Guild Wars 2: Pre-Release Discussion

[Alderaan]

Lies u played elvaan

I'm a hume in all my pics!

[Alderaan]

Content Interview
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/g...Interview.html

At PAX, MMORPG.com’s Garrett Fuller sat down with Jeff Grubb (Lead Content Designer), Colin Johanson (Lead Content Designer), and Leah Rivera (Content Designer) to talk about Guild Wars 2. In the interview, the team touches on the personality system and World vs. World PvP.

Leah: The biggest challenge as a content designer is having to limit myself to things that are possible within the game engine. We do have a really broad set of tools but sometimes you have to find the short cut. If you have a good idea, you need to find what tools out of the set that I have can I use to implement this? There is a lot of flexibility in the game but figuring out the way to tweak the tools I do have is a challenge sometimes.


Colin: Content Design is a lot like a logic puzzle sometimes. Where you come into it and there is a thing you want to accomplish and there is a bunch of tool sets you have to do that with. Very rarely do those two things directly connect. So you have to try to find the best way to accomplish your goals using the tools you have. Often times, it can be really interesting to find the way to do that with the tools you have.


Leah: It’s really fun when you figure it out though, you feel like you have accomplished this puzzle and everything just falls into place.

*Jeff Grubb enters the room.

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MMORPG.com: So with all the content you are adding to the game what is your greatest joy to see come alive?


Jeff: Two things. Definitely the first one is when it all works. Where you are laying out all the information in text and all the ambient conversation and all the pieces and it all fires together. We are like, Yes! We’re finally here. Once you reach that point, then you polish it forever. The other thing and I am seeing this a lot today, is people who are playing the game for the first time today and seeing them come to the earth elemental or see the dragon lands for the first time or seeing the Necromancer Death Shard for the first time and watching them go WoW! The “ah-ha!” Moment and hopefully taking their breath away with something they didn’t anticipate and something that is exciting for them. If we get that effect, we have done our job, okay we’re done. Beer for everybody! [laughs]


Leah: I have to agree the player reactions have been the best part of visiting the shows.


Colin: Definitely shows like PAX are the greatest moment for me. We have spent three years building this game and the last few months we put out a ton of marketing material. We said we were going to do a lot and everything we set out to do we put into the game. We did not want to talk about them until they were in the game and they worked. There is a lot of danger to make a lot of bold claims and you don’t follow through on them. We don’t want to do that. We said a lot of stuff and we had a lot of people say we wouldn’t be able to do it. Or something like: yeah, that sounds awesome, but not one is ever going to build that.


Jeff: Yeah, there was a lot of: If they can do this it is going to be great. There was a lot of tentativeness in the response. We wrote a lot of checks in the last few months and now it feels like we have the cash to back them up.


Colin: Yeah, that just feels incredible to be able to walk the game out on the floor and show the things we said we were going to do. We hope that you love what we did. We ask players if we did what we said we would do and over and over again we hear: “Yes, at its core you accomplished what you set out to do.”


Jeff: Fans also say, tell us more. Make more promises that you can keep which puts the pressure on us.


Colin: Just seeing it come to life is the best part for me.

http://images.mmorpg.com/images/news...2Cinematic.jpg


MMORPG.com: The industry has gotten a little dry lately and we often hear fans looking for a solid new game. Is there some part of the game you are really excited about for MMO fans in particular?


Leah: Among my friends it is definitely the persistent changes in the world. Dynamic Events happen. When a city burns down it stays burned down, that is not something other people do in games.


Jeff: I would say the personal story line. It is a resource intensive thing to do to create different options and different storylines for individual players. What your upbringing was? What your legion is? Or what is your college among the Azura? This is a lot of work that may not be seen right off the bat. That was the incredible challenge that I saw and yet seeing the final and making each one of those lines epic, that is definitely one of the coolest things for me.


Colin: Definitely the Dynamic Events system for me too. For me it is a slightly different reason than Leah, although that is a great reason, for me it is about the community building tool that it serves. I think if you look at MMOs the really frustrating thing is that I am playing this game online with thousands of people and I don’t interact with hardly any of them. Maybe with the people on my friends list or in my guild and that’s it. In old school MMOs you didn’t want other players around you because they were kill stealing from you or they would get in the way of the stuff I was trying to do. That can drive a player nuts. I play these games to play with other people, why am I playing this game if I don’t want people near me? The events system just draws people naturally together and you feel this camaraderie with the people you are playing the game with. Whether you talk or not or form a group or not, our hope is that it will happen in events, but even if you don’t you still feel a strong sense of community with the people around you while doing the events and I just really love that.


Jeff: I’ll give you one here that is a sleeper. It is in the demo downstairs, it is present. I don’t think a lot of people have looked at it closely and that is the Personality system. We don’t talk about it as much. The system is based on the early choices you make. There is Dignity, Charm, and Ferocity. Literally that forms an internal compass and as you interact with NPCs you are going to drive towards one way and drive back towards another. So basically you are going to have slightly different experiences and options because of that Personality system. Now, you are playing in the game and you are not necessarily going think about it. You are not going to say: I am Ferocious today. Yet it is a natural process that is embedded in the game. The game will respond to your playing style and give you options in that direction. When people encounter stuff there will be options in the conversation trees based on your choices. That is cool because it is not visible. It’s not like: you get five points of Lawful Good! [Laughs]. This is a result of long discussions asking questions about how to build this system. We went through several tries and scrapped them. I think the biggest fight was who is better Batman or Captain America. Then it turned into who do you want to be, Batman or Captain America? We started to say, why not both?

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MMORPG.com: So is it a system where you make the choice in the beginning and then it can be changed throughout the course of the game?


Jeff: Yes. So when you create your character, you do have a question that gives you an advantage in one area. As you play and interact with people you will have a Ferocious option in an NPC conversation tree and you will go a little bit further in that direction. So it will drift by what you have been doing and also what you have been doing just recently. It is not like you have worked up 500 saint points and now you can go and commit adultery and not get in any trouble. It is more of the case that you have been acting in a very charming fashion, here is the result of being charming: You might run into a group of small children who will sing your praises. Very dignified people think of you as a hero. One of the ferocious options opens with, I Hit Him. You can hit NPCs if need be. It has got such potential to it as far as being an invisible system that will have very real effects in the game. If you always choose the charming option then that will be a play style. Most players though will find themselves getting more options or not how they naturally play. Which is actually a much cooler system, other games try to build it geometrically, kind of like the D&D Paladin. Our system is much more behind the scenes and focuses on game play style.


MMORPG.com: You talked a lot about camaraderie among players. Many MMOs have lost this on a wide level because of guild groups and smaller factions. How do you see players joining up on a large scale in Guild Wars 2?


Colin: I think Dynamic Events is the thing that will do that. That is the glue in the bond that brings the players together. I think that will give you recognition when you start to build that sense of community. The other thing that I think is important and this is not a direct answer, but we have World vs. World PvP in Guild Wars 2. I think that will impact PvE as well. Which is your server shard matched up against two other servers in open world PvP. If you like Dark Age of Camelot, this is, in our minds the next evolution of that. It is something that really drove community and you care about what you are doing on a PVE and PvP side. You care about the people on the server. We think we will have those bonds because your server is matched up against two other servers. So it is just that much more important that you become friends and you bond with the players on your server. So the friends you make through PvE and Dynamic Events, those friends will carry over into World vs. World PvP. You may get out of World vs. World PvP and go back to early zones to do events with new people and help encourage them to join you in the fight for your server to take part in battles and beat the other two. We expect large strong communities on each server and I think PvP will end up affecting PvE because people will work together.

http://images.mmorpg.com/images/news...gw2design1.jpg

[Alderaan]

Why ArenaNet stands out
http://www.massively.com/2010/09/13/...out/#continued

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.massively...ax1-rb-912.jpg

I spent an awful lot of time last week doing two things: reveling in PAX memories and checking out the flurry of news stories and reports all over the place, all centered around Guild Wars 2.

It's attracting an incredible amount of attention, even from people who have never heard of Guild Wars before. While we may laugh at funny mistakes made by those who are unfamiliar with the world of Tyria, it's exciting that these people who passed over the original game are interested in this one. The more people become interested, the better it is for all of us.

But what's generating all this attention? What is ArenaNet doing that's so groundbreaking? Any fan of Guild Wars 2 could easily give you 20 reasons why the game is turning out to be so great, but almost all of them will focus on two things: the developers are intensely focused on making this game for the fans, and they don't show anything unless it's polished to a high gloss.

Fan involvement

"I stood in line for two hours on Saturday to play the game. Every demo station had two computers side by side and one ArenaNet employee. So the whole time you were waiting in line to play there was a developer you could talk about the game with. It was crazy. I am just some random guy and I got at least 40 minutes of face time with a Guild Wars 2 dev. And if that was not cool enough, once I was done talking with them I still got to play the game for 40 minutes."

This reader comment summed up the PAX experience so well that I had to borrow it. I also heard a few comments from people who were of the opinion that the mass of developers would be better off back in the studio working on the game. What I don't think those people understand is that the developers at PAX were working on the game.

Those developers weren't just hanging out chatting because they didn't feel like going to work that day; they were essentially collecting data. Granted, all of those employees probably enjoyed themselves immensely -- can you imagine the fun of finally being able to show off this project you've had under wraps for so long? However, talking one on one with the players as they waited in line and played Guild Wars 2 is the best source of player feedback that a team could hope for. I don't know how many people went through those lines in those three days, but I know it was a pretty big number, and I imagine every single one of them had something to say to a developer.

Think of it like a closed beta test in which you get to give your report face-to-face. What a valuable resource for ArenaNet!

The company took things a big step further with the Designing Dynamic Events panel. The panel not only was a ton of fun for attendees and developers alike, but brought a really personal touch to the game. As you might recall, ArenaNet did something very similar almost a year ago for heart transplant patient Emily. The devs seem to be saying, "This is your game. Tell us and show us what you want," and if it keeps working as well as it has until now, ArenaNet is going to have something pretty spectacular on its hands at launch time.

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When it's ready

You might be sick of hearing that phrase, but you have to admit that it seems to be working well so far. I've seen so many people clamoring for new information on a regular and frequent basis, threatening to lose interest if the developers don't get a move on, but ArenaNet's not working like that.

We're so used to the status quo of game development: We see games earlier and earlier these days, all the way from their alpha stages. We start playing and testing them when they're broken, buggy, and completely unplayable in some cases. We weather the crashes, the quests that can't be completed, and all the frustrating things that come with a game that's not ready.

ArenaNet seems to have completely broken out of that mold, and if past experience is any indicator, you're not going to see any part of the game until it's launch-ready, so to speak. If you played the demo in Cologne or Seattle, you know that what the team has shown us is completely polished and ready to go. I may be well off the mark here -- I certainly don't know what the devs are plotting in those offices -- but the demo was nearly flawless in every aspect: combat, animation, events, and graphics. I had nearly two hours of hands-on time and watched at least two hours more from the sidelines, and I saw exactly one issue. In my home instance, an exterior plant was clipping through a wall into an interior room.

How many MMOs can boast that level of completion when they've not even reached the stage at which they're discussing beta testing? I know that there are many parts of Guild Wars 2 that we've not seen yet that still need to be developed, and I understand the frustration of waiting through the silence. This time a year ago I was pretty frustrated and negative myself, half-convinced that ArenaNet was shooting itself in the foot by being so coy and silent.

I think I get it now. The developers are breaking the mold of the public side of the development cycle, and they're not willing to present their fans something broken and half-baked. We deserve better, and we're getting it.

"When it's ready" is the motto for every step of development, and when you see something from Anet, you can be assured that you're seeing an honest-to-goodness finished product, rather than something that may or may not be in the game and only works part of the time.

It's an unusual approach that requires patience on our part, and some of us (me) have had a harder time learning that than others, but now that the demo is out there I think you'll all agree it's a lesson well-learned in this case.

I can't wait to see the next thing that's ready.

[notorious bum]

It's like these guys figured out the difference between making a game they want gamers to buy and making a game they want to sell copies.

[ZarakiKujata]

Wasn't SE supposed to have done the same thing w/ FFXIV? Spent 5 years polishing a game silently lol.

[Hyan]

Yeah, but GW2 is not really in the position that it can be vastly improved after release. It's more like your normal game rather than MMO in this aspect. No such a long-time appeal, so they don't get second chances.

I don't think what they're saying is BS.

[ZarakiKujata]

No I agree with that and definitely this looks better than FFXIV atm, I'm just loling at how 1-2+ years ago, everyone felt this way about FFXIV and now we see that SE spent the last 5 years jerking off to recycled rocks/landscape.

[Hyan]

I don't think they can be compared.

Either way, can't wait to try this game.

[Takiwaki]

http://www.arena.net/blog/live-and-l...gw2-dye-system

everytime i read something new . . . I cant wait

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http://www.arena.net/blog/wp-content...eCharrNPCs.jpg

http://www.arena.net/blog/wp-content...teNornNPCs.jpg

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[Akiyama]

Definitely playing this shit instead of FFXIV.

[Alderaan]

Definitely playing this shit instead of FFXIV.

We can gossip about the Braves while conquering huge blurple dragons!

Also gonna link the above here cause i'm bored.

Live and Let Dye – Kristen Perry on the GW2 Dye System

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I’ve been thinking for months now about how to describe the new dye system to you, which has been completely redesigned and is much more flexible than the original. There’s one big change I knew would surprise the “dye hard” fans, so I figured I should reveal that information first. Besides, if we all have the collective gasp at the beginning, I’ll know at least everyone will have a full tank of oxygen in their brains to read the rest of the article.

Here’s the deal: there’s no more mixing.

There, I said it. Now here’s why it’s the bee’s knees!


No more mixing? OMG why??

Enhance your calm; this is the best thing that ever happened to the dye colors. In the gamescom and PAX demos, some of you got a chance to toy with the dye system (slapping on colors as fast as you could to make the most of the remaining demo time… it’s okay, I understand, I didn’t take it personally ). We actually had 254 colors total, but to streamline the experience for the demo we only made 96 colors available.

It was awesome to hear that you guys loved the variety of colors and the tones that we showed you in the demo, but honestly, even 254 is just not enough. So after the shows I went to the fine folks in charge of such things and plead the case for more.

What’s the new limit? As many as I have strength to design! Yup! When I run out of meaningful variations (if shades are too close to tell the difference, they’re not needed), that will be your new number. I’m guessing that means over 400 colors, but we’ll see… I haven’t created them all yet!

I know what you’re wondering, though: “It’s cool we get all these new colors, but why did you have to nix the dye mixing? That was fun! Couldn’t we have had both?” Okay, okay, indulge me with a nostalgic Guild Wars sashay and then I’ll talk about all the bonus new features.


Ye Olde Guild Wars Dye Shoppe: everything you never wanted to know about dye

Once upon a time, there were 10 colors in the original Guild Wars: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, brown, black, and silver. In Guild Wars, each profession had their own base colors. We achieved dye colors by starting at the base tone and hue shifting it from there to other selections.

As we kept adding professions and armors through new campaigns, the dye system began to get bloated because we had to keep track of individual profession palettes. So somewhen in Factions we decided to streamline the whole deal and just pick one color to hue shift from: red. Why red? To explain about red, we have to explain about white.

Hue shifting darker colors to look white creates complications. When taking these textures, the highlights and middle tones will change the most, but in order to make a texture feel clean, you also have to take out contrast. When you lighten the dark tones, the main meat of the texture will feel white, but unfortunately it can also make the texture feel washed out, since you don’t have the really dark nooks and crannies that describe the construction of your armor. As a result, there was always a bit of a balance and reworking involved when trying to get your armor to dye reasonably well.

With mixing of white as well as black in toning the base eight hues, we tried to give some creative freedom; but though the dye system was fun and interesting to play with, it didn’t always ideally —or predictably— give aesthetic results. This was because we were using numbers to create the mix colors rather than picking them directly ourselves.

The trouble comes because of the nature of the light spectrum. Since your computer monitor is really just illuminated pixels, the dye system is a pigment system that must be translated into a light system. Check out this spectrum:

http://www.arena.net/blog/wp-content...um-600x169.jpg

As you can see, the range for many colors is pretty broad. Red has a nice spread, as do green and blue. Yellow is deceptively narrow, though. There are really only a few shades of the tone that will feel distinctly yellow before it will feel more green or orange. Hitting this color shift is tricky. Essentially, we needed a color that had enough saturation to shift to yellow and a color that is midway in value between black and white so you can mix to those extremes. This is why new armors were that odd red for a while and then a “neutral” gray when we tried to even it out.


Ye New Guild Wars 2 Hotness…

So what changed? Well, just like the skills and professions, we saw we were stuck with a system that was getting increasingly harder to control and balance. The problem was such that the only ideal solution was to sit down and manually slog through the whole system, hand-picking each color.

Insane? Certainly. But I was just mad enough to do it.

Hand-picking each color also had the side effect of eliminating the need for a mixing system. When selecting the colors, I made sure to have jewel tones, natural hues, metals, leathers, earth tones, pastels, desaturated colors, darks, royals… the whole gamut. I’ll continue to tweak the amount and tones of these colors right up until shipping to get them juuuust right.


Colors dye according to material type.

Always endeavoring to bring back the pretty to dye colors, we wanted to better describe the materials being dyed. Since cloth is very flexible and easily changed to a huge spectrum of natural-looking tones, we made that material capable of the highest saturation. Leathers also have a broad selection, but they will not be quite as saturated in order to preserve their nature. Metals are more desaturated still. However, just because there’s a tendency towards desaturation, doesn’t mean it’s absolute. Copper metal, for example, can present very naturally saturated and there are some gold tanned hides that look quite realistic as well. I made sure to create material-specific hues that work very naturally to help players find just the right shade. You want tungsten? Got it. How about pewter? Yup. Calfskin? Rawhide? Jalapeno? You betcha! Plus, now all the colors have names, too. There are no forgettable numbers to memorize. Named colors allow for a more casual color discussion.

Even though there are a multitude of colors, those are not the only hues you will see. For each color, I had to craft three versions to meet the materials’ standards. This shift in hue will happen automagically, depending on the section you want to dye. While some colors will look best with some materials (i.e., copper was really made for metal), their alternate material equivalents will still look great and will feel like that particular color. For example, in the image to your right, the cloth, leather and metal materials are all the same color, but they are shifted to read properly with their intended material.

Incidentally, my working file so far has over 3500 iterations to whittle down to the current 254 (x3) hues. Each color isn’t just selected from an RGB grid. We have a tool that allows us to craft the color from five different variables: hue, saturation, lightness, brightness, and contrast. These five allow for some very robust controls to get the color as true as possible. Hmm… let’s see… more than 3500 iterations x five tone variables to make three materials of currently 254 colors… yeah. Let me say I must love colors.

http://www.arena.net/blog/wp-content...or-393x600.jpg


Colors will be unlocked, not muled.

Storage was always a factor when it came to dye colors in Guild Wars. The new system would cripple most inventories if we required characters to lug all the dyes around. Fear not! The dye hues themselves will be unlockable through various means, both in-game and out. Once you unlock the color, it will be available across your entire account, not just the individual character.


Colors are sortable by hue, temperature, or materials.

Because players enjoy a lot of freedom with customization, we tried to offer greater choices in organization for the dye UI. In the hue sorting option, the colors will be displayed in typical neutrals and rainbow breakdown and will also include designer category sets such as the midnight hues, jewel-tones, and more. The temperature sorting option keeps the tones divided into warm, cool, and neutral tones. The material sorting option organizes them into cloth, leather and metal groups. Again, just because it has an affinity for a material, that doesn’t mean it’s restricted. You can definitely place all colors on to any material; the colors will just change to suit the material.

We know sometimes it would be nice to have ready access to the hues, so we’re creating a “favorites” area in the dye UI so you can hold a working palette of your choice.


Armors have up to three dye areas per piece.

Every piece might not require it, as you may have a simple glove that would only need one or two colors, but you’ll have so much more freedom and flexibility with three dye areas per armor piece. Unlike the original Guild Wars, where there was only one area to dye and this would coordinate with neutral tones and fabrics you couldn’t change, in Guild Wars 2 you’ll have the ability to change most all of the other areas. There may still be a small bit on your armor piece that will be undyeable, as we are limited to three channels per piece, but rest assured we will maximize the impact of each dyeable area.

Check out some of the variations achievable with just one design:
http://www.arena.net/blog/wp-content...rs-600x512.jpg


Introducing sets!

In Guild Wars 2, weight classes determine the profession distribution and the seam rules for our armor coordination. We realized there were times when we desperately wanted to break those rules, so we developed a solution to do so. For example, town clothes work similar to the light armor system. There is a waist seam that allows mixing and matching to work relatively smoothly between pieces, which gives the player as much creative freedom as possible. But for clothing, it would be a travesty to never have a long trench coat, which has a seam overlap that would follow medium armor seam rules.

To solve this dilemma, we have created sets. Sets are two or more sections of armor fused into one to prevent mixing troubles that allow us to design with far less seam constraints. For example, we could have an outfit with a large trench coat, an inside vest and shirt, and pants. You’ve seen this before in my previous clothing blog post. That outfit is one piece. However, because we know there’s so much fabric real estate, three dye channels aren’t enough. In cases like these, we have allowed four dye channels. This will allow a remarkable amount of control over the parts of the outfit without having to require the pants to dye the same as some part of the coat.

Oh, and just to clear up the question: yes, most clothing will be wearable by players.


Races get their own starting palette.

We realize as a young hero, the starting areas will have a lot of similarities in what is available to wear. To ensure that the five races have their own identities, we’ve created a cultural palette that reflects the character of the species. This means a red color for a human may not look the same as a red color for a norn or charr. The norn, for example, have far more earthy colors: rust reds and rich forest greens and browns. With the furs, straps, and intricate carved patterns of their culture, these colors really feel solid and meaty on their armors. A charr would have probably have more blood reds and desaturated military blues and greens, while a human might have more jewel-tone reds and blues, etc.

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By offering a specific palette to each race’s starting areas, there will be a stronger self-identity when you encounter each other. If you travel to a different city, you will feel like you are an explorer from another culture because the environment around you —including the inhabitants— will feel different. Until you dye your outfit with new dyes, of course!

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New identity dye colors.

Instead of a base red or gray for new armor drops, we are applying a set of basic neutrals to the dyeable areas. Cloth will look beige cream, leather will be calfskin brown and metal will be steel-toned. This makes any new armor drop you have look perfectly serviceable in the interim while you experiment with the color palette you want. To put it more succinctly: you don’t look like an undyed dork just because you’re out of turquoise. You’re welcome.

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That’s a big chunk of how dye colors are different in Guild Wars 2. There are a lot of things we plan and balance behind the scenes to give you guys as much fun, beauty, and customization in this game as possible. We love what we do. We hope you love what we do, too!

Three dye areas per piece is just plain awesome.

[Akiyama]

God damn I remember hunting dyes and shit way back when.

[vrumpt]

no MMO is safe from massive failure and disappointment. But holy lord, that shit is hot. very hot. As long as they actually have stuff planned out for us to do, it doesn't sound like it should fail at this point.

[Alderaan]

A Rewarding Experience – John Hargrove Talks About Loot
http://www.arena.net/blog/a-rewardin...lks-about-loot

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Hello, world! My name is John Hargrove, and I am one of the primary designers responsible for the rewards and item systems in Guild Wars 2.

I guess I should start by saying that since the very onset of development on Guild Wars 2 we’ve been doing our very best to identify which aspects of the original game design were successful and core to making a true Guild Wars experience. With these ideals as our foundation, we’ve been building a game that stays true to the spirit of its predecessor while simultaneously moving the genre forward. With this in mind, I’d like to delve into a few of the core item-related principals that have shaped our design of the reward mechanisms and item systems in Guild Wars 2.

Guild Wars Principle #1: Everybody gets a swing at the proverbial piñata.

In Guild Wars 2 we’re fully committed to the concept of rewarding players individually. This is more or less a quick way of saying that we don’t want to design a system where players argue over loot settings, turn to external “out of game” systems to decide who gets what upon downing a boss, or risk spending hours in a dungeon with nothing to show for it due to bad rolls or a ninja looter that hijacked all their treasure.

In the case of distributing general monster loot or opening dungeon end-chests, this principle means that each player gets their own roll, so it’s alright if you are soloing and someone begins fighting alongside you. This won’t cause the loot you would receive to degrade in any way, as long as you actively participate in that combat. Likewise, when you get to the end of that big dungeon with your group, you each get to individually open the chest and receive your own personal reward.

In the case of gathering materials from things like ore nodes, plants, and the like, this means that when you gather from that resource you use it up for yourself, but not for others. In Guild Wars 2 there is no need to race to beat other people to the same resource node. Take your time ripping that bear’s head off, because no one can walk up and steal that copper node in the back of its cave from you. You may be helping others in your world reach that copper safely, but rest assured that you’re not just clearing a path for a node ganker.

I could go on and on with the examples of how we employ this philosophy, but really what I’m getting at is that our overall goal is for players in your world to be seen as a boon to you to help you overcome bigger challenges and larger foes, and therefore earn greater spoils for your time spent in the game. We’d much rather that everyone in the same world felt a common bond in their shared land and saw each other as potential allies. If players find themselves with leftover aggression that they would normally take out on node gankers or ninja looters, we’d recommend they step into World vs. World and kick themselves some otherworldly player butt.

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Guild Wars Principle #2: Rewards should be worth obtaining.

Speaking of bigger challenges and greater spoils, our artists have been working really hard to give each dungeon in the game its own unique set of gear that really speaks to the experience that you had to go through to obtain it. Presently each of our dungeons has, at a bare minimum, one complete, visually unique reward set that includes a full set of light armor, a full set of medium armor, a full set of heavy armor, as well as one entire set of weaponry that is unique to that dungeon. With all of the new eye candy to obtain, you can literally play in any given dungeon until you come out as an entirely different looking character.

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Of course, we’re working on tons of unique rewards for other facets of the game as well, but I thought that particular example of dedication deserved to be called out!

Guild Wars Principle #3: Players should look the way they want to look.

As you’ve probably seen in other games, the appearance of your character’s armor and weaponry are often entirely dictated by whatever the best statistical gear in the game looks like. I’m sure a few people reading this right now are already nodding their heads, recalling all those times when high tier gear depressed more than impressed. The worst part is that even when you don’t like a new armor’s look, it doesn’t matter! In these games, you still have to wear it because it’s the best armor and you need it in order to progress.
We think it is just flat out unacceptable when games don’t allow you to choose how your character looks.

Going forward into Guild Wars 2 we knew we had to trust our players to know how to dress themselves, so we introduced a system that has now become known as transmutation. With the transmutation system, you’ll be able to acquire new items known as Transmutation Stones through our in-game store that allow you to customize your appearance. With transmutation, you take two items of the same type, pick one that is the most visually appealing to you, one that is the most statistically appealing to you, and then you simply combine the two items into what will hopefully become your perfect piece of armor or weaponry.

With this system you can keep a “look” for as long as you want. Just because you picked up a cool new piece of armor, it doesn’t mean that you have to abandon the look and feel of your character up to that point (unless, of course, you like the new armor, and that’s fine, too).

Guild Wars Principle #4: Players should be able to look truly unique.

A big feature of Guild Wars games is the ability to customize a set of armor until it looks unique to you. The original Guild Wars accomplished this visual customization in part with a dye system that let you make your armor pieces whatever color you wanted. As I am writing this, I wonder just how many people out there have gone through a series of quests or dungeons with a friend in an MMO, only to come out with a nearly identical visual appearance simply because they both happened to be playing the same content. It seems ridiculous that the personality of players gets stripped away whenever they try to experience a game world together, with nothing to visually differentiate one player from one another.

Fortunately in Guild Wars 2, our team has created a versatile dye system that lets players differentiate their armor colors, but this time around we took things to a whole new level. Now we have not only one dye channel per piece of armor, but up to three separate dye colors per individual piece of armor! Even if you wind up in the same armor as your friend, you can get a dramatically different look by simply utilizing the dye system.

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As a matter of fact, the Guild Wars 2 dye system is actually so powerful that I’d be doing a disservice to try to briefly sum it up here, so make sure to check out Kristen Perry’s in-depth dye article right here.

Now, just one more thing…

Guild Wars Principle #5: Upgrading gear should be fun.

As a disclaimer to this section, I should start by fessing up that I have been playing MMOs for over a decade now, and for much of that time I have had a bittersweet love affair with sets of items that grow more and more powerful as you collected additional items from that set. The reason I describe my feelings as bittersweet is that while I find traditional MMO item sets utterly irresistible to the collector in me, I also find that it’s nearly impossible to collect a full set of them before I’ve surpassed the intended level range for the gear.

To address this issue in Guild Wars 2, we’ve devised a new twist to make these item sets more accessible. By linking the cumulative set bonuses to an upgrade component that you can apply to your armor, you can essentially make your own custom sets. In the following example, this is a cloth crest that a Tailor could make for light armor.

Crest of the Legion (1/6)

Double-click to apply to a piece of Light Armor

(1): +10 Intelligence

(2): +20 Perception

(3): +100 Maximum Health

(4): Thunderclap (50% chance on Critical)

(5): +5% Critical Chance

(6): +10 to all Attributes

As you could probably guess, the more crests you have of the same kind on your armor (up to the set’s maximum number), the better the bonuses you receive. For example, if you use one Crest of the Legion on each of your six armor pieces, you would end up having all of the bonuses in this list. All armor and weapons will have a free upgrade slot, so there will be lots of chances to use upgrades like this to tweak your gear’s statistics to your liking.

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Bringing it Home

Hopefully this gives you a pretty good overview of our goals with the item system, and a few examples of how we’re trying to reach them. Between the transmutation, dye, and upgrade systems, I hope it’s especially clear that our paramount goal is to give players the freedom to make characters that are truly unique and personalized. After all, it’s your story.

Well, until next time… You stay classy, Planet Earth!

Have i mentioned that Anet gets it?

[Shnaklaha]

"Hey boss, sometime next year I'll be giving you my 2 week notice. I don't know when yet, but i'll let you know" "What? Why?" "Lets just say i'll be preoccupied"

[notorious bum]

Only thing I thought was unnecessary was the transmutation. There can be such thing as too much customization(ricers come to mind). Strong armor designs can go a long way. With a good dye system proposed, why should they waste the time creating additional alt models that will appease only the Sims crowd? lol

Altogether, great stuff coming out of the art teams working on this game, going out of their way to keep this game fresh. The loot system by itself will keep these guys busy coming up with new ideas for armory, not to mention crafted armors.

I for one welcome a loot system that dictates how rare an item is, based on the skill level to reach victory at the end of the tunnel, not how many hours you wasted going through the motions or, if you prefer, staring inside a lame treehouse while you watched court tv in the early morning.

[Thulius]

Only thing I thought was unnecessary was the transmutation. There can be such thing as too much customization(ricers come to mind). Strong armor designs can go a long way. With a good dye system proposed, why should they waste the time creating additional alt models that will appease only the Sims crowd? lol

The way I read it, it doesn't sound like they're "creating alt models." It seems more like, say you were using helm A and you recently upgraded to helm B, but helm B is some hideous thing that completely clashes with the rest of your gear. Transmutation lets you take the look of helm A and combine it with the stats of helm B to keep your old style without sacrificing stats. I think Aion has a similar system in place as well.

If the words "walahra turban" mean anything to you then I think you'll understand why people would want something like this.

[Insanecyclone]

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[Purrrfect]

This game is gonna make me regret getting the CE I fear. ;;

[Lazytowner]

This game is gonna make me regret getting the CE I fear. ;;

Me too -- oh wait. :D