Guild Wars 2

[Sky]

 

[Furiously]

Just finished the war in Kryta. Running back to the camp got a bit dull. But oppressor weapons for all my heroes are on the way. I'm also tempted to use the courier mission with the punchout bit to level the survivor title. Need to give it a go in hard mode. I'm starting to get pretty good at hitting g to bring up the guild menu then hitting enter to insta escape to the guildhall to avoid dying.

[jakonovski]

Uh......

I have no idea what to say about this:

During an Interview at PAX Prime 2011, our staff got Colin Johanson and Eric Flannum to spill a few details on the PVP system in Guild Wars 2.  Not only will ArenaNet be making up their own servers for the quick and dirty PVP matches, much like the shooter genre's setup, but Eric and Colin said they plan for players to be able to create and host their own servers or games with specific rule-sets as well.

With most publishers and developers getting their jollies from draconian usage restrictions, openness is a really good niche to go for.

[Mrbloodworth]

Hands of the enemy.

[Draegan]

Im willing to bet that they meant custom pvp tournaments and other stuff.  But who knows.

[jakonovski]

I think it's pretty clear that the quote refers to instanced pvp servers, like you would have with any regular game. They're not going to throw the persistent world into the hands of the internet.

[Numtini]

If you're not getting the subscription fees, why not encourage people to run their own servers. You just don't allow the characters from them into your persistent world.

[Draegan]

If you're not getting the subscription fees, why not encourage people to run their own servers. You just don't allow the characters from them into your persistent world.

quality control and the ability to funnel people into your own cash shop.

[Shatter]

If you're not getting the subscription fees, why not encourage people to run their own servers. You just don't allow the characters from them into your persistent world.

To create fake logins to steal accounts...brilliant!

[Numtini]

Good point on the cash shop. Hadn't thought of that.

On the whole though, with all these claimed features, is anyone starting to get vague memories of Dawn?

[DLRiley]

If you're not getting the subscription fees, why not encourage people to run their own servers. You just don't allow the characters from them into your persistent world.

quality control and the ability to funnel people into your own cash shop.

Cash shop is for cosmetics and player housing from what i've heard.

[Lantyssa]

On the whole though, with all these claimed features, is anyone starting to get vague memories of Dawn?

No, because they've actually shown almost all of the features they've talked about.

I do wonder how the game can possibly be as awesome as I'm imagining, but the GW team is one of the few that I think can pull it off.

[tazelbain]

A.net is very talented but have very odd obsession with sport PVP. Personally I think its a distraction from what they good at.  It has benefits like how they strongly resist mudflation that plagues most MMO.

[DLRiley]

A.net is very talented but have very odd obsession with sport PVP. Personally I think its a distraction from what they good at.  It has benefits like how they strongly resist mudflation that plagues most MMO.

I think its the other way around. Few pve'ers appreciate 90% of what Guild Wars 1 offered gameplay wise, let alone understand it. The gameplay, even the GW2 incarnation of it, has always come from the desire to make RPGs combatable with sport pvp.

[AutomaticZen]

Having seen the press demo, they meant that the servers would function like FPS servers.  You can create your own gametype if one you enjoy isn't currently ongoing and unlike most MMOs, if you enjoy the server, you can just stay in it.  No in-and-out instanced PVP with no chance to continue playing with people you enjoy.

I asked Eric if they'd even have the option to password protect the gametype you create, he said they've thought about it, but it's not in the cards.  And the server would somehow limit people from creating too many instances of the same gametype.

That's all I remember until I go through my recorder more.

[Modern Angel]

A.net is very talented but have very odd obsession with sport PVP. Personally I think its a distraction from what they good at.  It has benefits like how they strongly resist mudflation that plagues most MMO.

Strongly disagree.

I'm generally not a fan of sports PvP but the early period of GW1, even with the FotM uber-builds, was the most exhilarating PvP I've ever played in any game, ever. They're extremely good at PvP. They're fairly mediocre at PvE, at least before tying it together a bit by the time of the second expansion.

I distinctly remember a post, maybe here, from a guy who was in some of the very early alphas and betas of GW1. He related that there was a FIERCE debate between devs, sometimes spilling out into the quasi-public feedback forums, between the PvP and PvE factions in the company. The PvE guys won out AFTER release and that's why there was such an abrupt change of focus. That may just be a load but there is a kernel of truth there: once upon a time, the PvE game we all came to play was unabashedly a PvP first game.

[DLRiley]

Guild Wars, designed by men.

[tazelbain]

When I said sports pvp meant like Starcraft and MLG, not how some people call any initialized pvp sports pvp.

[DLRiley]

When I said sports pvp meant like Starcraft and MLG, not how some people call any initialized pvp sports pvp.

GW1 held a world tournament for GVG. Arenanet kinda dropped the ball after that. Starcraft wasn't a "sport" till the koreans collectively got a hard on for it. Becoming an esport is more "popularity" and "interest" than whether or not the company slaps the esport rubber sticker on the cover on there game. Esport games tend to be games with lobbies and instanced arenas.

[DLRiley]

When I said sports pvp meant like Starcraft and MLG, not how some people call any initialized pvp sports pvp.

GW1 held a world tournament for GVG. Arenanet kinda dropped the ball after that. Starcraft wasn't a "sport" till the koreans collectively got a hard on for it. Becoming an esport is more "popularity" and "interest" than whether or not the company slaps the esport rubber sticker on the cover on there game.

[Modern Angel]

When I said sports pvp meant like Starcraft and MLG, not how some people call any initialized pvp sports pvp.

They held numerous tournaments. BIG tournaments. I think they had a yearly global one and then rotating quarterlies?

It's easy to forget after they developed a love affair with their incredibly bad Prophecies storyline but GW1 was one of the top three or four esports in the world for a little over a year. Then they just... stopped. They shifted emphasis.

But it really shouldn't be forgotten that everything PvE was secondary to GW's PvP at release. It really was.

[Lakov_Sanite]

It's called evolution.

[Morfiend]

Can someone who plays GW1 tell me what kinds of rewards can be earned for GW2, and how hard they are to get. I was never able to get in to GW1 very much, but the idea of earning some types of rewards for GW2 has me considering it lately.

[EWSpider]

There's an app for that:

http://hom.guildwars2.com/en/#page=welcome

You just enter a character name and it tells you what rewards that character is eligible for.

For more info:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Hall_of_Monuments_Reward_Calculator

Guide to acquiring points:

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guide_to_earning_Hall_of_Monuments_rewards

[Morfiend]

So for someone who would be basically starting fresh, and being pretty newb at the game, how hard is it to get these?

Would there be any point to it now?

[EWSpider]

So for someone who would be basically starting fresh, and being pretty newb at the game, how hard is it to get these?

Would there be any point to it now?

You should be able to get 8-10 points fairly easily just by playing through the campaigns normally.  After that it's a matter of how much time you want to invest in getting more points.  It starts to get pretty grindy after those first 8-10 points.  I think GW2 is still a fair ways off, so if the rewards appeal to you than I would say there's still a point to it.

[Ard]

15 honestly isn't too hard to do. If you have an old account with old characters, the minipet ones are easy free points, otherwise you're mostly boned there, short of waiting for them to come in a few years, or spending a bunch of in game cash for them.    I got to 17 so far after just recently finishing all 4 campaigns and I've still got a few relatively low hanging fruit that I can get that will get me to 20ish if I put in the time.  Going much past 20 is where it starts to get grindy, at least for me.

The other thing of note is that you have to have the Eye of the North expansion to even participate, on top of at least one of the other boxes.  The hall of monuments is there.

edit:  oh, I should also note, you have a LOT of time to do this, since the release date hasn't even been hinted at yet, plus you can still accrue hall of monument points after GW2 launches.

I'll also link my personal hall of monuments so you can see where my points came from:
http://hom.guildwars2.com/en/#page=main&details=AAAAAk%2FPAcDAAAAAAgDAAACAAAAAAAAAQIIAAAAAAAA&todo=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

[tazelbain]

I found the normal EotN gameplay to be too annoying to be worth my time to even unlock the tapestries.

Do you have to unlock the tapestries on all chars to get points or just one?

[AutomaticZen]

Alright, so NCSoft shot me a copy of GW+Eye of the North.  Anything I should know before jumping in?

[Ard]

Start in Nightfall, do not start in Prophecies, unless you only have prophecies.  That's pretty much it.

[Lantyssa]

As a point of reference, when this was first announced, my account of three years had about 7 points.  After a couple of months as GW as my main game, I was into the mid-20s.  Crazy Amy's Current Total

If you pursue some of the bigger goals, the little ones fall into place.

• Beat each campaign and the associated missions
• Get armor shards and Ranger henchman taming animals to get easy points (MOX and an animal statue are freebies)
• Do the Zaishen Vanquish (after beating a campaign) and Zaishen missions
• Double up where you can -- Vanquishing Luxon/Kurzick areas or Nightfall areas for title points, gold, and Zaishen coins, for example
• Trade minis -- List of Extras for a few people

Alright, so NCSoft shot me a copy of GW+Eye of the North.  Anything I should know before jumping in?

As Ard said, start in Nightfall if you can.  Being able to get the heroes in your party helps immensely.  You can get some others from GW:EN, two right off the bat.  (Personally I pick Jin over Sanouske.  Decide if you want a Ranger or an Elementalist.  The other is unavailable until you beat the campaign.  Same with Margrid and Whispers.)

You can do the PvP training to get 2000 honor a day.  You can buy skills for your heroes for 1k each, or 3k for elite skills.  This helps immensely with getting them a good build.  You can take up to seven heroes with you against a team of four NPCs.

ID everything.  Even white items--they're often worth quite a bit more after being ID'd.  Sell anything worth more than 50 gold, break everything else down into materials to craft weapons and armor.  You can skip the really low-level stuff, but once you're getting pre-req 6+ stats, it's worth doing.

Use the official wiki (F10).  It's got an amazing amount of information.

[kildorn]

I powered a ritualist through Factions pretty quickly, but I did cheese it as soon as I could hit Eye to pick up heroes.

Two ritualists and a minion master necro in my party = loooool

Now to finish another campaign or two, and farm up a suit of elite armor. And maybe learn how to farm hero armor.

[Lantyssa]

Hero armor is easy.  It has a chance to drop from the big mobs in the Nightfall armor challenges, or at the end of Glint's.

Ritualists are pretty nice.  I have Necro/Ritualist builds I use on several heroes.  Xandra can be a pain to acquire though.

[kildorn]

I picked up Xandra via the cheesiest solo target ritualist build ever. Just a shitload of spirits, and the +damage from spirits hex. Run around in circles laughing.

For normal activities, I'm about half channeling nukes, half nuking spirits. Xandra runs the defensive spirits and heals that I'm too lazy to target.

[Furiously]

I'm going for the survivalist titles right now so I have a total cheese build on my assassin...
Have the elite shadow skill which makes it impossible to target me.
Have the ebon vanguard support assassin for some dps
Have you move like a dwarf for putting a condition on an enemy.
Then have 3 necro heros with discord on them. (Stuff dies REALLY quick).

Hero's are basically...
http://www.gwpvx.com/Build:Team_-_7_Hero_Discordway
Basically... I am sure there is a better build, but it works pretty good for vanquishing.