Author: Ravious

Following up from the official announcement of the Guild Wars 2 necromancer, Eric Flannum, the lead developer for Guild Wars 2 was able to answer a few questions about this dark profession.

The role of the necromancer in Guild Wars was not easily defined, as it straddled the line between hexer, minion master, and even melee.  The necromancer profession in Guild Wars 2 seems to be a streamlined version of the necromancer of old.  In re-defining the necromancer profession, what role do you intend for the necromancer to play in groups?

Continue reading Guild Wars 2 Necromancer Interview

Yesterday, ArenaNet officially announced the necromancer profession. Of course, the fourth profession for Guild Wars 2 has been known since the gamescom demos started going public. I am happy because in Guild Wars, my main is a necromancer. I can’t say the profession is my favorite because ritualist makes the decision too close to call, but my necromancer character is my favorite.

Out of the four professions announced, the necromancer seems to have gotten more re-definition than the elementalist, warrior, or ranger. There are still supposedly two more professions based on Guild Wars professions (current belief is mesmer and assasin) and two professions that are entirely new (current belief is “paladin” and “alchemist/gadgeteer/gunslinger”), so the Guild Wars 2 necromancer might not be the furthest away from its original. However, the changes are significant enough to note.

Continue reading I, Necromancer – Guild Wars 2

There are two game mechanics that really came to light at gamescom that seem to be hitting a nerve with the Guild Wars 2 communities.  I already gave my thoughts on the cooldowns for elite skills, and now I want to talk about Guild Wars 2 energy.

Before I do, one of ArenaNet’s programmers discovered a karma reward for completing an event chain in charr territory while playing with the gamescom demoers.  (I have an unfounded feeling that it might be part of the “kill ten rats”-type quest with the asura. See Pat Cavit’s comment below.)  The reward was donning a golem armor with new skills, and the programmer decided to stay in the golem for quite a long period of play.  That’s a pretty cool reward for sticking out an event chain.

Anyway… energy.

Energy in Guild Wars is an encounter-based resource especially for higher end PvE. Each character gets her own pool of energy, and when most skills are used the skill depletes an amount of this pool.  If there is not enough energy in the pool to pay the skill’s energy cost the skill cannot be used. Players can easily burn through their energy in a matter of seconds by using expensive skills or spamming skills over-aggressively, and so with energy-replenishing skills and, more importantly, the healing/energy web created in a synergistic party of 8, maintaining energy in Guild Wars is a resource mini-game.  Energy ultimately sets a tempo for a single encounter.

Continue reading Thoughts on Guild Wars 2 Energy

I’ve been learning a lot about Guild Wars 2 skills from all the footage of the Guild Wars 2 demos coming in from gamescom.  The skills are fairly similar to the ones in Guild Wars with a few twists and differences.

We’ve known for awhile that the first 5 skills are based on the weapons in the character’s hands.  Two single-handed weapons gets 3+2 skills, and a double-handed weapon gets all 5 skills.  Then the remaining 5 other skills can be chosen from a pool, similar to Guild Wars, with the exception that out of those 5 there is one elite skill slot and one heal skill slot.  One thing we learned from gamescom is there seems to be no conventional auto-attack.  Instead a player right clicks a skill for the auto-attack “slot” so when an enemy is attacked that skill will be repeated.

Continue reading Guild Wars 2 Skills and Recharge

I feel bad for ArenaNet that the leaked video was the first footage we saw of gamescom, but things have turned around quickly:

The necromancer is the next profession for Guild Wars 2, and from this video, my favorite Guild Wars 1 profession is looking pretty cool.  ArenaNet says we will get a more official release of the profession sometime later.  However, it looks like a necromancer builds up “life force” and then goes in to some kind of shadow form called “death shroud” with a new skill bar.  I am very interested to see more details on this profession.  Many more professional sites (with video) are popping up with gameplay impressions from the early press demos at gamescom.

The live stream of gamescom has also started!  I don’t know what events will play today because there is no Wednesday schedule on the NCSoft gamescom site.  However, in channel they are announcing the next upcoming presentations.  An Aion presentation is first up.

And of course, the moment I post this ArenaNet puts up a new blog post with thoughts from the animators.

For the most up to date information, I would check out this forum thread or the Guild Wars 2 Guru front page.

–Ravious

A lot of people that watched the leaked videocam of a Guild Wars 2 demo (beware: poor quality and obviously a dev in godmode), saw at the very end of the video… dun dun dunhhh… a kill ten rats quest… specifically an asura needs harpy glands to make some perfume.  Go kill enough harpies to get the harpy glands.

At first, I was kind of bummed just because some naysayers put down the event quite harshly.  But, I thought about the differences.  Crucial differences.

First, it’s not a quest for you.  It’s an event for anybody that wants to help.  Honestly, though, that isn’t a very strong selling point.  Kill ten rats together is still… you know.  In hindsight, it really had to be expected.  They have over a thousand events, if not more.  In a game based largely on combat, I think it would be nearly impossible to make each event based on something other than kill count or item collection.  It is very unlikely that Guild Wars 2 can defy each and every convention in the MMO genre.  This one just hit close to home.

Anyway, the reason to write this post is the second difference.  When a player completes the quest for the asura by bringing back a handful of harpy jigglies, the world changes.  Perhaps the asura starts selling perfume to players for a short time.  Perhaps the asura tells each buying player that it was thanks to Legolocharr that he can sell perfume.  That’s the potential I hope ArenaNet taps to make their kill ten rats events a bit more special than what we are used to.

–Ravious