Guild Wars 2 Manifesto Released

ArenaNet has released the first of a number of blogs about upcoming Guild Wars 2, revealing several interesting and tantalising facts about the highly anticipated MMO.

Company founder, Mike O’Brien, discusses the history of the franchise, mentioning the debate about whether or not the first game could be described as an MMORPG or, as they originally labelled it, a CORPG. However, he firmly states that GW2 most definitely comes under the MMO banner. Unlike GW, this new game will feature a fully persistent world with combat and non-combat elements.

However, if the idea of that puts any perspective players off, they should know that GW2 will not be a standard MMORPG. According to O’Brien, there’s going to be none of the grind, the game won’t suck your life away and, of course, there’s no monthly fee.

ArenaNet also plans to include some features that other games don’t always have; it wants to bring back the strong RPG element without using quest text as the only means of story telling. Players will discover their character’s background and the game’s lore by adventuring with NPCs and being faced with moral dilemas in a dynamic world that changes according to a player’s actions.

Combat and questing has been shaken up dramatically too. When out solo, players can group up to help kill the same mobs without actually joining a group, so public questing if you like, where everyone who substantially helped to kill something is rewarded with 100% XP and loot. Objects in the world will be dynamic too, if an elemental monster hurls a rock at you, you can pick it up and throw it back. Abandoned enemy seige weapons can be turned against them.

A character’s skills will also be complimented by their friend’s abilities. O’Brien gives the example of an Elementalist creating a fire wall, then team mates firing projectiles through it, hinting at the ability to shoot flaming arrows with the right combination of classes.

There will be more from O’Brien and his team soon, check back for more later in the week.