Guild Wars Preview Event

[J Marv]

So basically, there's a new MMORPG coming from NCSoft and ArenaNET (former Blizzard guys who worked on the two Diablo games, and if the look of the game is any indication, some of the artists from the Warcraft games.), called Guild Wars. It's not due out until next year, but they're having a huge preview event this weekend, with what would have to be a pre-beta version of the game. This allows them to do a massive stress test on their servers as well.

Anyway, it's free, and you start with a level 15 character and a few skills to give you an idea how the game mechanics work. The max level in the preview is 20, but you can level pretty fast (I went from 15 to 16 in about of hour of regular play). It's also heavily team based. An unbalanced team (in the first party I joined, I was the only healer, and the class that gave me healing spells was my secondary class) will get destroyed. While a balanced team will be very effective.

This game is really good looking. It's not that technically advanced (it kinda looks like an update of Neverwinter Nights) but the way the areas are laid out is amazing. Some of the views (in one part of the demo, you can climb the rampart of a fortress), are nothing short of breathtaking. Spell effects look good. attack animations and hit reactions are well done too. In fact the only qualm I have is the sound, effects and ambient sounds are good, as is the music, but the characters have no voices. I'm not really a fan of voiceless characters, especially important NPC's like the guys who give you missions. It might just be something that goes along with the territory of MMORPG's.

So basically, if you like MMORPG's, Action-based RPG's or just PC games in general give this thing a download.

One caveat, though. Even though the client is only a 62K download (yeah, you read that right) the game is download more or less as you play, so a fast connection is almost a necessity. I'm not necessarily discouraging you 56K users, but you've been warned.

Hurry up though, the demo only lasts through tommorrow.

I'm Burakumin Kuvasz on the North America/Europe/everywhere else not named "Korea" server, so if you see me around, say hi.