Guild Wars Previews

With Guild Wars hitting store shelves in only two more days, these could be the last previews we see for the game. The first is at 1Up:

Two main sorts of adventures await players. Missions, complete with cinematics, advance a high-fantasy “save the world” central storyline. From the few we played, the story looks solid, if a bit canned, though bonus and additional objectives that came up during the course of these helped add some variety. Quests offer a less involved experience for those times when you’re more looking to just get together with a couple buddies and go slay some monsters, or even if you want to go by yourself. For those times when no one you feel like grouping with is around, computer controlled henchmen hang out by the gates to help fill out your party as needed.

And the second is at Games Xtreme:

One of the key features of Guild Wars is protected environments. By this I mean when you form a group to go out on quests to fight monsters, the areas you go in beyond the safe zones are yours. Other players cannot interfere and grief you or cause problems whereby you cannot complete the quest. Then once done you can head back to the safe areas and meet many thousands of people who are interested in similar things. It might not be to the tastes of every MMORPGer, but it offers a better gaming environment for the new players and those who just want to have fun.