Okay, obviously some people are missing some things

I noticed this site has taken over the recommended site from GWOnline and GWO has been dropped down. I also fail to see any negative comments about the release version. Not sure if it's being sensored or what, but as a person who has been playing BWE's since they're beginning I'd like to say a few things.

First, for anyone who think I may have some grudge against these people you can look through the posts at GWOnline and see that I've been very much a supporter of this game. My main posts are in the feedback sections of the BWE threads.

Second, as any of us who have been there since that first BWE can attest, it was one of, if not the most polished beta we'd ever seen. It was nearly completely playable from the beginning. Far more than alot of final releases, such as Horizons.

Third, over the next few months we saw an incredible growth in the games dynamics as Arenanet responded to our input. These were the people writing a game for us, and they listened. Not only listened, but acted on our input.

Fourth, the last 2 BWE's saw drastic changes in the interface and quests, to the good. It's become more fluid and esthetically pleasing. Also much more control over how it looks. Again, Arenanet responed to the players input.

Now we come to final release. I don't know about the rest of you, but having experienced NCSoft's hand in Lineage II, I can honestly say I see their finger prints all over this final release. The development team seems to have taken 10 steps backwards. For those of you who are new to GW I'll layout some of the reversals in their previous releases.

First, Skills. It used to be that you could see a trainer and pick skills you wanted to buy. The skills cost you a Skill Point and a number of Gold. No biggie, a tried and true system. Now, you not only have to still pay for these skills, but you don't get to choose what skills you get. Oh, and by the way, you have to quest for these skills that you don't want in the first place. I have yet to find a trainer who offers me a skill I want. Fighter skills, have been reduced to Hammer...basically, you can't find any decent swords as yet and all the skills you can get are hammer related.

Second, Armor. In the beginning, certain levels of armor could only be worn by certain player levels, and all was right in the world. I think it was during the second or third BWE that they removed the level restrictions and it became an if you could get to it and afford it scenario. At first it was thought and discussed on the boards that this was simply to allow people to tryout the various armors and such. Drops for all armor materials used to be fairly close. Granted, some were a little more common than others, but in this final release, casters of anykind are, to put it bluntly, screwed to the walls. Pardon the language, but hey, if it fits...etc... The drop rate between Iron and cloth is about 20-1 by my measurement at this point. Between me and a friend we've run 4 characters all the way through the beginning doing nothing but farming and here are our numbers, out of 4 characters we have a total of 543 Iron, and 29 cloth. Needless to say, we're never going to be able to outfit a caster decently as compared to the innumerable fighter classes we could support with armor at this point. Basically, everything drops iron in the opening section, but only the Grawl so far have dropped anything that breaks down into cloth. Cloth is listed as a 'common' crafting material, like Iron, but I can tell you now, it is very uncommon. Even restricting hunting to grawl and nothing else the numbers still bear out to an 11-1 ratio in favor of iron. After an entire day of doing nothing but hunting Grawl, the tally is 119 iron, and 16 cloth, still a 7.4-1 ratio, killing mobs that are dropping the only items that break down into cloth. This needs to be addressed.


Three, Guild costs. When will you people decide on a price? In the begining it costed 50g to create a guild and 100g to create the cloak I think. During the last 2 BWE's the price of creating a guild went to 100g and designing a cloak costed 1000g. At the release, creating a guild costed 200g, and to design your cloaks costs 2000g. Are you just trying to see how painful you can make this. I mean, the name is GuildWars. So creating guilds should be something that is encouraged and fostered, not made into a grind. Furthermore, anyone who was in on the BWE's got to automatically keep their Guilds, and it looks like cloaks as well without paying this exorbitant costs. I thought there was going to be a general wipe with only characters names saved? But what you've done is give some groups a head start on several fronts now. Not only in giving them an organization right off the bat, and thus saving them a ton of cash, but also by making it more difficult for new players to form guilds and compete. Granted, being in the pre-order and running through the BWE's should have some benefits, but not at the expense of literally raping new players.

Fourth, Time Based Gameplay. Here is an excerpt from the IGN interview with Arenanet, http://pc.ign.com/articles/400/400429p1.html . On the second page, second question of that interview they discuss the level drive system, and claim that this game will, in fact, not be like that. That a person who has less time spent playing will still be competative. The drastic changed that I've seen from the BWE's to final release do not bear this statement out. Like all other NCSoft games, the more a person plays, the greater his reward will be. Basically, this game has become just like any other in that respect, contrary to they're numerous claims otherwise. Simply to go the main guildwars site, http://www.guildwars.com/press/default.html#interviews and peruse some of the interviews and you'll see the claim many times.

Fifth, World At War. Who's spastic idea was this? Do you not think there are enough political problems in the world that you have to bring real country names into a game? Do you really think that using real country and geographical names won't have posts and flames flying on the boards and in the chats? Guess what, not everyone playing this game is an adult. Not everyone will just pass it off and say, "Whatever". For absolutely no reason you've inflamed already burning issues. Many will say this is being overstated, but I can tell you now, there isn't a single MMO I can go into that at some point during the evening the subject of world politics doesn't get started up and it becomes a session of my country is greater than yours. And they're not even blatantly using country names to proclaim who is better or on top at the moment. Nuff said on that completely idiotic move. Somethings just can't be stated politically correct or nicely. Just plain stupid move.

I've tried to be objective over the last couple of days, and the above items are only the top things on my list of grievances with the final release. It comes down to one thing simply. Is this the game I originally started playing? No. Has it stayed the course of the game it was claimed to be? No. Do I feel that NCSoft has pulled another fast one and released a game that was totally different that what was claimed and advertised all along? Yes. I expected more from you guys at Arenanet. You made many of us feel like the days of Blizzards reigning years. The wonder, the simplicity and the fun. You listened to the players in the beginning, you implemented things we suggested, you made attempts to shape the world the way your audience liked, and then, out of nowhere, you slipped us a three dollar bill. A phony, a counterfeit, a blatant forgery of the original.

Like many others I'm very disappointed in how this was presented, and I'll be watching over the next little while to see if anything changes or is 'fixed', to reflect your original statements about the games design and intent. If it fails to start taking the shape of what I was originally sold on, I will definitately be taking my time elsewhere.

Someone remarked in another thread about how dead WoW's servers had become, and how close GW was to displacing the number 1 slotted game and taking the top seat. It's not really that big a deal folks. The game is a new release. That happens all the time. The real question will be whether the game can sustain it. With remarks I've been seeing more an more in the chat channels and with people I know, it's questionable how long it will last. There are many other well seated games with history still biting on the heals, and only time will tell if GW can hold it's starting position.

-Krindi

A very good posting! I wouldn't be so pessimistic in general, but if I take the promise of casual players can compete against power player... it's gone

As stated, if you want to get new spells, it's not very hard to get spells... but it takes a real big amount of time to get those you want to get. Quite annoying to get spells that are effectively useless. I would appeciate if I could actually buy spells, this would also fulfill the promise not to insist on hours of leveling (or questing) but playing...

If the PvP turns out to be less than bloody brilliant, I think this game will fade into the background fairly quickly. The combat is going to have to be something very special to make gamers keep comming back for more; when the world is somewhat limited.
But then again I fail to see how people that have been playing Diablo II from day one can still be playing it...(and some are, yikes!)

(yet to play GW here, im sure it will be fun at the start atleast

Interesting post and whether it stays posted remains to be seen and yes - censorship is active here.

Game companies are like politicians; they are full of promises and break them all. I remember the hype around Everquest and the promise of 5 continents, yet at the last instance they revealed to us that the was only going to be 3 with the additional 2 in paid expansions - I have the original box with 5 continents!

People don't seem to understand that our gaming addition is being exploited by these companies who release uncompleted product at our expense and instead of saying something about it, we just run out and buy the game as soon as it is released because we need our "fix"...and then when the game fails to meet our expectations, forums such as this, become overloaded with complaints and flames: It really is a fascinating phenomenon.

While I was somewhat dissapointed with the shift in how skills are handled, it's a nice little -extra- incentive to complete them. However, it does suck when you get a bunch of useless skills..

Either way. No biggie for me on that one.

I'm fine with the armor. I have plenty of cloth stocking up, though certainly more ingot, though that's only because I've been able to salvage more metal weapons than the monster armor items.

I thought War of Worlds was cute.

How do these changes influence a more level-driven system?

How do these changes reflect a more L2 system?

I remember playing L2 and it made me want to harm little children.

I played WPE and all the BWE's.

I really like the new way skills are handled. You should earn skills in RP, not buy them. Of course, being a forgiving game, you can buy the skills from the previous area by a trainer the next area you get to. Going back to a low level area with a high level character to do quests is boring. I understand that this is frustrating for those who have read the web guides and have a specific build in mind, but I think that kind of stuf is better served by PvP than RP. I wouldn't mind all skills and upgrades being "unlocked" for PvP-only characters, at least not if we then got PvP areas reserved for RP characters. The whole unlocking concept goes against the idea that your should play for fun, not rewards.

I also like that armor is not restricted by level, but by area. If you somehow manage to get to an area with higher level monsters fast, I don't think you should be prevented from getting armor that fit the monster level of the area.

The distribution of crafting materials has always been a problem. There has been a lock of some material or another in each event. I think if you know what to craft and what to sell, especially of collectibles, it will (mostly) work out. But that takes a lot of experience, and/or web guides. Not very friendly to new or casual players.

Prices and speed. I'd expect the BWE's to be more compact than release. This is still much faster than traditional MMORPG's.

WaW sucks. You are "rewarded" for something you, unless you are in the top 0.1% of the players, have absolutely no influence on.

Actually, it used to be that you captured half your skills from bosses or got them from the exotic skill charm dealer. Being able to buy most (if not all) skills from a trainer was a fairly recent development (circa the fifth BWE, IIRC).

Huh? Actually, now you still get to choose, and frequently you don't have to pay for them.

No you don't. Any skill that you could have quested for in KoA is available from the skill trainer in RoA Ascalon City. Skills you can quest for in RoA are available from skill trainers in Grendich Courthouse, Yak's Bend, and elsewhere. If you prefer to just buy skills from a skill trainer like you used to, there's nothing stopping you. No one is forcing you to do the quests.

Then keep going. It has never been the case in this game that every skill was available from the skill trainer in Ascalon City. You always had to get pretty far in the game to get to skill trainers in places like Fishermen's Haven or Temple of the Ages to get some of the best skills. Did you expect that to change on release? Or have you gotten to these places and still not found what you're looking for? What are you looking for?

Yes, they've said it in a lot of different places. It's still true, too. Once I've reached Ascension, I can be competitive against someone who's played 20 hours more than me, or 2000 hours more than me. It doesn't make much difference at that point.

Don't do the skillquests, just complete missions to get to new area's with trainers and you can buy your skills.
I'm not certain about this, but I think they changed it so that the next trainer you encounter has all the skills for sale that you could get through questing in the area's before it.
If that's the case, problem dismissed? Just complete missions and get to new trainers and ignore the skill-quests.
As for most being hammer-skills, I'm at level 10 & Nolani Academy and have 4 unassigned, 4 axe, 2 hammer, 2 sword, 3 strength and 2 tactics (and a load at secondary profession) - completed all the local warrior quests (except for a few in old ascalon possibly - have to look into that)


You're farming the wrong monsters.
Going from Frontier Gate to Ruins of Surmia, then completing Ruins of Surmia I had 8 iron ingots versus 17 bolts of raw cloth when we got to Nolani.
My partymembers each gained at least 15 bolts of raw cloth as well.
If you're killing monsters that wear metal armor, they'll likely drop nothing that salvages into cloth. Kill monsters that wear cloth armor and your problem is solved.


Guild names & memberlists were kept (wow, 200 gold - what an advantage -_-") and everything else was reset (capes removed, guild halls removed).
The people who are walking around with capes are those who earned the capes. Just because you don't have the money, doesn't mean other people don't have it..
as for the 200 gold, you can get that in no time at all, 10 bolts of raw cloth is worth more than that...
The 2000 gold for the cape is easy to obtain, as is the money for a sigil if you can't seem to obtain one in the Hall of Heroes - it's even easier if you split the costs with your Guild.


Yeah at first the people with more time on their hands will have the superior levels, money and items, no wonder - They Play More!
You could also look at the statement from a few different perspectives:
1. Unlike other MMO's, in Guild Wars you're not forced to spent time on getting the best possible stuff for your characters because you won't be prayed on by little ganking kiddies.
2. Unlike other MMO's, in Guild Wars it doesn't really matter how much time you've been at maximum level, because the differences between items are minute. The powerlevelers can go to level 20 in two days and start farming for special items, but the special items alone aren't enough for them to beat a casual gamer who reaches level 20 two weeks later with mostly standard equipment and a healthy dosis of skill.
3. The game does have a level & skill-system in place, so it's logical that after the first two days - the superior people will be those who spent the most time playing and getting their character to max. level with as many skills as possible. You could've forseen that at the start of the frigging E3 Event -_-"

ArenaNet hasn't disregarded their statements, you mistook them for something else. (do you not see how idiotic it'd be if a level 1 could beat a level 20 if he were just skilled enough? that's the system you're suggesting: make levels meaningless, make items meaningless - just make it a FPS with top-down view and zero of the twitch involved)



WaW will likely cause a lot of verbal abuse, it did in the Final BWE - and I think it'll only get worse now that the game is retail.
I think it might have been better to name the regions something else, like Ascalon, Orr and Kryta - it'd cause less conflict between the players, but would be hard to implement with the way districts are set up. (players would still play on the same servers, so essentially it'd still be Europe vs USA vs Korea)




As for your final statements, let's go over what I feel:

Is this the game I originally started playing?
No, they've improved and expanded it - the only real flaw I could find was the limit on the friends/ignore list.

Has it stayed on the course of the game it was claimed to be?
Yes, provided you put things in perspective - and don't assume that the way you think it would've been implemented, is the way ArenaNet or everyone else thinks.

Do I feel that NCSoft has pulled another fast one and released a game that was totally different from what was claimed and advertised all along?
No, the game feels more complete than any MMO I've ever played - and it's not different from what was advertised.




Ooh and what other people are that?
As for the rest of your statement, that is based on the assumption that ArenaNet was working from your point of view - I'm certain they've tried to look at their game from all points of view and the game they came up with will please the majority.

Good points but your being really over pessimistic about things. I don't know what your talking about the drop rates being screwed cause i'm lvl 15 now and I have had a constant stack of 80+ bolts of cloth on me and 30+ irons. Not to mention all the other comon crafting items. The only ones I find rare are granit slabs and I don't even use them.

As for skills, the system is fine. Sure it was great in the BWE to be able to find whatever skill you wanted whenever you wanted it. But we are in the final game here and im sure the devs wanted it to be a little more lengthy in your character building proccess. How far have you made it into the game? Like I said im 15 now and im just missing a few skills I want and they are elite so I didn't expect to see them till I hit around 20.

The WaW thing is a PC nightmare I'd have to agree but I think your being a little to harsh. The devs obviosuly just wanted to have a way for poeple to compete but just calling it America and korea etc probably will lead to some jackass mouthing off. However on the bright side I've beaten several korea teams so far and even if they are calling me a stupid american I sure as hell can't read it! (ba-zing)

Skill acquisition is a lot easier than it used to be. Instead of having only one option (spend skill point + gold), you now also have the option of investing a little time and saving the gold and skill points. That's totally optional though. Any skill you can quest for, you can buy at the next trainer (that's why their lists are very empty for those doing a lot of questing. Skill distribution is about the same as it used to be. It's makes things difficult if you're going for a specific build, but at least it gives you some sense of character evolution.

I have no idea what you're doing to get so few crafting materials. I've got an ele with an age of 12 hours. He's got a supply of 150 cloth vs 90 ore, and that's after crafting several sets of armor. I think you must just not be salavaging enough, or salvaging the wrong things.

Guild costs are fine really. For a small guild of 8 people, all the costs are negligable. 250 gold each? An hour or less of casual PvE will easily net you that much. If you're keen 1 person can farm that in less than 30 minutes. Any less and you might as well make it free.

Time based rewards are there, but it's a very small gain. 24 hours of game time should allow you to roll a very competitive custom PvP toon, with decent weapon mods, minor/major runes and a healthy selection of skills. Anything beyond that is going to give you a very minimal advantage, something which skill and teamwork can easily overcome. "The power ramp levels off much more quickly in Guild Wars than in other online RPGs" That what they said, and imo that's what we got.

You points on WaW are pretty valid. Good idea, horrible implementation. There are so many other ways they could have gone about it that would have been a lot more appealing to the playerbase. I guess we'll just have to wait an see how it pans out.

Just going to throw in a - "We do not censor. We do remove pointless flamebait posts. This may include negative posts and even positives".

oh ya, totally with Droniac on this one...well written response.

If you think that Guild Wars is a level grind, online games are not for you. Seriously. There are only 20 levels and it just takes a few days to reach 20. If that is too hard for you, you need to take up jackrocks or something.

Bah one quick note if I wanted I could farm 100 cloth an hour without trying. Didn't know most people don't find enough tho. You hvae to know what to salvage(The item I am talking about is not listed as salvageable.)

Sorry to take this off topic slightly, but is there a list of what to salvage to get what somewhere?

And to add something to the topic, the only gripe I have with Guild Wars is how far you have to walk to get places, and that you lose henchmen if you map-travel, effectively meaning that if you want to use henchmen for a quest you have to start out from a place that has them, which may not be the closest. (Unless I'm blind and just can't see them at some outposts, in which case, the point is mute).

Three, Guild costs. When will you people decide on a price? In the begining it costed 50g to create a guild and 100g to create the cloak I think. During the last 2 BWE's the price of creating a guild went to 100g and designing a cloak costed 1000g.[/quote]
In the beginning 50g was a fortune. Every single item you sold would've gotten you 1g and monsters were piss poor. In the later betas, the gold was multiplied by 10, including your character's reserves: my 88g were raised to 880g.

With a levelcap of 20, you can be competitive after a few days. Bah, I've single-handedly beaten up 2 level 5/6 players with my level 8 character (score 7-1) in the Pre-Seared Ascalon only to be later slaughtered (7-5) by two level 4 players when I had a new level 9 character.

"A rose by any other name would smell as sweet"
If you type an F followed by three dashes (F---), everyone knows what it means.
For the same reasons, calling Korea "Kryta", "Ascalon" or "Fluffy Bunny" will still have players who think of it as "Korea".

I personally like the changes: it gives the game more of an RPG feel. You may think whatever you like, you may build one conspiracy theory after another. There will always be people who'd agree with you (mainly people who have a reason to dislike Guild Wars [OMGWTF LVL20????!!!! DIS SUX]).
I don't.

1. like many things in beta's they made everything way easier...including skill aquisition...this is to get as many people as possible to beta as many skills as possible for bugs and balance issues. i like how it is now where you have to root out new skills, and get the opportunity to aquire them without spending money, without spending skillpoints, and while you quest. Why don't they just list every item in the game at all merchants? That takes half the fun out of questing if everything can be shopped from a list. (see #4 for percieved value statement)

2. i am a very frugal, and wise gamer when it comes to spending credits, and this system rewards me for being so. i am definately the kind of guy to wait until an optimal time to upgrade stuff...i went from the noob monk stuff straight to the consular stuff, because i saved, and saved, and saved instead of buying every minor upgrade as soon as i had the gold. So in that way i like the new open system...it allows the wise shopper to have an advantage over the guy that spends every cent he has on minor upgrades and dye.

3. i think guild costs should be raised. i have always felt that guild have been greatly degraded by the billion guilds made up of one, two, three, etc. people. if they want to encourage guilds to form, fine, make registration cheap, but i'd be happy if they quadrupled the prices of capes and guild halls...imo there needs to be something to distiguish between the guilds of one and the real guilds. As it now, i could easily pay for a guild, buy a cape and a guild hall, and i'm only level 11, and play only 3 or 4 hours per day!

4. you will never get around the fact that more time played = greater rewards. it just can't be done. if you pve and pvp 24/7 you will have a good pvp ranking, and so much gold you won't know what to with, whereas if you are like me and only play 3 hours per day, you will have a low ranking, and have to watch your spending.

There is also a percieved value to be considered. if i buy this game, get all skills handed to me, get a guild, cape, and guild hall handed to me, and can maintain a good pvp ranking while only playing a few hours per day what would i play for? i would have no illusion of accomplishment, and that is what these games are all about...imaginary loot...imaginary gold...imaginary success. Time is a factor to percieved value because if i play a game and can achieve success in a "short" amount of time, i'll feel ripped off, and spout about how the game has no 'depth'.

5. i actually agree with you on this. yetserday it was extremely obnoxious to see the korea pwn's america spam every 5 minutes, but it would also been just as obnoxious if it had been america pwn's korea spam. I'm canadian so i could care less which of the two is pwning.

all-in-all i think you're just pissed because they didn't hand everything to us like they did during bwe's.

Hey, some responses, cool.

Okay, first for those claiming the farming of resources is easy. I loved how the people who responded with that talked about their level 10+ characters. I never said anything about higher levels. I specifically targetted the beginning section, where many of the mobs and areas you talk about, surmia for instance, are completely unavailable.

None of my original post was geared towards anyone who has advanced much beyond the first section and just beyond New Ascalon. Certain not for people lofty enough to have reached Yaks bend and beyond. Once again as in many games past we have people who are powerplayers stating how easy it is for them. Let's face it guys, you've obviously had the time.

As for MMO's not being for me, hehe, my first game was Pong. My first computer a Tandy TRS-80 with the cassette tape storage capability, and it rocked. I've been playing MMO's for quite awhile and have watched them develop and expand to meet the publics desires. Grinding isn't so much an issue, I expect it. But like most of you who responded I'm more of a power gamer. I find the systems and work them till they payoff. My observations were, as stated, attempts to be objective and viewed from a new players stand, not as someone who has been there since the first BWE.

-K

Umm, try the first mission, I get about 3 cloths every run through the first mission, and about 5-6 cloths every run through the 2nd mission. Most shaman gear will salvage to cloth, such as ash fiend armor, flame wielder trappings, etc. Also, the purple globs that most devourers drop will turn into either bone or cloth, so really, cloth is fairly common.

Why would you even be farming these items in pre-searing ascalon?
You won't even need them until post-searing, what's the point in getting them before then, especially when they're far more abundant in post-searing ascalon!?

Surmia is one of the very first missions, if you want you could easily make it from game-start to end of Surmia in 4 hours.
If you consider a level 10 @ Nolani Academy 3 days into the game to be a powergamer, then what are the people who are level 20 and as far as 10 missions ahead of my character, are they Gods? I could easily have been as far as they are if I had powerplayed, I haven't - you can easily get to where I am at in the game (a far better position to be farming crafting items, that's for certain ) in a matter of hours.

They still play Diablo II because it's a decent game, and it's FREE.

I think the world at war thing is kinda funny. It makes me laugh in a nationalistic way.

Well, not literally.

I agree with the WaW thing. Why have the servers compete at all? It's Guild Wars, not Server Wars.

Dalia

We all have our own dislikes and likes but I have to agree that the games advertising didnt stand up to what I personally expected it to be,. I didnt play the beta's but I heard good things, and so i went out and bought this first day. The main statement I liked was in the synopsis of the game it states, "And you'll never meet new players only to discover that you can't play with them or compete against them because their characters are on a different server than yours; in Guild Wars, all characters live in one seamless world." I figured a BIG free world and big towns but now you have to GET a team in a town that is seperated in districts just so your not alone out in the world...I dunno about anyone else but only running into players in town just seems boring to me

I think it was pretty clear in all the info on the website that areas were instanced. While it was a bit weird at first, I find I like the idea personally.

You're very wrong on several points.

The fifth BWE was the last BWE prior to release. so your statement is patently false. The ability to buy skills from Captain Arne and First Watch Sergio was there in the first BWE.

Once again, not how the game was presented from the start and I certainly never saw a thread suggesting what they currently came up with.


Once again, you're talking about end game and I'm talking about short game. 2 completely different fields.

-K

Another person talking farther in the game well beyond the first section.



Need I say it again. you're talking well beyond the initial entry of the game. For beginners, not people who are hitting the double digits.


Gonna hafta disagree. I say at least 2 different people within the first hour who had cloaks. Not groups of people with the same cloak, but 2 individuals with different cloaks. I also saw talk within the chats during the first couple of hours people wondering how they got them so fast. A group effort is certainly possible, but when in the first hour you only see one person from a guild sporting a cloak, you have to wonder. And yes, I did take trip through the many districts to see how many others bore the same cloak, nary a single one.

First off, are you calling me an idiot? I thought I phrased my original post fairly well. Granted there was a moment or two when I was less than complementary towards arenanet and ncsoft, but I don't recall directing claims of idiocy at any single individual.

Second, I never said anywhere about a level 1 taking on a level 20. What were you reading? I'm talking about something as simple as a level 7 taking on a level 9. Or more importantly, even levels not being even because of the disparity in resource drops for caster types during the entry game. Please compare similar situations and not the far fetched attempts you've made here.

At least we have one point of agreemenet.


As for the other people, i'm referring to people I've talked to in game and people I've travelled through MMO's with before. I didn't make a general statement claiming everyone or many, I said, very plainly, people I'd talked to. Don't try to start friction for no reason. And my point of view was based on their own advertising, which is why I provided links so that anyone willing to look beyond posts here could see for themselves. Have you looked? Or are you just basing this on your opinion?

-K

Somebody ditch the flame troll. If you can't add anything productive to a discussion please refrain.

-K

Alas, there used to be lists, painfully made over the course of many BWE's, but unfortunately they're pretty shot through with inconsistency now. 2 of the lists I've been working with are working about 50-50 for what was working and producing prior to final release.

-K

Again, you're talking on the post seared side, I was targetting the low level pre-seared side and new players, not old hands from BWE's.

-K

10 at Nolani is not what i consider powergaming. I was referring the level 15's in the first day with thousands in cash and tons of materials. The reason I was trying to farm pre-sear is simply to determine it's feasability after the final release. Like I've stated a couple of times, this is aimed at the unknowing new player, not the old BWE hands. Since all classes have a very nice armor upgrade available on hitting Ascalon I wanted to see how possible it was, and the difference between obtaining necessary resources for the various classes. The simple conclusion was that fighter types could have the resources to upgrade to the highest set of armor available, while caster couldn't even upgrade to the first after an entire campaign of farming.

Why would someone farm on the pre-sear side? Because they haven't played, are new, and don't know any better. Have you produced a guide yet telling them the best places to farm? Is there some magical page out yet with all the answers they'll be looking for from the veterans of many BWE's? No, there isn't. Because most of the work done on guides prior to release are almost worthless now because of the many changes.

-K

Uh, no, he claimed it was BWE 5 where they came out with buying multiple skills from trainers. Since BWE 5 was the last BWE, his statement is, in fact, false. And FWS was handing out skills in the first BWE. You can check gwonline's forums cause there were a couple of posts after the BWE asking where other trainers were whom we could buy skills from. It's in their archives.

It may not have been Capt. Arne...can't remember the other NPC soldier that was there in the first BWE, down by the fire. Just can't remember who he was.

-K

Why would someone totally new to the game be looking for armor components pre-searing? You can't craft armor pre-searing and there's nothing to hint that you'll be needing crafting components until you see the crafter npc's in post-searing ascalon.

I can see your point in disliking [email protected], but complaining about this "disparity" in pre-searing salvage is just silly.

So if the general postings are all positive, you suspect censorship. And yet here is your long, self-absorbed critique and it hasn't been erased...

Just like you saw censorship? I reckon the grudge you hold is aimed at NCSoft, yes?

But, I thought the board was being censored, and that you failed to see 'many others' complaining. Or do you need to invoke the nebulous 'many others' to make yourself seem more credible?

Make sure and take your ball with you....

/yawn

You can't even craft armour in presearing so why would you care about cloth there? ... Why would you want to farm preseraing at all? you don't even have bags.

Nothing of worth drops at all comepared to post searing.

Just do quests for skills and exp and leave the tutorial area and get in the game!

I beg to differ: scales are high-in-demand and you can farm a LOT of scales in pre-searing .

You can make a lot more farming cloth mobs post searing (cloth is in far higher demand). Plus by the time you need scales you can get a lot more from drakes pre Lions Arch.

It seems the original poster has a lot of complaints about low level gameplay. It also seems most of us don't really care about those complaints because low level gameplay lasts a couple days at worst.

I dislike the removal of charms heavily but otherwise I don't have many problems with the gameplay changes. I thought the original gem system was way cooler than what we have now but in the end the amount of time I will spend acquiring skills will be very very small compared to the time spent PvPing so it doesn't matter too much.

One thing I totally agree on is complaints with the World At War thing. Or more I should say I don't even want to play with the Koreans. We have different gaming ethics by and large for the most part but more importantly all the damn names look the same (as I'm sure ours do to some extent as well) and that leads to a lot of confusion in PvP.

Heres hoping they do regional guild fights or whatever. As an aside what the heck is the favor of the gods anyways?

I thought that many of the release moves they made were brilliant actually. I know that War of the Worlds may not be a popular political move for every player, but I being the simple-minded student that I am, really like the feature. Seeing Korea take a win with a name I can't say, barely read for that matter, is very, VERY cool. I've always thought that regardless of how the real world is, players of all countries are united in games... and I appreciate ANet's recognition of it. (Not that that is some huge ideal and important philosophy, just something that I've realized over the years)

The problem ANet ran into was changing so many things drastically for release without prior beta testing. It made the game unique all over again, but as you pointed out, flaws came flying right out with it.

The skill acquisition system is obviously flawed at the moment because it puts far too much emphasis on stress-related gaming. I'm ALWAYS hessitant to go do what I actually want to do in Guild Wars (like proceeding to Yak's after lvl 8...) because I'm afraid that I'll have missed an important spell.

In other words, this game still struggles with the same issue it did from day one: a lack of direction. Too much of the game still revolves around questions such as "am I really high enough level to do this mission?" "Is there something important in the explorable zones I'm missing? Do I want to risk leveling again and locking myself out of my favorite arena?" For a while they had them nicely hidden, but this latest, sudden change has brought them clearly to the surface.

At the risk of being totally retro, some of you may remember when the second Metroid game was released for the original Game Boy. Yeah, remember when they were hecka heavy and barely fit into backpacks? Anyways, the game was also focused around the concept of collecting and progression; you hunted all the Metroids (aliens) in a certain zone and unlocked the next. This could prove to be a very frusterating task when you could miss one Metroid in a zone and move onto the next never knowing you had missed it until it was too late and you had to explore EVERYTHING all over again. The only thing that saved the game was a little tally you had at the bottom of the right screen that stated how many metroids were still in your zone.

GW has no tally. It has no indication of where your next spell is coming from, or if you've missed any along the way. I didn't even realize some of the skill trainers were even skill trainers until I read about them at gwonline. Also, the explorable zones are huge and take forever to fight through, so even when you do get a quest that rewards with skills it is difficult to find a team that will do the quest with you as there is no way of sharing quests or even viewing the quests of others in this game.

The obvious problem comes at the fact that GW is an instance-based game. Explorable zones are an MMORPG standard, but really, how many times do you form a team INSIDE A TOWN and take it into a zone? I hardly ever did, except for maybe elite quests in which case the huge amount of organization was worth it. No, most MMORPGs do not instance their zones and allow you to recruit team members that you find in your quest area as you need them and find them. It becomes a painless, pleasant process. Do you know ANYONE really that would WANT (they might do it anyways if they're nice) to trek with you for an hour in an explorable zone to complete a skill quest that they get absolutely NO reward for? I don't... I doubt even many of my guild buddies would be up for that one.

One Big Problem... But an Easy Solution
That was a lot of writing simply to say that the game currently lacks guidance to avoid frusteration and the ability to solo the explorable zones. The fix? Let us know how many (maybe even which) spells can be found in each region, raise the henchman level (or drastically decrease the explorable zone monster levels), and make traveling in the explorable zones a less timely procedure. If these simple steps are taken, the new skill system will be the best the game has ever seen IMHO.

By the way, while it has indeed become true that the game does reward players who play longer, I'm at least living proof that having the right spells isn't everything. Before I even obtained seven or so skills from my original set from pre-searing Ascalon I was dominating in the arena with many 15+ win streaks with my Necromancer/Warrior. All it took was practicing with my skills... knowing how to do hit and run attacks using sprint, using enduring pain to give the illusion that an opponent didn't have to heal to finish me, and managing my blood magic to recover health as I needed it. Not to blow my own horn, but I've gotten several complements from team members about how well I play in the arena, but in reality, I probably don't have any skills that other warriors or necromancers don't. I'm not an incredible player and am not trying to put myself up as one of the best... I'm only saying that skill is still far more important than time investment.

At the end of the day, your USE of your spells (not really the spells themselves) is what makes you good. Even the weakest of spells become lethal weapons in a team situation where focus fire is key... and I've found that learning to work with my team warriors to double team a target, sprint away when taking heavy damage or running low on mana, and resurrecting team players ASAP to be far more valuable assets in combat than the attack moves I was using.

So, problems need to be fixed, but this game is STILL fun as heck!

Wow. I'll try not to be condescending or flaming here.

You seem to have a serious issue with NCSoft, amd I right? So why are you still playing their games? If you don't like the game, why do you spend so much time playing it? I don't understand that.

Farming of cloth: 75% of all dropped Grawl Gear (very common, and very near to the city) yields bolts of raw cloth. I had more iron ingots at the end of pre-searing only because I kept fighting the enemies that gave iron-rich gear, but I had plenty of raw cloth.

Why are you even complaining about pre-searing anyway? It's .001% of the game! It's where new people learn the game in unchallenging battles with a decent learning curve, and you won't be overwhelmed every time with tons of reinforcements, unlike post-searing, where even the beginning enemies pose a threat if you're caught in the open by a number of them. Gargoyles and devourers, oh my. Their hexes work on level 20 just as well as they work on level 8.

Time spent playing a game should be and is rewarding in every game, including this one. But the level cap is there to keep the no-life basement dwellers playing for 18 hours a day from dominating and enacting control over the casual gamers like myself.

I'm at level 15, didn't play beta, because I had a little extra time when I bought the game. It helps to play the quests through when you get them because this is what the game is about. I'm sure there are the power players who blast through the missions early and buy their skills, but you can't buy the exp. I'm still challenged by the new swarms of enemies that I face in later areas, so it doesn't make it any harder.

In all, I say abandon the game if you don't like it, you have enough of a taste of what it will be like from playing Beta, and you obviously didn't enjoy it.

And I'd like to say to the people saying the names are confusing in WaW, if they used Kryta, Ascalon and Orr:
You've been playing the game for how long now? I learned the names of the kingdoms before I even started playing, by reading the book that came with it. How would naming them Kryta, Orr, and Ascalon be confusing? Naming them America, Korea, and Europe is just stupid, and a severe oversight by the developers. It detracts from the feel of the game. You're playing as this fictional character in a fantasy world, and all of a sudden you're playing as this fantasy fiction character in a real-world-name arena? Nah, doesn't cut it. I may get into PvP later on, but nothing about it piques my interest at this time.

You missed the part there it was explained that any skill you dont get through questing is buyable from the next skilltrainer if you continue through the main story.

ie: Ascalon Trainer has all the skill you could get in Pre-Searing, Yaks Bend Skill Trainer has all skills you could quest for up till that point and so on...

But you have to pay for them instead.