The 6 day prelaunch beta started today at 6pm, the servers all came online on time so I logged straight in with no messing about and played a couple of hours till I had to go out. I had a look at the server list when I logged out a lot of people appear to be playing it, they had about 25 servers up and a good few where full and all but a few where high ( which were the RP servers which were medium)
No idea what they set the numbers too on the servers or if they are anywhere near what they will be at realise but they seemed to handle a lot of people in the starter areas well.
I normally go for ranged casters preferably with a pet but decided to try something different so I decided to go for a Bard which is hybrid healer/DPS support class who buffers players on his own team and puts debuffs on enemies, the Bard heals his group by doing DPS on mobs, using musician instruments such as a Lute and horn. Its fun so far and really different to any type of class I have played before in any MMO, I took Ranger (a lot like a hunter from WOW) as my second Soul which comes with a pet without spending any talent points in the tree, so I have a handy tank as well for levelling at lower level.
Only level 7 at the mo will play more tomorrow but very happy with what I have seen of the game so far :)
We need Fraps or screenshots and a run down of the game.
Does it have auction house / mail system, if so it might appeal to me :P
Bacon this Beta is open to everyone I would suggest you have a play on it, yes there is IG mail and AH not seen it yet as I'm not high enough to get to the main cities ...there is even a IG twitter feed! lol I will fire up Fraps tonight and grab some footage :)
I have played for about an hour this morning and I like it a lot so far, it's like they took all the good bit of WoW while levelling such as flowing quest chains that take you from node to node, new greens from quest rewards every couple of levels, the Rifts at lower levels are quite easy and happen often so you start to collect the currency to buy better gear quite early on, no grinding thank god! I'm not saying it is a WoW clone because it is quite different, but you can tell the guys who made this game have spent time on WoW which in a lot of ways is no bad thing IMO
General chat is sorted by level 1-9, 10-19 etc the 1-9 was full of WoW kiddies saying "this sucks!" "WoW is better!" etc with this being a open Beta I guess has to be expected, but since I got into 10-19 it is a lot better and people seem quite impressed with the game so far. :)
As i said in the other thread i was going to skip the Beta due to being to lazy to download it, but i've started it up again now and it seems to be transferring fast, so hopefully when i get back from my run tonight i'll be able to squeeze a few hours in.
Post your ingame name here and i'll add you to friends list or something.
Recorded one of the invasion events, the server seemed to hold up well and no lag which is good seeing there was quite a lot of people involved. I had done it in 1080 but my upload speed isn't great and it would have taken hours to upload to youtube so I ripped it to 720, quality is still reasonable, looks a bit dark tho :P
Was fun I got a bit ahead of myself at the start and should have waited 20-30 secs for a few more to get there so suffered my first death lol I edited out most of the corpse run. Only thing I really miss from WoW is add-on like Recount, I do like to see how I am doing compared to those I am grouped with and also fiddle about with my rotation to get the max out of it.
I'm on Wolfsbane and char name is Fodi.
For some reason that server doesnt show up in my list, i think i started a char on Blightweald, level 11 Bahri Warrior Riftblade.
First impressions, its ok, its no wow killer like so many are saying in the channels. I have noticed some abilities being a bit OP, i have one pulling ability that does more damage than my weapon strikes and special weapon strikes, so i can just spam it like 4 times and each mob is dead, the game needs a fair bit of balancing.
I look forward to going up against real players later when i get home.
It might be because the server is full, it was last on the list when I picked it so I expected it to be quieter than those at the top, others seem to have had the same idea, I guess one in the middle would have been a better choice.
I think your right about it not being a WoW killer, but I am enjoying it and have pre-ordered, I simply don't have the time I used to have to play WoW, so I'm going to play this casually, should keep me happy until SWTOR :)
I have had a couple of games in PVP earlier I would say my class Bard is a bit OP, I topped healing done by quite a large margin and came well into the top half of damage, stood at the back I wasn't targeted much at all I could have just playing against bads tho :P
Level 17 now, keep topping kills/dps in the pvp areas as Riftblade, worked out how im supposed to play the class now.
Today i logged on and took part in the Battle of Freemarch, totally epic public quest, the map just spawned rifts everywhere and elite mobs and raid bosses, got an epic shard as a reward and picked the tank legs instead of the dps legs, fail!
Tried crafting, its a grind like all other games, your better off picking Foraging/Mining/Butchering (2 of) and selling the stuff when the game is live, then worry about crafting once you've hit max level.
Overall i am hooked, don't want to goto work now lol, can't wait to get home and play this all weekend.
Bacon worked out why you couldn't see my server ...I'm on a US one! :P lol epic fail on my part but glad at least I know better than to make that mistake on retail, but it is impressive I'm not having any latency issues at all.
I'm still only level 19 having been doing a lot of PVP yesterday and today, god hope it's because I'm against yanks but they are clueless! I did think my class was OP, but I'm only doing so well because I'm not getting any pressure on me, played about 20 so far and only lost a couple ,hope Guardians are going to be a bit better on euro servers! lol Fraps one earlier it's like lambs to the slaughter! :evil: lol
Did a couple of the mass invasions yesterday level 20 bosses with massive health pools! died 8 or 9 times on the first because there wasn't many of us there to start with and the adds kept going straight for the healers when they spawned, was good fun got a couple of the epic shards where can you buy loot from with them?
You can get loot at kings for the shards.
Our battle was epic, there was literally 100 people all moving round together and zerging everything.
As for PVP i really think its because these people are clueless, as you say i'm not getting much pressure either.
Found it and got myself a new blue Bow :) the epic leather pants were not to great for me as they had a melee stat, it feels strange not having a site like Wowhead to turn too guess so many years in WoW spoiled me! lol
I have rolled a Mage to try to help me make my mind up on what to roll on retail :)
Don't forget before Wowhead came Thottbot, at least that was the popular one while i was levelling at the start of wow :P
Level 26 Riftblade
The easiest way to explain this class is uh Plate Wearing, DPS Shaman/Paragon Spear Throwing no idea tbh all i know is it does a fair whack of damage atm.
(http://img80.imageshack.us/img80/7112/2011219235913.jpg)
PS. Already had over 10 plat playing the auction :D
Well Beta is over! been messing about with a Mage the last few days and enjoyed it while I am a fan of big numbers flashing on the screen! :P I have decided I'm going to stick with Bard to start with, I really enjoyed the play style and makes a change to be a healer rather than a pure DPS :)
I was playing Riftblade, got to level 32 in the end, have pre-ordered ready for the early start on the 24th! :D
Which server will you be playing on and do you have a guild or any potential guilds lined up? I was thinking of going back to Blightweald but don't know.
No not got any guilds lined up most of the people who I know who would be likely to play a game like this are either still playing WoW or have quit MMO's altogether, a couple might come over in a few months if the game proves to be any good at end game, but it would mean them upgrading so they are waiting to see what it is like.
Is Blightweald a PVE or PVP server?
PVE
It looks like a fair few English people will be on that Realm, i think it would be a good one to start on, got another mate or two coming on that realm too, and the guild i was in in Beta are accepting invites on it also.
We will be Defiant.
Cool! Couldn't be bothered playing on a PVP server, 4+ years on one in WoW was enough! lol
Got it downloaded so am ready to go! My main will be called iliana. :)
Will add you to friends list when i get in.