Theo Nguyen, Content Designer at ArenaNet dedicated us some of his time during Eurogamer Expo in London with this exclusive interview.
What’s your target for the new traits system?
The traits system is something we are still working on at the moment. There are some issues that have to be fixed but I can’t say more about it until we finish it…so, that’s what I can say for now.
Why did you eliminate the energy system, at this development point, and replaced it with the dodge?
The thing about the energy system is that we felt that it was unecessary in an action game, is not easy to manage skills and pay attention about how much energy they cost. It kinda sucks when you are fighting with someone and then you are out of energy and you can’t do anything, it’s not nice and this is not what we want. Also we had a lot of feedbacks and we are pretty happy about it.
Can you give us an anticipation about the new long-term resources system that will replace potions?
Well, the same reason for the dodge system. We will not have potions, it’s just another annoying source that player have to manage. If you have a chance to try the demo you will see that even if the player has half bar of energy it will recharge in about few seconds. What it does now is limit how much you can dodge, you can’t costantly dodge but also it will not gonna prevent you from using your skills, so it’s much better.
What’s the new role will play the ranger class pet?
There are different ranger pets you can get and every pet will funcion differently and beyond that one important thing about the ranger pets is that they can actually revive you. When your character goes to low health the ranger can call the pet and if it survives then it ill bring you back and you’ll keep on fighting. We are looking for a gameplay for pet, we want them to feel actually important. We don’t have finished all the pets in game obviously but our game designers say that we will not have a pet that you just summon and do some damage.
Can a player be a leader or officer in two or more guilds at the same time?
The answer is that we are still working on the guild system and it’s really hard to answer specific questions like that at the moment.
A premade team made up by members of the same guild can collect influence points for their guild? In which way players can earn influence points?
The details about guild system is something we are still hanging out and I’can’t talk about it because is still work in progress.
Talking about the WvWvW, if a team log into the game at a low online population time, lets say at 4 am, it’s easier for them to assault a keep. What do you think about it? Do you have a plan to prevent it?
We are actually fine with the WvWvW pvp, it’s a more “organic” and less balanced system, it gives a really epic feeling when you see that a lot of people are attacking your keep and yes, it will be eeasier to assault but we don’t want limit that.so we respect that because it’s 2 servers vs 1 and one side become more powerful and attak many keeps the next morning the other server will see that and they will work togheter to fight the other side. So, we are not too worried about it and we also have an estensive competitive pvp system that is balanced so if you want a more balanced combat there is that, but we will lose a lot if we try to balance the WvWvW.
Does the trebuchets damage friendly targets like the catapults in Guild Wars 1?
No it doesn’t. We felt like that could be bad for gameplay as the trebuchet could hit anyone. They are very powerful and they could kill everyone so…well they could be really useless, that’s decision was made for a better gameplay.
The PvP mode that you showed us force the players to a run’n'catch match that somehow looks like the Battles for the Alliance in Guild Wars 1. Will there be more fight oriented PvP modes?
Yes, that’s just one map, there will be quit a lot of maps as soon as we release the game, there will be a lot of different modes with different type of teamwork. Even the map we are showing for the pvp demo really benefits players for defending the points and team we’ve seen that really succeed are the ones that could catch all those places. We are looking to have a wide range of gameplay so as we put new maps out you’ll experience all the different kind of gameplay.
Still thinking at the previous question, do you think the lack of a dedicated healing class will lead to short battles or we’ll see anyway some long fights between players?
All the classes have many self heals and because of that we’ve seen some fights go very long actually. Some classes are just very good at surviving so, classes like the guardians who are very though, have a lot defensive abilities, lot of buffs and self heals and two guardians fighting eachothers gonna last a while! Similary there are other classes that have some survivability like thieves, so it really depends on the class you are playing.
Last question, how do you feel about the future in Guild Wars 2, looking at the competitors?
We are not really worried, we are confident with guild Wars 2. Well…do we think that there will be a lot of games coming out? Yes of course we do. Do we fear them? Of course not!
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An italian version of the interview is available on our italian fansite GW2ITALIA.it, Italian Version
