ArtisticallyChill

I cannot wait for this game to come out! The good people at ArenaNet and NCSoft have done so many great things in the development of this sequel without compromising its roots. The redesigned skill bar enhances gameplay while still keeping it’s minimalist foundation which was one of the things I loved about Guild Wars. Your customize your character’s skills based on your profession and how you play, making the need to have more than one skill bar with all your skills taking up most of the bottom half of your screen like in other MMOs pointless. With the new design and the way certain skills can only be used after a certain time, i.e. the Warrior building up adrenaline as shown in the demo, the gameplay does seem more interactive, allowing players to think more while attacking instead of just mindlessly pressing the attack button or a specific skill button over and over again. While the huge circle of health makes keeping an eye on your health easier, I can’t help feel like it’s a nudge of nostalgia to my Diablo II days.

The extensive voice dialogues and mini cut scenes are a definite plus to the quest/mission aspects of the game. It adds to the your character’s story much like how the new character creation process creates a truly original intro to the world of Guild Wars 2. The one thing I was surprised to see is how you were thrown immediately into combat instead of starting off on a ‘Noob Island’ like in all three campaigns of Guild Wars. Fighting a boss while at level 1 and then leveling up after the mission is a success is definitely a far more rewarding experience rather than doing a bunch of quests involving killing things or farming for things for an NPC.

While no official release date has been set, I’m sure that whatever date will be set will be worth the wait. From the demo above, it is easy to see that ArenaNet and NCSoft have put a lot of hard work and passion into Guild Wars 2. Not only do they look to surpass the original Guild Wars, they look like they may raise the bar on several categories that make up the MMORPG genre.