Guild Wars 2

Edit: There is already a helicopter in the game, made by Kailani the Foolhardy. The Charr is at Fangury Watch Waypoint, in the Fields of Ruin. Its in the lore!

Hello everyone, to start this topic off first I want to say that my idea of flight in GW2 would not be like WoW, I don’t want to confuse the concept with WoW’s flight mechanic. My suggestion is more aimed towards a new form of combat.

Since we already have Sea and Land, why not have Air?

My idea for flight in Guild Wars 2 would be to add new combat zones in all current world maps, sans cities such as Divinity’s Reach and Lions Arch. To elaborate, I’ll start with the following.

Flight Waypoints

Flight Waypoints will be like normal waypoints, only have a special icon as to not confuse a ground or sea waypoint with a flight waypoint. A flight waypoint will be a sky station, or airship with a takeoff platform, or a drop ship like mechanic depending on your flying vehicle. In addition there will also be discoverable points of interest, waypoints, vistas (to be renamed), and hearts (quests) in the skies above Tyria.

Just a quick point; ground vistas cannot be gotten to from flying, those are meant to be puzzles to be explored on foot! Therefor there will require a mechanic to prevent players from landing a craft ontop of a vista, or unexplorable area on the map. Perhaps a parachute mechanic when you fly low enough.

All players will start out with one flight waypoint on each map so they can transition to an aerial combat zone that is high above the world map.

Aerial Combat Zones

An Aerial Combat Zone will place the player high above the map, and have boundaries similar to other popular franchises where flight/aerial combat is involved; a boundary not too dissimilar from an instance boundary, only this boundary will turn your flying machine around rather than boot you off the map or instance.

You will be in the same world map as other players on the ground, and there will be a flight ceiling and a flight floor, both of which will warn you that you are either going to stall from flying too high, or land from flying too low (or potentially crash). However, much like with sea combat, when you are near death or are “down” in a flying machine, you can fly below the flight floor to land and escape, as in sea you can swim to the surface.

Depending on your height, and a player’s graphical settings, they may be able to see you from the ground.

And speaking of instances, there would also be flight mission instances tied to your character, whether it be a dungeon or a storyline mission (for future content patches/expansions). Now lets talk about your craft.

Flying Machines

There will be an array of different flying machines to choose from for either purchase from flight vendors, looted, or crafted. There may even be a chance to board a vehicle near its destruction to commandeer it, allowing players to have unique flying machines from special bosses or from different mobs, however once commandeered it must be landed either on the ground, or on a platform (on an airship, station, or otherwise aerial location), to add it to your inventory.

A player will be able to customize the appearance of a flying machine the same way you customize the appearance of your armor with dyes, however you can also add looted decals to the sides, top, and bottom of the craft. In order to customize the appearance, you must first equip the flying machine in the designated aircraft slot in your Hero pane, which will be a third button in addition to your Armor, and Town Clothes buttons.

You can then color your craft using dyes, an add decals to them.

There will even be Guild Flying Machines, much like there is Guild Armor and Guild Weapons, and potentially Fleet Ships which can be researched by a guild and be deployed in a designated map (by a guild leader or designated rank), manned by the guild and flown by guild members given permission to pilot the craft.

Flying Machines Continued: Models and Variations

There will be a number of available flying machines for you to choose from under three classifications; planes, helicopters, and zeppelins.

A plane classed flying machine will vary from bi-winged, tri-winged, bomber, and otherwise. These will be the common flying machines, and will come equipped with a series of 5 skills based on the craft type, much like a weapon comes equipped with 2-5 skills depending on one-handedness, two-handedness, or off-handedness. Planes will be in constant flight unless landed.

A helicopter classed flying machine will be a craft that can move swiftly, and hover in place rather than being in constant flight, and will be harder to find. As with planes, they too will have a series of unique skills.

A zeppelin classed flying machine will be, of course, a zeppelin or blimp. They will be slow moving, but sturdy crafts typically with heavier weapons that deal a lot of damage but fire slowly. These crafts will be very rare, and very sought after.

Class Specific Skills

There will be class specific skills for each class, from slots 6-0 (four regular skills and one elite skill) that will enhance crafts. An example would be bomb drones that fly into crafts, rocket cannons, and even automated back-seat turrets that fire automatically at enemy crafts behind you. Other examples would be magical abilities, such as elemental shields and aerial clones.

In Closing…

This idea… has a lot of potential in my opinion, there’s a great deal more than can be thought up. Feel free to comment on ideas or post your own ideas in this thread, as these ideas are simply my own concoctions, and after writing this lengthy topic I have overwhelmed my creativity. I also apologize for any potential typos I missed.

But… how would that even fit into lore?

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

But… how would that even fit into lore?

Asuras.

Seriously, thanks to Asuras Anet can add whatever the hell they want and it’d be okay because ‘’ An Asura did it ’’.

Interesting idea though, not sure if I’m for it or not though!

I’m for it 100% Hope this gets added!

Vyniea.2054:

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

But… how would that even fit into lore?

Asuras.

Seriously, thanks to Asuras Anet can add whatever the hell they want and it’d be okay because ‘’ An Asura did it ’’.

Interesting idea though, not sure if I’m for it or not though!

Uh, no. That’s exactly the sort of poorly thought out excuse that made WoW so unbearable as a lore and immersion fan. When anything and everything is added due to logic such as that, any game loses a large chunk of depth.

I can’t speak for Arena Net, but I’m pretty confident that they’re not going to just add anything and everything for the sake of appeasing players when they’ve spent so much time crafting an immersive and richly detailed game world.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

But… how would that even fit into lore?

There’s a Charr in a 30-40 zone that has a helicopter nobody thinks will fly. I forget the Charr’s name, and the name of the area, but flying machines are in the lore. I’ll edit this post with the name of the npc and the area in a few, just got done playing.

Edit: Kailani the Foolhardy, Fangury Watch Waypoint, Fields of Ruin. That’s where the helicopter is, and the Charr’s name. It’s a pretty cool looking craft, looks like it’ll fly just fine.

NarcoticHaze.3497:

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

But… how would that even fit into lore?

There’s a Charr in a 30-40 zone that has a helicopter nobody thinks will fly. I forget the Charr’s name, and the name of the area, but flying machines are in the lore. I’ll edit this post with the name of the npc and the area in a few, just got done playing.

Edit: Kailani the Foolhardy, Fangury Watch Waypoint, Fields of Ruin. That’s where the helicopter is, and the Charr’s name. It’s a pretty cool looking craft, looks like it’ll fly just fine.

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

NarcoticHaze.3497:

Rpgtabbycat.5869:

But… how would that even fit into lore?

There’s a Charr in a 30-40 zone that has a helicopter nobody thinks will fly. I forget the Charr’s name, and the name of the area, but flying machines are in the lore. I’ll edit this post with the name of the npc and the area in a few, just got done playing.

Edit: Kailani the Foolhardy, Fangury Watch Waypoint, Fields of Ruin. That’s where the helicopter is, and the Charr’s name. It’s a pretty cool looking craft, looks like it’ll fly just fine.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5Himq7tjiA

That quest actually worked for them? That’s awesome, it flew! I say its pilot error.

No mounts and no flying please. It ruined WoW.

Aevic.9675:

No mounts and no flying please. It ruined WoW.

Please read the topic, or at least read the first few sentences before posting. That’s all I ask.