Chapter 2 Information from Computer Gaming World

Actually, the armor rating might be the same (or similiar), but that doesn't mean there won't be new armor with differant bonuses (Mabey a warrior armor with +armor vs Piercing?). Thqat's the only reason I'm somewhat hesitant to get my FoW armor... Really wish I knew when the expansion was coming out

i'm waiting to hear how many new character slots will be given to us, as well as the release date and if we will get more storage space. other than that, it's in the bag

Very nice informations, i hope Chapter 2 will be releases soon
I am not able to w8 anymore
The PvE meets PvP missions sound very great.

25 new for each profession

i finish high priest quest with henchman, i believe alot of ppl did that too.

Ive tried not to keep so muc into this as to not ruin anything, but now its the new year, so i'll ask. Has there been a release date posted? or is it still TBA?

Release is supposedly Mar 31st. I think ritualist sounds like a great idea but I see it causing some trouble too.lol DWC and our sister Guilds have no fear of a little PvP mixed into our PvE just because we have been waiting to do some PvE "Guild" stuff together. The Christmas missions were cool but kinda left us feeling like we had eaten only 1 potato chip. Can't wait for more!

-Pagan

Oh yeah. Ritualist will have 3 attributes. One is Healing(a.k.a. healing prayers), one direct damage(a.k.a. smiting prayers or blood magic) and one with spirits. I don't understand the purpose of first 2 because healing prayers will be better and the other one will be same damage as blood or smiting, that is lacking compared with elementalist.

THAT IS WRONG.

as ALEX/GAILE have said many times the only date that counts is an official announcement on the GW site.

ALL ELSE IS GUESSING

wont ppl ever learn?

You don't know enough about the profession to say it's just a Mo/R...

Are you saying that because it can heal health points, it's just a copy of a monk? I guess Warrior, Ranger, and Necromancers are just a copy of Elementalist because they deal damage? And I'm kinda confused how you got "smiting" from the Ritualists profession... Because it is able to deal damage too? I guess Mesmers can "smite" too. Sorry, but do people think before they type?

Did you actually read the article? Ritualist's spirits have as much in common with a Ranger's spirits as the Ranger's spirits do pets.

Ritualist's spirits do not an immediate global effect. They do nothing untill you use a skill that tells it to do so.

So far as i can tell it sounds like the new professions will be support based, does anyone know if there will be more professions that don't play the support role?

How do you know? Are you a developer?

The assassin doesn't sound support based, it sounds more offensive than a Warrior (and that's pretty damn offensive).

I suspect that the direct damage line of ritualist will be about as strong as blood or smiting because ritualist looks like support character(like blood necro or smiting monk) instead of primary damage dealer caster like ele.

I would like to see description of those skills mentioned though.

You guys are better at speculating into thin air than a group of grandmothers at gossiping.

i cringe at the idea of new skills for existing classes, that is gonna cause months of unbalanced pvping, just look at how long it took them to fix stacking auras

well this time around they have more experience so i'm guessing they know what they're doing even if they screw up initially it'll prolly take them a lot less time to fix it since we've all gone through this already

i will take the chance

I'm just as excited as the next guy for chapter 2, but...

I know this is just speculation, but one of the things that worries me is bringing our lvl 20 to these supposedly new low-level areas where even new characters can play in. Our existing chars with the best armors, best weapons and skills, would be owning up the place. Where's the challenge/fun in that?

*There are 2 new ANNOUNCED professions-the ritualist and the assassin
+These will only be available to people who buy the Chap. 2
*You DONT have to buy both Chap 1 and Chap 2. Either one works fine by itself.
+Chapter 1 only players wont access new professions, skills, and areas
+Chapter 2 only players wont access any Chap 1 places, and will lack some skills skills of Chapter 1 professions. Chapter 2 only players will have access to all 8 professions
+People with both chapter 2 and 1 will have access to everything in both chapters. People with both chapters CAN KEEP PREVIOUS CHAPTER 1 CHARACHTERS and play them in chapter 2 and one areas.
+Both Ch1 and CH2 will have access to all PvP arenas
*Chapter 2
+There WILL be more charachter slots
+There will be guild storage
+EACH existing profession will get 25 new skills and six new sets of armor
+2 new announced guild halls
+Mrechants and storage agents in guild halls
+Existing Charachters can change secondary professions to Ritualist and Assassin much the same way as the other professions
LEVEL CAP IS SILL 20
Im reading the article that was removed earlier due to copyright stuff, and things posted her are things specifically mentioned in the parts of the article that were posted. For those of you interested, the magazine is
Febuary 2006, issue #259 Computer Gaming World

The article is still illegally posted on some sites. So I read it. I'll clear up alittle without going too far.

General Info:
- The Tutural is promised to be better. Teaching team tactics like target calling and avoiding groups of enemies.

Assas. Info:
- Dual-weilding (a primary and offhand Dagger).
- Her skills are supposed to flow together in sequence and animation for massive damage results. (basically she can hit up combos).
- They say her armor will NOT be "warrior calibur".

Attributes:
Not giving away all info, but
her primary is dealing with critical strikes
She has dagger mastery as thats her weapon choice
An attribute for her hexes and magics
An attirubte for her teleportation and defensive stuff.

Her Skills:
Again - gotta support the magazine, but basically The skills they provided fit the description nicely.
She has primary and offhand dagger attacks,
Dual handed attacks,
teleportation skill (this one teleporting you straight to your target),
a simple Evasion stance that heals you,
and a skill to further improve your critical rate.

The designer also mentions a class combo he was thinking about when designing it. As/Ele that uses teleportation skills to hit off point blank AoE dmg.

Ritualist info:
- The point is made that he is Blindfolded. So all his magic comes from his mind. Like a Pyschic.
- Again, like a necro, ranger,monk.
- His main focus with nearly all of his skills is the micromanagement of Spirits.
- Its mentioned this guy will be a heavy support character above all else.

Attributes:
Again - letting just alittle cat out of bag
His primary helps his spirits (and also Ranger Pets it says)
He has a line is damage magic
His second magic is his bulk of his spirit summoning magic
and of course his healing style magics

Skills:
Again - Cant copy the information, get the magazine.
The Ritualist's sample skills given nearly all had to do with Spirits. So it gives the point that spirits are a big thing.
An energy healer dealing with spirits,
A damage spell dealing with spirits,
Another damage spell, this one being AoE,
A weird damage spell, mentioning having an item that "channels" the damage - so this is probably a clue to the Ritualist's main weapon choice,
Then you sample two spirits, one that protects allies, and one that is a new kind of deal for GW - a spirit that actually attacks the enemy.
Then a sample of his monk-ish skills. A resurrection spell.

The design'ers comment here is that being an alternative monk IS NOT the main focus here - They wanted the ritualist to be a whole new kind of thing for GW.

-----------------------------------------------------

Skills for our classes:
- EACH class thats already here gets 25 additional skills, and 6 sets of armor. [This will probably not be more AL, but rather other choices in secondary effects on the armor]

Then they give some samples of these new skills

Elementalist:
They said the main focus really was to make multi-attribute ele's more viable.
This is shown in one of the sample skills that reminds me of Lightning Touch (that is, its an air spell that has an effect that happens off of Water hexes).
The elite they showed was an air spell that teleports you to the target.

Mesmers:
They said mesmer's focus was not changed, just more optinos of doing the same.
The main One I'll mention is another Illusion hex spell that cuases, they say, "massive" health degen, but heals the opponent when it ends.

Monk:
Also says around same lines.
Dont take that like they dont get new stuff, because some of the skills mentioned have some weird new angles to go at a monk from.
The last spell mentioned is a powerful healing spell that disables al lyour other healing spells and cant cast on yourself [makes it sound uber powerful]

Necromancer:
The biggest thing they mention is more enchantment removal, and a NEW MINION!
The enchantment removal spell is very very powerful, [so I'd expect it to have a huge cost and recharge when it comes out lol].
The elite they showed was a new minion. This new minion leaves a CORPSE behind so you can just re-rasie him or exploit the corpse.

Ranger:
They promise new EVERYTHING - including pets.
two skills I want to give a tiny spoiler on is a Spirit that cuases bleeding on knocked down foes, and the elite bow attack they showed which Dazes the opponent [so Rangers are even better anti-casters].

Warrior:
The big thing here is that the warrior now can protect his allies thorugh skills.
This is shown thorugh a sample stance that blocks attacks for your allies as long as you don't move.
A new concept for warrior is also a two-slash sword attack.

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More on Faction:
- Guilds in the same faction can now become allies.
- Promised longer, better PvP experiences, with alot more viables and fun.
- New rewards for faction winning include things like discounted merchants in certain areas, and areas only your alliance can go to.

Guilds Info:
- Guild battles as we know them get upgraded for Factions too.
- the rest I think has been mentioned in this thread, like guild storage, etc.

Radical change for arenas:
- All the PvP areans we know and love are getting uprooted and put on their own "Battle Isle". So no arena is linked to a certain city.
- You get to Battle Isle from the port city (Lion's Arch in chap1)
- BOTH chapters then have access to every arena.
- Training will now be available for PvP

EQualness:
THESE ARE THE BIG QUESTIONS PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ASKING IN THIS THREAD:
- Chapter 2, named "Factions", is a STAND ALONE GAME. not an expansion. Both Chapters will exist independent of each other, except for some interactions (chap1 people going over to the pvp arenas, and changing to /rit and such).
- The "Core Skills" they pick for each class, and New weapons and such, will be avialable in any chapter to keep some balance in the arenas. Though newer chapter people do keep some stuff only for their chapter.

(PERSONAL OPINION: and thats only fair..they did fork over the money to buy that chapter, it wouldn't make sense to just give all the new stuff to chapter 1 people..but they had to balance the new stuff out alittle, since chapter 1 and 2 do share pvp arenas).

The Future:
- They look forward to releasing 2 chapters a year if Guild Wars stays popular and such.



Doing the math, If the price is like chapter 1's price, then playing Guild Wars and keeping up-to-date will cost JUST AS MUCH as paying monthly for a normal MMO (except instead of like $10 a month, you pay $50-55 every 6 months)

If they don't make atleast 2 referances to The Real Ultimate Power , this chapter will be an instant phailure.

i've already put some money aside.

im so excited.

Ya, and that does bother me...the new low-level areas? how the heck am i supposed to level up my ritualist if I have level 20's pwning me?

Well, at least i can pwn some people with my monk....hehehe...noobs.

lol.

I think that the lvl 20 guys can only join after certain areas like droknars forge in tyria (just an example hehe) and then the rest is for assasins and ritualists hmmmm only ritualists and assasins that are able to play PvE missions sounds fun to me

yeah cantha and ascalon are on tyria
cantha is not a world i'm guessing the ascalon continent was justa small part of the world
dang i can't wait

Thats what makes this thread so hilarious.

Its cool with the information, but peoples thoughts on them make it even better.

Can't wait.

Hehe, I know your just joking. For clarification if you only own chapter 2 (for example) you still have all 8 professions starting fresh so sorry but no assassin and ritualist only areas :P. Now with this said if you own both chapters it would not be fair if your level 20s couldnt do the missions. One since they will be replayable in the new chapter and 2 for the farming of new items.

For those of you complaining that you're being forced to PvP in the PvE game... read the article again. It says that IT IS OPTIONAL TO PVP!!!!

It's annoying to see post after post of people complaining about this. Read more carefully and stop making complaints based on speculations.

Thank you.

Oh yeah and this:

The numbers you're working with are wrong. How is it paying 50-55 every six months when Chapter 2 is already way past 6 months since Chapter 1's been released? It would probably be more like a year since release.

Also in other MMO's, you have to buy the expansion and still pay for the monthly fee. GW is way way ahead in low cost gaming.

What, like this exclusive snapshot of the Chapter 2 box cover?*











* Disclaimer: come on it's really obvious...

Anybody willing to describe how the two new classes look since screenshots aren't available? I really hope the Assassin doesn't look like some kind of ninja.... T-T

dammit i wanna be a pirate

YES!!! Great "Scoop" on the chatper 2 box.
Lol.

Arrrrrrrr....I am with ya there matey!

ROFLOL!!!! I had to register just to reply to this - classic! GR8 Photochop!

Well hopefully the story won't suffer and will connect with Chapter 1 in some way, or at least not turn into a mess. Can anyone say Charr, Charr (?) .... hmm, Charr.

Maybe I'm just misunderstanding MMORPGs and what they are, ie essentially online communities and on-line worlds to explore.

I wish the game would have stayed with the Charr (or atleast follow you around, showing up on every area) or moved on to Lord Olderan (sp), rather than going all X-Files on us.

Agreed, and assorted reasons from this list of cliches - it's the LAW.

You may be right, but Guild Wars is no MMORPG.

If this was mentioned already, I apologize, but I've read through the thread and didn't see it. I'm assuming that people who have more than one account will have to purchase more than one license for Chapter 2 if they want to play the expansion on the addtional accounts?

I didnt say chapter 2, I said if their statement about having a chapter come out every 6 months is true, then your really not saving much money then over playing other games. Which isn't really bad - but people make out like playing Guild Wars is free.

Also only Everquest was really into Expansions - it isn't an every MMO thing. And those expansions were soooo inexpensive they can hardly be factored in (they were like $20 at my store upon release, and within months you could buy the game and they'd include 4-5 of the expansions lol).

Gee Anet should just give us the game for free! Screw having a reasonable business model! Who needs profits anyway?!

As far as I am concerned, GW is waay cheaper than MMOs and I'm definitely getting my money's worth.