Forum:New GW2 info/ArenaNet Blog content

'''This is the section of the New GW2 info forum dedicated to posts on the ArenaNet blog. To read the entire forum, please visit Forum:New GW2 info'''

ArenaNet Blog content
This section covers articles posted on the official Arena.net blog.

Nine GW2 Follow Up Questions with Eric Flannum
http://www.arena.net/blog/nine-gw2-follow-up-questions-with-eric-flannum

"The possible number of combinations is in the millions"

He's talking about the number of possible skillbars in Guild Wars 2. For comparison, the number of possible skillbars in Guild Wars, with only eight skills on a bar and assuming no PVE-only skills, is in the quadrillions. Quizzical 22:28, May 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * Quadrillions? 2 professions with the most skills are N(145)+E(147), for a total of 292 skills, or 222 normal and 70 elites.
 * 222! / [(222-8)!8!] = 222*221*220*219*218*217*216*215/40,320 = 128,795,283,347,445 (8 non-elite)
 * 222! / [(222-7)!7!] = 222*221*220*219*218*217*216/5,040 =       4,792,382,636,184 (7 non-elite) *70 (+ 1 of the 70 elites)
 * 4,792,382,636,184*70 + 128,795,283,347,445 =                  464,262,067,880,325
 * or about half a quadrillion of mostly worthless builds. Then again, it's 2:20am, and I'm probably doing something wrong.
 * So, if "the possible number of combinations is in the millions," then what's the size of the skill pool? Take into account that they suggest a 15-skill bar, because your second weapon switch adds 5 more. I guess it's too early to do the math accurately, without knowing exactly how the weapon-bound skills work, but what about a crude # of just any 15 skill mix? I'm too sleepy for this... <_< RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.png]] 23:38, May 5, 2010 (UTC)


 * There are also 45 ways to pick a combination of professions. Quizzical 00:16, May 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * i like to look at it, we have 5 skills slots, 'normal' skill slots if you will, considering over 99% of good builds have an elite (and ppl whine if you don't bring one) it's only only 1 of those 5 being restricted, the healing slot. i've played healer monk for about 7 months before trying anything else, and i assure you these arguments about 'if the monk is doing his job you wont need healing/defense' are annoying and false, trust me, unless your monk is VERY overconfident, he/she will thank you for bringing some way of easing their workload.


 * so of the 5 normal slots, one of them (the elite slot) is barely being restricted, and the healing slot makes sure you have at least something as back-up. let's face it, shit happens, over-aggro, poor planning, or the obvious, the monks poor at his job. so those 5 are barely restricted, IMO.


 * as to the other 5, they change not just upon switching weapons, but also to use the environment better (environmental weapons). so it's not just 15 skills at all times, it's 5 for sure, and another 10 that can change as much or little as you like to work with your surroundings.


 * as soon as i read about the new skillbar system i immediately thought, a mix of: that sounds awesome, 5 skills to use with our surroundings!, this ought to help make healers lives easier, and wow... people are going to complain ENDLESSLY about this.Akbaroth 00:32, May 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh yeah, that, of course, I knew that! >_< So like over 10 quadrillion (straight *45 gives almost 21 quad, but other professions have fewer skills). And I like the new skill bar so far, I just can't wait to get the rest of the professions, ANet is such a torturing monster when it comes to info. x_x RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.png]] 00:44, May 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * A count via spreadsheet returns an answer of 7618081977951470. That allows rez signets, uses the cap of at most one elite, and imposes the restriction of at most two professions.  It doesn't count a build with only warrior skills separately for a W/N and a W/P profession combination, for example.  It does require every skill slot to be filled, however, and exclude all PVE-only skills.
 * I'd see this as confirmation that the five skills for your weapon aren't "pick five out of 30", but rather "these are your fixed five". If you got to pick five skills out of 25 for your weapon, and the same for your class, that puts you into billions of combinations, just for a single class with a particular weapon.  Assuming all one-handed weapons can go in the off-hand as well, there are 66 possible weapon combinations, though some may be impossible to due class restrictions.  The "millions" of possible combinations would then point to somewhere in the range of 30-70 skills per class.
 * On another topic, what I'd worry about is that the game will encourage players to form too large of groups and all run around together, since they all get full loot from anything they kill. Ten people can kill a lot more in a given amount of time than one person solo, and if the ten people each get full loot from everything, that makes soloing not terribly viable.
 * Maybe the restriction that you have to do significant damage will clamp down on that, but even if so, that could make AoE damage dealers have a tremendous advantage. Follow around some other people, run in and tag everything with an AoE attack, and collect the loot after the others do most of the work.
 * This could also make relatively unpopular areas basically unusable. What often happens in games is that players figure out that you get 50% more experience and loot in zone A than zone B, so they spend most of their time in zone A.  If that leaves farmers competing with each other for spawns, then that dampens the effect somewhat, so maybe the benefit is less than 50%.  But if it means that zone A will have ten times as many players running around, so that bigger groups kill three times as fast, then zone A could suddenly get you triple experience and loot as compared to zone B, on top of the natural 50% advantage.  This could also lead to a strong time of day dependence.
 * That's fixable by having copies of zone A than zone B, but only if they're not set on having a fixed number of complete worlds. Right now, if there are 10 times as many players in Cathedral of Flames as in Rhea's Crater, then there will be ten times as many instances of the former as the latter, so it's the same player density per instance.  You can do that with open worlds, too; see how Champions Online tends to have far more instances of Millennium City than of Lemuria, for example, in order to keep the player density comparable.  Quizzical 01:30, May 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well 7618081977951470 is still millions, even if it's thousands-of-millions-of-millions. :D On more serious note, my greatest worry about GW2 at the moment is that the skill system will be a dumbed-down version of GW1. Perhaps the biggest thing in GW1 for me, that has kept me going for years, is the incredible versatility of skill choises. There's practically limitless number of combinations to experiment on, and discover new ways to utilize. The ability to switch secondary profession adds even more versatility to that, and lets you 'try before buy' to some extent - I played monk a lot, but realized I kept using ranger skills on most of my skillbars, so I ended up making a ranger. Now I do realize it's a balancing nightmare, and fully understand why GW2 is going towards a more static skill system.. but from player-side, it the impression I get feels a bit lukewarm after being spoiled by the current GW system. For similar reason I don't like the idea of being FORCED to dedicate a skill slot for healing skill, or being FORCED to pick an elite for one of the slots. Sure, about 80% of my skillsets would include -some- kind of healing skill, and about 95% or more would include an elite - but what about those that won't? What the GW2 system would appear to do, is to force you into more cookie-cutter builds. 'Ok, we have warrior for tanking, we have mage for damage, we have cleric for healing.. we just need to find a thief for traps, then we're set to go to the dungeon'. Kitsunebi 10:19, May 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Do note that GW also has its moments of Trinity-way. Heck, the most recent Elite area builds all featured Shadow Form tanks. Sure, it's not the Whammo tanking, but the point still stands; it's the Tank/DPS/Healbot setup all over again. The hard areas are not going to steer away from that, because it works. Easy and medium range areas never used that setup, however, and I doubt that will happen in GW2. After all, everyone has some form of self-preservation. Another interesting skill to mention for this is Water Attunement. It heals nearby allies continuously, meaning you're less easily pressured to death (degen ftl). Besides, their goal is that it's possible to solo everything. If the Ele can't take a hit, that idea goes down the drain instantaneously. --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG]] -- (contribs) &emsp;(talk)  11:56, May 6, 2010 (UTC)

"ANet is such a torturing monster when it comes to info." -Kali. See also; Diablo 3. qq. We've seen the Monk, but only know of a tiny amount of skills. We know that the Rune system exists, but have little idea what the runes will do (Energy rune won't simply reduce skill costs I bet). Pretty frustrating as well :P Just felt like venting a little.

There's a metric fuckton of possible combinations. Now, how many are sane and possibly viable? What PvP (Bow-)Ranger does not carry DShot? Who the hell makes a W/Me with 7 Me skills? Let alone having it work a little; half your bar would be energy management, and two damage skills. YES 10 DPS's!

I also wonder if (ex.) different 1h swords will yield different skillbars; A Jitte might give you Riposte v2.0 and Disarm, whereas a Short Sword gets you Sever/Gash. That would be badass, and increases #skillbars/builds. Additionally, there's more weapon types in GW2; 2h swords, daggers, guns... (they've mentioned war + gun fairly often; Hamstorm or truly useful?) --- -- (contribs)  &emsp;(talk)  10:09, May 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * Well you did say it yourself - What BOW-ranger would? And even so, I'm pretty sure there would be a viable set that didn't include the particular skill, although I don't really do PvP so I can't say a whole lot about it (No, after thinking about that a little, I may have to take that one back - you can assume almost everyone carries rez-signet, and against those it would be invaluable skill).  What comes to W/Me, in PvE if your primary profession is warrior, then that's what you are.. but in some particular situation you might need a bucketfull of distance interrupts, and might want to toss in something like mantra of earth.. and in that case, a warrior with 7 mesmer skills might be perfectly viable.  It certainly wouldn't be one-size-fits-all build, and most of the time a 'real mesmer' would do the job better.. but the point is that the warrior primary does still have the OPTION to do it.  Back in days when there was only prophecies, I played through Hell's Precipice (mission plus bonus) as primary monk, with only 3 henchmen and nothing else in my party - and my skillbar had 5 or 6 ranger skills.. simply because in that situation it worked best for me. Kitsunebi 10:32, May 6, 2010 (UTC)

To go back on something said earlier, I find it great that there is a dedicated healing slot (which probably means that all professions will have more that 2-3 heals *cough*warrior*cough*. It prevents morons (like 50% of the RA population) to solely depend on the monk, who is then, as said before, blamed if they die. I'm not sure how the elite-only slot would work at the beginning of the game. Would you get an elite skill from the beginning (perhaps a racial one), or would you be able to still put normal skills in that one too?

Also, the way they have said it, it makes me feel that it's 3/2 set skills per weapon (depending on offhand/mainhand of course). It doesn't sound like you can actually choose the skills your weapon provides.--El_Nazgir 14:57, May 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * The early elite slot might be like the Unknown Junundu Ability. Early game should be easy enough to handle without a full skill set. RoseOfKali [[Image:RoseOfKaliSIG.png]] 16:02, May 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd favor one slot being reserved for a heal, just for idiot-proofing reasons. This is basically what El Nazgir said, too.
 * On the other hand, I'd hope that you have the option of having the elite be a healing skill, a non-healing skill, or not having an elite at all. That's how it works right now in Guild Wars (1), and I don't see any reason to change it.
 * I'd favor some restrictions on builds to block the peculiar gimmick builds, such as 55, 600, perma-shadow form, ursanway, etc. But even Guild Wars right now allows a tremendous diversity of builds without having to take a secondary profession at all.  I don't see any reason to believe that Guild Wars 2 will offer meaningfully less than this.
 * Guild Wars really doesn't do the tank/healer/damage dealer approach. The game doesn't have a concept of tanks analogous to that of many other games, as this game doesn't have an aggro system at all, let alone super duper aggro building taunt skills.  It also doesn't have a useful notion of a damage dealer; everyone and his neighbor's dog can deal damage, and if a character can't do anything else, that character is a deadweight.  Some players do try to play the tank/healer/damage dealer approach because that's what they're used to from other games, but it's hardly necessary here--and often doesn't even work all that well.  Quizzical 17:16, May 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Guild Wars doesn't need Trinity; doesn't mean it's not the easiest way to deal with groups. Cryway and HBNuke (and... and...) rely on this concept; One tank balls everything up, nukers come in and wipe the floor. To boot, it's ridiculously fast; faster than most conventional builds. I don't know how this all works after the Shadow Form nerf (because lolGWs), though, just stating examples. --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG]] -- (contribs) &emsp;(talk)  18:16, May 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * So basically you mean that overpowered PVE-only skills are overpowered. Quizzical 18:34, May 6, 2010 (UTC)


 * Right, because Shadow Form and Hundred Blades+Mark of Pain is PvE-only. --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG]] -- (contribs) &emsp;(talk)  18:50, May 6, 2010 (UTC)
 * 'I'd favor one slot being reserved for a heal, just for idiot-proofing reasons' - this 'idiot-proofing' is exactly the thing I'm worried about. If you build a game that an idiot can play, only idiot is likely to bother.  EverQuest 2 had this problem - they simplified things so much the game got boring.  A ten years old could play it.  'click there when the green light flashes'.  I'm not saying that setting one skillslot aside for forced healing skill is going to ruin the game, but I'm questioning the purpose behind making something like that mandatory, and wether the same policy applies elsewhere. Kitsunebi 04:03, May 7, 2010 (UTC)


 * "It prevents morons (like 50% of the RA population) to solely depend on the monk"
 * El_Nazgir, you forgot to mention that generally with the RA population they depend on a Monk, and (knowing this before) go into the Arena only to not have one. A_F_K_sig_2.jpg A F K When Needed 09:02, May 7, 2010 (UTC)


 * That's exactly my point.--[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]El_Nazgir 14:14, May 7, 2010 (UTC)


 * It's a question of whether players should be able to gratuitously sabotage their own character. In a solo game, sure, you can give players enough rope to hang themselves.  But in a grouping game, it's not good for players to have undue opportunity to destroy the group.  It's important for game mechanics to restrict ninja-looting for the same reasons.  Quizzical 16:58, May 7, 2010 (UTC)

The Fashion of Guild Wars 2: An Interview with Kristen Perry
http://www.arena.net/blog/the-fashion-of-guild-wars-2-an-interview-with-kristen-perry


 * Well, I'm glad they designed clothes for us. We won't be running around naked. Besides that, this article really didn't tell me anything too interesting...I'd have liked to see some Charr or Asura armor as examples, since those that are currently ingame are pretty cookie-cutterish. I mean, all the Asura and Charr npcs have 4 or 5 different models? Apart from Vekk and Pyre and other story line npcs, like Oolah or Gron Fierceclaw. Not that I ever really looked really hard at the armor details on GW1 Charr/Asura npcs, but assuming there are several different styles for each profession and male/female versions for each race, show us something we haven't seen before. I'll bet I could find some current ingame armor that looks pretty close to the example pics they gave. 71.248.35.190 02:33, May 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * I'm guessing they'll totally vamp up and increase the number of models for the other races in GW2. I liked seeing the human clothing, I imagine anything from the other races would look pretty much like what we'd expect, going from the concept art and videos we've seen before.--99.225.28.182 12:35, May 21, 2010 (UTC)


 * Perhaps one of the most significant new tools is the use of normal maps.
 * I'd take that as meaning it will probably be a DirectX 9.0c game. If it were a DirectX 11 game, she'd probably have talked about some newer DirectX 11 feature instead, most notably tessellation.  With the release of DirectX 11, there's no sense whatsoever in making a new DirectX 10 game.  Quizzical 00:38, May 23, 2010 (UTC)
 * Problem for them is though, they've been working on II for longer than the feature list for the SDK for 11 has been out. Unless they reworked the engine part way through, it was NEVER going to be for 11. I'd have expected 10 though... 121.44.191.217 22:18, May 24, 2010 (UTC)

Colin Johanson Answers Your Dynamic Event Questions
Doesn't seem to answer and address some concerns that users have expressed about this system, however - although the end of the article notes that there will be another article by Eric Flannum which may have more information Random Time  21:57, May 19, 2010 (UTC)
 * http://www.arena.net/blog/colin-johanson-answers-your-dynamic-event-questions
 * Additional commentary:
 * Massively.com
 * Earlier interview with Colin at mmorpg.com

My Karma killed your dogma
"All events reward you with experience, gold, and karma, which you can spend at merchants and vendors in the game to purchase rewards"

Allo allo... We're getting a new currency style item in the form of karma... Is it positive only? Is it simply like rep points? This is the first I've read of it... http://www.arena.net/blog/colin-johanson-answers-your-dynamic-event-questions#more-2093 is the post on the blog with this little slip. 121.44.243.220 07:17, May 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * In Stereotypical MMORPG, say that you want an Uber Sword of Smiting +27, and only Bob the Really Big Dragon drops it. So you go kill Bob a bunch of times in a row until he drops your sword, right?  (See also:  voltaic spear farming)  Well, what if Bob only ever spawns at the end of one fork of a dynamic event that doesn't play very often?  See the problem?
 * But this is easily fixable, so ArenaNet fixed it. Instead of getting that Uber Sword of Smiting +27 directly as a drop, you get some karma points for winning a dynamic event--any dynamic event, not just a particular one.  So you can go do whatever dynamic events you see and get karma points.  Build up enough of them and Balthor Coalforge will trade you that Uber Sword of Smiting +27 for a bunch of karma points.  As I see it, it's vaguely similar to Balthazar reputation in Guild Wars 1.  Quizzical 13:15, May 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * It could be more akin to z-coins, basically - tradable "points" or tokens for rewards. Random Time  17:08, May 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * Tbh, they're both pretty much the same except ZCoins take inventory space and cost money to 'uptier'. In turn, it's the same as gold. They're all gained from doing a task and you can get rewards for them. Of course, each item/arbitrary number yields different rewards, but the basics are the same. --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG]] -- (contribs) &emsp;(talk)  17:18, May 20, 2010 (UTC)

Eric Flannum Answers More of Your Dynamic Event Questions
According to him, griefing can't happen (did not, in my view satisfactorily answer the comments placed by Quizzical. Comments plz! &mdash; Random Time 
 * http://www.arena.net/blog/eric-flannum-answers-more-of-your-dynamic-event-questions#more-2144
 * Additional commentary:
 * massively.com

&mdash;Dr Ishmael 21:12, May 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * I don't see where he said "griefing can't happen," just that they've done the best they can to prevent it. "At this point we think we’ve addressed most of these issues, but we’ll continue to be vigilant as we develop the game and will of course take whatever measures are needed to stop griefing after the game is released."


 * He only seemed to address the issue of one player maliciously trying to sabotage an event. That's not what I'm concerned about, as ways to sabotage events like that are on a per-event basis, so at worst, some subset of the events would be griefable like that.  And that can be fixed on a per-event basis, too, and usually wouldn't be too hard to fix.  What I'm concerned about is that players trying to maximize their own personal benefit will intrinsically sabotage the group effort, even without any malice involved.
 * The most revealing line is this one: Event scaling only adapts to group size, not to character level.  So if a bunch of players are there who are ten levels too low, that can really sabotage your efforts at the event.  If they're not going to scale the event to the player levels (which would, itself, open a huge can of worms), then it will take some really strong measures to make it so that players can't show up to an event underleveled.
 * It's kind of like how game designers always say that they're going to stop gold farmers, or at least fiercely combat them. Yeah, they'll try, but they won't succeed apart from some really strong measures, such as a game not having any tradeable commodities.  Quizzical 23:01, May 20, 2010 (UTC)


 * I think this is the link you meant: User:Quizzical/Dynamic_Events.  Quizzical 17:49, May 21, 2010 (UTC)

Removing of Quests
I don't know what to think about complitly removing Quests. I agree with them when they say that quests can be boring with large walls of text but I'm afread that that Events will suck if you put them in the story line. Meaning that the event my have already triggered so you miss it or that you just don't feel like your advancing in the story line. I don't see any thing about coöp missions and stuff but the only thing I see is the Personal storyline of your char. It may be a lot more fun if they also put in quests for smaller things like bring me 10 hides or something. Not to much but it gives you a feeling that you your moving forward ingame rather than following some random events. --   † F1 ©  Talk  06:47, May 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * They're not removing quests. They're changing the way they function. Instead of "Burgum the Dude: Well I was just out for a walk... ...raid on the village ... ...please go save my family!", you'll just walk into an area and people will be asking for your help with something. A village might be under attack, or someone might run up to you and ask you(With a voice) to go kill five bear-ogres, etc etc.--99.225.28.182 12:39, May 21, 2010 (UTC)

&mdash;Dr Ishmael 14:18, May 21, 2010 (UTC)
 * The "personal storyline" is completely separate from the dynamic events, taking place in instanced areas. "In each character’s personal story, they will get to make decisions that will change their instanced version of the world, but in non-instanced areas, player choice [through dynamic events] will have an impact on the greater environment and therefore on all other players in that world."

Link Roundup: GW2 Events and More
An interesting mixture of links, providing commentary for the week. Anything to discuss? Random Time  11:45, May 22, 2010 (UTC)
 * Article
 * Links mentioned:
 * Zam.com: Interview with Ree Soesbee and Bobby Stein
 * massively.com's additional commentary on the costume design article as well as their other articles, about the updates.
 * Ten Ton Hammer's commentary about the blog updates for this week
 * Kill Ten Rat's commentary on the updates, with a response by Eric Flannum
 * G4's MMO report

Take our GW2 Merchandise Survey!
One of the options is Plushies, OMG Charr-doll! Random Time  17:19, May 25, 2010 (UTC)
 * Link


 * Hehe, that'd be awesome. Though I'd prefer plushy Mursaat ^.^ --[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]El_Nazgir 17:46, May 25, 2010 (UTC)

Lead Writer Bobby Stein Talks GW2 House (of) Style
Article
 * Interesting from a wiki perspective, a new manual of style for all writing in GW2, so - yeah... Random <font color="Red">Time  10:50, June 2, 2010 (UTC)

Beautiful Grim Auctions GW2 Art for a Good Cause
Article

Eric and Ben Answer Your Questions About Warrior and Traits
A few more clarifications and bits of information to add to our collective knowledge. Highlights:
 * Article
 * Anet have been showing us lover level monsters, to make stuff look more awesome (to be expected)
 * On tanks: "There will be “tanks” in the same way that there were tanks in Guild Wars. That is to say, a tank in Guild Wars 2 is a character that can take a lot of damage and has some way to protect allies. A warrior fits that description since he has high health, heavy armor, and several defensive skills that can protect allies from harm."

Comments?  Random Time   22:23, June 16, 2010 (UTC)
 * Body blocking, knockbacks, knockdowns etc will be in GW2
 * Interrupts in a skill chain reset the chain
 * Traits are acquired by challenges (quests?), there aren't currently prerequisite traits for other traits.
 * Attributes will exist, but be more general (like the STR, CON, WIS, etc you see in D&D). No information about respec for attributes.
 * Build saving and loading (and whether we can) hasn't been finalized
 * No blood, but "red coloured hit effect". Hrm...
 * Elements will be introduced as you play. (Earlier intervew said they'd be introducing the traits system at about lvl 15. We still don't know if that is comprable to GW's Lvl 15, or quite early in the game, depends on what they do for a level cap.
 * Target calling will exist, like GW.


 * "bleeds stack" <--Win.
 * "players will not be able to collide with one another in Guild Wars 2"<--Lose.
 * "Instead of being heavily profession oriented, these attributes are more general, much like those you’d find in other RPGs" <-- Not too happy about that either. As RT said, nothing about redistributing them in the article.
 * "We are trying for a Teen rating with Guild Wars 2 "<-- Bwahaha, no such things as "age ratings" in Belgium :P
 * Well, those were my main thoughts.--[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]<font color="Green">El_Nazgir 06:59, June 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * Ugh, knockback. I hate not being able to decide where I stand. Also: Falling damage due to knockback chains off a cliff kthx ftl?
 * GWO also had a "red coloured hit effect". Worked fine (blood is messier, and they're going for clarity (ex. AoE skills are more obvious in GW2).
 * /care for the attributes. Either works for me. I do hope they have a noticable effect (ex. Fallout 3: Charisma is pretty much pointless once you hit lv6 or so).
 * "players will not be able to collide with one another in Guild Wars 2" vs. "Body blocking [..] will be in GW2". Wot. I presume the former refers to PvE only. (haven't read the article) --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG]] -- (contribs) &emsp;(talk)  11:54, June 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * with positioning becoming much more important (as they mention certain skills get bonuses from attacking from behind and stuff), knockback is almost required.--[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]<font color="Green">El_Nazgir 12:33, June 17, 2010 (UTC)


 *  "Because of many issues with collision in a persistent world, players will not be able to collide with one another in Guild Wars 2. That being said, many skills affect the movement of a target (knockbacks, knockdowns, etc…), which allows players to replicate some of the same body blocking tactics that they used in Guild Wars."   Although he never says whether there will be collision with foes, only that players won't have collision.  And why wouldn't they be able to have collision in the structured PvP formats?  That's kinda what we have now - no allied collision in PvE, and full collision in PvP.  So it really doesn't explain much.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 13:12, June 17, 2010 (UTC)


 * re Naz: No. Knockback is not required. If anything, it fucks it up. When you're attacking someone from behind and some dickweed KBs your target to your left, you have to reposition to stab them in the back again. GWO did just fine without shit like this, and positioning is very important in PvP still. --- [[Image:VipermagiSig.JPG]] -- (contribs) &emsp;(talk)  14:29, June 17, 2010 (UTC)

Healing and death Q&A

 * Jon Peters Answers Your (First Batch) of Healing and Death Questions
 * Enemies can res, but do not go "downed" like players (PVP players have a downed state)
 * In PVP, downed players are an element of combat, and should be treated accoringly. PvP players have a melee skill (that takes a few seconds to activate) that will finish a downed opponent.
 * If you have no money and are revived, it is taken from your bank, if you have no money at all in GW, it's free. The cost is apparently minimal, so this is unlikely
 * When you're downed or defeated, you bring up a map to travel to a waypoint (sounding like map travel).
 * Your character is "defeated" instead of dead - and so are technically still alive, there seems to be no such thing as resurrection in GW2.
 * Support focused characters are possible, new skill mentioned as an example - the ele skill Geyser - causes knockback on enemies and healing on allies.
 * PvP is still ballanced withought a monk, honest
 * Concerns about the removal of DP as a disincentive to learning how to play properly are addressed
 * The art on the healing and death page was released as a wallpaper
 * Mostly I see this article as clarifications, there's nothing here that I was super worried about, and some of the questions I was thinking "why were they asking that? It's already been explained." Worth a look, it's a major change from what's in GW. --  Random  Time   12:07, July 14, 2010 (UTC)


 * Jon Peters answers more healing and Death Questions
 * The saga continues...
 * If you're downed, and there's nothing around you, you'll slowly loos consciousness and become defeated.
 * The increaced time to revive from subsiquent deaths are being worked on, but they're currently on getting down to 60% of your consciousness bar, whatever that means. It'll take a few mins of not dying to remove this penalty.
 * You can't moved when downed
 * You can take damage when downed
 * You have to gain XP from a kill to rally
 * No advantage (as in increased number of wayponts) when downed, this may imply that fast travel has a small cost involved.
 * GW2 is being playtested, and ANet won't release stuff that's not fun. --  Random <font color="Orange">Time  11:12, July 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * Re 60%: It seems to imply the "death penalty" can shorten your Conciousness bar to 60% of its original size, causing you to be Defeated much quicker. --Vipermagi 11:19, July 16, 2010 (UTC)


 * Re cost of travel: They've already mentioned that travel to a waypoint will have a small fee involved. Travel between Asura gates is free.  &mdash;Dr Ishmael Diablo_the_chicken.gif 12:45, July 16, 2010 (UTC)

Ghosts of Ascalon info + GW2 map

 * Arena Net blog: Jeff Grub on writing the first Guild Wars novel
 * GuildWars2.com: Free Ghosts of Ascalon preview + wallpapers
 * TenTonHammer interview with Grubb
 * Massively.com interview with Grubb

Ghosts of Ascalon launches soon, so - advertisement time. We have: A PDF of Ghost of Ascalon (chapter 1). Not read it there, but there's probably some good lore, as well as an interview with the author. However, the better link is a Map of tyria for GW2. Shiny -- < Random <font color="Orange">Time  00:10, July 16, 2010 (UTC)

Link roundup: Rangers, Pets and Ghosts
Links mentioned:
 * blog
 * PC Gamer's interview with Erick Flanum
 * Massively intervew about the Ranger
 * Commentary on the reveal from:
 * Massivly
 * IGN
 * MMORPG.com
 * Ten Ton Hammer
 * Gamereactor
 * In other languages:
 * Multiplayer.it (Italy)
 * Gamestar (Germany)
 * Gamekult (French, interview)
 * Ghosts of Ascalon:
 * Tenton Hammer: Interview
 * Massively Interview about Ghosts of Ascalon
 * Shawn Schuster's review of an advanced copy of the book (The blog mistakenly calls Shawn, the editor in chief - a "regular columnist", GG anet).

Progression and Leveling in Guild Wars 2
By everyone's favorite game (un)balancer, Isaiah Cartwright &mdash;Dr Ishmael 14:38, July 30, 2010 (UTC)
 * Level cap is 80.
 * Level progression will be nearly linear, so "grinding" level 80 won't take any longer than level 10.
 * Character level is only a small part of character progression: from what we've heard so far, it seems like traits will have a more significant effect on your character's abilities than level will.
 * "Skill collection" mentioned, I don't think that's come up before now. Wonder what sort of mechanic that will be: SoC-style, something more like the original gem/charm/ring system, or something else.


 * I've long held that people who looked at the nominal level cap as a measure of how long it would take to get there were nuts. Unfortunately, far too many games made it take about as long as each other to get to level n for many values of n, which fed the myth.  But the level number is a nominal thing, just like the number of experience points is a nominal thing.  One could append a zero to the nominal values of either or both and claim that the level cap is then ten times as high without meaningfully changing the game.
 * On the other hand, linear time to level does make me a little nervous. My rule of thumb is that the time it takes to reach level n is O(n^2) but not o(n^2).  (People who know what that means will a) immediately recognize why the statement is technically nonsense, and b) understand what I mean by it anyway.)  And this, unlike a nominal level cap so commonly being in the range of 50-80 is there for good reasons, and not a fluke.
 * The basic issue is that there are far more characters online at a given time who have been played for 10-11 hours than for 137-138 hours. Every character in the latter was in the former at one time, but many (most?) characters in the former class will never be in the latter.  In order for there to be enough players for people with 137-138 hours played to group with, they need to be able to group with characters with a much broader amount of experience points.  If you want to group with people within 2 levels of you, and it takes 10 times as long to level from 67 to 68 as it does to go from 11 to 12, then a level 67 player might have about as many potential group mates as a level 11 player, making it equally easy for either of them to group.
 * This can, of course, be worked around. One method would be for everyone to reach the level cap so quickly that finding people with about as much leveling done as you wouldn't be a problem until far above the level cap.  This is essentially what Guild Wars does, and I wouldn't be surprised to see GW2 go this route, either.  They have talked about taking longer to reach the level cap in GW2 than in Guild Wars, but still reaching it faster than in most other games.
 * Another approach would be to make it so that the later levels don't make you much stronger. If a level 70 player is only a little stronger than a level 60 player, much like how a level 53 player is only a little stronger than a level 52 player in most games, then they can reasonably group together and it isn't a problem.
 * In principle, I'm in favor of games blowing up the level conventions and making the nominal things mean something totally different from normal. But one must be careful when doing so, as the conventions are there for a reason, and one who disregards them without knowing what he is doing could make quite a mess.  Of course, that reason is as guidance to less than competent game designers.  This is in the same sense that a Guild Wars player incompetent at designing his own builds can purely copy off of PvX and never alter a build in the slightest.  Quizzical 18:33, August 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * I too think they will take an approach to leveling similar to GWO; each level takes a mere 600 exp more than the previous. Just add more levels, and voila. But which campaign do they look at?
 * One thing I immediately noticed in my previous Prophecies playthrough is how different leveling is done in the campaigns. Factions utterly blasts you through the levels with 15 easy 2-3k exp quests every other corner. Nightfall ever so slightly dimmed this. Still, it's likely you're level 20 by the time you reach the SS Sanctuary, where the main story starts to pick up a little. Prophecies gets you to level 20 by the desert, which is over halfway through the entire storyline. What I'm saying here is that they are likely going back, namely to the Prophecies era. Imo, a welcome change. --Vipermagi 18:59, August 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * But constant time to level specifically means that they're not going to do what you say. Each level in Guild Wars takes longer than the previous, and it roughly fits the O(n^2) rule.  Quizzical 19:15, August 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * That solely depends on how much exp you gain. Note that 600 exp is one quest at most (provided you have to kill three monsters or more), and the level difference between monsters and you gradually increases, which also increases exp gain from kills. --Vipermagi 19:20, August 2, 2010 (UTC)


 * The level gap doesn't really show up until after you're level 20. And even if you do run into it sooner, it doesn't increase the amount of experience you gain from killing a mob nearly as quickly as the amount of experience needed to level increases.  If later quests give more experience, they probably take longer, too.  Quizzical 01:49, August 3, 2010 (UTC)


 * You meet level 17-19 creatures in Maguuma (Wind Riders, Jungle Skale, Jungle Troll), and unless you complete nearly every quest (which gets you to lv17-18 by then), you're going to be lv15-16. Quests in Prophecies almost all grant 500-1000 exp (the only exceptions are a few in Old Ascalon, and Glint's quests I think). You can go back and kill Galrath when you're level 18 for an easy 1k exp, and it will take you 10 minutes or so, since you can run past the first half pretty easily, and fighting won't take long either. It's not as bad as you seem to think. --Vipermagi 13:15, August 3, 2010 (UTC)

Nobody noticed they said they have "achievements"? Wow. I wonder if they will have any impact on the gameplay. Anyway. I hope it goes back to the prophecies way, because now, if you have prophecies and another campaign (or eotn), you just go there for a short while and get to lvl 20, and breeze through the rest of proph/get bored to death in proph. Leveling roughly always takes the same amount of time per campaign (and as long as you stick to that campaign), except for the first few levels, or unless you go skill capping.--<font color="Green">El_Nazgir 09:02, August 10, 2010 (UTC)

Video: Creating GW2 cinematics
uAlf0-THkCU So, ArenaNet's released the first cinematic of GW2.
 * blog link
 * Wow, the art's amazing, and the final piece is wonderful. The team have done everything short of drawing your individual character into the cinematic. It looked and felt fantastic. This is superb.
 * From a soundtrack geek perspective, it seems like the revamped "A warrior's heart" is the human theme for GW2, and - coincidently, one of my favorite pieces for the soundtrack. --  Random <font color="Orange">Time  21:21, August 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh hell yes. This is cool.--[[Image:El Nazgir sig.png|Talkpage]]<font color="Green">El_Nazgir 22:23, August 18, 2010 (UTC)


 * Excellent. Just wonderful! [[Image:EM Signature.jpg]] ***EAGLEMUT***   T  A  L K 22:38, August 18, 2010 (UTC)

Guild Wars 2 Wins Gamescom Best Online Game Award
GG Anet --  Random <font color="Orange">Time  16:41, August 20, 2010 (UTC)
 * blog post