Guild Wars 2

This page contains information about an element of Guild Wars that has changed since the original writing, and may need to be updated to reflect the current state of the game.

Note: For more information on Guild Wars 2 see the Guild Wars 2 Wiki.

Guild Wars 2 logo

Guild Wars 2 is the sequel to the Guild Wars series by ArenaNet. The game features a new game engine as well as changes to character development and the Player versus Player system.

All released information regarding it has been compiled below. If you have a specific question in mind, please check the FAQ first.

General

There is no monthly fee at all associated with Guild Wars 2, keeping up the tradition of the Guild Wars business model. Mike O'Brien has stated that expansions and/or mini-expansions are more likely than standalone campaigns, but a final decision has not been made yet. The game is on multiple servers or "worlds," but players will not be bound to a world/server. They can visit other servers at any time using guest mode (Guest mode will not be available at launch but will be added later), but will not be able to participate in PvP on behalf of the server they are visiting. They can permanently change servers easily by paying a fee of 1800 gems, which are purchased through the cash store, but there is a restriction of changing servers once every seven days. Guild Wars 2 is designed to run on a wide range of computer specifications, but has higher requirements than the original Guild Wars.

The original Guild Wars continues to be supported after the release of Guild Wars 2. This includes continued holiday events and tournaments.

About the game

Controls

The control & movement system is going to be significantly changed. In particular, mouse movement in the form has been removed from the game; however, target locking will still function. Control of combat is more active; including blocking skills that are "held down", ground-targeting for spells and attacks, and hit detection that allows one player to block area-based damage from reaching other players. Guild Wars 2 is a true 3D environment which allows characters to jump over obstacles as well as swim and dive underwater. New animation coding allow separates tracks for upper and lower body components, allowing players to activate more skills while running or jumping for smoother combat immersion.

Flight is not to be a featured character capability in Guild Wars 2.

Game engine

Guild Wars 2 uses a heavily modified Guild Wars game engine which includes support for true 3D environments, more detailed environments and models, better lighting and shadows, new animation and effects systems, plus new audio and cinematics engines and a more flexible combat and skill-casting system.

Gaile Gray has indicated the game supports DirectX 10, but does not require it to play. Guild Wars 2 utilises the Havok physics engine to provide ragdoll animation and destructible environments, as well as occlusion culling technology licensed from Umbra Software to optimise 3D object rendering.

Underwater exploration

It is possible to explore and fight underwater in Guild Wars 2. Developers say that creating the underwater "continents" is one of the things that delayed the game. The teaser trailers show footage of an underwater area and creatures swimming underwater. Developers have stated that the ability to breathe underwater will be granted via a piece of equipment; a default piece will be automatically given to players so that they can immediately explore underwater.

Player versus environment

Guild Wars 2 will tell a story that will depart from a single monolithic storyline. It will instead use smaller mutually exclusive story arcs allowing the player more of a sandbox environment to play in. These story arcs will be based on either a questionnaire filled out on character creation or choices made during gameplay.

Instanced and Persistent areas

Most of the PvE aspect of the game are featured in 25 persistent areas, similar to traditional MMOs, which are larger than explorable areas of Guild Wars. Alongside this, there are be a handful of smaller instanced areas, such as the home of player characters. Along with this, PvE features a personal story as an equivilent of Guild Wars' missions, as well as feature 8 dungeons (which are only dungeons in name, as not all are underground such as Lord Beetlestone's estate).

A day/night cycle, faster than real-time, and weather effects are present in the game. Some events and monster appearances, and even some items and crafting results will depend on that in-game time.

Story setting

Guild Wars 2's story is set exactly 250 years after Guild Wars Nightfall. Tyria has been drastically changed due to the rise of the Elder Dragons that woke up throughout the past 200 years by creating tidal waves, shattering mountains, or twisting the earth as they rose. Various races, including the Asura and Norn, were all forced out of their homelands by these Elder Dragons.

Other than the Elder Dragons' awakening, other major events happened as well. The Charr have conquered Ascalon (save Ebonhawke), but before his death King Adelbern unleashed the Foefire from Ascalon City, turning all humans within its reach into undying ghosts who sees all living beings as threats that must be eliminated. This left Kryta as the final human kingdom in Tyria, which is now under siege by centaurs and torn by political unrest. Lion's Arch was flooded by Zhaitan's rise and eventually rebuilt as a city for all races, and now has the sole accessible portal to the Mists.

Though the Norn and Asura were pushed from their homelands, they have found new homes in the Shiverpeak Mountains and Tarnished Coast (respectively), and thrive in their new lands. The Charr have overthrown the Flame Legion and denounced all worship of gods as they built a new city over the ruins of Rin. A new plant race has recently appeared in the form of the Sylvari, birthed from the Pale Tree which was tended to by Ventari and Ronan until their deaths.

Cantha, united by Emperor Usoku, was turned into an isolationist nation that exiled all non-human races. The Tengu, in response, fled north to Kryta and isolated themselves within the Dominion of Winds. Ever since Usoku, no contact as been made with Cantha and the only knowledge that it still exists comes from sporadic sailors that wash up on the Tarnished Coast. Elona was invaded by Palawa Joko 60 years after Nightfall; the Order of the Sunspears were destroyed and the Elon was diverted causing a famine that forced Kourna and Vabbi into submission. The northern borders of Elona are under constant siege by Zhaitan's forces, but the Order of Whispers still manages to go to and from Elona.

Event system

Guild Wars 2 uses an event system to replace quests seen in either Guild Wars or traditional MMOs. Most of these events happen with or without the presence of players, while others are triggered by speaking with key NPCs. Whether events are succeeded or failed, they spawn new events from the same chain until either end of the chain are met. Active events as well as completed events influence the persistent area the event is in. Rewards for events are given based on participation rather than being solely dependent on success.

Some events may overlap. For example, one event can be to escort a caravan to a nearby garrison, but when players arrive at the garrison it may be under attack. The two events may have nothing to do with each other, but in order to receive the rewards for escorting the caravan, players must save the garrison, resulting in you doing two events at once.

Player versus Player

There are two types of PvP available in Guild Wars 2: World PvP and Structured PvP; both formats take place within the Mists.

World PvP

World PvP allows you to play characters of any level, using the skills that you have in your possession at that particular time. This level discrepancy is addressed by artificially increasing the level and stats of all players up to 80, to provide a bridging point between PvE and structured PvP. The world battles are on a far larger scale than the original Guild Wars PvP with large battles which take place over a long period with people coming and going. The world vs world battles pit 3 servers against each other into 4 map areas, containing up to 2,000 participants for any matchup

The battle has been likened to an RTS and will have a number of different objectives which can be met such as taking guard towers or defending choke points or joining a larger battle to take a castle.

Victory in World PvP confers benefits to your world. This includes slight increases to character stats, and other bonuses.

Structured PvP

Structured PvP is similar to Guild Wars 1's GvG. It allows you to enter the game at maximum level with all skills, races, items and classes automatically unlocked. You will be boosted up to level 80 and will be wearing PvP armor suited to your profession. You can alter the armor and weapons to whatever suits you.

Guild Wars 1 characters

Characters from Guild Wars will not be migrated to play in Guild Wars 2. Instead, filling the Hall of Monuments allows players from both games to gain some cosmetic-only bonuses in Guild Wars 2. However, players will not be able to migrate the exact items or titles they obtained in Guild Wars, with the exception of God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals.

Final details on rewards are now available through the Hall of Monuments Reward Calculator as mentioned on the ArenaNet Blog.

Other features

Concept art from Guild Wars 2 by Jason Juan.

Races and Professions

Guild Wars 2 introduces several new playable races. The five playable races are:

• Asura
• Charr
• Human
• Norn
• Sylvari

Other than aesthetics and lore, the only difference between races are racial skills. Each race has unique choices to make at character creation which provides a background story for that character. These changes affect the story the character experiences.

Along with the five races, there are eight professions:

• Elementalist
• Warrior
• Ranger
• Necromancer
• Guardian
• Thief
• Engineer
• Mesmer

Different professions have access to different weapons, skills (excluding race-specific skills), and traits. Armor is scaled between profession types; scholar (Elementalist, Mesmer, and Necromancer) professions will use light armor, adventurer (Engineer, Ranger, and Thief) professions will use medium armor, and soldier (Guardian and Warrior) professions will use heavy armor.

Unlike traditional MMORPGs, there is no dedicated healer profession; instead, any profession can perform any role, depending on their weapon skills. Similarly, professions are not bound by race.

Level

The level cap in Guild Wars 2 is 80. There is a plateau of power, where each level no longer adds as much to the power of the character. Higher level characters will have their power scaled down in areas designed for lower level players, avoiding the problem of overwhelming the environment when joining friends on their beginning characters.

Notes

Old GW2 logo prior to release of the official trailer.

• To help tie the events of Guild Wars with Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet announced on plans to release three books: Ghosts of Ascalon, Edge of Destiny, and Sea of Sorrows.
  • Guild Wars Beyond's story also focuses on connecting the story of the two games.
• Jeremy Soule will compose the music for Guild Wars 2.

Demos and beta

• The first demo was featured at Gamescom 2010 in Cologne, Germany and subsequent demos were featured in later conventions ArenaNet were present at.
  • Various demos have featured Human, Norn, and Charr starter areas, Blazeridge Steppes, and Sparkfly Fen. and high level Asura content.
• Closed beta testing began in December 2011, with a press beta in February 2012.
  • Guild Wars 2 Beta Events were announced on February 22, 2012. These special closed beta events are open to invited players only.
    • Sign ups are currently closed.
    • The first invitations to participate have been sent out.
• The first Beta Weekend Event was held on April 27, 2012 at noon PDT (GMT-7) and ended on Sunday, April 29, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7).
• The second Beta Weekend Event was held from June 8, 2012 at noon PDT (GMT-7) until Sunday, June 10, 2012 at 11:59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7).
• The last Beta Weekend Event was held from July 20, 2012 at noon PDT (GMT-7) until Sunday, July 22, 2012 at 11.59 p.m. PDT (GMT-7).

Release

• ANet released the game on August 28th, 2012.
• ANet started offering three pre-purchase editions of the game beginning on April 10th, 2012: Digital Edition, Digital Deluxe Edition, and Collector's Edition. Anyone who pre-purchased the game was given a 3 Day Headstart, starting August 25th, 2012 at 12:00 a.m. PDT (GMT-7).

Editions available via pre-purchase

Contents	Digital	Digital Deluxe	Collectors
Beta-weekend access
3-days (Pre-order = 1 day) of headstart access
Hero's Band
Summon Mistfire Wolf Elite Skill
Rytlock Miniature
Golem Banker
Chalice of Glory
Tome of Influence
10-inch figurine of Rytlock
112 page Making of Guild Wars 2 book
Custom Art Frame
Art Portfolio and Five Art Prints
Best of Guild Wars 2 Soundtrack CD

References

The Guild Wars 2 Wiki also has an article on Guild Wars 2.