Guild Wars 2 Previews
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Massively's Rubi Bayer let us know how Guild Wars 2 changed her mind about the so-called fourth MMO pillar, story:
If you're not a Guild Wars 1 player, Rytlock is holding an awesome flaming sword. If you are a Guild Wars 1 player, Rytlock is holding Sohothin, and there is a world of meaning in that brief image. Sohothin is Prince Rurik's sword, the one we all wanted so badly when we first started playing Guild Wars way back when. It was a bit of an icon, and once the Guild Wars 2 books arrived and we found out that it had fallen into Rytlock's hands all those years later, it was even more of a symbol of all the difficult things that have come before.
Once inside the dungeon, it gets even better. Looking at the screenshots, we've seen reveals of some very familiar architectural styles, and if you've spent some time in the pre-Searing Catacombs, it's going to be so much more immersive.
Fighting Kasha Blackblood, Master Ranger Nente, Ralena Stormbringer, and Vassar is a very similar situation. If you're unfamiliar with the history of Tyria, then they are some powerful mini-bosses before you get to the end. If you're familiar, then they are the ghosts of old allies: your very first teachers in the world of Guild Wars. Now they're undead and warped into enemies bent on killing you, and you've got to take them out first, as sad as it might be. Finally meeting up with King Adelbern is the same thing, only a little more intense.
GameSpy:
Of course, the dungeon-crawling game exists in this new-and-improved Tyria, and it's where ArenaNet's clever turn on group dynamics gets to shine. The tired healer/tank/damage-dealer trinity of other MMOs is nowhere to be found here; five thieves could conquer a catacomb with as much effort as a "balanced" group of warriors, elementalists, and guardians. ArenaNet accomplishes this by giving each profession the power -- and the built-in impetus -- to switch roles on the fly by equipping different weapons and accessory sets with the click of a button. I took the engineer class on a stroll through a dank dungeon (with three other engineers and thief, incidentally), and mostly stuck to an MO of dual-wielding pistols, immobilizing foes with net traps, and dropping stationary turrets for extra firepower. For a few rough patches, I strapped on a med-kit, dropping constant bandages for my teammates to mend themselves with. A fellow engineer wielded a havoc-wreaking flamethrower almost exclusively, while another engineer dropped about a dozen landmines per encounter (you know, just to be safe). Once we started acting like a team, we cleaned the entire place out. And it was chaos, too; Guild Wars was notable for just how damn chaotic its fights got, and Guild Wars 2 carries on that proud tradition. Helpful (and hard-relearned) tip: Always kill the monk first.
G4TV writes on dungeons:
The explorable mode of the dungeon was much harder than I had anticipated, and that's always something I welcome in MMOs. I love a challenge, and that's exactly what explorable mode offers. Almost right away we were faced with an event where these little four-legged beasts began attacking us in droves. After dying to the nasty critters, we realized we had to take out their burrow nest and then they'd stop spawning. We did so, and were able to continue deeper into the Catacombs, but right away, it was refreshing and a bit harder than I thought it was going to be.
We continued through the Catacombs and came upon another room that was infested with what seemed like hundreds of tiny spiders. It took us over a dozen tries of running back and forth and wiping on the spiders to finally kill them. Once we did, the Champion Spider Queen spawned, and we were able to take her out for some extra loot. She was an optional event boss, and had we chosen to not kill the little spiders, we could have skipped her entirely. She wasn't as tough as her babies though, just stunning us and putting a nasty poison up from time to time that we would have to run away from.
And dynamic events and underwater combat:
Another innovative aspect of Guild Wars 2 is its Dynamic Event system. Seasoned MMO players are very familiar, and bored, with quest givers asking to kill 10 pests in order to go on to the next quest. Guild Wars 2 introduces a new way to play where once again players can choose whether or not they want to help. If you happen to be exploring and come across a town that's on fire, you can help put out the fire, or you can just keep running. If you do choose to help, you'll be graded on how much you help, and if you choose not to help, there will be other events happening all the time to keep you on your toes. While I was playing, I ran into a town that was on fire, and that was being looted by pirates. I chose to help put out a few of the fires and then go kill pirates. By helping, I filled out a little heart icon on my map and was also rewarded with experience, gold, and karma.
Speaking of which, ArenaNet's Jonathan Sharp penned a blog post on the underwater combat mechanics:
The transition from swimming to not-swimming is something we've really focused on. We want the transition to be seamless and immersive, so we've put a lot of effort into giving the player control over swimming. If you just need to cross a body of water to get to the other side, you can swim at the top of the water without diving below. Be careful though! While swimming on the surface you can't fight and are fair game for any enemies lurking below the surface.
If you want to go full-on underwater, just tilt your camera down and keep moving forward you will dive below the waves. When this happens, you will automagically switch to your underwater weapon set, your underwater skill setup, and your breathing device.
For the more adventurous among you, there are other ways to go straight into underwater combat. Imagine you're running away from enemy mobs towards a cliff edge. They're getting closer; arrows are flying by you, barely missing you. Spells explode behind you, singeing your clothes. Rifle and pistol bullets richochet past you, nearly taking out your legs. There's nowhere to go.. until you jump off the cliff and land in the water far, far below. The second you hit water, you're ready to go you switch to underwater mode, pull out your underwater weapon, and start swimming while your pursuers yell and curse!
