Casting time for effect after the intial casting time

So here's my idea.

It's kind of like maintaining an enchantment, except you can't maintain it until your energy depletes, and you can't do other stuff when you 'maintain' the enchantment.

I think this would be kinda cool because this would add something new, while the effect wouldn't be so amazingly different, it would still be something new.

I don't expect this to be implemented in Guild Wars, but maybe it's an idea for Guild Wars 2.

Anyway. My idea is like this:

A spell has a casting time of, let's say, 2 seconds. And then after the casting time, you get this bar that is like a casting time bar, but in reverse. So you are releasing your powers onto a target. And then you get an effect as it progresses. Healing, for example. Or damage. Maybe you could have it easily interruptable.

Ok I'll make it a little more clear.

Let's call the spell 'Healing'.

2 second casting time. 5 second 'after casting time'.

You cast the spell. In the 2 seconds, you get this cool graphical effect like you're used to, but the bright light or whatever doesn't dissappear after those 2 seconds (because that's just when the effect begins).

After the 2 second casting time, you begin casting the actual spell.

The spell gives you 30 healing points every second. You can keep on casting it for 5 seconds. While you cast it, you cannot do anything else. Because you are concentrating on it and cannot do anything else, the spell is powerful.

I don't really care about balancing issues or whatever, but I think this is more cool than your average spell. Because, casting a spell is something big, like, it's like an event. Drawing upon your energy to cast something should take time and concentration. Spells that have it's effect instantly are stupid. Well, not stupid, because in games it works great, I'm talking about the coolness after. I mean, for example, in a movie, and there's some guy or girl healing someone with special powers, the healing is a gradual process. You don't see the healing being done in an instant after focusing for a few seconds. Why not? Because it's lame.

Ok. I hope I made sense. Any questions?

Yes.

What ???

um NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO ahem yes i think that makes my stand clear, 1 this is not wow *i had to say it ^^* and 2 that would make Gw much MUCH less active and that would make GW pvp BORING

/signed

To balance this I would assume you need to be easily interrupted and the target be kept within spell range and line of sight. I'm undecided about this, so I'll see where this goes.

Also, lurn2/grammar.

My suggestion isn't necessarily meant to influence gameplay. I prefer to see it like something cosmetic.

For example, a shout. In Guild Wars, you can shout, which are like skills. But they are not skills, they are shouts. They could have been called a skill. But they're not skills, they are called shouts. When you use it, you see a text bubble above your character. Having shouts as shouts and not as skills is awesome. It's the same for my idea. Balancing or whatever shouldn't be a problem. It's something cosmetic, like I said.

Shouts are skills, aren't they ?

I still don't understand what you are suggesting.

Skill is the generic type of all skills, then ,there are subtypes.

Spell is a subtype of Skills, and Hex Spell is a subtype of Spell.

So... you mean to add a new type of skill/Spell that hold the user while the effects are working...

...do not fit much with GW.
GW is fast, swift. The effects of most skills last no more than 10..30 seconds.
It would be like those skills that disable the whole skillbar, but whiout being able to move and with the risk of being interrupted...

Hm... maybe in GW they could think about it, but not now...

Shouts are skills. It's a difference to call them shouts and not just skills. If they're skills, why not just call them skills? Why not just have no text bubble above your character when you use a shout? Because it would be lame otherwise. If you had this skill and it would give other people more armor. How would that work? Why would the other people get more armor? It's just a skill. But it's called a shout. And the idea behind it is that you are yelling "Watch Yourself!" to the people around you, which makes them more wary of their surroundings, and that translates to an armor bonus. So calling these type of skills, these shouts, shouts, is incredibly important.

I think you misunderstand here. What I'm suggesting is something purely cosmetic. For example. Take some random spell in Guild Wars that takes 3 seconds to cast. Instead of making it a spell that takes 3 seconds and has an instant effect, make it cast for 1 second and make the effect last for 2 seconds after casting it, exactly as much as the spell that has the instant effect. What difference would it make, to gameplay and PvP? Hardly any difference at all. But how cool would it be? It would be a lot cooler to have some spells like that.

I mean you gotta look at spells differently. Spells are things that take time and the effects of spells should be gradual. That's what I'm trying to make clear. Instant-effect spells are not cool and awesome because it doesn't happen like that.

I mean you have to imagine what it would be like. Take the sound effects, for example. Right now, when you cast a spell, you only hear something loud after you successfully casting the spell. If the effect is instant, you still hear something like "wooossshhhh". And this sound effect is like, a second or two seconds. But why do you hear something that lasts for one second or two seconds when the spell was silent or nearly silent and its effect was instant? It doesn't make any sense. Just imagine what sound effect you could have if you had it the way like my suggestion. You could hear a "woosh" sound like, it's building up for a second, and then in the following two seconds the sound fades out. The idea behind it, is that you took a second to prepare and gather your magic (which may or may not generate sound), and in the two seconds that followed, you did the actual projecting of your powers and got the effect of it. Awesome, no?

Cosmetic stuff like this, to me, is what makes games awesome. Of course it's the gameplay and whatever. But a lot of what seem to be small, fine details really make games the way they are.