Guild Wars 2

What a great idea. nice thinking dlonie.

And nice to meet you Crystal Reid; would be interesting to listen in on dev TS. You guys should leak and post xD

You worked on Volcano Fractal?
Now I am confident about raids. This is one of the best encounters, in which bringing pure DPS without mitigation can be extremely dangerous. People still complete it with Zerker, but at least they have to bring a sandstorm too .

Tom Yzf.5872:

What a great idea. nice thinking dlonie.

And nice to meet you Crystal Reid; would be interesting to listen in on dev TS. You guys should leak and post xD

We need the dev blooper reel.

Nice to meet ya Crystal. I’m curious, what games have you played in the past? And thanks for the Imbued Shaman, easy top 3 encounter for me (impossible to decide between him, Lupi and Mai trin).

Wow, I’m super hyped for raids now. Nice to meet you Crystal!

Thanks for kicking off the thread, Crystal and Jason! (Edit: and hi Cameron, too!)

FWIW, having you all post here actually has me way more hyped about the raids than the trailers and blog posts did :-)

DDCarvalho.2071:

You worked on Volcano Fractal?
Now I am confident about raids. This is one of the best encounters

I had the same thought Shaman is easily one of my favorite bosses.

Can’t wait to try the new stuff out! It sounds like Gorseval is the boss we saw in the trailer, surrounded by the blue (I think?) wall? Is that the encounter that we’ll be playing this weekend?

Trevor Bennett.3691:

What’s a funny story about something that’s happened to you or your party while play-testing Raids?

• Me complaining that Crystal’s bosses are too hard, her telling me to shut-up and suck less (or something to that effect).

So are you the one paying all the chiropractor bills?

Crystal Reid.2481:

What do you do at ArenaNet?
I make internet dragons. Previously worked on some Fractals, Tequatl, TT, Boss Blitz in QP.

The best time I’ve had in this game was during boss blitz, it required just enough coordination to be done by randoms, just enough time spent to be meaningful, and just enough rewards to be addictive. Awesome job with the design, and here is hoping for it to make a comeback in the future.

dlonie.6547:

FWIW, having you all post here actually has me way more hyped about the raids than the trailers and blog posts did :-)

^This

Now I know who to personally yell at when you guys stop supporting raids!

Joking btw pls dont ban :’(

dlonie.6547:

FWIW, having you all post here actually has me way more hyped about the raids than the trailers and blog posts did :-)

Yup, my feeling exactly.

Please, come hang out, I’ll try not to get too salty and pessimistic on you, promise (that I’ll try, not that I won’t ! ).

I played EQ from ‘99 till about 2013, the thing I miss most about that game was the devs, great people, super smart, and just a pleasure to talk to. I remember them opening up dialogues about issues plaguing the game just to brainstorm ideas on possible fixes. It was more than that though, it also let us know how hard it was to actually fix some of these things, some being actually impossible, better to just accept. I remember doing Beta’s with them logging in on a saturday morning, seeing them hard at work, logging out to go to bed and they’re still there at 2AM. So please don’t ever take my saltiness as a personal attack, I truly never mean it to be. I have nothing but admiration for all of you, you make a game that I can kill so much time with. Hell I play fractals almost every day and enjoy it… still! That’s saying something. I may get frustrated, may get salty, may just be the drunk old man I am (I’m not old but I identify as one ) but again, none of that is targetted towards you developers/coders/testers. Keep being awesome and keep making a game I enjoy, and please, don’t be a stranger.

Anyways, certainly looking forward to some drunk raiding this weekend, I’ve been missing my old EQ guild’s battle cry (click glug glug glug, lets go!)

Paul Ella.2037:

As the Producer for raids I am the Senior cat wrangler, Primary time / space / work manipulator and Lead ’it’s bigger on the inside’ project planner.

Season 9! Love the new salty Doctor

Paul Ella.2037:

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?
The one that always sticks in my mind is the first time I finished the Cliffside Fractal and saw the Colossus. I still bow every time now and wonder where he went and will we see him again?

Please say this is foreshadowing, wink wink nudge nudge

This is a fantastic thread, and I enjoyed reading all the dev responses. Thank you all so much for sharing with us.

This is a great thread, thank you to Dlonie for starting it and thank you to all the devs who are posting!

Jon, come play! promise it’ll be fun.

I have to say the Beta account thing is flipping fantastic, very impressed with the way GW2 does it. In the past it’s always been a separate log in and all that, which works, but is a bit tedious, and doesn’t give as much real gameplay, not with GW2, you can play all the old stuff with friends not in beta, getting real experience. It’s quite impressive. Kudos to you and whoever else worked on it, that’s quite the feat.

This was such a heart warming read. Hello to everyone !

Wow, I love this thread. Thank you for sharing Devs! Great Idea starting this thread OP.

Anyone played Wildstar? I didn’t myself, but what I read about it was something like “caters the hardcore crowd, has it flaws, but the dungeons/raids are great”. Having this in mind, I did some quick google research and now look what I found out about Jason Reynolds.4297 previous work at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-reynolds/10/3b3/954

:)

Paul Ella.2037:

What’s your name?
Paul Ella

What has been your involvement with Raids?
As the Producer for raids I am the Senior cat wrangler, Primary time / space / work manipulator and Lead ’it’s bigger on the inside’ project planner.

A Time Lord works for ArenaNet! I’ve sometimes wondered if I’d seen a blue box in game.

Great thread, this is the kind of community interaction I’d have wished for one or two years ago. Thanks!

Great topic, Hype is real

Nash.2681:

Anyone played Wildstar? I didn’t myself, but what I read about it was something like "caters the hardcore crowd, has it flaws, but the dungeons/raids are great". Having this in mind, I did some quick google research and now look what I found out about Jason Reynolds.4297 previous work at LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pub/jason-reynolds/10/3b3/954

:)

it was fun, attunements for raids were a bit crap (screw "get max rep with all dominion factions", and the "get gold in veteran dungeons" made the dungeon community pretty cancerous (one death from ANYONE? everyone dropped group. not a speedrun? drop group. fail an optional objective? drop group.) >_>) but the encounter design is a JOY to experience.

I remember the first time my guild did Kel Voreth at release, the wipe we had on the final boss when it went into its "ground AoE bullet hell" phase had us laughing so hard at wtf we were suddenly dealing with

world and level design is brilliant too, my one sorrow is that I can’t dual-path explorer and scientist for jumping puzzles AND lore (and puzzles)

I wonder how GW2 would fare if it adoped the "dodging does not give invincibility frames" mechanic?

if the guy who did the level design for W* is now on the raid team, I’m expecting this to be a treat

(and I’ll say it again "GW2 need chua, chua best race, better than bunny ears, maybe breed charr/asura? *cackles manically*")

woo nice guys! welcome everydev! nice to meet ya!

Crystal Reid.2481:

-snip-

Always nice to be reminded that my favorite dev at Anet who’s done some of my favorite content is working on raids.

Cameron Rich.3905:

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?

I absolutely adore the Molten Duo boss fight in fractals. It’s always a blast for me. For dungeons, I really enjoy the Subject Alpha encounters! And who can forget Lupi!

So one of the people working raids share my favorite three dungeon/fractal bosses?

I’m liking the raid team more and more.

What a lovely thread! It is so nice to meet the devs behind the raids and get to know what it is they enjoy and are excited about. Kudos for starting it! Also many thanks to the devs for your replies! They have been great to read and genuinely got me excited about raids, in this “I want to know what you’re on about” way.
Can’t wait!

Yay! Hi dev friends! This is such a great idea for a topic. I personally am so excited for Raids

PS- Paul, Carl the Flesh Golem would look really hip in a little submarine. Just sayin…

This down-to-earth devspeak has inflated my hype much more than previous buzzwords did. For both our sakes, I hope you pull raids off :P

What a great thread! Thanks everybody for introducing yourselves and sweeten my breakfast

#mademyday

I love love love reading all these red posts from devs. It made for nice reading. Thanks for taking the time to come and introduce yourselves

Cheers for introducing yourselves, it’s good to have some enthusiasm and a living breathing development team on the roll for end-game PvE.

Thanks for taking the time to say hello.

Jerus.4350:

I have to say the Beta account thing is flipping fantastic, very impressed with the way GW2 does it. In the past it’s always been a separate log in and all that, which works, but is a bit tedious, and doesn’t give as much real gameplay, not with GW2, you can play all the old stuff with friends not in beta, getting real experience. It’s quite impressive. Kudos to you and whoever else worked on it, that’s quite the feat.

My thoughts exactly when i read Jon’s post, the beta system is pretty fantastic.

Well done and thank you dlonie for creating this thread, and thank you devs for joining this thread. I hope this does help the dev/player relationship . From what you guys are saying, it sounds like raiding will be a blast!

Also loving those funny raid stories XD. Nice meeting you all .

What a great thread. Thank you all so much for taking the time to introduce yourselves, and thank you dlonie for the initial thought! It’s simply great hearing that there are so many developers stalking our humble abode.

I guess I’ll say this as an aside for anyone visiting from other forums or who don’t visit the forums regularly—I am your Forum Specialist. I am your voice to these developers when they get too wrapped up in development to post (even though they still read), and I can help leverage things that are popularly discussed on the forums to them. Disregard that my title officially doesn’t say “Raids” yet, because that’s an oversight and they’ll get to it when they get to it.

I will be writing essays for this weekend about all of the thoughts and feedback, so please remember to post what you’re thinking here. If you post it in this forum over this BWE, I will read it and your voice will be heard. I promise.

This is amazing, the fruastraion from constant party wipe, the need to actually cripple everything, and the running of headless chicken, now I am all hyped up for raid!

You guys are the best!!

DDCarvalho.2071:

You worked on Volcano Fractal?
Now I am confident about raids. This is one of the best encounters, in which bringing pure DPS without mitigation can be extremely dangerous. People still complete it with Zerker, but at least they have to bring a sandstorm too .

Pure DPS in this fractal work beauty if u know what to do. If u know what to do 2 players full glasss cannon can do this fractal. That is a good exemple of how understanding mechanics makes ur life easier.

#Crystal Reid (this question its also for other members that want to tell us about it too!)
Can you tell us some of your inspiration of designs mechanics that playes can use to play(i mean other games and people and what they have special)? What other professional “level” designers do you like? Also, how important is to you make the players fell some pleasure in some encounters with your bosses and how it connect with you inspiration to make it happen?

PS: Vulcano its a pretty cool fractal, congratz.

Jason Reynolds.4297:

What was your favorite encounter from the existing dungeon/fotm content? Why?

• I love the kitty golems. Also the Jade Maw. And the snow one! Ooooh, oh, and the volcano.

The Snow one? That is not a good exemple, that one have some problems to make the player have fun. I dont know if you are really talking the true…

To all the devs who replied here: Thank you for this. I really enjoyed getting to know a little about all of you and it really helps to assure me about the development of the game by hearing back from you, even if it’s just a simple introduction, rather than just having a bunch of unknown people behind a curtain.

I’m also really looking forward to delving into the raid content today. Much excite.

The funniest thread ever

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Monitoring.

Branden Gee.2150:

What’s your name?

Anything else you feel like sharing!
Fun fact, during the WvW Adopt a Dev program both guilds that I joined ended up disbanding during the event.

LOL

Love this thread, great idea! I agree with whoever said: this is hyping raids even more for me. Also, Crystal and Byron needs more on-camera time. They were awesome at TwitchCon! (edit: and also Irenio of course!)

And Paul! We need some playtime back together man. You are the only bait we have for WvW! :P