Originally posted by Warband

We also wanted to give guilds more common purpose, so we’re including guild achievements, and placement in the world including guilds holding keeps in World vs World.
 

Oh wow, didn't know that. No idea how they'll implement it, but it certainly sounds cool.

Originally posted by cyphers

Originally posted by Warband

We also wanted to give guilds more common purpose, so we’re including guild achievements, and placement in the world including guilds holding keeps in World vs World.
 

Oh wow, didn't know that. No idea how they'll implement it, but it certainly sounds cool.

 Yeah didn't even notice that the first time I read through it months ago. Kinda interesting though, would like to see what directions A-Net decides to take guilds in guildwars 2

Originally posted by cyphers

Originally posted by Warband

We also wanted to give guilds more common purpose, so we’re including guild achievements, and placement in the world including guilds holding keeps in World vs World.
 

Oh wow, didn't know that. No idea how they'll implement it, but it certainly sounds cool.

Yeah, it's one of the things I just don't have any idea how they will implement in the game. After the demos are tested, reviewed and they solve what issues they could understand from them, they will probably gives us more information about World vs World, PVP, Lvl cap content and the contribution of guilds to the game.

About the rest of the classes, probably they will give us the info from time to time (a couple weeks/a month difference between them). IMO, they must have almost all of them already done, they are just keeping the info in order to give us some "food" from time to time while working in other features.

Wow :D lots of information!

World vs World/Complete replacement of quests with dynamic event system.

It's about time we stopped this long cycle of painful hellish repeatishness mmos,  Glad to know more about the game, I was blind about GW2, until the light has guided me to my glorious yet somewhat childish thoughts, of a perfect mmo (lol) Although ill still be hesitant, I don't need another huge letdown like warhammer gave me. o.O

Quite the excellent thread, I salute you good sir.

(wish I could say the same about my half - lazy post to such a glorious thread) :P

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Originally posted by Warband
Here's a nice bulk of information regarding guilds including browser guild chat.
"The word "Guild" in the Guild Wars franchise has always suggested the central role guilds would play in the game. As you have stated, Guild Wars 2 will in many ways be improvements to what you wished you could have done in GW1. In this regard, could you tell us what lessons you have learned from GW1? How will guild-related features be different from GW1?

Curtis Johnson: When we made GW1 we knew that guilds and community were essential parts of the online role play experience, so we made it easy to start a guild very early in the game and for players to keep those relationships going by including all their characters in the same guilds. 
 
For Guild Wars 2 we’re keeping that same focus on early connections. We’re making it easy to keep all your characters in one guild, but for GW2 we decided that more friends means more fun, so it will be possible to have different characters in different guilds.  We also wanted to give guilds more common purpose, so we’re including guild achievements, and placement in the world including guilds holding keeps in World vs World. We also want to make it easier to stay connected with your guild mates, so we’re introducing features like a guild calendar to make meeting and coordinating across time zones easier, and participating in guild chat from any web browser so you can stay in touch even when you can’t play."
http://www.incgamers.com/Interviews/250/guild-wars-2-developer-interview/2

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Thanks for hunting that down Warband, I'll add that to the OP, great stuff.

I don't know if it's of use, but here's some more information from the GW2Guru site:

– Tutorial takes about 20 minutes, after that you can jump into the next Asura Portal to meet with your friends.
- If everyone in the group experienced the same story, with the same decisions, they can choose if they want to let the next decisions count for the whole team or for a single person.
- If you enter a low-level area as a Level 80 character, you keep your equipment but your health and mana get scaled down. When you enter a high-level area as a low-level character, health and mana will scale up.
- You should only go into high-level areas as a low-level character when you’ve already played through the game on a different character, otherwise you run the risk of seeing spoilers.
- The finale is the same for every race

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Originally posted by cyphers
I don't know if it's of use, but here's some more information from the GW2Guru site:
 
– Tutorial takes about 20 minutes, after that you can jump into the next Asura Portal to meet with your friends.
- If everyone in the group experienced the same story, with the same decisions, they can choose if they want to let the next decisions count for the whole team or for a single person.
- If you enter a low-level area as a Level 80 character, you keep your equipment but your health and mana get scaled down. When you enter a high-level area as a low-level character, health and mana will scale up.
- You should only go into high-level areas as a low-level character when you’ve already played through the game on a different character, otherwise you run the risk of seeing spoilers.
- The finale is the same for every race

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thanks for that cyphers :)

I'm holding off a little on updating the original post, gamescom is going to throw out a lot of new info so I thought I'd do a larger update after we are a couple of days in :)

Yw :)

Plucked this from the GW2Guru site

Q&A Session with Eric Flannum-August 21, 2010.

Malchior's summary

There are not profession specific armors.

Racial skills are like the missing pieces that can be added to a build.

You can learn skills before you pick up a particular weapon.

You can respec attributes in the final version!!!

WvW will use the PvE version of skills. PvE/PvP split skill balance! (Called it)

No official hard mode. Dungeons are designed to be VERY difficult and will have multiple modes that will allow them to be repeatable.

Drawing on mini-map/pinging still exists; it can still be used for party communication.

Basic Guild Wars 2 mentions about personal story, anti-grind philosophy, etc... (stuff we know)

Shadow Behemoth is a level 15 creature/event

Dungeons, buildings, interior areas will have multiple levels/floors to explore. This will be shown by the map.

Polearms were an earlier concept and did once exist in the game. However, they didn't make it into the final cut of the game. You never know, they could make an appearance later on.

There will definitely be both a closed beta and an open beta. (The guy asking the question didn't both with dates because he knew Anet wouldn't answer)

I didn't know the yellow colored bits, those are new to me.

Some very cool stuff being revealed, I've added a few more small updates - Link to dye demo video, Scout NPCs', blocking, map travel and a few other small changes. Still watching videos and getting more info, doing 'little but often' updates.

Thanks to all who are contributing :)

Originally posted by cyphers

Originally posted by Warband

We also wanted to give guilds more common purpose, so we’re including guild achievements, and placement in the world including guilds holding keeps in World vs World.
 

Oh wow, didn't know that. No idea how they'll implement it, but it certainly sounds cool.

Some cool new stuff from a Eric Flannum interview

Q&A sesssion w Eric Flannum (Aug 22nd, 2010)
 

- GW2 will know tiered skills. As players level up, they can buy higher-tiered skills to upgrade their current lower-tiered versions.

- the capital cities of the 5 races will only have their home districts that are instanced, all the rest is persistent.

- When creating a GW2 account you can link your GW account to it. This'll give you an item that you can take to your GW2 Hall of Monuments, providing you points for things you did in GW; these will unlock rewards in GW2. The GW2 website will soon release a full Hall of Monuments guide including info on the rewards.

- and the most important news: there will be builds players can create that cater to people that want to play a primary support* role. Examples were a water elementalist, a necro specialised in support, and one of the yet unannounced professions that will be suitable for the people that loved to play monk in GW.

* Support = replacement of healing in GW2 team setups => emphasis on  proactive support as damage deflection/reduction instead of dedicated damage recovery roles (= healer)


Other stuff mentioned: attributes can be respecced as easy as in GW, possible tournaments in the structured PvP, weapons are class+weapontype locked (no matter what bow, it'll always be the same 5 weaponskills for any warrior, and also the same - different - 5 weaponskills for a ranger)

I didn't have GW2 on my radar up untill the Gamescom. Perhaps some of you that have been tracking this game for a while longer could answer the following question.

Healing won' t play a (vital) role in the game, how is tanking being handled in the game? Are there classes that can use specific builds and gear to fill in the tanking role? And how is threat/aggro from mobs being handled?

I have seen some videos of a warrior type class wielding a 1h weapon and a shield and using some very defensive abilities to reduce damage, for example hiding behind the shield to deflect a fire blast from a lizard creature. This however has not really convinved me yet that there will be a dedicated tanking build or class.

Any insight you could offer is appreciated :)

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Originally posted by overkill1991
I didn't have GW2 on my radar up untill the Gamescom. Perhaps some of you that have been tracking this game for a while longer could answer the following question.
Healing won' t play a (vital) role in the game, how is tanking being handled in the game? Are there classes that can use specific builds and gear to fill in the tanking role? And how is threat/aggro from mobs being handled?
I have seen some videos of a warrior type class wielding a 1h weapon and a shield and using some very defensive abilities to reduce damage, for example hiding behind the shield to deflect a fire blast from a lizard creature. This however has not really convinved me yet that there will be a dedicated tanking build or class.
 
Any insight you could offer is appreciated :)

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If you go read the Healing + Death article on the official site they talk there about trying to work around the Holy Trinity and in the same way that they don't have dedicated healer they also aren't building a dedicated tank class either. There will be CC's but a traditional tank option, probably not.

Originally posted by EvilGeek

 

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Originally posted by overkill1991
I didn't have GW2 on my radar up untill the Gamescom. Perhaps some of you that have been tracking this game for a while longer could answer the following question.
Healing won' t play a (vital) role in the game, how is tanking being handled in the game? Are there classes that can use specific builds and gear to fill in the tanking role? And how is threat/aggro from mobs being handled?
I have seen some videos of a warrior type class wielding a 1h weapon and a shield and using some very defensive abilities to reduce damage, for example hiding behind the shield to deflect a fire blast from a lizard creature. This however has not really convinved me yet that there will be a dedicated tanking build or class.
 
Any insight you could offer is appreciated :)

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If you go read the Healing + Death article on the official site they talk there about trying to work around the Holy Trinity and in the same way that they don't have dedicated healer they also aren't building a dedicated tank class either. There will be CC's but a traditional tank option, probably not.

Well worth reading this article. It's interesting you seem to have noted that if there is not a healer then there may not be a tank. That's the score. You can create builds that lean towards taking more damage, and there are 2 heavy armour class professions, so there is scope, especially taking a shield in the off-arm and choosing skills that benefit "Control" abilities.

Thanks for the link to the article, an interesting read indeed.

I understand that the ''tank'' role will be called control in GW2 and you prevent your allies from getting damage through knockdowns, slowing enemies etc..   this seems to work great in a PvP environment.

The thing I'm still wondering about however is how this will play out in PvE encounters(what kind of endgame pve encounters will we see? raids/dungeons?), especially boss encounters. I'm assuming I can't just leap at a huge ogre 5 times my size for example and knock him down. What is preventing that boss for targeting one of my more fragile team members like an elementalist and obliterating him/her?

Added more info into the original post including: armour upgrades, achievements, attributes, consumables.

I'm probably going to streamline the info into more bullet points as a quicker introduction, there are some great threads, videos and posts around that expand on what we know.

It's not made by SOE or Cryptic and it's not WoW, thats all I need to know.

Very nice read :)

Im very glad about the sidekick system. Since I played EQ2 which has a mentoring system, I realised that every lvlbased MMO will be better off with such a system. So its awesome that GW2 will have it too :)

Looking forward to the World v World PvP :D

Added some images to break up the wall of text, added images and info about the UI.