Guild Wars 2 Hands-On

Over the past couple of weeks ArenaNet has been rather busy demoing Guild Wars 2 to the general public at Gamescom and PAX. While we were at Gamescom, we had the chance to go hands-on and also get the full presenation from the development team.
During Gamescom we saw many MMOs but the one that really stood out from the crowd was Guild Wars 2. ArenaNet were on hand to show their latest additions which included the Sylvari race and the first look at PvP, which was not what many expected.
The PvP system has been developed around the more familar FPS model, servers that are always online that players can join. This alleviates problems with queus we so often see while wanting to join a PvP game in some of the more recent MMO releases. This system will give players the freedom to take part in PvP with ease.
In what can best be described as a PvP lobby, players will see a list of game servers which they can join. As server fill up with players ArenaNet’s system will automatically spawn new servers so there will always be somewhere to play. ArenaNet’s Eric Flannum mentioned that they will be looking at allowing players to create servers with their own specific rules, very similar to what FPS do now with dedicated servers which will be a fantastic is the feature does get added.

The PvP level on show featured capture point locations, and although we only got a glimpse of the single level, the zone was designed so players can interact with objects in the level. Whether it be breaking glass to create shortcut through a window or activating a trebuchet to take down an objective, ArenaNet want players to ecplore the PvP levels and use all the nooks and crannies to their advantage. It all looks rather fun.
It has to be said that visually Guild Wars 2 is a stunning MMO, it feels and looks so incredibly polished proving that the long development time should pay off for both ArenaNet and NCsoft. With a closed Beta set to begin by the end of the year, it’s looking like this MMO could dominate the market in 2012. Don’t forget you’ll be getting all this quality for free, quite outstanding really.
To find out what all the excitement is about, watch the three videos below from the developer presentation which we shot at PAX last week, we think you’ll be impressed with what you see.
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