Howdy! My name is Ben Miller, Game Designer on Guild Wars 2. While Eric and Colin have been busy writing blog posts and interviews, we’ve been working on a little system called traits. There has been some speculation and questions about traits on the forums. What are traits? How do you collect them? Does Colin Johanson secretly run a moa ranch in eastern Washington as a front for the Order of Whispers? I’m going to answer two of those three questions right now and leave the third open for future elaboration.

What are traits?

At a basic level, traits make you better at what you choose to do. You slot traits in order to modify skills and attributes. Once you have mastered a handful of traits they become a key component in creating your overall build.

Mastering Traits

So how do you get all those traits to make a build? Good question.

You acquire traits by completing profession challenges scattered throughout the world. For instance, you walk into an inn and persuade a shadowy stranger into telling you a rumor about a mysterious tome full of arcane knowledge. Or you challenge a legendary swordmaster to a duel while exploring Divinity’s Reach.

Each profession focuses on different activities to develop his or her traits. Warriors train physically, bash stuff, eat stuff, and drink stuff. Elementalists, on the other hand, seek ancient knowledge locked in tomes or particularly powerful elemental locations. The different trait challenges accentuate the unique feel of that profession and really bring the experience of playing that profession to life.

Your prowess will grow as you complete challenges that develop your character’s particular traits. The defeated swordmasters will teach you their age old techniques, allowing you to select the Swordmastery trait. Discovering the mysterious tome will allow you unlock the secrets of magical energy.
Building with traits

Builds are one of the things that make Guild Wars unique, and it is something we are carrying over into Guild Wars 2. For those not familiar with “builds,” they are a combination of traits, skills, and attributes that mechanically work well together. With roughly 100 traits for each profession, there are way more traits in the game than you could possibly equip on a single character, so you have to make decisions and choose certain traits over others.
Traits play a large role in letting you customize the way your character plays

Each profession has its own set of trait lines. These are similar in theme to the profession specific attribute lines in the original Guild Wars. Each trait line has a number of major and minor slots. Warriors, right now, have two general lines called Power and Tactics as well as lines for each of the weapons they can wield. As you master traits, you slot them into these lines, affecting your character.

Previously we talked about the Guild Wars 2 skill system and how you can make choices about your heal skill, elite skill, and utility skills. Now it’s time to introduce traits into the mix. Here’s a specific example of a high level warrior creating a build.

To give this some context, let’s pretend an event has started. A giant boar is marauding through the forest and your party decides to take it on. This build is meant to maximize the damage you and your teammates can deliver against a single target.

Step 1: Pick a weapon. The weapon you’re currently wielding is the major determining factor for how your character will play. Let’s pick a sword, a versatile weapon which comes standard with a chain of three skills (Sever Artery, Gash, and Final Thrust), a rapid-fire repeating attack that hits a small area (Flurry), and a chase skill to close the distance between you and the enemy (Savage Leap). For my offhand weapon I could take warhorn for damage buffs, but I’ll cover that with my utility skills. Instead, I’ll dual wield swords to maximize my own damage. In practice, you’d also decide on your alternate weapon for switching in combat – perhaps a longbow for range.

Step 2: Pick a heal skill. Let’s go with a basic heal like Healing Surge, which gives you both health and adrenaline when used. Adrenaline gives you damage bonuses and allows you to use your burst skill more often, so it’s perfect for our build.

Step 3: Pick your utility skills and elite skill. You choose On My Mark (which lowers an enemy’s armor and calls a target out), For Great Justice (which gives allies Fury Boon and Might Boon), and Frenzy (which increases my overall adrenaline gain). For my elite skill, I’m taking the always epic Battle Standard (which puts an array of powerful buffs on your allies).

Step 4: Assign your traits. Here you can start focusing your play style and being clever with what you slot in each trait line.

Power: Let’s choose to stack traits that increase your strength attribute so your individual melee attacks do more damage.

Tactics: While kiting the giant boar, switching weapons faster sure would be awesome, so you slot the Weapon Master trait that lowers the cool down on switching weapons. You also slot traits that increase the number of targets your shouts affect, and increase the duration of your banners.

Sword: You choose to slot Swordmastery to further increase the damage you do, as well as the trait that increases the chance you will score a critical strike with Final Thrust.

Longbow: Out of what is available let’s keep things simple, more damage.

We want experimentation with traits to be fun and engaging, so we’ve made the rules for changing traits extremely flexible. With no in-game cost, you can respec at will, outside of combat. This means you are open to experiment with what works and what doesn’t work on the fly, without having to go back to town or worry about if you have enough gold.

Whether it’s adventuring around Tyria trying to stop dragons or fighting other players in World PvP – the trait system is there to experiment with, to have fun with, and to allow you to feel like you are actively mastering the profession you have chosen. Like Guild Wars, there are countless unique and clever combinations to be found.

To all you would-be heroes out there: go forth and adventure, and use the power of traits not for good or evil, but for awesome.

We’ve got a lot to talk about, so we’re going to break this up into easily digestible chunks. Today, Colin will answer FAQs about events in GW2, and tomorrow Lead Designer Eric Flannum will address more of your questions. Let’s get started!

Will dynamic events reset? For example, if an NPC dies in a dynamic event, will that NPC die forever for everyone in the world, or will she eventually respawn? What if players kill a boss in a dynamic event, and I logged off for the day and missed it? Are dynamic events really just one-shot, large-scale quests?

Colin: Dynamic event chains can reset. As chains, they move along paths based on player participation and event outcome. If an NPC dies in a dynamic event, their corpse might sit there waiting for players to come resurrect it and kick-start the event chain again, or it may re-spawn some time later.
“…every time you explore the world there is always something new and different around every corner for you to discover.”

Our event chains will never be lost to everyone in the world forever, they’ll simply cycle back into different states based on their outcomes, or they might not be actively running based on the current state of the event chain. If you and other players push an assault on the centaur base event chain to the point where you kill their commander, eventually the centaurs will choose a new commander and the event chain can begin again.

Changes from events will not be permanent and last forever, but they will change the world directly and last for a period of time long enough that it feels like what you did matters and has an impact. If we wanted every event we designed to run only once, we’d need to hire approximately 100,000 people to make enough events to fill GW2. Since our budget isn’t quite that big, we’re going for the next best thing and creating awesome cycling event chains that allow you to experience a wide variety of ever-changing content, but allow us to use event chains more than once.

With our dynamic event system, you’re never really missing the fun stuff, just experiencing different fun content than someone else at a specific time. It gives the world a feeling like there is always something exciting and fun going on out there that you may have never seen before. You don’t feel let down because you missed an event; instead, you’re excited to discover the next event!

Are dynamic events cyclical? If so, how often do the cycles occur?

Colin: Dynamic events are cyclical in nature, yes.

Many of the events in the game belong to large event chains that cycle in various directions based on the outcome of the events in the chain. Other events can be one-off events that can occur, change the world, and cycle back so some conditions must be met in the world to make the event start again. These event cycles vary dramatically on a case-by-case basis. In some large event chains, depending on player participation and the outcome of events, the chain could go entirely from one end to the other over the course of hours before it cycles back. In other cases, the event may change the world for 10-15 minutes before it can cycle back around. Some events only occur when specific conditions are met, like a snow storm rolls into the map, or night falls over the graveyard. If an event reaches one end of the chain, it could sit at that point for days, weeks, or months until a player comes along and decides to participate in the event chain. We’ve tried to vary the conditions that trigger events and change the length and variety of the event cycles so that everything feels organic and unique.

If a dynamic event happens on a completely different continent, and I’m too far away to get there in time for it, will I ever get to experience that event in the future?

Colin: If the event chain branches to the point that the event occurs again or the player triggers the event, you could absolutely experience that event in the future! It’s also entirely possible you could come to that map and find a completely different and exciting event going on as well. This is the great thing about the dynamic event system – every time you explore the world there is always something new and different around every corner for you to discover.

Do dynamic events happen at a particular time every day? If so, wouldn’t time zone differences mean that not everyone will be able to experience an event that starts at 11:00 PM GMT for example?

Colin: Events are not designed to occur at specific real world times; they’re triggered by game conditions, player actions, and in-game time occurrences (like night falling in the game world). Players from all countries and time-zones in the world will never feel like they’re missing out on content.

Can two events that run parallel to each other influence each other?

Colin: Yes, they can! At times, our dynamic event system can create situations where events can overlap, creating these really interesting moments of emergent gameplay. For example, one group of players could be escorting a merchant to the town of Beetletun with a shipment of beer from Divinity’s Reach. When they get near Beetletun, the players could discover that Beetletun is currently under attack by centaurs and the players can join in the battle to save the town. Saving the town not only liberates the now grateful citizens, but also allows the beer shipment to reach the now even more grateful citizens! The merchant will set up shop in town and a new beer merchant becomes available for a while, all due to the players completing two events that ended up running in parallel and influencing one another.

Aren’t events going to be perceived by most players as insignificant details or too ephemeral, in particular because they’re received orally/visually rather than via text?

Colin: We feel strongly that players will experience the exact opposite. Events will seem more significant and more important because you’re actually experiencing them in the game world, rather than reading about them.

Let’s say you walk up to someone on the street and say hello and they hand you a note that says, “A lion got loose from the zoo.” It doesn’t really have the same dramatic impact as walking down the street and witnessing the lion chasing screaming people around while the police chase the lion with tranquilizer “Our dynamic event system is like hundreds of lions running all over every street of the city… and they haven’t eaten in weeks.”
guns. “Our dynamic event system is like hundreds of lions running all over every street of the city… and they haven’t eaten in weeks.”Our dynamic event system is like hundreds of lions
running all over every street of the city… and they haven’t eaten in weeks.

In regards to events being too ephemeral, one of the benefits to using voice and visuals to present dynamic events is our ability to dramatically change the game world based on the outcome of an event. We can let you experience that change in the best way possible – by hearing and seeing it, not forcing you to read about it, or worse, making no change at all.

If you take part in an event chain where you storm the beaches of Orr, clearing out enemy defenses and creating a location for troops to set up a forward base in enemy territory, it will really happen! You and other players will wipe out the enemy, destroy their defensive structures, clear a path for the troops to land, and watch them build a command center while you defend them. You’ll see mortars and catapults being built, watch golems carry in supplies, and witness troops begin the assault on the Orrian mainland. Should the players fail in these events, these chains can be pushed back in other directions, but the events will truly have an effect on the game world and make a lasting difference for as long as the players choose to participate in them.

Will loot category be related to the event? For example, depending on how an event goes, a peasant/prince may or may not give out valuable loot?

Colin: Loot will never be directly given as a reward for an event. The idea here is you should never feel like you need to participate in a specific event, or feel let down that you missed an event because it had a reward you really wanted.

All events reward you with experience, gold, and karma, which you can spend at merchants and vendors in the game to purchase rewards. This way, we’re rewarding you for participating in any event equally, so you can play in the events you discover, or the event types you really enjoy. We’ll never force you to wait around for an event to begin so you can get a specific drop or make you want to cause an event to fail because some other event in the chain gives you something you need. In Guild Wars 2, our princes and peasants are benevolent; they all reward you for participating in events, and then you can choose what to purchase with the rewards you have been given. Eric Flannum will talk a little more about this tomorrow.

Is there a clear-cut “end” to an event when loot is distributed?

Colin: Each event has a clear-cut end point of reward distribution, in which event success or failure is determined and the players who participated are rewarded. The event will then branch based on the outcome and cascade out to change various parts of the world, kicking off other events in the zone.

It’s worth noting that players are rewarded for participation if an event succeeds or fails – you simply get less reward if the event fails. This gives you an incentive to want to succeed, but makes it so you don’t feel your time is wasted by participating in an event that could or does potentially fail. Players don’t receive loot based on event participation; loot is dropped by monsters you kill during events, and everyone who helps kill a particular monster will receive rewards for doing so. Loot is the immediate reward you receive from the monsters, but at the end of the event everyone who participated receives their event reward.

Thanks Colin!

My name is Colin Johanson, and I’m the Lead Content Designer for Guild Wars 2. The content design team is responsible for developing what happens in the events, storyline, mini-games, and any other content you encounter in the Guild Wars 2 world. In this article I’m going to focus on explaining how the dynamic event system we’ve developed for Guild Wars 2 works, and how it challenges the fundamental ways content has been presented to players in traditional MMORPGs.

Quests: A Flawed Content Type

When building an MMO, we had to examine every core piece of accepted content from traditional games in the genre and ask, “How can this be improved?” By looking at the traditional quest system used in basically every MMO ever made, we’ve come to the conclusion that quests have a lot of areas for improvement. To address these flaws, we’ve developed our dynamic event system.

Traditional quest systems involve walking up to a character who usually has an exclamation point or question mark hovering over their head and talking to them. From here, you get a massive wall of text hardly anyone reads that describes a horrible or totally mundane thing going on in the world that you need to help with. You run off, complete this task, then return and talk to this character again to receive another wall of text and a reward. Traditional quest systems rely on these blocks of quest text to tell you what is happening in the world; this is just an outdated form of storytelling.

In Guild Wars 2, our event system won’t make you read a huge quest description to find out what’s going on. You’ll experience it by seeing and hearing things in the world. If a dragon is attacking, you won’t read three paragraphs telling you about it, you’ll see buildings exploding in giant balls of fire, and hear characters in the game world screaming about a dragon attack. You’ll hear guards from nearby cities trying to recruit players to go help fight the dragon, and see huge clouds of smoke in the distance, rising from the village under siege.

There is a second fundamental flaw to traditional quest systems: what the quest text tells you is happening in a quest is not actually what is happening in the world.

For example, in a traditional MMO, the character who gives you a quest will tell you ogres are coming to destroy the character’s home, and you need to kill them. You then get a quest which says, “Kill 0/10 ogres” and you proceed to kill a bunch of ogres standing around in a field picking daisies. Since every player in the game needs to be able to do this quest, the ogres will never actually threaten the character’s home – they will just eternally pick daisies in the field. The ogres aren’t actually doing what the quest says they are – the game is lying to you!

At ArenaNet, we believe this is NOT good enough. In Guild Wars 2, if a character tells you ogres are coming to destroy a house, they will really come and smash down the house if you don’t stop them

A Living Breathing World
By building a world where you see and hear the experiences, Guild Wars 2 will evolve the MMORPG genre by making a game world that feels truly alive. The core of this evolution is our event system, which allows the world to dynamically change based on actions and decisions made by the players. A single player decision can cascade across a zone, changing the direction of a chain of events until they dramatically alter the content played by players in a map.

Other developers have tried to tackle this problem, but in Guild Wars 2 we go further. Where other multi-player quest systems were pass or fail – our dynamic events evolve in response to player interaction and the outcomes they achieve. Where previous systems reset and start again and really don’t change the world, dynamic events chain and cascade across a zone and leave persistent effects in the game world after the event has ended.

In traditional MMOs, when a quest is completed it has no real effect on the game world. You receive your reward and then move on, looking for the next quest to do. The world appears no better or worse for your actions. In GW2, the outcome of every event will directly affect the game world around you. If an enemy dredge army is marching out of their main base, players will be asked to mobilize with their allies and help destroy the army. If the dredge army is defeated, other events will cascade out from there. Players will be able battle their way inside the dredge base, face off against their commander, rescue captured friendly troops being held in the dredge prisons, and even hold the captured base while fighting waves of dredge, who arrive from deep underground to try and take back their home.

If, on the other hand, players fail to destroy the army, it will establish a fort in friendly player territory. From there, the dredge will send shipments of troops and supplies to the fort from the main base while building up walls, turrets, and siege engines to help defend it. Enemy dredge forces will then begin to move out from their newly established fort to attack friendly player locations in the area, sending snipers out into the hills, sending assault team forces to capture friendly player villages, and trying to smash down friendly fortifications with massive dredge walkers. All of these events continue to cascade out into further chains of events where cause and effect is directly related to the player’s actions.

For example, if the players do not mobilize to stop the dredge snipers, they’ll begin to shoot down all the villagers and merchants in nearby friendly villages. If they fail to stop the dredge assault teams from capturing a village, players will need to lead a force to help liberate the town and free the villagers. All of this content is derived from a single initial event – the dredge army marching through the map.

These are just some of the thousands of events we’ve designed in Guild Wars 2, where every action taken by the players will have direct, visible, cause and effect in the game world.

Putting the “MMO” back in “MMORPG”

One of the challenges of a massively multiplayer game is building a game world where hundreds of players are able to interact together and feel a sense of community, not a sense of threat, from other players playing with them. One of the great flaws of content in most traditional MMOs is that players generally cannot actually play together unless they are in a group, and the content types actively encourage them not to interact, or worse, become hostile, when another player is nearby.

Traditional MMO quest systems will send multiple players off to kill a boss. One player kills the boss and gets the loot. The rest of the players have to stand around and wait their turn for the boss to re-spawn so they can kill it and get credit for it. You don’t want other players around you because they’re stealing your kills and slowing your rate of achievement. MMOs are supposed to be about hundreds, if not thousands of players, playing together in a community, not putting them in the same world and then pushing them apart!

The event system in Guild Wars 2 is designed to specifically address this problem. All players that fully participate in an event are rewarded for doing so; everyone who helps kill a monster or blow up an enemy catapult will get credit for doing so. There is no kill stealing and no quest camping. Everyone works together towards the common goal of the event and everyone is rewarded for doing so. To help ensure there is always enough for everyone to do, our events dynamically scale, so the more players who show up and participate in the event, the more enemies show up to fight them. If a bunch of players leave the event, it will dynamically scale back down so it can be completed by the people who are still there playing it. This careful balance created by our dynamic scaling system helps ensure you have the best and most rewarding play experience.

Events are designed to help bring the community together and to give everyone a shared sense of responsibility and camaraderie in the game world. Even if you’re not grouped up with someone, you’ll only be rewarded for having more players come help you with an event! In Guild Wars 2, when you see another player you’ll actually be excited to see them, where in traditional MMOs you generally think, “Oh great, here comes a guy to steal my kills.” Through our internal game testing so far, it’s been remarkable to see how well this idea has functioned in practice. Our entire studio has experienced countless moments where we’ve been drawn together to parts of a map to do events and felt a strong bond with other players; a truly dynamically created sense of community born out of the event system.

Benefits to Re-Play and Exploring

There are two very common types of MMO players that generally are not specifically catered to by traditional games in the genre. One is the explorer who wants to explore every nook and cranny of the game world. The other, even more common, wants to make alternate characters and play through the game as many different ways with as many different characters as possible (aka the altoholic). In Guild Wars 2, we’re using our event system to help cater to these kinds of players in ways no one has ever attempted before.

For the explorer, much of the joy comes from discovering new things. In a traditional MMO, the explorer gets to explore a vast world, but after they have explored it once, there is nothing left for the explorer to do, because the game world does not change. The game becomes stale, and much of the joy is lost when the explorer has run out of things to discover. Our dynamic event system in Guild Wars 2 ensures this sense of joy from discovery is never lost in the game world! Every time you enter any map in the game, completely different events and situations could be occurring to discover in a new and different way. A village that was previously filled with friendly norn could, on a return trip, have been taken over by evil Sons of Svanir who are now using it as a base of operations and have put up their own architecture in place of the norn’s. This dynamically changing world will create the ultimate sense of discovery for the explorer.

As an added bonus, we’ve also hidden hundreds of events all over the world that require interaction with the game world. This helps give an extra sense of reward and discovery for those who seek to explore the entire world. Finding an entrance to a secret cave deep at the bottom of the ocean and removing a glowing orb from the cave could let an evil creature loose from its ancient prison and kick off a chain of events as the creature terrorizes the ocean shipping lanes. Reading the spells written on an ancient wizard’s spell book in a ruined castle at the top of the highest mountain peak could open a portal to another world and trigger a chain of events as creatures from that world come through the portal. GW2 is all about being a game for every type of gamer, and we’re specifically using the event system to make this possible.

Because the world is constantly changing through our event system, we’ve created a living, breathing environment that is especially rewarding for altoholics. The event system will help ensure that every new character you create has a truly unique experience when playing through the game world, making playing new characters more fun and rewarding than in traditional MMOs.
What’s Next

MMOs have become extremely popular, but the genre has done little to evolve over the past decade. Generally MMO players explore an unchanging, persistent game world, leveling up by performing quests which do not change the world in any way once completed. It’s time for the genre to take the next step, and explore the idea of a truly dynamic, living, breathing persistent world where the player’s actions really make a difference, and everything that occurs in the game world has cause and effect. The event system in Guild Wars 2 is going to bring this concept of a dynamic world to life for our players and we cannot wait till you all get a chance to play it with us. You won’t be disappointed.

While this article covers how the event system will fix many of the core flaws with quests in traditional MMOs, it does not address some of the other flaw in the genre, like a lack of character development and overall sense of personal story. Ree Soesbee, one of our world designers on Guild Wars 2, will be following this article with her own look into the personal story system we’re developing to solve these fundamental problems. If our dynamic event system is putting the “MMO” back in “MMORPG,” then Ree’s article will show you how our personal story system is putting the “RPG” back in the “MMORPG.” You won’t want to miss it!

Weapons

One of the things that became apparent early in the development of Guild Wars 2 was that we needed a diverse set of weapons to support our skill system.

The full list of standard wieldable weapons in Guild Wars 2 is as follows:

One-Handed: Axe, dagger, mace, pistol, scepter, and sword.

Two-Handed: Greatsword, hammer, longbow, rifle, shortbow, and staff.

Offhand only:Focus, shield, torch, and warhorn.

No single profession is able to use all of these weapons, and some of them can wield a lot more than others. Many professions can also wield a one-handed weapon in their offhand. A weapon in the offhand will have different skills than that same weapon wielded in the main hand. A warrior, for example, can learn to dual-wield and choose to equip two swords, which would give him three skills from the sword in his main hand and two skills from the sword in his offhand.

Environmental Weapons

So the weapons you’re currently holding in your hands determine your first five skills. This system is the basic building block of Guild Wars 2 combat, but when playing around with it we found that we could extend it into a huge variety of cool situations. For example, when a player interacts with a siege weapon, his first five skills change to skills that are specific to that siege weapon. A player might encounter a boulder in the world and, upon picking it up, find that his skills have changed so that he can now throw that boulder. Discovering a drake nest might yield eggs that can be picked up, and then eaten or thrown. The things a character can do with an environmental weapon vary by profession or race. An Elementalist with a boulder can not only throw it, but can launch it into the air, causing it to rocket down from the sky with the impact of a meteor. In addition to objects that are simply found in the world, many of these environmental weapons are created spontaneously through various events and activities. Wooden planks used to smack enemies can be gained by killing oakhearts, or found in the rubble caused by centaurs breaking down a wooden gate. Breaking a barstool over the head of a rowdy bar patron can yield a chair leg that can be used to great effect as a club. These are just a few of the many environment objects that players will be able to interact with. There are even a few professions whose mechanics are built heavily upon these sorts of interactions, like the Elementalist skill Conjure Flame that creates several large flaming rocks that can then be picked up and thrown at the enemy.

Professions

Choice of profession will of course have a huge impact on how the game plays. There are eight professions in Guild Wars 2, many of which will be familiar to fans of Guild Wars, as well as a few professions new to the Guild Wars world. Each of these professions is roughly categorized by the type of armor they wear: scholars wear light armor, adventurers wear medium armor, and soldiers wear heavy armor. Currently there are three scholar professions, three adventurer professions and two soldier professions. When designing our professions it was very important to us to make each of them feel as unique and different as possible. In addition to weapon, armor and skill choice, we’ve developed a number of cool profession mechanics for each one. We’ll be revealing new professions on our website, so it should start becoming apparent just how much we’ve tried to push the unique play style of each of them. Many players from Guild Wars are familiar with the concept of secondary professions. We included secondary professions in early versions of Guild Wars 2, but due to the unique mechanics of each profession and the increased role of race in character customization, they are no longer a feature of the game. We feel that this decision will allow us to create a more balanced game with really distinct professions that are fun to play.

Cross Profession Combos

It’s very important that professions in an MMO have interesting ways to interact with each other. In the past this has mostly been limited to healing and buffing teammates and managing agro in combat. We wanted to expand considerably upon the types of teamwork available to our players. With this in mind, we’ve implemented a system of cross-profession combinations. A warrior and an Elementalist playing together could combine their abilities in several different ways. The Elementalist could drop down Static Field, which is an area-targeted lightning effect. A warrior who fires a rifle bullet through the static field would cause his shot to be charged up with electricity, inflicting additional damage. If that didn’t suit their style, then the Elementalist might drop a Wall of Fire in front of a group of enemies. The warrior could enter the firewall and use Cyclone Axe, an attack which causes him to spin rapidly, sending the firewall outward and hitting his foes. There are literally hundreds of combinations for players to discover.

Races

A player’s choice of race is also an important decision which will affect his combat prowess. We’ve already discussed how a player can choose racial skills among his second five skills. These skills are designed to provide the player with additional options that capture the flavor of his particular race. A sylvari warrior might choose to bring Grasping Roots, which immobilizes a foe, while an asura warrior might choose to bring Arcane Blast for some additional ranged damage. A player can also choose to bring elite racial skills. A norn Elementalist might take the norn skill Wolf Form and transform into a giant half-norn half-wolf able to tear across the battlefield, savaging enemies. A human might bring the Hounds of Balthazaar, a skill which summons two massive fiery dogs into the battle. Racial skills can combine with profession skills to give players a wealth of choices when deciding how they want to play their characters.

In the not so distant Future

What I’ve covered here is just the tip of the iceberg! I hope that you all have a clearer view of how combat in Guild Wars 2 works, what some of our goals with the combat system are, and why we’ve made some of the decisions we’ve made. I also wanted to note that we have an iterative development process here at ArenaNet. What that means is that we like to implement things early, then play them and see how they are working out. If a feature isn’t living up to our expectations, we’ll change it, sometimes even cutting it entirely. Anything that I’ve talked about is subject to change if we find it just isn’t working. Look for the next update of this type to be from our Lead Content Designer Colin Johanson, who’ll talk to you about our dynamic event system and why it will make playing Guild Wars 2 a very different experience from a more traditional quest-based MMO.

The Basics

Hi! I’m Eric Flannum, the lead designer for Guild Wars 2. Over the next few months, we’ll be telling you about the professions, races, lore, and game systems of Guild Wars 2, as well as talking about our design philosophy and thoughts about the game. First up: combat!

We’ve got a lot of amazing things planned for combat in Guild Wars 2, and I’ll try to cover as many of them as possible before wearing out my welcome. Let’s start with the basics.

One of our priorities in developing Guild Wars 2 has been to make the simple act of moving around and interacting with the world an enjoyable experience for our players. We often refer to this as introducing “joy of movement” into the game. This means being able to jump and swim freely, but it also translates directly into combat.

To reinforce the importance of movement in the game, we want your character’s position in combat to really matter. You’ll see a lot of attacks in Guild Wars 2 that encourage and reward tactical player movement and positioning.

To illustrate what I’m talking about, I was watching two of our game designers–Jon and Isaiah–play the other day. Jon is using his shield to deflect the fire breath of a drake, when Isaiah hits the drake from behind with a skill called Devastating Hammer, launching it into the air. The drake is sent flying over Jon’s head, who immediately turns and uses a skill called Savage Leap to impale and finish the drake right as it hits the ground. This was a very cool looking (and effective!) sequence of events that flowed very naturally from how combat in Guild Wars 2 works.

We want combat in Guild Wars 2 to really be visually appealing. We want you to be able to identify the skills being used at a glance and also have a good idea of what that skill is doing. Does a skill have an area of effect? Is it doing damage? What type of damage? Our goal is to design skills that are visually unique and explain them without overly complex skill descriptions. This has resulted in a lot of distinct and impressive skill effects in the game. Even a simple skill like fireball explodes in such a way that you can clearly see the area that they will affect. Beyond your typical fireballs and lightning bolts, you’ll see skills that create giant crushing stone hands, turn their users into massive tornadoes, and summon flocks of vicious birds of prey (a particular favorite skill of many people after they see it in action).
The Skill System

Much like in Guild Wars, the skill bar in Guild Wars 2 is limited to a set number of skills. Like a collectible card game, we provide the player with a wide variety of choices and allow them to pick and choose skills to create a build that best suits their particular play style. For example, one Guild Wars 2 warrior might decide to build his character around gradual damage which causes his opponents to bleed out, while another may choose to knock his opponents down, controlling their movement with slow, large attacks. Both warriors can choose to equip the skills that matter most to them. It is also very important to us that our skill system be simple to use, leaving the screen as clean and unintimidating as possible. All of this combines to give us a skill bar and skill system that’s a bit different than what you’d typically find in an MMO.
The Ten-Slot Skill Bar

The first five skills on the skill bar are not slotted directly by the player; instead they are determined by the player’s choice of weapon and profession. Because of this, we can ensure that each weapon is balanced with a fun combination of skills. For example, a warrior wielding a mace and shield would get access to strong but slow damage skills like Obliterate, as well as powerful defensive skills such as Block and Shield Bash. A warrior wielding a greatsword would have access to a lot of movement-oriented skills like Rush, and area-of-effect skills like 100 Blades. In each case, the warrior’s first five skills are determined by what he’s holding in his hands. Weapon skills also take profession into account, so a warrior wielding a sword will have different skills than a different sword-wielding profession.

To provide additional variety to the mix, most professions can have two different weapon sets equipped and can very quickly and easily swap between the sets. For example, a warrior might keep a longbow or rifle for engaging foes at a distance, and then switch to a hammer when that enemy gets close.

We’ve talked about the first five skills being determined by weapon and profession. What about the second five? These skills are all chosen by the player from a pool of skills determined by both profession and race. To slot a skill, a player simply clicks on a skill slot and it will bring up a list of skills that can be put into that slot. One of these slots is dedicated to healing skills that replenish the health of the character and his allies, while another slot is dedicated to elite skills that trigger visually spectacular and powerful effects. No matter what type of skill is involved, it’s important that we give the player a diverse set of tools to choose from so that he can create a build that he’ll enjoy playing.

For example, a human Elementalist can choose to bring Aura of Restoration, which is a buff that heals him every time he uses a skill, or he can choose to bring Glyph of Healing, which is a more straightforward heal. A warrior might take the Frenzy skill, which will fill his adrenaline gauge instantly; the shout skill Fear Me! which inflicts the weakness condition on surrounding foes; or the Banner of Courage skill, which inspires his allies and increases their melee damage.

Elite skills are designed to be infrequently-used, ultra-powerful skills that have a dramatic impact on the game. An Elementalist can call upon the power of the wind to shapeshift into a tornado that knocks enemies around and inflicts heavy damage, while a warrior might choose to harness the power of Destruction, to make all of his blows inflict area-of-effect damage.

Some of you might have joined me or have heard me talking about a new game I was Beta testing. This game is called Aion. I have played a couple of closed Beta’s as well as played the open beta with many of you. I have enjoyed the game a lot and plan to start to play it more often when it goes live on the Sept. 22, 2009. This is in no way saying I am leaving you all behind in Guild Wars as I play Aion. I do plan to continue to play Guild Wars. I might not play GW as much as i start to play Aion. But I will still check in and join you all for events and other fun things.

I have heard that many of you would like to join us in Aion. I have also spoken to many of our Officers and they also might join us in Aion. With that said I am hoping to have us Grow as a Guild into Aion as well as our GW community. How I am hoping to do this is by keeping in contact with you all thru our Website as well as on Ventrilo. We will continue to use both of them to communicate and party with all of our members in both games. For those of you who don’t use Ventrilo or go on these Forums. I would encourage you to start to do that if at all possible.  We have used Ventrilo thru the open Beta of Aion and I have seen many members on there again. It is like the old days when we would have 20 to 40 members on at all times. We will open new channels if needed to support all people. But I am going to start by leaving just a few channels so that we will continue to join each other in a channel and enjoy the conversations.

For those of you who have never heard of the game Aion. It is another MMO. I would say it is the cross between Guild Wars and WoW. The game play is like WoW (open environment) but looks and feels like Guild Wars. If you are interested in maybe joining us. Feel free to post something in our forums or contact us on Ventrilo we will get you into the Legion (Guild) over there. We are planing to set up a Legion over there called Knights and Heros. Many of our current and former Officers will be helping set up our new Legion in Aion. There will be also many of our current and former members also joining us. This is something you all should be proud of. This shows that while grew in Guild Wars and went thru good and bad times. We all made a difference. This is why many people stay with and come back to us here in “Beer”.  In Aion there is much more to do and a lot more our members can do to help the Legion grow and be powerful.

With all that said I leave you with a couple final words. The first is I am not leaving you in Guild Wars. But might not be playing as much. I am also hoping that if you can and might be interested in playing Aion. That you would accept my personal invitation to join your brothers and sisters over in the new Legion.  I have been very lucky to have met so many new friends in the gaming world and I am looking forwards to the future of our Guild and our Community.

Thank you all

Carmon

Will there be a subscription fee for Guild Wars 2?

Nope. Like the original Guild Wars, there will be no subscription fee for Guild Wars 2. You just buy the game and play it online without paying a monthly fee.
Will Guild Wars 2 be an MMO?

Yes. Guild Wars 2 provides a massive, online persistent world.
How is Guild Wars 2 different from other MMOs?

While Guild Wars 2 adds a persistent world, it retains the unique nature of the original game including a strong narrative, extensive instanced gameplay, an anti-grind design philosophy, and strong support for competitive play.

Will Guild Wars 2 have non-human playable races?

Absolutely! In addition to humans, players will be able to create, customize, and play asura, charr, norn, and sylvari characters.
The conquerors of Ascalon, the charr are ferocious, warmongering creatures—the intractable foes of humanity. Now, as greater dangers threaten their conquests, the charr legions marshal their war machines to meet their enemies with deadly force.

The norn are half-giant brawlers from the frigid northern lands who can shapeshift into mighty bestial forms. They’ve been driven from their homeland by a force beyond reckon, and now regroup among the lost dwarven ruins of the Shiverpeaks.

The asura, who once ruled the caves and tunnels below Tyria, are an advanced race of small stature and large intellect. Having emerged from the depths, the asura aim to rule the surface world with their powerful golems and razor-sharp wit.

Not much is known of the sylvari, save that they are a race of sentient plant-beings, newly blossomed into the world. They are the youngest of the races, and are bound together by a common dream.
How will character progression work? Will you be raising the level cap?

Guild Wars 2 will have the kind of extensive character advancement appropriate to a persistent world RPG. It is our priority to avoid forcing players into the grind-based gameplay that too often accompanies a high level cap.

Also, to allow players the freedom to play together even if their friends are at a much higher (or lower) level, we are planning to implement a strong sidekicking system, similar to that used in City of Heroes.

We’re applying this same philosophy to competitive play. Players will be able to engage in organized, balanced PvP (similar to GvG in the original Guild Wars) without needing to first level up characters, find equipment, or unlock skills. While inside the organized PvP area, all characters will be the same power level and will have access to the same equipment.
Will Guild Wars 2 be solo-able?

Yes. You will be able to advance your character to the maximum level without ever joining a group if you so desire. Most content will be designed in a solo-friendly way, though often with mechanisms for scaling up in difficulty when more players are involved. This will give players the option to experience the game whichever way they prefer.

At the same time, it is important for an MMO community to join together to overcome challenges. There will also be some areas in the game that require a coordinated group effort.
Can I play my original Guild Wars character in Guild Wars 2?

Because Guild Wars 2 is a whole new game with different professions and races, new technology, and expanded gameplay, it would not be possible to directly use an original Guild Wars character.

However, your original Guild Wars character names will be reserved for your use in Guild Wars 2. In addition, Guild Wars 2 recognizes the accomplishments commemorated by your original Guild Wars characters in the Hall of Monuments and provides you with unique rewards to showcase those achievements.
What are the system requirements for Guild Wars 2?

The system requirements haven’t been finalized, but just as with the original Guild Wars series, we’re committed to creating a beautiful game that will play great on mid-range gaming PCs.
When is Guild Wars 2 going to be released?

When it’s finished. Seriously though, we haven’t announced a specific release date yet, but when we do you can get those details and more right here on the official website.
When will there be a beta?

Although we publically alpha- and beta-tested the original Guild Wars while it was still in early development, with Guild Wars 2 we will commence beta testing closer to the game’s release. With that in mind, we will not start beta testing in 2008 as we had originally planned. Guild Wars 2 is a very large and ambitious game, and Guild Wars players rightfully have very high expectations of its quality. We want players to be absolutely blown away by the game the first time they experience it.

To stay up-to-date with the latest information about Guild Wars 2 and the beta test, be sure to sign up for the Guild Wars newsletter

Updated Zaishen Rewards

Updated Zaishen Chest drops to replace Abyssal Tonic with a new tonic for the month of April. More information on Zaishen Rewards can be found here.
Automated Tournaments

Updated Automated Tournament map rotations.
Bug Fixes

Fixed a bug that allowed Elder Crocodiles to be charmed in Arbor Bay and Verdant Cascades.
Miscellaneous

Xunlai Tournament Agents now offer prizes for the March tournament. These agents can be found in the Great Temple of Balthazar, Lion’s Arch, Kaineng Center, and Kamadan.