Guild Wars 2

[Bison]

Go for it.  The water's fine.

[Nefaro]

I'm sooooo getting this after a payday. 

Being broke sucks.  :-[

[Huw the Poo]

One of the best things about the game is the lack of a monthly fee, and not just for the obvious reason that you only pay once.  The fact that you're not paying every month has a real effect on the way you play.  If you're not levelling quickly, you just don't care.  You take the time to smell the roses, so to speak.  In a funny way it makes you appreciate the game and its world even more.

My main character is a ranger.  I use a longbow which, unlike the shortbow, encourages you to fight at maximum range, as the basic attack does more damage when you're further away from your target.  So I'll stand and shoot, or circle-strafe my target, and use my skills as appropriate.  When I'm focusing a single target I'll use Rapid Fire, which unleashes an almighty hail of arrows in quick succession.  It's the longbow equivalent of full-auto.  Slightly silly perhaps, but so satisfying.  My third skill inflicts vulnerability on my target, a debuff reducing its armour effectiveness.  Magnificently, vulnerability stacks up to 25 times so when a group of you are inflicting it, it's gonna hurt.  If a foe gets too close, Point Blank Shot pushes it back; the closer it is, the more it gets pushed.  Finally, when facing a group of enemies, Barrage sees my ranger shooting a hail of arrows right up into the sky, and a glorious rain falls in a generous area, crippling everything they hit.

Melee seems to do slightly more damage, so when the situation demands it, I'll switch to my longsword.  As a ranger, my longsword skills are different to those of the average warrior class.  When a ranger wields a longsword, it's all about mobility.  I have a chain of three basic attacks (brilliantly, you don't have to keep hitting 1 to activate them; you automatically cycle through all three after a single press, until your target dies or you use another skill).  I have a Serpent's Strike which is a defensive roll followed by a strike that inflicts poison.  I also have Hornet's Sting, a defensive move that strikes the enemy before leaping you backward out of harm's way.  Normally rolling (which makes you invulnerable while you're doing it) costs energy, otherwise you'd just constantly roll and never get hit.  But the roll in Hornet's Sting doesn't cost any energy.  After levelling up the skill, I can now follow it with an offensive leap back into the fray.

Paired with my longsword is usually my dagger, which gives me two added skills - one that increases defence while inflicting poison, and another that hurls the dagger at an opponent at range.  This is brilliant - I usually do a Hornet's Sting, immediately following it up by throwing my dagger at the enemy, before using Hornet's Sting again to leap back and rejoin the fight.  Of course, I could be using, say, a torch as my offhand weapon.  I can throw it at an enemy and set him on fire, or I can use it to start a fire on the ground which not only burns all nearby enemies, but lets me fire my arrows through it, igniting them.

Thus, combat is fantastically visceral (at least more so than in any other MMO) and makes a welcome change to the usual fare of just standing in one spot and going through the usual cycle of skills ad nauseum.  In my opinion combat against normal mobs is much more exciting in GW2 than any comparable MMO.

I'll post again later about my new favourite class - the Necromancer.

[Bison]

I assume you are on a Euro server Huw?

[Huw the Poo]

Yeah, 'fraid so mate.

[Bison]

I need better gears!!!  Gah!!!

[son_of_montfort]

Tpek started a Grogheads guild. You can actually be members of several guilds and can still interact with guildmates on different servers. Post your name.number and he can add you. Mine is baelthazar.9106. But I haven't had ANY time to play, although I might get on tonight some.

I'm trying to decide if I want to go Guardian or Warrior. I made both, but both are pretty cool. I think I might stick with Warrior, as it was what I was best at in WoW and it can use any and all weapons effectively. Although the Guardian's survival skills are impressive, to say the least.

[Huw the Poo]

You can actually be members of several guilds and can still interact with guildmates on different servers.

This won't work between regions though, surely?  Although if it does, mine is huw.4203.

[bob48]

Being able to get on with fellow Grogs would be a big bonus. Make it so!

[Nefaro]

Tpek started a Grogheads guild. You can actually be members of several guilds and can still interact with guildmates on different servers. Post your name.number and he can add you. Mine is baelthazar.9106. But I haven't had ANY time to play, although I might get on tonight some.

Seriously? 

Are you talking about joining different guilds with different characters.. or can you be in multiples on the same character?

And the question with the cross-region thing, too..?

[Bison]

I've got Huw, SoM and Tpek as friends and I see SoM and Tpek in the guild.  Not sure what worlds we are in but I know Huw and I are in different regions.

[Jarhead0331]

I got it, but I'm not the biggest MMORPG fan.  I'm trying to get into it.

[Tpek]

Tpek started a Grogheads guild. You can actually be members of several guilds and can still interact with guildmates on different servers. Post your name.number and he can add you. Mine is baelthazar.9106. But I haven't had ANY time to play, although I might get on tonight some.

Seriously? 

Are you talking about joining different guilds with different characters.. or can you be in multiples on the same character?

And the question with the cross-region thing, too..?

It would seem so.
At any point you can "Stand Down" from your current guild, becoming independent and then choose to represent another guild you belong to.
An interesting concept IMHO.

[Kushan]

Any idea what the end game is like? Are there raids? If I remember correctly Guild Wars 1 was all about PvP, and I'm more of a raider. PvP can be fun but I suck at it.

[Huw the Poo]

Beyond PvP I've no idea what the endgame content is like.  If there isn't a dungeon or two now or very soon I'd be astonished, though.  ArenaNet must surely know that not everyone will be interested in PvP.

Tpek, you were right about influence; I'm only earning it for the guild on my own server.  Bah.  Still, at least I get to be in the guild at all, which is still very cool.

Jarhead - it might help if you think of it as an action RPG that other people happen to be playing alongside you. :)  It's not like anyone can kill-steal or otherwise get in your way.