We continue our coverage of PAX ’10 today with a real doozy! If you’ve been following the progress of Guild Wars 2, you probably already know that ArenaNet is aiming to take the MMORPG to the next level. They’ve been promising a lot of features that once seemed like pipe dreams for the genre — dynamic content, real-time, positional combat, personalized stories, and the level of presentation normally reserved for single-player affairs. The question on everyone’s mind, though: can they deliver?!
If the following videos are any indication, the answer is resounding abso-frickin’-lutely! You will want to have Guild Wars 2’s babies.
Lore Hound managed to get access to an extensive live demo of the game held behind closed doors, only for members of the media present at PAX (not to mention an interview between iTZKooPA and Game Designer Eric Flannum to be posted later this week). It’s so large that we had no choice but to split it up into two videos.
So what can you expect to see? The first set of footage takes us through a bit of the character creation process, one of many possible game intros (which will be different based on how you build your backstory), and the entirety of the tutorial mission which ends in a surprisingly epic encounter (Flannum even mentions they don’t want players to have to wait until hitting the level cap before seeing cool things happen).
The second video is even more interesting as it demonstrates more of the persistent world: Elementalist and Warrior combat mechanics, dynamic world play, the Event system, a tour of the human city Divinity’s Reach, and a high-level fight against a massive dragon called The Shatterer that makes Deathwing look like a newborn pup (and apparently, this one’s only a minion; the Elder Dragons are supposed to be even more gigantic). Keep an eye out for the innovative “Down” mechanic, too (just because you’ve lost all your health doesn’t mean you’re completely out of the fight).
It looks great, it looks pretty, and it looks like a hell of a lot of fun. So check out Part 1 below, and Part 2 after the break, and let us know what you think! Don’t forget to check back soon for the interview, which may answer some of the questions you have about the demo.