Guild Wars 2 site opens, first trailer revealed
by Griffin McElroy 
{ Aug 20th 2009 at 11:59PM } 
And what a trailer it is! NCSoft and ArenaNet are taking their sweet time getting the upcoming sequel to their free-to-play MMO, Guild Wars 2, all put together. Finally, we get a look at the delicious fruits of their labor. The five-minute-long debut trailer for the game (posted above) reveals the game's five playable classes, gives a brief summary of the game's overarching plot, and caps it off with a stunning look at the title's varied environments.
There's also a fairly comprehensive FAQ sheet up on the game's recently-opened site -- the highlight from which is a re-confirmation that the game will feature zero subscription fees. Penny-pinchers, rejoice! This particular cost-efficient online RPG is looking phenomenal.
[Via Big Download]
There's also a fairly comprehensive FAQ sheet up on the game's recently-opened site -- the highlight from which is a re-confirmation that the game will feature zero subscription fees. Penny-pinchers, rejoice! This particular cost-efficient online RPG is looking phenomenal.
[Via Big Download]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
SpyderTaco (PSN: Ar4chNova89) @ Aug 21st 2009 12:03AM
I can't help but give NCsoft the benefit of the doubt with this game. They definitely made their mark on the MMO community with the first Guild Wars as well as the Lineage series. I'm just curious as to whether or not they are still working on a PS3-bound MMO? It seems like Aion would have been a perfect candidate for a cross-platform port.
Chairman Hurf [Planeteer | Power of Politically Correct Comedic Relief] @ Aug 21st 2009 12:05AM
The majority of the top players in the Guild Wars community such as myself, and pretty much everyone in the top 10 caliber of players probably won't come back to Guild Wars after quitting about a year and a half ago.
But hey if A-Net can really bring something new to the table, and maybe give us that classic experience we had 4 or so years ago; this could be great. Not saying the majority of the big PvE player community won't come back because they most definitely will, but I'm saying a good portion of the top caliber of the PvP community probably won't make a return for the 2nd game.
Not trolling. Just voicing my opinion.
SpyderTaco (PSN: Ar4chNova89) @ Aug 21st 2009 12:07AM
I'm sorry, but I stopped caring as soon as you said "top players in the Guild Wars community such as myself".
Calling yourself the best at anything immediately makes you look like a douche bag.
R (Planeteers | Power of Penile Pulse) @ Aug 21st 2009 12:14AM
I agree with Spyder. And as a current GW player, and one that has been playing pretty steady since november of 2005, let me assure you that if you havent played in 1.5 years, you currently suck at Guild Wars. The meta has changed THAT much.
Chairman Hurf [Planeteer | Power of Politically Correct Comedic Relief] @ Aug 21st 2009 9:55AM
Hey guys I wasn't trying to sound like a douchebag or anything, maybe I might have accidentally worded it that way but it sure wasn't my intention. I understand also that after quitting for a while I would suck (that's kind of common sense :/). But some players that I played with for a long time are still playing and all of them plus some randoms in my alliance believe the meta has changed a lot yes, but for the worse. The game is no fun; people just run around until 28 minutes occasionally doing Lord damage. I can almost say its stupid, the only reason people haven't quit is because you can sell the in game gold for cash. But go ahead and shoot me down if you so desire.
The Baron @ Aug 21st 2009 10:31AM
No, I got bored of Guild Wars after I sunk 5000 hours in. Though I suppose that's to be expected of most games.
Either way, this trailer looks phenomenal - the insane art design of the world was always something the first was good at. It looks as if they're still running on the same technology too, with some general improvements to textures and effects - which is no bad thing since the first game looked great too.
I just hope that this time they have the content to match. I like the direction they're taking with a more open world though.
aacman007 @ Aug 21st 2009 12:05AM
goddamnit, my gf and i just started on GW.
marcandrer @ Aug 21st 2009 8:05AM
dont worry, you still have alot of time the finish it..
Kevin @ Aug 21st 2009 10:41AM
Anything you do in the first game fills up the Hall of Monuments with stuff that can be transfered to the second game. As well, support for 1 will not end when 2 releases.
Consider this time a tutorial with an amazing game :)
Adam @ Aug 21st 2009 7:34PM
@Kevin
Indeed, Guild War remains one of my all time favorite gaming experiences, and this trailers tell me that NCsoft is getting my money again, I pay it gladly.
Longhorn Slim @ Aug 21st 2009 12:07AM
anybody else seeing that big ad sign for xbox Live in top of the website with the LBP song >:[
Snowblind @ Aug 21st 2009 6:08AM
It's not the LBP theme, it's Get It Together, by the Go Team, a somewhat popular indie track. If they didn't want other people using the same music, perhaps they shouldn't have used nothing but liscenced music?
R (Planeteers | Power of Penile Pulse) @ Aug 21st 2009 12:13AM
About freaking time. 2 years ago they announced this game and didnt give us any new info since then.
Too bad this is probably not coming out till holiday 2010 at the earliest.
Professor Lario @ Aug 21st 2009 12:21AM
Wow - looks great. I am not an MMO player, but this one looks very un-MMOish. Great art direction and imaginative environments.
Scott @ Aug 21st 2009 8:47AM
Have you played the first one? It also has some pretty amazing art-design. All of the campaigns look pretty amazing (Nightfall gets more gorgeous the further you go), but I think Factions probably wins the contest for "most crazy scenery, most of the time".. It has a sort of asian-medieval, Coruscant-like city, Stone forests, Jade seas..
It's hard to avoid making a couple comparisons with other MMO's, particularly the top one: WoW...but while both games feature some pretty cool conceptual work, I think Guild Wars has always stood apart for actually looking a lot like its concept art... If you ever got any WoW collectors' eds you saw some of their concept art. It looks pretty darn good, but the game is like a cartoonified version of it. When you compare GW concept art to the finished product, what you play is a lot closer to the artists' renderings.
freaparn @ Aug 21st 2009 11:36AM
Yeah, I gotta say... there are a few too many "generic fantasy" MMOs out there already or in development, but nothing about this fantasy MMO trailer screams "generic" aside from the premise of dragons being the ultimate evil, heh. The artwork and environmental design is beautiful and strikingly noteworthy in the scale and detail. It looks like the sort of world that's enjoyable to walk through even if you're not going anywhere in particular.
I only played the beta of the first one, but now I'm thinking I should go check it out to get an idea of what gameplay aspects arenanet likes to focus on...
No Kill Tayler @ Aug 21st 2009 12:26AM
Can someone tell me if the first one had cut-scenes?
Or if this one will?
And for chat support?
too many questions..
R (Planeteers | Power of Penile Pulse) @ Aug 21st 2009 12:33AM
Yes it had cutscenes
Im pretty sure this one will as GW is pretty story driven
GW1 had no chat support, its unknown for GW2 (if I had to bet I would bet on yes)
Also, Griffin, you have a pretty serious error in your post. The trailer shows the game's five RACES, not 5 classes. GW 2, so far, is expected to have races and classes, similar to WoW, only all races should have access to all classes (this is based on all information known to me so far).
Riley @ Aug 21st 2009 12:51AM
more than 1 playable race=score!
No Kill Tayler @ Aug 21st 2009 1:41AM
Looks like I'm a happy buyer.
WiNG [XBL&Steam: WiNGSPANTT] from lifeinagame.com @ Aug 21st 2009 11:30AM
Guild Wars 1 has cut-scenes. In most of them your character and your party act it out, including voice, which always made it feel epic. You see your own guy/gal leading the little army to victory or whatever.
It was even more hilarious if you were wielding joke items or dressed only in your undies while doing so.
cknblade @ Aug 21st 2009 12:46AM
I feel like linus would have felt, had he seen the great pumpkin. It's been too long since any GW2 info, and I'm thrilled. I've been playing Guild Wars since May 2005, and it is a fantastic, relatively grind-free (I say relatively in response to a few elements added fairly recently, the biggest offender being titles) MMO. I'm sure that I and a lot of other less active Vets will come jumping to get this. Go Anet!
Hyperion45 @ Aug 21st 2009 1:25AM
I know how you feel. Titles felt like a slap in the face for people like me who didn't want to whore themselves out to a game. But then again it did give the people who wanted to whore themselves out something to play for. But some of them were terrible for what they made you do. I mean, be drunk for thousands of minutes? I mean people discovered a trick that would give them an extra minute's worth of being drunk per drink because they were so desperate to get the title. The biggest disgrace of a title though is the "people know me" title, where each level is another quote from Ron Burgandy. It's a title you achieve by maxing out other titles. I swear only the people who have no lives managed to get this one. And in the words of a frightened Blizzard employee as seen on South Park "How do you kill that which has no life?"
cknblade @ Aug 21st 2009 10:01AM
For me, the worst thing about titles wasn't so much the appearance ones. If someone wants to spend a long time and a lot of money working towards one of these elusive titles for self Achievement/Hall of Monuments/Showing off, fine. However, when they started to affect certain skills, such as in Eye of the North, when all the different alliance skills improved with rank, a rank achievable pretty much through different forms of grinding exclusively, then I started to get a bit annoyed. I don't like grind. As a result, since i wasn't rank 10 anything (Highest I got was rank 6 Dwarven), high end play in Eye of the North was off limits to me.
WiNG [XBL&Steam: WiNGSPANTT] from lifeinagame.com @ Aug 21st 2009 11:38AM
Yeah the skill-based titles were bad, because you had to grind dozens of hours at the lame challenge missions to get better. It was made worse by the fact that they added most of them in after the expansions, which was after you had already did most of those missions.
The Ron Burgundy and other joke titles, though, were fine. They had no effect on gameplay, and I thought it was cool to be able to look at someone and instantly know that they had uncovered 100% of the map, or that they had... lol ... lost 10,000 carnival games.
False @ Aug 21st 2009 12:52AM
Guild Wars has always been the poor man's WoW.
And in all seriousness, I do mean that as a compliment.
SpyderTaco (PSN: Ar4chNova89) @ Aug 21st 2009 1:11AM
Every MMO since the launch of WoW is the poor man's WoW.
Where have you been?
chispito @ Aug 21st 2009 2:05AM
Sigh. He means "poor man's wow" because there are no subscription fees, not because of its inferiority (overall I enjoyed it less than WoW, but it is an interesting game all the same).
Scott @ Aug 21st 2009 8:56AM
That's funny, I liked GW better. The game mechanic was simply more interesting and complex. You're more frequently involved in important decisions about how to equip your character with abilities and skill points.
In WoW, sure you might have to agonize over your spec FOTM for a half an hour once every couple months, but after you've done that you're pretty set and just need to get comfortable with whatever your "win" key is. E.g. for feral druids, it goes something like "mangle mangle mangle mangle mangle mangle mangle mangle mangle mangle mangle mangle" etc..
Also, in WoW the focus was loot.. Loot which typically boosted your stats' effectiveness by 1-2% per upgrade.. Unless you were lagging with an important piece of armor/weapons, you could barely notice an upgrade. In GW, the focus was on acquiring new skills.. Each new acquisition could potentially alter your gameplay technique quite a bit, or open up new options. Also: you didn't have to loot-roll...all you needed was a capture signet.
Riley @ Aug 21st 2009 1:10PM
have you played Guild Wars? because it is a completely different game than WoW
I prefer WoW, but I am tired of them being compared just because they are both MMOs
WINterfang @ Aug 21st 2009 12:52AM
WOW. ( no pun intended)
Giroro @ Aug 21st 2009 3:40AM
I have noticed that when people say no pun intended, the pun IS intended and the pun maker seems to be of the opinion that it needs to be pointed out for people to catch on. (no pun intended, because there is no pun whatsoever. so don't look for one.)
Quiggy @ Aug 21st 2009 10:25AM
I feel this is necessary:
http://xkcd.com/559/
WINterfang @ Aug 21st 2009 12:18PM
I wasn't really trying to make a pun but it doesn't matter anyway.
mocax @ Aug 21st 2009 1:10AM
i wanna be a charr....
dang that charr effigy bankai transformation at the end looked wicked.... :D
the sylvari are tempting to bring out the pedobear in me.... >.>
WINterfang @ Aug 21st 2009 1:17AM
I haven't touch the first game but I like those like elves thingy that command Golems.
Hyperion45 @ Aug 21st 2009 1:21AM
They're the Asura, genius little buggers that used to live undergound until the Destroyers forced them form their homes. Apparently they have a new home in the form of a giant floating conjoined-pyramidical structre majigger. But yeah they were really cool in the original, and advanced tech and making/controlling G.O.L.E.Ms are their specialty. Don't ask me what the acronym stands for cause I forget but it does mean something.
cknblade @ Aug 21st 2009 1:26AM
I'm rolling a Norn Warrior or Human Elementalist day one.
tobz1000 @ Aug 21st 2009 1:21AM
Has Guild Wars always had stargates?
cknblade @ Aug 21st 2009 1:26AM
Since the latest expansion, yes.
Hyperion45 @ Aug 21st 2009 1:27AM
Yes, ever since EotN. They're Asuran tech, with the gateways connecting to one another in an elaborate network. Helps them move around faster since they have such small legs.
R (Planeteers | Power of Penile Pulse) @ Aug 21st 2009 1:42AM
its not a big part of the story even later on though, thanks to maptravel. I hear Asuran Gates might replace map travel in GW2 though. (still beats WoW's gryphons)
...Stargate SG-1 was a good show. I say "was" because the new cast was terrible. Richard Dean Anderson ftw.
st3v3n @ Aug 21st 2009 2:37AM
I love guild wars. I don't play it as hardcore as i did (not at all, right now, actually), but I have always loved their art design and music. I'm definitely excited for 5 races AND classes.
Lov3 @ Aug 21st 2009 2:39AM
Looks beautiful, i'm really impressed. But, I have a real aversion to playing another game that would have me kill 50 boars over and over again for 8 solid days to get anywhere. Any word on the gameplay aspect?
Kevin @ Aug 21st 2009 10:47AM
Guild Wars has always had an anti-grind policy, in that you do not need to grind even slightly to do well in the game.
While there is SOME grinding in the game if you want to do certain things (there are faction/alliance points in some parts) you can generally do most of it without needing to grind.
cknblade @ Aug 21st 2009 11:05AM
Guild wars, as said above, is relatively grind-free. Gameplay wise, it's a bit different. You're limited to 8 skills at any given time (special attacks, spells, things other than your basic attack), which makes for some interesting choices on how to play your character at any given time.
Giroro @ Aug 21st 2009 3:41AM
Do want.
It's been so long, this better be close to being finished.
Mike @ Aug 21st 2009 4:00AM
so much to reply to I'm gunna just say it all here :D
Probably won't be released until late 2010 if that, the FAQ website tells us that they are going to start testing closer to release and that this testing will start early 2010.
A bunch of people said about time they saw something, since announcing GW2 the GW community has given TOO MUCH INPUT, Anet just wants to make their game how they want to make it, let em be.
"Guild Wars has always been the poor man's WoW.
And in all seriousness, I do mean that as a compliment."
to that guy, not really, I play AoC and GW. WoW didn't appeal to me, but GW did, I like the community and the games simplicity a lot better. I'm sorry but you're wrong.
Mr Lee @ Aug 21st 2009 5:18AM
call me a fanboy if you like but...
OMG!!! In-game footage of GW2!!
Also, one thing that people seem to always get confused, NC Soft are NOT the developer of Guild Wars. ArenaNet are and always have been. NC Soft are only publishing the game so it has nothing to do with the developers of Aion, Lineage etc.
ArenaNet have the best concept artists in the business imo and this game is going to be amazingly awesome. Every part of this trailer means something to the people that have played the other GW games, there's a lot of history and lore in there. I can't wait.
David @ Aug 21st 2009 10:28AM
So ArenaNet is developing Guild Wars 2 too?