It’s been five years since ArenaNet announced that Guild Wars 2 was under development. I remember it pretty clearly, and I didn’t like it.

“Guild Wars 2 Professions” by serphiroth101 on DeviantART

The popular Guild Wars community website, GuildMag, asked bloggers to reminisce on the 2007 announcement of Guild Wars 2 for its fourth Blog Carnival.

To be honest, at the time I didn’t like that ArenaNet was giving up on Guild Wars to create a sequel. At least that’s how I felt.

It had been only two years since I started playing the original and I had just started to feel comfortable in structured PvP. My guild — my home in Guild Wars — Inyurface Gaming was a constant sight in Heroes’ Accent; challenging and holding The Hall of Heroes. I had turned into a decent Monk for my team, evening helping my guild reach the top 40 on the Guild Ladder.

Mystical Sparkle decked out in Obsidian armor

After playing through the PvE campaign many times and spending a lot of time in Random Arenas (so to completely unlock every skill, rune and weapon mod for my account) I had many skills memorized. It had come to the point where the icon of a skill told me to run or attack an enemy; it allowed to me to focus on positional strategy over reading the skill’s description as the opposition casts it. This allowed me to use Healing Seed (when it was meta for a Monk to have it… yeah a long ass time ago) on a teammate and stand beside them as an enemy Necromancer is casting Spiteful Spirit, for example.

With the news of Guild Wars 2 broke, I will admit I was bummed out, let-down and, sadly, depressed. It meant I had to learn whole new game mechanics, skills and strategies. All the time and effort spent in Guild Wars was thrown out the window along with all my accomplishments; my tiger emote, all the cool weapons and armor I had purchased, gone. Just like that.

Okay, it wasn’t really gone, but it felt like everything I worked for was obsolete.

Luckily, ArenaNet introduced the Hall of Monuments in the same breath as Guild Wars 2. The HoM allows players to turn their achievements in the original game into rewards for the sequel. Although I can’t directly bring my tiger emote into Guild Wars 2 —  the one title I worked the hardest on; some people may shake their head at that notion, but “rank” is the reward for success in one aspect of PvP in Guild Wars — but at least I am rewarded for the title and the cool armor and weapons I have collected over my time in Guild Wars.

Times change

Although the press release suggests Guild Wars 2 will go into Beta in the second half of 2008, it wasn’t until April 2012 that the public got their first Beta event. In that time (it’s hard to pinpoint the exact time, but we’re talking at least three years ago), my guild slowly started to move over to League of Legends; a game I’m not to fond of. I eventually traded my keyboard and mouse for an Xbox 360 controller; Call of Duty: Black Ops became my game of choice, along with a few other friends.

Today, I’m more than excited for the release of Guild Wars 2. I’ve swapped back to my trusty keyboard and mouse for the last public Beta event and stress test — on that note, I’d like to publicly thank the PR rep for ArenaNet for hooking me up with a Beta code — and thoroughly enjoyed my time in the game.

Being able to jump in Guild Wars 2 makes the game seem more free, and the same goes for being able to move while casting skills. Not to mention we finally have something similar to an Auction House (boy, was it annoying to sell or buy something through spamming a “WTS” or “WTB” message respectively). The new game play and the small part of my personal story that I got to play was so exciting that I didn’t want to stop playing — although I forced myself to; it’s unhealthy not to take a break.

In my opinion the announcement of Guild Wars 2 was premature, but I’m glad it took ArenaNet another five years to build a public Beta and another few months release the game (it officially launches this year on August 28). It allowed me some time to work on what I wanted to accomplish in Guild Wars; to compete in the highly competitive Guild versus Guild, to get the best looking armor for my toons and to become part of a tightly knit group of players.

Now it’s time to do it all over again and I’m excited to start!

What was your first thought on Guild Wars 2?

This post is apart of Guild Mag’s Blog Carnival. You can read the entry I did for the first Blog Carnival or read more blogs from this Carnival here.

This is a continuing blog post of my time in the final beta event for Guild Wars 2. Follow the Better Late Than Never or Guild Wars 2 tag to continue reading.

During the heyday of the original Guild Wars, my PC was top-notch, characters had to walk around even the littlest bump, and scenery was enjoyed in passing. In the sequel, low graphic settings are recommended for my PC, leaping takes on a whole new meaning and there are quests that let you enjoy the detail in this massive world. The times have changed.

A view from one Vista just outside Soren Draa

After completing my first Guild Wars 2 quest by helping Calcutician Doola, my floppy-eared Asura dusts himself off and takes in the senery outside Soren Draa. It’s amazing even on the lowest graphic settings; ample green trees make up a lush forest, wildlife roaming the forest entrance and players coaxing the wildlife into fights. It all put a smile on my face.

My PC, built for the original Guild Wars some-odd five years ago, isn’t top of the line anymore, which made me doubt its power to run the sequel. Dwayna must be looking out for me because I can play, but on minimal settings.

For those that are technically savvy, my rig is an Intel Core 2 Duo running at 2.66GHz with an ATI Radeon HD 3850 graphics card with 256MBs of RAM. My system barely meets the minimum recommend specs for the beta.

Even though I can’t see the sparkles in the water or the criss-cross of cloth in my armor, the game is still fun.

Working out combos with my different skills to pulverize any Moa Bird or Jaguar that got in my way was entertaining to say the least. There is a ‘dodge’ command which is effectively a jump (or flip in the case of the Asura) backwards or sideways that evades an attack — on a side note, I suggest binding ‘dodge’ to another key than double tapping a directional key; it’s just faster. Jumping has gone from being a foreign concept in Guild Wars to a full-fledged tactic in Guild Wars 2.

Jumping is not only a combat tactic though. In Guild Wars 2, there are quests called ‘Vistas’ where players need to jump their way to the top of buildings to see the surrounding landscape. Some are easy to find your way up, others not so much. At the top there is a floating scroll that marks the Vista. Upon reaching the scroll, it will trigger a small cinematic that circles the building you are on (top picture showcasing one cinematic). It is quiet breath-taking.

Empty interconnected triangles means the Vista is undiscovered. Start climbing!

My Asura manages to jump his way up to a few of these Vitas around Soren Draa. It is funny when I did manage to find my way up because other players sitting there would seem surprised to see another toon up there.

The Vistas I found are small in comparison to some it seems. Some of these landscape quests are quiet high off the ground which makes these jumping puzzles very intriguing to complete.

The fact that my PC can handle Guild Wars 2 means I can (thank the Gods) play this game and save my coins for a new computer down the road. By adding the jump mechanic, the MMO gives combat and exploring a more free feeling; if I can jump, I feel like I won’t get stuck in a small crater or I can find a higher advantage point over my enemies.

Don’t miss my next post where I go over playing the Mesmer!

This story starts in the newbie area for the Asura, the race in Guild Wars 2 that is small in stature but have a huge ego and are very intelligence.  Fitting, right? That Short Guy picks the shortest race.

Don’t be calling my Dobby-looking Asura stupid!

Shortly after character creation, my Dobby-looking-Asura Mesmer encounters a new type of quest. Calcutician Doola placed experiments around Soren Draa (in the Metrica Province) to sharpen our skills with golems. My mind races with what to do first; should I go fiddle with some sleeping golems? Or should I play RC Golem chess? Or just forget the quest and continue my personal story?

A quest in Guild Wars 2 is indicated by an empty heart over an NPC’s head. As I venture closer to the NPC, the quest information is automatically displayed in the corner of my screen along with a progression bar. A nice change-up to MMO quests, players don’t need to accept the damn things anymore. In Guild Wars my Quest Log is full because I accepted every freakin’ quest anyway. It  is worth noting to talk to the heart-baring NPC though, since you can get details and special skills (if required) for the quest.

To complete a quest (or an event, but we’ll get to that in another post), players need to fill the progression bar on the screen by collecting and returning special items; activating or powering-down structures or beating up bad guys. It’s your traditional MMO quests, only bigger to encourage more players to help complete them.

My short Asura scampers on over to a nearby RC Golem chess table — that’s the best word I can use to describe the Asura run, ‘scampers’;  the cartoonish movement animations for the Asura are freaking awesome.

The chess table is a 3×3 board with two golems in opposite corners. My skills turn to the controls of the golem in front of me; move to the squares around me or perform a massive punch. I manage to beat the computer once, but lose the second battle. That was enough for me, it was time to try something else.

I decide to further our quest progression by tampering with some sleeping golems. My Asura toon, even though his first invention was a golem, seems to know what to pull-out, switch and adjust to make the golem scream “Error! Error! Error!” and explode in my face.

Luckily, it didn’t take much longer for other players to contribute enough golem tinkering and chess games to complete the quest, and reward me some sweet XP and Karma. Proud that I completed my first Guild Wars 2 quest, I brushed off the mechanical residue and rush out to play as much of  my personal story as I can.

Don’t miss the next post where I go into jump challenges (or Vistas), graphics and how shitty PCs can still play this game and have fun.

This is a continuing blog post of my time in the final beta event for Guild Wars 2. Follow the Better Late Than Never or Guild Wars 2 tag to continue reading.

I just finished reading the second of two novels that explain how the Guild Wars world changed leading up to the MMO, Guild Wars 2. This one reads very differently than the first book, Ghosts of Ascalon. By differently, I mean poor. The characters lack personality (except the sylvari, Caithe, whom I though was very mysterious) and it’s a shame. This book explains a legendary group of characters in the history of Tyria.

Continue reading “Edge of Destiny Book Review: It could have been better” »

I just finished reading the first of two novels based on ArenaNet’s Guild Wars franchise. It did have its not-so-fun-to-read moments, but it kept my attention enough to get to the epic conclusion. All the action is left towards the end, but the reader learns a lot about the different species in the world of Tyria during the adventure.

Ghosts of Ascalon, book, review, guild wars, guildwars