I don’t think it’s fair to say that Guild Wars: Factions is trying to cater to the Asian Market… the entire thing takes place in a fantasy land (Cantha) that is heavily based on ancient chinese and japanese myth. That’s basically like saying that Jade Empire was trying to cater to the Asian Market or that Quest for Glory 3 was trying to cater to the African Market, I suppose Prince of Persia is trying to cater to the uhh Persian Market? It would be a fair assessment if the art style in the game changed dramatically or something but it’s consistent with the tone and look of Campaign 1, only more asian to take into account it’s setting. Of course some parts of Factions are blatantly catering to the “Nomadic Peoples living on a Frozen Jade Sea Market”.
I don’t care who it caters to. I just dislike anime style art.
Are the GW graphics even that anime-like? I might just be so used to anime influence in graphics that I don’t see it, but the graphics direction in GW has never felt very “animish” to me. I mean, no huge eyes, body proportions are pretty realistic etc. Sure there are a couple of spikey-hair models, but that can’t be a stopping point for anyone, can it?
If you’ve ever seen the anime/manga Naruto… you’ll see that the Assassin is almost a direct jack of the “style”
Um… the one screenshot I found on the site showing an Assassin doesn’t strike me as being cribbed from Naruto. Aren’t Assassins supposed to basically be ninjas? That’s what they look like to me. In fact, they look more like ninjas than the assanine bright-orange-outfit-with-reflective-headband-wearing Naruto jerks.
You can’t do the title character, but they have the spikey hair/headband combo. Combine that with the masks… walla, Naruto/anime style kinda. I just felt there were too many spiky hair options. YMMV of course. I played in the preview weekend and I dabbled a lot in the character creations screens. I think the Ritualist is a much better character overall. As a monk, I welcome another class to take my place as the heal bitch.
You’re not looking at big eyes or anything crazy like that. But combine the feminine male form with typical hairstyles and it’s pretty obvious.
Well fair enough. It was just my impression whether right or wrong. It wasn’t just my own though.
Anyway i like the new setting. It always seemed odd that you (Arena.net) spent so much time fleshing out Pre-Searing Ascalon yet failed to put any meaningful content in it. Those Catacombs seem to go on for miles, yet aside from some cool art, there really isn’t any reason to explore them. Then when you hit Post-Sear, everything is so harsh and ugly it’s actually hard to keep playing. That and the 18 millionth scorpion :). I like the new Character screen, for ex. So a more pleasing region visually is fine.
I don’t think the character models are particularly anime like, personally. They just aren’t generic fantasy. If the models have an issue it’s the over-generous helpings of cheesecake.
My elementalist rises in the air when he casts a spell. I’ve always thought of that as a anime thing, though I don’t know for sure.
I like the new setting too. I ESSPECIALLY like the new PvP settings. It sounds like it’ll be more than glorified 8v8 deathmatches. I just thought whoever designed the assassin dropped the ball. It’s just so blah compared to the ritualist. There’s going to be a lot of people running around with names like “XXNaruto X” and the like. Suits me fine, like with the “SuperSaiyan GokouX” players in CoH, I’ll know who to ignore.
I’ve also read that they’re going to have the default six classes (Monk, Warrior, Ele, Mesmer, Ranger, Necro) as the “core” classes. So every exp will have at least these six as classes. I disagree. Like only people who own Factions can play the Assassin and Ritualist, I think only people who own the original GW can play Necro and Mesmer. It’ll give a reason for people who bought Factions to pick up the original.
So they’ve announced their first real Beta Weekend Event for March 24th. All existing Guild Wars accounts are automatically able to access the preview content, plus you get three friend invites. They are also making Factions pre-orders available the end of February. Apparently they include a 14 day (but only 10 hour) pass to the original Guild Wars content for those who didn’t pick it up.
Here’s their beta FAQ…
When they had their weekend preview a couple of weeks ago, I only spent a few minutes playing with the new characters, but I have gotten back into playing the game. When it came out, I played up through ascension with several people form here and then sorta drifted away from it. I didn’t realize that Ascension only takes you through about half the content. Probably less, actually.
There have been a lot of minor changes in the 6 months I was away, and I’m a little surprised that I have been as easily sucked back into it as I have. If anybody finds themselves drifting back into the game as a result of the new exapansion on the horizon, look me up – amusingly, I’m still one of the guild officers.
I play on and off, but by myself I can’t play the game for more then a few hours without getting burned out. I have one character who beat all the missions and saw the ending, but I haven’t done anything pvp related.