Guild Wars 2

[kuhla]

They posted a video on their website, more news and demos will come out of gamescon, I guess they allow a level 1 human and a level 47 char to be played. The video shows some scenes and sections in game, they look fantastic. They've really stepped up their architecture and environments from the previous games, looks amazing. The dragons shown look like dragons should. They're huge and look like you need a serious party to bring it down.

link for the lazy - http://cloudfront.guildwars2.com/manifesto...N_QT_iPhone.m4v

 

I feel in part like this was the video I was waiting for. It really showed off the graphical enhancements (lighting, etc.) and the continued good level design (graphically impressive, daunting, etc.).

 

 

Semi-Tangent-Fantasy: I want melee support class pleaseeeee like bear shaman or chanter............. I know it isn't really going to happen but hnnnnnnn

[Malaphax]

Well there's 2 heavy (one the warrior) 3 medium (one the ranger) and 3 light (one the elementalist). So theoretically you could get a melee support class as a medium armor I have a feeling there's going to be a class like that, mostly because one of the outline is a heavy armor with blunt weapons and a shield. We'll see though.

 

I just hope that their dungeons are solid, and that the instancing isn't too bad. Otherwise this game looks beyond amazing. I have a feeling blizzard and other mmo developers will shit themselves when this comes out.

[kuhla]

Well there's 2 heavy (one the warrior) 3 medium (one the ranger) and 3 light (one the elementalist). So theoretically you could get a melee support class as a medium armor I have a feeling there's going to be a class like that, mostly because one of the outline is a heavy armor with blunt weapons and a shield. We'll see though.

The reason I'm somewhat skeptical about such a class is because of the whole "Of Healing and Death" or whatever it was called blog post from a while back which made it sound like they wanted everyone to do a little support and healing and avoid having some class become more dedicated to that. We will see though if that changes at all.

[Malaphax]

They're trying to cut down on a dedicated healing class, that's why each class has an individual heal skill. I have a feeling there will be a plethora of "support" skills and abilities though. Look for example at the paragon in gw1. The class had some healing capability but it was more of a buff class than anything. Likewise ritualists had some cool buffs they could use and healing as well. I also think that they'll be a bigger focus on negating damage than healing it. Think more protection spells than healing spells. As far as a "paladin" or a hybrid tank/healer I wouldn't be surprised if that class showed up. Guild wars 1 the first classes were pretty standard and they slowly added their more interesting classes (paragon, ritualist, dervish). I have a feeling they'll reveal something similar to a paladin/paragon.

[kuhla]

Some of the gameplay footage from gamescom that malaphax linked me to. There is more but it is downloading very slowly right now as multiple people are trying to get it.

[kuhla]

Some of the gameplay footage from gamescom that malaphax linked me to. There is more but it is downloading very slowly right now as multiple people are trying to get it.

Video in above post removed since the full demo footage from the original source has now been uploaded to youtube and is right here:

 

[Malaphax]

http://www.massively.com/2010/08/18/gamesc...dev-confirms-n/

 

That has a quick video of the giant earth elemental summoning and you can see and hear them talking a bit about the necro class. I have a feeling they might have given some of the ritualist style buffs and mechanics to them. So that should be interesting. I still haven't found any good videos of the higher level char or of the dragon boss. So hopefully some of those will surface later today.

 

EDIT: so unfortunately I've only found this ultra low quality cam rip of the "shatterer" the giant purple dragon. But it is definately giant. You can see that a char isn't as wide as one of it's legs and only stands up to about ankle height. It also flys up and then does a huge knockdown effect. "Save all your aggro reducing abilities for when it lands..." Wow I really hope we can get some better streams and that the arena net team puts out a proper quality set of videos after gamescon. I'm already crapping my pants watching shitty cam rips, I'd love to see this in higher quality.

 

[Malaphax]

http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/this-g...ming-t6651.html

 

A thread that contains all sorts of videos and pictures and information. One video stood out for me:

 

http://gamevideos.1up.com/video/id/30949

 

The guy is playing a necromancer, and apparently they have an "adrenaline" type of system called life-force which after they build up enough of... he turned into a sort of avatar mode. Pretty sick.

 

Overall thought and impressions of what has been shown and what i've seen:

 

- The combat mechanics are fluid, you can move while casting, certain skills must be aimed and the number of movement oriented abilities are numerous. This means two things. Everybody will be moving quite a bit making the combat much more engaging and fun. Any sort of cc will be invaluable, with everyone being able to dodge and run while casting/attacking this means that you're going to need to stop them from moving around. I predict most pvp builds being centered around cc.

 

- The art and graphics are top notch. Not only did the continue with the guild wars style of "painterly" aesthetic but they seem to have bumped it up a notch. It's not photo-realistic but something different and very cool without being overly stylized.

 

- The pve looks like it might live up to the promises, events going off everywhere at all times, not to mention certain events have massive boss battles. Also not once have we seen anyone in a group and yet often several players and npc's are working together to fight a single enemy or complete a single event. Seems pretty cool.

 

- Scale. I mean holy shit. The maps are pretty damn big, this is just small portions of the gameworld and seems just fantastically huge. Guild wars was always a pretty big set of continents but this seems like it might be bigger. Also the boss monsters are huge. This has always been something that pisses me off, in most other games you fight a legendary boss not much bigger than yourself, every once in a while I just want to fight something so huge that it takes up more than my screen and takes a big group to defeat, instead of fighting a mob the same size as me that I beat up on with 25 other people.

 

- Polished. Arenanet didn't bring some half assed demo with them, that's a serious amount of work and playable area they brought in. I hope that they can manage to release guild wars 2 around the aniversary of guild wars 1, that would be in late april and give them plenty of time to tease us with the other 4 professions and much more gameplay and whatnot.

 

The only thing I keep coming back to, is just how instanced will the game be. I think the demos of low level humans are instanced, which would be alright, I certainly don't want every starting zone to be full on day 1. But I hope it's not something where I can swap channels/districts to fight different bosses or find different events going on.

[Malaphax]

Best 2 videos I've found. They show all 4 classes at higher levels show quite a few different areas and abilities as well as a good clip of a giant dragon (every clip is people getting owned by that thing). Tons of crazy shit but it's super late and I don't feel like posting anymore or looking for more videos.

 

 

[Malaphax]

Necromancer official reveal: http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/prof...ns/necromancer/

 

On a side note the audio for their skills is pretty creep sounding. I'm hoping that there will be 2 "new" classes at this point. Mostly because I have a feeling mesmer and assassin will return. Oh well I guess we'll find out eventually.

[Malaphax]

There's a nice article from the arena net blog about dyes and their new dye system:

 

http://www.arena.net/blog/live-and-let-dye...-gw2-dye-system

 

To cut it down. There are over 250 "colors" available right now and they're planning on adding more. Materials react to dyes differently (cloth, leather and metal being the main 3). Certain armor pieces can be placed in sets (for example a long cape is not separated at the waistline but part of a set with the pants/shirt it's attached to). These sets may have more dye channels, but on average each piece has around 3 channels some less and the sets have 4. Dyes are not loot(?) They're unlocked and are account wide. Each starting area/race has different starting dyes. The article also has a few good pictures of various armor.

 

I know this will sound a bit crazy, but it's times like these where you can tell that this person loves their job and knows what they're doing. Also it strikes me if the person handling their dye/colors system is going into so much detail than you have to wonder just how much work the rest of the design team is putting in.

 

Also another sidenote they also posted about mobile apps and shit for the game. The only part that caught my attention was that these apps are also available for the pc and that they seem to be thinking about upgrading the wiki and tying it closely with the apps so you can find out useful information through them, and even locate in game events going on etc...

 

Also a huge issue of pc gamer is hitting shelves tomorrow with guild wars 2 on the cover so if I manage to grab some scans of that I'll post them.

[kuhla]

Sounds good. Changes made sense and seem very plausible.

[Malaphax]

Alright I've got some news from the pc gamer scans but unfortunately no scans themselves.

 

Source: http://www.guildwars2guru.com/forum/pcgame...o-t8498p14.html

*Ok, they talk about the difference between dynamic events and the personal story... now they are talking about the third type, dungeons.

 

*Yay new info! (No matter how small) As you go along the personal story you'll be playing through a new dungeon about once every 10 levels or so.

 

* ''The story of each [dungeon] focuses on one or more of the Destiny's Edge, a guild of heroes who reliably saved the world untill some dark events split them apart. It is your objective to get them back together.' Woo its getting juicy.

 

*''The first time you play a dungeon, you'll play through its Story Mode, where one or two members of Destiny's Edge show up as friendly NPCs to drive the story foward.''

 

*Although story driven, dungeons arent all about sitting around talking. Its about fighting. ''Even one that starts out as a party in a mansion quickly turns to combat''

 

*''Beating a dungeon's Story Mode will unlock its Explorable Mode, a harder version of the dungeon which tells varied follow-up stories in that same area, unrelated to Destinys edge''

 

* They say that the explorer dungeon mode is meant to be really repeatable. It'll have many different scenarios and enemies that could appear each time (while not being random.)

 

* Eric says that in Gw1 after you've done the missions a few times the story stuff stops being interesting, and can get in the way of you having fun. People were skipping cutscenes.

 

* ''So what we wanted to do was to provide people with a linear story mode with lots of cutscenes, lots of story going on, lots of exposition. And then for the explorable mode it can be a lot more freeform, where can just jump in and you're dealing with something that doesnt need as much explanation, doesnt have a lot of cutscenes, and its got a lot of replayability built into it because there are different ways to complete it or different paths to take''

 

*Woo they give an example of a dungeon that isnt the beetletun mansion. The Sorrows Embrace dungeon is a hideout for the Dredge. If you play it on story mode youll discover that the Dredge leaders have sold their people into slavery under the Seraph. So you fight off all the slavers (sound familiar, anyone??? Awesome). So after you've completed that explorable mode will open up and you can do things like ''aid the dredge workers who are now planning to revult against their corrupt leaders''

 

* Some dungeons will be familiar to Gw1 players.... At around level thirty you'll be able to enter the Ascalon catacombs. The spirits there are restless, so a Charr comander and Rytlock lead you in to lay them to rest. You might recognise some of the more powerful spirits in this dungeon as the profession trainers from GW1!! ''Master Ranger Nente can teleport and shoot waves of arrows that cover part of the room, forcing you to hide behind objects in the environment.''

 

*''Warmaster Grast smashes players and the environment with his oversized, half-ghost hammer, and you can grab the chunks of rubble he knocks out to throw them back.''

 

*''Finally, theres Necromancer Munne and the boss of the dungeon, King Adelmen. (Is that a typo?? Please tell me it is!)

 

*Rewards from dungeons will be the same statisticly as other high end rewards. No one will be forced to play a dungeon. (Kind of a given, but really nice to hear it stated again)

 

* Though the gear will not be statistically more powerful it will have unique appearances that are directly tied into the theme of the dungeon and 'visually striking'. (bonus mission pack, anyone? )

 

*It says A.net dont want the rewards to be based on chance. No one should have to complete the dungeon many times and maybe even get the same item they already have twice. They remedy this by rewarding players with an item that can be traded for the desired peice of equipment. This way its never random what you get, you can pick and choose yourself. (Just like doa and the tormented weapons, for example)

 

* Supposedly the guy writing the article got to play the game and he says that ''I found a healthy balance of all the different types of content came naturally' - So did he play dungeons? Oo. He describes the personal story sending him to find an armourer at a castle but it was under siege when he got there.

So the high notes are that dungeons start as personal story with cutscenes and then become "explorable" and harder (personal story is mostly solo with some npc help so this makes sense). Also I think I've heard party size is around 5 right now.

 

Gear is done on a turn in basis. I love this system for many reasons, you don't have to worry about random drops or loot whores or any of that shit, everyone who completes it gets something. Also it makes much more sense to me that you get a piece you can craft/salvage into armor/weapons as opposed to, random dragon boss dropping a fully formed set of pants and 2 swords...

 

I have a feeling their dungeon armor/weapon sets will be something similar to the elite armor sets, something a bit harder to attain that looks a bit cooler.

 

EDIT: There's also this lovely article talking more about loot posted by the guild wars staff

 

http://www.arena.net/blog/a-rewarding-expe...-loot#more-3320

[Malaphax]

Ok so we've got some bad news. What we suspected (or rather were told) is true. Transmutation stones are a cash shop item. Now I can somewhat understand this, I mean guild wars has offered cash shop items for a while and has been slowly expanding this. I'm not going to deny them a way to make money. And as some would point out, if you don't like it don't buy it. It does in some ways seem somewhat strange. Especially because each dungeon has their own set, and you know there will be people who want to have each set of armor (look at ren for example). The only experience I've seen with these items are in aion and that was free (in game currency aside). However, considering at this time we do not know how many armor sets are in the game (aside from a minimum of 9, 8 coming from dungeons each 10 levels and 1 starter set), I feel as if this will be more for people who really like the look of certain sets of armor.

 

Part of me hates that everyone in the gaming industry is beginning this slow (or should I say fast) descent into cash shops and micro transactions. Look at it this way, a few years ago microtransactions were only talked about in a negative connotation, and associated almost completely with eastern mmos. Now we have almost every new game coming out with some sort of cash shop or dlc available on day 0. Some companies do it better than others, but it does make me sad to see this trend throughout gaming.

 

All of that being said, if an armor set looks amazing and I need to transmute it, I don't mind giving anet some of my money, much like buying skins from riot. I'll pay for certain microtransactions I feel are worth it, partially because I want them and partially to support companies I like.

[Malaphax]

This is probably one of the end game armors, I say this because it looks very similar to the minions shown belonging to the elder dragon we're supposed to fight.

 

 

If you don't think that armor looks awesome, there is no hope for you.

[Malaphax]

Reward Calculator for Hall of monuments is out. I'm actually considering doing a bit more regular guild wars to try and get a few easy points. I'd like to make my way up to the fellblade at least.

 

http://hom.guildwars2.com/#page=welcome

 

I typed in Ren's name for lulz and he has like all the rewards except some optional titles.

 

If you guys are up for doing some of this stuff I'd be more than happy to get a few more titles.

[kuhla]

Reward Calculator for Hall of monuments is out. I'm actually considering doing a bit more regular guild wars to try and get a few easy points. I'd like to make my way up to the fellblade at least.

 

http://hom.guildwars2.com/#page=welcome

 

I typed in Ren's name for lulz and he has like all the rewards except some optional titles.

 

If you guys are up for doing some of this stuff I'd be more than happy to get a few more titles.

I forgot to reply to this, yeah, I'm up for some GW1 stuff.

[Malaphax]

Bunch of interesting articles posted on PCgamer. Here's the link to one of them:

 

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/10/20/guild-wa...chen-sink-post/

[Malaphax]

http://massively.joystiq.com/2011/01/21/ar...r-guild-wars-2/

 

Next class reveal is next thursday, it's called the guardian, the second heavy armor class.

[Malaphax]

[Malaphax]

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/guardian/

 

Here's your class kuhla. Seems like instead of a paladin type, it's more chanter. You also often have to give up person benefits for the benefit of the group. Most of those skills seem like they were taken from the protection/smite monk trees. Combine that with ritualist style weapon summoning, and elementalist type ward summoning. Seems like a very interesting character and certainly some new mechanics, it should have a different playstyle from anything we have in guild wars.

 

Coolest skill:

 

[kuhla]

Here's your class kuhla. ..... it's more chanter.

Support? Melee? Indeed.

[Malaphax]

It also seems complex and fun/hard to play. I would certainly look at this class as an alt after my warrior.

[Malaphax]

 

No idea if that's a legit picture, but judging from the artstyle it's what they've had on their website with various classes shaded out. They've been posting about the guardian on some fan forums and from what I'm understanding the guardian is support, not a tank. He has the same armor stats as a warrior and he has good health regen, but he has a smaller health pool. So the idea if you aren't supposed to tank with him, but rather support, assisting with damage and damage mitigation. Also expect a follow up question and answer section posted in the next week or two, they mentioned that so many people had questions they'd try their best to post another article with the answers.

 

I'm going to once again try my best to log on guild wars and grind out some gold/quests. Honestly I know I can make my goal, I'm up to 21/30 and I really want 23 to get the fellblade, if I'm feeling crazy I might try for 27 and the servitor golem.

[kuhla]

http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/7808/1296242344182.jpg

Wait, that picture is different from the one on their website (see below). The 5 on their website picture line up with the 5 classes revealed so far. I would think that picture shows the visuals for the next 3 classes to be revealed. Reading over your post again, you said this already but I didn't understand it. Umm, so guesses on what the next 3 will be? I'm going to say... assassin, demoman, magneto

 

 

They've been posting about the guardian on some fan forums and from what I'm understanding the guardian is support, not a tank. He has the same armor stats as a warrior and he has good health regen, but he has a smaller health pool. So the idea if you aren't supposed to tank with him, but rather support, assisting with damage and damage mitigation.

Pretty much what I expected personally.