From the 17th to the 19th of February, Guild Wars 2 was opened up to a few members of the press in an exclusive beta-testing weekend. Now that the embargo on that information has been lifted we can reveal that…

We weren’t part of the press beta at all. But that’s what the Internet is for, right?

A whole bunch of new information has hit the net detailing a lot of the finer features gamers have been wondering about – particularly regarding how the game plays and progresses.

The World

One of the biggest changes from Guild Wars to Guild Wars 2, is the movement away from Instance-based gameplay.

Guild Wars operated by only allowing a specific group of players to venture out into the world together at once (that is, you never came across other groups while out in the world) – while ‘safe’ areas like towns were accessible by everyone.

Guild Wars 2 however, has moved to an open-world structure where you’re not segregated from other players – everyone is running about in the same world all the time.

Race not role

The game’s story is different for anyone who plays – while typically in RPGs, the story is determined by the profession you choose, Guild Wars 2 plays differently according to your chosen race.

As a result, every profession is applicable to every race.

Your own story through the game is also determined by key decisions on your part – with your character choices genuinely affecting the outcome of your character development. That is to say, depending on how you go about certain things, the skills you gain as a result will be in-line with that.

Eventful world

This is tied to the event system.

You won’t be running around looking for quest givers and mission markers – the game features a ‘dynamic event system’ which is essentially a case of activity through exploration.

While you move in the world, the game throws events at you which need resolution – be it a sudden attack on a caravan, or a challenge to kill a group of monsters – or even something more abstract.

The missions aren’t simply kill-count challenges, and offer more variation.

It would seem that, thanks to the open world, the event system also has the added bonus of seeing random players on the same server joining you in resolving the issues that randomly occur.

So don’t be surprised if you come across a giant monster being cornered by a group of players – and taking it upon yourself to go help out.

Dealing with death

So what happens when you die? When you get knocked down in battle, you’ll enter into a “downed” mode, where you have a limited skill set.

During this time, you can either get back up by killing something (always gives us a boost in real life, yes?) or having one of your teammates come and revive you.

In the event that there’s nothing to kill, and no one around to breathe life back into your lungs – there will always be a skill – no matter the race or profession – that is a timed self-revival that gets disrupted by damage.

Role fluidity

A lot of people were a bit worried about the lack of a dedicated healer in the professions – but the reasoning for this is easy: everyone can be a potential healer.

Professions offer a degree of variation and fluidity in them, with skill-sets covering offensive, defensive and supportive roles. Just because you’re a warrior, it doesn’t mean you don’t have a skill that can heal, or support you in battle.

The idea is that skill slots are limited, so you have to think ahead about where you’re going, who you’re going with and what gaps need to be filled in roles.

World versus World

The biggest feature that beta-players wanted to get to grips with was the World versus World – Guild Wars 2’s massive Player versus Player mode on an epic scale.

Calling it WvW is a bit of a misnomer, as it’s actually WvWvW – as the gameplay is split into three teams on the server. Each team battles it out for dominance – with the odd number of teams ensuring that everything is balanced.

That is to say, if team A is getting to big – team B and C can team up to bring them down to size.

WvW has a whole lot going on – it’s not simply just attacking other teams, with a host of missions and sub-goals to tackle over the duration of the battle. It’s drop-in, drop-out, so it’s something that can be handled in your stride, with no grinding required.

Oh, did we mention you can also build siege weaponry and such? You can do that. Yes.

Technically speaking

Beta testers did run into technical issues – such as laggy areas, mission bugs and graphical glitches; but it’s beta. These things happen.

But in terms of system requirements – from what we’ve read, the game scales well from lowest to highest settings, and will work on most “modern” systems (ie, don’t try run this on a PC built in 2006).

While there’s still no official indication as to when the game will be launching – the degree of readiness presented during the beta is said to indicate that it’s not too far off.

You can sign up for the limited access public beta now – though you’ll need to be quick about it, as time is running out.

Are you looking forward to Guild Wars 2? Let us know what excites you the most about the game in the comments section below and on the MyGaming forum.

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