This is the second part of our interview with ArenaNet’s Eric Flannum, lead designer of Guild Wars 2 and game designer John Peters who discuss numerous topics posed by the Guild Wars: IncGamers community. If you missed part one, the make sure you check that out also. Read on for part 2…

John Peters and Eric Flannum

How many zones does the game have? How many zones perfectly match your level as you progress through them? Is there more than one ‘intended’ route through the game or just a single zone for a certain level-range making it feel linear?

For any given level there are definitely multiple zones that you could be in. We walk the line with making the game feel to linear and unnecessarily spreading you player base out. We try to have at least two options for players at any given particular level.  Even at level 80, the max level, there are multiple zones that you could be in. There’s also multiple dungeons you could be in.

Depending on what you want to do at any given time, no matter what level you are, there’s multiple types of content for you to experience. Personal stories, events, dungeons, WvW, there’s always a lot of different things to do.

We have already seen that skills of your team mates can affect each other. When there are many people playing together or against each other in PvP and PvE, is there an easy to way tell if ground effects are for your team or against? How can players tell the difference?

The whole system for this has just gone in, what it does is, we take certain skills and we look at whether it’s a skill that people actually. For example Fireball, you throw it out and it lands and explodes, but it doesn’t need to show you what it does because its already exploded, you don’t have a choice. We take a look at what skills it does matter with. You mentioned the Firewall and the Meteor Shower, so what we did was create rings and boxes that go on the ground or around the skills.

If you are on my team and I cast a Firewall, you will see a white ring around it that shows that ‘yes this is a friendly’. If it’s an enemy one you will see a red box around it. Then we also do things with skills like Healing Rain . Enemies see Healing rain as white so white generally means it doesn’t affect me either way and the allies see healing rain as a blue ring around it indicating there’s positive benefits to going into it.

Swoosh!

With the amount of skill the game is supposed to require with the active combat, have you seen any cases in testing to where a much smaller group is able to defeat a much larger group in PvP with enough skill?

Absolutely, a small group can defeat a larger group when fighting each other. We have a few players that are quite good at the game right now, generally now my reaction when I see them is to turn and run, even with an ally or two with me. There’s definitely a lot of is skill involved in the game.

We introduced some new players to our PvP environment recently and when they first started playing, not their very first game, a couple of games in when they had a grasp of the basics, we had a player who was beating people, he would kill like nine players in a row. Eventually as time progressed a lot of the players who were getting beaten by him are now as good as him, maybe even better. There’s definitely that sort of skill and learning how to play the game.

Everyone thought the profession he was playing was completely broken and then he switched to another one and they were saying that one was now broken.

How much will your abilities differ in WvW compared to organized Arena PvP? Will the abilities just take on different effects or will you have completely different abilities in use for them?

We are not 100% sure, but right now we think the abilities are going to be pretty much the same abilities but that is all subject to change obviously.

In WvW with the way grouping features are, how will we keep track of Guild members outside our group? Will there be a way to link up with them and see them on the map?

We want members if your guild to be very visible so there will be ways to keep track of them, whether they are on the map or if they are close to you.  You will see where they are, you’ll be able to communicate with them through Guild chat and see what they are currently doing on the guild roster and that sort of thing.

It is known that in organized competitive PvP everyone will have the same sort of gear so that skill is the only deciding factor. Yet, for those who are more partial to open world combat, how much will gear play a role in the WvW PvP?

I don’t want to say just gear but the character and character progression will play a role. From what skills you have, to what gear you have, to what traits you have found and are using, so WvW characters are your characters, there is nothing that you just get.

If you bring a character at level one, you‘ll have the level one skills. You won’t have equipment that does a lot of cool things, you’ll get side-kicked up so you’ll be able to, uhmm, not die. You won’t die in one second or be unable to inflict any damage on higher level players. Higher level players in a 1v1 will have a significant advantage,

Come get some

In WvW, at some objectives, how much will PvE play a role in taking the objectives? I know the assumptions have been that there will be NPC’s guarding some of these areas, but will it be so much that it becomes bothersome while trying to defeat players as well? What is the best recollection you have so far of a battle that featured groups fighting from.

Definitely,  they play a role, but the guards are not there to kill you , the guards are there to slow you down so defenders can get there to help defend, what you’re really fighting there is the other players. While we have the guards it’s not like we have them there to kill you.

You would never for example, where you have a player and a guard coming at you, you should never choose to attack the guard instead of the player. The guard can eventually wear you down, but it’s more the guard holds you up and you have to get through the guards. They are more defensive than they are offensive.

Of all the classes you have played, which one is currently your personal favorite profession and why?

I think Ranger for me, I always like ranged professions. I like professions with nature type of feel. That plus I love ranged combat, so Rangers.

Warrior. Because I like smashing people in the face. *laugh*

Regarding the game’s music, how is the process for that coming along and have we any ballpark figure of the amount of music that’s being created for the game?. Will the music be made available as a standalone CD?

In answer to the last question is, I’m not entirely sure. I think if we see demand for it then we’ll probably look at releasing it.

The main things we want to try to do is get the music complete, there’s a lot of it, I’m pretty sure it’s almost as big as the amount of music we had in the entire first run of Guild Wars. We need  to have different themes for all the areas, the combat, special moments in the story. So it’s pretty extensive and we’re still developing and working on.

So it’s pretty dynamic then? Changing in different situations

Yes we have the ability change it based on a number of different factors. We have a day and night cycle where it can change in that period of time. Sound effects also, so when you’re walking through the world when it becomes dusk, if you’re in a forest you might hear wolves howling, and as it becomes night, the crickets will turn up a little more. So the music changes to reflect some of that mood. We also have music for particular events that happen in world. There’s a lot of different influences in the music.

In a recent interview there was discussion about localisation in Europe, are you using well known actors from each region to play the roles?

What we do in our localisation process is we wait until we have all the English recorded and we use that for the basis of all of our localised voiceover. I don’t think we’ve cast any of the roles yet for localisation. I think we’re going to see who auditions and use the best people. So no names as yet.

To help span the time between now and the release of the game, many of our fans have been reading the books released. What can you tell us about the third book? Is it done yet? Do you have an estimate when the book will be released?

It’s not done yet. We’re not talking to much about it yet as we’re still finalizing some things but you will have an announcement when we can. We have an outside publisher to consider so we can’t announce anything just yet. There will definitely be a 3^rd book but we can’t give you any details
What is Anet currently focusing their efforts on?

We’re currently focusing our efforts on a lot of social features, under water combat is big for us right now. The last two remaining professions, overall balance, PvP. Almost everything in a way. One of the nice things is I think we have a handle on what our content in the game is like and it’s just  a matter of making sure we implement it and polish it., With our content systems we’re pretty happy with stuff. Underwater combat and social features are a big deal for us right now.

Beta release still on target for this year?

We are definitely on target for a Closed  Beta this year. We’re going to do a closed Alpha and Beta test and we’re totally on target for those things. Whether there’s more than that? We’ll announce that stuff when we get closer. We’ve said we will have an open Beta at some point but we’re not going to know when we’re ready for that until we’re much closer to it. Things are looking good for closed Alpha and beta this year for sure

Thanks to John and Eric for taking the time to answer the questions and watch out for more big Guild Wars 2 news on Thursday 19th May.