PAX East Brings some Interesting Developments...

Hello, readers! I am back from the weekend, and back with some information about PAX!

PAX East came and went this past weekend, leaving a few relative tidbits.

Portal 2 is just one month away. A new character, Cave Johnson, has been revealed. Cave Johsnon, some may know, is the founder of Aperture Science, and will also be using the same ominous intercom as Glados to communicate with and guide the player. JK Simmons (who is not a joke, in spite of his initials) is the voice actor, and should also be recognized from his role as J Jonah Jameson from the Spiderman films.
Also, some PAX Demo footage reveals the beginning of the game, including some of Cave Johnson's odd sense of humor in the early parts of the game. Also, an interesting tie-in to the first game will be finished before the game's release. A song is also being done by The National for the game.

10 minutes of Guild Wars 2 hard core combat was shown at PAX, leading to PC Gamer's article 15 Things We Learned from Guild Wars 2 Combat Footage. (Warning, hot Norn babes await)
This excites me because I feel like they're doing quite well with Guild Wars 2. It looks quite polished, cinematic, and arsty, which sticks true to the original Guild Wars feel. That's the reason why I play Guild Wars instead of pretty much any other fantasy MMO, it looks really awesome. Screencaps from the game can make fantastic wallpapers. WoW always seemed cartoony to me.

Fairly short blog post today, but I've got to get to class, now!

Guild Wars 2 Release Attribute System for PAX East

Over the development of Guild Wars 2, the attribute system has evolved over many different courses. The first set of attributes was very stereotypical for the fantasy game.

• Strength—increased melee attack damage.
• Agility—increase ranged attack damage.
• Intelligence—increased magic attack damage.
• Vitality—increased health; increased defense against melee attacks.
• Perception—increased critical strike chance for melee and ranged attacks; increased defense against ranged attacks.
• Willpower—increased critical strike chance for magic attacks; increased defense against magic attacks.

This brought along it's own set of problems. The interface for Hero attributes was very confusing to look at, and made it hard to determine what skills and spells had their damage buffed by what attribute, so they changed it.

• Strength—increased melee attack damage.
• Agility—increase ranged attack damage.
• Intelligence—increased magic attack damage.
• Vitality—increased health.
• Perception—increased critical strike chance.
• Willpower—increased energy.

However, this brought about problems with choosing weapons. Basically, no matter what you chose, it would limit your weapon options greatly. A warrior couldn't carry a sword and a bow, and be good with both of them, even though that's a fairly common combination to want on your person.

Finally, the dev team came up with an attribute system they were happy with.

• Power—increased attack damage.
• Precision—increased critical strike chance.
• Vitality—increased health.
• Toughness—increased defense/armor.

Using this set of attributes, it didn't limit weapon choice, but it also simplified the UI and made it much easier to discern what attribute translated into what you wanted, whether that be damage or health or what have you.

I find this a great move for the better, although it's going to make it difficult to discern between individual players, I feel. The simplification also takes away some of the customization. I suppose most of the individualization of characters will come from the weapon they use, though, since the weapons are what will decide skills for the characters.

In either case, PAX East starts in just 18 hours! I'm not going, but I'm looking forward to all the game news that will be coming out of this.

Norn Week on Guild Wars 2 website

More information on another playable race was released yesterday on the Guild Wars 2 web page as part of Norn Week, including an awesome new trailer.




Screencaps and wallpapers were also released.
Since the holiday season, information has only trickled through their web page for the game until a couple weeks ago when they started Human Week, and then Norn Week.

I'm very excited for the eventual release of this game. There were a few problems in the original Guild Wars, however anything that was a flaw in the system seems like they're going to fix it in Guild Wars 2.

Demos were shown at several gaming conventions recently, and everything looks beautiful, polished, and ready to go. I can not wait till it's released.
Beta Testing is rumored to take place later this year.