Guild Wars 2 GamesCom Round-up

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Written by BuckGB on August 21st, 2010

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I was given a few choices as to what my strongest personality aspect was. I chose "ferocity." Out of three options regarding my upbringing as a street rat, a commoner or a court noble, I chose a commoner. Then I was asked what, of three options, was my greatest regret. The first two were boring things like avenging my sister's murder or something. I didn't even really pay attention to them, because the third option completely overshadowed them. My character's greatest regret is that he never had the opportunity to perform in the circus. This could only play out in the most awesome of ways, although I never got the chance to see ramifications of that particular choice.

From there, my character entered the world. I found myself standing before a collection of buildings, and immediately an NPC ran up to me to inform me that the village was under attack from centaurs, and that I needed to rally survivors and tell them to head to the town's inn. With that complete, I was told to head to the local fortress -- currently overrun by the half-beasts -- and take back what was ours. Other players were present during the demo, and I could see them running towards the fortress too. It was there that we all coalesced and began wiping out waves of attacking centaurs. Each kill netted me, and all the other players involved, experience and loot, despite me never having invited any of the other players to a group. We were in the same world, working as separate entities for a common goal, and all being rewarded equally. It was very communistic.

While many of the defining mechanics of necromancers in the original Guild Wars have made a return, the profession has been completely reimagined and features some incredibly cool gameplay. For example, as you use the different skills slotted on your bar, you'll begin building up a health resource which allows you to enter a wraith-like state. In this state you gain access to a new set of potent skills, such as a powerful AoE ability. This state only lasts as long as your health resource holds out, but the cool thing here is that you can exit the wraith form at any time and doing so will return you to your original location. It's almost like a perfect marriage of necromancers and assassin's Shadow Step abilities in the original GW, only you get to do all sorts of damage to your enemy while in this state before returning.

Pets are also back, and this time you'll even have some in the mix that are persistent rather than having the limited lifespans of the original. The wraith state even comes complete with a temporary (and very powerful) pet that can be summoned and used so long as the wraith state is active. And if exploding corpses and making pet bombs is your thing, fear not, as those will also be staples of the class.

Another nice thing is that Leveling up and getting new skills does not make a world of difference in Guild wars. This is actually a very interesting approach. Realistically speaking if I am killed by 2 stab wounds, no matter how much experience I gain I will not survive a lot more then that. In traditional MMOs once you reach 10 level from your opponent then you're pretty much immortal to them, they can attack all they want they have no chance of killing you most likely even if you go AFK. Not so in Guild Wars. In Guild wars there is a level cap of 20 and at level 10 I needed to pay attention while traveling in the area I started in as while there was a difference now that I was 10 level higher as there should be still a couple of mistakes would still have cost my life.

Death in Guild Wars also brings with it crucial decisions. As we said before every time you step in a mission or go questing you enter an instance. If you leave and renter that instances the level will reset and monsters will come back and repopulate the area. If you die you will be force to restart in case of missions or be reborn next to a (save point) when simply roaming and questing. However you also incur a 15% cumulative death penalty up to a maximum of 60% to your health and energy (mana) that effectively means if you encounter a strong force and you die twice you can forget about being able to ever win without a lot and I do mean a lot of perseverance. Removing the death penalty can be done in two ways, killing enemies or faster yet killing bosses but with a 60% penalty this is not likely at all, what is likely is you will die in the first second of the battle or you could got to a city and your penalty will be lifted but that also means restarting your journey to complete your quest from scratch, killing the same enemies again and possibly do it all for nothing as you may end up dieing again just like the first time around. Those who like to perceiver they could keep at it, possibility trying to kill 1 enemy at a time since these once death remain death so long you don't leave the instance.

We're right in the middle of a busy, exciting gamescom, but I thought I'd take a moment on day three of the show to share some great news: Guild Wars 2 has just been awarded Best Online Game for gamescom 2010!

We've been eager to show off Guild Wars 2 for the first time at gamescom, and the response from fans to the hands-on demo has been overwhelmingly positive. This is our opportunity to demonstrate that all of the features we've been talking about for the past few months are real, not just hype, and we're gratified that fans have really enjoyed playing the demo. Awards are fantastic, but let's face it: connecting with players and earning their enthusiasm is the real prize at gamescom.

Those ArenaNet staffers who aren't in Cologne are still playing a vital role at gamescom; our entire studio here in the Seattle area has been playing the game remotely with show attendees all week. We've been having a blast meeting and playing alongside our European fans in-game it's been like one big international LAN party!

We're bringing the hands-on Guild Wars 2 demo to the States in two weeks at PAX in Seattle (Sept 3-5), and we'd love to see you there. Even if you can't play the demo, keep an eye on this blog for more Guild Wars 2 news and information.

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