Missed the exciting announcement trailer? I already shared it in an earlier blogpost back in December last year. Be sure to check it out!

The story of Ni no Kuni revolves around Oliver, a thirteen year old boy. He has suddenly lost his mother after she saved him from drowning. As Oliver mourns the loss of his mother the doll she once gave him comes to life! It reveals its actually a fairy named Shizuku and gives Oliver a book. With this book Oliver is able to use the power of magic and travel to Ni no Kuni which literally means ‘second country’. Here he might be able to find his mother. Oliver and Shizuku start their journy to Ni no Kuni and during their journey they make new friends, meet people they know in alternate forms & of course face many dangers!

The game is already out in Japan and will see a release in Europe and North America somewhere during Q1 2013. Level-5 has confirmed that the Western release will give players the option to select the Japanese voice tracks and use English subtitles. I love that! I usually prefer the Japanese voice tracks over the English or — ugh, Dutch ones, especially when the game is originally made in Japan. Hm, if the original subtitles are also included I could practice Japanese again just by playing the game :D How awesome would that be? Unfortunately we still need to wait till next year until we can play the game ~

Ni no Kuni: Wrate of The White Witch is developed by Level-5 and published by Namco Bandai Europe

Since all screens were taken during the Guild Wars 2 Beta Weekend Event it is still possible ArenNet will throw things around & change elements for the final build of Guild Wars 2.

The login screen is very clean and simple, it features the Dragon Age 2 logo and login box. In the top left corner you can find an icon that will take you to the Game Menu where you can the set options for graphics & sound. After logging in you will arrive at the character selection screen. You can choose to create a new character or continue the adventure with your existing heroes. The screen also shows your account medals, if you have unlocked them. If you haven’t unlocked a medal yet, you can hover your mouse over the empty space and you will see more information about your progress in achieving that specific medal.

Even though I like the fact the character screen is quite clutter free, I do think it’s a little too simplistic. Your player character really stands out from the white background, a little too much for my taste. On the other hand I do adore the set up of the character conversation cinematics. Some might think it’s a little too staged, but I love how it keeps the focus on the conversation between the characters and well it just looks super lovely!

Time to take a look at the actual screen when you’re walking around in the game! I love how clean and open the screen is. It reminded me of the first time I played Dragon Age 2. The top left corner has mini icons to the game menu, inventory, messages and such. Just beneath that there’s the icon for your party, if you’re actually in one. In the top right corner you can find information about your current quest. The bottom left corner holds the chat screen. At the bottom right you can find a mini map. At the bottom of your screen you can keep an eye on your level progression. Last but not least you can find your skills in the middle, the core of the gameplay in Guild Wars 2.

Let’s take a better look at the skill bar. Your skill bar is actually divided into two parts. On the left you can find the skills that are connected to the weapons you are carrying. You unlock more weapon skills buy wielding that particular weapon. My character is wearing a sword. The first skill Mind Slash is already unlocked, but the second skill Blurred Frenzy is currently in the process of being unlocked. The more I swing my blade, the more skills I can unlock. The skills under the F buttons do not take up space on my skill bar, but they only have an effect when you destroy one of your clones or phantasms.

The red circle contains your health points. On the right you can find your slot skills or more specific your elite and utility skills. These skills can only be acquired by spending skill points. One slot is taken up by your Healing skill. Every profession actually has a healing skill, a mesmer’s basic healing skill is Ether Feast. The little skill slot of the running man is actually an evade skill which makes your character do an evasive move e.g. jumping sideways.

Even though I didn’t have much time to develop skills, I really like the new skill bar. I think it’s a great idea that your weapon skills automatically change when you swap your weapon set. It really makes your character more dynamic. Developing or unlocking weapon skills by using that weapon is just common sense, haha! During the BWE I managed to unlock more skills and I enjoyed seeing my character become stronger and stronger. I’m looking forward to diving more into skills and interesting combinations when the full game is released. I also enjoyed the combat and I’m sure it gets even more awesome once you find a good balance and get more used to your skills. Fighting together with other players and helping them out really felt good too. From time to time the lag did cause a little trouble, but overall I had a very good experience during this BWE.

Guild Wars 2 is definitely a MMORPG which is easy accessible. I think the new skill bar will definitely help first time MMORPG players ease into it. But the game also has the elements that appeal to the more veteran MMORPG player. I’ve added a few screens of the Hero panel in a slider for those who are interested. In the Hero panel you can check out your armor and switch to town clothing (01, 02). There’s an overview of your weapon skills (03) and slot skills (04). Unfortunately my character didn’t have access to traits due to her lower level. You can keep an eye on your personal story (05). There’s some very handy information for those who enjoy crafting (06). No need to look things up on the wiki to find out how much of A you need to make B! And of course there are achievements (07). I’ve only added the daily achievement screen, but as you can see there are many categories. I’m actually looking forward to unlocking some titles!

During the Beta Weekend Event I managed to check out a Player versus Player tutorial and tried a little bit of World versus World. The PvP tutorial was nice and actually quite safe, but WvW was truly awesome and very bloody! I did get killed, but it was so much fun to fight together with my fellow Home World players. I think I need more experience with the game via Player versus Environment before I jump back into WvW. I definitely plan on being an active WvW player once the full game is released.

I’m really happy ArenaNet gave us the possibility to join this BWE and I trust that it will help them to further polish the game for release. I’m looking foward to the next Beta Weekend Event next month and I hope we will be able to try out the Sylvari and Asura races. Be sure to keep an eye on my Guild Wars 2: Beta Weekend Event post where I will keep my BWE Diary updated!

Guild Wars 2 is developed by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft

I explored this part of Guild Wars 2 BWE as a female human mesmer with a nobility background. Because players can make different decisions during character creation and can choose how to reaction on certain ingame events, my experience will differ from the experience of other players.

The Story Begins

Divinity’s Reach – the capital of Kryta and home for humans. Being a noble in the city is good, but Anaïs [pc] still wants to make herself useful and support the people living in the city. She wants to go into the world and proof she can fight to defend her city. When centaurs attack the village of Shaemoor it’s the perfect opportunity for Anaïs to start her story, her adventure, her legend.

It is already night when Anaïs arrives in Shaemoor, rain is pooring out of the skies and the heavy winds sweep down on the village. The village is under attack and the Seraph are struggling to keep the villagers safe. While finding refuge in the inn Anaïs overhears a Seraph soldier requesting aid from Sergeant Walters. The centaurs are launching an attack on the garrison and Captain Thackeray needs help. Walters can’t spare any of her soldiers, but Anaïs steps up and volunteers to defend the garrison.

The garrison is full under attack as a wave of centaurs is trying to breach the gate. Anaïs manages to fight off the attack and reaches the garrison only to find out another wave is incoming! This time Modniir High Sage, a centaur champion, leads the attack and summons a greater earth elemental. The giant Hands of Ulgoth smash down on Anaïs and her fellow fighters. With Captain Tackery leading the counter attack they manage to defeat the massive hands. As it explodes the shockwave knocks down Anaïs leaving her unconscious.

A few days later Anaïs wakes up in the presence of a Priestess of Dwayna. The priestess tells her she was unconscious for three days, but during that time a lot of people have visited Anaïs. The villagers she rescued, some Seraph, even a noble from the city who came by more than once. Anaïs immediately thinks of Lord Faren and smiles, he’s a good friend. The priestess says Anaïs has been blessed by Dwayna and suggests she could help out the other villagers getting back on their feed too. Anaïs agrees and sets out to explore Shaemoor.

Watchman Rebec fills in Anaïs about the current situation in Shaemoor Fields and the various points of interest. If Anaïs wants to help out the villagers she only has to aim for their hearts ♥

After spending time in the fresh air and getting her hands dirty Anaïs receives a message from her friend Lord Faren. He is eager to see the hero of Shaemoor. Even though Lord Faren acts like a cad, he did visit Anaïs when she was unconscious. Anaïs knows she can’t refuse her old friend and heads back to Divinity’s Reach.

Lord Faren is happy to see Anaïs and immediately brings her to the welcome home party he has organized for her. The other nobles have also come and after the standard chit chat Anaïs and Faren are ready to leave. But just as they prepare the leave bandits crash the party and attack the guests! Anaïs loses sight of Faren and after defeating the bandits she finds out he has been kidnapped. Luckily Anaïs can pick up the trail and frees Faren from one of the nearby houses. He mentions the bandits were planning to take him somewhere else like the others. They have to find out who is behind this attack!

Faren and Anaïs meet up at an abandoned farmhouse in Shaemoor Fields. It looks like nobody is home, but soon they discover the basement leads to a secret bandit hideout! The two manage to defeat the bandits and free the prisoners. One of the captured servants mentions he was able to get his hands on a letter. It seems someone was pulling the strings and gave the bandits the order to kidnap people! Faren recognizes the paper is handmade and can only be purchased from Cin Fursarai by someone with deep pockets.

If a rich person in Divinity’s Reach was behind this attack, Anaïs and Faren should definitely involve the Seraph! Fortunately Captain Tackery and the Seraph show up to help the rescued servants. Tackery is not surprised to see the hero of Shaemoor managed to rescue the servants and listens carefully when Anaïs voices her concerns. It is indeed a matter for the Seraph, but putting a Seraph on the case could get in the way of things. Anaïs volunteers to do some digging and find out exactly who purchased the handmade paper. The plot thickens!

Thoughts

I truly enjoyed my first hours in Tyria! I love how the personal story really takes you by the hand and leads you through the storyline of Guild Wars 2. The story grabbed me from the first moment I stepped into the world and had to fight the centaurs! It really kept me curious what would happen next and motivated me to continue to play and try to find out.

But, players are not able to solely focus on doing personal story missions. When you reach a certain point in your personal story you really need to be stronger to successfully complete a mission. For someone who is very focused on unraveling the storyline this can be hard, because you still need to go out and level up *gulp*

Fortunately players do not need to fear needing to grind! There are so many different things to do in Guild Wars 2 which reward you with XP. You can help villagers, even discovering the various locations in a city rewards you with XP. While I was exploring Divinity’s Reach I was so overwhelmed by the scale and beauty of the city. When I found out I actually earned XP by walking around it made things even more awesome.

I hope you also enjoyed this small teaser of the personal story in Guild Wars 2. I will share my thoughts about the gameplay & technics in my next post!

Guild Wars 2 is developed by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft

Human Character Creation

During this BWE players can only play as a human, charr and norn. I decided to start off with a female human. I took screens of the various professions you can choose and included them in the slider above.

Creating My Female Mesmer Anaïs

I’m a big fan of the mesmer profession! I’m glad they can also wield swords and pistols next to using their mesmer skills. Once the full game is released I also plan on creating a female human mesmer with a nobility background. So of course I had to create this character to see if I would enjoy playing as a mesmer. I’ve added screens of the various steps during the creation process in the slider below.

I’m really impressed by the many character creation options! A character starts with basic armor which is much less elaborate than the armors worn by the characters during profession selection (01, 02). Next step is to adjust body features height and physique. I love how ArenaNet included various body types, not everyone wants to be slender. I didn’t stray much from the default, but did pick a body type that shows a little more muscle (03, 04, 05). Moving on to the head options where you can adjust face & skin color and hair styles & color (06, 07). Even if you don’t like certain features in a face, you don’t need to worry. You can adjust all that later! Loving the many skin color options, in most games it’s always difficult to get that hue right. There are enough decent hair options, but I do miss more hairstyles with ornaments or accessories.

Now the magic starts! Adjusting your face details truly gives you the opportunity to personalize your character and make it stand out from the crowd! You can really tinker with the setting for eyes, nose, mouth, and chin & jaw! (08, 09, 10) The overall character is now finished, time to pick out the colors of your basic armor (11, 12, 13). After you’re done with the looks of your character, you finish the character creation process with writing your biography. The first questions relates to an aesthetic aspect of your character (14). The second question relates to your initial personality. Are you dignfied, a charmer or a brute? During the game your personality will develop depending your interaction with NPCs in the game (15). The final three questions are about the opinions and experiences of your character (16, 17, 18). Done (19) !

Due to the server and login issues on the first day of the Guild Wars 2 BWE I wasn’t able to experience real gameplay with my newly created character. Since the BWE started at 9pm in The Netherlands I decided to go to bed early and try my luck during the next day. Fortunately I was able to get a good taste of the personal story of my character on Guild Wars 2: Beta Weekend Event – Day 2 !

Guild Wars 2 is developed by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft