Guild Wars 2 race featurette trailer

This game...just

I have stopped playing MMO's for a while now. I will be playing this one though

+1 Skabba1972

I'm a big fan of MMO's but I need a break. This will probably be the one I get myself stuck in to as it looks absolutely ace. I couldn't get on with the first one though, purely because I felt trapped by not being able to jump.

Wow that is some cracking art design

Suck on that, gnomes from WoW.

I have yet to see a dodgy video of this game, it looks ridiculously solid and stuffed full of ideas. Please be good, please be good, please be good!

Sure beats standard human/elf/dwarf/orc choices.

There is such thing as trying _too_ hard. Almost like me, with this huge WoT

Yes, the creators were clearly trying to step out from the elf-dwarf-orc train. The execution is far from being convincing though. This sci-fi, nature friendly gnome race seems to me a little bit overdone, overcooked. This crystal-powered-punk-techno-Aztec-medieval-spaceship-tree roots setup is confusing. In the same room you have visual references to many different and sometimes antagonist worlds.

There is a terrible “constructive incoherence” in the visuals. At one point you can see (the scene with the kids running over un underground bridge):
- Tron inspired neon light and shapes
- wooden arc-shaped medieval Japanese like bridges…
-…BUT with full glass transparent walkway!
-medieval gaps with stone walls… and Quake-type light spots
-classic cascade style water fountain
-spaceship style openings with soft, tender light beams…?
-ground carved massive stairways
-and, of course, some plants and roots here and there
-All of this while knowing that this races master anti-gravitation.

Pick one of the elements above. Every single one is an archetype, a representative of a particular world in our imagination. By extrapolation, everyone is a mental link to a coherent, imaginary world in itself. And while there are ways and techniques to combine them, the Asura designer is far, far away from mastering them. Unable to reach satisfaction, he continuously poured more and more stuff.

Such a disastrous level of copy-paste: concepts, structures, volumes, texture and lightning. ERROR. At most, a terrible kitsch. Massive failure, uninspired design….

Now the question is, “does it matter?”
Well, I think it does. It’s not that you won’t be able to play the game and enjoy it. But just the fact that the setup is a fantasy world doesn’t make excuse for cheap cacophonies like this one. Not for a game with such ambitions as GW2. And you will be annoyed not knowing why…

I do encourage everyone to keep a critic regard, an active spirit of observation. Ask for more, besides hi-res, hi-detail colourful pixels. Because after the “whoa impressive massive floating cube with vertical diagonal”, there is not much to look at. All this high visual density is rather poor because it has no vision, nor originality. There is no design strategy: at every point you have the same amalgam of de structured patchworked items.

And don’t get me started on that water pouring from the lower corner of the main floating cube… your intuition will tell you about the
taste and smell of it

cheers!