Welcome to another Going Viral! This week's edition is all about Guild Wars 2! This is a game I've been waiting on for years to be released. Only recently have I really been keeping up with information about the game and I have to say, it looks like it will be absolutely amazing.
So, first on my agenda are some screen shots I found on Guild Wars Insider. They're screen shots of PvP maps and they look absolutely stunning. Considering the fact the game runs on a modified Guild Wars 1 engine, the quality of the visuals surprisingly impressed me. The maps are lush, colorful, and is definately a feast for the eyes.
Another feature that I noticed that I found to be interesting is custom context-sensitive music. Now, a lot of games have already incorporated context-sensitive soundtracks, (where the music changes on what's happening in the game) but none to my knowledge have let you customize what tracks play in each situation. Now you can set your game to play some atmospheric, yet engaging "Explosions in the Sky" during times of exploration and powerful, invigorating metal instrumentals like those by bands such as Nightwish. This feature could be amazing depending on if the developers get the track switching to be nice and smooth.
My third bit of information I'd say is more community oriented. A common feature that attracts players to World of Warcraft is the ability to raid. Raiding allows players to continue to challenge themselves after they've hit end game and level 85. I've seen a few threads on r/Guildwars2 discussing raiding in terms of Guild Wars 2. Honestly, I do not think raiding would be very beneficial to the game, and it seems the community agrees with my viewpoint. Here's an image courtesy of angerina_gw2, that illustrates some very good reasons why raiding is not needed in Guild Wars 2.
Although raiding does not have to present these problems, they tend to manifest more often due to the feature. Guild Wars 1 had it's own share of problems with it's mission structure, and I personally would love for these to go away. I do not miss the days where I sat in a mission center waiting 30 minutes to get that decent Monk so I could progress through some of the difficult Factions missions.
And for my last tidbit of knowledge, there will be an open beta "coming soon". This was announced a week or two ago, but I feel I should mention it anyway. The open beta is going to be in March and April of this month. The beta is planned to follow the way Guild Wars 1 did its beta, and be held through weekend events rather than a traditional beta with full access to the game for a week or two. Each weekend, there will be a new section of the game open for the public to play.
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