Guild Wars Mini-Interview #16

ArenaNet has answered another small batch of questions about their upcoming Guild Wars, and this time the interview is over at Legendary Wars. A snip:

Q: What made you decide on only having one melee profession for the initial release?

A: I hadn’t really thought about this, but I guess it is true that there is only one melee specialist in the form of the warrior. With the Guild Wars dual-profession system, it feels as if there are other melee professions, because many players add warrior to their character build. Also, because there aren’t strict weapon restrictions, any character can wield a sword, axe, or hammer, therefore you will see some non-traditional character classes engaging in melee combat.

Our goal in choosing the six initial Guild Wars professions was to go with strong archetypes, so that there would be an instant understanding of each of them, and a perception of how they fit into the world and onto a team. We feel that the professions we have chosen for the first chapter of Guild Wars are some of the more distinctive character types. Each has a strong connection to role-playing games and to fantasy in general. There are other character types to consider as melee combatants, and we will have opportunities for those others to be included at a later date.

Legendary Wars would like to thank Gaile for giving us the opportunity to ask these questions and to the Arena Net team for creating such a ground-breaking game! Go Guild Wars!