Guild Wars (Completely)

What we know and can fuse the info together with gw and gw 2




Guild Wars is an episodic series of massively multiplayer online role-playing games developed by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft. Although often defined as an MMORPG, the developers define it as a CORPG due to notable differences from the MMORPG genre.[1] It provides two main modes of gameplay—a cooperative role-playing component and a competitive player vs. player (PvP) component—both of which are hosted on ArenaNet's servers. Three stand-alone episodes and one expansion pack were released in the series from April 2005 to August 2007.

The games depict the history of the fictional fantasy world of Tyria; each campaign focuses on events in disjoint sections of the world at roughly the same time. A player creates an avatar to play through the cooperative storyline of a campaign, taking on the role of a hero who must save Tyria from episode-specific antagonists. Players can group with other players and non-player characters, known as henchmen and heroes, to perform missions and quests found throughout the game-world. PvP combat is consensual, team based, and limited to areas designed for such combat. Players are allowed to create characters at maximum level and the best equipment specifically for PvP play, which is unusual for MMORPGs.[2] ArenaNet hosts official Guild Wars tournaments where the most successful players and guilds may compete for the chance to play live at gaming conventions and win prizes up to US$100,000.

Guild Wars differs from other MMORPGs in its lack of subscription fees (purchasing an episode allows a user to play it online without limit, though he or she may encounter some areas or items which cannot be obtained without purchasing other episodes) and relatively low level caps. After reaching the level cap, players differentiate their characters by which skills they equip to bring into battle; new skills can be learned by exploring and completing quests, but only eight of a player's learned skills can be equipped at any one time.

The games in the Guild Wars series were critically well received and won many editor's choice awards, as well as awards such as Best Value, Best Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), and Best Game. Guild Wars was noted for being one of the few commercially developed games in the MMORPG genre to offer online play without subscription fees,[10] its instanced approach to MMORPG play, and the quality of the graphics and play for computers with low specifications.[12] In April 2009, NCSoft announced that 6 million units of games in the Guild Wars series had been sold.[13] The sequel, Guild Wars 2, was announced in March 2007. It will have updated graphics and gameplay mechanics, and will continue the original Guild Wars tradition of no subscription fees.[14] No release date has been announced.

Gameplay
Players use a 3D avatar to interact with the world around them. The game predominantly features a third person perspective but also has the option of first person as well. These characters are able to walk/run and interact with other characters through chat. They can also perform actions such as fight and pick up, and interact with special objects.

[edit] Character creation
Players can choose from a range of up to ten different professions. When creating a character, players can change their hair style, face, skin tone, height and avatar name—the selection depending upon that profession chosen. As the player progresses through the game, they can unlock different armor and weapons to alter the visual appearance of that avatar. They can also decide whether they want their avatar to start in a Player vs. Environment world (the RPG aspect of the game), or get right into the competitive Player vs. Player and fight live against other players in the game.

The maximum level for character development is capped at 20 - by this point, the character will also have reached 170 attribute points. Players may also choose to do certain quests to gain another 30 attribute points, making the maximum points available 200. Experience can still be gained, and is used to learn more skills or buy consumable items throughout the game.

[edit] Professions
A profession is a type of class commonly found in most RPGs and is central to the gameplay in Guild Wars. Each profession has an array of attributes and skills that help narrow a class's proficiency in order to perform a customized role that is determined by the player. The warrior profession, for example, has access to the primary Strength attribute that increases their effectiveness and armor penetration with martial weapons, and is able to wear heavy armor providing the highest protection of all professions. Elementalists, on the other hand, wear less protective armor, but can use their primary Energy Storage attribute to give them a much greater pool of energy than other professions.

Guild Wars also introduces the ability to choose a secondary profession, expanding the selection of attributes and skills. A character does not, however, have access to the primary attribute of its secondary profession. A Warrior/Elementalist, therefore, is a warrior who may use spells in combat, similar to the Spellsword archetype from Role-playing games.

There are over a thousand skills in the game that can be acquired by the character over time, but players may only use and equip up to 8 of them at any one time. This introduces levels of strategy, in which one must have a careful selection of skills that work well with one another and with teammates in order to survive.

The core professions are Warrior, Monk, Elementalist, Ranger, Necromancer and Mesmer. The Assassin and Ritualist professions are exclusive to Guild Wars: Factions, which can be played along with the aforementioned core professions. The Paragon and Dervish professions are exclusive to Guild Wars: Nightfall, and can also be played with the core professions. Unlike the other campaigns, Guild Wars: Eye of the North (the only expansion pack of the Guild Wars franchise) does not offer any new playable professions.

[edit] Environment
The Guild Wars universe consists of persistent staging zones known as towns and outposts. These areas normally contain Non-player characters that provide services such as merchandising or storage. Other NPC's provide quests and present rewards to its adventurers. These areas are also used when forming groups of people to go out into the world and play cooperatively. Players that venture out from the staging area and into an explorable area are then able to use their weapons and skills to defeat monsters and interact with other objects in the game. As players progress through the game, they gain access to additional staging zones. Players can then transport their characters instantly from one staging area to another using a process commonly referred to in-game as 'map traveling'.

[edit] Combat
Apart from fighting with weapons, skills make up the majority of combat interaction. Each skill has a different effect when used, and fall under many different categories. They can range from offensive skills such as setting foes on fire and defensive skills which include resurrection and healing allies. Enchantments which include giving players extra health points as well as Hexes that drain the enemy's life unto your own also make up part of the skill selection in Guild Wars. Feats, also known as attack skills, are used in conjunction with weapons to augment the damage that they can deal and cause different side effects (such as knocking people to the ground with a hammer, causing bleeding wounds that deal additional damage over time with a sword, or striking multiple foes with an axe).

Most skills have a governing attribute that determines its power and effect. These attributes are assigned using a number of attribute points similar to D&D's point buy ability score generation system

Guild Wars has been likened to collectible card games such as Magic: the Gathering because of the way the different skills interact.[15] While in a town or staging areas, a character's skill and attribute selection can be freely modified to construct a "build". Once in a combat zone such as an explorable area or a PvP arena, the build becomes immutable until the character exits the combat zones and returns to a staging area. Players generally either choose a specific build for a given area or role, or use general builds that synergize with the builds of other characters in the party.

In PvE, monsters that are slain will generate gold and loot which can be traded or sold to players or NPCs for other things. Unique and rare weapon designs are often found from defeating powerful monsters, or with a bit of luck when opening treasure chests.

In PvP, reputation is gained based on how well a player performs. Generally, fame is gained by the number of wins that you and your team gain by defeating opponents. Most PvP in Guild Wars is fast paced, while the transition period between games may take longer.

[edit] Co-operative gameplay
The co-operative parts of Guild Wars use several standard tropes of the MMORPG genre. Players explore the game-world, kill monsters, perform quests, and complete missions to earn rewards and advance the story. Rewards include experience points, skill points, skills, gold, faction, and items for the player character. Some of these rewards not only advance the particular character being played at the time, but also unlock features of the game account-wide.

In each campaign the player is involved in a linear story with which they interact by performing a series of primary quests and replayable missions. Quests are given to a player by NPCs via text dialog. As quests are completed new areas, new quests, and new missions are unlocked for the player's character to access. Missions allow the player character to participate in the major events of the storyline, such as significant battles against the main antagonist. Both quests and missions can feature in-game cut scenes which advance the story and provide context to the actions which follow. Cut scenes are in the third-person, often featuring the party leader's character and revealing elements of the game that the character would not normally be aware of, such as the actions of an antagonist. Players are given the option of skipping the cut scenes if all party members agree upon it.

[edit] Competitive gameplay
Player versus Player (PvP) combat in Guild Wars is consensual and team-based. Such combat is restricted to special PvP areas, the majority of which are located on the core area known as The Battle Isles. Individual campaigns also have certain campaign-specific PvP arenas. Players may participate in PvP combat with either their role-playing characters or with characters created specifically for PvP. Characters are rewarded with experience points for victories in competitive battle and the player account also acquires faction points redeemable for in-game rewards.[16] In addition to this victory may also award points which contribute towards completion of character or account based titles.

The following are the competitive modes in Guild Wars:

Random Arena
Four-on-four matches with teams randomly composed from those waiting to enter combat. There are many different arenas with different victory conditions: deathmatch and kill-count.
Codex Arena
Four-on-four matches with player-managed teams. These matches are played in the same areas as the Random Arena with a few exceptions. Each class has a pool of limited amounts of skills to choose from and this pool changes every 6 hours.
Heroes' Ascent
A continuous tournament where players form teams of eight to battle in a sequence of arenas, culminating in the Hall of Heroes whose results are broadcast to all online players in addition to rewarding the victors with high-end loot. Arenas in the Heroes' Ascent tournament include deathmatch, altar-control, and capture-the-relic victory conditions. Victories in the Heroes' Ascent award players with fame points that can be used to determine the rank of the player.
Guild Battles
Two guilds meet in guild halls and stage a tactical battle with the aim of killing the opposing Guild Lord, a well-protected NPC. Victory in guild battles affects the rank of the guild in the global Guild versus Guild (GvG) ladder. GvG is considered the most supported of competitive formats in Guild Wars. In 2005, ArenaNet hosted a Guild Wars World Championship, and in 2006, the Guild Wars Factions Championship was hosted as well. Since then, the Automated Tournament system has become the norm, but smaller 3rd-party tournaments have been hosted, including the Rawr Cup and the Guild Wars Guru cup. The GWWC, GWFC, RawrCup, and GWG Tournament all had real life prizes; the former tournaments had cash prizes, the RawrCup and Guru Tournament had laptops and MP3 players to give away.
Alliance Battles
Guild Wars Factions introduced an arena where twelve players aligned with one of the opposing Kurzick and Luxon factions team up to fight an opposing team to gain new territory for their faction. The twelve player team is composed of three teams with four human players each. The three teams are selected randomly from the teams waiting on each side when the match begins. Alliance Battles grant alliance faction and affect the border between the two factions in the Factions-specific continent of Cantha. The location of the border affects the map in which the battles take place by adding a bias to favor the faction losing the war. With the "alliance faction" players can then progess in spending their faction in many ways. 1. Buying PvE Skills. 2. Increasing your Guilds faction reputation. 3. Buying Materials for Luxon and Kurzick Armor. etc.
Competitive Missions
Factions also introduced a pair of competitive arenas, named Fort Aspenwood and The Jade Quarry, where randomly assembled teams of players from the opposing nations enact particular events in the Kurzick/Luxon war. Victories in these missions have no global effect, but do grant the players with alliance faction.
Team Arenas
The Team Arenas were PvP arenas where two groups of four organized players battle each other. Groups were formed in the eponymous outpost and Random Arenas teams with 10 consecutive wins automatically enter the Team Arenas. Both Balthazar's Faction and Gladiator points could be obtained from Team Arenas. In Team Arenas, there were two victory conditions: Deathmatch and Kill count.This type of PvP was removed in the October 22nd, 2009 update.
Hero Battles
Hero Battles was the name given to the mode of PvP known as Hero versus Hero (HvH). In this contest, players would enter the battle with 3 Heroes, and fight another player and his/her team of 3 heroes. A player must have had a named account to participate in Hero Battles. This type of PvP was removed in the October 22nd, 2009 update.
Guild Wars has a continuously running automated tournament system.[17] Players or guilds elect to participate in the tournament by buying in-game tokens using their PvP faction points. The participants are divided randomly into groups of 32 that participate daily in up to six Swiss rounds held on a fixed schedule, and the top eight guilds continue on to a single-elimination tournament. Participants who are unable to field a full team automatically forfeit their round. Success in daily automated tournaments qualifies that particular guild for play in the monthly automated tournament, and the final victors of this tournament earn a number of real and in-game rewards. Players who do not participate in the automated tournament were allowed to place bets on the results of these tournaments for a number of in-game rewards prior to February 2010.

Many competitive matches may be observed by players by means of an observer mode.[16] Important PvP matches such as matches in the Hall of Heroes or between highly rated guilds may be observed (after a delay of fifteen minutes) by others in order to see the tactics used by successful teams and attempt to learn or counter them. Guilds may additionally observe their own Guild Battles for a fixed period of time.[18]

[edit] Guilds
As the name suggests, guilds are a core element of Guild Wars, manifesting not only as social units but also being closely linked with the game mechanics. Although a player is not required to join a guild, it adds value to the gaming time and increases camaraderie. Often, joining a guild is a good way to get help from more experienced players as the in-game guild interface allows communication between guild members.

A guild leader creates the guild by registering a guild name and a tag (between two and four characters long) with a Guild Registrar, found in some major towns. The guild tag is displayed in brackets after the names of guild members. The leader also designs the guild's cape (from a large palette of shapes, patterns and emblems), and purchases a guild hall that serves as the guild headquarters and may be furnished with merchants, traders, and storage NPCs. Each guild hall is an individual instanced outpost located at the same spot on the Battle Isles, but they are not physically accessible to non-allied members as the only way to enter a guild hall is by "map travel". The guild leader recruits new players to the guild and can promote a number of them to guild officers, who can then help with the recruitment and further promotion of officers. All player characters on the same Guild Wars account belong to the same guild. Players may leave their guild whenever they please, but only the leader and officers can dismiss non-officer players from the guild; the leader has the additional power to dismiss officers and disband the guild. Guilds have a membership limit of 100 members; player communities with more than that many members generally create allied sister guilds, often named similarly and using the same tag and cape.

Up to ten individual guilds may ally together to form an alliance. Members of an alliance may communicate over a shared chat channel, and visit the guild halls of the other guilds of the alliance.[19] Each alliance has a leader guild that initiates the alliance, the leader of which guild is also the alliance leader, who may admit or dismiss guilds from the alliance. Each alliance must be devoted to either the Kurzicks or the Luxons, the two Canthan factions (from Guild Wars Factions) locked in perpetual conflict. Players can accumulate faction (reputation) with either the Kurzicks or the Luxons, which can either be "donated" to the alliance or redeemed for certain in-game rewards. The alliances with the highest total amount of donated faction are given control of certain in-game outposts on the Canthan continent; controlling an outpost gives the alliance members access to restricted areas of the outposts, containing, among other things, merchants who sell at a discount. The best alliance-controllable outposts are the Kurzick and Luxon capital cities, each of which contains a restricted entrance to an "elite" co-operative mission.

In addition to membership in guilds, a player may be a guest of any number of other guilds. Guest privileges are limited to visiting the guild hall and participating in guild or alliance battles. An accepted invitation expires after 24 hours.[20]

[edit] Campaigns
Full games in the original Guild Wars sequence were released in episodes known as campaigns. Players must purchase an individual campaign in order to access the game elements specific to that campaign; however, all campaigns are linked in one game world. Each campaign is independent of the others, with its own co-operative storyline, campaign-specific skills, and competitive arenas. Players owning different campaigns may still interact in shared areas, including trading for items specific to the campaigns they have not purchased. Players who own two or more campaigns may transport their characters freely from one campaign to the other.

The first campaign, Guild Wars Prophecies (originally named Guild Wars), was released on April 28, 2005. The Prophecies storyline is situated on the continent of Tyria and revolves around the Flameseeker Prophecy, a prophecy made by an ancient dragon named Glint.

Prophecies was followed by Guild Wars Factions on April 28, 2006, released exactly a year after Prophecies. Factions is situated on the small southern continent of Cantha that is separated from Tyria by a vast ocean. The events of the Factions campaign concern the return from death of a corrupted bodyguard named Shiro Tagachi. Factions features a global persistent war between the rival vassal nations of Cantha; the Luxons and the Kurzicks, and the notion of guild alliances (see guilds above). The continent of Cantha is heavily based upon and influenced by eastern Asia.[21]

The third campaign, Guild Wars Nightfall, was released on October 27, 2006. Nightfall features the arid continent of Elona, joined to southern Tyria across a vast desert. Nightfall introduced heroes, advanced computer-controlled units that can be micro-managed by players, including the ability to customize their skill layout and equipment. The continent of Elona is heavily based on and influenced by North Africa.[22]

Scrapping their initial plans for a fourth campaign, ArenaNet has released an expansion pack, Guild Wars: Eye of the North, to the previous three campaigns on August 31, 2007.[23][24] Not being a full campaign, this expansion requires one of the other released campaigns, and is only accessible by player characters at level 10 and above. Eye of the North therefore does not feature new professions, but contains new content for existing characters: dungeons, a number of new skills, armor, and heroes. Eye of the North is set in previously inaccessible territory from the first Guild Wars campaign, Prophecies. It is intended to be a bridge to the sequel to the Guild Wars series, Guild Wars 2. As a promotion for their online store and Eye of the North, ArenaNet released a "bonus mission pack" to online purchasers;[25] containing playable recreations of four incidents in the history of Tyria, Cantha and Elona which each expand the backstory for one of four major NPC characters.[26]




[edit] Accounts
A new player must create a game account using a unique e-mail address and an access key received from the purchase of the game or through the online store. Once created, additional keys may be added to the account; these keys can belong to additional campaigns that are linked to the account, or certain purchasable features (such as additional character slots) bought from the online store. Once a key is added to an account it cannot be removed and accounts cannot be merged. Once a purchase is made through the integrated store, the account name used is therein linked to a new ArenaNet account, and henceforth cannot be changed via the in-game "Change Account Name" option.

An account is initially set to a specific region depending on the version of the game purchased; Europe, America, Korea, Taiwan or Japan. Players from Europe, America and Korea may freely move between the three regions. Regardless of the account's home region, players in all regions can meet and form parties in international districts (instances of in-game outposts). These districts are also in the language of the original region.

A new account has four character slots; each additional full campaign added to the account adds two further character slots. Extra character slots may be purchased from the online store.

As all access keys are unique, players who wish to create accounts for free cannot create them with a 'keygen'.

Anatomical Engineer Llye is an Asuran stylist who offers character makeovers. To make over your character, you need Makeover Credits or Extreme Makeover Credit [1], which are purchasable via the In-Game Store or NCsoft Store.

[edit] Development
Guild Wars is the first game created by developer ArenaNet. Senior developers from Blizzard Entertainment, some involved in the early development of World of Warcraft,[27] left to create ArenaNet to develop a game which took risks with game design and business model.[28] Guild Wars development was first announced in April 2003.[29] Guild Wars Prophecies, initially marketed simply as Guild Wars, was released in April 2005.[30] Sorrow's Furnace added further playable content to Prophecies in September 2005.[31] Guild Wars Factions was released exactly a year after Prophecies in April 2006 followed six months later by Guild Wars Nightfall in October 2006. A fourth campaign was in development, but after reviewing feedback from fans and the sort of changes they wanted to make,[32] ArenaNet elected to focus on an expansion pack, Guild Wars: Eye of the North, released in August 2007,[33] and Guild Wars 2.

Guild Wars development began in an environment following the release of EverQuest when a number of new MMORPGs were announced. ArenaNet positioned Guild Wars in a niche in this landscape, offering unlimited gametime without subscription fees. ArenaNet believed that players would not pay subscription fees for every online game they play[34] and that paying a fee would cause players to make a "lifestyle commitment"[28] to a particular game, rather than the usual behaviour of playing many different games and switching between them.[35] Jeff Strain, a founder of ArenaNet, said, "It is our opinion that the free online gaming model combined with frequent content updates is the optimum online paradigm for interfacing with consumers and creating a significant, enduring gaming franchise."[36]

ArenaNet has used open beta testing throughout the development of the Guild Wars series. For the first public appearance of Prophecies in April 2004, that occurred in conjunction with E3 2004, people were encouraged to download the client and play an online demo of the game to test its networking capabilities.[37] This was followed by a preview event and several beta test weekend events.[38] Both Factions and Nightfall had similar test weekends prior to their release. Nearly 500,000 players spent an average of 8.5 hours playing the Nightfall PvE content during its second beta test weekend.[39] In addition to the public beta events, ArenaNet used continuously running closed alpha test servers throughout development; some alpha testers were ArenaNet employees but most were volunteers from the player community who signed a non-disclosure agreement with ArenaNet. After the release of Eye of the North, the bulk of the development and test teams were moved to the Guild Wars 2 project, though a small maintenance and QA team remains on the original Guild Wars project. The group of volunteer alpha testers was disbanded in January 2008, and no plans have yet been announced about repeating such an alpha test program for Guild Wars 2.

Aspects of every campaign have been influenced or modified based on feedback from the player community.[40] Such changes began soon after the release of the original Prophecies, when, for instance, skill acquisition in the co-operative campaign was simplified, and PvP unlocks were made purchasable with the new mechanic of faction rewards for competitive victories.[41] Although further playable content—such as quests and missions—are no longer expected for the original Guild Wars series, ArenaNet continues to make such changes to the gameplay elements and monitors game balance issues.

ArenaNet also continues to develop in-game events that generally coincide with real events such as Christmas, Halloween, and the Chinese new year (for the Asian-influenced in-game continent of Cantha). These events feature mini-games, quests, event-specific PvP game types such as the Dragon Arena and snow-ball fights or beetle racing, special decorations for in-game outposts, and various in-game rewards such as masks and collectible gifts. Regular events also occur every weekend; each such event temporarily increases certain in-game rewards such as the drop rate of loot, reputation points for various in-game activities, or faction points.

[edit] Game engine
The game engine for Guild Wars was developed by ArenaNet. Engine components developed for Guild Wars are available to be licensed to other NCsoft companies and have been used in other NCsoft games. However, ArenaNet have said they will not license the game engine technology to non-NCsoft companies.[27]

[edit] Content delivery and network architecture
To support their fee-free approach to online gaming the server architecture developed for the game was core to minimizing the bandwidth costs associated with maintaining game servers.[42] Infrastructure design was influenced by the developers' experiences with Battle.net development.[36]

The game client is available for download as a very small file. Each time there is an update to the game the existing client automatically downloads a new version of the client which examines a manifest of files to determine which files have been modified and therefore need to be downloaded to the client machine. This manifest is prioritized, the most important files are downloaded prior to the player being able to start the game, the rest are downloaded in the background while the player is playing. ArenaNet uses this rapid update technology to make changes on demand and close exploits in the system.[36]

ArenaNet also utilizes their update technology to preload content from new Guild Wars campaigns onto existing players' accounts prior to the release of that campaign. The content is only activated after the right key is added to the player's account and the game servers allow the campaign changes to go live.

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.


Thanks

Lord Dann