General:

- Luna Atra : ArenaNet has so far been very silent about the Hall of Monuments and its impact on GW2, although it is presented as the main feature of Eye of the North. What can be said today on this subject?

Eric Flannum – Lead Game Designer: A player will be able to link a Guild Wars account to their Guild Wars 2 account. If they do this —and they have access to the Hall of Monuments in the Eye of the North— then they will get access to the Hall of Monuments in Guild Wars 2. From the Hall of Monuments they can claim the rewards they earned in Guild Wars. These rewards will be completely unique to the Hall of Monuments and only obtainable by a player who has earned them playing the original Guild Wars.

- LA : The first GW stood out from other online games thanks to its complex skill system which promoted reflection and thanks to limiting equipment and levels in order to highlight the talent of players. Is GW2 sticking to this philosophy or does it want to appeal to a more general audience?

Eric Flannum: We’d really like to do both. Whenever you make a sequel to a game, one of your primary goals should be to expand your player base while appealing to a broader audience. Making games is after all a business, and you won’t survive long if you allow your game audience to stagnate. At the same time, you always want to retain your current audience, the people who made your game popular in the first place— something we feel strongly about here at ArenaNet. When we were a startup company releasing our first product, our fans did a phenomenal job spreading the word about Guild Wars and supporting us. We understand the spirit of what attracted them to the Guild Wars franchise, and we wouldn’t have named the game Guild Wars 2 if we didn’t plan on exceeding their expectations. Guild Wars 2 does things a bit differently than the first game, but it still features deep character builds, engaging storylines, robust PvP, skillful play, lack of grind, and of course—no monthly fees.

Progress:

- LA : In the first GW character progression was very fast if one were to compare it to a classic MMO. However, as the maximum level in GW is not an end in itself, this was not a problem. How will character progression in GW2 be concretely implemented? Will it be via a conventional system of levels and experience, or did you find something more innovative?

Eric Flannum: Much like the first game, Guild Wars 2 will feature a system of levels and experience. Although early in the development process we played around with some alternate ideas, we felt that experience points and levels were the way to go. Given all of the other areas in which we are taking players out of their “MMO comfort zone,” we thought it best to go with something that was familiar and easy to understand. Even with the standard experience and levels system, progression in Guild Wars 2 is still much faster than other MMOs, even though we’ve raised the level cap substantially. We still don’t regard reaching maximum level as the end of the game, and we’ll be providing players with a lot of things to do once they hit the level cap.

- LA : To remain on the topic of character progression, we already know a lot about the skills but you have not yet discussed how we will unlock them (elite and regular). Will it be in a somewhat similar way to GW (reward, purchase, capture), rather in the manner of a classic MMO (the talent tree) or did you create something new?

Eric Flannum: Skills are purchased from a trainer or can be handed out as content rewards, much like they were in Guild Wars. We won’t see a return of the signet of capture system in Guild Wars 2, as not all monsters use player skills. We made this choice for many reasons. The primary reason was that it placed an undue burden on our creature spawning team to have to spawn creatures according to a skill progression chart instead of placing them where they would logically fit into the world. We also have a lot fewer skills in Guild Wars 2, many of which are very specific to certain profession mechanics. We didn’t want every monster to have to fit into a profession archetype. With our new creature system we have a lot more freedom to give each monster a unique and fun mechanic with abilities that really fit their character.

Economy:

- LA : One of the biggest deficiencies of the first GW was the lack of real economic tools such as an auction house or a private store mode, so we were forced to sell auction-style but then we were unable to really play. Not considering the fact there was not a unique trade outpost, this did not ease the task. What is planned in GW2?

Curtis Johnson – Game Designer: Guild Wars 2 includes a full Marketplace for players, which will differ from the usual MMO auction house in a number of ways. The biggest and most important difference is GW2’s Marketplace supports postings from both buyers and sellers. You might put your sword up for sale, then offer 100 gold for the specific axe you’re looking for without having to find any specific seller. The market can display the history of average value and trends for an item, making it easy to determine a fair value for your goods. It might be worth waiting to sell your item, depending if the price is rising or falling.

Items you put up for sale may sell while you’re offline, and the funds will be deposited in your account bank. You must be in game to put a new item up for sale, but you will be able to browse the market, bid from your account bank, or cancel your own auctions and offers while logged in to a web browser without running the game.

- LA : What is crafting like in GW2? You mentioned mines to attack in WvW, does this mean that this will of use to crafting? Will we have to go to specific locations to collect and manufacture?

Eric Flannum: Our crafting system is still under development so we aren’t quite ready to talk about it yet. The mines we’ve mentioned in WvW are a mechanic that is specific to WvW. Each fortress can receive supplies from a mine and/or lumber mill. These resources will allow defenders to rebuild walls, build new siege engines, and generally defend their fortress.

Equipment:

- LA : We were told that equipment influence skills, which makes it a central element of the game. Shall we expect some pieces of equipment to be more powerful than others? If so, will we have to do repetitive actions to obtain them, as is done in most MMOs?

John Hargrove – Game Designer: Yes, there will be a full progression of armor and weapons in the game to match the larger level range of Guild Wars 2, and as such there will be some swords which are simply more powerful than others. It’s important to note that regardless of how powerful they are, all swords allow the player to use the same set of skills. So while one sword may simply have better statistical bonuses on it than the other, it won’t fundamentally change what you can do with a sword.

As to whether or not you will have to do repetitive actions to obtain the more powerful equipment, well, I guess that depends on how you define the term “repetitive actions.”

If, for example, you define a repetitive action as mercilessly slaughtering foe after foe with your own personal brand of judgment until all that is left in your wake is a general path of mangled mayhem and destruction, then yes, you may have to do that from time to time.

If, however, you define a repetitive action as running the same dungeon a hundred times over to try to get a particular piece of armor from a set that you really like, but the gloves from the set just won’t drop, then no, you will not have to do that. Our ideology is that all players should be rewarded individually and at regular increments so that they can’t get so unlucky that they have to spend a lifetime in a single area trying to get those darn gloves to drop. We make it a point to make our meatiest dungeon rewards obtainable via an incremental reward system where we’ll be able to ensure that no one has to play in the same location for an eternity.

- LA : Overall will it be possible to improve one’s equipment? Via runes, stones, enchantments ...

John Hargrove: Yes, every kind of armor and weapon in the game will be upgradeable. Down the line we will be releasing a full article on how it all works on our website, so stay tuned for that!

Guilds:

- LA : What would GW be without guilds! About the existence of a guild hall, if it does exist, will it be customizable? Will there be a guild vault? We are curious to know what tools will be offered to them.

- LA : Will we be able to change the hierarchy of guilds (with groups getting certain rights) or will the general organization and powers be imposed?

Eric Flannum: Guilds and guild structure are very important to us in Guild Wars 2. We’re still working out the details on some of the issues you mentioned and will release more substantial information in the future.

PvE:

- LA : It seems to me that you indicated that you would find no exclamation mark above NPCs. Shall we thus infer that no quest in the classical sense will be present in GW2?

Eric Flannum: This is very true. Guild Wars 2 doesn’t feature a traditional MMO quest system. Instead, we have our event system, which we’ve begun talking about, and our personal storyline system, which we should be talking about in detail very soon. It is also true that while we do use icons over some NPCs to communicate what they do to players (merchants, trainers, collectors, etc.) there will be no exclamation marks or questions marks hovering over any NPCs head.

- LA : Is there something similar to GW’s cooperative missions to advance the storyline? If so, will they also be instantiated in GW2?

Eric Flannum: There are actually several forms of content that fulfill the functionality missions had in Guild Wars. First, the personal storyline is designed to convey story and a sense of purpose to the player. This story often takes the player into instances, where their choices can have a real effect on the world. The personal storyline is tailored to each player by a series of biography questions they answer during character creation, so it is geared for the single player more than cooperative play (although players can definitely play it cooperatively if they desire). For the ultimate cooperative content, we have both the events in the persistent world as well as instanced dungeons. We’ve spoken extensively about events, and we’ll cover dungeons sometime in the coming months.

Jon Peters – Game Designer: Competitive PvP in Guild Wars 2 will take a few forms. There will be hot-joinable pick up play that will allow larger team sizes, as well as tournaments that have fixed sizes and times. We aren’t currently revealing the game formats, but there are a number of shared goals that we want our PvP game types to have. They should all be easy to join in the middle of play and scale well to different team sizes. They should be equally fun for casual and competitive play, with dynamic team-based objectives. They should be observer friendly and avoid stalemate situations. Most importantly, they should be FUN.

Many competitive sports and e-sports do use an odd or varying number of players. Soccer is played with 11 players per side, unless it is indoors and then it is played with six. Counterstrike uses five person teams for competitive play. We believe that in order to build a more cohesive user base for competitive PvP the team size for tournaments should be smaller than eight (to make it easier to form teams), and should remain consistent between all game types and tournaments ( to avoid fragmenting the user base). We are not yet revealing the actual team size, but it will be greater than four and less than six.

- LA : You have announced impressive numbers in the GW2 manifesto saying that 501 players is better than 500. Are these figures realistic for WvW? Can you clarify what a "World" will be? In this PvP mode are all the players on the same map? How are you going to avoid the recurring defects seen in all games with a solid PvP such as the lag or crashing clients, especially considering how rich the GW2 animations are?

Jon Peters: World v World is indeed going to feature massive battles where hundreds of players will clash over a number of zones and many objectives. Each side in World v World will be represented by a Guild Wars 2 world (known in most games as a server). For any given week, each world will be matched up against two other worlds fighting over these objectives.

There are a variety of objectives catering to varying player population size. A single player might intercept a resource cart to a lumber mill. A group of players might assault the mill and take control of it for their own side. An army of players might assault a massive castle, breaching the walls, gates, and towers with powerful siege equipment and capturing it for their world. We believe this will spread the players out and avoid lagging problems in many cases. But when all the players converge in an epic clash at that big center castle, World v World uses the same persistent technology that the rest of the game uses. We are also doing some things across the game to handle large gatherings of players. In many ways, our event system is similar to WvW in that it also encourages large groups of players to gather against large groups of monsters, so this is a problem that we need to handle in both cases.

Network architecture:

- LA : The first GW was perfect in terms of network architecture. It allowed playing with players from all over the world while providing a very small ping. What will happen in GW2, must we expect classical “world servers” seen in all MMOs? If so, what have you planned to avoid that some servers are very active and others not at all, and to offer the same quality experience to all players?

Curtis Johnson: Guild Wars 2’s world servers will host many thousands of people at a time. Your account will primarily belong to one world; however we recognize that friendships often cross worlds. We want to maintain the inclusive friendly play we had in Guild Wars, so we plan to make it very easy to visit other worlds to play with your friends without restarting new characters or paying large transfer fees. We haven’t finalized all the details of this yet, but we’ll let you know when we do.

- LA : Is there a limit on the number of players who may be present in an area and beyond which another district is opened?

Eric Flannum: There is no districting in Guild Wars 2. In place of districting, we have divided our player base into various worlds (what other games might refer to as servers or shards). Each map within a world does have a player limit, but it is high enough that we expect it to be rarely if ever reached.

Configuration:

- LA : Can GW2 be expected other platforms than Windows? Linux, Mac, PS3 ...?

Chris Lye – Marketing Guy: We’re developing Guild Wars 2 for Windows and that’s our clear priority. We get requests all the time to support other platforms, but it’s important for us to stay focused.

- LA : What type of machine will be able to play GW2, is support DX10 on the agenda?

Chris Lye – We haven’t finalized the specs yet, but what we can say is that our goal is to run on a wide-range of gaming PCs – similar to what we did with Guild Wars.

Thanks to: Eric Flannum, Curtis Johnson, John Hargrove, Jon Peters, Chris Lye and Stephane Lo Presti for this interview.