Askgar

With the recent release of information on skills and combat, and the elementalist class, I decided that I would write a brief piece on my current thoughts on the game directions.

Note: I wrote this article offline, and it was done mainly from memory, if there are any errors please point them out so I can correct them.

First though, some background, I was following the original guild wars from the first open event (I believe it was called something like E3 for Everyone) and I think it was back in 2004, around 6 years ago now.  I played in all of the beta weekend events (approximately one every month) until release and created my character on day -2 (the first day of the early access for being a pre-order customer).  I own a pre order pack for all 4 campaigns (the prophecies one was only available in America but luckily I snapped one up before the prices shot up) and I own the CE for the 3 major campaigns.  I also have various other GW paraphernalia so it is fair to say I am (or at least was) somewhat of a Guild Wars ‘fan boy’.

Currently I still play once a week but am quite burnt out of the game and haven’t actually played properly in a couple of months, mainly due to the lack of stable internet but also a lack of motivation.  My main character is a dervish, a class that won’t be returning in GW2 (more on that later), although I’ve played about half of the classes at least semi-seriously.

The first part of the Guild Wars 2 information I’d like to cover is the “open world” system, where you might see a dragon over the horizon, or get caught up in an attack on a town, or other “public” events.  From my experience of games this sounds very much like the Warhammer Online(WAR) public quests (PQ), although with rewards for all participants, and repercussions if you fail, as opposed to the PQ system where it resets a couple of minutes later.

Another system it reminded me of, especially the attacks on a town, is that of Tabula Rasa with the Bane randomly attacking human bases and taking them over if there is not a big enough defence, this system sounded great but the trouble was there were not enough people bothered enough to actually reclaim bases, causing many bases to permanently be bane occupied and therefore off-limits, unless you could get enough people together to actually reclaim the outpost (which would then only last until the next attack).

The system they are promising sounds like the events are dynamic and almost randomly generated (of course this seems unbelievable), but hopefully it will be less like the WAR PQ system where the quests just restart every 5 minutes, whether successful or not.  Also, if towns do get over run and there isn’t a large enough population to reclaim them, the game could get rather frustrating.

The new skill system sounds like it will offer much more flexibility, having 10 skills instead of 8, however 5 of these skills will be based on your current weapon set, or more precisely what you are currently holding in your hands, while the other 5 will be based on your choices, however 1 slot will be devoted to some sort of a self heal, and another slot devoted to an elite skill of some kind.  See the skills diagram below!

http://www.iloveguildwars.com/2010/04/29/10-skills-a-diagram/

They have also removed the secondary profession, instead giving you racial skills so instead of combinations such as R/Me and N/W we will now have E/Charr or E/Asura (that is presuming all races can be all classes), each race will have, as far as I understand it, an elite racial skill and some other normal skills.

Going back to the weapon skill system, as well as having your first 5 skills dependant on weapon combination (5 skills for 2-handed or 3 skills for main and 2 skills for offhand), you will also be able to pick things up (such as rocks, planks of wood, etc) and as you do the first 5 skills will change, for example allowing you to throw the rock.

Also, you will apparently be able to hit a tree type monster with an axe, a plank of wood or a branch may be knocked off and you could then pick that up and use it against the monster.  I am personally rather sceptical of this and will be amazed if it works as they have so far described it.

The combat system is apparently designed with combos in mind, both single person, and more importantly multi person combos, the main example provided to date is the elementalist’s firewall spell.  Once this has been cast any projectiles (arrows, bullets, etc.) that fire through it will “catch alight”, turning them into flaming projectiles.  This sounds like it will make combat much more dynamic, but I have to wonder is this going to work as smoothly in game as they describe it, or will it turn into a clunky horrible mess.

Another feature is the importance of positioning, there is a demonstration of a phoenix type spell on the Guild Wars 2 website which acts like a boomerang, it goes out and then comes back to the elementalist, however the player can move to get it to hit other creatures that may have moved, or may be in a different position, on the return.  (See the video on the GW2 website for a video which shows it much better).  This sounds excellent in theory but will this work well in game, or will people ignore it completely as a concept and use it as a 2 hits in a straight line weapon.

Finally, for now, are the weapons, they have announced a list of the different weapon types in the game and Scythe was not one of them, this essentially means there will be no Dervish class in the game directly, however it does not stop the core concept of the Dervish being moved into a new class, or even merged in with another class.  The weapon skill slots could easily allow a warrior to have different roles depending on the weapon combination they took, even switching mid battle if their other non-weapon skills could support multiple roles.

As more information is released, or I think of other things to say, I will add new posts on the topic but this is the end of my first major post on Guild Wars 2 information.  I’d love to hear other peoples thoughts on the information and the comments box is open for all (especially spammers given how much I purge each day).  If you want to send me a private message feel free to use the contact section of the website.