Fansite GuildWars Guru has gathered lots of details about the next Guild Wars expansion (Eye of the North) and Guild Wars 2. Most of the intel can be traced back to a PC Gamer article (from the futuristic-sounding May edition).

First of all, Guild Wars: Eye of the North. This won't be just a next chapter as it won't provide new classes and it will require at least one of the previous Guild Wars Chapters (Guild Wars, Factions or Nightfall) to run, it's not stand-alone then. It will also have a lower price than the previous games and it does give the player 150 new skills, 40 new armour sets, about 10 new heroes which can join your cause and three new Acts to venture through. Eye of the North will be the link between Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2.

Guild Wars 2 then, this project promises to be a lot different from the first game. There will be four playable races (opposed to only humans in GW there is now the choice between Sylvari, Asuras, Charr and Norn), not as much instancing as before (being replaced a bit with persistent though meaningful chained events), bigger PvP matches and overhauled environment and control mechanics (you should be able to jump/slide/swim in GW2).

Events will be meaningful for everyone, even for low-level characters (though there will either be no level cap or a big level cap (100 or so)). Of course, the most important feature of the original game remains: NO monthly fees, although it's likely that (mini-)expansions will make up for that. DirectX 10 is supported but will luckily not be a requirement.

GW2 will go into beta around next year, Eye of the North should be out at the end of 2007. And yes, the original Guild Wars will be kept free and supported, even when the sequel arrives.

Almost too much to put in a newspost so check it out at GuildWars Guru or in the latest PC Gamer issue.

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