Category: Guild Wars 2

I’ve been officially told, norn week starts next week (with norn-sized versions of the tasty snacks human week brought us), and that gives us all plenty of time to get prepared this weekend. These shape shifting half-giants want to live life to the fullest. Their goal in life is to live eternally in legend. A skaald telling tales of a norn’s life is one of the highest pinnacles of achievement for anybody. At least that’s what the norn think. Their tale is an interesting one. Are they fallen kodan or half-human? Are their totem spirits splinters of the same gods the human’s worship? Does it matter? They are norn. And that’s that.

Still, over this weekend, we can prep for the Viking-like Guild Wars 2 race. Here’s a list of movies to get started. Feel free to add your own movies, music, books, or games in the comments below.

Troy – while this movie has little do with Viking, the entire movie is based on the need for a hero to create a legend to the point of disaster. This might be a starting point for many norn characters, a great hero without a legend.

13th Warrior – keeps up the legend vibe of Troy, but it also has the much needed Viking vibe. Replace the Wendol with the icebrood, and Antonio with an asura, and it’s nearly Guild Wars 2 – Norn movie.

How to Train Your Dragon – mostly a kid’s movie, but their humorous take on stubborn, heroic Vikings can’t be beat. The Viking in the opening scenes picking his teeth while dragons attack all around him makes me think of the norn every time.

Erik the Viking – norn life is one of hardship and tragedy, and that’s why norn make such light of it. For every tear there is a joke. For every blood-stained burial there is a beer-stained party. For every Beowulf, there is an Erik.

–Ravious
the wind that smells fresh before the storm

In the midst of the Guild Wars 2 human week, many fans are experiencing some other very real human emotions. Thanks to GigaShadow, the contents of the NCSoft 4Q 2010 Conference Call have been picked for any Guild Wars 2 information. It seems that Guild Wars 2 (and Blade and Soul) are objectively set to finish development by the end of 2011. However, NCSoft is ready to put both games at a later launch to make sure they are able to fully react to the very subjective open and closed beta feedback.

This is not to say that a 2011 release for Guild Wars 2 (and Blade and Soul) will not happen because NCSoft says they have scenarios already planned for such a release. However, they warn shareholders that 2011 revenue might not be impacted by the games. This, of course, explains why ArenaNet has refused to say Guild Wars 2 will launch in 2011 because they aren’t even 100% sure.

I think this is bittersweet. Of course I want Guild Wars 2 now now now, but I also want it to be a mindblowing game. In a recent Rift interview, Trion Worlds said that the game is on such a stable base that the devs are actually able to work on requested game improvements that are received through beta feedback rather than trying to plow through work that should have been done before beta. I hope that this is where Guild Wars 2 will be when they start the beta process.

–Ravious

The content of Human Week started with an audio-filled blog post on the ArenaNet blog, which is a nice human-centric follow-up to an earlier post on these types of sounds. The sound bites aren’t combat grunts, death taunts, or NPC story time. Rather, they are the sounds a player would hear just running along the streets of the human capital, Divinity’s Reach. People talking about marriage, religion, strife, politics, war, and love all are included in this ear-filling offering. These additions are really a bittersweet symphony.

On the good side, they blow the game’s immersion levels through the roof. I can only imagine running along and actually stopping so I can hear the end of the conversation. The sound clips available in the post are really well-written and well-spoken. Some are very witty, and some are very interesting. Plus, if they are sprinkled with exciting tidbits that actually lead to something. “Wait, what?” you think, “The human hero dude got in a fight with evil politician’s guards.” Tell me more!

Yet, this huge immersion groundswell also makes me nervous. It’s a huge undertaking, and it will continue to be for every future expansion. Either that or expansions won’t have that level of detail, which would be a nice glaring hole. ArenaNet also has to be extremely wary of repetition and temporal stasis. I don’t want to hear about Minister Caudecus’s brilliant oration in Senate for the fifth time after I found out Caudecus was going to be the next Lich and slew him verily. Additionally, I hope that they have subtitles or chat bubbles for these asides for both the hearing-impaired and those that have to be listening to their wife.

Back to the good, this is a beautiful master stroke against quest text. All that background, lore, and hints at movements far larger than a character’s own can be hidden in these aural gems. The “quest” text can be left to something quickly and simply read. “Centaurs are burning my farm! Stop them!” is all we would need, instead of 200 words leading up to the climax of player action. All that stuff about why the centaurs are burning farms, taking breeding horses, Farmer Beau’s “grass,” and their northerly attitude can all be told elsewhere.

–Ravious
we goes together

It’s human week for Guild Wars 2! KillTenRats was able to sneak in this tasty morsel last week, but now it’s officially begun with a week-long menu for the Tyrian race. Humans in the Guild Wars 2 world have an interesting story. They were the strongest race in the world, but their light was quickly fading by the time of Guild Wars. In Guild Wars 2, they have been pushed back to a single nation on the continent of Tyria. As Jeff Grubb often says, “they’ve been knocked back but not knocked out.”

Their history is rich, and unlike the other 4 playable races, humans might be the only race not native to the world. Yet, the gods that may have brought them to Tyria, have taken the training wheels off and simply walked away. Well they aren’t doing that well now that the half-dozen divine training wheels are off. I am looking forward to this kind of treatment for all the races in Guild Wars 2, especially in a week-long blitz!

–Ravious
to arr is pirate

ArenaNet must feel like spring is in the air despite so many of us being crushed by snow. Either that or they are just getting antsy. Once the guardian profession was revealed ArenaNet has been dropping quite a bit of other information through interviews, fansite forum posts, and official tidbits.

Continue reading [GW2] Tear the Roof Off

There is a great post over at the ArenaNet blog about Guild Wars 2 professions (i.e., classes) as playstyles rather than roles. Peters writes that they designed the profession and combat system so that each player can fluidly adapt to the battlefield in order to support allies, control enemies and the flow of combat, and simply damage enemies. He presents a great analogy:

In a first person shooter there can be a variety of weapons, from sniper rifles to rocket launchers to machine guns and shotguns. No one looks at these weapons and says, “They’re all the same, they all just do DPS.” Why should an MMO be any different?

I was playing Team Fortress 2 last night, and I thought nearly the same thing. We were playing Hightower, and two enemy engineers decided to really shake up the battlefield by planting mini-sentry guns all over the map and then attacking aggressively with the crit-laden Frontier Justice shotgun. In a role system, the engineer is supposed to be on defense sitting behind whacking his sentry and shooting at anything looking like a spy. Yet, the loadout system in Team Fortress 2 lets each class respond to the battlefield. For the engineers last night they wanted to own the battlefield until the opposing team responded. As we were on a public server, those two engineers used that tactic for quite some time successfully before we slowly and stupidly responded.

Continue reading [GW2] Book of Style

After a long duration of profession release silence, ArenaNet has overcome the half-way point hump to release the guardian profession. This new profession at first glance is a spell-casting melee fighter with a huge amount of battlefield control. This second, and last, soldier profession will turn a lot of heads, especially for those already considering a warrior main.

Continue reading [GW2] Guardian Profession

I think that Guild Wars 2 fans are going to be on a self-propelled roller coaster of excitement and energy until the guardian profession drops. It’s fun to speculate on upcoming Guild Wars 2 news with such focus, rather than trying to have a meaningful conversation about all the things we don’t know about Guild Wars 2. I am very happy that the guardian is the next profession of the four. I am much more likely to play a “mesmer,” but I think the guardian is more important in telling the story of combat and group dynamics.

With the few hints we know from concept art and the Edge of Destiny novel, the guardian is support melee. I’ll link the Edge of Destiny guardian breakdown over at Hunter’s Insight again because the article is so good. The guardian, as written, seems to minimize the effect of enemy’s attacks and control their movements. The profession also appears to have some sort of direct healing capabilities and may have assimilated a bit of ye ol’ ritualist profession by taking the weapon spells piece of the pie. Whereas the warrior profession has an offense-is-the-best-defense feel, the guardian well… guards.

Continue reading [GW2] Why the Guardian Matters