Is EVERY DAMN THING in the game apart from towns instanced? I do not like instanced content, this is one of the things that makes me want to punch tom chilton in the dick.
Yes, and even towns are instanced into districts, this is to prevent griefing such as kill stealing etc from happening.
Are the people as gay as they seem in youtube videos of pvp? I watched some ridiculous video of some guy doing WHOA 4V1 or whatever and in chat it was a constant spam of "noob runner" etc etc etc. This is not a big issue since there are people like that in wow and cs and tf2 any game that I care to play
That's Random Arenas, and like the teams, the players too are random. You can just laugh at the people who go noob runner because its a legit tactic and its their fault for not bringing 1 of the 192128192192898 CC's in the game.
In what appear to be instanced matches teams seem to be able to talk to each other. Doesn't this lead to enormous faggotry?
Yeah you can talk to each other but I don't know why you would and if someone is being gay you can report them for it.
Is there a duelling/1v1 system? I know the emphasis is on group pvp but I do enjoy duelling.
You can do 1v1's thru scrimmaging 1v1 in a guild hall, but its not a very good thing here because the balance is awful.
If there is a duelling system, how balanced? I hear very good things about the game's overall team balance but does it work 1v1 too? For example, one of my 70s on wow is a mage. Versus equally geared and skilled opponents, the only things ACTUALLY BEATABLE 1v1 are warriors, paladins and offspec rogues. Obviously the mage can play a vital part in a 5v5 team but 1v1 it's a very different story.
Not even closed to balanced since its balanced towards a 128 Skill Environment (8v8) and not 16. There is a lot of gimmicks you can run in 1v1's to basically never lose ever and it becomes Rock Paper Scissors.
Is it not very confusing that although you can only have 8 abilites at one time (and I do like this idea now), there are 100s to choose from for each profession? For example, a warlock's casting unstable affliction... I don't know what that is, it's not in the cookie cutter builds I'm used to seeing, I have no idea how to counter it until I see its effect. Does success in guild wars pvp require a ludicrous amount of study?
not really.
The thing is, is that unlike in WoW, Guild Wars has definite skill types (Attack Skills, Enchantments, Hexes, Rituals, Shouts, etc.) that all are taken care of in the same way, just their effects are different. Also, out of the 1000 some skills in the game, there are some of them that obviously don't see play anyways, but it's not like you got to know every skill. There's also an intuitive Effects Monitor that you can quickly read what something does if you have to, and with concise skill descriptions that's even easier now.
How big a part of the game is gear? It seems like a small part and I like that so much. I've geared up 2 characters on wow and I'm sick of the whole concept of CLOTHES FOR BETTER FIGHTING.
I can create a maxed out level 20 char with 4 maxed weapon sets in under 30s.
HL said something ages ago about getting rep with Balthazar or something. Does this game turn into a rep grind? The only thing worse than a rep grind is mote farming and I will not do it.
It's not really a grind per se, you get Balthazar Faction to unlock skills/item parts/heroes on your account. You can buy the skill packs + PvP kit in their online store to unlock everything though. It's like just below 50$ for everything, but you'll have everything unlocked.
I saw something about catapults somewhere? are some of the pvp or gvg or whatever instances like SIEGES or whatever? Because that is a large selling point for the next wow expansion and it would tickle me pink if guild wars was already doing it in a probably better way.
Certain guild halls have catapults, that you can use after repairing them, to deal massive AoE damage to select choke points in the guild hall. It's more of a strategic element, but each guild hall has different ones. Some GH's have spores which slow casting time/attack speed, other's have lava + fire golems to watch out for, etc.
edit: how customisable are keybindings and the general UI?
Keybindings: fully customizeable.
General UI: you can move/resize every element of it in-game.
edit again: if you do not have a decent guild to play with (and being an absolute new player at this point I'm guessing I won't) are you forced to play in awful pugs
You'll be forced to pretty much Random Arenas/Hero Battles (1v1, with each person having 3 AI NPCs). I'm working on making a decent GvG guild so maybe that'll turn out great!
edit AGAIN, jesus christ: as I understand it there is no seperate realms for EU/US and so on. Doesn't latency cause some problems with this setup?
Depends really. Most people stick to their own districts, so it's not like a bunch of Korean moonspeakers are going to come to America for serious play (tho it prolly happens).
I stick to America + International (which is kind of like a district decent for everyone), but if I go to europe its generally not TOO bad.
edit:
also i highly recommend you look for buying the pvp kit + everything in their online store. you'll be allowed access to all pvp types, with everything unlocked, no PvE/faction earning required, just straight up PvP goodness.
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