#guildmag

Nevermind me, just bragging about being a part of the new GuildMag issue. Yeah again. <3 One of the biggest rewards for drawing GW2 stuff is the attention from these guys. ;___;

I copy pasted the whole thing so it’s easier to read, though be sure to click the source link to see their pictures at the event with the devs!

“I just came back from Guild Wars 2 Community Meet & Greet event in Cologne and had a great time while being there. The event was held in a restaurant called Haxenhaus which is one of the game industry's favorite places during Gamescom (believe me, I was there every day since Monday!). The whole ground floor was filled with fans of Tyria. The GuildMag crew was present and I think it was Deroir that was sitting at our table.

Event started with a short speech from Lead Game Designer Mike Zadorojny during which he thanked us all for being part of the GW2 community. Meals were served and we drank some beers and soon ArenaNet's devs started circling around the venue. This was a good opportunity to ask them some questions. I had a chance to speak to Mike, so let's get to the juicy part:

1. There will be no build templates at the launch of Path of Fire. This is something that they are aware the community wants and yeah, it's on the table. What's more, all features for the expansion have been revealed, so we shouldn't expect any other surprising reveals. This expansion is about the content which I really think is great.

2. I asked whether during the design of generation 1 elite specs they had plans to make Chronomancer the main tank for raiding. It turns out that it was never their intention, just like with Assassin in GW1. The players are too clever and are always finding new uses for classes and their mechanics.

3. I asked whether they have even considered adding a new race for PoF. Mike said that no and then added that new races in GW2 are "not impossible but very unlikely" to appear in the future. Implementing them would require a lot of resources that can be spent better on creating new content relevant for all players. While this might sound disappointing to a lot of Tengu fans like me, I totally get where he's coming from.

4. I know a lot of you miss Queen's Jubilee and Dragon Bash, so I asked what happened to them. It turns out that due to the changes in tech, both of those events need updating just like Super Adventure Box did and that's the reason why we haven't seen them lately. Queen's Jubilee also requires changes in the balance due to new elite specs coming in the expansion. Some of the bosses in the gauntlet could end up being too easy. Mike said that they want to bring back both events in the future.

5. With 4 weeks left to the launch of the expansion we shouldn't expect new "current events/side stories" right now.

6. With all the focus on Sunspears (who became Spellbreakers) I was interested to know what happened with the Dervishes that we remember from #GW1. We obviously know that they won't become a playable class so I kept digging and asked whether we'll meet any of them as NPCs. Mike smiled and replied "I will let you discover it". I don't want to speculate, but it sounded a bit like a "yes". Or perhaps I just wanted to hear "yes" ;).

7. I asked about balancing the elite specs for raids and whether they are checking the meta for example from qT to see which classes are omitted by the min-maxers. Mike said that they are in fact checking that, but balancing things is not that easy, cause players will always find class compositions and synergies of classes that are the most optimal and some classes will always simply end up being less represented. What's important though is that right now even though not every class is considered to be optimal (meta), it is possible to use any of them in a raiding environment and they are all viable. Mike himself raids using non meta classes.

8. After the beta weekend event I was surprised to see that the Renegade (Revenant's new elite spec) doesn't have underwater skills. Mike said that he's not 100% sure, but he thinks it's a bug.

9. I also asked about improvements to underwater combat, because at one point in time we will have to face Steve Bubbles (AKA water dragon). Mike was kind of dodgy here and only replied that things can always get better.

The last official part of the event was a raffle. There were multiple cool prizes like GW2 toasters, artbooks (including a new, small format PoF artbook), posters, plushies and Shatterer statues. Unfortunately yours truly doesn't have much luck with RNG both in game and real life ;).

During the whole event French Community Manager Stephane Lo Presti was busy filming volunteers who wanted to say a couple of words about why they are excited for the new expansion. All this footage will be mixed and probably released as some kind of a promo video. So if you hear someone saying that they're excited for Path of Fire because Charr need no gods and it's time to take down Balthazar as well, that could be me ;). #CharrMasterRace

It's really nice that ArenaNet is organizing fan events every year. It really shows how much they care about their community. I'm really grateful for the invitation and I'm proud to be a part of that warband.

Below you will find some pictures from the event. Enjoy!“

It’s a great cause, and I hope you’ll buy this year’s GuildMag Annual too!

The total, with shipping to the UK, came to $13.98 - that’s a meagre £11.25 (as of yesterday).