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Guild Wars 2 Interviews: Exclusive Interview
Recently, MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller Spoke with some of the developers of Guild Wars 2 about their upcoming game.
By Garrett Fuller on December 08, 2009
MMORPG.com's Garrett Fuller recently sat down with Guild Wars 2 Lead Designer Eric Flannum, World Designer and Writer Ree Soesbee,and Environment Art Lead Dave Beetlestone to talk about the highly anticipated upcoming follow-up to the successful Guild Wars franchise.
| 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. |
| MMORPG.com: | Give us a short history of the new races in the game. What will players be able to choose? |
| Ree Soesbee: | There are five races available to play in GW2--the humans, charr, norn, asura and sylvari. When a player creates a character in Guild Wars 2, they will be able to answer many questions about their personal character history. These answers will help determine your personal story in the game. As many fans have theorized, one of the first things you choose is a 'subdivision' of your race, which provides a more personal feel to your character's history. For the humans, that means their ancestry--Elonan, Krytan, Ascalonian and Canthan--and also their social status as gentry or commoners of the city of Divinity's Reach. For charr, it primarily means their legion, whether Blood, Ash, or Iron. The asura choose between the three most respected colleges of learning; Synergetics, Dynamics, and Statics. The sylvari follow the path of their seasonal cycle, or the time of day in which they awakened, being Dawn, Day, Twilight or Night. The norn choose their personal totem, and may choose to walk in the path of bear, snow leopard, raven or wolf. From these and other initial determinations, a wealth of personalized storylines develop, so that each player in the game experiences a story that is individually tailored to their character. |
| Eric Flannum: | There are five races available to play in GW2--the humans, charr, norn, asura and sylvari. One thing that's important to note: the choices made to determine a character's personal storyline do not affect the power of the character. For example, a norn choosing to walk the path of bear can still choose to use snow leopard form instead of bear form. |
| MMORPG.com: | The world design is expected to use less instancing than Guild Wars. Can you tell us what you have planned? |
| Eric Flannum: | We use a lot less instancing than we have in the past. The game is structured much more like other MMOs, with the world consisting almost entirely of fully persistent areas. That being said, we have a number of different ways in which we use instancing. Dungeons, for example, are instanced areas designed for group play. We also use instancing very heavily in the players' personal quest chain to reflect decisions that the player has made on those quests. For example, Logan Thackeray, captain of the Seraph, has an office located in Divinity's Reach; his office is instanced because we need to update his status based on choices the player has made. |
| |
| MMORPG.com: | The end game has become a critical element to MMOs. What plans do you have for the Guild Wars 2 end game? |
| Eric Flannum: | As you said, the end game is critical, and we've been considering our end game right from the beginning of development. That being said, we have three different end games to worry about: Player vs. Player, World vs. World, and Player vs. Environment. Each of these game types needs its own end game, since each of them has its own opening and mid games as well. We aren't quite at a point where we can talk about specifics, but one thing I can say is that we want our various end games to be accessible to the average player. That means that we won't have massive multi-party raids that disallow smaller guilds and groups from taking part. We want our game to be as accessible as possible to the largest group of players possible. |
| MMORPG.com: | You have mentioned that story telling is a large part of the design. How will this fit into the game play and player experience? |
| Ree Soesbee: | Guild Wars was built on a foundation of storytelling, and we plan to continue that through GW2, expanding the experience beyond anything that's ever been done before. Individualized quests, events that alter according to player interaction, and personalized character history are only a few of the many ways in which we encourage the players to make their story personal and unique. |
;)
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?
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 -_-
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.
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... :-)
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 ?
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...
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.
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.
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.
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
does this mean my beloved 5-armor parts mechanic is removed and we will hav a 1-piece armor?
i really like the way that we can interchange armor parts from other sets in GW1 to create a unique look
Yeahhh thx MMORPG.com and Arenanet for this Interview :D, it answer a lot of things =D
It sounds like they are just doing what other games have been doing, where tanking type classes wear plate, dps wears chain - cloth and the healer wears most likely cloth. I would bet money that a one piece of armor system is what they are doing. Just wouldnt work as well imo. In GW1 the armor was unique to each class, the style and everything, but with the new races they cant use the same templates so they have to make different styles. Thats what i got from the article.
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
They won't answer most gameplay questions now, but they said that it'll likely be much higher or even non-existant.
[quote]Originally posted by shadow050
It sounds like they are just doing what other games have been doing, where tanking type classes wear plate, dps wears chain - cloth and the healer wears most likely cloth. I would bet money that a one piece of armor system is what they are doing. Just wouldnt work as well imo. In GW1 the armor was unique to each class, the style and everything, but with the new races they cant use the same templates so they have to make different styles. Thats what i got from the article.[/b][/quote]
yeah thats how i read it too. ive been wondering how armor will work in GW2 since they announced the 5 races. thatll mean they need tons & tons of armor art for each profession, each sex, each race. not to mention starter, basic and elite armors.
the reason why i dont like this is im playing DDO and i hate hate hate their 1-piece armor system. or probably juz cuz their armors really look uuggghh-ly.
i still have faith that anet will not fail in the armor art dept ^_^
Tbh, I think no game was ever of so little interest to be from all the mayor MMO titles than Guild Wars. First, playing a few weeks, I had the feeling to be in a juvenile's porn forum. At least on the German servers I never had seen such a bunch of immature people, and my guess is, it comes with the F2P. The level of behavior really dropped to an all time low. Then, the game itself was nice, but really did not catch me. The idea to be lost in instances all for myself all the time was more than boring.
I read this with mild interest only. Less instancing sounds good, but still F2P always attracts the worst crowd. We'll see.
Must be the Europeans....
I've never had that experience in GW. I haven't seen anything going on in the gathering areas that I haven't seen in every other MMO out there. Lot's of goofing around, socializing, dancing, people acting like idiots, etc. Same old MMO stuff. They came when MMO's went mass market with WoW. Might as well get used to them.
The PvE sounds interesting, however simplifying PvP? The PvP in GW is the best most balanced PvP I have played in a very long time! We will see where this goes but I hope they don't change too much in terms of PvP!!! Especially GvG. Can't wait to buy this game.
TBH, PvP has been going downhill since Nightfall. Too many skills make it one hell to balance and made a lot gimmick builds viable. IIRC, there's about 1200 skills in the game, and since the game is balanced about only having 8 skills accesible at a time, it's just creates too many combinations. So I hope they rework this mechanic so it can work a bit more like intended.
Anyway, I hope they keep the concept of pre-protting in the game, since that's what made GW PvP special to me, and also what made it so much more skillful than other games.
As expected a typical blabla-interview with mostly uninteresting lickspittle-questions and ZERO new information.
However, with one exception: Just by the way he mentioned that the Ranger class will be in GW2 as wel. Hope the same holds true for Mesmers...
Out of the blue,this interview reminded me of a post i saw somewhere else,and it was like this:
-The average player doesn't care about lore when picking a new mmo. He see the set,the theme,gameplay and depth of the game,then buy or don't buy
Kinda weird to see lots of questions about lore and the world,and so few about CORE gameplay. R we going to have auction houses?Any news about level cap now?can we expect to see epic armors or r they going to keep the same pattern as GW?And crafting,how is that going to work?
So many questions about the game...I mean,i don't see ppl in the hype train (at least not the majority of them..not even 1/5,but let's not digress) coming to the forum saying: -if they don't talk more about lore i won't purchase! Lore or i'm out!
Come on..better questions next time
=/
They have openly stated a LOT of times that they won't answer gameplay questions until next year, and many have already asked but just got a "no, can't tell ya". Hope it's because they want to get the gameplay exactly right before telling about it, not some kind of get hype ploy.
yup, CORE gameplay info next year. they can only talk abt races and lore for now
most of us here know that
so we know what to expect with these interviews
probably they havent written core yet in stone
a lot can change between now and launch
tidbits like the ranger prof confirmation and armor types are a surprise
IM going to wait on buying GW2 now that there messing with pvp and making less skills.
I have no words for how excited I am...
:| :| :|
come out with it already!!!
Neat to read, although theres really not new information about gameplay, ah well.
I really hope its good, I loved GW1 and the way it brought something so new and even more enjoyable in a lot of ways than traditional mmorpgs. I will be sad with GW2 if they remove the 8-skill system, which they almost definitely will. And also the low level cap, which I really enjoyed. And the skill hunting, which was so fun! But GW1 was so amazing that I definitely have hope that GW2 will bring something great to the table.
I am waiting for them to tell us what will make GW2 different from traditional mmorpgs besides being set in what has become a favorite world of mine (lore, music, and graphics). And crossing my fingers!
Well, there are many other interesting options for end gaming besides RAIDs, they don't have to follow EQs old footprints. It will be interesting to see how they do it. They could also use split up raids (there was one in factions, where one 8 group party started with a certain thing and another something else but the groups then got together to clear the second part of the mission). Traditional raids are getting somewhat boring now and I am sure that Arenanet can add something new to the endgame.
If the endgame really gets boring they will most likely make a raid expansion, Arenanet have been good on giving their players what they want before.
This game will be very interesting and I am sure other devs like Blizzard keep a close eye on it. It have many features no MMO have had before.
cant wait to play there PvP sounds like it will be decent.
I hope they don't simplify the combat too much, the original GW had some great combat aspects and all the different combinations made the experience always interesting.
Agree.
But one of the best thing in the original GW wast he AI. The henchmens and heroes are smart there (well, they wasn't so smart at launch but were upgraded). When I play Dragon age it really annoys me how you need to micro manage your group, in GW a npc healer works almost as good as a real human. And the mobs are very good coded, the AI are far better than in any other MMO out there and I hope they improve it even more for GW2. :)
Hope there will be a lilttle more skillz slots to play with just anything but 8 slots :p . Turning into a snow leopard sounds awesome should I be a Norn or Sylvary? i'm so excited ^_^
My personal oppinioni is that GW2 is going to be much diferent than GW1 and for that reason I will not play it, GW1 was unique experience in online gaming for me this GW2 is looking like every other MMORPG out there with same mechanichs I am pretty bored with.
Wow, after reading through this interview I can safely say that I am really looking forward to this game. I especially love the new changes to lore, especially the strong emphasis on story-telling, which, to be honest, is one of the reasons why I play games in the first place. I love games that have a huge emphasis on story-telling, and since this is going to be in MMO form, it's going to be really epic. And for some reason, the character creation process reminds me of Dragon Age.
And I'm very relieved to hear that the personal quest chains are going to be instanced. One of the reasons why I loved Guild Wars 1 so much was because of the instancing, because it made for more interesting quests outside of the kill 5 boars variety that we are so used to. I guess having less instancing is something I would have to get used to, but anyway, since I haven't actually played the game yet, I guess it would be too easy to tell. But still, I am glad at at least some aspects are still going to be heavily instanced.
I do hope that they would keep the 8 skill bar build that we see in Guild Wars 1. I don't mind having less skills, because the current number of skills right now is bordering on silly, and extremely hard to balance as well. At the very least, make sure that two (or three) skills don't do exactly the same thing. However, I did like the fact that we could only use 8 skills at a time, because it made for a variety in gameplay, and that each person would not have exactly the same build.
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...
fun i remember now , reading something about it.
I advocated for a system like that in WAR's beta. As i couldn't see how "realmpride" and a 2 sided server battle could kick well in in their setup, and i imagined ranking all order and destro sides and give them new pairs regular in the whole world! At least i imagined that i could log in and actual care about the status in the battle. I have never seen a game with that much fokus on Realm vs Realm and that the same time made its players care less and less.
So this strange thing about a PvP metagame is a strange thing, but very important to get right.
In Guild Wars we don't get 2 sides fighting each other, but at least being on different servers gets a purpose beyound manageing a mmo. I and i hope to get the feeling back of caring for the World standings when i log in
well enough speculation
The thing that made GW unique was that it was different than all the other Mmos.
The NPC's and instanced quests were like little puzzles to solve etc.
Sadly the more news I read on GW2 the less impressed I am. It sounds so much like every other MMO out there that my hype meter is dropping fast. :(
Oh well.
The only problem I see is the paths which character will take . If I choose a Norn character on bear path , why should I use the snow leopard form . This complicate the gameplay and create confusion .
In many MMOG I've played , like 30 , free or pay2play , like : Warhammer , etc . , the developers further complicated the game by creating paths/jobs/etc .
The developers , In my opinion , should choose :
1 . The race with all possible paths
or
2 . Fixed paths , like If I choose a Norn character on bear path , I stick with it and don't use other forms , because this bis why I choose this path .
In my opinion , If I choose a Norn character , I will want all the animal forms .
ex: the bear form for fight . the raven form , for flight , etc .
I'll be interested to see just what they do with the armor. I can see not having class-specific armor any more, the number of variations required for all classes across all races would be ridiculous. So, if they go with just the 3 levels of armor (light, medium, heavy) and have many different types of each of those, that would give the variation. But, one of the great things about the GW1 armor is the class-specific bonuses that can be attached to that armor. Wonder if they're going to do away with that, or just incorporate it in somehow? Like start with a base armor piece, then apply runes and such to make it more effective with your skill set? Hoping they don't just generalize it all down to basic universal bonuses (health, energy, etc) and throw away the class bonus system, that would be disappointing.
What? One choice affects your "storyline and it's progression", while other affects your "gameplay skills". You don't have to choose leopard if you don't want to and that choice is basically there to avoid forcing people into certain storyline if they just want that particular skill or vice versa.
I guess I'm not really following your logic. First you start out by saying learning all the animal forms would complicate gameplay and create confusion, then you finish up by saying you want all the animal forms... Huh?
I consider the animal forms for Norns to be likened to weapons skills for warriors or elemental skills for magic users. You wouldn't limit a warrior to ONLY learning sword skills, because he started out with a sword, would you? The different forms are just another subset of unique but effective skills that might be more or less useful depending on the situation. Just because there ARE a total of 4 different forms to choose from, doesn't mean you HAVE to learn them all. I would imagine you will have choices, and chances to unlock different skill sets as you choose, giving you the flexibility to tailor your character to what you want.
[rant]One thing I am glad they are getting rid of is class-specific armor. That seemed so pointless to me in GW1, the way they had to make each class look different. IMO they just did it to harken back to Diablo 2, but it was a mistake really. I would rather just have everyone be human, the same character model, and have a lot of customization and different clothing options. Instead we got pigeoned into looking like everyone else in our class and the customization was pretty crummy. GW1 was never about making your character unique of course, although builds could definitely be unique, its so easy to switch between builds that your character is not unique in terms of graphics or abilities. GW1 was built for players to have multiple characters, IMO, especially for PvPers.[/rant]
Anyways, customization to me is slider bars and a lot of different combinations of appearance choices.
Not that appearance is a huge deal anyways, the only game where I cared about it was SWG, and that was because the game was strongly built around character building and non-combat play, it felt natural to become attached to my character, care about what me and other players looked like, etc.
In games like GW1 especially, but also most traditional mmorpgs, I haven't really felt much interest in what my character looks like (or felt any real attachment to my character at all, which was the huge irony in SWG, they had built a game with incredibly strong user retention due to the focus on community and character attachment, and then they shattered it to pieces with huge gameplay changes).
Blah.
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.
I agree with there being way to many skills, but I hope that doesn't mean they will be dumbing down the combat with standard MMO system. The skill build is what set teh game apart. I'm really concerned.
They have made it pretty clear that it is all about the # of skills, they have mentioned a few times now how out of hand the amount of skills has gotten and how they are unhappy with that. There might be some changes with the combat system but I don't think they are going to dumb it down anymore aside from removing some skills. Hoping for the 8-skill only bar though!
less complex combat system with fewer overall skills
That's good, many skills in GW1 duplicate each other, was ok in prophecies, but go into buildwars finaly.
multiple playable races
Nice, I don't bother about other races, but I know many players do.
separate world servers
Ups... fail! Why do step back? One of unique GW feature lost.
Still not anything about game economy, market and crafting.
Thanks for interview!
Not really to be honest, at least if you compare it to GW1's instanced nature. You can't really lose something you never fully had, right? And besides, since it's gonna formulate into World vs World conforntation... well, that's gonna be interesting.
I could take this one of 1 of 3 ways, 2 of which aren't a fail (provided there are global chat and connectivity devices in place) and one of which might suck.
If they mean separate world servers by real life geographical locales, then it's no different than the districts they currently have, just separated on different servers for speed and efficiency. You can stick with a server that suits your native language, if nothing else.
If they mean separate world servers according to in-game geography, again no big deal so long as you can go from one server to the next. Consider in Prophecies, how the different game module areas (Factions, Nightfall, Prophecies) are separated by the need to go to a specific place and "travel" by boat or through a gate. Different geographical areas could be separated on different servers very easily, as long as there was a way to transition between those zones/servers.
If they mean separate servers as in different shards that you have to log into at startup, and you are stuck with the population within that shard, then it would suck. If your character is stuck in a less popular server, and you find a group you like in another server, you are often hosed and either have to stay where you were, or start over in the new server. One of the things that's annoying in other MMOs (like City of Heroes), and I'd hate to see it happen with GW2.
Not really to be honest, at least if you compare it to GW1's instanced nature. You can't really lose something you never fully had, right? And besides, since it's gonna formulate into World vs World conforntation... well, that's gonna be interesting.
In GW1 you can meet up with any player. No need to roll a new toon on a different server for that. That GW uses instances is besides the point.
But maybe the world vs world pvp in GW 2 (server vs server) makes up for that.
In GW1 you can meet up with any player. No need to roll a new toon on a different server for that. That GW uses instances is besides the point.
But maybe the world vs world pvp in GW 2 (server vs server) makes up for that.
They already confirmed a while ago that server changing will be almost as easy as switching districts
Less complex with less skills.....sigh...let's hope another beloved game series isn't fucked up to cater to the masses. As stated earlier the large amount of team combinations is what made the game unique and fun. It's the team combination, which is made with varieties of skills, that made the game good.
Hopefully the World PvP aspect won't destroy what made GW the amazing game it once was (before expansions :P ) which was GUILDS (team combinations basically :P )! Team combinations are what makes it good. I imagine Guild Wars PvP with just me not in a group fighting, and I foresee great boredom.
I hope so. Maybe I just misunderstood about servers. BTW, I 100% agree Vrmithrax post.
Sounds great! Can't wait for it.
Why do I feel like this also?
Interesting thing with different alignments and personal character stories.
Although, how is this going to affect group gameplay? When a group made up of a Canthan Human, a Krytan Human and an Iron Charr plays a (story) mission together, how is that one mission going to affect every one of them differently? My conclusion is that the character stories are either going to be solo missions and quests (solo is boring!!), or missions will be 'directed' by the party leader (similar to how in GW1 the party leader is the one who appears in cutscenes), thus the leader getting character progress while others aren't and may have to repeat it with the same character.
Am i missing something?
And the armor thing sounds... different. I really liked the armor system in GW1, in conjunction with the skill system it worked great to differentiate the game, and it was very good. I hope it does not turn out to be a system similar to WoW / WAR / Aion / EQ2 / ...
My concerns. Other than that, sounds great and i cant wait for more info!
Why do I feel like this also?
most skill decks weren't worth using. Even with all the skills in the original each class had 2 builds that were good the rest were all subpar.
I disagree, some on first look tottaly useless skill combined with another skill from another proffession could be devastating. And I really liked tons of skill, it kept me occupied and maked me want to experiment.
But than again I do not do PvP, just PvE maybe for PvP you have only 2 good builds, who knows, time will tell, time will tell.
I am interested in GW2 but somewhat ... uneasy ... about the game the more I hear about it.
In my opinion, ArenaNet is removing the single best feature of the original game, the Heroes and henchmen, who made GW1 so fun and so readily accessible to those of us who hate -- ABSOLUTELY HATE -- spending precious playing time spamming LFG channels.
The guy's description of the game made it sound like GW2 is going to be a whole lot more like WoW, LotRO, EQ, and the rest of the standard MMO herd. What a shame.
The beauty of GW1 is that it could be played essentially as a single-player game that ALSO offered players the option of grouping with one or two or more friends -- if and when they felt like it.
Sigh. Losing that accessibility really takes a lot of the "shine" off of this game for me. :(
tmr819
theres going to be a companion system which will enable soloing
they describe to be like the one used for CoX
ANET knows that there are players who likes playing solo
they promise to provide that
there will be more info on this next year
Those are two different things. But yes, there will be a companion system similar to heroes, and a sidekick system for players of different levels to play together.
I expect a visually beautiful and very playable game here...my question is, are they going to have somebody who can actually write dialogue?
I eventually had to stop playing GW1 because the writing (and the voice performances) made my brain bleed. The average Uwe Boll movie sparkles by comparison. Is that shortcoming going to be addressed at all in the sequel?
If people are incapable of reading between the lines,this sounds more like excuses for doing a poor job.
I was left with this exact same impression of FFXIV,removing lots of things from the game,just because you are putting a little more effort into another area,is a fail.This is exactly why AION only had 2 playable races,they are too dam cheap and lazy to make a proper game with several races,GW2 is going the other route offering more races but removing content to make up for the lost time.
Honestly i did play GW1 and it was an average game at best,i don't make excuses for it being F2P,i still expect the same quality as a paid game,after all i am there to play the game,not worry about the cost.This post just confirms to me that they are not improving on GW1 at all,they are just moving resources around from one area to another.
BTW 5 playable races is borderline cheap,if they think that is too many and they haven't time to work with 5,then they are as good as their parent,NCSOFT a real cheap ass developer.
Everyone likes to bash SOE ,yet they deliver us several playable races and many years ago,we got all these F2P games and developers like NCSOFT/Arena Net delivering us cheaper products.
Because deeming whether a game is good or not on the amount of playable races and conclusions of it's "cheapness" drawn from this is at the pinnacle of logic.
Yeah soe like making races and classes. Look at Vanguard:saga of heroes..19 races and 15 classes xD i have 12 classes and 12 diff races. Love the game.. it s a big world and no instance.
I have to say GW2 looks very promising
Im glad they have reduced the amount of instancing
These questions sucked, I'm disappointed in you MMO.com...Obviously 1 of 2 things happened:
1>The Interviewer hasn't been following Gw2-wiki's list of previous interviews So they asked a buncha crap we already knew.
2>The interviewer asked a lot more questions but they were also the wrong questions and Flannum wouldn't answer them.
And 2 is pretty hard to believe b/c Flannum unflinchingly goes out of his way to add specifics that no one even asks for. Here's some examples of better Questions:
• "You mentioned the new armor system in previous interviews... can you tell us if different armors affect how well we can dodge, how fast we can run, or how high we can jump?"
• "You mentioned that the same Class may "feel" very different across different Races... Is this just limited to their Summons or will some races be able to run/jump better than others? Will there be racial bonuses for Range/Accuracy or Crafting & Looting?
• "You already mentioned "simplifying" the skill system.. How are you going to compensate for that loss in Tactical Depth that GW players came to love? For example: Will it have mouse-based Aiming like in an FPS? Will we be able to target specific points on a player's body? Will we have more skill-slots to work with? Will we have greater customization of the skills we use? IE: What will you be adding in to make sure that the Competitive level between Top players remains "competitive"??"
I strongly support iller.
GW 2 has been postponed so many times, that I really think is going to be vaporware.
Making game simpler with less skills would create anoter WoW or AION - and why? Nobody knows.
Reading behind the lines mean GW never gathered that amount of money, as WoW for instance. That's the main problem - Anet already announced "....there will be no monthly fee for GW2....". So, there are not so many efforts to create it.
I'm really dissapointyed of that very, very SILLY interview - GW2 has been promised for beta testing in 2008. And still nobody is aware of gameplay? So why concept art is for sale then?
I'm also bored seeing people, proudly showing their 259 hours of GW gameplay being so excited with "newly promised and explained features of GW2". I'm playing it since last 4 years. And I like it as is. Simplifying would just kill it. And making skills fewer will create 1-2 builds, replicated by everyone with shifting gameplay from gaming to grinding.
Instead doing that crazy interviews, Anet team should made very serious efforts in bringing GW to life again - yes, it's true - most of the very experienced peoples lost interrest in playing it and shifted to another games. Altrough this doesn't affects the GW profit itselves, this lack of interrest is killing the game. Sooner or a lather (probablly sooner) there will be only 1 district in whole GW. And with GW2 release date of 2011 Anet would have to compete with much more advanced games that today.
So I expect real job, unfortunately we are receivind only bull crap....
Everyone is trying to read between the lines or guessing on how the game play might be. Yes they added 4 more playable races, but if you read the interview it hints that certain races could only play certain professions. Can Norn be Elementalist, Necromancers or Mesmers? In GW Norn seem to be Warriors or Rangers. But on the otherhand in GW Charr can be any of the Prophecies professions. This can be confusing. Also, would anyone play an Asura Warrior or even have one in thier party. They are kind of small in stature. Yes the race vs professions concerns me more than how many skills I have. I doubt they would only give you 2 skills to use. But, I would be surprise if they only allow 4 skills. And they should eliminate the skill recharge time if they decrease the amount of skills. My last concern is Charr armed with GUNS. How is it that Charr can have guns and humans not? You would think the Asurans having guns because of thier technical knowledge, if they make Golems (robots) they should be able to make guns. Well I hope before the game actually comes out, anet give a clearer picture about game play and the race profession concerns I have.
Guild Wars launched with 350-ish skills instead of the 1300 it ended up with, and it was perfectly fine back then... People concerned about the reduced number of skills may be overlooking the possibility that ArenaNet may be preparing fans of GW1 for a similar route with GW2 - launch with far less than 1300 skills, and keep the possibility of adding more over time, though not necessarily ending up with as many as 1300.
Also this is something that's been known since 2007, there have been many discussions and many points have been covered, although no one still has an idea of what it will be like. ArenaNet said that in 2009 they would only be releasing info regarding lore and setting, and that the "real" info about gameplay will come in 2010, closer to the release. That isn't so far away so lets maybe wait a little before drawing conclusions about how much the new skill system will suck.
I'm not saying any interviewers need to go begging for Profession or Skill Details, those could always wait till 2010.
...But they do need to look more closely at things we're seeing in the Trailers and past interviews to extrapolate better questions about those items which people are so concerned over. Anet already broke the "seal" on Not-talking-about-Combat by showing that the Races DO impact combat styles regardless of profession. ...Same goes for "complexity", Guns, armor, and several "spells" we saw in the Trailers.
How the Races differer and interplay with eachother was the Centerpiece of the latest info we were given. To ignore all those gameplay implications rings of a hollow and tacky attempt at suspense... Or worse, it gives the impression that they still haven't figured out how to balance any of it yet.
I wasn't going to post on this but after reading a few posts I feel that so many people are looking at this as "glass half empy"
These questions have been chosen because they are questions the Anet team are willing to answer. Questions relating to gameplay will be vague at best. People also do not seem to realize that the people at Anet have always strifed to make artistic worlds with in depth lore and environments that spark the imagination. Guild Wars 1 had people who attempted to decypher clues of the history of the world and how it will evolve. The world of Tyria that Guild Wars exists on is very in depth and very unique.
As this game is also a sequel to their last there is a fanbase there that wants to know what happened to their favourite races, the people and places. There is a large number of people out there which wants to know how the world has changed due to conflicts between the races, the introduction of the dragons and other significant events.
This initial stage where they discuss the lore of the world is targetted mostly at those who played or still play guildwars. I suspect they will begin to elaborate more on the gameplay aspect closer to the beta stage rather than this early on. They will try and target the newer customers at a stage where the hype wont have been built up for too long that people are bored waiting. There is nothing fun about hearing a great gameplay aspect and then waiting 2 years to try it, only to have similar ideas thrown into other mmo's beforehand.
Simplifying the pvp however comes down simply to less skills and eliminating unpopular forms of pvp.
Nota bene: GW2 had been 'delayed' once. although an official release date was never specified
I am pretty sure it was specified at some point that the classes are not restricted to the race played however certain aspects may be, for example guns are only accessible to the charr if they play the ranger. When they said less skills they meant towards the options you can take, the original guildwars had 350 skills, your character could take 8. Guild wars 2 might simply have 250 skills while the characters can still take 8 (possibly more or less we do not know)
Skill recharge will not be removed as it is an essential component to keeping things balanced.
Charr have guns because charr have no gods. the charr have instead been focusing on furthering their engineering skills over things such as worshipping and religious endeavors (I think the idea is like how people speculate we would have flying cars and live on the moon etc if it wasnt for the dark ages were science was shunned by religious folk)
oop double post
Science is STILL shunned by Religious folk
GW2 is going to be a great game. I really think they learned a lot from GW1 as well as the launch of more recent titles to see what worked well and what didn't, and I think they are on to something good.
With all they said about GW2 until now, i just fear they're making us another mmo like any another; only with the background from GW, and its brand.
Not a unique and wonderful casual-gamer-friendly hybrid between a solo rpg and a cooperative game like GW1 was.. And who's yet to be copied and challenged many years later.
I think the game I'm waiting is not GW2, but Anet's next corpg :/
Everything I enjoyed about the original Guild Wars has essentially been thrown out the window. Instancing, PvP, combat system, the armor system, and a number of other features.
There was a post earlier in the thread which gave me some hope about how the server systems will work. If servers are as easy to change as districts than I will be perfectly fine with it. Even if servers are chosen by location that wont be as bad as long as you can still visit other locations similar to how it is done in Guild Wars.
I really enjoyed the instancing in Guild Wars. The way the instancing was set up was extremely fresh and a great break from the standard MMO's even throughout today.
PvP... Hooray I get to entire large scale PvP where my character alone will do little to nothing. WOOHOO /endsarcasm
What are you going to do about the little fun PvP scenarios such as Jade Quarry, Fort Aspendwood, Team Arenas, Random Arenas, Z, HoH, ect. If any of those are fully removed without a near exact replacement I will be extremely frustrated.
The combat system was awesome. While the current number of skill is a bit ridiculous in numbers, it works well. If the 8 slot system is changed I am not even going to purchase Guild Wars 2. Instead I will just continue to play Guild Wars. If they change the 8 slot system the game will surely end up similar to many other MMORPG's. I do not want to follow a specific skill tree. Or like Aion I DO NOT want to have the EXACT SAME skills as every other person that plays my profession.
The armor system was unique and refreshing. I do not want to see a ranger and an assassin wearing the same type of clothing. The game just loses the feel from the original.
As mentioned many times I feel as if Guild Wars 2 is directly trying to attack WoW. What's going to happen is the franchise is going to lose most of the fanbase it currently holds due to the fact that Guild Wars 2 will be radically different from the original. The WoW fanbase may give the game a try and decide that it too is too different from WoW and then ditch the game just as they have done with AoC, WAR and Aion.
So as plea, do not change the core of the game!