Guild Wars 2 - reinventing an aging genre.

Its Tuesday and Guild Wars 2 just officially launched. Its kind of all that I have been playing for the past 3 days during the head start event. So let me pretend to be a reviewer and put on my writing hat.

Five years in the making, an untold number of hours spent by the development team and now their little boy gets to start his first day of school. So hold on to your seatbelts ladies and gentlemen the future of the MMO genre has arrived.

The first thing that I feel that I need to make perfectly clear is that I am a huge fan of Guild Wars 1. It was what I played in highschool and was my first MMO, for all you who don’t know MMO == Massively Multiplayer Online Game. I don’t want to wax and wane over why GW1 was brilliant, that conversation could take a very long time, but I want you to know where I am coming from. Not only from a design perspective, but also from a super dedicated fan who achieved 30 points and the title of Closer to the Stars on the Hall of Monuments calc.

I, unlike the rest of the gaming world, somehow did not get a beta invite. I know sad day for me, but what that did mean was that I came to it completely fresh on Saturday when I joined the slew of people in the three day head start.

First and Foremost, the Art

The team at Arena Net, has been known to be a really good at concept art. They have been showcased in every instance of Into the Pixel, an industry wide recognition of amazing concept art, and if you just look at some of the screen shots people have been posting, you can see how talented they all are. Nothing else in the MMO space feels the way GW2 does with its environments.

Josh Buck used to tell us that to make an art style all your own you need to stretch it until it breaks, push the limits of what you think is possible. That is exactly what they did. Proportions have been bent to make the world seem terrifyingly large, cities are built on sheer cliffs, islands float in the sky, and giant carved statues hold back the mountains to create a passageway. Every sight is just jaw dropping, and the best part is the game rewards players for reaching these overlook points and look at what they created.

Second, Subscription Fee

I am from the mentality; I should never have to buy a game more than once in order to enjoy it. That was what drove me to GW1 in the first place and GW2 honors the same amazing promise of never having to pay a subscription fee.

What’s New?

Dynamic combat, before you and your party would just kind of rush into a battle, crash up against the enemy and someone was left standing. Not in GW2, combat is frenetic and furious. Everything hits hard so no more standing still. Nearly all combat actions are done while moving and its important to do so. Those who stay still are soon dead or dying.

Events

It took me a while before the whole concept actually sunk in. There are no side quests in GW2. No one asking you to collect five rocks, no slaying 15 of these creatures, no delivering X item to random person Y in the town of Z.

Instead things just happen. I know, it’s crazy. So here is an example, I was walking along and I heard the sounds of battle, my screen flashes with the word New Event, and I rush over to find this logging town being attacked by these little creatures. I step in and spontaneously join the fifteen other people who decided to also help out.

We push them back and as we are collecting the loot we had gained the NPC’s, non-player characters, start complaining about all the attacks by these creatures. The next thing you know off they go, bombs in hand to go destroy the creatures hideout! An event just happens! I could help escort the bomb carriers, or just walk off.

- Part 2 tomorrow.