The uninitiated thread is a bit out-dated in some areas since at least the traits and the rangers pets no longer work like its written there, but overall it catches the general idea.

There are so many videos about it everywhere that i believe if you spend about a couple of hours watching them you will see what the game is like, but if you want it "short":

PvP

Is fast-paced and action-based, guild can have fun doing WvWvW(or 3W as i like to call it), indivuduals will like the tipical isntant join" pvp and the hardcore will love the structured tournaments, other than that there is not much to tell you.

PvE:

Has good for roleplaying capability because the lore is very rich and the world beautiful and fun to explore with jumping puzzles and small secrets spread everywhere even npc talking to each other is surprisingly entertaining.

Quests(aka hearts in gw2) are somewhat similar to what one would expect but its improved, you no longer need to talk to the NPC in oder to understand what is going on as simply login around you will sufice, you also have several ways of completing the quest and you can mix them up as much as you like as there is always more than one way to help a person which is refreshing.

There are also a various number of dynamic quest event which are quests that have repercussion upon completing or failing them, one that comes in mind is around lvl 15 in the second area of the humans, a kid comes asking you to help free his kidnaped mother and a merchant near the camp asks you to retrieve some tolen items from the same bandits, later i found out that players could prevent both quests from existing if they where there when the bandits ambushed the merchant or when they attacked this kids mother.

Your level will always be lowered to the area level meaning that even if you are lvl 80 you can have some fun with a lvl 20 friend as you will scaled down to about lvl 20ish, this means that playing with lowerleveled friend is no longer a boring shore about rushing him to max level.

Gameplay-wise combat is entertaining as even to kill a npc may require you to do a bit more than spam 1 button, some tougher mobs will require you dodge a bit.

The only thing that may not be that interesting is the fact that there are o Raids... all dungeons are 5-man instances mainly for balance issues, but there is no competition for loot or anyting like that... anything beyong this point is pure speculation.

If you want my personal opinion, yes the game is worth it because even in a worst scenario if you like MMOs or RPGs in general it is a 1-time fee that will hold your interest for at least a couple of months, but I believe the best thing is to try it for your self or if you can't, watch a lot of gameplay videos without commentary and use your own judgement.

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Originally posted by Zylaxx I really liked the pace of leveling, the combat is fun and the innovative features it has going for it does the game great justice...........................but:  After this BWE I have a feeling it just wont last for me.   I dunno maybe I am growing to old for MMO's.  Saturday Night I even logged off and played DayZ for 4 hours before going back to theorytest a new build.  Right how the only thing holding me back from full and total enjoyment is theres not a class I truely feel like I was born to play.  Theres no true Hybrid Melee/Magic that screams "play me".   I really dislike how the weapon system is done in the game, its not to say its not good because it sure is but from a purely aesthetic standpoint, it lacks because you are forced to play with weapons that arent as aesthetically pleasing as you would like.  Things like Focus, Torch's and Horns.  The other thing is of the classes that I want to play like the Thief, Warrior and Ranger I am forced to use things I dislike greatly such as ground targetted AOE's or have pets.  Soemtimes I jsut want to play a Warrior with a greatsword but  Idont need things like a clunky charge where I have to point in the direction I want to go or play a theif where my 5 key is pointless or my on my Ranger having no snare on long bow.  I truely enjoy MMO's more that offer you more freedom of choice in the skills I use.  Now the utility, heal and elite skill are great cause I have choices but I truely believe being pigenholed into weapons skills I dislike greatly detracts from my enjoyment.   I tried other classes besides those 3, but even though a DW Dagger Elementalist and a Axe/Dagger Necro or a Greatsword Mesmer all use those melee weapons they are still at its core caster classes and it feels more like I am wielding caster weapons then melee weapons.  All in all ive spent 2 BWE's playing every class except for an engineer and I greatly dislike elements of all of them.  I want a good old fashion Melee/caster hybrid with big hulking 2H weapons with spells that augment my damage with debuffs/debuffs and none of the GW2 classes plays remotely similar to my WoW DK, DAoC Champion or Thane. 

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The fact that you dont play with the skills you like because you don't agree with the aesthetics of the weapon makes no sense to me, sometimes i dont like the model of my bow but I only look at my toon in one of the Zen moments, plus you can swap the armor and weapon models without sacrificing stats.

I believe that your opinion about weapons lacking skills is unfounded, all weapons have exactly what they need but in various flavors, for example you complained about the Rangers Longbow needing a snare, as a Ranger my self i can tell you that you do not for several reasons:

• first of all it has a skill that pushes your target back based on how close he is, at point blank the knock-back is huge.
• you have an array of snares and other skills that add distance to your target such as:
  • Muddy Terrain: slows and immobilize foes.
  • Lightning Reflexes: Evade back with a crack of lightning dealing damage
  • Spike Trap:bleeds and slows
  • Frost Trap: slows.
  • Entangle: Entangle nearby foes. (Elite)

and last but not least, you can switch weapon to anything you want since all other weapons have a skill that applies cripple.

  There is another solution which I believe is possible, which is using two sets of the same weapon, I have not tried this yet but if it works has it does with different weapons the cooldowns will not be shared meaning you can preform a skill two times in a row at the cost of losing the flexebility of using two different sets. (has anyone confirmed this?)

  In the end aren't you being a bit too picky? You dont like the weapon aesthetics, you dont like targeting skills, you dont agree to a particular skill in the set, you dont like the mechanics or you dont like concept of the proffesion...      

My point here is not to troll or anything, it's just a personal concern and some didn't seam to be getting the point so i will try to explain a bit better.

Point 1

I'm NOT saying that shortbow+pet wont be an effective combo, i just felt disappointed when i read what the Lead Designer said because coming from a game where having a pet was a hardly used commodity, where the Ranger class alone(no mixes) had 1 primary attribute expertise and 3 possible playstyles Marksmanship, Wilderness Survival and Beastmastery, we had a choice and in the overall game beastmastery was the least used/liked even though it was a viable option, but in GW2 instead of making the main mechanic something to suit several play styles they just forced us to be have a pet, and if we're not using a pet Point 2 happens.

Point 2

I'm NOT saying that Warriors will be Over Powered, it's just that IF a ranger would prefer different playstyle from what is being forced upon us, lets say i would prefer to be on the back with a longbow and few rituals, it wouldn't be as effective as a warrior doing it(and this was clear in the interview) and THAT for me is unfair since i feel that ranger should be better then any other class with either of the bows.

Hope it cleared my point a bit more.

Tyroki that's exactly my point, i dont want to be forced to be a beastmaster, if you like it good for you but in the old GW i liked Ranger because it was the main bow character and in most occasions hardly anyone used the pet anyways.

I don't want my dmg to be dependent on a pet AI i would like the option of not having a pet and dedicate my self to my bow/traps/rituals, i dont know if there will be any taunting skills for PvE but in PvP the pet will actually be a bother because you have to be in touch range to resurrect him which means you have to be too close for comfort.

I think its unfair for Rangers to be forced into a pet class, while the warrior class gained a bigger range of choices and excels with a weapon that was mainly a Ranger weapon.

Rangers should be agility fighters with medium armor who excel at ranged combat with capable melee who's survivability depends on dodge and speed. since their survivability usually relies on keeping some distance that's why rangers have ranged abilities to cripple(crippling shot) and some to knock back foes(point blank shot), this was true in the  first GW, made sense, was according to the lore and was balanced.

Warriors should be heavy armored fighters who excel in melee combat with capable mid-range dmg who's survivability depends on armor. However they now also excel at ranged combat and also have skills that cripple(pin down) and skills to know back foes(kick), this was NOT true in the first GW, this is NOT according to the lore, makes NO sense and its unfair for the other class which are mainly ranged.

So tell me what exactly is the Role of the ranger then when clearly a warrior with a bow can do about the same with more survivability.

It's true that we dont know how things will work and everything is proabably gonna game a bit until the game is launched, however what the lead designer said was straight and in my personal opinons it ruins the Ranger gameplay.

Some of you missed the point, i know there will be a pet but im not talking about the dmg of the pet+ranger vs warrior all though warrior will probably win since the warrior has more armor so he can just kill the pet in melee then grab a bow and kill the ranger, since the ranger will have to touch the pet in order to resurect him... but thats besides the point.

What i was talking about is the fact that it is pointless for a ranger class who by definition has less armor because its a class that is ment to avoid dmg by staying at a distance from the powerfull melee classes, however the advantage of distance will be nullified because a warrior will just kill him without the need to come close.

Most games around usually have some sort od way for a character to specialize in order to adapt the character to their playstyle however GW2 is doing the other way around by forcing a playstyle upon the players.

I mean lets be honest their forcing Ranger to be a close-mid range fighter while making the warrior melee and ranged expert fighter, this makes no sense from a RPG prespective, lets imagine a group fight will have warriors going melee in the battle front will have rangers and casters in the mid and warriors again in the back.

Again my point is Heavy armorded classes should not good at ranged combat, there is a point why mages use light armor and rangers used medium armor, so there is also a reason why warriors have heavy armor and clearly its NOT for keeping distance from the target.

After reading this interview with GW2 Lead designer from IGN( http://uk.pc.ign.com/articles/110/1106052p1.html) i was very shocked and i shall explain why.

I've always like to play as a ranger/hunter/etc in all games because i like the idea of being a long ranged fighter that puts more emphasis in agility and reflexes other then brute strength. Rangers are known for their traps, bow skills, speed and pets in Guild Wars we had lots of options to play with we could interrupt we could have pets we could have traps, we could spread conditions such as fire, poison and bleeding, we could have crippling shots or even running skills to help us keep our distance.

In the end we where a good utility class and lets face it in pvp rangers with pets where doable but they where rare, and we accepted it.

in that interview GW2 Lead designer said and i quote:

When we were looking at how we wanted the Ranger to look and feel we decided quite early on that we wanted to emphasize the Ranger's bond with nature." The Ranger's ranged weapon of choice include the longbow (for when you need that extra distance or damage), the shortbow (for when you need a little more mobility), and the…axe? Yep, Rangers can wield and throw axes...

Ok it makes perfect sense so far doesn't it? then i read this other line:

Pets are so central to the role of the Ranger that Flannum even suggests "players who want range without a pet are better off playing another profession, such as a Warrior, and taking ranged weapons."

What the hell?! So now in GW2 a Warrior will be better at range then a Ranger who's weapon's of choice are mostly ranged and obviously they will also beat the living Jesus out of you in melee.

And if you take a look at the LongBow skill set for the warrior these include Pin Down to cripple/immobilize/stun, Arcing Shot and Rain of Fire which are an explosive AOE, Incendiary Shot to burning your enemy and even Kick to regain some distance from the target... why in hell would a full plated Warrior want/need distance...

I would expect the Warriors to have some ranged skills to complement/help him when the target is fleeing and some average dmg until he can get up close and personal.

I completely fail to see the purpose here.

Rangers can still use traps but it requires you to be in Close-Quarters with the enemy, we have a pet but since he has to reach the opponent means we again need to me in Close-Quarters, yet warriors who excel in Close-Quarters with their high armor and dmg are better at long ranged fighting then a Ranger...

In GW warrior/rangers could use bows and even deal more dmg then Rangers per shot because they have a primary stat that gave them some natural armor penetration BUT they didn't had the enough energy to use bow skills as effectively as a ranger, its was logical and it made sense because overall Rangers were better with a bow.

Its fine that ArenaNet made the pet a great feature but it shouldn't be forced because it forces all Ranger to the same playstyle.

Well i had to vent about this because this concerns me greatly.

 Trion Studios should be showing more stuff other then rifts... i mean sure the whole game is based in these random events called rifts, but they don't talk about anything else and it's not a completely new feature it gets old pretty quickly.

 First time i tried the game(at Gamescom) i was like "hey nice graphics" seeing the world changing around me... but by the end of the rift i was like "that's it?!" it was nothing but a slightly enhanced version of WAR public quests.

 I was more impressed with the soul system then the rifts them self's, i guess that's why Rifts booth was almost empty...

i don't get it why people say that in eve players make the rules... that's completely wrong, the developers make the rules, players are forced to comply by them that's it.

I mean you have an area with one rule "kill/die as much as you want" for what ever reason you want, you can kill some random guy and say its because he was was of a different color thus is a racist war... it doesn't matter because in the end your just making an excuse to kill them and that is not you making the rules.

Hell that isn't even a new concept, any game not based in factions(because there is another rule that say "you cant attack your own faction") has a similar system.

Get over it, players don't make rules in the actual game like some people are claiming, the best you can get is to make theoretical rules inside your guild where the only penalty is being kicked, hey this is a perfect example of why players cant be making the rules, imagine if you could do anything you wanted like forcing to players to pay for doing something against the rules like "paying a fine" it would be exploited, happens in real life and would happen in the game.

Rules will always be made by the developers in order to be a fair virtual world, players obey them and make excuses for their actions within their set of rules.

Politics imo is the act of achieving a peaceful solution to a problem instead of using force, games are ultimately about war and fighting each other wise it would be just a social-networking game dull, boring and it wouldn't be appealing to players.

In the end people are talking about the core of game design and are hardly thinking about the whole picture.

Let the flaming begin...

damn that is an over-excited fan boy lol.

Well i have no idea what the game is all about, but i can tell you this all the things your saying about "your not going to get stronger by doing pushups because its in your blood" well that doesn't work for 99% of the games, it works with EVE because there are no skills or abilities in that game its all about the ship.

In a typical RPG its about a hero/character and offline advancement makes no sense, a hunter won't learn how to do a crippling shot without having gained experience with a weapon first.

Another thing is your talking about stuff like players making the rules,politics and all that, its great on paper but hard to implement and horrible on practice because in the end we are talking about a game, people come to play what your saying requires a lot of hardcore commitment from several(hundreds?) players who's life would be managing the political aspects of the game alone and not actually playing it, this would restrict the target audience to a very small number of players that could be considered Hardcore Role Players, and those would never be enough to sustain the gaming company and all their expenses.

Again i must say that i have no idea what the game is all about, and i just have the info given in the thread.

 I must say that i've tried EVE for a couple of months and the offline skill system was the main reason why i stoped playing, i found it completely pointless to spend a few hours of my spare time playing a game in which at the end i had no sense of accomplishment other then a few more credits.

Any decent player that actually enjoys playing a game(not the ones with ebay accounts) like to feel their characters evolve getting stronger through their own effort, its one thing to put some effort into your character and see it leveling-up and gaining new abilities but it another thing when we need to wait 2 or 3 weeks and sometimes over a month to get a new skill, it just gets boring and tiresome.

Sense my character evolution is almost out of  the players control and i found my self several times just logging to add skills to the training queue and go offline again, that for me is not worth paying a monthly fee.

I see no reason why people who want to invest more time into the game should not level up faster, other wise it becomes a Pay-and-Wait game instead of a Pay-2-Play.

well from what i experienced at GamesCom(yes i went there and played it) the game is pretty standard, i know there will be some flaming but here's my impression:
Graphics: very standard, by that i mean that isn't cartoonish like wow or warhammer but not amazing like AoC.
Gameplay: typical 3rd person camera with WASD control, i played with a Rogue and i must say that it felt exactly like playing a rogue in WoW but with "Sinister Strike" and "Eviscerate" having different names, but i only played within the early levels i'm sure/hopeful it will be a bit different later on with different souls. The Rift system is way over-hyped, i wasn't amazed at all it just felt like the Public Quests in Warhammer Online got bored after the first one.

Overal:
the impression i have is that it feels like WoW with less cartoonish textures, public quests(rifts) a different class system and obviously a different lore, which might be good for those that are looking for something similar but still different to mainstream WoW, but in the end i wasn't that impressed specially for a next-gen MMO and judging from the quantity of players on the Rift booth compared to Guild War2 and Tera neither where they.

Originally posted by Ashlura

I wont lie to you like the others.

 

1) This is not a FPS and should not be compared. Its a TPS

2) Skill means a lot, but not everything. Your spec means a ton and dont listen to people that say it doesnt. If they dont realize this yet, they dont know the game very well. You gain levels, which gives you spec points (called skill points). Think of WoW and how you have your specialization trees. Its the same for this game. You get points to place into those trees. It means a lot and at level 30 you will have everything the same as a level 50. It maxes out right now at level 30. So level to 30 and you will be on even ground. This is truth. There isnt a level 1-20 that can kill me unless they have someone else helping them. 1 vs 1 it is impossible against a good player. Luckily, this is still a team based game though, so you wont recognize the ass stomping you couldve gotten when people are helping you.

3) Most FPS players are highly dissatisfied with this game

indeed this is a fair post, however i'm not 100% in agreement with your second point, yes the talents matter a lot and yes it will give the advantage to higher level but the " There isnt a level 1-20 that can kill me unless they have someone else helping them" i don't agree with unless your a tanking assault with that much extra HP and so many dmg reduction he can kill any low level, for the other classes talents wont impact as much.

As for the 3rd point goes your right, i come from a large background of both MMORPG's and FPS and kinda feel disappointed from both sides:

1) from a FPS side i expected to be able to make "clans"(named Agencies) and fight other clans for both practice and tournaments like any FPS nowadays but it's not possible in GA:

• you can't challenge another Agency to settle disputes or any other reason for that matter(except land in AvA).
• you may try the AvA but its pointless for a 10-20 man "clan" as you cant own more then 2 Hexes(pieces of land) due to the lack of players in your Agency, if you want to play in a 100 man Agency in a Alliance with 4 other Agencies you can give it a shot just remember that even thou you're in a 500man Alliance you be playing with a 10 man mix from does 500.
• you can't enter your own territory to practice or make tactics before your being attacked, but then again this game doesn't have that much tactic to it, you can just explain what you want "on the fly".
• all games are 10vs10 even in larger maps(like AvA), common even in the old game there where higher numbers in much smaller maps.

2) from a RPG point of view:

• the talents trees are poorly made, talents are too generalized which leads to ppl using the same build everywhere with little room to be unique and the obvious logic of "better talents deeper in the tree" doesn't apply as in some specializations the last talent doesn't do much.
• the PvE is horrible, you just have to run and shoot everything you see as long as your not being being reckless until you get to the boss which is just another "bot" but a bit tougher, no strategy required.
• there's no story / lore besides the tutorial.
• the game is 100% instanced and you have nothing to do while your not fighting, extremely tedious.
• the only thing that is persistent in the entire game is your character everything else resets every few months, even the land that your Agency got in AvA over that time, which leads to having no sense of accomplishment.

In the end if you want a game to occasionally(and i underline the word) do some pew-pew and you really fancy GA, you'll have a nice time otherwise you'll get bored in the first week or so.

Like many have said it was a good review but it only focused on the good points, the game is nothing but "OK" if you're someone who wants to play occasionally with random player to kill time.

After i bought the game and played since the first beta in December i felt that what they said in the trailers, interviews and my obvious expectation weren't exactly what you get in the game.

you can't play in normal pvp matches with more then 4 players(including your self) so having a clan/agency is pointless unless you going to pay for conquest.

In Conquest you can't practice or make tactics because once you get a small piece of land you can only enter it if your challenged.

the number of "land"(called Hexes) you can have is determined by the number of players in your Agency, so a small 10-20 man agency is useless and can only defend 1-2 Hexes, even if you have the best players in the world your limited by your number, skill is secondary.

i'm completely against calling this game MMO not because there isn't an open world(it was stated before) but because there is no world at all, their idea of a world is a "world-map" divided by small Hexes each one can only be 1 of 5 terrains, so all Hexes labeled as Factory are exactly alike same goes for the Mines,Labs,missile factories and bases.

the PvE lack so much polish that the tutorial is the better then all the PvE maps, there are no tricks what so ever to it you just have to run&gun the mobs down until you get to a boss which is a tougher mob with a different look with some NPCs spawning occasionally and is the same for all difficulties but mobs have more HP and deal more dmg.

the only persistent thing in this game is your character even the conquest map for which you pay to play gets reseted.whats the point of playing for something that in 2-3 months gets undone.

they said that the map would be a risk-like strategy map, its wrong, in this game you can attack any hex in the map there is no map strategy besides the "hexes connected to the HQ get a production bonus" i would say that the hexes are only connected in concept which again leads me to say its not an MMO more like several private FPS server put together.

the RPG concept in this game is a joke the talents are so generalized that makes no room for unique builds.

Conquest seams fun but its always the same, at a particular time everyday you either attack or defend with whatever you have at hand no pre-organization nor that much coordinated tactics other then commonsense there's nothing more to it.

to finish remember the trailer where they emphasize the conquest where you "disable a generator in one map and you see the turrets going down live on the other"? there is no such thing.

in the end this is a FPS version of Guildwars(in a sense that you get some variety of devices abut can only choose 3 at any given time) with a different theme, where you own HQ(like a castle in GW) but cant enter it or customize it you may conquer new land for your alliance like Planet side(but it will be reseted every so often) but have to pay a fee for it and in the end you get no sense of achievement.