Nice outfit.

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/part-two/

The interactive environment is going to be a good addition. Scroll down a bit to see the cartoon.

The first GW was as much a MMO as the first Diablo... MMO-Lite is more like it. One city in each area where people meet and group up, everything else will be instanced to handle Small Groups of players, maybe 20 at most. Think STO and you get the idea. Not a good MMO in my eyes. To each their own though, hope it turns out well for those who want it.

I guess you haven't heard, then?

They're moving away from the Diablo-style instancing towards a more traditional open world.

You are required to read this! I am a rabid foaming at the mouth GW fan and I will bite you!

There are huge differences between GW2 and GW. Characters can jump, swim, fight under water, and perform many other excellent feats besides! Entirely new combat system.

The entire skill system is different. Half your skill bar comes from what playable race you are. Multiple playable races with multiple classes, and the race bonuses include the unique race skills. It will play very different to be a Human or a Charr for instance. The other half of the bar is for your character class skills, warrior, elementalist, whatever. What class skills are up seems to be based on what weapon you are using or what you may have picked up.

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/part-one/ Interim Report on GW2 weapons and combat.

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/part-two/ Interim Report on GW2 weapons.

GW was a party game (players or heroes and henchmen); so a solo character in general got instantly crushed like a bug ... unless using a farming build which worked only in certain areas. This ... ummm ... sucked! GW2 has characters much more like WoW, they need no party in the explorable areas, they can fight on their own.

Or they can party up. Number of opponents and difficulty dynamically ramp up or down depending on the number of players in the party.

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/dynamic-events/dynamic-events-overview/ This is very worth reading. Not only will it be an open dynamic world, quests arise from dynamic events. They have completely rethought the quest system typically found in MMO. Each player's actions influence what is going on in the world. Sometimes dramatically! But this is not all. There will be a followup article on the personal story system.

"If our dynamic event system is putting the "MMO" back in "MMORPG," then Ree's article will show you how our personal story system is putting the "RPG" back in the "MMORPG." You won't want to miss it!"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ql41Y0n-sGc Elementalist Skills

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/ Official Web Site

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/ Primary English Fan Site

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ph7FPTU_27E&NR=1 Playable Races Glimpse (omigawd!)

Release Date: Nothing official, but thought to be 2nd or 3rd quarter 2011.

Monthly Fee: $0.00. None. Zero. Zip. Free to play online forever. As with GW1, they will make money with expansion packs and bits and pieces from the company store. With the current GW, nothing in the company store is essential for game play. In five years, I have spent $27 in the company store for extra character slots.

This is inaccurate.

From what I've read so far, the first half of your skillbar is determined by a combination of your profession and whatever you happen to be holding in your hands. If you have a bow equipped, you'll get five bow skills. Which bow skills they are depends on your class, so a ranger won't get the same ones as a warrior. If you switch to your other weapon set consisting of a sword in your main hand and a shield in your off hand, you'll get three sword skills and two shield skills, and again the exact selection is decided by class. You can have two weapon sets and swap between them at will, so this effectively gives you 15 skills.

Picking up a rock or other item will give you a new set of 5 skills appropriate to that item. Elementalists add a third variable; they can attune to different elements and each one gives a different set of these skills.

Of the remaining five skill slots, one is reserved for a heal/res/defense skill and another is reserved for your elite skill. The other three can presumably be filled with whatever you want.

Races don't have any bonuses; a recent interview stated that a Norn warrior and an Asuran warrior will differ only in appearance and which racial skills they can use. Racial skills were said to be weaker than equivalent profession skills, and are primarily meant to be used for things your profession doesn't normally have access to.

The real question, is whether it will still have that anmie feel (I don't mind all the pantie shots but my friend hates it and he hated the overland world in the original also).

(The answer is yes btw, was a rehtorical question.)

I don't recall there being much anime influence in Guild Wars (except for N.O.X.) but maybe you're watching something different from what I am.

When Prophecies was in development, it was explicitly stated that much of the art and setting was inspired by Romantic Era paintings. I personally like it, though I do wish there had been some more modest armor for the elementalists. That should be fixed in the new game now that they're no longer restricting armor by profession.

Aractain, I do not know.

In GW 1 my Paragon looks like a gal cheerleader except for his huge black beard. Shameful! (But he is certainly effective!)

My other characters found armor that looks like armor. But it is true that the GW 1 armor in general does not look like what you would like to wear when you go volcano diving. More like beach party costumes.

GW 1 had and still has many other defects besides. I'm not so rabid as to deny that! When it came to game balance, the GW devs and the WoW devs seemed to be having a contest to see who could piss off their players the most with their irritating and annoying nerfs. Though it was a close call at times, the GW devs were declared the winners.

Latest news is that WoW is opening battle.net for beta testers for WoW Cataclysm. GameSpy's authoritative rumor is that Blizzard would like a holidays 2010 release date for Cataclysm. GW 2 ought to 1) pass that release date by at least six months; and 2) have a new and unique play style that many will prefer to WoW. Well, they are trying very hard. Time will tell.

Yeah, this game was something I wasn't really paying attention to until I read about there dynamic quest system (or whatever it is called).  It is now one of the games I am most looking forward to.  They look to be at least trying some new fresh ideas which is what this genre (and industry) really needs.  Hopefully they can pull it off.

I'm a WoW player. Well, more or less former now. I'll see whether Cata can pull me back but doubt it (though i'd love to experience Azeroth again). Been looking for another MMO. EVE has some elements that interest me but overall, not enough stuff there. DDO is free but can't manage to gather enough willpower to chomp through tutorial section.

Guild Wars started to interest after listening to the music (which is done by Jeremy Soule, KOTOR and The Elder Scrolls music composer). What didn't interest me was that everyone plays in their own instanced areas and the game's rather PVP centric. Also with GW2 is coming (even if it's next year), i'm not really that keen on starting to play GW.

Now if GW2 will have open world rather than instanced areas... Well, then i'll be keeping my eye on the game. SWTOR is going to be a big competitor though. (Also, i dearly hope that the game doesn't have Cel-shading nor is anime style, those are two things i abhor)

EDIT, hmm, zero substance post. Tell me something that makes me interested in GW/GW2, as in really interested.

I love the Prophecies soundtrack. Epic, varied, and perfect for the setting. Factions music is boring; you only get to hear the good stuff if you use the Collector's Edition bonus music code thing. Nightfall's music was better, but not really my style. 

I'm currently involved in a debate with someone who seems to think the move from instanced-only to persistent-world will unleash a massive horde of griefers who want nothing more than to destroy his own personal gameplay experience. It's resulted in a rather interesting discussion of the merits of both systems.

For me, the instancing is a detriment. It makes the game something other than an MMORPG, as it's much more difficult to socialize when you can't randomly meet people as you play. Finding a good guild to join is essential if you don't want to go solo or play the Pick-Up-Group Lottery. However, the instancing does eliminate the ninja-looting and boss-camping silliness you see in other games, and allows you to make your gaming sessions invitation-only.

Whether the game is PvP-centric is a matter of debate. Each side of the PvP/PvE divide thinks the devs favor the other, which is as good a sign as any that it's pretty balanced.

As for not wanting to play the first game if the second one's about to come out... The new game takes place in the same world as the old one, just 200 years later. The storylines are closely related, so you might appreciate seeing the events leading up to the second game. Also, you can probably find the game cheap nowadays and you can certainly complete all the chapters before the new one comes out. (GW1 is really a co-op RPG; most of the replay value comes from trying new character builds, collecting items and achievements, and PvP.)
 

Um... No monthly fee for either game? No level grind?

GW1 has a low level cap, easy access to max stats gear, and the ability to fully respec your character for free in any town. You can have fully maxed-out stats and gear in a couple of hours if you know what you're doing, so there's no grinding or getting kicked around by uber-levelled people that have been playing for years. It's all about your character build and how well you can use it.

True, GW doesn't have monthly fee so if i find it for cheap, definetly picking it up. But otherwise...?

Building a character? Bah. Gear? Bah. Neither does really motivate me. WoW was a gear grind, but i don't like giving gear more or less freely to anyone. I like exploring things, fighting cool battles (generally that means dungeon bosses) and being rewarded with something that feels unique. Or is a novelty. As long as it ain't something everyone holds and must not look like something some other may have (WOTLK has like 3 models per item... no matter rarity. Everyone's a clone). There must be somesort progression, i don't like hitting a cap really. I pretty much quit WoW when i hit lvl 80 (doing same instance again and again to get gear for raids is no-no, came back later and started another DK, quit again due exams) Oh and roleplaying. MMO-RPG!!! Skill/feat/talent/perk/leveling/whatever system alone doesn't make a RPG. Story, interactivity, socializing with others, those are darn important.

PVP doesn't interest me really. Not unless it is meaningful, like capturing other players castles. (Preferrably on grand scale.) Fighting for "honor" or "badges" or more gear or just fighting for sake of fighting (get enough if that in Halo), none of these is meaningful or interesting.

Hmm. Am i a bit demanding? There ain't many games that really reach my standards... Morrowind and Oblivion modded come closest but they lack persistent multiplayer (and don't even start with Multiwind or Multiblivion or whatever the MP projects were).

GW2's dynamic quest system does sound very interesting... and AFAIK SWTOR still sticks to old fashioned questing but with actual story and ability to affect it, this time. But in the end, it ain't going to be much different from WoW's system. But GW2, if it does work out...

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Alliance_battle

Some models are used more than once (not many imo) but there is alot of variety when it comes to Weapons and still alot when it comes to armor.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Unique_item Click one of the proffesions to see some of its Green (boss monster award etc.) weapons.

http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Category:Armor_collectors Some collector armor its not easy to get (imo but im lazy like that) but you said you didn't like it given freely

In the beggining you'll look mostly like everyone else (other than what you dyed you starter armor) but as soon as you start getting new armor you'll look different.

IMO the Guild Wars story is unique and well thought out with some twists along the way.

Some of the bosses are hard to beat and fun too. They have dungeons.

Although it HAS been awhile since I've played it was a good three years of fun.

Gear works a little differently in Guild Wars than in other games. It's not a grind, but it's not quite free, either. Anybody can go visit an NPC and trade some monster parts or common crafting materials for a weapon with whatever base stats they want, but it's not going to be pretty. If you want something fancy, you're going to have to go out and find it. Armor is always gotten from an NPC and has the same base stats, but as with weapons, there are many options and you get what you pay for. There are also a number of especially rare items such as minipets, festival hats, and other assorted things.

If you like exploring, the first chapter's map has lots of out-of-the-way places that people miss if they just stick to the story. Some of those places have interesting things, and the scenery in general is gorgeous. I should know; I'm a Grandmaster Tyrian Cartographer.

As for interesting battles, there are dungeons in the expansion and "elite" areas in the main chapters that each offer their own unique challenges. Each one usually has a really powerful boss at the end, along with a reward chest that might contain rare materials, weapons, and other items. Most of the stuff you find in these areas can't be gotten anywhere else.

Progression is not measured in level, but in the quantity of skills and shininess of gear. Having more skills means you can make more builds and do more stuff with your character. Having shinier gear doesn't actually make you better, but it does make you look cool.

Roleplaying and socialization is hampered a bit by the instancing, but the game has a good story. (Except Factions; that one was kinda bad.) Interaction with other players is mainly a matter of who you end up with.

Most PvP is arena- or tournament-style. There are the Alliance Battles as mentioned before, which determine who owns some of the towns in factions. Players allied with one faction can't access NPC services in the other faction's towns. It's an annoyance, really, but the battles themselves are fun.

Honestly, you should just try the game out first to see if you like it. I have a few trial codes lying around if you want one, or you can just get one from the website. I'd be happy to show you around in-game as well.