ArenaNet, like any business, has their own marketing agenda where they have to figure out how to use their finite resources to get the biggest results. Obviously, PCGamer and Rock Paper Shotgun are among two media outlets that are going to hit a very large audience. Yet, it shows a lot on their part that they still take time to talk with smaller fansites like GuildMag, Variance, and our humble home. There is one thing about smaller fansites. They usually take as much time and care, if not more, into preparing for the interview as any true journalist site. Two recent interviews from our friends at Tap Repeatedly and Guild-Hall.cz definitely raise the bar for all future professional and fan interviews.
The Czech fansite gets some fantastic answers when they ask some of the more open ended questions like what is each interviewee’s favorite event. ArenaNet gives us plenty of meat when we learn about everything from charr cattlepaults to an asura-trained dancing moa act. It’s a really good interview with a personal laid-back feel to it. Well worth a whole read.
Lewis B at Tap Repeatedly delves deep in to voice over questions with ArenaNet’s lead writer, Bobby Stein. Like past ArenaNet interviews at Tap Repeatedly, Lewis B finely crafted an amazing and long interview. He asks about everything from comparisons with the original Guild Wars, preparing actors, comparisons to Hollywood, to fantasy writing pitfalls. Stein fires right back with  a look at the inside process for creating Guild Wars 2, costs vs. benefit thoughts, comparisons of the voice acting in Portal and Grand Theft Auto to Guild Wars 2, and more! This is definitely going to be the seminal interview for Guild Wars 2 voice over questions.
Thanks for the fansites for taking the time and love to craft these amazing interviews. And, ArenaNet keep them coming!
–Ravious
I totally agree. Fan sites that are smaller or have started out recently ask amazing questions. The questions are just incomparable to some bigger fansites, they just ask generic questions we already know. The smaller fan sites know their way around the block and actually realize what questions have been asked before.
ArenaNet is also doing an amazing job keeping us hooked in with these interviews that peek our interest very well. A lot of open ended questions giving you a chance to think up your own opinion or idea of what it is.
Thanks for the article Ravious :)
That’s pretty much what I was thinking. The smaller fansites are generally pretty specialised and are familiar with the press that has gone before and hungry for something more. The bigger sites like PCGamer cater to a much wider range, which means that on the one hand their staff are spreading their attention more thinly and thus more likely to forget that a question has already been answered… while on the other hand they can get away with it because most of their readers are ALSO less focussed on the game and thus less likely to spot older information.
I’ve read both the Tap Repeatedly and Guild-Hall.cz interviews and Ravious definitely ‘put hammer to nail’ in his description of them. Both are solid pieces of journalism with well thought out questions, and very interesting answers. Pure oxygen to any fan following the development of GW2.
I was very impressed with the last few Tap Repeatedly interviews. Good writing there, definitely. Those alone got my attention focused onto GW2 recently, because up until then I really didn’t care about it that much at all.
Can someone explain to me how this PvP system will end up working ? I keep finding information about it here and there but its bits and pieces. Can someone put it all together for me ? keep in mind I didn’t play the original guild wars very long and if you use some of its terms, I may not know it.
My type of PvP I love to do is I can go out to a “PvP zone” and kill players when I want to kill players (not when the game says it is time to). I hope there are options to fight 1 vs 1 on an open battleground while tons of other players and groups are killing each other around you in an epic battle. Example: Warhammer Online when you battle over “battle objectives”. Another example is in PvP servers on World of Warcraft, when you fight other players in contested areas. Will there be that kind of an open PvP area?
Another type of PvP I like is when you can sign up for battlegrounds any time of the day and can enter it as soon as there is 10 or 20 players, 5 vs 5, 10 vs 10 with an objective to win. Like WoW’s battlegrounds or Warhammer’s Scenarios. Anyone know if anything like that is in there ? or either of these types of PvP are in there ? If so, I am pre-ording as soon as I can. I am all about the PvP in an MMO. If anyone takes the time to actually respond to me, thank you lol.
I like to think that GW has some really strong fansites anyway, and the quality of their interviews really speaks to that. There’s a strong community of about 8-10 sites which post regularly and I really hope that the community will only flourish in the wake of GW2’s release.