I’m actually a huge fan of Guild Wars even though I don’t play terribly much. I own Guild Wars and Guild Wars: Factions, and I used to play somewhat consistently – it’s probably the best “solo MMO” on the market – that is, it’s remarkably easy to play single-player if you don’t know anyone else playing the game.

Now, the folks at Arenanet have unveiled a trailer for the next iteration in the Guild Wars saga – they’ve been big on releasing expansions to add more content, but Guild Wars 2 indicates a move to more traditional MMO design, featuring persistent worlds instead of the original “instanced” world – where Arenanet only hosted the communal areas where players could meet up and form groups, after which one of the players, chosen at random, hosted the “instance” of the world that all of the grouped players interacted with.

I have to admit Guild Wars 2 looks really sweet, and considering the FAQ implies that it’ll still be free to play, it might be worth picking up. Personally, Guild Wars to me has always been a game I would play in addition to another MMO that I really dive into, like World of Warcraft, as opposed to a replacement – Guild Wars was never quite as immersive and interesting as other games (after all, you can’t swim or jump and the world is remarkably closed – the designers would put a building in a place, and have stairs lead up into that building, and if they didn’t want you to go in, it would just feel like a wall – you just couldn’t interact with it and would wind up running into it instead) but if the trailer is any indication, this could be a real improvement.

Check out the trailer in full-screen at YouTube here, or head over to the Guild Wars 2 promo site below.

[ Guild Wars 2 ]