Guild Wars weekend

[Kevin]

I'm really enjoying the game, the only thing I really hate is the lack of an autorun.  However since I'm the groups primary healer, I just follow people with the spacebar and hang in the back.
-MB
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Hit the 'W' key twice quickly and you can auto-run.

[Wyrm]

And if anyone figures out how to invert the mouse, TELL ME!
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I thought I saw that as an option in the config screen under control config.

Anyways, I'm Andras Adams.

[Taem]

Hit the 'W' key twice quickly and you can auto-run.
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I made a Ranger/Mesmer and the Ranger has Quick Run (or at least something like it) as a skill which boosts my speed for, I believe, 10 seconds. It's pretty nifty and helps me to escape/charge foes.

[Raven Vale]

The options etc are up in the top right of the screen , once you open that window there are other options , one of these will invert your mouse .

Lurker Raven :P

[Walkiry]

The options etc are up in the top right of the screen , once you open that window there are other options , one of these will invert your mouse .

Lurker Raven :P
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That was added yesterday in one of the late patches or today, because when I installed it it wasn't there.

I'm happy now :)

(Options -> Control Setup -> There's a new clickable box for mouse invert, woot!)

[LochnarITB]

Stupid game makes me a liar and a fool!

This morning I passed on partying with Drasca because "it's 4:30 and almost my bed time". Three hours later I find myself still playing. LIAR! While playing in The Wilds, there are overhanging branchs and other foliage and the path wanders through valleys and along cliffs that block line of sight. Each time I move my head to try to see under that branch or around the next corner i think, "FOOL!"

I hate this game... 12 hours left.... ummm, gotta go, uhh, party - yeah that's it - party with some mergoyles and oakhearts.

note to self - pre-order

:P

[TPJ]

The Basin has been pretty impressed with the game so far (nearly all of us!). There is a group of 12 of us who will be participating in the closed Alpha of the game and we hope to address some of the issues that have come up (provided they are 'in' the game and not just in the WPE).

I believe I'll be playing this instead of WoW.

[kandrathe]

...
I believe I'll be playing this instead of WoW.
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I played for about 12- 15 hours over the past few days and it was very enjoyable. I was invited to play WoW in the stress test beta, but I was unable to get the entire game loaded in the limited time I was given to test. I would still like to spend some time in Wow before I decide, but I like the idea of a fixed price. There was plenty of content I never got to explore, and I think the GW team can continue to add content ad infinitum.

Some of the most fun I had was with a Necro Ranger, and teamed up with various groups (including Bolty and his cute healer girl :) ). There was a little lag, but mostly I had very little trouble.

[Artega]

Closed Alpha? Is this what they were talking about in the pre-order box? If so, wouldn't it make more sense to put a Beta out to a group of people, and keep an Alpha in-house?

[Roland]

Stupid game makes me a liar and a fool!

This morning I passed on partying with Drasca because "it's 4:30 and almost my bed time".  Three hours later I find myself still playing.  LIAR!  While playing in The Wilds, there are overhanging branchs and other foliage and the path wanders through valleys and along cliffs that block line of sight.  Each time I move my head to try to see under that branch or around the next corner i think, "FOOL!"

I hate this game...  12 hours left....  ummm, gotta go, uhh, party - yeah that's it - party with some mergoyles and oakhearts.

note to self - pre-order

:P
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OMG! I did the same thing to you! HAHAHA! Except I played Far Cry. ;)

As for Guild Wars - not overly impressed. I pre-ordered it, I'll continue to beta test it, and I'll buy it, but I doubt I'll be playing it over WoW.

[Wyrm]

Well, just ended. Was a good weekend overall. Skill system is ok, though it'd be nice to have more than just 8 of your skills available during missions (not that you'd need them if you actually knew what you were doing, but still).

Ended pretty nice for me, took down Hablion right as it ended (with the help of Drasca, of course).

I think I might get it if I can ever get a job (and thus, money).

[Roland]

Well, just ended.  Was a good weekend overall.  Skill system is ok, though it'd be nice to have more than just 8 of your skills available during missions (not that you'd need them if you actually knew what you were doing, but still).

Ended pretty nice for me, took down Hablion right as it ended (with the help of Drasca, of course).

I think I might get it if I can ever get a job (and thus, money).
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The 8 skills doesn't bother me in the least. I like having to make tactical decisions, even if it leaves me a little short-handed mid-game. So long as I can overcome that through skillful playing, and not have to rely 100% on guesswork of what skills I'll need, I think the system will be fine.

What I find troublesome is the thought of having 150+ skills per character. Not only is that a HUGE burden to the developers to produce, test, balance, etc., but also to the player! What's more, with that large a pool of skills, there's bound to be a LARGE (well over hald) percentage of skills that are just flat-out unfavorable - in other words, more D2-esque playstyling. Changing skills depending on the mission will be much the same as D2, except more tactical since you can't change mid-mission, but overall I see it being more of the same - cookie cutter builds, through and through. THAT is what disturbs me.

At least with Dark Age of Camelot, despite the abundancy of cookie cutter builds, there are so many pathway combinations to choose from that actually ARE viable, even if they're not 100% godly, that you don't have 100% cookie cutter builds. Paladins, for example, are a very cookie cutter class in DAoC. However, it's also quite easy to make other flavors of Paladins, without giving in to the steamroll of the masses - Paladins are one of my favorite classes in that game, and I regularly tried out multiple pathway choices with several different Paladins - and that barely scratched the surface.

As I've said all along, I just don't see the draw. There were some things I felt were "neat", particularly the mission-based instancing and the limited skillset per mission, but other than pretty graphics (nothing mind-blowing, and actually kinda drab after awhile, but not ugly by any means) and good sound (musically, anyway - sound effects are about par; nothing worth getting excited over), the game just doesn't grab me. I'll still buy it the day it comes out (already pre-ordered, and all), if only because I like to try lots of new games, and because I want to support the developers. But I just don't see the charm of the game that so many people seem to have emanating from their very pores.

Keep in mind, however, I played a grand combined total of maybe 4 - 6 hours all weekend, so I experienced only ONE mission (with Lochnar), and only a handful of skills / characters. So don't take my word as sage advice - it's far from it. I haven't experienced the game NEARLY enough to make any judgement calls on it, other than what I already have made - WoW looks to appeal to me MUCH more than Guild Wars, but I'll still end up getting both on sale day.

I like the idea behind the choosing of skills, I like the idea of mission-based combat, and I love the dual-class system, but there's just not enough meat to the gameplay to suck me in for even a full gaming session (i.e. 4+ hours of non-stop gaming that leaves me hungry for more when I finally leave). I played Morrowind and was lost for weeks. Likewise to Battlefield, Planetside, Dark Age of Camelot, and countless other games. Guild Wars just doesn't do it for me yet.

We'll see what the future holds. Because I pre-ordered, I get into all the weekend beta tests, so I'll be sure to test in the future. And, I have a one-shot beta slot for a single weekend available to give to a friend, so if anyone is truly interested, drop a post under this one, and I'll choose someone to receive it.

[Drasca]

My god. I played all weekend. Got two characters to level 20 (max)!! AND finished all the coop missions. Got near the level 30 dragon, but only close to the level 24 fortresses.

Did everything. I like the tactical choice and versatility too. I ended up as a tank that could survive all hell for a good twenty seconds minimum against 8 players attacking.

One of the Mission end bosses couldn't lay a hand on my Warrior Monk. Oh the memories. I wish I took more screenshots! BUT I have a few good ones. They'll be coming... muahahaha.

[Walkiry]

I'm going to change the tune and say that overall I wasn't as impressed with the game as I had hoped :)

First thing: I actually liked the skill system, sort of. Yeah, having 8 skills only is a bit of a pain, but it allows me to change the focus of my character easily between missions. I could go from a typical ranger to a dual R/W or even make a mini-tank if necessary by schuffling skills around, although I'm always a lot more effective with the primary (Ranger) skills. Of course, the downside is that you can't adapt to different situations on the fly; in the case of cooperative missions, it means you'll almost never make it on your first try if the mission has any "strange" difficult step (which means henchmen won't cut it). I remember the 5th mission, where after some unsuccessful tries we finally went to get the exact set of skills that could be needed to play tag with the White Mantle guys, including me picking up no less than three different sprinting skills. Seriously, who walks into a mission with three sprint/escape skills in normal circumstances (a coward?)? (This ties nicely with Roland's comment about cookie-cutting).

Also everything, everything, requires a team. I'm not too antisocial or anything like that, but sometimes I like to just go in and whack a couple of things. Well, not in this game no. Want to solo? My level 19 R/W could easily get her butt kicked by level 14-15 mobs, so not very likely. Also, the fact that the henchmen were better than half of the players I've teamed with doesn't help (I mean, at one point we were teamed with a warrior that, to the tune of "NAKED POWER!!" charged into mobs of mobs armour-less to be slaughtered over and over).

Which brings me to the next point, and it is that the level of dedication the missions demand from the player is far too high for my liking. One little slip and... bam! Full team wipe. The game is severely inflexible regarding "player roles", and you bet you need that Tank/Firepower/Healer combo for every single fight you'll find. I could make myself a half-tank kind of warrior, but unless it was just to give a hand to a pure warrior doing the tanking, I'd be wiped in no time.

And jeez, full 15% death penalty if your pet dies? I liked my level 17 birdy, but after a while it became obvious I couldn't be using him much. Guess I'll have to get one of those "bone thingy making" skills if I want pets.

Crafting is pretty much what I expected. You'll have to get a bloatload of ingredients just to make a patched set of trousers, which become useless after the next crafted item of the same category just two levels afterwards. Nothing new here (other than smacking things silly being the only way to obtain them).

That said, I may buy it, but only because there's no monthly fee attached to it. Just like every other game, I'll buy it, play it for a while, then drop it when I get bored. I doubt it'll take longer than a month or two, but that's enough playing time to warrant a purchase.

[Brista]

I enjoyed it immensely

I suspect that the rather nicely worked character system will not have the replay value of Diablo 2

At one point I alternated between elements on my elementalist, trying out each one on successive missions. It's a bit - oh that's what that does then? - then revert to the old favourite. Eventually I just used Fire Storm and my secondary class's healing spells as healing seemed much more in demand and useful than damage

I thought the PvE missions were great, but I doubt you'd replay them very much. I played most missions a few times each and got the feeling I've seen almost all of it in 2 days

Where the game does have the capability to keep player interest is in pvp. I did quite a lot of this, it is really good fun

The random arenas make it very accessible to find pickup groups or less serious pvp and the gvg matches you against someone of (allegedly) equal skill. Nice to win a few and get some points for the guild (I was with the Basin). Of course winning bumped us up to the point we met well-honed killing machines and so the points didn't last too long :lol:

I think I'll be playing. I don't think playing this precludes playing other games as it seems to be designed to let you max out your character fast and pvp as opposed to offering a deep pve experience

[kandrathe]

Maybe. I tried 3 builds.

A Monk/Mesmer -- Which I quickly found that being a good monk was in high demand. The NPC monk is far more reactive and less distracted by gameplay, however she always hangs back with the pokiest people in the team, while most of the healing needs are at the tip of the spear. I never figured out Mesmer too much, but seeing how deadly some of the Mesmer monsters were, I would imagine one could make a viable Mesmer.

A Warrior/Elementalist -- Lots of attack power and the better the weapon the better the warrior. I was doing about 30 dmg average per hit, with special attacks doubling that about every 30 seconds. But with good human backup it was easy, although I felt at times like the meat shield waiting for the magic to do the big damage (meteor). The Elementalist seems very powerful, but it does take some time to get the spells fired off.

A Necro/Ranger -- For this character I ended up focusing on Necro much more than any Ranger skills. I was finding much more powerful smiting rods than bows, so it ended up that even the standard attack with the smiting rod was better than anything I could do with any bow I found. The real power was in summoning undead horrors, and maintaining a troop of 6-8 of them and targeting them properly on the Team's target. I ended last night with a group of 6 humans and we waltzed thru the Fen and Aurora missions in less than 45 minutes each. It was my first time, but some of the others in the group said it was never so easy. One thing I noticed was that the horrors would engage all the enemy so that the enemy would not engage the stand off players.

I had more trouble playing solo (w/henchmen) because the henchmen get themselves into trouble to easily. Many times I ended up aborting the mission, because I was the lone survivor of the group. So I think the tendency will be for people to desire human company rather than NPC's.

So anyway, having seen any number of viable builds so far, I disagree with the cookie cutter charge this early. But it is true that some skills are less than balanced at this point. For instance, Ranger familiars. The beasts are suicidal, and if killed give the Ranger a -15% penalty. They never get very powerful, and there are any number of Ranger skills associated with the familiar. I think the death penalty is too high, and the power of the familiar is too low. A ranger would never want to take a familiar into PvP.

They fixed alot of things I despised about multiplayer Diablo II (granted eventually Blizzard fixed some of this). Gold is shared and item drops are predesignated to an individual. The skills system is still in development and there is very little balancing at this point. I hope they work on that before the initial release in February, because nothing PO's people more than having THE skills they have centered a character around totally nerfed. PvP is a focus of the game, but it is done in an arena or guild setting and is not disruptive to the PvE players.

I think I will preorder this game and play it quite a bit come February.

[Treesh]

I know I won't be pre-ordering or even purchasing this game. The combat was fun (except for the hatred that the monk henchmen had towards me ;) ), but I just didn't really like the game. I didn't like the crafting, I didn't like the PvP (because I didn't like the random teams and I didn't have enough people around for the team/guild PvP), and there just wasn't really anything but fighting in the game. I can see why a lot of people would like it, but it's just not for me. If I am forced to be in a guild (which is fine in a game called "Guild Wars" ;) ), I want to be a crafter for the guild. That's just the way I am and I can't do that in Guild Wars so they won't be getting my money.

[Roland]

I think I'll be playing. I don't think playing this precludes playing other games as it seems to be designed to let you max out your character fast and pvp as opposed to offering a deep pve experience
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Which is EXACTLY what DOESN'T draw me to this game: weak PvE, but strong PvP (which I couldn't care less about). I never have enjoyed PvP in an RPG, and I never will. It's just not my thing. Past sourances aside, it's just never held the same appeal to me as the environment, IMO, is not nearly as suited to such gameplay as, say, an FPS.

It finally hit me the truth behind the draw to this game: those who like it like it for the PvP aspect; the PvE aspect is only a sidedish, and only enjoyable with a good group of people. Those who don't see it only for PvE playing, and thus are sorely disappointed.

I'll still buy the game. But will I enjoy it? Probably not nearly as much as I'd hoped to. But, time will tell. There's still about six months left before the game comes out, and PLENTY of beta tests inbetween then and now, so mayhap things will change. I WILL try to follow the game via the betas - let's just hope things shape up a little better. As it stands now, it literally is just that - a beta. Mayhap little more than a alpha, truth be told.

[TPJ]

Closed Alpha?  Is this what they were talking about in the pre-order box?  If so, wouldn't it make more sense to put a Beta out to a group of people, and keep an Alpha in-house?
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No, they aren’t the same thing.

If you buy the preorder box, you get to participate in beta testing the first weekend of every month. I would imagine that the build they used for the WPE will be from the same tree as the ones they’ll use for these weekend events.

I was talking about the closed Alpha that The Basin applied for and was accepted into. That testing is being done with NDAs that need to be signed and sent back to ArenaNet via snail mail. Probably a much different build.

[LochnarITB]

It finally hit me the truth behind the draw to this game: those who like it like it for the PvP aspect; the PvE aspect is only a sidedish, and only enjoyable with a good group of people. Those who don't see it only for PvE playing, and thus are sorely disappointed.
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Well, it was established yesterday that we don't agree so why break with tradition. :P I have no interest in PvP. None. Nada. Zip. I enjoyed the PvE. It was enjoyable with good people but not only with good people. When I found that henchmen were available to fill out parties, I was pleased. It is the feature I wanted which turns the co-op areas into pseudo-solo play. I don't have to deal with the foibles of real players. I don't have to find a group that wants to explore the entire area rather than bolting for the finish so they can move on to the next mission. As I've said before, I'm a "kill every monster, explore every path, pop every chest" kind of player. I do want the henchman feature refined. I want to be able to select more than one of each type. I want to have every type available. I want to control them to the extent that they can be told to hold their ground, guard me or attack on sight.

Even if they don't incorporate such changes, I will still enjoy the game. They would simply improve it. I have never played a game under subscription and probably wouldn't play this one if it wasn't a free server. I have played several previews of subscription games and none have given me the feel that Guild wars does. They all seemed too "open" - in a geographic sense, not necessarily in what you could do next. Guild wars gives me the feel of a dungeon crawl set in a detailed 3D world. I don't need to walk up the side of that mountain just because it is there. If I want to wander, I'll walk out the door of my house and do it in RL. I want objectives and figuring out the paths to and the obstacles set in the way of those objectives.

I am going to pre-order but I am torn as to where. Part of the pre-order bonus is an in-game item unique to the retailer. I would like the Ithas Bow that comes with an EB Games pre-order. However, my second choice would be the Kathan Targe offered in the Best Buy pre-order. The problem is that Best Buy offers a deluxe version that includes a Logitech headset and Roger Wilco software. I would like this for use in the game as well as other games and even messaging friends and family. Does anyone have experience with Roger Wilco, either gaming or other applications? Is it worth an extra $10 and settling for my second choice item? Inquiring minds want to know.