Yesterday, Mike Zadorojny, a content designer at Arenanet, answered a ton of fan questions on Kotaku. Did you get your question answered? Here’s what we learned.
PWNy
How the PVP works in Guildwars 2? i saw some videos but i didn’t get it. Can you explain a bit more about it, Like World PvP or just battle grounds, and is the PvP a big role in GW2?
Mike Zadorojny
With any of your characters you can visit the sPvP lobby that will bump your character up to level 80 and unlock all traits, skills, armor and weapons for you to use. From here you can jump into any of the on going sPvP matches. For WvW, any player can open up the score window and jump directly into any of the 4 maps (1 central and 1 home for each world) in the ongoing battle. In WvW your character is scaled up to level 80 (not a true 80) and you have only the items and skills you’ve unlocked available to you. In WvW you can level your character just like in PvE by doing events and killing monsters/players to unlock additional skills and traits.
Keep Reading for the full Q&A list.
Kiliarara
What makes this game different from any of the other mmorpg’s that are out there?
Mike Zadorojny
We built GW2 from the ground up to be a great social experience for players. We removed the idea of kill stealing, we made buffs and area based rather than single allies, added the ability for anyone to ressurect another player (even during combat), and everyone gets their own loot and exp for killing creatures, and more… We want players to choose how they want to play the game and not be forced into archtypes or game play styles that they’re not interested in.
AeonGamer
Will Norn have more racial similar clothing to that of the NPCs or do they have to look more human?
Mike Zadorojny
Each of the races has a racial set that can be purchased for karma from vendors in their capital city once players reach mid-level. Using transmutation stones you can technically buy them early and transmute the looks onto your lower level gear. 
Deitylink
Making an MMO, especially as vast and detailed must be extremely challenging.
My question is how do you prepare/start something that big. Does it differ from lets say making a “normal” game?
Mike Zadorojny
Both types of games start with an idea. What do you want to accomplish with your game? What kind of game do you want to make? When you start looking into the scope of your game and how many people it takes to actually make your game that’s where things can start looking different.
BeornTheBerserker
Are there any plans to add an LFG tool to make finding groups for dungeons a bit easier than shouting “LFM” in the map chat?
Mike Zadorojny
You can flag yourself as “looking from group” from the contacts menu in the game. This will show up visibly as an icon my your name and help others find you.
drnkoo
what are the average player sizes for smaller/larger dungeons, respectively.
Mike Zadorojny
All dungeons are designed for 5 players. There are what we call “mini-dungeons” that you can find out in the world that we spawn with harder monsters that sometimes require larger groups.
MrGilder
I haven’t gotten to play the beta, so many may already know this, so please excuse me if I’m asking something that’s common knowledge at this point.
I was a huge fan of the original Guild Wars, but found the variety of armor to be really disappointing in terms of appearance. It seemed to me that at each tier, every character of your class had maybe one of two outfits on (with color variants). I know this is often the case with top-tier characters in any MMO, but it started very early in GW. Considering how intense Guild Wars’ actual character builder was for the time, this was a major let down for me. Can we expect a greater variety of armors in GW2? I play MMO’s largely for the thrill of collecting virtual items and lording over my character’s appearance, so this aspect of the game is of great importance to me.
Thanks!
Mike Zadorojny
There are a ton of prestige types of armor that are in the game. There are specific sets for doing dungeons, crafting and for karma that will increase the diversity that you see in game.
Doomer1
Will we see the rare items drops change in the final release? Aka Boss unique weapons?
Mike Zadorojny
I know that the systems guys (and gal) have been working on the loot tables. So there probably will be some cool stuff that drops off the big guys.
SvartDM
So what are you guys doing with the game now after the last beta weekend? How does the whole polishing process work?
Mike Zadorojny
Right now, the rest of the team I’m on is actually playing through one of the maps (that hasn’t been shown) for the next 6 hours. We’re playing each other’s content helping make suggestions and find issues so that when the game goes live we can have it as polished as you guys have helped us make the starter areas. We’re also reviewing all of the feedback that the players gave us this weekend and addressing them in between play sessions.
[email protected]
if i want to learn designing, how should i start?
Mike Zadorojny
The best thing to do is just start doing it and practicing what you’re interested in. If you want to build stories and game content, start writing down ideas on paper. Build different worlds and ideas for stories. If you want to design systems, develop a new skill system for your favorite game. Practicing and refining your skills is the best way to get started. That way when people ask you questions about how you would design something you can do it instinctively.
akaValor
Are there gonna be more mega legendaryes(2 legendaryes creating 1)?
Mike Zadorojny
Maybe… ^^
Konohasi
How many PVP maps do we get on launch,and are there any plans to expand the PVP experience by adding new content to it?.
Mike Zadorojny
Once the game ships our job is actually just beginning. We will have a team dedicated to updating the game and adding content (PvE and PvP) to the game and continue to support the fan base. Right now I know for sure 3 maps will be in at launch, but the plan is definitely to add more.
Joshua Meléndez Suárez
I was wondering, can we use the beta client to play on release? Or do we need to download a new client?
PS Thanks for this awesome game <3
Mike Zadorojny
I’m pretty sure it’s the same client. Obviously you’ll have to get all of the data that’s missing (ie later game content).
PS You’re welcome!
SirPendragon
Will there be free updates for the game or DLC’s ?
Mike Zadorojny
All of the content that the Live Team releases will be free.
Vman009
I never played the first guild wars but I am very interested in playing Guild Wars 2. My question is, since I haven’t played the first game, will I be lost in the story of Guild Wars 2? I know you have things that only people who have played the first game will recognize, but will I at least be able to enjoy the world without feeling like I am lost in what is going on?
Mike Zadorojny
We’ve built the game so that someone who’s played the first one will find cool things that they remember, but someone who’s never played Guild Wars 1 won’t be lost. If there’s something important in the story that we think you should know, we’ll teach it to you.
Diego Fink Belingieri
Hello there.
I played some events (and played a lot), my only question is:
At the real money vendor (black lion), there are XP boosts, gold boost, magic find boost, etc. How is the game’s leveling balanced (towards most fun) – to play with boosts or to play without them? Will boosts be necessary to be able to level without repeating the content too much – making every event once, filling each “heart”, playing every instance once will be enought?
I guess some decisions have to be made in that aspect, and I feel in most games with boosts, they simply force a tiresome grind to anyone not willing to pay for boosts… but GW2 is not a F2P game (fortunately), so I hope t isn’t treated as F2P.
Very good job with the game, it’s awesome. Anxious for launch 
Mike Zadorojny
Most (if not all) of our testing and play through feedback is done without the use of boosts. However, even if a player gets to the point where they feel like they’re outpacing the content in the map they’re currently in, there are multiple maps in the same level range that can help you advance. Also, since you get exp from crafting, harvesting (also a good way to make money selling to crafters), your personal story, exploration rewards, etc., there is a ton of stuff in the game to help you level as you play. The boosts are there for convenience, they’re not a requirement.
I’m anxious for launch too!
Chaos_Indralius
1. How can I play with my Guild in Team work, im not so very good in PvP but i want to be a good PvPler and i can little bit good play with the Thief. But i dont allready know how i can play with him in Tactics. Do you have any proposals for me for the Thief?
2. How it will be with the Personal Story after lv20 ? would be the story to lv 80 or some lower ?
3. I was at the Group Event in Metrica Province and fighted with some other people the Big Fire Elementarlist. And Hes was very hard to Defeat but after 1-2 Hours we killed him ^^
Was the difficult special so made that we need 1 hour to kill him?
He gives us 1hit Kill. Do you make him lower that we can kill him after 30minutes? ^^
Chaos Indralius 
PS: sorry for that bad english, hope you understand my School English it
greetz from Germany
Mike Zadorojny
1) There’s already a rich PvP community, so if you need help with tactics I’d just ask. My thief build is mostly based around conditions and just applying pressure to the enemy team. There’s also a support build that one of our testers Karl has used on occasion and I know that there’s a pretty nasty power build as well. So there are options, if you’re having problems it never hurts to ask your teammates.
2) The personal story will go all the way to 80 at launch. We were closing it at level 20 just for the beta event.
3) Yeah sorry about that. The fire elemental was totally my fault. His minions got buffed and I didn’t realize it until after we were done prepping the build. Also he was hitting harder than he should have. I’ll have him fixed for launch… I promise! For those of you who liked the challenge, we still plan on doing harder versions of these guys later in the game. In the starter area I don’t think he needs to be super challenging that it’s not fun.
Hi Germany!
jobiasrkd
I really like that the game allows for at the very least, a partially combat free way to gain experience (ie. exploration, crafting etc). Kudos for that. But after playing The Secret World, I’m very much enraptured with their investigation missions. Now granted, setting up AR websites doesn’t fit the flavor of Guild Wars, but are you at least toying with the idea of puzzles based around conversations, interactable objects in the world and environmental pieces?
Mike Zadorojny
We do have some of those in the game already. They’re usually off the beaten path and tucked away in a little corner. The one that immediately comes to mind is there’s a small hylek cave system in the north western side of Caledon Forest. These are a lot of fun to make, so you should expect to see them as you progress through the game.
FracturedLoyalty
I will admit, I am pretty much clueless as far as the Guild Wars universe goes. I used to play WoW before getting horrendously bored of repeating the same end-game dungeons over and over, as I wasn’t very interested in PvP. What would Guild Wars offer someone who is coming from games like WoW, Champions Online, Star Trek Online, etc? What levels of customization is there? How big is the world? Will there be established roleplaying servers? Will there be a cash shop and if so, will it be Pay2Pretty or Pay2Win?
And on that note, if you guys ARE going to go with a cash shop, I just want you to take a look at TF2 and its cash shop, and see how successful it’s become. It’s almost purely cosmetic items, and the weapons you can buy there for cash can be obtained for free via a drop system in the game. The one thing that I really enjoy about games is customization, and if Guild Wars 2 could offer stuff like alternative armor designs (Spiral Knights has a neat mechanic where you have an armor slot, and then a “costume slot” where you can put another piece of armor in. You gain the states of the armor you’re wearing, but the visuals of the armor in the costume slot), clothing, armor dyes and other cosmetics, I’d more than likely end up buying stuff from the cash shop so long as they were fairly priced.
Mike Zadorojny
We’ve created a world with a lot of different content to try to provide a little something for everyone. In addition we’ve tried to make a game where you as the player can choose to play the game how you see fit. Since there are no dedicated healers and players have the ability to change how their character plays based on weapon selection, utility skill selection, elite skills, traits, and armor there’s a lot of customization to support you playing in a natural play style that fits you.
With transmutation stones if there’s a particular weapon or skin that you like you can transfer it between items. That way if you find a particular look that you really enjoy it’s something you can maintain for as long as you want.
The world is pretty big. Players have only seen a fraction of the number of maps that will be in at launch. There’s also 7 dungeons that we haven’t shown yet, either.
Not sure on the roleplaying servers, sorry.
Crovan
First off, let me tell you it’s been awesome tracking this game’s progress. But to the question (I guess you could call it a two-parter: Are you at all worried that stepping away from the classic triage of Tank, Healer and DpS roles and letting go of the classic stats like dodge will affect gameplay?
Mike Zadorojny
Sure it affects gameplay, but from what I’ve experienced I think for the better. With the ability to dodge-roll (double-tapping a movement key) and evading incoming attacks you can prevent a lot of the damage that a tank would normally soak. By allowing everyone to heal and support each other through skill combos and taking aggro, we’ve created a much more active combat system. I’m really enjoying the new system.
RaphaelS86
Do you think is there room for improvement in WvW?
A major complaint I listen from player is that it is too much focused on “blobs” of players. Is it the way it is supposed to work?
I personally think there could be added mechanics to spread players across the map objectives.
Mike Zadorojny
There are actually a decent number of smaller objectives for small bands of players to take. During this last the weekend event I was running around with one other person taking supply camps, allying NPC groups with my world and taking over the sentries on the road. There definitely is a lot of play with the larger groups (taking keeps and the like) but there’s still things for smaller teams can do. Also by having smaller teams you can actually take more places at once forcing the large mob to react to you.
GW2lover
If I get scaled up to lvl 80 in PvP, how do I unlock the ITEMS <-- you mentioned it somewhere
also, is a PvP Server gonna be Different than a WvW Server? Or is a PvP Server 1 World? I hope I formulated my question clear to you ^^
btw, I loved the Beta! Really great job! Well done! Totally worth my €80
Mike Zadorojny
While you’re in sPvP you’re not unlocking items and skills for use back in PvE. For this you’ll need to go back to PvE or WvW.
The PvP servers aren’t tied to a specific world. So from the lobby you can actually get teamed up or against players from other worlds.
Our version of a cash shop is our gem store. One of the big distinctions is that you can actually trade in game gold that you’ve acquired for gems. The exchange rate is controlled by players buying and selling gems for gold. So if you don’t want to spend money on items in the gem store, you can just trade gold for gems to get them.
We’ve got a pretty hard stance internally about only putting in items of convenience or looks in the gem store. We don’t want a situation where everyone has to buy a particular item in order to play the game or to be powerful. That just feels bad.
Symurallix
Will items purchased with real-world cash be essential to success in GW2? Or will they just be for convenience / appearance, as in the original game?
Mike Zadorojny
Items from the gem story will NOT be essential to success for players in GW2. We don’t want to force players to buy items. The items we plan on putting in there are convenience/appearance options.
Khyras
When going back to lower level areas will equipment drops be appropriate to your level or the level of the area you are in? Same question about dynamic event xp,karma and money rewards and also dungeon completion rewards.
Mike Zadorojny
You have a chance of getting items of your level when you’re playing lower level content. We didn’t want the game to completely penalize players for exploring or helping friends who were not as far along. I believe the level adjustment system also scales the rewards of the events so that you are still progressing your character even if you’re a level 30 character in a level 10 area.
Krimzain
At what stage in the PvE progression do the armor sets stop gaining stats. What sort of number of options would we have to choose from looks-wise.
Mike Zadorojny
You stop getting new stats at level 80.
seequeuec
I’ve played four betas, and seen lots of bugs come and go. What about the 90% of the game we haven’t seen yet? The rest of the zones surely have many broken skill points and the like. What’s the deal here? Are you guys planning on fixing everything on the fly by rolling out new builds? Thanks for reading, and amazing job all around at HQ.
Mike Zadorojny
We’ve been doing a ton of internal company wide tests here daily on the content not seen by the players. We will do our best to give you guys the best possible experience at launch. In the case were a game breaking bug is discovered, we can roll out a patch in short order. It’s not our goal to bug fix on the fly, but we do have a versatile development system that will allow us to address things that come up.
calocher
Will the Hunger Royale and other interesting PvP experiments make it into the final game?
Mike Zadorojny
They won’t be in game at launch, but we learned a lot from the final events we’ve done for the BWEs. I’d love to see variations on some of them come back as activities. That’s something the Live Team will have to look at.
Isengreen
What was the most difficult part of Guild Wars 2 to execute to your liking? (Ex. PvP, Combat, Story)
Mike Zadorojny
Making each of the professions feel unique and viable in all forms of gameplay I think has been an interesting evolution to watch. The systems team I think has done a wonderful job making my enjoy my Thief, and not feel like I need to re-roll a Guardian or Engineer.
Xin_
At launch, will we see huge in-world events like “corruption” or “hunger games” on a random frequent base or will they be player triggered or … ?
Mike Zadorojny
The Live Team will be adding things new and interesting things to keep the world alive. Stay tuned for more on this post-launch! (It’s going to be exciting.)
DaWolv
You can always quest on other servers!
I guess the big reason to have servers this time around is that it isn’t instanced and if you have all players from around the world in the same map it would get a bit crowded ^^
Mike Zadorojny
We split people into worlds so that everyone has a chance to participate in WvW and represent their team. I’m not sure the district system from GW1 would solve your problem in having people around for larger group events. You’d run into a thing where you’ve be hopping districts trying to find others doing the same thing. Having many people in the zones is the goal, I think you may find that it’s necessary to be more social in chat if you hit a wall where content is too difficult to solo.
Ziddy
Will there be an option to change our character’s voices during character creation? Or starting weapon?
Mike Zadorojny
I don’t believe there will be an option to change voice or starting weapon during character creation.
Danternas
How will you ensure that Guild Wars 2 does not repeat the rise and death which has occurred to so many competitors in the MMO-genre? Which are the most important areas you have worked on to prevent this?
Mike Zadorojny
I think MMOs thrive on the strength of their communities. We’ve tried to build a game from the ground up that supports gamers coming and playing together. We’ve created a diverse world with tons of secrets and treasures hidden through out the world. We’ve created a game that allows players to feel like a hero and feel like they’re making a difference in the world. And with the launch of the game, our service is just beginning. The Live Team will be doing content updates and adding new things for players to experience and enjoy. And with no subscription fee, it’s not a bad thing to us if you set the game down for a while. We’ll just be creating interesting stories and content for the land of Tyria for when you decide you want to pop back in and see what’s new.
Also, WvW is awesome. If I could build a house in Dreaming Bay, I totally would.
RxSoul
You guys can’t do one more BWE? Please, I need my fix…..
Mike Zadorojny
Sadly, I need to go! There’s still so much that I want to add to this game before you all get you hands on the final product and not a whole lot of time to get it in! Thanks for hanging out with me this afternoon! I had a lot of fun answering you questions and I hope you all got something out of it as well. It’s been a lot of fun working on this game and I can’t wait to share the world with you.
I want to thank Kirk and the rest of the Kotaku staff for hosting this event! And I’ll see everyone in the head start on Aug. 25th and the rest of you on Aug. 28th.
LET'S GET SOCIAL