Guild Wars 2 Catch All

Also tagging for greatness!

http://twitter.com/#!/GuildWars2/sta...

sylvari will be playable at gamescom & sylvari week will happen before gamescom!

Engineer Walk-through

Most of it has been covered before, but it's not a bad thing to see more of Guild Wars 2.

And, a little sad that an MMOs combat looks more fun and interesting than a tentpole, epic, AAA RPG game to come out this holiday.

And, a little sad that an MMOs combat looks more fun and interesting than a tentpole, epic, AAA RPG game to come out this holiday.

Which AAA rpg would that be? Skyrim? I thought Skyrim wasn't coming out til 2012...

Skyrim is this year, 11-11-11.
Talking of Elder Scrolls combat, it is a little disappointing when there's a wide range of things to do, but they're all just adequate rather that everything in the game being great. I really hope they've thrown out all the old clunkiness of their old games, and reworked it from first principles for Skyrim, but from the videos it looks like the same old rebranded.

Bethesda certainly could take a page or three hundred from GW2's combat.

I find it interesting that Ken Ralston is working on Kingdom of Amalur which seems to be a combination of Elder Scrolls with pseudo-class/classless, God of War style combat.

I am definitely going to skip on Skyrim. I can't help but get that feeling that, because of what you mentioned above, I've already played that game.

Skyrim shows promise, and I'm sure I'll get it at some point, but not at launch. Given Bethesda's buggy history, and how mods are an almost inseparable requirement for their games it just seems like you get a much better experience by waiting than diving into the raw v1.0 game.

At gamescon: http://www.arena.net/blog/get-ready-...
- Seven professions
- Charr starter experience
- Mid level demo
- Sylvari and asura
- Character appearance customization
- PvP

cyrax wrote:

Engineer Walk-through

Most of it has been covered before, but it's not a bad thing to see more of Guild Wars 2.

And, a little sad that an MMOs combat looks more fun and interesting than a tentpole, epic, AAA RPG game to come out this holiday.

I do think it's funny that they are all excited about underwater areas. "Look! You can go underwater and do all the same stuff you do above water! Except there are whale-like creatures and pirates! And you have a whole new set of skills! Remember how you had mines and nets on land? Now you have them underwater! Did I mention that you are UNDER WATER while doing all this?" Don't get me wrong, it looks nice and certainly opens up more interesting and varied landmass to explore but it's not like it really changes things up all that much. Although now is where I admit one of my favorite zones in Everquest was Kedge Keep, the fully underwater maze

I'm really looking forward to Guild Wars 2. I love the lack of a healer class and how open and free-form PvE looks. Seems like you may be able to get in and out of the game really easily and have a lot of fun in a short period of time. I may need to fire up Guild Wars again and start working on Eye of the North stuff; picked up the expansion back in the day but never dove into it at all.

Dreaded Gazebo wrote:

You can go underwater and do all the same stuff you do above water!

Apart from the completely different abilities everyone has. It's interesting, but I agree it doesn't seem as interesting as Arenanet are hyping it.

Scratched wrote:
Dreaded Gazebo wrote:

You can go underwater and do all the same stuff you do above water!

Apart from the completely different abilities everyone has. It's interesting, but I agree it doesn't seem as interesting as Arenanet are hyping it.

I think they are promoting it in response to SWTOR not having underwater exploration/combat.

From the arenanet blog:
Sound design
Field recording

wicket hood

I guess I better throw a tag up in here. I've not looked forward to an MMO like this since EQ2 (nostalgic sentimentality after EQ).

Next Week is Sylvari Week

http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-gam...

Long ago, a weary soldier planted a strange seed in the depths of the Maguuma Jungle. For centuries, the Pale Tree grew, branches arching over the forest, until at last--twenty five years ago--it bloomed, and the Firstborn stepped into the world. They were followed by their brethren, season after season of sylvari, wide-eyed with wonder and searching for purpose in this strange land. Shaped first by the Dream that nurtured them before they awakened, the sylvari now travel Tyria seeking adventure and their place in the world. They struggle to balance curiosity with duty; eagerness with chivalry; and warfare with honor.

IMAGE(http://www.guildwars2.com/global/includes/images/screenshots/sylvari/sylvari-03.jpg)

Interesting, but I can't help thinking that the big magic tree and the dream/nightmare stuff all sounds awfully similar to Warcraft's Night Elf lore.

The Charr and Norn look pretty badass. If there are no racial class restrictions or WoW-style racials to change my mind, those are my go-to races. Also the Charr are practically angry cows already

There are racial abilities, for example human racials.

Why do sylvari have breasts?

Scratched wrote:

Kristen Perry on Designing and Redesigning the Sylvari
That's a good look.

After reading that, I'm a lot more interested in the race than I was before. Pretty green elves with flower hair don't interest me much, but some sort of bark-covered tree man could be interesting.

I love the idea and design of the Sylvari. Really looking forward to playing one. If only the Asura weren't so cute.

Vector wrote:

Why do sylvari have breasts?

Why are plant people a humanoid shape?

Luggage wrote:

I love the idea and design of the Sylvari. Really looking forward to playing one. If only the Asura weren't so cute.

Yes, this is one of the first games in ages where I want to try everything. If there's not 8 character slots for all the classes I'm likely to buy the missing ones.

Scratched wrote:
Vector wrote:

Why do sylvari have breasts?

Why are plant people a humanoid shape?

Because it is easier to empathize with something we are familiar with. I just don't understand the need for breasts. Looks weird to me.

They apparently had a similar discussion about female Charr, the options the artist gave were six teats or none.

Scratched wrote:

They apparently had a similar discussion about female Charr, the options the artist gave were six teats or none.

A 6 breasted cat player character is fantastic just because it will cause LobsterMobster to have an aneurism.

From http://www.arena.net/blog/the-artist...

Q: So how did you strike that balance and create something that was both feminine and charr-like?

Kristen: Well, when I started designing the female charr, I definitely wanted her to feel just as fierce as the male of the race. She had to feel sleek and agile while at the same time have an appearance of strength and power. By thinking in terms of movement, it became clear the answer was in optimizing nuances. Yes, she had to be large and robust like the male, but we could tone down the testosterone by really extending her body lines to gracefully flow from the top of her head to tail tip.

I didn’t see any reason whatsoever to give her less clawing power, so I rebuilt the sabers on her hands and feet and brought out the padding design. The face and horns were designed with style and movement in mind, but also incorporated markedly more feminine cat-like features instead of the more monstrous male features, though there will be those options too. The horns don’t have a particular direction to denote gender; they just have to look cool. The female’s tail, however, has long hair. This was a very specific thing I wanted to include, as I love the sweeping feel to the long hair, and it’s an easy detail to note from behind in telling whether the charr is male or female.

Finally, there was the matter of the chest. It really didn’t make any sense to have boobs on a charr female, particularly with all the effort we took to make her sleek and fierce. We thought they should have no breasts at all or at least hide them under some fluffy fur. Above all else, we needed to be true to the race, of course! There was still some debate, however, so I gave them a choice: either be subtle and downplay the breasts (it wasn’t a point of the race, anyway) or go full-on realistic. Yes, that’s right —none or six!!

But really, the armor augmentation required for six boobs would be just as ridiculous, so none it was!

I kind of like that they go to that level of thinking out their races rather than just making just a human with pointy ears and tail, or a short human. When they're different, they're different.

Tagged. Whenever this game releases is when I will upgrade my desktop.

It's like the ultimate hippy race!