Forum:New GW2 info

New GW2 info coming soon

From the Guild Wars 2 facebook page: "As you might have guessed by some of the posts we've been making here, the torture is about to end. :-) Some of you are on the edge of your seats. Many of you know that the anniversary of the original Guild Wars is coming up. We have a few things up our collective sleeves that we’re going to talk about this week. We want as many people to know about it as possible. We’re doing our part with our PR and marketing teams, but we need your help in spreading the word! If you like the stuff you see this week, vote it up on Digg! (If you don’t have a Digg account, you can use your Facebook account to Digg stuff up.) We're super excited at how engaged many of you have been through the Guild Wars War in Kryta viral campaign, and we hope you'll like what we've got cooking for Guild Wars 2 (soon (TM)). :-)"

Discuss to your heart's content RandomTime 23:11, April 26, 2010 (UTC)

Omg, I almost care. 23:46, April 26, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah, fo'sho Arenanet has pulled my strings one too many times. I expected a trailer for GW2 or war to finally break out in Kryta on the 24th, the day of the anniversary, but no. At least I can look forward to the end of the anniversary event when something is definitely (mark my words) going to happen. If I'm let down any more, I'll celebrate this anniversary week with my last UWSC before I uninstall the game. Five years is much too long. GW2, you'd better not disappoint. ~ Jujipoo[talk] 01:31, April 27, 2010 (UTC)

You do know the official anniversary isn't until April 28th, right? That's the day Prophecies was released. I have no idea where you got the 24th from. —Dr Ishmael 03:25, April 27, 2010 (UTC)

Finally gameplay info much? --Naoroji 11:04, April 27, 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I am pleased with this Manifesto. I will play once more. :) And yeah, someone told me 24th... but it sucks even more now because I'll be disappointed twice over if nothing happens tomorrow. ~ Jujipoo[talk] 02:00, April 28, 2010 (UTC)

Update: ANet has just posted their design manifesto for Guild Wars 2. RandomTime 17:27, April 27, 2010 (UTC)

Looks good, looks brilliant, hopefully the skill system will work (sounds like it has the danger of becoming complex) - seems like what Warhammer Online was trying to achieve, can't wait for the finished game RandomTime 17:35, April 27, 2010 (UTC)

I especially like the part about throwing jars of bees at people. Oh and firing projectiles through a fire wall? Can anyone say burning arrows? 'Cause I can. Or you know what? BURNING BEES. Survive that. --XT-8147 08:25, April 28, 2010 (UTC)

I think the bees would need to survive that first :P -- Isk8 (T/C) 09:50, April 28, 2010 (UTC)

If they can deliver, and its not clear to me how all this will work out in practise, then it sounds good. If it solves the "been there, done that, what else is there to do apart from getting and staying drunk (in game that is) all day?" problem I'm facing at the moment then GW2 has the potential to be great. Thalestis 11:28, April 28, 2010 (UTC)

Who cares you can't see what the hell is going on, right. --- -- (contribs) (talk) 12:41, April 28, 2010 (UTC)

There are 8 professions in GW2 - Look at the silhouettes behind the Elementalist (which has been officially confirmed on the GW2 official site) ~ Jujipoo[talk]

I generally hate to jump to conclusions like this. Technically they haven't confirmed anything- the silhouettes could be anyone. However, under the circumstances it looks pretty safe to say you're right :) 8 professions multiplied by 5 races equals 40 possible combinations. GW2, so far, is Asura Rank 10. 70.22.90.21 03:53, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Yep, was just touring the site and found the number of professions under the FAQs section. here Chibi Moon Shadow 16:03, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

The Combat

Combat part 1: Skills

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/part-one/

Sounds very similar to GW1's skill system, with one big difference: The skillbar has 10 slots.

• 5 skills are determined by your profession and equipped weapon, you can't pick them directly.
• 1 skill slot is reserved for a healing skill.
• 1 skill slot is reserved for an elite skill.
• 3 skill slots are completely open.

If every character has a healing skill, will there be a dedicated healer profession? Guess we'll find out over the next couple weeks. —Dr Ishmael 03:58, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

I read the one healing skill as saying meaning that everyone gets one skill like Lion's Comfort, Troll Unguent, Ether Feast, etc., but cannot have more than one such skill. Presumably a dedicated healer class would have other healing skills, perhaps among the five default skills or in the elite slot. I think they're trying to still give a lot of freedom in designing a build, while blocking the extreme gimmick builds like 55, 600, or perma-shadow form.

I also didn't see any mention of secondary professions. I'm hoping that Guild Wars 2 abolishes the concept of secondary professions entirely, as I didn't like them. At the very least, it looks like they'll restrict it somewhat, so that you won't have necromancers not carrying a single necromancer skill.

As for depending on both the weapon and profession, I'm curious what exactly this will mean. Will there be rare weapons that give rare skills? I hope not. If it's only the type of weapon, will this mean that every class has several types of weapons available? Will they overlap? Could we end up seeing elementalists carrying swords to get access to sword skills in weird gimmick builds?

What I'm hoping for is that each class has access to a few different types of weapons, with default skills depending on which type of weapon they take, but no overlap between types of weapons among different classes. One can already see something analogous to types of weapons in the choices between a sword, axe, or hammer for warriors here, or longbow, flatbow, etc. for rangers. One could do the same for caster classes by giving an elementalist carrying an air staff different default skills from one carrying an earth staff.

I also like the part about everyone who takes part in a kill getting credit for it, whether grouped or not. I've been playing Champions Online recently, which does this for purposes of quest credit, and it works very nicely. Quizzical 04:22, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

I'm pretty sure the weapon skills are by weapon type, not the specific weapon, judging by the examples they give: "a warrior wielding a mace and shield" vs. "a warrior wielding a greatsword." It also sounds like they've expanded upon the "hammer, axe, and sword" system, too, by including a one-handed hammer type (mace) and a two-handed sword type (greatsword). Wonder if there's a two-handed axe type...

Based on what was said here and on the elementalist article ("most professions can have two different weapon sets equipped and can very quickly and easily swap between the sets." ... "Rather than swap weapons to adjust to new situations, the multi-faceted Elementalist quickly adapts to new threats by attuning to different elements as needed."), eles are one of the professions that don't get weapon-swapping, having attunement-swapping instead, so you don't have to worry about finding a different weapon for each element. —Dr Ishmael 14:30, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully Monks get the ability to do that by switching up gods or something. Preferably with a knockback effect of some sort when they switch to smiting. GTFO /kill --Gimmethegepgun 16:29, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Skills can be swapped out whenever a character is not in combat o_O, plus predefined skills from weapons. I think these remove quite a bit of strategic decisions from the game. --Evenfall 17:54, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Hopefully each one gets a list of a bunch of skills and you get to pick 5 specific ones. For weapon+shield, maybe weapon gets 3, shield gets 2. Hopefully, also, there will be dual-wielded weapons for warriors, for that I'd say I guess both need to be the same type, you get the 3 that the weapon would give with weapon+shield, but the other 2 would be a pick among dual-wielded stuff Would be nice to see a person able to change up their weapon so they get a different approach to combat, though. IN combat. Hmm.... douche is doing direct-damage protting... GREATSWORD! Needs to be pressured... 2 swords! OSHITRANGER! Sword and board! --Gimmethegepgun 18:56, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Well, seems I was right after reading part 2: yay dual wielding! --Gimmethegepgun 19:10, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Combat part 2: Weapons, Professions, and Races

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/combat/part-two/

Interesting, no secondaries - and class archetypes (scholar, adventurer, soldier). Guessing: Scholar = backline mage, adventuer = ranger/rogue type character front/backline, soldier = fighter/paladin fontline. RandomTime 17:25, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

One could argue that we effectively have the same archetypes in Guild Wars already, as determined by armor level.

Soldier = warrior and paragon

Adventurer = ranger, assassin, and dervish

Scholar = necromancer, elementalist, monk, mesmer, and ritualist

I'm very happy to see the concept of secondary professions dropped. I never liked secondary professions in this game. Quizzical 19:02, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

So... guesses on what the 8 professions ill be? Warrior, Ranger, Elementalist obvious, Monk most likely, but what about the others? There's still 1 more heavy, 2 more mediums, and a light. I saw a picture of what looked like a mesmer skill being cast, though that could be in the Medium by some means, as not having a necro would be incredibly unusual. I sincerely hope that they don't go rogue/assassin on us, those are impossible to balance. Also, could entertain the possibility that the Monk might be a Heavy, a la Cleric from D&D, or a medium, like Favored Soul, also from D&D.

My guess: Heavy: Warrior, Paladin/Cleric/whatever (pick your name)

Medium: Ranger, Rogue/Assassin (unfortunately), Golemancer? We've seen golems in gameplay videos, no clue if that's a profession or if it's just an Asura thing

Light: Elementalist, Necromancer, Illusionist

I'd also entertain the possibility of a race-specific caster in there somewhere, such as Golemancer for Asura, Chronomancer for human, something to do with plants for Sylvari, tank driver (lol) for Charr, beastmaster/dedicated shapechanger for Norn, though that one would be at least Medium --Gimmethegepgun 19:28, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you're using "archetype" correctly there (when I think "class archetypes" I think healer, tank, rogue, spellcaster, etc.). Anyway, those are basically just fancy names for the typical light/medium/heavy armor proficiencies originating from D&D. Unlike D&D, where characters can learn additional proficiencies, GW profs are limited to a single armor type.

You can even apply it to GW1, where scholars are the profs that have max 60 armor, adventurers have 70, and soldiers have 80. Thinking of it that way...

• GW1 has 5 scholars (Mo, Me, N, E, Rt), where GW2 will only have 3. If I had to guess, since we already know Elementalist is returning pretty much as-is, I'd say Monk and Necromancer are also returning, with Ritualist getting rolled up into both of those. Mesmer... I dunno. Possibly getting overhauled and returning as an adventurer class?
• Both have 3 adventurers (R, A, D). Ranger is probably also coming back with small changes (did you notice, there's only 2 types of bow now - short and long). Assassin has always been one of the more problematic profs to balance, so if it's not going away completely, I'd expect it to be revamped into a more general rogue-type class. Dervish has always seemed kind of an oddball, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was replaced.
• Both have 2 soldiers (W, P). A medieval RPG wouldn't be a medieval RPG without a Warrior class. Paragon, though, is more than likely being replaced or at least reworked.

Since GW2 is initially set only on the Tyrian continent, it would make sense for them to leave out the Canthan/Elonian professions in any case. —Dr Ishmael 19:16, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Yay for crazy Wikia - somehow I posted that over Quiz's comment without getting a conflict. —Dr Ishmael 19:17, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

It could be possible that they are rolling the Mo and A into the same class. Monks themselves are disciplined and trained in martial arts. Although, I hope they do not go this way as it appears D3 has gone this way already. Venom20 19:24, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Somehow I placed my comment despite what should have been 3 edit conflicts. Zomg Wikia did something right! --Gimmethegepgun 19:30, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

The Professions

Profession 1: Elementalist

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

Sounds very interesting. I like the idea of Attunements being constant buffs that you can swap on-the-fly. And the revamped Phoenix is quite spiffy. —Dr Ishmael 03:58, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

They should rename it to Boomerang Bird. 05:52, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

The Ele's always been "my" chosen class, back-line nuking > everything IMO. The attunement system seems to make the ele more versatile (but does that mean that we have to trade off 3 of the 10 skills for the attunement spells, not sure. The spells look awesome, and many seem to focus on not only backline nuker, but backline controller (Static feild looked like it kept people in position for a few seconds, allowing the ele to shield themselves from melee inherentl, water trident looked like it had a knockback) This may well be important if GW2 is going to be completely solo-friendly. From what I can gather, then - the new ele is backline nuker/anti fighter much more than the current ele is. RandomTime 06:20, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Also, is that a female Charr? RandomTime 06:21, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Indeed it is, my living-up-to-his-name friend! --Gimmethegepgun 06:38, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Also, yes, Water Trident gets a knockback, it says so in the design manifesto when describing fire wall+water attune+smack them into fire wall --Gimmethegepgun 06:46, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

yes, we've seen screen shots of her before, look at the charr page on the main siteAkbaroth 07:06, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

I'm not particularly happy with the presence of knockback in GW2. You'll notice that in GW1 they were wise enough to never give players a skill or ability to alter an opponent's position. In fact, only very hard and challenging pve areas can forcibly move a player- The Aspect of Scorpions in The Deep, and Mallyx. The fact that they state how important positioning is in the design manifesto and then give players all sorts of options to fuck it up is disappointing. 07:41, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

"Signets provide an ongoing benefit to the Elementalist, but can also be activated for a greater effect." Complete skill function revamp? Also, I'm quite sure you wouldn't need to manually bring the attunements, but it'll probably be a "change attunement" button or something instead of the "switch weapon set" one. Knockback doesn't seem too bad. From the skills article, it seemed like positioning gets a lot more important, so disrupting the enemy positioning could turn into a whole new dimention in the gameplay. Also, first time someone actually DELETED the page while I was typing :S --El_Nazgir 15:03, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Oops, sorry. ^^; Blame it on RT for not moving it to the right place to begin with. :P

Oh, and I already commented about the attunement-instead-of-weapon-swapping above. If accurate, I like that idea a lot better than having to worry about finding/crafting a perfect weapon set for every different element that you use.

I'd think that knockback would actually be necessary if positioning is going to be that important in combat. The people who rely most on said positioning, probably warriors, will likely have access to "stability" skills that prevent knockback (similar to Balanced Stance/etc.). —Dr Ishmael 15:33, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Ow dam thats cool :P. It looks so dinamic and reall. They sure want it to look like a RPG. It seems so real. Can't wait to see what they did with the Necromancers :D. Maybe they kill Asura and reanimate them and then kill them again! Hooray! -- † F1© Talk 16:21, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

No F1: You kill Asura, then raise them, and use them to kill others and let others kill the asura again for you. Talk about a laidback profession ^.^ Also, after seeing the water trident movie, I don't think that's knockback. It's just knockdown, but the animation is that they fall backwards. You can see that when they get back up they're still on the same place as where they were before. Too bad :/ --El_Nazgir 16:59, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Slightly clearer explanation from an interview.

"In Guild Wars 2 an elementalist can attune to one of the four elements. The attunement they are in combines with their choice of weapon to change the first five skills on their bar. For example an elementalist attuned to fire and wielding a staff will have access to five skills including the Fireball skill. An elementalist attuned to fire and wielding a scepter and focus will have access to a completely different set of five skills including Dragon’s Breath. When that elementalist attunes to water he has five new skills."

"Attuning to the different elements will also provide the elementalist with an ongoing passive effect. Fire attunement will damage any foes striking the elementalist. Water will heal nearby allies. Earth will protect the elementalist giving him additional armor. Air attunement will cause bolts of lightning to randomly strike nearby enemies."

--Evenfall 17:42, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Quips

(Starting a subsection since this isn't specific to the elementalist.) Surprised no one's brought this up yet, but those little quips that the characters make in the videos had better be toggle-able. I've played other games with a "feature" like that, and it gets extremely annoying after only a few hours. —Dr Ishmael 17:00, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

OGod, it's NWN all over again RandomTime 17:22, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Why? I like it. It's the same in Dragon age and I don't mind that. It give me a more realistic feeling. -- † F1© Talk 17:34, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

There are a lot of people saying that (myself included), so if they weren't toggleable already, they'd better make it so. I'll leave it on for like the first day, as some of them sound funny, but then sayoonara. RoseOfKali 17:43, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

So ummm... What the hell are quips?--El_Nazgir 18:03, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

Let me dictionary that for you... —Dr Ishmael 18:39, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

For example: "They're gonna have to glue you back together. IN HELL!" --Gimmethegepgun 19:07, April 29, 2010 (UTC)

This is the first thing I said to my wife after watching the meteor clip... It's fine in Dragon age, for the first little while, but I would imagine that the says would get old very fast (and annoying). Although, perhaps they quips will be replaced, or interchanged, with patches and updates. At least this way we won't have to hear the same things over and over. Venom20 19:27, April 29, 2010 (UTC)