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[GW2]The old thread is dead. Long live the new thread.
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Underwater combat.
Anyway, the fanday is actually ongoing. It looks like they are currently finishing the tour so I imagine there will be gameplay impressions later from the journalists, or something like that.
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
The main thing is no movement penalty, so your not link with Iron Boots, just swimming around full run speed.
Also damnit ArenaNet, you are really gonna have underwater versions of every skill? That is insane and I love it.
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
Now I have something concrete to put in the OP dungeon section.
Yeah, it looks like with underwater weapons and underwater skills, it's practically a different game.
The 3D though. That's always the big thing that never works.
They are making it look decidedly non-awful.
The only alarming thing is the bit about how you can hit enemies above your target which seem to suggest that combat is really just 2D superimposed on a 3D environment (that is, AOE attacks affect the entire Z-axis).
Edit: Gamespot article
There's a video with the article. This is an actual gameplay demo as opposed to the merely "in-game" video I posted earlier. Shows underwater combat in practice (and in HD). Looks very slick. Definitely watch this one guys.
Edit2: Youtube version of the video for your convenience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfph49mdiPY
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
I WANT THIS GAME.
Happy update: Have since gotten a quad-core Phenom II, a 5670, and 6 gigs of ram, all on the cheap!
Now I spend all day refreshing this thread until GW2 is out.
SO LONELY.
I watched that combat video twice. So good. Will look so much better when the real thing is running on my PC too. Yessss.
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Los-MliDhY
As it is a video, I typed up the answers as I watched it. More convenient for those of you who just want the info.
Variable intelligence and cooperation (to adjust challenge). Enemies will pick up weapons to use if their ally drops one.
Guild system?
There will be a guild system. More functionality/options/cool-things than any game previously. Otherwise no-comment.
Size of weapon models relative to character race?
Weapons scale to race so they are proportionate to the character.
Effectiveness of different classes with the same weapon?
Two classes use the same weapon in different ways/styles.
How many players per server?
Still finalizing. Aiming for a large population to facilitate plenty of allies during dynamic events and WvWvW.
Number of character slots?
Still finalizing.
Technical aspect of large numbers of players/skills on screen in WvW.
They are aiming to make it smooth despite the large amount of stuff going on.
Some enemy/boss skills should be more obvious. (The players had trouble with a dungeon encounter in the demo, apparently, due to the flashy effects of the party's own skills blocking the view)
Something they are developing. They aim for all that sort of information to be available so that you can tell visually what is going on in combat.
Realism of NPC behaviors (in town, etc)?
NPCs wander around and have animations/interactions so that they are believable.
Gathering?
Designed such that you can gather a lot of materials as you play through events and such, but also that people who just want to gather should be able to wander around and do that without getting into combat all the time.
(General comments about how they enjoy showing off the game during the fanday for the fans to see)
(Talking about how they pickup feedback from the GW2 forums. Example; they are refining the cutscene animations after negative feedback about them)
Favorite part of GW2 design/environment for the devs?
The dynamic nature of ad-hoc groups that are formed as you run into other players during events. Sense of just being able to find people in the server community to play with without having to "set up a group". Run into someone in an event and then tag along with them to the next adventure, dungeon, etc.
The little details. Examples; rabbits who dash away as you run by, sheep grazing in a field, and other details that make the game world interesting/alive.
Dye system and the detail of character creation options.
That different professions are able to use the same weapon in different ways.
(Colin hints at BIG surprises coming for Gamescom, and lots of information around the time of the summer/fall conventions ANet is attending)
GW2 Media Day Wrap-up from Massive Online Gamer
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
As it should be.
I would pay double price if I could have the game NOW.
Also the enemies' lack of cornering animations looks extremely silly with particularly large enemies (re:giant fish).
Who can tell him what will happen under the sun after he is gone?"
It sounds like they're working on it. I'd imagine they've only got the base systems down; they'll probably have to tune a lot more for each individual dungeon.
Sounds like they're tweaking appearances in various places, too. I like that they're going back and looking at dialog animations; they were a little awkward.
Regardless, I think this might be my forethought for any future news about Guild Wars 2 from ArenaNet:
Who can tell him what will happen under the sun after he is gone?"
Have a beer.
Also super glad you can do both story version and 'Lets just do it' version of the dungeons. WoW's instance areas are always cool but it can be a pain waiting for some boss to finish a speech you've heard 20 times before.
I guess I was also kinda disappointed by the underwater "city" shown. When I heard "underwater city", I was imagining a big steampunk dome or something at the bottom of a massive crevice. Dudes hanging out in a tunnel with egg-buildings who tell you about things happening on the surface is less interesting.
Who cares about the surface?! We've got underwater cities, man. Let's go attack a shrine in the evil fishpeople metropolis or something.
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They already said there are entire underwater cities and areas. Like, so deep IN THE OCEAN (not a lake) that you dive down for about 45seconds to 1 minute.
Plus that was like a river next to Lion's Arch. Why would there be a huge underwater city there?
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
Is it me, or did those harpoon guns have a kickback?
Kick ass.
Steam (Ansatz) || Planetside 2 - Vanu (Ansatz) || GW2 Officer (Ansatz.6498)
The way the down state works underwater is also really cool. By being able to revive yourself by surfacing it makes underwater combat less frustrating but of course you might not always have the option to resurface if you're in an underwater cave or you won't have time if you're too deep so that adds another thing to be thinking about tactically. And lastly, it just looks damn cool. The atmosphere of the underwater content and the effects of the skills shown off looked great. It really made it feel like you were fighting on another world.
Usually underwater just means having a blue filter applied over your screen and the developers calling it quits. So along with the attention to detail in that regard and the tactical differences between fighting on land and underwater and also the way the down state works I find it hard to conclude this is just like regular MMO combat. It's fresh and new and I intend on being underwater quite a lot! I hope that there are tropical areas with transparent pool-like water and sandy ocean floors.