Guild Wars Principle #1: Everybody gets a swing at the proverbial piñata. In Guild Wars 2 we’re fully committed to the concept of rewarding players individually. This is more or less a quick way of saying that we don’t want to design a system where players argue over loot settings, turn to external “out of game” systems to decide who gets what upon downing a boss, o... more.

Disciplines In Guild Wars 2, there are eight crafting disciplines players can choose from. Weaponsmith – Weaponsmiths craft melee weapons, such as swords, axes and hammers. Huntsman – Huntsmen craft ranged weapons like bows and pistol, as well as torches and warhorns. Artificer– Artificers craft magical weapons such as staves and scepters Armorsmith – Armorsmiths craft heavy a... more.

Guild Wars 2 is the story of YOU, and the heroic adventures you experience in the massive, dynamic world of Tyria. With the customizable, personal storylines in Guild Wars 2, you can explore a fully interactive MMO world with your friends and follow your character's own unique narrative. Your story begins when you create a character. The choices you make at the beginning of the game - ra... more.

Will dynamic events reset? For example, if an NPC dies in a dynamic event, will that NPC die forever for everyone in the world, or will she eventually respawn? What if players kill a boss in a dynamic event, and I logged off for the day and missed it? Are dynamic events really just one-shot, large-scale quests? Colin: Dynamic event chains can reset. As chains, they move along paths based on p... more.

Will guilds or large, organized groups of players be able to manipulate, control, or grief the dynamic events system? For example, once they know all the outcomes of an event, could they force a particular outcome? What exactly is being done to minimize griefing?  Eric: A few things need to be said about the event system here. One of the primary goals when we design each ... more.

Enter the living world of Guild Wars 2 - filled with thousands of dynamic events that ebb and flow through the course of your adventures. One day there may be a thriving village filled with vendors and townspeople, the next day that village may be a smoking ruin overrun by centaurs. Dynamic events evolve and cascade across the world in response to how you, the player, interact with them... more.

  We here at ArenaNet just went through a round of interviews telling people about this exciting new Guild Wars 2 profession, the guardian. Not many of those conversations go by without someone wondering aloud if the guardian breaks the paradigm we set to create—a game without the Holy Trinity. “So much for no Holy Trinity,” we’d hear. “Guardian is a paladin, dedicated h... more.

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. Let’s start with a brief history of our character attribute system. We wanted to add attributes to Guil... more.

[caption id="attachment_367" align="alignnone" width="655" caption="Progression and Leveling in Guild Wars 2"][/caption]       You know that point in other MMOs when, after playing for a few hours, you look down at your experience bar and wonder, “WTF? Has my experience bar even moved at all?” Nobody enjoys feeling like they haven’t made any progress even though th... more.

We get the first details on Guild Wars 2's overhauled combat system, profession system, and the elementalist class.   While the original Guild Wars' unique combination of action role-playing and strategy was first introduced some years ago, developer ArenaNet has quietly been working on the sequel. Now, the studio has finally begun to take the wraps off Guild Wars 2. Lead designer Eric Fl... more.