My favorite GW2 Press Beta Info

I wasn’t able to play in the beta weekend (good thing because I’ve been terribly sick) but I want to show you guys some of my favorite stuff that I’ve found from around the various sites that do have coverage.

Finding a video that wasn’t some guy just saying the game is awesome (without showing us anything) or finding one that wasn’t trying to be all about the person talking was hard (that’s the annoying part of press betas — let me in so I can make some!)  Most of the videos of PvP were also just some guy standing there instead of actually participating.

//UPDATE//
I had to throw this one at the top. Want to know why WvWvW in GW2 will work? Because ArenaNet is putting in incentives that will get people out there fighting for bonuses for their entire server. This is like DAOC’s relic system. Now all we need are some really cool dungeons or locations within the mists that only the server ‘winning’ can access.

The best WvWvW video so far.  Lots of action, a cool mech suit, etc. 20 min mark a lot of action starts.

Check out the video below from MMORPG.com.  I want you to see how big the WvWvW zone is when he zooms all the way out.  It looks massive! Also, take note of the players banging on the door.  It reminds me of Dark Age of Camelot.  This keep he’s in looks like it will be a lot of fun to defend.  I can imagine having hundreds of players from all factions clashing together.  It’s a little unsettling to see the lag, though, but that may be from his computer since the IGN video seems to handle it better.

Next, IGN has a decent video explaining and showing some WvWvW stuff.  It’s funny how he talks about the map and thinks there are only two worlds instead of three… but he doesn’t zoom out to see he’s in just ONE of FOUR massive zones.  Anyway, lots of really cool things to see here like the staging area, a brief glimpse at what your “Competitive PvP character” will look like — that’s the one you’ll do Arenas and battlegrounds with (the inferior kind of PvP) — and how you can customize.

In the video I see him “waypoint” to the keep.  I think this may be a mistake for ArenaNet to allow people to just teleport to the keeps.  Keeping reinforcements from reaching a keep seems like a strategy that gets ignored if the keep can be flooded with people just teleporting there.  I think this might be only for the main big keep in each zone, though, and I am not sure if it can be done when the keep is under siege.  Anyone know?

Jump to 7:35 if you’re just interested in some keep fighting action.

I’m hyped about GW2.  If it’s not obvious, I’m hyped about WvWvW more than anything else.  Watching this stuff brought tears to my eyes … but I think that might be all the sneezing from my cold.

Read on.

Here’s a video showing different combat abilities with different weapons on the Mesmer.  One that stood out to me was the off-hand, and how it grants two abilities.  There was an arc attack that I thought looked cool.  I’m still learning a lot about GW2; one thing I’ve been picking up on is how most abilities have aoe or arc.

I’ll keep updating this as I find more stuff to share.  If you find anything that I haven’t seen, link or tell me about it!  I could really use some good links to PvE videos.

  • Does the game have battlegrounds of any kind? If so all that looks like to me is something along the lines of what warhammer was trying to do but will fail if they have bg’s :(. I love the idea of world pvp but it almost always sucks anymore if bg’s are available.

  • @mark ya theirs battlegrounds, arenas, and wvw.

    But your bg/arena char is different then the wvw char.

    Your WvW char is the same as your pve one.. but for bg/arena everyone has the same stats, etc.. for “competitive” gaming.

    also wvw gives tons of server wide buffs if your doing good there such as exp, more gold, better crafting crits etc..

  • @Mark: Like Bartillo said, you basically have two characters.

    1) Your main character. The character you level up, gear up, etc. This is also your World vs. World. vs. World character.

    2) Your “competitive” e-sport type character. This is the pre-fabricated level 80 character you take into arenas and battlegrounds.

    Essentially, your e-sport pvp activities do not impact your persistent Mmorpg gameplay. This avoids the problems that WAR’s scenarios caused.

    Furthermore, GW2 WvWvW has global benefits. If your world is winning, your world gets benefits that everyone will want regardless of their participation. That means people have a reason to want to go out and WvWvW (think Relics from DAOC, if you know about those).

  • Hype, hype…

    Open the beta, let us taste it, and I’ll be the first to praise. But until then, this is only another Age of Conan (a lot of promises, nothing delivered).

  • Great videos, thanks for posting them. I can’t wait until the public gets a chance to sign up for beta testing.

  • @Keen: From what I know, your Conquest character (BGs) is still the same character as your PVE one, what they do is I think they Bolster you to 80, unlock all your skills temporarily, and override your gear with preset PVP gear thats balanced. I still think its all 1 character, just in different “modes”

    I could be wrong though, Im operating on info from before this Beta Info influx. They showed videos of a normal character queuing for a COnquest, getting in, and being scaled and such. Now there might be 2 virtual characters. as in you just get a temporary balanced version of you class in the BG, but I don’t think you have 2 completely seperate characters (as in having to switch characters, or something like that)

  • @Daegalus: You’re right. I guess I just consider your character with totally different gear and stats as a different character. It 100% levels the playing field beyond just a bolster. It’s like being handed a prefab.

  • I think there needs to be an AoC meme based on the universal reaction, “It was great for the first 20 levels.”

  • For those of you who watched the link bartillo posted. Does it seem to you the objectives are too clustered around each other and the map feels small? Or is it similar in DAOC?

  • The IGN battlegrounds are large. I kept thinking that this is what Warhammer should have been like, fleshed out with many options and 3 factions.

  • For starters, I dunno what server you where on in WAR, but on Karak Eight Peaks (Europe) I can’t recall oRvR being empty because of BGs. At least not in T4, T2 and T3 was pretty much empty after the first month or so while people where farming BGs/SCs and PQs.
    In T4 if you dared to join a SC with a PUG you where either;
    A: Waiting in queue forever, because everyone was playing one specific SC because of B.
    B: Getting stomped by premades in the one SC that had short queues, because people chose that particular SC to farm points for a zone lock and the opposition chose it to prevent a lock.

    Furthermore, SCs in WAR was being played a lot because, in T2 and T3 it was the fastest way of leveling your PvE level, and had the bonus of your RRank not falling behind which happened if you PvE’d. In T4 it was the fastest way to farm RRank, at least up to a certain point.

    In WoW, BGs are played because;
    A: It’s the fastest way to farm honor for better gear.
    B: The “world pvp” they offer is sheit!

    So as long as ArenaNet makes WvW fun to play and balance the rewards between BGs and WvW, I don’t think it will be an issue.
    I like BGs because it allows me to play under set rules with “balanced teams” in terms of numbers, but lord knows I had some great moments in oRvR as well (when it wasn’t just a zergfest, which it was 99% of the time).

  • The only negative to this so far is Syncaine’s point that all 3 ‘home’ maps are exactly the same, right down to the water feature. Only the central main map is different. Strategically I guess this has some understandable reasoning behind it. But hey, everything else looks amazing.

  • @Coppertopper: You can bet that IF the maps turns out to be different, people will be whining about how unfair it is that having x map as your “home map” gives you an advantage because of z and y reasons. I hope they make them functionally and strategically identical, just with different textures for the sake of change of scenery.

  • @Werit: Persitent what? These battles all take place in a “instanced world” called “The Mists” made for World PvP only. There will be PvE like content in there but it all contributes to your servers World PvP points standing. There is no World PvP outside of The Mists, so while you are out doing your regular PvE stuff (dynamic events and personal storyline) you will never be attacked by another player.
    The changes that happens in The Mists are somewhat persistent, if Red team caps a keep it stays theirs until Blue or Green manages to cap it, or when the battle reaches 2 IRL weeks the current points standing is checked and a winner is declared, servers are ranked by performance, matched up against 2 other servers of similar rank and a new 2 week period of World PvP takes place.

    Did that answer your question or just leave you even more confused? 😛

  • so i got a ip ban for not agreeing with you ?

    all i wanted to say was here we go again.

    k you can ban me again now.

  • @”john”: Something to keep in mind; Most ISPs don’t offer you a static IP with which you surf the web with, it’s usually a feature you’ll need to pay extra for (and in some cases is limited to business customers only).
    In case you don’t know what static vs dynamic IP is, here’s a quick explanation;

    Dynamic IP: Every time your modem/router/PC/whatever wants to go online it contacts your ISP asking for an IP address, and your ISP hands you one of the avail addresses from a big pool of addresses you share with all customers of your ISP.
    Static IP: You have the same IP all the time, common if you run websites or other server functions that needs to be accessed from the internet, uncommon in a regular household.

    So your current IP might have been banned while another customer was using it for dodgy shit. Just saying. 🙂

  • nah Proximo thats not it. i have been banned 3 times from this blog. always the day after i disagree from keen in a major way.

    never been for breaking a NDA or anything else in the rules here.

    dont matter to me i like keens blog here of the best if you ask me. i dont always agree with him but oh well.

  • @John: I have no idea what you’re talking about. If the spam filter thinks you’re a spammer it’ll ban you. I rarely, very rarely, actively blog IPs. When I ban people, it’s because they are 100% pure troll.

    @Rasli: Nice video! Thanks

  • If there is no lag I will be in this for the long run after seeing these videos. It is everything I could realistically want from a PvP game. I liked Warhammer, but the lag killed it; this is leaps and bounds better than that.

    I don’t understand why they bother with leveling if one can get to level 16 in a day, but I suppose neo-traditional (new WoW) PvE leveling needs to be included for a more broad appeal.

  • I just saw that you can appease NPC factions in WvWvW which can help you by sending out patrols and attacking enemy objectives, sweet!

  • Thanks for posting the vids and I hope you feel better.

    The WvWvW looks real good. But my concern is what Mark said about BG’s. Will they even show up for an open world fight? Will they que up BG’s one after another causing less support for WvWvW?

    Many gamers like the BG’s because their experience has shown them very poor open world PvP in games like WOW. They have grown up with the latest military style games on their Xbox or PS3 which are just like a BG. Most are used to solo gaming and when they get rolled all the time solo, they say to hell with open world PvP. Many never played DAOC and do not understand how great it was to team up with the other faction against the one with superior numbers.

    If the BG’s even come close to earning the same rewards as the WvWvW, I hate to say it but the WvWvW will be a ghost town. I also see players trying to find ” The Winning Server ” and then playing on it.

  • i think you were right about DE, slightly more organic PQ. Better then normal quest it seems but not as revolutionary as advertised. Be interesting to see how they react over a long period of time.

  • …and finally a mechanic to simulate a near death weakened state (“downed”). I have always thought that it is cheesy to have someone on the verge of death have the same abilities as someone at full health.

  • I just thought about Ilum in SWTOR for just a second and started laughing!!!!!

    Yeah JT I thought that melee was having a hard time but then you switch to your ranged attacks like he did. Probably cause less dmg but at least you could survive until melee attacks come into play. Fighting inside a keep or tower would give melee an edge imo.

  • See how much fun that BG is. BG’s are like crack once you do it your hooked. Non stop action. I still like open world better but it does take some time find your fight, quick travel and get into the action. I noticed that there wasn’t an exp bar in this last video Gank.

  • Keep in mind that the BG’s are seperate from the rest of the game. People who want quick fights will find satisfaction in BG’s, but meaningful PvP with far-reaching incentives comes from WvWvW.

  • @Thomas: True, I didn’t notice that, but I assume that it wasn’t implemented for the Con demo.

    @Keen: True. I anticipate doing both!

  • @Gankatron: As do I. As I’ve always said, I have nothing against people who enjoy BG-style PvP. Those people should definitely be given the means. What I always have opposed it making the BG way the most rewarding. GW2 looks to give me what I want.

  • I might give it a try … but im not sure if i can fit this game in … with SWTOR BGO and WoT plus a couple of single player games taking up my time …. anyway im sure you will keep us posted guys

  • WAR’s Scenario (singular – see below) failed for my Guild and I because:

    1. At Tier 4 there was a significant bug in the code such that the “Random Map” was actually just “Serpent’s Passage” 99% of the time.
    That got very boring very quickly. By the time they addressed it we were on our way to other games – I think I saw other maps literally twice.
    2. Bright Wizards: so ridiculously OP we could estimate our chances of winning by the number of BWs on the other team. We could handle up to maybe 4 of them but the class was so clearly OP that more and more people just went BW and we were seeing teams with 5 or 6 of them quite often. Given that most teams consisted of 10-12 people that was a ridiculous ratio.

    I never miss a chance to rant about Bright Wizards.

    Onto GW2: I’m actually not going to watch these videos because I’ve decided that I WILL play the game so want it all to be a nice surprise (also on a glance some of them seemed to have been recorded on a very poor graphical setting).
    A few worrying things mentioned in the comments but overall still looking forward to a new, different MMO.

    And hopefully one with no equivalent to BWs 🙂

  • I’m also not sure I like the fact you cannot recognize your opponents in WvWvW. No names and it looks like armor is colored red/green/blue. Makes it feel very generic. Who knows if it is just a early beta thing though.

  • @Werit: In DAOC all enemies were labled by their class and realm, not their actual name. Since they were always your same opponents, you eventually learned who you were fighting from their style, their skill, their gear. This may be different because servers change opponents every two weeks, but the system of not knowing names wasn’t a big deal then.

  • Keen
    Let me be the first to call for a nerf on aoe. That poor mechwarrior didn’t get the door to below 90% before the damn Bright Wizard bomb squad wanna be’s took him down. Joking about the nerf, but I hope theres more ways into the keep other than the front door. Game looks great, looks like DAOC players will finally have a home.

  • @Keen Eh, I like knowing names. The rivalries that develop are a whole lot of fun for me 🙂 And the 2 week thing doesn’t sit well with me. It does have its positive aspects though.

    The more I watch the videos, the more it reminds me of WAR. So many of the same or similar mechanics.

  • One key thing here though is that WAR’s open PvP gated you into fighting over specific targets. The zone locking and timers encouraged the zerg.

    These maps are totally open. If your server is zerging one objective, the other two servers are probably spread out taking 4-5 of yours elsewhere.

    By design, you’ll have to break up the zerg to play offense and defense in multiple locations.

    I’d say the central keep is the only place where a massive zerg will happen with any regularity, and that’s just because of the zone of control type advantage your server will have by controlling it.

  • @gali very true. The game itself if fundamentally different than WAR. They do share a lot of the same mechanics though, like resource carriers, attacking the door (in some cases) etc.

  • I suppose people will hop servers a bit to get onto ones that are good at 3W. That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, since it will likely mean that 3W players gravitate to servers that are active in 3W. It would be thoroughly depressing to have your level 80 character stuck on a dull server that had no interest in 3W. In fact the ability to switch servers easily might be one of the key things that makes the format work.

  • To add to that – it would be a lot of fun to get some country vs country action and that might happen naturally by players gravitating towards the best servers in their country/area. If ANet recongnizes this, they could manage server allocation alot better than Bioware did with SWTOR.

  • I have to agree with what you said about switching servers Roq. I would hate to play on a server that has limited WvWvW.

    Country versus country would be great but then I would be getting owned by a ten year old from a Seoul internet cafe.

  • Great information Keen. Thanks for gathering it.

    I haven’t been interested in playing an MMO in quite a while but this has definitely stirred my blood again. The experiences, at least from what we’ve seen here, definitely look both enjoyable and meaningful.

    That said though, besides the bonuses that your PvE realm gets from the world PvP, are there other interactions or dependencies? For example, I noticed that each keep has limited supply amounts. Any idea where these come from? It would be cool if interactions within the PvE areas boosted these supplies just as interactions within the PvP areas boosted PvE bonuses. Again the idea would be to create interdependencies between these different areas, so it makes everything much more meaningful.

    BTW with regards to the golem only taking about 10% of the keep gate down before dying, I’m actually glad to see this. It means that combat will require much more coordination and time for it to be effective. This, if anything, will make captures all the more enjoyable and precious from an experience perspective (i.e. the game experience itself will be the greatest reward). If keeps were captured and flipped too quickly, I think their symbolic value would be diminished considerably. Again they should feel like a major accomplishment to take over.

  • @Rasli: That video is nice indeed. It looks like the keep supplies are refreshed via those oxen-like caravans. Thus even though you can teleport to a keep, if you don’t maintain and defend your supply line caravans, then your keep will eventually fall without the proper supplies. This is so cool, as it will require people defending both inside the keep and outside of it (i.e. multiple points of engagement for success). Thus you just can’t turtle and laugh at your attackers, as they’ll be laughing at you as they kill all of your supply caravans.