Guild Wars 2 Pledged Not to Sell Anything Evil in Cash Shop
Oct 28, 2011 guild wars|111views
At the Eurogamer Expo 2011 held last weekend, ArenaNet confirmed that there will be a cash shop for the highly anticipated Guild Wars 2. However, designer Colin Johanson stated that they won’t sell anything “evil” in the micro-transaction cash shop.
Here, the definition of evil is anything that can make your character more powerful, such as high-level equipments or weapons. Generally, the stuff sold in the cash shop is purely cosmetic and some extra bonus staff that doesn’t necessary for you to buy to play the game. “We like to do the - we like to call it the Is it Evil? test. Every micro-transaction that we do in the game, we have everyone in the company look at it and say Is it Evil? Is it really something we should be selling?” Colin Johanson explained.
It is known that Guild Wars 2 will also adopt the payment mode like its predecessor. You just need to buy the game and then there is no monthly subscription required. So far, the micro-transaction cash shop in Guild Wars is a success. But Guild Wars 2 has a much larger development scale and has been developed for almost 5 years, recouping the costs will be harder. However, Johanson was confident Guild Wars 2 would attract a lot more people than the predecessor, “And we think that that will offset a lot of the development costs in itself.”
According to Johanson, they are working hard to enrich the varieties of the cash shop, “If people want to support our company and want to purchase that stuff,” he added, “there will be more options for them to do so. And it’s totally up to them.
Tags: cash-shop, Guild Wars 2
Guild Wars 2 character artist talks costume design
May 20, 2010 Articles Recommend|214views
One of the most prominent features of Guild Wars has always been its beautiful art style. That reputation carried over seamlessly as information about Guild Wars 2 began surfacing last year — it was clear that the Tyria of the future would be just as gorgeous as the one we know today.
One of the members of the talented team of artists at ArenaNet is Kristen Perry, the Guild Wars 2 character artist. Even if you don’t know it, you’re familiar with her work which she began for ArenaNet with Factions armor design, creating the majority of the Kurzick NPC clothing as well as some Ritualist and Assassin armor. In Nightfall, she designed all of the Elementalist armor as well as the most of the armor for the other professions. She’s also responsible for all of Gwen’s armor — even the outfit in the Bonus Mission Pack, and her handiwork can even be seen throughout the game in the character models themselves.
Kristen’s no stranger to Tyria, and designing for Guild Wars 2 opened the door for a brand new series of challenges and opportunities to design something completely new. In the latest entry in the ArenaNet blog, she tells all about her latest project. Follow along after the jump to see what she had to say.
“We sure keep busy around here!”
Kristen’s statement is probably better described as an understatement. So many little details combine to make up the finished product that her work goes way beyond drawing a cool female Elementalist and slapping some armor on it. There are five different races to consider now, with appropriate clothing for each profession, NPCs for their cities, coloring, and on and on.
Before specific designs can even be considered, there’s the overall look to figure out and get a feel for. Tyria’s changed a lot in 250 years, and the overall look of clothing and armor changed right along with it. The chance to look at a race or town as a whole gave Kristen the opportunity to plan the overall look of the inhabitants: “This allowed me to draw a block of designs at once and see them all together. Doing that gives insight into how the NPCs work as a crowd, spreading out interesting silhouettes and shapes that make them simultaneously a good backdrop for the players as well as appealing individually.”
This provided a starting point for more detailed costumes for different roles and positions within society, a job made even more fun by the availability of tools that weren’t around back in the days of Factions.
“…we had to completely reinvent ourselves”
The challenge of making the most of the tools she has was a familiar one to Kristen: “Even in GW I loved the OCD challenge of trying to squeeze more out of my texture pittance.” Having more advanced tools these days means an even bigger challenge — she’s got the ability now to do some truly impressive textures and detail, and is making the most of it. “Of course, all the new GW2 techniques add decent extra time to the final process compared to GW, but I hope the amount of new detail we can squeeze out will make the fine folks out there happy.”
“…this is 250 odd years later, and a lot has changed in the world.”
While we can expect to see a few “nods” to current Guild Wars styles, the overall look of modern Tyria is completely new. The citizens of Tyria have undergone some sweeping changes and traumatic events, not to mention the simple passing of time and changing of fashions. They are a different people than we currently know, so the total change in style makes sense — after all, how much fashion sense do we in the real world share with those people running around in 1760? Just as in real life, the culture has changed. It’s also been forcibly relocated by huge dragons, which is bound to have an affect on every facet of life.
Kristen’s interview concludes with a dangerous question about her favorite Guild Wars 2 design so far — the equivalent of asking someone to choose their favorite child. The debate of all the wonderful characteristics of each one can be never-ending.
The Fashion of Guild Wars 2 provides us our first detailed look into what we can expect to see in the way of design — style, texture, detail — and provides five brand new screenshots as well. Check it out below and we’ll keep our eyes peeled for the next dose of new information.
Tags: artist, Character, design, Guild Wars 2
Will combat in Guild Wars 2 be an improvement?
May 4, 2010 Articles Recommend|184views
Last week was pretty huge for the Guild Wars community. ArenaNet released a flurry of new information: the first profession was confirmed as the Elementalist, followed by the unveiling of details on combat and profession mechanics.
Two items in particular raised quite a bit of discussion in the community: the lack of secondary professions in Guild Wars 2, and the design of the skill bar. As Guild Wars fans, we’ve grown accustomed to the extreme freedom that we currently have. Want to play E/Rt and run a full Rit bar? Great, no problem! It looks like we’re not going to be able to do that in Guild Wars 2, for several reasons, and the immediate reaction was that of concern.
However, it’s a trade-off. Will we gain in the end? That remains to be seen, as we can only speculate with the limited knowledge we have at the moment, but follow along after the jump to see what the possibilities are.
There has been some confusion about the way your skill bar will work in Guild Wars 2, so let’s clear that up first. It’s a very simple system that just needs a clear explanation to be understood. In short, you will have five slots that are completely predetermined according to the weapon you are wielding. The other five are up to you with a few restrictions: one slot for an elite, one for a self heal, and the last three can be whatever your heart desires. Guild Wars 2 Lead Designer Eric Flannum explained it perfectly in a forum post, but if you’re more of a visual learner, Shaun at iloveGuildWars created a diagram that mapped it all out clearly.
So now that we all understand exactly what’s happening here, what do you think? In one respect, it’s a pretty limited setup. You’re wielding a sword and shield? Okay, here are the five skills you get with that setup, the end. You have to use another slot for an elite and yet another for a self heal or a rez. That leaves only three that we can choose completely freely. We only get to choose 30% of our bar? That went over like a lead balloon at first, but upon taking a second look, it’s not so bad.
Let’s take a look at those first five skills, the ones determined by what you are wielding. There were a few concerns here, chiefly that the individuality was taken away. Will the Tyria of the future be filled with so many identical builds that heavily populated zones look like some sort of violent sync dance? Probably not, because there are so many other factors. Sure, you get a predetermined skill set depending on what weapon you are wielding, but that skill set will change depending on your race and class. Every character wielding a rifle in the game won’t carry the same five rifle skills, for example.
This setup brings a lot more diversity on the battlefield as well. As the game stands now, you choose your attributes, build, and weapon before you leave town, and then that’s it. You’re stuck with what you have until you go back to town and change your build. With the setup planned for Guild Wars 2, you are able to use any weapon available to your race and profession, switching back and forth instantly as the situation around you changes. Each switch gives you a fully powered set of skills that are appropriate to the current weapon. The system that seems restrictive at first glance is actually much more open, allowing you to act and react according to your environment in a way that you couldn’t before.
What about the last five skills, though? Two of those are predetermined too, but not very restrictive at all. One is reserved for your elite, and as elites stand now it’s a debatable decision. There are viable builds that don’t use an elite, and players are reluctant to give up the option of not carrying an elite. The slot reserved for a self heal or rez is looked at in the same way by many players who are unsure how they feel about it. The only thing we know for sure about these two slots at this point is that we’ll have a “pool” of skills to choose from for each of these slots, allowing us to tailor them to the rest of our bar.
The last three skill slots are the wild cards, so to speak, open to whatever we want to add within the limits of our individual races and classes. This leads us into the next factor here, which is where it really gets interesting: the way our skills work within the context of a group. There have been pages and pages of forum discussion regarding the concept of synergy between teammates in Guild Wars 2. It can be done now to a point: a Curses Necro casting barbs on a foe as the Assassin attacks, for example. By all appearances so far, it’s going to be much more prevalent in Guild Wars 2, to the point where your teammates can almost be considered your secondary profession.
When you combine this new ability with the preset skills that change with each weapon, profession and race as well as switch those skills on the fly and you’ve got the recipe for something pretty exciting. Is it a trade-off? Sure. We’re giving up a completely open set of eight skills that allow us to use any profession in the game — albeit only one at full strength. But when you think about what we’re getting in return — a set of ten skills that are more dynamic and changeable than anything we’ve seen up until this point, as well as the ability to interact with our teammates and our environment to an extreme degree — it seems like we’re definitely coming out on the winning end here.
Keep an eye on Massively this week — now that the information floodgates have opened I’ll be watching closely for all the latest Guild Wars 2 news and passing it on to you guys right away.
Tags: ArenaNet, Combat, elementalist, eric flannum, guild wars, Guild Wars 2, NCsoft
Divinity’s Reach to Ascalon City-Flameseeker Chronicles
Mar 9, 2010 Articles Recommend|155views
We recently heard that Ghosts of Ascalon, the first Guild Wars 2 novel, is due out this summer. The plot of the book revolves around a group of adventurers traveling from Divinity’s Reach to Ascalon City in search of the Claw of the Khan-Ur, a Charr relic that is the key to a truce between the Charr and the humans. Traveling from Divinity’s Reach to Ascalon City is quite a hike, even in present-day Tyria (which is presumably much friendlier to travelers than the world of Guild Wars 2.) Since Jeff Grubb — one of the principal designers of Guild Wars 2 — is involved in the book, hopefully the tale will give us a look at the land of Tyria 250 years into the future.
While it’s far from certain and some arguments regarding the threat from the Deep Sea Dragon can be made, the currently-inaccessible area north of Divinity Coast is generally regarded as a very likely location for Divinity’s Reach. Our heroes may begin their quest here — if not, it won’t be much farther south thanks to Zhaitan. So assuming our travelers start out in this area, they’ll be traveling east along Watchtower Coast to reach the Shiverpeaks. While we still don’t know much about Kryta in GW2, we do know it’s the last human kingdom in Tyria. While it’s home to people from Tyria, Cantha, and Elona, they can probably expect minimal human resistance in their travels — the ability for players to choose from any of those heritages for their characters is indicative of peace between the nationalities — we can probably assume the local wildlife hasn’t gotten much friendlier. Have the mergoyles evolved into something even fiercer? (As someone who favors the caster classes, I find the thought of souped-up mesmers pretty unnerving.) What about the undead? Did the tidal waves drive them north from the Black Curtain and the Cursed Lands? It’s possible they headed south to join up with the undead Orrian army, but our adventurers would do well to keep a careful eye out just in case — and maybe someone should bring Ray of Judgement.
The current standard route through Scoundrel’s Rise into Griffon’s Mouth is one possibility for the next leg of the journey, although another currently-inaccessible area presents a potential northern path. Traveling the southern route would come perilously close to Dredge territory. The Dredge have evolved into a fairly cranky race after years of slavery in places such as Sorrow’s Furnace, and who can blame them? Whether you feel sympathy for their plight or not, however, is of little consequence to them. They’re now hostile toward all other races and embroiled in a war with the Norn. The Dredge control the Southern Shiverpeaks, while the Norn control the Northern Shiverpeaks, and anyone traveling through the Griffon’s Mouth/Beacon’s Perch area could possibly find themselves caught in Dredge/Norn crossfire. It’s not the most pleasant thought, and besides, the huge unexplored landmass to the north of Kryta presents so much more potential! Traveling north, then east through the northern part of Deldrimor Bowl would steer well clear of the Dredge and into friendlier Norn territory. However, it could be a case of “out of the frying pan and into the fire”, as we have no idea what’s lurking in that region.
Onward through the Northern Shiverpeaks! It’s a pretty logical assumption that our heroes in Ghosts of Ascalon didn’t die horribly at the hands of the Dredge (and nobody remembered to pack a rez), thus ending the novel, so our next stop is Ascalon. This is where it gets interesting. The only human settlement remaining in Ascalon is Ebonhawke, far south of where our travelers need to go. Otherwise, the former homeland of so many humans has begun regaining its Pre-Searing beauty, but is now the most hostile area to them. To begin with, they’ll have to contend with the Charr.
“These Charr are relentless.” They were our first enemies in Guild Wars, and remain some of our fiercest foes. The battle for Ascalon can be considered lost: Ascalon is Charr territory. Even if our travelers were holding a banner along the way that said “We are just trying to get your relic back for you, please let us pass,” it’s doubtful that the information would hold sway over a few hundred years of hostility and bitter fighting. The Charr think of humans as an infestation, and would like nothing more than to see them eradicated, so getting to Ascalon City is going to be a combination of stealth when possible and fighting when it’s not. We know that the Iron Citadel is located upon the ruins of Rin, making a northern route possible in order to avoid a main Charr city. The Black Citadel, however, is a bit more of a mystery. It’s described as a giant Charr keep constructed on the ruins of Ascalon. This leaves a lot of room for speculation, but we can assume that it’ll be harder to avoid along the way, if nothing else due to sheer size. With the Iron Citadel in the area of Rin, Ascalon City occupied by the spirits of the Ascalon Guard, and Ebonhawke to the south, there aren’t many places the Black Citadel will fit other than smack in the path anyone traveling to Old Ascalon needs to use. Hopefully Ghosts of Ascalon will clarify the size and location a bit.
The Charr aren’t the only threat, however. Stories of the great dragon Kralkatorrik say that it flew over Ascalon, and “transformed anything that was in its flight path into a twisted caricature of its former self.” Will we find mutated elementals, devourers, and gargoyles? What about the docile moa birds? Whatever they are, they’re a formidable foe and one that the Charr are in a continual battle with. We can safely assume they won’t be any friendlier than humans.
Here the speculation train reaches its destination, and our intrepid heroes hopefully reach theirs. Putting together the pieces of the puzzle based on current knowledge while we wait for the real thing to arrive is a fun pastime for lore fanatics. Feel free to add your own puzzle pieces in the comments below!
Tags: ascalon-city, Black_Citadel, Chronicles, Guild Wars 2, NCsoft
Guild Wars 2-Structured More Like Other MMOs
Dec 8, 2009 Articles Recommend|737views
I always thought a major pull of Guild Wars was that it wasn’t like other massively multiplayer online games.
It’s not just the GW used a more realistic art style than the dreaded juggernaut, World of Warcraft. Guild Wars was different because it was mostly instanced (which I think might’ve made it easier to break down new content into meaty packs that just added a massive batch of instances in new zones). Personally, I liked the way Guild Wars was because if nothing else, you could at least say it was different than everything else in some fundamental way.
But to hell with what I think. Here’s what Guild Wars 2 Lead Designer Eric Flannum thinks:
We use a lot less instancing than we have in the past. The game is structured much more like other MMOs, with the world consisting almost entirely of fully persistent areas. That being said, we have a number of different ways in which we use instancing. Dungeons, for example, are instanced areas designed for group play. We also use instancing very heavily in the players’ personal quest chain to reflect decisions that the player has made on those quests. For example, Logan Thackeray, captain of the Seraph, has an office located in Divinity’s Reach; his office is instanced because we need to update his status based on choices the player has made.
You can check out the rest of his interview (which includes World Designer/Writer Ree Soesbee and Environment Art Lead Dave Beetlestone) at MMORPG.com. Reading the whole thing definitely put Flannum’s quote in perspective and there’s some interesting tidbits about what else we can expect from the sequel to the MMO that will still always be a special snowflake in my mind.
Guild Wars 2: Exclusive Interview
Tags: Guild Wars 2, interview, MMOs