ArenaNet knows how to get my attention: drop the DAOC bomb when talking about PvP. Published a few days ago on mmorpg.com is an interview with a couple GW2 devs and in it they’re asked a very good question about player camaraderie and how it’s been lost over the years. This statement is true. The camaraderie between players on a server (EQ) or faction/realm (DAOC) has been squashed by the importance of the individual and guild superseding that of the greater community. That’s a huge problem.
Here’s what the dev replied:
“The other thing that I think is important and this is not a direct answer, but we have World vs. World PvP in Guild Wars 2. I think that will impact PvE as well. Which is your server shard matched up against two other servers in open world PvP. If you like Dark Age of Camelot, this is, in our minds the next evolution of that. It is something that really drove community and you care about what you are doing on a PVE and PvP side. You care about the people on the server. We think we will have those bonds because your server is matched up against two other servers. So it is just that much more important that you become friends and you bond with the players on your server. So the friends you make through PvE and Dynamic Events, those friends will carry over into World vs. World PvP. You may get out of World vs. World PvP and go back to early zones to do events with new people and help encourage them to join you in the fight for your server to take part in battles and beat the other two. We expect large strong communities on each server and I think PvP will end up affecting PvE because people will work together.” -Colin Johanson (Lead Content Designer)
That is the single most intelligent thing I have read from a developer interview in a long time. If this guy’s answer truly reflects what ArenaNet is doing then they have nailed the IDEA behind what I go on and on and on about constantly. If they can just implement and have it work in practice like they want it to in theory then they’re brilliant. Sure, it would be better if it were on a single server and persistent between factions without being swapped around so that rivalries could form but at this point beggars can’t be choosers.
On the official GW2 Wiki “World versus World” (WvW) page, there’s a lot more information about how these match ups will work. Again, I stress that I believe in the idea behind what Colin Johanson was saying but the devil is in the implementation. Reading this wiki page, one could easily think of Alterac Valley — in which case I would promptly vomit and go into conniptions.
“Each opposing world starts out with castles, mercenary camps, mines, lumber mills and villages. Separating the starting zones are neutral zones controlled by no one, also containing fortresses, mines, and villages.
The resources gained from mines and lumber mills are used to rebuild walls, create siege engines, and generally defend the team’s fortress.
These territories and control points will confer benefits to the world that controls them; “maybe everyone gets increased energy regeneration or healing rate or enhanced loot drop rate.” Players can gain experience and level their character in World PvP. Guilds will be able to take and hold keeps.“
Sounds a lot like DAOC’s relics, frontier, and keeps. There’s even talk on there about 3 factions floating around (can anyone confirm GW2 has 3 factions? I can’t find it.).
If you didn’t have a reason to follow GW2 before — and my hopes were honestly dwindling — then maybe you can get behind this idea of the developers trying to rekindle “Realm pride” and a meaningful sense of PvP again. Funny how just yesterday I posted about wanting something like that again…
Btw, this information came from our wonderful Keen and Graev Forum Community in our Upcoming Games section. It’s has fantastic information collected by members of our community. (Thanks Balthazar for pointing out the interview!)
I wrote about GW2 some days ago and about a 72 minutes long presentation they gave. I suggest you listen to that presentation before you jump 😉
On GW2 in general: I am far from a fanboy, read my blog. But, and that is a big BUT: I think that they will easily climb to 1mio players. Probably 2-3mio.
They do, however, not concentrate on PvP as end game content. I get the feeling that it is just some extra at lvl cap.
Should I be wrong and they really make PvP meaningful (the 3 factions are the 3 servers!), this game could become a WoW killer and that is the first time in 5 years that I say this.
I can see humans vs. Charr of course in world PVP, but I don’t know what they will do with the other races.
I think te 3 factions comes from 3 servers competing against each other in world pvp right?
And I am full of doubt that the castle siege mechanic will be anything near the perfection of DAoC’s. Siege weapons that blow holes in castle walls? Wall climbing by certain classes?
I hadn’t even realised GW2 had PvP. Well, I suppose, given Guild Wars, it was in the back of my mind that there would be some PvP element to it, but they certainly haven’t been hyping it.
I can take it or leave it alone, personally, but if we ar having it then 3-way RvR is a good option.
I’m just happy about there being 3 different sides and seeing a developer coming into it with a design philosophy with the basis that the way DAoC did things was a good thing and trying to evolve a system from that.
Less excited about them switching it up all the time, but we’ll see.
I can’t say for sure if GW2 will end up being everything I hope it will, but the developers sure have been knocking it out of the park with almost everything they are saying.
When you compare it some of the real ridiculous stuff we’ve heard from other studios, its just that more appealing too.
In the first GW PvP was as important endgame as PvE, there where even PvP only versions of the game you could buy where you didn’t have to level a char in PvE at all, you started at levelcap and just PvPed (PvE elements of the game was inaccesible on these accounts).
So with that in mind I think it’s fair to assume that GW2 will have a good deal of PvP endgame to it.
They have not been hyping about it because, as they’ve stated in previous interviews, they are not ready to spill the details on PvP just yet.
Infact, PvP was VERY important in endgame GW1, cos the best PvE zone was only avail if your realm (EU, NA or Asia) was winning in PvP.
Yeah, Factions = Servers. Also it will be competitive. There will be something like a tournament ladder. Servers will be matched with their equals…
Keen, idunno if this was pointed out to you about Guild Wars 2, but when the they released their mission statement vid or w/e it’s called you asked whether the Gigantic purple skeletal dragon thing was just in an instance (along with the other things). It was confirmed that the dragon (Called the Shatterer) was an open world event and was showcased as such in the Charr part of the recent Public GW2 demos at PAX and Gamescon. People actually fought it in the current demo in the open world. As far as other aspects of those videos idunno, but at least some of those things showcased that looked likely to be instance only are actually done in the open world.
http://www.glimpsedog.com/content/347-epic-guild-wars-2-footage.html
This is some gameplay footage from one of the gamescom players who took part in it. And they describe their reaction to it.
The 3 factions are the 3 servers.
3 servers fighting at a time is a good enough start.
Guildwars also had 3-way free for all PvP combat, in Heroes Ascent – one of the main endgame activities – so there’s precedent for this. In GW it was 6v6v6 or 8v8v8, however.
As has been said, the factions here are actually servers, which will rotate every week so you’re constantly fighting new opponents. Other than this, GW2 doesn’t seem to actually have “factions” like in WoW – everyone’s on one “team” in PvE, and in the FPS-like lobby PvP everyone fights everyone else (kind of like WoW arena, but probably objective-based).
As to inter-server rivalries springing up, I imagine it will be something like in WoW – you see a premade from that server in your Battle Group that has the good PvP guilds, and instantly you know it’s those bastards you hate. But you won’t be stuck as a weak server against a strong one endlessly. Dunno if that’ll wind up being good or bad here, though.
Word on the wiki is that the developer you quote, Colin Johanson, worked for Mythic back in their early days, and he has said he’s been lobbying for a DaoC-like PvP format in GW for some time. However, I think many people will be disappointed by the fact that WvW will take place in it’s own zone, away from the rest of the world (that’s the implication, anyway).
The community building elements are there, however, and I think GW2 seems like it could do a good job of actually making you want to go play socially, whether in a city or out in the world. But as for WvW, I’m afraid that the feeling of an epic struggle across the frontiers from DaoC might not make the transition.
They’re being quite tight-lipped about PvP at the moment, but recently have been careful to insist that it’s been in design and testing since day one, and is an integral part of the game.
I’m excited about the potential that GW2 holds, but I’m trying to keep my expectations low. Arena Net has a history of promising things they *can* achieve, and following through on them, but they sometimes lose the plot and fail to adhere to their vision. Hopefully they’ve worked out the kinks in GW, and will be able to follow through in GW2.
Blah. Forgot I wanted to mention one other point: Many of the mechanics involved in WvW are already in GW in one way or another – just not together.
The idea of PvPing for “realm pride” – In GW, it was region pride – that is, America vs Europe vs Asia. Whichever region held “Halls” (a king of the hill style ongoing tournament, that fed into the final, 3-way FFA scenario) had free access to the highest-end PvE areas – although items were added later to allow other regions access when they didn’t have the “favor of the gods”.
The idea of resource collection existed in both Jade Quarry and Fort Aspenwood, which were “competitive missions”. These were geared towards players who didn’t like PvP, but wanted to still take part in the faction war. Conflict with other players could happen, but it was mostly a race to see who could either escort caravans of resources back to your base, or assault a fortress with the help of NPCs.
These systems both worked in pretty unique ways – rather than going and “taking” a mine by standing near a flag, or picking up armor scraps and turning them in – like AV – you actually had to go kill the guards at a resource node, and then physically escort a guy carrying resources back to your base. Similarly in Fort Aspenwood, you had to leave your fortress, go to the nearby amber mines, kill the guards, and then physically carry this big lump back to your base, where you could turn it in to a mason who’d re-build damaged magical barriers.
There were fortress siege scenarios in Alliance Battles, as well – these involved capturing points that would spawn bombs that needed to be carried and planted at gates, which once breached opened additional capture points, and left the NPC guards that manned the walls vulnerable.
None of these formats really felt like WoW to me, but neither did they really feel like DaoC or WAR. They’re sort of this weird hybrid between the battlefield-style ticket system, and halo-style bomb-running, where you have to physically carry around this big object that slows you down and makes you a target.
There was also a territory control feature, but it was pretty limited – basically if you turned in enough faction points you’d get access to a limited number of instanced cities, IIRC.
Arena Net certainly has some unique ideas about how to do things, I’m just not sure what to expect from them in GW2 since they’ve changed so much since GW.
Oh THAT’S what ““favor of the gods†means! I’ve been wondering for months what that message meant!
The DAOC bomb got my attention too but who are we kidding. The mention of the gloriuos third realm is nice but it wont make up for bad game design. WAR could have had three realms and it still would have been crappy. The third realm was seen as a great addition because it helped balance the overall war effort. However, if the game is bad and people dont even care about the war effort then the third realm will be useless.
I will keep following GW2 but I dont have high hopes. I watched the 72 minute presentation of dynamic events and it totally reminded me of WAR…when they had a presentation..also saying Quests are stupid..and how would it be if you go somewhere to kill pigs and then without having previously acquired a quest, you can talk to a NPC and get a reward because he had a quest to kill pigs. They made a big deal out of it and then it didnt even make it into the game!!! LOL even worth..they claimed it was a misunderstanding! These dynamic events are still quests…
I disagreed with one point in that presentation…they started talking about MUDS and then the early MMORPGs like UO and EQ and they said the problem was that you go out and kill some things and there was no purpose – also, you were competing with other players for the very same resources and that was another big problem (that “needs” to be solved).
However, I remember that back in the day it was extremely satisfying to find a good spawn and have a good hunt. The reason was that this wasnt the norm and it was sometimes tough to find a good hunting place. Many times you went around, a little frustrated perhaps, not finding a good spot. That was a negative experience. However, once you found a good spot, it totally made up for it and it was a good success and maybe even a little bit of an adventure that no developer carefully crafted for you.
The point is, we are getting handfed those hunting spots, and if you call them quests or not, they are still finely tuned ways that the developers wants you to play. It is easy and accessible. It doesnt neccesitate thought or imagination. Everything is easy. Without negative or boring game play experiences, you cannot appreciate the good ones…they dont form lasting memories.
In AC you could also do many unique things – you could find your own little dungeon to camp – or do it with a friend or two. Some areas were very hard to get too and that made it exciting once you got there. GW2 sounds like a lot more spoonfeeding…it makes for a limited enjoyable experience but it certainly isnt good for long lasting memories of a good experience.
These games are overdeveloped in my opinion. It is a waste of resources. Use the resources to input felxibility into your game and then let the user make their own adventures. No developer can effectively pre-plan how you are going to have fun…
1 week sounds like a bit too short, that is a bit of a revolving door then 🙁 I think something like 3-4 month would be quite good, you would have time to learn who is who and it will be possible to really establish the winner. However it would not be long enough for people to completely give up. That is a big reason for them doing it, even with 3 realms in DAOC some servers had redheaded stepchild realms were people were demotivated and gave up the fight and the war was mostly 2 sided
Someone mentioned that GW2 could be a wow killer. To that i say, “You cannot kill that which has no life.” Wow is like crack, only no methadone or 12 step program to cure its effects.
Actually I was wrong – favor was once related to halls, but is now related to achievements. Once I thought about it again I checked the wiki – guess I haven’t been playing much recently. : /
http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Favor_of_the_Gods
To Argorius:
Obviously you need to come to your own conclusion, but I recommend sifting through some of the gamescom demo gameplay and the recent PAX dynamic event design panel, where ANet staff worked with fans to actually make an event chain that will go in the game. That’ll give you a good sense of what exactly the world design in GW2 should look like.
Here’s part 1 of 10 of the panel: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5mjiRKkHwXk&feature=related
All the gamescom videos are collected here:
http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/this-gamescom-compilation-information-streaming-t6651.html
@ jay p:
I wrote
Should I be wrong and they really make PvP meaningful (the 3 factions are the 3 servers!), this game could become a WoW killer and that is the first time in 5 years that I say this.
I do not believe that GW2 will have meaningful PvP. But should they have it in addition to the rest, then my guess would be 60:40 that they could ‘kill’ WoW. Also depends a bit on how Cataclysm goes, of course. Here, an unpolished release is a possibility.
@Argorius: You seem to think that everyone finds grinding interesting, I for sure don’t. Sure I’d love a game where I can explore the world and go looking for things to kill or do, but being forced into constantly and repeatedly killing the same groups of mobs for the sake of XPing or being lucky with loot is for sure not my cup of tea. Imo ArenaNet sounds like they’re on to something with their dynamic events system, if the implementation is good ofc. I mean not running around looking for questhubs but rather traveling out in the world exploring and running across a event happening, choosing to participate or just go past it and look for something else sounds like a good deal to me. If anything I’d wish that they made the events more subtle in terms of UI notifications, in the demo there where arrows and text telling you about events starting etc and it kinda broke the immersion for me, rather you’d stumble upon a event by seeing a village being attacked and hearing the NPCs scream for help than having some UI element telling you “You’ve now stepped into event #214, kill 15 kobolds”
There’s only one thing that can kill WoW; Blizzard.
Either by them fucking up the game (like ToA for DaoC and some patch did for EQ) or that they release a new game that pulls the customers away from WoW. Am I a fanboi? No, I like WoW for some reasons but hate it for at least equal amounts of others. But players playing WoW and enjoying it are rarely looking for something different, they are looking for something similar.
Whenever I speak to any of my really hardcore WoW playing friends about new games on the horizon, about cool new systems being developed etc, its a completely /care attitude they have towards it, they really don’t give a fuck what others do cos they love WoW and see no reason to leave it behind in a good while. A note can be made that none of these have been MMO players prior to WoW and the ones that has indeed taken the step out to try something else have been burnt by games like Aion, AoC and WAR and thus are less likely to try again 😛
Keen.. With so many people comparing games to DAOC and many people, myself include, having great memories of that game, Wouldn’t it be a HomeRun for Mythic to make a DAOC 2 without TOA and with all the souped up graphics and advances since it DAOC came out. They probably don’t have funding and i guess EA would never let anyone else do it, but it seems like a no brainer.
The problem with Mythic making a DAOC2.0 is that Mythic is no longer Mythic. They are Bioware which is EA. If we pretend that isn’t the reality for a second, then yes, the ideal would be for them to make DAOC 2 as a DAOC (pre-toa) with better graphics. It would quickly become the newest best game ever made.
@Keen
I completely agree.
On the one hand, I am still dumbfounded that Mythic did not go forward with the Origins project they proposed a few years ago or that they never began working on DAoC 2. On the other hand, like you said, Mythic now is not the Mythic that made DAoC. I cannot imagine the team that made WAR would make a DAoC 2 that I (or most folks who enjoyed Pre-ToA DAoC) could look forward to.
Even so, that someone has not picked up the idea and ran with it yet is astounding. There is so much potential for a DAoC 2 product, even post-WAR.
Even as a big GW2 booster, I don’t think it has any chance of prying away a very significant amount of WoW’s population. Furthermore, I don’t even think they’re really trying to, which is great IMO. They’re really making a game with a very different focus.
WoW: World of Raids and the endgame progression treadmill. They’ve focused on that aspect of the game and do it amazingly. I feel their PvP has slowly slid to an afterthought, and it shows – but I suppose that’s up for argument, and likely to change somewhat in cataclysm. This is beside the point, either way – the PvP in Cataclysm will still be structured as a progression treadmill for endgame, with competitive tournaments a pay-to-play side feature, if they survive.
GW2: Endgame consists of making alts, traveling the world to redo early-midgame content (since you automatically get sidekicked down to the level of a zone, they’re placing great emphasis on going back to see areas and events you missed while leveling), searching for rare traits and working on achievements (the latter was recently announced to be account-wide, rather than linked to a character), “hard 5 man dungeons”, and PvP.
PvP is either the “DaoC inspired” WvW, with PvE skills (GW and GW2 both have PvP/PvE versions of many skills), gear, and disparate power levels – but still open to any level player, since there is implied to be at least a degree of sidekicking in the zone – or structured PvP which has been implied to be organized into automated tournaments like in Guildwars 1, where all characters are boosted to max level and given access to the best items, skills, and traits in the game – that is, there is no unlocking or “progression” beyond getting better and competing for rating. Though judging from Guildwars 1, you will probably still gain certain currencies through tournament PvP, to trade for vanity items and useful consumables.
I just don’t see these games as being in direct competition at this point. I certainly don’t see GW2 appealing to the WoW hardcore and drawing them away – though perhaps the casual players who just like to solo quest, and get put off by the raiding culture at endgame might try it out. Similarly some of the less content PvP players who never really liked the “progression” model of PvP (such as myself) might move over.
In short, of coursefuckingnot nothing’s going to kill WoW, don’t be silly. 🙂
GW2’s PvP has been an integral part of the design of GW2 and testing since day one. Not many people know that. We will know more information in the future. They’ve got to be extremely careful not to promise something they can’t deliver that is why they don’t say much about PvP. When it’s ready and in-game they’ll speak about it. Patience.
‘“Realm pride†and a meaningful sense of PvP again.’
What ever happened to PvPing just for the sake of PvPing what about the players like me, who just want to straight up go fight you for no reason whatsoever. what motivation did we need before to do this? the answer is NONE.
There are people who play pvp games just for the simple reason to pvp and perhaps gain some rewards for doing so but the majority of the hxc scene only cares about 2 things; Finding your noob ass and annihilating it.
All this crap about about RvR and PvPvE and now WvW like are you kidding me? What happened to good old fashoned PvP I see you I kill you. Did the MMO gaming community crawl up inside a huge vagina or something?
@JT
Some people enjoy more than just pointless slaughter. They want context, alliances, meaningful objectives, rivalries, turf, etc.
The other people play first person shooters, you should check one out sometime.
@JT: You are singling out a component and claiming it to be the entirety of a working system. Your desire to just kill people can exist in any form of PvP.
If you want to just kill people, you can play WoW kill people in BG’s or the world. The same can be had in a game like DAOC. Same can be done in Darkfall. UO. Etc.
Your desire to just smash someone with your club is a possible common trait in any PvP.
However, as Balthazar says, the context is what matters. Are you doing it in just some instanced battleground or is it in a persistent world where you’re fighting to claim more territory or because you want glory (Roleplayed or otherwise) for your kingdom against a rivalry?
I would suggest Mount & Blade. Fantastic game where you can just kill people for fun and do battle. However, there are no persistent dynamics or a reason for doing it — other than the pure act of doing it.
There is a major positive here. If they do create world pvp as a battle between 3 servers it might finally answer the question of just how important it was that Daoc had 3 realms. I know people love to be nostalgic about Dark Ages, I certainly am, but I also know that a lot of that is due to some serious rose tinted glasses.
If Guild Wars creates a fun dynamic open world experience, it will provide further credibility for the 3 side open world pvp argument. That would mean a better chance of future pvp MMO’s seeing that element as a staple of open world pvp. At least we can hope so, we may also learn that the benefits of a 3rd side are illusory. Personally, I believe that having 3 sides was one of, if not the biggest contributors to the success of RVR in DAOC.
How can you have meaningful world versus world PvP when its rotated once per week? What’s the point of holding a keep then? Why would people bother with open world PvP when the rewards are the same (leveling) as PvE?
EXP boosts dont matter: FFXI had an event called Beseiged where you would do large scale open PvE a few times a day to protect your realm and maintain some nice exp boosts. Only one server cared enough about it to keep it going all the time.
I think people are trying to make Guild Wars 2 the ubergame, and they are really going to be disappointed when it hits and it has zero depth, but a lot of very shallow experiences.
@Dblade
Its not just a simple rotation. Your server climbs the ladder. Its like a tournament of servers. Point of PvP is to be the number one PvP server there is (+ the ingame bonuses your server gets).
Also 1 week period isn’t set in stone. That can change…
And add to that a lot of players are not looking for depth in PvP, I for one ain’t.
Sure having a reason to whack your opponents on the head with a stick is fine, be it realm pride, honor or whatnot, but for me it’s a problem if that reason is getting gear that improves your characters ability to kill and/or survive.
I’m pretty much like JT (post #27), I PvP just for the sake of PvPing, just cos I like winning and being last man standing in a fight. In WoW it’s pretty tough to PvP like that cos of the constant gear grind and gear resets, so a game that has shallow PvP but less or no emphasis on character and (foremost) gear progression to PvP is a welcome addition to me.
So I’m not looking for depth in PvP, I’m looking for balance and fun.
Could I play a FPS? Yes, and I do occasionally, it’s just that I prefer games with a fantasy setting and afaik there is no good Counterstrike “The Sword n Board edition” out there.
@Proximo: Depth = better = fun.
Whack-a-mole PvP for Prizes = WoW = Not at all “meaningful”.
Take it beyond PvP’ing for rewards. Who cares. PvPing because the game’s design naturally brings players to do it, respect it (see post) and we have a whole different subject (the one where DAOC and meaningful pvp reside). Hopefully this is where GW2 ends up because they at least have the right IDEA.
You can pvp just for the sake of pvping and pretend it’s as shallow as you want in a game that has depth to pvp. You can’t go the other way, though.
How deep would you consider Battlefield Bad Company 2 to be then?
Cos that’s bout how deep PvP needs to be for my sake.
I need to add that I don’t care a rats ass for the achievements, pins and whatnot in BC2 either, I play merely to kill other players, nothing more nothing less.
It’s just more fun to me besting something player controlled than something computer controlled (IE WoW raid bosses etc).
I’m not talking about anything but MMORPG’s. Shooters are not relevant to this discussion in terms of depth or being meaningful.
I brought up Mount & Blade because people who don’t care for the depth or how PvP is incorporated into more apsects of the game would find just as much enjoyment there.
I don’t care about achievements or the like either.
If first person shooters are deep enough for you, then you should be happy with ANY PvP in a MMO regardless of whether or not it’s meaningful or frivolous.
God damn just read that piece about WvW in GW2. Sounds damn awesome and very similiar to what I envisioned frontier conflict should be. Except I wanted it happen not in some instances but in the zones of normal world , not all zones but border ones (like in wow “contested” zones were actually supposed to be)
@High Life
I think most people wont be caring much about that. If you don’t win your ladder “matches” interest will wane, and unless you get a healthy exp/loot bonus for placing in the middle of the pack, you’ll see one or two servers cement their place at the top.
If you want the sort of realm pride Keen wants, you have to force people to play, no escape allowed. You have to PvP or you get ganked and the game sucks.
@Keen: As far as depth goes you are right, any game that HAS PvP would do for me. But there’s other things that matters more to me like balance, setting (ie i wanna fight with sword not lasers), whether the PvP is gearbased > skillbased or the other way around.
Also, I play MMOs cos they offer me more than just PvP, if pure PvP was what I was looking for I’d prob still be playing mostly FPS cos that’s the “best” PvP I’ve had so far.
And lastly, I don’t MIND if there’s other incentives for PvPing other than the sake of PvPing, like realm or guild pride, on the contrary I like it when those things are there as opposed to gear grind PvP. But for my sake it’s not a MUST have for the PvP to be good and interesting.
Hope that didn’t come out as confusing as it sounds to me. 😛
While I respect that there are actually people out there that enjoy Guildwars, I always though it was a laggy lobby-based instanced game that belonged more in the lan-party setting than the MMO-setting.
Being asian in gorgeous avatars that can’t jump (which I always thought amusing as I thought they were ex-Blizzard employees) didn’t help as I have some adverse hatred for any MMO (though I consider GW as much an MMO as….Diablo; ie: I consider them lan-party games) that doesn’t let me jump just so they can design zones to railroad you even more than normal.
While I like many things ArenaNet are saying concerning GW2, especially if it means pvp will be more about pride then grinding for gear (probably the single worst thing WoW did in my eyes), I haven’t heard a single thing that makes me think it’ll be make any changes to the core lobby-based instanced game that GW currently is. That very core is why I see no possibility of “realm” pride as that very core is why GW is essentially a lan-game in which you only interact with your friends.
Granted, as I dislike GW I haven’t exactly been scouring the headlines for GW2, so if it’s going to be an open world where you actually see and interact with others outside of lobbies, I’ll be happy to be proven wrong. Till then, this simply sits on my very huge shelf of “F2P” garbage with gorgeous graphics (amazing really at how many F2P games can do gorgeous graphics and animations; something many “Triple A” games fail at-which is about the only good thing I have to say about F2P).
@ Drew
From the official FAQ:
“How is Guild Wars 2 different from other MMOs?”
“While Guild Wars 2 adds a persistent world, it retains the unique nature of the original game including a strong narrative, extensive instanced gameplay, an anti-grind design philosophy, and strong support for competitive play.”
The fact that it is a persistent world (and not a lobby-based town with instanced game-world) this time is one of the core differences they are highlighting to distinguish GW2 from GW1.
As the FAQ states, there will be extensive use of instancing, but my understanding is it will resemble the model frequently found in subscription-based MMOs we’ve all gotten familiar with, rather than the GW1 model. In other words, personal story-line missions, dungeons, raids, etc. That is my understanding at least.
@ Balthazar
Ah. Just perused the wikipedia entry, and it does sound like they’ll have an actual world to play in this time around. There’s a lot of good stuff there. I might have to start keeping an eye on it.
I guess my only real concern left after reading all that is that it’s still “free”, which I suspect is the main reason the current GW servers are so bad with frequent latency problems (having played GWs from Hawaii, California, New York, and Chicago over the years….with the same consistently poor results, I tend to think it’s a server issue). Now, I may simply be spoiled with consistently <100 ping in virtually any subscription based game compared to the 200+ ping I get to GW…but we all have our comfort levels I guess when it comes to connection speeds. And at least GW's is far above mine. That'll have to improve dramatically for me to buy and play GW2, no matter how great is sounds on paper.
GW was recently migrated to a new data center, and I now ping about 130 (rather than my old ping which was around 250). For comparison I always got about 200 to my old WoW server. I was playing on a west coast server from the mid west, but I ping much better to west coast FPS servers, so who knows.
But yeah, the instancing in GW2 has been shown to be very limited – 5 man dungeons and certain parts of your personal story, such as royal quarters, offices, and you home instance.
They’ve switched over from trying to keep income going through releasing campaigns, to just doing expansions as well, so they’ll probably be releasing more xpacks and making more money that way. I assume so, at least, they haven’t talked too much about that part of things yet.
I have a ping of 63ms in GW atm but I’m in Europe (sweden), latency has never been an issue for me in GW.
Also they have mentioned that GW2 will keep the same payment model that the first game had, being no sub but pay for expansions and a shop where you can buy nice stuff for your account. Big point though is that you can’t buy stuff that makes your character more powerful or such, it’s vanity items and stuff like more character slots, more bank slots (which can be bought for ingame gold as well) etc.
Nothing wrong with that. DAoC has had the best mmo pvp to date. If GW2 can do as good or better, that would be freekin’ awesome!
[…] for PQ bags or just for slaughtering other players in an arcade-like way isn’t enough. Look at how GW2 is creating a system where players within the servers (translates well to Realms) will want to care about and help each […]
I really like the idea of Rp’s from DAoC and Andred/Mordred PvP servers.
[…] your whole world by holding certain key objectives. They say outright that it’s like DAoC. [Quotes in a blog entry I made.] At Gamescom this mode is entirely missing. In fact, WvWvW is not mentioned in the “PvP […]