Originally posted by Tomm-e
tukhes, many RPGs work on the principle of rock scissors paper, when you only have two simple variables it will be easy for players to find that "perfect build", you can't rely on just two variables, add a third, one beats the other, but loses to the next.

In some cases,  yes,  but thats where randomization comes into play.  Crits, for instance. While some players may have more attack power, some players with less attack power could have a higher critical rating meaning they could potentially win even with less in the stat department. 

Then there are other options such as evasion, etc,  if you give any credence to accuracy.  There are ways to mitigate these things that aren't just attack and defend...  even in oldschool RPGs... and it revolved around randomization techniques built into the algorithm you are using.

I'm confused... usually the numbers are percentages either for something to be multiplied as a damage modifier on top of basic structure,  or as part of the mitigation of the damage received....

Maybe I'm not understanding your question properly...

Originally posted by Veldara
Hope they all find work soon.

They were a small but dedicated team... fairly talented too,  they will make it.

Originally posted by gaeanprayer

Pretty good review, I think you missed the mark on the personal story, though. Mine stopped at 20, and I made at least 4 choices in that time. I was Human Orphan Noble, I had to make a choice involving my friend, a choice over how to handle white mantle, a choice over who to bring to a fight with me, a choice whether to mingle during a party or invade someone's home with brute force (Oh, Logan...), I don't even think those were the only ones.

If you're looking for the Bioware version of choice you'd have to play a Bioware game. Not even an MMO. I'm not knocking you, but the choices in SWTOR were shallow compared to their single-player games, they actually didn't change much besides how you talked to people and how they talked to you. Bioware does choice great in their single-player games, I saw nothing of that in their MMO.

The major difference is BioWares story is interactive.. you are who you want to be... you have no choice in GW2.. and there was nothing about the story that made me want MORE of it.. in SWTOR.... I'll come back for the rest of the story.

I don't feel that it needs to be BioWare exclusive, as far as story is concerned...  GW2 was full of cutscenes.. why did they have to cut the cutscenes short by making conversations so boring to watch.  The most fun I had during a cutscene of a conversation was to see my character speak to the other character from the right side of the screen instead of the left.

In SWTOR, and many other games, mind you,  the story is told with expressions and actions just as much as it is with words.. and thats where the difference shines.

Originally posted by Alot

^

Not completely true, ANet stated that the leveling curve will flatten the leveling curve will flatten after having reached a certain level. This level is probably level 20.

Edit: I'm sorry, I messed up a quote.

Ah,  well I didn't really experience that in my time, so I can't really comment.  Thanks for pointing it out.  Maybe on the next test I'll stick with one character and see how far I can get.

Hopefully we won't have too many more events before launch.

Originally posted by Creslin321

I read just about the whole thing and I enjoyed it, good review.  I agree with you about the personal story.  I never really understood why devs try to package a single player game inside of an MMORPG...single player games always just do it much better.

I think the only thing I disagree with you on is the PvP, I found the WvW more enjoyable than you did, but that may be because I didn't die much due to playing a thief and teleporting away from anyone chasing me lol :).

It did depend on class...  I found that I stayed alive a lot longer as an elementalist where I could throw out nukes from very far away, and use earth and air attunement to run away.  Not to mention I could rez 3 members of my team at any given time, and heal us all to full health with a few skills.

Thieves were the one class that could kill me consistently 1 v 1...  every other class I could stand toe to toe with and whittle them down,  but thieves just disappear on me and come back swinging...   

Originally posted by RizelStar

Nice review and if I'm correct you was very skeptic,I sort of skipped the first post and just looked at the red letters and what not lmao, just being honest.

Bout to go read entire thing.

I do want to say I agree with personal story yet, would of gave it a C myself because the gameplay of the personal story is fun and atleast varied but it's just my opinion any way.

I was pretty skeptical at first,  but was always a supporter.  I am pleased with the end result,  and forsee myself playing for a couple months at least.

To give others a kind of scale.. there is a flat leveling curve.. so how long it takes you to get to level 3 will take the same amount to get from 79 - 80.  With that said,  I played 30 hours and got all characters to at least level 5, .. one to level 15, and one to level 8... so if you add it all up, I could have had a single character in the 40s easily in a single weekend.   Most people should be able to get to max level in under a month... not that it matters in a game like GW2.. but just a point of reference.

Originally posted by marcust

"...gaining weapon skills through use of those weapons is enjoyable"

Please elaborate on this.

Is it a UO/Darkfall kind of increase?

 

 

When you equip a weapon you have either 3 or 5 skills associated with that weapon.

If its a 2 handed weapon you have 5 skills,  one handed weapons have 3 skills and the offhand weapon has 2 skills.

You don't choose the skills,  they come with the weapon, but in order to unlock them, you have to use the weapon.

So you start with just one skill and spam that until the second skill unlocks.  Then as you progress, the third through the 5th unlock over time.  

You don't always know what the skill will do until you have it unlocked, so there is a lot of mystery with different weapons, which eventually will lead to different combinations depending on the weapons you choose.

This weekend I had the pleasure of playing the Beta of GW2.  Most of my play over the weekend was streamed which culminated to over 30 hours of streamed gameplay!  I was able to try all of the classes, all 3 available races, and delve into a lot of the different parts of the game.  I will try to keep each piece short while covering as much as possible.  I am using an Alpha Scale instead of my usual numbering scale, as numbers seem to confuse the masses.

(or you can fast forward to the TL;DR version, color coded for your convenience)

Character Creation:

I created 1 of each race and sex.. meaning 6 characters total.The Charr was by far the most pleasing visually in my opinion,at least in character creation.I was also happy with the amount of choices available for customization, and the use of sliders that actually changed the features was a nice addition.The color palette was a little strange as it felt the colors that I selected were not what showed… but perhaps that was just my color settings.

The questions they ask are largely Race Specific,with only 1 question that I noticed having to deal with your class…and these questions will determine your story from that point forward, with no way to change it… at least with as far as I got.

CHARACTER CREATION: B+

Personal Story:

I went through a number of personal story quests with a few different characters, and for the most part,they all followed a somewhat similar path (depending on your race).In all honesty, they could have just left the story out…with as much as I played a game like SWTOR for its story aspects,playing the personalstory in GW2 is an absolute drag by comparison.You don’t get to choose what you’re saying,and you don’t get to change, even minimally, which direction you can go.Everything is predetermined, and most characters and voice sequences aren’t worth my time.There is no action,just a lot of bantering.

The worst part for me, was that the story quests give you a large amount of XP per quest completed, which made me feel like I should be doing them.  I spent a good portion of time on each of my characters running personal story quests, and it culminates to – not a bad experience,  but not a particularly enjoyable one either.  Money better spent elsewhere in my opinion.

PERSONAL STORY:  D

World/Dynamic Events/Questing:

This is what I spent the majority of my time doing, when I wasn’t PvPing or running the boring personal story.The world is top notch,from the visuals, to the way the events are handled.Some major highlights to the world were the addition of hunting extra Skill Points, which was enjoyable.While they were easily visible on the map,finding exactly what you needed to do to get them wasn’t always so easy,and some were kind of challenging to get.

Finding things to do wasn’t tough,  you can just open your map, and find a little heart,  and once you get there, you usually have a set amount of mundane tasks to do in the area to complete the requisite amount of things to gain favor with the local NPC (which will then give you the ability to use him as a vendor).    Its like you travel to these people on some sort of work release program, where they make you pick apples,  or feed their cows,  or clean up their workshop,  and then, off to the next one.

These are not part of the events.. events happen every so often and are usually somewhat challenging and enjoyable, even if they are mostly,  kill this,  escort that and other various MMO fare.   Overall the world gives you more of an organic feel to progression,  and you can kind of move around and do what feels right while exploring.  Even if you come up to an event that’s 5 levels above you,  you can still participate with the others around you.

WORLD/DE/QUESTING:  A-

Combat: 

The combat in GW2 is superb.  Not to mince words,  the weapon system and gaining weapon skills through use of those weapons is enjoyable, and it definitely makes me want to try all the different weapons for my class.  The first 5 abilities are dependent on your weapon,  the sixth ability is a heal ability, and the last 3 are your skill abilities you unlock as you level. (not counting elite skills and consumables).   Some classes also have other abilities you can use ranging from f1 to f4.   Some classes like the Elementalist and Engineer have abilities that will completely change the bar,  and this is all capable in battle, making your range of abilities much greater than just the original 10 slots.    The dodge mechanic works fairly well,  by double tapping which direction you want to roll,  you can get out of range or completely evade most attacks,  a maximum time of twice consecutively before you need to regenerate your dodge energy.   

The traits system is also pretty neat,  you gain traits starting at level 11, and for every 5 trait points you get an additional passive bonus (you get a passive bonus for each trait point,  but you get a major one every 5 levels).  This is enjoyable simply due to being able to spec into what you like the most, and for it to actually account for something in the end with a massive boost.  For example, on my elementalist, I liked healing in my water attunement.. Each trait point would increase my vitality and healing done.. and would give me health regeneration after 5 points spent.

Overall the combat will be my mainstay here with all of the weapon and skill combinations to try.

COMBAT:  A+

Crafting/Gathering: 

As soon as you get throw into the world (after the tutorial)  you have the option to pick up a few gathering tools at a nearby merchant.  It would be in your best interest to do so if you plan on crafting at all, as I learned very quickly that additional crafting materials are really expensive.   You can buy a sickle, an axe and a pick,  and sometimes you’ll get these on drops as well and all have about 100 uses before you need to buy more.   The crafting professions are all pretty interesting.  I tried Tailoring, Cooking, and leatherworking the most… and I found Cooking to be the most expensive out of all of them,  and tailoring seemed to be the most accessible for me early on. 

Arenanets crafting system was said to allow you to discover new recipes… but in truth,  they help you along most of the way by telling you how many possibilities there are to craft an item with that material,  and how many additional materials are needed to succeed in crafting that item. 

For example:  I could try and craft something by using say,  a mushroom,  and then the bar will light up with other ingredients that would go along with a mushroom.  If I added, say,  some salt,  it might say there are 10 recipes available.  If I add some meat,  maybe 3 recipes left.. and so on.  If at any point something is able to be crafted,  it will light up the crafting indicator and you can then create something – so you won’t be needlessly wasting materials to create items.  Sometimes it only takes 2 materials to craft something.. sometimes it takes all 4,  and it will ALWAYS have a required level to craft items, so even if you have all the materials, you might not have the skill required. (for example, this recipe requires level 75 tailoring,  etc.)

Overall the system is interesting, and enjoyable for the most part.  I would say it isn’t as in depth as some of the other systems we’ve seen,  like SWG,  and doesn’t have that random stat effect that makes systems like SWTOR interesting,  but it does have a nuance to it that makes crafting interesting enough to pursue, and that’s all that matters.

CRAFTING/GATHERING: B

Item Shop: 

Arenanet allowed us to toy with the item shop, and I spent a good amount of time in there, buying items,  looking at all the different stuff you could buy.  What did I end up spending my money on?  XP boosts mostly,  some gold…  I did not find any of the cosmetic items to my liking.  I also bought some mini-pets to run around with.  One was a mini centaur,  one was a frog, and one was an asura I think.  While nothing that was being sold was mandatory,  I did find myself vying after those XP boosts.. and I think Anet understands that convenience is something people are going to pay for.  There were also bag slots,  bank slots,  rez potions,  transmutation stones.. and a lot of other things I didn’t find necessary,  but definitely things that people WILL end up buying due to scarcity,  like keys to chests.

In all my time playing I ran into about 3 chests,  and only 1 key.  I think in time we’ll see that convenience wins out and Anet becomes very profitable, simply due to the steady nature of the game… doing things a little faster really is worth it… and since the boosts are only an hour long, I see them making a good deal of money in a number of different ways – even if it isn’t necessary.

CASH SHOP:  B+

PvP: 

I spent a good portion of my time in W v W v W and I have to say,  it was fun at some points but frustrating at others.  It is most definitely a test of zergs, and nothing more, really.  While I was in small groups that could take supply lines out,  most battles in W v W were large scale sieges on castles,  and it was either we far outnumbered them, or they far outnumbered us.

When you die, you have to spawn way back at your starting point.. or sometimes you get lucky if you hold a garrison closer,  but for the most part, you travel a LONG ways in many cases to get where you need to go… and then you often show up on the wrong side of the battle… for example, you come up on a group attacking the castle instead of being inside the castle defending it.. you are a lone ranger outside throwing pebbles at the angry mob with battering rams and sharp pointy sticks.   Most of the time the battles go on for a long time… depending on how vastly you (or they) are outnumbered.   I rarely found one on one fights in WvW  and I guess you really shouldn’t… as that isn’t the point…  but I feel the worlds are so vast, and the objectives are meant to be done as a group,  so when I’m running solo trying to take out a supply line or siege a castle.. its pretty much pointless.  It’s a lot of traveling and yes, in many cases, its very little reward.

The more structured PvP is a lot of fun though,  and likely what the elitists will go for, or those actually interested in displaying their build and competency to others.  Not the case in W v W where the Zerg rules all.

 PVP:  B

Performance/Sound/Misc: 

I was streaming the entire weekend, and in highly populated areas,  I did get about  9 – 15  FPS.. and by highly populated I mean 30+ characters on screen.  For the most part I was getting a clean and cool 25 – 40 FPS in all other areas, and in some situations.. even with 20+ characters on screen it was more than playable.. so kudos on that.  At one point I was not able to log in, which was frustrating.  I did not experience any crashing, and it was all playable to me.

The music score was very nice and unobtrusive,  I found the voice work to be pretty bad overall, as in, not enjoyable,  but the effects made up for it.

Some miscellaneous things…  The overflow servers are a nice tough,  but a little annoying.  Sometimes when you queue up, the queue will pop to go to your server, but you are in the middle of something, or you don’t want to go and then your only option is to requeue… I’d rather just stay in the overflow server.. so perhaps, instead of an overflow.. just make that a separate instance people can travel back and forth to if they way.  Another issue with the overflow servers is that it will put you back to the beginning of the zone no matter where you are.

Travel times are not fun,  even when you can port everywhere…  running takes time, and traveling across the large expanses can be tedious.. especially when a point you want to port to is contested and you can’t get there… its excruciating to run there …  and even with speed boosts it doesn’t make the travel any more enjoyable.  Think SWTOR pre-sprint.  That’s how it feels in some cases.

Underwater combat still seems hokey to me… I spent a good portion of my time trying to find interesting things to do underwater.. and I didn’t find anything.  Some quests required you to be underwater….  but it didn’t enhance my experience in any way. 

The downed state is a mixed bag…  you don’t get to spend much time finding out what abilities do what until you are already down…  4 will heal you slowly back up to full so you can stand back up.. 3 is usually a movement ability of some kind.. 1 and 2 are usually attacks.  I didn’t find the downed state particularly enjoyable… I think it would have been better if you could also crawl away while you were down too… just kind of round it out, as you can’t always use your movement ability.

Maybe it was just me,  but it seems the Mesmer just isn’t up to par in comparison to the other classes.   Maybe that’s why they saved that class for last as they were still tweaking it… but I died more on my Mesmer from doing basic things than any other class.

Melee classes in general have a tough time in PvE…  ranged gets all the glory with survivability and some classes put out immense ranged damage.  The guardians defensive prowess is as close to a tank as you’re going to get (earth attunement works well too for elementalists),  and the guardian and elementalist can bother be really good healers, so the idea that the “trinity” is gone is a lie… its still there, they just modified it a bit and severely reduced the amount of damage a player can take.

SOUND: A

OVERVIEW/FINAL:

(the TL/DR version)

GW2 is definitely worth the cost.  I found the entire experience enjoyable.  Down to brass tacks though, is it a gaming revolution?  No.  The game definitely feels like a blend of some of the most recent MMOs to date… a little bit of WAR, a little bit of DAOC, a little bit of Tabula Rasa, and a little bit of WoW(and SWTOR).  Its nicely blended into an original experience.  The cash shop will definitely keep  Arenanet in the green. 

The classes are interesting and somewhat diverse. (even though you will run into people who look the same and use the same skills quite often)

The world is beautiful and is a fun experience.

The PvP has its ups and downs but definitely has a little bit of everything for everyone.

The crafting is decent, even if it won’t breed a widespread economy.

The little hidden gems, like NPCs you can talk to, or hidden fights or events are fun, even if they are repetitive. (and they are repetitive…  you will see the same events multiple times during each playthrough.)

FINAL SCORE:  A-

I died a lot on my mesmer,  just didn't like the mesmer very much.  Rarely died on my guardian, elementalist ( if you don't count the one story mission I kept dying and redoing cause I'm stubborn.. it was 5 levels higher than me)  engineer or ranger.

Died plenty on my warrior... and moderately on the necromancer.

Originally posted by WardTheGreat
Mask how can you say range has an advantage? The only advantage in this test I've seen is some of the server lag that was obviously experienced at times in the video. If you watch it, you will see I have so many gap closers, roots, etc.. There is no advantage for ranged.

The entire premise beind a ranged character is to keep the opponent at range, and we don't know, with the people that you killed, if they even had all of their abilities like you did.  More importantly,  melee only warriors end up fodder in seiges unless they are using a ram or  waiting at a safe distance, while ranged characters can nuke from a good ways away, at the safety of their castle.

But on an open field,  in many cases,  melee could and SHOULD be able to kill flimsy ranged characters. (though my engineer was no slouch with a rifle and had a lot of ways to keep melee from getting close,  same with my elementalist)

As I said before though the true advantage for ranged characters is in PvE.  

In PvP you have an equal chance.  Your warrior isn't going to beat every ranged character,  and ranged characters aren't going to beat every melee character.  My elementalist is really strong, especially with earth attunement,  but I was taken down by a thief more than once.  Meanwhile I also danced around warriors and guardians.  Its more about the player in PvP.  In PvE, its about game mechanics... melee characters get the shaft when bosses can 1 and 2 hit you if you make a mistake,  and its easy to make a mistake when you are right up in the bosses face.

Originally posted by aesperus

 

Good post.  I agree.  Nice to hear someone took the time with the engineer.  I spent a bit of time with one and found they were a lot of fun,  and the rifle spec for me was possibly one of my favorites that I played.  Really awesome to hear about all the turrets working together.

Its all dependant on the player,  but ranged does have a very strong advantage, and a much easier learning curve...

not to mention range is still favored mostly in PvE.

Thats it folks!  I've given it my all,  and have nearly 30 hours of footage recorded and streamed at the original link.

I will be putting out a (somewhat) short review soon, going over everything I tested which includes:

PvP

Item Shop

Crafting

Gathering

Events

Soloing

Grouping

Classes

Traits

Performance

Amongst the usual sound and graphics.  I'll try and keep it concise.

Live Stream has started again.

The ranger is my second favorite class,  and I like the variety they have in abilities.  The reason I like the elementalist is simply due to the heavy support nature of most of their attunements.  

I'm trying to decide if I should go ranger or elementalist on launch... and it is a dead toss up.

Engineer is alright, once you get some packs.. but the grenade pack is useless unless you're in a group and nobod is focusing you.  The medic pack is even more useless as the heals are minimal in comparison to the elementalist heals... and the turrets seem to be bugged sometimes, as the flame turret I used just disappeared after it attacked something.  No, it wasn't destroyed,  it just disappeared and didn't return.

Warrior I thought was good,  with very strong melee attacks,  but it seems, as in with most MMOs,  the advantage goes to ranged classes,  and the warrior can use rifles and such too.. so they aren't so bad.

I found it completely possible to go to areas as much as 5 levels above me and complete the events there as long as some others were around.    I'm not saying everyone should do it that way,  but it is completely possible to take on higher level areas.

There are some issues I take with the way the world is....  I'm slightly disappointed that levels work as they do... but I'm hoping that tapers off once you have all of your abilities.  

Don't want to get into it until I write my prelaunch review... but,  I do agree that there is definitely a "hub" you have to pay attention to.

Originally posted by dontadow

If you need a healer, you need to learn how to use dodge and get out of the way.  You can literally just move out of the way of some hits, read your opponents. 

You CAN NOT play this game like u do other MMOS, and when i see lots of death in dungeons, i notice that's what other people are doing. I see some idiot up there trying to take a billion hits, not moving out the way, he's the first to die.  I see some crazed loon off in the corner firing fireballs, practically putting a target on his back, no movement no dodging. 

Forget other MMOs, the best practice for GW2 is a game like God of War. A game where you have to learn how to block and dodge.  I realized that my playing that has really helped me with this game.

I talked about it in another post, but it applies here.

There's a vampire crypt in the char lands.  The above is what happened the first few times with novice players. The last time, I went into hte crypt with 6 other people, but we all knew what we all had a strong grasp of our characters.

Characters through out heals and put down turrets when they retreated from battle. IN GW2, learn to be a coward, learn to step away from the battle, hide behind something, get your hp back.  This is agreat time to boon or heal.  

When youre damaging, watch for combo fields, smoke, fire that lingers, shoot or stab into them.  Watch the positioning of your other players, players huddled together is never a good thing.  

When you're up front, watch close for animation of the enemy swinging or about to hit and get out of the way, dodging sideways works better than dodging back.  

When players know their characters, this game works better as cooperative play than any MMO out there.  I know some folk think team work is spamming heals or yelling "hit me" while the dumb boss attacks just you.  Good luck with that.  GW2 is certainly teamwork like it is in real life.  You are always in the battle. You don't have time to sit there and type up a paragraph of tactics as you're fighting.  You need to look at what your teammates are doing and figure out what skill works with that, look at what hte boss is doing and figure out what your next move is and how you can help out the most.  Observe the battle field and revive fallen combatants when they've been downed (and when its safe). 

Your character build can not be one dimensional.  You need a character that can be good at all 3 phases of play to be effective.  I can heal with my healing turret, do a ton of damage with my rifle/bomb combos and control the battlefield using conditional explosives.  

 

This is not good advice entirely.

While playing solo, you are right, you have no choice but to dodge to stay alive, because self healing isn't as simple as it is in other games.  Group healing is different,  and support classes in general are very different.   You require a group that sticks together for the strongest heals (that I've seen so far anyways)  to take effect.

I stay in one of two support roles the entire time,  either my water attunement or my earth attunement.  Earth is really good to be on the forefront because you can reflect projectiles, and you can put up a lot of slows and stuns.. and I couple that with some other mitigation techniques such as an elemental glyph.

But i stay in my water attunement the most, and thats where I have my traits set, which increases my healing potential.  (yes you get a boost to a healing stat.  Hows that for no dedicated healers?)   When you are in a group and you know you have a water attuned healer,  its important to have an eye for where the heals are going.   These abilities are very good for keeping players alive, but even in the best situation, it can't overheal large amounts of damage.  In that sense I can keep an entire team alive when they understand where the heals are going to hit, and its evident the majority of players don't yet understand it.

For example, I saw another elementalist using the geyser as an offensive skill...   its not..     

I understand its the first time a lot of us have played and theres a bit of learning as far as skills are concerned,  but the game isn't that tough to grasp,  and it isn't action-y enough to warrant extensive action-game playing to get your footing.  By the time you reach level 10 you will pretty much be proficient in your class.  I really don't like people making this combat out to be harder than it is.  As far as complexities sake,  its not much different than standard MMO fare,  just.. now you can cast (most abilities) on the move.