The Guild Wars 2 Thread

[Mangoose]

Good new article today:

Let’s take a look at Wayfarer Hills, the norn starting area, as an example of our iterative process.

The southern area of the map has four shrines, each dedicated to one of the great totem animals. The original design called for four identical events, where the Sons of Svanir—norn who have forsaken the Spirits of the Wild in favor of the Ice Dragon—would attack the shrines and you’d have to try and fight them off. We got these events in, and while they worked just fine, they didn’t feel very compelling.

Not wanting to throw away the work that had been done, we first tried to bandage the original events by changing the enemies at some of the totems from Sons of Svanir to dredge, another norn enemy. We still didn’t like the way this felt though, since each event was mechanically the same, and all the totems felt exactly the same.

After another meeting, we finally settled on the current design:

Bear Shrine

This event was almost unchanged from the original design, but it seemed appropriate, since the Sons of Svanir want to prove that Dragon is stronger than Bear, so they’re trying to deface Bear’s shrine.

Wolf Shrine

I didn’t want all the totem spirits to feel too passive, so I turned the tables in this event: the Wolf Shaman at the shrine calls a pack of wolves to join you in an assault on a nearby Sons of Svanir camp.

Raven Shrine

This event is totally different from anything else on the map; it’s a riddle contest. There’s little combat involved, unless you stray into the outskirts of the shrine where skelk like to steal raven eggs. The riddles have an old-school adventure game feel.

Snow Leopard Shrine

For this event, I decided to try something a little wacky. We wanted Snow Leopard to feel like a hunter, and we kept tossing around ideas for how to make a hunt-themed event. The final result: dredge from a nearby mine are digging their way under the area and threatening the sacred snow leopards around the shrine. Speaking to the Snow Leopard Shaman will allow you to transform into a snow leopard, and you can reveal the hidden dredge by snarling at them and frightening them.


We went from four carbon-copy events to four unique events that each reflect the theme of the area and the character of the norn. New events always mean additional work, both for me and QA, but in the end, we were much happier with the feel of the area. We also like that two of the first events you run into—at the Raven and Snow Leopard shrines—feel a lot more involved than content you’d expect to find at the beginning of most MMOs.

As you can see, flexibility is very important in concept design, as is accepting criticism and coming up with ways to fix issues that arise. Sure, it can be a little frustrating when QA sends you some minor bug on the fifth version of an event, but in the end, it’s all worth it. I don’t mean to gush, but this team is so easy to work with and smart about their requests that I never feel like I’m being asked to do the impossible. I listen to every suggestion and try to make everything as awesome as possible.

http://www.arena.net/blog/norn-week-des ... ing-events

 

[Fens]

generally sounds good but this is bs:

We also like that two of the first events you run into—at the Raven and Snow Leopard shrines—feel a lot more involved than content you’d expect to find at the beginning of most MMOs.

normally it's only the beginning areas of MMOs that are really fleshed out (especially at launch) and later quests degenerate to pure "collect x of y".

 

[Angthoron]

generally sounds good but this is bs:

We also like that two of the first events you run into—at the Raven and Snow Leopard shrines—feel a lot more involved than content you’d expect to find at the beginning of most MMOs.

normally it's only the beginning areas of MMOs that are really fleshed out (especially at launch) and later quests degenerate to pure "collect x of y".

Well, neither Vanilla WoW nor LotRO nor Warhamster felt particularly involved. It's a new trend I'd say, to have the intro be more interesting than the rest. I do sort of agree with you though, if they want to remain the fore-runners they should take note of what the competition is doing now.

 

[Fens]

true... you're definitely right about WoW here.
i wouldn't agree about warhammer though, as it has some neat stuff in the beginning areas like getting fired at the enemy with a catapult when you play green.
when it comes to lotro it really depends on the starting area. hobbits have pretty nice quests which also involve avoiding combat like the quick mail quest chain for example. dwarves at least get introduced to the dourhands. i wasn't too impressed with man or elf noob quests, though. it gets much worse once you reach the later zones... angmar quests are basically "go kill x" group quests and epics involve escorting retarded npcs who keep running right into the mobs.

guild wars prophecies had pre searing ascalon which was really detailed and then you got thrown into post-apoc-wonderland with some decent quests. the main quest line was still pretty good and took you to some interesting places but most of the other quests were rather boring. it did get better with the expansions, especially nightfall. even the later side quests tended to be challenging and made you do interesting stuff (like the court, where you have to respond with emotes). i hope GW2 will have more of that and less of the boring stuff.

 

[Angthoron]

Raven Shrine

This event is totally different from anything else on the map; it’s a riddle contest. There’s little combat involved, unless you stray into the outskirts of the shrine where skelk like to steal raven eggs. The riddles have an old-school adventure game feel.

What the hell, an MMO that isn't insulting my intelligence? Damn.


And yeah, LotRO is pretty much that. It's a very uneven experience even in the beginning. They did revamp some of the quests later on, like the Angmar revamp actually making the zone a little tolerable. Still, I'm guessing they mean "involvement" more like what Blizzard tried to go for in Cataclysm revamps. Problem is, if they want to have people rerolling alts and replaying the content over and over, they need to find a balance between "filler" and "involved" questing/content. We'll see if they can pull that off.

 

[Annie Mitsoda]

Silly Codexians. You can't scare me away that easy! I HAS FOR YOU REPLIEZ:

MANGOOSE!
Short reply on personality question: no with the dude running away when you approach, because you could be strolling into town and be super nice and be chatting with a merchant, and if Commander Murder rolls up behind you and scares that merchant away, you gonna be PISSED. We will have reactive stuff, and some NPCs that you can get to react to you when you interact with them - that's our primary trigger for stuff. That doesn't rule out world interaction - NPCs will thank you if you help them with an event they're tied to (like the fisherman specifically thanking you for killing the broodmother that was preventing him from fishing), and things like a scout in the charr area warning you against wandering out a certain gate if you're too low level. Personality-wise, I know we'll have a lot of world interaction, but out of consideration for the chaos of players triggering things and getting a reaction (like - again with the You = Nice and Some Dude = Mean - if you guys both cross through an area at the same time, and the NPC is like AIEEEEEEEEEE THE EVIL ONE, Some Dude may be feeling pretty awesome whilst you are full of WTF BUT I SO NICE) we have to rein the general reaction down to more neutral circumstances and keep the personality stuff to rad shit you can do in dialogue.

However - bear in mind this shit is being worked on. I may find out in a matter of weeks that we can do a lot more crazy stuff than I thought. Also, me on personal story, and can't say as much stuff about the open world and events because I'm not working on 'em

BLACK!
There will be a new demo at PAX East! I don't know if it'll be on the show floor, but it should be there in some form. Alas, me and "the girls" will be stuck back at ANet. A dev's work is never done.
Also that was Crispin Freeman that you heard there in the VO. And yes, he played Gann

ANGTHORON!
The Raven shrine event is super awesome. I have run through it a bunch now and it is still fun. Also Ravens in general are cool.

DATA4!
Yes, you can go in buildings I don't know if you can go in, like, EVERRRRRRRRRY building, but you sure as hell can go into a lot of them (check out the videos of people at PAX Prime or Gamescom playing the human tutorial - in that you go into both the inn and then wake up in the Shaemoor infirmary). They're super pretty, too.
And I will assuredly have a Mac & Jack's in your honor, sir. Manny's should bottle their stuff, I do agree.

 

[Angthoron]

Awesome, thanks Annie! We'll be trying to think of more questions for you

That Raven Shrine event thing sounds very nice, especially after a certain "Answer these questions" event in WoW, with questions like "Is the colour of blood red yes/no".

 

[Mangoose]

Thief video: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gdc-1 ... 4?type=flv

Norn beginning: http://www.gametrailers.com/video/gdc-1 ... s-2/711238

 

[Black]

Gametrailers took down the thief video but once something gets on the internet, it stays there.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHqO7emmcnE

Most certainly my 1st and main class.

 

[Angthoron]

Fffffuuuuu, saw links at work, couldn't watch, now they're all taken down, the youtube one as well. Of course.

 

[Mangoose]

Damn. I didn't even get to watch the Norn one myself before it was taken down. Oh well.

On the thief... I like all the mechanics, and the thought put behind them. For example, why the thief class doesn't use cooldowns in its abilities. I like how A-net talks about actual game design when hyping their game instead of using buzzwords (same with Obsidian, sometimes).

 

[Angthoron]

On the thief... I like all the mechanics, and the thought put behind them. For example, why the thief class doesn't use cooldowns in its abilities. I like how A-net talks about actual game design when hyping their game instead of using buzzwords (same with Obsidian, sometimes).

Could you tell a bit about the thief? What's it like? The typical dualwielder in leather or something different?

 

[Black]

I'm uploading the Thief video, because geniuses such as I foresaw nazi steps of ANet.
Thiefs:
Dual wielding daggers/pistols
Not relying on their energy exclusively but on Initiative
Chaining attacks
Stealing shit from enemies
Shadowsteps
Invisibility

Basically, a class that takes risk and skill but can pay off very well.

Also, there are no allies targeting skills in the whole game, so not only does the game not have healers, but also no semi-healers.


edit, the video
http://www.mediafire.com/?eh4agcja2qnt8yw

 

[Angthoron]

Cheers, DLing it now.



Edit: watched it now, thanks for uploading! Looks great, I'm definitely going to have Thief on my priority list of toons.

 

[Angthoron]

A question to Annie or anyone else that might know this - will the game support DirectX 9, or is this a 10/11 game? The vids so far would suggest that it's a 10 game, but I would expect the devs to want to show off the best vistas and thus possibly avoid using DX9 render in presentations.

 

[Shannow]

Make a game that doesn't support DX9 and cut out 90% of your casual audience? What dev could be so stupid? Do you know any games that don't support DX9?
First asking for walking animations and now this... Ang, I am disappoint.

 

[Angthoron]

Make a game that doesn't support DX9 and cut out 90% of your casual audience? What dev could be so stupid? Do you know any games that don't support DX9?
First asking for walking animations and now this... Ang, I am disappoint.

Just Cause 2, Halo 2, Stormrise, to name but a few. A recent discussion in General Gaming mentioned a few more but I can't remember them nor can I really bother looking them. Many of the effects that were presented in the videoes are something I've never seen in a DX9 game, so obviously having it in DX9 would be to lose much of the game's charm. I could be wrong of course, and the videoes might be rendered in 9 but I rather doubt that.


Ah, looked it up.

Gaile Gray has indicated the game will support DirectX 10, but not require it to play. Guild Wars 2 will use the Havok physics engine and occlusion culling technology licensed from Umbra Software.

Well, good.

 

[Mangoose]

Found parts 2 and 4 on Youtube and snatched them this time.

Part 2: Guardian gameplay during the "personal quest" http://www.mediafire.com/?ui8dr2edamew8wh

Part 4: More thief gameplay, I think with a high level dynamic event but I haven't watched it yet: http://www.mediafire.com/?48x62aw07xd8igu

 

[Angthoron]

Found parts 2 and 4 on Youtube and snatched them this time.

Part 2: Guardian gameplay during the "personal quest" http://www.mediafire.com/?ui8dr2edamew8wh

Part 4: More thief gameplay, I think with a high level dynamic event but I haven't watched it yet: http://www.mediafire.com/?48x62aw07xd8igu

Awesome, thanks for the upload!

The dynamic event looks pretty neat, and the Thief gameplay actually looks like it is rather challenging to master. Guardian doesn't seem too bad either, but compared to [high-level] Thief showing off in two videos here, it's not that spectacular. Like the armour on the Guardian though, simple "low-level" chain armour but looks good.

 

[Mangoose]

Key fact from part 4 about cross-profession combos. Projectiles fired through a Guardian's virtue symbol heals any allies that are near the NPC you are firing at.

 

[Angthoron]

Key fact from part 4 about cross-profession combos. Projectiles fired through a Guardian's virtue symbol heals any allies that are near the NPC you are firing at.

As well as the "Karma" currency that's awarded for taking part in dynamic events. Sounds like a good call, in a way, though I would also have liked to have some event-specific reward as well as flavour. Then again, nothing's to stop them from giving a first-time award for it.

Cross-profession combos sound interesting though, I wonder if each class has something to offer (Thief for instance wasn't mentioned to have any such skills, at least yet anyway).

Also, I think that this is the first time we properly get to see the "downed" state - looks like it's a lot in common with Borderlands' downed state, though the damage dealt seemed significantly lower. One odd thing I noticed (Or thing I did) was that the Thief was using guns, went down, and then wasn't able to use the said guns (or it was that Skill 4 on incredibly long CD?). I guess letting the Thief spam guns would be overpowered, but then again, seeing how Thief is a glass cannon, it would make sense to make the downed state skills a little more powerful? Then again, that would promote the "casual players" to just play in a crap way rather than improve and avoid death.

 

[Black]

ANet understand that it's p much pointless to keep it hidden so they approved of all the leaked videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tZ92v3WKD8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wM_C4WqADFg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWm8dTrEyWM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYFJI1u-CBY

 

[Shannow]

Make a game that doesn't support DX9 and cut out 90% of your casual audience? What dev could be so stupid? Do you know any games that don't support DX9?
First asking for walking animations and now this... Ang, I am disappoint.

Just Cause 2, Halo 2, Stormrise, to name but a few. A recent discussion in General Gaming mentioned a few more but I can't remember them nor can I really bother looking them. Many of the effects that were presented in the videoes are something I've never seen in a DX9 game, so obviously having it in DX9 would be to lose much of the game's charm. I could be wrong of course, and the videoes might be rendered in 9 but I rather doubt that.

Google says Halo 2 doesn't have DX10 http://www.modacity.net/forums/showthre ... -Not-DX-10

Really can't imagine a current game not being playable on a DX9-only card... Hell, you don't just kill off consumers who have older graffix cards you also kill anyone who's still on XP or older.

 

[Angthoron]

Really can't imagine a current game not being playable on a DX9-only card... Hell, you don't just kill off consumers who have older graffix cards you also kill anyone who's still on XP or older.

Mmm, except you can't run Halo 2 on a DX9 system anyway, thus whether it's DX9 or DX10 is practically moot - you won't run it on XP anyway, and Vista/7 comes pre-packed with 10.

And I can very well imagine devs pushing people away from DX9-based cards and OSes, just like they pushed the users away from DX8 ages ago. It's been what, three years since DX10 came out? A year since DX11 launched? And people are still in the day before yesterday? Sooner or later there will be a push to move away from 9, it won't stick around forever.

...Although it still hangs there with the current generation of consoles, so probably DX9 won't be pushed out anywhere as quickly as 8 was - not to mention that 8/9 change didn't require a need to buy a new OS.



Anyway, not to derail it off the topic, back on the subject of videos!

It's a bit funny that they pulled them off the net to begin with after they were already cut and even logo'd by Gametrailers. The point of that seems totally lost.

 

[Shannow]

It's a bit funny that they pulled them off the net to begin with after they were already cut and even logo'd by Gametrailers. The point of that seems totally lost.

It's what you pay marketing big bucks for. They tell you it's important to release that video and not this one, to release that day and not the day before.

Perhaps they didn't want to show off the atrocious body-language of the PC or his bad VA? Seriously Annie, that needs work: stiff is better than bad, silent is also better than bad.

That aside: Have you guys put any thought into what kind of chars you'll play? So far I can't decide between Asuran Necro, Norn Warrior or Charr Ranger.