official Guild Wars 2

[Teebor]

iirc someone mentioned that the games engine is not optimised yet, so when it does the game will run lovely :)

[Lingwo]

Thanks for the info guys.

I've decided to go for it. Roll on the next beta weekend.

If i don't get on with it for some reason, then i've really only lost the price of a single game.

[Tharp Daddy]

Thanks for the info guys.

I've decided to go for it. Roll on the next beta weekend.

If i don't get on with it for some reason, then i've really only lost the price of a single game.

And the best part is, if you end up not liking it you can just wait until patches come out. There's no price for reentry, due to no subscription fee.

[firey]

And the best part is, if you end up not liking it you can just wait until patches come out. There's no price for reentry, due to no subscription fee.

Exactly, you can quit for 2 years, patch up and be playing. No need to resub, or manage accounts. All you need to do is remember your login and password.

The 3 day head start from the pre-purchase will really help I think. Especially as within 2 days you can be comfortably out of the starting areas. Ensuring that even if you don't play solid, you will still be a head of the post-launch purchase crowd.

[Wakers]

Yea, they've staggered that quite nicely.

3 day headstart with prepurchase

1 day headstart with pre order

Release day - but on release day, everyone is gonna be getting their copies at different times so it shouldn't have a massive effect on the login servers.

The only major crunch point I can see is the beginning of the 3 day headstart.

[Emn1ty]

5) Horrible, horrible performance on the beta. I feel i have a decent computer, but i was only pulling like 20 FPS in most areas on the beta. It's a known issue by them, but i feel it needs to take priority.

This is why I didn't keep playing. Even during closed beta many other MMO's I've played ran silk smooth even at max settings. GW2 is the first one I've played that ran at sub 30fps consistently, even when I lowered my graphics setting down a bit. I can run Tera at 60fps on full graphics but I can barely run GW2 at 20+? Hopefully the next beta event sees this fixed.

[Nagisan]

This is why I didn't keep playing. Even during closed beta many other MMO's I've played ran silk smooth even at max settings. GW2 is the first one I've played that ran at sub 30fps consistently, even when I lowered my graphics setting down a bit. I can run Tera at 60fps on full graphics but I can barely run GW2 at 20+? Hopefully the next beta event sees this fixed.

Lucky you, SW:TOR ran at 20 FPS and lower for me on it's lowest (and highest) settings during one of the closed BWE, yet I can play many other modern games at 60+ on max or close to it graphics (@1920x1200 resolution). Unfortunately I cannot pre-purchase GW2 right now (due to funds, plus I want to essentially try before I buy) so I cannot compare it's performance to other beta's I've been in, but generally speaking I haven't seen many closed beta's that get above 40 FPS or so even on their lowest settings. I don't go into any beta expecting good performance, it's something you can't expect from any beta.

[Wakers]

This is why I didn't keep playing. Even during closed beta many other MMO's I've played ran silk smooth even at max settings. GW2 is the first one I've played that ran at sub 30fps consistently, even when I lowered my graphics setting down a bit. I can run Tera at 60fps on full graphics but I can barely run GW2 at 20+? Hopefully the next beta event sees this fixed.

Yea, it's a beta. You should expect stuff like this. Especially when it says on the forums that the game hasn't been optimised hardly at all yet and is CPU bound on most systems. If you'd have gone to the forums you'd have found a post explaining how to improve stuff.

They also patched it after the first day that dramatically improved it for a lot of people.

This was an actual beta test, and not the faux "beta tests" that most other MMOs do. It's not to see if you like the game, because the people invited are those that are already going to play it come what may - it was to help them out.

[KillTheIrishman]

Has to be better than WoW. ;)

[Emn1ty]

Yea, it's a beta. You should expect stuff like this. Especially when it says on the forums that the game hasn't been optimised hardly at all yet and is CPU bound on most systems. If you'd have gone to the forums you'd have found a post explaining how to improve stuff.

They also patched it after the first day that dramatically improved it for a lot of people.

This was an actual beta test, and not the faux "beta tests" that most other MMOs do. It's not to see if you like the game, because the people invited are those that are already going to play it come what may - it was to help them out.

Yes, I was comparing it to actual beta tests such as STO, Rift and ST:TOR.

[firey]

Hmm.. I ran on medium settings, no shadows, and it ran pretty smooth. I have an old video card so I was surprised it ran as well as it did. My card is circa 2008 (8800GT AKIMBO Superclocked).

[Kondrath]

^ Yes, the hearts are kill / fetch quests - but you don't need to run miles away to collect the reward, nor do you need to talk to someone to initiate it. It's more like 1 quest that you can achieve in multiple ways, rather than being 3 seperate quests that you have to do one after the other from the same NPC;

Step 1) Gather something from the floor

Step 2) Kill loads of these things to get 5 legs (why doesn't every boar have a leg?)

Step 3) Kill 10 of these things with the potion we made out of the 5 boar legs.

Yes! I hate that! In every MMORPG, there's always some "Collect so and so's body part or essence" etc... "Collect five bird feathers"... What, does that bird just not have feathers? It obviously does. Or a creature's heart or vital organ. I feel like those kinds of drops need to be 100%.

[Blackhearted]

1) It feels very unpolished. Various audio/visual glitches, as well as the lag spikes, some sluggish feeling when using abilities, etc. This needs some work before release.

5) Horrible, horrible performance on the beta. I feel i have a decent computer, but i was only pulling like 20 FPS in most areas on the beta. It's a known issue by them, but i feel it needs to take priority.

I didn't see any graphical glitches on my end, and i can't recall any audio ones. And server side lag issues were kind of to be expected to be honest. Their previous closed betas had nowhere even remotely near the number of people in this bwe. You'd have to be unrealistically optimistic to think lag wouldn't have happened sometime on friday evening.

As for performance, It was pretty good for my on high with the system in my sig. The only noticeable performance drops were:

A: Massive keep attacks in WvW(which you'd expect regardless of optimization)

B: The shadow behemoth fight.

and the odd one, C: the splash effect on the screen coming out of water. For whatever reason that hits the framerate rather roughly.

[trag3dy]

Don't forget they also have all their survey and bug reporting software running, too. Who knows what kind of performance impact that has, if any. I think the survey thing has to have some impact because it's constantly monitoring what you are doing.

[firey]

Don't forget they also have all their survey and bug reporting software running, too. Who knows what kind of performance impact that has, if any. I think the survey thing has to have some impact because it's constantly monitoring what you are doing.

Survery stuff would work exactly like achievements. Wouldn't be any more impact than them, actually it would probably be less.

[jkenn99]

I really can't relate to these performance issues so many people have mentioned. I have a 4yo computer (Core 2 QX6850) and last-gen video card (ATI HD6850). I ran the game on max settings with no framerate issues, except for a moment of stuttering from the drip effect when exiting the water.

This game has excellent value. I've already received almost 20 hours of entertainment from it, and only played one race to level 20. I don't know what the cap is, but I think I still had a long way to go. Really, the beta weekends alone will probably give me my money's worth out of the game, and I'll likely only have seen about half of the world by the time launch comes. Then there is still pvp/wvw on top of everything else, which I haven't even glanced at so far. Besides the Elder Scrolls series, you don't see games offering this much content for 60 bucks. Pretty much any other game with >40hrs of play requires a subscription, and most still make you buy the box first anyway.

[trag3dy]

Survery stuff would work exactly like achievements. Wouldn't be any more impact than them, actually it would probably be less.

Maybe, it is extra software so who knows what impact it has?

I really can't relate to these performance issues so many people have mentioned. I have a 4yo computer (Core 2 QX6850) and last-gen video card (ATI HD6850). I ran the game on max settings with no framerate issues, except for a moment of stuttering from the drip effect when exiting the water.

This game has excellent value. I've already received almost 20 hours of entertainment from it, and only played one race to level 20. I don't know what the cap is, but I think I still had a long way to go. Really, the beta weekends alone will probably give me my money's worth out of the game, and I'll likely only have seen about half of the world by the time launch comes. Then there is still pvp/wvw on top of everything else, which I haven't even glanced at so far. Besides the Elder Scrolls series, you don't see games offering this much content for 60 bucks. Pretty much any other game with >40hrs of play requires a subscription, and most still make you buy the box first anyway.

Yes, I agree the replay value for this game is off the charts, not to mention world pvp. You can make 5 different charr warriors and get 5 different stories from it. They may not differ that much but they will differ.

Also max level is 80.

[Wakers]

They would also have a ton of debug code running in the background, which won't help matters regarding performance.

I'm 100% confident that the game won't have performance issues on launch. Look at what they did with GW1.

[Pupik]

Can anyone tell me if I'll be able to play in the EU servers, if I purchase the US version of the game?

Asking because there's not bad of a deals on greenmangaming and gamefly.

http://www.cheapassgamer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=319394

[Shaun N.]

Yes, You can switch between them afaik

[Lingwo]

I don't know if this helps

[Daedroth]

I'm in a bit of a dilemma.

I'm trying to keep up to date with people's opinions of the game, and keep check on it's progress through beta, while not spoiling what the game will have in store. I want it to be kept a surprise. But I can't keep myself from reading this thread, and reading other forums.

I just want it be released to I can play it, and it in awe!

[Pupik]

I don't know if this helps

https://www.facebook...425415807474699

Found a bit more info: http://www.arena.net...in-guild-wars-2

Seems like it's going to be safe to purchase a US version, even if you're from the EU (and vice versa).

[Wakers]

Found a bit more info: http://www.arena.net...in-guild-wars-2

Seems like it's going to be safe to purchase a US version, even if you're from the EU (and vice versa).

Ehm, there is a region lock in place.

If you try and login from the US with an EU key, it won't let you. You have to go through support and explain your situation. I'm not guaranteeing that they'll let you play, as they are really only doing that for people that have moved and/or travel.

[Pupik]

Ehm, there is a region lock in place.

If you try and login from the US with an EU key, it won't let you. You have to go through support and explain your situation. I'm not guaranteeing that they'll let you play, as they are really only doing that for people that have moved and/or travel.

Nothing about any lock in the article blog post I linked (that was written by arenanet). Seems safe from the quoted paragraph:

When you log in to the game for the first time, you will have the opportunity to pick any available server, or home world. If you choose to select a home world that is in a different region from where you purchased your game, you will be logged out for a short period of time while your account is moved to your new region. Once you have selected a home world, all the characters you create will play on this world and will represent it in our world-versus-world (WvW) format.