Guild Wars 2 Interviews and Novel Review
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Eurogamer: What's Guild Wars 2's most innovative feature?
Mike O'Brien: Guild Wars 2 is the first social co-operative online world. We've talked a lot about how you don't even need to form a party. You can form a party, and there are benefits to it, like chat is easier, you can draw on the mini-map, things like that.
But you don't even need to form a party because everybody around you has the same goals you do. When you're fighting you're all banded together. You'll accomplish the same objectives, and then you get rewarded together.
There's never any feeling of, 'Oh no! Some guy's wandered into the hunting area I'm in! Oh no! They're going to steal all of the monsters! I wanted those monsters!' That just doesn't happen in Guild Wars 2. You welcome other people.
When I play MMOs, often I like to spend a lot of my time playing solo. I play a mix of solo and party, like most people do. In Guild Wars 2 it's just a different feeling.
You're out there in the world and you may have started playing solo and then all of a sudden a bunch of people are helping in the same thing you're doing and you guys start following each other around, and together you can accomplish more things in the world than you could have alone.
It just naturally turns itself into a social group environment without you ever having to have stopped and formed a party.
...a much quicker interview with Mr. Flannum on IGN...
"Guild Wars 2 is greater than the sum of its parts," said ArenaNet's Eric Flannum, "but those parts are pretty cool too." We asked where, with the list of interesting features, the core of the game lay, and we were told it lay in the simple acts of movement and exploration. "You can have a game with all these great features and great aspirations, if it's just not fun to move around in the game, no amount of high-minded features are going to save you."
We've actually had a chance to play it already, although you are going to have to wait a little while before we'll be able to tell you about our experiences. One thing's for certain; ArenaNet are very serious about the claims they're making. "We think MMOs are in a rut and need to break out of a rut, and we are proud to be doing it and we hope other people begin doing it as well."
And a review of Jeff Grubb's Ghosts of Ascalon novel on Ten Ton Hammer...
Overall the book was very compelling and difficult to put down for the duration. The characters were vivid and the world was described with enough depth that you were never confused or lost as to where everyone was. Characters moved around the world realistically and within the parameters that the game has already defined and from my point of view there was almost nothing that contradicted to the Guild Wars universe. Even better, like mentioned before, you wouldn't need to have touched a Guild Wars game to get into the book.
So if you like Guild Wars or even if you don't, but like fantasy novels, then this is a great book to read. I'd personally recommend it for anyone who is interested in and it's not hard to pick up. Both the softcover copy and the electronic copy retail for $7.99 which is a good deal considering most new books in hardcover are twice or three times as much. It's short enough that you won't get bored but long enough to satisfy you and provides a ton of interesting information, combat, politics, and more.
