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Preview: Guild Wars 2

I can finally talk about something that’s been on the tip of my typing fingers for weeks but I haven’t been able to discuss: Guild Wars 2. I do need come clean first though, and state that I am a massive Guild Wars fan and my viewpoint may be biased somewhat. Nevertheless, here’s my experiences of playing through a couple of ArenaNet’s weekend beta events.

As someone who already knew 2-3 years ago — when we started getting steady information — that he was going to play a ton of this game, I didn’t want to spoil my experience by the time I got to its completed version. Basically I decided that I was going to start with the professions that I had the least interest in and work my way to what I anticipated I would play on final release most. I usually play male characters so I opted to go the female route and pick story options that I wouldn’t normally go for.  That’s right, meaningful story options in an MMO. Madness!

Upon booting up the client you are greeted with a login screen which can only be described as a thing of beauty. Lovingly minimalistic with the call of Jeremy Soule’s wonderful compositions drawing you in. Character creation is a pleasure and I could easily spend hours and hours of my time here. There are sliders for everything (think Aion, but less extreme) allowing so many different combinations for the 3 races available to us: humans, the giant norn and the ferocious feline charr.

The profession I was least excited about was the engineer. So, lets see what this game can do. If I can love a profession that isn’t really for me then it has won me over. I was amazed indeed. I actually found myself loving the play-style of the engineer, whether keeping enemies at bay with a rifle, fast-switching to dual pistols to poison and blind or just running in with a flamethrower. Because that’s what combat in Guild Wars 2 is like — it’s so dynamic and freeform. You’re not standing there bashing out 1, 2, 3, 2, 3 etc., you’re circle-strafing around your enemy, gaining a terrain height advantage, swooping in and decimating, flinging grenades from the sidelines. And this goes for all the professions.

Next up was the ranger. Here I was unsure. In my mind of the lineup of characters I would create, the ranger was sitting in at just outside the 5 main characters I had planned. I wanted to know whether it deserved to move up a place — seeing as the engineer had surprised me so. I had a bit of trouble at first getting used to the ranger. This was not the “pew pew” machine I was familiar with from the original game. My first weapon set was an axe with an off-hand warhorn and a constant companion in the form of a fire-breathing drake, which just didn’t sit right with me. Sure, it was fun calling birds down to attack enemies but it just wasn’t what I wanted.

Until I found myself a shortbow and a longbow. Wow! This is magical. Your skills are determined by whatever weapon you have equipped. None of this having a million buttons all over your UI, just a nice, trimmed-down set of 10 skills, the first 5 of which are set by the weapons in your main and off-hand. These skills are unlocked, fairly quickly, as you play — negating the need to ever talk to a profession trainer. For each profession, the weapons lead to an entirely different feel of play. A warrior wielding a greatsword is very, very different from a mesmer. Add to that the ability to hot-swap between two sets during combat and you open yourself up to a great range of versatility. Skills 7-0 are unlocked and chosen by you. These can be switched around anytime you’re out of battle.

You may notice that I overlooked the humble 6. Not so humble now as this is your dedicated healing skill. Always. The reason for this is that ArenaNet have done away with healing professions in Guild Wars 2. This is a great development, and including the notion that absolutely anyone can revive a downed or defeated player. The tank is now also a thing of the past so forget your so-called “holy trinity” because no matter how you try and replicate it, you won’t succeed in this game thinking like that. I do plan to expand on this more in my (still) upcoming informative feature on all things Guild Wars 2.

We’re now at the beginning of the 1st public Guild Wars 2 beta weekend event. Anyone who has pre-purchased the game is eligible for a code which allows them to play every beta up until such time as the game launches (i.e. “When it’s done.”). Being able to talk freely of one’s involvement meant that this was a much more social occasion. I’ve set up a guild of (mostly) local Australian players and was initially dismayed that we couldn’t have “Golden Gaytime” as our title. While I understand the use of ‘gay’ can be derogatory, I just wanted a recognisably Aussie guild named after an ice-cream.

This time, I wanted to explore the master-of-arms herself, the warrior. Having the largest range of weapons at their disposal, warrior is an extremely versatile profession. Capable of close-range and distance combat, and able to effectively support allies at the same time. I was not disappointed — another surprise akin to the engineer previously. With the companionship of friends, we set out to explore Tyria. Exploring is very worthwhile as you get a whole heap of experience from finding waypoints –the game’s ingenious fast-travel system — and other points of interest around the map.

We ventured around mostly following the story quests of one member of the group. You know what? It didn’t matter to anyone that we weren’t doing their quests. Because aside from the personal story there are no traditional MMO quests. Seriously. In it’s place are “hearts”, essentially lumping your basic quest mechanics — such as killing a bunch of creatures, feeding cows or returning cannonballs — into a localised area where you can do what you want to complete the heart. Once done, the NPC turns into a karma vendor, allowing you to purchase weapons, armour and other goodies.

The real fun lies in the dynamic events which just happen as you wander the world. Maybe a queen wasp has spawned, or maybe you need to help someone get back to their village, maybe you need to stop a rampaging herd and put some fires out. You get a little notification that it’s happening and you start doing it. Like the hearts I described before, you never have to talk to an NPC. You just do them, and get rewarded for your input instantly.

Guild Wars 2 is not grindy. Not once did I feel that I had to go and kill some aimless beasts to get experience. The regions keep their challenge as well as content dynamically scales for the amount of people involved as well as reducing your power if you are in an area suited for players of lower level. Even as a level 10, I found myself having my arse handed to me by level 2 creatures once I was scaled down.

Some changes I had noticed since my initial experiences were that now tools were needed to gather materials from the world. My gripe here was that it wasn’t stated anywhere that this was the case  — until you tried to pick some blueberries or cut down a tree. I will just take a moment to mention that the gathering and crafting in Guild Wars 2 is second to none, though. It combines ease, efficiency and experimentation in amazing ways.

For the first time we had access to Lion’s Arch, one of the major hub cities of Tyria and a remnant from the original Guild Wars. There was so much nostalgia here for long-time players. Although a lot of this content is underwater now, LA is a magnificent place to explore the depths safely without feat of enemies. Plus, they have a diving board! I really cannot express how immense the cities are in this game. Their scale is wondrous and leaves a distinct impression, with each city having it’s own flavour. As mentioned earlier, travel between and around cities is a breeze with convenient waypoints — free to travel within the same city!

Finally, I tried my hand at a necromancer, master of blood magic and summoner of minions. With my trusty staff equipped to lay down some Area-of-Effect conditions, and my dual daggers ready to switch to at a moment’s notice when I needed to get toe-to-toe with a foe, I set out for some Player versus Player action. PvP done right, might I add. Two clicks and you’re whisked away to the Mists and scaled up to a level 80 equivalent. For traditional team PvP, you have access to all the skills available to your profession at full strength to create a balanced experience.

My destination, however, was World versus World. Three servers battle each other for supremacy over two weeks, gaining points and glory for their home worlds. While you gain power equal to that of a level 80 character, you retain the skills you have unlocked and progress much like Player-versus-Environment. You can even level your character all the way from 2-80 in this zone if you wish with no detriment.

Think, Dark Age of Camelot, and you’ll have some idea of what the WvW experience is like. Your team is pitted against two others to take dominion of 4 maps, each of which can host hundreds of players. Capturing keeps and destroying the other team’s supply caravans will ensure victory, moreso if you can build yourself a seige weapon to take their encampments. It’s a very fun, ever-changing experience.

As the event came to it’s conclusion after a too-short 3 days, ArenaNet offered up a final event for everyone to take part in, The Great Critter Hunt. All the cute critters in the norn starting such as bunnies and raccoons were scaled up in level and ferocity, while downright painful moa birds killed scores of players. Once again, the developers were shown to have a marvellous sense of humour and fun.

This was a real beta test, and as such, things were broken. I didn’t have too many issues personally, but some annoying issues involving ranger pets not attacking after level 7 and various inconsistencies in the chat interface with guild and friends lists were reported. Again, they’re not just showing off this game. It is still under development and I’m glad to have the opportunity to participate and assist in testing their systems. I definitely look forward to the future, monthly, weekend beta events to experience more facets of this immense game before release.

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