A Guild Wars 2 reminder

[Akaimizu]

Considering the folks here, which are interested in GW2. Don't forget that this is the first day people can pre-purchase the game for additional bonuses. Not to mention, Beta Weekend participation until the game comes out and a few days head start on the game itself. In general, a nice little promotion to get guarranteed sales of the game. Still, considering how consumer-friendly these guys have been in the past, I'm definitely supporting their efforts.

[Palle]

Got the email, decided to watch some beta vids during lunch. I really like the idea of giving the character a background which affects NPC demeanor. Even if the changes are mostly cosmetic, it makes the world more tangible to me.

Basically, the last hurdle for me dropping the cash for preorder is my own uncertainty surrounding solo play.

[Akaimizu]

I went all in because I'm a Guild Wars 1 player. The solo play for that one was fine. Multiple players meant it was a little easier for you to take bigger risks and get through things faster.

As for online RPGs, I pretty much got rid of all my P2P games save Phantasy Star. Guild Wars has been one of those nice games I can always come back to. Play with all the content I paid only once for, and just do it. Throughout GW1's run, so far, they've even given away lots of in-game freebies as well. I felt it was a very successful arrangement and one that also felt like something that benefits the consumer regardless of lifestyle outside of gaming.

So for me, I'm going in as a GW1 to GW2 transfer. (Though I may still do some GW1 runs for fun for as long as they run the servers. My accounts are linked now.)

[CelestialBlade]

All. My. Money.

I am beyond pumped. Between GW2 and PSO2 I may very well explode in a shower of blood and skin and entrails.

[Akaimizu]

Awesome. I'm thinking we should have a PSO-world group at least to share IDs. Doesn't have to be am organized group; but it would be nice to get a good head start on a friends list so we have familiar people for which we have the option of hooking up with, when they are on.

[Blue-Hawk]

I don't know. After so many years, including being in the Prophecies closed betas, GW2 just seems to be a turn off for me. I might get it one day but not on day one.

[Griffin]

All. My. Money.

I am beyond pumped. Between GW2 and PSO2 I may very well explode in a shower of blood and skin and entrails.

I'm with you on that.

[Freshellent]

I should have a pretty strong presence on the game so if for some reason I overlook the group here, you'll definitely see me, wherever I am.

And yes, I'm lazy and have not updated the GW2 thread. Maybe later today.

Prolly not.

Eventually though.

[Jewcrush]

Oh boy! Thanks for update Akaimizu. Hope we get to explode on each other, day one, on the couch or sofa, don't know difference. (>^_-)>* GET IT OR REGRET IT!

[CelestialBlade]

They've started emailing out beta invite information for this weekend. Got mine :D

[Akaimizu]

Ok. Another update. Which server (world) will you play on? I guess if we are to do a PSO-world meetup, we should probably come up with a world selection. Not sure how many of us are US or another region, but you will be allowed one world change this beta.

Take note, the world selection is only good for the beta, nothing you do in the beta transfers to the full game as they will wipe everything from the beta before people can join the full game. (Which is a few days before the official launch since the pre-purchasers can play the full game at that time.)

The information on the worlds is at this address:

http://www.arena.net/blog/choosing-and-transferring-worlds-in-guild-wars-2

[Griffin]

Any extra beta codes? I'd like one!

[Ketchup345]

Any extra beta codes? I'd like one!The beta that is likely being talked about is open to anyone who prepays for the game in full from select store websites. From what I heard, prepurchasers (different than people who merely reserve a copy of the game) get access to one weekend of beta a month.

[Griffin]

Some people got codes from PAX. But wishful thinking there are extras. Can't prepurchase until after the weekend beta. SUCKS.

[Akaimizu]

Yeah. The Pre-purchase Beta starts this weekend. I'm in on that one.

[Freshellent]

Most of the peeps I know are gonna be on Tarnished Coast, if you wanna jam meet me there.

[Cassasauras]

I still have no clue what server I'ma play on. I guess w/e server my RL friends plan on playing on. I just know I'ma be a Salvari Hunter :3

[Akaimizu]

Tarnished Coast sounds like a winner, so far.

[Ketchup345]

Some people got codes from PAX. But wishful thinking there are extras. Can't prepurchase until after the weekend beta. SUCKS.Ah, I wasn't aware of the PAX thing.

Due to computer issues right around the time I was going to prepurchase, continuing issues now, and sold out of PrePurchase for now, no Beta this weekend for me. I'll likely aim for the Digital Deluxe.

[Griffin]

lol Digital Purchases are sold out right now. That's hilarious.

[Akaimizu]

Not that I didn't see this coming. Considering when they got a million beta requests (when they opened up the question) within 24 hours of actually making the announcement. I was one of the million (though didn't win the raffle, so to speak).

It was highly likely that they'd run out of slots. Thus they redirected people to try to get it from stores where some pre-purchase beta slots are still available due to them being already allocated. Thus I pre-purchased the day they said the pre-purchase deal was available. I was worried they'd run out of online digital deluxe pre-purchase slots before the next afternoon.

[Akaimizu]

I'm on Tarnished Coast as a familiar character here.

Tynselle Nbareh. Not sure how we hook up.

[Neith]

All I can say is I hope ArenaNet listened to feedback... god only knows they needed it.

[Akaimizu]

True, but this is probably the first of open beta weekends. This game is still ways from a release and there's bound to be lots of bugs still. Plus, not all races are playable yet.

[-Ryuki-]

I'm upset because I never got hugely into GW1 (I loved the series, bought every collector's edition of all expansions) as I wanted to due to other MMOs taking up my time (like PSU, FFXI, etc), but I am seriously amped up for this.
I won't get cool milestones for linking my GW1 account like the millions who will when they play, but I'll at least still be able to enjoy the game with them.

[Freshellent]

So uh, I enjoyed myself.

Anyone else?

[Polly]

Friend of mine bought two copies and let me use one of his beta accounts.

I only got to play about 2 hours (or rather, I chose to only play about two hours, then went back to PSO 2) and the game ran like a massive case of the poops, despite me having a really good machine. It was fairly not optimized (I believe they said the game was bound strictly to the CPU) and nigh unplayable due to both the huge population bogging everything down and lack of optimization. Was kinda hoping for this to be what helped me decide to pull the trigger on the game or not, but it didn't really sway me either way. I realize it was a beta, so I can't really hold that much against the game yet, but not really being able to play at any kind of stable framerate and actually get anything done didn't convince me that it was something I needed to jump on just yet.

Hopefully the next beta weekend event will feature a client better optimized for actually playing.

[Palle]

Hey Ein, did you capture any footage of your time in the beta? I haven't touched the game yet, not sure if I want to dig through the tubes for decent videos.

[Freshellent]

If you want my real opinion, there won't be decent vids till next beta. All the current ones are sort of e-stroking or a lot of what we've seen before.

I did collect a tiny bit of footage, only because my computers hdd decided to eat the rest of it. So I promise I'll have something worthwhile next beta. So the answer is, nah, I got nothing. I'm sorry. Next time.

[Akaimizu]

Very true. I didn't have any real vid captures of the event, but I do have a few pictures.

All in all, it was an enjoyable event and it was definitely more informative playing it than looking at it. Particularly when it comes to how the events really work, how you build skills with weapon sets, and the general method of progression done in the game.

To a degree, it is nice how they kind of swapped the idea of simply grinding levels to ready yourself for your next main quest arc to jumping into events suited to carry your level forward. The events do make things more exciting and meaningful than just going around grinding mobs for loot and exp. As mentioned in some previous videos, a large part of swapping your build simply happens when you swap your weapons (this affects your first 5 skill slots). The rest is done in a similar case to GW1 where you select your class skills/spells/abilities (generally your last 5 skill slots).

They also have some interesting skills which are both Passive and Active. That is, they have some passive effect when you don't activate them, and while they aren't in cooldown; then they have an immediate effect that happens when you activate them but will revert to the passive effect once the cooldown is done.

[Akaimizu]

Just letting you know, there is a stress test open going on tonight, for those who Pre-purchased the game.

In my initial test, I have an old-school Medieval version of my character Tynselle, from PSU. She's a thief. (Her original short-lived occupation from my story in Fanworks, long ago.) Quite a coincidence since they also use Twin Gunnies as their class weapon.

Pics Below (Pictures are large, so use links):

https://files.me.com/akaimizu/fgcho8

https://files.me.com/akaimizu/l1wr4r

https://files.me.com/akaimizu/ano6wp

https://files.me.com/akaimizu/o7ldac

[Griffin]

This is definitely a stress test. lol. Can't get decent FPS no matter how I drop settings. They warned us.

[Polly]

Yep, I was getting about 6FPS at most, and the lag was making the game downright unplayable on top of the crummy framerate. Can't really complain too much because the game IS in Beta, but I would like to actually be able to play the game to some degree at some point with a realistic idea of how it'll run on my system. Binding the game to the CPU is just killing it for most right now.

[Akaimizu]

I guess I was fortunate. It seemed to run fairly smoothly for me the whole time. I was mostly around the area where they serve Monastery Light beer. Even fended off an invasion from the Underworld there. (My 2nd location for sealing up Underworld portals). Still, this is the first game I've played where there is a quest for you to drink beer.

[Polly]

Second Beta Weekend Event is already live. Definitely sensing some improvement from the optimization/performance side of things. Now maybe I can actually see what all the hub-bub is about.

I logged in dead, however. That was kinda interesting.

[Akaimizu]

Nice. They brought it up earlier than expected. I thought it was 12PM PST. I'll be there a bit later on today.

[Polly]

I spent about an hour or two just running around and participating in dynamic events popping up and doing some renown heart stuff (which thankfully synergizes with the bigger events) and I've had a great time thus far.

Though the performance issues seem to have started getting sorted, the new thing (well, maybe not so new) is disconnects. I had three or four in my short time playing which was a real bummer, but apparently the client is pretty crashy this time around for a lot of folks. I haven't experienced any of the latter yet, but disconnects during big events again is a real bummer.

[Akaimizu]

Apparently they fixed it up, this time, to really utilize the GPU now. Kind of nice, because it allowed me to turn up my graphic settings a bit. Thing is, they really re-engineered the classes a bit, and I have to almost relearn the thief class just to come to grips with the new system. Perhaps I'll have it down by sometime tomorrow.