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I managed to get 3 rounds in on the PvE demo. Saturday was the afterparty at ANet's headquarters, where I managed to get in 4 rounds of PvP, and 2 PvE demos; and Sunday I played 2 rounds of PvP.

Professions I got to play:

Low level: Ranger, Warrior, Elementalist
High level: Thief

I exclusively played a Thief (Pistol/Dagger) in PvP.

PvE


Character creation, as I mentioned earlier in the thread is indeed robust and working really well even at this point in the 'alpha'. I have no doubt most of you have seen videos of it, but a brief rundown of the options will follow. Asthetic creation can be broken down into four sub categories: Body, Fur/Hair, Face, Adornments, Clothing; all contain further categories (body has height and physique, face has sliders, etc).


The UI is slick and highly responsive (much like the rest of the game). The hot keys through me off a little bit, especially since I haven't played GW1 in a long time (H for the character panel????), but I adjusted quickly, altered my keybinds (6-0 are terrible defaults, though I was frustrated that it seemed impossible to bind things to shift+# variations at this point in the game, so my binds were r/t/g/v/c/shift) and started playing. The tutorial/starter zones are quite thematic - I know it's been mentioned in several interviews that they're going for a different feel with each of the starting zones, and it's true - you can feel it. My favorite was the norn one - brawling with other norn whilst waiting for Eir/Isomyr was so perfectly intune with Norn.


A brief tangent: I'm not 100% sold on how gaining skills works now, especially since some weapons are locked until levels (warriors can't use a greatsword or dual-wield until level 10, which is silly imo). Don't get me wrong, I love the idea, I just don't feel that it's implemented in the best way possible yet. With, for example, a Sword/Board combination, you won't unlock any shield/OH skills until you've maxed out the 1H weapon skills, which leaves the shield feeling pretty useless - I want to bash some skulls in!


Back to the game! So, after you complete the tutorial (this bit has changed a bit), you'll be required to talk to a scout to progress your personal story. Before you can continue on the instanced part of your story, you'll need to fully fill out a heart of an NPC/Event area - but it doesn't take long and I found all the events to be quite fun. One of my favorites was helping a Charr rancher herd escaped cows by prodding them along with a cattle prod. It was incredibly satisfying >_<


The personal story is engaging, and you can see how they start to diverge during the first part. For example, as a Blood Legion charr you're attacked by your tribune for getting your warband killed. As an Iron Legion? Some Flame Legion charr have heard that you have developed a gun specifically to exterminate ghosts, and have infiltrated your barracks to retrive it. The friendly NPC AI was a bit wonky, as Reeva had the tendency to just stand around whilst I was getting wailed on until I managed to kite the Gold Legion kitties infront of her. She caught on, and helped me destroy them.


There are some personal story bits that take place in the world, so to speak, but they are also instanced (and despite my earlier claims in this thread, it wasn't a seemless transition - there was a brief loading screen).


By this point (finishing the second story mission), my time would be up on the PvE stations. I can answer a few questions on combat/world/events regarding the Charr/Human/Norn starter experiences/zones, so feel free to ask away.


My time in the high level zone was spent almost exclusively exploring, though I did participate in a few events and helped take down the undead dragon (his name escapes me).


PvP


So, PvP blew my mind. I haven't enjoyed PvP since I played DAoC, and I've never really been a fan of BG/Instanced PvP, but Battle of Kyhlo was a blast.
A bit of info on my skill/weapon set up before I talk about the matches.
Pistol/Dagger

Ranged Attack + Vunerability (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Body_Shot)
Ranged Attack + Bleed (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Vital_Shot)
Ranged Attack + Leap Back (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Strike)
Ranged Attack + Cripple (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Dancing_Dagger)
Melee Attack + Brief Stealth (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Cloak_and_Dagger)


I slotted (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Withdraw) Withdraw as my heal; (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Shadow_Step) Shadow Step, (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Scorpion_Wire) Scorpion Wire, and (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Roll_for_Initiative) Roll for Initiative as my utilities, with (http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Invisible_Stalker) as my elite.


I built this for maximum maneourvrability and damage. I found Scorpion Wire essential as a method to pull targets towards me/off of allies so I could execute a 5-3-XXX combination for pretty impressive damage. When Scorpion Wire was down, I would initiate with either Shadow Step or Body Shot, then switch between Body and Vital shot to keep both the vunerability and bleed up. Dancing dagger is excellent for keeping targets in (or out of) range, and Shadow Strike, Withdraw and Roll for Initiative are great for kiting targets. Proper utlitization of all 3 of those + basic dodge is essential to staying alive as a thief with this setup. I only died 3 times during all 6 rounds of PvP, and consistently scored highly (I scored 200 points one game, with 10 kills and several assists).


However, the times I died were all because I was far too careless with my dodge, and ran out of energy fast which allowed me to be pinned down and killed. The second a thief loses their mobility they're dead - which made aspects of this build excellent at countering other thieves.


The map for Kyhlo is very well thought out. My personal favorite spot for fighting was the clock tower. The windows especially made for fun ganks: one game my team camped outside the windows of the clocktower, and while their entire team was sitting on the capture point, we blew the windows out and destroyed them all. It also has a lot of escape routes (blow a window out, run along the ledge then jump off on to building roofs (if you hit the roof you'll get off with minimal damage, overshot/misaim and you'll take a significant amount of fall damage which will leave you vunerable to ganks). There was an excellent game Sunday (none of which were screened/recorded QQ) in which a guardian held off a capture point for a good minute against 3 attackers. Later that match, the same guardian was able to block off half the enemy team behind glyphs and wards while his team decimated the rest of their opponents. Good guardians are going to be essential in strong PvP teams.

So I was bored, having played every other game in my apartment. I'm halfway through Livy's War Against Hannibal. The book is about the Second Punic War, which had a lot in common with the Second World War, and the book is written in the same mindlessly patriotic tone as most general-audience American books about the war. Every battle reads the same, the good guys are always honorable heroes and the bad guys are always cruel and treacherous.

So after slogging through 200 pages of this, I decided to play my F2P WoW account.

I was expecting, maybe hoping or fearing, idk, to get back into the groove of the game. Also, I thought having not played for a few months, I'd be in a position to look at the game with fresh eyes.

I was surprised.

The game is really fantastically boring now. Levelling is still endless chains of "kill ten bears", but what makes it much more tedious than in Vanilla is that now outdoor mobs are as impotent as Newt Gingrich on a cold day (not only was I not using BoAs but my mage was butt naked). General Chat is silent. Questing is totally linear.

I did a Deadmines run. It feels the same as dpsing a heroic at 85: no interactivity, just spam one button for an hour. Or not, you can go totally afk and no one will even notice. The tank told me at one point to not pull when the healer hadn't zoned in yet. Really.

The big thing I noticed that has changed from Vanilla is that visual contrast is much worse. There is too much big and bright stuff. Environments don't seem to mesh, NPCs feel like they've been just kind of put here and there. Everything is much more crowded. Visual scale between world objects and NPCs is totally arbitrary. WoW doesn't really feel like a world, it feels much more like a crude Asian B-game with levels and stuff.

I'd played through Fallout: New Vegas, and I think that game raised the bar for me, not because the game has better graphics or more challenging gameplay, but because questing is more interesting and - this is a big thing - the sound is a lot better. It's not a tech thing so much as the role sound plays in bringing the player into the story.

So I played my nelf and belf mage for like 15 minutes each then logged off bored. Honestly I don't think if I'd been playing Aestu I'd have been any more engaged.

Funny thing is reading that dev blog post wondering why new players aren't sticking with the game or why a million Western players have quit.

The overall feeling I got was that the qualities that made the game worth playing have been vacillated for the benefit of people who don't want what the game is/was. The handrails are much too tight and there is no social interaction with the other players you see running around like critters. It's almost impossible to fail at anything.

With fresh eyes, I really do see, WoW does just plain suck. Unfortunately.

Aestu of Bleeding Hollow...

Nihilism is a copout.

Five years of repetition does wonders.

Druid: Meowth
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Glorious Death Metal Music

Only took two and a half for me :/

GW2 really needs to release now (I don't want beta!), seriously. I think my ranger is going to take a back burner to my thief too...

Bitch please.

You're rolling a Guardian, because I've pigeonholed you into the plated-armored-do-gooder class in my mind. Obviously this is due to your previous adventures as a Paladin.

Deal with it.

I have mained a paladin in every MMO I've played >_<

And now you're going to make like the Undertaker and continue the streak.

I actually don't care, but it will be weird not seeing you as a plate wall. Just as bad as when Meowth played not as a druid at times, or Mayo not as an Ork warlock.

with how much rogue hate i spouted, it's pretty hard for most people i played with to know i was a rogue before rolling the warrior. blows their mind even more when they know how much farther my rogue got in comparison.

also mayo will always be YOKKEN, ORC WARRIOR WITH LEATHER DPS BOOTS. those same boots that i had too.

oh the iron curtain of mmo's.

and somehow, i played a rogue during most of that.

Everyone cool was a rogue first.

If destruction exists, we must destroy everything.
Shuruppak Yuratuhl
Slaad Shrpk Breizh

Air Pirates.

I'm sad tuhl. because i know so many people IRL with xbox 360, i'm getting space marine for 360.

but i can't play with you bros who get it for pc.

Good, we didn't wanna play with you're joystick twirling ass anyway!

Druid: Meowth
« Steam »« Xfire »
Glorious Death Metal Music

bet you weren't cool enough to have kiss of the spider or be 8/9 ajjajajaja

i just reinstalled LoL. game????

Does anyone even remember Lucinth the terribad rogue?

Also I have a 360 USD, as soon as I actually start playing it again to try the demo I might pick it up.