By Alec Meer on December 16th, 2011.
Neither are we, DAMMIT. But news of Guild Wars stealthily entering closed beta for a lucky, handpicked few is news because this game has hiding over the edge of the horizon for so long by this point. A move towards any kind of beta, then, suggests it’s finally preparing to show itself off to the world in the not-too-distant.
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By Jim Rossignol on December 14th, 2011.
What that headline means, of course, is that the anticipated Mesmer is the latest (and I believe final) class reveal for Guild Wars 2. The character’s skills focus on the making and breaking of illusions, making them a tricksy and cerebral class with some of the more esoteric magical effects at their disposal. ArenaNet have released five (count ‘em!) videos of the Mesmer in action, and you can watch them all below. Try watching all give simultaneously and see if your brain is different afterwards. (And gosh, isn’t GW2 just the prettiest thing?!)
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By Alec Meer on September 27th, 2011.
Guild Wars 2 lies in a strange place between being something of a man of mystery and having been on show for so long that our eyes have crawled across most every element of it. A lot of the promises being made are conceptual or may rely on idealised circumstances, but nonethless people are being won after dramatically: most recently, it won game of the show at the Eurogamer Expo. So when do we all get to try it? Well, a closed beta has been promised before the end of the year, with an open beta to follow and then a release date dependent on the success of that.
For now, perhaps the best you’re going to get is TotalBiscuit’s substantial videoing (a good 40 minutes, all told) of his high-level play sessions at the Expo – it shows off some the more ambitious mechanics as well as plenty of day-to-day beast-slaying. He seems very impressed indeed, for the most part.
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A home of your own
By Alec Meer on September 21st, 2011.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve walked into a room with a monitor and a nervously-smiling man at one end and been told I’m about to see the future of MMOs. I smile back politely, and the same old dance begins. Too often, I feel a numbness, a struggle to reconcile professionally wanting to know what’s going on with personally despairing of the idea of giving over dozens of hours of my life to what’s so often a mess of cloned features and over-sold, under-realised promises. My most recent sighting of Guild Wars 2 really did break through that numbness, made me sit up straight and pay full attention. I still don’t know how much of what it’s trying to do will be practicable and effective over long-term play, but seeing it took me back to a time before my awful genre ennui, back to when every time I sat down to see a new MMO my mood was excitement, not cynicism. Here’s why.
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By John Walker on September 15th, 2011.
New video footage and photographs from the Guild Wars 2 tourist board have arrived. This time it’s details on the creepy Asura race. I don’t trust those little goblin things. You could say I’m an… Asuracist! Gosh, I’m funny. Take a look at the new footage, and some new screenshots, below.
By Jim Rossignol on August 30th, 2011.
Here’s an interesting little bit of GW2 info over on MMORPG.com, who have been talking to ArenaNet at PAX: “Not only will ArenaNet be making up their own servers for the quick and dirty PVP matches, much like the shooter genre’s setup, but Eric and Colin said they plan for players to be able to create and host their own servers or games with specific rule-sets as well.” I’ll be fascinated to see how that actually works. I have to admit that despite the original game’s heavy PvP focus, I’d barely paid any attention to how PvP will work in the new game. (I just want to wander around those environments.)
Anyone here a GW PvP with great expectations for the sequel?
By Jim Rossignol on August 17th, 2011.
They’re just showing off! Stop showing off, Arenanet. No one likes a show off, ESPECIALLY when they’re pretty. As if the PvE action stuff wasn’t showy enough, the flyovers of intricately produced cities and other superlative-stretching environmental features are just too much. And then that dude totally decks a centaur… and what is that robot thing?!
Really, everyone’s impressed, you can go be humble in the corner now. Christ.
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By Jim Rossignol on August 10th, 2011.
Plant people! It’s an abomination, I say. If plants were meant to be people then God would have given them the vital organs to be human, like eyes and shoes. ArenaNet, however, see nothing wrong with creating a leafy mockery of the human form with their “Sylvari”. They’ve gone as far as to blog about it in detail here, and also to detail their visual appearance here. Not an Ent in sight, though, so that’s some small reason to be thankful, I suppose.
Anyway, it’s appalling. They’re almost as heinous as those monstrous anthropomorphous plants in Popcap’s ridiculous Plants Vs Zombies. As if pot plants could ever defeat the undead. You’d need trees and stinging nettles at the bare minimum.
A Throne Of Games
By Dan Griliopoulos on July 6th, 2011.
We’ve played Guild Wars 2. It’s tough. It’s good. Here’s a little feature about how it is coming together, including some thoughts on that newly-revealed Engineer profession, and underwater combat.
Okay, so you know Ascalon? Noble, quaint kingdom, lovely people, delightful taste in continent-spanning walls? Crushed by the Charr at the beginning of Guild Wars, and so forth? Population massacred, people scattered, a last stand frozen in time by the desperate actions of King Adelbarn? Hmm, yes, them. Tragic story. Sad.
Did you ever think that they may have been the baddies?
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By Andrew Smee on June 28th, 2011.
Are you going to the beach this summer? The weather looks like it’ll hold up, though personally I’ve always enjoyed a walk in the rain along a stormy beach front, as long as I don’t have to deal with scuba diving wolf men battling with lizard spike beasts.
The forthcoming Guild Wars 2 made a splash with the reveal of some interesting looking underwater areas covered in this previous developer walkthrough, and now two rather stylish trailers would like your attention as well. Are you going to take the plunge? Let’s dive in.
By Jim Rossignol on June 24th, 2011.
Well, I wasn’t expecting this. Guild Wars 2 apparently has a “huge” amount of underwater content, including unique underwater weapons and abilities and – according to developer Jon Peters talking in this Gamespot video, embedded below – entire underwater cities. The twenty minute shows some huge aquatic creatures, lots of combat, and some extremely atmospheric underwater and coastal areas. It’s fairly impressive, and certainly makes other MMOs’ brief dabbling with submerged areas look pretty, uh, shallow. Go take a look.
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