Guild Wars 2 finally starts to come to life

That's one thing I forgot to mention that was brought up in there - sometimes the camera went nuts when you were in small areas because of how the combat basically requires you to keep on the move else you'll die.

Gah, want to play again. Next BWE (not to mention release) cannot come soon enough.

Oh, I think they said somewhere they were going to redo some bits that involved fighting in tight spaces; it was in reference to the Human Street Rat story I think but they did acknowledge that it wasn't much fun.

Haha, yeah, I had a few points in there (as that's the story I did this time) where it was like "I have no idea where I am or where my enemy is...".

I really love how mobile the combat is, but it does get hard and just...annoying in small areas.

Actually, I have to say their feedback approach has been really good. Some people on the TOR boards have been grumbling about how when they complained about story, Bioware ignored it. Whilst here, when people opened a thread to complain, the lead writer came into the thread and said he would see what he can do, either in small tweaks before release or a different approach to future story content.

Likewise, they have been very open in acknowledging and discussing all sorts of issues, from this melee combat thing to changing annoying missions.

I'm impressed- though I suppose I should wait and see if they deliver.

As far as story goes, they're probably pretty locked-in at this point so close to release, and I do recall someone saying as much in one of the threads.

But ANet's always been good at listening to feedback and what people think.

So,

NCSoft has the most idiotic and excessive password reset system of all time.

The whole account management system from them is absolute garbage and has caused many issues for people, especially when trying to link GW1 and GW2 accounts. It's near impossible to change your GW1 registered mail and many of those GW1 emails used no longer exist, so there were problems there.

NCSoft kind of sucks in general.

http://www.facebook.com/GuildWars2/posts/10150848164094209

Hopefully I'm not working on Monday 😛

Because I am awesome, I got to interview several of the writers working on Guild Wars 2.

http://thepaletree.net/2012/05/15/writing-your-story-an-interview-with-the-writers-of-guild-wars-2/

So, how is the writing in the game, from what you've seen in the beta so far?

To be honest, I didn't play a whole lot of the personal story, as I hit a point where a quest was scaled to be far too difficult for the level you're meant to be at (and I was far past the recommended level, meaning I had more skills, better weapons and armor, etc. then someone doing it when actually at that level would). Most of what I've seen is incidental stuff, background conversations, and so on.

There's also the point that they recently polished a lot of scenes, including rerecording a lot of voiced stuff, that was confirmed to not be in yet. So it's hard to judge at this point. Some of it can be cheesy, which really, is to be expected from this sort of setting. Of what I've done and seen so far, I've enjoyed the writing for the charr the most; there's just something about it that I liked a lot. I did come across a sylvari camp yesterday during the stress test, though, and some neat little side conversations between NPCs there that I liked (though I may be biased, it being sylvari and all).

I just really can't judge on the personal story stuff having not really experienced any of it yet. The incidental dialogue I've come across has been great, though.

Next BWE, assuming that our characters will be wiped by then (they hadn't been for yesterday's stress test), I'll probably try some more of the personal story...picking options that aren't what I plan on playing come release, of course.

Originally posted by BackFire
So, how is the writing in the game, from what you've seen in the beta so far?

Adequate. It's not going to shine here but it's not a disaster. It kept me involved which is all that is needed, but I wasn't engrossed.

What they have certainly done, though, is create a fantastic setting. Via music, visuals, dynamic activity and ambient noises/conversations, the world feels alive and complete far more than any similar game I've played- a far cry from TOR's lifeless and sterile environments. Just interacting with the world was a much bigger pull for me than the storyline.

Of course we only got to see the starter parts of the storyline.

Sounds pretty good. MMO's have always fumbled when it comes to world building for some reason, if GW2 finally nails it that'd be awesome.

Also current rumor is that the game is going to be released at the end of June. Does the quality of the beta support that soon of a release date? Or does it sound bogus?

I'd be sceptical. The beta played well but as Peach mentioned, parts are still unfinished; the cutscenes have large 'Work in Progress' signs over them and have parts where the speech and text not only slightly but completely do not match with the wrong person speaking saying different things pointing you to a different place. That's not a design flaw; it is evidence that they are still doing relatively significant twiddles to the game. I am sure the cutscenes are all finished on internal builds by now, but I think they'll want to test those internal builds in a beta as well and it will likely be at least a month between that testing and release.

Also the renderer isn't finished yet- the beta is running almost entirely on the processor and not the GPU, something they heavily warned about for testers. They'll want at least one test that uses graphics cards properly.

A recent NCsoft report also heavily suggested a Q3/Q4 release frame. We'll see how the betas go.

Yeah, the new speech hasn't been fully put into the game yet - I believe that they said on the forums that the text is correct and the voices are the old versions.

And late June is just a rumor. I'd love if that were the case, but as I said before - as great as the game seems so far, it's also very definitely not finished. They're still doing a lot of work on the game.

http://www.arena.net/blog/reserving-your-character-name-for-guild-wars-2

Info on how reserving character names will work.

I already have my character's names planned and the only one I'm worried about getting taken I can't reserve anyway. But still useful to know.

http://www.arena.net/blog/announcing-the-next-guild-wars-2-beta-weekend

Sweet. June 8th-10th, and our characters are still saved from before.

Originally posted by Peach
http://www.arena.net/blog/reserving-your-character-name-for-guild-wars-2

Info on how reserving character names will work.

I already have my character's names planned and the only one I'm worried about getting taken I can't reserve anyway. But still useful to know.

"Master Chief 117" and "Sephiroth" are all mine.

The first one is probably taken, because three-word names were fine 😛 GW1 required at least two words for a name.

I've a feeling there's going to be a race for the first people to get Sephiroth and Legolas, though.