Guild Wars public demo during E3

[Dhruin]

A pretty huge announcement from ArenaNet that I thought Exitium and some others might be interested in. According to Gamespot, a playable public internet demo of Guild Wars will be set up for three days during E3:

While most online games don't open up until beta testing begins, as ArenaNet and NCsoft will announce on Monday, the Guild Wars demo will let gamers directly participate in the online RPG for a full three days. The Guild Wars demo was designed for easy online distribution, and the small 100K client will only need to download around 30MB of art assets from the ArenaNet servers before demo participants can set up an account and log into the game. The developer says it's ready for a massive influx of participants.

Guild Wars isn't like most online RPGs, as ArenaNet has followed its founders' experience with Diablo to create an ongoing game that won't include monthly fees. The demo will provide a look at a glimpse into the game's expansive world. During the three-day demo, players can experience solo quests, cooperative missions that begin the Guild Wars story, a competitive arena for multiplayer combat, and a competitive worldwide tournament that will run continuously with multiple levels and a variety of game types.

These guys are obviously much further along than I guessed and I can't believe the faith they must have in the technology to try this: the servers will get the hell beaten out of them and few (none?) MMOs "launch" successfully.

 

[Whipporowill]

This is the kind of news that Rex was asking for... and where the hell is he?

 

[Spazmo]

I beleive Rex is busy playing Lineage 2 or whatever.

 

[Rosh]

Hopefully, this may put a larger bite into the price overinflated games like Asheron's Call 2.

 

[plin]

oops, didn't see a online rpg forum when I made my other topic.
The demo is online right now. Go check it out if your interested.

edit: and I tried it, I thought it was fun.

 

[Michael_Wolf]

I tried the E3 Demo client and was blown away. Graphics and sound are great and the game runs very smooth even on high resolutions. The interface is IMHO very nice and everything is easy to use, although I miss some kind of in-game help. But perhaps I am just too dumb to find it .
The gameplay seems to be standard fare, but the concept of 'solo missions' sounds interesting, especially for the casual gamer. Since there are no plans to charge a monthly fee for the game, I believe Guild Wars could be very interesting for people who like the gameplay presented by MMORPGs but don't have the time and money normally needed to play those games.

 

[Human Shield]

It has pretty neat gameplay. Trying to put together a good skill combo for different stituations is interestings. And competitive missions are fun. They need more clothing options because a lot of class default clothes look stupid, color dyes are neat but can't always help.

 

[Michael_Wolf]

It has pretty neat gameplay. Trying to put together a good skill combo for different stituations is interestings. And competitive missions are fun. They need more clothing options because a lot of class default clothes look stupid, color dyes are neat but can't always help.

I am sure we'll have more options after the game is finished and released. The game is still in a pre-beta state.

 

[Flink]

I like it.