Guild Wars 2

Everyone keeps posting that shacknews interview, which i think did a really bad job at asking the right questions and getting the right answers. meanwhile, MMORPG.com has their own interview up, and while it doesn’t confirm anything extra, it does shed some light on things.

Key points:

• One specialization per profession, but you can change in and out of it out of combat. This is important because it’s implying the “base” profession is a specialization in itself, so you can be “ranger specced” or “druid specced”, each with its own pros, cons, and mechanics.

• No new race coming in HoT (nothing is off the table for future expansions though), because really, it’s way, waaaay too much effort for way, waaaay too little meat (content) added to the game, and they’d rather spend that effort in adding more content. not a part of this interview

• Just because they outright didn’t say “moar dungeons/fractals/raids/insertcontentofchoice” doesn’t mean it’s not coming in some way or another. At PAX they were talking about things that were brand new to the expansion, not the extra content to existing systems.

• They’re very much aware that GW2, right now, is starving for actually challenging content, and admit that much of the living story stuff isn’t fulfilling that (seemingly by design). They are addressing this in HoT

• One precursor collection per precursor per account. So you could, in theory, craft one of each legendary without ever dropping a precursor or using the TP to buy a precursor from someone else.

• Changes to WvW to improve the importance of defending and scouting not just on a PPT level, they’re looking at individual motivations (rewards) as well as group motivations (controlling a choke point to prevent easy access to a keep)

• There will be a beta before release, and the feedback from it will determine the release date.

I liked that interview. The only thing that has me worried is the rage that will come of their approach on masteries and the content. I need more details on it but I don’t mind it atm.

However, these days any form of ‘meaningful progression’ is seen as grind.

A kittenstorm is coming.

One spec per profession is pretty disappointing, even if I was expecting it based on what was said during the reveal event. Unless you actually lose stuff by switching to a specialization (which would probably tick some people off), I don’t really see it being much of a choice with only one. I know they’ve said stuff like “it’ll change the way it plays” but I’m not sure how much of that is overhype or if it’ll actually make a significant different. I guess we’ll see.

I guess there’s something to be said for laying the groundwork for future improvements, and the system certainly seems great for that, but I’d like the system to be a little more fleshed out on release, so you can explore it a little more right away instead of a year or whatever down the line.

And maybe I’m just blind, but I see no mention of a new race anywhere in that interview. So where are you getting that little race blurb from?

If it IS true, then that’s super disappointing. Because even if they said its not strictly off the table, if they specifically said its too much work for too little reward I doubt it’ll ever happen. Mah Tengu ;.;

I don’t think it’ll cost anything to switch between base profession and its specializations, just have to be out of combat.

Electro.4173:

One spec per profession is pretty disappointing, even if I was expecting it based on what was said during the reveal event…

…I guess there’s something to be said for laying the groundwork for future improvements, and the system certainly seems great for that, but I’d like the system to be a little more fleshed out on release, so you can explore it a little more right away instead of a year or whatever down the line….

Yeah, I’m content to get one specialization per profession to start, with the idea that they’ll keep building others.

The thing that makes me nervous is the game is littered with “groundwork for future improvements” that seem to have abandoned. The shooting gallery, the pub brawl, the polymock arena, the miniature arena are all side-games that were underway but got dropped. The remnants of the personality system has been slowly, quietly pulled out of the game. Fractals were introduced with great fanfare, but aren’t regularly grown. Aquatic combat was trumpeted at first, but seems to be phasing out.

I just hope they get a chance to take this specialization system and really flesh it out into a wide variety of character growth options before design goals change and new systems replace it as the focus of development.

Electro.4173:

One spec per profession is pretty disappointing, even if I was expecting it based on what was said during the reveal event. Unless you actually lose stuff by switching to a specialization (which would probably tick some people off), I don’t really see it being much of a choice with only one. I know they’ve said stuff like “it’ll change the way it plays” but I’m not sure how much of that is overhype or if it’ll actually make a significant different. I guess we’ll see.

this line:

CJ: Correct, and then you can swap back and forth, you can say “My character’s a druid, but I’m going to play as a ranger today.” It’s very similar to changing out your skills and traits, you can go in and change whenever you want, as long as you’re out of combat.

makes it practically confirmed that there are enough differences between the two to warrant just staying a ranger, instead of every ranger becoming a druid until a new specialization is released.

And maybe I’m just blind, but I see no mention of a new race anywhere in that interview. So where are you getting that little race blurb from?

If it IS true, then that’s super disappointing. Because even if they said its not strictly off the table, if they specifically said its too much work for too little reward I doubt it’ll ever happen. Mah Tengu ;.;

huh, that’s weird. i could’ve sworn i read it in this interview, but i guess it was somewhere else. i’ll take that part off the OP, ‘cause even if i’m 100% sure that was said to someone on an official channel (read: not an afterparty rumor), it’s not in this interview.

butch.8136:

I liked that interview. The only thing that has me worried is the rage that will come of their approach on masteries and the content.

The biggest thing that bothers me about Masteries at the moment is more of a nitpick. They talked about Mastery Points being used to unlock a collection, and then the collection being this really epic journey. In general, I just find the idea of unlocking collections silly, even from the ones we already have. It makes it grindy to me that you can’t just collect naturally before you’re ready. It’s not like you couldn’t just have the unlock item be changed into an item that’s part of a collection so you still need the mastery points or whatever to finish it.

We certainly won’t be getting races right now, because it wasn’t announced, as per their statement about announcing the new features, but that’s not surprising. I just hope it means that aren’t too conservative about introducing them in the future. As much as I don’t have “the” race I want unlike other games, there are still plenty of Guild Wars 1 races that I feel have been asking for a playable slot long before the Guild Wars 2 ones that came out of nowhere. I’m not really picky about how elaborately playable races are introduced as long as they are.

^ You can see the unlocking part as the journey towards your precursor. It’s basically the same thing as what the collection will let you do, no?

Jokubas.4265:

butch.8136:

I liked that interview. The only thing that has me worried is the rage that will come of their approach on masteries and the content.

The biggest thing that bothers me about Masteries at the moment is more of a nitpick. They talked about Mastery Points being used to unlock a collection, and then the collection being this really epic journey. In general, I just find the idea of unlocking collections silly, even from the ones we already have. It makes it grindy to me that you can’t just collect naturally before you’re ready. It’s not like you couldn’t just have the unlock item be changed into an item that’s part of a collection so you still need the mastery points or whatever to finish it.

can’t you just think of the mastery as another step in the collection? how is “do this to get this mastery for the precursor” different from “do this to get this item for the precursor”?

BrunoBRS.5178:

And maybe I’m just blind, but I see no mention of a new race anywhere in that interview. So where are you getting that little race blurb from?

If it IS true, then that’s super disappointing. Because even if they said its not strictly off the table, if they specifically said its too much work for too little reward I doubt it’ll ever happen. Mah Tengu ;.;

huh, that’s weird. i could’ve sworn i read it in this interview, but i guess it was somewhere else. i’ll take that part off the OP, ‘cause even if i’m 100% sure that was said to someone on an official channel (read: not an afterparty rumor), it’s not in this interview.

You probably read it in this interview: http://www.shacknews.com/article/87848/guild-wars-2-director-discusses-heart-of-thorns-revenants-guild-halls-and-more

Shacknews: You’ve added a new profession, however you did hold off on adding a new race. What led to this decision?

Johanson: For this one, we looked at what we would get out of adding a new race and what benefit it actually brings to the players from a gameplay standpoint. It’s very limited in Guild Wars 2. A new race adds a racial skill or two and a little bit of story, but it doesn’t give that much meaningful gameplay in the grand scheme of things. The race is more context for the early story that you experience. So we wanted to focus things that would provide a lot more gameplay and address parts of Guild Wars 2 that we felt like we really wanted to be able to make a better experience and grow. So right now, we didn’t feel that a new race was a key need for the game, whereas the other things that we’re adding really provide fundamental building blocks for the future.

^ probably, though that article is so full of typos it irks me >.>

butch.8136:

I liked that interview. The only thing that has me worried is the rage that will come of their approach on masteries and the content. I need more details on it but I don’t mind it atm.

However, these days any form of ‘meaningful progression’ is seen as grind.

While I do have concerns with the mastery system, potential grindiness isn’t one of them. The way its presented, mastery points are given for completing certain achievements in the world, and once you complete a given achievement once you have that mastery point on your account and never have to do it again unless you choose to. This makes it less grindy than, say, skill point challenges, which you have to do once per character.

And since skill point challenges aren’t really that grindy, than that makes for very little grind at all.