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Flameseeker Chronicles: The aftermath of the War in Kryta
The War in Kryta ended with a bang, but was unfortunately overshadowed a bit by the information avalanche coming from Guild Wars 2 last week. It was an extremely exciting week for Guild Wars 2 fans, but I want to backtrack a bit and look at the current state of the War in Kryta. It's been an interesting story from the beginning, and I don't think it's over by a long shot. No war ends with a single final battle that leaves everyone happy and ready to resume daily life, and the same is true of the War in Kryta. Follow along after the jump and we'll take a look at the land of Kryta today.
More questions answered on death and healing in Guild Wars 2
Guild Wars 2 designer Jon Peters answered several of the community's questions on death and healing earlier this week, and promised more to come. The rest of those questions were released last night on ArenaNet's blog, thanks once again to Jon. The questions had a wide range, giving more details on the mechanics of downed and defeated states, possible exploits, and even a bit of information on the philosophy behind Guild Wars 2's design. There is plenty of new information here, and Jon even managed to sneak in another Guild Wars 2 skill mention -- the elementalists's Vapor Form skill. The entire list of questions and answers can be seen on the ArenaNet blog.
New ArenaNet blog post confirms information about second Guild Wars 2 novel
Fans may get impatient with ArenaNet for its secrecy, but when the people behind Guild Wars 2 decide to release information, they pull out all the stops. The past 24 hours or so have been pretty exciting for Guild Wars 2 fans, and now we've got one more tidbit of news to enjoy. The newest ArenaNet blog post comes to us courtesy of Jeff Grubb, co-author of Ghosts of Ascalon. He talks quite a bit about Ghosts of Ascalon, but the final paragraph holds some extremely interesting news for those already looking forward to the second book. While intrepid fans have tracked down a bit of book information via publishing and bookstore sites, Jeff gives us some confirmation: Edge of Destiny, written by J. Robert King, is due out in December. Furthermore, we learn more about the book's content: "Of the "big guns" of Guild Wars 2 – Rytlock, Zojja, Logan and the rest that we saw in the early trailers – a couple of them will show up in Ghosts, but their full story is told in the second novel, Edge of Destiny." Check out the full blog post -- it's a must-read for any fan.
New information on the Guild Wars 2 ranger: Massively's interview with ArenaNet
Yesterday's Guild Wars 2 ranger reveal caused a huge stir in the Guild Wars community. This is our third class reveal, but it can be argued that of the three classes, rangers have gotten the most dramatic and eye-catching makeover so far. As always, the excitement and discussion among fans brought about a fair amount of follow-up questions. We at Massively had quite a few of our own, so we posed them to ArenaNet, who was kind enough to answer. Follow along after the jump to hear what ArenaNet had to say about rangers and their companions.
You can have a shark as a pet: ArenaNet unveils the Guild Wars 2 ranger
It's been one of the hottest topics among the Guild Wars 2 community for over a month. The warrior was revealed on June 9th, and once the excitement of that died down, it was back on board the speculation train. What's the next class? Speculation was all over the map: necromancer was a popular choice thanks to the recent sneak peek of Ghosts of Ascalon. Mesmers and some sort of paladin class were suggested, as well as rangers. Things got even more interesting on Monday, when ArenaNet teased the upcoming reveal of a new class. Well, it looks like rangers won out -- ArenaNet announced the ranger class for Guild Wars 2 today. Rangers are getting some serious upgrades -- follow along after the jump for all the exciting news about rangers, their companions, and why it's a terrible idea to get on their bad side.
Death and healing: Guild Wars 2 community questions answered
What happens if you have no money and aren't revived? Do we wait to be killed, and respawn at a waypoint? Do we have to lie on the ground, begging people passing by to come and revive us? It seems like this could suck. It's a valid question, and one that Jon Peters was more than willing to answer. ArenaNet released information on death and healing to eager Guild Wars 2 fans last Thursday. The community had a long list of followup questions, so the Guild Wars 2 team rounded them up and set out to answer them. According to Community Manager Regina Buenaobra, there were so many good questions to answer that the team decided to split them into two blog posts. The first of those two was posted last night, and addresses a handful of player concerns as well as some interesting details of how the system will work. Check out the first batch of questions on the ArenaNet blog, and keep an eye on Massively -- we'll bring you round two just as soon as it's made available!
Flameseeker Chronicles: The end of the War in Kryta
It looks like we dismantled after all: the War in Kryta is over. Things came to a sudden end late last week with the addition of two new quests, and I have to admit that I was surprised. The NPCs involved in all of this have been hinting that the White Mantle were planning something big, but since Salma also mentioned that we still had more Inquisitors to take out, I assumed that we'd have quests for the rest of them first. Sneaky Inquisitors! Click that handy little "read more" button to see how the War in Kryta ended, join me in some pondering of the future, and find out about the new direction Massively's Guild Wars guild will be taking this week!
ArenaNet devs talk parties, games, and map travel
ArenaNet must be feeling generous this week, because we've gotten another hefty dose of new information about Guild Wars 2, a mere day after the last round. After all that talk of death and healing, we're venturing back to the lighter side with designers John Stumme and Ben Miller. We established not long ago that there's an important lighter side to Guild Wars 2 -- a part of the game that's just for playing, having fun, and taking a break from the burdens of war. Follow along after the jump for our take on ArenaNet's look at activities in Guild Wars 2 and a bonus look at travel!
To live and die in Tyria -- death, healing, and combat in Guild Wars 2
As the Guild Wars 2 news continues to roll in, one of the main topics of conversation has been the lack of a dedicated healer class. No monks in Guild Wars 2? What will we do? The question of death mechanics is a natural one to follow that line of thought, and it's something else we've been anxious to find out. Well, "everyone take a deep breath. It's going to be OK." That's straight from the designer's mouth. Game Designer Jon Peters finally lifted the veil on this information, so to speak, with the newest update to the GW2 site. Follow along after the jump as we take a look at "A New Way of Looking at Healing and Death."
Newest Guild Wars 2 interview talks dungeons, racial abilities, and more
A new interview with the Guild Wars 2 team has popped up at Jeux Online, posing questions sent in by the site's community. While many questions were met with versions of the traditional "we're not ready to talk about that yet," the interview contained a few new bits of information. Jeux Online asked specifically about group size -- will we be able to go in with groups of 8 or 12 like we do now? The answer was a slightly surprising "no." Group sizes will be limited to five: "We believe that this is an appropriate size for the dungeon difficulty that we established." Racial abilities were clarified a bit as well, and the clarification seems to be in line with the diverse system of skills and abilities that we have been learning about: "Race has no effect on the skills provided by a profession. The racial abilities, however, have similar functions to certain occupations, while being profoundly influenced by this race." The full interview (in English or the original French) can be found at Jeux Online.
Next Guild Wars novel to come in December?
We're three weeks away from the release of Ghosts of Ascalon, and fans are alternately excited and a tad concerned. We know that there will be three Guild Wars novels before Guild Wars 2 is released, so they're serving as sort of a timeline. Curiosity about when the next one will arrive may have been satisfied a bit by an update to several sites yesterday: publisher Simon and Schuster, and two major bookstore sites. Simon and Schuster shows an unnamed book set for release on December 28th of this year. That in itself is a fairly useless piece of news until it's combined with the Borders placeholder that gives the same date and calls the book "Untitled Guild Wars," as does the Barnes & Noble site. While nothing is confirmed as of this writing, the two site updates together provide a potentially exciting piece of information.
Flameseeker Chronicles: Community guide, part two
As information about Guild Wars 2 continues to be made available, community activity has increased greatly. The sheer number of resources can be pretty overwhelming at this point, and for a while I considered updating the original community guide. However, there are new podcasts, fansites, images, and much more, so in the end I decided that it was more than enough to warrant a new community guide. So without further delay, I bring you Community Guide Two (go ahead and say electric boogaloo, you know you want to. I'll wait.). Hit the jump to see what's what in the Guild Wars 2 community these days.
Excerpt for first Guild Wars 2 novel now available, mentions necromancer class
Ghosts of Ascalon is the first of three planned Guild Wars 2 novels, and fans have been waiting anxiously to get a look at it. Today we got a little bit of our wish granted with an excerpt from the novel on Simon & Schuster's website, along with a shipping date of "On or around July 27th, 2010." Our peek at Ghosts of Ascalon serves as an introduction to the characters, but even more importantly, it might just serve as confirmation of the necromancer class in Guild Wars 2. Killeen the sylvari is defined as a necromancer in the excerpt: "The sylvari necromancer was probably the most pleasant individual of their motley krewe." Does this mean we'll definitely see necros in Guild Wars 2? It seems like a safe assumption, but as always, we'll have to wait for confirmation from ArenaNet.
Guild Wars 2 unveils the game's lighter side
We've learned a lot of core news about Guild Wars 2 lately -- everything from class reveals to character creation has been served up to eager fans. The latest batch of new information about Guild Wars 2 takes a look at some of the lighter aspects of gameplay. IGN spent some time chatting with the developers and came away with a wealth of new information on events outside the central storyline. Bar brawls, daily achievements, kill counts, and interaction with NPCs were all covered. We even got hints of some possible side games or minigames, such as a shooting gallery. Check out the full interview at IGN.
Flameseeker Chronicles: War in Kryta continues
While it may have been a bit overshadowed by the gaming feeding-frenzy known as E3, the War in Kryta in Guild Wars did not slow. I'm fairly certain that Salma, the Shining Blade, and the White Mantle do not care what's happening in Los Angeles, so they carried on issuing bounties, leaping out of trees, and waylaying travelers. The war events received another hefty update this last week, complete with some interesting hints about what is to come -- we'll be visiting some familiar locations. Despite another week of trotting around obediently slaying things that need to be slain, I still do not have a miniature Salma. We're also still in the dark about what these medals are for. [MVOP] had an eventful Thursday as well, and moved along in Prophecies quite a bit. Follow along after the jump to hear all the latest news from Tyria.
ArenaNet reveals new combat information for Guild Wars 2
Yesterday's unveiling of the Elementalist class for Guild Wars 2, along with the new combat information, sent the Guild Wars community into information overload. Fans were incredibly excited to see so much new information, but there was an underlying reason beyond the obvious happiness at receiving so much concrete knowledge. The reveal of one class in such great detail means that others are obviously coming soon, so the excitement was increased by the knowledge that more is on the way, and hopefully soon. Of course, there were also some concerns. Are we going to hear those catchphrases -- "I'm so stunning" -- over and over and over? What about that skill bar setup -- is it going to lock us into rigid, unchangeable builds? The important thing to remember is that the team behind Guild Wars 2 is made up of gamers, people who love MMOs and the Guild Wars universe as much as us. It's what makes them great at what they do, and it means that they likely don't want to hear "Here come the flames!" a hundred times an hour any more than we do. Guild Wars 2 is still being developed, so this is only a first look at things. With that in mind, follow along after the jump, because ArenaNet has more for us today.
Flameseeker Chronicles: The great nerfbat of '10 (or why ArenaNet didn't fail)
Last week's Guild Wars skill update sparked discussion among players that shows no sign of slowing any time soon. Player reactions ran the full spectrum, from delight to the infamous (and ineffective, since the player in question never intended to stop playing and the box didn't burn very well anyway) box burning. Whatever your feelings on it, there's no doubt that this huge skill update had a pretty big impact on the community over the past few days. Follow along after the jump for a closer look at the aftermath.
