How Team Fortress influenced Guild Wars 2′s class system
If you’ve played an MMO since EverQuest, you’ll be familiar with the idea of the ‘holy trinity’ of healer, tank, and damage classes. It’s an old and tested system, and one that is popular because it allows people to shine in particular roles. Players known to be reliable healers or tanks are worth their weight in gold to guilds looking to take on the hardest bosses.
Guild Wars 2 rejects the trinity outright, opting instead for a system where every class can fill every role – they just do it differently, and the emphasis is on responding to changing circumstances rather than locking down a particular plan in advance. While at ArenaNet last week I asked game designers Ben Miller and Jon Peters whether ditching the trinity threatened a player’s sense of identity.
ArenaNet president talks microtransactions and the risks of going subscription-free
Guild Wars 2’s payment model is one of the few things it has inherited wholesale from its predecessor. When ArenaNet announced their plans for a subscription-free MMO back in 2005, they were consciously moving in a different direction to the then-entrenched practice of recurring monthly payments. Seven years later, the MMO industry is a different place. Free-to-play is on the rise, and the amount of MMOs with compulsory subscriptions is dwindling – but no-one, as yet, has borrowed ArenaNet’s balance of boxed games and expansions with no monthly fee. During a recent visit to the studio, I had the opportunity to sit down with ArenaNet president Mike O’Brien for a chat about the industry. So why hasn’t the Guild Wars model been copied?
Guild Wars 2 World vs. World PvP guide
Guild Wars 2’s World vs. World PvP is one of the things that separates its competitive game from the majority of modern MMOs. Small-scale battlegrounds have become the norm, and the classic MMO dream of hundreds of players skirmishing across an open world has faded. World vs. World, then, is a mixed breed: something new that continues the legacy of something old. Playing it for the first time at ArenaNet’s offices during the last beta weekend, I was reminded strongly of Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot, the 2001 MMO that featured expansive faction vs. faction PvP. The comparison shouldn’t be a surprise: ArenaNet has more than one ex-Mythic designer on its team.
Guild Wars 2 microtransactions work like EVE PLEX, claim ArenaNet. “Everyone wins.”
ArenaNet president Mike O’Brien has announced that Guild Wars 2 will feature a microtransactions system that allows players to purchase cosmetic and “time-saving” items with real money.
“You get a complete and playable game no matter what”, O’Brien stresses in his latest post on the ArenaNet blog, “but we think we can provide additional content and services that you’d be happy to pay for.”
Guild Wars 2 Beta: Video tour of three major cities
Cities in Guild Wars 2 are gigantic—as in “takes ten minutes to run around the city” gigantic. They’re so big, in fact, that I got lost in human capital city, Divinity’s Reach. I wandered down a side street and, like a true tourist, couldn’t find the path out of the neighborhood on my way to the crafting center. Each city has districts, networks of dark alleys, giant forges, and hundreds of NPCs living out their digital lives. We’ve put together some videos of our run around Divinity’s Reach, Hoelbrak, and The Black Citadel to help give you an idea of just how massive and detailed each of these capitals are.
Guild Wars 2 pre-orders come with beta access, £130/$150 Collector’s Edition comes with big cat
Guild Wars 2 will be available to pre-purchase in a few weeks. Anyone who grabs the standard digital edition, the digital deluxe edition or the physical collector’s edition will get access to every beta event, entry to a three day headstart session and an in-game Hero’s Band, which will offer you a few stat boosts for your new character.
If you’ve got £130/$150 lying around, and have a domestic cat you’d quite like to scare, the collector’s edition comes with a 10 inch tall statue of one of Tyria’s fiercest feline warriors, The Charr. His name is Rytlock Brimstone. He has a giant flaming sword and quite likes small fluffy things.
There’s lots more in the box. The standard box will cost $60. Read on for a list of what you’ll get in the digital deluxe and collector’s editions.
Guild Wars 2 video talks innovation and design aims: “we just don’t want players to grind”
The latest Guild Wars 2 trailer is supposed to show off some of the ideas laid out in Arenanet’s “design manifesto” for Guild Wars 2. “If you hate MMOs, you’ll really want to check out Guild Wars 2,” they say. The quest system that offers up objectives as you wander the world, encounter creatures, or find other players fending off attackers hopes to remove the grind of picking up objectives from town NPCs. “Our games aren’t about preparing to have fun, or about grinding for a future fun reward. Our games are designed to be fun from moment to moment,” say ArenaNet in their blog post.
Update: As many have pointed out, this video was first shown a while ago. D’oh! We’ll leave it up, though, as it’s triggered some interesting discussion. Join the debate in the comments below.
Guild Wars 2 Beta: Charr, Norn, and Human cinematics
Charr cinematic
In the same tradition as the first Guild Wars, ArenaNet’s ensuring that every storyline in GW2 feels suitably unique and grandiose. As you saw in our character creation videos, your customization options aren’t limited to visual appearance tweaks—you’ll also determine your origin story and personality traits. The choices even affect your introductory cinematic, as you give an account of your past triumphs and present aspirations. In Guild Wars 2, one thing is for certain: this is your story.
Guild Wars 2 Beta: Character Creation
Human Character
The feral Charr may not be the most attractive race in Tyria, but they sure do make you look like one tough hombre. Of course the Norn are nothing to shake a stick with their crazy tattoos. Standing next to them on a human character you’ll feel safe or incredibly inadequate. Whatever your preference, character creation in Guild Wars 2 has improved dramatically since the our first step in Tyria nearly seven years ago. We grabbed some footage to help spark some ideas on which race will embody your inner hero. Check out the fabulously-funky Human Engineer above, then watch a Charr and Norn take form inside.
Check back at PCGamer.com for more Guild Wars 2 videos over the coming week.
Guild Wars 2 graphics settings walkthrough
Guild Wars 2 is pretty, everyone knows that. But it’s also designed to scale down smoothly so that the game can run on lower-end machines as well. In this video, Gavin and Josh walk you through every graphics option available in the beta, and show you step-by-step how they effect the visual fidelity of the game in a variety of settings.
20 things you don’t know about Guild Wars 2
Who would’ve thought slapping a half-naked Norn around would earn you a skill point, or that you could turn invisible just by logging into Guild Wars 2? Josh and Gavin join forces to help you discover these and 18 other fun facts about the wonderful world of GW2′s beta. Also, see why Josh should never, ever be allowed to play in the snow with your children.
DISCLAIMER: Everything on this list is based on the beta event weekend held on February 18. Some of the things discussed may change before the final game is released.
Guild Wars 2 beta gets one million applications
If you took advantage of the 48 hour Guild Wars 2 beta sign-up window last week, don’t be too disappointed if you don’t receive an invite soon. ArenaNet say that more than a million contenders jumped in and signed up for a chance to be among the first so explore Tyria. At peak moments, 4000 people every minute were applying, and that was between short periods of downtime when the website’s server buckled under the condensed pile-on.
It’s probably fair to say, then, that many of us are quite excited about Guild Wars 2 this year. There’s much to be excited about, including the promise of 300 player, three-way server vs. server warfare in Guild Wars 2′s massive PvP zones and the dynamic quest system that offers you quests on the fly as you explore Tyria’s zones. We spent some time with the beta recently, and had a go at answering all of your questions about Guild Wars 2.
PC Gamer US Podcast #306: Downloadable Spinal Cords
Is day-one DLC (like Mass Effect 3′s “From Ashes”) a crime against gamer-manity, or simply an unoffensive, optional bonus? When are developers “allowed” to stop updating a game like Terraria and step away? Evan, Tyler, Logan, Josh and Gavin tackle these topics on this week’s episode. In beta talk, Josh and Gavin also give a generous account of what they did and didn’t like about the Guild Wars 2 beta; Evan and Logan reflect on the multiplayer and single-player Mass Effect 3 beta.
Guild Wars 2 Beta: Guild mechanics overview
Guilds are the bread and butter of social activity in any MMO, and running one yourself can be quite the tall order. But ArenaNet’s got your back—Guild Wars 2 is making it easier with a few new mechanics that allow guild leaders to reward their members when they group up. We took a look at all the guild features and pulled out the more interesting improvements over the original Guild Wars.
Look for our other Guild Wars 2 Beta videos this weekend and next week on PC Gamer.com
Guild Wars 2′s overflow servers kill queues
ArenaNet have come up with a novel solution to server queues. As reported by Guild Wars Insider, ArenaNet’s Martin Kerstein revealed on the GuildWars2Guru forums that players attempting to log in to a full server will be offered an ‘overflow’ shard to play on instead. When a slot opens up on your chosen world, you’ll be given the choice to switch over with all your progress intact.
