ArenaNet provided the world with a refresher course on Guild Wars 2′s innovations last week with an excellent MMO Manifesto video that included a lot of new game footage. And now we’ve actually gotten the first bits of real gameplay footage as some charr gameplay was leaked a day prior to the start of the actual playable demo on this year’s gamescom.
Needless to say, I’ve taken an in-depth look at both and assembled a huge list of new information to be gleaned from both glances into Guild Wars 2 gameplay. Some of it is quite surprising, such as the seeming inclusion of clothing physics which prevents body parts from sticking through clothing and the very bold and artistic approach to interface design.
There’s a lot to read up on below, but I’ve of course also embedded both videos. Even if you’re not quite interested in learning all there is to know about this game, those videos still make for an exciting glimpse of what’s to come. Better yet, NCSoft actually has an on-going live feed of their booths at gamescom at which you might be able to spot some Guild Wars 2 footage if you’re lucky. If not, then there will be plenty of hands-on features in the coming days and I’ll do my best to provide an overview once the tradeshow is done.
Now read on for the full lowdown and stay tuned to GameDrone for constant updates on Guild Wars 2, but also be sure to keep an eye on the on the official Guild Wars 2 website and ArenaNet company blog for the latest information and media.
Interface
- The interface is very minimalistic, but also highly reminiscent of Guild Wars in terms of its design. It’s unknown whether interface elements can be moved around like in Guild Wars.
- A minimap can be seen on the lower right side of the screen and seems nearly identical to the minimap in Guild Wars as a circular indicator of the nearby area. It also includes an arrow pointing in the direction of the currently active objective, much like in Guild Wars.
- The chat screen seems almost identical to that of Guild Wars, with the one change of a larger and bolder font for better visibility.
- Where Guild Wars had a tendency to use simple and small fonts, the opposite is true for Guild Wars 2 which features fonts with bold strokes and large and clear lettering.
- Skill icons in the skill bar look very much like those in Guild Wars, including different colors to separate different types of skills.
- A huge red circle denotes the player’s health and splits the skill bar in two. Warriors have an adrenaline bar above the left skill bar and an energy bar above the right skill bar.
- Currently selected enemies are displayed in similar fashion to Guild Wars with their name, level and the name of the skill they’re currently using. Status icons are also used, so burning enemies will have a burning icon in their status screen.
- The interface seems heavily geared towards keyboard input, with tooltips referencing keys for interacting with NPCs and the like. The mouse can be used for this purpose as well.
- An alert pops up on the interface when events are detected nearby, but the player still has to seek out their specific location.
- The presentation of interface elements is much more artistic and user-friendly than in Guild Wars, with ragged progress bars, flashy tooltips and big damage indicators. Usable objects and characters are also surrounded by a colored glow.
- It’s clear that the presentation is intended to be very friendly for newcomers as selectable targets are surrounded by colored outlines and icons are used to denote in-game objectives, such as a resurrection signet icon above knocked out allies in the gamescom demo.
- NPCs not only communicate through audio, but also feature text bubbles to relate their dialogue to the player.
- When talking to NPCs a dialogue box pops up which demonstrates a head shot of the NPC, their text and several conversation options demarcated by different icons. Should they offer a task then instant acceptance or dismissal of the offer are possible, but it’s also possible to learn more about this task before making your decision.
- The world map displays player progress through the landscape in identical fashion to Guild Wars, with a dotted line denoting the previously traveled area of the map.
- The transition from world map to game (when not traveling via map travel) is incredibly smooth and goes from overarching world map to area map to game.
- Loading screens are demonstrated when players use map travel and these are very similar to loading screens in Guild Wars, with beautiful artwork accompanying a simple progress bar and background information for the area.
The interface is fairly minimalistic, but also highly stylized
Gameplay
- Combat is more than the repetitive swinging of your sword augmented by the occassional skill. This sounds similar to Guild Wars which also had a more involved combat system than your average MMORPG. But Guild Wars 2 seems to promise much better visual feedback and more mobility during combat.
- Where most MMORPGs start you off killing rats or similarly powerless opponents, Guild Wars 2 makes you feel powerful from the get-go. The enormous earth elemental demonstrated in the MMO Manifesto video is actually a level 1 encounter for human characters.
- Combat is very flashy and intense and seems much more remniscent in style of Aion than Guild Wars. It also includes critical hits and glancing blows.
- Some skills can be set to auto-attack by right clicking on them in the skill bar.
- Some environmental weapons are shown in the form of cannons embedded into the Steeleye Span outpost. These seem to be mouse-controlled and give an area-of-effect outline on the area surrounding the cursor.
- An emergent dynamic event is shown in Blazeridge Steppes, where the player stumbles across an Asuran who talks about something that needs doing. The resulting dialogue seems fairly similar to a regular kill quest in a MMORPG, but the manner of acquiring this task is very different. The Asuran doesn’t have a huge exclamation point flying over his head and is only noted by the fact that he speaks to the player character.
- Loot is handled differently from Guild Wars as players now have to loot corpses after defeating opponents. The resulting loot interface is similar to Aion’s and demonstrates item name, icon and value.
- The F key can be used to interact in many ways. Some of these include Greet (NPC), Revive (ally), Leave (mounted cannon) and Search (corpse).
Guild Wars 2 looks to do justice to the immense scales seen in the artwork
Audio & Video
- The music is very reminiscent of Guild Wars, which does not come as a surprise with Jeremy Soule once again taking the lead on the musical score.
- The graphics of Guild Wars 2 are more stylized than those of its predecessor, with absolutely enormous constructions and far more detailed world design. A charr city is shown with a massive steel dome in the distance, winches, pipes blowing out steam, etc. Massive steps hewn out of solid granite lead up to an enormous wall with an ornately crafted gate that’s been broken open and designed to admit something many times larger than even a Norn. A slim wooden bridge spans a seemingly depthless chasm in the middle of a city. And dense forests grow trees that are far larger than any player character.
- Environments will be destructible to an extent. A massive wooden water channel is knocked from its supports by centaur raiders, while buildings crumble as they succumb to flames and a bridge soaring high over a deep valley is vaporized by an onslaught of lightning. It’s unclear whether all of this is scripted or some of it can be triggered by players themselves.
- The environmental interaction also extends to larger NPCs. So when The Shatterer comes crashing in, it sends rocks flying in all directions and dust billowing forth from beneath its bony wings. And when the enormous earth elemental takes form it absorbs parts of the environment and forms almost tornado-like wind gusts around itself.
- Guild Wars 2 seems to incorporate full clothing physics, which means that character parts do not stick through clothing. This can be seen in action at around the 2:41 mark in the gamescom gameplay footage where the clothing of the other character moves along with its body parts, including the tail.
The scale of the more epic encounters in Guild Wars 2 far exceeds anything seen in Guild Wars.
Areas, Characters and Lore
- The areas shown in the gamescom demo’s charr section are all Ascalon, which seems to have recovered somewhat from the searing. Some green can be seen in certain areas and it’s no longer all black and grey. This is also visible on the world map where Ascalon has an orange tint similar to the crystal desert in the original game.
- The difference between Guild Wars’ Old Ascalon and Guild Wars 2′s Ascalon is much greater than that of pre- and post-searing Ascalon in the original game.
- Steeleye Span is a massive gun-toting charr fortress located in an area known as the Brand. It’s a playable multi-staged dynamic event in the gamescom demo where it’s under attack by dragon minions, which appear to be corrupted charr and humans. It also appeared in the MMO Manifesto video.
- The Shatterer is the name of the huge bone dragon seemingly driven by purplish coiling lightning that was shown in the MMO Manifesto video. It’s also part of the charr event in the Brand and will be present in the gamescom demo.
- Blazeridge Steppes (Terra Carorunda outpost on the world map) is also shown. It’s a rocky environment with some green mixed in and seems to be a part of Ascalon. There are numerous partially leafed trees as well which give the appearance of autumn rather than spring or summer.
- The Charr are clearly far more technologically advanced than the other races with a heavy focus on steel elements, steam-powered contraptions and ranged weapons utilizing gun powder such as cannons and rifles.
- The scale of the more epic encounters in Guild Wars 2 far exceeds anything seen in Guild Wars. The Shatterer isn’t merely a dragon, but one that makes the tallest Norn seem utterly puny in comparison.
- Two dragons are actually shown: a massive black bone dragon with purplish lightning coiling inside and an enormous underwater dragon that passes by a player character. There’s another large shadow-like creature shown in a swamp-like area, but it’s unknown whether this is an actual dragon.
The Shatterer is a huge dragon that roams the Brand
Gamescom Demo
- The playable gamescom demo includes both a level 1 segment as a human in Divinity’s Reach and a level 47 charr segment.
- The human segment introduces players to the game, demonstrates the lively cities of Guild Wars 2 and provides an introduction to the personal story system.
- The charr segment foregoes the story elements experienced at this level and focuses on dynamic events and world exploration.
- More than 60 voice actors were used in the parts available during the gamescom demo and that’s but a fraction of the scale of the full game.
- The demo is so large that ArenaNet does not expect anyone to be able to play through it in its entirety during gamescom.
- ArenaNet employees will be playing right along with gamescom attendees.
- The AI does not react in the gamescom demo footage, because the developer was cheating and had made his character invisible. It’ll be different for anyone playing through the gamescom demo normally.
The world at large can be influenced by players, but these changes will not be permanent.
General
- Cities are lively to an extent previously only seen in singleplayer RPGs. NPCs go about their daily business, as seen in the MMO Manifesto video, regardless of player activity. Children play in the streets, folk go out for pints at a local bar, merchants haggle their wares, etc.
- The MMO Manifesto video is an excellent demonstration of why Guild Wars 2 looks to be so promising and so very different from other games in its genre. But the developers merely state facts that have already been revealed during the past few months and thus its more informative for those unaware of the game than fans who have been following it since the announcement.
- In the aforementioned video, Ree Soesbee talks about permanent changes made to the game world by player actions. This does not refer to the game world at large, but the player’s personal story and the instanced areas related to that. A player’s home instance, for example, will change according to the player’s actions during their character’s story.
- The world at large can be influenced by players, but these changes will not be permanent. This refers to dynamic events which can change certain areas of the world for as much as months at a time, but will eventually reset due to player actions, other events, or the passage of time.
Gamescom Gameplay Footage
ArenaNet MMO Manifesto
Should you have missed out on the wealth of Guild Wars 2 information that’s been made public already, then you may wish to read up on the design manifesto, combat system and elementalist profession, the warrior profession and traits system #1 & #2, the ranger profession #1 & #2 & #3, dynamic events system #1 & #2, the personal story system, player personalities, death and healing, dialogue, leveling, non-combat activities #1 and #2 and activities and travel in Tyria.
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