I haven't seen a source for this, and I don't know if it's actually the case, but I think that one of the questions in the story actually determines your first racial elite.

They stated that you would be able to get them all, but they never specified how. I suspect that if this is the case, the remaining ones are probably difficult side-quests or something akin to respecs.

One of the charr racials (unless they changed it) summons a warband member to fight alongside you. In a few recent videos they said that your choice of best friend at creation determines who among the options available lives and dies. It wouldn't make a lot sense to have the ability to summon any of them if most of them are dead, so most likely you only get the one, probably until the end of the game when the story is over and it doesn't matter as much.

Again, maybe there's some kind of side-quest for it. Revive your lost friends. Attune to each of the totems. Gain the blessings of every god.

The only trouble is that while it's very obvious what the racial elites are for human, charr, and norn, the asura and sylvari questions aren't as clear.

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Originally posted by holifeet
I like the idea of bringing discovery back to MMOs, but it seems to me as if all recipes are going to be given to you anyway, so why mess about to find something when you only have to click one tab? Or why would anyone is probably more to the point? I might because I like to discover, but most will likely ignore it.

It would be nice if there were bonus recipes, that you are not given, which can only be discovered. In my above post I stated that I wondered where the economy was going to go with everyone knowing every tradeskill. Perhaps bonus recipes for those willing to discover them is part of the answer.

I certainly don't think it's going to make for a dramatic economy all on its own though. Personally I think the days of intruiging economies in MMOs has gone. It's all about self-sufficiency now.

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If anything, leveling up every crafting discipline on one character is better for the economy because you have to pay a hefty fee every time you want to switch.

If you simply use alts, as you can in any other game, you pay nothing extra, so unless something you craft is bind on acquire (in which case, its irrelevant to the economy), this won't be any different.

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Originally posted by drazzah
They shouldnt add color capes or any type of auto dye at all.
 
Look at DAoC. (Personal Opinion) The Best PVP Game ever created. You can dye your armor any color you wish, and its very difficult for a newbie to tell the difference between all the classes. This makes the game fun, and those who put the time in to play will become better.

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DAoC has race-specific factions. Telling classes apart is irrelevant. You have to be able to tell which team is which.

Also, making a game very difficult for newbies is never good design. My prime example of well-designed objective-based gameplay is TF2. Anyone can join a game, pick a class, and it is immediately apparent exactly what the player is supposed to do: head to the objective and kill anyone of the opposing color along the way. More experienced players are simply better at doing so. Learning how to play should never be hard.

If a player ever asks, "What do I do?" then the game is incomplete and the developers still have work to do. This applies even if the player skips the tutorial.

Here's the proof, or as close as we can get to it:

http://au.pc.gamespy.com/pc/guild-wars-2/1165160p1.html

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GameSpy: You've unveiled all but two of the game's eight classes. So far, we have the Elementalist, Necromancer, Ranger, Warrior, Guardian, and Thief. Do you have any hints about the last two? Will we see the return of the Mesmer!?

Eric Flannum: We've given hints out, so I think it's safe for me to say that there is one brand new profession and one returning profession yet to be revealed.

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At this time, engineer had yet to be revealed. This means that the brand new profession Eric mentions is definitely the engineer, which means that the final profession is necessarily a returning profession.

These are all of the professions from GW:

• Warrior
• Ranger
• Monk
• Necromancer
• Mesmer
• Elementalist
• Assassin
• Ritualist
• Paragon
• Dervish

Of these, warrior, ranger, necromancer, and elementalist are already returning.

Almost all of the rest have very little unique about them in comparison to GW2 classes in terms of either game mechanics or flavor. Assassin is nearly identical to thief. Paragon is very similar mechanically to guardian. Monk is very similar aesthetically to guardian. Ritualist is similar mechanically to engineer and somewhat similar aesthetically to necromancer. Some of these have been stated outright to be not returning.

Only the dervish and the mesmer have both unique mechanics and aesthetics. The dervish, however, is culture-specific, and it unique to Elona, a region that will not be featured in GW2.

This leaves the mesmer as the returning profession.

Why is the last profession controversial? Two of the mesmer's biggest specialties (energy denial and hexes) have been removed from the game. This means they will have to find other ways of making the mesmer still feel like a mesmer, something that a lot of fans will surely be upset about.

If I had to guess, I'd say the mesmer will probably be using staff, scepter, focus, dagger, dagger, sword, and torch, perhaps have medium health, and have a focus on mantras, making it feel a little bit like a bard.

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Originally posted by Ezhae

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Originally posted by Palebane
Same color armor is one of the less-obtrusive ways to tell friend from foe in large 3-way PvP battles; Much less obtrusive than nameplates or big flags sticking out of players' backs. For PvE, I prefer highly customizable armor.
 
I agree that individuality is not that important for PvP, but there a ton of players playing TF2 that would disagree with me. Just because players' armor is the same color, doesn't mean you can't be individual based on your weapons or head-gear or something.

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Problem is in games like TF2 pretty much all the gear is "equal", which is not always the case in MMOs. The hat in TF2 means nothing really in the outcome of the match, while a helmet in MMO usually adds to your stats.  Colour coding is fine, it's for competetive PvP, it's needed ine one way or another to distinguish players from opposing team. Plenty of time to look at your own character while outside of the PvP scenarios, to the point i assure you, you will be sick of it soon enough xP

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PvP in GW2 actually works more like TF2 than like most MMOs. In structured PvP (not WvWvW), your gear doesn't matter, and it's also different from what you wear outside of PvP. There is no point in time when you can look at your character's armor outside of PvP because at that time you won't be wearing the PvP armor. You have a special "loadout" just for PvP matches.

They also confirmed that, like TF2, there will be unlockable hats (among other things) and they won't have any stats on them. The TF2 analogy is perfect, except that the hats in TF2 actually can be dyed.

Personally, I'd rather them make it so either only the main portion of your armor is team-colored and the other two sections are some default color (or changeable), or make it so that it uses three different shades of your team color. As it is, the armor looks very plain, like someone dipped the whole thing in a big can of paint.

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Originally posted by Razephon
Am I the only one who likes the idea of 
 
UNLIMITED ENERGY!!!!!!
 
:p
 
Seriously though, it could all be balanced with just longer cooldowns for big skills. ._.

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Skills? You are aware that skills no longer cost energy, right? You can cast forever and never run out.

"But all I want to do is pwn noobs."

Why is this so hard?

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/forums/thread/324437/Guild-Wars-2-Gamescom-video-thread.html

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Originally posted by Kramko
I am imagining different plant forms from Plants Vs. Zombies... Bonus to undead in Pea Shooter form?

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Plants vs Zombies? But aren't you going to play a sylvari necromancer?

What would be nice is an option that would target the enemy closest to the center of your screen if you don't already have a target.

In Champions Online you could customize it all sorts of ways, making it feel like a traditional MMO, an action game, a third-person shooter, or a mixture of any of the three. I don't think GW2 needs options quite so extensive, but choosing targets by what you're facing (rather than simply what is nearest) would be very nice.

There's no GvG because it would be redundant. In tournament mode, you form a team before entering. Most of the time, this team will be composed of players from the same guild.

Guilds can still fight, but there's no longer a mode that excludes unguilded players.

OP, don't accuse people of going off topic, especially if you're taking part in the discussion. Saying something like, "I don't care if my list was wrong," just makes you look like a jerk. The humans' power being summons is very relevant because it helps give an idea of what sort of racials there will be.

They stated some time ago that humans can summon the Hounds of Balthazar. It is not speculation. Everything is subject to change, but as they appeared in the recent trailer, we don't have a lot of reason to doubt their existance.

So far, three out of five races (humans, charr, and asura) have summons as racial elites. There's a pretty good chance the sylvari could have one, too.

It's near the starting area for charr, but there don't actually seem to be a lot of charr starter videos, oddly enough. I've only actually seen two, and only one of them showed anything past the tutorial.

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Originally posted by Alot
I don't think they will add new professions, as the developers talked quite a bit about how the game balance suffered because of the added professions. I think races are more likely since they differ little in power.

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Actually, the reason stated for why new professions upset the balance was specifically because of multi-classing. The common example was shadow stepping. When you create an assassin that can shadow step, now every class can shadow step, and that's a balance nightmare. Without secondary professions, it's significantly easier to balance new ones. I wouldn't rule them out.

Even so, I agree that new races are more likely than new classes, but that's not to say they can't add both eventually.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r_oAx7zg98&t=15m30s

Here he gives a much greater elaboration of when the game will be released.

Unless beta lasts a full year, there's no way the game will be released later than 2012. I wouldn't expect open beta to be much more than a stress test, though, lasting a month at the absolute most. Closed beta, however, may last two or three months, and probably not more. To me, this puts April 2012 as the absolute worst case release date, but I would expect something closer to February.

I can't help but get the feeling that the mod linked to the wrong thread, intending to link to the same one I just did, as it was the first one made and hasn't been closed. Easy mistake because for some reason the one from last year is still stickied.

We have a thread for Gamescom 2011 videos. I don't think individual videos need their own threads, so I'd have to agree with all of them (but the one) getting locked.

"He's a tornado. Throw some axes at him."

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Originally posted by AzurePrower
Would of liked to post this in the thread I created with the other videos from him. But that thread is locked... along with all the others.

This one will probably be soon too.

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This one isn't: http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/view/forums/thread/324437/Guild-Wars-2-Gamescom-video-thread.html

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Originally posted by sonoggi
this looks fantastic. the best crafting system is hands down in WoW, and this is basically a more interesting version of it.

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Not sure if serious.

There's a clarification I figure is worth posting, since the way changing crafting disciplines is described in the video is a little misleading.

http://www.arena.net/blog/andrew-mcleod-talks-crafting-in-gw2

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Although a character can only have two disciplines at a time, they can change their crafting disciplines by visiting the master craftsmen NPC that can be found in all major cities. When you change back to a crafting discipline that you’ve previously learned, you regain your skill level and known recipes from that discipline, but the cost of changing disciplines increases with the skill level in that discipline.

http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Crafting

A character can have two crafting disciplines active at a time, but can change their specializations at any time by visiting a master craftsman and paying a fee. All skill points and recipes learned in a discipline are saved when switching. The more points already invested in a discipline however, the more it will cost for a player to switch to that discipline. The intent of this system is to encourage trading while allowing every player to feasibly craft items that they want.

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So you never lose any progress, but trying to max everything out and switching frequently will be very costly.

EDIT: Also worth pointing out is that even when he set it to craft 10 of an item, the time it took to actually create them didn't change. It makes you wait a couple seconds, but it's negligible when it's still only a couple second when making 20 things at a time.

I'm less interested in the process of crafting and more interested the items we're able to make. Hopefully the recipes will be intuitive and not super specific.

I noticed he could have used items other than a Fang to make a spear. I suspect it was the Fang that made it a "Sharp" Bronze Spear. The Bronze Harpoon Head is obviously what made it a "Bronze Spear". What role did the Large Green Haft have? Anything? Is it just an arbitrary requirement or can you use different hafts to tweak your creations?

I'm obviously over-analyzing this, but it's something I've been thinking about since they announced the system. Even with this video, it looks like it could still go either way.

EDIT: Non-compatible items are dimmed. I don't know why the OP is making everyone guess.