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Ascended crafting and account magic find set to shake up Guild Wars 2 economy
ArenaNet's resident Guild Wars 2 economist John Smith and game designer Linsey Murdock posted a detailed dev blog today outlining big changes to the game's magic find and crafting systems. The first big change comes in the form of account magic find -- Magic find will be granted only by guild buffs, utility infusions, and consumables and will be account-wide and permanent (up to 300%). Magic find on existing items will be replaced with the option to select stats for that item. Ascended weapon crafting is the second big change. Players will be able to level their crafting skills to 500; the professions that produce weapons will make use of a new refinement system and ascended inscriptions to create new ascended weapons. Ascended armor crafting is due later this year. Both changes are expected to have a big impact on the Guild Wars 2 economy, with Fine and Masterwork salvaging items seeing increased importance due to account magic find and the value of weapons and armor fluctuating thanks to ascended crafting. Smith noted that ArenaNet doesn't intend to apply such big modifications to the Guild Wars 2 economy very often but that some features are worth adding due to the value added for players.
Leveling to 80 through pure crafting possible in Guild Wars 2
Combat has long been the focal point of most MMOs' progression systems, and in most games it's borderline impossible to get to max level without spilling some blood. Pacifistic Guild Wars 2 fans seem to be in luck, however, as ArenaNet designer Linsey Murdock has revealed on the forums that, with some hard work and perseverance, players will be able to level all the way to level 80 by doing nothing but crafting. According to Murdock's post (viewable only if you have access to GW2's beta forums), it works something like this: Leveling a single crafting profession to level 400 will grant enough XP to gain 10 character levels. As a result, by maxing out all eight crafting professions, a player can go all the way to the level cap without ever laying hand on a weapon. A few players on the forums have expressed concern that this will lead to a "pay-to-win" style of play, since players can pay money for gems, exchange those gems for gold, and then use that gold to buy crafting materials for a (relatively) quick level boost. Others point out that while this method may increase a character's leveling speed, it offers no statistical benefit and therefore is not pay-to-win in the truest sense of the word. So what do y'all think, kind readers? Is this treading dangerous pay-to-win territory or not? Give us your tuppence in the comments.
Linsey Murdock stepping down from ArenaNet Live Team
If you're a Guild Wars fan, the Live Team is a group you're probably very familiar with. They're the main minds behind Guild Wars, the primary development team. Linsey Murdock has been the Live Team's leader for quite a while, so it was a bit of a surprise when she announced today that she is stepping down from the position. She'll be passing the torch to designer John Stumme, and they each took a little bit of time to say a few words on the change. Don't wave goodbye to Linsey just yet, she's not leaving ArenaNet. She'll be taking a different position within the company instead. If you want to know what it is, you'll have to wait a bit, says Linsey -- she can't talk about it quite yet. Check out the ArenaNet blog to see what John and Linsey have to say about the switch.
Goodbye RR Day: Guild Wars to remove Hero Battles and Team Arenas this week
No, we're not endorsing RR Day. But ArenaNet Community Manager Regina Buenaobra announced today that Hero Battles and Team Arenas will be removed from Guild Wars with this week's update, and it's safe to assume that a good many players will be mourning that loss. The news shouldn't come as any surprise, given that Live Team Lead Linsey Murdock warned us of this almost two months ago.So how does this affect the PvP side? Well, after the update this week -- presumably Thursday or Friday -- the Commander title will still exist, but gaining points for it will no longer be possible. It will be replaced by a new title so those who haven't maxed their Commander title won't be left out in the cold. Random Arenas will no longer promote to Team Arenas, and the Hero Battles Ladder will freeze.Linsey has said that Team Arena will be "renamed and repurposed" for the new Sealed Deck format, and that the Hero Battles maps will be reused, but the only change indicated for this week is the removal of TA/HB. It looks like Sealed Deck and all the other PvP projects are still having finishing touches put on them, so we'll keep watching for them.
Guild Wars PvP project updates
Back in August, Linsey Murdock, game designer for ArenaNet, gave news of a large Guild Wars PvP project the Live Team was working on. Community Manager Regina Buenaobra gave an update yesterday, working through a laundry list of items in the project and their status.The PvP henchmen contest seems to be the primary focus of the Live Team at the moment. Winners were announced last week, and after the initial flurry of perusing the new skill bars and congratulating the winners, the Guild Wars community wondered "What now?". Will we see the new henchmen anytime soon, and more importantly, will we really have henchmen named Rolol Lololol and A Papaya In There? As it turns out, the Live Team is working on that very thing -- contacting winners, working out appropriate in-character names, and anticipating the fun of finding models. While the team is working hard on this, Regina didn't neglect mention of the many other items on the list.The switch from Team Arenas and Hero Battles to the Sealed Deck format is taking longer than planned, as team members had to build the project nearly from the ground up. A few items, like GvG Tiebreaker and a new Hall of Heroes map, have been put on hold until the Test Krewe is in place. Several small items are taken care of and ready to go, while other things are on hold for now; one of them being the next skill balance.More details can be seen in Regina's journal entry, and we hope for even more soon.
Guild Wars announces winners of the henchmen skill bar contest
As part of the PvP love update that Linsey Murdock mentioned back in August, Guild Wars will be removing heroes from Guild vs. Guild and Heroes' Ascent, replacing them with brand new henchmen. Heroes in these formats were a bit of a problem, as they sometimes put players at a disadvantage if they didn't have access to heroes.These aren't just any henchmen, though. This new group comes straight from the Guild Wars community, courtesy of the henchmen skill bar contest. Players were invited to submit henchmen skill bar suggestions via Dizhou, a temporary NPC placed in the Great Temple of Balthazar until the contest closed on September 10th. ArenaNet chose forty skill bars from these submissions. Each of the lucky winners will receive a henchman named after them (or by them, if they preferred) and an everlasting henchman tonic that temporarily transforms them into their namesake.Check out the winners in both the Guild vs. Guild and Heroes' Ascent categories, and congratulations to all of you!
Guild Wars reveals large content changes
For those of you who spend their time in Guild Wars-landia, you might want to stop for a moment and take a look at game designer Linsey Murdock's most recent journal entry. In it she details some major changes coming to the PvP formats of Guild Wars, specifically the closing of the Hero Battles format and the conversion of Team Arena into a new Sealed Deck format.Sealed Deck is a game type that has been used at past Penny Arcade Expo showings of Guild Wars, and it has become popular enough to warrant being added into the game. The main drive behind changing up Team Arena and Hero Battles are due to the waning number of players that participate in those formats, as well as some very brutal flaws in the Hero Battles format.Beyond the addition of Sealed Deck, Linsey also details some other changes to PvP, such as the addition of henchmen that have builds designated by the community, temporary downtime for the Xunlai Tournament House, and many other tasty tidbits. If you're looking for the full info, check out her post over on the Guild Wars wiki.
ArenaNet's Linsey Murdock speaks out on recent Guild Wars update
The large, now-infamous balance update for Guild Wars two weeks ago is still causing a buzz among players, so Ravious at Kill Ten Rats took this opportunity to interview ArenaNet's Linsey Murdock to discuss the process and effect that these changes have had so far.Murdock explains the importance of this update and some of her favorite or most-anticipated aspects. Of special note is the mention of the Luxon and Kurzick Challenge Mission reward changes, and how she hopes that it will actually get players back into those areas introduced with Guild Wars' first chapter, Factions. Check out the entire interview for a walkthrough of the update process and more from one of ArenaNet's most important Live Team game designers.
