Guild Wars Expansion, Sequel Officially Announced

katalin writes "Arenanet, makers of the Guild Wars Massive game, have announced the first 'true' expansion pack to the game - Eye of the North. Next year will also see the beginning of a Beta test for a true sequel to the original Guild Wars. The new game will be substantially different from the current offering, with many elements similar to a more traditional fantasy Massively Multiplayer game. It still, however, will not require a monthly fee to play."

I'm looking forward to this.

[Tokimasa]

I currently play Guild Wars and I love it. It's an MMORPG the way it's meant to be - no monthly fees, a fun game, and one that you can just sit down and play with a group of friends or random people from the Internet. Both the expansion and GW2 look nothing short of awesome. I can't wait for more details!

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[UnknownSoldier]

> It's an MMORPG the way it's meant to be

Not everyone wants everything outside of towns to be instanced. :-)

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[f_raze13]

You know you're going to have to say that at least 15 more times in this topic, right?

Re:I'm looking forward to this.

[Puff of Logic]

The thing that really killed Guild Wars for me was a feeling of isolation. Regardless of its other bad points, WoW at least had a sense of community even for the non-guilded player. Of course, my experience was on Feathermoon, the oldest and most populous RP server, which tended to have a reasonably friendly crowd. What I liked about WoW was that a player could be struggling with a quest, or getting ganked by a random mob, and another player just happening to come by could leap in to help. I made some very good friends that way and it really fostered a sense of community.

In contrast, GW felt like going into a Counterstrike server. This is fair enough, I suppose, as GW has always billed itself as not a MMORPG but rather a competitive online environment. But the often offensive names, general foulness on the chat channels, and complete isolation due to instanced everything really prevented me from feeling any kind of connection to the game or the people playing it. I enjoyed the PvP aspect of GW and made a genuine effort to enjoy the PvE storyline, but just couldn't maintain interest. I periodically load up the game to give it another shot, but the result is always the same and for the same reasons.

That said, I'm glad that GW has been successful as both a game and a revenue model, and I hope that GW2 will be similarly successful. I just hope GW2 will foster a bit more community.

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[Kelbear]

Same here, I liked how GW handled a lot of things, but I did not like the total instancing of everything outside towns. It felt very empty as a result. A blend between a persistent world and an instanced one is just more entertaining for me personally.

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[Endo13]

I could not agree more. That's one of the things I don't like about GW. Also, the "everyone on the same server" setup does far more harm than good. It completely destroys any real sense of community. In a real MMO where you have to choose your server and there's only a few thousand people per faction on each server (as in WoW) you eventually get to know players by name that you've never even done anything with. Random encounters with other players become a lot more meaningful, as there's a good chance you'l

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[NUBlackshirts]

This is the reason I enjoy GW and not other online RPG's I have played. My Wife, my daughter, and I have created our own little adventuring group and really couldn't care less if anyone else joins in or not. We wanted a game where the 3 of us could play when we want and not feel obligated to play just because we were paying a monthly fee for it. GW fits our gaming needs perfectly. We have tried others, most recently D&DO, but quickly tired of the need to go find a bigger group to join with in order t

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[rpj1288]

Well, then you'll be happy to know that one of the major features of GW 2 that PC Gamer reported was many, many more persistent areas with many players interacting at once.

Re:I'm looking forward to this.

[jfodale]

Guild Wars is a decent game, but it is no more an MMORPG than Diablo 2 is.

No level cap

[Sciros]

I'm still curious to see just how the concept of a very high or nonexistent level cap is going to factor into the Guild Wars design of PVE-even-with-PVP. Considering how focused ArenaNet has been at keeping PVP a very level playing field for everyone, any levels above something like 20 or 30 I assume will provide PVE-only benefits, if anything. Gaile Gray says the high level cap was a direct result of player request, but I imagine that request came from predominately PVE players. PVP-oriented players tend to want nothing to do with PVE and many resent the two modes of gameplay being so closely related. Guild Wars suffered more than anything from poor, linear level design. There were no open-ended quests, no two ways to go about solving a particular problem. Replaying the game with multiple characters truly amounted to doing the exact same thing all over again. That is what I hope they are able to avoid with GW2, although I think the design team would need to be replaced by another for that to happen...

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[Tokimasa]

Why would you need to replace the design team for that to happen? That's just a silly thought, IMO. As for PVE, I would envision some separation between PVE and PVP. There are two forms of PVP now - the standard GW1 PVP and a new PVP. I would expect the old-style PVP to use a level cap while the new PVP follows the leveling of PVE. To assist, you wouldn't be able to bring your PVE character into the old-style PVP but you could bring it into the new PVP mode.

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[Sciros]

Well as far as design teams are concerned, I just basically never see a single design team do a total 180 and make something 10x more creative in the same genre (let alone a sequel). So, yeah I don't expect the current design team to make GW2 much less linear than the current game.

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[yoyhed]

I wouldn't really call Guild Wars linear, after having put in 1200 hours. Sure, the main story of each chapter is linear, but that's not really "the" game. I spent most of my time in GW doing what I wanted, when I wanted, where I wanted, so I'd call that pretty open-ended.

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[Endo13]

I guess that all depends on what you consider "linear". After having put in more than 1600 hours in Guild Wars I would definitely have to call it quite linear. To be able to do "what you want, when you want, where you want" you have to play through all the content up to that point. And once you've done that, there's really not much reason to go back through it and do "what you want, when you want, where you want", because you've already been there done that. If anything, there's less reason to revisit place

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[Sciros]

I've put in 2000 hours on a single character alone and I have 3 at this point... as far as RPG quests go, Guild Wars's quests fall strictly into the "linear" pile. Open-ended quests such as what Elder Scrolls games have (or Fable, and to a lesser extent Bioware RPGs) are sadly nowhere to be found in GW. As an ex-alpha I've tried to suggest more open-ended quests which allowed for multiple approaches (as have others), but so far have seen nothing go in that direction. It may be that GW2 will have *less* line

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[yoyhed]

As another ex-alpha (for Factions and Nightfall) I can tell you they've never listened to such large design decisions from us. And I do know the quests are pretty strictly linear, but those aren't really what I played, I was speaking more in terms of everything you can do (running, playing the market, working out a solo build for that boss, etc).

And no one ever comes close in open-endedness to Elder Scrolls games, which is why Morrowind and Oblivion are my favorite games of all time :-)

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[Sciros]

Yeah, you're totally right about them not listening to alphas in terms of big design changes. Overall as an alpha I felt underappreciated :-)

I agree of course that GW is open-ended in terms of gameplay, and I better understand now what you meant by your first reply. I just wish the actual *plot progression* was less linear. That's where good writing comes in -- something that GW, for all its strengths, utterly lacks.

Elder Scrolls games are the standard by which I judge all other RPGs, and which all othe

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[HomelessInLaJolla]

Finally some games that look like I would want to spend hours upon hours gaming again.

No level cap for PvE... PvP is another matter.

[wilgibson]

Arena.net's Gaile Gray has already said that the high or no level cap would only apply to the PvE portion of the game. When playing PvP everyone would be on a balanced playing field. I can't give you an exact location of the quote for this, but I know it was discussed in this thread [guildwarsguru.com] on one of the bigger fan sites.

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[Sciros]

That makes sense... anyway for now they haven't really decided what to do with the higher level cap themselves, so I won't worry over it for at least a couple more years. However, it is currently the single greatest point of contention when it comes to people feeling ambivalent about GW2, and it may have been too early to announce the high/nonexistent level cap.

I track what Gaile says for the most part... I talk to her on Alliance Chat sometimes... and yeah lately she's been mostly put on the defensive ab

Guild Wars lacking in PvE

[Das Modell]

They could have done so much more with the PvE side of things. The campaigns themselves are excellent, but there's really nothing to do in the game that isn't directly related to powering yourself up for PvP. Equipment in the game plays a minimal role: there's not much you can carry and it isn't very important, and doesn't considerably strengthen your character. There are also no usable items, and the cool armor suits you can make are more for looks than function. There's really nothing to do in the game ex

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[Thorizdin]

From a long time player I've often wondered why they bothered with PvE in GW, the implementation is at best boring and it cuts down on the competitive aspect of the game. The scenery and the art work is pretty, but the actual game play leaves me cold. GW2 sounds like they are moving more toward a more traditional MMO setup.

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[secolactico]

Think of PvE in GW as a sort of tutorial. That's what I'm using it for. I just bought Nighfall (not having played the other two campaigns) and I'm using PvE missions to get used to it. It takes a bit to retrain your WoW interface habits (I'm *so* used to targeting with tab and then pressing 1 to start combat that I always activate a skill I didn't mean to).

I am not giving up WoW. The pve quests are much too fun. For casual PvP, however, GW rules (or so I hope)

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[yoyhed]

And now you can hit 'C' to target the closest enemy, and tab through the enemies if you want. And you just hit Spacebar to start combat. And then (here's what makes GW more fun than WoW) you actually have to think about which numbers of 1-8 you press!

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[secolactico]

And now you can hit 'C' to target the closest enemy, and tab through the enemies if you want. And you just hit Spacebar to start combat. And then (here's what makes GW more fun than WoW) you actually have to think about which numbers of 1-8 you press!

I did't know that, thanks! I'm sifting thru the GW wiki for this sort of tips since I didn't buy the boxed set and the PDF of the manual makes me want to rip out my eyes.

But the different skill combinations is what drove me to GW in the first place. No longer

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[Turn-X Alphonse]

dont think GW has a combat log O.o

andd top tier items drop often end game, it's just a matter of finding the bits you want. The only things impossible to get without farming or paying a lot of money are fancy skins with equal damage to non-fancy ones.

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[Endo13]

Think of PvE in GW as a sort of tutorial.

Only it's not, except in the broadest sense. PvE functions as a tutorial only in that it helps you get to know your skills, but even in that it might not help much with PvP. Some skills that are very valuable for PvP are nearly useless for PvE, and the bread-and-butter skills of PvE that work really well for almost anything generally aren't worth squat in PvP. Even with the "improvements" to the AI, they still require two very different approaches. Also in PvE you can generally be prepared for what you're

No monthly fee, no free content

[EvilGoodGuy]

While Guild Wars [GW] differs from World of Warcraft [WoW] in that there are no monthly fees, GW doesn't gives users free content like WoW does. And while a WoW player will pay more than a GW player, if you want to be competitive, you have to keep buying the expansions the GW crew is rolling out.

But, also keep in mind for any of you who have not played both, or either, they are entirely different types of games. If you want PvE, GW just doesn't have it. And WoW's PvP takes a lot more work to be competiti

Re:No monthly fee, no free content

[jandrese]

I love how MMORPGs can charge their players $10-$15/month and still get to say that they're giving away "free" content. When you consider how each additional piece of "free" content takes 3 to 6 months to develop and deploy, you're really paying somewhere between $30 and $90 for that "free" content.

And don't try to sell me that "it takes $10 a month to run the servers" crap either. The total bandwidth you suck down in those games isn't all that large (even though you do have to download great big patches every so often, which can add quite a bit), and the storage/admin costs are negligible when spread across the entire population of players. You're really paying for that new content, which is why it is such a shame that it's often lackluster.

Take City of Heroes for example. The original game had around 15 zones, not to mention the rest of the game. Well worth the $50. However, after that each expansion comes with maybe 1 zone (albeit better designed than the starting zones) and a handful of new features, yet it costs more than the original game when you add it up. It's no wonder MMOs are crazy popular with game publishers right now, it's like printing money after the first couple of months. You can even pare down the development staff to apparently almost nothing and still rake in money hand over fist.

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[OldeTimeGeek]

And don't try to sell me that "it takes $10 a month to run the servers" crap either. The total bandwidth you suck down in those games isn't all that large (even though you do have to download great big patches every so often, which can add quite a bit), and the storage/admin costs are negligible when spread across the entire population of players.

If those were their only costs, yes, that would be possible. But those aren't the only costs in running a datacenter. Blizzard also has to pay maintenance costs f

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[Samus]

Buying the expansions isn't really about being competitive. It just gives you more content and access to more territory. If you don't want it then you don't have to buy it. If you do want it but don't want to pay full price, wait a few months. I picked up Nightfall a couple months after release for $30. I'll probably do the same for the new expansion pack as well. Unless it already cost that much since it is supposed to be a true expansion pack.

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[FinchWorld]

No, I can think of a few things which have been added to campaigns, the biggest of which was probably Sorrow's Furnace. Thats dicluding the wintersday events, dragon festival etc.

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[Endo13]

GW doesn't gives users free content like WoW does. And while a WoW player will pay more than a GW player, if you want to be competitive, you have to keep buying the expansions the GW crew is rolling out.

Not entirely true. GW gave us free content in the form of Sorrow's Furnace, which compares quite favorably with the free new content WoW got in the form of instances. And to be competitive in WoW, you also have to buy the expansion pack they just rolled out. Blizzard just hasn't been as quick as ArenaNet in rolling out new expansions.

And FWIW, I've played over 1600 hours of GW and more than 2000 hours of WoW.

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[Augmento]

GW has added content without charging extra for it. Sorrow's Furnace comes to mind and a few others that slip my mind at the moment. invalidates your title a bit.

As long as it's more than another tired rehash

[techpawn]

I've played GW from nearly day one... And I've all but quit... It becomes quite the same thing OVER and over and over! Same monsters, quests, and same nerfs as soon as you find the working skill combo you like. I enjoy the fact it's not play to play, I accept the bit of lag I get and even the pain in the ass kids in outposts. But the original got VERY tired after the second rehash. Hopefully the new one will let me have my Charr Pyromancer!

You've missed the whole point of GW then

[Morgaine]

But the original got VERY tired after the second rehash.

This merely indicates that you approached GW as if it were EQ or WoW or AO. It's not.

GW isn't about grinding over and over again, with just the geography changing to make you think that you're doing something different. That's the old traditional tedium that GW was designed to leave behind, and it succeeded, superbly.

Instead, GW is about exploring the universe of SKILLS and CHARACTER BUILDS, and making yourself more and more competent by being ever m

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[techpawn]

Yes, with no monthy fee it is very attractive to the casual gamer.
However, even we'd like something with a little spice that doesn't involve too much thought, we get specialized with our skill set. The few puzzles they started to introduce in the later versions where a nice change of pace and the mission that require dipomacy over brute force was brilliant.

I take nothing from the game. I have many friends who still play and love it. Just the original is no longer for me. You can only go into an area and

Marketing Gurus or Game Developers

[KalgarThrax]

After reading the description of Guild Wars 2 and the Eye of the North expansion, it sounds like the biggest reason to play one of them is because it's linked to the other. COME ON GUYS. Do not insult my intelligence with your 25 year old gameplay and rabid greed. I am going to go back to playing Moo2 or U7 now.

More Races

[tbcpp]

I really loved playing GW. But the thing I didn't like was that all the characters are human. It would be really nice if there could be multiple races. Plus add the ability to customize the character at the beginning a little more. Give the character 10 points to spend on strength, speed, mental powers etc. The whole primary/secondary profession thing is nice, adds allot of options. Now just throw in races and a little more point allocation at the beginning, and that would be nice. Being a Charr W/E would b

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[Wylfing]

I believe multiple playable races was one of the named features of GW2.

Love GW, not sure about the No-level-cap idea

[mbourgon]

I love GW, and have waaaaaay too many hours in the 3 thus far. However, part of what I like is that the level cap is basically non-existent (albeit not in the first game, Prophecies, where you hit the cap about half-way to 2/3rds into the game). In the latest, Nightfall, you can basically hit "max" in 15 hours, and after you leave the "training island" you're in the thick of things. Which is great - no worrying about having to "level up", you find new skills as you hit new areas, and so you gain flexibility even though your power stays the same.

I'm unsure who wanted "no level cap" - PVP is designed around everyone having equal power, while PVE is set as "you versus the environment", with the monsters getting more powerful (and thus requiring more intelligence, both in strategy and use-of-skills) as the game progresses. I love this model - I don't have to "grind" unless I really want to (Factions was pretty bad about that, relatively speaking, and though there are some artificial constraints in NF they're nothing horrible. And in Prophecies the only grinding you did was for money to buy cool new stuff). I'm also concerned about how this affects things. The number of skill points you currently get is by level (Level + 1 attribute points for each level - this means at 17th level you have 100 attribute points, and at 20 you have 200 (there's a quest to get you from 170->200)). So a level 24 character would have about 300 attribute points, and a level 100.... well, that's getting silly.

Anyhow, what I want to say - I'm one of the many people perfectly happy with the way it is. But, given their few missteps so far (aka "Factions"), I'm fairly confident it'll be fun. And if not, I'll still have Tyria, Elona, and (um, the other one) to keep me busy. :)

This Expansion worries me

[ucaledek]

I love GW. It's one of the only PC games I still find time to play. The lack of monthly fees got me into it, but I stayed for the sheer casual aspect of the game. I don't have to grind all that much if I don't want to. Sometimes I can just get on for the Alliance battles. It has replaced most of the shooters I used to play in that sense. Instead of getting on to frag for a while, I get on for some flag capping. And the PVE is still fun at the higher levels. Admittedly, I don't play the high-end PVP

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[tomblag]

I tried gw when it first came out. I liked some of the ideas the dev team had: more character setup options, instant top level pvp; balanced skills across archetypes; and point resets in town with no money cost. I'm sure their are others, those are the ones that come to mind.

Ultimately, I couldnt get into the game because:
a) I was playing wow at the time, and the combat in gw felt really sluggish (I liked the wow fpsish feel)
b) there was no z axis.. which annoyed me to no end, even though games with

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[Fozzyuw]

The lack of monthly fees got me into it, but I stayed for the sheer casual aspect of the game.

I picked up GW from Gamestop because of a special promotion at the time ($15 off the discounted price or something). I only picked up the original, but I was close to picking up the other 2.

I must say, I really like GW for 2 reasons... the no monthly fees and Henchmen!! WoW's expansion came and and I stopped playing and I really do enjoy playing WoW... at least leveling, because that's something I can do myse