It looks like you can play as a polar bear class.
A POLAR BEAR CLASS
The point is: GW’s graphic wasn’t between the flaws of the game.
In fact GW was pretty without being meaningful, and all the good graphic in the game was wasted and purposeless.
That trailer has yet to show something meaningful done with the graphic. That they had good artists we already knew.
Almost none of the scenery in that trailer is cardboard cutout… you can go play around on 90% of it. For instance the giant dam, the massive asura city, the snowy mountains, all places you can go.
What about interiors?
In GW all buildings were solid blocks of nothing. If the environment is a bit more open and without barriers everywhere the game would have solved a significant problem.
GW 2 has full support for interiors. The game is very open with only the sort of barriers you’d expect to see in just about any open world type game.
I really liked that trailer. The weird logo crossover between this and Dragon Age is kind of funny.
Yeah, I loved the flyover over the grasslands and through the forest. It was beautiful*. I also like that crazy cube dungeon they flew around and through.
*It’s totally hot! Heh.
I’m guessing that was a Norn (sort of a barbarian race with the ability to shapeshift) in bear form. Looked nice. Also the Asura (the little blue guys) look way less Jar-Jar and more dark gnome than in GW1, a welcome improvement.
Having played through all 4 GW releases, I’m looking forward to this game. Still, an ancient dragon awakes with an army of the undead? Didn’t I just spend 3+ years saving this world from several very similar threats? I was hoping for something a little different this time out.
I believe Guild Wars 2 is supposedly going to have jumping, yes. But since it’s not going to patch it into the original game that doesn’t help that problem. :)
HRose, why do you even care about GW2 if you disliked GW1 in every single core aspect?
You’re just playing the “I don’t like this cake. It’s far too sweet, while I prefer savory. Why can’t it be like pie? I want pie.”
The solution is to not buy cake if you want pie.
Awesome video. Why couldn’t the Dragon Age videos look this good? And I’m not trying to rag on that game, as I strongly suspect that it’ll end up being much more than those sad videos suggest.
Disliking things is HRose’s version of liking them. He’s bizarro-gamer.
It’s funny, but the inability to jump in GW also bothered me too. I know it’s dumb, but it bugged me.
I didn’t know you were the Lead Designer, Eric. Congratulations on that.
That concept art that was released yesterday looked incredible, and as usual, the environment art from the trailer looks pretty amazing. I’m not sold on the style of the non-human characters, but we’ll see what I think after a little more exposure. At the time the first game came out, I had never played an MMO, so the lack of jumping didn’t bother me, but after trying to go back to the game with some other MMO experience under my belt, it felt really really weird.
I put enough time into the first Guild Wars (I was a casual 400 or 500 hour player – I did essentially no PvP), that I will buy the second one no questions asked. I’m really looking forward to it and am excited that there is finally some information coming out.
Thanks! Yeah, our artists are truly amazing. When the game comes out you’ll have some customization options on the non humans that will hopefully allow you to make a character more to your liking, the races are so different that I’m pretty convinced everyone will find something they like.
Guild Wars 1 was designed primarily as a point and click game (ala Diablo) and so jumping didn’t make much sense and the levels were designed with those invisible walls that people hate on pretty consistently because it was supposed to be played from a more pulled out top down perspective. Over the course of development WASD controls and a closer camera became the preferred method of control but by then the engine couldn’t be scrapped to include a true Z axis. The Guild Wars 2 engine was designed to include a true Z axis which allowed for jumping, swimming, climbing, etc…
Incidentally, Eric, most of the hardcore GVGers ran pure mouse-movement, and it was considered a lot harder to dodge projectiles as a WASD’er. This became a big deal in the rspike era (yay for 20+ consecutive HoH holds creating instant FotM).
I’m really psyched by the trailer. I have very fond memories of testing the original GW, and I found that the game hooked me despite having spent an inordinate amount of time in testing over 3 chapters and 1 expansion.
I was surprised that the news came out at gamescon. I’d expected it to come out at PAX, so this is a bit early–definitely a pleasant surprise.
I’m part of the original game’s demographic. I’m someone who can invest a couple of hours playing, but can’t invest the time it takes to do some of the upper level content in an MMO. I also am PvX, so I’m very interested in the kind of separation that GW2 has versus the attempt to integrate PvE and PvP that was part of the original. What I’m more interested in than the ability to jump is what the game will offer in ways of communication infrastructure. GW1 was somewhat limited in the ways that players could talk with each other, and that made it hard for like-minded players to communicate outside the guild/allegiance channels.
I guess we’ll see later on down the road.
Edit: Aaron is quite right about the mouse-click PvP. It is a more efficient movement for PvP purposes. I think originally we were all using WASD as a result of our FPS experiences, but mouse clicking is preferred and more accurate.
–ceolstan
Does Dragon Age have jumping? I’m guessing not since the engine seems like BG/NWN. Is that going to be an issue for people?
It’s not the same thing. Dragon Age is (if it’s like BG/NWN) more like a board game. In an MMO, the connection to player is more direct because the avatar is literally standing in for you and people like to “explore” those virtual spaces as fully as it seems possible.
Although, I think the real secret is that jumping fills some of the empty time while you’re hoofing it between objectives (even if they are relatively close by). Single player RPGs are generally much more focused on keeping the action coming rather than you necessarily having to go out and find it. Not surprisingly, Oblivion also has jumping.
We’re monkeys that are basically trained to push buttons. If the game goes along time with just a single key pushed down, we get bored.
Neither I did. Promotion down the line, I guess.
Now we can be even more harsher when the game comes out :)
Sadly no infos on gameplay till next year, or so the FAQ says.