Arenanet Q&A Panel on Youtube is up

Guild Wars Live Team Q&A session at PAX 2009, with Linsey Murdock (Live Team Lead Designer), Robert Gee (Designer), Mike Zadorojny (Live Team Producer), and Joe Kimmes (Programmer).

Arenanet talks about GW1: content updates, farming, shadow form, ursan ect. in PAX 2009.

http://www.youtube.com/user/arenanet.../9/125KWGuNu60 - Part One
http://www.youtube.com/user/arenanet...10/IW3T_aiQQI8 - Part Two
http://www.youtube.com/user/arenanet...11/-3ScVRiFm3A - Part Three

Updates for pve, what do I have to look forward to?

Looks like the Live Team needs to find a way to nerf SF whilst also creating a reason to pug balanced teams in elite areas. All I can say is... Good luck.

they're pretty socially awkward for a live team, no?

oh, and to summarize the video, it's things we all know very well by now, and "we know what you want but you're gonna have to wait a long time"

Cool, thanks for this.

I don't imagine they have much experience with live interviews. Talking to gamers in text is much different, you have time to consider your answers. It's like a job interview, no matter what you are nervous and very conscious of not wanting to say the wrong thing.

Well, I do like the idea of wrecking shadow form builds while making it easier for normal players to get into those areas.

"Nerf Shadow Form, but create an environment that will still allow those that used it to have a reason to play."

lol.

Its not like a lot of teams can do UWSC in 8 mins. a Couple of guilds can do it.
But counting all the Pug teams. the teams that actually make <8 would be less then 1%.

Martin is making me melt.

Sealed deck sounds fun. Sounds like a excuse to buff skills for "uber lulz". Testing arena.

Everyone jumped on the SF info, but nobody noticed the biggest news given? Wasn't much, but it does say a lot.

"When, IF, it comes back up...." when Mike was talking about the XTH. I wondered if they would decide to just leave it down, and the WAY he responded, and the info he gave on it makes it seem that is not only possible, but likely. Won't hurt me much either way, but I was surprised to see that info get overlooked.

i think we know already xth aint returning. they arent brave enough to admit it straight out. going for the wait for months without mentioning it and hope they forget tactic.

I get the impression that they were really, really hesitant on nerfing Shadow Form. I don't think Lindsey even wants to do anything to SF, but it seems the team were backed into a corner and left with little choice but to do something about it. Now, if they want to nerf it they will have to make the elite areas more accessible and more player friendly. At this point there is no precise clue to what that means, although there are apparently suspicions.

There is a little light shed for Test Krewe hopes. Linsey plans on letting them test just about all the stuff she and the team makes, not just skill builds. This could mean that the Krewe won't be on PvP skill tests for a long time and can test a variety of other things. I knew my optimism wasn't for naught.

I haven't fully understood when the Sealed Deck build was explained, maybe if I watch that part I will, but so far it seems pretty interesting and nice. When Linsey said it's to make bad skills good, I'm thinking of course because it's through default. Like say Flare is only good because the rest just stink. Just making it sure it's good by default. It's not really bad, though. It makes the player to think and build up a strategy with what they got. So, I'm getting to liking this concept.

/ignoreSFcomments

Yes, the XTH if comment got me too - instant "oh well, it was good while it lasted" kinda thoughts sprung to mind. And he looked like (and sounded it too) he'd rather have been down the pub (hell, who wouldn't!!)

Loved the question at the end though re.Test Krewe. Question: PvE at all? Answer: PvP..PvP..PvP.. then PvE slipped in at the end with "new content", which Linsey has quoted a few times now. Wonder whats in store here?

I enjoyed the segment on the Fall of Ascalon despite that is was quite skimpy on details. Also, I can has slvari minipet to go with book plz? :P

So we get some festivals, cool. But festivals are only a week(end) long. We want CONTENT. I think they should be spending their time adding new real content, not just making another raptor farming week more fun.

The lore comment indicates we'll have at least some new content. I can see that AT LEAST being a quest every so often.
Heck, I'd smile at having another secret NPC like Bahltek (spelling fail, sorry) pop up.

And not one person shouted "You Lie!" Amazing.

Nice to finally see who is still working on this game for us.

Thanks for posting!

Sounds to me, from what people are saying, like they are going try to nerf SF for use in high end pve, while simultaniously "buffing" or "fixing" Elite areas like UW so that noneof these gimmicks will exist, and force the people to find good teams to beat it with.

You know, like it should have been in the first place.

But the Underworld suffers from one of the same things that makes GW awesome, and that is that there's a counter for (nearly) everything. It would be extremely hard to actually make it so that people can't solo/speed clear UW through normal skills.