What we know of Guild Wars 2

General
There will be no monthly fee associated with Guild Wars 2, keeping up the tradition of the Guild Wars business model. Mike O'Brien has stated that expansions and/or mini-expansions are more likely than standalone campaigns, but a final decision has not been made yet.

Guild Wars 2 will be designed to run on computers with mid-range gaming specifications, but will have higher requirements than the original Guild Wars.

A teaser trailer, which made its debut at Gamescom 09, is available on the official website along with a more recent video revealing one main character from each of the five playable races.

The game will be on multiple servers or "worlds," but players will not be bound to a world and may therefore change servers easily. The exact mechanic for this has not been announced.

The original Guild Wars will continue to be supported after the release of Guild Wars 2. This will include continued holiday events and tournaments.

About the Game
A collector's edition of the game will be released. Although its contents have not been finalized yet, it has been confirmed that collector's edition will not contain The Art of Guild Wars 2, which was released in fall 2009.

Beta testing
No release dates have been announced. Information released in the 4th Quarter 2009 NCSoft Report states that the "current development target for Guild Wars 2 is for the end of 2010 with the full commercial release" taking place in 2011. Information gleaned from 3rd Quarter 2009 NCSoft Report specifically states that GW2 will likely have a public event in the form of a closed beta in 2010 with current projected release date in 2011. More information about the Guild Wars 2 beta testing and the game's release can be found at the FAQ page.

In a short interview with the Development Team, Eric Flannum stated:
"...our timeline to beta has been a bit slower than we'd originally hoped.".

Demo
Players will finally get their chance at playing Guild Wars 2 at Gamescom (August 19-22, 2010) Cologne, Germany and PAX Prime (September 3-5, 2010) @Seattle, USA.

Controls
The control & movement system is going to be significantly changed. In particular, mouse movement in the form "click to move" will be removed from the game; however, target locking will still function. Guild Wars 2 will be a true 3D environment which will allow characters to jump over obstacles as well as swim and dive underwater. Flight will not be a featured character capability in Guild Wars 2. Furthermore, the new animation coding will allow separate tracks for upper and lower body components, in effect allowing players to activate more skills while running or jumping, for smoother combat immersion.

Graphics and game engine
The original Guild Wars game engine has been improved upon with support for more detailed environments and models, better lighting and shadows, new animation and effects systems, plus new audio and cinematic engines and a more flexible combat and skill-casting system. James Phinney indicated in his "Imagining Guild Wars 2" article that polygon counts and texture allowances have been increased so he expects it to look beautiful and "like a whole new game".

Concept art will be used "one way or other" in the game as a storytelling tool. The trailer is an indication of how this may work.

Gaile Gray has indicated the game will support DirectX 10, but not require it to play. Guild Wars 2 will use the Havok physics engine and occlusion culling technology licensed from Umbra Software. [1]

Music
Jeremy Soule, who composed the soundtracks for the original Guild Wars series, will be returning to compose the music for Guild Wars 2.

Characters
A character can be used to play any game mode available in Guild Wars 2: PvE, Structured PvP and World PvP. A player may still have multiple characters. The game is designed to be viable for both solo and group play.

The level cap will be raised, although the magnitude of this raise is still unknown. There will be a plateau of power, where each level no longer adds as much to the power of the character. A side-kick system has been mentioned which would allow characters of a lower level to play with high level characters without disadvantage.

Weapons
Guns will be featured as new weapons; rifles and pistols have been specifically mentioned. Concept art depicting Charr wielding firearms can be seen at the Guild Wars 2 Website's art section here and here

The complete list of weapons featured in Guild Wars 2:

One-Handed: Axe, dagger, mace, pistol, scepter, and sword.

Two-Handed: Greatsword, hammer, longbow, shortbow, rifle, and staff.

Offhand only: Focus, shield, torch, and warhorn.

There will also be environmental weapons, such as siege machines or beer mugs, which will alter a character's skills when picked up. (See Skills)

Races
Guild Wars 2 will introduce several new playable races. The five playable races announced so far are:

Asura
Charr
Human
Norn
Sylvari
Different races will have different advantages and disadvantages; for example the norn will be able to shape-shift into a half-bestial half-norn form, with increased health and melee damage. The Asura will possess strong magic and have the ability to control golems. Further information regarding other races has not yet been released. Each race will have a few traits which will not increase the power of the character but provide a background flavor for the race, examples are the racial heritage of the human or the Sylvari seasons. Professions will not be restricted based on the race, the developers hope to ensure that each race is effective at each profession.

Professions
Some of the professions from Guild Wars will be carried over to Guild Wars 2; Elementalists and Warriors have specifically been announced. There will be three "types" of professions: three "scholar" professions (including the Elementalist), three "adventurer" professions, and two "soldier" professions (presumably including Warriors). No secondary profession system will be used.

Different professions will have access to different weapons and armor. For example, at least one profession will be able to use bows but not guns, another will be able to use guns but not bows, and a third will be able to use both. Armor is being scaled between profession types; scholar professions will use light armor, adventurer professions will use medium armor, and soldier professions will use heavy armor.

Skills
There will be fewer skills than the original, with the aim for quality rather than quantity. Skill animations and graphics should provide a clearer indication of the range and effect of a skill as it is used. A character will have a total of 10 skill slots, five of which are weapon and profession dependent and can only be changed by switching to a different type of weapon. The other five are dependent on profession and race and can be chosen by the player, with one skill being reserved for healing, and one for an elite. The goal of this change is to give more options for truly viable builds than Guild Wars allowed while at the same time decreasing the potential for less useful skill combinations (like bringing Gash without a skill that causes Bleeding).

Each race will have a set of skills unique to it. These will be weaker than profession-specific skills, but could cover weaknesses that a character's profession may not be able to provide for.

Original Guild Wars characters
Characters from the original Guild Wars campaign will not be migrated to play in Guild Wars 2. Guild Wars 2 will be a fresh start. Some items and weapons players earn in the original Guild Wars campaign may be redeemed for rewards in Guild Wars 2 through the Hall of Monuments which is available to players who have Guild Wars Eye of the North, however players will not be able to migrate the exact items or titles they obtained in Guild Wars. Names will also be reserved through this system.

Player versus environment
There will be changes to the instancing system used. Persistent areas, similar to those traditionally used in other online multiplayer games, will be introduced to Guild Wars which may allow players to meet and interact while exploring. Instances will still be used to further storytelling within the game and for missions and dungeons.

A day/night cycle, faster than real-time, is being added to the game. Some events and monsters appearances will depend on that in-game time. There will be weather effects in-game. Persistent explorable areas will be larger than those of GW1 and less saturated by hostiles, allowing players to avoid combat while traveling unless a specific passage is blocked by an event[2]. The interior of houses and buildings in the environment will be accessible to players.

The crafting system in the game will be expanded and other non-combat ways of interacting with other players will be added to the game.

Event system
Guild Wars 2 will utilize a very different system for quests than Guild Wars 1. Instead of the standard green exclamation point above an NPC's head to mark a possible quest, Guild Wars 2 will use a new Event system. In this system, events will happen with or without the presence of the player, and if a player happens to be present at the time of the event, then the player can complete the quest by participating in the event, and the outcome of the event may affect if, or what kind, of event may happen soon thereafter. Three examples were provided to illustrate how this system may work.

The first example shows the arrival of a dragon near a particular town or village. The players nearby that town or village can choose to fight the dragon. If they are successful, the dragon may flee or die, and the players involved are rewarded by the village elder; if the players fail, the dragon destroys a bridge vital to the village. At that time, the village people attempt to build a new bridge, and the players may help them by fending off a group of bandits that see the opportunity to attack.

In the second example, if a player happens to be inside a garrison when a scouting party returns, they may overhear the scouts warning of an approaching column of centaurs, intent on destroying the garrison. The players can then participate in defending the garrison from the attacking centaurs. If the players are successful, the garrison may ask them to participate in a counterattack. If they are not successful, or if they weren't at the garrison in time to save the garrison, they may join other soldiers from a nearby town attempting to recapture the garrison.

The third example involves a player walking along a familiar road, but this time they happen upon a caravan traveling along the road. They can choose to travel with the caravan, and defend it from roving bandits, or not.

These events may overlap. For example, you are asked to escort the caravan to the garrison. But when you arrive at the garrison you find out it is being under attacked by the centaurs. The two events may have nothing to do with each other, but in order to receive the rewards for escorting the caravan, you would have to fend off the centaurs from the garrison, resulting in you doing two events at once.

Underwater exploration
In late 2009, it was officially announced that it will be possible to explore, fight, and breathe underwater in Tyria. Developers say that creating the underwater "continents" is one of the things that is delaying the game. The teaser trailer shows footage of an underwater area and creatures swimming in the waters. Developers have stated that the ability to breathe underwater will be granted via the use of an easily obtainable consumable item.

Setting
Main article: The Movement of the World
The Guild Wars 2 story is set about 250 years after the events in the Eye of the North expansion. The world of Tyria is drastically changed from its original form. These changes are caused by elder dragons resurfacing after millennia of slumber. The first of the dragons, called Primordus, awoke during Eye of the North and proceeded to take over the underground network of Asuran tunnels under Tyria, driving the Asuras to the surface. Other dragons also resurfaced during the intervening centuries; Zhaitan rose above the sunken holy city of Arah in the ruined kingdom of Orr, and severed the sea route between Kryta and Cantha; another arose to the south of the Crystal Desert, cutting off the link to Elona; a third dragon, Jormag, arose in the Far Shiverpeaks and pushed the Norn south into land previously controlled by the Dwarves.

The human faction is much reduced. The resurfacing dragons caused massive floods that destroyed many coastal cities in Kryta, including its capital city, Lion's Arch and the PvP Battle Isles. The humans have established a new capital in Divinity's Reach after moving north from the coast. They're governed by a constitutional monarch and senate which attempts to balance all the human factions there. Many refugees flocked to Kryta from the rest of Tyria; most importantly, the humans from Ascalon. Ascalon now belongs entirely to the Charr apart from a single fortress, Ebonhawke. Ascalon City itself is a ghost town, populated by the vengeful spirits of its former citizens who slay all who dare enter.

Besides the humans, the other sentient races have a comparatively better time. The Norn and the Charr continue to honor their peace formed from a mutual respect. The Asura have spread through all cities, maintaining a network of teleportation gates but also remaining strictly neutral. The Charr achieve victory over Ascalon and settle into the former human capital of Rin. A new race, the Sylvari, appear fully formed from the mysterious tree that the centaur Ventari tended to until his death.

The Dwarves, who pursued the Destroyers deep and long at the end of Eye of the North, are now deathless creatures of stone; the few who remain watch the ages go by, interacting little with the other sentient races, if at all.

Lion's Arch has been rebuilt from the floods and is the new portal into the Mists; it takes the place of the Battle Isles.

In Cantha, the successor of emperor Kisu defeated the Kurzick and Luxon factions and reunited Cantha under one banner. Cantha then became much more isolationist; all non-human races were pushed out and the borders fortified. With the elder dragon's undead corsair fleet disrupting travel, there has been no contact with mainland Canthans for a generation.

In Elona, Palawa Joko successfully rebuilds his undead army and lays siege to Elona. Vabbi is all but destroyed, its former splendor ruined by a famine caused by Joko diverting the river Elon. The Sunspears are broken by Joko's armies. The land bridge between Elona and the Crystal Desert is blocked by Joko's minions and the dragon, and the only news that slips through is carried by the Order of Whispers, who are now spread over all of Tyria.

Developers have stated that much of the story between Guild Wars 1 and 2 will be explained in the first novel of a three book deal with Pocket Books (see notes).

Guild Wars 2 PvE will still tell a story but will depart from a single monolithic storyline. It will instead use smaller story arcs (like those in Eye of the North) allowing the player more of a sandbox environment to play in.

Player versus Player
There will be two types of PvP available in Guild Wars 2; World PvP and Structured PvP.




World PvP
World PvP will allow you to play characters of any level, using the skills that you have in your possession at that particular time. This level discrepancy will be relaxed by a side-kicking system[2] intended to provide a bridging point between PvE and structured PvP. It will be on a larger scale than the original Guild Wars PvP with large battles which take place over a long period with people coming and going.

The battle has been likened to an RTS and will have a number of different objectives which can be met such as taking guard towers or defending choke points or joining a larger battle to take a castle. Battles will take place in the Mists.

Victory in World PvP will confer benefits to your world. This may include improved drop rates, better energy regeneration or other bonuses.

Structured PvP
Structured PvP is similar to today's GvG. It will allow you to enter the game at maximum level with all skills, races, items and classes automatically unlocked.


More information will be added


Thanks
Lord Dann