Guild Wars 2: Were-Vikings, Technomidgets, and Plant-Based Pedobait

[Akanbe-]

That video was awesome! The no auto attack thing sounds like how Tera is going to be along with having to dodge things real time. Not sure about the other stuff. I was going to try and do Tera and SWTOR but I might drop Tera and this instead...

Yeah, I'll be between Guild Wars 2 and Tera personally.  Tera is Korean though so it might have the same pitfalls as other Korean MMOs, but otherwise it looks pretty damn good (also will probably come out sooner than GW2).  Haven't looked into SWTOR because I've never seen a Star Wars movie in my life, but hopefully the game is good for the people interested in it.

Only thing I see is, you want a good connection. If dodging is real time. Lagging just a bit could be pretty frustrating.

Well, that kinda goes for any MMO I'm sure.  WoW was certainly very frustrating when everything was laggy.  Depending on how many buy it from here, I'll probably try to find out the nearest server to me (hopefully NYC will have one) and go from there.

[Akanbe-]

3 part lead designer interview.  Lots of questions and answers ahoy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?src_vid=hPQH-HasLgQ&annotation_id=annotation_287971&v=_uvbNKll-Vc&feature=iv

You can click on different segments in the video and it will jump to the segment you clicked on.

[D-Rider]

Here's an interesting video of the engineer class in a PvP setting.  Reminds me a lot of what I thought WAR's engineer was gonna be like, but wasn't. :P

I love ranged damage classes, and I love support classes.  I might have already found my favorite class half a year before the game launches. :P

[Raze]

Key to engineer being fun I think would be making sure it's deployable stuff, your mines, turrets, medkits etc are a big deal. If your turret is just a small dot and people don't notice when they step on mines it turns what could be something interesting into a wow fire totem and explosive trap.

[D-Rider]

Those turrets probably aren't gonna set the world on fire by themselves, but I'm willing to bet that the weapon that gives you the ability to put down the turret in the first place will have skills that complement it.  I've seen other engineer videos that feature a bunch of single target snares, AoE snares, and AoE slows.  A small but steady stream of damage while keeping the target pinned down and harassed will undoubtedly be what the turret is for, not as the cornerstone of your DPS.

[Akanbe-]

I'm sort of curious what kind of rewards are being doled out for PvP if any.  If everyone has equal level armor going into organized PvP, what are the rewards?  Besides XP while leveling, is it just for the fun of playing PvP?  I guess that would at least keep the afkers out and keep the mood lighter.

And here's to hoping that the graphics are really scalable.

[D-Rider]

The official wiki has a little blurb of info about that, but that's about all I can find.  Wouldn't surprise me if PvP rewards were cosmetics.

[Raze]

 I can see a argument that pve needs to keep the rewards coming. Pvp on the other hand should be it's own reward. Gear being a factor is actually a detriment. For one thing people should be on a even playing field. Two you turn something you should be doing for fun into a grind...and it stops being fun.

 Gear grinds for pvp made me stop pvping in wow. I couldn't just hop in and kill some orcs to wind down. It was a big investment to get into it and every few months there'd be a new season and you'd have to do it all over again. The pve gear model doesn't work for it because you aren't accomplishing anything and being rewarded, you're fighting just to reach the status quo.

[D-Rider]

Some enterprising soul has managed to put together a skill tree tool based on all the information that's currently available.  You obviously shouldn't treat this as gospel or anything, but it's fun to play with.

[Akanbe-]

I can see a argument that pve needs to keep the rewards coming. Pvp on the other hand should be it's own reward. Gear being a factor is actually a detriment. For one thing people should be on a even playing field. Two you turn something you should be doing for fun into a grind...and it stops being fun.

I agree with you, but I'm really hoping they have something interesting planned for max level characters.  Since PVP gear currently is moot because everyone's gear is on a level playing field, I'm curious what goals and rewards there will be to shoot for in both PvP and PvE.  Basically, I'm waiting (and hoping) to see what the carrot on the stick is. What, other than random fun PvP, is going to be there to make you want to log in every day to play.  It's still pretty early, but damn I'm all-aboard the hype train now and I really want to see what they put out.

[axhed]

there'll be separate servers, but you'll be able to switch among them at will. 

i read the two novels that span the gap between gw and gw2 and i was pleasantly surprised at how entertaining they were.

[D-Rider]

Some shit about engineers, rangers, and combo abilities.

[Akanbe-]

Some shit about engineers, rangers, and combo abilities.

Wait, they still have to announce another class?  That's awesome.  Engineer tidbits are interesting, but it's a class I'll probably never play.

Interesting stuff with the combo system.  It sounds like one of those things that will be really integral to group PvP if you want to win.  I just hope it doesn't pigeonhole what classes certain classes have to play with to be good or competitive.  Definitely a possibility, but hopefully Arena-net is aware of this and avoids it as much as possible.

[D-Rider]

Yeah, one more class left to reveal.  I will be amazed if it's not mesmer.

[Akanbe-]

It would fit within the mold they put out.  They fit under the buffer/debuffer & controller group quite nicely.