Free Guild Wars PvP Weekend Event

SnoopJeDi writes "ArenaNet has announced a Global Free-For-All PvP Weekend for this weekend. The event is designed to give the public a taste of the new chapter in the series: Guild Wars: Factions. Current players can access the new content from their accounts, and people who don't own the game can use one of the keys to create and activate a new account exclusively for the demo. The announced new features include two new classes(the Assassin and Ritualist), the new PvP Battle Isles, and a whole new continent named Cantha."

Re:PVP Free-for-all

[CashCarSTAR]

Launching as part of the Battle Isle add-on (which actually was released this morning, at about 10 AM EST), is a fully training mode that will get you up to speed with the game, and will allow you to move to more advanced gameplay types as you're ready to play them. I spent about 2 hours touring it, and it's a great way for new players to get up to speed. It's a small download, so I would suggest that all people who are looking for something different try it out this weekend.

Re:GuildWars WoW

[CashCarSTAR]

Actually you have to have a first and a last name. It won't let you move past the character creation screen if you don't :p

I Play Guild Wars

[ClamIAm]

While it certainly has its issues, Guild Wars is pretty fun to play. There are several reasons (IMO) why. OK, I'm posting this basically so you have an anecdote from someone who's actually played the game quite a bit. I'm trying to be informative.

The gameplay itself is pretty fun. You have a skillbar with 8 slots that you can swap in and out of the ones that you know, but this has to be done in town. This makes choosing your skills sort of like constructing a deck in a collectible card game (CCG). You can re-spec your attributes for free, which I appreciate greatly. PvP and GvG are also really fun. Guilding is one of the best (and most fun) aspects of the game, so find a good one!

There are some problems, though. The story is pretty incomprehensible if you take a break from playing for a while, as I did this, and when I came back I didn't remember the various factions and whether they were supposedly good or evil. You're limited to four characters, total. This is very limiting, although you can create PvP/GvG-only characters to play a certain "build" for a match. And your characters can't carry lots of items, but this probably helps the game economy.

The tech behind it is good and improves the experience a lot. When patches come out, you only download what you need to. If a newbie zone is updated, and you don't ever go there, you won't download that data. This is partly due to the fact that everything is instanced. Also, this is a company that was founded by ex-Blizzard employees, (suposedly) some of which developed battle.net. So they've had experience with games and the online components of them.

Instancing everything and limiting PvP to arenas reduces griefing a lot. While it sounds really cool to go out questing and run into another group of adventurers, most online games are filled with idiots (GW is no exception). Instancing helps this.

Instancing also makes the game feel a lot more "empty". In something like, say, WoW, big cities have TONS of people in them. Not so in GW. I hope that the expansions help alleviate this feeling.

And ArenaNet seems more competent and less evil than other gaming companies. They have added content to the game, even without subscription money coming in. Nerfs are usually logical. But they are a pretty new kid on the block, so we'll see how it goes.

Re:I Play Guild Wars

[Zediker]

Science has proven anecdotal evidence is useless...

Joking... Anyway, one of the better parts of the game I found was that you could group with bots in the game inorder to shore up a small party, or for 'solo' play. My only greivance was that the NPC characters were always low level for their areas, or were never adjusted to your character's level to provide adequate support. But then again, this encourages grouping with actual people.

Other than that, it is a fun game, when you have time for it =)

Character limit?

[linuxkrn]

Does anyone know if you will have extra spaces for the new classes? We only get 4 per account so if we have 4 lvl 20 chars do we have to delete one or are they going to provide some temp slots?

And yes, I RTFA. =)

Re:Character limit?

[TrickFred]

No extra slots. If you play GW and need another slot, use the key provided at guildwars.com to create a new throw-away account just for the weekend.

Re:Character limit?

[sithkhan]

We are going to be givern one extra permanent slot. That was in the newest Computer Gaming issue I received today ...
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From the fucking article

[Stalin]

Will I have more character slots for the Guild Wars: Factions Global Free-For-All PvP Weekend?


Character slots will remain at four. However, those with an existing PvP character slot are invited to create a new PvP character to try out the new professions: The Assassin or The Ritualist. You are also welcome to use one of the global access keys to create a second account, if you wish.