This program is only available to North American customers.

Just use an anonymous HTTP proxy from USA to register.

Now look at GW. Free 3-day trial for everyone from 29 to 31 October and everyone who preorders the game get's to play the closed beta.

That's what I call cool.

Yup, another free 3-day event is scheduled for 29 - 31 October. More info here:

http://www.guildwars.com/press/pr04-08-09-04.html

Actually just like in the E3 For Everyone event you will be able to play the game for free during 29-31 October. After that 1 week per Month for those who preorder.

Heh, for an online RPG game the graphics in GW are far better than anything I've seen in WoW, EQ2 or and other RPG game so far.

Actually the "chunk" of users without the DVD is quite large. Larger than you think it is.

It's nothing official yet. ArenaNet is looking into it.

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Nevermind Doom3, I'm looking forward to Guild Wars...

*ducks to avoid objects thrown by D3 fanboys*
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You kidding? GW is gonna own!

Go Guild Wars [ http://guildwars.com ].

That's all I'm going to say.

Wow! Very nice screenshot!

Go Guild Wars with the no monthly fee - expansion chapter buissnes model!

GW, Rock, Rock on!

TLJ was and still is IMO the best adventure game for the computer.

TLJ2 = oh yeah!

Well, I guess it's best you people try it out during E3 and see for yourself :).

Actually, there was already a siege map once, but we don't know what other game types ArenaNet has in store for us. I'm hoping a LOT :).

Guild Wars has persisant tows and mission/PvP outposts where you hook up with other players to play a certain mission or a tournament map. It also features solo instanced maps mixed with persisant areas. But the primary thing about GW is going to be Guild vs. Guild and Player vs. Player battles and multiple game types like CTF (or a GW version of that), Arena, FFA, tournament etc...

No, all countries are open, everyone can try the game no matter where you are. That's why it's called E3 is for Everyone.

You can join the alpha by being an active member of the GW fan community. For example, I was active on The Guild Hall (GW fansite) forums and the forum admin suggested me. It's only on invitation and referral.

But ArenaNet is still looking for mature and active members for their alpha test on a regular basis.

I don't like to sound like I'm hyping or selling the game but I really enjoy it (as do other alpha testers). Even at this early alpha stage the game is rock solid and the game graphics are just top-notch. Imagine those official screenshots in motion.

What else is to be expected from such a talented team of ex Blizzard people?

What I also like is the skill system.

Every profession has its own set of skills that a player can use in the battle (you can take 8 skills with you of all the skill that you've got). If you want to survive, you will have to use these skills very wisely to get the most out of them. The skills you use always depend on the situation you are in.

Monsters have different strong and weak points, be it melee or certain spells. So do players / different professions. They also cast different skills / spells at you. That means you have to adopt what skills you are using against specific monsters / players in real-time (in battle) to not die basically :).

You can also combo certain skills to make them more effective like Staggering Blow + Frenzy to maximize the damage while the Staggering Blow skill is in effect and so on.

After a while, you can dual-class, that means any combination of professions (warrior/necromancer, ranger/monk, monk/warrior,...) so you get additional skills for that second profession.

Of course you also have your standard melee weapons and shields that you can change during combat again depending on the situation.

In PvP the whole skill usage becomes even more important and everything is much faster. Just attacking someone with a melee weapon will end up very bad for you.
There's a lot of pre-game and in-game planning and strategy, proper skill usage and other factors, because of the different professions and different skill sets these professions bring with them.

Also, actual battle experience and skill of the player (skill as to how good the player is, not what skills / spells he / she has) is critical for victory. That's what ArenaNet means when they say that skill of the player is important, not time invested into the game. In other MMORPGs the level 50 player will almost always win over a level 20 player.

In GW the difference between the low vs. high level chars will be for example higher actual in-game experience, slightly better armor/items, more health/mana, more ability points, access to more skills etc... But a level 20 char has a possibility (although the chance is rather small) if he really plays it smart, of defeating the level 50 char, because he has access to the same skills / spells.

Like said, I really like what I'm seeing so far :).
This comment was edited on Apr 7, 12:08.

Actually Guild Wars is a CORPG (competitive RPG) without the monthly fee (it's based on the expansion pack business model).

As an alpha tester I can also talk about the game in general (a relaxed NDA) so if anyone has any questions, just ask :).

"Thanks for the reply but how does that work exactly? Are the servers operated by GuildWars or by players? Also there must be some limit to the number of people that occupy the playground, right?"

Yes, ArenaNet hosts the servers (something like Battle.net just without shards). I don't know about the limit in PvP and GvG battles, but I don't think there's going to be any limits as to how many people can join or play the game. ArenaNet is hoping for a very large community. After all, this are the guys who created and worked on Battle.Net, Diablo, StarCraft,... (ex Blizzard team).

Check out their FAQ on http://guildwars.com/ for more info.

Mezzanine: That's exactly what Guild Wars is all about. Skill and not the time you put into it. Before the fight you have to choose 8 skills of your total owned and used them the best way possible. Imagine all the possibilities in PvP/GvG battles with this system. But that's just a tiny fraction of a competitive RPG like GW.

This comment was edited on Mar 17, 14:24.

"Does anyone know the maximum number of players that can interact with each other at the same time in Guild Wars? I imagine that since there is no fee, it's probably something like 64 or such, right?"

Guild Wars will have no shards or realms so there will be one big playground where people can meet. Multiple servers that talk to each other.

Towns and outposts will be persistent game worlds so I expect it to be very crowded :).

Missions and quests will be instanced so every party or player will get their own world to hunt. PvP and GvG are in development so there is not much known at this time. CTF and King of the Hill were mentioned by ArenaNet for GvG.

This comment was edited on Mar 17, 12:25.