Guild Wars: Eye of the North and Guild Wars 2

ArenaNet / NCsoft has announced the next expansion, Guild Wars: Eye of the North. This will be the third expansion in the Guild Wars series, and will feature a return to the land of Tyria, where the original Guild Wars: Prophecies took place. It will take place mostly in underground dungeons beneath Tyria, and will include "18 large, multi-level dungeons, 150 new skills across all 10 Guild Wars professions, 10 new Heroes, 40 new armor sets, and even more items, weapons and titles." Past expansions have always been stand-alone, meaning you can play the expansion without buying any of the prior games, but Eye of the North will require players to own at least one of the previous games. Eye of the North is expected to hit stores during the holiday season of 2007.

An even bigger announcement is Guild Wars 2, a brand new series that will be quite different from the original Guild Wars. One of the major differences between the current Guild Wars and other MMOs, namely World of Warcraft, is that all of the adventuring takes place in instances. Instances are individual little worlds that are run on the client's machine instead of the server side; this means that once you enter an instance, you will be only be able to interact with the party members that entered the instance with you. The drawback to this system is that there is less interaction between the players, which leads to loss of a community sense amongst the players. But the positive side of instances is that it relieves server loads, and allows Guild Wars to remain subscription free.

However, this will all change in Guild Wars 2. The MMO approach will be implemented alongside the instance system. This will allow the game to have "the best of both worlds." And by worlds I do mean World of Warcraft. Eye of the North is meant to transition players into Guild Wars 2; achievements unlocked in the original Guild Wars will directly benefit the player when they move over to Guild Wars 2. Players will be able to pick from several classes, including humans, Charr, Norn, Sylvari, and Asura, with the latter 3 being introduced in Eye of the North. Player versus player will take place in the Mists, a place where all players can compete, even between different worlds / servers. Moving between worlds / servers is instant, thus giving players the freedom to play where ever they want. And the best part of it all is that it will remain subscription free. The bad news is that beta is expected to begin at the end of next year, so release is still a long way down the road.

I've been a long-time fan of Guild Wars: I played during the beta for the original one, and own all of the expansions. The single player missions weren't bad, I actually had a pretty good time playing through the Prophecies campaign. But it's the PvP that really shines. Matches are extremely competitive, and require the highest level of coordination between team members. Ventrillo, TeamSpeak, or other forms of voice communication are mandatory. Don't expect to find a team or guild to join if you do not know how to use voice-com.

In order to really enjoy Guild Wars, you need to play at the higher levels of PvP competition. I've been fairly lucky to get in with a good crowd, and got the chance to compete at a high level of PvP. If you're able to do this, I would highly recommend Guild Wars. It is one of the few MMOs out there that have a real competitive edge to it, not to mention the fact that ArenaNet / NCsoft has been known to give out cash prizes of up to $100,000 for their seasonal tournaments.

Recent guilds that I've been a member of include Pirates of BBQ Bay [BBQ] and The Flying Liberaces [Ace]. Ace was able to finish in 17th place worldwide during the 2007 winter season. Since then I have quit the game, but occasionally you can find me in-game on Remix the Giant.

The official press release for Eye of the North and GW2 can be found here. Kotaku and Wired also have articles regarding the new releases.