Massively's Guild Wars 2 beta reactions

by Alex Ziebart Feb 21st 2012 at 7:00PM

In lieu of our weekly MMO Roundup, where we highlight the top MMO news of the last week from our sister site Massively, today we're highlighting one item in particular: Massively's Guild Wars 2 beta reactions. Guild Wars 2 seems to be the next MMO release that current World of Warcraft players are genuinely interested in. Massively's Shawn and Elisabeth had an opportunity to tackle the game hands-on in the recent closed beta weekend, so head over there and find out what they thought of the upcoming title.

Tags: featured, guild-wars, guild-wars-2, massively

Filed under: MMO Roundup

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Den Feb 21st 2012 8:43PM

Old school AV-style massive BG and no monthly fees? Honestly, how can you say no to that?

Teresa Feb 22nd 2012 12:44AM

I havnt been following GW2 very much to be honest, but it looks like tab targeting and auto attack. Sure it might be free online play with a bunch of other cool stuff, but if the gameplay itself sucks, then I will say no.

Yah I know my opinion, but Im rather tired of the same old combat systems. I'll still try it out however.

The Hammer Feb 22nd 2012 10:20AM

There is no auto-attack in the game. If you swing a big enough weapon, and there are multiple adversaries in your way, you hit them all.

The combat doesn't work like it does in WOW.

murmaiderxx Feb 21st 2012 9:20PM

And you can jump in-game now! Amazing!

Friends of mine complained about that. Honestly you wouldn't think it's a big deal, but apparently so. It looks great, the reviews from the beta sound awesome. Guild Wars was my first mmo, and I mainly played pve there also. Makes me want to play the game even more so now.

DarkWalker Feb 21st 2012 9:20PM

My interest in GW2 is due to all the small design details:

- No loot rolls, ever. Loot and other kinds of rewards are awarded individually.
- Very fast travel; players just open the map, click on a waypoint they have already discovered, and are ported there instantly.
- Every class able to fulfill any role.
- "Respecs" freely available when outside combat.
- No dedicated healer in the group. Everyone able to "rezz" other players.
- The hardest content in the game will be done in 5-man groups; content meant for larger groups is easier than the 5-mans.
- A design that removes most known ways to grief. No loot stealing, no kill stealing, no node stealing, no ninjaing, etc.
- Informal grouping is possible and highly encouraged. Playing in a group has no mechanical disadvantages whatsoever, even if the players don't formally group, due to the absence of mob tagging, the way each contributing player gets loot from defeated mobs as if he had killed the mob solo, the gathering nodes that can be individually harvested by each player, etc.
- Players are able to be part of as many guilds as they want.
- Guild membership will be account-wide (and, most likely, game-wide, unrestricted by servers).
- Player names unique at the game level, and with surnames.
- Free server change (although it will likely have some kind of world PvP-related penalty for changing).
- Arenas will have a level playing field. Everyone will be bumped to max level, with all skills unlocked, and get a gear package with the best gear for use only in the Arenas. Skill will be the deciding factor.
- World PvP will improve the stats of every player to roughly those of a max level character. No one-shotting lowbies.

And so on.

DarkWalker Feb 21st 2012 9:21PM

Oh, and how could I forget? Engineers that build turrets :)
(Yeah, TF2 fan here :)

Kevin Feb 21st 2012 11:56PM

This is so what wow needs to some degree

mxcarne Feb 22nd 2012 2:27AM

After almost 8 years of wow, this is probably the only game that could pull me away. Everything was done right. The biggest thing to me is the side kicking system and the effort they put in to encourage the community to work together. No more avoiding people due to loot, node, mob stealing. No more bitching at the healer, if you die it's your own fault. Almost every aspect has been changed to make a better mmo.

AltairAntares Feb 22nd 2012 1:42PM

That really does sound awesome, but I don't understand how the graphics could look so bad in the videos. Somehow to me at least it looked worse then wow's era of graphics, and that takes doing. Sure the vista's were nice, but that was about it.

GhostWhoWalks Feb 21st 2012 10:18PM

While reading the beta impressions, it struck me how Guild Wars 2 sounds like an MMO version of Diablo.

Not that that's a bad thing, mind you.

blancester Feb 21st 2012 10:38PM

I don't see the connection, can you give a bit of an explanation?
Only thing I see familiar is the health circle.

GhostWhoWalks Feb 21st 2012 11:37PM

Both impressions talked about the action-oriented combat, where smart use of abilities and positioning was more of a contribution to success than a constant flow of heals. They talked about how combat is enjoyable solo, but so much more rewarding when with a group, where you can cover each other and give each other helpful buffs. They talked about how there are no dedicated healers, and everyone in the group deals damage. They also talked about how everyone gets their own loot drops instead of taking turns on loot (a feature added to Diablo 3). These are all things that could be said about Diablo 2 and, more specifically, Diablo 3. Not a bad game to get ideas from, honestly.

DarkWalker Feb 22nd 2012 12:51AM

D3's skill bar and spec system are also fairly similar to GW2 (and, up to an extent, to the first GW) - though I believe this is more a case of evolutionary convergence than outright copying.

R1sky Feb 22nd 2012 3:54AM

If I remember correctly, AreanaNet was founded by the employees who left Blizzard and Battle.Net. GW is what they decided on instead of WoW.

Funny thing is, once Blizzard had their Diablo 3 team going, they saw GW and decided to pull similarities from it.

Both games are a step in the right directions as far as fun game play goes.

blancester Feb 21st 2012 10:41PM

This may be to soon, but how will future content be handled?
Will there be content patches? And if so do we have to pay for them?
Or will there only be expansions?

Other then that question I am looking forward to this game. Still unsure at which class I like to try. I still want to stick with a Charr mesmer, but I do not know if I will enjoy it. Maybe as a 2handed sword mesmer looks fun.

Ata Feb 22nd 2012 12:51AM

They haven't quite touched upon that yet. For the original Guild Wars, you paid for expansions, and a few largely vanity items like extra storage, character slots, costumes (clothing worn over your gear that looked awesome) and a few perks like unlocking all the tameable pets for a few bucks, getting all the skills for a few bucks, things that you could easily get free in game by following the story or hunting the creatures. The money unlocks for the pets and skills only gives the benefit of having it all right away rather than going and getting it.

People suspect that they'll stick with this plan, that they'll focus on expansions to the main game once it's out, but they're so focused on getting the absolutely huge base game out first before looking at the future things. Once they get the systems down, banging out another story and new skills will be relatively easy, I think. (Well I hope).

Norn ranger and human elementalist for me. :D

Ata Feb 22nd 2012 12:46AM

So, so looking forward to this game, I wont lie. It's fixing everything I hate about other mmo's, honestly, and the best thing is that they're pretty well positioned to give what they're promising.

styopa Feb 22nd 2012 1:05PM

Agreed. Then again, WoW is today a 7-year old game with ample repeated facelifts. Ever had a PnP RPG player try to play the original AD&D rules? Only with perspective do we now see how inconsistent, arbitrary, brutal, and difficult that system was to use. (It will always have its devotees, of course, but I doubt any NEW players are starting with it.)

There's no escaping the fact that MMO paradigms have been refined significantly since EQ's days of rat-killing...mostly (but not entirely) by WoW itself. GW2 is clearly picking and choosing all the good ideas that other MMOs have had, leavening it with a big dose of their own interpretations, and coming out with something that may be a big step forward.

Skimming the GW2 devlog is like a cascade of "oh, that's a good choice" and "ooh, that's brilliant" with very few of the common "mm, ok maybe?" items I see in other MMO devblogs.
http://www.arena.net/blog/beta-development-update#more-7193
- the concept of downed but not dead adds a safety-net to play
- drawing circles and lines on your compassmap that your party can see
- meta events (like WAR, then Rift, but modified)
- hidden treasures...remember the awesome feeling in vanilla WoW when you'd be exploring someplace totally wierd and just FIND a chest somewhere?
- area looting (from Rift)
- abilities resulting from weapon choices
- combat significantly different underwater
- subsequent abilities are opened through the repeated use of primaries

Really, I just keep being impressed with the choices they're making. I sincerely hope that I'm not getting my hopes up like I did for Rift, AoC, WAR, etc. etc. etc.

Breaking news Feed

WoW Insider Show

Subscribe via iTunes for our latest show.

Hot Topics

Upcoming Events

Event	Date
Love Is In the Air	2/2 - 2/15
Blackrock Foundry Normal and Heroic open	2/3
Darkmoon Faire	2/8 - 2/15
Blackrock Foundry Mythic opens	2/10
Lunar Festival	2/16 - 3/2
Blackrock Foundry LFR wing 1 opens	2/17
Blackrock Foundry LFR wing 2 opens	2/24
Darkmoon Faire	3/1 - 3/8
Blackrock Foundry LFR wing 3 opens	3/10
Blackrock Foundry LFR wing 4 opens	3/24