Guild Wars 2
Preview
250 years later, in the land of Tyria
by Ryan Cope
previewed on PC
The Forerunner’s Glory
The Guild Wars franchise is one of the best-selling MMORPGs on the market, next to the likes of World of Warcraft and Everquest. Its striking world of Tyria, epic storyline, addictive gameplay and engaging player vs. player combat has birthed a huge and devoted fan base. Like many successful MMOs, this potent popularity led to the release of three expansions: Factions, Nightfall and Eye of the North. However, unlike most MMOs, Guild Wars runs on a subscription-free structure, meaning that you don’t have to pay ever month in order to play the game you’ve already bought.
Guild Wars allowed players to create their own unique character, choose a preferred profession and join the Ascalon Vanguard in defending the kingdom of Ascalon. Players could fight alone or join, as the title suggests, guilds in order to gain a more communal experience.
So if you loved Guild Wars and traversing its dangerous lands fighting evil creatures, magical beings, nasty ghouls and well... each other, then I’m sure you’ve already heard that Guild Wars 2 is in the making. If not, where have you been? A cave? And if you are one of those many who play World of Warcraft, Everquest or any other MMO, you might be interested in this new heroic and mystical adventure from developers ArenaNet and publishers NCsoft. If you’ve never played an MMO before then the question is: “why not?” Read on and see what Guild Wars 2 has to offer.
250 Years Later...
The original Guild Wars was released in 2005 and the next instalment’s actual arrival is undated. This is ArenaNet’s biggest project yet and they’re trying to make it the best it can be, unveiling it only when it is fully complete. Five years have passed in our world, but in the land of Tyria two hundred and fifty years have gone by since the original Guild Wars era.
The five grand races of Tyria have warred with each other for generations, leaving death and destruction in their wake as they’ve struggled for power. Then unexpectedly the harrowingly powerful race of dragons awoke from their thousand-year-sleep. Using their magical breath they created legions of warped and twisted beings as their army of undead slaves. Led by the deathless dragon Zhaitan, they raised the sunken nation of Orr from the depths of the ocean, triggering catastrophic natural disasters that destroyed countless cities. Now the five races of Tyria must put aside their animosity for each other, unite and get ready to face the oncoming onslaught of doom that is the dragon army.
Unlike the first Guild Wars (where you could only be a human) players are now able to create a character from one of the five races of Tyria. These include the humans, the Charr, the Sylvari, the Asura and the Norn. The humans are a noble people who have lost a lot but are still fighting strong. They have one last homeland called Kryta, which is suffering from problems within and without. The Charr are humanity's sworn enemy, gaining much hatred from them for attacking and enslaving the human land of Ascalon. They are a warring species, bred and trained from youth to be the perfect warriors.
