Guild Wars 2 Interview

MMORPG.com is the latest website to crank out an interview with Guild Wars 2 lead content designer Colin Johanson about the “Dynamic Event System” they’re implementing in the subscription-free MMORPG sequel.

MMORPG.com: How do Guild Wars 2’s dynamic events differ from similar sounding, already existing game mechanics like, say, public quests in Warhammer Online?

Colin Johanson: The difference between these two systems lies in the word (dynamic.) When a public quest ends the game world does not change; the actions the players took really made no difference. A timer starts counting down and then the public quest runs again.

In Guild Wars 2, when a dynamic event ends, the game will be changed as a result of the event occurring. The event will then chain and cascade out into other events that occur as a direct result of the outcome of the previous event, creating a world where the content is dynamic and changes based on player participation and activity. You’ll never encounter a point in Guild Wars 2 where you complete a task and a timer pops up and says, (4 minutes until the thing you just did happens again.) It breaks your sense of immersion and gives you a sense that things you do in the game world don’t really matter.

Another major difference is because the events dynamically scale in difficulty, anyone can participate in and complete them, regardless of how many people are in the zone. Their public quest system required a lot of people to be in the area to complete most of the quests, because they were too difficult for the single player. So when server population went down, or you were off playing solo, or the population in the game moved on to higher level maps, people couldn’t play the public quests. People will always be able to participate in the dynamic event system- anytime, anywhere, at any point in the game’s life cycle.

The final core difference between our dynamic event system and public quests is that everyone who actively participates in the event will receive the full reward for the event. There will be no instance where someone shows up for the last 30 seconds of the event, kills a couple minotaurs, and then receives the best reward from the loot system. If you participate fully in the event, you get the reward, period.

There is also the added bonus you can experience our dynamic event system without having to pay a monthly fee!

If you want to read more about the new system, there’s some new information about it on the official website, too.