Many MMO's have come along since WoW in an attempt to compete with the beast, but they pretty much all have failed. Some of the bigger releases, such as Warhammer and AION may have managed to pull some players in their direction, but even then, a large portion of those people ended up going back to WoW after a couple months. It's a sad cycle, but compared to other MMO's, WoW just does too many things right. For now anyway.

Aside from Blade & Soul, there's another upcoming MMO that's been in the works for quite a few years now. Guild Wars 2. And yes, it looks AMAZING. Now some people may think "Psh, yeah right. Guild Wars 1 sucked!" I gave part 1 a shot, and I'll admit, I wasn't a huge fan of it. It was decent, but it just didn't hook me. Guild Wars 2, though, has me hooked already.

Combat looks awesome

First off, the combat in Guild Wars 2 looks like a blast! It's a mix between standard MMO controls with action game elements. Players can actually dodge! And no, I don't mean you have a chance to dodge, based on an invisible roll of the dice along with your dodge percentage. There's an actual button that lets you evade. To me, this is a HUGE step in the right direction for how these games should play. Along with that, there's no auto-attacking in Guild Wars 2. Your character will not attack unless you use a skill. Yeah, it'll be a bit less ezmode, sorry. Sadface.

There's five unique races to choose from when making a character. Sylvari are the elf-like, nature loving race. The Norn are proud, shape-shifting brutes. Charr are blood thirsty, dog men who wish to conquer. Asura; very small, magicians and alchemists. And of course, the standard humans.
 

Big Daddy? O_o

So far, four classes have been announced (Ranger, Elementalist, Warrior, and Necromancer), with another four yet to be revealed. Along with the combat requiring players to be more responsive than most MMO's, actually building your character will also require a lot of thought.

Your character will only be allowed to have ten skills equipped at a time. Of these ten, five of them will be preset, depending on both your class, and what weapon you have equipped. The other five, you pick yourself, according to your play style, and if it's going to be anything like Guild Wars 1, there will be plenty of skills to choose from. This feature alone makes customizing your character a lot more fun in my opinion. The possibilities will be endless, and even though I'm sure there will be "cookie-cutter" builds eventually, there will still be a ton of variety in the classes.

The Elementalist has a wide range of spells

Another change to the standard MMO formula is the questing system. From what I've read, quests are replaced by "dynamic events", which randomly happen as you're out and about in the world. Also, depending on how you respond to these events, NPC's will react to you in different ways. Help a farmer fight bandits off his land, and you'll be renowned to him as a hero. Turn your back on the situation, and... who knows? He might become a super-powered demon and try to kill you one day. A bit exaggerated, but you get the point. This system will add a lot to your overall experience as you level up, hopefully making it more fun, rather than a chore.

In the Blade & Soul Preview I did previously there wasn't much known about the game at that time.  With a promise from the developers that this years G-Star would show a playable demo I was excited.  G-Star this year exceeded my expectations.  A lot of questions were answered and I finally got to see some actual gameplay.  I could go into lots of detail about what makes this different from the average MMO.  I think though instead of me telling you about it, I should show you.  Here is the official Blade & Soul G-Star 2010 trailer!



One of the most exciting things about that trailer is that they announced the Assassin.  They seem to be exactly what you'd expect from an Assassin, they are very agile and sneaky.  The Assassin is able to use stealth to get the jump on the enemy and even set traps.

There was also a live demo shown with lots of gameplay footage.  Finally I got to see how the game actually plays and I was impressed overall.  You use your typical w a s d f keys to move and you double tap to dash.  Your able to run pretty fast and jump 20 feet in the air and glide down almost like your flying.  The game has an auto targeting system that will target the closet enemy for you.

There are lots of different attacks, abilities, and combos that you can do in the game.  That doesn't mean that you have to learn a lot of buttons or have a cluttered UI either.  The game has a branching skill system that dynamically changes based on the context of the skill you just used or the enemy.  There are a separate set of combos and skills for when the enemy is at a range, in the air, on the ground, or knocked down.  These videos showing you the different classes and their skills will show you what I mean:


I really like the way the combat is almost like a fighting or action game.  You're able to parry, counter, air combo, grab and throw your enemies.  So far they haven't shown any PVP only PVE footage.  They have mentioned that it will have PVP but haven't disclosed any details on it yet.  Watching PVE in an MMO is a bit boring to me so hopefully we'll see some PVP action soon.  I would have liked the combat to be a little bit quicker for my tastes.  It's already a lot faster than most MMO's out there, just a little bit more and I think it would be perfect.  To be fair the gameplay was for demoing purposes and it only showed PVE, also the game isn't completed yet. 

The game is looking pretty good though for not being completed, they still have more time to add features and more polish.  Unfortunately there hasn't been any word yet for when the beta starts or a release date.  The G-Star event is still going on through the weekend so I'll add updates to this if anything major happens.  I'll leave you with one more video showing off a demonstration of the game being played with the developer talking about it:


(It's a long video you can skip to 3:00 if you want, that's when the gameplay starts.  If a translated version gets posted I'll replace this one.)

So what did you think?  Blade & Soul is looking pretty good huh?  I really hope more MMOs start to go in a more action style of gameplay.  I think it will help to revitalize the genre.  Guild Wars 2 is also looking really good, check out the preview by Nightmarz

I've been keeping an eye on Blade & Soul since the first trailer I saw back in 2008.  I've been retired from playing MMO's for a few years now and didn't really have an interest in going back.  Word of Warcraft was the last one that I played hardcore and got burned out on it.


Blade & Soul might just be the one that gets me to play another MMORPG again.  I'm still a little leery it is a Korean MMO which are notorious for heavy grinding.  I'm hoping this one will be different.  Check out the gameplay videos below it looks like it plays like an action game.  The game producer Jae Hyun Bae says that it breaks a lot of the traditional MMO rules:

A nice scenery picture

A fantasy martial arts game inspired by Asian culture in artwork, mythology, and combat.  It definitively has a unique look and feel to it.  I really like the art style and the graphics they both look gorgeous.  It's not surprising with Hyung-tae Kim (Magna Carta) as the art director.  He uses a art style called manhwa you can think of it like Korean manga style drawing.  It's a very expressive style that exaggerates feminine and masculine features.

As of right now there are 4 announced classes: Blade Master, Destroyer, Kung-Fu Master, and Force Master.  Going by the class trailer (you can watch it below) it seems that there will be a summoner type class, as well as a ranged class that uses guns but they aren't confirmed yet.  They have also shown 4 types of races you can choose from: Jin, Kun, Gon, and Lyn.

Kick, punch, it's all in the mind

The combat in it looks brutal especially when you see the Destroyer or Kung-Fu Master in action.  As you would have guessed it they use brute force to annihilate their foes.  The Destroyer seems to be like a tanking class that can soak up tons of damage.  But that doesn't mean that they can't dish it out too.  They wield a huge two handed axe and aren't shy about using it.


The other two classes the Blade Master and Force Master have to use more finesse to destroy their foes.  That however doesn't make them weak .  The Blade Master seems to be more agile than the other classes and able to attack much quicker and do aerial combos.  They are also able to summon several floating swords that they can launch as projectiles at their foes.

Picture of Blade Masters swords

The Force Master is kinda like a traditional mage with a martial arts twist.  They can cast very powerful spells and don't have to stand still while they do it.  From firing smaller rapid energy balls to slower giant ones (think spirit bomb) they seem to be pretty deadly.  In one part of the trailer they grabbed a Kung-Fu Master that was leaping at them mid-air with a Darth Vader like force choke and flung them back.

I'm pretty excited about this one but I'm not fully convinced yet.  There hasn't been any real gameplay footage yet just trailers (although awesome ones).  That should change soon though later this month at G-Star 2010.

The developers have said they will be showing a playable demo so we'll finally get to see some real gameplay in action.  Be sure to check back afterwords for more impressions on the game and gameplay footage.  While we wait be sure to check out these trailers, you'll be glad you did:




Blade & Soul hopefully will be out sometime next year or at least start it's beta phase soon.  It's rumored that it's coming to PS3 but nothing is set in stone.  The developers have expressed interests in putting it on consoles and said it was possible.  We'll wait and see what G-Star holds this year.

UPDATE:

Here is are my impressions for Blade & Soul G-Star 2010