Guild Wars 2 is for the fans

By Robert Purchese Published 4 April, 2007

Won't try for a new crowd.

Guild Wars 2's top designers have said that the game will be one for existing fans, rather than a different game trying to entice a new audience.

"We're not trying to make a different game that appeals to a different audience," Ben Miller, lead designer for the game, told Eurogamer this week. "We want Guild Wars 2 to be the game Guild Wars players want to play."

The PC sequel was unveiled late last week, and is due to enter beta testing sometime in 2008. It gives Miller and team the chance to go redo the ideas that did or didn't work in the first game, to create the "ultimate Guild Wars experience".

"We've been working on Guild Wars now for quite a few years, and realised many of the directions we tried worked out really well, while some didn't work out the way we wanted them to," Miller added. "So now we have an opportunity to go back and redo some of those decisions, to really make the game Guild Wars could have been all along."

And while the new game will feel familiar to existing Guild Wars players, there are some big changes and new features planned, such as a more persistent world, a choice of races and new companion characters.

So make sure you join us tomorrow as we ask Ben Miller and Erik Flannum all about the upcoming sequel and what we can expect to see.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (14) Latest comment 5 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • #1 5 years ago

    more online addiction madness!

  • stevencole7 #2 5 years ago

    2nd!

  • Waldo #3 5 years ago

    First one was boring, so I guess this one will be too.

    You know, for the "fans."

  • Azazel #4 5 years ago

    Good stuff, Guild Wars is an excellent thing.

  • Burton2000 #5 5 years ago

    Well loved the first Guild Wars up untill they made some changes to the PvP aspect of it which they are yet to fix so ive moved on now. Will probably pick GW2 up if its as good as GW1.

  • semprini #6 5 years ago

    FANS ONLY

  • Kostabi #7 5 years ago

    I loved Prophecies (or Guild Wars as it was originally), skipped Factions and enjoyed Nightfall for a while but it just feels stale to me now. The singleplayer additions in Nightfall like the heroes and a fair stab at storyline were commendable but it really falls down by having such an uninvolving world. Running across great plains and deserts all alone is just dull after a while.

    It does look lovely though...
    Edited by 1 at 04/04/07 @ 13:46

  • ZuluHero #8 5 years ago

    Its what you make of it really. I group when i can, either with randoms or guildfriends. especially in, as you say, NF as it can become very isolated experience, which kinda defeats the whole online aspect IMO.

    Still can't wait to find out more on GW2, love the series :)

  • mechamonkey #9 5 years ago

    I wonder if it would be possible to patch the original game to act as a server, I'd hate to think that when the servers close the game becomes useless, it'd make a great LAN/private game.

  • Tomo #10 5 years ago

    10th!

  • Azazel #11 5 years ago

    11th Commandment!

  • rudedudejude #12 5 years ago

    It's just an online chat system which you can arrange games in, and them play games in them,

    Bacially just like looking at the Steam list of CS:S Servers.

  • TheUnionFrag #13 5 years ago

    GW is good - but it does get boring rather quickly. Factions was awesome, Nightfall was beautiful but far too boring. I'll skip the next expansion. I won't be picking up GW2 . . . well, maybe the soundtrack. Hard to say.

  • ahac #14 5 years ago

    GW2 will be more like a normal mmorpg. Not evertything will be instanced for the group only which means there will be more options to find a group.
    The problem with GW was that it was too hard to do that. You could only do it in cities, there was no LFG system.. and if you wanted to just do some quests it was impossible to get a group fast. So.. you try with retarded henchmen which isn't much fun. And you always had to clear all the way to the quest which was really annoying. I know many WoW players have tried GW and gave up because of stuff like that.

    If GW2 gets a more classic mmorpg world (where you can meet people on the same quest, etc..) it could take some of the players from WoW and other mmorpgs and become even more popular than GW.

  • reality_cheque #15 5 years ago

    Bleh, I actually prefered having my own instance and never really had a problem with the henchmen either... but going on a mission with mates kicked ass :D

    If GW2 features any kind of essential grind or having to race people to fight the monster first (like FFXI) then they can set fire to it and stick it up their arse.