Guild Wars 2 Impressions

So Guild Wars 2 came out. Shocking to all two of you who read this blog I'm sure. The following are a few impressions of the game.

The Guild Wars 2 launcher, complete with transparent flair.

So the first thing to say about the game is that it's pretty. It's damned pretty. It has a unifying painterly visual style that bleeds into everything, including the above launcher/loader. This is a point that I'll be hammering away at repeatedly, and it's what initially drew me to the game when I saw the Gamescom trailer.

Said trailer.

The second thing to say about the game is that it's a fantasy MMORPG, a sequel to the eponymous Guild Wars. It joins an already saturated market, filled with the veterans like Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14, and newcomers like Rift and Tera. You create a character, run around a massive world, and perform quests for rewards like gold and experience. All very standard stuff.

My Character, inexplicably wearing a kilt. Look, I just want some pants. A decent pair of pants!

There are five available races; Human, Viking, Gnome, Cat-Tauren, and Plant-Elf. I chose a plant-elf and painted him up to look like a charred tree. He even has a lovely orange glow at night, suggesting smoldering embers. Rowr. I also made him a necromancer, because it seemed like a nice dichotomy to have a hippie-dippie tree-elf that was also an evil master of the deathly arts. All very thematic.

An example of the lovely art in the background. Still wearing a dress here.

I started the game in the hippie-dippie plant kingdom, with a cinematic and a few intro story quests explaining some nonsense about a dreamworld that unites us all. I proceeded to wander around a bit, getting the hang of the world and the controls. As I progressed, I kept bumping into further story quests, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that "my" story was based around a few questions posed to me during character creation. I had to, at one point, find and defeat a green-armored knight who had been prophesied in my hippie-dippie dream. It's a neat trick that I'm sure is repeated for all of the other races, but I enjoyed it.

Solomon Grundy want pants, too!

One thing I'm not super fond of is, as a necrowizard, my cadre of minions. Ugly little fuckers. For such a lovely game, I would hope they weren't so damn hideous. I suppose they're supposed to be puppets made of meat or whatever, but still, I'm not fond of having them tag along behind me.

My staff that turns into a wicked shadow-scythe upon activation.

That's why I'm rather fond of one of the game systems used in Guild Wars 2. For each equip-able weapon, including dual-wielding variations, there is an associated set of five skills for each class. This means I'm not limited to skills involving my horde of minions. The above staff/scythe, for example, focuses on putting runes on the ground for enemies to step on. Axes focus on flurries of quick-damaging strikes. And when underwater, there's a different weapon-set.

Charlie tuna there is bigger than he appears. Here I'm wielding a harpoon with abilities based on spinning and pulling enemies/myself closer together. Feel the love.

The forest starting area has proved quite extensive, including vast underwater areas, farms, jungles, and a huge-ass flowery tree. That's why I'm fond of another game system, the ability to instantly teleport to any of plentiful special points scattered across the maps. You could just hoof it, but for a nominal in game fee you can be anywhere you've already visited.

The blue-centered diamonds serve as teleport points.

The in-game map is also quite functional and not-bad to look at. You can zoom in and out from the entire world to just your zone, and it includes the same painterly aspect found throughout the rest of the game.

A few more screenshots. Look at that water. Just lovely. Oddly, there are no combat options for surface-level swimming. You're forced to dive when encountering swimming enemies.

The in-game music and themes are noteworthy. Written by Jeremy Soule, who has composed quite a few of my favorite games, the music is phenomenal and worth paying attention to.

One of the themes from the game.

There's quite a variety of areas. Although I've barely ventured outside the planty-zones, I've seen a lovely snow-city, a very nice and appropriately sciency gnome city, and a war-torn and rusted out cat-tauren city. That brief sojourn to cat-tauren city has convinced me that my next character will be one of them. Perhaps an engineer. Seems appropriate.

Swampy and atmospheric.

There's an odd death mechanic, involving being down on your back fighting for your life. It's somewhat reminiscent of a system some of you may have seen in Left 4 Dead. If you manage to kill a nearby mob, which isn't always guaranteed, you'll be restored to your feet with some life. On the other hand, annoyingly, if you don't survive you'll either have to be resurrected by a nearby friendly player or teleport to a nearby teleport-point for a fee. No corpse-running here.

Hee-hee. Manatee people. I would totes play a manatee character.

It should be mentioned that the game is subscription-free. There's an initial cost ($60) to buy the game, but no monthly-fee. A pleasing development. There is an in-game store which allows players to purchase vanity items and experience boosters with real-world money. Hopefully the game remains profitable enough to keep adding content.

Nice and vibrant.

The game is also very exploration-friendly. There are map-points scattered throughout the zones that give you a short sweeping cinematic view of the surrounding area, such as seen in the above screenshot. These cinematics allow you to appreciate some of the artistry you might normally run past and ignore. The map-points award experience, as does exploring most of the major areas. There are also clumsy platforming areas leading to other vistas. I've enjoyed the not-so-difficult task of hunting all of these down so far.
 

Blarg.

So that's my initial impressions of Guild Wars 2. It's pretty, and fun, and has a lot of neat systems built into it. It tickles my artistic, aural, and exploration nerves in all the right ways. Barring the occasional clunky world model, blurry texture, or awkward clothing-sticking-to-character-models moment, there have been no issues with the game. I like it.