15th June 2012, 8:34 PM
(This post was last modified: 15th June 2012, 9:34 PM by A Black Falcon.)
Just compiling my thoughts, though the beta ended some time ago of course (there'll be another one next month for sure though!).
+ Stability - The game didn't crash very often at all, which was nice. I only had one crash in the 10+ hours I played, and that one was in the Ashford zone, during the ending event, when it was very crowded with people.
+ Beta end event -- This is a GW tradition, of course, and yes, the ending event was fun. It's too bad that we didn't get to see what happens when you get 100% corrupted, though... it got up to quite high on the bar, but then stayed there, as people figured out how to come back in as humans and just enough survived to keep the bar from maxing out. And yeah, Rytlock was there too of course, killing everyone he saw until the end. However, that end was too anticlimactic -- there was no big final incident, it just stopped abruptly in the middle of the event right at 3am. Disappointing. The event was fun, but it needed an ending bang, and there wasn't one. I also miss the onscreen text you always got with GW1 events, with the "hosts" talking into the chat channel and stuff; there was none of that. Still though, they did have an interesting concept, even if it needed a little more work on execution.
+ PvP Multiplayer – GW2 has two main PvP modes. One is World v. World, a mode I did not try. The other is a timed, point control style match with a server browser to choose matches in. GW1 had more different modes (random arena, team arena, Guild vs. Guild, Hall of Heroes, and more at special events), but this has only the two, it seems, unfortunately, unless there’s a Guild vs. Guild mode I don’t know about (could be, I’m not sure). The basic mode in GW2, and the one I played, is much more complex than the Random Arenas in GW1. Matches are 8v8 (or more perhaps) if full, and you have to seize and hold control points. The team with the most points at the end of the round, based on control and on kills, wins, and you move to the next auto-selected map. I don’t really know if these games actually end, or if this just goes on forever, with the matches cycling between the different maps endlessly. There were only three maps in the beta. Players can respawn at their base after being killed. The maps are much larger than the RA maps in GW1. I like this gameplay mode; it’s very much like the capture-point-based multiplayer modes in games like Battlefield, Return to Castle Wolfenstein. It’s also somewhat like that multiplayer mode in one of the GW1 betas (removed before the retail launch) where you did an 8v8 match in the Fort Ranik map where one team tried to capture the fort while the other defended it (it was a cool mode, too bad it went away! That map’s too big for 4v4…). Anyway, returning to GW2 multiplayer, I have some definite problems with this multiplayer mode too — see below — but it IS fun.
- Negatives of the Standard PVP Mode, or, Where is the Random Arena? – The main criticism I have is that there’s nothing like GW1′s 4v4 Random Arenas (RA), which as I said at the top was my favorite thing in GW1′s PvP side, and the only GW1 PvP element I played much. However, while GW2′s main, point control-style multiplayer mode, as described above in the “positives” category, mode is pretty good, where’s the simpler, team versus team mode comparable to the Random Arenas? Why in the world would they not include that in this sequel? I know that they’re changing a lot of things in this sequel, but this is another one that by no means should they ever have even considered removing. This GW2 mode is much more complex and doesn’t have the quick-fun, play-a-few-minutes-and-go simplicity of the 4v4 random arenas. It also doesn’t have a clearly defined ending; instead, you just keep spawning, and the matches just keep coming. RA is not something they should not have removed.
Finally, I’m going to have a special section for missions, because they were one of the most important things in the first Guild Wars. Some of this is a replacement for the "missions" section near the end of the first post; this supersedes that section.
+/- Missions, GW1 Background Information – In the original GW, the main (story) game centered around a Mission – town/travel to next mission – Mission sequence. That is, the centerpoint of the game was the mission tree, bringing you through the mostly linear story. Each game had 15-25 missions, sometimes with some branching options in the later campaigns. As I said, this was designed for parties, and for the first couple of years after launch, one of the best ways to play GW in a group was to do that in missions. Playing Quests with others — that is, the quests you get in the towns and do in the main overworld — could be fun too, but since the overworld is so large, people often want to explore there. As a result, unless you were with people you knew, or were in a guild with, or something, apart from groups to go to the next story destination, grouping in the overworld would be less common; people want to do different things. In Missions, however, the design brings people together, like it does for PvP but with a story and a PvE focus, and they were great.
However, after the release of Nightfall in ’06 and the addition of Heroes, that started to break down, and people mostly played the missions with their Heroes, AI allies you could set up skillbars for and give orders to. Heroes made soloing missions (playing missions without any other human players on the team) much more possible than it had been before with just the dumb AI Henchmen. Also, people were spread through three and then four campaigns, which didn’t help. ANet did add the Party Search window to help here, but that doesn’t help so much when very few others are looking… still, it was something, and it did help. And indeed, when you did actually manage to get a group together for a mission, it was as fun as ever. The same goes for when you got together human groups for things like the EotN dungeons, etc. However, overall, the huge reduction in player groups in missions really hurt the game, in my opinion — yeah, you can beat most missions with just heroes and henchmen, but it’s not the same.
+ Missions in Guild Wars 2 - While I also have some important criticisms, GW2 does do some things right with its missions. In GW2, missions are much more single player focused. While you can play them with others, as I will describe in the “negatives” section, they are mostly designed for solo play. This isn’t good from a multiplayer standpoint, but does lead to many more choices in the missions, as I mentioned earlier, which is great. I like being able to actually make choices and have them have some kind of effect. The missions are fun to play, too, whether they’re entirely solo, or whether you play them with an AI ally. The story is solidly done as well, no complaints there. I also previously mentioned the multiple opening arcs, depending on your origin story; that’s a nice touch. I had fun with the missions while playing them. Missions are varied too; one even was entirely non-combat, which was pretty cool (though it could have been longer, maybe, it was definitely fun). Note that like in EotN, Missions happen in sectioned-off parts of the overworld, not in special mission zones. I like the special mission zones with lobbies, as used before EotN, more, but this works okay.
- Guild Wars 2 Missions and Multiplayer – In GW2, at least so far, the story tree seems to be entirely a single player affair. You can play missions with others, if you’re partied with someone, but only the first player gets to make any of the choices; everyone else just watches, and only does anything during the action. Also I didn’t see anything like the Party Search window; that’d be a significant loss, really, given that the game in general is, like most MMOs, not designed for as much formal party formation with random other people as GW1 was. It’s clear that while the option is there, the focus is strongly on people doing this in single player.
Anyway, I like that the missions are instanced. At least something is. However, I find it so, so odd that they seem to have decided that the solution to the “people aren’t grouping for missions very often” problem was to, well, mostly get rid of parties in missions, as I explained above. I understand that that allows them to allow you to make more choices, which is good, but Nightfall and EotN had a degree of branching, while still allowing parties of course. I don’t know, there has to have been a better way of splitting the difference here and both allowing choice, while maintaining the multiplayer nature of the missions. And given that GW2 has neither Henchmen or Heroes, really, just occasional AI allies in the missions, people would have some incentive to group…
Of course, that there weren’t enough people was WHY they added Heroes to GW1, I assume, but still. I know that these are tough problems, and I can kind of see why they did what they did, if I’m right about it (can anyone clarify for sure? Does it stay like that even after the personal intro story part, for instance? Or are they not revealing that part yet…), after trying a bunch of different things through Guild Wars 1 and its addons, but… there has to be another way than this…
- MMOs and Formal Grouping – This isn't exactly about missions, but it's a good final thought. On a related note that I referenced above, because of the instanced design, in GW1 you’d often make formal groups with a random group of other people, either in random arenas, or in missions when you actually had a player group, or for a special dungeon, or what have you. But in an MMO like WoW or GW2, that seems less common, because you might run across someone in the world in that same area who’d help out at that moment, something that couldn’t happen in GW1, but without the conversation or actual grouping that you’d get in that game. I mean, in something like GW2, or WoW, how often do you actually make groups, or talk with the other people while doing stuff? I’m sure people in guilds do, for raids or what have you, but for the kind of thing I’m talking about? I admit it happened more in GW in the earlier years than more recently, but still… there are going to be many more people around in GW2, but will, like often seems to be the case in MMOs, there be less actual (verbal/written) interaction? It looks that way to me, unfortunately.
+ Stability - The game didn't crash very often at all, which was nice. I only had one crash in the 10+ hours I played, and that one was in the Ashford zone, during the ending event, when it was very crowded with people.
+ Beta end event -- This is a GW tradition, of course, and yes, the ending event was fun. It's too bad that we didn't get to see what happens when you get 100% corrupted, though... it got up to quite high on the bar, but then stayed there, as people figured out how to come back in as humans and just enough survived to keep the bar from maxing out. And yeah, Rytlock was there too of course, killing everyone he saw until the end. However, that end was too anticlimactic -- there was no big final incident, it just stopped abruptly in the middle of the event right at 3am. Disappointing. The event was fun, but it needed an ending bang, and there wasn't one. I also miss the onscreen text you always got with GW1 events, with the "hosts" talking into the chat channel and stuff; there was none of that. Still though, they did have an interesting concept, even if it needed a little more work on execution.
+ PvP Multiplayer – GW2 has two main PvP modes. One is World v. World, a mode I did not try. The other is a timed, point control style match with a server browser to choose matches in. GW1 had more different modes (random arena, team arena, Guild vs. Guild, Hall of Heroes, and more at special events), but this has only the two, it seems, unfortunately, unless there’s a Guild vs. Guild mode I don’t know about (could be, I’m not sure). The basic mode in GW2, and the one I played, is much more complex than the Random Arenas in GW1. Matches are 8v8 (or more perhaps) if full, and you have to seize and hold control points. The team with the most points at the end of the round, based on control and on kills, wins, and you move to the next auto-selected map. I don’t really know if these games actually end, or if this just goes on forever, with the matches cycling between the different maps endlessly. There were only three maps in the beta. Players can respawn at their base after being killed. The maps are much larger than the RA maps in GW1. I like this gameplay mode; it’s very much like the capture-point-based multiplayer modes in games like Battlefield, Return to Castle Wolfenstein. It’s also somewhat like that multiplayer mode in one of the GW1 betas (removed before the retail launch) where you did an 8v8 match in the Fort Ranik map where one team tried to capture the fort while the other defended it (it was a cool mode, too bad it went away! That map’s too big for 4v4…). Anyway, returning to GW2 multiplayer, I have some definite problems with this multiplayer mode too — see below — but it IS fun.
- Negatives of the Standard PVP Mode, or, Where is the Random Arena? – The main criticism I have is that there’s nothing like GW1′s 4v4 Random Arenas (RA), which as I said at the top was my favorite thing in GW1′s PvP side, and the only GW1 PvP element I played much. However, while GW2′s main, point control-style multiplayer mode, as described above in the “positives” category, mode is pretty good, where’s the simpler, team versus team mode comparable to the Random Arenas? Why in the world would they not include that in this sequel? I know that they’re changing a lot of things in this sequel, but this is another one that by no means should they ever have even considered removing. This GW2 mode is much more complex and doesn’t have the quick-fun, play-a-few-minutes-and-go simplicity of the 4v4 random arenas. It also doesn’t have a clearly defined ending; instead, you just keep spawning, and the matches just keep coming. RA is not something they should not have removed.
Finally, I’m going to have a special section for missions, because they were one of the most important things in the first Guild Wars. Some of this is a replacement for the "missions" section near the end of the first post; this supersedes that section.
+/- Missions, GW1 Background Information – In the original GW, the main (story) game centered around a Mission – town/travel to next mission – Mission sequence. That is, the centerpoint of the game was the mission tree, bringing you through the mostly linear story. Each game had 15-25 missions, sometimes with some branching options in the later campaigns. As I said, this was designed for parties, and for the first couple of years after launch, one of the best ways to play GW in a group was to do that in missions. Playing Quests with others — that is, the quests you get in the towns and do in the main overworld — could be fun too, but since the overworld is so large, people often want to explore there. As a result, unless you were with people you knew, or were in a guild with, or something, apart from groups to go to the next story destination, grouping in the overworld would be less common; people want to do different things. In Missions, however, the design brings people together, like it does for PvP but with a story and a PvE focus, and they were great.
However, after the release of Nightfall in ’06 and the addition of Heroes, that started to break down, and people mostly played the missions with their Heroes, AI allies you could set up skillbars for and give orders to. Heroes made soloing missions (playing missions without any other human players on the team) much more possible than it had been before with just the dumb AI Henchmen. Also, people were spread through three and then four campaigns, which didn’t help. ANet did add the Party Search window to help here, but that doesn’t help so much when very few others are looking… still, it was something, and it did help. And indeed, when you did actually manage to get a group together for a mission, it was as fun as ever. The same goes for when you got together human groups for things like the EotN dungeons, etc. However, overall, the huge reduction in player groups in missions really hurt the game, in my opinion — yeah, you can beat most missions with just heroes and henchmen, but it’s not the same.
+ Missions in Guild Wars 2 - While I also have some important criticisms, GW2 does do some things right with its missions. In GW2, missions are much more single player focused. While you can play them with others, as I will describe in the “negatives” section, they are mostly designed for solo play. This isn’t good from a multiplayer standpoint, but does lead to many more choices in the missions, as I mentioned earlier, which is great. I like being able to actually make choices and have them have some kind of effect. The missions are fun to play, too, whether they’re entirely solo, or whether you play them with an AI ally. The story is solidly done as well, no complaints there. I also previously mentioned the multiple opening arcs, depending on your origin story; that’s a nice touch. I had fun with the missions while playing them. Missions are varied too; one even was entirely non-combat, which was pretty cool (though it could have been longer, maybe, it was definitely fun). Note that like in EotN, Missions happen in sectioned-off parts of the overworld, not in special mission zones. I like the special mission zones with lobbies, as used before EotN, more, but this works okay.
- Guild Wars 2 Missions and Multiplayer – In GW2, at least so far, the story tree seems to be entirely a single player affair. You can play missions with others, if you’re partied with someone, but only the first player gets to make any of the choices; everyone else just watches, and only does anything during the action. Also I didn’t see anything like the Party Search window; that’d be a significant loss, really, given that the game in general is, like most MMOs, not designed for as much formal party formation with random other people as GW1 was. It’s clear that while the option is there, the focus is strongly on people doing this in single player.
Anyway, I like that the missions are instanced. At least something is. However, I find it so, so odd that they seem to have decided that the solution to the “people aren’t grouping for missions very often” problem was to, well, mostly get rid of parties in missions, as I explained above. I understand that that allows them to allow you to make more choices, which is good, but Nightfall and EotN had a degree of branching, while still allowing parties of course. I don’t know, there has to have been a better way of splitting the difference here and both allowing choice, while maintaining the multiplayer nature of the missions. And given that GW2 has neither Henchmen or Heroes, really, just occasional AI allies in the missions, people would have some incentive to group…
Of course, that there weren’t enough people was WHY they added Heroes to GW1, I assume, but still. I know that these are tough problems, and I can kind of see why they did what they did, if I’m right about it (can anyone clarify for sure? Does it stay like that even after the personal intro story part, for instance? Or are they not revealing that part yet…), after trying a bunch of different things through Guild Wars 1 and its addons, but… there has to be another way than this…
- MMOs and Formal Grouping – This isn't exactly about missions, but it's a good final thought. On a related note that I referenced above, because of the instanced design, in GW1 you’d often make formal groups with a random group of other people, either in random arenas, or in missions when you actually had a player group, or for a special dungeon, or what have you. But in an MMO like WoW or GW2, that seems less common, because you might run across someone in the world in that same area who’d help out at that moment, something that couldn’t happen in GW1, but without the conversation or actual grouping that you’d get in that game. I mean, in something like GW2, or WoW, how often do you actually make groups, or talk with the other people while doing stuff? I’m sure people in guilds do, for raids or what have you, but for the kind of thing I’m talking about? I admit it happened more in GW in the earlier years than more recently, but still… there are going to be many more people around in GW2, but will, like often seems to be the case in MMOs, there be less actual (verbal/written) interaction? It looks that way to me, unfortunately.
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