[gabehabe]

Surprised there's not a thread about this already! Anyone playing? Which servers are you on? I'm on Far Shiverpeaks, though I doubt many of us will be running into each other due to the NA/EU server split.

I got up at 8am to play (unheard of for me, I usually sleep until the afternoon on a weekend) and managed to get 4 hours in, but after that the servers have been ballsing up and no one has been able to get on for the last 4 hours (which, at least for me, became Starcraft time... some day I'll be good! But I digress).

What species/class are you? I'm a Norn thief, currently level 6. If anyone wants to hook up at some point, my character is Captain Hammered. He gets drunk, passes out, and has a beard.

[Atli]

Just to see if I got this right. There are no subscription fees? You buy the game, and play it forever? There are no in-game items you'll need to pay for later if you're ever going to have a hope of doing any of the end-game content?

[Utael]

That's always been guild wars style. They know how to budget.

[gabehabe]

No subscription fees, ever. There are micro-transactions for various items, but it's mostly cosmetic armour and such that has no stats.

[Atli]

Nice. I may have to check that out then.

[Mina-no-Hime]

I'm on Anvil Rock (US), with two characters right now:

Asura, Ms Cheshire, Elementalist
Norn, Mina No Hime, Mesmer

^-^

This post has been edited by Mina-no-Hime: 25 August 2012 - 05:53 PM

[xclite]

Oh, I guess this is out now? I liked a lot of things about the first. I'll do some research and see if I want to get this one.

[Mina-no-Hime]

It's early-access for people who pre-purchased. Pre-order early access starts on the 27th, and then the game is open to everybody on the 28th.

[BenignDesign]

I want this almost as bad as I want a cigarette. And I can't have it for the exact same reason. AHHHHHH!

[xclite]

I went ahead and gave it a go based on what I'd read. I've played a human guardian and a sylvari necromancer.

Thoughts:
The weapon/skill coupling works well for the guardian. I can swap between quick, defensive, powerful, etc and get the appropriate skills. I liked this system quite a bit.

I felt like it was a really shitty system for casters - why the hell would whether I'm holding an axe or a dagger change what I'm capable of doing? Why do I have to let them choose which skills I want at the same time? This is definitely a regression from Guild Wars 1 and is a giant turnoff.

The first X levels suck. I HAVE to grind to reach the appropriate level for a quest - going around helping the various areas of the map is never enough experience to move me to the next area.

The events are bullshit as well - giant mobs of people swarming around NPCs. I can barely see what's going on, let alone figure out what skills to use.

There was no tutorial on combat. I don't need the 20 minute primer on clicking on shit, but I would like to know how finishers and fields work without having to alt+tab and look online. Guild Wars 1 was a lot better about this.

I DO like the writing so far - lots of neat main story elements as you progress through the starting areas.

Grouping (at least as I've seen) is shitty. There doesn't seem to be a point early on, but if I want to group because I can't level fast enough, there's no easy way to do it. Before I left WoW, they implemented a queuing scheme for dungeons that was a vast improvement (in my opinion).

All in all I'm not overly impressed. There's a lot to like but the idea of my death-dealing necromancer having to swap to a scepter to make use of all the debuffs I've put on somebody pisses me off. I may end up playing with the guardian for a bit if I don't just shelve it.

This post has been edited by xclite: 26 August 2012 - 01:08 PM

[GWatt]

I think it's an amazing game. I've played far more since the 3 day head start than is healthy but it's been so much fun. I'm on Yak's Bend.
THe only character I've played much is my asuran warrior. The name is Fizzle Wozzle.

[modi123_1]

Did this game launch today? Was everyone in some sort of beta then?

[Kilorn]

I've been playing since Friday night through the headstart since I coughed up the 80 bucks for the pre-purchase and I'm already addicted. If anyone is playing on the 'Gate of Madness' server, feel free to look me up. Or if you're on any server in the game, you can still look me up as cross-server communication is enabled on all servers I believe. My character name is 'Kilorn Rasata'.

[GWatt]

modi123_1: People who pre-purchased the game received a 3 day head start. Starting today you can buy it in brick & mortar stores.

[Curtis Rutland]

xclite, on 26 August 2012 - 03:07 PM, said:

...
All in all I'm not overly impressed.

My thoughts exactly. I was so excited for this game after I read through some stuff about it. I think TERA has spoiled me on combat though. No MMO beats TERA's combat (though most of them beat its questing).

But it just doesn't grab me. I hear that it gets better after 20 levels. OK, that's not really a selling point. People told me that FFXIII got better after about 20 hours, but I wasn't going to sink that much time into something that's boring on the promise that I might enjoy it later.

It just feels...boring so far. And the controls are pissing me off, but that's probably just me. I need to find a good binding setup.

I'll keep trying GW2 to maybe find my swing, but it didn't draw me in the same way other MMOs had, right from the start.

I basically agree with everything you've said. I felt over my head within the first five minutes...not dangerously, but I just felt like I was mashing buttons with no real idea of what was going on. WoW eased me in...same with ToR and TERA. GW2...i can't explain it, I just felt like it threw me in the deep end.