Time to Put the Hurt on Guild Wars 2

I'm currently playing GW2. I'm not going to tell people that are dead set on not giving NCSoft another dime what to do. That's their prerogative, and certainly their right to speak with their wallet. I would, however, like to address some of these bad points in your post.

1. I've never played EQ, so I can't comment on their zone design, but I will say that crossing a zone is only a pain the first time, and only if you're not following the flow of the zone from one task area to the next. There are quick-travel waypoints all over the place, in every zone, making it easier to go back to places you've already been. Spawn rates are a little high in some areas, but it's not really "fighting tooth and nail". Soloing is entirely possible. I've solo'd 68 levels so far on my main. As long as you're going with the flow of the area, watch where you're going, and not trying to skip things, you'll be fine.

2. There are "quests" in the traditional sense, but those are limited to your personal story. The majority of your leveling comes from open-world Tasks/Hearts (pretty much auto-quests that you come across in zones, they're static, and your progress on them is personal, can vary in what you're doing and can only be done once), dynamic events (events that are triggered a variety of ways, can be done multiple times, but don't have to be), and area completion (you get a pretty hefty xp bonus for seeing everything there is to see in a given area). You'll also get xp from gathering, crafting, and completing daily achievements. You can grind the events, I suppose, but I haven't had to. In general, there are 2-3 areas for each level range, so I haven't had to do an event more than once unless I wanted to in 130+ hours of gameplay.

3. Traditional groups do usually only occur for dungeons, but the game is built on cooperation and being social. There's plenty of communication in zones for people looking for events, which tend to be a group activity, people asking questions and helping others. The thing that a lot of people miss is that there's no kill stealing, and everyone that hits a given mob gets credit...right down to full xp (including bonuses for various things), and their own loot. People are free to help each other without fear of someone chewing them out for it, and do all the time. See someone getting slaughtered by a mob? Jump in and help them! Dynamic events tend to be great gathering points to help your fellow player. There's also xp for rezing other players, which is yet more encouragement to help the guy next to you. So, while there isn't grouping in the traditional sense (though, you're free to do that anyways!), there is a sense of cooperation throughout the game.

4. Yes, dungeons are hard. But they're no more mandatory than our Task Forces. You like the challenge? Go for it. If not, there's plenty of other things to do, including some neat jumping puzzles.

5. Yes, the jumping puzzles for Vistas can be a pain, if you don't like that sort of thing. The area completion bonus, however, makes it worth it to do, and most areas only have 5 or so of them. Not all of them in a given zone are hard to get to, and there are plenty of guides and videos if you just can't figure it out.

6. The auction house was having problems initially, but those have since been fixed. It's been up and running solidly without a crash for a few days now.

7. Crafting is not for everyone, but I would like to note that their recipe discovery system can be a lot of fun for some, and the xp from crafting makes it worth it to invest some time into.

As for the rest, I don't recall them ever promising that a town would "stay saved", but I didn't follow early development. Personally, given the story of the game, that wouldn't make sense to me...we're in the middle of a war, there's no reason for an enemy to give up after attacking a town once. And no, the zone events aren't revolutionary, but they can be fun. And no auto-follow....really, that's a personal preference for melee. I haven't been bothered by it.

Ok so now I'm confused. When eighty plus people don't get their jobs back (or if you don't get your hands on the IP for all your efforts) is it ok then to hate NCsoft... or should I hate the NCsoft haters for a self-fufilling prophecy? What if I don't hate anybody? Tell ya what. It's a whole lot easier if you lead what you want and those who wish to follow do so and those that want to speak out differently also do so. Last time I checked that was how the forum (and this community) worked best.

Could not agree more with this post... Much as I adore COH, and think we must do everything we can to save it, punishing Arenanet is a horrid idea. Now this is my take on things....

Like everyone here, I was in two minds wether to buy Guild Wars 2 or not because of NCsoft. But after my initial anger was replaced with sadness, I started to try and think a little more clearly. This is what I am feeling now. Firstly by not Buying GW2 I would be really only be punishing myself, and cutting off my nose to spite my face. Put it this way, Arenanet had to stop selling the product after 2 days, because the servers could not cope with the demand, so realistlly my purchase would make no real difference to NCsoft.

Even if it did, it would hurt Arenanet more than NC, and what have i got against Arenanet? ... nothing. Also having played GW2, it is a very very good game, and will be responsible for a move to Next Gen MMO's, as it does very much think outside the box, and bring huge amounts of polish and new ideas to the Genre, whish has got to be a good thing for the MMO industry.

Finally, I agree that we do not want to come off bitter and twisted. If we can save COH, it will be because of the cool heads of people like the Titan Network and Golden Girl, not people shouting "go on hit him".....

Bottom line, I am not prepared to sit on my own in a room with no fun game to play, just because of a principal. I NEED a game to replace COH IF it goes, the only MMO that is any good out there atm is Guild Wars 2.

Couple of things. Soloing is not difficult. At all. Crossing zones is also not difficult, unless you are four or more levels under where you are trying to go. Also really? Since you have to actually pay attention to where your target goes, that makes it 'FPS' style melee combat? Not hardly. You've apparently just been spoiled by having the game do the work for you.

I am...not sure what you took away from TonyV's post. He is just saying stay calm, and don't do anything inflammatory. Seems like you took it to an entirely different place...

Define "best". Sometimes, the stupid actions of a small group can hurt everyone. This is a place for opinions and discussion, but some are talking about organizing destructive action. That's where the "stupid" part comes in.

Depends on the zone and the area you're in. Example: In one zone, I attacked this one solo mob, then 5 seconds later I had 7 mobs beating the crap out me. Another example, I wandered into an area of the "Night Court". I could actually see the mobs respawning as fast as brought them down. If you consider that easy, good for you, guess you're a better player.

And yes, *some* zones are somewhat easy to traverse. Others have mobs spaced so that you pretty much have to fight for every inch.

I've used auto-follow in DAOC, CoH, GW1, and every other game that features it. It is a nice feature to have, and I personally prefer focusing on my attacks rather than having to line up said attacks. If that's being spolied, then fine, I'm spoiled. To each his own.

Short respawn times means no one can grief other players by spawn camping and/or kill stealing.

People have to pay attention to what they are doing. There's no toggling fly and exploring a zone by flying on auto pilot just outside of NPC weapons range.

So switch to a ranged weapon and use auto fire instead.

One thing I noticed is that in most zones how "easy" it is to solo is directly proportional to how many players are in the same zone. The more people in the zone the easier it is to solo (and I don't mean just by following the crowd). In many areas (especially where skill points can be found) it's very difficult (but not impossible) to fight your way to the objective without at least a couple of people helping to keep the respawn down either directly or indirectly.

Although the events do scale to the number of players in the area, often the number of mobs involve don’t. And if there are 30 NPCs rushing you at once it doesn’t matter if they are all scaled down in power etc, it still makes it extremely difficult to survive.

In short, if you play prime time “soloing” is very easy. However, if you are the only person in the zone expect your experience to be more difficult and more of a grind. Strangely the exact same way it is with most MMORPGs (not ideal but I guess there are limitations to how they can program it to suit every scenario).

For all our whinging about solo options, City of Heroes still has the best solo features I’ve seen in any game (ability to adjust mission difficult level etc).

I bought GW2 the day before the announcement about COH was made, I doubt I would have purchased it after the announcement, but since I’ve already paid for it, I can’t see any reason to stop playing. However, when it comes to buying expansions etc I will now have to think about it a lot more than I normally would before forking over any cash.

Did anyone actually read his amazon post?? I guess if you've got thin skin that post could have been considered inflammatory, but then my response would be to get some callouses(sp?), not for him to tone down the post.

Bravo. First sensible attitude I've seen to GW2 in ages. I'm currently playing SW:TOR, (as well as COH, obviously) but can't see me playing it for long. Most of my old SG mates have been banging on about how great GW2 is and the more I read about it, the more I'm probably going to take the plunge if the worst happens at the end of November.

I LOVE this right there. Every class has range attacks and every class can play ever role if they want. Probably the best aspect of Guild Wars 2.

Why there are classes anyway if everyone can do everything?

Image that closing of CoH never happened.

I would like to get GW2 because I liked stories in GW and want to see how it continues.
GW2 judging by images is one of the best looking MMO's out there.
Just one time payment (although that is double edged blade - GW was the same, but there were almost no new content after they have decided to make GW2 - so nothing new for 4 years).

Crafting - can do with or without it.

Bad things:
Jumping platforms - I don't do that - ever. Would have to skip that part, and I don't like skipping things in game.
Game is still heavy with PVP (as GW) and I'm not interested in PVP.
It is new game, which mean there are still lot of people there that are just following trends, and will move when next new thing is out.
Also no need for credit card means there will be much more kids. I don't mind kids in games (some people saying that games are for kids ), but I prefer to play with people closer to my age.
No monk in GW2 (my favorite classes in GW were Elementalist and Monk)

All this that is happening in the way helped me to decide against. Without it I would have to make hard decision to buy or not to buy and look and all pros and cons more closely.

- Il Numero Uno (The Number One)

I don't think anyone has made that claim. They're talking about revenge, not anything constructive.

Hey, I love my ES, but no way. Here's Bethesda, awesome at making grand worlds with lore 1 mile thick...guilds and other groups that you can move up in the ranks of...providing players housing marrriage and children options...exploration out the ying-yang...etc etc
And what do they do when they turn to the MMO market?
They make a run-of-the-mill themepark game. Missions and factions. Be still my beating heart.

There was *SO* much more potential in the ES IP. Player-run economy with player-run shops, guilds with players occuping different ranks and trying to climb the ladder, evolving conflict along guild or national or racial or religious lines instead of the cookie-cutter pre-sets, landscape changing as people populate and abandon areas....

One might say "well, this is Bethesda's first entry into the MMO genre." But I don't see why they couldn't have learned from the many MMOs that came before them. And maybe they did, and this is the game they designed from their studies--but it won't be a game I'd play.