Guild Wars 2

In the video for the release trailer, I saw several things that suggest the ability to fly: towering heights, gliding creatures in the intro and at the end, and something about “new ways to explore” followed by a shot of gliding folk (video is at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOUk2y0K2m8).

Flying is something I’m totally down with; sounds like a fun way to explore and perhaps avoid the extraordinarily frustrating experience of accidentally falling a kilometer or two to one’s death, and not have a Way Point nearby to reset progress.

However, I wonder if, perhaps, this new ability will be accompanied by aerial combat? Or perhaps just aerial skills that can lead in to combat (if you see a bunch of raptors, fly over them, drop bombs, initiate combat?)

Just tossing this out there, that might be cool, and, does anyone have any idea on the validity and truthfulness of the idea? Will there be flying? And, if so, in what way will the parameters of this ability manifest?

It won’t be flying, but falling with style.

Players likely will not be in the air long enough other than to glide briefly.

They are gliding, not flying (PC that is). This was announced as a Mastery since the first announcement of the expansion and in the many interviews after.

As for combat, I doubt we will be able to use skills while flying, at least not combat skills. We may fight flying things, and with the dense jungle could fight back. My guess is that you’ll have obstacles to avoid while flying (some may be living beasts).

Maybe we’ll learn more tomorrow, depending on how they decide to discuss Masteries in tomorrow’s blog (today’s blog’s last sentence says tomorrow is about Masteries, as a guildie pointed out to me).

Ayrilana.1396:

It won’t be flying, but falling with style.

Players likely will not be in the air long enough other than to glide briefly.

That’s exactly how I would describe.
But about the second part, maybe we will have updrafts in some places as puzzles.

Gliding is confirmed however gliding =/= flying.

Hang glider is one of the features im most excited about in the upcoming expansion. I would love more information about it. I played both Aion and ArcheAge and the only redeeming part of both games were actualy the Wings/gliders. Other then that both games are mediocre.

What I fear about gw2 version of the gliders are:

-Gliders are consumable items like the teleport gun you can buy in timberline falls for couple of coppers. I remember buying 100 of them and ended up rarely using it. I dont want to buy 250 gliders sitting in my inventory. I rather it be a skill/item with its own item slot

-Gliders are only items that are found in high places. Like diving googles. Which mean can only be used in those specific areas for a short time. Totaly ruins the ‘’new method for exploration’’

-Gliders can only be used in the new maps that are released with the expansion. Can not be used in previously released/existing maps. This will be a massive let down. I want to be able to use my glider in every map and explore the kitten out of tyria with it. Sure they can put a ‘’No fly zone’’ or ‘’anti-aircraft’’ in the jumping puzzle areas/guild puzzle caves so that people cant easy mode jumping puzzles. But other then that I wish to be able to use glider to my hearts content without restrictions.

Giving us gliders without restrictions like ArcheAge/Aion would make gw2 one of the must play mmos of our time. Just SAIYAN

Toby.2357:

-Gliders can only be used in the new maps that are released with the expansion. Can not be used in previously released/existing maps.

This is what will most likely happen.

Toby.2357:

Giving us gliders without restrictions like ArcheAge/Aion would make gw2 one of the must play mmos of our time. Just SAIYAN

Though I would very much like this to happen. I’m not getting my hopes up though. Also, ArcheAge gliders look far more awesome than the GW2 glider we’ve seen so far.

Not only most likely but confirmed by devs, gliders won’t work in the old maps because gliders would break the maps. As in you would see hollow shells, tops of buildings floating without bottoms, terrain disconnected from any other terrain. They didn’t build the maps with full z axis motion in mind. Just like Blizzard had to break the world and rebuild it from scratch in Cataclysm before players could fly in old Azeroth, ANet would have to put far too many resources into this (and rework all the outside JP’s and the like). We’re better off with new stuff.

However, they did say that future maps could be built with gliding in mind.

Seeing what flying has done to another game I like makes me say no. I do however enjoy my engineer profession on that other title. (because it has goblin hang gliders) and I love that aspect of the game because I need it to get to certain spots for hidden treasures.

I would have to say no to flying mounts and yes to gliders, although I wouldn’t mind some gadgets to attach to my boots, belt backpack etc to allow me to swim faster as an engineer.

With the updraft deal I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of staying airborne indefinitely, but would probably be the exception rather than the norm. A Sanctum Sprint-style activity that used gliders could be interesting.

If you played the game Flappy Bird, you’ll get an idea of how flying might be.

I just hope there will be some skill involved, and a real risk of crashing/falling if you don’t get the hang of it. It will be enormously boring if you can just fly full speed into a tree and bounce off or stop harmlessly.

(Get it? Hang of it, hang gliders, kekekek)