[Eanny]

I asked Gamekult for the orignal interview. Gael the editor in chief was very nice and provided it as soon as possible. here it is :

1. Will the “downed mode” caused by defeat be the same in PvP combat? What if I manage to take down a player while I’m downed, will this player get downed too and have to fight me while on the ground to decide who’s the winner?
Eric: Yes, downed mode applies equally to both PvE and PvP. In PvP however, players have the option to perform a “finishing move” on downed foes to dispatch them more rapidly. It is very possible for two opposing characters to have a battle where they are both downed and continue the fight from the ground.

2. Will I be able to choose which “downed skills” I’ll be able to use or will they be specific to each class?
Eric: Downed skills are not selectable. Each profession has access to 4 downed skills. 3 determined by their profession and 1 that is common to all professions. In earlier builds we had selectable downed skills but we did away with these for a few reasons. One of the things that we’ve found fun in PvP is that each profession is capable of a few iconic actions when downed so you react to downing a warrior differently than you do when downing an elementalist. Allowing professions to select different skills was watering this down. We also found that we had too much customization and it was causing our user interface to become cluttered as well as inflicting option shock on new users. I think we’re now at the point where advanced players have a ton of customization while not overwhelming new players.
3. The first Guild Wars had a pretty harsh death penalty, aren’t you afraid that making this penalty milder will let player exploit their death, to travel back to a city close to a resurrection point or something else?
Eric: Not at all. Since players can use the exact same waypoints to both travel and recover from defeat we avoid the problem that you mention. We specifically created our system so that players don’t have to commit suicide to fast travel, it was that way in early builds of the game and wasn’t particularly cool.

4. If there are no real healing classes in Guild Wars 2, does that mean that the gameplay experience for boss monsters will move away from the classic “tank and spank” gameplay?
Eric: Absolutely. Not just for boss monsters but for every monster encounter in the game. We’d like to create combat where positioning relative not only to targets, but also to allies is very important. Tactical positioning plus smart usage of skills and abilities should be what wins fights in Guild Wars 2.

5. What will be the alternatives for people who actually enjoyed doing nothing but healing their group mates in Guild Wars, will they have to give up this idea or will there be another kind of support class?
Eric: For people who enjoyed playing a support role, they still have support oriented professions available to them. In the abstract a support profession in Guild Wars 2 is similar to what you’d find in other games. They spend their time helping mitigate damage and increase the effectiveness of allies. The thing that is very different in Guild Wars 2 is that a player trying to act as support to their allies is not sitting in the back watching health bars go up and playing the party interface. In Guild Wars 2 a player supporting their allies will do things such as actively block incoming projectiles with a shield, cripple enemies chasing down their friends, apply the occasional strategically useful heal, or magically shield allies from the next incoming attack. Support in Guild Wars 2 is just as active and challenging as any other combat role.

6. The rarest commodities in MMOs when you are trying to form a group are usually healers and tanks, with healers being out of the picture in Guild Wars 2, aren’t you afraid that tank-like characters might become extremely sought out to the point that you can’t start a group without one?
Eric: The concept of a “tank” profession that holds “aggro” is not something we embrace. Damage mitigation and absorption is of course important but every profession has some access to those things. I’ve been in a dungeon designed with a party of 5 elementalists and had a lot of fun. In that particular case we had water and air elementalists freezing, slowing, blinding, and stunning monsters while fire elementalists inflicted a ton of damage. We also had a couple of elementalists switch into earth attunement for additional damage absorption as needed. All in all it was quite effective.

7. As for the dedicated healing skill slot, don’t you think it might increase self-sufficiency to a point where people might not even need to group?
Eric: Much the same way as we would never say that people have to solo, it is a goal of ours that people do not feel forced to group. We feel that most players like to do a mix of the two things without being forced to do either. The key is to allow them to group when they want to and allow them to solo when they want to. Our event system and the way in which we distribute loot and experience also gives people a third option which is to play cooperatively with other players without having to group.

8. Will the cross-profession combos allow your character to switch roles in combat, to be a DPS character in one dungeon then switch to something else?
Eric: Cross profession combos aren’t really used to switch roles but rather allow a player to support their allies and provide individual skills with more depth. For example, an elementalist using firewall can strategically place his wall in front of allies using bows to effectively give them a damage buff. To switch roles a player can switch out skills between encounters. As a warrior I might switch out the skill Signet of Fury for the skill “I will Avenge You” if my party has been dying a lot. I could also use weapon swapping to change roles during combat. A warrior can switch between support (mace and warhorn) and ranged DPS (longbow) with a simple button press in the middle of combat.