Fansite Friday/TheGuildWars

Fansite:  The Guild Wars (site no longer operating)

Date:  8 October 2004

Number:  18

Q&A
Question: What's the environment like at Arena Net right now with preparations for the WPE going on in addition to the guild contest? Are things hectic, stressed, or calm? How are the devs dealing with all the pressure?

Answer: Well, have you ever seen a movie, where someone says "Hey, it's quiet out there" and someone else says, "Yes… too quiet." I was looking around the office the other night as I prepared to head home, and those movie lines came to mind. I thought to myself, "Where's the frantic lights-on-at-midnight schedule? Where are the haggard faces of users of in-office sleeping bags and footed jammies?" Because after all, we've all heard the stories about the "normal" pre-launch crunch time, and we all know that such stress is allegedly just part of a developer's life. Our office is not at all like the heated hives of frenetic panic portrayed in industry tales. People are focused and are working hard, and we all have moments of feeling as if there are more things to do than hours in a day. But overall, it's still pretty calm. People are cordial, not overly stressed, and I've not seen a single sleeping bag appear yet. We're all putting in a goodly amount of hours, it's true, and with the World Preview Event, followed one week later by the first of several Beta Weekend Events, it's for sure there will be many long hours in the upcoming weeks. But the mood is totally upbeat, bolstered by the team's solid belief in the game and the excitement and pride we feel in being able to show off Guild Wars during the World Preview Event and Beta Weekend Events.

Question: Obviously Guild Wars is focused heavily in the PvP area. Will you be adding any large scale Guild vs. Environment content to provide additional challenges for guilds? If so, what kind of PvE content can we expect on the guild level?

Answer: The PvE content is extensive, as we've mentioned before, and has a very deep and involving storyline. PvP will also involve a story, but it's in PvE that you learn the back-story of Tyria, and discover the factions, the shifting loyalties, and the surprising revelations of who is friend and who is foe.

One of the aspects that I have always felt would be interesting for guilds was trying not just different skills sets, of which there are probably tens of thousands of possible combinations, but also different profession combinations on the various maps. For instance, an all-caster build on one map, a no-ranger or all-summoner build on another. These would be yet another factor in involving and varied gameplay.

I haven't asked specifically about largescale guild challenges in PvE, but I think we may have an answer when you look at the E3 for Everyone Event, and consider the quest added on the final day of the demo. If you recall, Prince Rurik appeared in Khylo and entreated us to form a party and help slay the evil bone dragon, Rotscale. The quest involved the largest party size possible in a mission, and it ended up being quite a challenge to complete. A guild could certainly make a study of such a quest, to devise the best manner of attaining success. And with quests of even greater difficulty, and with the potential for many subquests and hidden objectives within each major quest, there would be many exciting new challenges to overcome.

Question: So far during the development of Guild Wars, what has been the funniest incident or blooper that's happened?

Answer: Well, I guess that would be the "naked man" incidents. Games are built pretty much asset by asset, so back in the early days, you saw a lot of placeholder art. The problem was, some of the assets were so small, or looked just fine in place, that distinguishing between a placeholder and a final piece of art wasn't real easy. Some bright person thought about it and asked himself, "What indicator would stand out to make the team aware that that an asset - a tree or a rock or a prop - needed to be replaced with the final version? What would catch the eye?" And the answer was to make a prop of a character model, sans clothing. (Don't worry, the models are "G" rated.)

But it's sort of amusing when you read the various posts of the new alpha testers who come across their first naked man. "Hi, I'm new. I love the alpha test, and I really like that new jungle map. But who the heck are those men and why are they n00d?"

Bonus Question: Will there be any equipment or other factors in the game that react depending on certain variables? (Climate, time of day, etc...)

Answer: I really like this question, but I am unsure of the answer. I know that some skills do affect people in "weather-like ways." For instance, there are slowing spells that might also translate in to the sort of thing that happens with mud, snow, or via other weather effects that could play a role in mobility. But to be honest, I'm away from the office and can't have a chat with the designers, therefore cannot really learn about whether items will have these same effects. I think I'm going to need to give an "IOU" to the community and try to answer this another time

Thanks to TheGuildWars.Net for the questions, and congratulations on the redesign!