I’ve been accumulating news snippets about the as-yet-to-be-formally-scheduled release of Guild Wars 2 for an email newsletter I send out to my friends and acquaintances in the Guild Wars community.
Part 1: Discussion of previous news
- If you feel so inclined, someone is collecting responses to a short survey on Guild Wars as a thesis project.
- There’s still some life in brick-and-mortar games stores, says NCsoft.
Part 2: Guild Wars news
- One of the minor irritations about the big Guild Wars update last week was that all UI customizations got reset (this was probably caused by adding all the extra hero slots on your Inventory). Then, to compound the problem, they had to reset the UI again to fix a problem with the Mercenary Hero secondary profession.
Part 3: Guild Wars 2 news
- PC Gamer has a 10 minute clip of combat in Guild Wars 2.
- Guild Wars 2 “Behind the Scenes” interview with Daniel Dociu, Martin Kerstein, Isaiah Cartwright and Ree Soesbee. (35 minutes)
- INC Gamers picks their favourite clips from the GDC sessions.
- The folks at GuildMag lay out their plans for the PAX East show this weekend.
- Flameseeker Chronicles: Feast or Famine. “Wow! I’ve joked to other Massively staffers that some weeks I really struggle to find content for Flameseeker Chronicles, while other weeks I struggle simply to stay ahead of the information avalanche. That has never held truer than it has this weekend.”
- ArenaNet’s plans for PAX East, including the new bells and whistles for each of the revealed character classes so far.
- Isaiah Cartwright with (almost) everything you want to know about Attributes and Iteration. “We often mention iteration in interviews, at trade shows, and here on the blog. But what does it mean when we talk about the iterative process? I’d like to walk you through some changes we’ve made to the Guild Wars 2 attribute system to give you a better idea of our design philosophy.”
- Crafting in Guild Wars 2, by Andrew McLeod. “Characters can be proficient in up to two crafting disciplines at a time. We feel that this allows players to have a good variety in the items that they can craft, but still maintains player interaction and exchange. It also gives a stronger focus on the specifics of what you can craft- especially with the depth and size of each of our crafting professions.”
- A bit more on the new crafting system from Massively.
- Catch a glimpse of the thief.
- ArenaNet staff provide more details on the Thief. “The interview with Eric Flannum, Jon Peters, and Isaiah Cartwright builds on much of what we already know: dual pistols, stealth skills, stealing, and so on.”
- The updated official Thief page at the Guild Wars 2 website.
- The “ultimate” PAX-East forum thread.
- Livestream of this morning’s session with lots of interesting combat footage, featuring the Thief and the Guardian teaming up for a few dynamic events. Skip ahead about 10 minutes to the start of the actual presentation.
- (So late breaking, it missed the actual email newsletter) Thick as Thieves — a more in-depth look at the Thief class, including this insight (which, based on viewing the videos, I rather agree with) “Despite the intention of making the class as easy-to-understand as possible, the team believes that many first-time Thieves will find themselves dying horribly. Players are used to going toe-to-toe with monsters, and the Thief is built around hopping in-and-out of combat. If you don’t know when to back off, you’re going to die.”
