Guild Wars 2 Camp

Written by Evil Geek
Monday, 03 October 2011 21:03

"I'd like to thank Evil Geek, an awesome guy from London, who was kind enough to write about his impressions on the Guild Wars 2 demo he managed to play at this year's Eurogamer Expo. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did!" - Kris

We had little over an hour to queue so we watched others play first. The game is seriously lovely to look at, there's a consistency of art from GW to GW2 and with such a strong art team that's no surprise, but boy have they moved it on, the 'painterly aesthetic' works incredibly well. I watched players playing the norn, charr and human starter areas, they all looked incredibly different, this game is going to be an alt paradise!

Animations are very fluid, we saw a character carrying a torch with weird flame effect which seemed like a bug, but beyond that it all looked stunning. There was plenty of eye candy to keep us enthralled while we queued.

My friend started the demo before me and it was obvious that he was enjoying himself with his charr guardian. Meanwhile three, noisy, spotty teenagers descended on to the queue directly behind me, not feeling at my best I started to worry that these snotty youth were going to be seriously taking the mickey out of my lack of keyboard skillz and I would prove myself to be the noob I think I am. The guy in front of me finished his demo, he took off his headphones, turned, smiled and walked away - my moment had come and my palms began to sweat.

When I first saw the necromancer skill videos I decided a charr necro was definitely the way to go. I thought asura week had swung me round to the way of floppy eared arrogance, but watching the demos in front of me proved my first instinct was right - charr necromancer here I come. To any serious gamer 40 minutes is but a blink of an eye, so I wasn't going to waste too much time at character creation.

My charr was born pretty quickly, tiger skinned  with elaborate horns and a nicely colour coordinated set of amour, she was a member of the Ash Legion, had a friend with an eye patch (she thought it rude to ask where his eye went) and wore a necromantic skull mask as all the best dressed necros do.

Born in to battle her first task was to kill some ghosts. She was thrown into combat with just two skills - a poison damage skill and a minion that floated, attacked and would heal her when she decided to kill it. Off she went, sceptre in hand and set to clearing the area of ghosts. She summoned her minion and spammed skill one, these ghosts proved no challenge for such a mighty charr and she was quickly moving on to receive her next orders. During that first simple fight of killing maybe ten foes she had gained a third skill (the skill slowly starts to uncover as you play). On meeting her general he rewarded her with a choice of weapons and she opted for the warhorn, because she'd always been a noisy cub. She switched weapons to warhorn and axe, her skillbar changed and she was back to two skills.

She was dispatched to some mausoleum to rid it of a ghostly presence, off she ran on all fours, being careful not to splash mud on her pristine preened fur. She joined a small group of her warband and set to liberating the mausoleum. They almost succeeded with killing the ghost in charge but as his spectral essence began to disappear he transferred his soul in to the gargantuan statue of some wealthy human’s grave. The possessed statue was a worthy foe, its ghostly minions joined the fray but still no match for her, the enemy was defeated.

With a thirst for blood she set out to explore onward. There were problems all around - to the north members of the cursed Flame Legion had taken hold of their armoury, to the east those damn skrit were messing about and steeling cannonballs, further north some young cub was asking for help with egg collecting, to the south a rat infestation and another Flame Legion incursion was taking place and to the west those damn drakes were getting in the way and needed to be culled. For such a small area there was a hell of a lot going on.

She opted to reclaim the armoury from the Flame Legion, summoned her minion and started to make rasping noises with her warhorn to lure the enemy out, she was doing well until Flame Legion reinforcements arrived at her rear. She got most of them down but two remained, she fell to the ground and fought for survival, she could fight dirty when she needed to and did. She got another foe down and the smell of blood rallied her to finish the last. She had noticed one potential problem, her minion had gone down too quick, left her vulnerable with no heal and the summon skill on a cooldown.

After clearing the scum she set about helping rebuild, seems that blood and gore is not the only way to impress your superiors, seems strange for a warband as bloody as hers but needs must I suppose.

Feeling elated and with plenty of blood on her claws she went off in search of more action which was easily found. Seems some more Flame Legion were attacking her allies, as she'd built up enough of her powers she decided to enter her death shroud, she was a little distance away and used her dark path to teleport to and blind her foes, immediately giving her the advantage. She liked her dark arts but the only problem with death shroud is she doesn't like what it does to her hips...

 It was at this point that reality came flooding back in. Some young bespectacled geek had tapped on my shoulder to confirm what he had seen, yes, I did just teleport and it made them blind (that would be the hips I guess). At around this point some ArenaNet employee also appeared and gave me some GW2 water. Luckily I had brought my tinfoil hat so I was immune to the drugs that it was bound to contain to convince me even more that my life was incomplete without GW2.

She could smell the skrit before she could see them, alone they are stupid pathetic creatures, but there was a small group here. This meant they were smart enough not to attack but not smart enough to realise that getting in the way of the charr is not a good thing. They needed to be culled, she did the right thing. (The models for the skrit are incredible, if you can stand the smell I recommend you take a closer look)

She followed the young cub who needed help egg collecting, omelette was getting to be boring night after night but better than that sinewy skrit meat, that's for sure. She was also convinced  you could taste the rubbish they'd been collecting. Some Flame Legion literally popped up from nowhere and took her by surprise (at this point my immersion was wrecked again by exclamations of 'ooh pop ups' from the teenage GW 'vets', my ego was slightly boosted though when they stated how noobish their friend was compared to me because I'd got to a higher level faster, with a smug 'there's life in the old dog yet' grin I returned to gaming).

Her adventures continued, she killed some rats even though she didn't have to (it's an MMO of course you have to kill rats!), killed some ooze and finally got herself killed in a valiant battle against some drakes and their broodmother just before the demo ended.

Back to reality...

 Without the distractions of the people around me I would have been incredibly immersed in what was going on in the game world. The game is incredibly accessible, it throws you straight in to the action, the skill system gives you time to take in each skill while unlocking more in a timely manner, being able to weapon swap stops the skill system from being too simplistic, animations are beautifully done (although I did wish my charr ran faster), the UI is unobtrusive and the world beautifully realised.

 It doesn't take long to get used to how Dynamic Events work, just explore and choose the ones that appeal of the appropriate level. They make the world feel so much more open and there's also a personal story line quest to follow, all the Dynamic Events have some lore attached with visual clues, NPC voices and text bubbles, there were plenty enough NPC characters around the charr starter area which made it feel populated and alive. For a new player experience they've hit the nail on the head and I definitely want more.