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Buffed.de Interview with Jon Peters
romanator0
Member Posts: 2,382
Here is an interview of Jon Peters from the german website Buffed.de
Here is a translated version of the interview done by Tearsdale from GW2guru:
Guild Wars 2: Interview with Jon Peters of Arenanet about Endgame, World-PvP, Crafting and much more
Slowly we're getting more and more information about Guild Wars 2. We got developer Jon Peters on the phone to talk with him about the current state of development. Jon Peters answers question about the endgame of Guild Wars 2, world PvP, crafting, and what the developers think about how successful Guild Wars 2 will be.
[repetition of what was said above]
Lots of video material about GW2 surfaced during and after PAX in the US. On YouTube you can for example watch complete demo presentations. Daily news about Guild Wars and Guild Wars 2 are brought to you by our friends at Wartower.de, it's worth the visit!
buffed: What do you do in GW2 engame? Raids and dungeons?
Peters: Most important about GW2 is that we aren't talking about "endgame". That means the game isn't supposed to change a lot, just because one hit the maximum level. While you level you do events, dungeons, if you want to, you do world PvP, and that's just what you will do at level 80. Who enjoyed events will roam the world and search for them. Who preferred instances will visit some specifically made for level 80 and some already visited. For that there is a special repetition mode with new and different tasks.
buffed: But usually people visit instances to get good equipment. Don't you have to do that in GW2?
Peters: No, you won't be foreced to do so. You can get good equipment out of large dynamic events or world PvP. The difference between dungeon, event, and PvP equipemtn will primarily be the appearance and not how good it is.
buffed: Does the same apply for crafted equipment?
Peters: Absolutely. There is high level crafted equipment. Anyways, the most important thing about equipment is that you can transfer the attributes of one item to another item, if it looks better. Of course, it has to be the same type of item.
buffed: You mentioned world PvP, could you explain that quickly?
Peters: Sure, the idea is to call all worlds (that is servers) once a week to a large battle. The time interval might still change. For three servers at a time one area will be generated - right now we got four different giant battlefields - in which you fight over strategic points like fortresses, watch towers and sawmills.
buffed: Doesn't that mean that alliances between two sides will form to dispatch the third?
Peters: Well, that's possible, but there are no means of direct communication between the servers. But that's exactly the reason why we chose three sides for PvP. If one side dominates the other two can cooperate with unspoken agreement. If one of the weaker sides becomes the strongest then the alliances might change again. It just doesn't make much sense if 200 players from server A conquer everything and the 30 players that server B and C can bring each are even fighting among each other.
buffed: Regarding crafting: You can combine ingredients to discover recipes?
Peters: Exactly, we want that players experiment to discover new things.
buffed: Are these recipes always the same? Meaning three chunks of wood, some leather, and two rods of iron always create a great axe? Or does that vary?
Peters: It'll always be the same arrangement. We want to encourage experimentation, but we also want to reward the players if they have discovered something. Thus, once someone knows a recipe they'll always be able to use it again.
buffed: The Mesmer will be the next class, which you quite certainly can not confirm. But will you at least tell us which armor the next class will wear?
Peters (laughs): We won't tell which classes are still to come. But well, one will wear light and one will wear medium armor, I can tell you that much. The people expect a lot and we know that many enjoy mind tricks and aspects like that. And we'll quite certainly not disappoint those people.
buffed: Guild Wars was really successful, all in all you sold seven million copies. Do you think GW2 could be even more successful?
Peters: I hope so. We implemented many great ideas in Guild Wars already and we now specifically addressed the issues of the game and the genre and improved upon them. We want to avoid that players are always competing in PvE areas: Who gets the resource node? Who kills the monster? That prevents teaming up and the feeling to work for a common goal. We want to create a world which the players like to enter to play together.
buffed: Jon, thank you for the interview, we're already excited about the game.
Peters: It was a pleasure and we are looking forward to everyone playing our game!
Comments
Once a week? Does that mean it will occur once a week ?
In Bioware we trust!
The battles are 1 week long and the servers are shuffled at the end of that. There is a battle going on every week.
They are week long battles. Each week the server or world distribution changes so that you will be fighting new people every week.
Now they are just teasing. ^^
Great find...thanks!
I dont think they actually ever confirmed the length of the battles. They've only stated that there would be weekly battles. Even then the length of the battles are subject to change.
It could be the battles last for one day, 5 days, 6.9283451 days.
"Those match-ups will be rotated every week to match worlds against those of similar strength."
http://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/World_PvP
They are a week long.
WvWvW: "four different giant battlefields"
So they split the Mists into different zones (so far). Intriguing. I wonder if we are talking Alterac Valley size, WAR RVR lake size or blatant fully blown open zones where you can almost get lost in.
And apart from size, most comes down on the layout of those battlefields:
Will you meet that enemy zerg at almost predetermined chokepoints in fairly lineair designed battlefields or are they open and free structured: as in having to scout and look for them and being able to mount attacks on objectives from multiple directions / allowing for a certain amount of subterfuge and creativity in strategies like ambushes or feint attacks, etc.
Really hoping for the last.
If they'll end up being large, Alterac Valley style zerg-funnels (with a third faction attached) it would be a disappointing alternative to open world pvp.
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We just don't have the information about it yet DarkPony. I hope we get some PvP information soon.
Yeah I know, I was just prognosticating contradistinctive culminations.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Tme limited battles is an interesting element. It is something the shadowbane devs said they wished they implremented. Its very common for PvP worlds to become stagnant as power establish themselves and dig in.
This is world PvP zerg is a very exceptable battle tactic. As much as everyone dreams of being the elite commando who can take on 4 people based on skill and tactical organization, it is rarely true.
Very true and I wasn't disproving that: An open battlefield is much more interesting for large groups as well as you won't always end up clashing somewhere in the middle between A, B (and C) like in a lineair battlefield design or fight over the same objectives over and over because they just happen to be in that 'same old' hotspot of the map.
And like I mentioned: an open zone offers much more freedom for tactics and clever coordination. I hope the WvWvW zones will be as natural and open as possible in that sense and not lineair, symmetrical or fenced in.
My brand new bloggity blog.
Hmm.. I believe it was mentioned a while ago that each server is going to have its own starting zone and there is going to be one big empty one in the middle up for the grabs.
I'm pretty curious to see how it's going to work out actually... Three different starting/base zones.. Inevitably one of those is going to be deemed the "best" and one is going to be the "worst".. Hmm.. This might mean that some server is going to have an advantage (real or perceived) at the beginning of the war. Wonder how they're going to counter/explain away that?
And how far can you go in conquering an enemy's base zone? Can you do it at all or is it just a skirmish area to harass reinforcements?
So many questions still unanswered... But I'm really hoping for open zones with scattered strategic points (like - you can go from A to B over open ground.. but slowly or you can take a strategic shortcut which is funneled, that kinda thing). Good battleground design is going to be crucial for WvW's success imo.