That puzzle is great, and frustrating. I hated the Storm part and I had it easy (Guardian with Aegis to block a bolt and keep me out of combat). The pattern was simple but it didn't help.
Playing again on Maguuma, send me a message in game (Daynab most likely) if you want to do something, though it's only 4 hours so... I'll probably just be sPvPing.
So far this stress test has been pretty much unplayable. But then again, that's kind of the point. I suspect they're preparing rather intensively for release.
So now that the final server list is...listed, I'm rolling on Maguuma. Server choice isn't very important other than for WvW but if anyone wants to hang out or something at launch, I encourage you to do the same (or post where you're rolling)
Tarnished Coast here, simply because that's where the RP community is setting up shop and I like being around RPers. I don't do it much myself but they loads of fun to be around. I'm also going to be guesting a lot on Crystal Desert because I heard the GLBT community may be setting up there.
So apparently on Amazon the top 6 PC Games/Hardware are Guild Wars 2 Prepurchase WoW MoP Guild Wars 2 Preorder Guild Wars 2 Digital Deluxe Edition A mouse pad Guild Wars 2 Collector's Edition
Haha, believe it or not, I dug up the old term "WoW-killer" anytime I mentioned GW2 to people. Their response is usually along the lines of "Aw jeez not this shit again!". I can't blame them. But I personally never used the term before and I'm definitely using it now.
I love the game, but I wouldn't call it a WoW-killer in the sense that I think not everybody is ready to move on. People who still want to raid and get purples will still play WoW. Plus, since it has no monthly fee they don't really compete.
All goon (somethingawful.com members) guilds are going to be on there and I'll probably join one or two of them. No particular reason other than that, but I was on it for the beta and stress tests, and my friends are coming too.
That's the beauty of it. GW2 doesn't have to compete with WoW thanks to their model, but the reverse is a different story. WoW is going to have to bike uphill to keep their casual players subscribed or draw in new players. I believe that's why recently they announced they're lifting expansion race restrictions. They're scared. You're absolutely right that there's still a market for hardcore raiders, but I'd be surprised if they made up more than 10-15% of the whole player base.
Well I said raiding and purples but I essentially meant "progression". GW2 doesn't really have progression that isn't cosmetic only. Pvp ranks? cosmetic armor. End game? gear is roughly equal between everything, even legendary weapons are going to be cosmetic upgrades only, apparently.
I never really understood what the point was with offering gear with increasingly higher numbers. The only function it seems to have is trivializing earlier content, or even trivializing all PvE content that isn't raiding. In other words, even with gear progression factored in, you're already raiding for raiding's own sake. It's also a common complaint for raiders that the world they used to raid in disappears with every expansion. That the challenges they went through are not going to be able to be experienced by anyone else, and that what they worked hard for lost value. Especially if someone goes back two expansions later and solos it all and now has the same shinies. The easiest answer to this problem is just to cut out the numbers entirely. It was always about the prestige in the first place. Especially once Burning Crusade made raiding gear worthless in PvP and made it only good for getting new raid gear.
Well it's always been about making your character stronger, do more damage, etc. I think GW2 is fine in that aspect though, traits are the main way you're going to feel it get stronger.
In GW1, becoming more powerful was all about collecting new skills and coming up with new complementary builds to give your heroes. I'm kind of curious how GW2 will retain that sense of continual growth once stats even out, but I have faith the game will still be fun at that point. Heck, might even be a good time to roll a new character and start anew. Also, unrelated, but I can't want to check out my Hall of Monuments swag in game!
Mainly what I've been doing in the stress tests is just play sPvP. It really feels like there's a high skill ceiling and that I kept getting better every test, tweaking my builds etc. I think experience will definitely make your character stand out from the others. After, I went in PvE a bit and kept fighting groups of 3 or more centaurs at a time and it was fun and not scary, unlike when I started.
Is Guild Wars 2 any good, now it's established and has been patched a bit? I've had some concerns about the armour design, and I must confess I've not heard much about it since release. I tried WoW again this morning but I couldn't even get past the character creation. It still felt 'done'. I'm giving up with The Secret World as it feels anti-player and it's just kinda dull. I half-enjoyed Allods Online from what I remember.
I'm enjoying it, but I can't tell you what you will like. It's totally uneven in that your experience will vary based on your choice of race and class and even weapon type. The voice acting varies from competent to amateur hour, and the writing has similar variations. The art design varies the same way, but sometimes makes no sense for the kind of magical steampunk world they've created. At times I feel like I'm in a decent MMO, and other times I feel like I'm in a saturday morning cartoon made to appeal to an 8 year-old. I think my .nephew would have liked the art design of parts -- at least back when he played pokemon (ok, it's not that bad a quality, just with the dialog and voice acting... I have serious questions about what they were thinking). Let's just say, that much of the game is not made specifically to appeal to an older audience. Honestly, the armor is the least of my concerns. The city layouts are just bad. Even EQ, with it's much simpler city layouts, ended up adding in guides to help you get from one spot to another (and EQ was a much more hard-core game than GW2). I sometimes feel like I'm spending the whole game trying to find my way. At least in Rift when that happens, I have a mount and I'm getting lost on purpose. Oh, and too many jumping games for an MMO. Really. Can we put the jumping game into a jumping game? If I wanted a Jumping game, I would buy a jumping game. There's lots of them, and never felt the urge to buy a single one. The game has some good to it also. As I said, the AH is fairly well designed, although I'm learning that the market kinda sucks. Combat can be fun if you pick the right weapon(s) and class. Some of the story missions do go beyond the usual kill the boss goals. But that seems to be the same pattern with all new MMOs There's still plenty of 'fetch this, collect that, kill 100 zombies' only they mix it up so that you are filling in a bar instead of doing a check list. It really isn't much of an improvement, but at least they are trying. This is not a game that I intend to spend a whole lot of time with -- it's more like something that I can play until there's more Rift or ESO or Wildstar comes out (Which ever one turns out to appeal to me more).
I don't really want to spend the time making a post as full as Haldurson's but to give my two cents while I do agree about the voice acting the cities and art design are phenomenal without exception in my opinion. Jumping puzzles do indeed abound but they're not in the slightest bit required, though they do give rewards. It is absolutely worth it, and even if you don't play it a lot you can come back to it whenever you've run out of things to play and be sure they've added content (they have a good enough rate right now and I'm not sure when it will slow down but they've definitely been adding a lot)
