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Guild Wars 2 is a MMORPG under development by the Bellevue, Washington-based ArenaNet studio, a subsidiary of NCSoft corporation. Announced in late March 2007, it is the sequel to the original Guild Wars series. ArenaNet have not announced a release date, but have said that public beta-testing will begin in 2008.
Guild Wars 2 will feature a number of new playable races besides humans, including the Charr, Norn, Asura and Sylvari. It will have updated graphics, and will continue the original Guild Wars tradition of no subscription fees. The most noticeable difference from the original series will be the added freedom of player avatars to move in three dimensions, the lack of which feature was often criticized in the original games. Players will be able to jump over obstacles or off ledges, instead of being constrained by invisible barriers.
Players of the current Guild Wars campaigns and the expansion will be allowed to "port" achievements obtained in the original series into the Guild Wars 2 universe via the "Hall of Monuments" found in the Eye of the North expansion. Player characters will not be transferable from the original series, however.
There will be no monthly fee associated with Guild Wars 2 to keep up the tradition of Guild Wars. Mike O'Brien has stated that expansions or mini-expansions are more likely than standalone campaigns, but a final decision hasn't been made yet.
Guild Wars 2 will be written to run on computers with moderate specifications, but will have higher requirements than Guild Wars.
The original Guild Wars will continue to be supported after release of Guild Wars 2. This will include continued holiday events and tournaments.
Controls
The control system is going to be significantly changed (in particular mouse movement in the form "click to move" will be removed from the game), however target locking will still function. Guild Wars 2 will introduce a Z-axis to the game which will allow characters to jump over obstacles. Actions which have characters interacting with the environment, such as sliding and swimming will also be introduced.
Graphics
James Phinney indicated in his "Imagining Guild Wars 2" article that polygon counts and texture allowances have been increased so he expects it to look beautiful and "look like a whole new game". Gaile has indicated the game will support DirectX 10, but not require it to play.
Persistence
The game will be on multiple servers or "worlds," but players will not be bound to a world and may therefore change worlds as they would districts, except that they encompass the entire game, instead of just an outpost.
There will be changes to instancing system used. Persistent areas, similar to those traditionally used in other online multiplayer games, will be introduced to Guild Wars which may allow players to meet and interact while exploring.
Instances will still be used for missions and dungeons.
An "Event System" will be used to notify players of big events in the world, the return of a dragon, for instance.
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