Auntie I

So, I was reading through the AMA Reddit information from June 6th and there were a few things that caught my interest.

Q: Are there any plans to add an item preview feature? We've seen it before in games like LOTRO, where you could Ctrl+Right Click to preview an item on your character. It's an important feature for a game to have, and the capability is clearly there, as we've seen with the dye previewing system.

A: We are working on an item previewer right now. It unfortunately didn't make it in for BWE2, but we'll definitely have it prior to ship! -Ferg

Woohoo! Something to look forward to!

Q: There have been contradicting statements about a one month notice before release. Can you confirm or deny if we are going to get this notice?

A: We try to be very open and transparent with our fans, as I hope this AMA shows you.
Your concerns are all about release date. The fundamental issue here is that we just don't have a release date right now. We're using beta testing in the traditional sense. When beta testing shows that the game is where we want it to be, we'll lock in a release date.
I'm pumped about what we were able to accomplish for BWE2 and I think you guys will be too when you see it. We're not that far off. We're obviously going to release in 2012, and any statements to the contrary are absurd.
As for the "one month delay" versus "not one month delay", we have to line up distribution and retail sales so obviously we'll announce a release date in advance of the actual release, but we don't have a policy of "exactly X weeks in advance". Aidan was giving his personal take on this. Rubi is correct that there isn't a nailed down number of weeks notice.~ MO

Props to the big guy for being very clear that Rubi was right! I may perhaps be biased by having Rubi in my guild, but the whole kerfuffle over this was just silly. A small amount of investigation showed that it was a minor issue. Quickly responded to by the Community team. The fact that it was Rubi issuing the correction is beside the point.

Q: Quick question, in case this is overwhelming; "Should i get attached to my beta character?" I am new to beta testing in MMORPG's, and apparently it is standard practice to wipe all accounts at launch. Objectively, it makes a lot of sense, but personally, i don't want my beautiful-thief-scoundrel to disappear forever :(

A: Sadly, we will be wiping beta characters before launch. But your beautiful-thief-scoundrel will always have a place in your heart. Therefore he/she will never disappear forever.~z

Plus: We're attracting non-MMO players!
Minus: This is something that gamers who take part in the Beta activities are used to. They purposely don't get attached to Beta characters. Some actually go out of their way to NOT play as they will at release in order not to have that disappointment. I know of some people who just won't take part in Beta's so that they won't spoil the game for themselves. How does this affect the quality of the Beta process? Interesting question don't you think!

Q: Will there be a different closing event this weekend? (Please don't say you have to wait and see, if it's the same I'll get my normal sleep and if not I'll have to adjust my sleep to catch it because I'm curious)

A: Good news! We have an exciting new finale for this event! I've tried to make each event feel special and capping it off differently was a cool way to do that while trying out new things with our systems. This time around, though, my new co-conspirator Anthony Ordon came up with a really cool idea that we had to bring in additional people to implement. This finale was definitely more than a one person job.~z

Ooooo! What do those evil developers have in store for us poor innocent players!

Q: Can you tell Gamestop and other retailers to stop pushing the June 26th release date? :)

A: It's only 20 days away. Maybe they'll stop pushing it after June 26? :) Seriously, I hope the fact that every retailer is showing a different date makes it clear to everyone that these dates aren't coming from us.~ MO

Q: Is the frequency of dynamic events going to change prior to launch? The faster rate may aid in testing, but it can be overwhelming. It's detrimental to the sense of having an impact in the world when the same foes respawn five minutes after being defeated.

A: Event frequency is one of the things we're evaluating with these beta weekends. -Ferg

Good! It got a bit hectic from time to time when events overlapped too much! I'm glad to see they are aware of it and have plans.

Q: Last BWE when we would follow friends into Structured PvP games we would often be split onto different teams. Will we eventually be able to play with our friends when it comes to random Structured PvP games?

A: Yes this BWE you will be able to play tournaments which will allow you to play in organized teams with your friends.~Izzy

I figured this one was coming, it didn't make sense to have it completely random. Random Arenas never made any sense to me, even in GW1.

Q: Uptime and Patching
Plenty of games frankly suck when it comes to patching and uptime. While you guys have been awesome when it comes to the speeds for patch downloads, how do you guys see server downtime looking when updates come along? For comparison, I'm looking at Rift (awesome with downtime) vs Blizzard (abysmal with downtime).

A: Guild Wars 2 should expect to have the same amount of down time that Guild Wars 1 has had (which is about 32 hours total give or take a few). We don't need to take our servers down to patch. ~z
Note: This doesn't count internet routing issues that interfere with gameplay. Our downtime is extremely minimal between builds. You'll basically be out of the game long enough to restart the client and download the new data. Multi-hour downtimes? Not in Guild Wars 2. -Ferg

I'm glad to see this one confirmed. I figured that this would be the way it worked, but confirmation is always good.

Q: Are you doing anything to help with spell effect overdose/spam? Currently it's nigh impossible to see anything in a group of 5+ people due to the amount of special effects each person produces on a targeted area.

A: We've been working on reducing the effect overload we added an effect LOD system as well as have been identifying noisy effects and making them less noisy. ~Izzy We have made changes here and will continue to until we are happy with it. Jon

Thank you! I may be able to play a melee character now. I know I suck at playing them, but with all the effect spam, I couldn't do anything.

Q: I have a question for anyone who could answer. I'm a huge newbie to the series and I participated in the first BWE. When my character would die, I would have to pay X amount of coins to be taken back to a waypoint. Is this how death will always be? Will there be an option to run to your body to retrieve it? What if for whatever reason you're out of coins and cannot pay to get to the waygate?

A: If you are out of coins it is free. Otherwise, no, no running.

Interesting. Being broke doesn't mean you can't resurrect at a Waypoint. Good to know.

Q: Were you able to sleep sound after sending thousands of Black Moas to their deaths last beta?
Yours, A concerned Moa

A: As the man responsible for putting the Black Moas into harms way for the last BWE, I am proud to say that the Moas had a larger kill:death ratio than the players. Despite the sheer number of players the Moas definitely rose to the challenge. ~z

Go Team Moa!


Summary: Lots of good information. A few interesting tidbits, but really the questions did seem to be focused on changes to the Beta builds, rather than general questions. I took that to mean that the people participating were already hooked....