Nuggetty Goodness

Four Days. That’s it. I honestly thought that once my account was linked I would get quite some time to lock down my Guild Wars character names. Let’s see, I have 10 character slots in Guild Wars with the majority of characters being over five years. Guild Wars 2 comes with 5 character slots… perhaps? I have four days to decide how many character slots to fill with old names or risk losing them. Or, in profitable terms, I have four days to decide how many character slots to buy.

:(

Wait, I have to sign a contract to play the game that I just paid for? Do I need to get a lawyer? Can I do something in the game that could get me into legal trouble? I mean, I don't plan on playing public games or anything -- just me in my computer room, killing evil and screaming curse words until I lose my voice.

But I convinced myself it was nothing to get worked up about. It's just there to save their asses in case some random jackoff finds a way to make money off of them via lawsuit. Fine. I got through them all and was immediately taken to a screen that pulled the alarms from the back of my mind directly to the front, and cranked up the volume to "nuclear attack" levels.

No. No, no, no, no, no ... No.

For the six of you who just discovered the Internet today, that's a login screen. It's commonly associated with multiplayer online games like World of Warcraft and ... whatever other multiplayer games exist. Except there's a problem: Diablo III isn't a traditional MMO. You don't sign in to the game and immediately find yourself surrounded by a hundred other players shouting racial and homophobic slurs. You are in your own world. By yourself. Single player.

It is a single-player game with multiplayer options, just like all the other Diablo games. If you choose to play with your friends, you can. If you choose to join public games, you can. Otherwise, you're on your own -- and contrary to what MMO fanatics believe, this is the way millions of gamers prefer it.

So the gamerfolk in my office have been squealing Diablo III! Diablo III! That is, when they're not wandering around like zmobies from not sleeping. As one of these gamerfolk, they give me a shocked stare when I explain that while I'm sure that Diablo III is a polished nugget of Blizzardliness, I have no intention of purchasing it because I don't like where Blizzard has gone since Activi$ion showed up and ate them.

They think I'm silly. And maybe I am, but hey, at least I'm not silly enough to buy a polished game from a company I have ceased to believe in. Except, of course, GW2.

PWE is different, I have never believed in them. I have, however, admired their ruthless sexy evil. ;) That's another thing altogether.

I don't play Guild Wars for any sort of social interaction. If any social interaction happens, it's completely incidental. I play Guild Wars because single-player RPGs are very hard to find on the PC nowadays, and the funny part is that even taken as a purely single-player RPG, Guild Wars (starting with Nightfall) is still better than 99% of single-player RPGs made in the past ten years. I'm still debating if that's because Guild Wars is so good, or because other RPGs made suck just that much.

That said, the Companion system (as it was proposed) was going to have little impact on grouping. They don't take party slots, so they don't discourage it. The removal does, however, negatively impact soloing in its complexity. For all the focus on how easy soloing will be in GW2, someone seems to have forgotten how *fun* it should be. I've played the "one character spams attack skills on one monster until someone falls down" game in MMOs before many times. If you've leveled up in one MMO, you've done it on all of them, and there's only so much you can do to that formula to make it interesting for any extended period of time. AI Companions would have been a big change in keeping things interesting and adding that extra level of tactical choice in combats.

It sounds like they're removing everything that made the Guild Wars series special and replacing it with flashy things that won't matter in the long run. Seriously, no one is going to care about environmental weapons two weeks in the game. Either that, or they'll over-use it like Blizz did with vehicles and annoy everyone with it.

Neatly sums up my impressions so far.

Oh yes it's very beautiful. Is that enough?

Sacred 2 was very beautiful. -_- And it was also a crappy game that utterly failed to live up to its predecessor. Oh wells. Cross the juicy chicken fingers I guess.

For those of us inclined to do so, the healer is a great role. Yes, it has problems in PUGs when three different people pull then blame the healer, but it is rewarding to see your friends made into boundless engines of destruction and victory.

Great summary of why healerfolk heal. And no, it's not just because 'it's easier for you to get groups, NUB!'

Considering that I did 80% of my Guild Wars Legendary Vanquisher, Guardian and Protector titles with my lovedolls, and *not* with humans, ease of getting a group has nothing to do with it.

^_^

...which is why while, as those who don't like playing a pure support class rejoice at the lack of such in GW2, my little nugget healerheart quietly crumbles a little bit more.

Yes, I can play other archetypes. Yes, I do enjoy them. But I'm not in love with them. :(