Guild Wars 2: Pre-Release Discussion

[Koul]

Well this sucks. Entered Fort Salma and my game crashed, now everytime I try and log in, it crashes.

[Elrina]

I haven't gotten nearly as much time with the game as I would like (especially this weekend, busy with prior plans for the children, etc.), but I would like to chime in about the dungeon discussion.

From what I remember, aren't you capped back down to an appropriate level whenever you do the dungeon anyway, so it'll never really get too much easier? (Although some, I guess, since supposedly you can be capped a couple levels higher based on your native level.) Also, you did mention that this is a unique armor set, right? Isn't that the entire point of what everyone has been saying endgame is?

Part of the game is the idea that "endgame" as we know it doesn't begin at level 80. You get one piece of the armor set for completing the story mode, and then in explorable mode it becomes more like hard mode (only a real hard mode, not some piss easy shit that just requires you to have the next set of armor drops for it to become easy).

Everything you said about the dungeon, negatively, makes me yearn to play it that much more. You aren't meant to grind it out for level relevant gear. You're meant to do it for unique gear. You aren't meant to run dungeons for gear at certain level brackets like in other games. You're meant to do it over time, to collect the unique armor sets, such as you would grind out gear over the course of weeks/months at endgame in another game. I have no idea what other content they have planned specifically for the cap, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with being able to just find level appropriate gear throughout the game itself and not dungeon grind for it at certain brackets, with the dungeons done more for prestige/completion/alternative endgame (and you get to start at level 35, you don't have to wait for 80!).

The game sounds pretty loaded with content, and if that's the first sign of how endgame is going to work, with each dungeon capping you to level relevancy and requiring somewhat of a grind to obtain all of it's unique armor set, then I'm just happy you get to start at level 35 and aren't forced to wait for a rehashed version of each one of them at 80 before you get to start working towards them.

[Jakson]

I think you're overcomplicating what he was saying. All he wanted was a tweak to that dungeon (and dungeons in general that most people haven't tried yet) so that the players can get the armor set before getting bored with being 30 in a 30 dungeon and going and grinding some other dungeon at some other level.

Besides, this is probably all irrelevant. It isn't in either ANet's or the players' best interest to make an overly lengthy time sink as this might be; ANet doesn't really need you after you've bought the box, and the players probably don't want to grind that much and will probably negatively impact future sales of the game to friends because they describe it as too grindy. In the future the dungeon will probably get tweaked as more people get to play it and bitch about it on the forums.

[Sci]

If you look at how they designed GW1 PvE endgame, it is a "grindfest" as well. But not for better gear, just for different/unique skins. And they're embracing the same thing with GW2 it seems. Since you can transmute any stats onto any armor, you can be lvl80 wearing the lvl30 dungeon armor that you took a month to get, just because you think it looks cool. Or just because that dungeon is super difficult, and you think wearing it makes your epeen bigger.

[Purrrfect]

edit: moved to RQT

Spoiler (low level norn) ahead

On the topic of instance tuning, did anyone do the Wolf Havroun instance for Norn where you finally find Solvi and his portal? It felt exceedingly difficult for such a low level story part. I had to basically suicide pull a few of the minions around the boss and kill 1 or 2 before dieing and come back and try again because the boss had a stun/freeze that locked you in place for 3 or 4 seconds while he also spawned 2 ice elementals right next to you to beat your face in. I eventually beat him by I think kind of glitching him and rushing him and I think his pathing got messed up around the portal and didn't get to freeze me. Also helped a guy with an instance shortly after that in the Svari base with a lot of minions and then the boss and it was tough as nails even with the both of us in it. I guess maybe these things were meant to be done by more than just solo, but I saw no indication of that.

[Zerocool]

New build creator that includes gear and stats.

http://www.gw2build.com/builds/simulator.php

[Dragir]

http://www.guildwarsinsider.com/guil...date-imminent/

A report that KDB Daewoo published predicts initial sales of 3.12 Million copies for Guild Wars 2 in 2012, with NCSoft receiving $48 of every $59.99 copy.

This really pisses me off if it's true. All the more reason to buy Digital Deluxe or CE if ArenaNet is getting the rest, imo, but no information out there to that effect.

[Cleverness]

I don't like NCSoft, but that much makes me curious as to how much they invested into development and production costs for GW2 and if they are going to handle the server costs of running the game. If Anet is getting less than 12 per copy(I'm sure there are other associated costs that will make that a smaller cut) that still gives them like ~30mil ish from game sales...and then they need to use that to pay for everything else assuming they don't have to cover server costs and maintenance.

[Appie]

$48 of $59.99? Sounds more like they are just talking about NCsoft as a whole (including ANet) to me. I'm assuming these figures also include physical copies of which retailers would get a share too. Retailers with physcial shops leaning more towards the $59.99 mark. These figures would make no sense to me if they didn't include ANet in the NCsoft's $48, because it would mean that gameshops selling GW2 are close to a nonprofit organisation after ANet would take their cut of those 12 bucks lol.

[Katlan]

NCsoft is basically the publisher and funding the game. The GW2 are the creators and dev's. NCSoft pays the GW2 team also. So it makes perfect sense that they get the majority of the money w/ a small fraction going to the actual developers. That still doesn't affect anybody's payroll unless they are based on commission (highly unlikely).

I'm curious how many pre-purchases so far for them to predict 3m+

[Takiwaki]

Well VGcharts pre-orders has GW2 at number 4 and that's US only, I think that's pretty huge.

http://www.vgchartz.com/preorders/

[Katlan]

160k doesn't make me think they are projecting 3m+. Even if that is just the US 160k is very small

[Arelian]

Those are just physical pre-orders, not pre-purchases in any form. So I really wonder how many of those they got, physical and digital.

[Solace]

I don't personally know anyone who went to a box store and pre-purchased the game. I'm willing to bet they are about 70/30 on the online to box store purchases at this point.

[Eragon]

I'm still waiting for Best Buy to offer the box pre-order. I have gift cards and I prefer a physical copy. I assume they need a release date before they offer it.

[Syntex]

I have been distracted with D3 for the past month and now am getting bored of it. Anywhere I can read about all the cool shit condensed into something a bit smaller then a 160 page topic that has a lot of fluff between the good stuff?

I need to catch up on whats going on with everything.

[Eanae]

I have been distracted with D3 for the past month and now am getting bored of it. Anywhere I can read about all the cool shit condensed into something a bit smaller then a 160 page topic that has a lot of fluff between the good stuff?

I need to catch up on whats going on with everything.

http://www.reddit.com/r/guildwars2
http://www.bluegartr.com/threads/109...-2-Video-Media

Both those should be good starts.

[Delirium]

I don't personally know anyone who went to a box store and pre-purchased the game. I'm willing to bet they are about 70/30 on the online to box store purchases at this point.

I think game sales in general are trending towards digital. That's why Gamestop is trying to to the whole tablet/smartphone/whatever else used thing.

[Tonka]

http://www.arena.net/blog/is-it-fun-...asures-success

[Burningthought]

I don't like NCSoft, but that much makes me curious as to how much they invested into development and production costs for GW2 and if they are going to handle the server costs of running the game. If Anet is getting less than 12 per copy(I'm sure there are other associated costs that will make that a smaller cut) that still gives them like ~30mil ish from game sales...and then they need to use that to pay for everything else assuming they don't have to cover server costs and maintenance.

Don't forget GW2 has microtransactions, and you know tons of indie devs are making fat stacks off that money. As long as they throw in tons of avatar customization options i'll be spending money out the ass.