Guild Wars 2

[Koyasha]

You know it's funny.  Not being able to jump didn't really bug me in FFXI.  Drove me nuts in Guild Wars.  Seems strange but true.  Major contributor to the reason why I didn't play for very long and never picked up any of the expansions.

[Fordel]

Drives me bonkers. Absolutely bonkers.

[Typhon]

I think it's the combination of no jumping, invisible walls and the more detailed/realistic world/characters.  Your eyes tell you that you could just step over an obstacle, jumping will easily get you over, and WHAM, you hit an invisible wall.  Drove me nuts and from the game as well.

[NiX]

You see an NPC jump in the trailer.

[Fordel]

You see an NPC jump in the trailer.

Not good enough!


The next gameplay trailer should just be a shot of someone mashing the spacebar while the character leaps in tune.

[Lucas]

You see an NPC jump in the trailer.

Not good enough!


The next gameplay trailer should just be a shot of someone mashing the spacebar while the character leaps in tune.

Picard, where art thou?

[Nevermore]

That better mean I can Jump!

It must suck for you, being a white man. 

[tmp]

Trailer and FAQ now up on the website.

Love how they don't fall for the WoW disease that's vertically exaggerated terrain. FFXIV seems to also avoid that and it makes things so much more like some actual world.

[Jamiko]

In the video where the ships are in the air, connected together, you can clearly see people jumping from ship to ship.

[Mrbloodworth]

What engine is this?

[Jamiko]

What engine is this?

ArenaNet's self-developed graphic engine.

Q: Will Guild Wars 2 use an entirely new graphics engine?
A: The GW1 engine will be the foundation of the GW2 engine, but it will be upgraded and rewritten substantially to provide a visual experience that players will expect in a sequel to Guild Wars. (Source: PCGamer)

http://guildwars.incgamers.com/showthread.php?t=477045&gr_i_ni

[Mrbloodworth]

Yeah, just got done reading up on it. Its a home brew engine. Apparently other NC soft games use it, I'm thinking aion. They do not license it to non NC soft companies.

My first thought was hero, but I guess I was wrong.

[tmp]

Apparently other NC soft games use it, I'm thinking aion.

Aion is using Crytek's engine, the one used for Far Cry.

[schild]

Their art technique is unstoppable.

[Jamiko]

According to an interview I read, not only will you jump, but also swim and climb.

[Lantyssa]

*Squee*

[schild]

According to an interview I read, not only will you jump, but also swim and climb.

According to the totally rigged video I watched, not only will I be buying it, but I'll be buying it with a smile if only for the art book.

[Engels]

The world art, as much as is shown in the promo vid, is stunning. The character art, well, its a GuildWars derivative, so its gonna be at least a bit asiany, but well within my tolerance limits. The little munchkin race looks a bit saccarine, but you can't win em all.

Seems like maybe someone somewhere has finally learned that you don't have to reinvent the wheel to have a succesfull MMO. Create good art, a simple world story arc, solo and group gameplay and accessability, and people will be happy.

[tmp]

Tasty morsels from another forums.

Well, trailer is out and it shows a very similar style to GW and the same trend of 90% cardboard cutout scenery (passive backgrounds and huge structures whose only purpose is to look pretty).

Not impressed.

Almost none of the scenery in that trailer is cardboard cutout... you can go play around on 90% of it. For instance the giant dam, the massive asura city, the snowy mountains, all places you can go.

What about interiors?

In GW all buildings were solid blocks of nothing. If the environment is a bit more open and without barriers everywhere the game would have solved a significant problem

GW 2 has full support for interiors. The game is very open with only the sort of barriers you'd expect to see in just about any open world type game.

 

[Lantyssa]

Screw his doubting little cynical ways with a Fiery Dragon Sword.

[HaemishM]

That trailer has suddenly got me interested. Some fantastic art direction on the scenery and the character models.

[Trippy]

Our goal with Guild Wars 2 is to create nothing less than the definitive online role-playing game of all time.

[schild]

Hey at least they called it a GOAL and not "what they were doing, guaranteed, no refunds."

[sidereal]

Also, to allow players the freedom to play together even if their friends are at a much higher (or lower) level, we are planning to implement a strong sidekick system, similar to that used in City of Heroes™.

We're applying this same philosophy to competitive play. Players will be able to engage in organized, balanced PvP (similar to GvG in the original Guild Wars) without first leveling up characters, finding equipment, and unlocking skills. While inside the organized PvP area, all characters will be the same power level and will have access to the same equipment.

That sounds nice

[Draegan]

Interesting.

I wonder what the goals of this game are?  Whats the end game?  Or is it just GW1 but with an open world (which is still a cool thing)?

[AutomaticZen]

Jesus Christ.

Who is the world designer?  They need to give that man a raise.  Some of the set pieces in there are inspired as well as being fucking gorgeous.

[Rasix]

Didn't care for Guild Wars, but that trailer has me intrigued enough to give GW2 a look.

[Draegan]

Eurogamer article.

"We actually don't have a traditional RPG/MMO quest system," Flannum continues. "Instead what we've got are Events. Think of them as group-orientated activities. This is one of the many things that will encourage the player to explore the world - you can wander through and never quite know what you're going to see. You might come across a fortress that's being attacked by centaurs, or it might be that the centaurs attacked half an hour before you got there and they hold it now. You might start walking along a road you've walked a hundred times and suddenly there's a caravan travelling along that road that you may not have seen, and you can go help that caravan out."

There's also an attempt to introduce more variety into how the players can interact with this new, living world - and not just the welcome addition of a jump. To say that Guild Wars was combat-focussed would be something of an understatement; the absence of crafting and non-combat professions meant that there wasn't a whole lot else for players to take up on a whim if they felt like it.

"We're definitely introducing crafting, as well as a few other things that are going to provide players with other things to do," assures Flannum, although he can't say what those other things are. "I don't want to say it'd take the focus off combat, but it's definitely not going to be the case that the only way to interact with someone in Guild Wars 2 is to hit them on the head with a sword."

There are significant new areas, of course: most excitingly, the prospect of exploring an underwater continent. Flannum claims that there will be "a lot" of underwater exploration, and it will be possible for all races and players.

"Competition has always been consensual in Guild Wars, and we've retained that as one of our core tenets. It also goes along with accessibility and being able to play with your friends," says Flannum. "We looked into dividing the races early on, and we decided against that, specifically because we want you to be able to play the race that you want and also be able to play with your friends. We didn't want to fracture our player base by having a good-versus-evil vibe going on between the players themselves."

In addition, there's also a new World PvP system, which lets you use your PvE character and equipment to play against other people on a more open battlefield, the Mists. "It's very casual PvP where you can gain levels and have ten-on-one fights or 100-on-20 fights or whatever, where everything flows naturally on the battlefield and there's no limits to how many players can be involved," elaborates Flannum, though the team can't go into specifics about exactly how players will gain access to the Mists.

"We wanted to give our competitive players, who were a really important part of our GW1 audience, what they want," says Flannum. "Those people don't want to lose to someone who's just played more time than them. They want access to all the same skills as the other person, and they want it to be their skill in making and executing a character build to be what wins them the day."

Hope.  Change you can believe in.. etc.

[Ratman_tf]

Their art technique is unstoppable.

Kawaii! Desu! Desu! Desu!

I will say, GW1 looked good while being easy on the system specs (I ran it on my old Win98 box!  ) I'm expecting similar performance from GW2.

[Fordel]

I need an emoticon to express the fact that I did, in fact, climax, at the confirmed jumping news and am thoroughly satisfied.

[Koyasha]

Lack of crafting was one of the things I actually liked about Guild Wars, so the news that they're adding it is dissapointing.  On the other hand jumping sounds good.

[tazelbain]

Actually Jumping is the new crafting system.  Jumps have to be created for combining athletic resources.

[Ozzu]

Oooh man, that's a nice looking game. GuildWars provided me a good month's worth of entertainment. I'll take that again any day.

[ghost]

Actually Jumping is the new crafting system.  Jumps have to be created for combining athletic resources.

Yeah, I actually lol'd on this one.  Very, very funny.

[Lantyssa]

Fordel, while not an emoticon, I find *squee* fulfills that purpose nicely.