Time Capsule from PoE Closed Beta -- a classic PoE vs D3 thread circa 2012

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Ragnar119 wrote:

I never played GW before, why is there so much hype about it? I played a little WoW, is it similar to it?

Naw, dude. Gw1 is sort of a mix of Diablo (all areas are instanced except for towns, which function as visual versions of a Bnet chat room where you form parties and trade and stuff) and Counterstrike (it's very team-orientated). The great appeal of Gw1 for me was the skill combinations: all of the five base classes in vanilla GW had over 100 fairly unique skills each, many of them reacting to each other. You were two classes per char, too. So I ran a Necro/Warrior (BIG SURPRISE KIDS!), A Monk/Warrior, an Elementalist/Mesmer (Mesmers were big into energy conservation, interrupts and illusions)...that sort of thing.

Unlike WoW, where I believe you have all your skills available at once (typical MMORPG), GW forced you to equip 8 in town and you couldn't change them once you were in a mission or instance. Most interesting, though, was that all the enemies were one of the player classes as well, which meant that elite versions of the enemies sometimes had elite skills, which you captured from them once they died.

...It also has instant map travel, which is anti-MMORPG in my experience.

People eventually called GW an MMOG or a CORPG; it's definitely not an MMORPG, and anyone who designates it as such hasn't really thought about it. ArenaNet certainly never called it such.

GW2 IS an MMORPG but created with the insights learned from Gw1 and other MMORPGs. You can solo it -- they've said as much. That alone has me very interested. The fact that it's made by the same people who made Guild Wars 1...that right there is a sold sign for me already.

I like PoE a lot, but my fan-reaction to it is residual Blizzard North conviction, really. On the other hand, I'm an unashamed ArenaNet fanboy, but after playing Gw1 for so long, I'd like to believe it's not entirely unwarranted.

GW2 is a real MMO this time, you travel the world and meet other people while slaying monsters.

One big difference with WoW is character levels and items are nearly meaning ess, the game revolves a lot more around skills (and player skills).

There was a targeting system in GW1, and it changed in GW2, this time you target what you look at when you cast your skills, you have to move a lot and dodge attacks, it's more action oriented.

Guild Wars was always PvP oriented, but they improved a lot the PvE this time. Dynamic Events are like public quests from Warhammer Online, you enter an area and you see there's something happening near you. You can participate with other player or move along.

The Quest system is also pretty revolutionary, you don't have to take quests. Sometimes, you just meet a caravan and a quest popup "escort the caravan". Maybe another player was already doing it, you can join him, or you can skip it altogether.

As for PvP, there's structured PvP (8v8, capture points) and World vs World.
There are actually 3 worlds in WvW, a big map with multiple objectives and points to capture, you have to build siege weapons to capture forts.

And graphically, the game is amazing and huge, I never saw a world that huge. There are multiple teleport points in the city because it's so damn big :)
And you can also explore (and fight) underwater, there's a huge world aswell under the sea.

So yeah... try to watch some videos, there are tons of them out there, the game doesn't disappoint.

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Tagek wrote:

One thing I still want to say though:
Perhaps we cling to much to the past, and perhaps we should forget about past installments and enjoy diablo 3 for what it is. Because even though it has argueably less depth in the skill-planning department (Or, at least, less trial and error).
But it will offer plenty of build combinations and options.
The road to those builds is less self-made, but it boils down to the same thing.

I'm actually quite aware how my reactions toward games classify.

For example: I feel nostalgic when I hear the guitar strumming in Tristram.
I feel nostalgic when the Butcher roars "Ah, FRESH MEAT!"
I also feel nostalgic when my hero says "I must be getting close!". Or when I see the artwork of the Cathedral.

But when it comes to game mechanics, I usually am quite practical. Just basic attacks on my main hand? Bleh. No running? Meh. Arrows missing because of Diablo's weird tile system? Feh.

And still, Diablo features mechanics that have not been done since (like randomized quests). And similarly, Diablo III offers mechanics that I don't even like.

I might even say that I see Diablo for what it is and Diablo III for what it is and PoE for what it is.
And I like PoE and Diablo, but Diablo III's only appeal to me would be the franchise per se and the story.

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Also, it seems to me like people who enjoy playing singleplayer are forgetting something.
In diablo 2 you started out with nothing, and when you casted 2 skills you were basically out of mana already.
In D3 you will get fun skills from the beginning, while not losing a sense of progression, because as you level up you get progressively more bad-ass skills, as well as new and cooler skill runes for your old and new abilities.

As an altoholic, that happened to me quite lot (in single player, it can be even more jarring because you can't trade for suitable/better equipment).
But of course, there's a however: Being weak at the beginning makes feeling more powerful later on much better.
That's why I like PoE's way: Managing your mana early on is a bit of a hassle, but not too much so. And as soon as you find your first leeching/regen items, things get much better.

Diablo III I can't compare in this respect. I do know Blizzard's philosophy of "giving the player power early on" through WoW. It doesn't work for me there, so I'd imagine that it won't work for me with DIII. But that's beside the point - even if the system in DIII was brilliant, I still wouldn't play.

Well, the mana system in PoE is boring and outdated.
At least they're trying something new and interesting in D3, where you actually have to manage your ressource with your skills.

I have to agree with the original post. This game is a very welcome opportunity for a d2 "veteran." While I've played d1 a bit, I've played d2 since 2002. I just really hope this game doesn't fall victim to the bots and spam d2 has fallen victim to.

Sorry for the short answer, but this thread's OP was really well written.
As for myself, I'm just a casual gammer, and I couldn't play diablo 2 more than a lv5o character, just got bored every time I tried to go for a lv99 char. i love the game, but got bored many times by it too.
i believe D3 will be a different experience from D2, and I'm not ofended or insulted by it.

If you got bored by D2, it's unlikely you'll feel enlighten by PoE.
But everyone will be able to make their own opinion this week-end...

edit:
if some of you wanted to see some underwater combats in GW2.

Yup I've already been telling my friends about it!! I hope I get to play with some of them this weekend :)

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Raycheetah wrote:

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Tagek wrote:

Well to be fair, although you can switch to whatever build you like when in a town, there will still be plenty of possible build combinations per class.

Wasn't gonna post on this topic again, until you reminded me about this...

Watching D3 Beta play on YouTube, it was clear that the players were switching up skills on the fly. So, what did Blizzivision do? Changed things to require a trip back to ruttin' town just to change up skills.

Why? Because there was something wrong with what the players were doing?

"Changing skills while in the dungeon violates our play-flow esthetics, Blahdeblahdeblah... We'll put a stop to that, all right!"

So, in a game where one might ostensibly wish to avoid their character becoming a one-trick pony, the devs enacted a change in play requiring an inconvenient interruption of the action in order to change out one's current skill set.

Just another reason I lost all desire to play D3. =>[.]<=

Well, you can still change your skills in the dungeons as you wish, but they give you incentive not to.
By killing elite monsters you get a (stacking) bonus magic finding buff, but when you switch any skill or ability you lose that bonus.
This incentivises you to stick to one build while in a dungeon while being free to change it up if you want to try something new later.

Do note: This buff only comes into play at lvl 58 or 60 I believe, so in the process of going through the game you will be able to change your skills without having to put any thought into it.

yep, the bonus is for inferno I guess.