GamesCom: Q&A Session

Hiya,

The last Q&A session today from ArenaNet at GamesCom in Cologne turned out to be nothing more than just Martin answering some old questions and nothing new was revealed. His collegues had to grab the airplane back home and couldn’t attend therefor. Was a bit of a turndown but still here’s a pic from him on stage, I hope you don’t mind the blur.

GamesCom: Q&A session

Hey there,

I’ve just watched the Q&A session hosted by ArenaNet at the NCsoft booth in Hall 9 at GamesCom in Cologne, Germany. And here is a summary of what was said:

• Further along in 2009 we’ll get more information about the lore and how the world has evolved during those 250 years. 2010 will then be a year full of gameplay specific information such as classes, crafting vocations (yes there will be crafting!), skills, etc.
• Again a confirmation that they’ll stick to the same business model (“Buy the game, play for free, forever”).
• According to Jeff Grubb, the dragons in Guild Wars 2 are way more powerful than the ones we saw in the original Guild Wars. The dragons from the first are just shadows of Zhaitan and his “friends”. The ancient dragons will bring destruction and corruption into the world and Zhaitan will scare off the remaining human gods while his undead army rises from the depths.
• Daniel Dociu told the crowd that his team put 2 months of work into the trailer and that they are very happy with the result. Also, in name of the entire team over at ArenaNet, he thanked every Guild Warsfan out there for the amazing response to the trailer and support during this period of complete silence. For the trailer ArenaNet decided not to go with the flow of normal gaming trailers but they wanted to do something different. Something that also showed what an amazingly talented team they have over here. And I’d have to agree with them on that, the trailer just looked too gorgeous for words. Dociu then mentioned that Guild Wars 2will be a game with values they all believe in and the reworked game engine allows better transition of the art into the game and that will greatly benefit the look and feel of the world.
• There will be exploration and combat underwater and this opens up tons of new ways for players to explore world and really feel like they are a part of it.
• All races must stand together to bring Zhaitandown but this however doesn’t mean that they are “best friends”. All races still have issues, the humans and the charr just came out of a long war and still don’t fully trust each other and also the other races have very fragile relationships.

If you want to watch the next Q&A session, you’ll have to tune in HERE tomorrow at around 12pm (CET).

~Eli

Guild Wars 2: a glimpse

Hey there,

this is my first blog entry and I plan to start off with a blast, since I’ve got some very exciting news for all you Guild Wars fans out there.

It’s there, finally there, a trailer of Guild Wars 2 that proves it’s more than just “vaporware”! Presented on GamesCom in Cologne (Germany) today by ArenaNet. Martin Kerstein (one of the 2 Guild Wars Community Managers) and the other staff present there were proud to present the first Guild Wars 2 trailer. And trust me, they had a right to be proud, the trailer is absolutely stunning!

There had been alot of rumours about big Guild Wars 2 news coming up this week and they were confirmed by Mike O’Brien (one of the co-founders of ArenaNet). But still, I for one wasn’t expecting a trailer yet with Aion: The Tower of Eternity nearing its Western release. Nevertheless I’m very happy that ArenaNet and NCsoft did release their trailer today. It showed more than artwork from ArenaNet‘s artists but also quite alot of ingame footage. And I have to admit: it looks way better than I expected it to look like. I’m also very pleased that they stayed loyal to the original Guild Wars feeling and touch.

I think it is fair to say that this trailer took away most of my initial doubts about Guild Wars 2. Doubts? Yep, even I had them. ArenaNet promised their fans quite a bit when they announced Guild Wars 2 way back and also the fact that they announced it so early (they kind of had to because everyone expected another standalone expansion or just expansion pack to Guild Wars) made me fill with doubts. Doubts, about them not being able to deliver what they promised. But today they made me smile again!

Before I forget, here it is then:

Together with you, I will count the days until release and keep you informed on anything happening in the Guild Wars world: from rumours to facts.

~Eli