Guild Wars 2: A Different Kind of MMO

[Arun]

I think I've said this before: Guild Wars 2 is the game I've been the most excited about literally in the last decade. Right now the 'informed consensus' seems to be mid-2011 for release. Unlike Guild Wars 1, there is no way you could argue it's not a MMO as it does have a persistent world (with instanced personal story missions) despite still not having a subscription fee. And yet its gameplay moves even further away from classic MMOs in incredibly innovative ways, all of which are --in my opinion-- massively for the better overall.

There are three videos so far. They reveal some of the story and graphics (which have a very nice artistic style I think, and are probably the best of any MMO announced to date, but certainly are beaten technically quite a bunch of single-player games), and the Manifesto serves as a hype-rich introduction to their core gameplay principles.

Here are key quotes from their excellent articles that should give the basic ideas:

In Guild Wars 2, our event system won't make you read a huge quest description to find out what's going on. You'll experience it by seeing and hearing things in the world. If a dragon is attacking, you won't read three paragraphs telling you about it, you'll see buildings exploding in giant balls of fire, and hear characters in the game world screaming about a dragon attack. You'll hear guards from nearby cities trying to recruit players to go help fight the dragon, and see huge clouds of smoke in the distance, rising from the village under siege.
[...]
For example, in a traditional MMO, the character who gives you a quest will tell you ogres are coming to destroy the character's home, and you need to kill them. You then get a quest which says, "Kill 0/10 ogres" and you proceed to kill a bunch of ogres standing around in a field picking daisies. Since every player in the game needs to be able to do this quest, the ogres will never actually threaten the character's home - they will just eternally pick daisies in the field. The ogres aren't actually doing what the quest says they are - the game is lying to you!
[...]
To help ensure there is always enough for everyone to do, our events dynamically scale, so the more players who show up and participate in the event, the more enemies show up to fight them. If a bunch of players leave the event, it will dynamically scale back down so it can be completed by the people who are still there playing it.

One of the challenges of a massively-multiplayer game is that in being inclusive to a vast number of people, it loses a lot of the personal interaction that makes single-player RPGs so much fun. When you're looking at the games on the store shelf, it seems you have only two options - a game that you can play with your friends, or a game that has a satisfying personal story. The Guild Wars 2 design team believes that a game should have both.
[...]
With all these choices in the game, how many story combinations are there? Thousands. [...] Each of the stories in the game has at least one major moment of choice which can alter the chain of events, making every story a different experience. Plus, the stories for each order, which are separate, also have moments of choice. There are different stories for each of the Iconics, with which you can interact, and the story of the Elder Dragon of Orr itself. Really, the number of stories is gigantic, and it will only get bigger over time.

Rather than being presented with immediate failure, when a player loses all of their health in Guild Wars 2, they are put into "downed mode." In this mode, the player has a number of downed skills they can use to target enemies and fight for a chance to survive. A downed player can still be attacked, which will send them into a defeated state, leaving them to either wait for an ally to resurrect them or to resurrect at a waypoint. [...] While you are downed, if you manage to kill an enemy, you will rally, returning to life to fight again.

Players who have recently been downed several times will take longer to revive each time. If no one revives you, you can spend a small amount of gold to come back at a waypoint. It's as simple as that, and why not? Why should we debuff you, take away experience, or make you run around for five minutes as a ghost instead of letting you actually play the game? We couldn't think of a reason. Well, we did actually think of a reason--it just wasn't a good one. Death penalties make death in-game a more tense experience. It just isn't fun. We want to get you back into the action (fun) as quickly as possible. Defeat is the penalty; we don't have to penalize you a second time.
[...]
Simple systems like this, along with cross-profession combos, and the dedicated healing skill slot, help free players from the MMORPG shackles, and let us break the mold even more. We're making players more self sufficient, but are also providing appealing ways for them to effortlessly work together to create a more inspired moment-to-moment experience. That is why Guild Wars 2 does not have a dedicated healing class.

You can tell by now how passionate we are about this. At ArenaNet we still dream of the promise that online worlds once held, before they all started following the same MMO formula: the same level grind and scheduled rewards; the same static, unchanging worlds; the same quest mechanics; the same “holy trinity” of class balance. We know the industry can do better. We’ve dedicated ourselves to innovating in online worlds, and we’re going to hold ourselves to the highest standards.

So you’ve read these articles, and in general we know your reaction has been, “That all sounds great in theory, but I’ll believe it when I see it.” Well, get ready, because we’ve talked the talk, and now we’re going to walk the walk. [...] and next week we’ll present a hands-on demo to the 250,000 attendees of gamescom in Cologne, followed by a second showing at PAX Prime in Seattle two weeks later.

When you decide to con a free weapon out of the local lumberjacks, that choice moves you more toward being known as a scoundrel. Inspiring some war-weary guards to carry on the fight moves you more towards being known as honorable or even noble. Perhaps you will boast and bully your way through Tyria and become known as barbaric. Your actions will sometimes allow you special responses or interactions with the world. Barbaric characters, for example, can occasionally just cut to the end of a conversation with a punch to the face.

First off, we set the level cap for the game at 80, but we made the time between levels rather short. Instead of taking longer and longer to reach each level, it takes about the same time to go through each level. It’s pretty simple; if we expect you to level up every few hours, then why shouldn’t it be that way all through the game?

We’re voicing the equivalent of more than 60 feature-length films.

This may seem strange, but to me Guild Wars 2 reminds me of my time playing Ultima Online in the Second Age era. Or rather, what I had always hoped it would be in some ways, and some of my fondest memories. Some may remember Raph Koster's original vision of dragons feeding on animals in the forest, and if you killed the animals the dragon would try attacking town to feed itself. What they can do here is at least as good in terms of player impact, if not better.

Yes, every event must be manually implemented, but in terms of quality that has advantages too. The core problem, according to Raph, on that ecosystem design is that players wouldn't know what to do or not to do in order to get something to happen or not. In Guild Wars 2, there's no such problem, and it's fully integrated in the game as arguably the single most important feature rather than something which, let's face it, would remain slightly gimmicky.

And then there's the way it makes people work together 'on the spot', something which was amazing in UO in difficult areas. There were places that people camped because they were so ridiculously good for loot and there more players weren't always very welcome, but there were also so many places where meeting someone was a good thing, and you'd naturally play together. You'd meet people that way that you might play with again with dozens of time after, or you'd meet someone inviting you in a great guild. As the GW2 devs imply, that's no longer as frequent in WoW-like games even without PKing because your quests often don't match. In GW2, there are no 'quests', and they'll always match.

The personal storyline system also has great potential to make the game feel more like a single-player RPG ala Dragon Age (it's quite amusing the number of similarities between the two games' plots despite having no direct influence on each other by the way) - and even though it hasn't been directly confirmed, it seems very likely your character's dialogue won't be spoken. Take that, Bioware? And in addition to the large amount of choices, the content will actually bifurcate a fair bit based on those choices, with three endings that aren't different only in the last five minutes (I love Deus Ex 1 as much as anyone else, but I still feel that was one of its weak points).

---

So, a lot of hype. Can it live up to it? There are good signs, but there are also some legitimate fears. Here's one very good sign:

We haven't released a ton of details on PVP yet because we're still very much working on it. Our basic policy is to not talk about things until they're in the game and we've had a chance to iterate on them. You can expect to hear more about PVP in the coming months.

And here's one very good legitimate fear: the amount of content they want to create just boggles the mind. I think the risk is that they do deliver on what they promise, but have the same kind of problem that I hear Age of Conan had: lots of fun content early in the game, but the rest of it has much less and is therefore a lot more repetitive and simply not fun.

Arguably the voice-over requirements prevent some of that: they need to have a good idea of the content each zone requires significantly before release and can't fake their way through. So it's possible that they choose to delay the game further instead. I don't know whether to be happy or fearful about that kind of interview answer:

Eurogamer: When will the game be out?
Mike O'Brien: That's another question you know we're not going to answer. You can see we have every bit of the very highest goals and ambitions for this game and for ourselves. We are not going to ship this game until this game is the game that defines the industry and what people want to play.

It's going to be done when it's done.

Eurogamer: I've heard developers say that before.
Mike O'Brien: Some of them mean it and some of them don't. We mean it.

Here's hoping they not only mean it, but they actually deliver on it sooner rather than later.

 

[Scott_Arm]

I was a member of the Guild Wars alpha, and it was actually an incredibly fun experience. I wasn't too happy when they shifty from being PvP-centric to more of a PvE game, but I had a blast playing. Building characters, and coordination teams of characters for PvP matches was absolutely awesome. In a lot of ways, the alpha experience was far better than the retail game. Depending on system requirements, I'd actually consider playing Guild Wars 2. I've gotten away from PC gaming, but Guild Wars was one of the last really fun games I played on the PC. I hated the PvE, because I hate the entire MMO formula, but the PvP matches were great. Anything they do to break the stale formula of the PC MMO is appreciated. The basic questing structure for MMOs hasn't changed in almost ten years. At least none of the big games have really made significant improvements. I'll have to watch the videos. The biggest thing for me will be the day when we can play MMOs with Demon's Souls type controls, and have a reasonable AI to play against.

 

[swaaye]

I never even touched the PvP aspect of GW. I played PvE with a friend or two, or solo at times.

edit: actually I did PvP about two times I think.

 

[Rodéric]

I started Guild Wars during one of the open Week-end, what a blast !

Guild Wars 2 looks as fun as Guild Wars was (600+hours played now, need something different), and draws a lot of things from forums I've read/participated in online (GameDev.net Game Design forum from 1999-2001, a few others since then) and it IS a good thing.

-No more double death penalty (you died, no need to add insult to injury and make you lose something else than the time it took you to lose already, thank you !)
-No grinding (man all those MMORPG are all about that)
-No linear level increase (just like Guild Wars, except after level 20 you don't get levels but skill points in Guild Wars)
-No "how fuck someone is going to steal my ork/flowers/minerals/whatever" that plagues all MMOG experiences
-Personal storyline (at last a CRPG in which I have my own story ? [yep some solo games do it already])
-No more healer class (yep, watching health bar going up & down is not fun, I did play 100+hours healer, I know)

I'm very curious about the event system and the general gameplay mecanism, which seems more cooperative than in Guild Wars.
The video seem to imply that there will be much more synergy between characters (One skill benefiting from someone's else skill, more than just bonus.), I'm curious about that too.

All in all, I really want to stress out that many ideas they have are NOT new, but they are the first to have the balls to put them into a game, and I trust the gameplay will be as addictive and visceral as it was for me in Guild Wars.

 

[swaaye]

Two complaints I hear from my MMO loving friends is 1) GW is too hard 2) The level 20 thing which they can not grasp.

The "it's too hard" complaint is interesting because I find that the game is strategically challenging and I suppose this is too much to ask of some MMO players.

I think this game will be worth getting for me. It looks beautiful as always from them. It sounds like they know they have a unique online RPG and are going their own way with the next take on it. That alone is enough to impress me.

 

[Arun]

Scott_Arm: I mostly did PvP in GW1 myself and I completely share that experience (post-alpha obviously), although I completed the PvE in Prophecies, Nightfall, and (for all intents and purposes) EOTN (the latter two I completed much after their release). The Factions PvE is easily the most pitiful of all imo but the one in Nightfall and EOTN is noticeably better than Prophecies PvE both from a gameplay and a storytelling perspective, so the team is clearly capable of more than good PvP even if GW1 shared a few key faults of previous MMOs.

Roderic: Nice assessment. I agree the ideas are not new, but those kinds of ideas are more about implementation details than vision in many ways. It's one thing to talk about events with persistent impact for all players, it's another to pull it off. Things like scaling mechanisms for different numbers of players (not just number of enemies but also their abilities), event chains that have interesting 'fail' impacts while still never encouraging players to fail on purpose, uniting it seamlessly with the personal storyline (e.g. in the human origin, you need to find information about bandits before being able to do some instanced content and the event chain impacts different ways you can discover it), and bundling it with a player reward system that encourages cooperative play while allowing solo. Trying to do it takes balls, but doing it in a thoughtful way takes more than that (e.g. what I've heard of Warhammer's public quest system). Pulling it off successfully would be incredibly innovative no matter what.

swaaye: Some people would sooner develop their 'yawning muscles' than their brains. Unfortunate, really.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

My biggest beef is people trying to call GW an MMO. It isn't. It's your standary multiplayer online game featuring a small party (4-6 people is what I remember) with in game Lobby rooms (towns/camps) between missions (levels).

There is absolutely nothing Massive about it.

That said I loved GW as a game and experience. It was similar to Diablo, but in 3rd person over the shoulder. Didn't do PvP. But watched the matches that were held for about a year. Basically boiled down to finding the flavor of the month team build.

I think where people coming from MMO's complain is that there was an insane amount of Micro required to be good at GW, especially PvP. Buff and debuff durations were in seconds (often single digits) or had a constant cost which you needed to be aware of to turn off and turn back on depending on situation.

Likewise with the focus on CC abilities (stun, shock, silence, etc.) as well as stacking (during the limited time available for most CC and debuffs) for spike damage adds to the micro required. Throw in counters and builds where a proper counter build renders your build absolutely useless...

Yes, it's definitely not for the people coming from MMO's where social interaction even during events is the norm. It's more at home with people coming from FPS's with limited attention spans that require constant stimulus to avoid losing concentration.

Anyway, I plan on getting GW2 on day of release even though I don't like a lot of what I'm hearing. Moving even more solidly into the CC (crowd control and action denial) class of RPG play. In other words, be the first one to make a mistake and be happy to sit there with your thumb up your arse while you get annihilated because you can't do anything due to being locked down.

Well, at least your team might still win.

And dear god, stop calling it a MMO, there is absolutely nothing Massive about its Multiplayer. 4-8 people on a team with 2 teams in an arena doesn't quite compare to 100+ people in the same adventure area.

Regards,
SB

 

[aaronspink]

My biggest beef is people trying to call GW an MMO. It isn't. It's your standary multiplayer online game featuring a small party (4-6 people is what I remember) with in game Lobby rooms (towns/camps) between missions (levels).

You just described the vast majority of MMOs (including WOW)!

There is absolutely nothing Massive about it.

There are very few MMOs that are truly massive. And that list narrows considerably when you define massive in terms of player interaction. In terms of player interaction, the only MMO I would describe as massive is/was planetside with hundreds of players interacting all over 1 objective. Most MMOs are small parties groups and the few that are big groups send those groups into private instances with no possibility of interaction (aka raids). There are very few examples of games that allow/focus on large scale player interaction and objectives.

And dear god, stop calling it a MMO, there is absolutely nothing Massive about its Multiplayer. 4-8 people on a team with 2 teams in an arena doesn't quite compare to 100+ people in the same adventure area.

6-10 teams of 4-6 people is what I remember. And though the 100 people may be in the same adventure area, they might as well be in their own private instance in all honesty for most MMOs or in an IRC chat talking about chuck norris! Still waiting for an MMO which allows your interactions to have an actual effect on the game.

 

[Rootax]

You just described the vast majority of MMOs (including WOW)!



There are very few MMOs that are truly massive. And that list narrows considerably when you define massive in terms of player interaction. In terms of player interaction, the only MMO I would describe as massive is/was planetside with hundreds of players interacting all over 1 objective. Most MMOs are small parties groups and the few that are big groups send those groups into private instances with no possibility of interaction (aka raids). There are very few examples of games that allow/focus on large scale player interaction and objectives.

...

How can you forget Eve Online One world, nearly everything is player driven

 

[aaronspink]

How can you forget Eve Online One world, nearly everything is player driven

yeah, there's eve, but still not a fan of sitting around in a spaceship mining.

 

[Arun]

There is absolutely nothing Massive about it.

aaronspink replied nicely to this, just thought I'd point out the vast majority of the PvE game is 8 players and that 'massive' is a very subjective word - afaik, the original alpha for Meridian 59 peaked at 35 players for the entire world (of course that increased, well, massively over time)

Didn't do PvP. But watched the matches that were held for about a year. Basically boiled down to finding the flavor of the month team build.

Nowadays except in the very top-end of PvP, the PvX wiki (just google it) has made build research mostly redundant - and the 'build of the month' element did the same to a lesser extent in the past. But I do remember the early retail days and the open beta weekends (our guild finished 3rd in Open Beta), which is probably similar to what Scott_Arm is thinking of. Back then, as the late Douglas Adams would say, "when the Galaxy was young and fresh, and every idea worth fighting for was a new one", build research and team strategy was serious business. It was, for all intents and purposes, an intellectual exercise (as well as a social one in terms of guild organisation I suppose).

I think where people coming from MMO's complain is that there was an insane amount of Micro required to be good at GW, especially PvP. Buff and debuff durations were in seconds (often single digits) or had a constant cost which you needed to be aware of to turn off and turn back on depending on situation.

Likewise with the focus on CC abilities (stun, shock, silence, etc.) as well as stacking (during the limited time available for most CC and debuffs) for spike damage adds to the micro required. Throw in counters and builds where a proper counter build renders your build absolutely useless...

I'm struck by the fact you seem to take a very Mesmer-centric view of the game. There certainly is/was a lot of micro for everyone, but mesmers are really the core of any debuff strategy (that and knockdown), and monks are really the core of any overall buff strategy. If you're an elementalist, you need to react according to what debuffs are on you, but besides shouting on TeamSpeak/Ventrilo that you need a hex removal asap, you're not responsible. It's really not as extreme as you describe it unless you play as mesmer or monk, which are only 2 out of the 10 current professions after all (2 out of 6 in the original game)

Yes, it's definitely not for the people coming from MMO's where social interaction even during events is the norm. It's more at home with people coming from FPS's with limited attention spans that require constant stimulus to avoid losing concentration.

As aaronspink implicitly said, that's a genuinely bizarre claim. Social interactions even during events? With who, strangers? That's not a very frequent occurence in WoW-like quest-oriented-with-an-instance-element MMOs from both my own experience and what I heard from others. I'm sure there are great MMOs that do encourage that properly out there (I'd be curious if you're thinking of one specifically), but the largest mainstream ones fail at it, at least compared to both the potential and to an extent even some of the early MMOs ala Ultima Online. What I heard from WAR is that public grouping is great, but it encourages grouping, not really socialisation (I don't know how true that is).

As for the FPS similarity - not really. What matters are reflexes, not aiming skill. And more importantly those are more Starcraft-like reflexes than Quake-like ones. You do need to like a certain amount of micro (although not as much as a pro Starcraft player, thanks god). And macro matters too. There's a reason both devs and players have compared it more to Magic: The Gathering than Dungeons & Dragons.

Anyway, I plan on getting GW2 on day of release even though I don't like a lot of what I'm hearing. Moving even more solidly into the CC (crowd control and action denial) class of RPG play.

Heh, well if you buy it and don't play it a lot, keep in mind you're ArenaNet's ideal player from a server maintenance cost perspective! And I'm certainly not seeing a lot of evidence that they're moving further into the action denial direction - the mesmer equivalent class hasn't been announced yet, so it does seem a bit early to say that, but we'll see.

 

[aaronspink]

As aaronspink implicitly said, that's a genuinely bizarre claim. Social interactions even during events? With who, strangers? That's not a very frequent occurence in WoW-like quest-oriented-with-an-instance-element MMOs from both my own experience and what I heard from others. I'm sure there are great MMOs that do encourage that properly out there (I'd be curious if you're thinking of one specifically), but the largest mainstream ones fail at it, at least compared to both the potential and to an extent even some of the early MMOs ala Ultima Online. What I heard from WAR is that public grouping is great, but it encourages grouping, not really socialisation (I don't know how true that is).

War grouping was so so. There really wasn't a whole lot of social interaction in war, more of a mob rush mentality. Now for PvP, a well run and organized 18-24 man was a sight to behold but keeps/castles and such were really less about any strategy and more about the balls for everyone to bum rush with overwhelming force. For PvE, it was your more typical quest quest quest which was typically solo. The last game I played that specifically focused you on group content in the social world (aka not instance) was Vanguard but the dynamic was such that in general you were better off solo.

You don't see a whole lot of advantage in group PvE in most mmos outside of select rare cases which are almost entirely korean grinders, aka at higher levels the risk/reward and difficulty is such that you need a good group to actually level.

You basically have a couple different basic types of MMOs so far: solo quest to raid, solo quest to pvp, and pvp to level.

solo quest to raid tends to realistically have minimal social interaction outside of towns. No one has come up yet with a mechanic/system that encourages/requires group play outside of such a high difficulty that you have no other option. And then it tends to be uneven in lots of regard where the only place you need it is at the higher levels or for quest lines that just aren't worth it vs solo. And the raid part while thinking it may require social interaction, its really about just looking at pop-ups/reminders to hit x or do y when the leader tells you to. This is mostly because raids are still just scripted events. No one has done a good job at designing dynamic encounters and challenges.

solo quest to pvp games tend to be a bit more grindy and a lot more cut-throat. Esp those with a korean influence. This is generally do to the resource constraints within the games. PvP tends to be a lot of zerg vs zerg as the designs of the games do not encourage either tactical play (too easy to get anywhere) or innate barriers/time limits prevent more nuanced play. In general the designs so far have generally encourages anti-social game play to a large extent. This is actually one area where GW really stood out. I think I spent more time grouped in GW leveling characters, etc, than any other MMO before or since. There was a lot more of a social aspect to the PVE than in a lot of other games and a lot of it was because in many ways it wasn't an open would but there was definite benefit in finding random people to group with to level.

The PvP to level games have been a quite varied mix from the most anti-social games possible to what in my experience was the most social MMO ever made which was Planetside. Planetside also had the most strategic and tactical PvP I've seen. Social communication and coordination was pretty much a requirement. It was also a fairly dynamic world. Same sony ruined it.

As for the FPS similarity - not really. What matters are reflexes, not aiming skill. And more importantly those are more Starcraft-like reflexes than Quake-like ones. You do need to like a certain amount of micro (although not as much as a pro Starcraft player, thanks god). And macro matters too. There's a reason both devs and players have compared it more to Magic: The Gathering than Dungeons & Dragons.

GW was always much more on the strategic and tactical side I think primarily because gear wasn't really that important. I think WOW and many subsequent MMOs have really error'd with the emphasis they've placed on the gear grind over thinking and skill.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

You just described the vast majority of MMOs (including WOW)!

I avoided WoW so can't speak for that. However, in EQ, EQ2, VG, AoC, Warhammer Online, and Eve Online (the latest paid MMO's I've played) it was more common than uncommon to have 12-50 people running around in the same small area constantly running into each other. It was so bad in EQ2 that multiple instances of zones had to be spawned in order to keep player count to 100 or less. EQ featured raids of unlimited sizes, towards the later expansions it wasn't uncommon to see 100+ people all working to kill the same raid mob. In VG it wasn't uncommon to see multiple guilds featuring up 18-24 people attempting to be the first to take out an overland mob putting 50+ people in close proximity in combat condition.

Warhammer Online featured RvR battles with upwards of 100+ participants all clustered around a keep or in the same zone working to advance victory conditions leading to a siege and sack of one realms cities.

PWO (most recent F2P MMO I've played) also features large scale territory conquering PvP battles featuring up to 200+ players in the same combat area, as well as impromptu PvP open world battles that could escalate from 20-40 to 100+ in a matter of minutes.

And that doesn't even get to Eve Online where fleet battles can get absolutely huge. Where you have Alliances featuring hundreds of players. I believe Goon Swarm had over 1000 players before it was disbanded.

I'd most certainly consider both the PvE and PvP portions of those games much closer to massive than the relatively tiny amount of participants in GW. Especially when ALL combat zones are instanced and it is absolutely impossible for more people to enter.

That's far closer to standard FPS multiplayer where you do matchmaking in a lobby and then start a game. Rather than the freeform massive party participation in any standard MMO. Heck even FPS multiplayer is far more flexible in that people can still enter your locked zone if you aren't at the player limit. GW you have the people you enter with and that's it. Want a new player for someone that dropped. Time to exit the zone and go back to matchmaking.

I'm struck by the fact you seem to take a very Mesmer-centric view of the game. There certainly is/was a lot of micro for everyone, but mesmers are really the core of any debuff strategy (that and knockdown), and monks are really the core of any overall buff strategy. If you're an elementalist, you need to react according to what debuffs are on you, but besides shouting on TeamSpeak/Ventrilo that you need a hex removal asap, you're not responsible. It's really not as extreme as you describe it unless you play as mesmer or monk, which are only 2 out of the 10 current professions after all (2 out of 6 in the original game)

As aaronspink implicitly said, that's a genuinely bizarre claim. Social interactions even during events? With who, strangers? That's not a very frequent occurence in WoW-like quest-oriented-with-an-instance-element MMOs from both my own experience and what I heard from others. I'm sure there are great MMOs that do encourage that properly out there (I'd be curious if you're thinking of one specifically), but the largest mainstream ones fail at it, at least compared to both the potential and to an extent even some of the early MMOs ala Ultima Online. What I heard from WAR is that public grouping is great, but it encourages grouping, not really socialisation (I don't know how true that is).

Sure in the first GW, the CC abilities were more limited and balanced with a healthy does of Tank, DPS, and Healer synergy. Although the "holy trinity" was far less emphasized than in your traditional RPG.

They've already stated that they are completely removing the "holy trinity" style of classes from GW2 and instead will be focusing and increasing CC abilities for all classes. CC will be the basis of all PvP combat with all classes having to master it. The last time a CC heavy focus was used extensively (Warhammer Online) it had to be significantly toned down and nerfed after a few months as heavy CC can completely lock down opposing players and situations like that become even less enjoyable for players than going with the standard "holy trinity" style of play. It doesn't matter if X class has counters for Y class if one team manages to get the lockdown chains started before the other team does.

As for social interaction? I dunno, maybe you just never experienced it but it's always been a core component in all of the MMO's I listed above. Where it was all in game chat in EQ it's pretty much transformed into voice chat through Vent/TS in most modern day MMO's. Heck, because of voice chat, MMO's have gotten even more social than how EQ was originally and that was a game made for social interaction since you didn't have much to do during combat even as a healer other than chat.

Of course, if someone is the anti-social type they can always avoid social interaction, its entirely their choice. And I have met a few of those, anti-guild, anti-group, anti-doing anything that doesn't allow them to solo. I just basically ignore those people if they start complaining about how people won't help them if they run into content that requires a group. Or how they complain that noone talks to one another.

As to the perfect type of player for GW's business model. That doesn't bother me. As long as I get my enjoyment out of the game I'm quite happy for them to make money off me. That said, if the PvE portion of the game is fun, I'll be hammering their servers like noone's business for at least 2-3 months if not more.

I may complain about GW2 from time to time, but it's mostly within the realm of people trying to call it a MMO. Even the developers tell people not to think of it as a MMO. That and I still think the holy trinity class style of RPG is still superior in overall player enjoyment compared to the jack-of-all-trades style of RPG. Likewise, while CC heavy doesn't ruin PvE gaming experiences, it can totally wreck PvP style of experiences. But again that won't really affect me since I tent to avoid PvP.

GW2 is still one of the most anticipated games on my radar.

Regards,
SB

 

[Arun]

They've already stated that they are completely removing the "holy trinity" style of classes from GW2 and instead will be focusing and increasing CC abilities for all classes. CC will be the basis of all PvP combat with all classes having to master it. The last time a CC heavy focus was used extensively (Warhammer Online) it had to be significantly toned down and nerfed after a few months as heavy CC can completely lock down opposing players and situations like that become even less enjoyable for players than going with the standard "holy trinity" style of play. It doesn't matter if X class has counters for Y class if one team manages to get the lockdown chains started before the other team does.

There is a fairly big difference between support and CC, and between debuff and lockdown.

Basically every single profession will have optional support/debuff skills, which obviously reduce raw damage output in practice if you take them. The elementalist has access to 4 elements (you can switch at any time but it takes a few seconds), and only the Water element is really about healing and CC:

WATER attunement forgoes the raw damage of air and fire, in favor of controlling an opponent's movement. By creating slippery ice or freezing foes solid, water attunement ensures that the battle is always fought on the elementalist's terms. Nearby allies receive continuous healing from an elementalist who is attuned to water.

In the Warrior's case, there are banners (buff-only) and shouts (buff and debuff):

Banners—The warrior calls down banners to buff his allies with attack power. A banner can be picked up and carried around to move the buff, or it can be planted in an area to convey the buff, allowing the warrior to continue fighting. One example is Banner of Courage, which increases the melee damage of allies within its range.
Shouts—Shouts are skills that affect a large area and give bonuses to allies or debuff enemies. A warrior could use the shout On My Mark to lower an enemy's armor and call a target out to allied party members.

In the Ranger's case, you've got traps (damage and/or debuff only) and spirits (mostly buff, probably some debuff):

Traps--Traps are utility skills that can be placed at a ranger's current location. When an enemy enters a trap, it is triggered. For example, Spike Trap will cripple and bleed enemies that pass through it. A trap can remain active as long as the ranger chooses to remain close to it. A ranger can only have one of each trap type out at any given time.
Spirits--A spirit skill summons a nature spirit that influences the area around it. For example, Sun Spirit applies additional fire damage to allied attacks inside its influence. A spirit stays out for a short period of time and goes away if the ranger wanders too far away from it. Spirits can be attacked by enemies and removed from the battle. A ranger can only have one of each type of spirit out at any given time.

You know what? Every single one of those mechanisms already existed in GW1! (except banners which are buff-only) It's just a question of how strong they will be and how much people will use them. We'll see if the other professions are the same.

I think the main difference will be that there will be significantly fewer players without at least some kind of buff/debuff/CC (excluding moderate single-target debuff 'conditions' as were frequent for melee characters in GW1, which presumably will still be so). But in GW1 PvP, it's very hard to win without a debuff/lockdown mesmer (or sometimes necro) and some area damage in an elementalist or otherwise. So I suspect it will mostly be a question of distributing it over several characters versus concentrating it entirely in one or two. If they keep it at the same level as GW1 overall or slightly higher, I will be happy although I realise that's still sensibly more than in most MMOs.

I agree with you that balance is a big concern though - ArenaNet has been good at it traditionally, but there is one thing I'm very much worried about, which is World versus World battles. Normal PvP works as 5v5, so the lack of a true dedicated healer is compensated by smaller relative bursts and easier reviving. But in World vs World (where you might have dozens of players fighting at the same spot), CC and area (de)buffs will be much more effective than in 5v5. We'll see...

As for social interaction? I dunno, maybe you just never experienced it but it's always been a core component in all of the MMO's I listed above. Where it was all in game chat in EQ it's pretty much transformed into voice chat through Vent/TS in most modern day MMO's. Heck, because of voice chat, MMO's have gotten even more social than how EQ was originally and that was a game made for social interaction since you didn't have much to do during combat even as a healer other than chat.

Oh, I think that's a misunderstanding. I make a difference between socialisation between friends/guildmates and between strangers in the same area. The former is just as frequent in GW1 as in any other game, through guild chat or Vent/TS. The latter is inexistent in some major ways, but my point was that in WoW for example it is less frequent than in UO because of various factors including the quest system. I think you're right WoW might be a relatively extreme case there, and many other MMOs including EQ are probably at least somewhat better. I am under the impression that some fairly popular recent WoW-like games suffer from the same problem though, but I haven't played them so I'll admit I don't know for sure.

I'm not sure if we understood each other now (that is I'm not sure that's what you meant either) but I hope so I think we basically agree though, it's just a question of having tried different MMOs and making different distinctions.

I may complain about GW2 from time to time, but it's mostly within the realm of people trying to call it a MMO. Even the developers tell people not to think of it as a MMO. That and I still think the holy trinity class style of RPG is still superior in overall player enjoyment compared to the jack-of-all-trades style of RPG. Likewise, while CC heavy doesn't ruin PvE gaming experiences, it can totally wreck PvP style of experiences. But again that won't really affect me since I tent to avoid PvP.

I assume you meant GW1 here because there is no way you can say GW2 isn't a MMO. It has servers ('worlds') and persistent zones where you can meet random players and the dynamic event system has amazing potential. It also has an instanced personal story component, but that's in addition to the persistent world this time (which is the majority of the content).

 

[borowki]

I liked the original Guild War and Nightfall a lot. But then I couldn't even finish Eye of the North, because I could never find anyone to group with. In my opinion, ArenaNet forgot the formula that makes the game works. Basically, there're a lot of people, such as myself, who don't have the time to devote to a game. We enjoy the social aspect of the game, but, frankly, we suck. The separation between PvP and PvE I thought was a brilliant way to resolve the dilemma of satisfying both hardcore fans and casual players. If you're someone with all the time in the world, well, go play against other people who have all the time in the world. Eventually though, even in PvE gameplay the focus of GW shifted towards hardcore players. These are people who have no tolerance for failure. So they go on missions with henchmen instead, which are superior to most under-experienced players. It wasn't like that in GW originally. It was almost always better to group with a human player.

 

[Rodéric]

Guild Wars (Prophecy) = complete package
Guild Wars Factions = PvP focus in asian setting
Guild Wars Nightfall = PvE focus in north africa setting (I think)
Guild Wars Eye of the North = Fan service for hardcore gamer. (GWEN...)

There are things that changed in Guild Wars I didn't like, for example, the mercenaries then heroes, I don't like them, I prefered when we had to group between humans to play, made socializing mandatory and IMO that was a good thing.
(If you really want to play solo, get another game seriously, there are tons of games, no reason for all games to embrace all game modes)
The characters build are a welcome change, the enhanced Xun Lai chest are too, the most powerful armours being available in different forms but always affordable except for the most exotic looking (but still same stats) is extremely welcome.

I expect good things like that to be the same in Guild Wars 2, and I'm pleased to see we'll naturally group instead of playing each on our own or even competing for quests like most MMORPG out there.

 

[Silent_Buddha]

Oh, I think that's a misunderstanding. I make a difference between socialisation between friends/guildmates and between strangers in the same area. The former is just as frequent in GW1 as in any other game, through guild chat or Vent/TS. The latter is inexistent in some major ways, but my point was that in WoW for example it is less frequent than in UO because of various factors including the quest system. I think you're right WoW might be a relatively extreme case there, and many other MMOs including EQ are probably at least somewhat better. I am under the impression that some fairly popular recent WoW-like games suffer from the same problem though, but I haven't played them so I'll admit I don't know for sure.

The rest of the stuff we'll have to wait for games release to see just how things pan out, but for this... Just had to add that it isn't limited to groups/guilds. While Vent and TS have expanded and made more accessible (typing speed) social interaction, the social aspect is almost equally apparent in the World/Zone chats in the various games. It's abundant enough that often you have to have multiple World/Zone/Custom chat channels in game in order to prevent text chat in any particular one from scrolling too fast to read.

In EQ2 I had 7 chat windows (some tabbed, some not) just to keep up with in game chatter. Warhammer Online I had about 5 or so. Eve Online had 8-10. Etc. And out of those only 2-3 were guild/group/personal (or in Eve Online's case alliance/corp/fleet/personal). So there's plenty of social interaction among strangers. But as I said, it's all voluntary so if someone chooses not to partake and then complains that there's no social interaction...um, that's their choice.

You had a little bit of that in GW, but only in the matchmaking lobbies. Once you got into your locked private zone, it pretty much didn't exist, which curtailed a lot of chatter among massive groups of strangers. As then you had a choice of continuing to chat with everyone or playing the game.

Regards,
SB

 

[Entropy]

I'm surprised that socialization/talking/chatting with other game players is something which is seen as a feature that should be encouraged by the game mechanics. Hell, in MMOs I'm happiest fishing. Alone.
Seriously, when I can find the time to game, I do it to get away from work and social schedules and pressure. I have precious little such time, and when I can find it I really don't want to be forced into interaction. That doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed some social time in-game with other players, but I want it to be on player terms, not the game making it more or less mandatory.

GW2 sounds like something I need to check out - the ad hoc grouping suits me better than guilds, and way better than sitting around in "lounges" of some sort hoping to eventually build a group that allows you to actually play the game. Mandatory grouping to experience content is something I consider a hassle.

Reading the above, it would seem that online multiplayers simply is the wrong genre for me, but I really like the huge game worlds and seeing other (real) people going about their business there and occasionally helping them out. It's the implicit assumption that the players don't have real lives and need to get a fake one through a particular game that chafes.

 

[function]

Playing WoW was one of the loneliest experiences of my entire life.

People didn't want player characters to interact with, they wanted human bots to do dungeons with - human bots that already knew exactly how to do everything. Outside this there was nothing. I would have had more meaningful interactions with people by peeping out from behind my closed curtains at people on the street. Silently.

Oh, once, this player was walking past me on a road and he stopped to wave at me. I waved back. That was the best part of all of WoW. Ever.

Thank god I only stuck with it to level 66.

 

[swaaye]

I'm surprised that socialization/talking/chatting with other game players is something which is seen as a feature that should be encouraged by the game mechanics. Hell, in MMOs I'm happiest fishing. Alone.
Seriously, when I can find the time to game, I do it to get away from work and social schedules and pressure. I have precious little such time, and when I can find it I really don't want to be forced into interaction. That doesn't mean I haven't enjoyed some social time in-game with other players, but I want it to be on player terms, not the game making it more or less mandatory.

GW2 sounds like something I need to check out - the ad hoc grouping suits me better than guilds, and way better than sitting around in "lounges" of some sort hoping to eventually build a group that allows you to actually play the game. Mandatory grouping to experience content is something I consider a hassle.

Reading the above, it would seem that online multiplayers simply is the wrong genre for me, but I really like the huge game worlds and seeing other (real) people going about their business there and occasionally helping them out. It's the implicit assumption that the players don't have real lives and need to get a fake one through a particular game that chafes.

I'm with this guy.