Guild Wars 2 - The Thread

[Arcanum]

Creative title, eh? Well who cares about the title of the thread since we're talking about Guild Wars, i.e. holy fuck I can barely contain my fangasm over this game.

Anyway, the game is now available for pre-purchase, which you can do so here or at certain retailers. Pre-purchasing gives you some items once the game comes out, access to the game 3 days before it's officially out, and most importantly access to all of the beta events.

And really the true purpose of this thread is to find out who among all of you are as excited for this game as I am, and if you will be in the beta, and which server we shall play on (but even then, home servers are more for World versus World and Guilds, since players can visit other servers at a whim).

If, for some reason, you aren't hyped about this game then it's probably because you live under a rock. Have no fear, for the internet holds all you could ever want to know about this game. But sifting through a wiki can be boring, so there's more!

To start us off, the Yogscast (and I don't normally watch these guys, I just stumbled onto their coverage) has 32 videos about the game including descriptions and demonstrations of the weapons skills of each profession.

Here's the elementalist one, just to get you started

But what's that? You want to read the skill descriptions at your leisure, as well as examine the Trait system? Well then help yourself to this character builder.

This is the elementalist build I threw together, and feel free to share your own builds.

Anyway, who's going to prepurchase and get into the beta events? What profession are you excited to play? Have you seen some of the World vs. World videos out there? Discuss! Fangasm! Be pessimistic (because I'm sure there are a few of you :P)!

[Amake]

Guild Wars always seemed like a decent game except for the part where they expect you to play with other people. Any chance that's changed? (Yeah right.)

[Toast]

Well, I would have pre-purchased by now, but I keep getting an error message, so I'll try again later.

Definitely looking forward to the game. While I do want to try out all the classes, I'm most excited about playing guardian, ranger, and necromancer.

Although that is a good character builder, and the one I've used several times, I would like to mention that all skills and traits are subject to change between each beta.

Originally Posted by Amake

Guild Wars always seemed like a decent game except for the part where they expect you to play with other people. Any chance that's changed? (Yeah right.)

Grouping has changed significantly. Compared to the original gw, you don't have to group for any content except for explorable mode dungeons.

Compared to other mmos, you won't be competing with other players over kills, material spawns, quests, etc. Dynamic events scale to the number of players available. There's no kill stealing, everyone gets rewarded based on their contribution. There's no ally-targeting skills, everything is based on positioning. There's no dedicated healers or tanks, so you are responsible for your own survival.

[The Artist Formerly Known as Hawk]

I loved Factions and Nightfall and I've been loving everything I've seen of GW2, but like most pc games I just won't be able to rn it, meaning this is yet another amazing game that I'll never get to play.

[Doc ock rokc]

MESMESERS ARE SO BOSS. Literally how they made them is so freaking interesting.

[synkr0nized]

Originally Posted by Doc ock rokc

MESMESERS ARE SO BOSS. Literally how they made them is so freaking interesting.

At first, they weren't in GW2. I did not understand how you could not only fail to include a totally terrific class but also one of the classes pretty unique to your fantasy MMO/CMO game. I still open GW just to play mesmer and raise the dead on my necro or spirits with my rit and use heals that are preventative instead of reactive. There's a lot to like.

[Oron]

Ever since GW2 was announced way back when, I've been skeptical about the shift to open worlds. I like the closed world system in GW. Seems like the new battle and PvP mechanic will make up for it, though. And I guess it will make things more convenient when friends want to join you while you're in the middle of something.

[Doc ock rokc]

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

At first, they weren't in GW2. I did not understand how you could not only fail to include a totally terrific class but also one of the classes pretty unique to your fantasy MMO/CMO game. I still open GW just to play mesmer and raise the dead on my necro or spirits with my rit and use heals that are preventative instead of reactive. There's a lot to like.

I think it was because of complaints. Mesmers in GW had two speeds, "Stiff wind can knock me over" and "Everything in front of me is fuckin' dead." It made them that lethal joke class in many peoples eyes.

[synkr0nized]

Originally Posted by Doc ock rokc

Mesmers in GW had two speeds, "Stiff wind can knock me over" and "Everything in front of me is fuckin' dead."

The former was too true in many ways for a while. The latter, too, mid-Factions, especially with Me/N. It's almost like they didn't know how well draining enemies worked (edit: not to imply you can't still destroy groups with Mesmers -- you certainly can!! Rather that, as memory serves, drain builds were seriously, retardedly crazy around then). But, then again, this is GW - the devs have always been kind of hit-or-miss with balance.

Anyway, if you're creative, the class really shines. More to the point, though, I still think it's a neat class that is pretty unique to GW. I have trouble thinking of any parallel in similar games. You're quite right, though, that players overall had some pretty strong opinions.


Ah well. I have one of every class and then a few duplicates, so I'd argue every class is fun in its own way (though to be fair some got played more than others).

I am sad that Ritualists aren't coming through.

[Oron]

Found it: the quest is called Annihilator. It was the April Fool's quest last year.

Also turns out they were from the past, not the future. Oops.

Originally Posted by synkr0nized

Anyway, if you're creative, the class really shines. More to the point, though, I still think it's a neat class that is pretty unique to GW. I have trouble thinking of any parallel in similar games. You're quite right, though, that players overall had some pretty strong opinions.
I am sad that Ritualists aren't coming through.

The Mesmer class was a good feature of GW due to uniqueness. I think the biggest issue with them was certain skills (a chunk of the Elites) not being particularly valuable (like Shatter Storm - why would you want an Elite that disables itself for being used?). Every profession has that problem, though, and Anet will probably have dealt with that pretty well by the release of GW2. And it's not like they're adverse to completely changing skills in patches.