Guild Wars 2 Game Designer Ben Miller provides us with an overview of the Guild Wars 2 Trait system today, and MMORPG.com's Michael Bitton breaks it down for us.

Traits were previously mentioned in the inaugural ArenaNet blog entry by ArenaNet studio head Mike O’Brien as granting players an additional layer of customization, such as being able to select the Stone Boots trait as an Elementalist to make your character immune to knockback effects.

We’ve learned a good deal more about traits today. So, what exactly are they?   “Traits make you better at what you choose to do.” explained Ben.  Traits can be acquired by completing certain profession challenges strewn throughout the game world, such as defeating a swordsman you meet at Divinity’s Reach in a duel, or discovering a tome filled with arcane knowledge, and each class masters their traits differently. For example, the highly physical Warrior fights, drinks, and eats to develop his traits, while the Elementalist seeks to fill herself with ancient knowledge.

Read the Trait system overview here.

So...LOTRO-esque trait systems, though in a different way, roughly.  Could be interesting, could be not.  Depends purely how big a PITA it is to grab the traits you need.  Will have to wait and see, I s'pose.

It appears to not do the lotro-esque grind-happy nature of "use X ability Y times for Z trait", which is a boon, but one of my bigger complaints out of GW1 was how spread out and, subsequently, hard to find/acquire skills in GW was.  Made building...builds....a nightmare.  Since they're subdividing traits into the paths a class has, and allowing to slot multiples, this will prove a fun system, I would hope, as long as they don't make it annoyingly painful to get the traits you wish to acquire.  Will have to see how it turns out, staying cautiously optimistic.

I'm going to play a Warrior for the simple fact you can apparently earn traits by drinking and eating. You can earn traits in real life doing this as well, such as the "Fat" trait, though this doesn't really help you much, unfortunately.

And I can't see how one can benefit from the 'Unyielding Vomit' Drinking trait to impress women and dignitaries (or even dignified women, in a pinch).

Being able to swap traits while out of combat and not having to head back to town is fantastic.   I'm also extremely heartened by the fact that each profession gets its own set to unlock and that there are 100 or more per profession.  It means not only replayability with new professions but plenty to do to flesh out maxed characters.

Originally posted by MikeB

I'm going to play a Warrior for the simple fact you can apparently earn traits by drinking and eating. You can earn traits in real life doing this as well, such as the "Fat" trait, though this doesn't really help you much, unfortunately.

 

 Hey! It means you can float better in water, who wouldn't want that?

Originally posted by Tyratops

Originally posted by MikeB

I'm going to play a Warrior for the simple fact you can apparently earn traits by drinking and eating. You can earn traits in real life doing this as well, such as the "Fat" trait, though this doesn't really help you much, unfortunately.

 

 Hey! It means you can float better in water, who wouldn't want that?

 

Jesus wouldn't, he doesn't need that trait.

Anyway, this pretty much addressed my worry regarding player customization - you'll have lots of different equipment to wield, resulting in a lot of different combinations, and to compensate for the supposed smaller number of skills in GW2, there will be traits besides the attribute points.

Sounds better and better

The fact that you have to earn a trait by doing unlocking *quests* is there as it should have been since it proves no inclination to easy-gaming carebear experience where you buy everything from trainer in cities like most other MMOs out there and its also refreshing:)

ANet just know what to do;) love 'em!

Lots of GW2 info today, i likey! Although i have little patience.

Words cannot explain how excited about this game, cant wait!

P.S. Charr Warriors look EPIC!!

Very nice. This really opens even more build possibilities.

And gaining these traits should be fun aswell (it was one of more fun parts of LOTRO)

Thank the gods that they won't be charging us for a respec or limiting it to outposts. The system sounds like a much richer one than I expected. I love that the acquisition of traits is quest based and relevant to the trait you are after, much more fun than going to buy it off a trainer.

Damn it's going to be so alt friendly, my RL will be over!

Seriously, just look at the write-ups of Warrior and Elementalist... there's so much to do just with the classes internally, that's without taking into account interactions with the world outside. I just love the mechanics they've set up here.

excellent, now release it soon :D

this should help avoid the boring cookie cutters that have dominated GW1.

from a different interview:

Traits do partially replace attributes in that they allow a player to customize their character beyond the choices they make with their skillbar. We do however have a set of attributes that more directly replace those that we had in Guild Wars 1.

Instead of being heavily profession oriented these attributes are more general, much like those you’d find in other RPGs.

Originally posted by Talthanys

And I can't see how one can benefit from the 'Unyielding Vomit' Drinking trait to impress women and dignitaries (or even dignified women, in a pinch).

Well, maybe you should watch the anime "Black lagoon", that is how our hero first impresses the female member of the group.

Anyways: I like this. Conan spend a lot of his time drinking in bars (that and gambling and wenching). He is pretty kick-ass so there must be something to it.

As for eating, I guess "Princess bride" tells us one use of it. The hero lets the bad guy select a glass of wine, he knows the hero has poisoned one of them. the hero however has poisoned both and eaten a little of the poison a long time to build up an immunity. Rather useful idea if you don't have that much concern for your health.

Also, gladiators were somewhat chubby, made it easier for them to survive wounds (and it looks cool when you cut them but you can avoid killing them). Being really fat is another matter. 

I'm glad there'll be so many of them. The system itself definitely makes up for any customization players may feel they have lost by weapons taking up skill slots.

Hopefully the trait system isn't grindy like LOTRO.... It get's old killing 30 then 60 and then 60 and 120 critters just to get traits.

Shouldn't be grindy, traits are gained by completing challenges. These are likely like more old fashioned quests than anything else in the game, but they seem to remind me of GW quests, which were epic and had lots of interesting story in them. Rarely were you ever told to 'kill 10 rats' in GW.

Sounds awesome. Seems to offer a lot of great options for customizing your build and creating exactly the playstyle you want for your class. I really like that they are unlockable through completing certain tasks, rather than just buying it from an NPC or hunting for random drops. So much for people's fears/assumptions that they were going to dumb down custom builds from GW1.

Getting better and better. If all this comes true, it will definitely become the top mmorpg for some time. If only it had the non-targetting system as well, the game would be unbeatable for the next 10 years. But there are those that love non-targetting (like me), and those that don't like it, so its good the way it is =) and it will be B2P like GW1...

What can we want more??? Arena.net knows how to work, no doubt!!!!