Guild Wars 2

[kildorn]

Suck on that, Albs.framerate

[Sjofn]

Worth it. 

[kildorn]

That WvW video really did give me a huge keep defense nostalgia though. Right down to looking at guardian skill lists wondering if that would be the class that stands around wishing the doors would drop so they could do something already.

[Threash]

You could just ask someone for one of them nifty snow bows.

[Soln]

ahhh Hib turrets.  Terrible times.

That vid makes GW2 look great.

[Redgiant]

Are there any keeps that rival DAoC's in terms of multiple outer doors, an inner keep with multiple inner doors, arrowslits?

It would be nice for once to see a keep design that looks like it really was built by people who knew their ass depended on it not falling easily.

There's a lot more strategy when a keep isn't just a single front door with a guy on a hill behind it ...


Looks like pretty good action on face value of the video though.
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My biggest concern is what it always is for me in a post-DAoC mmo universe that is so temporary instance-heavy:

The only way any open-world RvR can survive is to 100% eliminate short-timer instanced RvR of the same kind. You will never maintain much open-world motivaton and density if poeple can lazily sit on their ass and queue for Stupid Pet Trick instances. Adding other realm motivational carrots like relic bonuses and Darkness Falls are nice extras and something to help bond all levels in your realm together. It's all about motivation and realm pride.

Offer unrelated 1v1, 2v2, 5v5-style Arena ladders, but do not offer any competing battle-at-scale boxed instances like WoW BGs, Rift Warfronts or Warhammer Scenarios. These crutches destroy open-world focus, due to the Laws of Gaming #1 stating "most players dumb down to the LCD of risk/reward, instead of choosing the elevated options unless forced to be simply removing the dumb ones."

- offer stupid, they take stupid
- offer stupid and complex, they take stupid
- offer complex, they take complex

DAoC never even had the dumb ones to begin with, so it flourished and only fell for other reasons later (ToA, age, etc). But most modern attempts seem to always start out with instances for everything, then perhaps try to layer on some open-world after-thought, then sit wondering why their shiny new game lost everyone so quickly and open-world was so dead.


This logic has held true on every MMO so far.

[kildorn]

I think we do BGs less because open world pvp is harder, and more because of what caused people to veer away from it in the first place: faction balance is a bitch.

It's Not Fun to keep going 15v250 for a year straight. If there's a button that will balance the teams a bit for you, people are going to hit that button not for the simplicity, but for the ability to actually play the game.

I'm not entirely sold on how WvW does world matching, so I'm not sure how the balance will be. But as far as keep fights go, that looks like serious fun.

[Redgiant]

I do get the reasons why BG-style play has proliferated, esp. in the area of numerically balanced forces.

There is a difference in population imbalance due to low server population, vs. differences caused by successful strategic manuevering that make imbalances happen. You can (and should) have 10v250 if you surprise a keep with minimal defenders present with a huge surprise attack, right? I think you are talking about the former kind, through no fault of strategy.

For me, a lot of the fun is in coordinating with others, building an ongoing reputation and awareness of the best enemies on the battlefiend, and strategic aspects such as scouting, feints, parallel strikes, flanking and reinforcing supply lines. Seeing certain enemy guild tags or realm ranks incoming, or recognizing certain players (works in both directions) is a motivation to do well in itself.

BGs are so defined and repetitive, that their initial advantage of being numerically balanced loses out to the dynamic never-the same-campaign-twice adventure of open-world. Even when a BG tries to have some of those strategic elements, it is so temporary and small-scale that it is unnoticed and pretty irrelevant.
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But I would agree that removing the reasons why BGs are deemed necessary should be in place in the over-world mechanics, and not just summarily remove BGs to force everyone into open-world. Three sides helps, as do small adjustments in underdog strength/allying capabilities. Even making it more and more difficult to hold longer and longer supply lines for seige in place helps to that end.

Arenas up to 5v5 can exist regardless, they are entirely a different activity.

[Redgiant]

[I don't post much, and when I do I ramble too much - my original question for anyone in Beta]

Are there any keeps that rival DAoC's in terms of multiple outer doors, an inner keep with multiple inner doors, arrowslits?

What is the most complex keep layout you've seen so far.

[Draegan]

For non press people there is still an NDA.  Saying you are/were in BETA is against the NDA. 

[kildorn]

I'm just hoping they balance numbers a bit in WvW by dynamically assigning what worlds can invade what other worlds to keep the active pvp populations somewhat in line. And yeah, I don't mean "we ambushed your unprotected keep" outnumbering. I mean "at our peak player participation, our faction/world can only muster a third of what you can"

So things unrelated to pvp that I noticed while looking at GW2 sites: I knew downranking was in for zones (enter level 13 zone, become level 13), but I just learned today that apparently the devs want/already have in sidekicking? I haven't seen much talk of it, so I'm hoping it wasn't removed. :(

[Redgiant]

Guess I'll wait on the specifics, I thought info on the fancier keep or castle looks might be known due to some of the videos going around.

If this is not against NDA, can someone tell me whether that is a Camp, Tower, Keep or Castle being attacked in the Yogcast posted on the previous page?

[Sjofn]

"You have more people on that keep than we have on our entire side" sucks, yes.

BGs were popular in DAoC too, mind you, some of the most fun I had was in Caledonia. But it was a bit different, you didn't really "win" or anything.

[Redgiant]

BGs in DAoC were naturally mutually exclusive level-wise with big-boy RvR though. They were the RvR training ground ramp-up. And also open-world and never reset except for server reboots.

But they were fun in their own right.

Btw, the video seems like it is a Keep they are at, with the main Citadel in the zone being what I guess a Castle is. Which also seems bigger/more complex in structure if the map can be relied on.

I am guessing there is one main Citadel/Castle in each zone, which is sufficiently impressive by comparison to anything DAoC's OF or NF had. Idle speculation with the NDA and all.

[schild]

Yea, I'm stoked. It's like all the parts of all the MMOGs that I liked.

[Nevermore]

Yea, I'm stoked. It's like all the parts of all the MMOGs that I liked.

Uh oh, the kiss of death! 

[Soln]

I'm in.

[Severian]

I am guessing there is one main Citadel/Castle in each zone, which is sufficiently impressive by comparison to anything DAoC's OF or NF had. Idle speculation with the NDA and all.

Have a look at the first Yogscast WvW video from a month ago for a bit more, in particular the map.

[schild]

Yea, I'm stoked. It's like all the parts of all the MMOGs that I liked.

Uh oh, the kiss of death! 

The only reason I stopped playing WAR is because I ran out of game. Same with Age of Conan.

[Fabricated]

So overall what's the content focus between PVE and PVP? I don't do MMO PVP. Ever. I mean never ever.

[Soukyan]

So overall what's the content focus between PVE and PVP? I don't do MMO PVP. Ever. I mean never ever.

There appears to be plenty of PvE to engage in, but this is "Guild Wars" which is meant to be a game about PvP, ultimately. If you want PvE raids, I would imagine there will be some, but I wouldn't hold on to the hope that they will be the primary focus of the game.

As for the PvP, it took developers a long time to realize that DAoC had a great PvP setup for an MMOG. I'm glad someone finally realized it. It's going to be a really fun game.

[Numtini]

If you go back to that dragon thing they showed, there are huge "raid" like encounters, but they seem to be open field and scaling to however many people show up.

[Tyrnan]

From what I can recall, they have stated that they want GW2 to be much more balanced than the original and that, as much as possible, they want PvE and PvP to be equal. They've also said that you can completely ignore one or the other if that's your inclination.

With regards to PvE "end game" there won't be any raids as such. There will be big, elite dynamic events that will require more people that the usual events and explorable mode dungeons that are intended to be pretty challenging but you will still be limited to a single party. But since there will only be a minimal gear grind (and that'll probably be more for aesthetics that stats) I think what they're envisaging is that people will just continue to do what they did leveling up. Explore the world and see different dynamic event chains they missed, go help out friends since level differences are largely unimportant, take part in mini-games or make an alt and do it all again. Which I find much more appealing that grinding some dungeon 20 times with people I don't know (because my friends are the wrong level for it) for a 0.1% increase to my character.

So overall what's the content focus between PVE and PVP? I don't do MMO PVP. Ever. I mean never ever.

I would normally be the same. The only game I ever really tried PvP in was WAR and I actually enjoyed the RvR "lakes" (not so much the keeps  ) but it seemed everyone else wanted to play Scenarios Online. But GW2 has managed to get me really excited for the WvW, at least partially because (hopefully) player skill will play a much larger part in determining success than what gear you have. So it might be worth dipping your toes in at some stage, just in case ArenaNet managed to make MMO PvP that you like.

[Kageru]

I'd play this sort of PvP. I'm not interested enough to deal with the hard-core achievement oriented folks in arena's and scenarios, or the excitement of regressing when you lose, but if it's being a small part of a huge and chaotic melee with a "more the merrier" outlook I'd probably mess around with it. Which sounds like what they are going for in both PvE and PvP.

[Crumbs]

Anyone know what the xp ratio is with pvp/pve?  Roughly.

[Segoris]

Decent write up on gw2 guru about what is known of WvW including some video links for reference. One video in particular has a part that shows just how large Stonemist Castle is...it's fucking huge.

[01101010]

For whatever reason, I really like the way they pull open the map and then the map itself. It's the little things I guess.

[Kitsune]

As long as the WvW thing is pairing up servers of relatively equivalent populations to fight, that's pure gold.  I never felt much 'home team pride' in WoW's PvP because of the super-temporary nature of it.  Win a battlefield, boom, reset, it made no difference to anyone.  But a good protracted struggle for territory?  Oh yes.

[Bungee]

As long as the WvW thing is pairing up servers of relatively equivalent populations to fight, that's pure gold.  I never felt much 'home team pride' in WoW's PvP because of the super-temporary nature of it.  Win a battlefield, boom, reset, it made no difference to anyone.  But a good protracted struggle for territory?  Oh yes.

They do have a limit of people who can be in the WvW per server. I think the latest number thrown around was 500 per Server at max. Also, after each round of WvW (2 weeks) your server gets matched up against 2 other servers that scored similar to yours in the last round.

[Ingmar]

Yeah not having the same enemies consistently is too bad, that was a huge part of the whole server community thing in DAOC. Given the choice between that and a semblance of population balancing though, I'll take the population balancing.

[Arinon]

If they are mashing three servers together, rotating every two(?) weeks, and doing it based on performance it shouldn't take long before you see the same (hopefully balanced) match-ups again and again.

My worry is not enough people out in the WvW to make it work.  It could start to suck pretty quick if there are only ever 10-15 people active per side.

[kildorn]

It would be nice if the maps rotated a bit imo as well. The same set of maps over and over might get boring (but hey, everyone kept going to emain)

[Sjofn]

Honestly I prefer the same set of maps, my brain can only hold so many maps and where to go on them in it.

[kildorn]

You're one of Those People who aggro'd Drakes, aren't you?

[Ingmar]

The cyraeth howls!
The cyraeth howls!
The cyraeth howls!
The cyraeth howls!