Guild Wars 2: Were-Vikings, Technomidgets, and Plant-Based Pedobait

[Parn]

Character customization.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TJDTv1aGR4

[D-Rider]

Christ, look at all those sliders.  It looks like it might be as versatile as Aion's character creation system.

...Now that I think about it, it probably IS Aion's character creation system.

[Akanbe-]

Christ, look at all those sliders.  It looks like it might be as versatile as Aion's character creation system.

...Now that I think about it, it probably IS Aion's character creation system.

Yeah, it seems quite similar.  They'll probably even have a breast slider too.  Overall it seems like a really good character creation system.

[Akanbe-]

Looks like they got rid of profession specific profession challenges.  Now they are just skill challenges which you undertake to get a skill point to put into a skill of your choosing.

I guess I can see why they did it, but damn profession challenges would have been pretty badass albeit fairly unrealistic and possibly repetitive.  Still pimped.

[Akanbe-]

Mesmer accidentally revealed as final class:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8CgmGpbKug  (also on their twitter)

and just for you Daniel:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-zPpqXf-No

[D-Rider]

Perhaps the least surprising announcement in the history of unsurprising announcements.  I'm gonna play the fuck out of that class...and engineer. :P

Fuck me, that engineer video...I gotta stop watching this shit so far in advance, it's just making me pissed that the game still has a long way to go. :P

[D-Rider]

it's been pretty quiet on the Guild Wars 2 front for the past month or two.  I guess no news is good news, right?

I saw an IGN article on the combo system the other day.  A few of the game's developers rattle off a few of their favorite skill combinations.  This is the first bit of info I've seen in a while that gives examples of combos besides that "shoot an arrow through a wall of fire" shit they keep throwing out there.

[Akanbe-]

I think they're in the midst of the friends and family beta test which may be why things have been a little quiet.  They still have a TON of things to officially talk about so hopefully they are hard at work figuring those things out.  Hopefully in the next month or two, some more new things are explained and maybe we'll hear about a public beta of some sort in the near future.

[Parn]

http://www.arena.net/blog/dragon

My body is ready.

[D-Rider]

Looks like it might be on par to come out this fall then.  I hope I've finished my computer upgrade by then. :P

[Akanbe-]

So, the beta is out and apparently the NDA only prohibits a couple of things.  Expect a flood of media on Monday.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut will have some videos coming up Monday as well, I believe.

EDIT:  Total Halibut's video(s) are okay, but Yoggscast (BlueXephos) has much better ones.  Links below, in order

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W-YKm20rPQY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SM9ybzgR0Ik
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0jb2_mM4TM&feature=plcp&context=C3309024UDOEgsToPDskI8iE7rb-4JUjABEINlHTzO

and so on.  Just check their channel.  They've already got 4 videos up.

[Parn]

Beta signups have begun.

https://beta.guildwars2.com/

[D-Rider]

It's too much trouble to put a link to it on my phone, but apparently a million people have signed up for the beta.  That seems really high.  I guess its because I don't visit many gaming sites anymore, but I figured GW2 was flying under the radar. :P

[Akanbe-]

Well, there's been a lot of people hyping the shit out of it.

Some things I took from the beta

-Down the road there may be a console release (hopefully it doesn't mess with the PC ver. fidelity)
-If a sever is too large and you are in the queue, you can play in an overflow server until your server queue is down.  Whatever you do on the overflow server transfers to your regular server
-The main towns are fucking HUGE and look pretty awesome! Hopefully there is shit to do in them and it's not just a big space for no reason.
-The event system kept things fun for the players
-Dungeons are fun, but also chaotic as fuck because there is no official tank.  Undoubtedly some way to play will emerge, but interesting nonetheless
-World vs World vs World is a lot of fun, but still needs tweaked in the reward department
-Despite being able to run on all sorts of PCs, there currently is an ultra setting and people with decent systems can crank it up.  It's still really early so it's pretty hard to conclude anything as far as settings (or anything) goes.  I wasn't incredibly impressed, but ultra settings weren't implemented in the beta and I'm blaming some of the loss on youtube.

[ZeronHitaro]

Just saw the GT preview and three things pretty much struck my fancy.

-World Events instead of Quests.
-Anyone in the area fighting is part of the group without needing to /LFG Area Boss.
-Tank-Healer-DPS roles are gone.

Sold.