Ok so... I realized literally yesterday that this game is live!!

I mean wow, I got all hyped a few months back reading about it and I thought: I'm gonna love this so lets let it finish developing and dive in, however it has now caught me by surprise and at a really bad time, our house mate moved out spontaneously and (being in Australia) my nearest game retailer asks $88 and so I have been researching reasons to go "screw this" and dip into what is left of my savings because this release is incredibly nostalgic for me, as Guild Wars was my very first ever mmo :P I remember getting into Guild Wars 1 at a friends place something like... 7 years ago not knowing what an mmo was or that that was one....

So anyway I did some research and got frustrated so I figured I would make a post on my beloved most favorite of forums :) [Thanks guys!]

Pricing: What sort of mmo is this? Silly question I know, but they all seem to be coming out free to play all of the sudden and then making you spend money in game, based on that $88 huge price tag I am pondering if it is perhaps like the first game? which was buy once and play forever. In today's market I know that is not really possible... but how does it operate? Is there a $15 or whatever monthly subscription or are we operating on in-game stores and does anyone know where I could buy a digital download for cheap (even the main website said "out of stock" ... on digital copies? wait, what?)

Classes: This is a pretty big one for me, the first guild wars was incredible for me due to its class system: You could mix any two classes together, you could be a Warrior/mesmer giving you enough mana for maybe one cool spell every so often but you had enough armor to last in a hairy fight, or a Mesmer/Warrior casting powerful spells but whipping out a hammer and slapping the occasional mob that runs up, or any other combination of anything. I can't play Wow anymore these days since they simplified the character builds into about 2-3 very specific ones per class and made it so you cant even do half-half trees, there are just 7 billion clones running around these days and it bores the crap out of me... what do u guys think? do you find the class system has enough room to be creative so far?

Thanks!

The class system is extremely basic- Keep in mind I'm an EVE and Star Wars Galaxies player, the former doesn't even have classes and the latter had the most flexible class system ever (No levels, it was literally little boxes you trained up and could mix and match everything in the game). No you can't even mix classes together in GW2 and there's not much room for customization other than getting to use any weapon you'd like, and each weapon can potentially change your entire gameplay style. The game itself is only a single, one-time payment, and tiny microtransactions here and there. Keep in mind though, you can buy everything from the store with in game money, and I already have enough gold at level 52 for 836 gems. That could get you just about anything in the store except an upgrade to the digital deluxe edition.

I mean given what I'm interested in, and the fact that I utterly despise the crap that is WoW and Rift, I absolutely enjoy playing this game with my friend. The combat is relatively skill based, the pacing is great, and it doesn't feel like a grind to level up your character. It feels like a coop RPG with hundreds of people fighting alongside you. And not to mention you don't even need to party up if you don't want to. There's none of that shared loot crap or shared XP crap, or any revive limitations. If you fight a monster a bunch of other people are fighting, you still get a shit load of XP and your own personal loot bag. It's just a great game. I mean really, this is coming from someone who hates just about every hardcore Guild Wars 2 fan. They're all morons, especially the ones that rag on Giant Bomb's quick look about it.

Really if you're going to buy one game this year, I think Guild Wars 2 might be it. Though I doubt I'd pay more than 60 for it. Check digital retailers because even if you buy it physical you still have to download it. Green man gaming was selling it last time I checked.

Lazy, so videos!

there is no monthy subscription. pay for the game once and all of that content is yours. the game has microtransactions, but that's all cosmetic stuff or temporary boosters (extra xp, etc). nothing gamebreaking.

i didn't play GW1, but its class system sounds a lot more complicated than the one in GW2. there's no more dual professions. you pick one, and that's your class from level 1-80 (the maximum level at launch). every class has the ability to use multiple weapons, and most are able to swap on the fly between 2 weapon sets. you're weapon sets however will only account for your first 5 hotkey skills each. skills 6-9 are utility skills which you unlock as you level up and the 0 key skill is your elite, which is the sort of 'serious business' skill with a long cooldown.

beyond that there's trait trees where you can choose if you want to create an even character, or one focsed on power and vitality, things like that. traits and utility skills are what separate you from other players of your class, and for the ones i've tried, they can change things quite a bit. you can be a ranger who focuses on pets, or a ranger who focuses on traps, or even a ranger who focuses on melee among other things.

i probably should have mentioned this earlier, but each class has their own schtick that separates it from others. rangers have pets, elementalists can switch between 4 attunements completely changing their weapon skills, engineers have kits and turrets, warriors have adrenaline attacks, necormancers have a powerful lich form, etc.

all together you've got what you need to let your creative juices flow, and aren't restricted down a specific specialization path at the first choice you make.

Well thanks, that tidies things up a lot. Can't watch videos now but will shortly when I'm home xD

@TheHT: That sounds a lot more promising, I have a feeling that most developers are stepping away from systems that give us a lot of complex builds as well as builds that can fail because it simply does not pay off for them, they just get shouted at to fix a lot of the imbalance it causes and other players just aren't that interested in that sadly they just want to play and enjoy the content instead. It is a bit sad coz I draw most of my enjoyment from building a character my unique way. However as

@Rohok: kindly pointed out and from what I hear all around they really put a lot of unique systems in play for other stuff, especially what u said about not screwing around with loot sharing and being able to help out in a fight and still get rewards is always a better idea, some games still struggle with this.

Alright thanks for the info ill try find an affordable retailer tonight xD

Heh, well... Watched the Angry Joe review and if that doen't sell this game to every gamer alive then I don't know what could.

Well now I regret getting excited as there appears to be NO WAY for me to purchase this right now O_O even the retailer is sold out of $90 copies. Holy. Crap.

One last very vital question as this ultimately ends up screwing me over for PVP with all games: (DAMN AUSTRALIAN INTERNET TO THE FURTHEREST PIT OF HELL) Are there location specific servers?? So are there actual servers located in Europe, Asia, Australia/Oceania etc other than America? World of Warcraft (despite making more money than some entire countries) still has not made the effort to actually open servers for ppl to connect to outside of America, this is a HUGE thing coz even tho my server clearly states: "Oceanic" the physical server is still in the US giving me a ping of 300 on a good day. At this present time are Guild wars servers all located in the US? xD

There are European servers for the game, but as someone in the , I’ve had no problem playing on the ones and a lot of other members in the guild are doing the same thing. I’m not sure how well Australians are fairing, but I’ve not heard any complaints.

It’s a bit of shame they simplified the skill/class system, but I personally don’t have a problem with it. Guild Wars 1 became too much about specific builds, so while it was fun to experiment and create your own, finding a party was impossible, unless you had a very specific set. It also created a huge mess while trying to balance everything, so I can see why they avoided that. You can still get a decent amount of customisation out of your utility skills and traits too.

@Bassario : They have started selling the game again according to the most recent announcement.