Guild Wars 2 at PAX 2009

[Inde]

Thanks Nox, we got a corner edge of the booth. Haven't seen a pic of the Guild Wars 2 booth yet.

[Calvar Draveir]

Originally Posted by Inde

Thanks Nox, we got a corner edge of the booth. Haven't seen a pic of the Guild Wars 2 booth yet.

I know, frustrating, isn't it? I can't wait for the youtube video to come up, well see it well enough then.

[Joiry]

patrick at GWO updated his post with more info, and promised a bit more later

Perhaps one of the biggest things (to me), the Polar creatures may not the new Norn bear form, but the "Kodan" (or is that just the name the Norn give to their bear form)

EDIT: Okay, I had to leave PAX a bit early (took me four hours to drive back home), and didn't get a chance to ask any more questions. Apologies to all who posted questions to ask; I should have asked for them beforehand, as I seem to go blank right when its time to ask them. Maybe if someone else goes tomorrow or Sunday, they may get a chance to ask them.

Anyway, I DO have more info to share, most of which is remembered stuff from this morning, or stuff from the artbook.

1. Those big armored polar bears seem to be called the "kodan," and look like a new race in the Norn areas as far as I can tell. There's a few killer concepts of them in the book. Nevermind the Norn, I wanna play one of these guys!

2. There is a wardrobe concept for a Sylvari Necromancer, and one for what looks like a Norn Elementalist. The Sylvari looks much like the one at the end of the trailer, but with much smoother hair, and wearing an all black/dark purple, more covered outfit. The picture of the Norn has armor that looks reminiscent of the old hydromancer armor (female), but with more fur lining.

3. There's a note that the Sylvari are divided into groups, one for each season based on the hour of their birth. Theres a few artworks that show presumably a Spring and a Fall Sylvari.

4. Jeff talked a little about the evolution of Turai Ossa's story as an example of their storytelling process. He said originally it was very loose, with just some names (Turai, Jahai, Palawa Joko, etc) with no real set lore behind it. As they got into Nightfall, they took it and started fleshing it out. They talked about who they would cast in the dream "movie-version," and he said Palawa Joko would have been played by Christpher Walken. Now I'm having images in my head of Palawa begging for "more cowbell."

5. Mursaat. Someone asked about them, and the response was that they won't be in the novel (or not the first one at least), but they kind of danced around their role in the game, if any.

6. Glint. There's definitely some story to what happens to her, although I'm not sure if it will be in the book. Its in the game for sure, though.

7. Talking about story again, and said that talking about the "story" of GW2 is like talking about the story of WWII. Of course there's the main overarching tale, but there's also a million stories within that that go in all different directions. Basically saying there's a lot of layering of subplots and sideplots.

8. Found one costume picture that reminds me a lot of Vampire Hunter D/Van Helsing (more Van Helsing, actually). I'm guessing its a ranger, or whatever the ranger-ish class will be. It's in a section talking about how Lion's Arch has become a bit of a free-for-all, with all sorts of characters mixing about (notably bandits). Sounds like a sort of Mos Eisley town.

9. They talk a little about costumes. Where GW1 generally hit a more medieval look, costumes in GW2 evoke a bit more of a Renaissance feel. There's a picture of a male and female in what looks like it could be Mesmer armor, and yet there's something Ranger-ish about it, too (fancy rangers, if so).

10. I mentioned I was a little surprised about them releasing the trailer and artbook this close to Aion's release, and how I figured NCsoft wanted all the focus to be on Aion for the next month or two. He laughed and said they really wanted to get this stuff out there at Cologne and PAX this year, as they are the two main Anet conventions. I kind of got the feeling that any attention given towards one NCsoft game is a potential benefit to their other games too (in terms of visibility), so its all good.

Okay, need dinner. Will probably be back later after I've gone over the artbook with a magnifying glass. I might post a few crappy pics of some important images, like the Jennah(?) one, although they'll be poor quality due to my camera, and the ever present copyright concerns.

[Inde]

Thanks Joiry, updating the first post.

[Shew]

So it's confirmed that Sylvari are aligned with seasons? Awesome!

There is already concept art of a Sylvari aligned with the winter season (which I will be aligned with :P):

[Joiry]

Duh, I just remembered, Kodan is the name of the iceberg with sails. So, is it called Kodan Iceberg in the same way you might call, for example, a place Tiger Island because it has a lot of tigers?

[Xuco]

So the polar bear people could in fact be the companions for the norn, instead of the norn themselves? Sounds cool

[semantic]

this game is so gonna rock.


please release soon. thx

[Calvar Draveir]

I'd bet Kodan are a type of norn. (albino?)

[Breakfast Mc Rit]

Perhaps each race will have a different companion. Norn get Kodan, asura get golems, sylvari get those woody tree things, etc...

[Firebrazer]

And humans get...?
Mini-Me?

[Breakfast Mc Rit]

Humans get nothing cause they're noobs.

Honestly, after thinking about it, I'm not so sure that's the case anymore. But I wouldn't put it past the creative team anet has to think of something awesome for humans and the charr.

[Chronologix]

Originally Posted by Breakfast Mc Rit

Humans get nothing cause they're noobs.

Honestly, after thinking about it, I'm not so sure that's the case anymore. But I wouldn't put it past the creative team anet has to think of something awesome for humans and the charr.

the humans have a shackled charr, and the charr have a shackled human!

[Sabre Wolf]

I think that each Norn is slightly different and therefore probably carry a different Racial name dependent on the spirit their most intersted in... like Dutch, Japanese, African for us in real life, one version of them might be Kodan... same with the Sylvari with the seasons... and there are different colored fur for the Charr... and we already know we have Ascolonians and Kytians for Humans... so there might be sub-races ontop of the races in the game.

Also, I looked up the word Kodan... means traditional Japanese storytelling... Egil Fireteller anyone?

[Cereal]

Wait...

The norn have a ship made out of an iceberg? What happens when that ice burg flips over?

No really, some of this lore stuff actually sounds cool and I'm not usually into the lore-aspects of games. That or I'm deprived of good quality info.

[Tr0n]

Originally Posted by Chronologix

the humans have a shackled charr, and the charr have a shackled human!

Haha, yeah, that would be wrong.

[Joiry]

The name Kodan may be inspired by the Kodiak Bear:

also known as the Alaskan brown bear,[2] is the largest subspecies of Brown Bear and occupies the islands of the Kodiak Archipelago in south-central Alaska.

Of course, Kodiaks are brown bears and not polar bears. But Anet often freely borrows names and modifies them for their purposes.

If the Kodan are their own species, makes me think of the Panserbjorne from the His Dark Materials trilogy (better known for its first book, the Golden Compass, made into a so-so movie like two years ago). The "armored bears" were sentient polar bears which were well known for their metal smithing skills. Indeed, the main panzerbjorn in the trilogy, Iorek, forged his armor from meteorite iron and later in the trilogy performs a rather amazing feet of smithing.

Notably, the artwork of Kodan shows it with a hammer, which is often associated with smithing.

[Faust Arp]

No offence to Inde and the others that have been trying to keep us updated on PAX , you have done a really good job with what you have had to work with, but doesn't anyone else find it incredible that this is the way that A-Net choose to keep us updated on Guild Wars 2 at what is supposedly a big event for Guild Wars 2,like cmon , what would it have cost them to have a live feed on justin tv like they had at the trailer reveal? and to be honest i don't see any reason why they couldn't have had a live feed,it isnt asif they are giving out any secret info that we cannot be alowed to see yet.But instead what do we get ?, second rate 1 sentence updates on twitter when one of A-Nets reps decides to throw us a bone.. weak or what? but then again i guess its what i have come to expect from the so called community relations at A-Net.

[Tr0n]

It's called a tease.

[Lihinel]

Originally Posted by Faust Arp

i don't see any reason why they couldn't have had a live feed,it isnt asif they are giving out any secret info that we cannot be alowed to see yet.

As you said yourself, its not like there is going to be any major announcement or secret info and since it was stated that they would upload video footage of the Story Q&A Sessions there doesn't seem to be any need to present a live feed at all.