Guild Wars 2 is one of the most beautiful video games that I’ve ever seen. Yet, I have zero desire to play it… none… zip… zilch! I’m so far away from Guild Wars right now that my main computer is a Mac. And yet, I saw something from ArenaNet that actually excited me — the Guild Wars 2 “Commando” profession. Now obviously, it’s an April Fool’s Joke. When the calendar hit 4/1/2011, I knew to limit my Internet activity. There’s just too much miss information out there. But 21 days later, I discovered ArenaNet’s little jest. The sad thing is that the joke is on ArenaNet. This is what their game should have been.
I was one of the biggest Guild Wars fans around. It’s still surprising to me that I simply hate the sequel. While the graphics look amazing, the lore is repulsive to me. I don’t get how the Charr can be allied with the humans. I’m also tired of the pseudo religions from fantasy worlds. That’s why the Commando was so refreshing.
• http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/commando/
In the “Sniper” video, there were no cheesy lines of dialogue. Combat didn’t involve a bunch of fruity colors swirling across the screen. It was just one shot and one kill. In the video “Night Vision”, a Charr gets knocked out. Heh, and I laughed at the “that’s a big chicken” line in the “Aerial Support” video. It just felt right. The humans were strong and the game didn’t take itself so seriously.
Maybe Jeff Strain was right. Maybe the world doesn’t need more dragons.
The funny thing about April Fools jokes is that they sometimes turn true… like before Michael Jordan returned to basketball… or when Think Geek launched the iCade. ArenaNet has been around for over a decade and they only have the one game. Perhaps this is testing the waters for expansions. What if ArenaNet released an MMOFPS?
After checking the company blog — skipping the first six boring articles with the word “Charr” in it — I found an explination behind the April Fools Day joke…
• http://www.arena.net/blog/goin-commando-with-horia-dociu
The article basically reads like this, “We’re sorry that Duke Nukem Forever will likely be on the market before Guild Wars 2, but we used our spare time to do something fun and cool. Repeat, this fun and cool stuff was not part of the plan. We had to do it on our own time.”
Guardian, Warrior, Ranger, Elementalist, Necromancer, Thief… those professions are boring to me. Watching the real promo videos only reminds me of why I dislike the franchise. Somethings wrong when a joke — completed with spare time — can generate more interest than the actual game content.