The short answer. If you buy from Arena net through a digital copy - as long as Arena net is in business and running GW2 servers you will always be able to download the game and reinstall. If Arena Net goes out of business or shuts down GW2 then it wont matter if you have a hard copy because there will be nothing to log into.

If at that time a 3rd party starts up an independant server you will just have to get the client from them.

In all cases due to the fact that the nature of the game requires you to log into a server which holds a majority of the game you will never need to own a physical copy of the game. This holds true for all online MMO's.

Single player or small multi-player games are a whole nother story.

Originally posted by fenistil

It is true.

 

Various sites reports + some former workers tweeters & blogs confirm it as well.

 

Also there is rumor that 38 studios did not play nice with not paying & not telling that workers health insurance is going to end like tommorow.

All the more reason to buy your own health insurance and be responsible for yourself. It definately sucks to lose one's job, however, in the volatile gaming industry one should expect this to happen from time to time and to prepare for it as best you can.

Originally posted by TwoThreeFour

Originally posted by KhinRunite

It's all about having fun and not overthinking the "future of gaming".

A problem is that a lot of people don't think at all of the "future of gaming", they are just in for the potential fun. 

I dont see this as a problem. If a game or activity is fun and worth the $ charged then I dont see a problem. One of my goals in life is to have as much fun as I can for as long as I can untill I die. If your that worried about the "future" of gaming then by all means sink all of your own money into a gaming company and try to produce something worthy of the "future". If you come up with something cool then you will make your money back - if not then you will be broke and living on the streets.

I did not buy Diablo 3 due to the simple fact that there is about 10 to 20 hours worth of non repeat content. That is not enough for me. Other than that, I played the game on one of the beta weekends and thought the game itself was fun and the content available while short was also fun. It appears that they wont be missing me as a customer though so from their end they made the right game.

It sounds kind of like a cross between EQ style MMO and GW2 style MMO. I will have to keep my eye on this one to see how it pans out and if it suits me. If these two MMO's can create good weapon based skill systems this might make for a nice alternative combat system for a line of future MMO's.

While I definately like the item based skill system - I also like a more traditional skill system which you build which allows you to use certian weapons etc. Although I would like to see more class less systems and more general skill based systems where you can pick from a list of skills similar to perhaps Secret World(although I have not played Secret World yet) but something similar to it but perhaps different yet still.

In any case this sounds interesting.

12 hours is way too short even for a straight through shot by an experienced player. I would expect something in the range of 60 to 100 hours depending on how intensely you play and how experienced a gamer you are. I was considering buying the game but if its that short I will definately pass.

The one thing you overlook. The best way for a shareholder to make money is for the company to put out a good product that millions will want to play for years.

Some myths - Betas are only used for sales events. The Truth - Every game has a closed beta in which a small number of people participate in - This could be from a few hundred to 10,000. Beta Events themselves are there for several reasons. When the game is near finished it is used as a marketing tool and rightly so. They are also used to test their game against the masses that will show up at release. They arent interested in the little bugs (thats what closed beta is about) they are interested in the wierd stuff that shows up due to a unique hardware/software combination that you just cant find from a small number of testers - in addition they are looking to stress their systems to see where they will fail. Lastly they are looking for the exploits that show up when systems are stressed and large numbers of people are bound to find.

I have found very few games that have outright false information and these always crash and burn quickly thereby causing their investors to lose money. I have found games with extra Hype wherein the negatives of a game are overlooked and the positives are magnified. Its up to you the consumer to figure that stuff out before you spend your money.

Cash shops only work if people use them. I really dont care what a particular model a game uses. I only care if that model works for me. I do not spend money on games I dont like. That is the best incentive you can give to any company doing things that you consider bad/wrong/unethical. You have all the power.

While it is definately true that current MMO's cater to the single player crowd - This is due in large part to the lack of vision current developers have. I contend that a developer that makes a good group oriented game with no real handholding could make a boatload of money as its a niche that is currently not filled.

In the end investors invest in things they believe will make them money. Rightly so - I personally dont want to throw away my hard earned money on a losing proposition.

The last paragraph is the real reason MMO's are the way they are. You are the problem - not the proverbial shareholder or investor. You are telling them they are doing things right and to keep doing them. I only buy products I like. Sometimes I get it wrong - but usually I am happy with the money I spent.

Originally posted by Fluxii

Originally posted by indigo203

Meh. Disappointed to be honest. Loading screens are much too frequent and long, zones are small, and combat kinda felt like a crippled imitation of GW1. Quests are old-fashioned (accept and report), nothing new. I realize that it is still beta, but these are things unlikely to change in the short time left until release. 

Optimization though, was okay. Aside from a few instances of freezing and crashing, the framerate was decent on ultra. A few things I'd imagine they would be fixing before release would be fine-tuning optimization, character customization (currently it is not much better than Lineage 2), clunky animations, in addition to a few rendering glitches and bugs. 

OK, not gonna disclose anything cuz of he NDA, but what you just posted is blatent bullshit... you couldn't have tested for more than 5 minutes if that's your "opinion".  Major zones aren't small, warzones are huge, you spend hours questing in one place so loadtimes are moot, no worse than any other game... are you playing on a TRS80?

 

GW1 was one of the WORST games ever made IMHO (and I stupidly even tested 2, which isn't gonna be the savior everyone thinks it is... it's laughable really) and the combat isn't at all like it...

The current iteration of the animations are a bit clunky but more they just need to add in mousespeed...

But thy've said which half the people in the games chat didn't even know... NOT EVERYTHING IS ENABLED!  Testing is still limited and in stages.

I'm not saying it's the greatest new thing, but considering the pedestal GW2 and Tera(was) are on... gimme a break.  Not much competition (or even remote originalty).

Its good to refute things you feel are wrong or misinformation but you lose a lot of credibility when you follow them up with idiotic statements such as GW1 is one of the worst games ever and such. Granted you may not have liked GW1 and the game play mechanics and such but it was a very good game for its design, a lot of fun and made a lot of money. There are plenty of other games out there that are and were truly terrible. For worst games ever I would have to say Dark n Light is a frontrunner just to give an example.

Originally posted by loeslein

Originally posted by teakbois

Originally posted by rexzshadow

 if you make any game that took time to cap people call it a grind fest and never play it.

Not if you make the content or game world engaging enough.  Vanilla WoW took over 3 times as long to level (and thats just for the power gamers) than Rift but you didnt hear a lot of comlplaints about WoW's grindiness

Cause it was MOST peoples first mmorpg.

Wow grindy? That has me on the floor laughing so hard water is coming out of my nose. The power gamers were at lvl cap within the first week of release.

Originally posted by darker70

 

GW2 had a wonky start as well especially EU so these things will happen as like me with GW2 we are paying to actually Beta test a non commercial product which seems to be the trend these days.

 

Funny I didnt pay to access the Beta Weekend Event. How much did they charge you for the weekend? I did pay to have access to the game when it releases, however, which is to be expected since GW2 isnt a completely free to play game but rather a one time purchase for full access model.

So did you  pay for just the weekend? or did they charge you extra for it?

I didnt know they had any. Can you give a list of any you know about? There has to be another BWE coming soon and I might check some of them out.

Originally posted by lilHeala

Originally posted by MMOExposed
I disagree with the OP. WvW is much more fun as a max level character with all skills and full action bar unlocked

Er you know that skills aren't unlocked in WvW right? I was stuck with only the fire spells I unlocked on my Ele and WvW'd quite a lot. Yes you're scaled in level but not in gear, skills and traits. That's only done in sPvP and while inside the Heart of the Mist starter portal to PvP but not when in the actual WvW maps.

Thats why he was disaggreeing with the OP. He/She was stating why they would want the quickest path to 80 such that they have everything unlocked for the WvWvW. To them that is the game - for others the pve journey for many its a combo of both.

I voted no. I enjoy GW2 and have allready purchased the game, however, while there are many great things about GW2 it is still only one direction a game company can decide to go. Many will decide similar but different directions. I think the game will have an impact on future games but not as a "cornerstone" meaning a bunch of GW2 clones and nothing but.

On the one hand I like how the events in general pull you through the game without forcing you to be at a particular quest hub or running fed ex missions etc. It did make the pve experience more enjoyable with many ooh and ahh moments.

On the other hand I am somewhat sad to see the DE chains to be somewhat shallow at the early levels, especially with so many people moving through the area's it seems the critters rarely get the upper hand. I have hopes that this system will be expanded to make the world a little less static, but as of the first Beta Weekend the lvl 1-10 area's still felt very static on a tight short loop constantly repeating. I want more dynamics to the dynamic events. They are on the right path - I just hope they stay on this path and widen it a bit and not go off onto another path entirely by thinking thier DE system is good to go.

I havent gone that far into the trait aspects, however, I found just the ability to switch weapon setson the fly at lvl 7 to really open up the possibilities in game play for the necro. When you add in the spectral portion of the necro there is a lot of strategy and tactics allready in play.

I think its a system that will simply take time for people to learn and appreciate it fully.

I think but I am not totally sure on this that Team chat is global. The team chat seemed to be for the WvWvW stuff and perhaps it only activates if you spend time in the mists I dont know. I do know I could still read it when I was in the normal pve zones. I did have one bug with one character not being able to chat in the team chat so I am still a little confused on that channel.

On a side note I also did not experience anyone talking about anything except gw2 in any of the chats I was privy to.

As to the question What will Elder Scrolls online means to the MMORPG community over the next few/10 years. 

Not much. I have doubts they will do anything interesting or innovative and instead stamp out a generic online version of what they allready do. There will be fans who will play it no matter how good or bad the game is much like SWoToR and then there will be the rest of us who will only buy and play it if we are either bored or the game is just that good.

Define Over-hyped.

The game is what it was advertised to be. Whether you like it or not is not relevant as to whether the game actually delivers on what was advertised.

Just in case your confused - Hype is what marketing people say about what a product is or will be.

Over hype would then be exagerating a true fact about a product beyond what is reasonable - IE hype - tons of quests in my game - reality - game has 500 quests - hype is accurate enough and should be considered true. Overhype  - We have the most quests of any game ever made for all time - or - We have the best most original quests of all time - when the quests are 100 fetch and carry - 100 kill quests - 100 defend quests etc all following a very basic mold and just changing out the monsters or items involved.

Things to look for and disregard in Hype - any absolute qualifiers - The best - The most - completely original - never before seen - etc. These are almost always false although they may have a kernal of truth in them which they will hang their hat on.

The only thing i did not personally experience that was hyped was the evolving quest chains that are supposed to change the world depending on what the players do or do not do.

There were some public quest chains - however - they reminded me more of the mechanics of the PQ's of warhammer than anything radically new or different. I am expecting that as one gets further into the gameworld these evolving quest chains will become more apparent - although only time will tell on that one.

Originally posted by Eliandal

Originally posted by dontadow

I hope they don't grant refunds.  A refund is not a guaranteed thing, it's not smoething you're suppose to get. When you buy something you sign a contract. 

One of the benefits I received for buying the game was access to beta.  Once you receive that benefit, you have essentially began the benefits of the purchase.  

IF I buy tickets to a movie, i can't watch 10 minutes of the movie and ask for my money back.  

 

  Actually, if the movie is NOT what you were expecting, you definately can talk to the manager.  You most likely won't get your money back, but will get tickets to another movie (at least that's how it works up here)

 

  If ArenaNet is smart, they WILL allow refunds.  It's just good customer service, and will save them a LOT of grief from chargebacks (Yes, those do have a detrimental effect on the company being charged back)

 I was going to say something similar. You can actually ask for your money back, there is just no guarentee that you will get your money back( for the movie reference). Just like you can ask for your money back for GW2 at the moment - there is no guarentee you will get it back at this point. You are a lot more likely to get it back if you present your case now pre-release than if you tried to wait post release as they likely dont want the headaches ascociated with disgruntled players. I have a feeling they are going to sell enough copies to people who actually want to play the game such that they will want to avoid any bad press ascociated with players whining about refunds - although why anyone would prepurchase a game they are not 100% sure about is beyond me really.

In my opinion the game pretty much delivered everything the devs said it would be with one exception. I did not notice the event chains to any great extent. I saw a few things happen that caused some teleport portals to shut down untill players went to go fix things, however, all such "events" were on short loops that repeated over and over the same thing very much like the PQ's in warhammer. I did not get much beyond some of the lvl 10 charr area so I probably just have not seen enough of the world to find the true event chains. The world is large with a lot of things to do.

I think they are on the right track as to making the world more alive again without a straight linear quest line running you from hub to hub. The player still feels pulled to level appropriate spots which seem limited in the early game without jumping to other race locations - whether this opens up at higher levels remains to be seen.

Overall definately worth the $60 with at least 2 to 3 months of good playtime in there and potentially a lot more.

Originally posted by grimfall

Originally posted by Raiyu_Defied

I'm honestly in 2 mind overs the game.

 

I haven't preordered yet, I've seen plenty of things i like, but also a few I'm not a fan of.

 

Honestly think i'll just wait a bit after release before i make a decision over whether i want to buy this game or not.

My main concern is that it won't have $60 worth of PVE content.  And if I wait too long so that the price to gameplay is in line, then there won't be the critical mass of players to do the little PVE events with.   Still in the deciding phase,  but there's plenty of time.

Dont expect the price for the game to change anytime soon. The game has no sub fee so the devs only make money on the box price. Their philosophy is to keep selling boxes at a premium price rather than charge sub fees. They will also charge premium prices for the expansions when they come out and maintain those prices for a long period of time.

There is defintely $60 worth of content in the game right now. I expect that to do a reasonable amount of the pve content will take an average player 2 to 3 months with one character and with the other races and zones ascociated with those races you can extend that out several more months at least. Add in the WvWvW stuff and you have 6+ months worth of content at release. How far will the game last beyond that is anyone's guess at this time.

It gets even better at level 7 when you can have an alternate weapon set with the ability to switch them out on the fly. This is where the real breakdown between ranged and melee will start to occur due to the fact you can have both and switch between them as needed. I played a little guardian and a lot more necromancer for this beta. I played necro 2nd so I was a lot more familiar with the game by then and had an easier time. I used primarily a 2h staff(ranged) with some AOE ground based attacks. I tried dagger and its good most a lot of the times too, however, as necro your a bit squishier than warrior type classes and it can be difficult to get in range for your attacks before the action is over. My trouble with the dagger setup mainly came from my inexperience, however, and I can think of a lot of ways to bridge that gap and be more formible with a dagger.

In any case there are tons of options for every class and every playstyle with a learning curve on the whole thing. As people get more familiar with everything a lot of the issues will go away.