5421

To get an invite to the guild, do you just need our account name / number? If so, can I join? RubieQueue.1948 .

5422

A blogger asks ArenaNet, “Has Guild Wars 2 become too complicated?”

I’ve noticed you’ve added a lot of currencies.

We have somewhere around ten to fifteen currencies in the game right now. There are two main types, basic currencies and tokens. Basic currencies are gold, karma, the new laurels that we added, glory. They exist with you in your inventory at the bottom [of your UI]. The second type of currency we have are tokens. We use tokens in a number of different places, like the dungeons; they each have their own tokens. They show that you’ve beaten this dungeon.

We try to use currencies to split up the goals of players so that they want to do each of the different game types in different ways in order to earn the things they’d like to earn.

So…do you think GW2 has become too complicated?

It’s a debate we have here all the time, especially when it come to the number of currencies that are around. It really comes down to when you want to reward someone for doing a specific type of gameplay. Because we’ve been adding a lot of reward systems, we’ve seen an increase in the number of currencies out there.

But we’re getting toward the tail end of the number of systems we feel that we can put in the game. We’ll be really working on improving the current systems we have and making them more robust.

More at the link.

5423

Anet promising that WvW culling going to get finally fixed. I hope that isn’t the only thing they are doing for PvP, WvW maps are awfully stale at this point.

5424

I was able to get a key for cheap a couple of days ago, so I went to play knowing little about the game. Being disenchanted with MMORPGs I had a mix of good and bad impressions.

Main problem is that the game engine is a dog. It’s fine in PvE but it’s a total disaster in WvW, so I really can’t play that part (with about 20 players under a castle it ram more or less like DAoC at the time right in the middle of a 100+ players relic raid). The settings are also quite useless since performance doesn’t change that much.

Overall I think the design was a mess. Despite my experience it’s really hard to figure out how the combat and skills work. Plus, I have a pet peeve against skills that mix effects together. Ideally I prefer single-purpose skills. Something that damages, a DOT, a range attack, a crowd control. Single-purpose skills that you then mix as ingredients that you know precisely. Whereas Guild Wars had this odd mix of effects WITHIN the same skill. So you can have something that deals damage, then is also a DOT and then also snares the enemy. It’s just hard to parse and figure out tactically when a skill is better than another. In any case the combat is badly paced so at the beginning you end up winning even if you mash buttons (contrary to WoW that is very carefully balanced so that you can easily die if you’re screwing up and for example pulling more enemies than you can handle). And besides, all effects I can apply last less than two seconds, so they are basically one time thing even if they aren’t. In general, while I see the reasoning behind some ideas, the combat is just messy and tactically opaque. It just lacks precision of controls and sleekness. It’s clunky and rough. If I had to rate combat I’d give it a 5 (for comparison I’d rate WoW’s combat a 7.5).

My overall impression was that this is a better EverQuest 2. The messiness of overall design and combat. The number of dings and frills and little (pointless) bonuses and achievements every three steps in any direction. The chaotic zone design where everything overlaps as consequence of this anxiety of overcrowding with tasks. Everything happening at ONCE without any reasonable pacing. Even the bombastic graphic style both in scenery and spells. The rather bad animations and jerky movement. It all reminds me of EQ2 style, and I also think that WoW is still MUCH better designed and polished. RIFT too is a game that made a better impression on me (but then it also wants the monthly fee).

UI is also kind of underwhelming and lacking options. For example I couldn’t find a way to go in 1st person to make a screenshot without the character model in the way. Very few options and lack of customization (changing the chat font or the window shading is also not possible).

Plus engine problems, like NPCs vanishing already at a short distance (regardless of video settings, I’ve run some experiments). And other things that annoy me (you can’t make characters on different servers).

So for me this has a number of good ideas and a moderate technical execution (so it’s not a total disaster, but it’s also not ahead representing the genre). Without the monthly fee it can be a nice alternative, especially if you have a very powerful hardware that could sustain WvW (though even if it works we are still MILES away from DAoC quality of fun, there are just tons of technicalities that make GW2 trying, but not succeeding).

That’s my short review of what I’ve seen.

5425

“The fact that [lead designer Isaiah] Cartwright did not know the precise number of currencies in his own game confirms my suspicion that GW2 has become too intricate.”

Thanks, Forbes!

-Tom

5426

Fair enough, but I’d also add that you can easily ignore most of those and still get more than enough of a lengthy (and terrific) experience to justify the price of admission.

I’ve not even bothered with anything beyond gold and karma and I’m a happy guy. I don’t even know what most of those currencies are for and may never care. I’m glad that’s the case.

5427

While I can certainly see the annoyance of not being able to make characters on different servers, it is offset by the ability to play on any server of your choosing regardless of what your home server is (with the exception of WvW content). One of the most beautiful things about Guild Wars 2 is how easy they made it for friends to play together. As an example, I discovered the other day that a friend of mine I used to play WoW with a few years ago played on a different server. Instead of us having to make new characters on the same server in order to play together, I simply “guested” on his server and was able to choose any of my characters to play. Because of how the level adjusting system works, it didn’t matter that he was playing a character in his 40s and I was playing one of my level 80s.

I can’t think of another MMO that makes it as easy for people to play together as GW2.

5428

It’s a nice thing but not significant and nowhere close to how things should be. If you want to join a guild, you can’t. There’s only this little shared space where you can go with a server, but you can’t share the respective playerbase. They seem more band-aids to problems than solutions.

As I said there are nice ideas here and there, but too timid and not so well executed. It’s not the Best MMORPG out there, it’s just a viable choice if you are against the monthly fee.

5429

Wait, did you think I was implying that Forbes writer had anything resembling a point? What’s the sarcasm emoticon, because I need to start using it!

-Tom
5430

It’s under the Like button.

But I figured I’d still go ahead and point out that the article you quoted was silly. giant smiley face

5431

I fundamentally disagree with most of your assertions in comparison to wow. Different folks and strokes of course. But the idea that wow somehow has challenging combat is crazy talk. It is basically impossible to die in wow in a level appropriate zone. In wow you have two different rotations, one for single target and one for aoe. Depending on your class and spec in gw2 you are constantly engaging different numbers of enemies and managing your distance and facing. There are other things I feel gw2 does to make it a far superior experience imo but you are not alone in your opinion. I have a number of wow only friends that find any other mmo off putting simply because it isn’t wow.

5432

I think it’s a fair argument that there are too many currencies in the game, especially “physical” currencies that take up bag/bank space. It’s especially confusing for me when I go to a vendor and can’t tell what the currency symbol represents because, aside from karma, most of them seem pretty indistinct. It doesn’t help that rolling over the currency symbol doesn’t give you a rollover with the name of the currency to make it easier to identify.

I’m not saying they should combine all the dungeon coin types into one or two types of overall currency (a la WoW’s Valor/Justice points), but if you’re going to put in a different type of coin for every dungeon or activity, then please give me a single currency page so I don’t have to micro-manage the coins. It’s not really much different from crafting materials. I don’t care that there’s a dozen types of leather or relics because once they go into collectible storage, I’m pretty much done managing them.

Actually, that’s probably the easiest solution right there. Forget an extra UI pane, just add currencies to the collectible storage. I already have an easy way to dump stuff there from anywhere in the world, and I’m accustomed to using it. Seems pretty straightforward.

5433

Also, from the article…

But Cartwright struck the right chord when he says that ArenaNet might not unlock certain areas of the game until the player has progressed, to prevent new players from feeling overwhelmed.

While I understand the intent, I really hope they don’t implement it as a progressive unlocking mechanism. One of the great things about GW2 is that you can customize your end game experience, and that you’re exposed to much of the end game throughout the leveling process. I think it would be much better if they simply guided players to the content types that are available, possibly through some in-game combination of mail and NPCs who explain them. That way players who knew what they wanted to do, would have access right away, but players who needed help could have their hand held as well.

5434

There is just no making you happy, is there? :)

I’ll just side with Wolff on this one. You just listed a bunch of unsubstantiated complaints trying to pass them as informed opinion while really looking to get some attention and start some flame wars again.

All games have huge problems with everything and nothing is better than WoW. We get it, great. (*We do need a sarcasm emoticon :) *)

5435

Except if your friends are in Europe, as the wiki says. :(

5436

There still is the problem that GW2, in the open world environment, teaches you nothing about the complexity of combat and how to build a character and on top of that, the effect of stats are really opaque.

5437

This is true, but I have yet to really care. I’ve been playing about a month now, my necromancer is 41, and I have no idea if I’ve done good, bad, or ugly things to my build. I just upgrade items when I find something with bigger numbers, and put skill points into whatever looks cool. And so far, it works. I die every once in a while, and I can’t solo group events or anything, but it works without putting any effort into build design whatsoever. Things might change as I approach 80, and certainly I wouldn’t be much of an asset in PvP of any kind, but you can play the game casually with practically no knowledge of stats and gear. Same goes for combat tactics. I’ve learned to roll when I see a big hit coming, but other than that it’s just stand-and-click for most fights.

Having said all that, it would be nice to see some more information on builds someplace in the game. I haven’t seen high-level content yet, maybe something shows up there? If not, well, there’s always the Interwebs.

5438

Stats are about as clear as they can be have you tried mousing over them?

5439

In fairness, they somewhat recently revamped the character screen. The stats and what they do are MUCH more clear now, whereas previously I recall trying to figure out why certain stats weren’t listed and how I was supposed to figure out how much of X or Y I had. And whether it mattered.

But this is hardly the sole domain of GW2. For advanced MMO gameplay and statistic information, one has always needed to consult wikis and other such sites.

5440

To be honest, I prefer hidden stats. I hate the idea that my character is subpar because I haven’t copied someone’s uber-build.