Guild Wars 2 First Look - The Asura

Written by: (Twitter @gamebreakertv - ) | July 23, 2012 8:00 am

72 Comments

Mike B gives his first impressions of the Asura race and starting area. Interested in the Sylvari? Check here or watch the video below!

The Asura are a race of diminutive but incredibly intelligent humanoids who live beneath the surface of Tyria. They see the world as a complex magical machine, and their philosophy of “Eternal Alchemy” touches everything they do. Inventors, scientists, and spellcasters of every stripe, the Asura consider many other races beneath them—and are not afraid to tell them so at every opportunity.

It has been centuries since Asura were seen aboveground. In fact, until recently, many humans thought they were a myth. However, recent reports have confirmed their existence.

 

 

Guild Wars 2 First Look - The Asura

  • http://www.facebook.com/jason.jenkins.73 Jason Jenkins

    starter area landscape reminds me alot of ulduar, and those lizard things looked like nagas…with legs!! hmmm so gw2 is wotlk with more nagas, just like wow!! :P

    trolling aside if i get into guild wars these guys will probably be what i roll first look like alot of fun to watch their animations

    • Old Ben

      Did you find the part where you help Parnni build an asura gate into Molten Core? :-P

      • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

        hahahahaha.    That was a funny one.  I was soloing that event for the longest time, I was doing a helluva job on the Golems, If I do say so myself. 

  • http://www.facebook.com/fredrik.gardsio Fredrik Fronken Gardsiö

    Played an Asura female Warrior during the entire beta weekend, and it was awesome, i love the animations, the voices, the zones, especially the combat animations using a Greatsword, i hadn’t even planned on using a Greatsword at all, but it ended up being my favourite weapon in all of GW2 :D

    • Desirée Monsma

      Me too! The animation of mining is just adorable, my absolute favorite.

    • http://twitter.com/trepix12 Vanessa J

      The greatsword is my favorite weapon on all of the professions that can use it. Or at least one of the 2 weapons I am always switching from.

  • Manuel Warum

    Who was playing the Guardian Asura? Scott? :-P

  • http://twitter.com/Graymarch Graymarch

    Besides comparing every inch and square of the landscape to something seen from world of warcraft. I would say it reminds me a little of Alien like technology or Egyptian like pyramids and the colors are present too. Gold and blue also gray but what throws me off is their guardians. I mean the golems of course for they seem rather stars war or something from scifi cause of the giant floating gems that hover over them and the way they are styled. Overall I loved the look of the asura area just not their disposition.

  • QSatu

    Hmm I expected something longer and maybe more in depth but thanks for a video anyway =]

    • iamthemikeb

      NP, I tried to give a very basic first look for people who need that extra nudge to roll the best race in Guild Wars 2. 

      • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

        Thanks for the video Mike.  Did you get to the point where you were behind in leveling in the Asura zone?  Watched several video steams and experienced it myself, you seem to fall behind in the leveling curve. You complete all the level-appropriate Hearts and Dynamic Events(guessing) and you are still 3 or 4 levels under the next leveling content. Want to say this happens fairly early, maybe level 6.  

        Also, what the heck triggered the underwater Dynamic Event, I did the underwater Heart, but had to come back to participate in the Dynamic Event.  I really do feel I need to read a wiki about a zone, so I can learn all the trigger.

        • iamthemikeb

          I only leveled her to 8 before jumping into some pvp.. which, unfortunately, was not WvW due to the queues and therefore made leveling to 8 pointless :|

          • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

            Levels 6 to 10 does seem to be the problem area in the Asura starting zone.   Once, I hit level 12, questing became very fluid again.

            WvW was very glitchy, I figured Arenanet was tweaking realm and WvW player base size.  Heard lots of complaints about lag and disconnects.  I understand Anet limited the number of players during Sundays WvW match. 

        • Robert Gallagher

           I lvled to 15 as an asura mesmer and didn’t have any problems as far as being underleveled. It may have helped that I completed all the Rata Sum points of interest, waypoints and vistas, but that’s the only extraneous stuff I did. If you just go around to the hearts and dynamic events, you’re missing out on free and easy xp, so make use of it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Thomas-Kozma-Jr/100000683276285 Thomas Kozma Jr.

    I mildly examined the Asura zone, and was in the final event and found it interesting and worth detailed checking at launch, although stupidly I didn’t realize which character Felicia Day voiced, I figured it would be some random vendor or heart Asura not the main one in the beginning XD Both the Asura and Sylvari seemed just as fascinating story wise as the other 3 races confirming i’ll create one of each race at launch for the full Tyria experience!

  • http://twitter.com/DaPhoolz Rp TheFoolz

    I love their stories. Really.

    also i gonna run the FemSylvari. for JH

  • Kicknpups

    I have to say I did play every race zone from 1-12 and I felt the Asura was lacking a little when compared to lets say Human or even Sylv..I.E The Sylv has 2-level 5 heart events while the Asura only has one. The human has also has two and this makes it easier to not be so far behind in progression when it comes to higher zones. I did however do the personal story and that gave me the edge. 

    One thing I have to say is that I love this class and story. Where as the Human story about the circus just wasn’t my cup of tea the Asura with the LEOD was fun! Not to mention I couldn’t stand playing a warrior until I got on an Asura…Nothing is more bada** then watching a Asura in level 30 plate gear with a Giant 2H sword swinging it around like it’s a twig!

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1103680651 Dave Jeannotte

        If you just run from renowned heart to renowned heart you COULD come up
      short XP-wise by the time you’re “done” with the zone.  The trick is to
      NOT play it like a linear MMO and just go out and explore.  Make sure
      and grab all the gathering tools and gather from EVERY node you see on
      your map (nodes are unique to every person in the game… no node
      ninjas), hunt down those vistas and points of interests, etc.  Exploring
      is probably one of the most important aspects of the game.  Explore
      your faction capitals… you get rewards for completing zone maps 100%. 
      I found an AWESOME jumping puzzle in Metrica Province (started at an
      Asura Gate but don’t remember exactly where) that had 3 different
      elemental stages to it with a mini-boss fight at the end and a big loot
      chest.  Sometimes it was frustrating falling off and having to start
      over, but it was ENGAGING.

      Most important thing in regards to events:  When you find a dynamic
      event DON’T RUN OFF when you “think” it’s over.  A good majority of
      these events are chains and lead into more stages.  You get SO much XP
      from these it’s ridiculous.  I played Asura this weekend and I didn’t
      quite finish the starting 1-15 zone, but I was almost lvl 20 by the time
      the weekend was over

      • Kicknpups

        I’m aware how to play…Just stating it does create a gap when compared to other races..There is plenty to do from killing master Sharks to holding buildings from invaders..Just stating simple facts…and as I stated Im 100% aware of the way the DYE works as I made it level 41 human just by doing events..As for the Asura Jumping quest in the capital have to agree I fell off and into my death about 10 times…TONS of fun!

        • dawolv

           I think maybe part of the reason for Arenanet to have this little disconnect is to have an incentive for players to go and check out the other races starting zones.
          With my Necro that I played in the first 2 BWE I completed all maps (except the ones with the broken Skill Challanges *Which have been fixed now) and I didn’t have that much of a problem, because at level 4 I switched from Charr to Norn Area, then we did some Human Events and by the time I went to do Level 6 stuff I was already at 15…

      • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

        No there are problems with the Asura zone. The typical GW response “You just don’t understand how to play” doesn’t cut it for the Asura starting zone.

        • saluk

          Erm, except for people like me who thought it was the BEST starting zone, and hated the Sylvari one. So, yeah. I found myself ahead of the leveling curve the whole time, and all I did was PvE in metrica. No pvp, no visiting other zones.

          • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

            I agree, Asura was my favorite.  I was really enjoying wandering through the zone participating in the Dynamic Events and completing the Hearts.  Maybe I was getting short-changed on hitting some of the Dynamic Events late in their progress.  If that was true, I hit the wall hard later in the zone and I wasn’t the only one. 

            I agree about the Sylvari zone, while gorgeous, lost interest after a few hours.  Still want to go back and give that “Green Knight” a piece of my mind.

        • testguy111

          I finished the zone and was level 17….
          maybe you’re playing it like WoW and race through so you could get to 80 quickly to get bored raiding and gear grinding…

          if you’d explore, look for hidden areas and such, you’d never ever ever be behind in XP
           

          • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

            Nope, this BWE I wanted to stay out of WvW (lived in WvW last BWE) and wander through the starting zone.  Wasn’t even worrying about my Asura Engineer’s level until I hit that wall.  

        • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1103680651 Dave Jeannotte

          The only reason you need to STAY in the Asura starting zone is to do your personal story.  I’ve played other characters in the different BWEs where I didn’t even stay in their intended starting zone, instead going to one of the other race’s zones or a combination of all of them.  The Asura made these amazing gates that take you all over Tyria.  You might want to get out and explore ALL of it by utilizing them before you decide to troll my post of what was intended as helpful advice.  Even if you are correct in that there isn’t enough content to just follow around Renowned Hearts blindly like a standard MMO sheep, that doesn’t mean there are SEVERAL ways to still get all the XP you need to continue to the “next” zone.

          • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

            What I was seeing in some of the video streams, so players were being forced into doing that.  Some steamers would simply cut their videos short at that point, other steamers would leave the Asura zone before attempting the epic boss and work on XP in another zone.  

            For launch, I’m going to pre-load some levels for my Asura, will take my level 2 Asura to the human starting area (not planning on rolling a human) and fill some hearts there.  Then return to the Asura starting area “wander” around and complete the story.  

        • Randall Burt

          I had the opposite experience. I found plenty to do in the asura zone and the events were firing at a good clip to keep me appropriately leveled. I had a harder time finding events in the Sylvari zone.

          In the end, I think both zones need some tweaking before launch.

  • http://www.facebook.com/stradus.woods Stradus Woods

    Love Asura rare for me cause generally I hate the diminutive races.  Man I thought I had what I was going to be nailed solid but this whole weekend made me so confused.  All the professions are so good. Asura (favorite for combat style looks at attitude they have) or Norn (best looking in all armors).

    Heavy sight don’t think I can decide tell I have too.

  • Sklys

    Ah shades of the great Vekk.
    For those folks who dont know Vekk he was the Asura (ele hero) of GW1.

  • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

    Played an Asura Engineer all BWE, very fun gameplay. The movement animation was funny, Asura leaning their heads to start running, very funny.  The /laugh emote made me well… laugh.

    Loved the personal story. I see playing this race several times to get all the different story lines. With the Asura you are a member of the Krewe attempting to prove yourself, where with the Charr story you start out as level 2 trying to create a new warband.

    I found it every easy to get behind in the leveling curve in the Asura zone.  I had to pop into WvW to make up a few levels and then return to PVE to continue with the content.

    Overall really enjoyed the Asura, will be rolling two or three of them at launch.   

    • Old Ben

      > I found it every easy to get behind in the leveling curve

      I guess that depends on what curve you’re trying to follow. The starting areas got pretty nerfed in this BWE (which I think is a good thing, if they want to attract new players), and I found that I was easily able to handle 4 or 5 enemies of my level at the same time, or a single enemy 4 levels above me. More than that and it could turn ugly if I was out of energy to dodge and had my blocks on cooldown. That meant I spent most of the time playing in areas about 3 levels above mine, which means I only “needed” to get to level 12 within the starting zone. After that I could either stay there or move to the next zones, which have enemies starting at level 15.

      > in the Asura zone. I had to pop into WvW to make up a few
      > levels and then return to PVE to continue with the content.

      You can get about two levels just by walking around the starting area and Rata Sum, unlocking the waypoints and points of interest. And you can go to the other starting areas and cities, of course. Overall, I’d say it’s possible to level a character from 0 to 40 just in the starting areas, without repeating anything, and without any WvW or crafting.

  • http://twitter.com/Makovorn Edwin Lwazi

    The asura was such a breath of fresh air – the comedic element alone is pure gold. Sometimes you’ll just hear random bits of speech going off around you, i.e.”You’re dumb … and when you die, you will be a dumb corpse!”. Good laughs all around. :D

    Mike, I’ve got to ask: What do you think of GW2′s field of view? To me, it feels incredibly constricting, which is not helped by the fact that the “natural” inclination for the camera is in a downwards-pointing direction. This means you mostly see floor and ground, instead of the beautiful environment.

    I noticed in your video (and other peep’s gameplay vids) that most of what you see when you play normally, is ground, and stuff in your very immediate vicinity. When you pan up, the camera goes onto the floor, and even if you zoom in to bring your character’s feet closer to the bottom of the screen, the character becomes soooo big and the field of vision so narrow.

    I’d love to hear your thoughts. :)

    • iamthemikeb

      Funny.. I tend to think that all games have a crappy FOV because I tend to bend things around 100-120. You are correct though, the camera tends to not really aim high enough at times. I also found another strange bug when doing the new city tours.. when you tilt the camera all the way down (to look up) it glitches some of the doodads that make up the environment. 

      tl;dr
      Aim High, Glitch Force

      • dawolv

         I’d like to see a camera lock feature.
        So you can turn your character with the same action as moving your camera.
        What’d you think?

        I played GW1 either zoomed out all the way or in 1st person, so when playing GW2 first at Gamescom 2010 I felt really constricted and it was hard to me to see pretty much anything.
        Now I’ve gotten more used to it, but I still think they could make you zoom out a little further and also go into 1st person.

        • Old Ben

          You probably didn’t “get more used to it”; they actually increased the camera distance in BWE3 (compared to previous ones). But the real issue isn’t the distance, it’s the FoV, which is a different thing.

          • Jado Cast

            I thought I could zoom out a little more, but couldn’t tell if it was just me not noticing the difference.  I’m glad they did that.  I agree about the FoV as well.

      • Old Ben

        The camera definitely needs a lot more user adjustments (especially height and FoV), and a couple of behavior options (disable smoothing, lock view to mouse, make character invisible when we zoom in all the way).

  • Revanhavoc

    (They are ugly little smurfs and I couldn’t handle Felicia Day all day.)

  • Diequex

    I honestly didn’t expect to like the Asura much, though I do plan on rolling at least one of every single race.

    Pleasantly surprised this BWE, as they’re my 2nd favorite race now (first being Sylvari, ‘dem leaf people be too fun to make in Character Creation), followed by the Charr and Humans. Great coverage mike. Was looking forward to WvW coverage, but ef dem queues, man

    • dawolv

       Agreed.
      I knew a pretty long time ago my first and second characters will be Charr and Sylvari and I was actually planning on running maybe 2 of each with 1 human in there.
      Norn and Asura didn’t intrique me that much.
      First BWE I played Norn and (at least for me) that wasn’t as cool as Charr (their Zones and Events are nice, but I like neither their look nor their story)
      And I expected the same feeling when playing Asura. Not the case.
      What, judging from pre-Beta videos, looked like overly cutecy and annoying animations and flat humor actually made me chuckle on multiple occasions.
      I’m sold on Asura. Nr. 3 or 4 will be Asura! Just the 5th need’s to be figured out, but hey, maybe by the time I’m actually takling a 5th the Tengu will be Available to play :)

  • bsqminus4ac

    LOVE the Asura starting area! There are allot of very funny moments (no spoilers here) and a great little mini game (probably more but I only saw the one). 

    I already purchased some gems (I wanted to try out some of the goodies).

    I can’t wait for release!!!

  • Wolfdreamer101

    So GW2′s version of gnomepunting will be asurapunting… doesn’t have quite the same ring to it.  Now if you shorten it up and call it as-punting then you may have something that’ll catch on.

    On a serious note, the sequence where that block boss formed up was jaw dropping.

    • Old Ben

      I actually found that sequence a bit messy. Overlapping speech, lots of noise, you can’t really focus on the animation _and_ pay attention to the story at the same time. Maybe it was just some bug that caused everything to overlap.

      They should slow down the animation a bit, and make Zojja shut up to let people watch it.

  • http://www.facebook.com/people/Shawna-Daniels/1135007726 Shawna Daniels

    All I know is that they were making me laugh the whole weekend. The speed at which their legs move when swimming is hilarious. Also when they jump, their legs keep spinning, it’s awesome.

    • Old Ben

      If you have your weapon drawn and strafe to one side and then stop, they do a little cartoon-style “skid”. Strangely, thought, they don’t do it if you immediately strafe to the other side, or if your weapon isn’t drawn. Maybe they’re still tweaking the animation (strafe jumping looked really weird).

      • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1103680651 Dave Jeannotte

        —If you have your weapon drawn and strafe to one side and then stop, they do a little cartoon-style “skid”.

        It’s the Stitch Hula (from Lilo and Stitch)… all the cool Asura are doing it these days! Now they just need to add a “/dance” emote to go along!

  • Blaze Drizzo

    love this game so much fun

  • http://www.facebook.com/jonathan.hornsby.7 Jonathan Hornsby

    Someone should point out that the race description in the
    above text is wrong; that is from GW1. As of GW2 the asura have been a known
    and active part of the surface world for over two hundred years.

    • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

      Ah, looks like GamebreakerTV copied that paragraph word for word from the Guild Wars wiki.  The wiki attributes that quote to “The Guild Wars Eye of the North Manuscript”  

  • Old Ben

    They really need to get rid of the scripted “death” in the tutorial. It makes no sense; players can _see_ they weren’t hit, and they still die. It’s only going to put them off the game and make them assume the hitboxes are broken. So much for “action combat” when you’re killed by something that clearly missed you.

    Also, it doesn’t make any sense to down the player, leave him lying on the floor for most of the fight, and then treat him as “the hero who saved the day”. My character is level 1, there’s one of the game’s main NPCs there (Zojja), I was lying on the floor for most of the fight… and yet the story pats me on the back and tells me I’m the great hero. It makes no sense.

    It just diminishes Zojja’s importance in the game (how bad must she be, if she needed help from a level 1 noob?) and makes my own character feel like a fraud.

    There would have been several better ways of handling the same situation. For example:

    a) I get downed (by something I can actually _see_, such as a homing missile or a beam), Zojja saves me and tells me “You’re not powerful enough to fight such big enemies… yet. But I see you have potential. Go out into the world, gain some experience, and maybe when our paths cross again you will be the one saving me…”

    b) Zojja gets trapped and players have to pull some lever or something to release her (and do indeed “save the day”). She says she had everything under control but then thanks you in private, telling you that you showed some quick thinking there, and that, with a bit more experience and knowledge of the world, you could become one of the best [insert profession here] of all times.

    In other words, rather than telling the player that he’s “the special one” (for doing absolutely nothing), use that boss fight as a way to encourage the player to explore the world and level up.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1375412151 Erik Merickel

      Well, I didnt die in my starting tutorial level…. So its not in for all of them. Maybe your choices were just goofy?

      • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

        Probably depends if you are melee or range. If you are melee (If I remember MikeB character was a Guardian.) you usually die.  The boss AOE damage seems to be still broken. 

        • Old Ben

          He dies in the sylvari video too, and there (as here) you can see he’s not actually hit by anything.

          And technically any class in GW2 can be melee or ranged (although, at the start, you’re kind of limited by the weapon they give you – you can’t pick).

      • Old Ben

        What “choices” ? The starting boss is the same regardless of your character creation choices. And you can see in this video that Mike’s character dies without getting hit by anything.

        If you didn’t die, I’d say that was a bug, because the developers have clearly stated that they make characters die “to teach players about the downed state”.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1103680651 Dave Jeannotte

       I still think it’s an issue of melee classes being somewhat penalized in the game PvE-wise.  I’ve tried several different classes out over the different BWEs/Stress Tests and I almost consistently die if I’m playing a character that has to melee (because of crappy starter weapon selections mainly) as opposed to almost never dying if I play a class that starts with a ranged weapon.   I agree that it’s good to “force” people into the downed state early so they can figure that mechanic out, but it still doesn’t work well and I’ve commented in feedback to ArenaNet about that.

      They don’t explain that if you kill ANYTHING in a downed state that you’ll get back up.  It took me dozens of times to go down to realize that if I was taken down by a group of mobs, targeting the one with the least amount of health and finishing it off would get me back up.  It’s not a horrible mechanic (beats the alternative) but I don’t think it’s the easiest one to figure out at first (or twenty-first) glance.

      • Old Ben

        Nah, the issue isn’t ranged vs. melee (that can also be an issue sometimes, but not here). The death is scripted.

        The developers have said that they “want to teach players about the downed state”, and there was a post saying “Note that you WILL die during the first boss encounter”. It didn’t always work, though, so the players who managed to stay alive were probably experiencing a bug.

        The ones who died were just experiencing bad tutorial design.

    • RolyVento

      I didn’t experience the down state on the 1st boss, maybe I glitched? I don’t know but I do hope you post this on their forums because your story plot is 10x more interesting than what I saw. I am loving the game but these two things are it’s weakest point. Cheesy story plot and terrible voice acting. The rest is just amazing, love the dynamic events, love the game graphics, the character and monsters animation, the gameplay of sPvP and just everything about the game is awesome except these two area. Not a deal breaker but I do wish the voice acting and writing was better.

      • Old Ben

        They’re not going to change the stories, regardless of what people post in the forums.

        Re-doing the cutscenes and re-recording the voices would cost a lot of money, and whoever is responsible for those stories clearly doesn’t have a clue about epic narrative structure (or they would never have made such cheesy and patronizing stories to begin with), so in their minds the story is perfect as it is.

        I don’t play MMORPGs for the single-player story anyway, so as long as they let me ignore the story (turn off the story pop-ups, remove the story arrows from the map, etc.), I’ll be fine.

        • RockerDC3

          The story was written for players age 5 and under. Apparently, that’s their target audience.

          • Old Ben

            Which doesn’t seem a very wise decision in terms of maximizing cash shop profitability. The number of 5 year olds with credit cards is still quite low.

          • RockerDC3

            Which leads to the only logical conclusion: they have no problem being demeaning in a vain attempt to make the game more accessible. No matter how hard they try, it’s still impossible to please everyone, so they should respect their real target audience or go make a game for children.

            @Arenanet: Respecting the majority of gamers with appropriately mature content doesn’t imply a strictly “serious” or “graphic” game.

          • Old Ben

            I don’t think it’s about “making it more accessible”. It’s really just about not being a good storyteller.

            In fact, the extreme similarity in the overall structure of the stories across multiple races suggests that someone wrote a “base” narrative and then handed it over to the “racial writers” to re-skin and fill in the blanks. 

            That first guy was probably _not_ a writer (even if his job title says “writer”, unless it’s prefixed by “really bad”), and the writers were either unable or unwilling to make any fundamental changes to the plot.

          • Arkanthos

            You guys certanly dont have a shitclue what good storytelling and voice acting is. The voice acting in this game is very good also the script is written better than most of TSW. As the how good the overal  story is, we can’t say that yet since the beta didn’t let you experience content beyond lvl 30.

          • Old Ben

            What happens at level 80 is irrelevant; the damage is done at level 1 (and you’re not even given a choice about that part). 

            It’s a basic principle of heroic narratives that hero status needs to be earned by overcoming adversity and failure. Not handed to the protagonist on a platter for doing nothing (lying on the ground while someone else does all the work – in a fight that is impossible to lose).

            Watch the trailer “Siege of Neverwinter – Part 2″ if you want to see a heroic narrative elegantly condensed into 90 seconds (or read about the monomyth if you want to see the forms it normally takes in literature).

            Then again, your use of the word “shitclue” suggests that maybe you belong to the demographic Arena Net was going for with these stories…

    • http://twitter.com/cipero Matt Cipriano

      Yea I agree. I think they could’ve figured out a better way to introduce player to the ‘downed’ state. While these fights are awesome to have, when you are put into the downed state it takes away from that experience. 

      I think option A you wrote would be a better way to do it. 

    • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

      Going to have to test during launch if you always die during the intro boss.   Starting to wonder if there is some type of combat lag, that causes your character to fall over dead and then a mob spawn on top of you.  

      • Old Ben

        If you read the developers’ posts in the forum you wouldn’t need to wonder.

        • http://twitter.com/dularr Dularr

          Eagerly awaiting launch.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Ian-Smith/100000531128393 Ian Smith

      I’ll agree with this.  Was wondering if it might be better to just isolate the player for this as well.  Doesn’t really make sense to just have a bunch of random people in there either.  I think they could teach better if they made this more like the personal story from the beginning were you can invite friends in but only allow up to five in party.  Think it would be much easier to scale the first boss too, if they limited it to the party.  Yeah, the opening could use some tweaking.

      • Old Ben

        Turning an MMO into a single-player game for _anything_ is a mistake. Even the fact that the personal story takes place in separate instances is a mistake (but here the mistake begins with the story’s plot itself, so everything else is kind of doomed from the start).

        It’s perfectly possible to “train” players in any aspect of the game without taking them out of the shared world. The weapon training in Claypool is an excellent example (and I hope they extend it to other weapons, possibly in other regions).

        You don’t need to isolate the player completely, the “downed state training” can simply be moved to a less chaotic location (ex., given by your profession trainer, who is otherwise useless up to level 11 – and then useless again up to level 40, etc.), and that would eliminate the “need” to kill the player during that boss fight. A much better solution would be to have the leader NPC (ex., Zojja) heal the players that drop below 10% HP, so that no one would die in that fight (whose purpose should be to teach players about raid bosses, not about dying and throwing rocks at minions). 

        That doesn’t mean they can’t have scripted deaths as part of the story. It’s fine to “kill” the player for narrative purposes as long as that’s done in an honest way. The player needs to _see_ what killed him. Even if it’s unavoidable, it has to be visible, otherwise it’s an “anti-tutorial” (it “teaches” you that, even if you avoid the attacks, you still die).

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1103680651 Dave Jeannotte

    So the jump puzzle instance in Metrica Province was called Goemm’s Lab.  Saw a couple videos of it on Youtube.  If you want to save it for live, don’t check this out.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9GjxCuxVj0

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