The same thing happens every summer—the jaded, cynical monster inside me mopes around and pretends he’s not going to get excited about SGF (and before it, E3) announcements. There are too many of them, and I’ve been around too long to become a victim of hype.
And every summer, the hype starts bubbling away anyway, more and more, until it engulfs the jaded, cynical monster. There’s usually one announcement that does it for me. This year, that honour went to Guild Wars 3.
I’ve been a fiend for MMOs as far back as my addled brain allows me to remember, but it was Guild Wars 1 that really turned me into an MMO guy, staying up until 4 am, the glow from my screen emphasising my beautiful, pallid—some might say “corpse-like”—complexion. I expect Guild Wars 3 might spell doom for my social life next year.
ArenaNet is a good company, I think they care about their game, the story, the lore, the land. It’s nice that they are willing to try new things… but I do worry this isn’t going to have an art direction like GW2. That made the game still look great today. If it looks like a spinoff of the latest unreal engine I won’t be thrilled about it.
GW2 is my favorite MMO (despite having put more time into WoW), and I’m hopeful GW3 ends up being of similar quality. Anet is a good company and has plenty of passionate employees, so I’m hoping they can pull it off.
Never played GW or GW2. Maybe I’ll hop onto this just for something new.
What’s a sgf?
Summer Games Fest, the successor to E3
