Guild Wars 2 Wants to Change the Way We Play MMOs

Q: So how have you innovated combat?

We feel in most traditional MMO’s, Guild Wars 1 included, combat is often stale. It can be very static; it’s your character standing in place with not a lot of movement, it’s not very fluid, and it often takes a really long time. It has rare moments of excitement with a lot of boring in between. So what we’ve tried to do is we’ve really tried to take action oriented combat and throw it into an MMO. We have a lot of movement, a lot of positional based skills, combat is fast-paced, and it’s very visceral; you can always see what’s going on and react to what’s going on around you.

Q: So where exactly does the story of Guild Wars 2 pick up after the events of the first Guild Wars?

It’s been 250 years since Guild Wars 1, the elder dragons have awoken across the world, it is the same world of Tyria, and when the dragons woke up they shifted the entire landscape of the world. They’ve caused earthquakes, tsunamis, and tornados. They’ve raised entire mountain chains, completely changed the landscape of the world, and their minions are beginning to spread out across the world and kill everything that stands in their path. Our game’s 5 races, the Charr, Human, Norn, Sylvari, and Asura, are starting to band together to fight back against the dragons.

We’ve announced four classes so far for the game: the Necromancer, the Warrior, the Elementalist, and the Ranger. In the future you’ll be able to pick from millions of character customization options. You can make your character fat or skinny, do all their facial customization work, and change up their hair style to really make your character unique. After that we get to the point where we can fill out our character’s biography.

Q: What affects your character's biography?

When making your character you answer questions. This question is profession specific; in the case of the Elementalist this changes the look of your character’s gem stone in her forehead. If you were a Ranger it would change the pet you start off with. If you’re a Warrior you get to pick the helmet or shoulder pads you start with.

The next question is for the character’s diplomacy and personality system. You’re picking whether they are ferocious, dignified, or charming. Based on the answer this actually opens up different dialogue options with NPC’s throughout the world. If you’re ferocious for example, you’ll sometimes get the option to punch people in the face in the middle of a conversation. Also, characters in the game world will respond differently to you based on these things. So, if you’re ferocious and you’re walking through a city a little kid might see you, scream, and go running in the other direction. If you’re charming they might start following you around and telling people how cool you are. This can change based on things you say to characters in the game world. The game is constantly tracking the answers you choose and it’s changing your character’s personality based on what you say to NPC’s.

The next one is race specific. For the human it asks, “What part of the human capital city, Divinity’s Reach, was your character raised in?” Was she born in the streets? Were you raised among the city’s nobility? Or was it the common folk? The answer to this changes out the clothes that you start with and this also directly determines the first personal story chain your character gets to go on. So based on your choice here you’re going to experience a completely different personal story experience. Each race has choices like this that branch and change their storyline.

The last question, “what is your characters biggest regret,” can be answered: I never searched for my parents, Centaurs killed my sister and I never found her body, or I always wanted to join the circus. This effects the next personal story chain you get to experience later. You’ll actually get a chance to join the circus or go to try and find your sisters body and that’s a whole other chain that kicks in.