DAOC was always number 1 and the game to go back to but im defently going to try this after seeing this video. Im a PVP person but i have to say this makes everything else look fun aswell


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UrbnR9vgC8&feature=related

 

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He talks about loving PvP and then spam clicks 4 and 5...

 

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I do not mean to be a naysayer but talk is cheep. DAoC also had lots of “talk” before and after launch. Unfortunately MJ loved to talk and then loved to make excuses as to why he did not need to follow through.


Talk is cheap.


Most people do not have much of a clue what it takes to have a great MMO. Most MMO companies do not have much of a clue. Proof is the multitude of mediocre games where developers continue to duplicate failing business models.


While a short video can give an idea of what a game will be like, only time will actually tell.


A good example of how only time will tell is DAoC. DAoC had grand potential at launch. Mythic did not understand how huge the market was when Mythic launched DAoC but that does not change the size of the true MMO market and the potential for growth. DAoC could have become what WoW is (well better than WoW but I was meaning the population in the millions. DAoC could have grown and become the elephant of the MMO world, except for the stupidity of MJ and the arrogance of many of the Mythic people). It was the incompetent implementation that drove DAoC to the pits of despair. GW2 could have a thousand great videos and end up having a pitiful population in just a few years.


Also, it is my understanding that many of GW2s people came from DAoC (IMO that is not a grand reference). MJ seems to have instilled in the Mythic people a destructive way of dealing with a game and of dealing with a games customers.


We can see this faulty business mentality in Mythic well after MJ’s departure. After MJ was ousted Mythic’s faulty conceptualization, Mythic’s faulty communication and Mythic’s faulty game implementation did not end with the departure of MJ. MJ seems to have instilled failing business practices in the people at Mythic and that faulty/destructive method of running a game seems to have continued on with DAoC well after MJ departed. It continues on to this very day. This would indicate that there is a high probability of Mythic’s challenging management practices being a part of any Mythic person who leaves Mythic and goes to work at some other company. If true, GW2 having former Mythic people may not be a good thing.


I am not condemning GW2, just pointing out that GW2 has great downward potential and a few good looking videos will not change that.


I like that they seem to have eliminated the stupidity of the typical selfish players who want to label any one who assists as a “Leach”

I like that Night is not pitch black. It seems that I will not need a third party gamma control (and close the curtains and shut off the room lights) just to see the game world at night.

I like the concept that players can just show up and join in with other groups, but we shall see how this really works.


Lets see if they fix bugs or put Band-Aids on bugs and then focus their real talent on the next expansion.


Lets see if they introduce game unbalancing OP classes with each expansion, totally disregarding the damage the OP class does to the game, pandering to a customers dark side in an attempt to sell more expansions.


Lets see if they keep communication open or if they begin playing mushroom with the customers.


Let see if, when coding the game, they pander to their own selfish wishes over the good of the game.


Let see if they keep crafting an integral part of the game or, as they add things to the game, make crafting mostly obsolete.


Lets see if their PvE is good enough to keep the typical MMO player long enough for those players to join in the PvP.


Lets see if new expansions make old world areas obsolete.


Lets see if they will spout how they know it is unwise to unnecessarily screw with a player’s character but then go and continually screw with characters abilities.


Let see if they understand the typical computer stats of the typical MMO player.


Lets see if they will require those who code to properly document so that years down the road, when some of those who code have departed, they can still efficiently work on old code (DAoC’s archer was changed to the casting code because the existing coders could not figure out the archer code).


Let see if their archers are actually casters that pretend to have bows or actual archers.


Lets see if the guild management tools are extensive and what a guild leader needs or just a few tools that do not matter much.


Lets see if their LFG system is comprehensive and useful or something that most players find so useless that no one uses it.


Lets see if they have a LFQH (Looking For Quest Help) system were players in need of help to finish a quest can easily find help from others or is the player forced to wait until enough of their guild is in the game so they can get a quest finished.


Lets see if they make promises and then never follow through or if they do what they say.


Let see if they pop out expansions that are unfinished and incompletely tested or if they spend extra time testing and polishing so that most bugs are fixed before the expansion goes live.


Lets look at this again a year after it launches. Then again after the first expansion. Then we will have a good idea of the games success.

 

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The art of war is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is.
Get at him as soon as you can. Strike him as hard as you can,
and keep moving. - Ulysses S. Grant
Only the dead have seen the end of war - Plato

I have three rules for playing games, mainly MMOs.

1. Will it be fun, (has pvp, pve content is decent)?
2. Can I be a short race?
3. Can the short race be a hybrid or tank class?

So far, as I may or may not have been in a beta testing program for a game with a similar title as GW2, I am content with what I have seen. Horrifically I was unable to be a short race in this possible beta test that I may or may not have been a part of, the overall content I witnessed may or may not have been of excellent caliber. I also didn't get to pvp, so really I may or may not have only witnessed ONE of my perfect trifecta. However I know that at least all three are incredibly possible.

 

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At least it won't have toa, NF, buff bots and billing errors!

 

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GW2 is at the beginning of the next generation of MMO's.

Blizzard are quaking in their boots about this new and original take that GW2 is taking on the genre. It is by no means going to break WoW. Many have come before and failed, but it is going to eat into their subscription base. This is due to WoW's antiquated quest system, appalling PvP and lazy expansion development. Add to this the inventive way ArenaNet has taken on the development of their MMO and WoW is beginning to look like the 55 year old uncle who likes to wear inappropriatly tight jeans, dyes his hair black and is constantly leaching after 20 something women.

GW2 is pushing the MMoRPG into a new market definition , which is fantastic for us the players, and all others are going to have to dramatically up their game or lose out.

But mostly, they provide short races.

Without a short race I wouldn't even touch GW2.

 

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Oh dear sweet Semi, I've always loved reading your deep and thoughtful posts over the years but I dare say you've become a touch bitter and jaded, have you not? Can't say I blame you, I've sat there and watched all the same train wrecks you have and pondered all the same derailments. Been a loyal defender of the game I loved and watched it turn to ashes and a pile of missed opportunities. And even against my own better judgement, got way too excited about the possibility of Origins and re-subbed when I knew it was folly. I still have crazy long feedback forms saved on my hard drive full of silly things I thought Mythic could do to make DAoC better and it gives me tingles to see many of those things now being addressed in Guild Wars 2.

But apparently I have done one thing you have not and that has been to be a rather closer follower of my local gaming company, ARENANET. I picked up Guild Wars at release in 2005 and because of its non subscription model, kept on playing it while suffering thru many of a failed MMO launch and repeated attempts at re-kindling that RvR thrill in DAoC. And because I've become a bit of forum addict thanks to VN & DAoC, kept up with all the fan sites I could trying to figure out what it was about early days DAoC that I have never been able to recapture. I've always found your posts on that subject matter quite insightful and that same discussion turns up time and time again as we all migrate from game to game in search of something we never were able to define.





True, there are few former Mythic employees at ANET, and some from Blizzard too but they were not just employees tho, they were fans of the game and players. They loved DAoC and gaming as much as we did and they were there for the early years so they saw the same things we did. I wont defend MJ, can't say what he was thinking or why but I really can't imagine he could have tainted his entire staff and I bet there were plenty of them then (and even still today) who knew a good thing when they saw it and were just trying to make a game that was fun and profitable while not getting in the way of management. Mistakes were made and always will be and you are right, it is how the company deals with adversity that shows what kind of stuff it is made out and that often reflects the soul of its leader but it is pretty heavy stuff to go from that to not ever trusting anyone remotely associated with Mythic again.

Lead Guild Wars 2 content designer & former Mythic employee, Colin Johanson of the famous internet meme worthy smile interviewed by Lewis B at Tap Repeatedly and huge DAoC fan had this to say:







I think you will find much more that just those few points to your liking in Guild Wars 2 if I have learned anything about you from all these years of e-stalking. I am fairly confident GW2 is going to be just exactly the sort of game you were always wishing DAoC could be. I know a lot of gamers are tired of being jerked around and just want to enjoy playing games for a change but that doesn't mean we should stop getting excited for new titles or treat all game companies like snake oil salesman. I wish I was as dedicated of a poster as you to take the time to find sources for why I easily dismiss all of your fears listed below but my search skills are the suck and it is very hard to find short examples of everything I have witnessed as a Guild Wars player and follower of ARENANET for seven years, especially when so much of that is just a "feeling" one has after that many years of association with something, a feeling I might add, I never got (well except maybe from Lori) from Mythic interactions but I will try to address a few of them at least but not sound too much like a slobbering fangirl.




History of ANET's handling in Guild Wars should put a lot of these fears to rest, they have an exemplary track record of fixing known bugs with weekly streaming patches and producing high quality expansion content. They let their players preview all of their expansion content and take feedback seriously. They also keep a fully staffed "live" team producing content for existing areas while a 2nd team works to develop new content for expansions. Guild Wars today when Guild Wars 2 is soon to be released still gets free content updates in the evolving storyline meant to lead up to the events that shape the Guild Wars 2 storyline. ANET is very aware of the need to keep their starting zone active and by tying each race to a major city hub full of mini games, social interactions, the auction house and where their personal stories are centered they ensure action to always be nearby. New content will be added to those zones often and the dynamic events are such that they need only make some adjustments to change the whole flavor, not to mention all the holiday celebrations with their own flavor of events that we have in store. Even now when I hardly play Guild Wars anymore I still log in for every holiday event because they are just so much fun and often have new quests and lore to fall into.




The thing that ANET has always done very well (sometimes to the point of frustrating some of their players who either don't like change or want changes much more quickly) is to frequently make big changes to improve balance in PvP but not without thorough research and investigation of unforeseen impacts. They don't make many knee-jerk reaction changes that go from one extreme to the other and they readily admit their mistakes and try to correct them. They are also willing to separate PvE skills from the PvP versions of the same spell to help make balance more possible while keeping PvE flashing and full of big numbers.




I am very excited to see what they have in store for us with their official forums for Guild Wars 2. I have always been incredibly delighted with the amount of ANET employees who post regularly on fan forums and happily give interviews to blogs and smaller fan sites. Their dedication to building a strong community in their game permeates everything they do and it is only emphasized by this video from Wartower; GW2, Why Developers love it! The ending with John Corpening brings a tear to my eye every time. After being a fan of theirs for so long to feel that devotion returned in kind just takes my breath my away.




I think they have thought ahead pretty seriously with their crafting system. It is not revolutionary but it is very solid and meant to be useful. Because they are trying to break players away from that time>skill mindset you can be assured they will keep adding better items to the game. You can buy decent armor from vendors from day one but you have a lot more control when you craft it yourself. Prestige in Guild Wars 2 is more about looks and unique skins rather than grinding for elite stats.
Their WvW PvP system is going to appeal to the PvE crowd from day one in the same way DAoC's RvR did but maybe even more so with a much more flushed out siege system and multiple ways players can participate without being directly involved in the player vs player aspects and because of WvW is never ending I think it will go a long way to keep people involved for years to come. The Yogscast has a ton of fun Guild Wars 2 beta videos out but their most recent WvW one is great fun and a huge flashback to old school DAoC RvR.
The casual PvP area formats have a training ground and the skills are very visually rewarding in a such a way that even a poor PvP player like myself can learn to improve my level of play by watching how my skills interact. This game actually tries to give average players a decent starting place to improve themselves for competitive PvP play if they are so interested. You can PvP from day 1 with full skills & stats unlocked or you can choose to level your skills in WvW instead. There are a lot of really neat beta videos floating around out there now so I will just use one of the most recent favorites, a hour of Engineer PvP footage in the hands of a very skilled player using a very non typical set-up with good results.




ANET is well known for making their programers use low end computers for building the game so they can know it will run well for most people, not just hardcore gamers. They currently list the Minimum System Requirements for Guild Wars 2 as:
Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or better
Intel® Coreâ„¢ 2 Duo 2.0 GHz, Core i3, AMD Athlonâ„¢ 64 X2 or better
NVIDIA® GeForce® 7800, ATI Radeonâ„¢ X1800, Intel HD 3000 or better (256MB of video RAM and shader model 3.0 or better)
25 GB available HDD space
Broadband Internet connection
Keyboard and mouse

Hmm well I've gone and run out of quotes allowed me by VN so I'll just try to quickly breeze over the rest and keep it simple.
ANET programers never cease to amaze me. They write their own software to get the results they want when the things they want to do are just not possible with existing code so I have no doubt that they not only take their QA department seriously, but they have the code experience to back them up.
They have some really cool plans for guilds and guild management tools as shown in this short Guild Mechanics Overview at PCgamers. They have said they are still working to add a lot more features before launch.
There is not a lot of information available on the LFG system in GW2 yet other there is one but you'll hardly need one with the way the game is set up where people just come together and pop-ups ask you if you wish to join other players whose personal story quest is now taking them into an instanced location. There is no traditional questing system where you'll need to look for help either between everything scaling down or up to your level and players freely working together to complete Renown Hearts and Dynamic Events casual players should have no problem proceeding at their own speed. A little beta montage video from Massively for your enjoyment.

Of course we cannot know how well Guild Wars 2 will do until we get massively more people playing it but for those who know they want to give it a shot, then pre-ordering on April 10th gets us all into the Beta Event Weekends starting on April 20th to test out some features for ourselves. I've already played the human and charr starting areas in the demos at PAX Prime over the last 2 years to know that this is the game for me so I have no hesitation about pre-ordering but just so I am not too overly full of hype and spin I will post my 2 biggest concerns for Guild Wars 2. Lag and the item shop. Lag was hardly ever an issue in Guild Wars and the devs say they have a lot of cool tricks to make the game perform top of the line but lag will always be a lingering worry for me after what I've seen it do to PvP in just about every other MMO I have tried (some worse than others but none of them a bed of roses). The item shop is not really a concern for me personally because as a casual player I could care less about what other people decide to pay for so they can get it sooner and I know that ANET would not add stupid OP stuff after my experiences in Guild Wars with the shop there but just having one always puts that risk in mind and a lot of people are still busy being upset by the idea of it.

I do love the fact that I have so few things to worry about at this stage of the game. Guild Wars 2 is very much looking like my dream MMO and there is not much left unknown out there that can spoil it for me except for maybe a stubborn or poorly informed community. Lewis B's most recent article on misconceptions heard in the most recent beta event gives me both comfort and concern. There is yet much work to be done to create that utopian dream of an ideal MMO community so that brings me back to the one I have known here on VN to see what Wheat still remains.

They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery but I fear I have done such a poor job of emulating one of my VN board heroes. I always very much enjoy any thread that Semi invests his time into. Maybe some day I'll be as talented at being straight forward and informed as him. Seems a worthy goal, no? But now it is time to go watch Game of Thrones new season begin.

 

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GW2 stole, i mean borrowed alot of rvr concepts into their WvWvW.

So far, the only main thing lacking is RA skills.

Almost everything else is DAOC. Map fight signs,zergs,siege, NPC, castles, 3 realms,realm bonuses,keep lord , etc etc......