The second confirmed Guild Wars 2 profession has been released, with six more waiting in the wings. The warrior profession is a re-envisioning of this iconic choice where the melee class gets a little more diverse piece of the color pie. The warrior in Guild Wars is a mainstay throughout every type of gameplay. They are known for their durability and constant damage output in the first Guild Wars, and in Guild Wars 2, I don’t think they will disappoint.
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Our friends over at Massively, Shawn and Rubi, run yet another MMO podcast in their free time. Unlike Massively Speaking which has discussion across the MMO genre, GuildCast is dedicated to Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. I guested in Episode 3 where we cover quite a few topics in our short time (well it feels short when we three fanatics could have easily done a 5-hour episode). We discuss recent interviews, updates to the War in Kryta, and the first public demo of Guild Wars 2. Check it out!
–Ravious
were I as tedious as a king
With two of the five crown jewels* in Guild Wars 2 presented thus far it seems that the community is having differing reactions to the two. On one hand people seem pretty satisfied by the overview of the personal story because ArenaNet seemed to preemptively attack many of the possibly questions fans would have. The follow up to the overview seemed to really round the whole thing off. The event system, on the other hand, has been constantly been a topic of hard discussion around the Guild Wars 2 fanbase. Of the event system, balancing the events for active players on the fly seems to get the most hits.
Over at the Guild Wars 2 Slovenija fansite, Tr0n managed to snag an interview with ArenaNet mostly covering what fans were already squabbling about, events. ArenaNet quite bluntly disclosed the multiple routes that an event could be balanced. New waves of enemies could have an increased number of mobs per wave or the mobs could have increased levels.Â
In case you haven’t heard, Guild Wars 2 will be available to play this August if you are going to Gamescom in Germany or PAX in a September Seattle. A lot could be theorized about what that means for launch or beta, and one has to take in to account the convention season and the demos available for other games (like The Old Republic). What is more important, for now, is how ArenaNet has been handling expectations of their upcoming game. Continue reading Guild Wars 2 – Managing Expectations
There is a thread on Guild Wars 2 Guru forums titled “Go away! You are upscaling my event!â€Â It is rife with a deconstruction, from the available knowledge, of the Guild Wars 2 event system. It’s a pretty good thread detailing possible pitfalls of the event system, but most importantly it shows with all the dangers just how big of a risk ArenaNet is taking in stepping away from the standard MMO quest (!) system. It is a less tested mechanic in the MMO genre, but Warhammer Online’s public quests provide a very good Petri dish to show what ArenaNet devs will have to consider for Guild Wars 2. Continue reading Guild Wars 2 Event Pitfalls
In the latest info-bomb run, ArenaNet and some game sites released a swath of info on the personal story in Guild Wars 2. The best place to start is, of course, the official page, where Ree Soesbee lays down a pretty extensive overview on what the personal story is in Guild Wars 2. IGN mostly regurgitates in their form the beautiful picture Ree portrays, but they got some amazing exclusive screens.
The best way I can analogize the personal story to what currently exists in MMOs is take Lord of the Rings Online’s epic quest line and replace all of that with a bunch of instances that branch wildly based on decisions you actually make. So, you can play in the common world like everybody else where most things are the same, play dungeons that everybody else plays (with a twist), or enter your personal story which will be unique to you. Guests are more than welcome in your Guild Wars 2 personal story, but it is your story. Continue reading Guild Wars 2: Personal Epic
One of the secrets of EVE’s success as a PvP-centric MMO is that most of the sheep are safely in the pen. Sure, some folks engage in daring raids in high-security space, but it is mostly safe, and the vast majority of the playerbase is there. Those massive 0.0 empires are funded (probably in-game, certainly out-of-game) by the safe sectors.
SynCaine discusses more or less what the undead horde in Horizons was supposed to look like, in contrast to the more moderate Guild Wars 2 plan of hyper-evolved public quests. One can imagine the potential hell of server divergence if you actually let the game run wild like that; some developers would be happy to see such big differences across servers, expansions could not be planned linearly, some players would love it, some players would claim to love it while flocking to the safest server… I kind of like the idea that what server you play on really means something, but SynCaine circles back around to the problem with having meaningful consequences: it is not safe:
I agree that most WoW-type players don’t actually WANT dynamic content as defined above, which is more than likely the reason its not more common. In a way, what GW2 is trying to do is make those type of players believe the content is dynamic, while still ‘safe’ enough so their individual nightly plans don’t get too disrupted.
Well, yes. I really do want to be able to log on for an hour twice a week and have fun. Well, perhaps not me personally, since I am insanely obsessive like the rest of you, but as a developer you do not want a game that alienates people who will give you a full monthly fee for minimal access (in favor of the guy who plays 40 hours a week and complains on the forums another 20). I do not want to come back from a month away and find myself unable to escape from the undead-infested city that was safe when I logged off. I do want some safe, formulaic options that are available at all times, and if I re-join in an unsafe area, I want a button to get me somewhere stable without forcing me to spend a whole night doing it. Because you or I may be excited about checking the progress of the war every night before logging in, but with my work schedule, I want to be able to play when I want to play. You can tell me to go play something else for a night if I need that safe option, but if you tell me that very often, I am taking my subscription dollars with me.
So we cannot turn the whole world over to the risk of undead hordes without narrowing our little MMO niche. Instead, we keep some completely safe, static areas. We should have this even to the level cap, to keep those long-term casual players who are happy to run their daily heroics. But I agree, we could go a lot further with letting events play out in the wilds.
: Zubon
PS: Is that the core plan for GW2 PvE: “public quests plus a deed log, go!”? That sounds better than most, actually.
There are a lot of great effects stemming from the Guild Wars 2 event system. Constant activity, grouping by just playing with nearby players, and a dynamic world are some of the biggest features. Yet, in a game without the exclamation hat-wearing questgivers a lot of compartmentalized functionality that quests embody could be lost. We are so used to modularity; will we be ready for the leap to a dynamic world MMO?
The biggest change in functionality is at the start and end points. A quest is started punctually with a lead-in story. There are wolves in the walls, and Farmer Neil and his pig cannot sleep. It is irrelevant when the wolves got there because as far as you are concerned, the problem just arose. Sure, Farmer Neil might’ve told tale of how he has not slept in days, but you are there now. The world is as Farmer Neil told. So, you go around the farmhouse, crawling into nooks and crannies, killing respawning wolves, and looting [jam-filled socks] off their dying wolf bodies, and after ten dead wolves or so, you return to Farmer Neil with a new look above his face. He tells you how grateful he is to be able to sleep, gives you some money, and the module ends. The story might continue with word of the biggest, fattest wolf on Tooba Hill for the next quest, but during Farmer Neil’s quest, a complete compartmentalized story was told.
The Guild Wars 2 news is coming in what-seems-to-be cyclical deluges of information on one or two specific subjects with downpours occurring through official ArenaNet channels and big news sites. This week we received a really good overview of the crown jewel of Guild Wars 2 – the event system. Yet, it can take a lot of time and energy, even on the hyperactive forums, to find all the articles and commentary that occurs. The ArenaNet blog has been posting conglomerate articles pointing the way.
There is also another really good way to get information if you are more audiovisually oriented. Sabre Wolf has been releasing Guild Wars 2 Info videos on YouTube compressing the latest news into an easily digested format. He includes released screenshots, quotes, as well as his commentary in to the ten minute episodes. The latest episode details the mass of information the community received in the Guild Wars 2 Guru interview. All links involved are worth a look, but Sabre Wolf’s YouTube channel is here. Enjoy!
–Ravious
we can’t stop here this is bat country
I think Dan over at Biff the Understudy sums up what has happened in the week of Guild Wars 2 quite nicely. I’ve read every interview, watched videos multiple times, and delved in to the forums. There is just too much to talk about. It’s like standing under a waterfall trying to fill a plastic cup. And, there will be more today!
Two quick semi-relevant points: it sucks that the extreme focus of this week is on Guild Wars 2, when it is Guild Wars’ birthday. It feels like whatever celebration we had for Guild Wars already passed. But, it seems Guild Wars Beyond is in it for the long haul so in a way this year the birthday was smashed flat across months instead of one critical day. Second, most of the Guild Wars 2 interviews keep saying “in the coming months” or “for the next few months” instead of “year.” This could go two ways: at the end of “the next few months” (1) beta starts, or (2) they go back in to submarine mode ala Diablo 3.
Continue reading Guild Wars 2 Saturation and the Third Option