The Yogcast team brings a really awesome video that gives us all what we want to see: Keep Defense! Point of view is from a Necromancer.
The Yogcast team brings a really awesome video that gives us all what we want to see: Keep Defense! Point of view is from a Necromancer.
From the guys at GamebreakerTV, we get a virtual tour of the Eternal Battlegrounds.
Guildwars2 Hub from Ten Ton Hammer brings us a fantastic preview of their experience from the recent beta weekend. Check out their article as they go over weapon skills, skill points and everything else with the basics of Guild Wars 2. It’s a great read for those just learning about the game.
A huge plus to the skill system in my book is that players have a certain amount of direct control over how quickly they earn skill points. You naturally gain one per level, but given that some skills might cost seven points (or even 25 for some elites) you’ll want to open your map in each new area you explore and find where the skill challenges are located. The map legend will tell you how many are in a given area, and how many you’ve already completed.
Today, TenTon Hammer released their latest beta article, and this time they are talking about Dynamic Events.
Most of the times I entered the swamp the on-screen status for the area stated, “The swamp lies dormant.” When you see that kind of thing you’ll know that a much larger event is likely to happen in the area, so it’s a good idea to start poking around and completing any smaller nearby events.
For Godslost swamp, the meta event is called Secrets in the Swamp. In the image to the right you can see how the area status changed to indicate that a major event was about to occur, followed by another status change once the massive Shadow Behemoth erupted out of the swamp.
You should really follow up with the article and discover the author’s first hand account of the epic adventure to be found in the Godslost Swamp.
GamebreakerTV gives us their own weekend impression of Guild Wars 2 going over a bit of everything. Check out the video as Scott tells us if GW2 will live up to the hype.
My name is Scott, and I’m a tradeskill nerd.
It’s an admission that puts me in a very peculiar subset of crazy people; those who have risked carpal tunnel for the sake of making gear that is obsolete within an hour. From what I experienced this weekend, ArenaNet have struck a very clever balance between ease of access and complexity.
I focused on Armorsmithing and Weaponsmithing — I like to see people walking around in what I make — and found the basic premises of MMO tradeskills to be evident. You have your work stations to do your tradeskills, you have recipes that you need to farm for.
It is in the nuances that GW2 gets things right.
Hands On: Six Reasons Why Guild Wars 2 Will Live Up To The Hype
PlayerAttack.com gives us a great preview of their weekend of beta fun going over their favorite topic: PVP.
Much of the gameplay revolves around capturing and defending the various Supply Camps, Towers and Keeps spread across the map, with players battling to advance towards the Cradle of Power for the opposing Worlds. Each Cradle of Power holds an Orb of Power at the start of each two-week long bout. Capturing the Orb and successfully bringing it back to one of the Keeps controlled by your World grants bonuses to everyone on your side of the conflict. Having your own Orb spirited away naturally makes it that much harder to fight back against the side who took it from you.
Totalbiscuit is back again and this time he’s showing us Thief gameplay with a focus on the world’s dynamic events.
More beta videos from the internets, and this time GohaMedia brings us some beta action inside the world vs. world with castle sieges. Catch some of the intense action as the player brings his Charr Mesmer into battle. If you haven’t seen what GW2′s castle fights look like, this is a great video to watch. Also, check out their preview of the character builder and dye system.
Check out more beta coverage from Rock Paper Shotgun as they give you their general over view of the game itself.
Being awesome from the start, give or take a quick tutorial, was just the beginning. As a Guild Wars 2 Elementalist, you’re constantly firing off huge spells from whichever element you want. There’s no mana bar to slow you down, only each individual spell’s cooldowns – and they’re incredibly short. Lightning surge from your fingertips? 10 seconds. Drop huge flaming meteors from the sky? 40 seconds. Your basic elemental attacks would be a ‘proper’ skill in most other MMOs, and you have four of them depending on what you’re attuned to. Many skills alter as a result of this attunement, which you can change whenever you want, including in battle. Just for fun, even the very act of swapping this does something, like a flame blast, seismic wave, or healing splash of water. I don’t know if everyone gets it so good, but I can say this: I have never played a more badass mage in an MMO. And I have played many, many mages.
Check out the latest beta impressions with IGN’s latest article covering Ranger gameplay:
After knocking a target back, it’s a good idea to follow up with Hunter’s Shot, which deals damage and also lowers the target’s defense. A couple of long range shots will then do higher damage, or better yet you could use Rapid Fire, which launches a sustained volley of arrows at the target for a few seconds. The individual shots don’t do as much damage individually as the long range auto-attack, but can be a great way to get in some free, fast damage as the opponent is trying to close back in after getting knocked away.
Make sure you check out the rest of the article as the author discusses other combat mechanics and the different weapons a Ranger can use.
Today, Venturebeat.com published an article with their opinion of Guild Wars 2:
During my beta adventures I only scratched the surface of Guild Wars 2. The amount of content and gameplay options, combined with the lack of a monthly subscription fee, makes this a very compelling product. It should appeal to most MMO players and even to fans of single-player RPGs like Bethesda’s multi-million selling The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim.
Guild Wars 2 does a much better job than its predecessor of offering interesting content for solo players and creating the feeling of a dynamic, live game world. I got to do cool things quickly with minimal amounts of irritation and confusion. Though I focused on the firearms-wielding and turrets-building engineer, the seven other character classes seem equally interesting.
Make sure you check out the rest of their preview in the link above and see if your agree with their assessment of how GW2 is challenging the MMORPG market with their subscription-less method.
A few more videos from the latest beta weekend, this time from Woodenpotatoes as he goes over lore, class mechanics, microtransations and more!
Some time today the first public yet still closed beta test begins. Many people will get their first hands on the game for the first time. Keep in mind that this is still a closed beta test and a very important and possibly heavily enforced rule is that this is still under NDA.
Earlier this month ArenaNet hosted another event for select media sites. Lucky for us many high quality videos were released showing nearly every aspect. Following this event we featured class spotlights with some select videos giving as much detail about the class as possible. In case you missed them or perhaps you were not selected for this beta event and you still need a Guild Wars 2 fix, check them out.
Totalbiscuit talks about the hardcore and normal mode of explorable dungeons in Guild Wars 2. Players in the video represent levels 34 through 48 in a dungeon with level 35 mobs. Watch as the players explore the dungeon taking part of many events and encounters within the dungeon.
Today Mike O’Brien, president of ArenaNet, wrote a blog giving us our first glimpse to what kind of Microtransactions we’ll see in Guild Wars 2.
We think players should have the opportunity to spend money on items that provide visual distinction and offer more ways to express themselves. They should also be able to spend money on account services and on time-saving convenience items. But it’s never OK for players to buy a game and not be able to enjoy what they paid for without additional purchases, and it’s never OK for players who spend money to have an unfair advantage over players who spend time.
One other interesting phrase we saw was Mike O’Brien likening their system to EVE’s; where you can buy in game currency with “gems” or GW2′s pay-for currency.
MMO veterans will note the similarities of our system to EVE Online’s PLEX system. As in that case, our system takes gold trading out of the hands of real-money trading (RMT) companies and puts it directly in the hands of players.
Stay tuned after this weekend’s beta test as they will begin showing what the store will look.
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