Category: Guild Wars 2

I saw them days, possibly a week or more, before I knew what they were.  From the Guild Wars 2 gamescom videos almost every one showed the player hitting the map.  The world would zoom out and re-orient from the character in a somewhat artistic way, and I saw heart outlines on the map.

I actually allowed the puzzle of their presence a few cycles of the old brain when an NPC was circling the hearts and at the same time telling me there were farmers about each heart that needed help.  Event hubs! I first thought.  Wait, hearts as the icon for event hubs don’t make sense was the second thought.  Then because I didn’t like the look of hearts on the nice map, I conveniently forgot about them while I was inundated with plenty of other Guild Wars 2 information.

Continue reading Guild Wars 2 – Completionist Hearts

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