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Originally posted by iceman00

Yet is it really?  For the most part, you've only got one path to level, upon a certain pre-defined quest route.  Even the crafting is tied to the combat, and since the majority of the combat comes through the quest hubs, there really isn't much "freedom."

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There isn't a pre-defined quest route, there's an area safe for your level band, go off and explore and tackle the content in the way that gives you the most fun. Not only do you have choice on what content to complete in an area but you have choices on how to complete that content. Ultimately your limited to content you can handle (otherwise where's the sense of progression?) but you still have far more freedom than you get in theme parks on rails, surely you can see that ?

GW2 seems like the only game made with the clear intent to break the ice and change the genre cornerstones WoW have set up. I really really hope that their efforts will be well rewarded, so others will also try to experiment, rather than just copy the WoW formula (which is not the best MMO formula at all, WoW was successfull for many reasons - game mechanics not being first in the list). It doesn't mean the automatic success for a game though, not all the ideas might get implemented well. But come on - look at other genre markets: while the typical 3d-shooter games are still cloned - there are several exceptions in the action/shooter genre: stealth-action hitman series, GTA series, Assassin's Creed series - all the games are very successful despite breaking the genre "rules". I hope that GW2 will bring lots of fresh air into the industry, cause I personally am really tired of the WoW and clones (SWTOR was enough to keep me interested only for 1,5 months and that's because I love SW).

My biggest concern is about the PvP system - which seems to fail in most MMOs (including WoW), the most common reason being in a poor balance. Ususally there are too many classes which are impossible to balance (and such diversity have really no meaning - as there are only 3 actual roles in WoW like games) - I would prefer 3-4 classes and just a few skill tree choices, rather than 10 classes X 30 skill tree schoices, which usually leads to imbalance and players getting raged as in the endgame it becomes apparent - they've picked up the "wrong" class which sucks in PvP. Good example is SWTOR - where as an empire player you get the huttball most of the time - and in the huttball it is necessary to have either the ability to instantly  jump to your target (to get to the enemy base quickly from below the bridges and have the ball passed to you) or the ability to pull the enemy (to pull the ball handler away from your base). If you don't have those - you have a very low chances of effectively working  towards the objectives. A few abilities can really make the difference in the usefulness of classes in objective oriented PvP. Also in the mass-world PvP the ranged classes are always more useful. I hate WoW for making the ranged and melee classes! The system should be re-thinked. In early RPGs the ranged AOE abilities would be dangerous for your allies and would have large AOE radius - that really made the difference - if the enemies entered the middle range distance - you wouldn't throw your fireballs, as it will kill your mates - it really creates the opportunities to close up in mass combat, but in the WoW style MMOs you just spam the AOE/long range DPS in mass PvP and melee classes have no chance to close up with you. So it becomes possible to engage in clse combat only by pulling enemies, which is totally stupid since the player being pulled can't acually defend, as he is pulled instantly. All the teleport type abilities - are just a lame fix for the initially wrong idea of making ranged and close combat classes. 

What's the targetting paradigm like?  I see one player say spells/attacks hit whatever gets in the way?

Tab-targetting:  Does it do a (dumb) blind round robin of everything within 360 degrees around you, or something more natural to the human animal like cycling targets in your frontal conal view starting closest moving out?

Taking another players target:  Can you do this?  Select "Bob" from your party and hit "F" to take his target?

Generally speaking, one of the attributes I've found in games that directly contributes or not to combat feeling "smooth and greasy" or "clunky" is the act of taking or swapping of targets.  If done correctly it happens very rapidly, in an eyeblink, in an intuitive fashion.

Which is how it happens with us as human animals, a quick mental decision based on what we see in front of us, whether near or far.

On paper(from what I've read) the game sounds  too good to be true.I have been disappointed so amny times...I've developed a wait and see attitude.And so...I wait.

And mark time playing DAOC. and beta test  another "up and commer".

Originally posted by AcmeGamer

 I dont really consider it a new breed of mmo-rpg. I think it is doing some things right and I think most will find it a very fun experience, including myself. I would like to see a better crafting system, I am a bit concerned about that. Also I am hoping for a good economcs system as well, who knows if that one will happen.

 

 On the comments about skill > gear.  While I agree that it is nice to see skill being more important then gear. I tend to have some issues with that, for me I think both are important. You can have all the skill in the world but if you are in a T-55 at 2k range at night and I am in a M1 Abrams and I even have the most basic of how to operate said M1 Abrams, you are indeed toast.

 

 Or to put it more into a medieval fantasy setting. If I am in fully fitted articulated Habsburg plate armor, wielding a well made heater  and master crafted broad sword with basic training in such gear. You on the other hand are wearing a bronze age cuirass and typical gear that Perseus might have used along with say his skill, you are still fighting at a serious disadvantage, no mattter how skillful you are.

 

 So while I do think skill should always play a role in the game play, how good your gear is should be a factor. Otherwise the game loses something for me. There is a balance basically, where you do go ahead and give up some of the advantages of better gear for game play, but you shouldnt discard it.

 

The problem with some of the games is that gear is all that matters. Any reality aside (as reality really just doesn't matter in games), gear in WoW and SWTOR are all that matters. Gear in GW1 didn't matter at all. Gear in UO barely mattered. A full set of GM crafted gear in UO was disadvantaged to a full set of invulnerable and vanquishing, but not so much that skill didn't play the bigger role.

I dont care if you are in a WW2 sherman vs the most modern prototype battle tank, if they are put into a game in the same field to fight, the sherman should be able to accomplish something or have an impacting purpose on the field. Now, that story can be totally different if the players arnt put into the same field but wander to the same field on thier own.

Even then, the leveling game and the end game are two different games. Once in the end game, the disparity between players shouldnt be prohibitively vast unless system exist to still allow fun for both players.

The problem only exists when gear > skill. Thats where complaints originate. Sure, sometimes gear is a huge factor, but whenever it is THE factor it is frustrating and generally looked down upon.

For the above poster, I guess this applies as well.  From another column post:

"

[quote]AGREEING TO THE DOMAIN for Inclusion and Exclusion (in game design/mechanics anyway :)  ):

Inclusion and Exclusion in a game IMO stems from from Player Attenuation in levels/power that affects Ability to Participate, Ability to Compete . . . with others (players).

Most MMOs follow an open-ended steep climb upward in progression, thus the problem. 

Given new players, even low to almost mid-level players, are the LIFE BLOOD of any game, the criteria is present for consideration in an MMO's design model for controlling and regulating progression and power scales at "end game":

Level 1 (or, heck, say level 5 if one is just too much for some).

Specifically, as an example of the concept:

End Game gear/stats/power will equal 20x that of a Level 5.  Meaning, specifically, 15 to 20 level 5's would be able to kill a capped character . . . if they were smart, and knew how to play/pvp.  Health pools, mitigations, to hit, etc. would be calibrated in a way to NOT allow anyone to become invulnerable based on a stat number alone, but would always require player action and attention.

However you slice it, however you dice it, if a game is based on an open-ended power scale aimed straight up, the design guarantees zero mode of Participation between players, either against each other or in service to each other once attentuation separates players by (x) levels.

Should a level 5 be viable in an end-game instance? No.  But it's all in the details. :)"[/quote]

That full post here: http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/6079/Towards-a-Culture-of-Inclusion.html#post

Preaching to the choir Brother Garrett... I still loved the enthusiasm in this article tho...

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Originally posted by someforumguy
Let the game release first, please! So it will be easier for me to ignore these kind of articles because Im busy playing the game :pIt is always possible to describe your own categories of MMO's and then decide that a new one is a new type. The reason for this is that any set of rules to describe your MMO category is arbitrary. These forums are full of this kind of theorycrafting. And those discussions never go anywhere because different people can never seem to agree on the same definitions.

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This...nuff said!

Hype vs. Excitement. the GW2 love is completely rational.

GW 2 does alot of things right. No sub fee, PvP centered with 3-way factions and dynamic class system in the sense that one class can spec. in various different ways depending on the weapon you use.

However it is still fundamentally a linear ThemePark where you will be funnelled from quest hub to quest hub and that living breathing world feeling, which UO had, simply wont exist. 

So GW 2, as great as it seems, is fundamentally yet another ThemePark.

The moment where a company manages to recreate a game like Skyrim as an MMORPG, then we can talk about a new breed of MMORPGs...

Originally posted by fony

Hype vs. Excitement. the GW2 love is completely rational.

Originally posted by Yamota

GW 2 does alot of things right. No sub fee, PvP centered with 3-way factions and dynamic class system in the sense that one class can spec. in various different ways depending on the weapon you use.

However it is still fundamentally a linear ThemePark where you will be funnelled from quest hub to quest hub and that living breathing world feeling, which UO had, simply wont exist. 

So GW 2, as great as it seems, is fundamentally yet another ThemePark.

The moment where a company manages to recreate a game like Skyrim as an MMORPG, then we can talk about a new breed of MMORPGs...

 

Ummm, what attributes in UO caused that construct to operate like a "living, breathing world"?

Originally posted by smh_alot

Originally posted by fony

Hype vs. Excitement. the GW2 love is completely rational.

 

Seeing the extremely onesided posting of some people, I'd say that statements like this are a joke as well as a lie. Claiming that all GW2 hype is 100% based on rationale, is daydreaming by default and as unrealistic as any other statement like that -_-

 

I suppose this would depend on how you actually DEFINE "hype". 

Most people don't think that through, instead going with some kind of not-thought-through emotional reaction of "Oh, I don't find that feature great, but the other guys does, but because I don't find it great but they said it was means it was just Hype".

It's not Hype to be really excited about something, shout it out, and say wow I like this, and find some people aren't as excited about it as you even if some are.

It is "hype" in my mind if something is described in an overblown manner that either really doesn't exist, or is flat out misdirective/innaccurrate.

Here's an example from my gaming experience:

When AoC was nearing release, there was a game trailer with STUNNING graphics and landscapes.  During the dialog in that game trailer the announcer stated " . . . a living, breathing World . . .".

Complete and total HYPE.  That line was thrown in to the trailer to tweak the automatic reactions of a viewer enthralled with the beautiful vistas on display.  Nice Graphics =/= a "living, breathing World", it's just nice graphics (fair enough).

There was no "living, breathing World" attributes in AoC.  It was standard MMO landscape, NPC, town, and quest-hub fare.  No dynamic ecology changes, no structure building or landscape changes possible by players, etc.

So, what we must all realize is "Hype" isn't a label that automatically can be applied, rightfully, just because feature A really isn't to our liking . . . but others do like it.  The REAL QUESTION is does the feature actually exist in the game or not.

Because if it was advertised as existing, in an excited manner or not, and the feature in fact does exist in the game, I'd be inclined to NOT class it as having been subjected to "hype" pre-release even if I didn't find it wowzer.

To me "Oh, it was just Hype!" implies an absence of something that was claimed to exist, as illustrated in my AoC example.

What I seem to be hearing from people that have had their hands on GW2 beta time is stuff claimed to be in the game is.

Which is what might have prompted someone to claim GW2 hype is based on "rationale".

Originally posted by Pivotelite

It already happened to me, I heard so much about it without looking into it much thanks to the hype, graphics are the best, combat is so amazing, world is massive, everything about this game is better than every other game.

NDA is lifted and I watch some videos, particularly the ones on this site, lets just say I was more than dissapointed.

So are you disappointed with the Video? or the Game itself?



So the game has been hyped like no ones business, but who can blame communities for doing that? we're taking about Guild Wars here, not another run-of-the-mill game, the hype is only this massive because of the previous games amazing success, it's an IP worthy of the hype surrounding it.



Worse comes to worse, we'll be a little disappointing because our expectations are just that high for something different and extraordinary, but i can guarantee i will enjoy this game more then any other that is currently available.