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Guild Wars 2 News
Guild Wars 2: Hey Bookah Column Debuts
Sep 13th
The Guild Wars 2 team continues Asura Week with a new "Hey Bookah" column that runs along similar lines to Mad Magazine's "Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions". If anyone can give an answer guaranteed to make someone feel rather inferior, it's an Asura!
In answer to a question about the latest mechanical lemonade maker:
Hey Arid Bookah!
You’re doing nothing wrong!
Only the small-minded and pedantic would insist that rotary-delivered lemonade taste like previous, outmoded versions! Turn your mind to proper marketing, I say! You don’t have a lemonade turret; you have fresh, lemon-scented ammunition! Brilliant!
When life gives you lemons, shoot them back at life at high velocity.
Give yourself a good laugh and head over to the Guild Wars 2 blog to read “Hey Bookah”.
Guild Wars 2: Meet Mr. Sparkles
Sep 12th
A lore piece has cropped up on the official Guild Wars 2 blog that spotlights a story written three years ago as the team began exploring what an Asura would be like. Meet Mr. Sparkles. While the story is from 2008, we are assured that it has import to Guild Wars 2.
Why is this tale important? It tells the hidden history of Mr. Sparkles. This character will pop up again later in our tale—but that’s a story for another day…
Read "Mr. Sparkles, A Tale of the Asura" on the Guild Wars 2 blog. Keep your eye on the site throughout this week for more information about the Asura.
Guild Wars 2: Capturing an Intimidating Pencil-Necked Geek
Sep 12th
In a new article on the Guild Wars 2 site to begin Asura Week, Arena.Net's Matt Barrett talks about designing the Asura to capture exactly what the race is without making it to creepy or too cute.
Barrett shows off several iterations of his vision of the Asura. They range from the odd with a model wearing an 'amulet' made out of utensils to the eerie with the race taking on sort of a cute ET look.
The article also includes a video showcasing how the team created a piece of Asura concept art.
Guild Wars 2: The Cries of the Players
Sep 12th
Most MMO players have spent years looking for the 'right' MMO in which to spend their time. Along the way, the myriad problems with attaining that ideal have been voiced by the gaming community. In today's Guild Wars 2 column, MMORPG.com's David North discusses how Arena.Net is breaking the MMO mold on many fronts, most notably the one where developers actually look at player concerns and listen to the voices of their fan base. Keep reading!
Besides actually raising the level cap, Arena Net also changed the way you level up. In other MMOs, players would either have to grind on creatures or do a ton of meaningless quests. No one in their right mind enjoys leveling using either of these tactics. Time and time again I hear people complain about this, and so has ArenaNet. To remedy this, they made it harder to level up, but it doesn’t take longer. Instead they kept the leveling curve for each level the same. So no more playing for two days and still not leveling up, we’ll have constant character progression.
Read more of David North's Guild Wars 2: The Cries of the Players.
Guild Wars 2: Asura Week to Begin September 12th
Sep 8th
Arena.Net has announced that the Guild Wars 2 Asura race will fall under the spotlight beginning Monday,September 12th. The team has released a schedule of events to whet fans' appetites in preparation for the week of the little guy.
As with the other races of Tyria, the week will feature a character design blog, an environment blog, writing the Asura, animating the Asura as well as a video, lore, screenshots and wallpapers. One new feature that will be posted is the "Hey Bookah" Asura advice column.
It all begins Monday, September 12th so keep your eyes on the Arena.Net Guild Wars 2 blog.
Guild Wars 2: PAX 2011 ? Dynamic Events and Guild Halls
Sep 4th
Some of the biggest and most exciting stories PAX centered around the hotly-anticipated Guild Wars 2. MMORPG.com's Carolyn Koh sat in on a panel discussion with Arena.Net developers to find out more about both dynamic events and guild halls. We've got some terrific nuggets of information to share so keep reading! Leave your thoughts in the comments!
For events, ArenaNet actually has a template on their proprietary software that allows them to rough in an event. Depending on how complex the event is, the rough draft can be playable in as few as six hours to two days. From then on, it’s a cycle of play-testing, receiving feedback and iterating. ArenaNet actually have QA testers on the various teams so the cycle is very quick. An event gets iterated 10 to 15 times by the time it gets through the QA loop.
Read more of Carolyn Koh's Guild Wars 2: PAX 2011 – Dynamic Events and Guild Halls.
Guild Wars 2: Guild Drama…Oh NOOOO!
Sep 1st
In his latest blog post, MMORPG.com Managing Editor Bill Murphy offers a few thoughts about the recent announcement that Guild Wars 2 players will be able to be members of multiple guilds. If that's not enough to create bodacious amounts of guild drama, nothing is! Read more in the MMORPG.com Staff Blog.
The “you can add as many guilds as you like” part. Basically, they’re saying you can be in so many very different guilds at one time. If this is the case, is every one going to eventually join every guild on the server? Probably not, but someone will. I remember a time when being a part of a Guild was like being a part of a family. This system, while convenient for having people to play with at all times, takes away from that. Surely, we can join just one guild if we want. I suppose that’s the best way to avoid the problems I see with this system. But there are benefits.
Read more of Bill Murphy's When They Said GUILD Wars….
Guild Wars 2: PAX 2011 – Hands On with the Asura Guardian
Aug 31st
During PAX 2011, MMORPG.com Managing Editor Bill Murphy had the opportunity for a hands on experience with Guild Wars 2 which later became the MMORPG.com Best in Show. Bill played the cute but deadly Asura Guardian and has a full report on his experience that you won't want to miss. Keep reading!
He doesn’t just breathe it, he hops up into the air and the sheer force of the flame holds him there as a hovering jet of white-hot flame as my enemies singe and bubble before me. I can say that my lack of true familiarity with the game’s UI (which is looking mighty clean and polished) had me a bit confused. The weapon skills are on one side of the health-meter and the class skills are on the other side. So for most of the time I pretty much used just my weapon skills, but they worked so well I didn’t even notice. There’s a great single-target attack with this weapon set that triple-hits the enemy for some amazing damage too. He leaps off the ground and spins and twirls around as he slices and dices the enemy in mid-air. I’m pretty sure that this weapon combo isn’t intended More >
Guild Wars 2: PAX 2011 – The Whole Package
Aug 30th
At PAX 2011, MMORPG.com Managing Editor Bill Murphy beat a hasty path to Arena.Net's Guild Wars 2 booth for one of his first interviews. He sat down with Colin Johanson and Eric Flannum to chat about Guild Wars 2 and Bill found out a bunch of terrific information. Read on!
You’ll be able to tweak and mold your character’s armor dyes from creation, and the game will intelligently apply the colors you choose to later pieces of armor as you play. Of course you will always be able to change the colors, and I think the best comparison I can think of is DCUO’s color palette system. The game remembers what your look is, and will put those colors on each new piece of armor you receive, unless you tell it otherwise.
Read more of Bill Murphy's Guild Wars 2: PAX 2011 – The Whole Package.
Guild Wars 2: Players May Be Able to "Create" Own PvP Servers
Aug 29th
During an Interview at PAX Prime 2011, our staff got Colin Johanson and Eric Flannum to spill a few details on the PVP system in Guild Wars 2. Not only will ArenaNet be making up their own servers for the quick and dirty PVP matches, much like the shooter genre's setup, but Eric and Colin said they are considering a plan for players to be able to "create" their own servers or games with specific rule-sets as well.
Stay tuned for more info on PVP and all things Guild Wars 2 when our presentation wrap-up goes live this Wednesday.