Guild Wars 2 = Daoc 2 kinda?

[Soazak]

That default heal is not intended to be an "iwin" ability against unfavorable odds.

You're skill at playing your character should determine if you win or lose, that heal is as you say not really helping because every class gets it.

That might work v.well then, sounds similar to skills in UO. Every char could spec magery (Which was both DPS and healing spells), so everyone had the ability to heal, and a group would designate 1-2 people to be main healers.

That pretty much answered my question, I wasn't sure if everyone could heal or if no one could (I was thinking there might have been some small heal spells, but negligable, like bandages in wow or something ), I was worried that it would just be flat out DPS, and whoever has more of the highest DPS class wins.

 

[Ctuchik]

There are heal spells other then the one we all get. But it's far and away what you would expect from your traditional MMO's.

Healing and Death | Guild Wars 2

Heal: Don't belittle the SUPPORT role by calling it heal. Healing is the least dynamic kind of support there is. It is reactive instead of proactive. Healing is for when you are already losing. In Guild Wars 2 we prefer that you support your allies before they take a beating. Sure, there are some healing spells in Guild Wars 2, but they make up a small portion of the support lines that are spread throughout the professions. Other kinds of support include buffs, active defense, and cross-profession combinations.

For instance, an elementalist can support his allies by dropping down a ground-targeted healing rain that rejuvenates allies in an area. He might also use Windborne Speed to help them chase down a target or escape out of longbow range. A warrior might shout "On My Target" to help his allies do more damage to a marked enemy, or use his warhorn to "Call to Arms" which improves the armor of his allies for a short time.

And no, this doesn't mean we will get another game with buffbots.

 

[svartalf]

Here is a report from PAX:

Original here: Guild Wars 2 Interviews: PAX 2011 - The Whole Package at MMORPG.com

Guild Wars 2: PAX 2011 - The Whole PackageAt PAX 2011, MMORPG.com Managing Editor Bill Murphy beat a hasty path to Arena.Net's Guild Wars 2 booth for one of his first interviews. He sat down with Colin Johanson and Eric Flannum to chat about Guild Wars 2 and Bill found out a bunch of terrific information. Read on!Interviews ByWilliam Murphy on August 31, 2011


This year's PAX Prime 2011 echoed the scene from Gamescom 2011: everyone, not just MMO press, is starting to realize that Guild Wars 2 is a game to watch. The mainstream press is even jumping on the bandwagon and saying, Whoa, look what these guys are building. There's a reason that we gave ArenaNet's game Best in Show: it's because they put the proof in the proverbial pudding. Our first meeting of the weekend was with Colin Johanson and Eric Flannum to chat about all things Tyria. We were not disappointed with what we learned during the presentation. Though there wasn't anything specifically earth-shattering it was all good information.

Character Creation: No Uggos

The first thing the guys showed us was the character creation, a lot more in depth than ever before at these events. Their goal is to have a hybrid of selections and slider options, but not to the point where players can make a beautifully and imposing Norn woman look like a deformed troll. In short, they told us there would be No Uggos in Tyria, unless of course you count the Asura which sort of use the cute form of ugly like a pug or a bulldog.

You'll be able to tweak and mold your character's armor dyes from creation, and the game will intelligently apply the colors you choose to later pieces of armor as you play. Of course you will always be able to change the colors, and I think the best comparison I can think of is DCUO's color palette system. The game remembers what your look is, and will put those colors on each new piece of armor you receive, unless you tell it otherwise.



Creating and Starting a Charr

Next they walked us through creating a Charr. Lots of different fur and hair patterns are available, and the colors are of course customizable. You can even select from well over a dozen horn-styles, with more being added in before the inevitable launch. The bio questions were rather cool too (SPOILER ALERT!). You get to choose your sparring partner from your warband, and there's a point early on in the game where you and your sparring partner are the only two survivors of a battle. This character becomes very valuable to your personal story.

You also choose your father, and while fathers aren't very important to the Charr as a species, their actions to reflect upon you and depending on your choice people will perceive you in different ways and your story will be altered. For instance, with one you'll be trying to escape the bad name your father made, while with another you'll be trying to hunt down your dad and find out why he abandoned his warband.



The Weapon Skills and Dodge Mechanics

We were then ushered quickly through the beginning portions of the Charr tutorial. Colin had picked an Engineer and as such began the game with just one attack on his shotgun. Here Eric explained that there's a quick process for learning your weapon skills (which are separate from class skills/spells). Basically they didn't want you to have to keep your weapons trained as in other MMOs, but they still wanted progression tied to them in some way.

So quickly, as you first begin to use a new weapon, you gain skills for that weapon type. The shotgun Colin used had a regular blast as the primary spam-attack, and then as he fought after about five minutes of the tutorial he earned his second weapon skill, a nicely animated snare that shot a net out at the enemy and stops them cold in their tracks. The idea is to ease someone into using the weapons, but they don't want it to be a long process. By the time you hit the real world, you could conceivably have most of your first weapon's skills.



The guys also talked about the recently announced decision to do away with energy as a form of skill management. Energy is no longer used at all for spells or skills. The idea is that if you have the ability to use these skills, they don't want you to be watching the mana bar and cooldowns at all times. So instead they've put energy as the sole source of dodging in the combat. And with dodging being such a viable part of the mechanics, they've been testing this set up for a while and found out that (gasp!) it makes the combat much more fun. No energy potions, just a straight recharge, and right now you can get two full dodges off of your full energy bar before it is rendered empty. Though Colin noted that the more agile classes would likely get bonuses to their dodge and recharge rates, as well as statistical bonuses through gear and so forth.

Recap? Skills and spells don't use mana or energy or anything of the sort. They're just on a cooldown. Only dodge requires energy and dodge is extremely important in GW2's combat.

The Asura Guardian and Water Combat

Lastly we were shown a high level area as the Asura Guardian called Sparkfly Fen. Around level 55 or so, it's a lush and watery coastal zone, with lots of plant life and more than a few nasty problems imposing on the land's inhabitants. Colin took the little Asura (who may win an award for best animations ever one day), and swam into the deep waters off the coast, aggroing the heck out of every undead baddie there. The swimming is fluid and smooth, and the skills with your harpoon and spear in the water change combat completely from what you have available on land. At one point he was surrounded by about two-dozen enemies and used a long cooldown skill that created a sort of whirlwind with the spear, knocking enemies left and right and propelling himself about fifty meters away from the trouble, allowing him to start kiting and escape death. In short… this may be the first time ever where underwater combat is fun.



PVP Details and Hints

Last, but certainly not least, we were treated to a walkthrough of one of the PVP zones, the Battle of Khylo. There weren't any players around to see how it really worked, but the map is actually quite large and expansive for what amounts to a Battleground form of PvP. Essentially, ANet is taking a page from shooters in their quick-form PVP matches and putting in a server list format for their matches. They'll list out different types of games with different rules and the like and let players pick which ones they want to take part in. Additionally, Eric and Colin said they are considering a plan to allow players to create their own PvP matches within the same system as the official match servers (as opposed to "hosting" private servers). The idea, if it makes it into the game in time, is to let players tweak the rules and requirements to their specifications along the lines of the way Clans host their own matches for Call of Duty.

The map itself had a nice mix of open areas and choke-points, all in a war-torn village sort of setting. The coolest thing we saw however was the use of the trebuchet. These are scattered for each side throughout the map, and can cause a lot of quite literal destruction when employed correctly. There's a building in the middle of the map that can be all but completely destroyed using the treb, but doing so also allows for some strategic options so it's actually one of the first things the developer expects players to do. There's something very epic about watching the trebuchet launch its projectiles across the map and destroy actual buildings and scenery. It's not exactly something you see players do in most MMOs.



Additionally, it's worth noting that players will be able to break windows to gain access to buildings, crash down walls, and in general mess with the environment in many ways. There will be barrels for cover, but these can be broken of course. Bridges, windows, walls, even clock towers and the like are all part of the many ways in which these PVP maps will be interacted with.

Before our presentation and interview ended, we snuck a few final questions at Eric and Colin. We pondered more on the World v. World v. World PVP, but they could offer us no more detail other than what we'd heard already: it's going to be big, there's going to be siege weapons, and the rewards will be so great that you're going to want to destroy the other two servers. The guys said ArenaNet is committed to offering tons of content for free, and the general idea is to never segregate players based on the paid types of content. For instance, like Valve, they're not going to make players pay for a new PVP map. Instead they think they'll be adding in new zones and the like, on top of the little vanity sorts of items. But they're never going to ask players to pay for something that alters an already purchased part of the game, because they don't want to segregate their player-base.

That, more than anything during the presentation, had me smiling.


Article By:William Murphy

Created On:August 31, 2011

 

[old.Tohtori]

Latest reviews and snippets i've seen hve left me with an uncomfortable feeling. Something doesn't click with GW2 for me, i liked the first, but this seems...off. It's FTP ofcourse so might grab a box one day, but this has a bad feeling of deja vu on it. Have to see.

 

[Kahland]

Anything with battlegrounds or arenas will be a big fail. instances F T L.

 

[eksdee]

I find it hard to disagree with the above, especially whenever something new comes out about the instances in GW2 it is all about some new PvE element they have added to it like that trebuchet bullshit.

 

[Soazak]

Yup I hate instances, I can see their appeal, to balance pvp and make sure there's enough mobs in pve so everyone can farm. I really do prefer the ability to interact with others in dungeons, and I think instances take out the surprise of MMO games in pvp.

They will probably be implementing both instances and world pvp, but from the other games i've played with instances, it takes the people away from world pvp as people would much rather queue for an instance in their capital city to be automatically placed into a group, rather than have to mingle with other players and form up etc. It's a lazy system puts pvp in a goldfish bowl.

 

[Ctuchik]

Anything with battlegrounds or arenas will be a big fail. instances F T L.

So you're saying that GW + it's expandalones failed then?

You do realize that instances and arenas were all that game were about right?

They will probably be implementing both instances and world pvp, but from the other games i've played with instances, it takes the people away from world pvp as people would much rather queue for an instance in their capital city to be automatically placed into a group, rather than have to mingle with other players and form up etc. It's a lazy system puts pvp in a goldfish bowl.

AFAIK Instanced pvp will be for guild versus guild ranked games and not much else, the server versus server pvp will be open zone.

 

[svartalf]

They will probably be implementing both instances and world pvp, but from the other games i've played with instances, it takes the people away from world pvp as people would much rather queue for an instance in their capital city to be automatically placed into a group, rather than have to mingle with other players and form up etc. It's a lazy system puts pvp in a goldfish bowl.

This video is in english with german-looking subtitles. Fast forward to 6mins 30 seconds.
Guild Wars 2 - Video Interview mit Eric Flannum - YouTube

 

[Soazak]

This video is in english with german-looking subtitles. Fast forward to 6mins 30 seconds.
Guild Wars 2 - Video Interview mit Eric Flannum - YouTube

Thanks for that, very informative.

I've not been keeping up on MMO news recently, but they seem to be on the right track from what players are expecting from a game.

 

[eksdee]

from the other games i've played with instances, it takes the people away from world pvp as people would much rather queue for an instance in their capital city to be automatically placed into a group, rather than have to mingle with other players and form up etc. It's a lazy system puts pvp in a goldfish bowl.

This.

 

[Soazak]

Well the WvW sounds good, seems it will effectively be a huge instanced map, which will give the feel of open world pvp, a little like AV did in WoW, but that still gives the possability of what happened in WAR, in that 99% of the population is stood around an NPC in one camp, and the rest of the world is pretty much empty.

But I guess as you've seen in daoc, that can happen in pesistant worlds too, I guess we can only see, but GW and SW:Tor seem to be trying to address most of the problems with modern day MMOs, while still trying to cater to the casual gamer.

 

[Ctuchik]

but from the other games i've played with instances, it takes the people away from world pvp as people would much rather queue for an instance in their capital city to be automatically placed into a group, rather than have to mingle with other players and form up etc. It's a lazy system puts pvp in a goldfish bowl.

Well, yes and no. But the reason for that is that all the casual pvp'ers play instanced pvp games, and that makes the hardcore world pvp'ers (the soloing ones any way) follow because their "natural prey" is no longer available in the open world pvp scene.

But WAR did actually manage to make instanced and world pvp match up pretty well, at least the first year when most people were similarly geared and preset groups weren't that common.

 

[Chosen]

The only real reason instance PvP is taking away the PvP players from the open world PvP, is because there is not alot of other games besides DAoC that have good open world PvP content!

People want to feel a level of progress, in GW2s case they follow the pattern of DAoC. By adding siegewarfare, and hopefully they will have a equal/better reward system for the server who owns the most keeps/taken strategic points etc

But instance PvP is also good to have, when it a adds more alternatives when it comes to the end-game content! We had this in DAoC, such as BGs or labbys(Even tho it is a openworld one) and as far as I could tell, it did not stop people playing the regular open world PvP at all!

I myself enjoyed having some matches once in a while in thidranki!

 

[Soazak]

Personally, over the years I've been hardcore pvp on and off, and it's never been for easy pray. If anything the opposite..

I prefer open world pvp because I don't know what's coming, in wow when I played arena, I would have Gladius/Proximo open, and before the fight even begun I knew exactly who we were fighting, what specs they were etc, before the doors even opened we would have talked through most of the fight on vent. As a PvPer, rather than a dueller I suppose, it's a very boring way to fight.

What I love about roaming in daoc, is that groups can hit from any side, they can be any composition, and I won't know until the very last minute who I'm up against. In the fight it wouldn't always be 8v8, stealthers would add mid fight, another enemy group might hit us too, it would all add to the excitement. The fact that you had soloers, 8v8ers, zergs and smallmans all in the same area made it that much better.

DAoC roaming actually used to cater to random groups/casual players a lot better, over the years it's become more of a difficult game to grasp pvp wise, back in 2005 it was very common for a pug to throw together 3 zerkers,2 healers and fill rest of the slots, groups with 3-4 bad players could still do well.

What I want from pvp, is difficult fights, I want to fight against good PvPers, but I also want suprises that come with world pvp.


Instances can be fun at times, and I think for the casual gamer they are needed nowadays to keep interest, but I think they shouldn't be the main focus of pvp, which it doesn't sound like they are entirely with the WvW and the siege things, but we will have to see.

 

[svartalf]

Asura informaiton week 12th Sept+: Guild Wars 2: Asura Week to Begin September 12th - News Discussion - General Discussion Forums at MMORPG.com

 

[wutae]

By watching all videos that came with PAX 2011, i can say that for sure, the pvp system will be intresting.

Eskdee correctly states that these trebuchet and shit are quite wrong, But i believe that it wont affect pr0 teams.

In a map that was created for 5vs5 losing 1 player that will just use a trebuchet is BS:

Bad player < Trebuchet user ,
Good player >>>> Trebuchet user.

Still even if Trebucht is OP. If we take this map of khylo for granted, a serious team leader on a serious matchup will go for the

2-2-1 system ( means 2 players at one base, 2 at the other and the last on 3rd )

Or he will go for 2-3 ,( meaning 2 on one base and 3 on second, sacrificing the 3rd base )

We all know that very good teams will almost never fight in the base itself, but will fight mostly on chockpoints, where trebuchet wont be able to reach them.


But to sum it up, if trebuchet fails arenanet will remove it, some pve elements on a pvp map are minor, and subject to change, what seriously attracted me is the basics of the game, the combat system, which i found extremely polished, wonderfull and with a new "air" .

I will definetly play this game, and will go for WvWvW and e-sport stractured pvp full time.

On another note, eksdee are you intrested for part time wrath of heroes ? until GW2 is out ? I may be intrested in creating a team, if i got many people i know that are intrested on it ;o

 

[svartalf]

This is a feature I found interesting. It takes me back... I'm very glad I'm not a guild leader anymore.

The Guild Counsel: Can GW2's multiple guild feature work for other MMOs?



by Karen Bryan on Sep 15th 2011 6:00PM



Guilds, Opinion, Guild Wars 2, The Guild Counsel, Miscellaneous


Guild Wars 2 caused a stir recently at PAX when its devs announced their concept of multiple guilds. According to the news, guild membership will be account-wide, and players will be able to log in and browse the chat for each of the guilds to which they belong. In a recent installment of Flameseeker Chronicles, Rubi gave a great rundown of the pros and cons of a multiple guild system. While there are still a lot of details yet to be revealed, Guild Wars 2 is changing the way players view guilds.



But what about all of the other MMOs currently out there that we all know and love? If you're a guild leader, chances are that you've already dealt with the question of whether to allow members to have characters in other guilds. Can it work, or is it a recipe for drama? In this week's Guild Counsel, we'll look back at how far guilds have come and whether allowing for multiple tags can work in current MMOs.[/url]



And on the 7th day, Verant made guilds



Back in the beginning of EverQuest, players were banding together in guilds even before there was a guild system in place because it was much easier (and a lot more fun) to hunt with friends than it was alone. Players organized themselves out of necessity, and they divided tasks and roles in order to take on the challenges of the game.



But EQ was hard. It wasn't solo-friendly at the time, and failure usually meant a painful penalty of days of lost experience, or worse, starting over completely. Guilds were extremely important back then because membership in one made life in game a lot easier, not only for those within the guild but for those in the general population. I remember many a train in Crushbone that would probably still be there today if it hadn't been for the arrival of an organized guild to take it out.



But MMOs are much different today, and because of that, so are guilds. It's actually not a surprise that Guild Wars 2 seems to be modeling its guild system after the all-popular social networks that everyone uses. I can compartmentalize my real-life friends into tidy little circles, so why not do it with my gaming mates as well?



Unfortunately, it's not that simple, because while MMOs in general have become a lot more solo and casual-friendly, there is still a lot of content that is challenging and requires organization, teamwork, and preparation. The require the player to do more than just show up for that one night -- he needs to do the groundwork to properly equip himself with the necessary gear, consumables, and resists that give him and his team the best chance to win. It's what makes the game so satisfying for some, and it's also what drives people away from that type of content completely. Guilds play an important role here, and it's little surprise that guild groups and raids do much better overall with challenging content than loosely organized, impromptu groups and raids.



The curious case of guilds



Guilds in many MMOs are going through a Benjamin Button-esque type of reverse adolescence, starting out life as grizzled, rough shelters for survival and mellowing into hamlets for a variety of playstyles. While there are still plenty of hardcore, highly organized guilds in MMOs, there are now dozens of other types of guilds that have different aims and whose members share much different commonalities than traditional "old school" guilds.



For this new breed of guild, a system of multiple guilds is a natural fit. It would be great to be able to log in to one character and sample the dim sum of what all my favorite guilds have to offer that night. One night, I might be in the mood to PvP, while the next night, I might want to help level the guild that my small group of friends has formed.



But there's a square peg in the mix, and it's the fact that if you want to tackle the challenging content in MMOs with a more progression-minded guild, you can't really just show up when you're in the mood. If your other 19 (or 23, or 39) guildmates are working together to practice and prepare for the challenge, it's not fair to them if you spend your free nights doing things with other guilds. Put the Grasshopper and the Ant into a raid together, and it's pretty obvious what the outcome will be. It's not necessarily the player's fault as much as it is game design, but given the parameters of the games we play, we have to accept the requirements if we choose to participate in challenging content.



Of course, not everyone sees it that way, and when players in multiple guilds meet the endgame, drama is usually the result. But if you're a guild leader, chances are that at some point, the issue of multiple guilds will come up. I've had it come up several times, yet only one member was able to pull it off smoothly.



Burning the pixelated candle at both ends



The member was someone in our EQII guild who was one of our primary tanks, very active in game, and very skilled at mastering the ins and outs of each class he played on his characters. On top of that, he was always upbeat, supportive, and a pleasure to chat with. I still remember a Crypt of Agony run during which I received an education in the finer points of frog gigging. When he asked me about moving one of his alts into another raiding guild, my first thought was that it was just a polite way of transitioning from our laid-back raid guild to one that was more hardcore.



It wasn't the first time I'd had that conversation with a member before, and I went over the same factors and concerns that I had shared with other members. Basically, anyone in our guild who has alts in other guilds is expected to put our guild first. We had members who had alts with other tags, but they were either small, non-progression guilds or guilds that had gone inactive. Alts with tags in active, progression guilds are a lot more problematic because there's a good chance of conflicts with raid schedules and off-night grouping needs, not to mention that it takes a lot of time to properly gear up two raiding toons. What ends up happening is that the person is burning the candle at both ends and isn't really able to contribute enough in either guild. In every other discussion I've had about this with members, the result is usually a cordial agreement to either remain completely in our guild or make the move completely to another guild. Sometimes, it's a case of players not wanting to leave out of guilt, while in other cases, it's a situation where their eyes are bigger than their stomachs, and a little reality check helps to clarify things.

After I discussed things with this one member, though, he felt that he could manage it. The raid schedules didn't conflict much (they raided later in the evenings and there was really only one night when our raids overlapped), and he assured me that he would be available for our guild first (which is something he also made clear to the other guild). I decided to go with it, partially because I had a lot of respect for him and trusted him and partially because I knew that, honestly, there was little I could do about it anyway. At the end of the day, it's a game, and everyone has to find the fun in game however possible. I could put in an arbitrary rule and forbid any member from putting alts in other guilds, spending my time playing Big Brother and sniffing out surreptitious twinks, but people are going to do what they're going to do.



It was a huge leap of faith, and I was very skeptical about it working out, but it actually did. He was always available for us first, and I never felt that we were playing second fiddle. And probably most importantly, he didn't judge us based on the other guild. There were times when he offered raid ideas, but it never felt like he was trying to say that we were lacking and that the other group did it better.



In the end, it's very rare for someone to carry two tags in active guilds. So rare, in fact, that I doubt I'll ever come across another member who can do it again. Trying to play in more than one active guild is very difficult, and it has the potential to not only cause that person to suffer burnout but also detract from others' enjoyment in game, as they're subjected to the constant tug and pull that the member is going through. Furthermore, there's something demoralizing about seeing a guildmate choose to forego your guild one night to do something with his "other friends," even if that something is completely trivial. Someday, perhaps, MMOs will provide content that fits better with our desire to float among our social circles. In the meantime, guild leaders will need to find a balance when it comes to guild playstyle and multiple guilds.

Do you have a guild problem that you just can't seem to resolve? Have a guild issue that you'd like to discuss? Every week, Karen Bryan takes on reader questions about guild management right here in The Guild Counsel column. She'll offer advice, give practical tips, and even provide a shoulder to lean on for those who are taking up the challenging task of running a guild.





Tags: arenanet, eq, eq2, eqii, everquest, EverQuest-2, everquest-ii, featured, frog-gigging, guild-counsel, guild-drama, guild-leadership, guild-management, guild-wars-2, guilds, gw2, karen-bryan, multiple-guilds, ncsoft, soe, Sony-Online-Entertainment

 

[eksdee]

On another note, eksdee are you intrested for part time wrath of heroes ? until GW2 is out ? I may be intrested in creating a team, if i got many people i know that are intrested on it ;o

That Warhammer thing? Looked pretty shit to me. If it's any good, I'll try it. Hit me up on Facebook.

 

[svartalf]

Guild Wars 2 won game-of-show at eurogamer-expo. Here are some videos by Totalbiscuit.

Guild Wars 2 Necromancer, Thief gameplay videos captured at Eurogamer Expo | Massively



Guild Wars 2 Necromancer, Thief gameplay videos captured at Eurogamer Expo


by Jef Reahard on Sep 25th 2011 10:00PM


Fantasy, Video, Classes, Events, real-world, Game mechanics, MMO industry, New titles, News items, Guild Wars 2




If you're a Guild Wars 2 fan who couldn't make the trip to London for this weekend's Eurogamer Expo, Cynical Brit's Total Biscuit has the next best thing.

The site sent a gaggle of its community members to the event, and their impressions are collected in an ever-expanding threadnaught sure to put a smile on ArenaNet fan faces. The news post also features a series of gameplay videos shot live at the event, and all told the three clips clock in at just under an hour of footage. The videos feature both Norn Thief PvP and high-level Sylvari Necromancer shenanigans.

Check them out after the break and head to Cynical Brit for more info.


VIDEO 1 Guild Wars - Guild Wars 2 - High Level Sylvari Necromancer Gameplay - Part 1 - YouTube

VIDEO 2 Guild Wars - Guild Wars 2 - High Level Sylvari Necromancer Gameplay - Part 2 - YouTube

VIDEO 3 Guild Wars - Guild Wars 2 - Norn Thief PvP - YouTube

• Source: Cynical Brit videos
  
• More coverage: Guild Wars 2 website
  
  
  

Tags: arena-net, arenanet, eurogamer-expo, fantasy, gameplay-video, guild-wars-2, guild-wars-2-guru, gw2, necromancer, norn, real-world-events, sylvari, thief, video

 

[svartalf]

Eurogamer review...

Some of the industry's biggest names were at Eurogamer Expo last week, including BioWare, NCsoft and Trion Worlds. I was on the floor at the expo to get some hands-on experience with several upcoming MMOs and countless singleplayer games. Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic stole the show, with hands-on gameplay sessions and in-depth developer talks. BioWare also made the bold move of announcing SWTOR's official release date during its talk at the convention. In addition to promoting the heck out of RIFT, Trion showed off upcoming MMORTS End of Nations with a hands-on demo and encouraged attendees to sign up to the End of Nations newsletter.

RIFT and World of Tanks were both playable on the show floor for the entire weekend, but nothing new was being shown. Hack-and-slash adventure RPG Dark Souls and the beautifully zen Journey both demonstrated incredibly innovative multiplayer aspects that I'll likely cover in my weekly Not So Massively column, but neither falls neatly into the MMO box. OnLive had a spectacular showing at the expo, giving away free home consoles to every attendee and demonstrating the system's surprisingly lag-free gameplay on the floor. We discovered that although there are no MMOs in OnLive's current lineup, this isn't due to technical infeasibility, so we may yet see MMOs launched on the service.

Skip past the cut for my in-depth hands-on impressions of Guild Wars 2, Star Wars: The Old Republic and End of Nations from Eurogamer Expo 2011.Eurogamer Expo 2011



As a fan of the original Guild Wars, I was always going to at least give Guild Wars 2 the one-month test on release. Rubi has done her best to get me excited about the upcoming sequel, but nothing has convinced me to get the game more than getting some hands-on time with it at Eurogamer Expo. NCsoft set up several stalls at the convention to accommodate the huge numbers of fans in attendance. Even with enforced 40-minute demo slots, the stalls were permanently packed, and attendees could expect to wait up to an hour for a chance to play. Watching other players exploring the game while waiting for my turn only served to increase the anticipation.

Guild Wars 2 is a game still firmly in the alpha stages, and yet NCsoft managed to put together an impressive demo of everything that's currently ready for use. Not all the character customisation options were available, but there were enough options to make a unique character. Three dye colours are selected for each piece of starting gear, and any equipment that drops for you in the game will be automatically dyed these colours. After designing a character and selecting a class, a player is asked a few in-character questions to determine his character's personality and customise storyline quests.

The holy trinity

Perhaps the biggest divergence from the MMO norm in Guild Wars 2 is the removal of the classic holy trinity of tank, healer and DPS. Every class is a damage-dealer with its own self-heal ability on a relatively short cooldown. Staying alive then becomes a matter of reducing incoming damage enough that your self-heal is sufficient. This largely removes the need for a direct healer role, but players who prefer to play a support role aren't left out in the cold. Healing spells create an area-effect on the ground that players who need healed can run into, and support classes like the Guardian can provide group buffs to nearby players.

I was initially skeptical that removing traditional tank and healer roles would work, but as I played I realised that the system actually worked extremely well. Any class can offer support by placing area-effect heal and buff abilities on the ground, and it's up to the receiving player to make effective use of them while avoiding enough damage to stay alive. The age-old mentality of blaming the healer when things go pear-shaped won't apply to Guild Wars 2, which is certainly an improvement over the MMO norm. Though the game doesn't really have any tanks, every class can contribute to reducing or managing incoming damage through debilitating crowd-control abilities with knockdown, blind and stun effects.

Combat mechanics

A large proportion of the attacks in Guild Wars 2 are aimed or area-effect abilities, making it possible to evade a large portion of incoming damage by knowing where the enemy's attacks will land and consistently avoiding those areas. This makes avoiding damage in PvP twitch-based and centered on player skill rather than reducing a player's PvP effectiveness to a stat on gear. Should the worst happen and your character is killed, a last-stand mechanic makes it possible to self-revive in a sticky situation. If there are other players around, they can similarly revive you without the need for resurrection spells.

Elementalists are able to shift between elemental attunement stances mid-combat, modifying their five main weapon abilities according to the element chosen. Where the fire version of an attack might channel a flame breath in front of the caster, the water version would breathe a cone of cold. Going underwater converts all of your skills into underwater versions designed to fulfill the same function while working in a three-dimensional environment. No matter what I did as an Elementalist, it always felt completely intuitive.

Final thoughts

Guild Wars 2 was undeniably my favourite game of the entire expo, with fantastic controls, gorgeous zone designs and an innovative RIFT-like dynamic event system. While RIFT only really has one trick with its zone-wide invasions, the variety of events in Guild Wars 2 is massive. Each zone has multiple events tailored to the local lore, with event chains pushing back and forth on a battlefield.

The Guild Wars-style fast travel system returns with a slight twist inspired by traditional MMO flight paths; players may teleport to any waypoint they wish, but there's a fee for doing so. I was already going to order Guild Wars 2 on release, but the demo at Eurogamer Expo has made me incredibly excited for the game. I went back to play it four times over the course of the weekend, and I captured a few photos that you can see in the gallery above.