We know that Guild Wars 3 is happening… probably. I mean, we have no specific details about Guild Wars 3, other than the fact that NCsoft told investors it’s being worked on and ArenaNet responded by making the PR equivalent of that face where you plaster on a smile over your panic, but that also makes a fair bit of sense because Guild Wars 2 ain’t exactly slowing down. Did you hear the game just got housing? (Yes. You heard.) There’s still clearly life left in the older game. But there are signs that the sequel is being worked on, which makes sense as well since the original is getting on in years just as surely.
It is thus obviously way too early to really talk about what is going to be in Guild Wars 3 because we just do not know anything about what the game is going to be. But I also can’t help but think about the game even if it is far too early to really think about it. So while I’m not going to do a full top-down picture of what the game will look like, I do think there are some things that can be put forward ahead of the game’s… well, you know, actual announcement.
Another time gap, another world change
A lot has changed in Tyria since the launch of GW2. We’ve gone from a whole bunch of elder dragons to worry about to them having… you know, ended. We’re done with dragons. There are fewer deities, too, that was another big change. A lot has happened. So the obvious thing to do is to immediately move on to a new period of time, with another big gap and even more substantial changes to the setting overall.
It’s a bit too easy to point out that GW2 is now older than the original Guild Wars was when the sequel came out. But I think it’s relevant in this context. Sure, we’ve played this game much longer than the original, but the fact that players could both make a clean break from the original and yet veterans still felt rewarded for it? That’s important. And I think that whatever future is envisioned for the sequel, we need that to still be true.
Another level cap, but differently structured
Why is the level cap for GW2 80? Well, because it was a significant departure from the original game, which had a level cap of 20. That level cap was really easy to reach – in fact, I reached level 20 on a character in GW in the time it took me to write this sentence. So a big selling point for the sequel was that players would have to play significantly longer in order to reach the level cap!
That is no longer the case in the least. It is not how the game actually plays (I just once again reached the level cap in GW2 in the time it took me to write this sentence), and it also no longer really holds any water. Hitting level 80 is not a big deal, and level 80 is kind of an awkward forever level cap because it doesn’t confirm to anything that we think of as a nice round number.
My point here is not that we should go back to the level cap of 20; that was equally arbitrary and not exactly better. The point here is that it’s a good idea for the game to have a firm level cap, as this is a part of the series now, but just making the level cap higher and forcing us to level longer is pretty much pointless – especially since it’s very clear that after the first couple years at most, nobody really wants to make leveling be all that slow.
A different style of professions drawing wider inspirations
Adding the Revenant in Heart of Thorns was kind of a mistake – not because I don’t like the profession, but because it created a feeling that we were going to get new professions moving forward instead of elite specializations. And the Revenant has never quite worked the same as the other professions and skill selections. It’s messy, in other words.
This is on top of the fact that some of the professions from the original GW have never become a standalone thing again; I’ve never been a big Ritualist fan, but it seems like a notable omission that we don’t have something closer. And that’s on top of the fact that the whole “skills linked to weapons” thing has caused its own issues… in other words, I think that whatever we get, it needs to be different from how both how GW2 and GW managed its classes and weapon skills.
If I had to offer suggestions, I’d like to see something closer to how the original game let us mix and match professions with the fixed list of GW2. Elite specializations as an idea is still a solid one, but I almost think mixing magical schools and combat schools would work well. If you make a list of five combat styles and five magical styles, with another style in each category for not really fighting with a weapon primarily or not really using weapons… well, that’s a bit beyond the scope of this column. Let’s just say it has places to go.
Clearer specs and party roles
If your sudden instinct is to say, “No, I don’t want GW3 to feature the standard trinity design,” then ha ha, I tricked you because that’s not what I said. I even wrote a whole column speculating about other potential trinities, and I specifically cited GW2’s original design! No one is saying that GW2 needs to have tanks, healers, and DPS. There are other potential lists of roles. Heck, there don’t need to be three roles! There could be four, or five, or two, or whatever. Lots of options!
The reason I put this in place is that GW2‘s elite group content is basically designed around having tanks, healers, and DPS. And that’s not how basically the rest of the game is structured, which makes the endgame seem disjointed. It also means that when you look at your traits and your overall specialization choices, you can feel as if you don’t really know what the different choices are supposed to do.
Yes, I know that they’re all different, and that’s by design, but providing new players with guidance is a good thing. I’m not saying that the game should follow any specific design goals in the way that it builds for parties, but I am saying that players should feel that they understand how parties are supposed to work, what they’re going to be able to do, and why.
There is, of course, a lot more to speculate about, and we’re probably going to have plenty of time to do so as I don’t think the game is getting a proper announcement tomorrow, much less development explanations for a while. Heck, there’s always the distant possibility that the game totally changes name or genre or whatever well before we actually get to play it. But I’m certainly hopeful it’ll be here sooner rather than later. And I’m excited already.
Designing an MMO is hard. But writing about some top level ideas for designing one? That’s… also remarkably hard. But sometimes it’s fun to do just the same. Join Eliot Lefebvre in Design Mockumentas he brainstorms elevator pitches for MMO sequels, spinoffs, and the like for games that haven’t yet happened and most likely never will!
