Guild Wars 2: The Hands-off experience.

When you’ve been waiting for anything too long, it’s all but impossible to quell expectations. I can say that by the time Guild Wars 2 information started streaming out of Gamescom and subsequently PAX I was already driven into a frenzy of anticipation. As anyone knows one of the biggest problems for a game is not in the creating hype phase, well placed PR and a good marketing team can do that. But it’s rising up to the expectations that hype has created. Judging by the infinitely positive reviews for Guild Wars 2 thus far, I’d say job well done guys. This blog post is simply to let people know my analysis of the information we’ve seen and get my opinions and expectations out there for Guild Wars 2 thus far.


UI:

A topic of intensely hot discussion throughout the internet has been the very un guild wars like UI presented in the demo. Of course the game is still in Alpha testing, not even Beta so everything is subject to change however I really like the UI from the videos I’ve seen. The “Diablo-esque” health ball may be a far cry from the flat health and energy bars of old but I believe it serves a great purpose. The health ball is smack-dab in the middle of the skillbar, something that I’m sure we will all be spending a great deal of time looking at. In Guild Wars 2 there is no specifically orientated healing class, instead we are all provided with a healing slot skill, thus having a knowledge of your health at all times is now a must. Gone are the days of idlely ignoring that little bar in hopes your Monk, or Hero would see it and heal you in time before you die, thus the central display of this new “health ball” makes complete and perfect sense. Right next to this in traditional bar format is the energy bar. Now the placement of this bar is fine, standard, nothing too bold or new. But it’s an innovation that comes with it, that has sparked the ire of fans of the first game. Energy potions. Energy potions are conveniently located next to the energy bar for use; this to me is a great step rather than allowing it to take up space on your limited skill bar.

Character Customization:

Character customization is big to me, it always has been. I love the escapist and role playing feeling of playing an MMORPG, to be truly engaged I need to be able to create a unique character I identify with. I think visually overall, MMORPGS are moving the right way for customization. Aion online had one of my absolute favourite character creation set ups, visually, with dynamic sliding for both face and body. The visual side of Guild Wars 2’s character creation was not implemented in the demo, but we are assured by way of Colin Johansson, that there will be “Millions of options” to customize our characters. Arenanet is taking an exciting new stand point following on from such games as Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age Origins, allowing us to make storyline choices in our customization that will end up having an effect on our own personal stories.

Combat:

This is what impressed me most about all the videos I saw, maybe it was because they were usually (the good quality ones) being driven by an expert driver, but combat in this game looks amazing. Fluidity... It’s not really a term anyone would associate with MMORPG combat, you click a skill, it does it, the skill recharges, rinse, repeat. Nothing really changes with movement other than of course the occasional, do it from behind. But you know what’s annoying? The combat in those games isn’t designed for you to move behind the target, so getting behind the target is extremely hard, positioning becomes extremely frustrated and people either tend to stand in one spot (away from the baddies if you’re a caster or directly in front if you’re melee). Guild Wars 2 rewards you for being in the right spot, has such dynamic movement that getting into position seems extremely easy. The addition of the dodge roll looks so well implemented. I had worried after seeing the first few videos how hard it would be to pull off, but tapping twice in any direction is the way they went about implementation and from seeing all the videos, it seems easy. The combat looked like a fun adventure RPG, a-la a “Fable”, but with the depth of having different skills and knowing what the skills do to allow for the strategic feel MMORPGs bring, in particular Guild Wars. Weapon sets are another great innovation in combat, allowing for having two weapon sets to switch out at any time creates great depth as a lot of skills are weapon dependant. Skills themselves seem pretty straight forward at this stage either falling into, support, damage or AoE stereotypes but I’m sure with the use of five utility skills there will be a great amount of customization.

Tyria:

Tyria has grown up, I love Guild Wars 1. Its map is expansive, breathtakingly beautiful... and yet it feels almost juvenile by MMORPG standards. And I say this only for a few reasons, cities in Guild Wars 1 do not feel like cities, Lions Arch, Kamadan and Kaening are all rather small and in peak times they seem so incredibly crowded. The first major city we’ve been able to look at in Guild Wars 2 seems massive, expansive and so amazingly stunning that it puts Guild Wars 1 to shame. Divinities Reach is amazing. I can’t say much more about it, the layout, architecture; everything seems so distinctly amazing and unique. I have one worry about this... Imagine you’re working through your personal story, you’re in your home instance and you want to run off and grab some dye, Divinities Reach seems so massive that it could take a long time to run around it. Of course, this could be remedied with a few map travel points within the city and is not at all a big gripe. Another thing that seems amazing to me is the legacy points in Guild Wars 2, those favourite places from Guild Wars 1 that make reappearances, I know this is going to be a massive geek out for me running around and finding them all.

Dynamic Events:

Okay, we can establish quests are gone. The initial fears that “OH NO! There is a quest step that says gather harpy glands is there!” Can be dispelled now that we’ve seen a lot more of the dynamic events system. Some Dynamic Events are player triggered, meaning yes, there is accepting things, but it’s the difference in the way these works that differentiates from it being a stereotypical quest step. Once accepted the dynamic event will kick off in real time, dynamically evolving based on the amount of people there, what you achieve at each stage of it and the environment around you. There are however events that will trigger automatically all over the world, whether you are there or not. If you’re not there then the area is effected by that, one of the examples given occurs at the Charr Stronghold “Steel-Eye Span”, the “Span” can be taken over by the denizens of the Dragon Brand, and it’s up to the players to take it back and reclaim it. Alternatively, if you are there when they attack and try to take over you can stop it dead in its tracks. This is amazing to me; it gives that real “I have an effect on the world” feeling that the creators were talking about.

Dyeing:

Oh my god, I am a total nut for customization in games as I mentioned before. But this games dyeing system literally made me fan boy out. I can’t believe the amount of depth they’ve added to dyeing, being able to add up to three different colours to one piece of armour, over 200 different colours involved? That’s amazing. Like I said before, MMORPGS are about being unique to me, your own unique character and this option seems to just add that little bit more customization.

Alright guys! That’s everything I have to say for now, I will be writing on each of the professions individually in the coming weeks so anyone out there actually looking at this can have that to look forward too, Also! I will be making a collection of people’s hands on experiences to add to mine hands off experience.

See you all around,

The Brandon Bear.