Oh, right, Guild Wars 2

So, I realized the other day I haven't posted for a couple months.

Part of this is I really haven't had much to talk about. Until a few weeks ago, there wasn't anything new coming out of ANet about Guild Wars 2, so that topic sort of exhausted itself. It's not that I'm not still looking forward to the game, but there wasn't much to comment on. I could've mentioned going through Dark Cloud II (aka Dark Chronicle outside the U.S.) or my progress in Guild Wars, but, er, I didn't.

Let's rectify that with a long, rambling post about Guild Wars 2.

So, after the convention season, the information flow slowed to basically a trickle. No one really expected there to be much during the holidays, although the slowing pace did cool the hype a bit for a lot of people (including me). But the last few weeks we've actually gotten some new info, with more to come, as well as confirmation there'd be a closed beta this year (although at this point I'm still not sure if they'll be soliciting player applications or not; they've said "we aren't taking applications" but that could mean "yet"). I'd be interested in doing the beta—I actually like testing and QA, and would do my best to give them nice clear bug reports and suggestions—but if it's not opened up, I'll live. It'll make the open beta, when it comes, feel fresher.

Speculation is still ongoing about a release date. I'm still putting my money on late Q3 or Q4 of this year. Some people seem to think that a closed beta this year means it can't come out until at least Q1 2012, but I think that's because they're used to betas being a total mess. I'm actually guessing both the closed and open betas will be short, because we know that they've got a large in-house QA team and that the demo players and the invited testers have already given them a lot of feedback from outside the company.

Speaking of demos, they've announced there's a new one, and it will premier at the PAX East meet-and-greet. Sounds like they aren't going to have a booth at the convention proper, but they're going to do a little mini-demo for the fans anyhow. Speculation's running pretty high on that one, too, but one thing that seems pretty likely at this point is that we'll be seeing some norn play, though whether they've added to or revamped the demo stuff is still unknown. The reason it seems likely we'll be seeing the norn is that we've seen some new graphics given out to the press, including stuff labeled as 'norn starter area'.

Also, they're doing some racial feature weeks. Humans were done recently, and it was perhaps a little lackluster aside from the final day, with a really nicely-done lore article on the three military orders in Kryta. Not to say the rest was bad, just that there weren't really any surprises.

Norn are next up, next week, thus making it sound even more likely the new demo has some norn play. I'm really hoping they spend some time on the totems, because I'm still wondering what place Snow Leopard has in the mix, and would love some more details on the others. I'm still sad Owl isn't a choice, but I'm intrigued by the inclusion of an animal that didn't even exist in the original GW world. Plus I think snow leopards are gorgeous, so I'm hoping I like the... I don't know... philosophy of them, I think is what I want to say here. Because I'd really like to play one for the look-and-feel. (I've got a backup, or at least a 2nd choice, in Raven, but still.)

And, of course, there was the latest profession reveal, for the Guardian. I'm actually pretty intrigued by the gameplay of the guardian, which is a proactive defensive front-to-midliner. It's heavy armor, but we've been told it's lower HP than the Warrior (thus informing us for the first time that HP will vary based on profession, which was not the case in GW1), so it's not a tank or an MMO-style paladin. It's really more like an old-fashioned front-line-capable Cleric from D&D. In GW1 terms, it's sort of a mixed bag: there's some recognizable Smite-Monk style things, plus some bits reminiscent of the Ritualist, some Paragon feel in that it's a front-line-capable but support-oriented character, and even a bit of Dervish feel in the Virtue system.

The Virtue system is weird. Basically, the Guardian has a passive effect set of self-buffs that can be activated to give the buff to allies, which disable the passive effect for a set time afterwards. This is the part that reminded me of Dervish forms, a bit, though obviously with a different focus. I'm not sure I'm in love with the cooldowns from the activation, though I imagine they'll be tweaked (differently for PvE vs PvP) if necessary. It just seems like a two-minute cooldown in PvE translates to once every several battles, which is less than useful. Same problem GW1 Ritualists used to have with spirits taking so long to set up, and they ended up changing that for PvE, but we'll see.

In any event, despite that, I think that the Guardian is destined to be a profession I really like. I really prefer active defense to reactive defense/heals, for one thing. For another, I adore hybrid support/offense characters. I like straight support, too, but self-sufficient support is even better. And the idea of a heavy-armor character with a staff or wand is pretty fun and definitely not something you see all the time. (They also get more traditional things like sword and mace, but they get the caster stuff, too.)

Which brings me back to trying to figure out what I'm playing. Obviously it'd be easiest if I knew all eight professions, but I've got some things figured out in a weird logic puzzle require/eliminate style fashion and it's looking kinda like it's going to be hard to meet them all.

What I've got so far is this: for sure a female human ranger. That's the descendant of my current GW1 main-ish character, and that one's set in stone. I'd like to do two humans, two sylvari, and two norn, but one asura and one charr, to cover the eight professions. Of the more human-like races (meaning neither asura nor charr), I'd like to do two males: one adventurer, and one scholar. That's primarily because I've seen some armor gender dichotomy in those armor classes, but less in the heavy armor, so I'd like a chance to get the male versions.

However, I've had this image in my head of a female human mesmer with a sword for ages, and if they are in (and I'm about 98% certain they are) and I don't hate the adaptation (and I probably won't) I'd really like the idea of making one. That would mean I'd end up with three humans if I still wanted a male one. On top of that, I'd really prefer to not play a norn warrior, because that's so expected and typical, but I also was leaning towards making the adventurer male a human, and between that and a few other decisions, it may work out that the warrior is a norn. Unless I decide to make an adventurer male norn and go with warrior for the human, maybe. I'm not sure. I also may decide that norn women are close enough to the image of the mesmer to go with that instead.

Also, I really want to make sure I pair the guardian profession, which I expect to like, with a race and background I also am fairly sure I will enjoy. ATM, I'm leaning towards a female winter sylvari, with a male autumn sylvari to be my male scholar (probably an elementalist), but we'll see.

Of course, I probably should stop speculating until we see the final three professions (or at least until I see the mesmer), but I can't help it. I really want this stuff figured out and ready to go (and grab good names) at launch.