[Naut]

We'd like to thank everybody who joined, promoted and asked questions for our live IRC dev chat today! We're looking forward to doing even more events like this in the future!

[INDENT]<Geikamir> Can the teleport portal skill of the Mesmer be used for cross profession combos (like shooting through them to hit enemies in different locations)?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> No. Only allied team-mates can move through.

<+Vorsakan> Q. Can you be knocked through an allied portal by a foe?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> yes you can be knocked into a portal by an enemy!


<Laida> Q. Can they give us some examples of cross-profession combo's to expect with the Mesmer?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> - You can put up Chaos storm which adds random conditions to projectiles moving through.On the other end, you can use your Leap skill on mainhand sword to benefit from allied combo fields.


<Job> How did you arrive at the current profession mechanic for the mesmer? What iterations did you scrap and how did it evolve into what it is now?
<[ANet]IzzyCartright> We started off with just an illusion limiter and all the shatters where on weapon skills but found this too limiting. Also all of our illusions where different creatures but this was too confusions and hard to create so we ended up with two types clones and phantasms.


<SwashbucklerXX> With all these cool, exotic races that can turn into animals and make golem battlesuits and such, what's going to makke playing as a human a compelling experience? Will humans be getting any fun and flashy racial abilities?
<@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Avatar of Melandru turns you into an awesome creature. Summoning dual Hounds of Balthazar. Is. So. Freaking. Cool.


<Krazzar> Will certain types of opponents of the same group have different AI (such as a "brute" acting differently than a "mage"), or will each race have their own AI tendencies (such as skritt acting differently than ogres), or both?
<[ANet]EricFlannum> We break creatures into groups we call "families" and try to give each family a distinct feel. For example the dredge tend to be pretty stationary and use a lot of sonic themed abilities. Within the dredge family there are things like the dredge mining suit which tends to be bigger and more "brutish".

<+Rubi> Secondary question: Will there be human skills reflecting all six gods?
[19: 52] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Yep, there are 6 human skills, based on the gods.


<AlietteFaye> I was wondering if you guys had any new information about the changes to traits that you previously mentioned, but have not yet revealed?
<@[ANet]IzzyCartright> We not ready to talk about the new trait system yet, but here are some of the things you can do with traits. We have a trait that allows you to give you venoms to all nearby allies allowing a thief to run around and make his allies apply poison and other conditions. We also have a trait on the ranger that allows spirits to follow you around. Well talk more about traits sometime near the begining of the year.


<Daniel> Are there any plans to release PvP footage of the Mesmer (or at least a full skill compendium), prior to Demos in 2012?
<[ANet]EricFlannum> We do plan to release some more footage but we haven't determined exactly what it'll be and when we'll release it so I'll pass on the request for some Mesmer PvP footage.


<[TL]Bridger> Will the mesmer have any control over his illusions? For example: could he create a bunch of illusions and tell them all to retreat so the enemy would not know which one was the real one running away?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> No, you cannot do this. They are simply summoned onto a target, and attack that target until the illusion dies, or that target dies.

<+[TL]Bridger> Followup: Would a Mesmer need to act like the AI illusions to truly fool an expert player then?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> Followup on Mesmer: Yes, that's definitely a viable strategy! Sometimes doing NOTHING and standing still is an amazing way to fool your opponents as a Mesmer. And just when they think you're an illusion and not the real Mesmer... You make them QQ.


<Sojourn> Do you feel that allowing people to change servers so often that servers will not have a sense of community to them for WvWvW?
<[ANet]EricFlannum> This is absolutely a concern for us and we will work very hard to come up with some restrictions that are fair enough such that players can play with their friends and yet will discourage people jumping to the current winning server in WvW. We'll anounce something when we know exactly what those restriction.


<Laida> On reddit you mentioned to have 12 professions in mind at the start. Any chance of letting us know the 4 that didn't make it? Do you think any of them will be added later on?
<[ANet]IzzyCartright> As always with design we start with a large lists of ideas and then boil it down into the primordial goodness. So our large list of ideas has had lots of random things most of which we've taken the parts we like and put them into our current professions but some of those ideas where: warden, marksmen, juggernaught, artificer, dualist, knight, berserker and many others I'm sure I can't remeber right now.


<Aeronite> Can you give a few examples of Mesmer Elite Skills?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> -One elite allows you to transform a foe into a moa bird for a short time. They have moa bird skills while in this form, just to add insult to injury. : )


<[ANet]Community> Ok, just to get this out of the way here: We have a studio internal selection process for our Closed Beta that starts on Friday. There will be no public application form.


<another> You mentioned that humans will get 6 skills based on the gods, but it was previously mentioned that each race has around 12 racials. Has the number decreased, or will humans get other skills that aren't god-related? Also, will also races get at least 4 elite racial skills since norn get 4 elites?
<[ANet]IzzyCartright> We currently have 6 race skills these are often a mixture of elites, utility skills, and heal skills for humans there is a prayer for each god and for norn there is 4 transforms and 2 utility skils.


<+Rubi> Can you elaborate on the moa skills?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp>Peck, kick, screech. You get the picture!


<Dux> What exactly does the Engineer's Supply Drop contain? And has it changed any?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> It drops a smorgasborg (from Jon Peters) of different bundles! Some of them heal, some of them can be picked up by allies!


<Neo> Will we be able to see technical information like weapon range, attack speed, and things of the like through the ingame UI or will that be something that players have to experiment to figure out?
<[ANet]EricFlannum> For the most part players will need to experiment with the things that you mention although we do plan to have tools for helping players experiment. Things like the dps target dummies in the first game.


<Palmtree> Do NPCs act differently when confused, or do they activate abilities as normal and simply take the damage?
<[ANet]IzzyCartright> no they just attack and get beat up like a good monster, some monsters do have condition removal however.


<Wobbley> One of the greatest changes Guild Wars 2 promises to bring to MMOs is to break the holy trinity of group roles. Would you dare say that this is true for any class/spec combination, or does it contain some modifications? An example would be; could 5 skilled Guardians using the same weapon and traits do a dungeon?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> -Absolutely, they could do it with the same weapons and traits. If you changed out your weapons and traits, you'd have more diversity, and would make it easier on yourself.


<Epicent> will the mists have dynamic events or will it be strictly pvp and siege captures and stuff?
<[ANet]IzzyCartright> yes WvW will have events.


<Kamara-Fae> following on from the server swapping restrictions question. Is Euro/US/Other split a thing you're considering like all other MMOs? Or do you want a truly international melting pot and make everyone happy?
<[ANet]EricFlannum> We always try to make it possible for people to play together but we don't have any final answers on this just yet, sorry.


<haxyou> How will a casual player get to see big events like the Shatterer and Tequatl with a limited play schedule?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> Because those large events can happen multiple times throughout the day, you can team up with anyone around you at that time and take on those larger challenges, even if you're only a casual player!


<MrFurious> Will Mesmers have a skill that allows them to mimic players or creatures?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> Probably not.


<Inde> Will Arenanet allow and encourage development of add-ons since they have become so popular and integral in MMO's now?
<@[ANet]EricFlannum> We won't be allowing people to mod the game itself directly no. We feel that this encourages people to play the game in such a way that gives them an unfair advatage over those who don't use mods. However we understand that many people enjoy modding games and are looking into ways for people to build things for the game in other ways. We'll have more information on this sometime next year.


<Next> With regards to WvWvW and with the recent Reddit information on them. How are you guys counteracting lag issues, especially when there's the possibility of having 2,000 players in one map?
<@[ANet]IzzyCartright> In WvW there are 4 different maps each with a cap we put a cap on map beacuse we know this is what the server can handle, the reason we have a cap is to keep lag under control. Our cap will be somewhere around 500 per map but it all depends on server preformance and that might change as we are always testing it.



<Binaryrain> Will there be other purchasable guild wars 2 items, like different plushies other than the charr one?
<[ANet]Community> We know you folks want merchandise, so we are looking into it. I can't give details on what that might be or any timeframe though. ~MK


<Asta> Will weather be dynamic in GW 2 (i.e with clouds forming rain or snow randomly happening), and will sky be dynamic (clouds passing by etc not just a backgound picture)?
<@[ANet]EricFlannum> Weather can sometimes be random and sometimes is affected by specific events. For example, there is a huge snowstorm that occurs on one of the maps when a specific event is failed. This snowstorm then kicks off a new chain of events as players deal with the effects of.


<@Rubi> Now that all professions are out of the way, what is the team's big focus?
<@[ANet]JonathanSharp> -Right now we're working a lot on guild features, balance, finishing content, and, most importantly, figuring out what to eat for lunch.
<@[ANet]Community> The lunch part is super important! ~MK


<Roland_Daemon> For Guilds, are there going to be perks/levels setup for the guilds or will it be something that has access to everything from the get-go with the right amount of karma/gold?
<@[ANet]IzzyCartright> There are many things that guilds can earn what and how we'll talk about as we release more about guilds.


<Symbiont> a new Q, followup on modding, can we mod sound files, and add our own sound mods to make our character sound more evil?
<@[ANet]EricFlannum> I don't think its possible to do this but I'll pass along the request to our sound team.


<Hitiro> Considering in structured PvP there are destructable environments can we expect to have the same feature in WvWvW too? And along those lines will there also be environmental weapons like structured PvP?
<@[ANet]IzzyCartright> In WvW there are many seige weapons you can use to blow things up with as well as many things you can pick up and use.


<sohsoh> What kind of interactions/interfaces outside of the actual game do you guys have planned with launch (eg web profiles, stats, rankings, ladders, guild management, etc)? On a similar note, will you guys also provide web services/data feeds/api for data compiling/mining/etc to the community or fansites to play around with? <[ANet]Community> All of these are very good suggestions, and we will have at least some of them. Unfortunatannot go into details at this point. : ) ~MK


<Vorsakan> The term "familiar" has oh-so-teasingly been spoken in relation to the elementalist - can you tell us anything more about this skill type?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> -Nothing at the moment.


<Vorsakan> Q. Was there ever a point, after hexes and energy were dropped, that you didn't expect the mesmer to return?
<[ANet]IzzyCartright> No we hold the mesmer pretty closer to our heart so we knew we would make it work.[/INDENT]

Thanks to Izzy, Jon, Jonathan, Eric and the community team (Martin, Regina & Stephané) for taking the time out to answer our questions on this awesome game! :)

[Palmtree]

Thanks for this!

[Kentaro]

Now I can catch up on things I missed while sorting through all the questions thanks for doing this Naut!

[Mif]

Quote

<Laida> Q. Can they give us some examples of cross-profession combo's to expect with the Mesmer?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> - You can put up Chaos storm which adds random conditions to projectiles moving through.

I wonder how this will work with multiple projectile skills like the Thief's unload.
Will it be one random condition per usage of a skill, or once per projectile?

[Geikamir]

Mif said:

I wonder how this will work with multiple projectile skills like the Thief's unload.
Will it be one random condition per usage of a skill, or once per projectile?

I wonder the same thing. Unload with a new, random condition each hit.... would be sick.

[Jobrjo]

Thanks, I enjoyed the read :)
I realize that every question can't be asked, but I really do wish we asked about Stances. As the function directly off of energy, and energy is gone, they very well could be much more useful in their current state, really wished that was asked. Oh well, enjoyable read anyway :D

[KikkenF]

Having a closed beta starting friday, is it safe to say that open beta wont be here for like 1-2 month minimum?

I know it's all relative, just figuring out the average closed beta time.


-EDIT- People really love mesmer by the questions. A bit diversity on questions could be great :) but still thanks for the IRC chat.

[Azjenco]

Naut said:

<AlietteFaye> I was wondering if you guys had any new information about the changes to traits that you previously mentioned, but have not yet revealed?
<@[ANet]IzzyCartright> We not ready to talk about the new trait system yet, but here are some of the things you can do with traits. We have a trait that allows you to give you venoms to all nearby allies allowing a thief to run around and make his allies apply poison and other conditions. We also have a trait on the ranger that allows spirits to follow you around. Well talk more about traits sometime near the begining of the year.

Yes, thank you to whoever asked it.
Next year, huh? Wow, from the Mesmer revealed today, to the blog next week, CB on Friday, and then traits in a month, also a slight hint that something else might come towards the end of the year, there's a lot happening at the moment.
Exciting times.

[The Trouble With Me]

Naut said:

[INDENT]<Binaryrain> Will there be other purchasable guild wars 2 items, like different plushies other than the charr one?
<[ANet]Community> We know you folks want merchandise, so we are looking into it. I can't give details on what that might be or any timeframe though. ~MK
[/INDENT]

Smug but true.

[Cutthroat]

Thanks a lot!

Quote

<SwashbucklerXX> With all these cool, exotic races that can turn into animals and make golem battlesuits and such, what's going to makke playing as a human a compelling experience? Will humans be getting any fun and flashy racial abilities?
<@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Avatar of Melandru turns you into an awesome creature. Summoning dual Hounds of Balthazar. Is. So. Freaking. Cool.

That sounds really promising! Melandru is my favorite, and I've been looking forward to summoning Hounds of Balthazar since I saw the concept art.

[Guardian of the Light]

Well this is what happens when I sleep in, o well. I see someone asked my mesmer iteration question but I never got to ask if the devourer is a fully ranged pet with auto-ranged attacks.

Either way good set of questions.

[Lunarhawk]

Damn didn't know this was going on or I would've been there. I've been wanting someone to ask them about the counter skills (Such as on warrior mace and ranger greatsword) for ages.

[On_Slaught]

I'm so confused!!! They asked about "familiars" again and instead of saying "there is no familiar, it is the elemental summon" like the other dev said, Sharp says "nothing at the moment." Why not just say there is no familiar? I'm so confused :(

Great content overall though.

With the Human transformation ability, I wonder if they mean it turns you into a specific creature which looks cool or that you turn into one of a range of cool creatures in the game. I'm leaning towards the former.

[Cheyna]

really hope that traits are more than +x% anything and mostly in the same style as those 2 they mentioned, Thief granting poison to allies and spirits follows the ranger ^^

[Brise Bon Bons]

KikkenF said:

Having a closed beta starting friday, is it safe to say that open beta wont be here for like 1-2 month minimum?

I know it's all relative, just figuring out the average closed beta time.


-EDIT- People really love mesmer by the questions. A bit diversity on questions could be great :) but still thanks for the IRC chat.

From memory of past examples, I'd expect a closed beta for a game this size to last several months (4-6?), with open beta being a relatively short period at the end (a couple weeks to a month).

But ANet is already doing things differently by eschewing a public opt-in program, so who knows?

EDIT:

I'm somewhat unimpressed by the new trait examples. I actually really liked most of the old trait system (minus the flat stat increases), and I'm afraid the new one is not going to be to my taste. But who knows given how limited details are right now. Suffice to say I thought the granularity of the old system (allowing you to tweak individual skills) added some much needed room for personalizing your build and fine tuning how you want to play - these new examples just sound like bland, passive perks that apply too broadly.

We'll see, as always we need to wait for a good interview to get any details.

Edited by Brise Bon Bons, 14 December 2011 - 10:23 PM.

[Glastium]

Like always, questions about server regioning, guilds, traits and others are completely dodged.

[musibatkhan]

thank you for posting this naut :)

[Cheyna]

Brise Bon Bons said:

I'm somewhat unimpressed by the new trait examples. I actually really liked most of the old trait system (minus the flat stat increases), and I'm afraid the new one is not going to be to my taste. But who knows given how limited details are right now. Suffice to say I thought the granularity of the old system (allowing you to tweak individual skills) added some much needed room for personalizing your build and fine tuning how you want to play - these new examples just sound like bland, passive perks that apply too broadly.

We'll see, as always we need to wait for a good interview to get any details.

Yea, I also like that you could improve individual skills, and I would love to have 2+ choices on each skills unlike wow glyphs where you only had one and often you could pick all that matter to your spec.

[Symbiont]

dammit i forgot to take the opportunity to ask if we ever see the return of the Ritualist!
and why butterflies with pink, was purple not good enough?

anyhow thanks Guru for this Q&A!

[HeavensSword]

Symbiont said:

dammit i forgot to take the opportunity to ask if we ever see the return of the Ritualist!
and why butterflies with pink, was purple not good enough?

anyhow thanks Guru for this Q&A!

When Izzy listed the "potential" professions that were cut, I was kinda surprised he didn't mention Rit, Paragon, and Derv. I'm guessing they may have held off on them for the initial release on purpose for later expansions into Cantha and Elona. At least I hope that's what happened, since I liked my dervish alt in GW1. :)

[Symbiont]

HeavensSword said:

When Izzy listed the "potential" professions that were cut, I was kinda surprised he didn't mention Rit, Paragon, and Derv. I'm guessing they may have held off on them for the initial release on purpose for later expansions into Cantha and Elona.

yes, i read between the lines when he mentioned those discarded professions and noticed the absent mentioning of the Ritualist, and take this as a faint hint for professions like the Ritualist to return in future expansions. :cool:

Edited by Symbiont, 14 December 2011 - 11:14 PM.

[Yoh]

Naut said:

<Neo> Will we be able to see technical information like weapon range, attack speed, and things of the like through the ingame UI or will that be something that players have to experiment to figure out?
<[ANet]EricFlannum> For the most part players will need to experiment with the things that you mention although we do plan to have tools for helping players experiment. Things like the dps target dummies in the first game.

I am somewhat concerned by this. Normally in MMO you see this.

(From WoW)

Here you can clearly see the stats of the abilities, what they do if they have any special effects, weapon types and other pieces of information. Also spells in the same game show how far you can attack such as 35 Yards or 8-25 Yards. etc.

The bottom part of a tooltip is addon but it was added as a part of the game. Now in WoW when you get a new weapon you can clearly see if the item is a upgrade. While this is not my major concern I would like to see this added.

I don't like the idea of having to go out and spamming the crap out of the new weapon I just picked up just to figure out if I can shoot the guy in the head "this far" compared to my old weapon. If weapons themselves do different in range I would rather see a tool-tip with the information up front.

What I am worried about is the basic information, such as weapon damage , range and any special effects for a new weapon you will have to grind for.

I do like that they are adding target dummies so we can have a feel for new weapons and try to see which one is better for us but stats listed for the item would be wonderful.

(I am not taking about a damage meter here if anyone gets that impression)

[HeavensSword]

Yoh said:

...What I am worried about is the basic information, such as weapon damage , range and any special effects for a new weapon you will have to grind for...

In GW1 at least, it was never really a grind to get armor with stats you wanted, it was more so to get the "look" or skin you wanted.
I'm pretty sure this philosophy is carrying over, but I honestly don't know to what kind of extent armor/weapon stats have changed. Just from things I've read it sounds like there is a lot more variety.

I was honestly a tiny bit disappointed at that answer as well, just because I hate "hidden" stats.

[ilr]

Quote

IzzyCartright> Do NPCs act differently when confused, or do they activate abilities as normal and simply take the damage? - no they just attack and get beat up like a good monster

I just want to point out that some of the mobs in GW1 do actually respond differently now when hexed with punishment hexes. Maybe not empathy but I know for a fact that I've seen Monks & Rits & such that usually spell-spam; casting a lot less often when hexed with stuff like Backfire, VOR, Frustration, and Migraine. ...I'm pretty darn sure it's not just my imagination either b/c I'm actively anticipating their next spells when I've put these hexes on them as I'm trying to interrupt them for the bonus damage and many of them simply aren't giving me that opportunity. They just start wanding stuff instead while being useless in general.

[Yoh]

HeavensSword said:

In GW1 at least, it was never really a grind to get armor with stats you wanted, it was more so to get the "look" or skin you wanted.
I'm pretty sure this philosophy is carrying over, but I honestly don't know to what kind of extent armor/weapon stats have changed. Just from things I've read it sounds like there is a lot more variety.

I was honestly a tiny bit disappointed at that answer as well, just because I hate "hidden" stats.

I know. They take out the RNG in loot drops but then stick it back in somewhere else. Its just depressing.

[Winbonk]

Naut said:

<haxyou> How will a casual player get to see big events like the Shatterer and Tequatl with a limited play schedule?
<[ANet]JonathanSharp> Because those large events can happen multiple times throughout the day, you can team up with anyone around you at that time and take on those larger challenges, even if you're only a casual player!

I wonder if this is referring to different large scale events - as in you can always find a big event to do when you're online or just these specific ones.

The Tequatl event spawning multiple times in a single day seems like overkill. If this is true, I imagine some events might get a bit boring quite fast. Well, maybe not quite boring, but less "special" for certain.

[Hedge]

Avatar of Melandru? I love Anet as much as I love shapeshifting. I wanna seeeeeeeee!

[Di-Dorval]

Quote

The Tequatl event spawning multiple times in a single day seems like overkill. If this is true, I imagine some events might get a bit boring quite fast.

... If your bored of an event then just move to the next one O.o...

[Saleem]

ilr said:

I just want to point out that some of the mobs in GW1 do actually respond differently now when hexed with punishment hexes. Maybe not empathy but I know for a fact that I've seen Monks & Rits & such that usually spell-spam; casting a lot less often when hexed with stuff like Backfire, VOR, Frustration, and Migraine. ...I'm pretty darn sure it's not just my imagination either b/c I'm actively anticipating their next spells when I've put these hexes on them as I'm trying to interrupt them for the bonus damage and many of them simply aren't giving me that opportunity. They just start wanding stuff instead while being useless in general.

Usually mobs in GW 1 stop spamming through such hexes when the next damage they can get from it would be fatal or if it's an AoE Hex that's taking effect successively at a fast pace, which then would cause mobs to scatter.

And thanks a bunch for hosting and posting the IRC question and answer session ! <3

Edited by Saleem, 15 December 2011 - 12:58 AM.

[Fario]

Di-Dorval said:

... If your bored of an event then just move to the next one O.o...

I think it's more bored of the major set pieces which is a major concern. If all of the "best" events happen several times a day the you'll get bored of them extremely quickly leaving you to do the more mediocre events for the rest of gw2's play time which while they'll be fun, they won't match the feeling of epic events.

They really need to be rare, not so rare that noone see's them but rare enough that you'll actually want to experience them again and be willing to go through dynamic event chain needed to trigger them. 1 of the major ones a day with some every few days would be enough. But they need to be uncommon in comparison to most other events otherwise really whats the point, it's just going to end up detrimental to those that want to play gw2 for more than a few days total. The more varied and random the events are the more fun your overall playthroughs are otherwise what's the point of dynamic events. The whole idea is to constantly surprise you as much as possible and what's more surprisng than a major boss than only pops up once every 1 or two weeks or bosses that disapear for a signifcant period of time to appear later. They don't need be that many but at least a few large ones.

Edited by Fario, 15 December 2011 - 01:10 AM.