Guild Wars 2 general discussion

[Pleonast]

@Headrush042

You can join multiple guilds across multiple servers, but you can only “represent” one at a time.

Any idea what that means?

@mlees

I like how there is no longer competition for resource nodes anymore. (For example: copper ore nodes.)

Everybody seems to have a shot at the same node locations, and everyones node timers are independant of each other. (I can mine a copper node, see it dissapear, and watch another player run up and mine the invisible-to-me node.)

I didn’t know that. Very, very nice. I also like that it doesn’t take a crafting skill slot to be able to gather mats. Although it does require consumables.

[Suburban_Plankton]

@Pleonast

One question I have about guilds. I’ve heard it’s possible to join more than one guild. Anyone know how that works? And guilds can be cross server? Is there any reason we shouldn’t start a SDMB guild?

We should start an SDMB Guild. And we should probably do it soon, while Server transfers are still free. Because even if Guilds can be cross-server, PvP (at least the WvWvW type) is Server vs. Server, so it would be nice for guildies to all be able to play together there.

I keep getting so hung up trying to find all the vistas/waypoints/skill challenges/ points of interest/other stuff that pops up unezxpectedly, that I haven’t really made time to look into things like guilds, crafting, skillpoints (I think I have 6 that I need to use)…

If someone wants to take the initiative and start up a Guild for Dopers, I’m in…and if not I’ll do it myself as soon as I figure out how.

[Athena]

Where is everyone? I started out on Jade Quarry, but I guess that was considered one of the more crowded servers, so now I’m on Gates of Madness.

[Kiros]

I am enjoying the heck out of this game; I’ve lost more sleep than I care to admit, and I’ll probably hit 80 by the middle of this weekend. I absolutely love a lot of what they’ve done, especially with the scope of the world, the cities, the way the extremely solo friendly open world PvE stuff works, the lack of competition for harvesting/quest/etc nodes, I could go on and on. I am less convinced by the PvP at this point, especially the WvW, but a lot of people seem to love this particular implementation, so more power to them. On top of that, they probably had the best MMO launch ever in terms of people being able to log in successfully and play the game without lag/server crashes/etc.

The part that confuses me is that everything that they’ve messed up is stuff that has been a ‘solved problem’ in the MMO space, often for many years. Issues with grouping, both mechanics and user interface. Guild and raid interface (and a lot of the social functions in general). Being locked in to an inflexible default UI like it’s ten years ago. The various slash commands that work in every other MMO are non existent. The damn Auction House isn’t even up yet.

This is the best MMO at release maybe ever, but it could have been even more perfect by spending some time looking at (to use a recent example) Rift’s level of polish with the basic stuff. Oh well, it won’t stop me from logging in as soon as I get home tonight!

P.S. Someone needs to tell ArenaNet that blue items are better than green items. 'Cause the way it is now is just messed up.

[Athena]

@Kiros

The part that confuses me is that everything that they’ve messed up is stuff that has been a ‘solved problem’ in the MMO space, often for many years. Issues with grouping, both mechanics and user interface. Guild and raid interface (and a lot of the social functions in general). Being locked in to an inflexible default UI like it’s ten years ago. The various slash commands that work in every other MMO are non existent. The damn Auction House isn’t even up yet.

P.S. Someone needs to tell ArenaNet that blue items are better than green items. 'Cause the way it is now is just messed up.

Oh no kidding on the slash commands and green > blue. Really, ArenaNet? BACKSPACE to respond to a whisper? You can’t just use /r the way every other game has done for the past 10 years?

Of course, you can always remap (which I’ve done) but still, I don’t see why they had to do these standard things differently.

[Lightnin]

@Athena

Oh no kidding on the slash commands and green > blue. Really, ArenaNet? BACKSPACE to respond to a whisper? You can’t just use /r the way every other game has done for the past 10 years?

Of course, you can always remap (which I’ve done) but still, I don’t see why they had to do these standard things differently.

It’s funny- I always remap my respond key to Backspace. I use the r key for autorun.

[mlees]

@Pleonast

Any idea what that means?

You can only have characters on one server.

You must pay (I believe) real dollars and have them transfered if you wish to play on another server at all.

[Pleonast]

My main character is currently “Bliss Wildchild” on Tarnished Coast. I always pick a RP server by default.

I wish there was area loot instead of clicking multiple corpses or the F key several times.

@Lightnin

It’s funny- I always remap my respond key to Backspace. I use the r key for autorun.

Heh, I always remap reply to Backspace, also. I think I picked it up in CoH.

I also set auto-run to Ctrl+W, walk to Ctrl+Q, and A and D to strafe instead of turn.

@mlees

You can only have characters on one server.

You must pay (I believe) real dollars and have them transfered if you wish to play on another server at all.

Actually, I was wonder what “representing” a guild meant.

But I thought you could play on another server by grouping with a player from there.

[Suburban_Plankton]

You can play with someone on another server by “guesting” on their server; however, that functionality has not been implemented yet. But they also have not yet started charging for Server transfers, so for the moment you can hop from one server to the next at will. It will log you off do make the change, but it only takes 30 seconds or so in my experience.

I currently have a Norn Ranger named “Subur” (no last name) on Northern Shiverpeaks, but I’m willing to relocate

[Cubsfan]

@Kinthalis

I’m finding that I don’t really like MMO’s, despite my initial interest in just baout everyone that comes out.

Hated WoW, for example. The moment I spawned (on top of like 3 other guys, clipping through their bodies) and saw the dated environments I was already unhappy. There was no story, nothing. I was dropped into the world unceremoniously. The immediate quests involved smiting critters for their organs without any reason as to why. Which I didn’t immediately fault the game for, I figured they need to teach you about combat in some way. But after like the 5th such quest I was bored.

The entire novelty of hundreds of people in the same world with me also quickly dissipated. It turned out not to be very interesting as it amounted to a bunch of people standing around quest givers or armies of “heroes” smashing little critters to pulp in order to collect x body part.

The combat is also rather mind numbing. It’s the kind of combat that I LOVE when it’s part of a tactical single player game where you’re controlling a party of characters (Baldur’s gate, Dragon Age), but it’s incredibly boring when you’re controlling just one, single character.

I gave SWTOR a chance as well, precisely because it promised to do away with some of what I didn’t like about WOW. A meaty, personal story that you can tackle by yourself or in co-op! More action oriented combat!

But it fell flat, IMHO. Combat was way to similar to WoW, the story was better, but it still lacked the immersion of a true single player experience, not to mention that most quests devolved into fetch grinds anyway. And of course the weirdness of having a bunch of other people crowding around quest givers and armies desperately hovering about waiting for enemies to respawn in order to harvest body part y, was still ever present.

The graphics were like something out of 2007 to boot!

So maybe MMO’s jsut aren’t for me, but I see guild wars, and the same things that annoyed me about other MMO’s are again supposedly being done away with.

Combat - supposedly more action based.

Story - personal and nuanced, with options that impact your path through it.

Other players - involved in random and interesting dynamic events vs ruining immersion by doing the whole MMO meta game stuff they usually do.
So is this game something I should give a shot? Or should I just give up on the MMO genre?

This was pretty much my position too. I’ve got the game and I’ll tell you it doesn’t do much to change your mind on MMOs IMHO.

[mlees]

OK, sorry if I gave out some bad [crooked] Dope.

I was basing my info on the FAQ I read when I logged in to GW2 for the very first time last Saturday. (Where the system makes you read the User’s Agreement and stuff.)

[Skammer]

Hmmm… I’ve been playing New Republic since launch but I’m intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.

I wonder what my wife will say about shelling out $60 for another MMO, but with the no monthly fee I’ll break even in four months (I won’t tell her that SWTOR is going F2P soon anyway ).

[Cubsfan]

Just wanted to add that I think one of the things that really takes away from the game for me is that the graphics are so BLAH. This is endemic of all MMORPGs in my experience. They are built to run on as many various computers as possible so ultimately the good computers suffer as a result.

Although GW2 is a whopping 25 GB. Not sure how much larger it could have been.

[Suburban_Plankton]

I’ve formed the Tyria Chapter of the Burning Dog Legion (BDL). It’s open to all Dopers; just let me know. I’m Subur, on Northern Shiverpeaks.

[Arrogance_Ex_Machina]

@Kinthalis

So is this game something I should give a shot? Or should I just give up on the MMO genre?

One more vote of don’t waste your money. I like it, it’s a well-made game, but it’s a MMO and belongs clearly to the post-WoW fantasy MMO family. It’s different enough that it feels like a new game and it has a big enough budget that it is impressive, something that can’t be said for most WoW-clones … but still, for a WoW expat like me it was a bit like coming home after a long journey.

[Gukumatz]

Guild Wars has their own subreddit where they publish what they’re working on. There was a quite substantial update today which is definitely worth reading.

http://www.reddit.com/r/Guildwars2/comments/z3qqm/guild_wars_2_status_thursday_august_30/

Most noteworthy is the exploit bans - I was tipped off about this earlier today, someone pointed out an easy way to make a buck. Looks like those who exploited it heavily were permabanned, so score one for my moral integrity!

[Headrush042]

@Pleonast

Actually, I was wonder what “representing” a guild meant.

In the guild interface, it lists all the guilds you belong to. You click on one, you see the roster as well as who is online. You’lll also have two buttons – “stand down” and “represent.” When you’re representing a guild, your actions earn influence for that guild, you’re a part of the guild chat, you have access to the guild bank, etc. Normal guild stuff. If you’re not representing, it acts like you’re not in the guild but you can still see who’s on and where they are via the interface so you can decide whether or not you want to switch over.

[Raza]

I picked up the game at lunch. Given that we have at least one member that has created a guild on Northern Shiverpeaks, I’ll probably create a character there.

[Suburban_Plankton]

@Raza

I picked up the game at lunch. Given that we have at least one member that has created a guild on Northern Shiverpeaks, I’ll probably create a character there.

Ooohhh…I feel all important now

[Raza]

Well, all this assumes that this guild allows nudity.