As I write this, I have two songs in my head: 1990 by Jean Leloup and 2001 by Melissa Etheridge.

How fast time has passed by. 2009 is at the corner and I’ve done my best at not thinking about it, and especially not thinking about some upcoming projects. I tend to be insominiac and I avoid sources of insomnia for my well being and excitment is one of them.

The Secret World
A few words have come out recently about the game, at the beginning of 2009, there should be finally an official website and a PR. Some parts of the game are near completion, others still in development and right now they’re implementing RPG and combat system to the game.

I really hope this time Funcom will have learned their lessons and deliver a well polished finished game with The Secret World. The fact that the leads behind The Secret World are not the same as Age of Conan is promising but with their reputation pretty much ruined when Age of Conan came out, they should make their best to be forgiven with The Secret World.

Guild Wars 2

At first we were told we would get beta news end of 2008 but it was changed to 2009. The only informations about Guild Wars 2 are scarce and no information about the game has come up since. I fell in love with the game when it came out may 2005, a genuine fantasy world and lore, one of the rare few that is not heavily inspired by Tolkien. The story of Guild Wars 2 happens 250 years after what happens in the expansion Eyes of the North. Unlike the first Guild Wars, many races will be playable in Guild Wars 2 and my favorite race is among the short list: the Charr (Link 1 + Link 2). The Dwarves will become extinct and won’t be a part of Guild Wars 2, so their only Tolkien element in Guild Wars will be non-existant in Guild Wars 2. So far, the official list of playable races has five races: Humans, Charr, Norns, Asuras and Silvaris. Whether there will be more races is unknown. The game will have no monthly fee again and apparently it will be persistent with some instances left for missions and dungeons.

So while we will get the same areas, after 250 years things will be entirely different and we will have to rediscover again the beloved areas.
Considering ArenaNet has done a very good job with Guild Wars I have a lot of hope with Guild Wars 2, they delivered a top notch well polished game with constant support, listened to their community of players even without having an official forums (many suggestions done by the players on fan forums were implemened in Guild Wars), etc. And I hope as well the graphics and art style will be even more gorgeous then they aready are.

More links:

Link 1

Link 2

This is a past blog entry from my gaming blog on Multiply.