The unofficial Guild Wars 2 hype thread (with dynamic worlds)

[Lyon85]

I'm not really a thread starter, but your lack of hype for GW2 sickens me to the core OcUK.

Recently ArenaNet released a few articles, the first few covered some pretty impressive combat stuff and emphasised the desire to make this more streamlined and cooperative (part 1|part 2).

The new blog released today has got me really quite excited though. It seems like all the other new age MMOs are talking about how to improve combat alone, which in my opinion isn't the biggest issue with MMOs of late. The issue being that having a populated world usually just means that there is more unwanted competition for the resources you need to finish your quest, or just simply that other players in the world have zero impact on yourself, which is kind of at odds with the term MMORPG.

AreanNet has proposed a dynamic living breathing world that rejects the typical quests system. Identical quests aren't delivered by static NPCs that require mind numbingly tedious and repetitive "kill 10 hogs for meat" or "kill 10 hogs for snouts" that have no impact on the world. Player cooperation has been rethought, other players are no longer competition and groups can naturally form from events triggered by the world director or other players.

I won't bother trying to explain it in any more detail, just go read. It's a bit long so I thought I might quote some of the more interesting parts to tickle your fancy if you're lazy.

In Guild Wars 2, our event system won't make you read a huge quest description to find out what's going on. You'll experience it by seeing and hearing things in the world. If a dragon is attacking, you won't read three paragraphs telling you about it, you'll see buildings exploding in giant balls of fire, and hear characters in the game world screaming about a dragon attack.

in a traditional MMO, the character who gives you a quest will tell you ogres are coming to destroy the character's home, and you need to kill them. You then get a quest which says, "Kill 0/10 ogres" and you proceed to kill a bunch of ogres standing around in a field picking daisies. Since every player in the game needs to be able to do this quest, the ogres will never actually threaten the character's home - they will just eternally pick daisies in the field. The ogres aren't actually doing what the quest says they are - the game is lying to you!

At ArenaNet, we believe this is NOT good enough. In Guild Wars 2, if a character tells you ogres are coming to destroy a house, they will really come and smash down the house if you don't stop them!

...our event system, which allows the world to dynamically change based on actions and decisions made by the players. A single player decision can cascade across a zone, changing the direction of a chain of events until they dramatically alter the content played by players in a map.

And a video of some elementalist skills for good measure.

 

[dmcg]

looks good but micro transactions really turns me off

 

[Tombstone]

The two questions which will decide whether I will play it are.

Is it open world rather than instanced zones?

Does it have open world PvP?

If it doesn't have those 2 things then I'm not interested

 

[greeny_fastcar]

Any news on a release year yet?

Really looking forward to more articles like the dynamic quest one they published a few days ago, that was a good read.

 

[lucky13]

Looks really good, bringing back good memories of the first one and GvG.

 

[Evilsod]

I think any potential hype for GW2 died down when it was... how long since it was actually expected to be finished now?

Oh well, i might consider it if its not Subcription style, if it is then no. Never.

 

[Psypher5]

ITs free to play (ie no subs) @ Evilsod.

IT looks primising for a soonish release though, now they are chucking out a lot of insider dev work with videos etc, and incorping a massive run up in guildwars (War in kryta)

 

[Lyon85]

The two questions which will decide whether I will play it are.

Is it open world rather than instanced zones?

Does it have open world PvP?

If it doesn't have those 2 things then I'm not interested

It is open world, but not just that, the dynamic events mean that the entire non instanced world can change because of the actions of one or more players, or an event triggered by AN. This is how MMOs should be, a living breathing world that feels the consequences of your actions. If they can deliver on what they are promising this will feel more "open world" than any other MMO.

I think any potential hype for GW2 died down when it was... how long since it was actually expected to be finished now?

Oh well, i might consider it if its not Subcription style, if it is then no. Never.

It's the recent influx of media that should be getting us excited. Things are starting to emerge, it's time to get hyped!

PS No subscription.

 

[BlastRadius]

Want want want.

I stopped playing GW1 years ago after filling up with heirloom?? items.

Has been too long a wait for GW2, I even played WOW for a bit and felt dirty.

EDIT: hall of monuments. Now to remember my old account in preparation.

 

[Tombstone]

It is open world, but not just that, the dynamic events mean that the entire non instanced world can change because of the actions of one or more players, or an event triggered by AN. This is how MMOs should be, a living breathing world that feels the consequences of your actions. If they can deliver on what they are promising this will feel more "open world" than any other MMO.

Well as long as its open world with virtually no instancing (preferably none at all) with open PvP then I'll take a look

 

[Sleepery]

"a dynamic living breathing world"

That gets trotted out every time a new mmo is released. I've yet to see anything even vaguely close in an mmo.

 

[lucky13]

I think the events sound interesting but i won't believe it fully till i see it.

I just liked how the first one engrossed me and it wasn't sucha grind as you could get to lvl 20 pretty quickly it was just the collecting skills and cool armour mats and perfect weapons. Had some epic chest running funny moments too. Like a big rat race.

Will deffinately give it a look and i havnt played an mmo since nearly 3 years ago.

 

[Reavus]

looks good but micro transactions really turns me off

i haven't heard anything about micro transactions, where did you find that out?

 

[Lyon85]

Two new blogs up, one with trait details and the other explains the warrior class.

 

[lucky13]

*dribbles on keyboard*

That shot of the shield fending off the fire.

 

[Lyon85]

I know that caught my eye too. I wonder how it will work. Could it be a skill? I forget how it works, but if the first three skills are your main hand and the next 2 are off hand that would make sense.

Maybe it's traits, it could auto defend against a flame attack if you are front facing and have that trait equipped.

 

[linwelin]

i cant wait for this came to come out! i just hope they make it really polished before release, hate buggy and unfinished releases *cough* age of conan *cough* ahem.

 

[Evilsod]

I really hope they release some real information about skills/traits like actual screenshots of everything and some example skills.

I must say its looking a bit... weird atm. The first 5 skills are defined by your weapon for a warrior? I can only guess the same applies to an elementalist with an element. Its sounding like its hugely restricting things.

 

[bushmins]

Any wall papers of those screen shots? Something a bit bigger.

 

[Andr3w]

What happens to GW's 1 when GW's 2 comes out? Are they shutting all the servers down and everyone has to get new accounts?