In the MMO gold rush, the nuggets are few next to the huge glowing rock that is World of Warcraft. Even more so when diggers venture into the region of fantasy MMO’s. Guild Wars is one of the few that held its own next to the Californian giant and Guild Wars 2 will aim even higher, where many a game have burned their wings.

This interview travelled some before it reached the shores of the Gamocracy blog. The idea for it was born last August at Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. Questions from Gamocracy players then flew in to France from three quarters of the four corners of the world, namely: Denmark, Finland, Singapore and the UK. After that they made a short stop in the UK before they visited Washington State in the US for a while. In the end, they got back to France where they finally found their answers, provided as they were by a French man, Stéphane Lo Presti (in charge of community management for ArenaNet here), in English.

Only the most complicated roads lead to Gamocracy.

When is the game released? (by Predator_Kill_All_)

We’re still working on the game, so we haven’t yet given a release date. It’s important to us to provide our players with solid information, so we will only announce the Guild Wars 2 launch date when the game is ready!

How will the servers work? Will there be traditional MMO servers where you pick a server for your characters to live on, or will you continue what you did with GW1 and just have the servers region/district based so that you can play with people from other countries? (by Benki)

In Guild Wars 2, players will choose a “world” where their characters will live.  They can compete against players from other worlds in The Mists and engage in massive battles in our World vs. World mode!  We’ll talk about this in greater detail in the future.

What is the world map like? (by Eminence)

We’ve shown the map of GW2 Tyria in the first Guild Wars novel, Ghosts of Ascalon, and in the demo of the game that we showcased in Cologne, Seattle, New York City, and Paris. In Guild Wars 2, 250 years beyond the events in the Eye of the North, Tyria has dramatically changed due to the awakening of the ancient Elder Dragons, which are so massive and powerful that they have caused cataclysmic changes to the entire world, such as the rise of the sunken land of Orr. The Elder Dragons have displaced entire populations and created great hardship for others. For example, the asura were driven to the surface by minions of Primordus, the Fire Dragon, while the norn were driven from the Far Shiverpeaks by the awakening of Jormag.

Is there in-game trading where players can buy or sell items to each other? (by TheHullu)

You will definitely be able to trade in-game in Guild Wars 2. We are working on an element of the game called the Marketplace that has a variety of robust tools that will help players do their trading.

How many professions are there in total in GW2? (by TheHullu)

There are eight professions in Guild Wars 2.  So far, we’ve introduced the elementalist, who controls the four natural forces; the warrior, master of weaponry; the ranger, a jack-of-all-trades; and the necromancer, a disciple of dark power. We will announce the four other professions in the future.

Will there be a max level? (by Predator_Kill_All_)

The max level in Guild Wars 2 is 80. The levelling curve is pretty flat, so players can focus on playing the game and having fun.

Will there be expansion packs? (by Predator_Kill_All_)

Right now our focus is solely on making Guild Wars 2 the best MMO, and that’s where all of our energy and concentration is.

Will GW2 have micro-transactions of any kind?

Just as in Guild Wars, players will simply have to buy Guild Wars 2 in order to play and will not have to pay a monthly subscription fee. And, like in Guild Wars, players will also be able to purchase items via micro-transactions.

The devs mentioned the game would be different, without quest grinding. How different will it be? What quest elements and concepts are you coming up with? In other words, why GW2 and not WoW? (by Eminence)

In building Guild Wars 2, we questioned all the fundamental principles of MMO games, including quests.  In response to static, grind-heavy MMO quests, we designed dynamic events, which you experience simply by passing through an area where a particular activity is happening.  You can choose to take part in this activity or not.  For example, a village may be under attack by centaurs.  You and other players can choose to fight the centaurs or let them destroy the village.  Depending on the outcome, new events can branch off this centaur attack.  Maybe the centaurs will begin conquering more lands once they’ve captured the village. These dynamic events not only make Tyria a living world filled with activity, but they also encourage players to cooperate in an impromptu manner in order to achieve the event goal and have a real impact on what happens in the game world.

Will there be rare/end world bosses? (by Eminence)

Yes!  We’ve already shown one of these bosses in the hands-on GW2 demo: The Shatterer (Editor’s note: I think that’s him in the video below at around 5’30″), a dragon lieutenant that operates in the Brand, an area of the charr land transformed by the passing of an Elder Dragon. Players need to gather forces to be able to defeat The Shatterer, who adapts his tactics according to the threat the characters pose.  In fact, it’s a dynamic event that illustrates how our events scale: if more players show up, The Shatterer will spawn more minions and use different strategies to defeat them.

In the trailer it says that if you rescue a city, it will remember you, but what if it gets destroyed? How long will it be destroyed and if then how will it get rebuilt? (by Predator_Kill_All_)

If you rescued a city, the presence of grateful NPCs and the services they offer provide evidence of the effectiveness of your actions. If you fail to rescue the city, that will trigger other events, and among them may be an event to directly help rebuild the city. So it’s difficult to say exactly how long it will take, because it depends on player choices. It may stay demolished for only a short time or a very long time!

The new events system seems great and a good way to make the game world feel real. Do these events happen often and how much variety is there in them? (by TheHullu)

The frequency of events depends on factors such as if they belong to an event chain, how fast players complete them, their cycle duration, and a number of other factors. If you want to know more about dynamic events, Colin Johanson, our Lead Content Designer, gives a lot of details in this Q&A on the ArenaNet blog: http://www.arena.net/blog/colin-johanson-answers-your-dynamic-event-questions

How will the PvP ranking work? (by Eminence)
At this stage we’re still working on PvP, so I can’t provide you with any details.

Will there be housing/castles of any kind? (by Predator_Kill_All_)
In Guild Wars 2, players will have a “home instance” in the capital city of their race. Choices made by players in their personal story will affect what is found in the home instance. For example, one part of the human personal story puts the player in front of a moral dilemma, where he has to choose to save an orphanage or a hospital, but he can’t save both. These buildings are in the home instance and will either be destroyed or stay standing, depending on the player’s choice.

What new features for guilds will be available compared with GW1? (by Predator_Kill_All_)
Social features are an essential aspect of MMOs and we are still developing them. We will discuss them when they are fully ready on the Guild Wars 2 website.

Thank you Loic and Stéphane at NCSoft/ArenaNET.

Mad props go to Predator_Kill_All_, Eminence, TheHullu and Benki for the questions.

http://www.guildwars2.com

on Monday, November 15th, 2010 at 2:14 PM - filed under Video Games. Both comments and pings are currently closed.