Guild Wars 2

Negatives:

Grouping with friends/guild seemed hard.

You can easily meet in a main city or the lions gate hub but when you warp to a warp point or exit the city you end up in a random overflow server. I never found a way to make it send your party to the same overflow server.

We wasted almost an hour in the main city waiting for the main que to take us, but it never did so we ended up just exiting the city over and over till we ended up in the same overflow.

There was no simple "join party" or "switch channel" that I am used to seeing in a MMO. So unless I missed it this was one big negative.

They should implement a "warp to party member" element since they say they don't want forced travel to be a big part of the game, and there are numerous warp points all over the place, why not let us warp directly to a party member (and be obviously on the same channel)

Performance seemed fine for me, I was even able to play at like 6048x1200 on my desktop with almost 60fps solid. However performance big fights with tons of people and effects is where it will be hardest and I only ran into a few huge fights. I never got WvWvW where the true test is.


Graphics are good but not great, they are fine for me, it's using DX9 surprised they do not have some DX10 or DX11 used. If they use it correctly and only use the performance enhancing portions of those API and not the "new pretty things" that most games use it should boost performance for people for free since most of us have GPU atleast capable with DX10 by now.

Word is its heavy cpu bound right now not GPU so it may not make a big difference but anything is better than nothing. If it is cpu bound they need to make it as multi-threaded as possible.

I'd like to see GUI elements capable of being resized and relocated manually by the user for a more custom fit.

The world is big, very big but does not capture me the way say World of Warcraft did where each area feels so diverse, artistic and "alive". Maybe I should revisit WoW to see if I still feel that way maybe it was just my younger age that allowed it to have a greater impression on me.

I recall when I got tired of playing the games content just being able to roam areas of the world and appreciating them for the very intricate and detailed design. Nothing felt like a 3D landscape with just a few textures and structures ploped on it felt like real places in a virtual land.

GW2 is not quite so bland but just not feeling quite as detailed at the same time.

Combat is good, very good. I like the idea of how you use skills and there is a ton of room here to make the difference between a good player and a bad player so PVP can very much be skill based rather than gear based.

Granted more so than skill I think it will come down to speed & accuracy with hotkey cordination between team members of various classes though will destroy a non organized team as different classes form a very strong synergy. There is only so much you can do alone.

Speaking of alone, I found myself not able to do some of the public quests, they are made to scale with party size but I found myself all alone sometimes in areas that had multiple mobs so there was no way to do it alone. You can not beat 2 or 3 mobs at the same time by yourself with the classes I was playing you need more members so not everything in the game is capable of being solo'ed.

 

I'd say the lack of immersion with the world compared to WoW is probably because you get the TES-esque insta teleport system instead of mount/flying mount / running travelling methods that are more down-to-earth and require actual exploration and planning efforts. That and the fact that WoW has a more "linear" zone progression in terms of levels, while GW2 is a hodgepodge of zones that blend together and have rather gradiented and random level progressions, so you don't get that directed story feel.

Also it lacks of the unique monsters that WoW has in abundance, and instead opts for things like veteran/champion/legendary profixes on rare mobs.

Honestly the last point is the only one I'm not cool with...they have the budget to dot the world with lots of really interesting rare named mobs, not just the set number of scripted main bosses. The two earlier points are not good or bad, just different.

 

I tested it a bit on the eGPU setup and i've to say that the game itself is quite enjoyable; i'm only worried about the performance. I read that the beta is no polish as the final game (as usual) but even on the suggested details the game was going at no more than 35fps (with the config in signature).

 

I just want to note on performance that ArenaNet has not implemented DX10 (probably never on DX 11 though), multithreading for multicore CPU's, and SLI/CFX support. Therefore the current client is really not optimized for what most our PC's can do right now.

 

Here is some live stream action. Like a Boss.



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Didn't really enjoy the game too much due to really bad performance and
lag so will have to reserve judgement until I can really play the game.

I have a 5870 with a i7 720Q.

With graphics quality set completely off/low ( all the way to performance ) I
was getting 20-30fps running around by myself and 10fps when with groups
in events.

I get 40fps in BF3 at high so I assume it is just beta issues to work out.

 

How does the game play on a 670m? Trying to decide between the 670 and 675 and GW 2 is a factor in what I decide to get.

 

Realize that the game is in a unpolished and unoptimized beta state so that even if we knew how well it ran on a 670M (that just came out so nobody probably had it in time for the beta) it would not be a valid indicator of the final games performance and thus not properly answer your question.

 

Tijo has a 5870M and a 940XM and found performance to be passable in the current client state. However, it is really CPU-intensive right now as a stock 5870M was only on 60% load the entire time the game was operational. Therefore the lag you are getting is from your 720QM trying its best on single-core operations, which isn't going to shine on the FPS.

As what Vicious said, the client is confirmed to be unoptimized at the moment. ArenaNet is working on optimization for the next beta or so. Remember again folks that the beta is really a beta and not a beta in which it is more like a near-polished release candidate.

 

My wife has a 670 and I have a 675. Both ran the game fine (don't have hard FPS but neither of us had unwanted slowdown not caused by lag). We did not spend much time in WvW but the zerged Dynamic events only had slowdown due to lag and not computer-related. I maxed all settings on the 675 but don't know what she had it at.

Both are running the config in my signature minus the graphics card and Hard drive. Most of the lag people experienced was seemingly due to how they coded CPU usage (not multi-threading or something yet) and had less to do with the actual video card.

 

I have a 5870 (desktop), i7 920 and I also had pretty bad performance. The thing is that I saw practially no difference in performance boost when changing from all max -> performance, so I just played the game maxed out.

 

I assumed that had to be the case. Hopefully the next beta they will have
some optimizations in place so my laggy system can actually play.

 

I am running with a 920xm, not a 940xm, but yeah, same results in the end. GPU usage was between 50-60% most of the time with some tweaked settings. No FXAA, shaders down a notch and shadows at low. I found that shadows and reflections had the most impact on performance.

My CPU was usually running at 20-25% usage with all the background stuff i had when playing so it was definitely single threaded. My CPU clock speeds were mostly indicative of two cores being used with a third being used form time to time.

Performance from the GW2Guru tech team is pretty much on par with what we had here. Even an i5-2500K + HD6970 had dips below 30fps at 1080p. Same with a GTX680.

 

I've been getting the shaft on shifts lately and haven't had any motivation to play. For the few hours I played I noticed performance wasn't where I expected it on xfire 5850's. 45-50fps average everything max, shadows on ultra (no performance difference with shadows low or ultra).

I look forward to the next beta tho, hopefully I'll be on my days off...

 

I have some stuff on high, maxed res and typically get 20+ fps which is playable and not that big of a deal. However, during the final dynamic event I dropped to around 10+ with lots a people running around and firing their skills.

 

I really hope playing with friends isn't as irritating as that video makes it seem. Not being put in the same overflow is dumb.

 

I play with an intel core 2 T5800 and 9600M GS... and it actually ran alright for the most part. I mean, WvW was basically unplayable if it was a siege like scenario and the same was true for DE with loads of players but running around single-player and doing the personal story, everything ran decently smooth. The cities were pretty bad for dropping my FPS down though.

I think this just shows that it hasn't really been optimized for all the really nice CPUs and GPUs out there. But it's encouraging that so far, it is still relatively playable for me (and others like me with a less than awesome rig). Hopefully I'll have a new laptop before launch though!

 

So this game has problems with playing with friends? ._." Baka is trying to decide to prepurchase it or not.

 

When the server load is high you get the option to go into overflow or queue. If you choose the latter you're fine, but that does of course involve a bit of waiting time. I doubt we'll see this often, if at all, when the game has actually been released.

 

Being put in different overflows has a bug they're working on fixing so it shouldn't be there at release. There was a workaround posted that group leader had to go in instance first and others right after so bug is probably due to leader not begin first one into a zone and/or the 'reserved' spots for rest of group not persisting long enough.

 

I'll be using some necromancy on this thread to announce a stress test this monday for GW2.

Mike O’Brien on the Guild Wars 2 Beta – ArenaNet Blog

 

Yeaaa I got the 14th off. Awesome

 

I'm only posting in this thread because someone in the Diablo III thread said this is the better choice between the two.

I've never played Guild Wars so what is this game like? Is it a WoW, Everquest clone? I have no idea what this game is about. I went to Amazon's website and it mentioned it's an MMO and it's free to play online.

 

Well, every MMO has similarities with the others, but GW2 is trying to break the old and succeeding in some areas for certain. The game is definitely not another WoW or Everquest clone.

If they release a trial when the game is out or do a completely open beta, i'd say give it a try. There is some footage on youtube of the press beta among other things where they tried different parts of the game.

This monday is going to be a stress test, so i expect performance will totally suck.

 

Time to resurrect this thread due to a rumored release date.

 

Oh I should plug the Stress Test footage as well.




<embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_KuUNmSRMNA?version=3&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="315" width='560'>

 

This is the best online game I have played... Perhaps ever.


I am outragously impressed. Believe the hype. This is the first MMO since SWG were people are actually playing together in a *meaningful* way.

The more player joins the fun, the more enemies come - result is bigger battles. everyone are in one big party. everyone can attack the same mobs, events continue in another direction even if you fail the event, still awarding your efforts.

game is a real challenge too. Amazing art, and music by Jeremy Soule. I can't tell how impressed I am with this game. It still has rough edges, but what a game.


It's been a lot of disappointments in MMO land. From Warhammer to Conan to Aion to Final Fantasy XIV to APB to.. Yeah you get the point.

 

Yeah Warhammer had big promise for me with the open world event system like GW2 uses. It just didnt work though. I hope it works better in GW2.

While the events scale, its still not possible to solo or small group all of them. I wish they did scale that low, but can't have everything I guess.

 

Anyone know does guildwar 2 separate their server to N/A , Asia , Eu etc? or there will be a worldwide server? I wish I could play with my asian friends @ asia server.

 

Seems they make you choose a Home Server for the PvP stuff, and there are different ones in each region.
With the Guesting feature you will be able to play with friends off different servers in PvE as far as i know.

 

Cool , so far I know there will be only US/EU servers.

This option is really cool , thanks

 

I may be wrong, but the way i understood it is that you could do PvP outside of your home server. However you wouldn't receive the PvP bonuses from the server that isn't your home server and you wouldn't have an influence on the server where you are either. In short, you could go join a team on another server that needs someone in a pinch, but aside from helping them winning, you won't contribute more than that and no WvW.

 

Will this game run decent on a GeForce 670M?

 

Hey help me choose between two computers (gonna play GW2 mainly)

Lenovo T520:
i7-2720qm (quad core, turbo boost up to 3.3ghz)
8gb RAM
NVS 4200m 1gb
1600x900 screen

Pros:
Stronger CPU
Possibility of eGPU
===============================

XPS L501x
i7-620m (dual core, turbo boost up to 3.2ghz)
4gb RAM
nvidia GT 420m 1gb
1080p screen

Pros:
stronger GPU
better features (1080p screen, speakers)

 

What's your budget? We might be able to find something better for you.

 

You should ask that in the what notebook should i buy section. Fill out the form in the sticky, you'll get more suggestions that way.

 

Already own both of them. Going to give up one to my dad.

 

Neither of those will run GW2 very well during larger battle scenarios unfortunately. I am currently using the same L501x in your example and it has struggled to stay on its feet when I was playing the GW2 beta, I had to reduce the resolution and a majority of the graphics options to low/off (kept textures on medium).

My advice is to look into a sager or alienware, something that is built more efficiently for gaming, it's taken me 2 notebooks to realize no matter how much to try/spend you just aren't going to find a mainstream entertainment based laptop that can handle gaming at a respectable level.

 

The next Beta weekend event has been announced. It will run from Friday, June 8th at noon PDT to Sunday, June 10th 11:59pm PDT. Also, the characters from the past beta have not been deleted.

 

The game isn't optimized for anything in the past beta. I am sure that ArenaNet is not aiming at people that has the money to get a Sager or AlienWare (and they said explicitly that they are going to support systems with lower-end specifications within the Shader Pixel 3.0 era). They are ensuring more mainstream systems can run the game in medium resolution just fine.

I prefer the T520 over the L501X on Medium @ 900p for the final release. Please DO NOT use the Beta as the benchmark for the game specifications. It is well noted for the 1st BWE that the game had no optimization from GPU drivers NOR multithreading support, hence all the performance issues many people were having, even people with Sagers and AlienWares.

 

I'm so excited for this next Beta weekend. Last time I was too busy with finals and work that I didn't even bother to download the client. But now, bring it! Gonna start the download tonight

 

Aside from just the gameplay though, I think the development team is great! They're actually listening to community feedback and fixing things quickly xD.
Here's what they changed for June 8th beta weekend if you guys want to read about it: The Big Beta Weekend Preview – ArenaNet Blog

This beta weekend's gonna be right after my exam so yeah, good timing Arena net .

 

Hopefully they optimised the game better for this weekend, I want to see my GPU in action xD

Apparently they doubled their servers. Overkill?

 

Not at all.

If it's anything like D3 (which I will probably play GW2 in lieu of D3 for the weekend) doubling their servers is a very, very smart move.

 

thank god! GW2 come save me from this horrible game that is Diablo 3 and battle.net.

i miss PvP.

 

What you guys think , DIGITAL EDITION or DIGITAL DELUXE EDITION?

Let's not compare about the price , I just wondering is that wolf pet worth it?

 

depends what the wolf is capable of doing and if there are any other bonuses included in the deluxe edition. i'm too lazy to check.

 

Short answer, if you're not into cosmetic stuff, don't bother, anet won't introduce items that give an advantage in the extra goodies.

There's been a good update to the client lately so we're in for new areas, improvements or both. I was surprised at how smooth the first beta ran overall and if the second one is better...

 

There's now a WHOLE BUNCH more world servers to choose from. A lot of them have some great names too:

The Worlds of the Guild Wars 2 Beta – ArenaNet Blog

I'm personally rooting that we go with Port Sledge, Silfhalla, Bearce Falls, or Cavalon. Simple names like Frost Gates, The Wilds, Divinity Coast, and Gate of Madness will be prone to overpopulation simply due to their names.

 

I don't and am not recommending any changes for NA servers as the home server issue grew way out of proportion for the 1st BWE. UNLESS members are getting severe technical issues in the servers we established in the 1st BWE, we are not subjecting to any changes for now. However guild-wise, we won't mind implementing a new EU home server for EU players (or maybe two).