Guild Wars 2: Pre-Release Discussion

[Insanecyclone]

http://www.arena.net/blog/john-and-e...loot-questions

Crafting

Q: Will crafting be performed by players or NPCs?

John: Players will definitely perform crafting in Guild Wars 2.

Q: Will Tailoring be a player-crafting discipline in Guild Wars 2?

John: Yes, Tailoring is one of the several crafting disciplines players can choose from that we presently have planned for Guild Wars 2.

Armor

Q: Do armor pieces and weapons have inherent bonuses, similarly to armor in Guild Wars?

John: Yes, each weapon and piece of armor has inherent bonuses as well as an open slot that an upgrade component can be applied to for extra bonuses. The types of upgrade components will vary depending on the item; for instance, a crest is an upgrade component that is used to enhance light armor pieces.
“Guild Wars 2 starts players off with basic but very attractive armor (as seen in our demo) and from there the armor only gets cooler.…”

Q: Are armor bonuses fixed or determined randomly? How does a player upgrade their armor stats?

John: The inherent bonuses on armor are fixed. However, the player can enhance their armor by applying crests to their armor. A crest is an upgrade component with unique abilities that can be applied to the open upgrade slot on any of your six light armor pieces. For example, you could apply the Crest of the Legion to your gloves to gain +10 intelligence, apply the Crest of the Dragon to your boots to get +100 health, and so on. The more matching crests you have on your armor, the greater the bonuses.

Gathering

Q: Will a resource node vanish after a player gathers from it? It would look really weird to see other players gathering from empty space.

Eric: No, the node will not simply vanish. As it is currently implemented, the resource node goes into a used state on a person-by-person basis.

For example, if you were mining a copper node, you’d see the veins of copper metal disappear from your screen as you gathered until the node was just a big chunk of empty rock in front of you. For any player nearby that hadn’t used the node yet, the copper veins would still be visible to them until they gather all the copper themselves and exhaust the node. So when your friend is gathering from a copper node, you’ll still see them whaling on a big hunk of rock and not just swinging at the air.

Transmutation Stones

Q: What exactly are transmutation stones and how do they work?

Eric: Transmutation stones are really about taking the appearance of an item you love and making a new similar item you find look the way you want it to look. Transmutation stones are consumable items with a single charge that allow you to take two weapons or armor pieces and create a new piece of equipment that combines the look and stats that you want from each piece. If you really like the look of a particular shortbow, for example, but you’ve acquired another short bow with better stats, you can use a transmutation stone to merge the look of your old bow with the stats of the new weapon.

Transmutation stones have nothing to do with finding max stat gear. All weapons and items will be available through normal play over the course of the game.
“Philosophically we believe that players should have a way to acquire items like transmutation stones through the course of playing the game and not just through purchase in the in-game store.”

Q: How much will transmutation stones cost? Will they be available outside of the in-game store?

Eric: We haven’t finalized the pricing structure on transmutation stones. We’re not certain at this time whether or not transmutation stones will be available outside of the in-game store. Philosophically we believe that players should have a way to acquire items like transmutation stones through the course of playing the game and not just through purchase in the in-game store. We’ll talk in greater detail about how we plan to accomplish this when we arrive at a final paradigm.

Q: When you transmute two pieces of armor that have upgrade components like crests, do transmutation stones allow you to choose which component to keep?

John: Yes, when you transmute two pieces of armor, if there is an upgrade component on both pieces of armor, the player can choose which one they will retain after the transmutation. If only one piece of armor has an upgrade component, it’s automatically retained after the transmutation.

Q: When we use transmutation stones, is the armor whose stats are copied destroyed?

John: The transmutation stones takes two separate but compatible items and creates a new item in their place, so in a sense both original items are destroyed.

Q: Can you use transmutation stones so that stats are decreased, rather than increased? Will you be offered the opportunity to revert the change, in case you made a mistake?

John: Sure, it will certainly be possible to transmute into an item with lesser stats if that is what the player desires. Once items are transmuted there is no way to undo the process, but a player has to go through several steps and hit “accept” on multiple dialogues to complete the transmutation process, which makes it unlikely that a player would create an item accidentally.

Q: Is the transmutation process the same for weapons and armor?

John: Yes, the transmutation system is the same for both weapons and armor.

Q: Will all of the most desirable armors in the game have crappy stats, thus “requiring” the expenditure of real money to acquire transmutation stones in order for our characters to wear the armors we want?

Eric: Absolutely not. We’re not changing the way we make armor at all because of this system. Guild Wars 2 starts players off with basic but very attractive armor (as seen in our demo) and from there the armor only gets cooler. In fact, we have a ton of very cool armor at the high end of the game, which means that many players will never use a transmutation stone since they’ll want to keep the appearance of the new gear that they find.

Thanks for answering these questions for us, John and Eric! It’s great to get more details on the item system.

For those of you local to New York (or who may be headed out to revel in the nerdery that is NYCC), remember that we’ll be hosting our NCsoft meet and greet event on Friday night! If you’re in the area, be sure to swing by and say hey!

[Charismatic]

Okay now those transmutation stones sound neat.

[Takiwaki]

http://hom.guildwars2.com/index.html#page=welcome

[Insanecyclone]

http://hom.guildwars2.com/index.html#page=welcome

My Necro. I should start playing again to unlock more. I want those other weapons badly.

[Takiwaki]

http://hom.guildwars2.com/#page=prin...AAALEIAAAAAAAA

[Takiwaki]

its making wana go try and unlock more >< but nah.... lol

[Lucavi]

Yeah... I'll be picking this up, if for nothing else than the old "crawling through the barrens oasis with nothing but a bow, a pet, and face-paint" feeling. All these kickass features just help to seal the deal.

[Takiwaki]

http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...re/4603/page/1

new interview.


"We think MMO fans have become kind of jaded and skeptical as a whole, and we want to try and help fix that, and one of the easiest things to do to help fix that is don’t talk about something until it actually works, wait until you actually know it’s there. So, we’ve got World vs. World in to some degree, we’ve been playing it, like we can talk about what it’s going to be because we know the basics of it, what we don’t know is all the nitty gritty details yet, because we haven’t polished it enough, we haven’t played it enough to say, “This is exactly what it’s going to be.” So, once we get to that point, whenever that may be, and we’re totally happy with it, and we love it, we’re going to come out and we’ll show it to everybody, and we’ll talk about it, and hopefully we’ll let people play it after that."

SE needs to take some classes at ArenaNet

[Insanecyclone]

http://i55.tinypic.com/2wmg9bn.jpg

[Alderaan]

<3 this.

The most fun i've ever had was in XI when our group was doing something and our healer died and we managed a way to raise him and keep going.

I absolutely hate games that are basically a game over when 1 or 2 people die.

[Riposte]

This game looks to be far and ahead of the MMORPG pack. They certainly are showing off some great game design/philosophy and are able to back it up with material. Should be good unless it is all a bunch of smoke and mirrors. If it continues on this trend it looks like the most interesting MMO game yet. (And for extra controversy: I don't believe WoW has ever looked anywhere this good even if you take in account when it came out and when GW2 is coming out.)

EDIT: But ah, lets see if they can keep PvP strong this time. Though it might not matter depending where they go with it.

[vrumpt]

that flowchart reminds of FFXI when we got to a stable point on a fight how we stopped dps on it and took a few minutes to get people up who died. Ah memories.

[Hyan]

EDIT: But ah, lets see if they can keep PvP strong this time. Though it might not matter depending where they go with it.

I liked how gear didn't matter much and the cap was only 20 in the first one, from a PvP standpoint. I wonder how they'll handle it this time if there is more varied gear options and the cap is 80(?) as well as more emphasis on PvE.

[Alderaan]

They'd have to section off PVP zones and limit it by levels, otherwise no one would have a chance til 80.

I too am curious simply for the fact that they haven't really talked about PVP that much yet.

[Riposte]

At some point levels become marginal increases, so it probably won't be a big deal in the case of like a 70 vs 80 battle.

[Alderaan]

The PC Gamer article from a few posts up.
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/18/gu...ds-on-preview/

Guild Wars 2 hands-on preview

Nothing is sacred. The developers at ArenaNet are tossing out ye olde MMO rules to make it easier than ever to team up with friends and succeed together, thanks to Guild Wars 2’s groundbreaking world events and mind-blowing class design. Witness ArenaNet’s coup on tradition and the hands-on action in this first of a five-part preview. The first two posts contain the info revealed in the PCG US December 2010 issue, and the following three are jam-packed with brand new, never-before-seen info and art! Stay tuned all week for all the Guild Wars 2 knowledge your brain can handle!

http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2010/...ar-590x345.jpg

In 2005, Guild Wars busted into the MMO scene with a heretical proposition: that players could have a quality, triple-A online experience without paying a monthly subscription fee. But what seemed absurd then appears brilliant in retrospect–ArenaNet’s bold, beautifully realized and susbcriptionless MMO attracted hardcores and curious outsiders alike and has sold over six and a half million copies to date. And five years later, Guild Wars 2 looks ready to shake up the genre once again. But this time around, instead of upending business models (GW2 will also be a boxed game with no subscription), ArenaNet wants to revolutionize the way players work and adventure together.

Haves and have-nots
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The traditional model for grouping in MMOs relies on three roles for players to fill: healer, tank, and DPS (damage dealers). Players design their characters to fulfill one of these roles and rarely deviate from it while in a group. If you’re the healer, for example, you wouldn’t expect to stop healing until the dungeon is cleared. This model has been in place since the birth of grouping in MMOs, and very few games have seen success when they attempt to break away from it. Would ArenaNet dare desecrate this holy trinity—the most sacred relic of MMO-land? You bet your Charr they would.

Now, before defenders of the status quo begin screaming blasphemy and rioting in the streets, let me reassure you—ArenaNet isn’t on a crusade to destroy the healer-tank-DPS tradition entirely. Instead, it intends to transform it into something even more accessible and enjoyable. As Lead Game Designer Eric Flannum explains it, “We don’t want players to take on strict roles, but there are still roles that need to be fulfilled in combat… Every character is versatile, so it’s up to you to recognize what other players are doing, what the situation is, and react to it.” The developers still want players to tank enemies, restore health to their friends and tear through enemy flesh like tissue paper as they always have in MMOs. The big change is that they want each player to do all of those things, as the situation warrants.

Think on your toes
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It’s all about flexibility. Groups will still want someone to run into the thick of things and take the brunt of enemy aggression, but why should that player be locked into that role at all times? Why can’t a gun toting Charr pull out a mace and shield when he sees his friends in trouble and protect them? Why can’t a magic-blasting Sylvari use her powers to heal her friends when that’s what’s needed most? In Guild Wars 2, they can.

But it’s not all loosey-goosey–players still choose a definitive class when they create their character. The four announced classes so far are Warrior, Elementalist, Ranger and Necromancer–a healthy balance of the usual class archetypes (only Monk and Mesmer haven’t been confirmed from the first game to return).

Choose your weapon
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Unlike the original game—where players could cherry-pick skills from a massive pool of options—the skills that you have on your bar in GW2 are now determined by your class and the weapons you have equipped.

A warrior who equips a shield will see two tanking skills appear on his bar, for example, and if he equips a mace in his main hand, he’ll be given three additional skills to stun and attack his opponents. Each player will have 10 skills on their bar: the first three determined by what’s in their main hand, the next two determined by what’s in their off hand (a two-handed weapon will determine all five), and the last five skills will be chosen by the player within categories—one self-healing skill, three utility skills, and one elite skill, which is very powerful but has a long cooldown.

Weapon restrictions will follow common sense logic—Elementalists won’t be able to equip shields (although Flannum told me that he ran a five-man group filled with Elementalists that fared pretty well in dungeons, such as the two revealed in tomorrow’s feature), and different classes will utilize the same type of weapon differently. For example, both the Warrior and the Ranger can equip a longbow, but the Warrior will use it for spray-and-pray AoE attacks while the Ranger will utilize it more elegantly as a long-range, single-target sniping weapon.

Out of combat, players can mix and match weapon sets to their heart’s content, but before going into battle, they’ll need to pick two sets of weapons that they’ll be able to switch between freely during combat. The one exception is the Elementalist, who can’t swap weapons during combat, but accomplishes the same thing by swapping between his or her four attunements (fire, earth, water, and air).

Controlled chaos
http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2010/...ss-590x331.jpg

Flannum describes his vision for the game’s combat as “controlled chaos fun,” adding that “in MMOs, combat gets really fun when things go wrong. When the tank goes down and you have to yell at the off-tank to grab the boss’s attention—that’s when things get exciting. Our combat makes that the constant state of things, so you’re always in an exciting situation… but we try to over-communicate visually what’s happening around you, so you always know what’s going on and it’s not just mass chaos.” It sounds good to us, but can they pull it off effectively?

Embracing the madness
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I got to experience this “controlled chaos” firsthand during my playtime at ArenaNet’s HQ near Seattle, Washington. I was an Elementalist teamed up with an assortment of the four available classes as my allies. We ventured into a dark, foreboding swamp to take on The Shadow Behemoth, and let me assure you, the 12 story-tall demon certainly lived up to its name. Its health was split between its head and two massive, shadowy hands capable of rocking the earth beneath us, knocking us down.

We knew this boss would take coordination, and although none of us had chosen to be a “tank” or “healer” when making our character, it didn’t take long for the familiar shouts of “OK, I’ll tank him” and “I’ve got your back; I’ll heal you!” were shouted across the room as the warriors pulled out shields and the Elementalists switched to their water attunement, granting them healing abilities.

But I’m not the healing type, so I stuck with my dual-dagger fire setup which gave me powerful AoE skills. I had a ton of fun swapping between my attunements to fill different roles: I’d jump to my water attunement to freeze a lesser demon harassing our healers, then throw down a firewall in front of our Rangers so that their arrows caught fire en route to the boss (player abilities can combine together in hundreds of different, logical ways to produce new, unique effects), and blasted the boss’s face with a few fireballs of my own whenever I had some spare time.

What now?
http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2010/10/Heal-590x333.jpg

It was going well—and then our healer died. In almost any other MMO, this would be a wipe; we’d all be dead. But we’re not so helpless in GW2. Our fallen healer is still casting spells at nearby enemies, Left 4 Dead-style.

Her Grasping Earth spell attacks and slows a nearby enemy. If she can kill someone within 30 seconds, she’ll pop back up to her feet and keep fighting (the time limit is drastically reduced if she’s downed repeatedly or continues to take damage).

http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2010/...low-Chart1.jpg

We all pitch in to help our healer kill the nearby swamp demon and she’s revived; but now the tank has fallen. No worries—I pop Mist Form, which makes me temporarily invulnerable, sprint to the tank and revive him. He jumps to his feet, the healer caps off his health, and we’re back in business.

In GW2, anyone is able to revive another player as an innate interaction (“We wanted lots of opportunity for things to not only go wrong, but for players to reverse what went wrong,” explains Flannum), which led to some pretty miraculous daisy-chaining of resurrections that brought our team back from the brink of disaster to finally defeating the giant swamp boss after 10 minutes of intense, fast-paced action that kept us thinking on our toes the entire time.

Environmental weapons offer another great way to mix things up mid-combat: pick up a big rock on the ground and your skills are replaced with ones that let you hurl the boulder at enemies or bash them with it up close.

Unlike some MMOs, there’s no way that successful raiders in GW2 will be spamming one attack over and over—the controlled chaos keeps combat dynamic and exciting and generates great stories to brag and laugh about afterwards.

Check back tomorrow for the second part of the preview where we’ll reveal two new dungeons and lots nitty-gritty dungeon/open world mechanics.

[Alderaan]

Guild Wars 2 exclusive dungeon reveals
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/19/gu...ngeon-reveals/

Continuing our five-part Guild Wars 2 preview (yesterday’s post), today we’ll plumb the depths of the first dungeons ever revealed for Guild Wars 2–how they work, what kind of loot you’ll be getting, and even the familiar faces returning from Guild Wars that you’ll have to battle with. ArenaNet’s vault demons were kind enough to give us a peek at everything in store for us in these subterranean death-traps, as well as introduce us to the famed adventurers who’ll lead the way.

http://media.pcgamer.com/files/2010/...n4-590x331.jpg

The first time you enter a dungeon (a new dungeon will be available roughly every 10 levels, with additional ones at end-game), you’ll enter into its Story Mode, which focuses around one or more members of the famous adventuring guild Destiny’s Edge (featured in-depth in tomorrow’s post), composed of Caithe, a nature-aligned Sylvari seeking truth, Rytlock, a ruthless and cunning commander of the Charr, Logan, a righteous, loyal defender of the Seraph throne, Eir, a wandering Norn tactician that relies on getting inside the minds of her enemies, and Zojja, a loud-mouthed, cocky inventor. They’re a very odd combination, but their varied strengths and backgrounds ensured that they always had the tools and experience to conquer anything that came their way. For some unknown reason this legendary team has broken up, and your job is to get the band back together.

Thankfully, you won’t have to sit them all down and talk about their feelings— dungeons are all about fighting (even one that starts out as a party in a mansion quickly turns to combat). The first time you play a dungeon, you’ll play through its Story Mode, where one or two members of Destiny’s Edge show up as friendly NPCs to drive the story forward. These stories will be distinct from your character’s own personal story, although you play as your character in both.

Beating a dungeon’s Story Mode will unlock its Explorable Mode, which tells varied follow-up stories in that same area, unrelated to Destiny’s Edge. This mode is designed to be extremely repeatable, and while not random, will have multiple paths that cause different scenarios and enemies to appear. Lead Content Designer Johanson tells me “[We] don’t want players to get into a pattern where they can easily predict what’s coming up next. We want it to be a surprise to keep it lively and fresh for players.” To that end, there will be a lot of secret events hidden within the dungeons for players to discover.

Let’s get specific
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That’s fine in theory, but how does it work in practice? Let’s look at Sorrow’s Embrace, a level 60-70 dungeon revealed here for the first time. Sorrow’s Embrace is a hideout for the Dredge, a mole-like race that used to be enslaved by the Dwarves, but is now free. In Story Mode, you uncover that the Dredge leaders have betrayed their people and sold them to slavery to the Seraph, and fight off the enslavers. In Explorable Mode, you aid the Dredge workers who are now planning a revolt against their corrupt leaders. We love how this setup makes your actions in Story Mode feel consequential. That big bad boss you drove out isn’t here the second time around—you’re dealing with the fallout of the actions you took in Story Mode.

You’re on your own in Explorable Mode, though—the Destiny’s Edge heroes only play key roles in the Story Mode and the hirable henchmen NPCs from Guild Wars’ dungeons will not be returning in the sequel. However, the developers assured me that it would be easier than ever to find players to group with.

Who you gonna call?
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One dungeon will have some familiar faces for hardcore Guild Wars players. Around level 30, you’ll be able to enter the Ascalon Catacombs. The spirits there are restless, so Charr (beast-man) commander and Destiny’s Edge member Rytlock leads your party in to make them restful again via the medium of hitting. But you might recognize some of the more powerful spirits within as the ghosts of profession trainers in the first game. Master Ranger Nente can teleport and shoot waves of arrows that cover part of the room, forcing you to hide behind objects in the environment. Warmaster Grast smashes players and the environment with his oversized, half-ghost hammer, and you can grab the chunks of rubble he knocks out to throw them back at him. Finally, there’s Necromancer Munne and the boss of the dungeon, King Adelmen.

Something for the effort
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ArenaNet is once again going against the flow when it comes to dungeon rewards: every time you run a dungeon, you are guaranteed to get a piece of armor meant for your class via a token system. The devs don’t want to force players to do dungeons if they don’t want to (they’re designed for players who want the thrill of “overcoming difficult content with teamwork,” according to Johanson). So while the dungeon sets will look awesome—since each dungeon offers a matching set of gear for each armor type that’s themed to that particular dungeon—the stats will be equivalent of those on equal-level gear earned via other methods in the game, such as world events, personal story, PvP and mini-games.

During my playthrough, I found that a healthy balance of all the different types of content came naturally. A personal story quest sent me to a castle in the open world, which I found under siege by Centaurs as a part of a world event. So a few other players around the area and I got to know each other over some horsemen-slaughtering before grouping up and adventuring together for awhile. I love how easy and rewarding it was to group up with other players and make friends, but you don’t have to—Guild Wars 2 looks like it has rewarding and refreshing gameplay for all the different types of players, from lone wolf to compulsive raider.

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Exactly how that open world event went down: 1. I protect the civilians in the keep. 2. The Centaurs are chased out of the keep back to their camp. 3. They regroup and fight back, but myself and a few passerbys keep pressing in on them. 4. They summon a giant elemental god. 5. We wet our pants.

We tried, we really did, but there was simply too much info to fit into just two posts. Tomorrow will continue this three part series with all the information we couldn’t fit into this cover story, followed by a post containing all of the art that didn’t make it in and one surprise announcement you didn’t see coming.

[Lucavi]

It just sounds too good to be true. This game is essentially a must-purchase at this point. The only argument I could make right now is that the graphics aren't "next gen" enough, but that's simply from the engine they choose to use.

[Katlan]

character design looks close to the lv of Aion (if drawing comparisons), maybe a little step back, but the environments & effects look beautiful

[vrumpt]

It just sounds too good to be true. This game is essentially a must-purchase at this point. The only argument I could make right now is that the graphics aren't "next gen" enough, but that's simply from the engine they choose to use.

no game is immune to being a launch flop. I need play myself it to determine if its fun or not. If it is then we can talk content.