Guild Wars 2 Previews

In the event that you’ve been scouring the web for some new information about ArenNet’s Guild Wars sequel, you’ll find it in this new “Everything You Wanted to Know About Guild Wars 2” feature on Kotaku, as well as this extended look at the game’s world vs. world combat on Massively. Here’s a snip from the latter:

First things first: I am a die-hard proponent of team balance in PvP. I don’t mean team-size balance, but power balance. In light of that, I really wish that WvW would provide a standard set of gear for each player such as in the game’s structured PvP, but I imagine there’s a good reason that it doesn’t, so that should be taken as a matter of personal preference. What shouldn’t, however, is the fact that right now there is absolutely no introduction to the mechanics of WvW. Players are thrown unceremoniously in the Mists and expected to fend for themselves. For a while I was rolling around with the ever-fabulous Rubi Bayer, and between the two of us it took about 15 minutes before we managed to figure out how to find a fight to pick. Again, this should be taken with a grain of salt (or maybe a whole shaker’s worth) due to the fact that this is only beta, but I would really like to see some kind of introductory explanation when launch rolls around. The WvW systems are quite deep, and there’s simply too much going on to expect the average player to puzzle it out on his or her own.

But to be entirely honest with y’all, that’s about the extent of my grievances, and when my only nitpick ultimately amounts to my own ignorance and/or stupidity, I’d say that’s a pretty good sign. Of course, this is only one weekend’s worth of experience (and of course, WvW wasn’t the only thing I spent time doing), so there may be more nuanced issues that I’ve yet to pick up on. That said, I feel like WvW is shaping up incredibly. It provides the more competitive among us with a fun, exciting, and accessible way to make an impact on the entire server, and frankly, that excites the hell out of me. So that’s all for now, ladies and gents. I hope to mercilessly slaughter — I mean see you all in The Mists soon!