure how it's going to work, but if this is the way, it appears that all the skills for the PvP character will have to be unlocked in PvE mode.

Would anyone that originally liked it (or at least liked the idea) give a synopsis of what turned you off/put you in the "not really interested" mode? It sounded like the PvP'ers heaven game from all I could tell from the forums here, but response seems pretty low level positive to downright "underwhelmed" as Shockeye puts it.

I can't explain why I feel burned out on it. I played the first few beta weekends a lot. The last few weekends I've only played a couple hours each. The real question is "Would you buy Diablo 3 or Dungeon Siege II?" and if the answer is yes, buy Guild Wars. With no monthly fee you can't really go wrong. There is at least 25 hours of good co-op play in it.

It's de rigeur.

Does GW seriously place instances on the client computers? AFAIK (I haven't studied the tech of battle.net specifically, just used it), it's simply a huge text lobby. When a game starts up, it's hosted (randomly selected) by one of the client computers, and the other players in that session connect to that computer.

The bandwidth costs for a 3-D world that acts as a lobby are significantly greater than a text lobby, and if they are hosting the instances as well, that's a completely different ballpark.

I'm underwhelmed despite the fun PvP for one reason:

1. The item system is as deep, but not as FUN as the Diablo item system.
2. It's still a hotkey extravaganza.

That said, I'm still going to buy it, but someone else is leading Bat Country. I'm not having another WoW on my hands. I WILL NOT BE BLAMED FOR THE DEATH OF INNOCENTS.

I will also change my toons name. Right now it's Cleveland Steamer. Just sayin.'

Is this the new term for "button mashing" and/or "twitch"?  Or something else?

No one here wants pvp to be item-based or level-based.  There have been disparaging attitudes towards RPS.  And if twitch is out then I'm not sure what's left.

Hotkey extravaganza. You know, like Everquest, WoW or anything with a hotkey bar. Most twitch games don't have one. If they do, they're for weapons - like Deus Ex.

MMORPGs are not like Deus Ex. They are like crap. Only crappier.

How else would players manipulate 8 powers in a twitch game?   When not switching weapons, FPS players have perhaps two fire modes and maybe some grenades.  If someone made a RPG game like that we would call it a console game for crack-addict 12-yos.

I see what you're doing. It's not clever.

Most FPS games have invisible hotbars. Each weapon is assigned to a number key.

What I'm saying is that you sit there, stare at the monster attacking you. Look at your hotbar. And choose a power. SOMETIMES, but not always, you'll have to switch to a new hotbar really fast. It's almost like twitch. But wait for it...

...it's not.

I'm not saying twitch can be done correctly in MMOGs. I'm just saying I'm sick of nearly every game being the exact same game I played years ago. That includes WoW, EQ2, and yes, Guild Wars.

You're describing a kind of general MMOG malaise, as opposed to some GW-specific complaint.  I guess that answers my question anyway. 

How about this:

Guild Wars should have used the Phantom Dust style of gameplay rather than, well, half-assing that exact thing.

The thing that makes Guildwars pvp not suck is that the powers are VERY well designed.

There are some really nifty situational abilities, combo abilities, global abilities, counter abilities ect   Its really nice to see somebody with half a fucking brain design these things instead of:
DoT
DD
DD + DoT
DD + slow
Root
Slow
CC

Its not an new evolution but its an actual gameplay improvement not just bronzed shite ala WoW.  The best example would be to take a look at the Monk and Mesmer spell lists there are some nifty things there.

The combat is fast paced enough that people can suck at it, which is always a good thing but really the VAST majority of skill comes in planning 8 people's skills to have synergy, having good organization and planning.

I dunno, I had to use a decent amount of thought, planning, and good instincts to do well with my builds in the PvP. My most successful playing time was using builds I made up myself. Some of those templates are really horrid. Especially the elemental weapon ones where the "proc" spells don't work because there are no elemental bows or melee weapons.

Umm I agree Strazos, my favorite BWE character was a Hammer/Air War/Ele that basically had 3 speed bursts and a bunch of knockdowns.  Hell I was also using the healing signet since it was an early BWE and it was just pick-up group pvp.

But I had a ton of fun and just royally fucked casters up (they couldn't escape).

Nifty skills I messed with in that build (just to make my point from earlier):

A speed burst where if I hit a fleeing (back to me) opponent they were knocked down.
A melee attack that caused pbaoe blindness if it struck a fallen opponent (better in pve then pvp)
Healing on my Tank/Nuker (take note EQ clones -it did not break the game).

shit I can't really think of what else I was using but it was very cool.

BTW:

The first ability you mentioned was Bull Strike (or somesuch thing): Knockdown on a fleeing foe.

The second one, Stomach Slam or some crap, it actually Extremely useful in PvP; turns a melee's hit accuracy to about 20%.


I had a bunch of cool builds too. Had a Mes/War using Illusionary Weapon. 100% accuracy for 34 dmg a swing. had some damage mitigation/evasion, self-haste, and 2 spells that drained mana, one of which also healed me. She was a beast.

Finally found a ranger/mesmer combo that worked for me. Troll regen for when I got beat on, and a stance to speed up my recharges. The big thing was stacking Kindle arrows (+30 fire dmg) with poison arrow (18 sec dot). Also had a few abilities to screw up casters; an interrupt that would refill my mana if it worked, a cheap dd, and a spell that, for 10 seconds, would do 91 dmg whenever the caster casts a spell.

Also had a simply beastly Monk...yes, a straight monk. She had 4 target heals, rez, regen, group heal, and some other stuff.

I was looking at the mezmer elite that you use then it becomes a 2nd copy of whatever skill you use next...  That could be built around imo, into some pretty wicked shit.

You are off track. Battle.net doesn't work on the clients. The sessions are played on Blizzard's servers. Same of all the versions of Diablo, Starcraft and Warcraft. Today still open and available for free.

Guild Wars is exactly the same, it's all on their servers. Streaming of the client included.

Umm, no. B.Net is simply a match making service plus a "heartbeat/scoring" mechanism to keep track of games being played. The games themselves are played using a peer-to-peer networking scheme with one machine acting as the "master". This is why, for example, if you want to host a B.Net game (i.e. be the master) you have to open up ports on your firewall othewise you can't act as the master. It's also not a true client/server setup since lag on anybody's system will lag everybody else (i.e. it uses a shared state mechanism).

http://research.yale.edu/lawmeme/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=149

I don't know before but Diablo 2 for sure was on their servers. I remember I've played *alone* with awful pings. Somewhere the game was hosted, for sure not on my pc.

Even Diablo wasn't always. It's what account for such Terrible Cheating.

Hell, you could play your online character offline in it's own game. So, obviously, battle.net ain't doing that much work.

Okay you are correct for Diablo II realm characters -- those are played using a standard client/server (hosted by Blizzard) setup. Open games still only use B.Net as a matchmaking service.

The same happens with W3 too I think. The ladders work on Blizzard's servers.

This just to say that there isn't anything different from Guild Wars and these other games. If Blizzard is able to maintain all this open and free along the years it means that even GW should.

The score keeping/book keeping is stored on the Blizzard servers but the games are still played out peer-to-peer style:



It'll depend on how many people end up playing Guild Wars and how many of them buy the expansions on a regular basis. Diablo II has sold well over 6 million copies so that's a lot of money available to "subsidize" the cost of hosting Realm games.