The first impressions of Guild Wars 2

In Moscow without ten minutes, and I'm trying to get into a closed beta Guild Wars 2 . The test weekend for paying for the pre -order began almost an hour ago, but it doesn’t work out further than the login window.

Now for two in the morning. The thematic subsection Reddit is entirely littered with messages about the problems with the entrance … Well, I read everything from beginning to end – and what else to do? The developers on the official forum and on Twitter assure that they are aware of the case and are working on a solution to the problem.

Yeah, how. I think: “This time they just slipped a raw something raw. So be it, I will try to break through, I will take a picture of the bugs in a picture, and then I will write a devastating preview. There will be laughter!"

I am happy about my resourcefulness and continue to knock. Klaz. There is no response. Klaz. Again. Klaz. Still quiet.

After about forty minutes, it was still possible to go. And then – at least one serious dirty trick on my eyes caught! And the connection was no longer lost ..

Well this is-in a love now you will have to write?

Not like everyone else

► Divinity’s Reach – the last surviving capital of people. Sometimes it is not clear why there are so big cities here. But beautiful, damn beautiful.

Where did anyone come from

Seven years ago Arenanet released the first Guild Wars and thereby showed that they are completely unleashed, how is it customary to do online roofs. GW does not look like Wow , Not on Everquest 2 , Not even on " Ultima ".

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The PVE content was based on a powerful plot campaign with script scenes and voice acting. And if you are not interested in the plot, you can immediately create a character of the highest level – this is the shortest bridge to the local e -sports PVP.

In addition to GW, they did not require a subscription fee: the people paid only for the game itself and supplement to it. Seven years ago, the world ruled MMO with a subscription, and Frieden was not even smelled, so the Arenanet's trick seemed something out of the ordinary.

However, there was nothing supernatural in it. Guild Wars – not mmorpg in the usual sense. This is rather a plot role with a cooperative passage. Players in it are found only in peaceful hub cities, and great things go to the instance for one or more people. MMO in the first GW hardly more than, say, in Diablo or World of Tanks , – There is a city-lobby city, there are cooperative sessions … Well, that's it.

► charming chairs in the first part were our sworn enemies. Now you can play for them. True, interfluve wars – here are more or less friends.

The most important innovation of Guild Wars 2-the developers nevertheless returned the MMO component, which has lost in the first part. Made the world open, with locations containing hundreds of players, as in traditional https://exclusive-casino.co.uk/ online universes. But in order to still be “not like everyone else,” Arenanet simply took and abandoned the classic script “came to the city, collected instructions, ran through the markers on the map, returned to the city, handed over”. Instead, the NPC exploers placed on the map indicate the places where our support may be required. These are, in fact, quests, but a little more cunning. For example, the owner of the suburban farm needs to help the household or the keeper of the Holy Altar is looking for heroes who are ready to scare the game around the game.

► NPC intelligence marks on our card with hearts those places where working hands may come in handy. There that fort, for example, suffers from centaur raids.

How it differs from ordinary quests? Firstly, by the fact that we are not obligated to do something specific. Help the owner of the farm means pouring beds, picking dill or killing toothy worms spoiling crops. Secondly, marked on the map of “Places of interest” is not the basis of the foundations, but rather peculiar points of the selection, where players are drawn into the main PVE asset of the second Guild Wars-spontaneous (they are dynamic).

Spontaneous chaos

► Separation of responsibilities in practice: some are worn with buckets, others fight off the bandits. Rather, from the bandit – the poor fellow was so carried away by the arsonist that he no longer notices three combat girls who came to his soul. ► The chain of events led us into the depths of the dreadlock mine. Here, our whole crowd is waiting for a tense final battle.

Situation: the same farm with worms and dill. Suddenly the bandits run up. The heroes of the Timurians throw rockers and tramps and take up weapons; There is a cheerful unorganized mess on the crowd. The bandits are over – the players receive awards in accordance with the personal contribution to the common cause and return to the previous classes. Another outcome is likely: players cannot cope with the sewing bandits, and they burn the farm. Then another event should be initiated – to help with the repair – but it could not be checked in Beta, it hurt the players to be successful.

The further we are moving, the more scope. By the end of the starting zones, events are included in the use of almost half the location. Here the harsh northerners dragged through the entire map to wash the sides of the dragon worshipers. This happens in several stages: first, the expedition cuts the way to the altar of the cultists, then tries to smash it under constant enemy pressure, and after that the crowd enters the battle. Such events are visible to random passers -by from afar, and they are also slowly drawn. The more participants, the worst the opponents, and taking them “Zerg” is unrealistic – they will not be shielded by the most!

► an unexpected event: we do not fight, but decide the simple riddles of the Nornsky spirit-Voron. ► The people escaped to kill the last boss in the chain of events. With barely noticeable red circles, places are marked on the ground, where in the next second the painful enemy "vnishch" will please.

Dynamic events occur regularly and almost everywhere. Something this resembles Rift faults: there, too, “move” arises out of the blue, entertaining players and creating the appearance of a living and dangerous world. But in Rift it is more brilliant: only multi-level faults of the six elements are provided for a whole game, and even small, large-global invasions. In GW2, several dozens of different events were prepared for each location. And not the fact that for the first passage of the zone we will see them all.

This is my story!

► At the beginning of the game, we are shown a spectacular scene of art and three -dimensional models with an indispensable “This is my story! »At the end. ► Two harsh Norns pretended to be beer merchants. Their drinking enemies is clearly not to do.

Arenanet, however, did not forget that the strongest side of the Guild Wars PVE campaign was setting up the plot. Inside the personal instances, separately from the bustle of ordinary tasks for digging the beds and spontaneous events, our personal history will be performed. Moreover, on the word "personal" it is customary to make a special emphasis. Firstly, no one except us takes part in it-if you take a friend on the mission of a friend, if it will help with the battles, and will observe the dialogs from the side. Secondly, the plot is unexpectedly variable and partly built on our solutions. There are forces: depending on how we answer, we can offer different tasks-for example, go to the enemy in the forehead or take cunning, disguise as alcohol merchants, sing and get fingers, and ceiling ..

THIS IS INTERESTING: The choice of answers in dialogs forms the personality of the character in three parameters: dignity, charm and ferocity. They convinced the rescued that everything was fine – they got a plus to charm, threatened with a kick in the ass – here's a quantum of ferocity. They say that these characteristics will affect how NPCs react to us in the future. But in that piece of the plot that was shown in Beta, at least some influence of their influence could not be caught.

And this is my background!

For each of the five playable races- ordinary people, tall northerners, warlike Charr’s cunning cunning dwarfs, asuras and elphid silvaria- invented sizes of starting locations and rather long plot ties. And during the creation of the character they ask to choose his pedigree, preferences and all that. Almost like in Dragon Age… only more and cooler.

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► One of my first heroines was a man. She grew up in the noble environment and most regretted that she missed the opportunity to become a circus artist. ► introduction – it is also a training level – all races turned out to be extremely chaotic. Here we run, here is a giant boss, and now we are all released into the big world. Fortunately, further the pace of the narrative is aligned.

For example, the Norns first offer to choose what quality they value the most: strength, cunning or instincts. Then – what happened to the hero during a solemn booze in the Norneal capital. He fell into the trash and forgot what he did that day (“I hope nothing terrible”), was defeated in a duel with an old enemy or drank a family relic – such people are these Norns.

Actually, the beginning of history is formed from these two elections. My red -bearded Ninge (I called him Boris) preferred the force of a trick and dreamed of taking revenge from a dishonest opponent. The first story arch was devoted to the technical rescue of Norne Totemic animals from the cells of the cultists, and in the second Boris defended the scolded honor (and defended him yet!). And if, say, he was cut down by booze, in the second arch it would have been found that the hero sowed a combat vehicle somewhere, and now he was blocked into soldiers-to work out.

All this occupies the first levels of twenty – about eight hours of clean time, taking into account the side affairs and pumping on events. Further, most likely, the story would lead along some universal line, but in Bete the narrative broke off-to be, they say, Continued in the full version.

Trudin PVP

The first GW for many has become a pure PVP game-the ability to immediately create a character of the highest level bypassing the plot campaign to that. A bunch of cards, modes, tournaments … What is not there. GW2 did not come with the beliefs of the original. Well, yes, the plot-research part has become an order of magnitude cooler-but where should PVP suffer from this?

► "And here is Johnny!" – Boris broke the window, cutting the path to the control point defended by the enemy. ► We practiced in shooting from trebush. It is difficult to get to the moving enemy, but if we get it ..

The battles with the players are still only organized-just hit someone outside the PVP-voices, and not just like that-also. Beta showed three main types of competitions. Firstly, there are familiar session fields of the battle team for the team. The mode is still one – capture of control points. The cards turned out wonderful: confusing, beautiful, with a bunch of loopholes and activated objects such as catapults and opening windows. But in general – a classic, of course.

Note: Immediately create the highest level PVP-level in GW2 do not give. But our hero rises to the eighties for free and receives a set of top equipment for the duration of the combat session.

Secondly, in all metropolitan cities you can participate in some ethnic gouging. For example, in Norn, players ride barrels into each other and wave their fists on bare ice. Stupid, frivolous, but fun and in Nornensky.

► Four cards for global PVP. Really large. ► Normal such a brawl in a clean field. "Green" has just been thrown away from our outpost and now they are actively slandering back.

And finally, thirdly. Global Battle, Resistant by the Long World Versus World Versus World – War of players from three different servers. It looks like at the same time Planetside And the second Lineage. From the first there are four huge continents with key points of the beads and three sides that are fighting for these points. From the second – epic assaults of castles and checkpoints with the participation of siege machines; The only difference is that here the castles are fighting not on schedule, but around the clock, and not guilds take part in this, but all at once. Now they say that on each of the three sides on each continent, up to 500 (five hundred!) Human. There will probably be more. Or less. But the value is still impressive – therefore we will lower the errors.

Unlike small tactical brawls in combat sessions, where any participant should give up properly, not the most burned warriors can be useful in WVWVWW. That is-Ura-Ura, in the global wars, where everyone cheerfully interferes with a heap, there are benefits from stupid meat! However, you can support your server, even if the meat does not want to be. For example, in the east of one of the cards there is a village of Ogrov, which is sometimes besieged by harpies. If you help the poor fellow fight off the evil flying women, the Ogra will be a little on our side.

► storm the castle of "blue". Someone prudently erected a ram here, so the gate is about to grunt. ► Great from poisoning "Blue" dreamed of robbing a caravan with supplies that were spent on repairing structures and the construction of assault mechanisms. Well, he is to blame – now it will not leave.

Note: In WVWVW it is quite possible to develop a character at least from the first level (or rather, from the second). Here the hero’s level also artificially rises to the limit – orphans to 80 – so that everyone is in approximately equal conditions. But they do not give out rolling equipment, and the experience still accumulates. Some have already decided that they would swing exclusively in PVP. Well, true, why not?

Players protecting the honor of the server in PVP earn pleasant bonuses for their "fellow citizens": for example, plus so many percent of the chance of "critical success" in crafts or a little prize experience for everything. According to the results of the two-week cycle, the winning server is selected-the most points. What is he should be for this, it is not yet clear.

About payment

► Auction menu is combined with a in -game store. You can get access to it at any time, but only the auction worker gives the purchased things.

GW2, among other noticeable features of the original, retained the absence of a subscriber. Today you will not surprise anyone, but at least this time we can count on a sane in -game store. Bete was already allowed to try his assortment for a tooth: mainly bonuses to earn experience and money, costumes, dyes for armor, remote access to a bank, cells for characters and keys for chests with nonsense. In the future, they will trade content, but the starting contents will be completely open to everyone who bought the game.

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The second Guild Wars really surprised us and pleased us. This time there was no doubt left: Arenanet is not just as scavengers and scammers, but also brilliant gamemeracies. They did not limit themselves to general concepts and reinvented everything in general-as far as, of course, the classic MMO engine allowed. A article awaits you about the rest of the interesting “chips” of the game nearby, and here we will summarize the preliminary result.

Success factors

Risk factors

• Strong Demonstration PVP and PVE

• A disregard for the canons of the genre
• For once, an organic combination of an open world and a personal plot
• Dynamic events – really dynamic!

• Still a stiff distinction of PVP and PVE

• At first content is enough – but what will happen next?
• Mass battles so far seem too chaotic

Stage of development

Since the beginning of spring-closed beta testing. Beta-Uikend for pre-ordering was held at the end of April-most likely, such events will be held again.

We will wait?

Guild Wars 2 has become more and better in everything and at the same time lost nothing at all. Now it at least successfully shows that online roles can be done otherwise. We hope that in the future she will not let you down.