All Posts by iaini

If anyone has one to spare I'd like a trial key, thanks in advance.

cool, no rush.. I have lots of things to try now that my system can handle it better than before.

wow thanks a lot I do appreciate it.. but if you think you may need it or anything then by all means use it for what you need.

my wife's a good bit pickier than I am about games (and I can be pretty picky) and the first thing she'll want to see is character/world visual appeal and is the gameplay fairly straightforward but fun.

I'm also in the process of getting the LotrO trial...

I was in the beta and at the time my system was barely scraping along.. I've since upgraded too, 3.0, 2gb ram, Radeon 3850 512mb.. so I'm in much better shape now than I was back then..

secondarily I've pretty much had my fill of WoW.. I've not logged in since.. March... or something like that, just cause the level cap is such a dead end if you don't Raid or PVP. I think it's time to at least explore a new world. If my wife likes it she may want to pick it up too.

gotta agree with godliest...

I love my 'sin, done more with my assassin than my other alts by far.. but the class is a bit tricky to play when you first try it... As many say, Nightfall is a great place to start.. I tend to agree with this mindset.. it has the most level progression / difficulty ratio.. but if you want an assassin you don't have much choice but to pick up Factions.. I liked Factions, but it is most certainly the shortest PVE campaign of the 3.

since you're wanting an assasin, just repeat this mantra to yourself a few dozen times: I am not a tank

I can't speak for everyone, but I enjoy skill hunting.. I'm close to having captured all the assassin elite skills. I admit though that I don't really care for PVP.. I'm more a PVE player.

nice stuff.. going to have to get a new vid card before I can pick up AoC though..

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_2

"The system of companions and allies is being reworked. Companions will have customization similar to Heroes. Players will be allowed to bring a single companion with them, who will not take up a party slot and are considered an extension of the character. When a player chooses not to bring a companion, their character will instead be buffed so that they will not be disadvantaged by not bringing a companion."

mind you that information is pretty old.. but we're deviating off topic now.

to the OP.. I'd have to recommend starting with prophecies or nightfall.. Factions isn't bad but one can get through the campaign storyline pretty quickly, and though there will still be a lot to do it's still a pretty short campaign.

I've HH run a few dungeons in GWEN and they can take a long time.. for an HH team this isn't really a problem, just park the group in a corner.. go deal with life.. come back later and pick up where you left off.. so in that regard they're not bad... *however* having finished a few of them they do need to raise the loot table in them a little.. I mean, if one is going to spend that kind of time in something the loot should reflect it.. I'm not saying hand out Ecto, (but I wouldn't exactly mind this.. ^_~) but getting say.. Armor tokens and having "X" number of armor tokens tradeable for a piece of elite armor from an armor crafter in GWEN would be cool.

I'm looking forward to GW2 but they have stated there would be no heroes (that I kinda don't like) but rather some type of single NPC you can bring with you.. or something like that, I'd have to dig up the article where I read it..  not quite sure how I feel about that, it really depends on what they do with the gameplay model..

Originally posted by ThurlowJ88

Originally posted by iaini

So I really like what I call the "grouping optional" setup of GW.  

Yes but thats exactly my point, because so many people think in the same way as you, theres no such thing as "grouping optional" because everyone plays with their heroes and when loooking for a PUG your practically forced to play with heroes and hench or go without, expecially in nightfall and EoTn.

while I certainly cannot argue the validity of that statement.. I can pretty squarely say it's the (player driven) experiences of past games that are to blame for the situation and mindset.... I typically don't even have local chat on, but from what you say the line of thinking is pretty commonplace if LFG hunting is so difficult.

A solution of sorts.. is to make some content simply incredibly tough, not so much so to rule out the HH team runner.. but it has to be tough enough to rule out the "casual" HH team runner, giving a choice: Get better at the team setup and micromanagement.. or find a player-centric group.

This would satisfy two situations.. grouping *may* see an increase.. and the sense of accomplishment for the HH team runner after beating something *THAT* tough is incredibly high.

I think this is a direction they've taken with *some* of the GW content.. I've yet to beat Cyndr with my HH team.. sure a duo with 6 heroes could likely beat him and a full player-party should have no issues... but I see HH team setup and management as something as important as the build I bring to a fight, so I'm willing to try it HH *until* my friends catch up to where I am in GW:EN.

So why don't I just PUG Cyndr:

A) analyzing a failure, planning, strategy, etc can be as much fun as the thrill of a success

B) I actually *enjoy* HH team management, and lastly

C) I don't want to.

However this all does bring up an interesting question; I'd think the number of people who feel the way you do would be high enough to at least pull together a decent size guild and / or alliance of guilds... not really sure how to go about such things, I've always considered managing massive guilds / alliances to be something like herding cats, but I suppose it's possible.

well now it really depends on what you want out of GW and what you expect..

for example, some people say Heroes broke GW.. However for me, it was Heroes that brought me back to GW. When I was in the beta for GW.. I played it and thought:

"Solid game, but the Henchmen are lacking, they don't gain levels, and they're lacking in ability in high pressure situations."

That was really my only complaint with GW but Heroes for the most part fixed that.. you'll still have a group made of 50% henchmen.. but heroes can more than carry what they may lack, AND they have improved Henchmen AI and skill selection since Beta.

There's also some people that hate instancing.. I'm the opposite.. It's nice stepping out into a zone and knowing everything there is mine.. every quest mob, every farmable boss.. will be there when I want them.

I've found grouping can be a double edged sword.. when you find a good group, it's good.. but when you find a bad one, it's pretty darn horrific...  if I learned anything from FFXI and WoW it's that 9 / 10 PUGS suck.. 1 / 10 PUGS rock.. and my tolerance for people screaming at me or anyone else in a group is EXCEEDINGLY low.  So I really like what I call the "grouping optional" setup of GW. I group with my friends.. and it's fun every time, and my PUGS in GW rock 'cause it's always an HH team.

give me a nice graphics engine, in-ship and out of ship combat and content, decent crafting, and space-combat on par with Freespace: The Great War, Xwing, or Tie Fighter.. and I'm so f'ing there it's silly.

dunno.. but I'll upgrade for it if it's even half as solo / small group friendly as the current GW... ^_^

I absolutely love this change, but then again I all about PVE.

roughly.. if you can't find a special price..

however let's put this into perspective, I also play WoW though I admit not nearly as much as GW.. (mainly cause some friends play WoW) and I've had it for about.. 3 years.. counting the expansion, so far that's been a 655.64$ investment...

Dervish are pretty common from what I've seen, as are Warriors, Elementalists & Rangers.. I see a LOT of monks too. Sin's seem to be everywhere to me.

classes I don't see in large amounts though: Mesmers & Ritualists.

Originally posted by ASmith84

wouldnt this be a good thing? then people would have more free time on there hands. people will be more social in real life. kids going outside more and getting exercise. less fat people would be roaming around. why not just stop this game?

not everyone who plays WoW is a repressed anti-social individual.. in fact most are pretty social, they just choose  guild and game instead of a coffee house or restaurant. Simply because one is more socially familiar than the other doesn't make it any more or less "good".

as has been stated, you'll have to nix a lot more than WoW to create the utopia of outdoor excitement and exercise you describe.

odds are people wouldn't have more free time either, something else entertaining will simply fill the void. Afterall you can't be around friends or outside 24 / 7.. the world just doesn't work that way. Have to do something, TV, Book, Game.. all the same song, just a different band playing the tune.

Originally posted by PolearmDK

Iv heard ALOT of good things about this game and some bad, so im thinking of buying it. But before I do i need to test it, so if anyone has a spare trial key could you pm it to me?It would be appreciated. No game stores close to me so I cant get that 2 dollar thing.

just mildly curious but what have you heard both good and bad.. though I believe you're on the right track for finding out for yourself by playing the game.

What makes a game difficult??.. Grinding isn't difficult, it's just long, boring, and tedious.. so that's really not it.

For me most of the time what makes an MMO difficult is player / player interaction. in WoW from level 1 - 70 you don't have to even speak to another person, granted you won't be doing anything once you hit 70 due to the utter lack of social infrastructure, but that's beside the point, the difficulty of getting from 1 - 70 is purely in the hands of the individual, and most people will take the easier path. There's a reason why so many elite quests were simply left unfinished so much that Blizzard made them non-elite... it was too difficult and wasn't efficient to find a group to do this stuff when it was far easier and faster to go do something else. These quests made leveling harder, so they were just dropped by the community.

Since it's possible to succeed with little difficulty solo in WoW and actually XP more efficiently alone than in groups, I tend to label WoW as easy at least until you hit the level cap or choose to run group-oriented content.

/wave and welcome

loving GW a lot, I came back to it a little after Nightfall and Heroes have won me over, I don't think I've logged into any other mmo's for the better part of a year now. Typically I'm running around on my 'sin, Doji Yumeiko but I pretty seriously play a Mesmer and Rit as well.