Guild Wars Beta Weekend

Post by **OverRide** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 8:39 am

Weee, no crash this time

now i just have to download 2700 files before i can play

Post by **Fender** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 1:46 pm

Damn work.

See you all tonight.

Post by **Transient** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 7:15 pm

So my experiences so far:
It's a beautiful game, really stunning. I found myself really appreciating the detail they put into the flora and fauna while I was running around. It really looked like autumn. Not to mention the chicks are fucking hawt. I almost played an Elementalist just to look at the boobies.

Unfortunately, it really doesn't seem to set itself apart from every other medieval fantasy MMORPG out there. At least in the early levels. I found myself bored of doing errands, and didn't really have any incentive to continue. I'll give it another go later today.

Post by **Mogul** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 7:27 pm

The big thing with this one is its focus on competition.

I'm sure there are some of the tedious mmo features in this game, but remember -- you cap at level 20. There's not a whole lot of time to screw around and do stupid stuff.

The guild competition is what this game is supposedly really about.

Post by **U4EA** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:02 am

Woo! It ended a few hours ago. Massive fun (as usual) .. played the three days through with Mat and the gang. This is probably my favourite event to date. Finally got into PvP this time around and didn't do too bad in it either. Flo and Thrud got their first Rank sticks too

This time they had a massive Gwen (anyone who's played pre-searing Ascalon will know who I'm talking about) invasion in LA D1 in the final few minutes .. they went around carpet bombing the entire population. Fun as fuck (got screenies).

Pics shall follow in a while, when I've had a chance to convert them, select the good ones and come up with (un)witty one-liners about them.

Post by **Transient** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 11:36 am

I played about 4 characters through to around 4-6 and I'm liking the Warrior. I might end up cross-classing into Necromancer to augment my combat. I tried out PvP too, and apparently the Life Siphon spell or whatever it's called is very popular (which I didn't know while I was creating my character). I had fun, and won about half the fights I was in. I think most of the losses resulted in a stupid team, though.

Post by **U4EA** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 12:44 pm

My screenies:

Thrud the Cripple

Thrud with the PvP glowly stick

Flo with her stick

Exploring outside Ventari's Refuge

Necro doing Michael Jackson's "Thriller" dance

A nifty statue in pre-searing Ascalon

A Gaile Gray sighting (works for ArenaNET)

Gaile getting mobbed

First sight of the psychotic Gwen clones

Everyone's dead

Yoinks!

The hill I was standing on getting sneak attacked by a Gwen clone

Moments before they pulled the plug

Post by **Fender** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:14 pm

ggs see ya in a month
edit: I'm surprised I have as much health as you do and double your magic points @ only level 14.

Post by **U4EA** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:28 pm

Not sure about the health (are you using any runes?) but the energy difference is due to two reasons: 1) I use a bow, so I can't carry a focus item in my off hand 2) you're an Elementalist and probably have lots of points in Energy Storage, no other profession has a similar attribute.

Post by **Fender** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:49 pm

You're probably right about both. I'll have to take a look @ my health while "naked" next beta. I'm probably modded close to +40 health. And I do have a ton of skill points in energy storage. 10 fire elem and 9 energy storage.
I seriously need a better wand/artifact or staff if I'm to continue as an elem. It seems that there's very little good stuff for elems in the game. I consitently find better weapons for all the other classes than I do for myself.
I think I'm getting the special bow w/ my preorder, so I might try a ranger/elem combo when the game gets released since they both use distance attacks primarily.

Post by **Fender** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 1:57 pm

OverRide wrote:Nice dude, you got a zip file of all those avatars?

Sure.
http://images.fender.net/gw_avatars.zip

The original size (128x128) JPGs are here:
http://images.fender.net/skills/

Post by **U4EA** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 8:03 am

Fender wrote:You're ..

I looked it up and found out that all characters have the same amount of health at equivalent levels. You've likely got a rune and possibly benefits from a weapon too. Since I created Flo as a Lvl 20 PvE character, I haven't bothered crafting any armor or even gotten a better weapon (I'm still using a "Test Bow" heh) so I've got no runes etc.

About finding good weapons for your character: the reason you're not finding any über staffs/wands is that there aren't any! In trying to prevent this becoming an item hunt fest like the Diablo games, they've shifted focus entirely from items/armor to your skillset and how effectively you use it. Furthermore, your character (being an Elementalist) should be focussing on using massive damage spells during combat, the weapon would only be used as an absolute last resort. Seeing how all caster weapons are pretty crap, I made my Monk/Ranger so I could cause a bit of damage with a bow .. however (as you astutely observed) my energy levels are quite crap cause I can't use a focus item giving me an energy benefit.

What I'm trying to get across in my rambling is that the game is all about BALANCE, and getting the balance just right across all the professions in terms of health, energy, armor, weapons, skills etc is quite a huge task but I think ArenaNET have pretty much nailed it. In attempting to cause more damage, I've hampered my Monk's healing output. Every profession has its use and every profession can be highly effective if used the right way.

</ramble>

Post by **Mat Linnett** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 9:05 am

'ere U4EA, do you have a link to that thread where the guy was doing the dye mixing experiment?
I quite fancy seeing the outcome...

Post by **U4EA** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 9:20 am

Well I dunno what happened, but the guy who was supposed to collect the dyes and do the mixing was MIA on the last day so I never managed to get him the dyes (I still have them all btw). Here's the results of the first effort during the Feb BEW.

Post by **Mat Linnett** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:47 am

Regarding dyes, I honestly think they should make them freely available.
Granted, you'd have an initial rush of everybody going black, but that'd soon change once everybody realised they all looked they same.
Freedom of choice would just remove that cookie-cutter design feel completely...

If they didn't do that, I would at least like some sort of dye preview option so that I could see what stuff would look like before applying the dye.
As it is, you can spend a fortune on dyes only to be disappointed with the way it looks.

Post by **U4EA** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 10:59 am

I'm sure (as with most other things) the community will come up with massive resources of what stuff will end up looking like with different dye combinations. This dye project was supposed to achieve just that while the game is still in beta so people wouldn't mind donating. I hope it picks up again in the April BEW so we can get something productive out of it all. Of course, a preview option would be ideal.

Having said all that, I'm not too fussed about looking different .. I just dyed Flo all blue at the beginning and left it at that

Post by **Transient** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 12:56 pm

I'm stil perplexed as to how the fuck I'm supposed to get iron ingots or where to buy new items. There aren't any stores, just crafters.

Post by **Fender** » Tue Mar 22, 2005 1:19 pm

Salavage items Trans. Take any weapon you can't use/sell/trade and use a salvage kit on it. You'll get common crafting materials. Use an expert salvage kit to get rare crafting materials or runes/upgrades.

Post by **U4EA** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 10:16 am

Run the client and check out the new interface

Post by **Fender** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:25 pm

Pretty nice.

Any final word on whether or nor we'll be able to trade our pre-order items? If not, would anyone want to trade keys? I'll be getting the Kanthan Targe (shield) but would like the Ithas Bow or Chimeric Prism.

Post by **Transient** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:50 pm

I'm preordering from EBGames.com and will most likely play a Warrior (definitely not a Ranger), so I'll trade with ya. EB gets the bow.

Post by **Fender** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 1:20 pm

Which of the fansite forums actually gets read by the dev team, if any? I'd like to suggest adding widescreen and/or custom video modes. 856x480p 4xAA or 1920x1080i no AA might be fun to play on my TV.

Post by **U4EA** » Wed Mar 30, 2005 1:30 pm

All of the Elite forums get read by the devs, but I've seen them be pretty active on The Guild Hall forums.

Post by **Transient** » Thu Mar 31, 2005 3:02 am

You can have widescreen if you play in windowed mode. That's what I did.

Post by **Mat Linnett** » Fri Apr 08, 2005 9:29 pm

Guild Wars intro movie released.