Guild Wars 2

Table of Contents

• Introduction to Guild Wars 2
  
• Dynamic Events System
  
• Videos

Guild Wars 2 is the sequel to a popular MMO made by a company called ArenaNet. It was most famous for being free to play online (with the only cost mandatory was buying the box), as well as for the profession system and being able to dual class essentially. GW2 is set to change the MMO world, from things WoW and LoTRO did to what its predecessor did. Hopefully, I'll be able to wade through the developer updates and information to bring you a concise list of reasons GW2 will be the best MMO to date.


Let's start off simple, with characters.

• Characters will be used across all game modes, including PvE, Structured PvP, and World PvP. What this changes is what Guild Wars did, i.e. having separate PvE and PvP characters.
  
• The game is designed for solo and cooperative gameplay to both be viable side-by-side. Hopefully no more needing to have that healer in a group and getting away from the trinity of DPS, Tank, and Healer. The ways both of these are achieved will be told later in the post. (Which is pretty much a change from every MMO ever.)
  
• The level cap has been raised to 80, from GW's measly 20. However, there is a plateau of power, where, once reached, characters won't gain as much power as they would underneath that point. There is also a sidekick system that allows lower level players to play with higher level players at no disadvantage. (Also seen in City of Heroes as well as others.)
  
• Character creation, so far, seems to be in depth, with you creating a story as well as your race and profession. The most we know about this comes from the Gamescom demo, like the image below. (This will hopefully help to bring more story driven gameplay to a genre that is severely lacking in storytelling.

Next, let's talk about Races.

• Playable races are new to the GW universe. In Guild Wars you were a human, plain and simple. In GW2 you get to pick between five races, which are Human, Norn, Charr, Asura, and Sylvari.
  
• Each race will have distinct advantages and disadvantages, such as the Norn being able to shapeshift and the Asura being strong at magic and controlling a golem. Each race will also have unique characteristics which do not provide advantages but rather give each race’s backstory some flavor, like the Sylvari’s seasons.
  
• No profession will be restricted based on the race you pick. The developers are making each race a viable choice for the profession, and vice versa.

And, logically, now professions.

• There are eight professions in all, but only four have so far been released. They are the Elementalist, the Warrior, the Range, and the Necromancer. There is no guarantee other professions from Guild Wars, but some may be inspired from the original.
  
• Sadly, there will be no secondary classing. (i.e. No dual classing.)
  
• They will be split between three types, which are three adventure professions (which include the Ranger), three scholar professions (which include the Elementalist and Necromancer), and two soldier professions (which include the Warrior).
  
• Different professions will have access to different weapons and armor, with overlap.
  
• The traditional roles of DPS, Tank, and Healer will be superseded by mechanics that encourage or require direct involvement in combat. Healing, in general, will be superseded by support skills on the skill bar for every profession, and making self-heals much powerfully than party heals. This boils down to every class will be able to DPS, Tank, or Heal, depending on the situation.

Weapons, skills, and traits are up next, which, to me, are the biggest bit of excitement when it comes to Guild Wars 2. The combat is being revamped completely, and I love the sounds of it.

• Weapons will be divided into three categories, which are one-handed (axe, dagger, mace, pistol, scepter, and sword), two-handed (greatsword, hammer, longbow, shortbow, rifle, and staff), and off-hand only (focus, shield, torch, and warhorn). Additionally, they can be sheathed which allows the character to run faster as opposed to one who is combat ready. There will also be environmental weapons, which will alter a character’s skills, such as a siege machines or a beer mug. (Which will be explained under skills.)
  
• There will be fewer skills than GW, but with emphasis of quality over quantity. Skill animations are attempting to create a clear indicator of range and effect of the skill.
  
• A character will have a total of ten skills on the skill bar, five of which are weapon and profession dependent, and can only be changed by switching to another weapon. That means that if you equip a sword and shield, you will have less damaging skills but something like shield bash, or if you equip two one-handed axes you’ll have a higher damage output and the ability to hit more than one foe, or if you pick up a rock from the environment, you’ll be able to use it in combat. I will let that sink in a little. That means switch to daggers to do quicker damage, or a staff to help power your magic just a little more, or a gun/bow to catch that enemy on the run. Again, you will gain skills by which weapon you equip.
  
  The other five skills are profession and race dependant, and can be changed in an outpost, with one being reserved for a heal skill and the other for an elite skill. This helps to create a wider variety of viable builds while at the same time decreasing useless skills.
  
• Weapons can be swapped mid-combat to change up skills on the fly.
  
• Traits are achieved by completing specific challenges throughout the game, and include such things as increased power or armor, quicker weapon swap, or adding special effects to weapons (Like Swordsmanship, which causes bleed on enemies.).
  
• Traits are intended to be swappable in town, much like skills, and there is a limit to the number of traits you can have in use at one time.

There is, of course, more to tell, which I will be doing in a post later on, but hopefully, this will all help to clue you in on what's going down on Guild Wars 2 and why it's in my top two of can't wait games. (Diablo 3, of course, being the other one.)


Information Continuation

• Introduction to Guild Wars 2
  
• Dynamic Events System
  
• Videos

I can't wait! Although I still refuse to watch any gameplay videos, I am definitely getting more hyped for it with your post.

When is this shit droppin? You may have just convinced me to pay money for an MMO for the first time ever.

Koblentz wrote:When is this shit droppin? You may have just convinced me to pay money for an MMO for the first time ever.

Beta should be anytime now, they're pushing for a mid-2011 release. (I hope soon!)

I also read it's less point, click, wait, more keyboard moving and action oriented. Soo MMOARPG? Just every time they announce something, I'm so into everything they're doing.

I'm looking forward to be that werewolf thing.

Tator Tot wrote:I'm looking forward to be that werewolf thing.

They're bears.

Wait,in this image? On the far right?

Tator Tot wrote:Wait, in this image? On the far right?

No, that's the Charr, a race of cat-like beasts. The Norn is the woman in the middle, but in this picture, the Norn becomes more badass already. :D

Jesus, a woman with a legit six-pack. With a bear as a pet.

I must play this game.

Koblentz wrote:Jesus, a woman with a legit six-pack. With a bear as a pet.

No, no, that's just it. She IS the bear.

I still want to be the werewolf thing

Tator Tot wrote:I still want to be the werewolf thing

The Charr? lol... They're gonna be my first race too. They're cats, but like, big scary mutha fuckas. Plus, they go industrial before anyone else it seems like. They have guns and shiz, it's pretty tight.

Sorry for the doublepost, but here's where I'll put videos or links to videos for Guild Wars 2. Here's the first one I'll put, which is the Manifesto. It's good.

interesting, never played GW but always did look at it, mainly cuz i played CoX and NCsoft threw all the GW stuff at my email

prolly look at getting Gw2, if nothing truely epic takes my fancy in the next 6-12 months

I've been looking for a new MMO with great PvP considering WoW have kinda been meh as of late with PvP but I'll defiantly check this out sometime.

For part 2 of our Guild Wars 2 look, I'm going to be talking about the Dynamic Events System, or, for the layman, what is replacing the quest of ye' ol' MMO.

If you remember, we talked about story along with character creation. The DES will expand on your customized character. The plan so far is to have personal story events that help flesh out your character, and persistant world events that help flesh out the world around you.

The Dynamic Events System: The World

To understand the DES we must first understand what is meant by the term Dynamic Events System. System is easy; a system is a set of connecting components that forms a larger whole. Defining events in a GW2 way is a little tougher. Events are set to replace quests in the game world. They are observable occurences that happen in the world around your character. Dynamic is the hardest word of all to understand in this context, but can be boiled down to a few things:

• Events have multiple outcomes, with no wrong or right path.
  
• These events are numerous, and each lead, in a cascading pattern, to other events in a trickle down effect.
  
• Once triggered, events will occur whether or not a player gets involved.
  
• Because there is no real failure or success, only an outcome, the effect will lead to a change in the area around the event.

And example given is if monsters are successful in raiding an area, they may become strong enough to occupy a fort, which could then be taken by players.
In this way the world around you will feel more persistant, rather than a set story, with things happening around you, with or without your choice. Because of the DES, this creates a world that feels more alive than your average MMO. You may remember systems like this from Tabula Rasa or Warhammer Online, but those systems still went hand in hand with a questing system. Guild Wars 2 instead makes events more plentiful and with more meaning on the world around, and by making more events you have more choice on what to do, which means no more killing 2 rats to get 1 pelt to get 100 experience.

This also destroys kill stealing and boss camping, by allowing everyone involved to profit from experience, although with simple guildlines that have yet to be determined. (My money is something simple, like time spent, etc.) Players will be notified when there is a new event nearby, and will not need to form a party to participate in an event.

The potential for this system is great, and leads us to really feel like we're doing something in the world, rather than being told we need to cut down on a population of fearsome beasts and it never really happening, or a big baddie just simply respawning ten minutes later. It makes the world just plain fun.
Events will also be scaled up in difficulty with increased participation. Some ways this is being done is by:

• Increasing the number of monsters.
  
• Increasing the level of monsters.
  
• Increasing the number of skills monsters can use.

This will hopefully ensure that all events are fun as well as challenging for all those involved. Also, events will never encourage player conflict, and although an event may seem to fail another event is in reality being triggered. Higher level players will also be debuffed in lower level areas to cut down on griefing as well as allowing those players to complete an area they may have missed out on without it being too easy.

Six event examples have been given on how the system will work, and they are as follows:

• The first example shows the arrival of a dragon near a particular town or village. The players nearby that town or village can choose to fight the dragon. If they are successful, the dragon may flee or die, and the players involved are rewarded by the village elder; if the players fail, the dragon destroys a bridge vital to the village. At that time, the village people attempt to build a new bridge, and the players may help them by fending off a group of bandits that see the opportunity to attack.
  
• In the second example, if a player happens to be inside a garrison when a scouting party returns, they may overhear the scouts warning of an approaching column of centaurs, intent on destroying the garrison. The players can then participate in defending the garrison from the attacking centaurs. If the players are successful, the garrison may ask them to participate in a counterattack. If they are not successful, or if they weren't at the garrison in time to save the garrison, they may join other soldiers from a nearby town attempting to recapture the garrison.
  
• The third example involves a player walking along a familiar road, but this time they happen upon a caravan traveling along the road. They can choose to travel with the caravan, and defend it from roving bandits, or not.
  
• A fourth example is of the easter egg variety. An asura is standing at the entrance to a cave and tells the player he wants some of the rare mushrooms inside, but is too big to enter himself. If you volunteer he will turn you into a pig and trigger an event. So you go into the hole and dig up mushrooms while dodging animals with your pig skills.
  
• The fifth example shows a possibility of the player to gain access to the home city of the skritt, but they first need to progress an event chain in order to win over their trust. The event chain begins with skritt outside the closed city being kidnapped by members of the Nightmare Court - evil sylvari. Players can join in the event chain and attempt to stop the skritt from being kidnapped. If the players fail, the Nightmare Court will brainwash the skritt, triggering another series of events. If the players succeed, the skritt will open the doors to their city, and introduce the players to the skritt king.
  
• Another example is of event clashing, or multiple event chains in one location. The example has been given of a player escorting a beer merchant from Divinity's Reach to Beetletun; when the destination is reached, the player notices centaurs attacking the city, whilst players trying to defend it. The escort player can then join in the fight, protecting the merchant. Completion of the success goal unlocks the beer merchant in Divinity's Reach to all players, and the merchant may be shown differently - in a stand, in a shop or a building, and repels the attacking centaurs.

The Dynamic Events System: Your Own Story
Not a lot has been said on this other than during character creation you'll be able to answer questions and fill out a background for your character. I found an interesting tidbit that explains a bit further:

At character creation the player can choose different biographical information which will change aspects of what occurs during the story. This might include the social status of the character, their attitude to other races, how friendly the character comes across as, among many other things. Each race has different choices for their biographical information. The profession chosen will also have a minor effect.

During gameplay there will be a variety of different decisions the player can make when they resolve different situations which is influenced by the personality system. Do you go in with guns blazing or try for the diplomatic solution? Do you punch the NPC who has been annoying you? Do you turn on the charm to get your way? How these situations resolve themselves will result in cosmetic changes for the character but nothing which will affect the power of the character.

The choices made throughout the game will affect the appearance and services in the instanced part of the characters home town as they progress through the story. All information about the character and the decisions they've made is recorded in a storybook which will be unique to each character.

What is this but not Roleplaying, at its core? I will update this as more information comes in.

I hate MMOs but even I want this one.

Yeah I really want Guild Wars 2 as well, all the interviews and stuff ive read all make it look really good, plus no subscription, ill defo be getting :)

The no subscription should sell it to everyone. Picking up Guild Wars now and playing it after so many years just to see the new stuff is amazing to me. It's a really solid plan.

I loved Guild Wars and look forward to playing this with everyone here.

My question...this all sounds great but how is it going to work with multiple people? If the idea of the "quest", so to speak, is taken away, how does that work as far as playing with other people?

I hope that question isn't too confusing and someone understands what I'm asking..I think this sounds like a great game.

ericxboba wrote:I loved Guild Wars and look forward to playing this with everyone here.

My question...this all sounds great but how is it going to work with multiple people? If the idea of the "quest", so to speak, is taken away, how does that work as far as playing with other people?

I hope that question isn't too confusing and someone understands what I'm asking..I think this sounds like a great game.

From what I gather, that aspect isn't going to change from GW1. I think they're just making it possible to solo the entire game. I think it was mentioned somewhere that should people join you in questing, enemies in the area will increase in level.

Unless that's not what you're asking...

I think the idea is that people will be running their own, more personal, story and that you will be aids to them if you help them on said quest.

WHo knows, you may get alterations to your story for helping others.

That's what I was wondering. That makes more sense and the game will be fun whether or not you have people with you. But it will be awesome with people too!

That's the way I took it, but obviously we'll see as time goes on.

Yes just like The old Republic. If enoughf people play the game, then I am in.