Journeying Into The World Of Guild Wars 2
It’s no secret that Guild Wars 2 is coming, and it’s coming rapidly. AreaNet is releasing more information on their follow-up to their most popular MMORPG. The new release will expand upon the foundation of the Guild Wars story, gameplay, and focus on deeper character customization established by the first title. New features line up in the new release that seem to make it rewarding to long-time fans and newcomers alike.
At this year’s Gamescom, AreaNet focused on showing us what the game looked like in action. A demo was shown at the convention, starting off with the new character biography system. We were told by AreaNet that the new character customization options will be plentiful and awe-inspiring. The biography system posts a series of questions that are answered in one of three ways. Depending on the answer given, your character’s starting point can change.
How you answer the question begins to show in the very beginning of the game. For the sake of the demo we were shown a human character (which is just one of five available races) with a common childhood, and while the opening cinematic runs the character speaks about how being raised by commoners has forged the way she sees the outside world.
Perhaps one of the biggest changes to the game is the new event system. It appears that AreaNet has done their research when it comes to their games. “The things that we always get frustrated by,” Randy Price, Senior Vice President of AreaNet explains, “and a lot of other MMOP players get frustrated by is the typical MMO quest chain. You see an NPC, click on them, and up pops a huge wall of text that you don’t read, and in general, it’s telling you to go kill ten somethings. You find ten somethings in the field wandering around aimlessly. You kill them, head back to the quest-giver and boom, there’s a wall of text stating your reward, and you don’t read it. We don’t want that.”
Personally I know how frustrating that is. I have played countless MMOs in my time and this has to be the one boring concept that ties them all together. From what Price was explaining, it looks like they have taken this aspect and tweaked it to make players more interested, and to create a sort of replay value with newly created characters so that the events are given a chance to differ between play-throughs.
“Instead of walls of text, you see smoke rising over the other side of a hill,” Price explains. “You run to the top of the hill and look down to witness a bunch of creatures fighting against villagers. Am I going to run down there and get engaged in this? I can, if I want to, but I don’t have to. I can go off and adventure someplace else, but that’s pretty compelling. So I’m choosing to go down and fight. I join up with the forces there, and other players are joining in because we’re all seeing fire. We engage the creatures, battle them off, and force them back. This opens up new events and chains, and the dynamic event systems all chains together. You have different events that move back and forth based on outcomes that you as a player influence.”
This is exactly what Price is talking about. He explains that all players in a certain area will see the same events occurring. This brings players together, and creates a world that all players are a part of. The new system is in place to make you feel like you are part of a whole, changing world. Although more than one player can take part in the event, the events to have a sort of “spawn” timer, resetting after a certain amount of time. This way players who are taking part in other events can come back to this event later and still engage in it.
Guild Wars 2’s combat system has also been tweaked, putting more of an emphasis on real-time action rather than old “roll-of-the-die” schemes we all are used to. Players can move, attack, parry and dodge, cast spells, chain actions, and make decisions all on the fly. The combat looks more fluid and real than before. Safe to say it is very interesting and it appears to be a significant upgrade.
Another addition to the series is the ability to change professions as well as mix and match abilities to suit the player’s style. Need a tank that can also heal allies who get in too close? Want a mage who can more than handle himself in close quarters? Change your parameters and you’re all set to go. AreaNet believes that this versatility will appeal to a broader MMO audience, such as those looking for variety, and fans alike.
I do believe that the developers behind this new title are clearly heading in the right direction. After seeing these new features I can’t wait to get my hands on this game and play the goblins out of it. Apparently the game is set for release in the U.S. around the November 2, 2011. With all these new features in just this short amount of time, its hard to imagine that this will be all that’s in store for the Guild Wars series.
