Guild Wars 2: Into the Ascalonian Catacombs

[News Portal]

games.on.net was lucky enough to get into this weekend's beta test of [app=6096]Guild Wars 2[/app], and we spent a lot of our time exploring the game's first press-playable dungeon: the Ascalonian Catacombs. Read on for details of our dungeon crawl.

Read full article by Tim Colwill

[Sphinx2000]

With its unique mix of exposition, puzzles, trap mechanics and interesting, varied boss-fights, the Catacombs was a breath of fresh air in a stale, musty tomb of a genre.

Sweet!

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[Plonker]

Sounds great. Been watching some videos and it looks like they've gone to great lengths to "evolve" many aspects of previous MMORPGs. It all looks very exciting, but trying to keep a lid on it as I'm majorly concerned about the gameplay experience with 300+ ms pings from Oz. More so than usual due to the dynamic combat and dodging etc that requires sharp reactions.

Cheers.

[Wolfie_]

Yeah, that would be my no.1 concern over GW2, how's all that dynamic game-play gonna function with high ping times that is an unavoidable reality for most of us oz gamers (and even if/when we get shiny new FTTP infrastructure, there's the "big puddle" between our "girt by sea" island and the "land of the free", that's always gonna be keeping our pings higher ... at least until someone invents a network protocol that utilises 'black hole technology' to transmit data packets through space/time ).

[corsa826]

Yeah, that would be my no.1 concern over GW2, how's all that dynamic game-play gonna function with high ping times that is an unavoidable reality for most of us oz gamers (and even if/when we get shiny new FTTP infrastructure, there's the "big puddle" between our "girt by sea" island and the "land of the free", that's always gonna be keeping our pings higher ... at least until someone invents a network protocol that utilises 'Quantum entanglement technology' to transmit data packets through space/time ).

Fixed, But yeah, looking forward to hearing how it goes after launch for aussie players. This could be the mmo to get me back into the genre.

[Village idiot]

Cant wait for this game. I too am a but worried about the whole ping business but im still going to buy it regardless.

My line of thought is although it might suffer for PvP, but i can still enjoy the PvE side with a bit of a high ping. Got nothing to lose with no sub fees.

[Drakand]

sounds like they have put a lot of effort into making a game that changes things up for the better!

[Lord_PorkSword]

Thanx for the write up Tim!
I need to stop reading articles on GW2 cuz with each new one I read I just wanna jump in to play more and more...so much jealousy on my end here M8!

Spoke to my local EB store here and the guy said that they've already sold out of CE editions. So I feel for those CE eager foolish folk who are patiently waiting til the 10th!
I enquired about wether we have to have fully paid the CE to get the early access codes and the EB guy said that as long as you have paid the $50 min deposit EB considers that a pre-purchase so you can get the code on/after the 10th. lolz ...not sure if Arenanet would agree with that but as they say "What happens in OZ stays in OZ!"

Gotta love stores that just wanna bend tha rules and secure ya cash!

[Marius]

Or you could just purchase the standard edition online from ArenaNet direct to get the pre-order code?

That's what I'm doing as I don't trust EB with those codes.

[Mythor]

Nice write up, Tim. I didn't get to venture into the Catacombs but it sounds like they're trying some interesting stuff there, too.
Is the "downed" thing in the dungeons as well? Where you get a chance to fight back while bleeding out? Only saw you mention the respawn-at-waypoint. Could make for some interesting tactics, keeping bosses away while people try to heal themselves back up... Or some even more spectacular wipes.

Or you could just purchase the standard edition online from ArenaNet direct to get the pre-order code?

Or the Digital Deluxe, which is still cheaper than the standard one from EB and nets you the bonus in-game items you otherwise only get with the CE.
The local pricing is ridiculous, again. Unless you've no other option but a physical copy from a bricks and mortar I think you'd be crazy to buy the standard edition from a retailer.

[Tim Colwill]

Nice write up, Tim. I didn't get to venture into the Catacombs but it sounds like they're trying some interesting stuff there, too.
Is the "downed" thing in the dungeons as well? Where you get a chance to fight back while bleeding out? Only saw you mention the respawn-at-waypoint. Could make for some interesting tactics, keeping bosses away while people try to heal themselves back up... Or some even more spectacular wipes.

They do! It's exactly the same as it is on the overworld, so you get the full "downed" experience. The only difference is that the enemies you're fighting (at least in these Catacombs) are all elites, so they're actually pretty hard to kill when just throwing stones. I think I only ever managed it (luckily) once.

[Mythor]

I don't imagine you'd get up too often via kills, nope. But with it not requiring any specific class to do in-combat rez it does open up the field a bit more. Interesting!

[Tim Colwill]

Yeah! The guys I teamed up with were really good about helping each other out when downed, and it saved us more than a few times (except against the lover ghosts).

[Drakand]

cue comic about lover ghosts

[tranquil]

Sounding good, so keen for this. On that note, i just finished getting my 30 points in my Hall of Monuments, all done with GW1 now.