Guild Wars 2 - A Primer, Part 1

Guild Wars 2 is on the horizon -- not next month, and maybe not the one after that either, but soon.  Many people are interested in the game who have no experience with Guild Wars and the rich lore that Arenanet has built up over the past seven years.  That's a real shame, as the lore plays a big part in understanding and enjoying Guild Wars 2, and seeing all the ways in which the new game is connected to the old one helps make it feel more like a world and less like "just a game".

So in this first post I'm going to try (emphasis on try) to give a brief overview of Guild Wars lore from the perspective of the three campaigns plus the expansion, the coming of the Elder Dragons, and where Guild Wars 2 sits in relation to all of this.  Note that my knowledge is not encyclopedic, and there are bound to be omissions, errors, and inconsistencies, but it should serve as a reasonable overview for someone new to the game.

Guild Wars Prophecies

Guild Wars Prophecies represents the original release version of Guild Wars.  The kingdom of Ascalon, on the continent of Tyria, populated by humans, comes under attack by the savage Charr, large feline humanoids with a real hatred for Ascalonians.  When humans arrived in Ascalon centuries earlier, they drove the Charr into the mountains.  The Charr tribes are broken into four legions - Ash, Blood, Flame, and Iron.  Led by the shamans of the Flame Legion, the Charr adopted new gods (the Titans) and were taught powerful fire magic that they used to raze Ascalon.  Fiery meteors rained from the heavens and turned Ascalon into a wasteland almost overnight. This became known as The Searing.  Although Ascalon lay in ruins, King Adelbern, Prince Rurik, and many citizens were still alive, and the strongest of buildings still stood.  The Charr legions were coming, however, and it seemed unlikely Ascalon would survive.

Prince Rurik advocated retreat to the kingdom of Kryta to let the people of Ascalon survive and recover, and hopefully someday come back to retake their homeland.  King Adelbern refused to leave however, or seek succor from his hated rivals in Kryta.  Rurik and Adelbern split, with many citizens following Rurik into Kryta (along with the player characters) while the King, most of the army, and many of the remaining citizens stayed to fight for their homes.

Prince Rurik died crossing the mountains to Kryta, but most of the fleeing Ascalonians survived and were given sanctuary in Kryta in villages between Lion's Arch and Divinity's Reach.  The sorceror-king of Orr cast a spell that halted the advance of the Charr towards Orr and Kryta, but the aftershocks of doing so caused the kingdom of Orr to sink into the sea.  This event became known as The Cataclysm. The players were then drawn into a battle against the mysterious Mursaat and their human White Mantle pawns, a long series of battles that don't have too much to do with the Guild Wars 2 setting (as far as I know).

Meanwhile, back in Ascalon, King Adelbern and his forces are losing.  The Charr surround Ascalon City and lead a massive assault to end the human occupation forever.  Driven mad by desperation and the death of his son, King Adelbern unleashes a terrible curse that kills every Charr for miles around the city . . . and rips the souls from every human in the country, binding them to guard Ascalon from the Charr for eternity.  This became known as the Foefire.  These Ascalonian ghosts still occupy Ascalon centuries later in Guild Wars 2, and see all living beings who enter Ascalon as invaders to be killed, whether they be Charr, Human, Sylvari, Norn, or Asura.

Guild Wars Nightfall

Guild Wars Nightfall is the third campaign in the original Guild Wars, and starts on the continent of Elona, far from the conflicts in Ascalon and Kryta.  Most of what happens in Nightfall has little effect on Guild Wars 2 except for it's conclusion -- Spearmarshal Kormir, Commander of the Sunspears, absorbs the remnants of the fallen God of Secrets, Abaddon, and ascends to godhood, becoming Kormir Goddess of Truth.

Whether in response to this event or something else (I'm not sure), the six human gods retreat from day-to-day interference on Tyria and leave humanity to fend for itself.

Guild Wars Factions

Guild Wars Factions is the second campaign in the original Guild Wars, and I'm currently playing through it now so don't have full knowledge of it yet.  I'll expand this section after I'm done.

Guild Wars: Eye of the North

Eye of the North was the first (and only) "expansion" for Guild Wars, adding a new story and explorable areas onto the Prophecies campaign.  Eye of the North does a lot of set up for Guild Wars 2, introducing the Asura and Norn races, as well as spending a lot more time with the Charr and their society.  In pre-searing Ascalon, players met a young girl named Gwen.  Eye of the North takes place a decade or so later and Gwen has grown into a bitter young woman who hates the Charr for killing her family and destroying her home.  She becomes leader of the Ebon Vanguard, a non-aligned military organization dedicated to resisting the Charr.  Human history looks on Gwen as one of its great heroes, while the Charr see her as something of a villain. (She was a hero, suck it you furry bastards).

The expansion campaign involves the emergence of the Destroyers from deep beneath the earth, powerful beings that are driving the Dwarves and the previously unknown Asura from their homes. The players travel all throughout Tyria attempting to enlist the aid of the various races in the battle against the Destroyers, even the Charr.

As part of this battle the Dwarven race essentially destroys itself, all Dwarves transforming into beings of living stone to be a bulwark against the Destroyers for the rest of Tyria.  The Dwarves still live, in a sense, but ceased to be a race as we know it (and is why Dwarves are not a playable race in Guild Wars 2).

The adventure culminates in a battle with the Great Destroyer, and while the players and transformed dwarves are victorious, it is later revealed that the Great Destroyer was simply a champion of the Elder Dragon Primordus, and a herald of his imminent awakening.  The destruction of the Great Destroyer delayed Primordus' awakening for decades, but it was only a temporary victory.

The Elder Dragons

In the years between Eye of the North and Guild Wars 2, the Elder Dragons awakened from their slumber and went forth to terrorize the people of the world.

The first dragon to awaken was Primordus, who claims mastery over fire and stone and drove the Asura from their homes.  He still dwells in the depths of Tyria and sends his minions out to conquer all that he can.

Forty-five years later Jormag woke up, lay claim to the icy north, and drove the Norn from their homes.  Many Norn were corrupted by his coming and chose to serve him instead of fight him.

Fifty-three years after Jormag, Zhaitan rose from the depths of the ocean and brought the lost city of Orr with him along with countless undead minions.  Zhaitan's territory has cut Tyria off from Cantha (the setting of Guild Wars Factions).

Finally, over a century later Kralkatorrik awakened north of the Charr homelands and flew south the to Crystal desert.  His passage corrupted everything he passed over, turning it into crystal, even living beings.  Those afflicted by his corruption sloughed off their flesh and became living crystal, homicidal minions of Kralkatorrik.  Kralkatorrik's territory has cut Tyria off from Elona (the setting of Guild Wars Nightfall).

Guild Wars 2 starts a couple of decades after the emergence of Kralkatorrik.  No mortal army has ever successfully attacked an Elder Dragon.  All those that have tried have been slaughtered without mercy.  Barring a return of the human gods it's unclear how the dragons could ever be defeated, but this will presumably be the ultimate task of players.

Good luck . . . I think we'll need it.

Preparing for Guild Wars 2

If you're thinking of playing Guild Wars before the release of Guild Wars 2 to learn the lore, the best thing to do would be to play the Prophecies campaign followed by the Eye of the North expansion.  If you have time after that, play Nightfall and then Factions.  Prophecies and Eye of the North are the key campaigns though, as Guild Wars 2 takes place on Tyria and many of the characters players will encounter are descendents of the NPCs in Guild Wars.

Space Pirates and Zombies (SPAZ)

This past weekend I was away from home and all my usual gaming accoutrements, and thus limited to my non-gaming laptop for any sort of electronic entertainment.  I don't really keep many games on my laptop and nothing I had really appealed to me. I ended up browsing and came across a game with the unlikely title of Space Pirates and Zombies (SPAZ).

I was intrigued enough by the screenshots to give the game a try.  It's not what I expected, I would have been better served by checking out this video first. However, what I found quickly ensnared me and I ended up playing it every free moment I got over the weekend.  I think the fastest way to give an idea of what the game is like would be to call it a cross between Star Control II and Starscape, with the bonus of allied AI controlled ships allowing for fleet battles.

Each game consists of a randomly generated universe populated with a configurable number of star systems.  If you choose a low number of star systems each one will have more resources, but the difficulty ramps up faster.  If you choose a high number of star systems there are fewer resources per system, but difficulty ramps up more slowly.  I've been playing in the middle, with a measly 250+ systems to explore.  You start with a mothership (that you can't control) and a pathetic little ship with which to gather resources.  Once you have enough resources you're able to build some slightly better ships, then start interacting with the neighbors, earn more resources, learn new technologies, and so forth.  Over time you build up a bigger and bigger fleet, the mothership gets improved, and you research upgrades that make your ships faster, stronger, better.  Each system contains two factions, Civilians and UTA.  The UTA is a paramilitary faction, the splintered remains of a once pan-galactic police force.  When you first enter a system you will have a certain reputation level with each faction, and by performing certain tasks you can increase reputation with one while decreasing it with the other.  Having a positive reputation will allow you to buy blueprints from that faction's space station, so improving relations is an important part of increasing your power.  Of course, one of the great things about the game is that you also have the option of simply blowing them up and taking what you want.

Combat is very action-oriented which came as a surprise when I started up the game (I was expecting  something more strategy-like).  You can control your thrust direction with the standard WASD keys, but the direction your ship is facing is controlled by the mouse.  This makes piloting both more complex and more flexible than many games of this type have been in the past.  Accelerating backwards while shooting at a target is easy, and strafing and similar maneuvers can play a big part in survival for the smaller, more agile ships.  Even if an NPC is allied with you, friendly fire is a risk, and if you hit them enough times they'll eventually get tired of it and turn hostile.  This is an important part of the game, because sometimes you WANT to attack a friend.  They might be piloting a hot new ship you don't have access to, and destroying them will let you loot the blueprint for the ship.

Overall I found the combat satisfying (I especially love the beam weapons) with enough challenge to force smart play without being overwhelming.  Of course, if I found the game too easy I could push faster into more dangerous star systems, so to a certain extend the level of difficulty is player controlled.  I suspect it might all start to feel a bit tedious after 20 or 30 hours, but the game will have more than earned it's price by then.

There are a lot of things I'd like to see added to the game, such as more factions, more mission types, maybe a new campaign where you play as the UTA and try to rebuild civilization.  How about some aliens?  That's a tall order though, because the game is being developed by a company called Minmax Games, an independent developer almost as small as it can get - it's two people essentially working out of their garages.

Which is a big part of why I decided to make this post.  I think the game is fun, and while it certainly won't be for all, if you were a fan of Star Control II or similar games you owe it to yourself to check this one out.  If you can help out a small independent developer with a sale, then even better.

Darkspore Beta Redux - A few wishes and comments

So the Darkspore beta popped back up on my Steam client yesterday and I decided to take another look.  The game is still interesting, but they did a character wipe and now I have to start all over, which isn't too enthralling when I know they'll just be wiped again at some point.  Still, it's a pretty simple, relaxing, mind-emptying game to play, so not bad when I want to play something but don't really have much energy.

Playing through the starting area again did drive home some of the flaws in the current system.  The first flaw is the complete and total dependence on item drops to improve your characters.  There's no xp in the game (for the characters anyway), just items.  Equipping items increases a character's "level", which in this case is just an approximation of their overall power, and used as a guide for picking appropriate challenges.  This means though, that the ability to improve your characters is tied entirely to the random drop system, and items are either character specific (these claws can only be used by Blitz) or element specific (these shoulderplates can only be used by Cyborg characters).  The result is that you can go through a mission without getting any drops that are useful for the characters you play, and so you don't improve their power and are stuck replaying the same content until you do.

This ties into the second flaw, which is that you don't get to pick your starting characters.  You will always start with Blitz and the bio guy (who's name I have forgotten), so if your first mission gives you nothing but quantum drops (as mine did), too bad for you.  This could be rectified a little by letting players pick all of their starting characters, and giving a wider range of low level characters to choose from.  Still, that's only a short term issue.  After increasing your player level a few times you'll be able to pick more characters and can phase out the start characters entirely if you don't like them.

I would like to see more control over the development of the characters.  Using items controls their stats and their "level", but the abilities they have are very static.  Every version of Blitz you encounter the game will have different stats and look different (maybe), but will always have the same abilities.  I'd like to see a little more customization there -- maybe one ability slot can be loaded with a choice of different abilities at the start of each mission.

As I played through the game last night it occured to me that Darkspore has a very "Ben 10" feel to it.  If you don't know, Ben 10 is a Cartoon Network cartoon starring a boy with a special device that lets him transform into different aliens.  Each alien has it's own repertoire of special abilities.  There are aliens that can tank, aliens that do lots of damage, aliens that stealth, etc.  You only get 3 "forms" at a time in Darkspore (out of hundreds available), but in many ways the gameplay mimics the cartoon.  Each character you use has set abilities, and you can "transform" between the 3 at will.

I'm still undecided as to whether that similarity is a good thing or not though.