Path of Exile: Open Beta Trailer Released

SBFord · February 2013

With the Path of Exile open beta well underway, Grinding Gears Games has released a brand new trailer to show off the action RPG that seems to be gaining a lot of momentum as the 'sleeper hit' of the year. The open beta brought

Zooce · February 2013

Well produced and exciting. The slow-motion brutus was siiick! PoE was really slingin some D with this video (and rightfully so).

adam_nox · February 2013

They should advertise the ability to steal other people's loot if they don't pick it up fast enough and how you can't respec. Also if you stay in town too long your town portal dissapears and all your progress resets.

They seem to really think those are integral parts of the experience, and should get behind them.

Aeonblades · February 2013

Originally posted by adam_nox
They should advertise the ability to steal other people's loot if they don't pick it up fast enough and how you can't respec. Also if you stay in town too long your town portal dissapears and all your progress resets.

They seem to really think those are integral parts of the experience, and should get behind them.

If ya don't like D2 style ARPG's don't play them. It's about time a game came around where your choices mattered beyond "Oh I wasn't paying attention free respec".

I will agree the town portal thing is a hogwash and horse bananas however.

Rednecksith · February 2013

Originally posted by adam_nox
They should advertise the ability to steal other people's loot if they don't pick it up fast enough and how you can't respec. Also if you stay in town too long your town portal dissapears and all your progress resets.

They seem to really think those are integral parts of the experience, and should get behind them.

Don't forget the gender-locked classes, stiff animations, and short view distance which makes ranged weapons near pointless!

Niburu · February 2013

An instance resets after 8-10min. It even says so when you open a new one. Ofc the portals get closed then if you are 8-15min AFK in the town.

Yeah you need to pick up your loot fast if you play in a random guild, how about playing with friends/guild ? Socializing you know the stuff that makes MULITPLAYER games special.

You get 24 character slots and some quests make it possible to refund passive skills+an item that refunds you skills......if you fucked up that baddly you should maybe consider a game that holds your hand and has tootips everyhwere with no player freedome.

Yes you BUILD a unique character and you cant be the frost casting witch one day and the dual wield summoner the next.......

"Don't forget the gender-locked classes, stiff animations, and short view distance which makes ranged weapons near pointless!"

This game doesnt even have XP boosters, everyone is equal and they only make money with cosmetic stuff......GOD forbbid they want you to spend some money on cosmetics so they can develop the game....

Seriously the WoW generation of gamers is embarrassing.

Tsumoro · February 2013

Originally posted by Rednecksith
Originally posted by adam_nox
They should advertise the ability to steal other people's loot if they don't pick it up fast enough and how you can't respec. Also if you stay in town too long your town portal dissapears and all your progress resets.

They seem to really think those are integral parts of the experience, and should get behind them.

Don't forget the gender-locked classes, stiff animations, and short view distance which makes ranged weapons near pointless!

Wow, I was literally dumb-struck as to how inane both of your comments were, considering they have NO validity behind them what-so-ever.

I would before had that I am not a fan-boi or whatever you want to call it, I actually still play Torchlight 2 and Diablo 3, but I would say I enjoy Path of Exile more. But I could literally speak for an 'age' between the differen't ARPG's as to why this is but that is not what this post is about. It's to address your comments.

1) They should advertise the ability to steal other people's loot if they don't pick it up fast enough

The loot is not shared, like you would find in Diablo 3 which I think where the problem lies with peoples mentality. In the first instance, people aren't ninja looting gear, there is VERY little benefit for them to do so like pack rats. You get limited space, there is no gold to had and vendor recipes require a certain amount of fine-tuned gear to get some of the better barter items.

However orbs and the such, as you know are currency and greedy eyes have greey hands. But, you do not have to party with those people. In the first instance, if you are in a group that you set up, then you can kick that person. If you joined a group where people are like that, then you can leave.

I have personally been in over 100 groups, I think I can count on one hand personally where I have had groups as you described. Most people are like you and me, they want to be treated with some respect and as such if they see loot belonging to you, they will leave it the heck alone. When you get in a group with these people, you then add them to your friends. People that have like minded views such as yourself, then when you log on you have a whole list of friends to draw upon. you just whisper them to meet up and start playing. It REALLY isn't that hard.

The trouble here, is more your mentality. This is a community based game, it requires you to talk and communicate with one another. Something, where games like Diablo 3 is pretty much non-existent and this carries over to MMO's like WoW too when doing random dungeons no one speaks to each other. I played WoW the other day with my druid friend who asked the tank to wait so they could change into their healing gear. The tank ran off, pulled everything, everyone died and the tank quit the group.

The point I am making is that people can be jerks and out for themselves but its this lack of communication of stream-lined games that has fostered this attitude. As such, I think the loot in this game is PERFECT! It allows you to work out quite early on who you want to play with and not, so when you do reach the end game you have a whole network of associates to draw upon. The jerks however will find their time challenging as no one wishes to play with them. So they either leave, play solo which gets difficulty higher up or change their attitutde. Enough said.

2) how you can't respec

This game treats you like an adult, and it expects you to behave as such. You get currencies in the game that do allow you to repec points but their intended use is for corrections mainly. For instance, I might pick up flasks, but later move to Vaal Pact which makes those passives redundant so I use those orbs to force corrections.

Not only that the website itself have an online builder, there are also offline builders that allow you to plan your journey before hand. The game has a very 'PERSONAL' feel to it because your character feels like your own, you invested the time to make that character unique to yourself. You took a theme, you made it your own to love and cherish. Respec undermines that process, it essentially says 'Doesn't matter what you do, you can just re-do it'. This mentality fosters a don't care attitude. People who are not experienced with Path of Exile always come on looking for 'that' cookie cutter build like they would of found on the Diablo 3 forums for a Demon Hunter for example.

Instead what they get is a very tailored experience. This is the direction GGG want their game to move along and with over 200k players per day it would seem that a lot of people agree, myself included.

GGG also give you 24 character slots, they want your first experience to be hard and a learning curve, ready for you to invest into your next build, your next creation. It is a game of builds and experimentation which is fantastic. Not only that, they have uniques in the game which are designed to 'push' creativity. You might find a rare item which makes you think 'Oo my next build should be like this! Because this item would make it so much viable'.

What YOU are looking for is to play one character and to do EVERYTHING with that character, which, in theory you can but you have to put the time and thought behind it. You cant just hack and slash through the game and expect to achieve that result. It requires a little effort on your part.

I would also say it is possible to complete Default difficulty Acts 1, 2 and 3 with little thought behind things, you can mince it in a group for example. So if you are looking for just the story, you have that for you. If you are looking to treat the game more on a competitive level. Then thats where you need an adjustment to your approach.

3) Also if you stay in town too long your town portal dissapears and all your progress resets.

This is a little inaccurate, a portal vanishing does not hinder progress, considering this is a grinding based game. You are expected to 'grind maps' to find gear it is to your benefit to do so. Portals last around 15 mins in main maps and about 8-10 mins in annexed maps. The point being is that you will be only looking to return to base to sell, perhaps safely spend your next point.

So I would ask you, what do you mean by 'progress?' I mean if you mean your on a map and it resets because you had a phone call, then just go back to that map and run through back to where you were? If you were already grinding a map, then its to your benefit. The map resetting does not adversely affect you is the point I am making, you lose no progress, quests don't reset. You don't get a quests that hinder your progress through a reset, apart from perhaps the fetid pools which requires you to clear the map of mobs. But that is still an optional quest to begin with. So what do you mean?

Right moving on to the next guy

1) Don't forget the gender-locked classes

Have you played the game? Or did you just look at the character screen? There are NO CLASSES they are mearly way points as to where you start on the passive grid. You have three CORE templates which for example Mauraders will start near strength nodes, Rangers near Dexterity and Witches near Intelligence. You have three hybrids which start you on the grid near a mixture.

You before hand decide on what you want to make (as a build) then you pick the template that takes you to that place quicker. There is nothing stopping you from making a heavy armour wand weilding witch, or a ranger who likes to be in heavy armour and dabble in necromancy. Of a light armoured marauder who likes to use a bow and a passion for totems. Your build is your own and you are free to make it how ever you like. GGG just give you the means to getting to your desires quicker.

As such, there are 3 male templates and 2 female templates, however I understand that you wanted a female/male counter part to the templates. But please you have to bare in mind, this is not Torchlight or Diablo, there was no box price with this game, it is F2P. These skins, which are purely cosmetic will have many counter-parts in the future for a fee. Its how GGG will finance this game. After all they have bills they need to pay to keep it running.

2) stiff animations

These are not stiff, infact they all have a lot of frames to them. Less frames means stiffness in animations and I think your views on this might be based on more the cartoon based TL2 or D3. If its a cartoon, visually things seem more fluid, super mario or rayman as cartoon games will always seem more fluid than games with a realitic tone to them despite the frames used. Unless GGG actually makes avatars with motion capture you are always going to see that difference. Rayman jumping for example looks a lot better than say a man jumping in Call of Duty at least on a visual sense. More frames would actually be used for the Call of Duty model than Rayman but it would be wrong to compare the styles.

If I am honest, the game doesnt feel stiff to me at all. I move around rather easily and my character responds to me as I expect it would.

But this would be based on personal preference, which is what you are trying to invoke here. But it would be wrong of you to cast a detriment to the games animations considering they are good, but maybe not to your own liking.

3) short view distance which makes ranged weapons near pointless!

I can't actually understand the mentality behind this one. What do you mean? Ranged weapons work fine, in fact so many people use them in hardcore due to the extra security the range gives them. Are you perhaps comparing this to Diablo 3, where a Demon hunter or a Mage could literally nuke things from miles away and kill it before it gets to them with their glass cannon builds? If that is the case, then no. You won't succeed with the ranger.

Having a bow is not meant to invoke an easy mode attitude. It forces you to kite and crowd control a lot more. I think personally you just needed to learn how to play as a bow spec in this game rather than trying to play in as you would another game.