After posting the Guild Wars edition of MMO Co-Opportunities last week, I was surprised, yet enthused, to find out that many of you guys are past or present Guild Wars fans, or have a good amount of interest in the game. So I thought you all might be interested in a Guild Wars 2 mega-post where I could gather a lot of the information that’s been released on the game and present it to you in a (hopefully neat) package for your reading enjoyment! In the following pages I'll try to answer some of what I would anticipate to be the more common questions about Guild Wars 2.
What Races Will There Be In Guild Wars 2?
As some of you may recall, one thing that many people found slightly odd in Guild Wars 1 was the fact that you could only make human characters. In Guild Wars 2 you will be able to pick from five different races. Players will have the option to make human characters again, like in the first game, but will also have access to Ascalon's classic enemy, the Charr, now allied with the humans despite their war-torn history. The large and courageous Norn, hailing from the mountains, and the short but fiercely intelligent Asura will also be available as playable characters, races first introduced in the Guild Wars 1 Expansion, Eye of the North. Lastly, a completely new race, the Sylvari, will also be an option for players. Born from a tree and only sprung into existence in the past few decades, the Sylvari are closely attuned to nature and defined by curiosity and honesty.
The classic question asked by players in any game that offers a race selection is "what effect will my race selection have?" In Guild Wars 2, most of your choice will be cosmetic and character-related. Personality options will be different from race to race and you'll be able to build up a story for your character based along your racial choice (if you so choose), but ArenaNet largely wants it to make little difference in your effectiveness as a certain profession. This is why there are thusfar no racial restrictions to professions - every race can be every profession with no detriments. An Asuran Warrior should be able to be just as effective as a Norn Warrior, for example. This brings us to our next point.
What Professions Will There Be in Guild Wars 2?
There will be eight different professions in Guild Wars 2. Three “scholar” professions (light armor wearers), three “adventurer” professions (medium armor wearers), and two soldier professions (heavy armor wearers). At this point of time, only four of the eight professions have been announced. Though there is much more in-depth information available on all the professions, I’ve attempted to create short-and-sweet descriptions of them here, with links to their official Guild Wars 2 pages if you wish to learn more specifics.
"The elementalist channels natural forces of destruction, making fire, air, earth, and water do her bidding. What the elementalist lacks in physical toughness, she makes up for in her ability to inflict massive damage in a single attack, dropping foes from a distance before they can become a threat. Yet, despite her incredible offensive potential, versatility is what makes the elementalist truly formidable." - Guild Wars 2 Official Website
Elementalists can attune to one of the four elements at a time, each element focusing on a particular type of role or type of gameplay. Fire focuses on raw damage to multiple enemies, Air on single-target damage and blinding foes, Earth on more utility and party defense, and Water on snaring/freezing and a little healing. In addition, they can also focus on short, medium, or long-range spells. Elementalists also get access to glyphs (skills that enhance or modify other spells), signets (which have a continuous passive effect, but can also be actively used to various effects), and conjures (where an elemental weapon can be summoned for the elementalist or his/her allies to use).
“The warrior is a master of weapons who relies on speed, strength, toughness, and heavy armor to survive in battle. A warrior can shrug off blow after blow to stay in the fight, all the while building up adrenaline to fuel his offense.” - Guild Wars 2 Official Website
Warriors make use of the adrenaline mechanic, where one builds up adrenaline to release in burst damage skills. While weapon variety is important to all the professions (as it guides what skills are available), warriors are truly weapon specialists. With access to swords, axes, hammers, maces, longswords, rifles, and longbows (each focusing on a different style of warfare), warriors truly have a myriad of choices on ways to bring the pain. With special access to skill chains, one skill slot can be transformed into multiple skills where one attack causes the slot to transform into another attack, suitable to followup the previous attack. They also get support skills in way of banners (which they can plant on a battlefield, or pick up and carry around) and shouts (buffs that effect friendlies within ear-shot).
“The ranger is a jack-of-all-trades and a master of them all as well, relying on his keen eye, steady hand, or the power of nature itself. A master of ranged combat, the ranger is capable of striking unwitting foes from a distance with his bow. With a stable of pets at his command, a ranger can adapt to his opponents' strengths and weaknesses.” - Guild Wars 2 Official Website
A ranger’s speciality lies in ranged weaponry; however, like the warrior, rangers have access to both melee and ranged weapons. Not only relying on weapons, they also make use of traps to hinder and damage their enemies and spirits to benefit their allies. Rangers can often be found with a loyal pet at their side, an animal companion that follows them around and fights for them. These pets have different strengths based on what type of animal they are, as well as different skills the ranger can pick for their pet to use via evolution points.
“A necromancer is a practitioner of the dark arts who summons the dead, wields the power of lost souls, and literally sucks the lifeblood of the enemy. A necromancer feeds on life force, which he can use to cheat death or bring allies back from the brink.” - Guild Wars 2 Official Website
Necromancers glorify in the death and slow, fatal pain of their enemies, utilizing both to their gain. Their specialities include access to minions: ghostly or shambling figures that go forth to wreck havoc for their master. Once a minion skill has been used, it will be replaced with another skill that is minion-related (e.g. Summon Bone Fiend is replaced with Taste of Death after use; Taste of Death can then be used on a minion for the Necromancer to regain a large chunk of health). Since necromancers are more intimate with death, when they become incapacitated they enter Death Shroud state unlike the normal downed state of other professions. In this state they get access to special skills which they can use to get a kill to rally themselves back to the realm of the living. Necros also get access to ground-targeted skills called marks, self-radiating skills called wells, and the unique ability to use the powerful fear condition.
What’s the Same and What’s Different in Guild Wars 2?
When a developer makes a sequel to a successful game, one of the most important questions players ask is "what's staying the same and what's changing?" This usually details more loaded questions, such as "is X staying the same? It was my favorite part of the game!" or "I really hope they're changing Y... I think the game would have been a lot better if they did!" Sequels give developers a chance to really streamline the things that they, and the community, really liked about the original game and to change the things they weren't 100% happy about. Guild Wars 2 is no exception, as there both radical departures away from the original as well as fine-tuning or simply not changing the things that both developers and players felt were the heart of Guild Wars.
Of Healing and Healers:
There will be no dedicated healers in Guild Wars 2. Yup, that’s right - ArenaNet has said there will be no healbots. While they assure the community that there will still be support skills (and perhaps support roles as well), there will not be anyone standing in the back healing up their allies. Their reasoning for this is because they want each character to be more self-reliant, and they don’t want to have people waiting around when they could be doing stuff just because they can’t find a monk. Every profession has a dedicated healing slot on their skill bar. This naturally brings us to our next point.
The Downed State and Defeat:
When a character's health reaches 0 in Guild Wars 2, you will enter a "downed state" (the exception being the Necromancer who instead enters into a Death Shroud state) instead of death, like in Guild Wars 1. Players will receive access to four profession-specific skills which they can use to continue to help their companions even though they're immobile, or in an attempt to get a kill so they can rally back to life (think like in Borderlands). If a player is not revived or rallied within a set amount of time, they enter are considered defeated and cannot use any skills at all (similar to death in other MMOs). From a defeated state a player can only wait for a revive or choose to resurrect at a waypoint.
Skills:
Just like in Guild Wars 1, in Guild Wars 2 you will have a limited number of skill slots available to you when you’re out in the world adventuring. In GW1, there were 8 skills you could bring. In GW2 they’ve upped it to 10 with a few major twists. For one, there’s a split between the first 5 skills and second 5 skills. The first 5 skills are weapon-dependent. You can create some variation if you are using a mainhand and offhand (e.g. the Elementalist could choose to use a scepter in her mainhand, which focuses on close-range combat, and a focus in her offhand, which also focuses on close-range combat for what I assume would be some kind of very, very potent close-range nuker; or she could elect to take a dagger in her offhand, which focuses on medium range spells which I would then assume created some kind of close-to-mid range combination), but only your weapon or weapon combination will effect which skills fill up these first five slots. The second 5 slots allow more customization, one slot being reserved for a healing-type skill like I mentioned previously, and one slot being reserved for an elite skill. The other three I believe to be open to all the other non-elite skills you unlock throughout playing the game.
Traits:
This time around, a great amount of the way you customize your character will be through traits. Traits are equippable passive abilities that can change the functionality of an individual skill, a set of skills, or just make small general boosts to your character. Some examples include a warrior trait that increases his chance to critical while using an axe, or a necromancer trait that makes all of her sacrifice skills do more damage. Through these traits you will be able to define your build, not simply through the skills and weapons you pick, but how you choose to modify your skills. There will be about 100 available traits per profession and you will be able to equip several dozen traits at a time (exact number dependent on profession). They come in two flavors: profession-specific and weapon-specific. For balance reasons, there will not be any racial traits so as to not give any particular race advantage over another in a particular profession.
The Open Road and Dynamic Events:
If you played Guild Wars 1, one thing that might have stood out to you was the fact that everything was instanced, except towns which acted as hubs for people to group up and go adventuring together. While ArenaNet is clear in that missions will continue to be instanced as they feel this is a great way to convey a story, they have also elected to make the world much more open to players. This is where Dynamic Events come into play. Dynamic Events are triggered by the actions of players interacting with and exploring the area. They have multiple outcomes, with even the possibility of triggering a new event. This system was developed to replace traditional quests in MMORPGs. To prevent spawn-camping and and kill-stealing, Dynamic Events reward everyone who participated as well as giving them 100% of any gained experience, even if they were not in a party together. This promotes cooperation rather than competition in PVE. Furthermore, events will scale based on the number of participants: the number of enemies may increase, or the level of the enemies may increase, or the enemies might start using new skills. Even if players fail an event, they will still receive a small type of reward to ensure that they don’t feel like their time was wasted. Rewards include gold, xp, and karma rewards.
Here are a couple examples of Dynamic Events:
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.
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.
Will Guild Wars 2 Have a Subscription Fee?
Just like the first game, there will be no subscription fee for Guild Wars 2. After you buy the game, you’ll be able to play the game without a subscription from then on.
When Is it Coming Out?
“When it’s done.” ArenaNet has stressed that they will not be releasing GW2 until they’re satisfied with it.
Whew, well that was a mouthful to say the least! I hope you guys found things you either didn't know about or thought were interesting. If you're curious to learn more, or want to look into a specific concept/area more, the official Guild Wars 2 website has a bunch of information I didn't have space to cover here.
As one more thing to leave you guys with, here's the Guild Wars 2 Manifesto video to let the developers speak for themselves about the game!