At PC Gamer, we hate redundancy. We hate redundancy so much that we won’t even tell you how much we hate redundancy. But we hate it. That’s why during this weeks podcast, we decree that the two Dakotas shall be consolidated into one. And in between our political proclamations, we discuss all manner of PC gaming news, including:
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ArenaNet have announced the fourth profession for Guild Wars 2, and it’s the classic maestro of the dark arts, the necromancer. They’ve also released a video showing off a few of his evil, evil skills.
My MMO history is kind of embarrassing: a past of abandoned, mid-level characters, lost in server limbo, untouched for aeons, unloved, abused by my insistence on visiting high-level areas no matter the physical toll. I just haven’t ever clicked with the genre. Guild Wars 2 seems to understand that there are players who don’t want to focus on levelling, or raids, or alts, and wants them to come in and see what all the fuss is about.
At San Diego Comic-Con, I had a frantic hallway chat with Guild Wars 2 lore man Jeff Grubb and lead designer James Phinney. I learned a good bit about how making Tyria persistent will yield significant changes for many GW2 systems, but no change sounds quite as exciting as the ability to hurl a jar of bees at your opponent.
Subscription-free MMO Guild Wars 2 has just announced its third confirmed class: the Ranger. I spoke to lead designer Eric Flannum about the profession a few weeks ago, so we’ve been sitting on some exciting details about her (or him) until the grand reveal. She’s still a primarily ranged class with a pet and traps, but the way she moves in combat, and the way her pets evolve, is very different. Eric’s answers paint a great picture of how weapon and class choice combine to create very specific play styles. In Guild Wars 2, the same sword can serve completely different purposes in the hands of different professions.
The tank stands in the front. The healer stands at the back. The damage dealers stand in the middle. So it has been for generations. Guild Wars 2 is making the latest and greatest effort to change that, PC Gamer can reveal, following an exclusive interview with game designer Jon Peters and lead designer Eric Flannum of ArenaNet. The biggest changes? Tanks are gone, healers are gone, the Death Penalty is gone, and you can still kick some arse while you’re lying on yours.
Trust me, I’m Machiavelli: We kick off season two of our podcast with talk of our new site. Tim, Tom, Graham and Craig discuss why Guild Wars 2 will be genuinely different, the crushing disappointment of APB, the cleverest thing about Portal 2, how drama works in The Old Republic, why Bethesda should use the Rage engine for the next Elder Scrolls, the ridiculous inconsistencies of Singularity, and how the PC fared against the consoles at E3. The true identity of the podcat is also revealed. One Twitter question demanded a photo of where we record our podcast, so there’s a grainy phone pic below the fold.
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I’m getting properly excited about Guild Wars 2. I had the pleasure of interviewing three of the key designers behind it about a week ago, and their ideas for turning the fun multiplayer RPG into a new kind of ever-changing MMO are ingenious. On top of which, remarkably: no monthly fee. Among the things that lead designer Eric Flannum told me about are the Warrior class and their Traits system for customising your character, so here are some juicy quotes.
