ArenaNet president talks microtransactions and the risks of going subscription-free
Guild Wars 2’s payment model is one of the few things it has inherited wholesale from its predecessor. When ArenaNet announced their plans for a subscription-free MMO back in 2005, they were consciously moving in a different direction to the then-entrenched practice of recurring monthly payments. Seven years later, the MMO industry is a different place. Free-to-play is on the rise, and the amount of MMOs with compulsory subscriptions is dwindling – but no-one, as yet, has borrowed ArenaNet’s balance of boxed games and expansions with no monthly fee. During a recent visit to the studio, I had the opportunity to sit down with ArenaNet president Mike O’Brien for a chat about the industry. So why hasn’t the Guild Wars model been copied?
Guild Wars 2 World vs. World PvP guide
Guild Wars 2’s World vs. World PvP is one of the things that separates its competitive game from the majority of modern MMOs. Small-scale battlegrounds have become the norm, and the classic MMO dream of hundreds of players skirmishing across an open world has faded. World vs. World, then, is a mixed breed: something new that continues the legacy of something old. Playing it for the first time at ArenaNet’s offices during the last beta weekend, I was reminded strongly of Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot, the 2001 MMO that featured expansive faction vs. faction PvP. The comparison shouldn’t be a surprise: ArenaNet has more than one ex-Mythic designer on its team.
Guild Wars 2 microtransactions work like EVE PLEX, claim ArenaNet. “Everyone wins.”
ArenaNet president Mike O’Brien has announced that Guild Wars 2 will feature a microtransactions system that allows players to purchase cosmetic and “time-saving” items with real money.
“You get a complete and playable game no matter what”, O’Brien stresses in his latest post on the ArenaNet blog, “but we think we can provide additional content and services that you’d be happy to pay for.”
Guild Wars 2 pre-orders come with beta access, £130/$150 Collector’s Edition comes with big cat
Guild Wars 2 will be available to pre-purchase in a few weeks. Anyone who grabs the standard digital edition, the digital deluxe edition or the physical collector’s edition will get access to every beta event, entry to a three day headstart session and an in-game Hero’s Band, which will offer you a few stat boosts for your new character.
If you’ve got £130/$150 lying around, and have a domestic cat you’d quite like to scare, the collector’s edition comes with a 10 inch tall statue of one of Tyria’s fiercest feline warriors, The Charr. His name is Rytlock Brimstone. He has a giant flaming sword and quite likes small fluffy things.
There’s lots more in the box. The standard box will cost $60. Read on for a list of what you’ll get in the digital deluxe and collector’s editions.
Guild Wars 2 video talks innovation and design aims: “we just don’t want players to grind”
The latest Guild Wars 2 trailer is supposed to show off some of the ideas laid out in Arenanet’s “design manifesto” for Guild Wars 2. “If you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2,” they say. The quest system that offers up objectives as you wander the world, encounter creatures, or find other players fending off attackers hopes to remove the grind of picking up objectives from town NPCs. “Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment,” say ArenaNet in their blog post.
Update: As many have pointed out, this video was first shown a while ago. D’oh! We’ll leave it up, though, as it’s triggered some interesting discussion. Join the debate in the comments below.
Guild Wars 2 Beta: Charr, Norn, and Human cinematics
Charr cinematic
In the same tradition as the first Guild Wars, ArenaNet’s ensuring that every storyline in GW2 feels suitably unique and grandiose. As you saw in our character creation videos, your customization options aren’t limited to visual appearance tweaks—you’ll also determine your origin story and personality traits. The choices even affect your introductory cinematic, as you give an account of your past triumphs and present aspirations. In Guild Wars 2, one thing is for certain: this is your story.
Guild Wars 2 graphics settings walkthrough
Guild Wars 2 is pretty, everyone knows that. But it’s also designed to scale down smoothly so that the game can run on lower-end machines as well. In this video, Gavin and Josh walk you through every graphics option available in the beta, and show you step-by-step how they effect the visual fidelity of the game in a variety of settings.
Guild Wars 2 beta gets one million applications
If you took advantage of the 48 hour Guild Wars 2 beta sign-up window last week, don’t be too disappointed if you don’t receive an invite soon. ArenaNet say that more than a million contenders jumped in and signed up for a chance to be among the first so explore Tyria. At peak moments, 4000 people every minute were applying, and that was between short periods of downtime when the website’s server buckled under the condensed pile-on.
It’s probably fair to say, then, that many of us are quite excited about Guild Wars 2 this year. There’s much to be excited about, including the promise of 300 player, three-way server vs. server warfare in Guild Wars 2′s massive PvP zones and the dynamic quest system that offers you quests on the fly as you explore Tyria’s zones. We spent some time with the beta recently, and had a go at answering all of your questions about Guild Wars 2.
Guild Wars 2 Beta: Guild mechanics overview
Guilds are the bread and butter of social activity in any MMO, and running one yourself can be quite the tall order. But ArenaNet’s got your back—Guild Wars 2 is making it easier with a few new mechanics that allow guild leaders to reward their members when they group up. We took a look at all the guild features and pulled out the more interesting improvements over the original Guild Wars.
Look for our other Guild Wars 2 Beta videos this weekend and next week on PC Gamer.com
Guild Wars 2′s overflow servers kill queues
ArenaNet have come up with a novel solution to server queues. As reported by Guild Wars Insider, ArenaNet’s Martin Kerstein revealed on the GuildWars2Guru forums that players attempting to log in to a full server will be offered an ‘overflow’ shard to play on instead. When a slot opens up on your chosen world, you’ll be given the choice to switch over with all your progress intact.
Guild Wars 2 beta signups are live for the next 48 hours
Guild Wars 2 is shaping up to be one of the most exciting releases of the year. We took a good look at it in the recent beta, and can say it’s coming along quite nicely. We tried to answer as many of your Guild Wars 2 questions as we could, but you’re bound to have more. There’s only one way to answer them all, and that’s to play it. Here’s your chance.
The Guild Wars 2 beta sign up page is now live. It’ll only be open for the next 48 hours, so you’ll want to get in there ASAP to throw your name in the hat. Head over to the Guild Wars 2 beta-sign up page now to apply. Good luck!
Guild Wars 2 beta: All your questions answered
As soon as we found out that we’d be playing in Guild Wars 2′s beta for an entire weekend, we asked you, our beloved readers, what you wanted to us to find out for you while we were in there. We pulled questions from Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ (and came up with a few of our own as well) and had Gavin and Josh, who both spent all weekend playing the beta up through level 30 in the beta, give you their thoughts on everything from microtransactions to dungeon runs.
We also grabbed hundreds of GBs of gameplay footage, which we’ll be putting together into narrated videos showcasing character creation, guild features, graphics settings, combat, and everything you didn’t know you didn’t know about Guild Wars 2. We’ll be releasing the videos regularly over the next two weeks, so check back often.
Guild Wars 2 PvP to feature 300 player server vs. server battles and siege warfare
Armies of a hundred players will get the chance to fight for their server in Guild Wars 2′s massive three-way PvP battles. Each army will fight for control of The Mists, an enormous zone packed full of vast NPC controlled fortresses that you’ll have to take and hold using trebuchets, catapults and siege golems.
It’s going to be massive. Literally massive. “We use as much space as we possibly can in order to accommodate over a hundred people from each server fighting on every map,” explains Mike Ferguson in the latest Guild Wars 2 developer diary entry. “These are the largest maps we can make in Guild Wars 2.”
Taking the castles of The Mists will earn your army supply that can be used upgrade your defences, or you can spend it on war machines that can be used to attack enemy walls. Smaller groups can take minor townships and camp sites to earn more resources, and you can even persuade groups of NPC to join your cause by completing impromptu quests for them in the field.
Guild Wars’ Winds of Change concludes on a high note
Like a turbulent gust blowing off the Jade Sea, the latest installment of Guild Wars’ Winds of Change clears away the heavy fog that has been hanging over players since learning of the Ministry of Purity’s duplicity. With the Ministry not as innocent as it once seemed, the Kurzicks and the Luxons at it again, and Cantha in peril, heroes are needed. Who will answer this call? Why the players of course!
With the nine new quests available, as well as new rewards both in game and in the store, players will have plenty of fat lootz to entice them back to the adventure in Winds of Change.
Guild Wars 2 out later this year, beta expanding in spring
The first closed beta phase for Guild Wars 2 has ended, according to a new post on the ArenaNet blog. The team are now ready to “aggressively ramp up the size of our beta test events” from March onwards ahead of a full release later this year.
