Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Guild Wars 2: Combat Mechanics Detailed; Elementalist Revealed
MikeB
Community ManagerAdministrator RarePosts: 6,555
MMORPG.com's Michael Bitton breaks down part one of Guild Wars 2 Lead Designer Eric Flannum's two-part feature on combat and the newly revealed Elementalist profession.
Yesterday we were treated to a massive reveal of Guild Wars 2 in the form of a lengthy blog post by ArenaNet studio Mike O'Brien on the newly launched ArenaNet blog. Mike's post outlined three problematic areas with MMO game design and what ArenaNet's plans were with Guild Wars 2 to address them. In doing so, Mike hinted at two things we'd be hearing more about today: the Elementalist class, and combat.
The Elementalist was teased in a few examples Mike used to illustrate various points about the game's combat systems, such as the fact the Elementalist would have access to the "Stone Boots" trait that would prevent them from being knocked back, or the fact they could combine their various spells to devastating effectsm etc. Today, ArenaNet has officially unveiled the Elementalist via one part of a two-part feature by Guild Wars 2 Lead Designer Eric Flannum.
Read all about it here.
Also, be sure to check out our Guild Wars 2 gallery for screenshots of the Elementalist!
Comments
I am saying it again. Just as I was about to declare MMOs dead (to me..and i am sure many true MMO fans see the same way) GW2 launches their "Design philosophy" manifesto.
All I can say is - MMOs have future again !
Don't just read about it and check out the gallery, make sure you WATCH THE VIDEOS too! You will NOT be dissapointed.
This is not a game.
We are adding the videos as well, don't worry!
Those skill animations were awesome. And yay for 10skill slots. Ahh i'm so hyped now.
Check out the Interview too guys!!
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/473/feature/4198/Guild-Wars-2-Exclusive-Interview.html
We went crazy with Guild Wars 2 awesomeness today!
LOOOOOOVE the spell effects omg. So dramatic =D
What videos ?!
Videos here! http://www.guildwars2.com/en/the-game/professions/elementalist/
woo Ele is so pretty! I love my Ele (:
The five new spell videos are up: http://www.mmorpg.com/newsroom.cfm/read/16839/Guild-Wars-2-Elementalist-Spell-Videos.html#comments
That...looks...awesome...
I'm loving the new details. The elementalist seems a fantastic class even with only this brief explanation.
The skill changes look overall positive. One of the many things I hated about the original GW was that you had 50 million skills (okay, the elementalist had ~140, but still) and...creating a proper build was just an absolute nightmare for me, especially since I'm obsessive compulsive. 140 skills for one class to learn, look through, and then synergize. Nevermind having a secondary profession to play around with and, sheesh, it's just an absolute nightmare, again. I could spend hours theorizing over just one class' potential combinations and end up undermining all the fun from having so many skills scattered to the four winds trying to make but one character play the way I want it to.
To that end, the change of having 5 skills determined by the weapon is absolutely flippin' awesome. Brings me back to the days when I played the .hack//outbreak quadrilogy. That game, all spells, skills, etc were determined by your weapon. I'm surprised this wasn't brought up, actually, considering .hack was based on an MMO, and pre-dates GW, let alone FF14. Then, only having 5 skills left to manually choose, presumably 1 each being a healing and elite skill, just makes it even easier to create a customized character that isn't a nightmare to design.
Throw in the fact that it appears, loosely, that multiclassing is gone, and GW2 is shaping up to be everything I wished GW1 to be, only better. (multiclassing creates balance nightmares, skill assignment nightmares for me, and overally just muddied the waters instead of creating iconic classes that felt distinct from each other, to me).
In addition to all this, ALA the heroes engine, the environment can now be a weapon, in addition to classes comboing off each other. This is one of the features I absolutely wanted to have from the Heroes engine in their backburner Heroes Online, that I wanted in TOR, that loosely existed in DA:O, and now it will exist in GW. This is showing how MMO's can possibly advance, and I look forward to this.
Knowing arena.net was founded by ex blizzard employees (before they sold their soul) gives me strong hopes for this sequel to a mediocre game hidden in great idealism (stupid skill bloat/class bloat, again), but knowing what happened to the original, I must take this with a grain of salt and say "This looks promising."
At the very least, the story, like its predecessor, should be awesome.
THIS!
Zomg, first awesome news about Telara and now this! Finally it seems mmorpgs have moved into the new generation we have all been waiting on
From what I've read so far, the combat in this game is going to make this game worth considering. It's going to be a tough choice between playing Guild Wars 2, Finaly Fantasy (new one), or LoTRO (which continuously keeps the game fresh through book updates), and WoW (superb product).
Wow. I was planning on checking out GW2 at launch but now it's on my "gimme now" list.
FFXIV
GW2
Telara
All look to be breaking the "WoW/EQ" mold, to an extent, anyhow, and anything new is good at this point, in my book.
I had no MMos I was looking forward to. I thought the future was just a grim dystopian MMO future where all we get are WoW/SWTOR clones, simple cash shopped streamlined single player games.
Never did I think the hope of the MMO future would rest on the shoulders of a company who made an insanely instanced half MMO.
But it seems its true.
Man... before all this new info was released I was pretty intriqued by GW2... I played the first one, had a good time... but GW2 looks like it's really going to break some molds and I am very excited. I'm glad to see that after so many years that we have some MMOs that are trying new mechanics. Plus a game coming from a pedigree like ArenaNet means we'll have support and continued updates.
I just hope the delivered product lives up to what's being teased. So far I have no reason to believe it won't, but I'm always a teensy bit skeptic
Never argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level, then beat you with experience.
I totaly agree with Lobotomist, when the first details of Guild Wars 2 were released a little part of me died as I was a big fan of the first game. After seeing these changes I have reason to live again! (in a kind of MMORPG fan way.) I was starting to seriously lose all faith in MMORPG's as ive been trying many of the new ones and theyve all been disapointing after waiting on them which is devastating to a mmorpg fan as you all well know. Cant wait to see what else they have got in store for us, Guild Wars 2 just cant come soon enough!
I am the exact opposite of you. I spent hours planning the build I wanted, how skills would combine with each other, which second profession had the best skills for the build I wanted, etc etc etc. This kept me entertained for dozens of hours without the game even running! Most of that seems to be gone now and I am quite disappointed. 5 skills are forced by profession and weapon, I could unhappily live with that. But then being FORCED to select 1 healing and 1 elite. This leaves me with ONLY 3 skills to select. What if I rather rely on the group's healer for all the healing? What If I rather a control/repeatable skill over a devastating one with a damn long recharge time? If I want to solo, I will put a healing skill without being FORCED to. It's true GW1 has a lot of useless skills. It's also true that having so many makes it difficult for developers to predict overpowered combinations. However, this seems to me like developers trying to cut effort by severely limiting the number of skills and player freedom. It's admittedly much easier to create a stunning visual effect for 10-20 skills than it is for 100+; but is it really worth it to basically kill what GW is famous for?
I was jumping of joy after looking at the elementalist information and skill videos, but the explanation of the 10 skills bar has left me with many doubts. A game I was 100% sure to buy just as I bought GW1 and all the expansions, has now dropped to 60-70%. I love the new graphics, animations and all the shiny stuff, but it's game mechanics that make or break the game for me. How many times can I cast a firewall for the ranger to get free burning arrows before I get bored and feel like I'm playing a spreadsheet (as it was so well put).
Honestly, the only thing this game has going for it right now (for me) is the lack of a monthly fee. There are many visually stunning with mold-breaking-combat games in development right now. I guess time will tell...or better said, BETA will tell.....
By the way, I was talking about OnyxBMW's post... sorry for confusion
I was half expecting to see just another example of flashy 'blah'. I watched the meteorite clip first and said 'HOLY SHIT' so loud my girlfriend came in from the other room to see what was wrong lol. These clips look absolutely amazing. And it seams that the dev's are doing their best to make sure the entire game is this amazing.
I'm pulling for ya dev's! You have a good attitude right now about not wanting to rush out a beta date because your concentrating on quality. KEEP THAT ATTITUDE. The MMO community is sick and tired of the same old regurgitated bile. Bring us a breath of fresh air. If the entire game is as spectacular as these spell casting clips you will have a winner for sure!
Our spirit was here long before you
Long before us
And long will it be after your pride brings you to your end
I was so excited for this game until I learned the skill bar has a max of 10 skills. WHY????
Cleric1234, i dont know why you would be disappointed by that when the first games only had 8. At least by having only 10 slots arenanet is still promoting strategy and skill over a giant list of spells that you can use at any time.
when can I preorder this game.....
The 8 slot skill bar was boring, straight up. It didn't require skill, so don't try to give me that garbage. It requires much more skill to have many abilities that you can use at any time, it takes strategy and knowledge to know when the right time to use specific skills is. I was really excited for Guild Wars 2 and from what I had been reading I had expected the skill bars to be basically limitless like most mmo's. However this limit is seriously making me reconsider playing.