27th March 2007, 8:22 PM
I know that trying to get any of you interested in this game is like talking to a brick wall, but I can't help but keep trying can I (I'm over 900 hours in the last two and three-quarters years since the first beta... and that's nowhere near as much as I could have played it...)...
Press Release
http://www.guildwars.com/press/releases/...-03-27.php
Eye of the North Details
http://www.guildwars.com/press/releases/...enorth.php
Wired Preview (some new stuff in these)
http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/03/inte...guild.html
Kotaku Preview (ditto)
http://kotaku.com/gaming/feature/feature...244666.php
A few details:
Eye of the North: expansion, requires Prophecies, Factions, or Nightfall (might require Prophecies, I'm not sure). Late 2007 release date. Lots of awesome stuff.
![[Image: pp_spotimage.jpg]](http://www.guildwars.com/images/gweyeofthenorth/pp_spotimage.jpg)
![[Image: concept-036-lrg.jpg]](http://www.guildwars.com/images/concepts/concept-036-lrg.jpg)
Guild Wars 2: Betas to start in mid to late 2008 - a while off. New game. Set several hundred years later. Connections to GW achievements through an added feature of EotN, but you can't carry over characters. Persistent world, not all instanced (though there will be instanced missions of some kind). Still no monthly fee. High level cap? Some nice-sounding stuff about quests in the overworld and stuff is available in some of the previews.
![[Image: an_splash.jpg]](http://www.guildwars.com/images/gweyeofthenorth/an_splash.jpg)
Eyes of the North looks fantastic. Just what I wanted: a resolution to the Ascalon plotline, the Charr, a true expansion with all level-20 content, etc, etc... :) :)
As for GW2, though, I'm a bit less certain about this one. Oh, I'm sure I'll buy it, definitely, but... high level cap? That doesn't sound good... one of the best things about GW is that the low level cap forces you to think about your strategy and skillset, not your character level. What next, being able to take as many skills with you as you want and not just eight? That would be horrible, just as bad as a high level cap would be... :( I strongly disagree with anything that gives GW a level cap that takes longer to max out. Having a design which DOES NOT require ridiculous amounts of grind to reach the top level of is extremely, extremely important part of the game, and I really hope that they misspoke somehow in that statement.
Making it truly open-world is also an interesting decision that I'm not sure I agree with. While open-world MMOs can be quite good, GW has a unique style that emphasizes your importance. If all you have to do to get from point to point is wait for someone to clear the group in front of you instead of clearing them yourself you'd get so much less out of actually playing the game... while it does make it feel like a single-player game a lot, I definitely really like the instanced design, and don't want GW2 to become a normal MMO on this matter. Keeping it all or mostly instanced would be best, but if it must go open... we'll see. Hopefully they can make it work, but it just seems like it won't quite be GW with those two huge changes, and that would be bad... Guild Wars is a truly amazing game.
Press Release
http://www.guildwars.com/press/releases/...-03-27.php
Eye of the North Details
http://www.guildwars.com/press/releases/...enorth.php
Wired Preview (some new stuff in these)
http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/03/inte...guild.html
Kotaku Preview (ditto)
http://kotaku.com/gaming/feature/feature...244666.php
A few details:
Eye of the North: expansion, requires Prophecies, Factions, or Nightfall (might require Prophecies, I'm not sure). Late 2007 release date. Lots of awesome stuff.
Guild Wars 2: Betas to start in mid to late 2008 - a while off. New game. Set several hundred years later. Connections to GW achievements through an added feature of EotN, but you can't carry over characters. Persistent world, not all instanced (though there will be instanced missions of some kind). Still no monthly fee. High level cap? Some nice-sounding stuff about quests in the overworld and stuff is available in some of the previews.
Eyes of the North looks fantastic. Just what I wanted: a resolution to the Ascalon plotline, the Charr, a true expansion with all level-20 content, etc, etc... :) :)
As for GW2, though, I'm a bit less certain about this one. Oh, I'm sure I'll buy it, definitely, but... high level cap? That doesn't sound good... one of the best things about GW is that the low level cap forces you to think about your strategy and skillset, not your character level. What next, being able to take as many skills with you as you want and not just eight? That would be horrible, just as bad as a high level cap would be... :( I strongly disagree with anything that gives GW a level cap that takes longer to max out. Having a design which DOES NOT require ridiculous amounts of grind to reach the top level of is extremely, extremely important part of the game, and I really hope that they misspoke somehow in that statement.
Making it truly open-world is also an interesting decision that I'm not sure I agree with. While open-world MMOs can be quite good, GW has a unique style that emphasizes your importance. If all you have to do to get from point to point is wait for someone to clear the group in front of you instead of clearing them yourself you'd get so much less out of actually playing the game... while it does make it feel like a single-player game a lot, I definitely really like the instanced design, and don't want GW2 to become a normal MMO on this matter. Keeping it all or mostly instanced would be best, but if it must go open... we'll see. Hopefully they can make it work, but it just seems like it won't quite be GW with those two huge changes, and that would be bad... Guild Wars is a truly amazing game.