Anyone else trying the preview (http://www.guildwars.com/preview/) for this? They started it a day early (today), and I was messing around with it earlier. It seems pretty cool from what I've seen so far.

Wish I could, but it's happening during the weekend I work. :(

i wasn't overly impressed with it, feels too much like diablo 2

I managed to download it. I do agree it really gave me a diablo feel (I never played D2). You can, however, go into first person view.

Too hard to take on multiple opponents, even ones that are like 4 levels below you (you apperently start out at like lvl 15 in this preview).

i like the premise that the patches and updates are downloaded in the background as you play. It really does assist in maximizing play time and minimizing down time due to patching.

Game play, so so. Tutorial, not bad but a lot of reading. It does well in telling you where to get your abilities and how to "upgrade" a weapons power by "customizing" it to your character. Other than that, I couldn't get very far. Everytime I try to make my way to the next little area, I kept getting owned due to multiple NPCs. Agro ranges of the NPCs are HUGE, I'd wager a good 200feet. I was almost always agroed by the time I got into range of my long bow, and always agroed before I got in range of my short bow.

Graphics look good though. I ran a solid 50 FPS almost throughout the entire game, even in the city where there was at least another 100 people playing. Char customization is as limited as Lineage II. You can change the hair, face (and skin), but that's it!

The game feels like a direct competator to Lineage II. The name implyes it and it's play style feels like it.

This game felt to me like it was trying to appeal to those who have been interested in MMOs, but don't want to pay a monthly fee as well as those who want a faster paced game than most current MMOs.

Anyway, I think for those people it is trying to appeal to, it will do well, but it was not a game for me. Was a fairly fun way to pass some time over the weekend.

some things that kept bugging me last time i grabbed it...

you can't leave the paths (i'm an explorer at heart)
combat is DULL
everything is instanced, you could be standing in the same spot as your buddies in the same city at the same time and not see them because they're in another instance of it
you can't leave the paths
and
combat is DULL

yea..WAY to linear for me...unless that was how the preview was setup as.


As for people playing it for no monthly fee...sure it doesnt, but I am wondering what the customer service is going to be like, and they have said that "chapters', mini expansions are going to be released every 6-9 months taht will be priced about the same. Sure they arent mandatory to continue playing..but why would want to miss out on new areas, spells and stuff...you KNOW you are going to buy it. That equals out to about $8 ish/month.

I tried the E3 Event and the recent World Preview Event. I enjoyed them both. There was a lot more exploration available in the WPE than in the WPE. Aside from the missions, there were Cooperative Exploration Areas which you could use to walk from mission area to mission area instead of just traveling their via the map.

The instanced stuff isn't so bad once you get used to it. You use chat channels for communication and coordination usually in most games. I don't remember running around the different zones in EQ and finding specific people to use /say to gather up people for a raid. It's no different than people in the guild scattered all over Norrath and coming together at the Qeynos PoK book (or District 45 in GW) for an event.

Combat was fun for me. I'd look for ways to line up three and four monsters so I could use my 100 Swords attack and hit all of them. Adrenal combat skills for the warrior made it interesting as well. "For Great Justice!" would speed up how fast they would recharge, but it carried a hefty power cost. (I played a Warrior / Monk to level 20 in the WPE). With the war/monk combo, I could face five, six, even seven creatures and come out alive. It was going up against mesmers and necros that really hurt. Their negative health regen spells were nasty.

Near the end of the WPE, I tried out a Necro/Mesmer and with a monk henchman along, I could keep five or six bone minions alive and running around killing stuff for me. I think a necro/monk combo would work very well for the pet minded. I think with necro/monk I could keep eight to ten bone minions alive indefinately.

In some of the Exploration areas, there were plenty of spots where you had room to explore. The set paths usually make sense. You shouldn't be climbing up near vertial hills anyway. Not being able to jump down them is troublesome, but it makes it easier for them to design content to be done in order for a more storylike feel to it. There was so many areas to explore, I didn't get them all explored during the four days I played. I did get all six missions done though. The last one was a real pain near the end, but a group that works well together and was smart enough to throw the Scepter of Orr on the ground did well.

I'll be buying this game probably. Something to do when I can't get a group in EQ2. :p