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Guild Wars 2 Concept Art Surfaces, Reveals Surprise

N

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
Recently Into The Pixel updated its site with its 2009 art collection, revealing two pieces of concept artwork for Guild Wars 2. One of the pieces is mislabeled as a piece from Guild Wars 1, but ArenaNet's community manager confirmed it's from Guild Wars 2 as well. The first shot was exactly what I was expecting out of Guild Wars 2, but the second, now that one was surprising.

2v7xvg3.jpg


2qk8g9z.jpg


Really puts a perspective on the timeline of 250+ years after Guild Wars 1, doesn't it?

Source: http://www.guildwarsguru.com/forum/showpost.php?p=4669313&postcount=32

Into The Pixel 2009: http://www.intothepixel.com/artwork/2009_contest_winners.asp

More Kekai Kotaki (First Artist) Art: http://cghub.com/images/view/25130/page:1
 
It's official concept art. I remember it puzzling me at the time since I couldn't remember where, especially in the second shot, this fit into Guild Wars.
 
Actually, is it just me or has the Guild Wars art NEVER looked like the game itself?
 
Guild Wars always has such awesome environmental concept art. I'm so glad I got all three CE boxes with the artbooks.

That second one's definitely kicked my interest up a notch or two, though. If a good chunk of the game is that sort of thing instead of the generic Euro-fantasy of Tyria, I'll probably give it a go despite my other misgivings.

Ether_Snake said:
Actually, is it just me or has the Guild Wars art NEVER looked like the game itself?
Click to expand...
No, I think they actually do a really good job of capturing the look of it. There just ends up being a pretty big disparity in fidelity because the concept art is always ultra-detailed and GW1 was always designed for fairly modest PCs.
 
Looks promising. I'll probably give it a shot, especially if it launches on Steam. I'm yet to find an MMO that really clicks with me past the two month period, but oh well.
 
Wow...that was surprising. The first game was awesome, looking forward to the second one...and hopefully staying free.
 
Ooooh, Guild Wars. My first and only MMO. I fell out of it a long time ago, but I can't wait for #2. That art looks nice too I guess.
 
Meh, I'll only jump into an MMO if the PvP is good. They did an excellent job balancing the metagame for a long time, until the number of skills became far too many (Magic: The Gathering style).

I know they said they'd address this, but I also remember reading that now they'll incorporate jumping (a la WoW). Depending on how much they emulate from WoW, this could drastically change the reason why I enjoyed GW1's PvP.
 
Coxswain said:
Guild Wars always has such awesome environmental concept art. I'm so glad I got all three CE boxes with the artbooks.

That second one's definitely kicked my interest up a notch or two, though. If a good chunk of the game is that sort of thing instead of the generic Euro-fantasy of Tyria, I'll probably give it a go despite my other misgivings.


No, I think they actually do a really good job of capturing the look of it. There just ends up being a pretty big disparity in fidelity because the concept art is always ultra-detailed and GW1 was always designed for fairly modest PCs.
Click to expand...

Yeah, Arena Net has some of the best artists around, but the game can't match the level of art seen in the concepts for simple tech limitation reasons, apart from how much harder it is to do something like that in 3d... but they definitely do as good a job they can at making something that looks like the concepts, except is in 3d and meets the limits of the engine (which, in Guild Wars 1's case, was designed to run on computers from as far back as 2001 or so).

As for the art, the first one's great, but I'm not so sure about the second... mixing fantasy and sci-fi isn't always a great idea. Sometimes it can work (Star Wars), but often it just comes off weird... it depends on how it's done. Whose tech is that? It would be very hard to believe that they went from where they were to that in just 250 years, that looks very advanced... whose is it? What place, race, species, whatever? I wonder... (but my first reaction still is to say 'it should stay as just fantasy', but we'll see. I'm sure they'll come up with good reasoning, they usually do.)

... Awesome to see something of the game, though. It's been quite a while... :)
 
I'm quite puzzled by the second pic. 250 years is too short a time period for such a drastic jump in tech. I see high-rises in the distant horizon and that structure at the top looks like a space ship construction yard? Either way, I'm still waiting for this one and hope they Anet manages both the PvP and PvE communities in a better way this time around.
 
And here I thought this was some concrete super awesome news revealing something new about GW2 :(.
They sure are being quiet with this game, getting Alan Wake vibes here.

Also always liked the art from GW, but then a read this weird thread where people took a closer look at skill icons and stuff, and some of them "looked lik" totally rip-offs of things found on the internet :o. And now whenever I look at a GW wallpaper or something I just keep seeing cheap photoshopness in it D:.
Except for original art lik this though.
 
rexor0717 said:
Ooooh, Guild Wars. My first and only MMO. I fell out of it a long time ago, but I can't wait for #2. That art looks nice too I guess.
Click to expand...
GW is not an MMO, that said, this art looks hawt!
 
There were some rumors that the third GW campaign setting (what little of it ended up being The Eye of the North expansion.) had some kind of time traveling aspect to it. They could be using some of that in the new game, considering the modern-esque city scape.

2ugcgpc.jpg

Hub of Time concept for GW: Utopia.


If not, then I say it's Cantha, what little lore they've released says that the Canthans pretty much kicked everyone off their continent by the time of GW2 and have been fairly quiet since. More than enough room to spread the urban sprawl to new ridiculous levels. Either that or the Asurans got really, really, busy.

Either way I'm excited, I love GW!
 
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