Guild Wars 2

http://www.zam.com/story.html?story=35650

The developers have confirmed that there will be multiple new maps, not just a single one with three biomes as many were expecting!

Hang gliding, for example, will unlock the ability to fly farther and later on to use air currents to get to higher in places on the map or use them to shoot down quickly.

This looks like AION 3.0 redux. I am not sure what is meant by “shoot down quickly”. Maybe a typo and the writer meant to say “climb down quickly”.

Gliding was fun in AION and was, arguably, the only cool innovative thing in that game. So, I am looking forward to gliding in GW2.

velmeister.4187:

Hang gliding, for example, will unlock the ability to fly farther and later on to use air currents to get to higher in places on the map or use them to shoot down quickly.

This looks like AION 3.0 redux. I am not sure what is meant by “shoot down quickly”. Maybe a typo and the writer meant to say “climb down quickly”.

Gliding was fun in AION and was, arguably, the only cool innovative thing in that game. So, I am looking forward to gliding in GW2.

I read “shoot down quickly” as “rapidly descend” – so get to a point below you faster than you would by simply jumping (or falling ).

With these new collections, we were curious if the precursors would still be obtainable through other means such as drops and the Mystic Forge where they are currently acquired. The original precursors will definitely remain available through those means, but the new precursors will be different and revealed when they are ready to roll out the new legendary weapons. The collections are just a very clear path that outlines every step to getting a precursor, which Colin says is important to them as well as a bulk of players that will see these collections as an epic journey to crafting their precursor. For the handful of players that like to roll the dice and play the Mystic Forge, those options will still be available for the original precursors for those who enjoy that and find it an exciting experience.

Will new precursors not be available at all via MF? Also, old precursor not available thru collections?

Cyrrin.1230:

With these new collections, we were curious if the precursors would still be obtainable through other means such as drops and the Mystic Forge where they are currently acquired. The original precursors will definitely remain available through those means, but the new precursors will be different and revealed when they are ready to roll out the new legendary weapons. The collections are just a very clear path that outlines every step to getting a precursor, which Colin says is important to them as well as a bulk of players that will see these collections as an epic journey to crafting their precursor. For the handful of players that like to roll the dice and play the Mystic Forge, those options will still be available for the original precursors for those who enjoy that and find it an exciting experience.

Will new precursors not be available at all via MF? Also, old precursor not available thru collections?

I read it as old precursors will be available through both MF and the collections, new ones only through collections.

Zania.8461:

Cyrrin.1230:

With these new collections, we were curious if the precursors would still be obtainable through other means such as drops and the Mystic Forge where they are currently acquired. The original precursors will definitely remain available through those means, but the new precursors will be different and revealed when they are ready to roll out the new legendary weapons. The collections are just a very clear path that outlines every step to getting a precursor, which Colin says is important to them as well as a bulk of players that will see these collections as an epic journey to crafting their precursor. For the handful of players that like to roll the dice and play the Mystic Forge, those options will still be available for the original precursors for those who enjoy that and find it an exciting experience.

Will new precursors not be available at all via MF? Also, old precursor not available thru collections?

I read it as old precursors will be available through both MF and the collections, new ones only through collections.

I read it this way as well, and really hope that is the case. This would make Legendary weapons (new ones anyway) show the effort put into it rather than just a sign that you have lots of money/gold. Especially if the bulk of the things within the pre-cursor collections are things that cannot be sold on the TP.

Colin said: “Our focus is instead on a smaller number of maps that have an incredible amount of deep replay value.” The new maps will have an incredible amount of depth with a huge amount of content to discover and explore with more places that reach as you spend points into the mastery system. “We want that sense that as you are progressing through a map you are seeing all these areas and challenges and you are saying to yourself ‘I can’t wait until I can get there or defeat this!’” These maps were designed to have a huge amount of 3D space and content depth with an amazing amount of replay value so that players can always go back and play the map and while still progressing and building. “That’s going to be our focus. We want something that is meaningful and stands the test of time rather than a whole bunch of maps that you tear through.”

Hopefully this means they are bolstering old maps to have the amount of content that these few new maps have then. They said they didn’t want the old maps to get deserted, but if these new ones are so chock full of new stuff to do, what would be the point of going back and playing that old content that we have been playing for 2 and a half years? I get that Masteries will be scattered all over the world, but just like the story instances of the LW, they don’t hold much replay value in terms of loot or game play. You go do them and that’s that.
In the LW instanced content, the replay value is AP. If you don’t chase that carrot it makes it “one and done” content. It’s great content to be sure, but we are getting a lot of design work poured into one shot content. I would rather not have LW content have hundreds or thousands of man hours poured into it. Pour it into replayable content like dungeons or fractals or raids.

There is something to be said for content you can do with a select group of people as well. I like the open world content they have designed to an extent, but if theya re really making challenging content, I do not miss the gnashing of teeth and terrible chat that happened for the Marionette. It was vile garbage that was spewed out by players if the event failed. A far cry from the “best community in MMOs” that they were talking about at PAX.

Zania.8461:

Cyrrin.1230:

With these new collections, we were curious if the precursors would still be obtainable through other means such as drops and the Mystic Forge where they are currently acquired. The original precursors will definitely remain available through those means, but the new precursors will be different and revealed when they are ready to roll out the new legendary weapons. The collections are just a very clear path that outlines every step to getting a precursor, which Colin says is important to them as well as a bulk of players that will see these collections as an epic journey to crafting their precursor. For the handful of players that like to roll the dice and play the Mystic Forge, those options will still be available for the original precursors for those who enjoy that and find it an exciting experience.

Will new precursors not be available at all via MF? Also, old precursor not available thru collections?

I read it as old precursors will be available through both MF and the collections, new ones only through collections.

OK cool! I am hoping that is the way it will be.

Cyrrin.1230:

Zania.8461:

Cyrrin.1230:

With these new collections, we were curious if the precursors would still be obtainable through other means such as drops and the Mystic Forge where they are currently acquired. The original precursors will definitely remain available through those means, but the new precursors will be different and revealed when they are ready to roll out the new legendary weapons. The collections are just a very clear path that outlines every step to getting a precursor, which Colin says is important to them as well as a bulk of players that will see these collections as an epic journey to crafting their precursor. For the handful of players that like to roll the dice and play the Mystic Forge, those options will still be available for the original precursors for those who enjoy that and find it an exciting experience.

Will new precursors not be available at all via MF? Also, old precursor not available thru collections?

I read it as old precursors will be available through both MF and the collections, new ones only through collections.

OK cool! I am hoping that is the way it will be.

I really like the collections approach. This makes legendaries meaningful. Hopefully, these legendaries will be account bound.

Colin said: “Our focus is instead on a smaller number of maps that have an incredible amount of deep replay value.” The new maps will have an incredible amount of depth with a huge amount of content to discover and explore with more places that reach as you spend points into the mastery system. “We want that sense that as you are progressing through a map you are seeing all these areas and challenges and you are saying to yourself ‘I can’t wait until I can get there or defeat this!’” These maps were designed to have a huge amount of 3D space and content depth with an amazing amount of replay value so that players can always go back and play the map and while still progressing and building. “That’s going to be our focus. We want something that is meaningful and stands the test of time rather than a whole bunch of maps that you tear through.”

I pray this new region isn’t just Silverwaste 2.0 wherein we repeat the same content until our eyes bleed because we need X, Y, or Z items or because the farming is lucrative.

I also hope it’s not a map that relies on large number of players, because eventually the next new thing will be out and most of the player base will flock to that, leaving Maguuma relatively empty.

I hope the new legendary weapons will be account bound. If so they will actually have some meaning, instead of just being an indication that you can play the TP.

Iason Evan.3806:

In the LW instanced content, the replay value is AP. If you don’t chase that carrot it makes it “one and done” content. It’s great content to be sure, but we are getting a lot of design work poured into one shot content. I would rather not have LW content have hundreds or thousands of man hours poured into it. Pour it into replayable content like dungeons or fractals or raids.

Although I agree with the sentiment about replayability, I have to say that things like dungeons and raids can have the same amount of replayability to people who don’t like those, less to others (like those who play solo). Also, it’s just one team working on the living story entries. If they can pump out an expansion, they’ve obviously had other people working on stuff beyond that.

There is something to be said for content you can do with a select group of people as well. I like the open world content they have designed to an extent, but if theya re really making challenging content, I do not miss the gnashing of teeth and terrible chat that happened for the Marionette. It was vile garbage that was spewed out by players if the event failed. A far cry from the “best community in MMOs” that they were talking about at PAX.

I so badly miss the scaling content from back in the day, when if I was the only person around I could still do what I wanted to do regardless of not being the best gamer in the universe. Understandably, when so many people in their community constantly badger them about making things require more players to do, we end up with some rather… unpleasant developmental attempts. Part of something being challenging is that you should have to figure out how to defeat it and win – but when you have to deal with an entire map full of 60+ people trying to “learn” all at once, it can borderline on impossible and lead to anyone who has already learned what to do (and sometimes even explain how to do it, although often not in the simplest to understand slang-free ways) becoming very agitated when it continually goes wrong. Although I missed the Marionette, I can pretty vividly imagine some of the filth people would be throwing out.

That being said, I would love to have some of these raid-type contents that allow for more than one team to play it, as the unfortunate side effect of the 5-man party is that a 10-man guild requires two parties to play together, and it can make keeping track of each other a little hard (especially when nobody has the now-even-pricier commander tag, which only would make it more annoying for people using commander tags to command things group-wide, which make me still wonder why they haven’t just added a guild commander tag that serves the same purpose but only for a single guild represented).

…and then earn separate mastery points for the core areas of the game to spend on abilities for the core areas.

Huh, wonder what the masteries for the rest of the world (ie, not Maguuma jungle) will be.

Ughhh, the info week(s) can’t come fast enough…

After that they plan to take a short break before starting off the betas. From there, HoT’s release all depends on if players think these systems that will form the foundation that ArenaNet builds Guild Wars 2 upon for years to come is ready

Wasn’t it at least a month (maybe two) the last time they said “a short break”? Sounds to me like beta won’t start until the end of April, at the very least.