There has been an awful lot of press information regarding GW2 coming at us the past weeks and even though we caught a fair glimpse of a lot of aspects of the game there's still a lot of things we do not know at this time. Things that might or might not influence your decision to go for an early purchase.

Let's try and sum them all up and please correct me where I am wrong (I sucked up a lot of GW2 info but it's very likely that I missed some aspects) also please add those that you think I missed.

GW2, What we still don't know at this time:

- Launch date: pretty obvious one. Might be important for people for planning their weeks off.

- Higher than level 30 PVE content: there have been 50 levels missing in the press event. What is the state of this content?

update: So far two higher leveled areas have been in the Demo: posters report they are polished.

update: some links from wordoftruth showing demo play of higher level content in this post

- Higher than level 30 zones and regions: Due to the level restriction in the past event I think we've seen only a small part of the world. What's the state of these areas, polish wise?

update: So far two higher leveled areas have been in the Demo: posters report they are polished.

update: some links from wordoftruth showing demo play of higher level content in this post

- Dungeons: The bread and butter for some gamers: We saw only one of eight announced dungeons in action. (Correct me if I'm wrong).

update: Actually it seems it has been 1 instead of 2 of eight dungeons so far.

- Mini games / Activities: Has any activity been available in the press event? (I might have missed some info on these) They mention 30 activities on the wiki.

update: Kegball has been reported to be in the event but hardly enyone recorded footage of it

update: a YT vid of some minigames here

- The current state of Class Balance / Racial Balance: Not only class balance might be a hotly debated aspect of GW2, but also Racial balance: as of now there are racial elite skills capable of one shotting people. Like the Charr Artillery Barage.

Update: Anet has stated that Racial Elite Skills aren't supposed to be as powerful as class ones: there might still be quite some balancing underway.

Update: Racial elite skills can not be usedt in structured pvp (conflicting reports about WvW).

- Their plans for the Cash Shop at launch and in the future: we've seen some itterations on their philosophy behind their cash shop in the past, and they say they want more player feedback in beta, but to me and others this is an important point that might make or break our intent to buy this game. Also the press was barred from disclosing anything about the CS in the press event because it is still subject to changes. But to make an informed decision this might paramount to some.

- Client performance and latency in WvW: The released videos so far have been a mixed bunch: some with and some without lag. Because the game will offer 100's versus 100's of players duking it out but we haven't seen battles on that scale yet (correct me if I'm wrong), this is important to those planning to live of WvW.

edit: it has been reported that latency wasn't much of an issue so far, but client side performance was, with large numbers of players in your direct vicinity.

- NDA drop: The NDA is supposed to drop at the next beta event but so far there haven't been any overall impressions from long term testers. Only long term testers are able to speak up about unforseen aspects and maybe give us an idea of the general state and longevity of the game.

- Update: What is the state of Sylvari and Asura races, capitals and starting zones?

update: removed rumor about those two races sharing a starter world. If so it needs confirmation. The general question still stands.

update: there's a map shown here suggesting they share a starting zone

update: a newer map here showing seperate starer zones for both races

- Update: What is the state of structured pvp? So far people have reported they saw 2 maps and only conquest ones at launch. But there's hints of many more structured pvp options.

- Update: Region Locking: How are you planning to accomodate for people who travel a lot? Is region locking only in place to warrant a regionally specific pricing model with big differences?

- Update: Pricing, frequency, rough schedual & distribution of additional content / expansions. (I added "frequency" and "rough schedual" myself, might be that they already made announcements about this so feel free to correct).

8 dungeons? tho there were more :S

We've only seen one dungeon out of 8 (or 2 out of 32 if you want to go that way).

Some things you just have to experience for yourself.

Originally posted by DJJazzy

We've only seen one dungeon out of 8 (or 2 out of 32 if you want to go that way).

Not sure what the highlighted means?  Not trying to be obtuse, just genuinly curious.

On the demos last year, levels higher than 30 were shown (I think lvl 50 areas and content) It looked polished from what I saw but who knows it's current state. Doubt they'll show much though, they don't want to spoil the game they say.

(buzzing bee!!)

good list

Originally posted by DarkPony

- NDA drop: The NDA is supposed to drop at the next beta event but so far there haven't been any overall impressions from long term testers. Only long term testers are able to speak up about unforseen aspects and maybe give us an idea of the longevity of the game.

 

 

Long term testing is handled in-house, as far as I know. You won't see any beta impressions from them as mosft of them work for ANet and the rest are "friends and family" type deal.

Beta weekends are open to the press and the general public and there are plenty of impressions from both groups.

- Do Asura & Syvalri have their own starting areas? Right now, it looks like they don't.

- How many structured PvP maps? Only seen 2 so far...

Originally posted by niceguy3978

Originally posted by DJJazzy

We've only seen one dungeon out of 8 (or 2 out of 32 if you want to go that way).

Not sure what the highlighted means?  Not trying to be obtuse, just genuinly curious.

8 dungeon areas, 1 storymode, 3 explorable modes. So each dungeon will have 4 different experiences. So all together we have 32 different experiences with all of the dungeons in the game.

Originally posted by DarkPony

There has been an awful lot of press information regarding GW2 coming at us the past weeks and even though we caught a fair glimpse of a lot of aspects of the game there's still a lot of things we do not know at this time. Things that might or might not influence your decision to go for an early purchase.

Let's try and sum them all up and please correct me where I am wrong (I sucked up a lot of GW2 info but it's very likely that I missed some aspects) also please add those that you think I missed.

GW2, What we still don't know at this time:

- Launch date: pretty obvious one. Might be important for people for planning their weeks off. True.

- Higher than level 30 PVE content: there have been 50 levels missing in the press event. What is the state of this content? We have already seen two zones post level 30 (in the demos).

- HIgher than level 30 zones and regions: Due to the level restriction in the past event I think we've seen only a small part of the world. What's the state of these areas, polish wise? We have already seen two zones post level 30 (in the demos).

- Dungeons: The bread and butter for some gamers: I think we saw two of eight announced dungeons in action. (Correct me if I'm wrong). Just one.

- Mini games / Activities: Has any activity been available in the press event? (I might have missed some info on these) They mention 30 activities on the wiki. Yes, at least Kegball was in. Although hardly anyone recorded footage of it.

- The current state of Class Balance / Racial Balance: Not only class balance might be a hotly debated aspect of GW2, but also Racial balance: as of now there are racial elite skills capable of one shotting people. Like the Charr Artillery Barage. True.

- Their plans for the Cash Shop at launch and in the future: we've seen some itterations on their philosophy behind their cash shop in the past, and they say they want more player feedback in beta, but to me and others this is an important point that might make or break our intent to buy this game. Also the press was barred from disclosing anything about the CS in the press event because it is still subject to changes. But to make an informed decision this might paramount to some. If you pre-purchased the game you can see what it is currently like, nobody knows what it will eventually look like.

- Lag levels in WvW: The released videos so far have been a mixed bunch: some with and some without lag. Because the game will offer 100's versus 100's of players duking it out but we haven't seen battles on that scale yet (correct me if I'm wrong), this is important to those planning to live of WvW. True.

- NDA drop: The NDA is supposed to drop at the next beta event but so far there haven't been any overall impressions from long term testers. Only long term testers are able to speak up about unforseen aspects and maybe give us an idea of the longevity of the game.  True.

 - Asura and Sylvari: Both races were missing in the last Beta Builds. And so far we haven't seen any gameplay footage of their starting areas.

 

Good post Pony.

I however want to point out one thing-

Anet has told us many times, in multiple ways, that there really is no "end-game" in Guild Wars 2.

What you see at low levels, well, you are going to see more of the same at higher levels.

Unlike many/most "themepark" MMOs, there is no batch of new/unseen content at the level cap.

They have said something along the lines of "we don't want you to play one game while you are leveling up and be playing a game that is totally different once you reach the max level."

So the issue of "we haven't seen anything past 30" is really a moot point in all regards except for of course the level of polish at higher levels vs. lower levels.

It really is/is supposed to be more of the same you've been doing the whole time you've been playing. No difference between max level and early PvP, as all PvP is really "max level" etc.

Some people really hate that idea.

No big raids or max level dungeons/heroics or gear treadmill etc. once you reach the cap. No new max level only PvP activities.

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Originally posted by niceguy3978

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Originally posted by DJJazzy
We've only seen one dungeon out of 8 (or 2 out of 32 if you want to go that way).

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Not sure what the highlighted means?  Not trying to be obtuse, just genuinly curious.

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There are variations of each dungeon through the explorable mode. Each dungeon has different paths a group can take, and there are three paths per dungeon, as I understand it.

Theres some stuff we dont know but I am anxiously waiting to see what answers are to be had.

Originally posted by DarkPony

There has been an awful lot of press information regarding GW2 coming at us the past weeks and even though we caught a fair glimpse of a lot of aspects of the game there's still a lot of things we do not know at this time. Things that might or might not influence your decision to go for an early purchase.

Let's try and sum them all up and please correct me where I am wrong (I sucked up a lot of GW2 info but it's very likely that I missed some aspects) also please add those that you think I missed.

GW2, What we still don't know at this time:

- Launch date: pretty obvious one. Might be important for people for planning their weeks off.

- Higher than level 30 PVE content: there have been 50 levels missing in the press event. What is the state of this content? The "shatterer zone" is 45 - 55, the "swamp zone" is similar (sorry, too lazy to find names and exact level ranges) So we know at least higher level zones were polished The rest is a mystery

- HIgher than level 30 zones and regions: Due to the level restriction in the past event I think we've seen only a small part of the world. What's the state of these areas, polish wise? Stated above

- Dungeons: The bread and butter for some gamers: I think we saw only two of eight announced dungeons in action. (Correct me if I'm wrong). True, perhaps due to spoilers and level restriction

- Mini games / Activities: Has any activity been available in the press event? (I might have missed some info on these) They mention 30 activities on the wiki. True, the only content thing Im worried about

- The current state of Class Balance / Racial Balance: Not only class balance might be a hotly debated aspect of GW2, but also Racial balance: as of now there are racial elite skills capable of one shotting people. Like the Charr Artillery Barage. Imbalance was and will be an issue in all class/faction based online games, you should already know that IMO

- Their plans for the Cash Shop at launch and in the future: we've seen some itterations on their philosophy behind their cash shop in the past, and they say they want more player feedback in beta, but to me and others this is an important point that might make or break our intent to buy this game. Also the press was barred from disclosing anything about the CS in the press event because it is still subject to changes. But to make an informed decision this might paramount to some. If they remove buyable guild influence Im happy, I WILL bitch about it a lot in beta

- Lag levels in WvW: The released videos so far have been a mixed bunch: some with and some without lag. Because the game will offer 100's versus 100's of players duking it out but we haven't seen battles on that scale yet (correct me if I'm wrong), this is important to those planning to live of WvW. I found only minority of those vids to be laggy, and this is just the begginning of optimalisation since that is handled lastly, no big worries

- NDA drop: The NDA is supposed to drop at the next beta event but so far there haven't been any overall impressions from long term testers. Only long term testers are able to speak up about unforseen aspects and maybe give us an idea of the longevity of the game.

 You sumed up the uncertain content above, this is tied to it

 

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Originally posted by DJJazzy

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Originally posted by niceguy3978

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Originally posted by DJJazzy

We've only seen one dungeon out of 8 (or 2 out of 32 if you want to go that way).

---

Not sure what the highlighted means?  Not trying to be obtuse, just genuinly curious.

---

8 dungeon areas, 1 storymode, 3 explorable modes. So each dungeon will have 4 different experiences. So all together we have 32 different experiences with all of the dungeons in the game.

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Ah, what He said.

Originally posted by VowOfSilence

- Do Asura & Syvalri have their own starting areas? Right now, it looks like they don't.

- How many structured PvP maps? Only seen 2 so far...

Don't ask me where I read it but I believe that Asura and Sylvari share their starting zone. In GW1, the Sylvari tree is really close to Rata Sum, the Asuran capital.

Originally posted by Cacaphony

 

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Originally posted by niceguy3978

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Originally posted by DJJazzy
We've only seen one dungeon out of 8 (or 2 out of 32 if you want to go that way).

---

Not sure what the highlighted means?  Not trying to be obtuse, just genuinly curious.

---

 

There are variations of each dungeon through the explorable mode. Each dungeon has different paths a group can take, and there are three paths per dungeon, as I understand it.

Ahh, thank you.

Well, we have already heard of 6 of 8 dungeons, 4 are already known by name:

• Ascalonian Catacombs
• Caudecus's Manor
• Sorrow's Embrace
• Twilight Arbor

Originally posted by DarkPony

GW2, What we still don't know at this time:

- Region Locking: If you can even play the game if you have to move outside the country of purchase.

- European Pricing: Why they thought it was a good idea to jack up the price for Europeans and then prevent them from buying the cheaper US version by implementing region locking.

Added some.