Category: Guild Wars 2

A couple weeks ago ArenaNet contacted me and 14 other lucky fans for a huge event. We were all invited out to Seattle to visit the new ArenaNet office on June 24! For this humble blogger, this was seriously a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I was also extremely lucky because every other weekend in June had already been filled.

Thursday will be travel days for most of us, with the fans from Europe possibly starting earlier. That night we will have a meet’n’greet dinner with the Community Team. Friday, we head to the brand new studio! ArenaNet has filled the day with tons of activities, most of which they won’t tell us so as not to spoil any surprises. We will get to play a Guild Wars 2 demo (with no NDA, but no video), and developers are taking time out of their busy schedule to join in on the fun.

I will tweet and blog as much as possible, but expect most in-depth recaps the next week. The hashtag #GW2Fanday on Twitter will be our codeword for on-the-fly commentary. NeoNugget, from Guild Wars 2 Guru, has an updated list of the attendees with site and Twitter account listings.

I have plenty of questions, and on my 5 hour flight, I will probably come up with dozens more. Still, feel free to comment below on anything you would like me to ask or try and check out in the demo.

–Ravious

ArenaNet drops another great lore post written by the fantastical Jeff Grubb on one of the non-player character (“NPC”) races, the quaggans. Whereas the amphibian krait are an evil race where players should give them all kill-on-sight status, the equally amphibious quaggans are the polar opposites. On a purely hyperbolic course, the quaggans are the underwater ewoks of Guild Wars 2.

Continue reading [GW2] The Need for Ewoks

The guys over at Tap Repeatedly put up another great interview with ArenaNet developers Jon Peters and Jonathan Sharp. I interviewed Peters and Sharp at PAX East, and I had talked with Peters about skills and energy some time before. They are the nuts and bolts devs. Tap’s Lewis B does exactly the right thing by talking to them about the nuts and bolts instead of release dates, collector’s editions, and other stuff that will just get stonewalled. Lewis B goes for depth, and is rewarded handsomely. He also pulls in a few community questions, which I thought was a nice touch.

Continue reading [GW2] Nuts and Bolts and Beyond Interview at Tap

Tyria. The dragons have always been here. Sleeping deep beneath the earth, beneath the sea. Waiting for the time to rise.

In this lore-saturated post, I will be looking at the Elder Dragons of Guild Wars 2. Note well, that even with ArenaNet so particular about capitalizing, the Elder Dragons retain their big letters. It’s an interesting tell, in a way, because it’s not really a classification of a fantasy species. It’s a title, similar to how we name hurricanes and earthquakes. Only in this case multiple [un]natural disasters are happening simultaneously in the Guild Wars 2 fantasy world.

Continue reading [GW2] Alpha Predators

Like I thought, Guild Wars 2 will bring with it a profession iconic of all the change that 250 years brings from the original Guild Wars. Meet the engineer, no not that one. More like this one. This profession might be one of the most complex yet taking the elementalist’s attunement mechanic to a whole new level. What is the engineer? Adaptability, preparation, and control.

Continue reading [GW2] New World Profession – Engineer

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.

Continue reading [GW2] Fan Interviews

In a nice interview over at Variance, ArenaNet starts dropping some pretty big information World vs. World (WvW)  combat.  WvW is actually three servers or shards pitted against each other for a set amount of time. Instead of arena-style PvP, WvW involves a big combat zone with multiple, linked objectives. For example, a supply caravan might be re-stocking a fortification. Players can either attack the fortification directly or cut off the supply chain. Winning sides garner benefits for their entire server. All this information has been known for some time. The interview brings to light an interesting twist: there are four maps.

Continue reading [GW2] WvW – There Are Four Maps

At the beginning of charr week, there was one interview at Now Gamer that asked broader questions including one that touched upon one I’ve had for awhile. What are race and profession conventions?

Unlike other some other MMOs, all races in Guild Wars 2 will be allowed to play all professions. Therefore, a height-challenged asura could become an aggressive warrior or a hulking norn could become a sneaky thief. My first lore-based thought came with the release of the guardian. The guardian professions had mechanical ancestry with the Guild Wars monks. Monks drew their power from the human gods. Where did the guardians draw their power from, especially the godless charr (and quasi-scientific asura)?

Continue reading [GW2] One Unique Snowflake