4/26/06 - Guild Wars: Factions (PC)

[schild]

Direct your attention to the Guild Wars board. I'm sure some people will be playing it.

I'm one of them.

[tazelbain]

Why?  You got bored of the the first one so quick.  And you didn't bother to play the pre-view.

Anyway, I bought it.  It cost 3 monthes subscription.  I played the orignal at least 3 months already, so its a no brainer.  I really like the direction the battle isle is taking.

I am confused, they are releasing the game on the 26th, letting pre-orders in on the 27th and regular players in on the 28th?  So a player could have to wait 2 days to play after they bought the game.

EDIT: Old news removed.

[Hoax]

I will buy this at some point, I hope, but for now I can't be bothered.  I actually have some RL friends to play with but EvE is too perfect a fit for my gaming schedule/needs to bother with a purchase that will get no play time.

[schild]

I got bored with the first one so quickly? But I maxed out a character and got multiple toons up to level 10-13. I don't understand how burning out quickly has any effect on my enjoyment of the title.

[tazelbain]

See that's were the GW model breaks down for some people.  Maxxing a char is the beginning of the game not the end of it in GW.  And last I heard you hadn't even made it to Ember Light Camp so I don't see how you could have maxxed you're necro. Getting to 20 is only 2/3rds the way to maxxed.

[schild]

Your definition of max is different than mine. Keeping up with the joneses and hitting the status quo for special abilities is not my idea of fun. Also, I played a bit of all the character classes in PVP and none of them blew my hair back. That might've been the bigger problem.

[MrHat]

Your definition of max is different than mine. Keeping up with the joneses and hitting the status quo for special abilities is not my idea of fun. Also, I played a bit of all the character classes in PVP and none of them blew my hair back. That might've been the bigger problem.

Think we stopped playing around the same time.  Most fun I had in that game was playing a monk since that's where I seemed to make the most difference, and of the different monks the prebuilt healer one seemed the best.  So I really had no incentive to play much more.

Will tell you though, when we had 8 of us gimping around on TS trying to put up a fight those few times it was pretty fun.

[schild]

Yes, that was quite fun.

[tazelbain]

It's not about keeping up with Jone's.  It is about having all the tools of your trade.

I give up.  I won't be able understand your reasons for buying an expansion for a game you don't like. At least you are supporting a game I do like, so I shouldn't question it.

Yes.  The TS was fun but that's not really GW.

Back on topic: I am going to level an A/Rt through the campaign.  I tried to an Rt/A in the preview but the Rt's unfocused nature didn't work well in pve for me.

[MrHat]

Schild buys everything, regardless of taste.

He has a problem.

[schild]

No, taste is the only important factor. Schild buys everything regardless of price maybe. Schild buys everything regardless of public opinion. Probably. But taste? I have an acute interest in everything I buy, even if that interest is only in a certain play mechanic.

[MrHat]

If you have an acute interest in everything you buy, and you buy everything, does that mean you have an acute interest in everything? Is it still called acute on such a broad scale?  Can a game with no play mechanic still be called a game?




Find out tomorrow.  Same bat time, same bat channel.

[schild]

I don't buy everything.

[MrHat]

To uh, rerail:  The more I think about it, the more I want to play this again.  Did they ever integrate voice comms? Or are you still SOL if you are in a pick up?

[Furiously]

No you just pay someone 500gp now to run you from one fun part to the other :)

[tazelbain]

Played a few hours this morning, I was disapponted I couldn't go directly to battle isles.  I think the guild leader has to choose a side. The PvE still mediocre, but nicer looking, little more refined and faster paced.

If can't get into battle isles tonight, I am going to start kicking puppies.

EDIT:
Well faction battle aren't working and luckily there are no puppies for me to kick.  There goes A.net spotless record.

[schild]

I have to admit, it's somewhat shocking that there's a feature that doesn't at least work a little in the game. Arena seemed pretty reasonable all things considered when they announced stuff.

Question: I want to get the game to try out assassin. Planning on getting the collector's edition. Aside from the price (Yargh, artbooks, my only weakness), is the assassin fun?

[tazelbain]

Not sure anymore.  Even if the faction battles are in, really bad design prevents people from playing them.

3(+2) things are for sure.
Factions reward can't be redeemed.
When I joined the Luxons, it told me to talk to the Navigator to fight for them, there is no Navigator.
Alliances were disabled.
The entery points into battle isles are empty.
Luzon's are out numbered 5 to 1. ( I guess people prefer Jungle Goths over Beach Bums.)

Assassins are the most fun melee and my second favourite class.

[Dren]

I only have one hour in on the assasin and it seems nice.  I'm much more powerful out of the gate than anything else I've tried.

I've noticed you get much better drops as a newbie with this expansion.  Anyone else notice this?  I got two magical axes before I hit level 3.

[tazelbain]

The whole pace of the early game has been sped up.  You get the ability points quests much earlier also.  They now give less free skill points but give many more free skill points for which to buy skills with.

So far I am unhappy with how they handled battle isles. If they don't get their shit together soon, I won't be buying the next one. It ridiculous to hide such a cental feature.  The factions should have recuiters in the central city and the PvP isle ready to teleport people to the battle isles on day one.

[schild]

What's so great about Battle Isles? I mean I'll be honest, at this point I was going to buy the game to play an assassin for PvE only. SELL ME!

[tazelbain]

They are like WoW battlegounds.  They have larger maps, a variety of objectives, and you don't have to be an uber guild to compete.

[Yegolev]

They are like WoW battlegounds.

Whoops!  Is WoW a MOG singularity, drawing all others into its homogeneous mass?

[tazelbain]

Apparently there is 2 separate new types of PvP in Factions.
Alliance Battles which is 12v12 and is triggered by a npc in your guild.  Since EVIL has no leader, we're not going far with that one.
The other one is competitive missions which are random 8v8, the 2 I played tonight is Jade Quarry (capture the quarries and protect your minions while they harvest jade) and Fort Aspenwood (It's the luxons raiding a kurzik church with our ruthless siege turtles).  I really like JQ.  It is pretty balanced.  FA was all lop-sided wins for the Lux the 3 times I played it, but pwning goths is it reward even if the battle aren't interesting.

Right now queues are the biggest issue with these.  You have no way to know if other people are queued up. A big waste of time.  Putting everyone in separate queues was a mistake.  Just put everyone in same queue are treat location they enter the queue from as a vote on which map they want to play. Another problem is PvP chars can't play the competitive missions, uck.

[Yegolev]

Another problem is PvP chars can't play the competitive missions, uck.

Bleah.

[tazelbain]

I joined a luxon allied guild and did an alliance battle.  It was the same 7-point control map that we saw from the FPW. While good, not nearly as fun as JQ or FA.

Got to play FA in more detail.  Playing both luxon and kurzicks.  The reason that kurzicks were getting routed was because they didn't know that mining amber and running it back to repair doors(which the siege turtles knock down) was critical.  So I joined them and started telling them about the mines.  At that point the battles become a route in favor of the kurziks.  So then I jumped back to the luxons and told them about the mines.  Now the battles have as much depth JQ. Kurzik needs the mine, so luxons have to stop them but doing so leave the turtles vulnerable.