More Guild Wars

/rawr, i saw this on NS. The graphics in this game are amazing. I hassled Veb about buying it the other day. 'Oh just wait, babe pleeeeease?'

Damn men.

How is the gameplay and combat? The PVP actually skill based? Are there more sinister looking characters than those pansies?

I hear its Diablo 3-ish, but Eve-e seems to be really enjoying it.

i just got GW a few days ago, so from my limited experience with it ill try and answer some questions.

the game play reminds me a lot of FFXI kinda melded with CoH.. you have a max of 8 skills/spells on your bar. most have spells have a casting time and recharge where as most melee skills are instants.

you can dual class in this game, kinda like DnD, and they can be any combination of the 6 classes the most common from what ive seen is a pally (Warrior/Monk or wmo for short) i myself am rolling a mesmer/necro

each class has 1 class ability unique to that class. mesmers get fast casting, so me casting a spell vs a non mesmer casting the same spell, ill get it off quicker.

the most badass looking chars i think are necros. each class has its own armor look to it, and of course varying degrees of AC to it.. warriors have the highest on down to elementalists (think eq wizzie)

so far im really diggin the way it plays. no logout timers, everything is instanced cept for cities/outposts but even they have districts kinda like EQ2 with commons 1 commons 2.

as for the pvp.. its pvp on demand. you can either make a RP character and work up to lvl 20 actually learning your toon and getting skills from quests and such, or make a pvp character which is lvl 20 and has access to the skills from their premade template and ones youve unlocked with your RP character.

what this means is after you get all the skills with rp characters, you can roll lvl 20s of any class and basically skip all the PVE and go straight to PVP. but the thing is getting every skill for every class will take a long long time.. like the amount of time to get endgame in any mmo 40+ hrs min.

As far as PVP balance, well thats where the skill comes in.. if you pick all the wrong abilites to use, you often get your ass fedex'd to ya quick. but sometimes with the right ones, you can pretty much own anyone else. it comes down to using the right abilites at the right times.

some quirks ive got with it so far is, if you double click on something you run to it.. this includes merchants and mobs. and you cant jump or swim at all. and there are no other playable races.. just human. oh and mesmers dance like riverdance, which i hate. female necros do the thriller tho.. so i cant really complain.

sheesh this became a long post.. /rant off

EDIT: Just logged in RQ and took some screenies

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v512/Cidwin/malenecro.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v512/Cidwin/maleele.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v512/Cidwin/femranger.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v512/Cidwin/femnecro2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v512/Cidwin/femele.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v512/Cidwin/femele2.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v512/Cidwin/femalenecro.jpg

and lastly my toon.. till havent gotten the l33t armor yet
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v512/Cidwin/cidwin.jpg

I started playing yesterday.

It is visually the best game I have ever seen. The graphics are completely stunning.

Starting as a newbie is extremely confusing. They don't do much to ease you in to the game, they just throw you right in. In WoW, for example, I had the hang of the game after about 30 minutes of playing, because it is the most newbie friendly game ever made. In GW it took me two days to realize that you HAVE to multiclass in order to leave the starting area. The way it is phrased goes like this:

"You should consider chosing a second profession. Most veterans say it is worth it."

Well, I figured that since I was a huge newbie with no idea how the classes would flesh out, I would just single class for now and multiclass when I knew what I was doing. Thus I spent many hours wondering what it is exactly that I was supposed to do. I couldn't find any new areas to go to, and all the quests had really crappy irrelevant rewards.

Then I realized what was up and took mesmer as my second class (elementalist as first - btw I am playing a female toon for the first time ever, and god damn I am one fine piece of ass). Once you do this and talk to the main quest NPC, you get to move out of the newbie lands. It teleports you to an arena, groups you with three other random people, and then sets you up in a deathmatch with an opposing team of four, just to give you a taste of pvp. It does this all automatically for you and it only takes about one minute of waiting.

We kicked their asses. It was awesome.

After that you go to a new area (the future, actually) and get some new quests. I started working on them and found that things are much much harder now. Mobs come three at a time, and are high enough level to make it challenging.

Some things I like:
-Private instances EVERYWHERE except towns. This is the best idea ever. I don't have to deal with hundreds of newbie retards at all times, when all I want to do is quietly quest and explore by myself.
-Thirty distinct class options, and even more skill choices and specializations beyond that. Each character is unique.
-Combat is fast paced. Killing mobs is fun again, and actually requires strategy and skill. When I first got to the new areas, I got swarmed by mobs three at a time and they just dropped me. But, I quickly learned strategies and techniques that would let me beat them. In WoW if you can't kill something, you come back with a higher level, better gear, or more people. In GW, you change you strategy. Good feature
-Beautiful graphics. All I have seen are the newbie areas and the newbie armors, and in most games, these are the most boring graphic sets. I can't wait to see other places.

If anyone is interested in playing, I would recommend it. There's no monthly fee, and no pressure to spend 8 hours a day playing just to keep up. You can just play whenever you feel like it.

If anyone wants to start a new character with me, let me know. I'm not too attached to mine.

Yay! Glad to hear someone else is enjoying it as well. One thing I want to mention is that I'm pretty sure you don't *have* to dual class, it's just a lot of the quests in that newbie area are from the secondary trainers. Ideally, you could try out every other secondary class, and then choose if you want one. I'm fairly sure you don't have to dual class to get out, but I'm not going to say I'm certain of it cuz now that I think of it, I don't recall seeing someone that wasn't dual class post-searing.

Now, I know I made a pvp char last night that was straight ranger to screw around on, so that worked. I decided it wasn't as fun playing a char that wasn't *mine* tho, so I deleted her and went back to my own toon and hit the arena. Not that easy being the level 17 baby in the group when everyone else is 20 and mostly the pre-fab pvp models. Think my funniest moment last night was the hubby snickering under his breath and me looking over asking what?! Apparently when the pvp gates came down, the person leading his team over called out my name as the target. I pretty much knew I was toast at that point lol. (PvP that I was doing was random teams, but there's other varieties that I've not explored like the guild vs guild stuff.) I don't usually do pvp at all, but it seemed to be a fun break from questing or doing a mission.

Again, glad to hear you're enjoying it Jinheim :) Add Whysper Wynds to your friend list if you like and feel free to holler at me if ya need a hand or anything.

Thanks for these posts! Now I know I'm going to get this game. The no monthly fee is a big plus. I really like WoW, but you do have to grind although its much easier on the player then EQ(2). There's a group of my friends that I game with that they are basically stuck in shooters, but want to try something else. I've tried to explain this as much as I can to them, and they are showing some interest. Instanced everything fookin rox! No doubt!

This is what I will ask for my birthday from my GF I guess next week. :) I cannot wait to play this game. I only have a Geforce 4 video card (dont laugh) Do you think it will run ok on this card? (2.4 ghz processor with 768 MB RAM) Visually this is the nicest game I've seen! I would drop WoW for this if all my buds come do some questing / pvp with me. I guess I'll be the guinea pig and let my neighbor come over and check it out and have him help me convince the rest of the guys to play. It looks very cool, and I can't wait.

[/gaysoundingpost]

I think my set up is 2.8 ghz and 1 gig RAM with a Radeon 9800 (had to go dig for that stuff cuz hubby is sleeping and I don't know that kinda stuff lol) but I run just fine with graphics all the way up even have anti-aliasing set to 4x after Vex told me to check that out. So I don't think you'd have a prob running it, albeit perhaps not quite on max quality.

I don't usually run at max...I did when I was a big time Quaker..where speed was everything. :) I guess it still is now..I just got tired of keeping up with the times. I do need to upgrade the vid card though. As long as its playable I'll be happy. :)

right click and drag is supossa move your point of view right?

mine does nothing =/ i cant get a front shot of me at all! >_<

Anyone else find it ironic that most of the new MMORPG's are using more and more instanced settings?

I guess instanced settings are easier on the servers? Or is it a way of giving the majority of players what they prefer? I don;t care one way or another.. yeah it's nice to avoid KSing and training but it's also nice to have someone else around if you get into trouble or want to go with to PL some of your junior friends

I have noticed the instancing, and I thought it was a good idea in EQ IMO. I guess I like the idea of instanced things. I just like the fact that you dont have to travel all the way across the virtual world jus to find out that someone is already killin' what you traveled for.