GameStar preview: Riding INSIDE wurms?!

German magazine GameStar have a preview for Nightfall. The preview is mostly the same as the PC Gamer preview (check this thread), but unlike PC Gamer the GameStar preview is available online. It's in German though, so prepare for some babelfish gibberish. There are also a few screenshots that I have not seen before (only scenery, not monsters).

There is one detail about the wurms that caught my attention: The "badlands" are a hazardous area with poisonous sulfur pits. Walking on the ground means quick death. To travel through the badlands you will ride inside (yes, that's what it says!) huge wurms with 3000 HP. This is to protect you from the hazardous environment. Huh, can it be any more hazardous than the inside of a wurm? Not exactly cosy, isn't it? Can I book "first class" to redeem some mileage? You know, first class passengers always sit in the front, near the cockpit, so you may be able to see some impressive jaws, whereas economy passengers sit near the rear end, where it smells like wurm doodoo.

There goes the dream of those who envisioned "mounting" a wurm Paul Atreides style.

Yeah when I haerd about this I was like "WTH?". But I'm very interested in how it's gonna look . Can wurms travel over ground btw?

Mending shall protect you!

Worm entrance ticket = infused.

Can my necro come? His armor is pretty pointy...

Yes but necro's must use the rear entrance.

i can imagine it now

*uninfused newbie get swallowed*
*dies*
player 3: omg noob
player 8: restart and kick -_-

Wait, we're going to ride inside the wurms, not on their backs?!

Ewwww. I can imagine wurm saliva everywhere @_@

Yeah, they tell us this in the PCG preview. When you get to your destination, the worm throws you up. Mmmm, worm bile.

The wurms are for traveling through the "sulfur pits", and take damage when on solid ground (although, with 3,000 hp (?!?) it'll be interesting to see how far a wurm could go!).

You'll have control of the wurm, and have access to special "wurm skills."

I know this will only be a small part of Nightfall, but if it's any indication to the originality of missions and quests as a whole, this is going to be one awesome game!

This is really interessting too I think. I'll try to translate :P

A new Special Thing is that your map will never stay unfogged for long. As soon as you restart a mission, the fog will be back.

Hope I translated understandable :P What do you people think about this? What about the explorer title?

EDIT: Thanks Mordakai I missed that part ^^ Thank god.

I hope they are just confused about the "Realm of Torment", which can't be mapped at all?

Otherwise, that would suck big time, and I doubt it's a feature.

EDIT: according to http://babelfish.yahoo.com/translate_txt

"A further characteristic of the instances in this area: Their map is never durably uncovered. As soon as you tackle a mission again, again fog lies above it."

Any idea which "area" this is (if not Realm of Torment?)

Swallowed by a wurm? Forget that. I wanna triumphantly walk into the wurms mouth. Just like Jack Sparrow did in the second Pirates movie when he walked into a Kraken's mouth. It didn't eat him. He walked right in its mouth on his own terms!

Either way anet should take notes and realize why mounts are sooooooo popular!

need more mounts in the game. I am sure more will come

Dreamhunk, you crack me up.

The "wurms" sound great, but I don't necessarily want to see this idea copied in future games.

As long as Anet keeps thinking of new ideas of gameplay like this, though, I think we're golden.

is there Gray Giant cdkey in Gamestar?

That made me think of some final fantasy game... number 10 I think, not sure. You fight some big ol' worms who eat one character at a time, then spew them out again. Yummie.

I have always wanted to ride a Shai'Hulud (a sand worm) after reading Dune But not necessarily on the inside of it :/

Since Elona is connected to the Crystal Desert, it will probably be sandwurms we'll be riding in...

http://gw.gamewikis.org/wiki/Image:Sandwurm.JPG

Teeth and all.

There was a nub snake in FF7 that did that too. ;|

WTF they have infused Armour, Why not make Somehting Simmilar for the badlands?

yeah for one, id like to say that there must be someone of importance at ANet who is a hardcore GWAR fan... add this to the list of pop culture references in GW.

The article also mentions that we will control the wurm, not only directionally, but its very skills to boot.

I and O are close on the keyboard, lets hope it was a typo.

What, riding "onside" wurms?

No, it's not a typo, the wurm swallows you whole (putting you a a special "cockpit" I'm imagining )

Otherwise, it wouldn't offer much protection if you were sitting on top, being exposed to dangerous chemicals and such. (as opposed to be sitting inside the specially designed "cockpit", with wurm leather seats and wurm juice for refreshment....)

ewww.

I'll give a rough overview...

The first page is mostly useless and uninteresting chit chat about the weather in germany and seattle and that the magazine wasn't idle but instead spend time with A-Net, having a look at Nightfall.

The second page offers a few look into the mood an scenery of Nightfall. The kingdom of Elona was mostly left alone by the chaos that was raging in Cantha and Tyria but that is about to change as tentacles sprawl all over the kingdom. An invincible enemy approaches and turns the sky dark, threating the people, the gods, everything.
The all too soon realisisation is that to beat this foe, he must be killed at its root. And that is where we are going.

The next part on page 2 is about the stronger focus of Nightfall towards PVE as opposed to the PVP oriented Factions.

The third page gives a rough overview of the game itself. Starting with a description of the areas we are about to face. The tutorial is once again placed on an island. Once we have beaten the tutorial the game leads us onto the mainland were we first start in a peaceful looking riverside province. On the sandy ground are north african looking housings.

The next part will be in a savannah, still looking somewhat like the province before but will shine with insane viewing distances. We'll often stumble upon temples of the gods, also looking epic and monumental.

The next part will be the highlands. The look is now mostly dominated by an oriental look with playful decorations and detail.

The next part yet again wil be the badlands. Scarred lands with traces of brimstone everywhere - dangereous enough that a few steps within will mean certain death. That's basically why you're travelling these lands inside of a wurm who is immune to the brimstone (greetings to dune :P). The wurm will have a total of 3000 hitpoints and sport totally different skills from your character.
This wurm is the mini variant of the wurms that we have in the crystal desert by the way. So similarities are wanted.

The last part will be the realm of torment. This is were the threat lives and you'll have to face literately nightmares. Hills made out of insects and corpses, eyes staring at you, bloodstreams flowing down a mountain.
And a speciality of these areas is that the minimap allway recovers itself once you restart a mission.

Nice sidefact:
During the gameplay you will revisit earlier visited places and notice changes upon the landscape as the threat emerges even while playing and fighting it and changes the landscape the more you advance into the game.


Fourth page:
Nightfall will have it's own intro animation, unlike factions which did throw us straight into the game. Our role in fighting the evil will be clear from the beginning. The characters will look more realistic with lip synch and emotions on their face during cutscenes.
Plus there is a lot less to read but much more to hear for us. Most parrts will now be told instead of forcing us to read through lengthy text passages.

Fifth page:
New heroes. Yes, there will be new heroes. Early in the game for example you'll meet a warrior called Koss that will accompany us in the later missions. Each henchmen will have his/her own history and motivation to fight, a-net even hints a romance.

You're allowed to bring up to 3 heroes into the instance. The nice thing about these heroes, you can control them. You can give them orders for example telling the monk to purely heal or telling the elementalist to rather stay back instead of playing Alesia.

So this is how a real party in Nightfall might look like. 4 Players and 2 heroes each, or maybe 2 players and 3 heroes each. The heroes of the other teams will by the way be named neutral as not to have 4 different Koss in your team.
And don't panic, who gives a f*** about micro management can still command them the old way - strg and space.

Six Page:
Interface Rework. Basically. Most parts will be merged with others and controlled via drop down menus. The whole interface gets another facelift. Your secondary class is changable everytime - right where you are standing and you can switch to your heroes menus everytime (the other heroes, not the other players).
Plus there will be a new PVP Battle, the Hero versus Hero battle. 1 Player, X Heroes, Fight.

Seventh Page:
The last is mainly about the new classes with no new news.

thanks for the overview.

"Plus there is a lot less to read but much more to hear for us. Most parts will now be told instead of forcing us to read through lengthy text passages."

I like this. Those pop-up conversations in Factions were, perhaps, the worst thing I've ever encountered in Guild Wars. They went on way too long, and you'd invariably end up in a battle, furiously clicking to dismiss the things so you could fight!

I like the more details on the Heros, including "hints of romance"? I wonder if we're talking about having to "attract" our heros... that would be cool, but maybe not the direction Anet wants to go.

Any more info on the Hero's professions?

So far, we know that:

Koss is a male warrior.

Acolyte Sousake is an Elementalist. (according to PC gamer)

Morgahn is a female Dervish (according to preview videos we've seen)

Anyone else confirmed?

i think its interesting that the heros (and players) are the ones who dont want to convert to Dhuum-ism. You wont be able to just see the land darken and become twisted, you will also see the people become infected with darkness too.

It would be really cool if you could decide to join Dhuum (or whoever this outcast god is).

I know that will never happen, but maybe a future Guild Wars product will really let us push our characters to the "dark side." (ala KOTOR, or Fable)

Ridding Inside wrums? Its Just corny. Seriously, CORNY. Hopefully they'll just change it... if its even true.

You can't ride Above Ground, So What Exactly? You'll miss part of the decore? How Will you be able to farm? Hopefully this is just for a quest untill you get a Dune - Like Armour.

For people who wanted randomly generated areas, there you go. The Land of Torment.

Sure you can farm. The wurm eats the equipment, which you then pick up.

Yes, it's a quest reward, and it's only useful for exploring the sulfur/brimstone pits (depending on the translation you prefer).

I don't think you'll get armor... that would defeat the purpose of the wurm, now wouldn't it?

Anyway, I think this sounds cool, and I hope they didn't ruin the neatness of it by revealing it.

I can see it now. Look at THOSE Dhuumies!!

Can't wait to do my wurmy quest >_<

I hope one of the wurm skills is "pop up and make that creepy noise"...

you can use a sunddering 20/20 with +30 health weapon for additional protection :P

I don't think you actually see the worm guts... Think of it as a vehicle, you become the worm and control it.

Concept art.


...You know, sort of.

I just hope to once go under water for a mission or smth [we all know that our chars don't drawn "/sit in the water "], not just land, land, land ;D

Lets just hope that there is going to be a gargantuan monster out there to fight while inside said Wurms.

Lets extend the concept to the Shiverpeaks - I quite fancy taking a trip through Dreadnaught's whilst controlling Maw The Mountainheart.