Here, we used chains to pull the beast down, and rolled out of the flaming trails it left behind.īut if the constrained map demonstrated one thing really well, it was the so-called "verticality" of the expansion. It was a good choice, however, as it allowed us to see that ArenaNet lent a little diversity of experience of fighting its smaller world bosses, which previously relied excessively on getting a bunch of players together and mindlessly beating the thing down like a pinata.
An interview later with lead game designer Jon Peters seemingly confirmed this, as he pointed out that a wyvern we fought in the area actually calls another part of the jungle home, and had been imported there to show us one of the more-or-less completed minibosses in action. We played through the entirety of story mission that kicks off right after the end of Guild Wars 2's latest patch, in which vines shoot out of the Maguuma forest and pull down an entire airship armada, but the rest of the demo took place in a small area that felt too tightly crafted to reveal the expansion's scope. The odd thing is that this made me wonder how representative our experience was as a whole. Generally, it all worked about as well as intended, and even at this early stage of development, only a single bug marred the fun. This was instead a chance to see some of the highlights in action-the mastery skills that provide a form of horizontal leveling, the jungle environs of Maguuma, the new Revenant class, and new Stronghold maps for PvP-although ArenaNet remains silent about key aspects, such as the upcoming Guild Halls and specializations for each class (er, "profession," to use the game's parlance). I suspect my comparative lack of excitement had much to do with the fact that we'd already heard about most of the major features weeks before at PAX South. Nothing I saw over the rest of the weekend approached the same level of surprise during my roughly five hours of gameplay, but I did walk away impressed.
It's something more at home in single player-driven games like Dragon Age: Inquisition than an MMORPG, and in that moment, I saw a glimpse of a design decision that could further break MMORPGs out of their humdrum conventions, which is well in line with the goals Guild Wars 2 originally set for itself in its well-known manifesto from 2010.īy clicking 'enter', you agree to GameSpot's Guild Wars 2 itself usually keeps such things limited to awkward cutscenes where two speakers face each other as in the match screen of a fighting game, but that tired convention never showed its face here. Other games accomplish this through secondary avenues-good ol' boring quest text, shouts when abilities activate, or cutscenes that yank you fully out of the action-but none to my knowledge have ever let player characters shout out whole lines of relevant story information to NPCs in the thick of fighting.
Simply put, my character talked in combat. My biggest surprise during my recent hands-on preview of Guild Wars 2's upcoming Heart of Thorns expansion was a comparatively little thing, but looking back on it a few days later, it may mark a significant step forward for the genre.
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