Archive for January 2012

Charr Plush Contest Over, Grats satomz and Odinius!

Posted 31/01/12 by
Charr Contest winner - Odinius

Charr Plushie Contest winner 2012 - Odinius

GWOnline’s Charr Plushie art contest is now officially over, and the winners have been chosen. Auntie sure had her work cut out for her, with a lot of very excellent submissions! The two final winners, each being awarded one Charr Plushie, were satomz and Odinius. Satomz contributed a sun catcher based on the map symbol for the Norn capital Hoelbrak whereas Odinius made a positively adorable clay Charr cub, based on this piece of concept art. Special mention also went out to Aven, Gauradan and tacotown for their submissions.

Charr Contest winner - satomz

Charr Plushie Contest winner 2012 - satomz

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Screenshots of PvP Scholar Armor and Lobby

Posted 31/01/12 by

 

A couple more new screenshots for you today have surfaced over on GWI, this time showing the PvP Scholar Armor and the PvP Lobby.

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Guild Wars 2 System Specs Soon

Posted 31/01/12 by

Will your PC cut it for Guild Wars 2? I’m sure many of you are thinking about an upgrade before the game hits but right now we don’t have any ideas of the  min system specs. Gaile popped in the official wiki with an update

Hi there. Another GW2 fan asked the same question recently, and the system specs — be they called “minimum” or “required” — have not been released. Games in development customarily require higher specs than the same game at release, and the specs for GW2 are still being determined. I believe they will be released fairly soon, though, so keep your eye out for that info on the official website.

With the Beta right around the corner, we should expect these specs to be released prior to the Beta starting.

Thanks Gorani.

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New Guild Wars 2 PvP Map Screenshots

Posted 31/01/12 by

New maps

The guys at GWInsider have posted four spanking new PvP screenshots from Guild Wars 2 and they are from a new PvP map which we have not seen before and will hopefully be available in the Bets test when that arrives in the coming weeks.

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Sunday Weekly News Roundup

Posted 29/01/12 by

This week stuff sure has been happening in the world of Guild Wars! We have had not one but two sparkling new official ArenaNet blog post, one of which positively sent the community into a feeding frenzy. Mike O’Brien, president of ArenaNet, wished everyone a good Year of the Dragon, on the surface nothing special. But he also gave us a road map of the Guild Wars 2 beta process, detailing press invites starting in February, larger and larger general public beta invites from March onwards, leading up to the game’s release later this year. This week also saw some new content here at GWOnline, as well as the normal plethora of blog posts, podcasts, and more.

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Guild Wars 2 Release in June? Amazon.de Think So

Posted 27/01/12 by

The release date lottery for Guild Wars 2 begins as Amazon.de post up their pre-order page for the game with a release date of June and a price of 49 Euros. As you know retailer’s dates are never that accurate and we have to take them with a pinch of salt. It is however nice to see some action on the sales front as the release date excitement gets underwat. Of course we still have the Beta to come first.

Thanks PCGamesHardware.

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Player Expectancy and GW2

Posted 26/01/12 by

Of Squee and QQ

Every new game eventually butts head with the full gaming community – upon release.  With expectations and ideals so diverse among the community, there will  always be those who do not like the cake.  Whether the cake gets devoured, is awkwardly accepted with lingering disappointment, or altogether shunned; one can imagine hearts to quicken for even experienced game developers.  The line between genius and insanity may be fine, but developers continue to bravely walk the gamble of originality required for such a competitive market.

Gamers have seen the good, a lot of the mediocre, and have on occasion been smacked hard with the ugly.  Even though community expectations and ideals can differ greatly – whether Squee or QQ is the reaction given – gamers will always hold passion in common.  This passion for engaging and fun creative gaming can be seen across many favorite titles from companies who have found the right connection with their market audiences.  ArenaNet (ANet) is one of these companies.

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Head to Head: Engineer vs Elementalist

Posted 25/01/12 by

People who know me know I love summons. But more than that, I do love hybrids. Guild Wars 2 will offer a lot of ways to play hybrid with all professions, especially with the weapon swaps. However, the two most flexible on-the-fly hybrids have one thing in common… they do not have a weapon swap.

The elementalist swaps between 4 elements instead of swapping weapons, effectively changing his 5 weapon skills therefore changing his role during combat. He thus has access to 5*4=20 weapon skills during combat. The engineer uses kits that also changes his 5 weapon skills. He can equip up to 4 kits, giving him up to (4+1)*5=25 weapon skills during combat.

Players who like to adapt to the situation or to the needs of the team will want to keep an eye on those two professions.

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ArenaNet Reveals Background on The Jotun Race

Posted 25/01/12 by

ArenaNet’s developer blog has received another update and in this instalment they take a look at the race of giants called the Jotun. The blog comes with a stack of lore as well as some developer notes on the Jotun.

Even though we had established the jotun in the original games, we wanted to really bring them to life in Guild Wars 2, particularly for the norn areas of the world. We wanted them to be more than “nasty customers with big clubs,” and the way we chose to do that was to give them a long history—but a tragic one. We wanted to make the ogres an old race and follow that with the jotun, since the two species are interlinked. Giving the jotun a history that had been lost—ruined by their own flaws—gives them a lot of depth and plays into the overall story of Guild Wars 2.

The new jotun art depicts the race as being taller and more intelligent looking than the art from the original Guild Wars, which helps to better illustrate the race’s history and the fact that they are sentient, smart creatures—not rock-tossing droolers. The primitivism we see in their clothing and weapons is a sharp contrast to the magical monuments located at their camps—and that, too, is deliberate. Showing the decline of a race from power and civilization into primitivism, all because they could not stop fighting amongst themselves, is important to the game’s theme. It illustrates what might happen if the player character races can’t give up their old arguments and unite against the threat of the Elder Dragons.

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ArenaNet developers talk PvP in Guild Wars 2

Posted 25/01/12 by

Guild Wars Insider recently had a sit-down with three of the more PvP-savvy ArenaNet developers – PvP Systems Designers Matt Witter, Mike Ferguson and Jonathan Sharp. In the interview, available in audio as well as transcribed text, the three fellows really let their love for the Guild Wars 2 PvP shine through and they sound like they are having a lot of fun with it. The gentlemen also share some new details about the Guild Wars 2 PvP systems, like how a PvP lobby will offer a PvP-specific tutorial available for those players who want to jump right in.

It will also be a place too where new players can come in and pick up the tutorial on just PvP. Because we’re assuming that you can come and just make a PvP character if you want to. Maybe you’ve never done any of the tutorials for any of the other PvE content, and if that’s the case, we wanted you to be able to jump in and understand what’s going on before you get thrown into a PvP match. We’re going to have some tutorial stuff that you can do there to figure out what’s happening in the game. - Mike Ferguson

Other subjects include the possibility of an observer mode (planning one, but wont be in at release), how it felt like to be beat by fans in PvP (they deny it ever happening) and inspirations for making Guild Wars 2 an e-sport (everything from soccer to boxing). Read the full interview here.

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Guild Wars 2 Beta Starts February

Posted 23/01/12 by

OK so I am super excited! Mike O’Brien the ArenaNet blog this morning to announce that the beta will start in February!

Welcome to the Year of the Dragon!

Today is Lunar New Year’s Day, and according to the Asian zodiac system, the first day of the Year of the Dragon. It’s an auspicious omen for all of us at ArenaNet, as we get ready to make this our own Year of the Dragon.

According to tradition, the dragon embodies passion, independence, and ambition. We think it’s a perfect analogy for what we’re trying to accomplish with Guild Wars 2. We’re a company full of MMO and RPG fans, and we’ve set out to fundamentally rethink how you deliver an RPG experience online. So this year, the Year of the Dragon, let’s usher out old thinking – the tired old quest model, stiff repetitive combat, and monthly fees – and usher in the new.

Guild Wars 2 has captured the imagination of gamers and media all over the world with its action-oriented combat, its living world full of dynamic events, its highly personalized role-playing experience, and the handcrafted artistry that suffuses every element of the game. Last year, thousands of you joined us at shows and events all over the world to try Guild Wars 2 for yourself. This year, you’ll finally be able to immerse yourself in the vast, diverse world of Tyria.

We recently finished our first closed beta test, and we’re now ready to hold progressively larger events. In February we’ll invite select press to participate in beta testing, and in March and April we’ll aggressively ramp up the size of our beta test events so that many of you will have a chance to participate. And of course, this all leads to the release of Guild Wars 2 later this year.

So stay tuned to our official Guild Wars 2 website, our Facebook page, and this blog for more information about how to participate in an upcoming beta event.

It’s been an incredible adventure over the past five years, working with our community and our team of dedicated artists, designers, and programmers to realize this vision. This year, the seeds of that work come to fruition. We can’t wait to play the game with you.

So welcome to the Year of the Dragon – the year of Guild Wars 2.

 

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Sunday Weekly News Roundup

Posted 22/01/12 by

This week we have seen new information on cross-profession skill combos, the “Hearts” system glimpsed in Guild Wars 2 demo videos, and the winner of the AlienWare Guild Wars 2 diorama contest was announced. As per usual, there have also been podcasts, videos, blog posts, columns, as well as even more 2012 most anticipated lists. Follow after the jump for the full run-down!

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