Guildwars 2 Beta Thread

[Rhezuss]

Do you use the map much? I think its one of the best ones in any game i have played.

Completely agree with you on the one. Really well done and clear. Easy to use and just plain perfect imo.

Great gaming experience so far!

 

[VashHT]

I'm having trouble settling on a char too, my thief is level 11 and I'm kind of getting bored with him, I'm thinking I might start a necro or a warrior but I can't think of a good warrior name to use..lol. I might give mesmer another try too, they were my favorite class in GW1 but I know they've changed quite a bit, I only played one up to like level 5 in the beta though so I didn't get to see much from them.

 

[Rhezuss]

Yeah me too, gonna try a caster class this afternoon since I called off due to a effing flu that make me dizzy like hell.

 

[pontifex]

Do you use the map much? I think its one of the best ones in any game i have played.

yes, i use the map to see where i am going but it doesn't help me in the middle of a battle trying to see where the enemy is in the mass of players and it doesn't make my character stand out in a mass of players.

 

[Ashenor]

yes, i use the map to see where i am going but it doesn't help me in the middle of a battle trying to see where the enemy is in the mass of players and it doesn't make my character stand out in a mass of players.

Hmm not sure what to say what size monitor do you play on? I have had zero issues with that.

 

[diesbudt]

Hmm not sure what to say what size monitor do you play on? I have had zero issues with that.

Same. And I am a midget. Granted the fireballs I throw are HUGE.

 

[KaOTiK]

Don't know if it was mentioned, but has anyone noticed the portrait for when you select a cat is from this lol:

 

[pontifex]

damn, all the names are taken, even different spellings! i've never run into this before...

holy crap, this is ridiculous, is any name available?

 

[diesbudt]

damn, all the names are taken, even different spellings! i've never run into this before...

holy crap, this is ridiculous, is any name available?

No idea, remember you can have 2 names as a name.

But yea lots of names are gone. Considering 400k were on the game before even release tuesday.

 

[zinfamous]

I'm having trouble settling on a char too, my thief is level 11 and I'm kind of getting bored with him, I'm thinking I might start a necro or a warrior but I can't think of a good warrior name to use..lol. I might give mesmer another try too, they were my favorite class in GW1 but I know they've changed quite a bit, I only played one up to like level 5 in the beta though so I didn't get to see much from them.

I was thinking for a while how I'm really disappointed with the lack of shutdown and spike damage that mesmers were so good at in GW1. but when you combine feedback with dazed and confusion--+ the awesomeness of chaos storm, they provide some really great condition stacking, with some solid shutdown. The spike damage isn't really there from what I'm seeing, But I'm enjoying sword play now--the second skill pretty much allows you to jump in, spam some damage (all the while invulnerable), and roll out, popping a clone with the proper traits speced. (2nd tier duelist).

I also just picked up grenth's form elite--which is quite special if you want to spec into conditions.

 

[zinfamous]

damn, all the names are taken, even different spellings! i've never run into this before...

holy crap, this is ridiculous, is any name available?

some rat bastard took Zinfamous! I've never seen that before--not anywhere. I wasn't planning on using it, as all of my toons are zinfamous ____, but when I couldn't think of a name for the guardian, I just tried to put zinfamous.

...and this was less than 30 minutes into prelaunch.

 

[zinfamous]

Don't know if it was mentioned, but has anyone noticed the portrait for when you select a cat is from this lol:

ANet devs tend to have a great sense of humor--I ahven't seen it yet, but you should expect a fair amount of Monty Python and various other references throughout, when talking to NPCs and what not. Pay special attention to NPC names, of course.

the closing event for BW1 was to defeat the evil white rabbit in Wayfarer. I think I posted pics of it earlier in this thread.

 

[VashHT]

I know how you feel with the names, I sat there for like 30 minutes last night trying to come up with a good name for a warrior and ended up just giving up. For my thief all the names I wanted were taken so I did some variation on my WoW rogue's name. For him I had drybones since he was an undead rogue, so I just made my thief dry leaves which sounds kinda stupid but I just wanted to get in and play.

 

[Genx87]

I have to admit this may be the first MMO I play where attaining the max level isnt an immediate goal. Right now the scenary and how the maps are setup are taking me in and enjoying the game without the worry of leveling. This may change once the initial rush of population moves well past me and the zones look barren. But right now this is the first MMO since Ultima Online where the journey is actually fun and without a care in the world about getting max level on a time table.

 

[arredondo]

Question: does this game benefit much from being on a SSD or is a standard HDD adequate?

 

[zinfamous]

Question: does this game benefit much from being on a SSD or is a standard HDD adequate?

load times are great on my SSD. and for an MMO, it is very graphically intensive. As I understand it, draw distances when you have a highly populated area benefit significantly with SSD.

the environment is quite lush, and heavily populated.

 

[thujone]

I have to admit this may be the first MMO I play where attaining the max level isnt an immediate goal. Right now the scenary and how the maps are setup are taking me in and enjoying the game without the worry of leveling. This may change once the initial rush of population moves well past me and the zones look barren. But right now this is the first MMO since Ultima Online where the journey is actually fun and without a care in the world about getting max level on a time table.

same here mostly. i rushed to 30 last night (from 28) to try and squeeze in some pvp with an elite skill.


the way the maps are laid out/designed is pretty amazing. it's not just the wide open field sandbox most mmo's have. you can't just open your map, point yourself at your destination on the other side of the map and hit autowalk... you have to actually look around and observe the land features.


i think that's what i've been most impressed with so far... the fact that the environment is engaging and isn't just a visual backdrop.

 

[KMFJD]

Question: does this game benefit much from being on a SSD or is a standard HDD adequate?

Load times are decreased, if you have the space and play a lot i definitely would move it to my ssd

 

[arredondo]

I guess I should be more specific. I have installed but unplayed on my SSD, but I'll switch it to the HDD before I get started if there are no loading issues in the game.

Is the adventure cut up into instances (personal adventure areas) like the first game, or is it an open world that streams the environment in the back ground as you play? If it is the latter, I'll re-install on my HDD. If it is a game of instances, I have another question... to those of you on HDD, how long does it take to load an area on average?

 

[pontifex]

I'm confused. Been playing an Asura Engineer. I'm only level 4 in the starting area. Leveling seems to take a damn long time.

I've done all the heart event things up to level 5. Level 6 one I can see but is way too hard for me. Even the level 5 one was kicking my ass.

Killing enemies out in the world gives very little XP.

I've gone to all of the points of interest and stuff that are my level.

I can do my story quest i assume but not sure if that takes me out of this starting area?

 

[zinfamous]

I guess I should be more specific. I have installed but unplayed on my SSD, but I'll switch it to the HDD before I get started if there are no loading issues in the game.

Is the adventure cut up into instances (personal adventure areas) like the first game, or is it an open world that streams the environment in the back ground as you play? If it is the latter, I'll re-install on my HDD. If it is a game of instances, I have another question... to those of you on HDD, how long does it take to load an area on average?

It is not like GW1, not at all. The explorable zones are persistent, shared with all players on your server. However, the capital worlds for each race exist on a separate instance. and these explorable zones (can be broken down by level territory--levels 1-15, 15-25, etc) are separated by gates. These are persistent as well, but are a separate instance from the previous zone.

They have this odd "overflow" mechanic where if your server is too busy in the zone you want to travel too, you are bumped into an overflow instance--exactly the same contact, same stuff to do, you can adventure as normal, but with players from all servers waiting to enter the main instance in their own server. For me, I think this is a great idea (you never have to wait to do anything); however, in practice, they are currently experiencing a MAJOR problem with keeping grouped players together. You are often bumped among various overflow instances or the main server. It's a rather large headache. "The Fix" for this to "join in" with your team often doesn't work.

 

[GaiaHunter]

I guess I should be more specific. I have installed but unplayed on my SSD, but I'll switch it to the HDD before I get started if there are no loading issues in the game.

Is the adventure cut up into instances (personal adventure areas) like the first game, or is it an open world that streams the environment in the back ground as you play? If it is the latter, I'll re-install on my HDD. If it is a game of instances, I have another question... to those of you on HDD, how long does it take to load an area on average?

It is neither.

It is a non seamless persistent world.

But you can spend hours upon hours in each individual area - I've played some 50 hours and I only completed 3 areas. Personal stories are instanced.

SSD will help with waypoints load time.

 

[zinfamous]

I'm confused. Been playing an Asura Engineer. I'm only level 4 in the starting area. Leveling seems to take a damn long time.

I've done all the heart event things up to level 5. Level 6 one I can see but is way too hard for me. Even the level 5 one was kicking my ass.

Killing enemies out in the world gives very little XP.

I've gone to all of the points of interest and stuff that are my level.

I can do my story quest i assume but not sure if that takes me out of this starting area?

I think that's a good time to do one or two story quests if you haven't started yet. You get a major bump in XP for each of those, + some decent gera. They are somewhat preposterously difficult for certain levels, as they scale too far in level, imo. Granted--your story keeps you in each zone for roughly 4 or 5 quests, so it makes sense, but....I found them to be easy enough for an asuran engineer in the starting zone.


one thing you didn't mention--are you participating int he events? That's where you should be focusing the bulk of your time if you want to level. Honestly, just ignore doing the hearts directly--nearly all of them will have a spawning event nearby (you will get the notice if you are close enough, and a big orange circle on your map) that upon completion, will generally fulfill that Heart NPC request. you get the same credit, of course, but you are getting more xp and loot from mobs, plus the reward for completing events. There are also daily completions--events, gathering, killing monster types, so be sure to focus on variety?


are you gathering resources? This gives you a near-unbalanced amount of xp, and it is actually constant throughout. It doesn't matter if you can't craft those mats--they get their own storage panel, shared across account, and can always be sold on the market if you never want them.

Also; crafting. crafting crafting. Use the discovery panel.

Heh, I could say: what? you should be level 10 in ~1 hour! But I know that's silly--it probably took me a day of playing to get my first toon to level 8 or so. After you get the hang of how things flow in this game, it will seem far more straightforward. You can easily level an alt to 10 in under an hour once you understand the system.


leveling from 1-10 is, I think has been mentioned, 30% faster than 11-80. But at 11-80, the leveling remains flat. You are not scaled down in progress the closer you get--the way many MMO feel like a drudging grind for those final 5 or 10 levels. So it can be done quite quickly in this game--preposterously fast, actually--but bear in mind that those handful of people that got to 80 in only 3 days, or even those in their 60s now, have played this game extensively in betas across many classes and zones, and know exactly what they are doing.

 

[zinfamous]

It is neither.

It is a non seamless persistent world.

But you can spend hours upon hours in each individual area - I've played some 50 hours and I only completed 3 areas. Personal stories are instanced.

SSD will help with waypoints load time.

to offer some simple numbers, I haven't tried this on HDD--but loadtimes for me are on the manner of ~4 seconds between waypoint or zoning into capital world, new zone. Usually less.

the longest load I was having was going into the level 30 dungeon last night--roughly 10 seconds for the load screen

 

[pontifex]

I think that's a good time to do one or two story quests if you haven't started yet. You get a major bump in XP for each of those, + some decent gera. They are somewhat preposterously difficult for certain levels, as they scale too far in level, imo. Granted--your story keeps you in each zone for roughly 4 or 5 quests, so it makes sense, but....I found them to be easy enough for an asuran engineer in the starting zone.


one thing you didn't mention--are you participating int he events? That's where you should be focusing the bulk of your time if you want to level. Honestly, just ignore doing the hearts directly--nearly all of them will have a spawning event nearby (you will get the notice if you are close enough, and a big orange circle on your map) that upon completion, will generally fulfill that Heart NPC request. you get the same credit, of course, but you are getting more xp and loot from mobs, plus the reward for completing events. There are also daily completions--events, gathering, killing monster types, so be sure to focus on variety?


are you gathering resources? This gives you a near-unbalanced amount of xp, and it is actually constant throughout. It doesn't matter if you can't craft those mats--they get their own storage panel, shared across account, and can always be sold on the market if you never want them.

Also; crafting. crafting crafting. Use the discovery panel.

Heh, I could say: what? you should be level 10 in ~1 hour! But I know that's silly--it probably took me a day of playing to get my first toon to level 8 or so. After you get the hang of how things flow in this game, it will seem far more straightforward. You can easily level an alt to 10 in under an hour once you understand the system.


leveling from 1-10 is, I think has been mentioned, 30% faster than 11-80. But at 11-80, the leveling remains flat. You are not scaled down in progress the closer you get--the way many MMO feel like a drudging grind for those final 5 or 10 levels. So it can be done quite quickly in this game--preposterously fast, actually--but bear in mind that those handful of people that got to 80 in only 3 days, or even those in their 60s now, have played this game extensively in betas across many classes and zones, and know exactly what they are doing.

i've done some events but i guess i need to look for more
no crafting yet. don't know how to do it. also only saw 1 vendor with a gathering tool and it said i had to be level 10, so no idea whats going on there.