Guild Wars, free beta now (well not NOW now, but then now)

[A Black Falcon]

You mean the Necromancer render (and I'd say the main color is the purple background, not the blue highlight)? They did a wallpaper character detail for each of the six character classes... those are the Ranger (green/brown) and Necromancer (purple/blue). These are the other four.

Mesmer

Monk

Elementalist

Warrior


I doubt I'll remember everything, but here goes...

As for the game... first, no monthly fees. Second, it is only kind of massively multiplayer -- only the non-combat areas have lots of other people. All missions and areas you wander around in while doing missions or just exploring are instanced. Oh, and the game is party-based, very strongly -- you can do it without other people, but it's almost impossible to get anywhere with just one character. If you want to play by yourself you can use the NPC allies -- you can add some computer-controlled party members. They don't have a hire cost, but they take a share of all dropped gold so there is an effect... but since you can't get far alone you almost have to use some if you can't find other people to adventure with.

Combat? Fast paced. I've heard Diablo mentioned, as well as MMORPGs, but it's really somewhat different... in the towns or other neutral areas you set your set of eight skills from however many you have (that is, you can have a lot of skills to choose from but you can only take eight of them with you into the mission)-- and those eight are set for the mission. So you choose appropriate ones for the task. There are six classes, and you have a main class and a secondary one (chosen at character creation). Since each class has a seperate skill list that means you get two classes' skills to choose from for each character. Of course, when you create the character you only have the basic ones... other skill trainers scattered around have more for sale or you can buy a capture skill and try to capture skills off of bosses (unfortunately you can't capture off normal enemies). As you can guess, this aspect of the game is kind of like a Magic-style game... cards, a "deck" of eight you have for the mission, rarer and more common skills to find, and an attempt of course to make it balanced so anyone has a chance...

Oh, that's a big aspect of GW -- being more balanced and reducing greatly the amount of wasted time. There just isn't nearly as much grind as most MMORPGs. You max out at level 20 and it doesn't take forever to reach that level. Also, you don't have to walk to places to get to them -- there is a world map and you can warp to any city, mission, outpost, etc.

As for the gameplay, there are three major divisions: adventure zones, missions, and PvP. PvP is simple: go to a PvP arena zone, and for the random team ones then in the lobby area (you walk around and stuff in this lobby area) and hit start. It'll form up teams and you play. There aren't any consequences for dying or anything here... you're just returned to the lobby (if you win the team goes on to another game until you do lose). The other kind of PvP are arranged teams, where in the lobby you form a team together and then enter the mission... there are several gametypes here (king of the hill, plain team deathmatch, deathmatch with resurrection every few minuites if you keep a NPC priest at your base alive), but which you get is random (you just hit start and get what you get). Oh well, it's still quite fun, even if the "real" teams (that is, guilds) often dominate that arena. I don't play pvp all the time, but it's great fun.

The missions are a linear story, at least as far as we've seen. There are about 13 so far seen in beta, but they've said the final game will have at least 25. They can be fairly challenging, and of good length, so it takes a while to get through them at least the first time. The missions are a lot of fun... they also tell the main story of the game. And while they are mostly linear in level design because of branching and how the game works it doesn't really matter... actually if it was much less linear it'd be really hard to finish the missions because they don't always make it clear where you should go next.

The other type of gameplay is the exploration zones. These are adventuring areas outside of the towns and mission enterances. They don't have map hotspots to warp to them -- you enter these areas by the nearest town, mission, or outpost and if the party dies you start back from one of them again. You can form parties for these too, though it's a bit harder because unlike missions and pvp there aren't really areas specifically set aside for forming parties for exploration areas. I guess the outposts are supposed to serve that purpose... perhaps they will once this aspect of the game is more complete (this part is where the most holes show. Some zones are obviously not complete yet with problems like very few enemies. Others are unpopulated with flora as well, in some you can clip through trees and things, etc...). Also, the quests in exploration zones are also unfinished. They didn't have much of one in the December test... adding some quests in these areas was something they added for January. In general you get quests from people in towns or outposts (which are small bases in the wilderness often with a couple of NPCs to buy stuff from and stuff, as well as warp points) and then go into the wilderness with a human or NPC party to do these quests. These areas are large and intertwining (they connect all the parts of the map so of course they are more open) so unlike missions your path isn't obvious and linear... but between the minimap and the big map (which shows the whole world or a zoomed-in picture of the general area you're in) you can usually figure out where to go if you have some idea of your destination. You can see the kind of architecture and level design the game has in my numerous screenshots in this and previous GW posts...

Oh yeah, combat. You choose an enemy (mouse or key to switch through them) and hit left mouse to attack. You'll start doing your default combat action. Then, you use either those buttons on the bottom of the screen (the central eight skill buttons) or the 1-8 keys to activate the abilities... each one uses a certain number of magic points (the blue bar) to cast, and has a certain amount of wait time until you can cast it again (as well as a certain amount of casting time, from instant to several seconds). The combat is very fast... I've heard Diablo as a comparison, though because of the very strong team focus and the combat engine I don't really agree (though like Diablo it is fast, it isn't a clickfest like that... more strategic while still having lots of action...). Oh, there are no healing or mana potions. Or items you can use in combat to get any kind of benefit. Just skills for combat. Given the huge variety of skills though that isn't really a restriction... and I at least would say that it is welcome since potion draining gets tedious. Also, between fights your health and mana regenerates so healing abilities are only for use during combat, removing one major use for potions.

As I've implied, combat is also team-based. You go through missions as a group (in a strong contrast to stupid Diablo multiplayer). You learn to work as a group. Yes, with random groups this doesn't always work, but there's always guilds or going solo (though that will not work in PvP. :)), and I don't really mind the random groups.

Finally, inventory! Monster item drops will mostly be weapons and crafting materials and gold. One essential item is the item that turns weapons or materials into base crafting materials (like use it on a sword to get Iron). You then use those materials to go to a crafter in town (or in a outpost, crafters are, like salespeople, all over and different ones have different stuff they can craft. Find them all! :)) and have that crafter craft armor or a weapon or something for you. Mostly armor. It's called crafting but because of how it is done (by NPC crafters only, not players) it's really just collecting the specific items you need to buy whever it is you want... you've just got to deal with a bunch of materials, not just gold. Oh well... it works and is fun enough. It's frusterating in the context of a two or three-day test (as it's hard to get enough materials fast), but for a full game it'd work just fine.

Oh, and when you are in a party with other humans, drops are tied to players -- no drop stealing here! While gold is just divided among the players (and NPC hirelings), items are for players only and are bound. Only that player can pick up the item. This means that backline mages don't get left in the dust while the warriors hog all the drops... very, very nice. :)