Guild Wars 2
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Massively's interview with ArenaNet: Let's talk Guild Wars 2
While the internet collectively recovers from the new Guild Wars 2 trailer, released during GamesCom earlier this month, we jumped at the chance to interview the creative geniuses behind the upcoming title. ArenaNet's Eric Flannum, Lead Designer, Ree Soesbee, World Designer/Writer and Will McDermott, Writer all answered our barrage of questions.Follow along after the jump to learn more about the GW2 business model, evil Sylvari, plans to have multiple servers and much more!
PAX 2009: ArenaNet offers a variety of videos for fans at home
While we've brought you all manner of tasty insights and asides into what happened at PAX 2009 this year, there's something to be said for being able to catch the panels yourself. Knowing full well that their fans were going to go completely berserk when they heard all the juicy details about Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet has gone to great lengths to make sure to record all of their panels at PAX 2009 for you to check out. How awesome is that? The topics for this year were two completely different question and answer panels on the Art of Guild Wars 2, an insightful talk with the Guild Wars Live team who currently take care of the game, and a really interesting panel on the Fall of Ascalon novel that will give us the backstory between Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2. So if you weren't able to make it, be sure to check out the other half of the above lore video behind the jump, then head over to ArenaNet's official video channel to enjoy the rest!
NCSoft sells over 300,000 Aion pre-orders
There's an interesting interview with Véronique Lallier -- NCSoft's managing director of publishing -- over at GamesIndustry.biz that reveals Aion has sold over 300,000 pre-orders so far. Not too shabby if you ask us. The interview also covers a lot of what's been going on over the past year with NC West, NCSoft's 'umbrella' for their western subsidiaries.The main goal of NC West is to give the company a stronger foothold in European and North American markets. Now based out of Seattle, employees can be closer to their players and be more responsive to their needs. Stepping back from their original strategy of making casual games, the Seattle studio is also focused on making more triple-A MMOs for the West. What's on the horizon for NCSoft? Apparently, we can expect to hear more about Guild Wars 2 next year and their Korean studio is working on Blade & Soul, which they claim has even better graphics than Aion. There are a number of unannounced titles as well.We should have the results of our own Aion interview with NCSoft out shortly, so make sure to stay tuned for that.
GW2 interview with Jeff Grubb goes deep into lore
If you're a Guild Wars lore-junkie, we have found the perfect Guild Wars 2 interview for you. Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats claims he can talk GW lore for hours and after reading the deep questions he put forth to ArenaNet World Designer and Writer Jeff Grubb, we'll take his word for it.If you're looking for information about instancing, world PvP, and progression rates, this isn't the interview for you. If, however, it makes you giddy that one of either the Bahltek, undeciphered Asuran banner, or giganticus lupicus will be further explained in GW2, then it might be right up your alley. Jeff also drops some hints about the origins of humans, the dragon prophet Glint, the complex relationship between the world of Tyria, the human gods, and dragons, and a number of other things. The anticipation for everything GW2 related is heating up, so stay tuned to Massively as our very own Shawn Schuster will be speaking with someone from ArenaNet soon.
The art of Guild Wars 2 to be available in book form
Feeling in an artsy mood? Then you'll be happy to know that Guild Wars 2 now has a forthcoming official art book entitled The Art of Guild Wars 2. The book will be hardbound and stuffed with 128 pages of work by ArenaNet's award-winning artists.The official website touts that this book is a must-have for Guild Wars fans. If the concept art available online is any indication, that doesn't really seem like an overstatement. We wouldn't be too shy about putting some of these pieces of art on our walls in a nice frame, so huge a hardbound art book wouldn't be such a bad coffee table item. If you don't believe us, just take a look at the gallery. %Gallery-70495%
NCsoft announces its PAX plans
It's nearly September which means the Penny Arcade Expo is swiftly approaching. Taking place between September 4th-6th in Seattle, PAX is fast becoming the new must-attend convention for all sections of the industry, from developers to publishers and gamers. NCsoft has just announced their plans for this year's convention and this focuses on their three big IPs: Aion, Guild Wars 2 and City of Heroes.NCsoft will once again have booths at the event, one per game. On the Aion front, they will be showing the latest build of the game, which includes patch 1.5 (aka The Shadow of the Balaur). Producer Brian Knox and Associate Producer Lani Blazier will also be on hand at booth #642. At the Guild Wars 2 booth (#842), there will be Q and As with the Live Team, a talk on the upcoming novel The Fall of Ascalon and the chance to win a 128 page Art of Guild Wars 2 artbook. Finally at the City of Heroes booth (#542) you can take a peek at the new update ("Power Spectrum") and nab a special PAX Costume Power code. There will also be a player meet up on the Saturday night (September 5th) hosted by the Online Community Relations team, for more information on that click here.
Will Guild Wars 2 be your holy grail?
We've all seen the brand new Guild Wars 2 trailer from last week, right? The one that starts out with lightly-animated concept art, but eventually breaks into actual in-game footage? That in-game footage caused one of the strangest sounds to erupt from the Guild Wars fan community: a mix of a sigh and a squee. It's quite a unique sound. You should try it.With so much time being taken between our last bit of news and this full-blown trailer, GW fans were beginning to seriously lose hope. I have been an advocate for Guild Wars 2 since the day it was announced, although I did have some reservations about the divulged game mechanics at first. It seemed ArenaNet was giving up on its unique approach to online games and what the founders learned at Blizzard, and converting it into every other MMO out there. The original Guild Wars broke so much ground that it literally raised a new generation of gamers. Solved were the problems of finding a group, grinding for XP, discovering which server your friends played on and camping spawns. Guild Wars popularized the solutions to these problems and offered them in a streamlined package that didn't cost you a dime each month. It's exactly what many gamers were waiting for to get them into the MMO space, including myself.
The Daily Grind: Guild Wars 2 for you?
For those folks who enjoyed (or still enjoy) the original Guild Wars, the news out of GamesCom this last week was nothing short of epic. A brand new trailer for the long anticipated Guild Wars 2 has finally come out of ArenaNet with an amazing vision of the future. With the beautiful, lush work that we've come to expect out of their studio, the flyovers and underwater areas have an attention to detail and a grand scape that makes us want to play Guild Wars 2 right now. Of course, we're but a tiny bunch of writers scattered across the world. This morning we wanted to ask you if you're interested in picking up GW2 as well? What is it that has fired up your interest? Is it the idea of the lore expanding from the previous games? The idea of battling hordes of Zhaitan's undead minions? Playing underwater? Something else? Perhaps you are completely new to the Guild Wars series, and are interested because it's something new. Or are you completely uninterested in Guild Wars 2, for whatever reason?
Guild Wars 2 site opens, first trailer revealed
And what a trailer it is! NCSoft and ArenaNet are taking their sweet time getting the upcoming sequel to their free-to-play MMO, Guild Wars 2, all put together. Finally, we get a look at the delicious fruits of their labor. The five-minute-long debut trailer for the game (posted above) reveals the game's five playable classes, gives a brief summary of the game's overarching plot, and caps it off with a stunning look at the title's varied environments.There's also a fairly comprehensive FAQ sheet up on the game's recently-opened site -- the highlight from which is a re-confirmation that the game will feature zero subscription fees. Penny-pinchers, rejoice! This particular cost-efficient online RPG is looking phenomenal.[Via Big Download]
Guild Wars 2 previewed at GamesCom
Guild Wars broke a lot of standard MMO conventions when it first came out. It teetered on the peripheral to the point of nearly not fitting within the established definitions of the genre. ArenaNet was all right with that, and apparently, so were six million players. It doesn't appear that Guild Wars 2 will be completely conforming to the MMO norms either based upon a new GamesCom preview by Eurogamer. It's as if the developers have been taking notes from our Redefining MMOs series (or so we'd like to think)!If there's one buzzword for the MMO genre in 2009, it's probably "story." Lead Designer, Eric Flannum explains that ArenaNet is throwing their entire bag of tricks at the story in GW2, which will combine a mix of instances and persistent world events. Don't expect to find any exclamation marks in this MMO. But do expect crafting, jumping, underwater exploration, and other welcome additions in the sequel. Of course, PvP remains this franchise's bread and butter and players will be able to test their mettle against each other in instances as well as a new open-world area called The Mists. For all the gory details, head on over to Eurogamer's official preview and don't miss the amazing GW2 trailer. We can't stop watching it!
ArenaNet releases Guild Wars 2 trailer
The wait is finally up. At GamesCom today, ArenaNet delivered on their teasers throughout the week and released a brand new trailer for Guild Wars 2. This is something Guild Wars fans have been anticipating for years, and it's finally here.This gorgeous trailer shows everything from animated concept art to actual in-game footage. It takes us through the awakening of the dragons beneath the surface of Tyria to the call of the five races to join forces against them. We see Humans, Norn, Asura, Charr and Silvari rising up to defeat the undead armies of the dragon Zhaitan. Check out the trailer after the jump below, or in high definition at the main Guild Wars 2 website.
New Guild Wars 2 concept art released through Facebook
As ArenaNet has already warned us, their social networking resources will be utilized much more often in the near future. Earlier today, we saw evidence of this on the official Guild Wars 2 Facebook page as four new pieces of concept art for Guild Wars 2 have been released.Now these aren't leaked shots or rumored from a friend of a friend, these are officially the first real pieces of confirmed concept art from the sequel to the highly successful Guild Wars. Follow along in our Guild Wars 2 concept art gallery below to see these images and stay tuned as we continue to bring you more as they're released, including the latest news as it trickles out of GamesCom.%Gallery-70495%
Guild Wars 2 news coming this week?
It has been such a long time since we've heard anything on ArenaNet's Guild Wars 2. In fact, the game has been so quiet over the years (yes, it has been over 2 years) that we often find ourselves reporting on every single tidbit we find, and then some.Well, now we get official word from ArenaNet's president himself that solid news is coming. According to Mike O'Brien's wiki talk page, we should expect some information on Guild Wars 2 in what he's calling "an exciting week ahead". With PAX coming in two short weeks, could this be an announcement of GW2 being shown there? We're excited to find out ourselves, but in the mean time, check out the animated logo on the main Guild Wars 2 website, and follow along after the jump for Mike O'Brien's exact quote.
The Daily Grind: Your thoughts on Jeff Strain's NCsoft departure?
As we've reported on for the past two days, ArenaNet co-founder Jeff Strain has left his position at NCsoft and is moving on to new pastures. While his former co-founding partner, Mike O'Brien, has said pretty affirmatively that his departure won't affect the development of Guild Wars 2, we're still interested in what you think of all of this.It's certainly a very sudden and unexpected move, especially when you take into account the departure of David Reid as well, even if they both left for unrelated reasons. With Aion coming closer and closer to a launch in the United States, and NCsoft pushing to be #2 in the realm of subscription numbers, the timing for these departures seems to be odd.But, we're not going to waste this space with our thoughts, we want yours! Drop what you think of all of this into the comment box below, and let your voices ring across the internet!
ArenaNet's co-founder comments on Jeff Strain's departure from NCsoft
As we reported on yesterday, Jeff Strain, the co-founder of ArenaNet, has parted ways with NCsoft. Jeff's visions were certainly a driving factor behind ArenaNet's growth and Guild Wars production, but it's important to note that his leaving will not directly impact ArenaNet, as he has been away from the company and paired with NCsoft West since 2008.On the tails of his departure comes a comment from Mike O'Brien, ArenaNet's other founder and Jeff's long time friend. Mike not only sends well wishes to his former founding partner, but also reaffirms that Guild Wars 2 production will not be affected by Jeff's departure. Mike has even gone as far to say that we're getting close to finally getting tangible news on their new masterpiece.Mike's full statement can be found after the break.[Thanks Goonja!]
Breaking: ArenaNet co-founder leaves NCsoft
MMORPG.com is reporting that both Jeff Strain and David Reid have recently departed NCsoft West. Strain, the President of Product Development for the newly-restructured NCsoft West and Reid, the President of Publishing are both said to have left for "unrelated" reasons.Jeff Strain has always been much more than just a co-founder of ArenaNet, as his visions have driven the company to spectacular feats with their blockbuster title Guild Wars. David Reid was brought on last year with the newly-announced NC West, which aimed to re-structure the company on the tails of Tabula Rasa's closing. Does this spell even more bad news for NCsoft, only a month before they launch Aion? According to a press release from NCsoft West Public Relations Director Ryan James, "These changes do not influence any other teams, development schedules or other launches." That may be true, but it's the reputation that seems to be in the most trouble now. We wish Mr. Strain and Mr. Reid the best of luck in their future endeavors.
Ah yes, more sprinkles of Guild Wars 2 news
Our friend Ravious at Kill Ten Rats is at it again with some pretty impressive detective work on the current state of Guild Wars 2. To be fair, Ravious is simply gathering the info he finds on the various Guild Wars forums from others who are doing the actual detective work, but it still makes our jobs a whole lot easier. Some of this was already known, some of it is new, but it's all interesting.In his most recent GW2 post, we get word of a forum member named 4thVariety who has been following the trademark licensing and domain registration habits of ArenaNet's trademark lawyer, Mr. Peter J. Willsey. When GW2 was first announced, Mr. Willsey trademarked BlightedEmpires.com, and has since renewed the domain on March 12th of this year. Speculation, of course, centers around the fact that this may or may not be the name of the highly successful game's sequel.
First Guild Wars trilogy novel titled and given unofficial release date
You may remember back during our coverage of PAX 08 last year when we reported on ArenaNet's announcement of a Guild Wars book trilogy, set up to explain the lore between Guild Wars 1 and Guild Wars 2. Recently, Ravious at Kill Ten Rats wrote a great post compiling the information we have now, combined with some brand new info on what looks to be the first novel in that trilogy.Guild Wars: Fall of Ascalon by Matt Forbeck is set to release on or around February 23, 2010. What's even more interesting is some speculation from a GW fan concerning what may be the second book, possibly being penned by J. Robert King, also for release in 2010. Of course this begs the question of timeline. Are these three books all being written at the same time, to be released around the same time, or will they be written and released well into 2011? As far as we know, Guild Wars 2 won't come out until these books have all been released, so with the first book coming out in February of next year, we probably won't hear anything new about Guild Wars 2 until then, at least.
Guild Wars 2 concept art spotted
Guild Wars has some fantastic concept art. We've mentioned this in the past, particularly in the context of the work of ArenaNet art director Daniel Dociu and concept art lead Kekai Kotaki as seen at Spectrum Fantastic Art. In fact, the last thing we asked was, "Does this give some hints as to what we'll be seeing in Guild Wars 2?" It turns out, it does. In fact, Guild Wars 2 concept art is now appearing in other places as well. Ravious at Kill Ten Rats hunted down more GW2 art by Dociu and Kotaki, as confirmed by ArenaNet's Regina Buenaobra. Check out the post on GW2 concept art by Ravious over at Kill Ten Rats, which features some examples of what he's found along with some background on what they may show of the next game's setting, "250 years after the original Guild Wars."
Massively's interview with Guild Wars CM Regina Buenaobra part 2
You have a much more segregated view of PvE and PVP content, do you think this makes the game more enjoyable for players? Will it influence gameplay in future titles, such as Guild Wars 2?We have different forms of PvP for different player types. We have more easily accessible formats like Alliance Battles as well as more competitive formats like GvG. The various different PvP formats give players multiple options to play and enjoy the challenge of PvP. This will have an influence in Guild Wars 2 in the sense that we want there to be a similar kind of accessible PvP format, like World PvP, that players can get into easily, as well as more competitive forms of PvP. We want to be able to give players different options, because we know that players will want to play and enjoy different forms of PvP. What do you think you have learned from Guild Wars? With the Guild Wars experience under our belts, we've learned that it's worth taking some risks to provide an innovative new gaming experience. We think we've succeeded in delivering a unique online RPG to players. We've learned that players enjoy deep PvE gameplay experiences, and this is shown in Guild Wars: Eye of the North, where we emphasized that deeper style of play rather than a more broad design emphasis where content is spread more thinly. Of course, forging a new path and doing something different from everyone else wasn't totally smooth, and we've had learning experiences that are relevant for development on Guild Wars 2. One of the things we would have reconsidered in hindsight is the fact that adding a large number of skills to the game increases the complexity of the system, and increases the amount of information that a player feels she has to absorb. This is potentially overwhelming, especially for new players. One of the strongest design decisions the team made was the use of instancing, which gives players a personal experience and the feeling that they have an impact and a stake in the destiny of the world. In games where there's more persistence, players don't feel that same kind of power. Having said that, persistent worlds give players a stronger sense of a world that's alive with the excitement and activity of other players. Guild Wars is unique from other games in a similar genre, both in the design sense and in terms of its business model, and we continue to be successful, so the lesson there is that it was worth taking those risks. Is there anything in particular you are looking to improve upon in terms of gameplay or storyline in future? Our Guild Wars Live Team is continuing to work on improving the game through smaller monthly tweaks as well as more substantial content updates. We don't have specific details on what's in store for the immediate future. In terms of Guild Wars 2, we've got a lot of great ideas, but you'll just have to wait and see when we're ready to start talking about them in more detail. Guild Wars 2 is on the horizon, are you preparing players for the transition or do you hope both games will be played side-by-side? We're really excited about Guild Wars 2, and we hope that our longstanding players will check out Guild Wars 2 when it comes out. In Guild Wars, we have the Hall of Monuments, which records and displays players' achievements. This will help transition players over to Guild Wars 2 by giving existing characters some unique rewards in Guild Wars 2. We'll continue to support Guild Wars for as long as players are playing it. Over the last four years, has your method of delivering new content changed? Do you think players prefer mini updates or the WoW-style of three or four huge patches per year/expansion? Yes. We went from releasing large content updates in the form of brand new games, such as Factions and Nightfall, and our expansion Eye of the North, to shifting our focus on Guild Wars 2 while continuing to support Guild Wars with smaller updates. We currently release both mini updates as well as larger patches. These come in the form of our monthly maintenance updates where we do skill balances and monthly tournament updates, and also our less frequent content updates, such as the Fourth Anniversary update, which are larger in scope. Less frequent, larger updates give the Live Team more time for planning and development for larger projects. Do you think the player community has been an important part of the Guild Wars experience? Absolutely. Our players have a strong voice at ArenaNet through our community managers, me and Martin Kerstein, as well as other members of the studio who take an interest in community matters. Some of the features being released in the Fourth Anniversary Update are very popular requests in the community-in particular, the expanded options for item storage and the Zaishen Menagerie. We have a few surprises up our collective sleeves, and the community has definitely asked for them. Guild Wars wouldn't be what it is today without our player community. Our community is passionate and they continue to show their enthusiasm and excitement, whether it's through holding in-game community events, helping new players in and out of the game, showing up to support us at gaming conventions, or contributing articles on our Wiki. Anything you can tell us about Guild Wars 2? How is development progressing? Guild Wars 2 is going to be a much bigger game than the original Guild Wars. Our development team is twice as large as the dev team for Guild Wars, so we're putting a lot of development resources into it. We have regular company-wide play sessions in Guild Wars 2, and it's a blast to play with everyone. The development team also does regular playtesting every day. I can say that it's an absolutely gorgeous game and I'm always astounded at how great our artists are at bringing a world to life. We're not ready to share more just now, but stay tuned for more information later this year. Keep in mind that unlike most development teams, we've been very open about our decision to start development on Guild Wars 2 right from the very beginning. We've also been building almost everything in Guild Wars 2 from the ground up. A lot of games start development in total secrecy before fans even hear a whisper about it. Our fans have been clamouring for news and updates, and we know it feels like a long time for them. When Guild Wars 2 is released, they'll see that it was worth the wait. Do you think players will find it easy to move so far in to the game's future?While we are going to have a fresh start with Guild Wars 2, we're also going to ensure that players still feel a close connection with the lore and mythology of the world. For existing player characters, they'll feel connected to the past of Tyria through the Hall of Monuments, which is where their current Guild Wars characters record their achievements.Anything else you'd like to add? Be sure to check out all the details of the Guild Wars Fourth Anniversary celebrations on our official website! << Regina Buenaobra interview part one
