On the heels of their new Guild Wars 2 Races video, MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller spoke with Ree Soesbee, Eric Flannum and Dave Beetlestone about everything from the races video to the game world.

MMORPG.com:

The biggest question on everyone's mind is how will Guild Wars 2 be different from Guild Wars?

Eric Flannum:

Almost too many things to mention! Most if not all of the same philosophies behind the design of Guild Wars 1 were maintained for Guild Wars 2. However, once you take into account the major differences between the two games and start applying those philosophies, things tend to diverge quite a bit. The biggest differences include a fully persistent world, fully 3D engine, a less complex combat system with fewer overall skills, multiple playable races, and separate world servers. Each of these differences has an enormous impact on every decision we make from there.

One example of this was how the decision to have multiple playable races impacted the way we created armor for the game. In Guild Wars 1, every single profession had armor and animations that were specific to that profession. Multiplying the number of professions with the number of races in the game made it next to impossible for us to maintain the same armor system in Guild Wars 2. Because of this, we went to a much simpler armor system where professions use light, medium, or heavy armor. This has allowed us to provide each profession with a lot more diversity in what they can choose to wear. For example, in the past Rangers had to wear armor that tended to have a long coat and mask. They can still choose to wear an outfit that looks like that, but they now also have a much greater diversity of appearances to choose from.

Read the Exclusive Interview.

That sounds interesting, it gave me a mixed feel, but I'm sure they know what they're doing.

The guys from arenanet know what they are doing :) I guess they noticed they cannot afford it to make the same mistakes as other developers did te past few years. Guild Wars will become a great game!I can't wait to play  :D

I can't wait to play  this game i loved gw1 and gw2 is going to be really good and the under water areas sound awesome :)

One thing is the End game section. I wonder how they will do it, saying something along the lines of not having large raids. If i missed something let me know lol

I'm so glad to hear there's not going to be typical end-game raiding. GW1 never had much of a focus on gear grinding and by the sounds of that statement neither will GW2. Hopefully they'll find something original to keep players occupied in PvE. Does the game still not have a hard level cap as per the initial previews or have they changed that?

Originally posted by shadow050

One thing is the End game section. I wonder how they will do it, saying something along the lines of not having large raids. If i missed something let me know lol

I understood it as it was meant more like it was very casual. So it's not only a small amount of elite guilds that can do it. But it was kinda blurry.

I wonder what they mean with "a less complex combat system".

can't wait to play GW2... I'm so excited and trying to be patient -_-

Originally posted by Archemorous

I wonder what they mean with "a less complex combat system".

I think they were referring to the crazy number of skills in GW1. They've admitted it was too complicated, and often needlessly so as many skills did similar things, so they're cutting the numbers down. I doubt the actual combat itself will be simplified seeing as how the original was already very simple.

Originally posted by silenos

can't wait to play GW2... I'm so excited and trying to be patient -_-

We're all in the same boat. I would settle down for a long slow burn though, GW2 most likely will not release till 2011... :-)

Originally posted by lancelot76

Originally posted by silenos

can't wait to play GW2... I'm so excited and trying to be patient -_-

We're all in the same boat. I would settle down for a long slow burn though, GW2 most likely will not release till 2011... :-)

Good, because my hall of monuments is still too roomy.

great scoop there!
finally some questions answered

for better or worse, many changes in the original design of GW1 happened to GW2 cuz ANET listens to player suggestions

to me the most interesting bit was 3 kinds of end game! PvE and PvP is ofcouse included  as exspected but World vs World ?

what is that ? Different servers fighting each other ?

Originally posted by jondifool

to me the most interesting bit was 3 kinds of end game! PvE and PvP is ofcouse included  as exspected but World vs World ?

what is that ? Different servers fighting each other ?

Yup, there's a special PvP warzone called the mists in which 2 selected servers/worlds are pitted against each other in a campaign match with objectives and capturable locations, etc. The pairing up is on a rotation as well, so the other world you're facing changes regularly.

Effectively they've managed to make a faction based game without having opposing factions, simply by using the separate servers as factions.

I wish I could remember where the interview on The Mists was...

Originally posted by jondifool

to me the most interesting bit was 3 kinds of end game! PvE and PvP is ofcouse included  as exspected but World vs World ?

what is that ? Different servers fighting each other ?

Yeah, they said in another interview that there's a place called "the mists" which will feature large PvP battles with more than 100 players on each side, where you can capture outposts, hunt down caravans with siege material, etc etc. It'd likely be server vs server based, so I think they're referring to that.

Originally posted by iStyle

Originally posted by jondifool

to me the most interesting bit was 3 kinds of end game! PvE and PvP is ofcouse included  as exspected but World vs World ?

what is that ? Different servers fighting each other ?

Yeah, they said in another interview that there's a place called "the mists" which will feature large PvP battles with more than 100 players on each side, where you can capture outposts, hunt down caravans with siege material, etc etc. It'd likely be server vs server based, so I think they're referring to that.

So its basically like AV from WoW? (Sorry for the wow reference :P).

I'm glad they've kept endgame heavily on their minds. It sounds promising.

Originally posted by shadow050

Originally posted by iStyle

Originally posted by jondifool

to me the most interesting bit was 3 kinds of end game! PvE and PvP is ofcouse included  as exspected but World vs World ?

what is that ? Different servers fighting each other ?

Yeah, they said in another interview that there's a place called "the mists" which will feature large PvP battles with more than 100 players on each side, where you can capture outposts, hunt down caravans with siege material, etc etc. It'd likely be server vs server based, so I think they're referring to that.

 

So its basically like AV from WoW? (Sorry for the wow reference :P).

Sort of, except on a much larger scale and anyone of any level can jump in and help effectively.

Originally posted by Lydon

Originally posted by shadow050

Originally posted by iStyle

Originally posted by jondifool

to me the most interesting bit was 3 kinds of end game! PvE and PvP is ofcouse included  as exspected but World vs World ?

what is that ? Different servers fighting each other ?

Yeah, they said in another interview that there's a place called "the mists" which will feature large PvP battles with more than 100 players on each side, where you can capture outposts, hunt down caravans with siege material, etc etc. It'd likely be server vs server based, so I think they're referring to that.

 

So its basically like AV from WoW? (Sorry for the wow reference :P).

Sort of, except on a much larger scale and anyone of any level can jump in and help effectively.

I like that any level can join to help, kinda like Warhammer. Has there been a released level cap, or is it gonna be 20 again :P