Expecting the Eye-catching Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 has captured the imagination of gamers and media all over the world with its action-oriented combat, its living world full of dynamic events, its highly personalized role-playing experience, and the handcrafted artistry that suffuses every element of the game. Last year, thousands of you joined us at shows and events all over the world to try Guild Wars 2 for yourself. This year, you’ll finally be able to immerse yourself in the vast, diverse world of Tyria.

The World’s a Stage
Make no bones about it; Guild Wars 2 is a theme-park MMO. Now, before you get up in arms, be absolutely sure to read this next bit. It’s absolutely positively redefining what that means. Once you’ve lived a while in this incarnation of Tyria, other games’ approaches to the MMO standards will seem completely outdated and archaic, charming at best.  This isn’t a sandbox in the traditional sense, and it’s not a theme-park in the traditional sense either.  It’s something new.  The world can be affected by you as the player, through the dynamic events system, but the changes aren’t permanent.  Similarly, gone is the stale quest system of old, and in its place is the incentive to explore every inch of the large and diverse zones of Tyria, because you never know what you’ll find.  No, you won’t make a house in Ashford (but you will have a guild hall if you and yours so desire).  And yet, because of the events, I can’t recall a game world that has ever felt so vibrant and alive, even if the events cycle and repeat themselves. Throw in the personal story you follow on each character, based on the choices you make at character creation, and you have the makings of a very large and (pardon the cliché) epic MMORPG.

You will get lost in GW2.  You will find yourself wandering to see what’s beyond a hill, or what lies in that cave where the growling is echoing from.  You will start off helping a scholar discover what’s causing ice wyrms to behave oddly only to see it lead to a tale of corrupted winter wildlife caused by an evil Svanir shaman.  Something simple will turn into a massive event that involves ice demon portals, blizzards, and one of the hairiest boss fights you’ve ever experienced… at level 12.  You’ll help the Charr fight back the ghosts of Ascalon deep in the crypts of what used to be the human city, and you’ll take on Duke Barradin himself as he possesses a massive stone statue… at level one.

I mean, these are quests, don’t get me wrong.  You’re just not talking to some static NPC and being told to go kill a bunch of this or that.  Instead you’re partaking in a large series of scripted events that never get old.  As you level, you move on through the terrain and you uncover more events.  Each one leads to another, and things accomplished in one area of the map change what’s going on in another for other players.  Yes they cycle, and yes they’re not permanent changes.  But if a centaur tribe takes over a human village, you won’t be able to use that village’s services until you help take it back.  It’s this kind of occurrence that was the seed of greatness in games like Tabula Rasa, and it’s captured wonderfully here.  There are small tasks to help people (like getting meat for a single dad with too many mouths to feed) and grand tasks to save cities (driving back a Svanir invasion to protect the Dragon Guard comes to mind).  And they all feel worth doing.  But it wouldn’t work nearly as well if it weren’t for the stellar improvements made to traditional MMO hotbar combat.

The Heat of Battle
You’ll dodge with the V-key to avoid AOE effects, lay down mines, put up walls of flame (which arrows can be shot through to catch on fire), lay distortion fields to hide you and your allies.  You’ll heal yourself, heal your friends, revive NPCs and fight while near death from the ground and try to rally.  There are no “tanks, healers, and DPS” classes.  Every single class can fill each role depending on their skill lead-out and weapon choice, and every class will have at least one healing spell on their hotbar at all times.  Every action can be cast while running, and movement is most certainly encouraged.  Staying still will just get you killed faster in the Guild Wars 2.