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[Spike Spiegel]

Press Release

Press Release - March 27, 2007

Guild Wars 2, Guild Wars Expansion Announced

NCsoft, ArenaNet reveal future plans for high-flying online roleplaying franchise; Guild Wars: Eye of the North scheduled for holiday 2007 release

Bellevue, WA., March 27, 2007—NCsoft® and ArenaNet® today revealed their exciting plans for the future of the hugely successful Guild Wars® franchise. The companies announced that development already is underway on a full sequel to the original Guild Wars games. Guild Wars 2TM will draw from the game mechanics that made the original Guild Wars one of the most popular online games ever and will add a fully persistent world. It was also revealed that, like its predecessors, Guild Wars 2 will not have a subscription fee. No launch date was announced, but the ArenaNet team anticipates that Guild Wars 2 will go into beta sometime in the second half of 2008.

In addition, ArenaNet developers are working on the first true expansion for the Guild Wars franchise, Guild Wars: Eye of the NorthTM. Due to hit store shelves during the 2007 holiday season, Guild Wars: Eye of the NorthTM will require at least one of the previous Guild Wars campaigns (PropheciesTM, FactionsTM, or NightfallTM) in order to play. It's a game that will benefit long-time players of the Guild Wars games, with all of the content targeting existing Guild Wars characters.

"We felt it was extremely important to reward those people who have been playing Guild Wars since the game first launched in 2005," said Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet. "Those players have seen three very large campaigns created in a little under two years and so we think it's time to begin filling in the details of the existing world and to provide more content for current characters. We are thrilled to focus our time on something that our players have been asking for."

Set largely in the dungeons and caverns of the lands of Tyria that players first explored in Guild Wars Prophecies, Guild Wars: Eye of the North will have 18 large, multi-level dungeons, 150 new skills across all 10 Guild Wars professions, 10 new Heroes, 40 new armor sets, and even more items, weapons and titles.

And for those looking even further down the road at Guild Wars 2, Guild Wars: Eye of the North will provide a Hall of Monuments where players' accomplishments are memorialized and eventually inherited by their Guild Wars 2 characters, unlocking exclusive items and bonuses in Guild Wars 2.

"It's the payoff we hope players will appreciate as we continue to build on the Guild Wars franchise," said Strain. "We're excited to announce these two new products and we want players to know that Guild Wars has an extremely exciting future in the months and years ahead."

An exclusive full preview of Guild Wars 2 and Guild Wars: Eye of the North can be found in the May issue of PC Gamer which will be on newsstands by April 3. More information on the Guild Wars franchise can be found at http://www.guildwars.com.

About ArenaNet
ArenaNet, located in Bellevue, Washington, is a wholly-owned subsidiary of NCsoft Corporation. ArenaNet has built a state-of-the-art interactive game network and develops premier multiplayer online games for dedicated game players. ArenaNet's titles, Guild Wars, Guild Wars FactionsTM, and Guild Wars NightfallTM are global online roleplaying games that allow gamers to play with anyone, anytime, and anywhere in the world. More information about ArenaNet can be found at www.arena.net.

About NCsoft Corporation
NCsoft North America is headquartered in Austin, Texas and is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Korea-based NCsoft Corporation. NCsoft, with its own development and publishing offices in Texas and California, also works with other NCsoft subsidiaries and third party developers throughout North America to develop and publish innovative online entertainment software products. The company has successfully launched multiple online titles in the last three years and continues to support its franchises, which include Lineage®/Lineage II, City of Heroes®/City of Villains®, Guild Wars/Guild Wars Factions/Guild Wars Nightfall, and Auto Assault®. More information about NCsoft can be found at www.plaync.com.

Eyes of the North Details

Features:
* Tons of new content designed exclusively for your existing Guild Wars characters
* 18 huge, multi-level dungeons to explore
* Monuments of your Guild Wars achievements that give access to special items and titles in Guild Wars 2
* 150 new skills (50 of which are special, roleplaying-only skills) to use against your foes
* 10 new Heroes to help you in your adventures
* 40 new armor sets suitable for the great heroes of the land
* A first look at three of the exciting new playable races in Guild Wars 2
* Numerous new items, weapons, and titles to attain

Also, curious gamers will soon be able to access Guild Wars via a 14-day trial DVD. And existing GW players should check out these gaming magazines for a free Asura miniature pet (along with more info on EotN and GW2).

 

[Scum]

I love Guild Wars! I've been reading about this lately and just can't wait.
[Zapp]I'll be all over this like a fly on a pile of very seductive manure![/Zapp]

 

[fatigues_gasolini]

Im gonna go out on a limb now, and say I believe Guild Wars 2 will be on consoles as well as pc.

 

[DarkSloth]

Hell yes... I've been freaking out the past few days because of this stuff. The Charr look amazing with their new armors. And playable in GW2! Damn straight. The only thing i hope for is that in GW2 they keep that storyline mission thing. Its really the main reason i love guild wars. I feel like i'm actually doing something. Theres an actual game inside of it. Hopefully, they don't stop that in GW2, but i truste ArenaNet to really make an awesome game.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

I just had a crazy thought...

...Gwen?

 

[DarkSloth]

It has to be. Just look at the acroynm GW:EN

 

[Scum]

I just had a crazy thought...

...Gwen?

Most definately! And as my fav professiontoo; a Mesmer? Even better!

 

[MirageDwarf]

More details about Guild Wars 2 at:

http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/03/interview_guild.html

http://kotaku.com/gaming/feature/feature-guild-wars-2-gw-expansion-unveiled-244666.php

 

[John Harker]

mac this time?

 

[Slavik81]

This news took quite a while to get posted here.
Never-the-less, Guild Wars 2 looks amazing and seems to be trying to time itself to rise just as WoW's fades...

 

[unifin]

seems to be trying to time itself to rise just as WoW's fades...

:lol :lol :lol

 

[Pimpbaa]

This news took quite a while to get posted here.
Never-the-less, Guild Wars 2 looks amazing and seems to be trying to time itself to rise just as WoW's fades...

:lol People always say WoW's popularity will fade, but it never does.

 

[Netrunner2k2]

More details about Guild Wars 2 at:

http://blog.wired.com/games/2007/03/interview_guild.html

http://kotaku.com/gaming/feature/feature-guild-wars-2-gw-expansion-unveiled-244666.php

Awesome! I love Guild Wars and the two new games just made my day. I can't wait for GW2 beta.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Glad there is no stupid level 20 cap in GW2. The persistent world with no montly fee sounds good too.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Is the level cap really such an issue? I think it helps keep the game from becoming an unbalanced grind-fest.

 

[Acosta]

This news took quite a while to get posted here.
Never-the-less, Guild Wars 2 looks amazing and seems to be trying to time itself to rise just as WoW's fades...

:lol :lol

 

[Tokubetsu]

Looks like a good time for me to get back into GW and pickup the expansions.

 

[Fragamemnon]

That trial DVD looks neat. I had more than a few of my old Dark Age of Camelot friends go over to GW and not look back, so I might give the trial a shot and see how it goes.

 

[Acosta]

I tried Guild Wars, it felt so... souless, don´t know how to explain but the world didn´t make much sense at all, it was far from the feeling I had with City of Heroes or WoW (especially wow). But lot of people seems to love it, so I suppose it offers great things.

 

[Razoric]

This news took quite a while to get posted here.
Never-the-less, Guild Wars 2 looks amazing and seems to be trying to time itself to rise just as WoW's fades...

:lol :lol yeah as it fades past the 9-10 million mark. :lol

 

[Tokubetsu]

I tried Guild Wars, it felt so... souless, don´t know how to explain but the world didn´t make much sense at all, it was far from the feeling I had with City of Heroes or WoW (especially wow). But lot of people seems to love it, so I suppose it offers great things.

That's actually how I felt about WoW. Once I gave it up, every time I tried to go back, I couldn't but I chalk it up to liking GW's art design and lore than WoW's.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

Wicked concept art as usual.

Too bad the actual game art is always skewed by that slight Korean anime esque style that I absolutely hate.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Too bad the actual game art is always skewed by that slight Korean anime esque style that I absolutely hate.

Que?

 

[stressboy]

This news took quite a while to get posted here.
Never-the-less, Guild Wars 2 looks amazing and seems to be trying to time itself to rise just as WoW's fades...

:lol

Reminds me of when people were saying that WoW was dying about 5 months after it was released.

 

[Eric P]

i'm really looking forward to the demo disc

i've contemplated buying guildwars several times but i never have because i've never been able to demo it before.

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

Absolute wickedness.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Eric P: Got a Fry's nearby?

The Guild Wars Trilogy Trial is currently available at:

* Fry's

The Guild Wars Trilogy Trial is coming soon to the following stores:

* GameStop
* EBGames
* Best Buy
* MicroCenter
* Amazon
* Best Buy Canada
* EB Canada
* FutureShop

 

[Pimpbaa]

Is the level cap really such an issue? I think it helps keep the game from becoming an unbalanced grind-fest.

Yes, since you reach it so quickly. But I guess it's because the game is PvP focuses with PvE being nothing more than an afterthought.

 

[Kaiser Dämmerung]

I just had a crazy thought...

...Gwen?

Hi my name is Gwen and I'm here to waAaAaAaAaAshh your ________________.

 

[Eric P]

Eric P: Got a Fry's nearby?

sadly no.

i'll just keep tabs through the website

thanks though!

 

[Zilch]

Wicked concept art as usual.

Too bad the actual game art is always skewed by that slight Korean anime esque style that I absolutely hate.

Whoa, that's some crazy talk. The Guild Wars games have some of the best in-game art in any computer game. I would love to work there (but I don't have the skills yet, I'm sure).

 

[KyanMehwulfe]

I recognize its strengths from unbias. Personally though I simply dislike that it looks like a Korean RPG and thus nothing like its wicked concept art, and that it relies far too heavily on bloom to add flare to what isn't an especially detailed engine - notably the character models and how it has that slight zoomed-in-RTS vibe from its scale and proportioning; the environment and architecture is still pretty solid.

The topic really isn't worth that much pursual by those of you whom seemingly took offense to the criticism though since it's not a game I ultimately judge based on graphics. It's a gameplay-driven and thus that's overwhelmingly what's paramount.

But none the less my criticism as a matter of taste still stands. The game art style really doesn't sync well with the much more realistic proportioning and graphic stylization of its best, most detailed, and desirable concept art. Which isn't odd or unusual; it's quite common in fact. Regardless it's still an accurate critique.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Whoa, that's some crazy talk. The Guild Wars games have some of the best in-game art in any computer game. I would love to work there (but I don't have the skills yet, I'm sure).

The art is nice, but the lack of diversity of armor types makes everyone look the same :/ I really hope GW2 has some a ton of diverse armor and weapons.

 

[Durante]

GW2 sounds interesting. I very much enjoyed GW1 for about 3 months, then it grew somewhat stale. GW2 seems to alleviate a lot of factors that contributed to this staleness. (But then again, I also grew tired of WoW after 3 months, so I may just be hard to entertain. GAF is the best MMO.)

 

[A Black Falcon]

Guild Wars is my favorite, and most played, game from the last couple of years... great, great game. The new expansion sounds fantastic -- finally, one that is truly an expansion, with all max-level content, a continuation of the Charr plotline (FINALLY resolving the major hanging plot point dropped a third of the way into Prophecies...), etc, etc... awesome!

As for GW2, though, I'm a bit less certain about this one. Oh, I'm sure I'll buy it, definitely, but... high level cap? That doesn't sound good... one of the best things about GW is that the low level cap forces you to think about your strategy and skillset, not your character level. What next, being able to take as many skills with you as you want and not just eight? That would be horrible, just as bad as a high level cap would be... I strongly disagree with anything that gives GW a level cap that takes longer to max out. Having a design which DOES NOT require ridiculous amounts of grind to reach the top level of is extremely, extremely important part of the game, and I really hope that they misspoke somehow in that statement.

Making it truly open-world is also an interesting decision that I'm not sure I agree with. While open-world MMOs can be quite good, GW has a unique style that emphasizes your importance. If all you have to do to get from point to point is wait for someone to clear the group in front of you instead of clearing them yourself you'd get so much less out of actually playing the game... while it does make it feel like a single-player game a lot, I definitely really like the instanced design, and don't want GW2 to become a normal MMO on this matter. Keeping it all or mostly instanced would be best, but if it must go open... we'll see. Hopefully they can make it work, but it just seems like it won't quite be GW with those two huge changes, and that would be bad... Guild Wars is a truly amazing game.

 

[krypt0nian]

Guild Wars art is heads and tails about every other MMO.

Unfortunately it suffers in a gameplay comparison...that said, I do look forward to GW2 as they have the chance to really make it shine this time.

 

[Spike Spiegel]

Yes, since you reach it so quickly. But I guess it's because the game is PvP focuses with PvE being nothing more than an afterthought.

An afterthought?!? In Factions, maybe, but not in Prophecies or Nightfall. And life begins at 20 in GW! Because in order to progress at that level, you've gotta start thinking about ways to perfect your build, finding the right combination of skills/weapons/stats to make it through.

And I agree about the lack of diversity in armor... if you only own one campaign. But if you own all three campaigns (like I do), you'll have access to ~25 armor sets each for the core classes. It's too bad they can't go back and decouple bonuses from the older Prophecies sets like in Nightfall though; it'd really open up some possibilities.

 

[YagizY]

I played teh first one for about a couple of weeks a couple of months ago until I realized that since the Guild Wars community was so low it wasn't too easy to find people to play with. After that it got a little boring. I'm sure when GW2 comes out their will be many more people playing it than GW1 right now.

 

[etiolate]

Is the level cap really such an issue? I think it helps keep the game from becoming an unbalanced grind-fest.

Yeah, and that's my one concern with this news, is the game losing its balance and grindless fun. Those two things were major points for Anet with GW before, so I hope they have some strategy on elinimating it from GW2 with the endless levels and pve char pvp. I really liked being able to make any pvp char I want and jumping into an arena with Guild Wars and I'd like that system retained somehow.

If they pull it off though, there's really no reason to play WoW anymore. GW was always the better game and it only lacked the persisistant larger world that WoW had.

 

[etiolate]

Wicked concept art as usual.

Too bad the actual game art is always skewed by that slight Korean anime esque style that I absolutely hate.

You must only have seen Factions. Nightfall is arabisque. Soulpatches and afros does not a korean make.

 

[Pimpbaa]

An afterthought?!? In Factions, maybe, but not in Prophecies or Nightfall. And life begins at 20 in GW! Because in order to progress at that level, you've gotta start thinking about ways to perfect your build, finding the right combination of skills/weapons/stats to make it through.

It feels too much like the endgame of WoW, except it comes much quicker in GW. Maybe it was just Factions that soured me so much on the game. It truely was a horrible expansion/game. How does Nightfall compare to Prophecies?

 

[A Black Falcon]

An afterthought?!? In Factions, maybe, but not in Prophecies or Nightfall. And life begins at 20 in GW! Because in order to progress at that level, you've gotta start thinking about ways to perfect your build, finding the right combination of skills/weapons/stats to make it through.

And I agree about the lack of diversity in armor... if you only own one campaign. But if you own all three campaigns (like I do), you'll have access to ~25 armor sets each for the core classes. It's too bad they can't go back and decouple bonuses from the older Prophecies sets like in Nightfall though; it'd really open up some possibilities.

It most definitely was not an "afterthought" in Prophecies, either. Prophecies has a longer single-player campaign than Factions or Nightfall, a larger overworld, more missions, much slower levelling, a longer (though not more understandable) story... no, Prophecies was a fantastic PvE game. I don't know where this "it wasn't good for PvE" stuff comes from, but it's just not true at all.

As for armor, I don't agree there either. You've currently got 30 armor set choices per class for the basic six classes, 15 armorsets for Factions-added classes (Assassin/Ritualist), and eight choices for Nightfall-added classes (Paragon/Dervish)... there's a good bit of variety there, definitely. It is true that the newer classes have fewer, because they didn't add in new armorsets for the new classes in the old games, but still, there is definitely variety...

As for the bonuses, each game does things slightly differently... Prophecies with bonuses tied to the set type, Factions to set and bonus being separate, and Nightfall with user-added bonuses... I don't know if they should make them all the same. Why not let each area have a somewhat different system?

It feels too much like the endgame of WoW, except it comes much quicker in GW. Maybe it was just Factions that soured me so much on the game. It truely was a horrible expansion/game. How does Nightfall compare to Prophecies?

Factions was great... not as great as Prophecies, but great. Great setting, good story which they kept more focused than the Prophecies story, nice new classes... it was somewhat short, and they did make a few iffy decisions (quests you can only access as part of a top-ranked guild alliance, guild alliance-exclusive areas for zone ownership, etc), but overall it was quite good. I didn't mind the very fast levelling up because I've played through Prophecies anyway, so I didn't really need to bring my characters through another starter area again... really, I agree with the person who said that they probably should have just dropped levels entirely from the game. Adding lots of levels (in GW2) would be learning the completely wrong lesson from the first one... the levelling system is just about perfect as it is, and adding more levels would do absolutely nothing except annoy people and add a lot of worthless grind. GW is a game which DOESN'T require the kind of grind other MMOs do, and that is a good thing! There is a near-infinite amount of grind out there for people who want to do it (see: guild alliance wars, the Hall of Heroes, getting Obsidian Armor, farming, etc...). The game just doesn't MAKE you.

The low level cap also means for great PvP balance... mess up that and you'd ruin the game. "You need to spend 200 hours to max out before you can play PvP with your RP character" is NOT something any GW2 player should ever have to hear.

 

[Aaron]

GW2 on 360 = Me sold. Played Prophecies to death, but never got into the expansions.