Conventions, Naming Schemes, and Reinventing Oneself

Three topics. Here we go!

Gamescom and PAX

Arenanet has presented a lot of new information over the past couple of weeks at the yearly conventions, including a new video and a new demo. Most blogs have commented in the moment and picked apart some of the changes already, but I want to offer my opinion on some things that I found interesting. GW2Guru has threads dedicated to all of the new information. You can find a great collection of videos, articles, and tweets for Gamescom and Pax here and here, respectively (if you haven’t already found them yourself). Big thanks also to Karasu, MeWulf, and Elixabeth at Talk Tyria for posting about their experiences at the conventions. You can read what they posted about Gamescom and PAX starting here and here, respectively.

On with the blogging!

I think the Gamescom Trailer (here) was very well done. Great music, great “cinematic” video of the dragon boss in the demo, lots of great scenes showing off Destiny’s Edge. The latter half of the video is a lot of clips of skills, including those we’ve already seen, but there are several new ones including the necromancer elite skill Lich Form. Check it out if you haven’t seen it.

ANet is iterating several game mechanics including energy, dodge, skill acquisition, and traits. Energy has been removed and dodge has it’s own button now with the biggest limiting factor for both being recharge times. Skills 1-5 (weapon skills) are now acquired by using the weapon several times, rather than purchasing them from a trainer. I think this is a nice change and it looks like the grind factor will be minimal, which was the biggest complaint from fans. Also, they are currently revamping the traits system (this was discussed in one of the panels), but there is little info on what that means. I think it is tied into the skill acquisition stuff. Nothing major though.

All 5 races were playable in the demo, so there are a lot of videos of each race on youtube. In addition, character customization was implemented in the demo (it was limited, but still quite nice). I’m very excited about this and had I been at one of the conventions I’m sure I would have spent the majority of my demo time customizing my characters. There are several videos on the GW2Guru Gamescom thread that show this, but give Tigerfeet’s blog a read. She’s posting several pics of the customization options for each race as part of her extended “pelt watch” series.

PvP was a major showcase of both conventions. While this is not my forte or interest area, it looked pretty nice. It’s very FPS oriented and is similar to GW PvP. I’m more excited about the casual PvP of WvWvW where there are lots of people involved. If PvP is your thing, check out the Guru threads and see the videos there. ANet takes on a couple guilds head to head and Izzy shows off his mad skills.

What’s in a Name?

Changing topics, there has been an interesting discussion going on over on Hunter’s blog about “Guild Wars.” There has been very little information about guilds released so far and what we know can be found on the wiki. What I would like to highlight are the apparent lack of guild vs guild (GvG) and the discussion of how many guilds a player can join.

In my opinion, ANet needs to spend a bit more time addressing the name of the game. Yes, the guild wars are in the lore and are part of Tyria’s history, but they were history in GW1 with the Searing supposedly ending the wars. The only thing close to representing the name of the game in GW1 was GvG. By comparison, the MMO “Rifts” is about, you guessed it, rifts.

GW2 is about Dragons. It is about races coming together to slay dragons. It is about suspending racial hatreds and forming alliances. Perhaps there will be an emphasis on these alliances being called guilds, but they surely won’t be at war. The name “Guild Wars” has less meaning, in my opinion, without the guild emphasis, which is sad, since there are millions of people playing the game and waiting to play the sequel. Hunter wrote something that I agree with completely on the subject on a different post. He said: “I guess in the end its just a name that serves no other purpose, which is fine, I didn’t buy it for the name.” I personally would like the name to mean something, but if it doesn’t, oh well. I’ll still have fun playing it.

As for the number of guilds available to players, this is a feature I’m excited about. In GW1 you could have 1 guild per account and be a part of an alliance of up to 10 guilds. In GW2, you can be in as many guilds as you want. That’s my favorite part. No limit. You want to be in 8 guilds? Go right ahead. Have a guild for every gaming interest. Have a different guild for every character. Or, join one guild only, if that’s what you want. I plan on being in several guilds and maybe starting one of my own. It looks like there will be lots of goodies for guilds too, but we’ll know more on that later.

Belzan 2.0

Finally, I want to briefly talk Belzan. I am making several changes to Belzan and his story. He will be a very different character in GW2 and I’ll be writing a bit more of his lore in the coming months. This is in part an extension of what I’d planned to do with him all along and in part a response to some of the cool stuff I saw in the Gamescom/PAX videos. I will be posting a story that tells Belzan’s origin in the near future, as well as at least one post talking about my plans for him in GW2. He’s very old and there are many stories about him. Fæcce will separate truth from fiction (pun intended). Stay tuned.

Heir to the Air

An air attuned elementalist hard at work

After trolling the internets and youtubes and gurus, I have found gamplay video of the GW2 air attuned elementalist. Big thanks to CoolBeens for linking two good quality videos of the air ele in action. In the spirit, but nowhere near the fervor, of Hunter, I thought I’d provide feedback, thoughts, and analysis to these two videos. But first, a bit about the profession then and now.

As you may know, I’m 90% certain my primary (read: Belzan) will be an elementalist in GW2. This has a lot to do with why I’m interested in this profession for GW2. The ele has made a lot of changes from GW1 to GW2 and I think a lot of them are for the better.

Elementalists in Guild Wars

Charmaine geared for air attunement

In Guild Wars there was little encouragement for elementalists to be flexible. Typically eles would spec toward one element or stick with one primary and bring a couple spells from another either for variety or utility. A fire ele, for example, would often bring water skills to snare opponents and keep them in their AoE fire damage. Most of the builds you find on PvX wiki are of the single element variety.

Eles were energy cows in GW as well. Their primary attribute was energy storage, which served the purpose of giving them more energy to work with, since casting 2 or 3 spells would often require you to mortgage your house. Often eles, especially those under 20th level, would be /Me in order to take advantage of the inspiration line and it’s ability to recoup energy.

Each element had a purpose in GW.

Fire was pretty much damage and the application of burning. Most of these skills dealt gobs of damage, caused degen, and were of the AoE variety. Favorite spells of pyromancers include Meteor and Meteor Shower, which also caused knockdown.

Water was used primarily to snare opponents by slowing their movement rate. Water also included some hexes for conditional damage and some defensive skills, but nearly every hydromancer in GW was using it to snare.

Earth was all about defense and knockdown. If an ele tanked, you can bet they used this attribute or at least considered it when making their build thanks to the numerous enchantments and wards. Geomancers were also very capable at keeping opponents on their bottoms. Several spells snared, weakened, or knocked down foes and did significant damage to those who could not escape. Earth also had a number of armor-ignoring spells for increased damage.

Air was all about toe to toe combat and many spells could penetrate armor by 25%. Aeromancers could blind, weaken, knock down, and crack the armor of their foes with ease, which made them formidable opponents regardless of who they faced. In my opinion, an aeromancer is as formidable against one foe as a pyromancer is formidable against a group.

I like air magic in GW because of its versatility. If I need to do AoE, I’ll make a fire build. If I need extra defense or interrupts through knockdown, I’ll go earth. If I need to snare melee attackers or help out a pyromancer, I’ll go water. But really, aeromancy can tackle most any situation. An aeromancer can snare with knockdowns, kite with movement boosts for defense, soften up foes with conditions and damge, and even do some AoE. I likes them a lot

Elementalists in Guild Wars 2

Render of a female elementalist in GW2

The primary ability of elementalist in GW2 is attunement. ANet believes that elementalist should be more flexible and therefore allow them to switch elements on the fly in combat. While most professions have 2 weapon slots with a total of 10 weapon skills available at any time, elementalists have only 1 weapon slot but, thanks to attunements, have 20 weapon skills available to them at any given time. That makes them a major magical threat.

Elements in GW2 play similar roles to their GW ancestors. From what we’ve seen so far, all of the elements have AoE capability and all of them can apply conditions to foes. Fire appears to be the biggest damage and AoE contributor and continues to apply burning to foes. Water includes some snares, knockback, and AoEs but also adds a healing factor to the ele. Air continues to deal damage one on one but gains more AoE possibilities in GW2. In addition, air does a great job of applying conditions such as blind and stun. Earth appears to be protection and knockdown like in GW. Other than that, it’s the only one we haven’t seen yet so it remains a mystery.

Videos

This first video shows off the dagger skills for air and fire attunements. For the most part the player sticks to Arc Lightning and Lightning Field. It looks a lot like a sith on a rampage or an average day for Star Wars Force Unleashed. For the most part, the video is a pretty straightforward example of air attunement and what you can do while so attuned. It’s a nice appetizer for the next video.

This video shows both the versatility and maneuverability of the elementalist. In so many words, this is why I want to play this profession so badly. There is a good mix of weapons used and we especially get to see some hard hitting staff skills, which is nice. Malchior does a fantastic job of engaging foes and switching attunements to change up combat (note: I’m 90% certain it is Malchior Devenholm playing this character in the video. Lemmie know if I’m wrong please. I wanna give credit where it is due!). He also makes use of the water attunement as an alternate source of healing from the heal skill slot.

I like this video in part because I get to see lots of fun air skills, but what really drew my attention was the dagger/focus combination at the end used with the fire attunement. Malchior uses Burning Retreat, Flamewall, and Burning Speed to create multiple flamewalls to provide pressure on the centaurs, which allows him to handle more of them and wear them down. I think it is a great example of how versatile the profession can be even within one element. It’s also nice to see a profession in light armor able to evade and kite so well without using the actual in game evasion mechanic. Good times.

So yeah, I’m pumped about the GW2 ele and eager to try it out. Feel free to post your thoughts about this profession–what you like and you don’t like–and maybe even how you think ANet can improve it.

Post PAX Perceptions

Run Away!!!

After reading interview after interview, watching video after video, reading article after article, and stuffing myself on all of the new knowledge  from PAX, I must say, I’m exhausted. While Hunter and Nicholas and others continue to analyze the information from PAX, I am content to wait for people to update the wiki with new info about skills and traits and such. I’m also a short skip away from speculating further about professions 7 (mesmer) and 8 (who knows). I do have some thoughts on all of the PAX info though. FYI, I did not visit PAX. I sat at home and hit F5 on the GW2Guru thread like everyone else.

First of all, I am tired of watching guardian and thief videos. They are fantastic to watch and I’m excited to try out the guardian now that I’ve seen more of what they can do. I’m also up to the challenge of playing a thief. I’m just tired of watching essentially the same two videos. I know these guys are the new kids on the block, but there was some interesting information about the other 4 professions that was overlooked due to the zeal with which people created and posted videos of these two professions.

I got to see the warrior wield a greatsword for a little while, which was nice. It looks like a devastating weapon for sure. I also got to see a ranger video that  was well done, though for some reason the player wasn’t using a pet. Both of these videos can be seen on GuildWars2Live.com.

What really disappointed me was I never found a clear video of a necro wielding a staff or of the elementalist using air attunement. These are two of the professions I am most interested in playing and I was hoping to get more info about them. Also, apparently there have been changes made to the necro’s death shroud skills (namely, Shadow Fiend was removed). Thankfully, I found the new skill for that on the wiki (Dark Path if you’re interested). Only a handful of the air spells have been posted on wiki and I haven’t seen any video of them in action. /pout

Crafting UI from GW2

As for crafting, I saw several videos that included people acquiring materials during play. It really was as simple as walking up to the resource, interacting with it for about 5 seconds, and moving on with your business. The crafting UI was available for interaction and viewing, but actual trufax crafting wasn’t available due to the lack of workbenches in the demo. Still, I’m excited about the crafting system as a whole and it looks pretty user friendly and non-punishing. I have zero experience with crafting from other games, so I’m really looking forward to exploring it.

On a final note, or should I say ANet teaser: Aquatic Weapons.

That pretty much sums up my take from PAX East. I’m looking forward to hearing what Izzie at Talk Tyria and Ravious at Kill Ten Rats have to say about their experiences at PAX. If you haven’t seen them, you can watch a video of them with several other GW Fans and bloggers at the meet and greet on GW2Live.

EDIT: New gameplay videos were added for ele, necro, ranger, and warrior on the PAX thread. My evening is planned out for me!