Guild Wars 2 Previews

Among other things we’ve already reported on PAX Prime also offered the chance for some members of the press to check on ArenaNet’s Guild Wars 2 again, like Joystiq did. Here’s a sampling:

The demo I played answered each of those questions with some pretty bold, albeit totally commonsense features of its own. Battles do move with breakneck speed, with players double-tapping movement directions to dive out of the way of oncoming attacks. This maneuver has its own energy meter, though, preventing you from skirting all the damage you have coming to you.

While exercising these feats of agility, you can also fire off one of your five special attacks. There’s no energy meter for you to deplete; you only have to deal with each ability’s typically short cooldown period. The extrication of a genre-staple mana pool is a change that was only incorporated in this latest build of the title, but a reasonable one: It just served as another unnecessary hurdle to temporarily prevent players from playing the game they assumedly purchased.

Here’s where things get complicated: Each weapon class (hammers, pistols, blunderbusses) have five abilities which change based on which character profession you’re playing as, and unlock over time. For instance, that dagger will give five abilities to the Necromancer that don’t even resemble the five abilities it unlocks for the Thief. The player’s other five ability slots are populated by permanent utility, healing and elite powers — but the first five can (and will!) be swapped out at will during a fight.

Your weapon set determines what kind of role you’ll fill from within the confines of your profession, making for a system which promotes both class specialization and class-defying variety. For example, with a hammer, your Engineer’s abilities might make you a competent melee brawler. If occasion calls for it, though, you could just as easily swap to your dual pistols on the fly, and launch a series of five other powers against enemies from afar.

EL33TONLINE:

Two aspects that really stood out for me where the loot and healing systems. If you arrive at the dynamic event at the start you quality for a gold medal, and so it goes to silver and bronze depending on when you started participating. This controls the rewards you get from completing in the event. Secondly, while it may be an outcry to some, there is no dedicated healer role in Guild Wars 2. Any player can revive a fallen player and every single player can self-heal to some extent. This is a bold move, but right on the money in my humble opinion. It is very satisfying to be able to revive a comrade yet not many people want to be solely dedicated to that role.

Anybody knows you can’t breathe underwater, and in most games you get an oxygen meter and need to plan water diving carefully. ArenaNet give all characters breathing apparatus as they want to encourage you to explore the underwater environment rather than shy away from it. To this end I witnessed stunning looking underwater areas and combat that is really interesting. Given you are underwater there are a whole host of new fighting mechanics. One that I fancied is the ‘˜concrete boots’ attachment that latches onto a players foot and makes them sink faster. Your weapons switch out automatically from land based to water based which is a nice touch.

What MMO would be complete with a robust player vs player experience? Guild Wars 2 features not one but two PvP experiences. You can join in world vs world warfare in epic two week long battles or take on other players in the PvP arenas. I saw some very appealing PvP team action in the demo. Players were able to just drop into the action rather than waiting for a new game to start. The map was very well conceived, with multiple layers of depth and destructible environments. Using the trebuchet to open up the environment looked like a key strategy in order to control the three control points. The action looked intense with a real sense of urgency and something where skill was more important, as each player joins with the standard characters rather than super leveled up characters. If you are looking for an experience where you can take your super level character into PvP action then the world vs world experience is for you.