Ellen Dubin voices Charr, Norn, Asura

According to Gareth at sknr.net, Actress Ellen Dubin of LEXX (a sci-fi series from 1996-2002) is voicing three characters in Guild Wars 2:

Canadian Actress Ellen Dubin of Lexx and The Collector fame has been announced to voice three characters in the upcoming Guild Wars 2 Game. Speaking to her publicist, we have learned that Ellen willl be playing the following characters.

Here are the three character voices that Ellen Dubin will provide in Guild Wars 2.

• TORRUN IS A NORN- low status character
• MIGHTY GRIKA IS AN ASURA- middle status character
• TYRANA IS A CHARR- high status character

Source: Skewed & Reviewed
Stock image: sxc.hu

Eric Flannum on Races & Professions

ArenaNet’s Martin Kerstein has passed us information from Eric Flannum, Lead Designer for Guild Wars 2, about the criteria for new races and professions:

There are a lot of decisions that we have to make when we add new races and professions to the game. The evaluation process goes something like this for races:

• Is the race visually and culturally interesting (are they cool enough to be a playable race)?
• Do they provide us with a different sort of archetype that is currently not in the game?
• How difficult would it be to implement the new race from an art/animation standpoint?
• Can we write a compelling story for them? What is the lore impact on making them playable?
• Does the new race provide us with the opportunity to make cool skills and abilities?

For professions, the evaluation process would be very similar but in a slightly different order of importance:

• Does it provide us with a different sort of archetype that is currently not in the game?
• Does the profession provide us with the opportunity to make cool skills and abilities?
• Will those skills and abilities work well with existing professions, or will they unbalance things?
• How difficult would it be to implement from an art/animation standpoint?
• How do they fit into the lore of the game?

With professions, we’re much more concerned with how they interact with the current balance and whether they provide a different play experience. With races, their overall look and feel is generally the most important thing.Of course, this is because while race does have some impact on how a character performs in combat, it’s nowhere near as important as profession in that regard. Likewise, a character’s personal story is impacted greatly by race and only very minimally by profession.

Source: Room for Future Races and Classes? at GuildWars2Guru.

Melandru's Shrine

I still love Guild Wars

… but I find it to be a hollow echo of old memories.

I started a guild, with ambitions to “launch” it on Australia Day (26th). The motto and driving objective was to become “The biggest and most active Aussie Guild in Guild Wars”. I have changed my mind. What’s the point in playing a dead game?

So, from now until Guild Wars 2, expect fewer updates on this website.

Meanwhile, I turn my creative efforts elsewhere…

GW2 Predictions

New professions? Expanded races? Micro-transactions from the beginning… Here’s what I think might happen in Guild Wars 2. These are just predictions, mostly unfounded! Take them with a grain of salt (or a bucketful!) and please, comments are very welcome.

Mesmers defending Fort Ranik! Hoo-rah! Now, back to the post...

1. The Mesmer & Necromancer professions may be changed drastically, perhaps beyond recognition.
2. All Nightfall & Factions professions may be removed, although their style of play will be worked into other professions.
3. A Summoner/Controller profession may be introduced, combining some styles of play we now see from Necromancers’s minions, Ritualists’ spirits, and Rangers’ pets. This profession would have different options depending on the race – for example: druid, golem, machine, pet.
4. The Ranger profession may be transformed to enable the use of guns for spike damage, while still making Bows a viable option for DPS or degen.
5. The entire mechanics of Enchantment/Hex/Condition/Shout may be overhauled.
6. Primary/secondary profession system may be replaced by Race/Profession.
7. Races may bring their own racial abilities in PvP, as a result of the Race/Profession system.
8. The most potent skills may be PvE-only, and your strength in using them would be a result of the choices you make in the storyline/character creation.
9. Underwater combat may take place on the sea-bed. The complexity of having melee-range combat, and ranged targeting, would make swimming-combat too difficult.
10. A beta may be announced, or playable, around the time of PAX 2010. Release would be scheduled for Spring 2011.
11. Hall of Monuments achievements may simply add a badge to your armor, or give you access to pretty weapon skins.
12. Charr players selecting a magic-using profession would have a very interesting storyline :)
13. The dynamic event system would be exploitable. It would be totally different to everything you’ve seen before, however this would not make it good automatically. There will be lots of tweaking scenarios from ArenaNet.
14. This time they won’t make any promises regarding “not being charged for content added to the game” (relevant to Goddess Serqet’s argument in GToB AD1 yesterday). Micro-transactions would be a part of the business model from the very beginning, principally for lazy and vain players.
15. Centaurs & tengu would become playable races in the Cantha & Nightfall expansions. They will be more careful about expanding, after what happened with GW1; they are probably already planning ahead to compensate (by making key skill areas lacking).
16. Each playable race may have self-heals that negate the need for dedicated healer in low-to-mid difficulty PvE. The roles of Protection & Healing may be split into different professions.
17. They should be more wary of passive play – defensively & offensively. This extends to anything with a duration – Enchantments, Hexes, Stances, Shouts, and so on – or whatever their related new skill types are. I have doubts on this point, though.
18. There may be integration with the website & social network(s), for example, “Post this achievement to Facebook”. This will get people to play more, and more often.
19. You would either love or hate World-versus-World battles.
20. Some of the variety of Heroes’ Ascent battles may be integrated into the new Guild-versus-Guild format.
21. The Sidekick system may be one of the games most basic, yet outstanding features – the one that makes reviewers give glowing reviews. It would be simple and effective.
22. The battle with Zhaitan would bring new meaning to the word “epic”.
23. Grinding for power. The trend from Factions to Eye of the North is for PvE grinding improving skills, ultimately coming to a crisis point with Ursan Blessing, Pain Inverter & Cry of Pain. I would hope otherwise, but the trend is too much to ignore. The basic mechanic of “kill x enemies and become more powerful using y skills” will most likely pervade the game. Much to my dismay. Hopefully the PvP is totallyfrickinawesome, otherwise I will not play this game.
24. Normal play through the campaign will always ensure you have appropriate skills, level & player know-how to succeed. In this respect it will be similar to GW1. Completion of the campaign (which will be very long) will almost see a character to the maximum level – perhaps 80-90% of the way. The remainder of the levels will be attainable either through completing side-quests, WvW, or some kind of farming. The top 10-20% will be seen as unnecessary, from a gameplay viewpoint – little to no effect on character potency… but plenty of people will get to max level to achieve access to pretty armor (with no gameplay bonus).
25. NPC heroes – such as those we’ve seen in the Races of Tyria video – will have amazing stories and characters – enough to make you feel like you’re reading a good book or movie. A lot more emphasis is put on quality voice acting. No more “Saidra! No!”, or whatever Evennia’s voice actress spells out into the microphone.
26. You will be able to guard an NPC caravan from one side of the world to the other. Epic. You gain access to NPC-faction-style armor and weapons by helping them out. Similar to the EotN race-specific items.