[Fozzik]

Here's a thread to talk about the stress test...

I was thinking, it might be fun to get a few of us together and run around bashing some dynamic events. If anyone's interested, I'll be on the same server as last time. I've got a level 11-ish Charr, plus I'm willing to make a new character if people want to start from the beginning.

If everyone just wants to do their own thing (or if the server stability and performance doesn't allow us to actually play), that's cool too. We can just use this thread to talk about what we saw.

[Vordox]

Originally Posted by Fozzik

Here's a thread to talk about the stress test...

I was thinking, it might be fun to get a few of us together and run around bashing some dynamic events. If anyone's interested, I'll be on the same server as last time. I've got a level 11-ish Charr, plus I'm willing to make a new character if people want to start from the beginning.

If everyone just wants to do their own thing (or if the server stability and performance doesn't allow us to actually play), that's cool too. We can just use this thread to talk about what we saw.

Are you going to be off Monday Fozzik?

I will most likely be setting up a Ventrilo soon probably by next BWE.

I'm 22 but hell I will roll with you. I was just gonna craft anyway because I feel like I might spoil something for myself.Funny never felt that way about a game lol.I'm gonna run azura race anyway so I probably wont play Azura until release. If it is soon crosses fingers.

Anyway I'm "Conkuur" will be leaving test guild for obvious reasons (unless I'm already booted lol) thats why I'm leaving my ingame name.

[Fozzik]

Cool. I'll send you a tell. I'm not off work...but I do get to work really early so I'll be leaving work at 2pm. Hopefully there's not too much going on at home so I'll be able to play.

[Vordox]

Ok I will definitely be waiting. I got a few silver to fart around with some crafting so I will do that until I hear from you.

[AsheMan]

If I'm lucky I'll get off work with an hour or so left in the event. I probably won't make it to this one.

[Fozzik]

We'll try not to have any fun without you.

Aren't you feeling a little too sick to work today?

[AsheMan]

Originally Posted by Fozzik

Aren't you feeling a little too sick to work today?

I've pulled that one a few times this year already!

[Fozzik]

Well, I won't gloat at all... I don't want to jinx it and end up sitting at the server screen the whole time while they work on the back end.

[Fozzik]

The stress test was lots of fun...I really had very few issues at all. I'm now in full no-spoiler mode. I'm continuing to play the same race / class, and I probably will throughout the entire beta, because I don't want to ruin any of the other cities or stories for myself.

I had a great time exploring Black Citadel again, chatting with Vordox, and doing a few events. I took part in the fire shaman boss event again, it's good fun. Very tough on melee, but I actually did pretty well once I started using a darting tactic...I would watch for his big abilities and use dodge, staying a bit out of melee range so I had more time to react. Then when it appeared he wasn't casting, I would dart in, smash him a few times with some big hits and debuffs, and then roll back out. Doing that, I was able to stay at full health and not get one-shotted for the last couple minutes of the fight.

The graphics and art style continue to keep me in awe...if anything, it seemed to look even better than I remembered. It really is just a fantastic style for me personally. Even exploring the same places I'd seen before was still enjoyable, just looking at the scenery.

I played around a bit more with inventory and with dyes, I really like the system and the way the dye collection works. You can sort them using different criteria, and every one of the 300+ colors has a unique name and properties of not only color, but also shiny / matte finish.

Inventory management is quite nice, I love being able to disassemble almost everything into basic crafting mats and then automatically send them to the collection tab in the bank from wherever I am.

It continues to bug me that there is no first-person. I really need that for any number of reasons, especially when exploring. There continues to be no sound effect for auto-loot...which is annoying and noticeable despite being a small problem. I know this was the same build they used in the last BWE, so we didn't get to see any improvements they've made since...I'm just reiterating my complaints.

I did have an issue where it was giving me the choice of entering certain instances that I don't think I was supposed to be able to enter. I would click yes to enter, and it would take a REALLY long time to load, and then would freeze at about 95% and never move. I just stayed stuck on the loading screen for quite a while. I force-closed the program, and when I tried to log back in, I would get an error saying that no instance existed for me (or something like that). Second attempt at logging in, I would get right back in game (I'm guessing because the game automatically booted my character back out of the instance I wasn't supposed to be in). I think it was instances that were for later parts of my personal story, and I probably wasn't supposed to be getting the option to enter them yet.

I started with different answers to the character origin questions in character creation this time, and got a completely different story (not really a surprise, but neat anyway). I liked this story better...instead of having to fight for my life and beat up a bunch of folks to stay alive, I was securing the plans and materials to create a new weapon I had designed and building a new warband to fight the ghosts.

[Vordox]

I was like Fozzik I really didn't want to do a lot or see more then I had already seen not to spoil to much for myself.

I hadn't gone to Divinities Reach last Beta so I figured I would go to that city and find out where things were. Good thing I did that place is freaking huge! That is all I will say other then it has actual portals in the city to get to parts in the city. Hows that for Huge? lol...I dont really look at city exploration as a spoiler because while I enjoy exploration I also loathe looking for a bank or market etc... when I got my game face on. To me it's akin to running into a new grocery store looking for the A-1 while you got steaks hot off the grill waiting. I mean yeah the new store is nice but I just wanna know where the A1 is so I can get home not search every damn aisle.

So on my run back from an outlying area to Divinities Reach I run into this giant veteran tree creature. So I'm like "Yeah let's kill him!" So send in my shadow minion to blind as the other minions mob him (and place my wurm in case I need an escape as well ) I lay down my aoe debuffs and pet heals. Then I do some direct range dmg alternating my aoe's as they cool down. Was a pretty intense fight as my last minion finally bites the dust. The treant is at about less than a 1/4 health and I'm dodging and damaging carefully as there are more mobs in close proximity knowing if I aggro even 1 I'm toast. I'm about half health when I pop my Well of Souls (heal) and my minions refresh just in time as the big behemoth treant comes crashing down. WOOT! I survived! I look on the ground and there is this branch sparkling tool tip says hit (f) to pick up. So I pick it up and my skills change. I forget what skill exactly the tooltip said but it was like "Smack" and "Wallop" So I grab a regular old mob close by (Furfly), and "smack" is like a normal like hit I guess, but "wallop" had a pretty cool animation like a jump up and roll into a ball, stick out, forward roll. It was funny as hell. It was limited use because it did pretty decent amount of damage. It is the little things like that (and there are literally thousands like these) That endears me to this game everytime I play it.

I met up with Fozzik after Divinties Reach and we chatted and helped take out the "Flame Shaman" boss. theres always a bazzilion people killing this boss and it never fails I lose LoS on the Boss and in moving closer get the old 1 shot from his special.It is Beta and they are still stress testing so I will not make a big deal about this yet lol.

It was a good time talking with Fozz in game and discussing our exuberance for the game and some minor short comings.

The big problem GW2 has is it has pretty much everything covered but you have to find it out for yourself. Like for instance crafting materials. You can right click and it will send crafting materials directly to your bank, leaving your bag slots open for other things. However you would never know that unless you happened to (as I did) accidentally right click it. i think I was actually trying to drop it. (I don't know I'm old don't remember as well lol.) There are lots of these things. Basically the UI is an adventure too evidently lol.

Over all I think me and Fozz were basically thinking the same thing. "Lets Release Already Folks!! Ok maybe it was just me. It was fun as usual but way to short!

Looking forward to whatever I can get of this great game. Just hope they announce a release soon. I don't know how many beta weekends I can take as I try to refrain from spoiling anything more for myself.

[Fozzik]

The cool thing Vordox didn't mention - and I know this has been talked about a lot but it's still very cool when you realize it really works - he was like level 28 and I was level 4. He was able to group right up with me, and do events right along with me and they were challenging for him right along with me. We both got experience, we both got loot. It's just so fluid you almost forget it's happening.

[Loampounder]

Originally Posted by Fozzik

The stress test was lots of fun...I really had very few issues at all.

Do you have an idea of how large the population was and how much they managed to stress the servers? Did they corral people to stress areas? Did you feel any fluctuation in the performance?

[Vordox]

Originally Posted by Loampounder

Do you have an idea of how large the population was and how much they managed to stress the servers? Did they corral people to stress areas? Did you feel any fluctuation in the performance?

No they did not corral us at all. But they really didn't have to since the starting areas were as usual really packed. I was a higher level and was logged where I left off in a mid 20 area. Upon logging in my area was a ghost town where on the weekend it was pretty busy too. However when I went to meet Fozzik the starting area was fully packed.

No idea the population but it was much less than the previous BWE. which is hard to estimate really.

I certainly found more performance issues then the previous weekend. Everytime I ported I was froze for a few seconds. I came into a town and I white screened could hear the music and town sounds but screen was white. So they were definitely doing something behind the scenes.

Yeah exactly Fozz. The scaling works very well the "Flame Shaman" one shotted me just like he did when I was level 5 and I lost LoS on him lol.
None of this game can be trivialized so all content is viable and challenging no matter what level you are which is pretty awesome in itself.

[Fozzik]

All the north american servers were at high population when I got on at about 3pm EST yesterday...beyond that I can't tell you. Considering they had about 48 servers, my guess is something like 200k people. Totally a guess, though.

When you're seeing 40-60 people running single events (the boss events) in the level 2-15 zone, it's pretty clear that a good amount of stress is being placed on the server. I never got moved to an overflow the whole time...I don't know if that means they raised the population cap to put more stress on, or if it means it wasn't quite as busy as during the BWE.

[AsheMan]

But that's the same or less than the stress put on the game during the first BWE. I'm trying to figure out what was stress tested when all the servers were up, no corralling into areas, and there had to be less people than the BWE considering it was a Monday afternoon.

Maybe they got some new hardware and wanted to test it out before another big BWE.

[perfect]

Originally Posted by Fozzik

...I played around a bit more with inventory and with dyes, I really like the system and the way the dye collection works. You can sort them using different criteria, and every one of the 300+ colors has a unique name and properties of not only color, but also shiny / matte finish...

One thing I don't like about it is that you can only grow one dye a day and you don't know what the end result will be so you can 'waste' a day. That's all fine and dandy, helps the economy with the trading and selling of extra dyes but that 'one a day' is per character. What this means is that I will have to cycle through 5 characters a day, getting seeds out of my vault, growing them. Seems cumbersome and unnecessary. Make it, say, 5 per day account wide and I won't have to play the inventory mule game.

Originally Posted by Fozzik

...and it would take a REALLY long time to load, and then would freeze at about 95% and never move....

This happened even on instances you were supposed to be in. The forums were alive with people complaining about it. It seemed that on any 'load', it had a fairly large chance to hang.

Originally Posted by Vordox2

...I mean yeah the new store is nice but I just wanna know where the A1 is so I can get home not search every damn aisle...

If your steaks were any good, they wouldn't need A1. Just sayin'.

Originally Posted by Vordox2

...So I pick it up and my skills change. I forget what skill exactly the tooltip said but it was like "Smack" and "Wallop"....

Lots of those 'one shot' weapons: Shovels, Spades, Rocks, Fireworks, etc. The Thief gets a ton of them cause they get Steal and almost every mob type has a different type of stolen weapon. They typically work like this: Your Smack has a 5% chance to break and does 50 damage. Your Wallop has a 90% chance to break, does 100 damage and a special effect (like stun or knockdown). Usually you only get one Wallop but it's a powerful ability.

[Vordox]

Originally Posted by AsheMan

But that's the same or less than the stress put on the game during the first BWE. I'm trying to figure out what was stress tested when all the servers were up, no corralling into areas, and there had to be less people than the BWE considering it was a Monday afternoon.

Maybe they got some new hardware and wanted to test it out before another big BWE.

Facebook they said they were testing "logging in " "Character creation" and "Loading issues".

@perfect I love A1 always have. Not masking the taste of a poor cut of meat. I used to be a "Meat Cutter" I definitely know my cuts of meat :P

[AsheMan]

I was hoping we'd catch wind of the next BWE after the stress test was concluded.

[Fozzik]

I'm going to guess it will be on the three-day weekend. I hope so, anyway.

Trying to get my wife to go ahead and pre-purchase so she can play with us in the next BWE.

[Vordox]

Originally Posted by Fozzik

I'm going to guess it will be on the three-day weekend. I hope so, anyway.

Trying to get my wife to go ahead and pre-purchase so she can play with us in the next BWE.

Yeah I was thinking the same.