Guild Wars 2

[Draegan]

There are very little similarities between GW1 and GW2 outside of lore and story

This is why I haven't been getting excited for this game.  I liked the gotta find 'em all skill collection and building vastly different skill combinations on my characters.  I liked all the different companions I could use.  The lore and story was the weakest part of the game, so the fact that's the only part they kept isn't doing anything for me.  Maybe it'll turn out to still be a game I like, but so far I'm getting a Rift vibe off it.

Well, yeah.  If you're into GW1 for the skills and companions/heroes, then yeah you're going to disappointed with GW2.

How are you getting a Rift vibe from it?

[Nevermore]

Great tech, hollow and uninteresting story.  Even though I liked GW1 for what it was, the world and backstory didn't resonate with me at all.

[Tmon]

The story never really hooked me but there were some cool visuals and the game played so smoothly on my fairly low end desk top.  But it was the skill system  that really hooked me, it reminded me of deck building from the early days CCGs.  From what little I've read about it (mostly the excerpts posted here) it looks like it will fit in nicely with my WoT addiction.

[Draegan]

Great tech, hollow and uninteresting story.  Even though I liked GW1 for what it was, the world and backstory didn't resonate with me at all.

If we're only discussing online games, which ones were rich and had interesting stories?

GW2 is all about gameplay but the story elements have promise (Voiceover + different scripts based on character creation choices and possibly in game choices), but having only really experienced the story in the newbie areas, I can't comment on how it plays out through 80 levels.  Media seems to like it, but who knows.

[Nija]

I didn't receive a confirmation email but if I try to resubmit using the same email it says this email is already in the system. I hope that means I'm good to go.

[Kageru]

GW1 PvE was very boring, though I tried several times and so wanted to like it.

It sounds like they're not getting rid of the trinity. They have tanky characters, utility and support characters. They're just making it less so that you are tied into only a specific role (which is basically where WoW ended up once dual specs were in) and less absolute in your dependency with more of the focus on player driven actions. All of which is good though it will be a massive balancing challenge.

Signed up, worked fine, hope it's as good as it sounds but trying to temper the MMO fan's desperate optimism.

[Nevermore]

If we're only discussing online games, which ones were rich and had interesting stories?

WoW, for all it's lolore, was pretty rich and interesting up until they went off the rails with all the green jesus marysue fanfic crap.  Star Wars of course has tons of built-in backstory that's easy to build upon and I for one am liking the various class stories.

I acknowledge that trying to build your own new world is going to be much harder than building one off an already established IP, but I can't help it that I feel absolutely nothing when generic village #354 is under attack by generic zombies in a mostly empty world.

Edit: I'll give GW1 points for at least having some different flavors of generic.  The Asian theme and African theme areas were at least different, though I still didn't really care much what happened to the generic villagers there.

[Crumbs]

Signed Up!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cXSOD1N5lR4

[schild]

Just so you all know, I'm signing up with Guild Name Bat Country, size 100+, website (f13.net) where it asks.

[Sky]

Just so you all know, I'm signing up with Guild Name Bat Country, size 100+, website (f13.net) where it asks.

Ditto. I nominate Lantyssa as our official GW2 guildmaster 

Guildmistress?

[Chimpy]

Signed up with the country of bats.

Also, that tool was funny....it said I have 4GB of video RAM rofl.

[Shatter]

I didn't receive a confirmation email but if I try to resubmit using the same email it says this email is already in the system. I hope that means I'm good to go.

Try this

https://beta.guildwars2.com/resend

[Draegan]

If we're only discussing online games, which ones were rich and had interesting stories?

WoW, for all it's lolore, was pretty rich and interesting up until they went off the rails with all the green jesus marysue fanfic crap.  Star Wars of course has tons of built-in backstory that's easy to build upon and I for one am liking the various class stories.

I acknowledge that trying to build your own new world is going to be much harder than building one off an already established IP, but I can't help it that I feel absolutely nothing when generic village #354 is under attack by generic zombies in a mostly empty world.

Edit: I'll give GW1 points for at least having some different flavors of generic.  The Asian theme and African theme areas were at least different, though I still didn't really care much what happened to the generic villagers there.

I'll give you credit for actually admitting you liked WOW for it's immersive story.

[Kageru]

The WoW story was pretty decent. Thrall was interesting, most of the racial leaders were, strong identity to all the factions, and an end-goal of tracking down Arthas and delivering the kicking he so richly deserved. Partly because it was built on an existing foundation from warcraft of course. I even thought the GW1 story was sufficient, but the PvE instanced maps of wandering around a long corridor using a small handful of abilities to destroy endless numbers of samey enemies sapped my enthusiasm pretty fast.

[Nija]

I didn't receive a confirmation email but if I try to resubmit using the same email it says this email is already in the system. I hope that means I'm good to go.

Try this

https://beta.guildwars2.com/resend

That worked, thank you!

[Modern Angel]

GW1 had an awful story but I thought the LOCATIONS were memorable. It's a little weird that the disconnect exists because usually there needs to be a story worth a damn to make everything else mesh. Most of it has to be the visuals; GW has one of the most distinctive, well-realized worlds I've played in. Second only to LOTRO for me and maybe outstrips that. So I can't remember the story but I remember Ascalon, Lion's Arch, Duke Barradin, Ragnar, the Luxons and the Kurzicks...

[Kageru]

Was it that bad? I really need to play it again. At the time I remember thinking the "searing" mechanic was somewhat original. And you spent enough time with some of the major characters. but they didn't leave much of a lasting impression I must admit. But I'm not sure if that's bad writing, world or just it getting swamped by the hours of repetitive and meaningless game-play that came after the intro.

I mean SWTOR is meant to have best of genre writing but not even that can conceal weaknesses in the game-play.

It certainly seemed better than rift which quickly reached a "I actively don't care who you guys are".

[Crumbs]

Bat Country

I'd like to get in on this, but I already submitted an app without any guild fields filled in.  Is there a way to go in and edit your profile or something?  I'm not seeing it...

[Modern Angel]

Was it that bad? I really need to play it again. At the time I remember thinking the "searing" mechanic was somewhat original. And you spent enough time with some of the major characters. but they didn't leave much of a lasting impression I must admit. But I'm not sure if that's bad writing, world or just it getting swamped by the hours of repetitive and meaningless game-play that came after the intro.

I mean SWTOR is meant to have best of genre writing but not even that can conceal weaknesses in the game-play.

It certainly seemed better than rift which quickly reached a "I actively don't care who you guys are".

I think there were some compelling side stories as you moved through. The initial Ascalon stuff was decent, too, with the whole "oh god, things have fallen completely apart we have to take the survivors west" thing. After that, though, the main story became a morass of EVIL GUY DESTROY WORLD cliches.

[Chimpy]

Please, someone, assure me that they allow you to jump in this.

[tazelbain]

I am so excited for this.  The hype train between now and release is going to be epic.  A.net is not prefect but they are clearly willing to lay it all on the line.

[Threash]

Please, someone, assure me that they allow you to jump in this.

One of the first videos they showed was of people jumping around.

[tazelbain]

Please, someone, assure me that they allow you to jump in this.

Jumping must be purchased at the ncsoft store.

[Mrbloodworth]

Please, someone, assure me that they allow you to jump in this.

Jumping must be purchased at the ncsoft store.

That got me.   

[Shatter]

Please, someone, assure me that they allow you to jump in this.

Jumping must be purchased at the ncsoft store.

In true NCsoft fashion, in-game you would only have a 20% chance to jump, 10% chance if you jump you take armor dmg and 5% chance if you jump you break an item. 

[Zetor]

There's going to be a horribly evil jumping puzzle in GW2 somewhere that the devs put in just to spite all the "omg GW1 had no jumping" people. Mark my words.  

Going back to the GW story thing...

Generally the atmosphere/setting was great in all GW installments (Prophecies, Factions, Nightfall, EOTN). In all of the games there were cutscenes with voice acting to string together a narrative, it just... wasn't very good for the most part. Prophecies had a good start, then developed into chosen-ones-save-the-world zzz; Factions started with a plague outbreak that kind of got sidelined with two random (but awesome-looking) factions fighting over some foozles and trippy 'B' kung-fu movie stuff; Nightfall was actually pretty solid - if bland - all the way through; EOTN was a not very coherent mish-mash of 4 really different stories. The new stuff they've added since then (War in Kryta, Winds of Change) isn't too bad.

All the cutscenes and REALLY REALLY HAMMY voice acting made for some good times in guild vent, though (same thing we're doing in swtor, only this was... 6+ years ago). If someone brings up 'Rurik and the Undead Lich' or 'Kung-fu Villain Togo', it elicits a lot of amusement in guildchat even after all those years.

[Lantyssa]

Ditto. I nominate Lantyssa as our official GW2 guildmaster 

Guildmistress?

I hate you.

[01101010]

Ditto. I nominate Lantyssa as our official GW2 guildmaster 

Guildmistress?

I hate you.

But I think guildmistress edition comes with a free authentic leather whip. 

[tmp]

Jumping must be purchased at the ncsoft store.

In true NCsoft fashion, in-game you would only have a 20% chance to jump, 10% chance if you jump you take armor dmg and 5% chance if you jump you break an item. 

I'd expect it to come in form of jump token, allowing to make 10 jumps. Then you have to buy another one.

[Tyrnan]

How can you talk about Guild Wars terrible voice acting without mentioning Danika

[Jamiko]

There's going to be a horribly evil jumping puzzle in GW2 somewhere that the devs put in just to spite all the "omg GW1 had no jumping" people. Mark my words.

Jump away...

[HaemishM]

Wow.

[Riggswolfe]

I signed up and put Bat Country as my guid. Oddly, I find myself looking at this like alot of you looked at TOR and thinking it just doesn't have a chance in hell of living up to the hype.  I also am in the crowd that found the first game's story/world yawn-worthy to the point that I never even played the expansion with heroes in it.

[Lantyssa]

Prophecies was yawn worthy.  Factions I got led so fast through I couldn't say.  They've learned a lot since then.

I'm really hoping their first expansion adds heroes back when they realize they can use the scaling events to take their presence into account.

[Ingmar]

Their world design has generally been pretty awesome visually (post-Prophecies anyway) and I like that they've been willing in the past to break out of the generic European fantasy zone. The actual lore side of things I've never been terribly impressed with, though.