5821

What was the problem, Enidigm? I wasn’t a fan of MMOs for a while, but I’ve warmed up to their quirks.

5822

I think GW2 fits better into a gaming dilettantes life since it has no sub costs. Pick it up and play when you want, you aren’t wasting money when you want to let it sit.

5823

You would think! There’s just something the whole, here’s fifty bandits raiding two people on a farm, 1000 feet away, standing around, who respawn continuously, please kill them all. Over and over again.

5824

Ah, yeah, that’ll happen. Just something to get used to. There’s enough physical space in Guild Wars 2 that you’d never have to repeat stuff, though.

5825

There is a sense of futility in any MMO in regards to quests. You know it makes no real difference. It’s just an XP/item accumulator. GW2 does a good job of adding some variety with the quests that spawn new quests based on outcomes but you know when doing them the whole chain is going to reset for the next adventurer who wanders by.

What I’ve found is that once I get a good understanding of the mechanics of the game and how the game world works my interest begins to plummet. WoW still gets its hooks in me now and then but I think that’s mostly because my characters are at or near the level cap. I don’t have to spend a lot of time leveling them.

5826

Ironically, Guild Wars 2 is one of the MMOs that is at least trying to come up with solutions to those issues with events. Yes, there are some static areas, where mobs will just constantly respawn on some manner of timer, but there are some really wonderful experiences in the game where (for example) you might come upon a farm under attack. If you jump in and run the bandits off, another event might fire off that shows an NPC going out to bandit hideout, where you might counter-attack. If you kill enough of those bandits, you might get the big boss to come out and beat him. Finally, if you beat him you might find he had a vendor who was a captive, so now he’s available to sell stuff.

That’s a mostly made up example, and yes, it will eventually reset and happen all over again (although there can be success/failure branching), but generally resetting happens after you’ve moved on, so it at least feels like you’re contributing somewhat.

5827

I’d heartily suggest you consider one of the gamepad keyboard thingies (e.g. Logitech G13, Belkin/Razor Nostromo). Each one has some type of joystick/thumbpad plus a number of definable keys so that you can arrange all the keys to your liking for ease of use. I, personally, have the G13 (after being a Nostromo person for quite a while) and like it somewhat better than the nostromo. When I had the nostromo I would tend to map abilities to key rows and modifiers to the D-Pad to access my abilities, and use the mouse for movement. As I needed to transition to more keyboard oriented movement, I also switched to the G13 (which, last time I looked, had more keys) and kept the WASD mapping in the middle of the pad, and then mapped abilities around it.

There was a bit of a (re) learning curve, but I couldn’t (literally could not) play any MMO or hotbar based game long term without one of these gamepads. I played enough EQ without one to know that combos of skill mapping and modifiers was causing RSI problems with my wrist.

Even with keyboard remapping I find that I need the modifier keys (alt/shift/ctrl) to get the level of control I want in most game with multiple sets of commands (i.e. not D3 type 6 hotkeys is all you get games), and I could never count on the games to allow me to arbitrarily remap modifier keys. (I think this may be a hardware failure in chording for regular keyboards which the electronics must be built to specifically get around.)

5828

And not just that, but the quests are presented completely differently in GW2 versus other MMOs. Here’s the difference between the two:

WoW:

  1. See ! over a character’s head.
  2. Go over to talk to the character. The quest text says, “Help, my brother has been kidnapped!”
  3. Go rescue the brother.
  4. Come back to the character (who is still in the same location) and turn in the quest.

GW2:

  1. You either see, “Sarah Jenkins beckons you over,” or the character just runs up to you and says, “Help, my brother has been kidnapped!” (Seriously, the first time the character was beckoning me over, I thought it was another player, not an NPC.)
  2. You follow the character over to where the brother is. There may be other NPCs around waiting to attack.
  3. Go rescue the brother with the other NPCs. If you’re a healer, you can heal the NPCs for more support. If you get downed, the NPCs may come over and revive you.
  4. When the brother is rescued, he immediately has a conversation with his sister, who is nearby. This may lead to another quest that organically happens: for example, everyone goes on to assault the cave where the kidnappers have retreated.

Seriously, I can’t tell you how much it helps immersion when NPCs come up to you to ask for help, lead you to the area, and stick around afterwards.

5829

Well, until you come back 15 minutes later and the brother was kidnapped again.

5830

I know, it’s a dangerous place to live in! People get kidnapped all the time!

After I rescue the brother, I like seeing him go back to his sister and possibly lead to the next quest. What I didn’t like was the WoW model where you rescue the brother, he says, “Thanks for rescuing me! I’ll make my own way home, thanks…”, before disappearing ten feet away. Then you go back to the sister, still standing in the same place, who says, “Oh, you rescued my brother? Thanks! I guess I’ll see him around sometime.”

Seriously though, I think the Guild Wars version is more immersive, provided you don’t hang around in the same area for too long. But I don’t expect an MMO version of watching the brother go back home, cook dinner, watch a little TV, then go back to work the next day. Years later, you pass through the same area, and the brother says, “Hey, remember me? You rescued me a few years back?? Well I’m doing great now! Been seeing a psychiatrist to get over my emotional trauma, so that’s going okay. Oh, and I finally got that promotion at work!”

5831

I logged on over the weekend, and two of my characters had anniversary prizes waiting in the mail. Those prizes included an Experience Scroll, which you can use to level any character up to level 20 (as long as that character is below 20, natch).

My first thought was, “Why would I want to use that? Now I’m going to have to skip all that lower-level content because I won’t get experience for it anymore.” Then I realized what an elegant system Guild Wars 2 has! Because of downleveling, I can still do any early content that I want, albeit with slightly more convenience. I can explore the early areas, or I can just power through my personal story, and I’ll still gain experience the whole time! You just get to skip past all the early process of unlocking utility slots, traits, weapon swapping, and all that.

It’s just a little jump-start, and I have to admit, it’s a pretty cool idea! They’re just giving you some new toys and saying, “Here! Have fun!” Thanks ArenaNet!

5832

From what I’ve read of ESO, GW2 (and many other MMOs) are way better than ESO is right this moment. So don’t get your hopes too high, or wait for EQNext.

EDIT: It occurs to me that I may be confusing the recent backlash over ESO’s announced business model with the gameplay of some other MMO. Way too many players in the field, and I’m not keeping them all straight. That said, outside of outliers like EVE I don’t see any MMO on the immediate horizon that will sway you if you flat out don’t like the playstyle you currently see.

5833

The GW2 model is a bit more immersive, but it still feels like I’m in Groundhog Day, but in a larger place where I only see the same things again if I hang around. I don’t kid myself that anything I do makes a difference.

One thing WoW did which I liked was the phasing. I did a series of quests and then phasing changed the game world forever for my character in a certain area. I knew it was all just the scenery being changed but at least I was the one who triggered it. That felt like an accomplishment of sorts. But then Blizz took it too far in Cataclysm and made me level on a rail.

I doubt I will fall in love with another MMO until I get one where the main driver is player interaction. I also know that I’m reluctant to sink a significant portion of my time into any game on an ongoing basis. I don’t see myself playing any game on a daily basis for a couple of hours a day month after month anymore. It’s going to need to be a fascinating world to draw that kind of participation out of me.

5834

Thinking about this a bit, I like the phrase “landscape-based RPG”; I like the geography and distribution of enemies to be congruent with the game world’s fiction and not be transparently bags of xp placed for maximum player farming efficiency. I can hardly play computer games if i’m just put out by the lack of permanence. I think it’s that and my dislike of the loot hunt.

5835

I started playing this last weekend with the free trial and had low expectations. I wasn’t expecting this to seem much different than WoW or other MMOs. While I have to admit that it really isn’t all that different it really does feel more engaging than WoW or SWTOR or TSW (The Secret World). TSW is the most recent MMO I tried ($15 sale during the Steam Summer Sale got me) and I was underwhelmed, it felt clunky and poorly implemented for grouping as my buddy and I tried to play together. GW2 feels smooth for grouping and the rest of the interface feels appropriately modern. Also, TSW seemed to really want to restrict my graphics options while GW2 is at about the same settings while looking WAAAY better. TSW has been uninstalled while GW2 will most likely be around for a while seeing as how it convinced me to buy it.

5836

It’s not “Groundhog Day” as much as a general ebb and flow of events and areas. One day the centaurs are attacking the town, and you drive them back to their camps and defeat the boss. The next day they have regrouped, and this time they take over the town, so now you have to stop them from attacking the supply caravan. It’s a little less scripted than centaurs attacking the town, then starting back from square one after you defeat them.

Yes, I think that’s part of the problem with phasing in general, and “changing the world” in particular. To the extent that your particular actions affect and change the world, that world will be different than what people around you see. I’m just not sure how to do that practically in an MMO.

That said, the Death Knight starting area in Lich King was one of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. That’s where the phasing was really used effectively.

I think the best thing that Guild Wars 2 did in that regard is making the Loot button the same as the Revive button. Does wonders for player interaction when people have an incentive to revive you!

5837

However by ignoring crafting until you hit max level you are wasting a ton of free experience. To answer your question I think the best way is to spread out the crafting between alts. Having to pay to change trades is a bit too inconvenient for my tastes. As well I suggest working on crafting whenever you get the urge or have a bit of time where you don’t feel like killing stuff or jumping around.
I did it that way and on some alts I managed to get several levels in a couple of crafting sessions. As well, you can sell the stuff you make on the ah. While most of it will be being sold for barely above the material costs there are some hidden gems in there that sell rather well at decent cash. Some things seem to go in cycles where the undercutters move in, ruin the market for everyone then move on and the price creeps back up over a couple of weeks. One has been making me 5-10 gold a day for weeks at a time until some jerk moves in and slashes the selling prices in half.

5838

Sorry I didn’t mean ignore it forever. Crafting is a great way to boost your second (third…) character to unlock a bunch of stuff to get a feel for how it plays. If you enjoy crafting by all means craft. I just blew way too much money and time on it when I was trying to keep parity on my first toon. In addition crafting will take you from 70 to 80 as fast as it will take you from 20 to 30!

5839

Yeah I’m approaching crafting about the same as I usually do in MMO’s. I play through an area until i’ve collected up a bunch of materials, then at the end of a session I’ll pop back to the city and craft through what I have. Seems to be a decent way of doing it and I try not to buy any extra mats on the market, though now I need to go back and farm up some more copper since I’m moving into zones with iron and silver instead. So far my armor and weaponsmithing are both hovering in the 50ish range.

I hit level 27 and have completed the Wayfarer Foothills and the Diessa Plateau. I moved into the Snowden Drifts last night in pursuit of the next step of my personal story. I think from all my years of MMO play I’ve just grown to accept the impermanence of my actions. I don’t mind that things reset anymore and actually look forward to it for certain events that I really like. And I really do appreciate how the events can flow into each other in GW2.

I think I’m doing ok money wise. I don’t put much up on the market since I prefer to salvage the gear for materials, but I’m approaching the 3g mark. Thanks to the balloon events I’m sitting at just under 30k karma too. Is the Laural gear worth saving up for? I could get a nice slug of crafting materials with the starting packs and have 5 laurels saved so far.

5840

More random tips feel free to ignore! Don’t spend any laurels or karma or guild tokens till 80 and you have a build you want to stick with. Salvage whites, sell all blues, eyeball “sell my stuff” on tp menu to see if any greens or greater have buy orders well above vendor price - otherwise sell.