Questions and Answers
Guild What 2?!? Can you at least give us some basic information?
A.
Developer: Arenanet
Publisher: NCsoft
Genre: Themepark MMORPG
Payment Model: Buy to Play with in game cash shop, no monthly fees
Cost: 60 dollars for standard edition, 80 dollars for digital deluxe, 150 for collector's edition Pre-purchase here
Release date: 28th august (3 day early access for prepurchasers)
Q. Wait... Guild Wars 2?!? I am sick of all these rehashes!
A. Guild Wars 2 plays very differently from its prequel. Differences include a different genre (GW1 was a Cooperative Online RPG), a new ruleset determining both how skills and character building works, expanded customization for appearance.
Q. So instead of a rehash, it is a banal mmo.
A. Not really, Guild wars 2 does a lot of things to differentiate itself from other mmos: Combat, progression, customization, questing, and structured PvP all differentiate themselves from the norm in one way or another.
Q. So how does combat work?
A.
Developer Video link
- What skills you have depend on your weapon and class: Swords give access to different skills than a dagger, short bows have different skills from longbows. Two classes do not use the weapon in the same way, a warrior with an axe will use it as a melee weapon, a ranger will use it as a thrown weapon.
- Skill Limits: Each class has 10 base skills, for most classes 1-3 is based on your main hand weapon (for thieves 1-2 are based on your main hand weapon, and 3 on your main hand and offhand weapon), 4-5 are based on your offhand item, if you have a 2 handed weapon 1-5 is determined by your 2h weapon. 6 is a healing skill, 7-9 are utility skills and 0 is your elite skill.
- Real Time Weapon/Element Change: Most classes can equip 2 weapon sets at once, players who swap weapons can adapt to new situations or synergize weapons better, but beware, swapping weapons (or elemental attunements for elementalists) has a cooldown.
- Downed State: Having your HP hit 0 doesn't mean death, instead your character will fall on the floor severely weakened, and can try to fight for his survival or try to get fill up your bar using the 4th skill and rally , each time you get knocked down it gets harder to get back up, and eventually you will die instantly.
- Skill Combo System: Some skills synergize well with others. Some skills have a certain field effect available (such as dark, smoke, fire) or a finisher effect, Finishers come in multiple forms: Leap, Projectile, Blast and Whirl. Using a finisher on a field allows for combos to be done which can provide with various effects such as AoE invisibility.
- AI mechanics:Unlike mmos such as WoW, enemies in Guild Wars 2 are not necessarily gonna attack the heavily armored dude with a shield, the AI will instead go for who it decides is the best target, this will depend on a variety of factors such as who is dealing damage, and their distance. But beware, not all enemies follow the same AI pattern.
- Lack of a Dedicated Healer: Healing in GW2 is nowhere near as powerful as it is in other games. You cannot depend on others to keep you alive for all too long. Anyone can revive other players and everyone can heal themselves, a healer wont be necessary.
- Lack of the (un)holy trinity:Combat is a lot more chaotic and unpredictable than other mmorpgs and as a result, battles are less stale and require more adabtability. People shouldnt worry though, the dungeons are not a mindless zerg. If anything, the lack of dedicated roles may very much mean players will have to rely more on how well they coordinate as opposed to how good their tanks and healers are at doing their job.
- Environmental Weapons: There are plenty of weapons lying around in the world, some to be picked up others to be created by allies. Mortars, Cannons, Boulders, bottles? You can pick them up and fight enemies with them.
Q. How does progression work?
A. As with almost any other RPG you do level up, there is a level cap of 80, however, unlike other RPGs the levelling curve is flat. At the endgame, your gear quality will plateau rather quickly, instead you will find items with more specialized bonuses, but not necessarily more powerful.
Q. When I play in a virtual world with thousands of other players I wanna look unique, does Guild Wars 2 allow me to do that?
Absolutely, customization is one of Guild Wars 2's greatest strengths. in addition to a well made character creator for each race, you have tons of armors to pick from and dyes to colour them with, and if you like the look of a low level an armor there are transmutation stones to allow you to keep the look of the low level first armor and the stats of the high level second armor. Same applies to weapons, except you can't dye weapons (at least from my awareness).
Anyhow, here is my character in the beta using the dyes in different ways, enjoy :D
Q. How does customization work outside of appearance?
A. Well, each class will benefit from most if not all attributes in one way or another, as opposed to just needing strength and vitality or whatever. Furthermore, the way the trait system works is not done through 3 different talent trees with one being dedicated for one role each. How it does work is that you are given 70 trait points and these can be spent into 5 separate trait lines that improve two specific attributes, with a cap of 30 points spent on each. This means you can max 2 trait lines and spend 10 in another. Furthermore, for each 5 trait points spent you get one passive bonus, the passive bonuses at 5, 15 and 25 are predetermined, but you get choose between 12 traits on 10, 20 and 30. To prevent players from getting the best traits in each line, traits have tiers: six major traits are available on the first tier slot, four more on the second, and two more on the third. On any given tier you can pick any major trait from that tree up to that tier, but never above.
Passive bonuses aside, you also have to choose between what skills to use. You can only equip 1 healing skill at a time. Same goes for elite skills, and you are restricted to 3 utility skills, so can't pick all of them. Then of course there are the weapons as well, you can only pick 2 weapon sets (1 if you are engineer or elementalist).
Set 250 years after Guild Wars 1, Guild Wars 2 once again plunges players into the world (and continent) of Tyria. Tyria faces a new threat from the elder dragons, who have arisen from their slumber. The region of Orr has risen from the sea, and the tidal waves that the rising caused were so cataclysmic, that The Battle Isles, Sanctum Cay, D'Allessio's Seaboard and even Lion's Arch fell beneath the ocean. As for Ascalon, the region has recovered well from the searing and is no longer the wasteland it once was. Ascalon now belongs to the charr and any surviving humans were driven out. At the shiverpeaks, the Norn were driven out by the Frost Elder Dragon Jormag. The Asura were forced out of their homes by the destroyers (the enemy of the Eye of the North GW1 campaign), creatures created by the Elder Dragon Primordus, and in Maguuma Jungle, new plant-like creatures known as the sylvari have been born. All these pushed to claim land in tyria and humans lost the dominance they once had. After being driven near extinction, a ceasefire was formed between the humans and the charr, but their peace is uneasy.
The famous adventuring guild known as destiny's edge got disbanded after a tragedy. Destiny's Edge was a multiracial guild who fought to rid Tyria of the dragons and the members are Logan Thackeray (decendant of Gwen and Keiran Thackeray), Caithe, Rytlock Brimstone, Zojja, Eir and her pet wolf Garm.
Neither Elona or Cantha will be available at launch. But for as grim things are in Tyria, things are more grim in both of those nations.
Official Races trailer
- The Humans
Official Video
Once the dominant species of tyria, after a series of cataclysmic events, and warring efforts from the Charr the humans have been brought to their knees. They worship a pantheon of 6 gods, though these gods have long since been silent. Other races see humans as conservative and many doubt humans will last much longer.
- The Charr
Official Video
The bad guys of Guild Wars 1 prophecies returns. Following the events of Guild Wars EotN, the Charr worship no gods and instead focused on technology as opposed to religion. As a result, the charr are by far the most industrious of the races and have hit their industrial revolution. They are currently at peace with humans and have respect for the Norn.
- The Norn
Official Video
The Norn are a proud bunch of shape shifting hunters. The norn were driven from their former homes at the far shiverpeaks and travelled south to new hunting grounds. They respect the Charr for their prowess in battle. The norn believe in strength and honor and while they do not fear death, they do fear being forgotten. There is nothing more important to a norn than their legend. The norn worship the spirits which includes but is not limited to: the bear, the wolf, the raven and the snow leopard.
- The Sylvari
Official Video
Inquistive and curious, these beings of plantlike creatures took on the form of humans. Born from the pale tree they follow Ventari's teachings. That said, there are rumors of there being more than tree that results in Sylvari offspring, furthermore even among the sylvari born from this pale tree there has been discontent among ventaris teachings, Caderyn, the first of the secondborn lost faith in the teachings after seeing the evils of the world and formed the nightmare court, an attempt to liberate the sylvari from the teachings. During their first journeys about 25 years ao, the sylvari encountered the Asura, who also reside in the tarnished coast, their experiences with the Asura were less than pleasant (the asura experimented on them).
- The Asura
Official Video
Small, brilliant and completely full of themselves. The Asura are a lizard like species that came from the underground and built the asura gates. They were forced out from their homes underground by the destroyers, and now reside in the tarnished coast, performing experiments. Although they are incredibly smart, they are not content with that alone, they also want you to know they are smarter than you. The asura believe in the eternal alchemy where everything including the human gods, are a piece of a greater machine.
Note: the Skills Videos use modified values for cooldowns and damage, for the sake of visualisation. do not expect your elementalist to summon two meteor showers one after the other, or your guardian to down drakes in a single hit.
- Warrior
Armor Class: Heavy
Skills Video
The Warrior wears the heavy armor in combat and can use nearly every weapon in the game. Despite her heavy armor she is not necessarily slow, and has exceptional mobility, particulary with a greatsword. As a combatant the warrior can choose between multiple stances and physical skills to hinder or control her foes and support oriented warriors can opt to use shouts and banners to strengthen her allies. She also has access to powerful burst skills which costs adrenaline. Adrenaline is built when the warrior hits her foes.
- Guardian
Armor Class: Heavy
Skills Video
The guardian can cast both spells and fight in the frontlines. While her arsenal is not quite as diverse as the warriors, she can still possess strong firepower if built right. Her virtues serve a lot as the signets, and allow for passive bonuses if the skill is not on cooldown, but can be used for instant and powerful effects applied to both her and her allies. Her wards prevents foes from passing through and can be used both offensively and defensively. Her consecrations and symbols can both be applied on the ground to strengthen allies and weaken foes, allowing you to combine both offense and defense in one skill.
- Engineer
Armor Class: Medium
Skills Video
The engineer doesnt like those primitive knives and bows everyone else is using and sticks to firearms. She can only equip one weapon but several of her utility skills allow her to pick up additional weapons such as flamethrowers (awesome), bombs (awesome) and elixir guns. If flamethrowers arent cool enough, maybe turrets are. The engineer has plenty of turrets such as ones that heal allies, and others that blasts the enemy away with rockets. If that wasnt enough the engineer also has mortars and mines (which knocks back foes and removes boons). The engineer's heal and utility skills also determine what her F1-F4 skills are, so an engineer with elixirs gain not only the ability to drink them themselves, but also throw them to allies.
- Thief
Armor Class: Medium
Skills Video
The thief can steal in combat, gaining an environmental weapon. One of the thief's most interesting aspects is that none of their weapon skills have cooldowns. Instead thieves use initiative, with more powerful skills costing more initiative. The thief can be very good at dishing out damage, but that doesn't mean they have no support, thieves can support allies with stealth and venoms (which, with a certain trait, any venom a thief applies goes to allies as well).
- Ranger
Armor Class: Medium
Skills Video
The ranger is back, and she has gained a lot more diversity than her previous offering. The ranger in Guild Wars 2 is no longer limited to just ranged, but can now be a powerful melee combatant as well. Her pet system has been changed as well, so now the Pokémon trainer can swap out between two pets in the middle of combat, and swapping is a useful tactic indeed, seeing as pets can die quite fast and each pet has a special skill for you to use against your foes. Rangers provide support through spirits and puts foes in place with traps.
- Elementalist
Armor Class: Light
Skills Video
The elementalist is a versatile profession indeed, while she can only equip one weapon, she can swap between any of the 4 elemental attunements whenever she wishes (with cooldowns of course). Her water magic allows her to heal allies to some extent and her earth magic allows her to take hits like a boss. Her glyphs will different effects depending on her current attunement and her conjured weapons can be used by her or her allies.
- Necromancer
Armor Class: Light
Skills Video
The necromancer specializes in magic relating to death (duh) and corruption. She can summon up her undead minions at a whim, and as the demise of friends and foes alike fill up her life force in addition to the life force she gains through skills. When she has enough, she can enter death shroud, which gives her access to multiple powerful abilities. The necromancer can also create wells to support her allies.
- Mesmer
Armor Class: Light
Skills Video
Mesmer in name only, the mesmer is back in Guild Wars 2. This time serving as an illusionist as opposed to the manipulator she was in Guild Wars 1, the mesmer has access to a large variety of illusions, phantasms, clones and debuffs to weaken and confuse the enemy, as well as increase the effectiveness of allies. Mesmers can summon illusions and shatter them at will adding further debuffs and damage to the foe.
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