Guild Wars 2...Months Later

For a game that I was extremely excited for, Guild Wars 2 ended up being a bit of a disappointment. This isn't because of the game itself (well not completely), but because of the way my friends reacted to it. Since the Old Republic, my friends and I have been routinely playing together (on Wednesdays and Thursdays) for quite some time. We did TOR, and then Tera, and had a blast with both games.

For one of my friends, he was against the game from the start, and I'm still not sure I understand why. Well, no, I'll take that back. I do know why. Though he no longer has the time for it, he is a hard-core MMO raider. He is into the gear grind, endgame, and progression. And ultimately Guild Wars 2 doesn't have that in the way that he wanted. And because of that, he just wasn't that interested in even hitting 80 because at that point he was already 'done'. In that regard, the game was never going to please him in the way he wanted...and I'm sure that he was not the only one with this problem.

In addition to that he also had two other problems with the game. The first was that the game did not really promote grouping while leveling. This one seems odd on the surface--GW2 is very forgiving with working together on quests with random people. But, heart quest progress isn't shared in groups; and for every other type of open-world encounter you receive no real benefit for being in a group. And in fact, due to the somewhat distracting nature of the content, formal groups of people tend to get pulled in different directions because of the distractions. That is, if one guy sees some new event and goes off that way, inevitably not everyone would follow.

The second problem he had was the level capping. This is designed to keep the entire game challenging throughout--you can't overpower content at any point. But in reality, rewards are always worse in lower-level areas and the level capping mechanic tends to make the feeling of power progression non-existent. And this in turn is made worse by the fact that you unlock your weapons and skills so early.

Another of my friends had a more ambivalent approach to the game. He was interested, and played, but ultimately he had absolutely no interest in grouping up in it. The game was too easy, he said, and you get no real benefit from grouping. This was often quite frustrating, but emphasizes to me the way certain players interact with the game. Because leveling content was so easy, there was never any incentive to actually group up--it didn't speed things up at all, and in fact grouping often seemed burdensome in the game because you couldn't just go off and do things at your own pace.

Another friend absolutely fell in love with the game, and to this day spends almost every non-working moment playing. He has numerous characters, many of them at high level, and he massively enjoys virtually every aspect of the game. I think he is a perfect example of the type of player this game specifically caters to--someone who is interested in exploring, and performing a wide variety of different activities and challenges without any real sense of grind. Guild Wars 2 excels in that above any other MMO I've played.

For myself, I got a character to level 80 (an elementalist), and greatly enjoyed the game. But, as I continued to level and my friends mostly stopped playing as a group, my interest began to wane. MMOs, even good MMOs, aren't that interesting to me as a solo activity and the group just wasn't interested in doing things together. After spending some time grinding at 80--dealing with Orr, which I slowly grew to hate--I realized just how pointless it was. Orr is buggy, and a pain in the arse to navigate, and the major events presented nothing but frustrating repetitiveness. Maybe things have gotten better there, but Orr was just not a very good end-game experience for me. And so after a few weeks at 80, and puttering around with other characters, I just stopped playing and moved on to games like Borderlands 2, and XCOM.

Finally, I want to mention something about the dungeons. The dungeons are basically the main grouping content in the game. And they are relatively hard. Now I say that with a bit of a grain of salt here, because as has been very obvious with my friends for a long time, not all of them are very good at that sort of experience. And since we were just 4 people instead of 5, and certain members just didn't want to include a 5th outside of the group, we were forced to do these dungeons a man down. With people who were not properly geared, and weren't necessarily good at that content in the first place. To put it bluntly, attempting these was a disaster, and it was just an exercise in frustration--certain individuals in our group just couldn't adjust to the difficulty, and didn't have the patience to try to learn the dungeons. As such, our attempts were mostly a failure and in fact to this day I haven't actually seen many of the dungeons.

I mention this because I think it would have been nice for them to include a more casual mode--even the story mode dungeons are pretty hard for a very casual group (which we were), and explorable mode was mostly out of the question. Some form of dungeon-finder tool would have been nice as well...for the most part I found it very hard to find groups and those groups I did find universally couldn't complete the dungeons either. I think this was because of the difficulty difference between the dungeons and the rest of the content--there seemed to be less patience with the dungeons because everything else was so easy.

Overall, Guild Wars 2 is the first MMO I've played that I've really enjoyed, but completely stopped playing less than 2 months after release. And it shows me just how much the social aspect of an MMO can be--while the game is fine, good (even great), without the social aspect its just another single player experience. And as a single-player experience Guild Wars 2 doesn't have any benefits over any other game. Sad, perhaps, but true.

Guild Wars 2 Stress Test...Tonight!

Every since the end of the 3rd Beta Weekend I've been steadily getting more and more hyped for the game. There have been two stress tests since then, but both during work hours so at most I got to spend about 30 minutes in game before it ended. Tonight there is going to be a 3rd stress test lasting from 6 PM to 10 PM central time and I am psyched.

For several reasons I deliberately limited my time with the 3rd beta weekend. For one thing, I really wanted to keep my experience with the game as fresh as possible. This was coming off a very good experience with experiencing Tera w/o any foreknowledge about the game coloring my actions. I just wanted a taste of the character creation and a quick peak at some of the classes and beginning areas in the game. But I deliberately avoided doing very much just so when the game did release it would remain fresh and new.

Since that beta weekend I've become more and more interested in reading up on the game's core mechanics and classes and I've started regretting the fact that I really didn't spend much time with the beta when I had the chance. Since that beta there have been two stress tests, one last week and one yesterday. Both during hours that I work, and in both cases I was able to get in only about 30 minutes before they took the servers down.

Tonight there is going to be a third stress test, and it's going to be happening between 6 PM and 10 PM tonight. This will be a good chance to see the game in action again, and a chance to spend some time actually looking at the classes in (a little) more detail. And this is more important that I originally thought it would be because Guild Wars 2 limits you to just 5 character slots. That means that you can't just create 1 character for each class.

*while I assume that you'll be able to buy more characters slots once the game ships, I don't know any details about who many, or how expensive that will be.

At this point there are several classes that seem very interesting to me: Elementalist, Engineer, Necromancer, and Ranger (in that order). The other classes all have things of interest I like (Thief, Warrior, and Guardian). Mesmer actually sounds cool, but the 10 minutes I spent with one didn't impress me. Though I am well aware that it's impossible to base a real impression on a class based one look up to level 3, with just the default weapon (and not all of the skills unlocked).

At this point I would really like to spend some quality time with the Elementalist Class. When I first played it in the beta, I got to level 4, and 'unlocked' the staff. But now I realize just how off I was. I now know about elemental attunements, and skill chains, and etc. So really I just have unlocked the Fire skills on the staff; and nothing else. Heh. There is no weapon swapping for the Elementalist and I can see why: with elemental attunements Elementalists have access to 25 skills at any given time. 10 more than the other classes (at least from what I can tell). The Elementalist may have a limited weapon selection, and no swapping, but they seem to actually have even more flexibility. This has increased by interest in the class even more.

Another thing I want to spend some time with is key bindings. The default key bindings in the game are, in a word, unpleasant. Considering my mouse and keyboard setup a different binding setup is going to be required. I spent some time with that last night, but with game time so short I really just set one thing and wondered around until the game kicked me out. Hopefully I'll get some time to refine things a bit without feeling like I'm having to rush.

Tera Midgame

I've been playing Tera for about a month now. I've had a chance to see many of the game's systems in play and I'm now past the honeymoon phase. The new look and feel shine has worn off a little bit, and the reality of the game is starting to sink in. At this point I have a level 41 sorcerer, my original priest is level 36, and I've played both Warrior and Lancer into the 30s. I've done crafting, and instanced dungeons, and grouped up for BAM fights. And while I have no idea what Tera's endgame is like, I feel that I've had enough time to figure out the leveling game. Fortunately, I'm still having fun with Tera, enough that I'll probably be keeping my subscription past the release of Guild Wars 2.

  

There are some harsh realities that have set in though. The most obvious is the fact that Tera stays too close to the WoW foruma--and it's the vanilla version of that to boot. Tera's game systems are rather simplistic. There are fewer gear slots and fewer meaningful stats. It's questing system is beyond simple, with a very limited variety of quest types. It's crafting system is even more simplistic than WOW's, if that is even possible. It's dungeon finder tool is next to worthless, and it's LFG channel is a cess pit that's worse than I've seen in most MMOs (and that is saying something).

All of these were problems with SWTOR as well. However, while The Old Republic tried to make up for that with story, Tera tries to make up for it's deficiencies in it's combat system and class mechanics. And without this combat system, Tera would be a true flop. As it is, though, Tera's classes and combat save the game even into the mid levels. It's not fresh, or exciting anymore, but it is still fun.

Leveling from 1-20 is very simple, and takes a very short amount of time. 20-30 is slower, sure, but still very fast and painless for pretty much every class I've played. So when I say that I've gotten 3 classes into the level 30 range that's not saying much. It's only at around level 30 where the leveling slope starts to turn verticle and the newness of the game starts wearing off.

It makes me wonder...would a game like this do better with a much higher level cap (say in the 200 range), but with faster levels? It would necessitate a lot of marginal power-up skills, but most of these MMO systems are designed to scale well anyway.

Anyway, it's around level 30 where you hit the leveling brick wall and everything slows down a lot. I've read that a lot of people give up on the game at this level, and I can understand why. Everything is the same...it just takes longer. Kill quests get longer, and give a percentage smaller amount of XPs for the next level. And by this point, the simplistic quest design really starts to show the failings of the system. Levels 1-30 does not feel like a grind. Levels 30 to 40 most certainly do.

The pace does settle, though, and it remains pretty constant from levels 30 to 40. And in reality the amount of time it takes to level isn't all that bad--a few hours at most per level, less if you know where everything is (which I do not). I think I've read where it's possible to get from 1-60 in about 72 hours, and I can certainly see that. And while the quests do not become any more complex, the environments and monsters most certainly do.

This is a common feature of most MMOs, especially when leveling. It's not uncommon for characters to actually feel LESS powerful as they go up in level because the monsters outpace the power of the characters. This is partially by design, especially at low levels. Developers want you to get comfortable with the system before upping the challenge. But in Tera, this difficulty usually manifests itself as monsters having more HP. This is a very bland way of upping the difficulty because it means that the monsters you are fighting aren't really substantially different to what you fought earlier...they just take longer to kill.

Sorcerers seem less susceptible to this, but this is mostly because they seem almost rediculously overpowered in the 20s, and they still do very well in the 30s. Lancers, however, seem to start moving at a glacial pace because everything takes way too long to kill. And at the same time, it becomes much more difficult to solo BAMs in the 30s. Doable, but more difficult. I've had very good luck doing this on my Warrior and Lancer, but very little luck with Sorcerer and Priest. Even then, the fights just start taking too long for the rewards to justify it. My lancer can still pretty much solo any BAM, but at 10-15 minutes per fight it's simply not worth it.

  

While the quests and the classes don't change much, the environments you encounter in the 30s do open up a bit. Not only do you find some large open environments, deserts and such, but you all start finding various open-world dungeons. There's a mine, a pirate cove, and a wizarding school that comes straight out of harry potter. These open-world dungeons are a bit more difficult, mostly due to tight corners and limited space limiting movement (a big deal in Tera combat). Not to mention the trains and adds that inevitably pop up. The variety, though, helps and does create some more focused experiences and story lines. But it's still not something that makes you forget the grind.

There is a lot of talk about some of the negative aspects of Tera here, but really I'm still having fun with the game. I just wish that as a whole Tera was in a more polished state. And I'll admit that I'm a little concerned about how 'gridy' the game is getting. Right now it's about 'right'--slow enough to make each level seem like an accomplishment, but not so slow that it's painful. My goal at this point is to try to hit 60 on my Sorcerer, but at this point that seems less and less likely. Guild Wars 2 is less than 3 weeks away at this point, and while Ive decided to maintain my subscription for a bit after the GW2 launch, I'm not sure how much time I'll be spending with the game past the 25th.

Guild Wars 2 Guilds

When my friends and I began playing The Old Republic, we decided to create a guild for ourselves. In hindsight I think that was a bit of a problem, especially for me, as it limited me from the social aspects of the game more so than any other. And since at least one of my friends is very anti-social (in an online sense), trying to join another guild wasn't really possible. He would have quit first before ever considering that kind of switch. So, my options were limited in that regard and by the time I hit 50 I really had no social pull for any of the more difficult content.



With Tera we have not created a guild at all, though at this point we probably should go ahead and make one. I'm certainly not interested in the political aspects of the game--they are cool and all and present a more interesting form of end-game. But it is also something that is just as much of a commitment as a high end raiding guild. To be successful at that you need a big group, and you really need to commit to it to be successful in any meaningful way. And even if some of the Vanarch seats aren't heavily challenged, it's still way too much of a commitment for a game that I'm really only planning on playing for another month.

With Guild Wars 2 it looks like I can have my cake and eat it too. Apparently in Guild Wars you can create, and join any number of guilds, though you only 'represent' one guild at any given time. That means that we can create a guild just for our friends, but still reach out and join other guilds for more focused content (such as PVE, or PVP, etc). This is a very cool concept (FFXI had something similar, and hopefully this won't take up inventory space like Linkshells did in FFXI). This is again something that points to the way Guild Wars 2 seems to invert core basic concepts with an eye towards usability and openness.

Guilds also seem to include some leveling functions that allow you to increase the abilities of the guild. I looked at this, and this seems cool, though less impressive than the guild leveling I've seen in Warhammer Online, and in World of Warcraft. Of course, this could be expanded later and probably isn't really necessary for release. But I'm not entirely sure it's worth it just to purchase basic 24 hour buffs--it's cool, but not cool like some of the abilities you got in, say, World of Warcraft.

Thoughts on Guild Wars 2 Classes

Thoughts on Guild Wars 2 Characters

After my short experience with the beta I'm looking at playing several different characters. At this point I'm not sure what I'm going to be using as my main (and I won't for a bit), but here's what I'm considering at this point:

• Human Elementalist
• Asuran Engineer
• Sylvan Necromancer
• Char Warrior

Elementalist seemed like a lot of fun the time I spent with it. It's certainly fits with my play style (being a closet mage and all). Lots of options, lots of effect types, and lots of pew-pew. Glass Cannons, however, seem like they will have a hard time in this game, so this may or may not be the best class pick outside of PVE. I also have a friend who is definitely playing this class, so I might have to pick another instead. You can definitely make some very cool looking humans to with this game.

My next choice is an asuran Engineer. The asuran Engineer starting zone is just awesome. I really liked the human starting zone, but the asurans are just cool. The Engineer itself is a cool class, though I didn't get access to all of the class's weapons, I generally liked the mobility and flexibility of the class and it looks to be a lot of fun. It takes a bit of work, but you can also come up with very cute/ugly looking asurans through character creation.

Past that I'm looking at a Sylvan Necromancer. The Sylvan starting zone was the least interesting to me story-wise, but has a cool alien aestetic that I really liked. Everything I've read from people were stating that Sylvan = Elves, and that is definitely not true. They seem much more Fae-like to me--more like nature spirits than anything. The Necromancer Class itself looks a lot of fun--and it seems like it could be a very effective class. The mechanics of the class seem very interesting to me--and my work as an alternate spell caster if Elementalist doesn't pan out. Sylvans are somewhat hard to make look 'good' in the game, though I managed to make a few 'ok' looking characters.

My last thought was to try a Char Warrior, or possibly Thief or Ranger. I spent the least time in the Char zone, so I didn't really get to see much of it. Warriors look OK, and are apparently beasts in PVP. I usually don't like melee classes, but since there are very few true melee classes in this game I think Warrior might be good.

Honestly I didn't do much with Warrior (I only got to level 2). I never even touched Ranger, Thief, or Guardian, though a thief for PVP seems like that might be good. Whatever my main turns out to be, I'll probably be creating at least 2 other characters to play around with, and with those other characters I'd like to hit a wide variety of play styles.

Oh, and as you might have noticed I haven't mentioned Mesmer here. I did create one, but honestly I didn't like it very much (though admittedly I only got to level 3 before I quit). Mesmer is the only class that I'm not planning on touching at launch.