Guild Wars 2

[Byron5184]

Question for people who have participated in the BETA events.

Are the quests as free flowing and naturally occurring as the game devs suggest them to be? I have read mixed reviews about this with some saying yes and others saying no. Some have said that wherever public quests are taking place are highlighted on the map and you are directed toward them. Yes you don't pick up a quest per SE but people have said its do obviously sign posted that you may as well be picking up a quest.

Clarification would be appreciated

In my experience, a player can have an effect on an area. I was in the south west of one Charr zone that was very sparse of players. I started a quest in this outpost to go on the offensive against the nearby ghosts in a graveyard. I went in with three NPC's from the tiny outpost and completed the quest. Upon my return with the NPC's, the outpost was under attack from the other ghost encampment. The event was to defend the outpost, so clearly without player help, it would fall. But i pulled NPC's away, so it made the event much harder for the limited players nearby. The outpost fell shortly after my return and it was completely destroyed and the waypoint was out of use.

Now, here's how the players actions determine the events. If the outpost had survived, quests and defend/aggresive push events would occur. But now, the event from the nearby large outpost was to guard a small squad of Charr as they moved south to set up a new outpost. Until they are successfully guarded and complete their mission, the outpost remains destroyed and the teleport waypoint/merchant are dead.

So there are only so many events that occur. But which ones occur are determined by the players. I don't know how far these events actually travel. I never saw whether the ghosts would launch an attack on the larger outpost and actually take it over or not if so many attempts to rebuild the outpost failed. So only time will tell how far reaching the system actually goes. But maybe it's a system that Anet has implemented thats up for adjusting and a simple case of adding new events to allow for more far reaching changes. Who knows, this could just be the first small step. Time will tell.

 

[Omaeka]

The graphics are pretty terrible (decent for MMO though) but I bet it still runs like ****.

 

[No1newts]

Sadly it's a bit over signposted, I would have liked some reward for exploration but it's literally all just given to you on the map.

Bit disapointing, essentially its just giving out quests without talking to someone, but still really looking forward to this!

 

[DamoC]

The map shows you where your next storyline quest is and skill points etc. I'm glad it does do it this way because if I'm not constantly playing a game I forget the storyline and where I'm meant to be going next.
It's the dynamic events that you can just stumble across and can really change the outcome and what happens in that area of the map.

 

[CaptainRAVE]

Sadly it's a bit over signposted, I would have liked some reward for exploration but it's literally all just given to you on the map.

Modern games

 

[Byron5184]

Sadly it's a bit over signposted, I would have liked some reward for exploration but it's literally all just given to you on the map.

In the end, all the signposts are going to be a marmite feature. Some will love all the info given on the map. Some will hate it. Personally, i like it as it gets me to the action quicker. But i'm not an explorer.

I have read on the GW2 beta forums before they were wiped that it still pays to do some exploring if you do some gathering of materials. As each map has two 'farms' (cluster of nodes) that contain crafting materials only available in that farm in that map and only respawn every 24 hours. But they have to be discovered first and aren't displayed on the map. So exploring the maps still benefits people. As when i travelled all over the Plains of Ashford for most of the last beta. I never found either farm in my random travels.

 

[djkav]

Sadly it's a bit over signposted, I would have liked some reward for exploration but it's literally all just given to you on the map.

I still prefer GW2's gameplay choice than that linear, hand holding that is SWTOR.

 

[Raumarik]

Come on djkav - most of GW2 is random events but the storylines are as linear as it gets. I'm not defending SWTOR, that's several months of my life I'd like back, but then again I'm not putting GW2 on a pedestal, it's a great game but it hasn't been released yet and I personally haven't seen much "wow that's amazing" content as yet, I've very happy with what I have seen but let's not go overboard.

 

[Raumarik]

The map shows you where your next storyline quest is and skill points etc. I'm glad it does do it this way because if I'm not constantly playing a game I forget the storyline and where I'm meant to be going next.
It's the dynamic events that you can just stumble across and can really change the outcome and what happens in that area of the map.

Personally as a casual MMO player I'd just read the quest lines, I don't need a TomTom style hand-holding map showing me. I do hope they reconsider before release and remove it.

 

[djkav]

Come on djkav - most of GW2 is random events but the storylines are as linear as it gets. I'm not defending SWTOR, that's several months of my life I'd like back, but then again I'm not putting GW2 on a pedestal, it's a great game but it hasn't been released yet and I personally haven't seen much "wow that's amazing" content as yet, I've very happy with what I have seen but let's not go overboard.

I'm not going over board. I'm just stating my opinion.

 

[No1newts]

I still prefer GW2's gameplay choice than that linear, hand holding that is SWTOR.

Bit defensive

No one is commenting on the content or how the quests play out merely if they are signposted and how you go about reaching them. But we'll just keep you away from the knives whilst the adults talk

 

[Byron5184]

Unless people don't know, the quest lines in the beta, especially, up to level 15 for the initial storylines have been shortened from what i've heard for the purposes of the beta to get people out of the beginners area faster for testing purposes. It might be linear for that very reason, or not. So whether this means quest lines are missing or not, remains to be seen, but the game is changing a lot every beta.

From what i've seen in the quests, they aren't as 'linear' as they appear, you have unchangable choices to make in some quests that theorhetically end in serious changes, for your characters lore at least. Whether it affects your storyline later (who knows how far?) down the line, hard to tell during a weekend beta. You could make a choice to do quest (for example) Xa or Xb at lvl 5 that bites you in the *** at a higher level that makes you wish 'damn, if only i chose the other option way back when' We just don't know.

Hopefully, we'll see more during the next beta and can find out more about how dramatic these 'choices' affect our character later in the game.

 

[OminousLatinNoun]

Bit disapointing, essentially its just giving out quests without talking to someone, but still really looking forward to this!

Aside from the hearts there are a lot of events that you are only really made aware of when you get into close proximity of them. You tend to stumble across a bunch of them whilst filling in the heart tasks.

One example is: I was working on a heart in one of the Charr zones (Clear bombs, kill enemy Charr, pick up scrap metal) and got a notification saying new event nearby - Waves of enemy charr were attacking an armory or something and a group of people ran to the event and defended the location.

Another example of an event was - I was running through another charr zone, heading to some undiscovered waypoints and I get a new event nearby notification. After heading to it I find this guy:

Spoiler

In my experience of pve so far, the hearts arent really the majority of the content, theyre just zones where you can do things whilst events happen. The issue I had was that after you clear all of the hearts, you dont really know where the action is happening unless you move to a new zone.

Quest design wise though, it isnt really anything new. The events pretty much consist of kill enemy type/waves/gather materials.

Skill point challenges are pretty fun though - range from fighting through mini dungeons to interact with an object / fight a moderately tough npc / jumping puzzles.



Edit - everything I have seen of the personal story so far has been garbage though.

 

[No1newts]

Aside from the hearts there are a lot of events that you are only really made aware of when you get into close proximity of them. You tend to stumble across a bunch of them whilst filling in the heart tasks.

One example is: I was working on a heart in one of the Charr zones (Clear bombs, kill enemy Charr, pick up scrap metal) and got a notification saying new event nearby - Waves of enemy charr were attacking an armory or something and a group of people ran to the event and defended the location.

Another example of an event was - I was running through another charr zone, heading to some undiscovered waypoints and I get a new event nearby notification. After heading to it I find this guy:

Spoiler

In my experience of pve so far, the hearts arent really the majority of the content, theyre just zones where you can do things whilst events happen. The issue I had was that after you clear all of the hearts, you dont really know where the action is happening unless you move to a new zone.

Quest design wise though, it isnt really anything new. The events pretty much consist of kill enemy type/waves/gather materials.

Skill point challenges are pretty fun though - range from fighting through mini dungeons to interact with an object / fight a moderately tough npc / jumping puzzles.



Edit - everything I have seen of the personal story so far has been garbage though.

Cheers for the info

 

[MatsyLR]

Oh look theres me! Matsy L in the screenshot
The stupid Giant hits like a truck.....

 

[OminousLatinNoun]

Oh look theres me! Matsy L in the screenshot

Small world.

 

[djkav]

Bit defensive

No one is commenting on the content or how the quests play out merely if they are signposted and how you go about reaching them. But we'll just keep you away from the knives whilst the adults talk

There was nothing defensive in my reply. Nor was I commenting on the content, or play of quests.

I was merely implying that the path through the zone I played was non linear. Where in SWTOR, its pretty much a guided path from one hub to the other. Also I am an adult anyway

 

[Utnac]

Unless people don't know, the quest lines in the beta, especially, up to level 15 for the initial storylines have been shortened from what i've heard for the purposes of the beta to get people out of the beginners area faster for testing purposes.

You got any source for that? Not saying it's not true but I've lost count long ago of the number of times I've heard 'X feature is fixed in launch' or 'they changed it for testing purposes' and then it never, ever is.

 

[Utnac]

The map shows you where your next storyline quest is and skill points etc. I'm glad it does do it this way because if I'm not constantly playing a game I forget the storyline and where I'm meant to be going next.
It's the dynamic events that you can just stumble across and can really change the outcome and what happens in that area of the map.

There's a difference between pointing the player in the right direction and just presenting the entire game to them on their map though.

And I really hate the term 'Dynamic Events' because they're not at all dynamic, they are pre-scripted sequences that get initiated either on a set timer or when a high enough density of people are in the area. Going through a zone after you've already cleared it you'll just see the same events over again, nothing dynamic there.

Don't mistake me for some hater or SWTOR fanboi (never even played it), I just get a bit tired of the whole 'zomfg game X is going to be amazing and kill everything else' mentality that has become the norm in the MMO genre over the last few years. I've been eagerly anticipating this game for years and having played it for a while it's living up to many of my expectations, but please just stop talking it up as something it's not, we've all been there and been burned by it before.

 

[ChrisJSY]

And I really hate the term 'Dynamic Events' because they're not at all dynamic, they are pre-scripted sequences that get initiated either on a set timer or when a high enough density of people are in the area. Going through a zone after you've already cleared it you'll just see the same events over again, nothing dynamic there.

They're dynamic in the way that there's a range/scale of difficulty in the amount of enemy npcs, hit points, damage, available abilities used against you.

So yes, yes they are dynamic.