Uzupełnienie informacji

Dynamic Events

Enter the living world of Guild Wars 2 - filled with thousands of dynamic events that ebb and flow through the course of your adventures. One day there may be a thriving village filled with vendors and townspeople, the next day that village may be a smoking ruin overrun by centaurs.

Dynamic events evolve and cascade across the world in response to how you, the player, interact with them, leaving persistent effects in the game world. Will you save that village or let it burn? The choice rests with you and your fellow players.

The Dynamic Event system in Guild Wars 2 is built to be scalable and encourage impromptu group playwhere players are naturally cooperating together and not worried about encroaching on each other. The more the merrier!

Personal Stories

Guild Wars 2 is the story of YOU, and the heroic adventures you experience in the massive, dynamic world of Tyria. With the customizable, personal storylines in Guild Wars 2, you can explore a fully interactive MMO world with your friends and follow your character's own unique narrative.

Your story begins when you create a character. The choices you make at the beginning of the game - race, profession, and biographical details - set your character on a customized story track. But it doesn't end there - as you adventure, the decisions you make spin off into new storylines and new directions. Your character's story reflects your interest and your choices - no two players will have the same experience.

Guild Wars 2 offers storytelling that is both epic in scope and personally meaningful. What is your story?

Hall Of Monuments

In the Hall of Monuments, a revered chamber in the Far Shiverpeaks, trophies and tapestries celebrate the victories and achievements of heroes. 250 years in the future, the glory of your previous deeds still shines through the ages. With our new web application, the Hall of Monuments Reward Calculator, you can see what rewards your Guild Wars 2 characters will inherit from your Guild Wars account!

Guild Wars 2 rewards are based on the achievements and honors accumulated by all the characters on yourGuild Wars account. These are collected in the Hall of Monuments, which is available in Guild Wars: Eye of the North. As many Guild Wars players know, the Hall of Monuments is an instanced location, a massive trophy vault that is personalized to your characters. The Hall commemorates your achievements in Eye of the North, the original Guild Wars, Guild Wars Factions, and Guild Wars Nightfall. The monuments in the Hall are worth points that you can use to provide your Guild Wars 2 characters with exclusive titles, companions, and items.

Now you can use the Hall of Monuments Reward Calculator to understand how the benefits are calculated, determine what rewards you've unlocked, and discover what other items will be available when Guild Wars 2launches. You just have to enter a valid character name from your Guild Wars account to get started!

The rewards that your Guild Wars 2 characters earn are exclusive to the Hall of Monuments and can't be picked up or earned anywhere else. Depending on your Guild Warscharacters' history, you can unlock:

• Special Hall of Monuments titles
• Animal companions for your ranger, like the Black Widow Spider and Rainbow Jellyfish
• Miniatures such as the Red Servitor Golem or Orange Tabby Cat, that any profession can use
• A wide selection of weapons, like the Living Shortbow and the Fellblade
• Armor pieces for your light, medium, and heavy armor sets

Your new Guild Wars 2 characters will be able to use these low-level items and armor right away, and we'll provide you with the means to use these special items as you advance to higher levels.

Let's say your main character is a ranger named Mira Verde, who has adventured with her trusty moa companion all across Tyria in the original Guild Wars and Guild Wars: Eye of the North. Mira Verde has earned points in the five different monument categories: Devotion, Fellowship, Honor, Resilience, and Valor. Now let's say you also played an assassin in Guild Wars Factions named Mister Stabby, who has earned some additional statues in the Honor monument that Mira Verde hasn't earned.

When you enter either Mira Verde's or Mister Stabby's names into the Hall of Monuments Reward Calculator, you'll see a cumulative total of the reward points on your account, regardless of which character earned them. If Mira Verde has earned you 12 points, and Mister Stabby has earned you 3, then you have 15 points total, which will earn you all the rewards from 1 to 15 on the reward track in Guild Wars 2. The Reward Calculator also gives you a detailed breakdown for each monument, showing you how many points your characters have yet to earn, so you can take on certain challenges, and add to your cumulative reward points!

What good is a vault full of trophies and monuments if you can't show it off? Now, you can display your Hall of Monuments rewards on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter and bask in the admiration of your friends!

Guild Wars 2 may take place hundreds of years in the future, but the valorous deeds of your Guild Warscharacters live on in the Hall of Monuments. Forge your destiny!

Dungeons

There are places in Tyria where only the most experienced, well-equipped groups dare enter. We call them dungeons, but in reality these massive, instanced adventure areas are set in a wide range of settings above and below ground. From the searing heat of Sorrow's Embrace to the grandiose halls of Caudecus's Manor to the haunted depths of the Ascalonian Catacombs, dungeons in Guild Wars 2 come in many different forms.

Dungeons are designed for teams of high-level players who must work together in order to overcome their perils. Each dungeon instance is divided into a story mode and an explorable mode. In story mode, you'll delve into a gripping plot that reveals more secrets of Tyria. Once you've experienced the dungeon in story mode, you can unlock the challenging explorable mode content. The sandbox-style play of the explorable mode has several strategic options, each of which creates a different set of obstacles and goals in the game.

The risks are immense but the rewards are great for those who brave the dungeons in Guild Wars 2 - each dungeon holds its own unique armors and weapons.

Player vs. Player

Player vs. Player games in Guild Wars 2 are easy to learn and quick to join but offer a variety of challengesfor new players, casual gamers, and tournament PvPers alike.

In PvP matches, teams of players compete to eliminate each other and capture strategic objectives to score points. Enormous diversity can be injected into PvP games by changing the strategic objectives—players may have to survive a strafing dragon in one match or destroy an enemy siege weapon supply depot in another. Of course, there are always opposing players to contend with...

In "hot joinable" PvP, new and casual players can easily hop into an ongoing match and start playing right away without worrying about setting up teams beforehand. Competitive players looking for more organized play can try tournament mode, which pits teams of five players against each other in pick-up tournaments as well as monthly and player-run tournaments.

Everyone plays at the same level in Guild Wars 2 PvP, where skill and strategy provide players with the winning edge. All players are set to max level and given all the skills and gear they need to meet their opponents on even terms.

NCsoft & ArenaNet

Combat 4.

Hi, I'm Jon Peters, one of the game designers on Guild Wars 2. While Colin Johanson has been busy working on a secret project involving V8 Juice and moa birds, we've been deciding how death and resurrection will work in Guild Wars 2 and what this means for the basic damage/tank/heal paradigm so familiar to MMO players.


Defeat in Guild Wars 2 is intended to be an experience, not a punishment. Let's face it: dying never feels great, even without a death penalty. As weird as it might sound, we decided to look into what would make dying a more enjoyable and memorable play experience.


Rather than being presented with immediate failure, when a player loses all of their health in Guild Wars 2, they are put into "downed mode." In this mode, the player has a number of downed skills they can use to target enemies and fight for a chance to survive. A downed player can still be attacked, which will send them into a defeated state, leaving them to either wait for an ally to resurrect them or to resurrect at a waypoint.

Downed skills are less-powerful skills that a player can use in a last-ditch effort to turn the tide. A warrior might daze an enemy by throwing a rock. An elementalist might lock down their foe with Grasping Earth. While you are downed, if you manage to kill an enemy, you will rally, returning to life to fight again. When you rally, you are thrust right back in the action. This potential to rally from the edge of defeat adds greater drama to combat and gives a player some tactical control while in a state where they normally have none.

Some professions will have special skills that will instantly rally a fallen ally. For example, when a warrior uses "I Will Avenge You," and then kills an enemy nearby his fallen allies, his allies will rally. While you are downed or defeated, any other player can come to you and interact with you to bring you back to life. We call this "reviving," and everyone, regardless of profession, can do this starting at Level 1.

If you choose not to be revived or rally, you can release to a waypoint. This brings up the world map and allows you to return through any discovered waypoint.

The cherry on top of all of this: Guild Wars 2 will have a much milder death penalty.

Players who have recently been downed several times will take longer to revive each time. If no one revives you, you can spend a small amount of gold to come back at a waypoint. It's as simple as that, and why not? Why should we debuff you, take away experience, or make you run around for five minutes as a ghost instead of letting you actually play the game? We couldn't think of a reason. Well, we did actually think of a reason--it just wasn't a good one. Death penalties make death in-game a more tense experience. It just isn't fun. We want to get you back into the action (fun) as quickly as possible. Defeat is the penalty; we don't have to penalize you a second time.

Simple systems like this, along with cross-profession combos, and the dedicated healing skill slot, help free players from the MMORPG shackles, and let us break the mold even more. We're making players more self sufficient, but are also providing appealing ways for them to effortlessly work together to create a more inspired moment-to-moment experience. That is why Guild Wars 2 does not have a dedicated healing class.

Everyone take a deep breath. It's going to be OK.

We have lots of people in our studio that enjoyed playing monks in Guild Wars and healers in other games. We examined what it was about the healer archetypes that people really enjoyed, and we took a look at what it was about those archetypes that made the game less enjoyable. Then we created professions to appeal to those types of players.

Support players want to be able to say, "Remember that one time when I saved you from certain death?" They want to stand in the line of fire and block attacks. They want to surround their allies with a swirling dome of air that keeps enemy projectiles from passing through it. It's not about clicking on a health bar and watching it go up, it's about being there for your friends when they need you.

If you have played enough Guild Wars, or any other MMO with healers, you've sat around waiting for the right mix of professions before being able to continue. Or you loaded into Random Arena and both teams had two monks (or they had a monk and you didn't), and you already knew the outcome of that game 99% of the time. But we've all had those 4v4 Random Arena battles where neither team has had a healer. Instead of not being able to kill anyone or being forced to attack the monk first, you can actually think about who to target, when to use your defensive spells, where to position yourself on the battlefield, etc. From the highest level of PvP, to the sieges of World vs World, to PvE in the far reaching corners of Tyria, that level of creativity and tactical freedom is exactly what we want combat in Guild Wars 2 to be about.

We keep hearing other MMO developers espousing the "holy trinity" of DPS/ heal/tank with such reverence, as if this is the most entertaining combat they have ever played. Frankly, we don't like sitting around spamming "looking for healer" to global chat. That feels an awful lot like preparing to have fun instead of having fun.

Instead of the traditional trinity, every Guild Wars 2 profession is self reliant--not only can they all help each other by reviving in combat, but all professions have ways to build their characters differently to make them more versatile for group play.

Ultimately, DPS/heal/tank just didn't cut it in our book...er, game. Our players demand more from Guild Wars 2 and we intend to deliver on that demand instead of delivering more of the same. Not only is the trinity very formulaic, but it leaves out a lot of gameplay elements that make many other games so much fun. Instead, we break these trinity categories down into a cooler, more versatile system:

DPS: Call it whatever you like--DPS, damage per second--we just call it DAMAGE, and when it comes to making red bars go down, you can never have enough of it. Don't trivialize it though; damage is a very versatile aspect of combat. There are so many ways that a character can do damage. Let's take a look at a few.

• Damage over time. This is the perfect way to apply some heavy damage to an enemy with little time investment upfront. Set an enemy on fire and just wait for the burning to do its magic.
• Area of effect. Making one red bar go down is nice, if that's all you can do. We prefer to spread the love among many enemies. That's what AoE spells like Fireball are for.
• Projectiles. Some attacks require you to be close to your enemy, while others let you deal damage from afar. Projectiles are somewhere in-between; you shoot an arrow at a target and if it hits, apply the damage.

Let's stop here for a moment and point out how these damage types aren't mutually exclusive in any way. There are projectiles, AoE projectiles, AoE projectiles that apply damage over time, etc. Try shooting a spread of seven arrows through a wall of fire--it works wonders for roasting up a set of attacking monsters or enemy players.

There are as many varieties of damage as there are weapons in first person shooters, and then some. We wanted to give you a chance to experience that FPS kind of variety, so we have given each profession different weapons and skill sets that let them do damage in different ways.

Heal: Don't belittle the SUPPORT role by calling it heal. Healing is the least dynamic kind of support there is. It is reactive instead of proactive. Healing is for when you are already losing. In Guild Wars 2 we prefer that you support your allies before they take a beating. Sure, there are some healing spells in Guild Wars 2, but they make up a small portion of the support lines that are spread throughout the professions. Other kinds of support include buffs, active defense, and cross-profession combinations.

For instance, an elementalist can support his allies by dropping down a ground-targeted healing rain that rejuvenates allies in an area. He might also use Windborne Speed to help them chase down a target or escape out of longbow range. A warrior might shout "On My Target" to help his allies do more damage to a marked enemy, or use his warhorn to "Call to Arms" which improves the armor of his allies for a short time.

We use our cross-profession combos to fill in the rest of our support. An elementalist can create a Firewall or Static Field to improve the ranged attacks of his allies. A warrior can carry a Banner of Wisdom around the battlefield to increase the power of his allies' magical attacks. An elementalist might cast an ice spell to freeze enemies, but that same spell might give his allies Frost Armor to protect them from incoming attacks. When you boil it down, support is just the friendly way for players to work together to accomplish a shared goal.

Tank: This is where Guild Wars 2 makes the biggest break from the traditional MMO setup. Tanking is the most rudimentary form of the most important combat fundamental, CONTROL. Every game has it, yet it always seems to get a bad name. In Guild Wars there was Knockdown, Interrupt, Weakness, Blind, and Cripple, to name a few. We wanted to build upon what we think makes control such an important part of dynamic combat.

Control is the only thing versatile enough to get away from the rock-paper-scissors gameplay of other MMOs. It's healing when you need it, its damage when you need it. It is the glue that holds together our system. From controlling movement to controlling damage, there are tons of exciting dynamic scenarios that control can set up. You can use a stun to save an ally or to finish off a fleeing enemy. Immobilize that warrior to get away from them, or use it on an elementalist to close in on them. In order to use it well, we had to understand the drawbacks of control too. How often can you do it? How excessive is the duration? How does it affect the difficulty of challenges you face?

There are a lot of different levels of control, from a simple cripple, to an immobilize, to a knockdown. Each one has its place. The more devastating control effects are, the more infrequently they need to occur, and their duration needs to be shorter. Knockdown is one of the strongest forms of control in Guild Wars 2, but you won't see a character that can just keep knocking someone down indefinitely, and you won't see a knockdown that puts an enemy out for so long that they won't be able to react. It's simply a tool that players have at their disposal to use at the right times to turn the tide of a battle.

You could say instead of DPS/heal/tank, we have our own trinity of damage, support, and control, but we prefer to think of them as the variety of elements that create a diverse and dynamic combat system that gives each player a toolbox to work with to solve any encounter we might throw their way. If that sounds like the kind of combat you are interested in, Guild Wars 2 is going to be a great place for you and your friends to fight together for many years to come.

NCsoft & ArenaNet

Combat 3.

Howdy! My name is Ben Miller, Game Designer on Guild Wars 2. While Eric and Colin have been busy writing blog posts and interviews, we've been working on a little system called traits. There has been some speculation and questions about traits on the forums. What are traits? How do you collect them? Does Colin Johanson secretly run a moa ranch in eastern Washington as a front for the Order of Whispers? I'm going to answer two of those three questions right now and leave the third open for future elaboration.


At a basic level, traits make you better at what you choose to do. You slot traits in order to modify skills and attributes. Once you have mastered a handful of traits they become a key component in creating your overall build.

So how do you get all those traits to make a build? Good question.

You acquire traits by completing profession challenges scattered throughout the world. For instance, you walk into an inn and persuade a shadowy stranger into telling you a rumor about a mysterious tome full of arcane knowledge. Or you challenge a legendary swordmaster to a duel while exploring Divinity's Reach.

Each profession focuses on different activities to develop his or her traits. Warriors train physically, bash stuff, eat stuff, and drink stuff. Elementalists, on the other hand, seek ancient knowledge locked in tomes or particularly powerful elemental locations. The different trait challenges accentuate the unique feel of that profession and really bring the experience of playing that profession to life.

Your prowess will grow as you complete challenges that develop your character's particular traits. The defeated swordmasters will teach you their age old techniques, allowing you to select the Swordmastery trait. Discovering the mysterious tome will allow you unlock the secrets of magical energy.

Builds are one of the things that make Guild Wars unique, and it is something we are carrying over into Guild Wars 2. For those not familiar with "builds," they are a combination of traits, skills, and attributes that mechanically work well together. With roughly 100 traits for each profession, there are way more traits in the game than you could possibly equip on a single character, so you have to make decisions and choose certain traits over others.

Each profession has its own set of trait lines. These are similar in theme to the profession specific attribute lines in the original Guild Wars. Each trait line has a number of major and minor slots. Warriors, right now, have two general lines called Power and Tactics as well as lines for each of the weapons they can wield. As you master traits, you slot them into these lines, affecting your character.

Previously we talked about the Guild Wars 2 skill system and how you can make choices about your heal skill, elite skill, and utility skills. Now it's time to introduce traits into the mix. Here's a specific example of a high level warrior creating a build.

To give this some context, let's pretend an event has started. A giant boar is marauding through the forest and your party decides to take it on. This build is meant to maximize the damage you and your teammates can deliver against a single target.

Step 1: Pick a weapon. The weapon you're currently wielding is the major determining factor for how your character will play. Let's pick a sword, a versatile weapon which comes standard with a chain of three skills (Sever Artery, Gash, and Final Thrust), a rapid-fire repeating attack that hits a small area (Flurry), and a chase skill to close the distance between you and the enemy (Savage Leap). For my offhand weapon I could take warhorn for damage buffs, but I'll cover that with my utility skills. Instead, I'll dual wield swords to maximize my own damage. In practice, you'd also decide on your alternate weapon for switching in combat - perhaps a longbow for range.

Step 2: Pick a heal skill. Let's go with a basic heal like Healing Surge, which gives you both health and adrenaline when used. Adrenaline gives you damage bonuses and allows you to use your burst skill more often, so it's perfect for our build.

Step 3: Pick your utility skills and elite skill. You choose On My Mark (which lowers an enemy's armor and calls a target out), For Great Justice (which gives allies Fury Boon and Might Boon), and Frenzy (which increases my overall adrenaline gain). For my elite skill, I'm taking the always epic Battle Standard (which puts an array of powerful buffs on your allies).

Step 4: Assign your traits. Here you can start focusing your play style and being clever with what you slot in each trait line.

Power: Let's choose to stack traits that increase your strength attribute so your individual melee attacks do more damage.

Tactics: While kiting the giant boar, switching weapons faster sure would be awesome, so you slot the Weapon Master trait that lowers the cool down on switching weapons. You also slot traits that increase the number of targets your shouts affect, and increase the duration of your banners.

Sword: You choose to slot Swordmastery to further increase the damage you do, as well as the trait that increases the chance you will score a critical strike with Final Thrust.

Longbow: Out of what is available let's keep things simple, more damage.

We want experimentation with traits to be fun and engaging, so we've made the rules for changing traits extremely flexible. With no in-game cost, you can respec at will, outside of combat. This means you are open to experiment with what works and what doesn't work on the fly, without having to go back to town or worry about if you have enough gold.

Whether it's adventuring around Tyria trying to stop dragons or fighting other players in World PvP - the trait system is there to experiment with, to have fun with, and to allow you to feel like you are actively mastering the profession you have chosen. Like Guild Wars, there are countless unique and clever combinations to be found.

To all you would-be heroes out there: go forth and adventure, and use the power of traits not for good or evil, but for awesome.

Stay tuned - in the coming weeks we'll be covering things like achievements, armor and equipment... and maybe even get Colin to talk about his secret moa ranch.

NCsoft & ArenaNet

Combat 2.

One of the things that became apparent early in the development of Guild Wars 2 was that we needed a diverse set of weapons to support our skill system. The full list of standard wieldable weapons in Guild Wars 2 is as follows:

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

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

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

No single profession is able to use all of these weapons, and some of them can wield a lot more than others. Many professions can also wield a one-handed weapon in their offhand. A weapon in the offhand will have different skills than that same weapon wielded in the main hand. A warrior, for example, can learn to dual-wield and choose to equip two swords, which would give him three skills from the sword in his main hand and two skills from the sword in his offhand.

So the weapons you're currently holding in your hands determine your first five skills. This system is the basic building block of Guild Wars 2 combat, but when playing around with it we found that we could extend it into a huge variety of cool situations. For example, when a player interacts with a siege weapon, his first five skills change to skills that are specific to that siege weapon. A player might encounter a boulder in the world and, upon picking it up, find that his skills have changed so that he can now throw that boulder. Discovering a drake nest might yield eggs that can be picked up, and then eaten or thrown. The things a character can do with an environmental weapon vary by profession or race. An elementalist with a boulder can not only throw it, but can launch it into the air, causing it to rocket down from the sky with the impact of a meteor. In addition to objects that are simply found in the world, many of these environmental weapons are created spontaneously through various events and activities. Wooden planks used to smack enemies can be gained by killing oakhearts, or found in the rubble caused by centaurs breaking down a wooden gate. Breaking a barstool over the head of a rowdy bar patron can yield a chair leg that can be used to great effect as a club.

These are just a few of the many environment objects that players will be able to interact with. There are even a few professions whose mechanics are built heavily upon these sorts of interactions, like the elementalist skill Conjure Flame that creates several large flaming rocks that can then be picked up and thrown at the enemy.

Choice of profession will of course have a huge impact on how the game plays. There are eight professions inGuild Wars 2, many of which will be familiar to fans of Guild Wars, as well as a few professions new to theGuild Wars world. Each of these professions is roughly categorized by the type of armor they wear: scholars wear light armor, adventurers wear medium armor, and soldiers wear heavy armor. Currently there are three scholar professions, three adventurer professions and two soldier professions.

When designing our professions it was very important to us to make each of them feel as unique and different as possible. In addition to weapon, armor and skill choice, we've developed a number of cool profession mechanics for each one. We'll be revealing new professions on our website, so it should start becoming apparent just how much we've tried to push the unique play style of each of them.

Many players from Guild Wars are familiar with the concept of secondary professions. We included secondary professions in early versions of Guild Wars 2, but due to the unique mechanics of each profession and the increased role of race in character customization, they are no longer a feature of the game. We feel that this decision will allow us to create a more balanced game with really distinct professions that are fun to play.

It's very important that professions in an MMO have interesting ways to interact with each other. In the past this has mostly been limited to healing and buffing teammates and managing agro in combat. We wanted to expand considerably upon the types of teamwork available to our players. With this in mind, we've implemented a system of cross-profession combinations.

A warrior and an elementalist playing together could combine their abilities in several different ways. The elementalist could drop down Static Field, which is an area-targeted lightning effect. A warrior who fires a rifle bullet through the static field would cause his shot to be charged up with electricity, inflicting additional damage. If that didn't suit their style, then the elementalist might drop a Wall of Fire in front of a group of enemies. The warrior could enter the firewall and use Cyclone Axe, an attack which causes him to spin rapidly, sending the firewall outward and hitting his foes. There are literally hundreds of combinations for players to discover.

A player's choice of race is also an important decision which will affect his combat prowess. We've already discussed how a player can choose racial skills among his second five skills. These skills are designed to provide the player with additional options that capture the flavor of his particular race. A sylvari warrior might choose to bring Grasping Roots, which immobilizes a foe, while an asura warrior might choose to bring Arcane Blast for some additional ranged damage.

A player can also choose to bring elite racial skills. A norn elementalist might take the norn skill Wolf Form and transform into a giant half-norn half-wolf able to tear across the battlefield, savaging enemies. A human might bring the Hounds of Balthazaar, a skill which summons two massive fiery dogs into the battle. Racial skills can combine with profession skills to give players a wealth of choices when deciding how they want to play their characters.

What I've covered here is just the tip of the iceberg! I hope that you all have a clearer view of how combat inGuild Wars 2 works, what some of our goals with the combat system are, and why we've made some of the decisions we've made. I also wanted to note that we have an iterative development process here at ArenaNet. What that means is that we like to implement things early, then play them and see how they are working out. If a feature isn't living up to our expectations, we'll change it, sometimes even cutting it entirely. Anything that I've talked about is subject to change if we find it just isn't working. Look for the next update of this type to be from our Lead Content Designer Colin Johanson, who'll talk to you about our dynamic event system and why it will make playing Guild Wars 2 a very different experience from a more traditional quest-based MMO.

NCsoft & ArenaNet

Combat 1.

Guild Wars 2 combat is visceral, dynamic, and visually impressive.

Maneuver around an opponent to strike for maximum damage or send them flying through the air. Create giant crushing stone hands, turn into a massive tornado, or summon a flock of vicious birds of prey to swarm your enemies.

Turn the tide of battle with improvised tactics. Combine attacks from different professions for extra damage, like shooting arrows through a flaming wall to create a barrage of flaming projectiles, or sending pets through a cloud of poison so they spread the toxin among the enemy.

Search your surroundings for powerful environmental weapons. In the hands of a skilled elementalist, a simple boulder can be turned into a meteor storm. Save the day by taking control of a siege weapon on the battlefield!

The skill system is easy to learn and rewarding to master. In Guild Wars 2, you start with a strong base set of skills, but the game allows for deep player customization. You get your base skills from the weapons you wield and then customize your skill-set with racial skills, healing skills, profession skills, and even a devastating elite skill.

Hi! I'm Eric Flannum, the lead designer for Guild Wars 2. Over the next few months, we'll be telling you about the professions, races, lore, and game systems of Guild Wars 2, as well as talking about our design philosophy and thoughts about the game. First up: combat!

We've got a lot of amazing things planned for combat inGuild Wars 2, and I'll try to cover as many of them as possible before wearing out my welcome. Let's start with the basics.

One of our priorities in developing Guild Wars 2 has been to make the simple act of moving around and interacting with the world an enjoyable experience for our players. We often refer to this as introducing "joy of movement" into the game. This means being able to jump and swim freely, but it also translates directly into combat.

To reinforce the importance of movement in the game, we want your character's position in combat to really matter. You'll see a lot of attacks in Guild Wars 2 that encourage and reward tactical player movement and positioning.

To illustrate what I'm talking about, I was watching two of our game designers--Jon and Isaiah--play the other day. Jon is using his shield to deflect the fire breath of a drake, when Isaiah hits the drake from behind with a skill called Devastating Hammer, launching it into the air. The drake is sent flying over Jon's head, who immediately turns and uses a skill called Savage Leap to impale and finish the drake right as it hits the ground. This was a very cool looking (and effective!) sequence of events that flowed very naturally from how combat in Guild Wars 2 works.

We want combat in Guild Wars 2 to really be visually appealing. We want you to be able to identify the skills being used at a glance and also have a good idea of what that skill is doing. Does a skill have an area of effect? Is it doing damage? What type of damage? Our goal is to design skills that are visually unique and explain them without overly complex skill descriptions. This has resulted in a lot of distinct and impressive skill effects in the game. Even a simple skill like fireball explodes in such a way that you can clearly see the area that they will affect. Beyond your typical fireballs and lightning bolts, you'll see skills that create giant crushing stone hands, turn their users into massive tornadoes, and summon flocks of vicious birds of prey (a particular favorite skill of many people after they see it in action).

Much like in Guild Wars, the skill bar in Guild Wars 2 is limited to a set number of skills. Like a collectible card game, we provide the player with a wide variety of choices and allow them to pick and choose skills to create a build that best suits their particular play style. For example, oneGuild Wars 2 warrior might decide to build his character around gradual damage which causes his opponents to bleed out, while another may choose to knock his opponents down, controlling their movement with slow, large attacks. Both warriors can choose to equip the skills that matter most to them. It is also very important to us that our skill system be simple to use, leaving the screen as clean and unintimidating as possible. All of this combines to give us a skill bar and skill system that's a bit different than what you'd typically find in an MMO.

The first five skills on the skill bar are not slotted directly by the player; instead they are determined by the player's choice of weapon and profession. Because of this, we can ensure that each weapon is balanced with a fun combination of skills. For example, a warrior wielding a mace and shield would get access to strong but slow damage skills like Obliterate, as well as powerful defensive skills such as Block and Shield Bash. A warrior wielding a greatsword would have access to a lot of movement-oriented skills like Rush, and area-of-effect skills like 100 Blades. In each case, the warrior's first five skills are determined by what he's holding in his hands. Weapon skills also take profession into account, so a warrior wielding a sword will have different skills than a different sword-wielding profession.

To provide additional variety to the mix, most professions can have two different weapon sets equipped and can very quickly and easily swap between the sets. For example, a warrior might keep a longbow or rifle for engaging foes at a distance, and then switch to a hammer when that enemy gets close.

We've talked about the first five skills being determined by weapon and profession. What about the second five? These skills are all chosen by the player from a pool of skills determined by both profession and race. To slot a skill, a player simply clicks on a skill slot and it will bring up a list of skills that can be put into that slot. One of these slots is dedicated to healing skills that replenish the health of the character and his allies, while another slot is dedicated to elite skills that trigger visually spectacular and powerful effects. No matter what type of skill is involved, it's important that we give the player a diverse set of tools to choose from so that he can create a build that he'll enjoy playing.

For example, a human elementalist can choose to bring Aura of Restoration, which is a buff that heals him every time he uses a skill, or he can choose to bring Glyph of Healing, which is a more straightforward heal. A warrior might take the Frenzy skill, which will fill his adrenaline gauge instantly; the shout skill Fear Me! which inflicts the weakness condition on surrounding foes; or the Banner of Courage skill, which inspires his allies and increases their melee damage.

Elite skills are designed to be infrequently-used, ultra-powerful skills that have a dramatic impact on the game. An elementalist can call upon the power of the wind to shapeshift into a tornado that knocks enemies around and inflicts heavy damage, while a warrior might choose to harness the power of Destruction, to make all of his blows inflict area-of-effect damage.

NCsoft & ArenaNet

Human

The humans of Tyria are an embattled race. Over the past three hundred years, they have lost much of their territory. Old enemies and new races threaten traditional human lands on all sides. Yet the human race survives, defending their remaining lands and maintaining the human spirit as they have for centuries. Their greatest city, Divinity's Reach, shines as a beacon of hope for the people of Kryta and beyond--even those dwelling deep within charr territory. The human legends are indelibly imprinted on the souls of all the races of Tyria, be they friend or foe.

This is their story.

History

The humans of Tyria originally came to this part of the world from the south. They soon spread throughout the kingdoms of Orr, Kryta, and Ascalon, displacing other peoples, including the centaurs and charr, in the process. Internal squabbles and wars weakened the human nations, so that they were in no shape to defend themselves when the charr invaded Ascalon.

Ascalon fell before the charr magic of the Searing. Rather than surrender to the charr, King Adelbern invoked the Foefire, a powerful curse that transformed his people into ever-vigilant ghosts. Orr vanished beneath the sea, only to rise years later as a kingdom of the undead ruled by the Elder Dragon Zhaitan. Lion's Arch was inundated and then reborn as a city of many races. Kryta plunged into civil war, and only survived due to the actions of its valiant heroes.

Yet through it all, humanity persevered, protecting the best qualities of its people and history. Although surrounded by challenges and confronted by threats within and without, the race survives and thrives in a world that becomes more deadly by the day.

Divinity's Reach

Humanity's greatest city is Divinity's Reach, founded in the wake of the flooding of Lion's Arch. Built upon ancient Krytan tombs and situated on a bluff, the city provides a strong bastion against a dangerous world. Survivors of the other human nations and refugees from distant lands have poured into Divinity's Reach, swearing fealty to the crown and creating a proud, beautiful city.

The city is laid out like a great wheel with six spokes. These spokes are elevated high roads which reach from the outer walls to the Central Plaza at the city's hub. It is here that a great orrery spins beneath a massive dome of copper and glass, here that the ministers squabble, and here that Queen Jennah rules with a confident hand.

Threats Without and Within

From Divinity's Reach, the long reach of human power stretches out across the surrounding hills and farms, offering protection to the farmers and townsfolk of Kryta. These people are under constant siege from centaurs that have come down from the mountains. The powerful Modniir centaurs have established dominance over the weaker Tamini and Harathi breeds and now urge them to attack human enclaves across Kryta. These raids are major incursions that sometimes reach the gates of Divinity's Reach itself.

Not all enemies are inhuman. Bandit gangs have sprung up in areas beyond the reach of the law, and now large, organized groups of them prey on the local citizenry. The Seraph are entrusted with protecting the people, but they are stretched thin by the sheer number of their opponents.

As if matters were not dire enough, dissension flourishes within the walls of Kryta itself. Queen Jennah is beloved by her people, but the nobility often chafes at her egalitarian rule and the truce that she has forged with the legions of the charr. The Chamber of Ministers is a hotbed of intrigue and plotting, much of it centering on Legate Minister Caudecus the Wise, who many see as a rival of the Queen herself.

The Heritage of the Humans

With the defeat of Abaddon, the human gods withdrew from Tyria. They did not abandon their worshippers, but rather pulled back from directly interfering in their daily lives. Much like parents teaching a child to walk, they let humanity stumble forward and learn to pick itself up when it fell.

The humans of Divinity's Reach realize this and know that the gods expect them to stand on their own. The names of the Six Gods (now called the Six Human Gods by other races) are on their worshippers' lips, and there are still shrines and priests of the faith. Humans do not feel abandoned by their gods; they feel tested by them. As a people they refuse to fall.

Humanity's long history makes other races think of them as hidebound, old-fashioned, and conservative, but they are not afraid of new things. With the rise of other major races, they have sought to adapt and compete with them. They are interested in asura gate technology and charr weaponry. Humans are a people of tinkerers and craftsmen; inventors such as Uzolan the Artist help refine and expand upon their technical knowledge.

Humanity's greatest heritage is heroism. Even the youngest sylvari knows about the great figures of Tyrian legend. It is in their footsteps that the other races must follow.

NCsoft & ArenaNet

Asura

The diminutive asura are the smartest people in Tyria. Just ask them; they will tell you. Once, they were the undisputed masters of a powerful underground civilization, but were driven to the surface by the Great Destroyer, the herald of the Elder Dragon Primordus.

Since their arrival on the surface, however, this long-eared race has prospered. Initially squatting among the ruins along the Tarnished Coast, their mastery of arcane forces has allowed them to regroup, rebuild, and tame this new, savage world. Now their mystic technology is found across the continent, and other races view the asura with a respect they feel they deserve. Yet even as they succeed, their accomplishments are threatened by internal conflicts, personal pride, and individual greed.

History

The asura were originally a subterranean race, adapted for their cavernous homes deep beneath the surface. They had evolved excellent senses—their long ears and wide, luminous eyes missed nothing—and sharp teeth for an omnivorous diet. They were uniformly brilliant as a people, analyzing, solving, and utilizing the intricate nature of magic itself. Using this power, they spread throughout the Depths of Tyria, linking distant locations with their asura gates and building great underground citadels on places of incredible arcane power.

To their horrified surprise, one of those spots proved to be the home of an Elder Dragon champion. The Great Destroyer, a legendary figure among the dwarves, stirred. Using the very portals the asura had built over its lair, it spread its minions throughout the underground, destroying the bulk of asuran civilization and forcing the survivors into the dangerous and unknown surface world.

The asura were nothing if not resourceful. Armed with what knowledge they had salvaged, and blessed with a surplus of inventive geniuses, they soon dominated the region of the Tarnished Coast. Their golems pushed back the jungles. Their levitation spells set their towns above the dangerous surroundings. And their reconfigured gates allowed them to cross a new world filled with dangerous and alien races. Ingenuity and organization gave them the advantage necessary to prevail.

Asuran society is organized around krewes—loose-knit research organizations, usually commanded by one particularly brilliant member. Highly motivated and competitive, these krewes codify and advance the magical brilliance of the people as they seek to recover lost knowledge, create new fields of study, and unlock the answers in the universal philosophy they call the Eternal Alchemy.

A race of magical innovators and mystical inventors, the asura have done nothing but prosper in the centuries since they arrived on the surface. Useful races have been turned into allies while less useful ones have been controlled and contained. New horizons have been opened, and old knowledge has been recovered.

Rata Sum

The greatest physical example of asuran magical mastery is their mighty city, Rata Sum. Starting with no more than a set of scattered ruins belonging to a failed race, the asura erected a testament to their power. Now dominating the surrounding area, Rata Sum is a huge floating cube riddled with interior passages, its upper reaches divided into smaller cubes. The highest locations are the labs and meeting rooms of the Arcane Council, the rulers of the asura race. The depths of this great cube are still being excavated by unsleeping golem servitors.

Asura think of themselves as individuals, each protecting his or her creations jealously, but there are several organizations that bind the race together. The most important of these is the Arcane Council, which is, in theory, a collection of wise asura who enforce the laws of the people. In reality, this group consists of those who are not wise enough to get out of the task, as most asura would rather be pursuing their own creative agendas as opposed to dealing with internal squabbling and bureaucratic rivalries.

Rata Sum is also the home of the colleges of the asura people: the Colleges of Statics, Dynamics, and Synergetics. Each has a major complex where promising students, apprentices, and journeymen without their own labs can work, advance their knowledge, and attract better-established mentors. Each of the colleges has its own approach to the Eternal Alchemy. Those of Statics tend to think of the world in lines of force and support—as a fixed state—and seek to learn from the lost lessons of the past. Those of Dynamics perceive the world in an active, ever-changing state, and feel that any experiment you can walk away from is a success. Lastly, those of Synergetics think in terms of the connections between things, in the space between beats. They are the most mystic and theoretical of their people.

Rata Sum is the central hub, but the asura have spread their laboratories and research facilities throughout the Tarnished Coast. The personalized nature of creation and the drive to prove themselves the best at their craft often send asuran masters and their krewes into the hinterlands, away from prying eyes and potential competitors. Often, this means that labs are built in particularly remote or dangerous areas. Should a lab be destroyed or its workers slain, new discoveries may be completely lost. Asura curse such events, but neighboring races do not think this is a particularly bad thing.

Knowledge is Power

The asura, as a people, thrive on competition. Each asura approaches their research with a surety born of immense intelligence and confidence. They are a race of mad scientists, each seeking to prove their own exceptional nature.

This competitiveness (and assumed superiority) extends to other races as well. Some are viewed as potential resources, like the alchemically advanced hylek or the dredge with their sonic technologies. Others are potential employees, like the humans or sylvari. And some are treated as pests to be eliminated, such as the rodent-like skritt, who the asura know all too well from their time underground.

The greatest danger to the asura is, to no one's surprise, other asura. Putting aside the sometimes dramatic, even explosive, nature of their experiments, a group of asura have banded together to form their own meta-krewe. Known as the Inquest, these asura combine their resources into a larger organization and share their knowledge among their own members—never with those outside the Inquest. They are more involved in the activities of individual members, and they are less hampered by morality than the other asura, going so far as to use and abuse the spirits of sentient beings in their relentless research. As a result, they are both highly effective and extremely dangerous. Their goal is nothing less than the domination of all Tyria, including the Elder Dragons, and they will not let anyone or anything stand in their way.

Perilous Pride

Since surfacing in Tyria, the story of the asura has been one of success and triumph over long odds, continual perils, and the stupidity of the world at large. Out of the ashes left by the Great Destroyer's assaults, the asura have forged a better future for themselves. Yet, within their very success lies the potential seed of their destruction. The asura are a proud—some might say haughty—people, great in knowledge if not always in wisdom. And a great pride often leads to a great fall.

NCsoft & ArenaNet