Bit off topic for many people here, but for anyone who has been awaiting the sequel, Guild Wars 2 is now available on pre-order.

 

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/

 

Al

Bit off topic for many people here, but for anyone who has been awaiting the sequel, Guild Wars 2 is now available on pre-order.

 

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/

 

Al

 

Hi Al I'm on the fence on this one waiting on the Secret World from funcom but knowing me Ill end up buying it anyways lol but it does look good.

Just a heads up for anyone who pre-ordered it: Beta weekend is now up and running for this, and the client can be downloaded. It's a very big file from the looks of things; taking ages to download and that's coming down the pipe at 1.22Mb/Second LOL

 

Al

I'll have to try this one out. SWTOR didn't quite do it for me. Couldn't even reach max level. I have totally enjoyed Mass Effect and do not mind reading alot, but SWTOR was the first MMO I played that I didn't get one character. We'll see how GW2 goes...

It's very good indeed. Combat is broadly similar to how it was in the original Guild Wars, with a few extra touches, very nice additions, for example when you get knocked down, you have to fight to be able to get back up to get into the fight again.

 

The original character classes are all there, with some new ones and new playable races, and there is some really cool underwater stuff too, for example, the entire old Lion's Arch is a submerged ruin which you can dive to and explore, the rebuilt Lion's Arch is now absolutely massive, with Asura Gates to different regions.

 

The soundtrack is once again excellent, and the entire thing feels hugely epic, even more so than the original game. Graphics are much better but still have that very attractive look and feel of the old game, and the pacing of the requirement to level to carry forward the story arc is much the same as it was previously, giving you a lot of scope as to how you proceed, with plenty of opportinities for exploration and side quests, which goods, since there do appear to be many more character levels than the old game had. There is more crafting involved in creating your own stuff too, with slightly more emphasis on learning how to do things. The same zoned instance system is in place too, and works as well as it did in the original game. The player base seems to be good as well, in much the same way as it was in the original GS, with lots of people pitching in to help one another.

 

I think they've got themselves another winner, it is very impressive indeed and seems to justify the wait for its arrival, as it comes over like a massively improved version of the original game, which is of course no bad thing at all since GW was one of the finest MMOs ever. Like the original game, this is a class act, and a very welcome arrival which is probably going to steal a lot of people's lives.

 

A couple of pics from the beta this weekend with a fire elementalist character:

 

 

 

Al