By Kieron Gillen on August 20th, 2009 at 2:02 pm.
The RPS-chat-room is broke by the cry: “Guild Wars 2 has splendid terrain!”. As we all know terrain is the single most important factor in PC Gaming. As such, I continue to be excited by Guild Wars. The first half of the video is slightly animated versions of the always beautiful Guild Wars concept art, so when the actual game footage arrives… well, it’s both a surprise and a joy. Clearly, I’ve taken a grab from the concept art section to avoid ruining the segue for you. The footage itself follows…
I think that’s neat. I think Guild Wars was the bravest and most interesting fantasy MMO design of the 00s, on every level. And before anyone says anything, I think that it’s even a question of whether it’s an MMO or not says more about how useless almost everyone else has been than Guild Wars itself. Everything which I’ve heard about Guild Wars 2 sounds like it’s a worthy successor, and even its retreats from some of its more radical stances sound intriguing. I really can’t wait to hear more.
20/08/2009 at 14:05 abigbat says:
I’m moist with anticipation.
Literally.
20/08/2009 at 14:07 Gurrah says:
I’m still disappointed we won’t be able to play as the Tengu, which, frankly, are the best race in Tyria! Still, the footage is amazing and I can’t wait for it to be released.
20/08/2009 at 14:08 Jim Rossignol says:
Cor. You can see the influence of main concept art chappie: http://www.tinfoilgames.com/
20/08/2009 at 14:12 EvilMonk3y says:
I never played the first GW and I am unlikely to play this one due to my aversion to MMO’s in general. However I must say I love this art style, looks like the type of game I would love to watch over the shoulder of someone else playing.
20/08/2009 at 14:13 LeFishy says:
I loved Guild Wars until all my friends left to university and I jumped ship to WoW. This probably won’t make my jump back but it will certainly get a purchase and a lengthy play from me.
20/08/2009 at 14:15 Heliosicle says:
oh my thats purty
20/08/2009 at 14:19 M.P. says:
Looks absolutely amazing, shame there isn’t any actual _gameplay_! If it’s anything like the first one it can do no wrong though. I’ll miss click-to-move of course, it was very nice to have even though I rarely used it, and all because some idiots didn’t take to the first GW because they weren’t able to jump! You can see people merrily bunnyhopping across the landscape at several points in the trailer. Intentionally aimed against those specific people? :p
@ EvilMonk3y: If it’s anything like the first one, there is no grind. The grind is imaginary. Embrace the Guild Wars, and ascend above the grind to achieve enlightenment.
It’s more like a competitive FPS, except with an 8-icon skillbar instead of a stable of different guns.
20/08/2009 at 14:20 Kester says:
So what’s being retreated from on this one, seeing as I’m too lazy to go and look it up? I hope they keep the multiplayer as is, Guild Wars is criminally underlooked as one of the best MP games on PC. (It’s just a shame you had to play in a guild to get the most out of it.O
20/08/2009 at 14:25 Riotpoll says:
Excited. Also this trailer shows how important good art is for a game to look pretty.
20/08/2009 at 14:27 Rabbitsoup says:
Well I think I am more or less sold. Guildwars did so much right this sequel looks great and actually fresh, also is it still priced in the same way?
20/08/2009 at 14:28 cyrenic says:
That looked great, but what I’m craving is gameplay info. I loved the PvP in GW, but it was so inflexible if you had an odd number of people. So I’m hoping the fix that somehow. I’d love to see random “world” PvP, for example.
20/08/2009 at 14:32 Pzykozis says:
Oh my, now this looks interesting, after beta testing the first one I never picked it up, it didnt draw me enough from whatever I was upto back then… but! This does indeed look interesting, seems like i might be doing a combo of GW2 and FF14 in the not so distant future.
My social and studying life isn’t going to fair well methinks.
20/08/2009 at 14:35 somnolentsurfer says:
That does indeed have nice terrain. Looks much more interesting than all those boring Aion videos.
20/08/2009 at 14:37 Arnulf says:
I did not expect that. Was quite enjoyable to behold.
20/08/2009 at 14:39 Torgen says:
I want to be a polar bear man.
20/08/2009 at 14:40 Ansob. says:
Please tell me those armoured polar bears are an actual playable race.
20/08/2009 at 14:40 seras says:
that was drool worthy!
the asuran city looked to wicked. still not sure how the payable races will work out..but i’ll definitely be buying this on release day =)
20/08/2009 at 14:40 Bigfoot_King says:
Me and my friends had a great time in guild wars and some still play it now. It will be great to show them this footage
20/08/2009 at 14:40 Riotpoll says:
@Cyrenic; there’s a preview article over on eurogamer, it mentions massive world pvp, as well as there still being premade pvp chars to use in arenas style organised pvp.
20/08/2009 at 14:42 dan says:
Neat.
20/08/2009 at 14:42 Howard says:
Christ on a bike! That is genuinely stunning!
My interesting this game just went from zero to 100 in a 4 and a half minute trailer.
So, how does Guild Wars work then? I’ve never really looked into it. What separates it from the other MMOs?
20/08/2009 at 14:45 Wolfox says:
Wow, fantastic trailer. Arenanet knows how to do trailers and CGI animations.
Looking forward to it; I loved the original GW (with all campaigns/expansions), and I trust Arenanet will make GW2 even better.
20/08/2009 at 14:50 Man Raised By Puffins says:
Mmmm, that’s one lovely aesthetic they’ve developed there. I’m almost tempted to pick this game up just to stroll around those beautiful environments.
20/08/2009 at 14:54 KindredPhantom says:
Fantastic. I have been waiting for GW2 news for quite a while. I look forward to seeing some in-game footage videos.
20/08/2009 at 14:54 Heliocentric says:
The main difference between most mmo’s and guild wars is that guild wars has no fee’s. Also you are within 2 dozen hours are at maximum level, its less grinding and more tutorial for that class. With nice quests. Also, everything is instances apart from cities. Meaning noone griefing but also kinda empty and personal (its mixed).
Certainly try it though.
20/08/2009 at 15:00 Rinox says:
Looks incredible. Not sure if I’d be up for any non-Old Republic MMORPG anytime soon though.
20/08/2009 at 15:02 abigbat says:
Yeah, Dociu is one of my favourite conceptual artists; the stuff he did for the original GW is astonishing.
20/08/2009 at 15:03 Jesrad says:
It looks very nice. Graphically improved while still recognizable as part of the same world. Guild Wars and EVE are the only innovative MMO’s around so I’ve been waiting for this for awhile.
The only foreseeable problem is that most of the GW players I know are refugees from Diablo 2 who are currently salivating for Diablo 3. Launching this first may be rather important.
20/08/2009 at 15:07 schizoslayer says:
Very Pretty. Looks like better art in a slightly Tweaked Guild Wars engine. The last update was similar levels of vastness in the areas.
Things I remember from old interviews about GW2:
Less instancing and more single world (like WoW)
They were considering a subscription fee.
The gameplay will be largely the same as Guild Wars (Which is no bad thing)
Those are from OLD interviews though. How much will come to pass I have no idea.
20/08/2009 at 15:08 cyrenic says:
@Riotpoll
I had heard a bit about the world PvP, but I’m left wanting specifics :). That Eurogamer preview was great, though. Here’s a link for anyone that hasn’t seen it, lots of good gameplay info: http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/guild-wars-2-preview_4
20/08/2009 at 15:10 Dominic White says:
For anyone who hasn’t tried it yet, get this now:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/NCsoft-Guild-Wars-Complete-Collection/dp/B001CSMF48/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=videogames&qid=1250776923&sr=8-1
Guild Wars: Complete Collection, £25. Contains all the core campaigns (Prophecies, Factions & Nightfall, and the expansion campaign Eye of The North) and all you really need is a buddy.
Just one, really – while you can play with up to 8, the Hero system (whereby you can build your own party of customized AI characters) lets two players cover all eight roles very adequately.
As others have said, there is no grind. The rate of levelling varies between campaigns, but as the most extreme example, if you choose to start off in the chinese-inspired Cantha, you will be almost at maximum level (20) by the time you’ve finished the tutorial island.
Yep, you’re fresh out of the tutorial area and as tough as you’ll ever be. You’ll never have more HP or MP, and the best armor in the game isn’t too much further away either. For other games, this would be ‘endgame’, but you’ve probably not even seen the first fifth of one of the four main plotlines.
This is why Guild Wars is fun. It’s an actual *game*, rather than an exercise in having higher numbers than the other guy. The only way to beat the enemies (who can go WAY over level 20) is to have a plan, good team coordination and a well thought out skill setup. You’ll often find yourself reworking your character every other mission to try and find that right combination of tools for the job.
While the game isn’t technically amazing anymore, it makes up for it with fantastic art direction. It still looks very good – great in places, even – due to Arenanets fantastic art team. The music is fantastic as well. You’re also getting a lot of RPG, with interesting places to explore and fun monsters to fight, for £25. This is a very fair price, believe me.
Just get it. Bring a buddy and have fun. Not that the buddy is REQUIRED, but it means that with only one player, you’ll have to bring Henchmen (Second-tier ‘quickbots’) along, rather than having two carefully build player-run parties.
20/08/2009 at 15:10 Rabbitsoup says:
@Ansob – yes
also pricing is the same as before :D
20/08/2009 at 15:12 Bobsy says:
Good gracious, that’s absurdly pretty. I know nothing about GW2 though, so please forgive the query:
Wasn’t the first Guild Wars pretty much entirely instance-based? Is that going to ring true for these fantastic environments, because if so… that’d be a real let-down for those environments.
20/08/2009 at 15:14 Lack_26 says:
Ohhh, I’m excited, I played a hellov’a lot (by my standards), about 400 hours (although my FO3 time stands at over 100 hours, and I still feel I’ve barely scraped it. Although a lot of that is thanks to mods). So I’m definitely looking forward to this.
20/08/2009 at 15:21 Theoban says:
THIS HAS GAINED THE THEOBAN SEAL OF APPROVAL
QUAKE, MORTALS
20/08/2009 at 15:22 Solaris says:
There certainly was griefing in guild wars 1. I remember people abusing the /report because it let to brand people with “dishonorable” or something and prevented them from playing pvp for a while. This was automatic and Anet made no moves to check the legitimacy of these reports as far as I know. The most effective way was to have your team report the other team for inappropriate language after losing in a pvp match. This would keep them from playing for the rest of the night automatically. Their chat longs would be gone through and even if they swore in guild chat they would often get banned. If you honestly felt like it you could probably warp into a district with a couple guild friends and chain report people until they got banned with little fear of repercussions. There were also instances in pve where there were individual players could get a the reward at the end of an instance called the Underworld and then aggro all nearby monsters so other players couldn’t get it.
20/08/2009 at 15:22 seras says:
the first Guild Wars was entirely instance based but they’ve said GW2 would have more persisted zones(though the focus would still be on instances…and thank god for that). not sure how it would be a ‘let-down’ for the environments though.
oh and yes…the bears are the Norn and they will be playable.
20/08/2009 at 15:23 Asskicker says:
Amazing trailer, can’t wait for this one.
20/08/2009 at 15:25 Bob says:
Looking forward to this! I clocked over 2000 hours on GW1, but gave up when they said they were making gw2, as I didnt see the point playing anymore
20/08/2009 at 15:28 The Great Wayne says:
Interesting.
Been playing the first one for a while, along with EvE (thanks to no subscription fees in GW), however as much as I trust the guys from ArenaNet I’ll have to see the new gameplay in action to be convinced.
That said, am I the only one the see an obvious resemblance between the GW 2 logo at the end of the vid and the Dragon Age one ?
20/08/2009 at 15:29 Bobsy says:
Two more foodstuffs for thoughty-thinks:
1) That’s surely the delightful Queen of Game Ladies Jennifer Hale there, isn’t it?
2) Interesting timing for this trailer. It’s genuinely stunning, and comes out just in time for a Blizzcon where the new WoW expansion is to be announced? I sense marketing strategies, but I cannot comprehend them.
20/08/2009 at 15:30 A-Scale says:
I LOVED being a mesmer/elementalist (or visa versa). It was the only MMO experience that I ever enjoyed. Lets hope they can fix the issue of not having a persistent PVE world.
That said, I hate hate HATE giant things that rise out of the sea. That goes for ANY giant thing that rises from the sea.
20/08/2009 at 15:34 Prowlinger says:
Looks amazing! If you notice, you will see the areas of the 5 races… Human, Asura, Norn, Charr, and Sylvia. What seems new is that the Charr are now advancing heavily into industrial technology while the Asura are still old relic magic technology. The Sylvia look like a cross breed of a druid and a fairy/elf .
The world looks fantastic as always as does the whole art style.
Everyone notice the jumping and swimming? :)
It is amazing how popular GW1 was (still is) and it isn’t a pay to play design. That alone right there still and always will have staying power.
GW2 will be awesome!
20/08/2009 at 15:48 Hyudra says:
I think a lot of people dwell on the ‘no fees’ thing, which IMHO isn’t the biggest thing about Guild Wars.
10 classes, and each class could thereafter pick a secondary class, getting access to their skills, albeit with less power. 1200 skills in total, of which you could only bring 8 into an instance/pvp match. This created a kind of ‘deck building’ situation where you’d have to carefully select skills to create maximum synergy within the build and the group, with incredible flexibility overall.
The game as a whole avoided the pitfalls of PvP MORPGs – For better or worse, PvP was structured with teams being matched in numbers (and oftentimes in skill – as with Guild vs. Guild), so you didn’t have the 10 vs. 20 autofail that you see in games like WAR. No stealth, CC as a whole being fairly minimal (Slows, ‘daze’, 1 second knockdowns, interrupts, but no being stunned for 7s or frozen in place for 10s). Aggravation is minimal, teamwork paramount.
GW was exceedingly forgiving – You could redo your build from scratch in a matter of seconds at no cost. Only character appearance was irrevocable (and they recently added a fee-based appearance changer for their 4th anniversary).
Probably some of the most balanced PvP I’ve seen in an MORPG. There were ebbs and flows, but pvp remained pretty healthy for the most part. There was a half-year where the metagame got fairly stale following the Nightfall expansion (Every GvG team running pretty much the same build, with maybe 1 skill different)
That said, there were flaws. The first & foremost among them? Note how I used past tense throughout this comment – Following the Eye of the North expansion, the game pretty much stopped getting updated, beyond general skill tweaks (and one late revision to set a divide between PvE versions of skills and PvP versions of those same skills). Such is the price of the ‘no subscription’ payment scheme. Someone who buys/returns to the game today shouldn’t expect to see any major patches.
I was personally rather ticked off when they released Eye of the North expansion – textures for many of the new armors and environments were taken wholesale from previous content. The expansion turned out to be 40% of the content of the previous ‘chapters’ (of which there were two – Nightfall and Factions) for 75% of the prince. Ultimately, the ‘expansion’ turned out to be little more than a last ditch cash grab & ad for GW2 before they announced (Not long after) that they were stopping work on GW to work on GW2.
In short, GW2 is going to have to ~really~ sell me to make up for that.
20/08/2009 at 15:51 tom@nullpointer.co.uk says:
Dociu is the man! I’m glad hes still working on GW, i really think his vision is what has led to to look so damn imaginative. A little prog perhaps but thats fine by me.
Oh and PS… PLEASE LET ME JUMP!!!!!!
20/08/2009 at 16:01 Stupoider says:
Oh yeah, I forgot about not being able to jump in Guild Wars. Does anyone know if they changed that? And please tell me they’ve cut down on all the instancing, that drove me crazy. :/
20/08/2009 at 16:02 Xercies says:
The instanced thing isn’t actually a bad thing, some of the enviroments are quite huge(espeicially In Factions my god some of those areas are sprawling and you can get easily lost) and sometimes it feels not very good but sometimes its great because you can basically play it on your own time. Sometimes i would do a couple of quests with the henchmen and just go through it. Guild Wars was a great RPG and an MMO. Which is something you can’t really say about a lot of MMOs.
20/08/2009 at 16:09 jalf says:
Looks delicious! And thanks for putting a name to the awesome GW concept art. /me bookmarks Dociu’s site.
I never really got into GW PvP. Seemed too rigid for me. Arena battles get old after a while (although I did have fun in the ones I played). I loved the coop campaigns though, especially in the first game. (Don’t know what it was, but the expansion campaigns just didn’t really grab my attention the same way)
20/08/2009 at 16:10 jalf says:
Oh yeah, and that mission in Factions where you have two teams meeting up and playing together? Pure brilliance, and a good example of why instancing can be a good thing.
20/08/2009 at 16:12 GuiSim says:
No elves, no dwarves..
AWESOME !
20/08/2009 at 16:20 Tei says:
This is great. I have GW with not expansion, and I am still level 11 or something, not soo much fun. I probably have the worst thing. The graphcs where nice, but theres particles everywhere, It feels fruity, but bland. And this is probably the only critic you can get for GW on the whole internet. This video is awesome, and the graphics seems moving the genre forward, and thats is saying much. Too bad (as other people say) this is a MMO. Imagine a RPG with this graphics!.
20/08/2009 at 16:22 CJohnson03 says:
By the way, it’s still going to be no subscription.
And for some people who complain GW1 has been abandoned, even though they do not add content anymore, they still do monthly updates and big holiday events.
In the July Update, they totally rebalanced the Ritualist skill trees to make them much more interesting to play. This month they focussed on Elementalists, Rangers, Dervishes, and Assassins. So they do still continue to support this game, and I continue to play it because it has awesome pvp.
20/08/2009 at 16:23 Low Quality Beard says:
People keep calling this an MMO, I was under the impression GW was set up like Diablo, am I missing something?
20/08/2009 at 16:24 Kieron Gillen says:
I still recommend the Nightfall add-on for Guild Wars. It’s really strong.
KG
20/08/2009 at 16:28 Heliocentric says:
I’m a monk, whatever else i’m the healer but in guild wars i don’t have to be just a healer, i can be the aura healer with a swarm of minions or the spell spamming elementalist healer.
In every game, when i can i play the anti entropic role i will, but some games see fit to disempower healers.
Thanks guild wars, by allowing healing to be a job i do, not how i am defined.
20/08/2009 at 16:30 CJohnson03 says:
oh, and jumping and swimming, as well as crafting and all that stuff, is going to be in GW2. There’s a GW2 FAQ on the official site with all that information.
20/08/2009 at 16:31 Nick says:
“Please tell me those armoured polar bears are an actual playable race.”
Sort of, the Norn can turn into a bear, which is what that was.
20/08/2009 at 16:38 Heliocentric says:
Other strong examples of empowered healers battlefield 2. There are 2 “healer” classes. A healer of flesh and a healer of steel. The medic’s first unlock is one of the best weapons in the game, and self healing is nigh immortality. The bf2 engineer can kill tanks with a little planning or by running up and droping the mine under the treads. But the spanner, i can be flying my jeep/helicopter/quadbike alongside a tank and make it tough, or even park up my own tank and quickly turn a burning wreck into a fresh off the factory line killer.
I find the tf2 medic no fun at all. You are just a banana rider.
20/08/2009 at 16:46 kalidanthepalidan says:
That made me very happy. :)
20/08/2009 at 16:51 Lim-Dul says:
I was a Guild Wars player for around 2-3 years, including alpha testing.
Truth be told I am not looking forward to GW2 that much.
From everything I saw and read they will backpedal from many, many of the innovative features that were in GW1 just to get an even larger slice of the WoW pie – or rather all the generic and similar-ish MMORPGs that are out there.
The reason why GW was so good wasn’t because it was free to play – it offered people who didn’t like traditional MMORPGs a refuge with a completely different gameplay experience while still giving them a fantasy setting, awesome spells and the possibility to meet thousands of players (well, millions actually ;-) and so on.
There was grinding in Guild Wars but it was ONLY for prestige – to get titles, nicer looking equipment (but with the SAME exact stats as cheapo-stuff) etc. I didn’t care about that at all – I finished each of the campaigns and concentrated on PvP instead, which was absolutely amazing, since they managed to keep it incredibly balanced and based on PLAYER SKILL, not time/money invested in making your character better.
Less instancing? So that people can kill-steal, farm, gank like in other MMORPGs?
Playable races besides humans? To be like every other MMORPG out there?
Crafting? Why? So people can have jobs outside of their real-life jobs like in other MMORPGs? (Dofus is like that – it’s nice if you’re into that stuff but otherwise an incredible grindfest)
I don’t know what all the “new” features which are invariably found in every other MMORPG contribute to Guild Wars and its concept – why not stick to the alternative formula that still managed to make Guild Wars one of the most popular MMORPG(ish) games out there and attracted players that didn’t like e.g. WoW.
20/08/2009 at 16:53 mister_d says:
GW was fantastic (Prophecies at least). My biggest hope for GW2 is that there is a greater amount and variety of end-game content to keep me entertained until the next campaign. I played Prophecies to death and just couldn’t keep myself interested for the whole year until Factions came out. When it did, it was pretty hard to get back into after a break of a few months. After that I never bothered with Nightfall or the expansion. Hook me or lose me.
Also, there better be Beta Weekend Events like there were for GW1!
20/08/2009 at 17:04 Azazel says:
Guild Wars was and is a great game.
Fair enough if they’ve felt they needed to make some concessions to the crowd who dismissed it simply because it wasn’t WoW. (No Jump button! OH NOES! How will we ever live without this CRUCIAL rpg game mechanic?) Of course a persistent world would be generally welcomed by most people I think.
Looking forward to this one.
20/08/2009 at 17:06 Stupoider says:
Less instancing? So that people can kill-steal, farm, gank like in other MMORPGs?
That’s quite the generalisation. Not looking at the benefits, are you? The world becomes less isolated and feels more like am MMO, if you’re running into other adventurers on your journeys and what not. Sure those are bad aspects, but if you’re with the right kind of people then it’s fine. I’m certain Guild Wars already has that niche of players who love to gank and kill-steal, just like every other MMO.
20/08/2009 at 17:07 Stupoider says:
My above comment was directed at Lim-Dul, btw! And the first part should be in quotation marks.
20/08/2009 at 17:07 plant42 says:
Eh, not a huge fan of this art style. Detailed and lovingly crafted yes, but also suffering from that excessive need to one-up yourself that creates hideously improbable cities made of floating cubes. It reminds me of the Rob Leifield era of comic books with muscles on top of muscles and massive impossible breasts.
Dunno, I just like more classic King-Arthur style fantasy that’s based on actual medieval weapons, armor etc and magic is exceedingly rare. It really bugs me when you have a setting where magic is so rampant that a level 1 mage can cast massive fireballs and lightning storms and whole cities are just floating over a lake. :/ Likewise World of Warcraft’s massive glowing shoulder pads, excessive spell effects, glowing portals, glowing runes, sparkling weapons, floating cities etc etc drive me up the wall.
20/08/2009 at 17:09 Wulf says:
I’m terribly excited about Guild Wars again, and I think the thing I’m most excited about is the settting. It has one of those settings that pushes all the right buttons in my mind and makes it visual crack for me.
A mix of high-fantasy and steampunk (with even high-technology elements), with tribal races, everything in between, and an environment that truly shows the impact of all these myriad races and their approaches, and how stunningly alien it can all be.
And now I’m going to say one of those little things that’s going to make me unpopular, again.
Yes, I realise that World of Warcraft tried to do this but it was a failure of epic proportions, the lore is hilarious, the reasons for the state of the World are hilarious, and the supposed culture of the races? That’s hilarious too. It’s like the kind of thing one would scrawl on a napkin, and Blizzard made a game out of that.
It’s a commercial success, but it’s also a terrible joke.
What I want to see is an MMO that has the depth of Uru when it comes to alien locales and the culture of any given race, and Guild Wars has always been promising with that, they’ve teased me with tantalising little elements that have whispered “This isn’t Warcraft.” And I’m excited because of that, I’m excited for well-written nonhuman races, and I’m excited for alien vistas which all mesh together well, all with rhyme and reason.
I was terribly impressed by the first Guild Wars, it started off with high fantasy (la la la yawn) but the Charr were a very promising element, and then the Charr brings about armageddon, suddenly everything becomes very fascinating and I get the strong desire to get out there and explore, I found myself wishing to understand the Charr, and to discover the reasons for why they did what they did.
And in Guild Wars 2, one can be the Charr, or the elusive Asura, and others which intrigue me and in the process we might find out more about their lore, not through poorly constructed quests, but through proper events (like in Guild Wars) and perhaps even through the documented history of each of the races, which I’m hoping I’ll be able to read up on.
This is promising, this isn’t Mechanical Ostriches in Elfland, this has the promise of being a Hit-Thing-with-Sword MMO, but one that has something more.
Colour me intrigued.
Don’t screw this up, Arenanet.
20/08/2009 at 17:26 Marty Dodge says:
Bit of Cthulhu inspiration there… city @ the bottom of the sea, big evil and his minions etc. Looks interesting though, wonder how it will turn out?
20/08/2009 at 17:26 The Great Wayne says:
@Lim-dul
Talk about seeing the glass half empty ^^
They aren’t dropping the instanciation completely, they seem to be willing to use a AoC-esque system with several copy of a same zone, allowing a limited number of players to enter it.
Also, injecting more freedom of movement in the game isn’t that bad, GW on this one was sometime a bit frustrating with the linearisation of the paths you were able to take in a given zone.
Anyway, to at least approach the essence of the MMO genre the anounced changes are needed, for the best or the worst (UO/EvE being the best, WoW probably being the worst, from my pov).
I’m pretty sure Anet will not push the social or economic interaction to the level of UO in GW2, but i’m also quite confident that they have a few tricks in their hat to differentiate their game from the rest and create the buzz once again.
Wait and see, I guess.
20/08/2009 at 17:47 Psychopomp says:
It would be a sin for this game not to have a tourist class, so I can just walk around and marvel at the world.
“Eh, not a huge fan of this art style. Detailed and lovingly crafted yes, but also suffering from that excessive need to one-up yourself that creates hideously improbable cities made of floating cubes.”
Yeah, fantasy should only have probably things, like shooting fireballs out of your hands, and dragons!
20/08/2009 at 18:18 BrokenSymmetry says:
Daniel Dociu + Jeremy Soule = Paradise
20/08/2009 at 18:26 Cutman says:
My video has been loading for 14 days, is this normal?
20/08/2009 at 18:29 Jim Rossignol says:
Cutman, adblock seems to knock over the player in some cases.
20/08/2009 at 18:30 Isometric says:
Jennifer Hale is wonderous i never get tired of her voice.
20/08/2009 at 18:36 Kieron Gillen says:
plant42: You should play Darkfall.
KG
20/08/2009 at 18:41 BigJonno says:
MMOs seem to increasingly be a bunch of different games hung together with persistant characters and worlds; GW is just a lot more honest about it than most others.
The whole PvP, deck-building-but-with-skills thing? Never tried it. To me, GW was a multiplayer RPG that I played with my wife and a friend. There just happened to be lots of people around whenever we went into a city.
I’ve been saying for a couple of years now that MMOs are big enough to be niche now. I’d be perfectly happy with a sandboxy, roleplaying focused MMO with an emphasis on being a world rather than being a game. Other people want large scale raids, others want PvP. If MMOs stopped trying to be all things to all people and concentrated on being awesome at one aspect of the genre, they’d have a much greater chance of success.
Remember when UT and Q3 were announced and no-one thought an MP-based FPS would work?
20/08/2009 at 18:53 Vinraith says:
I loved Guild Wars. I’m a little concerned about some of the design choices in Guild Wars 2 (I love having my own instances and I love having a group of AI heroes to play with) but one thing I’m NOT concerned about is the art style. GW was insanely gorgeous (still it, really) and this looks to be even moreso.
20/08/2009 at 19:19 SwiftRanger says:
@Lim-Dul: read the EG preview (which contrary to their super vague, Lionhead-fapping Fable III article is actually quite clear), GW2 is still about skill, not grinding, if you want to be competitive and even the non-instanced parts sound very interesting. Looking forward to this.
Also, Trailer of the Year.
20/08/2009 at 19:25 Hirvox says:
Oo, shiny. This will be a great game to watch while someone else plays it. I’m almost tempted to try it myself.
20/08/2009 at 19:42 plant42 says:
Checking out Darkfall…
20/08/2009 at 19:48 SuperNashwan says:
I know nothing about Guild Wars and I’m instantly intrigued about the sequel after watching that. Holy shit that’s a good looking game.
20/08/2009 at 20:03 Psychopomp says:
So, after watching that trailer, I decided to give Guild Wars a try.
Wow. I love the skill system, I love the sound of the wands, I love the art direction, and really, I think the instanced world is a bit of a godsend. MMO or not, it’s a damn fine RPG. I’m definitely picking it up at some point to scratch that PvP itch, that WoW just leaves enraged.
20/08/2009 at 20:26 DarkNoghri says:
Ooo, purty.
Anyone else think the logo looks like the one for Dragon Age?
Also, am I the only one getting the same darned Wolfenstein ad before every single RPS ™ video? I was asking people the other day, and at least one was getting no ads.
20/08/2009 at 20:33 Orange says:
Can’t wait for it, Arenanet got the basics spot on in GW in terms of gameplay balance and the graphical look, so looking forward to seeing what new things they will bring in.
20/08/2009 at 21:05 Duke Nasty VI says:
Brilliant! I loved the graphics in the first one. They managed to make a game that looked really, really good. Not because of the engine’s technical features, but because of great art. And it seems they’re doing the same thing this time.
Can’t wait to give GW2 a try.
20/08/2009 at 21:23 vasagi says:
Ahem
been playing nowt but GW for the past month, tis ace
trailer is great but the eurogamer article gave me a chubby
the degree of charecter skill creation is awsome plus the fact that you can change 2nd prof when ever after a certain point is full of win
pretty good rpg story fair as well
20/08/2009 at 21:51 roBurky says:
The in-game stuff is very nice, but that trailer mostly makes me yearn for a game built using the puppet style animation of that intro sequence.
20/08/2009 at 22:40 Solaris says:
I am glad that Anet still says they want to reward skill, but after pvp balance being neglected or just plain ignored for so long, I am not sure I trust them anymore. There is an great post on the Team Quitter forums about how skillful play is less rewarded now than it was at release.
http://www.teamquitter.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=12862
I would warn anyone who is just trying to get into pvp right now that Anet has all but stopped supporting guild wars 1 with updates that add meaningful content or correct skill imbalance. There is a fair amount of pve content to be had though and nightfall is probably the best place to go for that.
20/08/2009 at 23:24 Stupoider says:
I don’t know about anyone else but the trailer reminded me of the cutscenes in Thief: Deadly Shadows. Fantastic stuff! But I can’t say I’m going to get this game.
21/08/2009 at 00:21 malkav11 says:
ArenaNet has always had killer artists. Even screenshots of their games make great wallpaper. I’m not excited about a lot of the elements they’re dumping from the original Guild Wars, though, and I’d really have liked more expansion of that game over a sequel. At least, for a few more expansions worth of content.
Then again, I’m a long, long way from finishing the stuff they already put out. So I think I’ll lurk over in my quiet little corner, try to lure someone into playing GW with me, and in a couple years I’ll poke at Guild Wars 2 and see what’s what.
21/08/2009 at 04:41 PaulMorel says:
great trailer. It’s hard for me to get excited about another fantasy RPG, but with landscapes like those …
21/08/2009 at 04:44 majorbromly says:
My expectations have been ravaged, cast into the gutter and beaten savagely by a homeless woman. Guild Wars 2; I love you.
21/08/2009 at 05:25 Gabe says:
Call me a traitor if you will, but I’ve actually been bored of WoW for a while now. Honestly, the only thing that has kept me around is the lore. Of all the games I’ve ever played, the Warcraft series has to have the most interesting and epic lore I’ve come across.
But now, not even the lore is enough. I’ve been looking at Champions Online, and I’m hoping it turns out to be great or near it (and just needing a few more patches and whatnot), but with the news of a Guild Wars 2 (keeping in mind I never actually played the first GW), I have to say, I’m curious.
21/08/2009 at 09:28 Argh says:
Now thats one epic trailer. Bioware can learn a thing or two from these ArenaNet chaps.
21/08/2009 at 11:37 Cutman says:
I disabled all ad/pop-up/etc. blocking stuff on my firefox, and it still infinitely loads. Not a huge deal though, as this is the internet and one can find the same video spread all throughout the vast internet super dump truck.
21/08/2009 at 12:27 vasagi says:
@solaris
there was a skill balance patch just 10 days ago
21/08/2009 at 15:47 seras says:
ya solaris is way off…there’s been very nicely thought out monthly skill balances for a while now. both to balance and to keep the metagame pushing forward(as opposed to build X dominating for months on end). even on the pve end they’ve been rewarding build diversification and primary focus.
and ever since the pve/pvp skill split there’s been a lot less complaining about ‘they nerfed this!’, ‘they overpowered that!’.
21/08/2009 at 15:49 The Great Wayne says:
@Argh
ArenaNet founders were guys from the core Blizzard team, although right now only O’brien remains iirc, so I think many companies can learn a thing or two from their work on GW, trailers and the rest ;)
@Gabe
Considering the Warcraft lore is mostly a patchwork of existing universes (warhammer especially), and that it has been frankly sold out to the hardcore carebears in WoW, I can only advise you to try GW (as said before, Nightfall is a solid standalone) or even LOTRO, which are far more solid and interesting, background wise.
EvE too has a nice background if you want to devote some time exploring it, but you have to like sci fi and internet spaceship games.
21/08/2009 at 17:16 Urthman says:
Is Guild Wars worth getting as a single-player game? Do you have to be online to play? What is the gameplay like – is it pretty much the same as Diablo or Titan Quest? Or more like Dungeon Siege or something?
21/08/2009 at 17:56 seras says:
you do have to be online but other than for pvp and the really high end stuff I play it mostly single player.
21/08/2009 at 18:01 m.p. says:
@Solaris: that’s not fair really! I played no Guild Wars for nealy a year, and went back to it 2-3 months ago, and there was a lot of new stuff for pvp! Those Zaishen quests have managed to revitalise parts of pvp that were never seeing play at all (like those competitive missions in Factions). Plus they do occasionally shake things up with skill balances – in fact, I just read they buffed Divine Boon, meaning I can be a boon prot again like I was all the way back in the first championship season! :) I was just about to log in and try it, in fact! The only thing that’s “dead” is Team Arenas, but Random Arenas are going strong.
That being said, it IS a lot harder to get into pvp now than it was 4 years ago, simply because most of the people still playing are very very good by now. The level of skill that got my guild into the top-300 3 years ago (and very briefly in the top-100, after a very lucky win against RusCorp, who were ranked no. 3 at the time and therefore gave us lots of points for beating them ;p ) wouldn’t even put us in the top-1000 now!
Anyway, GW2: I was stupidly, ecstatically happy to see this! With all the trouble NCsoft West have been having (Tabula Rasa and Motorstorm closing, for instance, they must have bled money badly from those!) and Jeff Strain recently leaving, I was beginning to wonder if maybe GW2 would never materialise. I’m happy it has and I’ll be first in line to buy it.
At everyone who was asking how the instancing in the original Guild Wars works: basically, the hubs (cities, outposts, villages) are public. You can get hundreds of people in them at the same time, and frequently multiple copies of each of them. But when you go out into the wilds, it’s just you and your party against the world.
The advantages aren’t just restricted to the ones people already listed (no queues to kill quest mobs or waiting for a boss to respawn, no ganking, no griefing). For me, the most important advantage instancing had was the stuff that it allowed them to do with storytelling. You can have an important NPC tagging along to help you with the mission. You could have horrible high level monsters wandering around a lowbie zone simply because you’re at that point in the game’s plot where armageddon has basically happened and you need to clean up the mess. There’s something very deeply disturbing about seeing a green, idyllic place where you spent a couple of happy levels a few weeks ago suddenly terrorised by absurdly powerful monstrosities! And, without wishing to spoil anything, everyone who has seen the Searing in the first game experienced a powerfully visceral sense of shock and dislocation which I doubt ANY other MMO can provide! Most games, you struggle valiantly when you’re level 30 to save the little village of Boghampton from the smelly sewer monsters, butchering hordes and hordes of them and killing their king, who dropped a blue +3 plunger of malice for you. Then, months later, when you’re level 400, you happen to pass through Boghampton again. Do they hail you as a conquering hero and decorate you with toilet roll? Do they line the streets to cheer you as you ride through their green fields? Nope, they’re still holed up behind their walls with sewer monsters wandering around bored and miserable outside, and there’s probably a repeatable quest to kill 900 of them for 300XP that you can pick up. Not so with instancing: if you carve up your game, you can grill each slice of it to each player’s exact taste!
Plus, from a pvp standpoint, instancing gives amazingly low latency, so you can have the fastest, most fluid and amazing gameplay I’ve ever seen in an online game! I don’t think any other MMO expects people to be able to consistently interrupt skills with activation times of 0.75″, or their healers to have a reaction time of 0.25″ in order to save them from certain death!
I am a little concerned that there’ll be a persistent world, tbh, because I don’t see how you can do it without affecting balance. Guild Wars was built for teams, and the fact that you had to define your skillbar and pick 8 skills to carry before leaving town (not just for yourself but for your AI henchmen too, since Nightfall introduced customisable ones) was crucial for balance, because Guild Wars relies on the fact that no build can be an allrounder: you’re built to do something specific, and each of your teammates has to fulfil a different role. If in GW2 you’re sent out into the world alone, you’ll have to be more of a generalist, and that’s worrying, as it implies they might have changed some fundamental game mechanics. I know the EG article said you can have a sidekick, but it specified that you only have one and can opt to not bring him at all if you like! I hope they haven’t messed with the 8-skill build!
21/08/2009 at 19:10 Dominic White says:
Echoing what m.p. said, albeit in a less wall-of-textish way.
There will always be the everpresent hardcore grumblers who will NEVER be satisfied with anything, who will swear blind that the game has gotten worse with each update, or has been abandoned by the developers.
These people should usually be ignored. There was a major patch released for the game just last week, rebalancing swathes of PvP and PvE skills, addressing bugs, and added some minor bits and tweaks.
The game may be past its retail prime, but Arenanet are still heavily supporting it. I really do reccomend that anyone who hasn’t played it yet get the Complete Edition pack (again, £25 for the whole series) and give it a spin. It’s soloable if you want, but best played with at least one buddy.
21/08/2009 at 22:14 mehh says:
Except for the cute chibi race, this trailer had me floored. Those environments looked awesome.
22/08/2009 at 01:23 Sonic Goo says:
Great to see that GW still has the gorgeous art style.
I used to play this a lot before WoW spoiled me with its sheer depth and quality. For those who don’t want to pay a subscription or just want to dip their toe in the world of MMOs, GW is definitely the best place to start. :)
24/08/2009 at 15:58 suibhne says:
GW has among the best art direction and world design of any game ever made.
25/08/2009 at 17:03 britter says:
this better not be another instanced game… and it better not have invisible walls everywhere, i’d like to explore wherever I feel like…