Guild Wars 2

[sidereal]

Placeholder site launched.

Behold.

I haven't played GW1 in years, but I recall it being fun when I went questing with my bots/henchmen.

Edit: Oh, and Mike O'Brien promising an 'exciting week'

[Velorath]

Supposedly some info about it is going to be released at GamesCom.

[Modern Angel]

Fucking finally

[Lantyssa]

 

[schild]

Please don't suck, please don't suck, please don't suck.

[Lucas]

Amen.

[Fordel]

 

[Kageru]

Please don't suck, please don't suck, please don't suck.

The last shreds of MMO optimism.

[Ingmar]

I like the logo!

[Feverdream]

I'm almost afraid to have hope in this one.

But fool that I am, I can't fight back this little spark of anticipation.

It's easy enough to crush it back into bitter cynicism by reflecting on...well, I won't name the games for fear of attracting the attention of a few stalker types who seemed to only join these forums to indulge their obsession over specific games/companies. 

We shall see.  I think a lot of us are going to be joining the church of "please don't suck" in the meantime.

[Nevermore]

This is one that's been on my radar.  I always liked how Guild Wars handled their skill system.

[Malakili]

Please don't suck, please don't suck, please don't suck.

this.

[Hawkbit]

I bought GW the day it came out, which was two days before my daughter was born.  I didn't realize how old the game is until I was thinking that she's 4.5 years old now.  Didn't realize GW was that old!

[DLRiley]

If anyone can tell a rpg story in a perstitent world it's areanet. The fact that you only need to pay for the box garuntees this game longevity. Geez if it wasn't for GW1 I would have dismissed the entirety of the mmo market for being just for 12 years olds and 35 year olds basement dwellers.

[Murgos]

If anyone can tell a rpg story in a perstitent world it's areanet.

The fact that you only need to pay for the box garuntees this game longevity.

Your mind doesn't work right.

[DLRiley]

There is no box sales != success cliff that usually associated with say AoC releases that sold a million boxes but because they needed subs all that box sales money was a drop in the bucket. So assuming the GW2 has found a way around that (they had to have or this project wouldn't be green lighted), then million box sales = success.  I found that GW has actually told a story in an mmo setting albeit an instances one, so unlike say BioWare, I have more faith in Guild Wars ability to play like an rpg even in a persistent setting.

[Murgos]

They either make enough money to cover costs or they don't.  They hope that not charging a monthly fee means they sell more boxes but there is no guarantee.  Regardless, that has nothing to do with longevity, at all.

And Arenanet has yet to make a persistent world of any kind, so why they should be the ones to do it if anyone can is not very clear.

[Yegolev]

Sell boxes, recover costs, scrape game off shoe.

Makes more sense than the alternative.

[Ratman_tf]

Man, I really wanted to like GW1, but it just wasn't sticky enough. I drop in on the game from time to time, kind of like Planetside, but I never had the "gotta play!" for this one.

[Gunzwei]

Finally!

[Merusk]

Man, I really wanted to like GW1, but it just wasn't sticky enough. I drop in on the game from time to time, kind of like Planetside, but I never had the "gotta play!" for this one.

Same here.  The game just never hooked me, and my interest faded somewhere around level 6.  Maybe it was the class, necromancer, but I tried a ranger and an elementalist and didn't even make it to level 3 on either one of those.  I guess it's just my 'ho hum' for Diablo coming through, since the D2 fans seem to love the game. 

It makes me sad, because I really enjoyed the mechanics of GW.  The skill system, the henchmen and the story all seemed like things that would get me jazzed, but it all felt flat and boring during play.   

[Fordel]

I adore the Guild Wars combat mechanics.


if only I could fucking jump.

[Zetor]

The only bad thing about GW mechanics was how unforgiving it was to players with bad pings (super-spammable abilities, extremely short cast times, etc). But then, my mistake was probably choosing a mesmer as my original character. 

[Ratman_tf]

if only I could fucking jump.

I dunno if it got better in the expansions, but I hated how the terrain would arbitrarily block the characters.

It's only a 2 foot jump, fer chrissakes! *goes around*

[HaemishM]

Guild Wars 2 biggest problems were those goddamn invisible zone walls and the reliance on what became pretty boring PVE in order to unlock all the PVP skills needed. The pre-built level 20 PVP matches were fucking awesome. The grind to get to level 20 to be able to have all the flexibility options needed was ass.

[DLRiley]

The fix that like 3 months later. But yeah that was ass.

[Modern Angel]

Really my complaint was never at release but that they did this wild swing from PvP with a PvE sidegame to almost exclusively their halfassed PvE. And then by the time GWEN rolled around they stuck on this stupid layer of grind. Now, the grind was optional in the sense that you didn't have to do it to complete the game but it wasn't in practice because it became quite clear the content roll outs were drying up entirely. So you basically just had to grind and grind for shit that didn't even make a difference for your character.

Although let me say that we all bitch about players being obsessed with stats and minmaxing to varying degrees. It's always struck me as refreshing to see people do stupid grinds for no other reason than it made their characters look cool.

[tazelbain]

I didn't make it to GWEN.  Well before that, A.net had lost interest in their game.

[Modern Angel]

I would go through these semiannual affairs with GW. I got GWEN and never really got into it.

This sounds like I'm downplaying my expectations for GW2 but I'm not. They did a lot of stuff right. Tons of stuff. I think they have a better art team when they're on their game than anyone else in the MMO biz and, yes, that includes Blizzard. They can tell a good story in the micro even if it's absurd Salvatore wank material when you zoom it out. I just feel like they got halfway through GW's lifespan and realized that the underlying structure of the game they made wasn't capable of doing what they wanted to actually do so they let GW sort of languish with the fire and forget grinds.

[DLRiley]

Really my complaint was never at release but that they did this wild swing from PvP with a PvE sidegame to almost exclusively their halfassed PvE. And then by the time GWEN rolled around they stuck on this stupid layer of grind. Now, the grind was optional in the sense that you didn't have to do it to complete the game but it wasn't in practice because it became quite clear the content roll outs were drying up entirely. So you basically just had to grind and grind for shit that didn't even make a difference for your character.

Although let me say that we all bitch about players being obsessed with stats and minmaxing to varying degrees. It's always struck me as refreshing to see people do stupid grinds for no other reason than it made their characters look cool.

Made me laugh and chuckle. Really the only time the grind actually matters is when you play with pugs.

Really the game lost its steam when they figured Guild Wars 2 needs to be made. So after Nightfalls. I really can't fault the Arena Net for doing so, the PvP stopped having "counterstrike like" competitive scene after the last Guild Wars World Championship. A much larger percentage of their player base has insisted on playing pve and enjoyed equally to or much more than the pvp. My guess it was over half before factions and that half increased as the higher tiers of pvp (Hero Ascent and GvG) becomes increasingly more unavailable for the average player. Even those same pvp'ers watching their community shrink to refused to make concessions necessary to make PvP more accessible.  

[Fordel]

The stuff that was accessible was plenty fun at least. I still log in from time to time to play that Fort Aspen battleground.


But yea, the 'real' competitive PvP, it was virtually impossible to "break into" without your own pre-existing dedicated group. If you already had a solid group together, you had virtually no reason to try playing with some random guy you met in a Random Arena.

[Lantyssa]

I do it for the Stuffs.  Titles that I work on while playing, getting neat looking items, building out skills, enjoying the story, etc.  The Menagerie is a big one for me right now as I've caught everything I have access to.  Now I'm leveling them up so I have all evolutions while reaching the parts where I can capture the rest.

I have a Survivor character I play around with every now and then.

Really I always have something to work towards, but it's not required I achieve any of it so I don't burn myself out.

[Velorath]

Trailer and FAQ now up on the website.

Edit:  IGN has an article up already also.

[Lucas]

Trailer and FAQ now up on the website.

Edit:  IGN has an article up already also.

Familiar and yet not so much with all this new Lore introduced in the game.

How is Guild Wars 2 different from other MMOs?
While Guild Wars 2 adds a persistent-world experience, it retains the unique characteristics of the original game, including strong narrative, extensive instanced gameplay, anti-grind design philosophy, and strong support for competitive play.

When are you going to release more information?
We will release more info about lore and races later this year. We will reveal more about gameplay early next year.

Oh well, see ya in a few months :)

[Fordel]

I swear to GOD, I better be able to fucking jump.


And none of that /emote-jump shit either!


-edit-

During the past two years of development we made huge advances to our game engine, adding a persistent world with free-form movement and exploration,

That better mean I can Jump!