i'm pretty much copy/pasting from the chatroom and will go over it later. Lot of good stuff in here


[13:33] <@Kvinna> Big welcome to ArenaNet's Izzy Cartright, Eric Flannum and Jonathan Sharp! Oh, and Anet Community. :p Thank you for joining us!
[13:33] <@[ANet]Community> We will start veeeery soon, folks are still answering questions on Reddit ~MK\
[13:34] <+Arduin> When it's ready, eh?
[13:34] <@Kvinna>
[13:34] <+Naut> woow
[13:34] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> hi
[13:34] <@[ANet]Community> as usual ~MK
[13:34] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> Hello : )
[13:35] <+[TL]Bridger> Hi
[13:35] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Hi Izzy.
[13:35] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp>
[13:35] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> Hi Chap
[13:35] <+Kentaro> Hi
[13:35] <+Rubi> Hi and thanks for coming.
[13:35] <+Blackblood> Allo
[13:35] <@NeoNugget> It's a pleasure
[13:35] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> hey guys
[13:35] <+Feathermoore> Why hello there!
[13:35] <+Arduin> Welcome!
[13:35] <+Vorsakan> Hello, nice to meet you all ^_^
[13:35] <+Naut> Hi
[13:35] <+Ryuzaki> Hello
[13:36] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Wait, what is that?
[13:36] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> I sense the great Eric Flannum.
[13:36] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> I think he may be in the building.
[13:36] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> You sense Colin two rooms over actually
[13:36] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> his aura of greatness is apon us
[13:36] <@[ANet]Community> OMG,Eric is in the house! ~ MK
[13:36] <+Rubi> Big building, can't really prove it.
[13:37] <+[TL]Bridger> He simply walks into mordor
[13:37] <+Rubi> ./groan
[13:37] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> He does it's amazing
[13:37] <@Jenn> lol
[13:37] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> Mordor doesn't really appreciate it though
[13:38] <@[ANet]Community> Gentlemen, start your engines! ~MK
[13:40] <+Feathermoore> vroom?
[13:40] <+[TL]Bridger> I think that's what they were waiting for
06[13:40] * +[TL]Bridger starts his engine
[13:40] <+[TL]Bridger> there we go
06[13:40] * +Rubi drives to betaland
06[13:41] * +Rubi smashes into a wall
[13:41] <@[ANet]Community> I see people frantically typing on our end. ~MK
[13:41] <+Naut> Arrow in the tyre?
[13:41] <+[TL]Bridger> no, blue shell caught up with her
[13:42] <+Feathermoore> Dreaded blue shell
[13:42] <+Rubi> I used to be a beta tester like you, but I took an arrow in the IP
[13:42] <+Naut> Hahahaha
[13:42] <+[TL]Bridger> rofl
[13:42] <+Blackblood> No death then? :/
[13:42] <+[TL]Bridger> you realize now Rubi, that an entire room of invisible people just swore oaths to rickroll you when you least expect it?
[13:43] <+Rubi> Oh, I know it's comin'
[13:43] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Can the teleport portal skill of the Mesmer be used for cross profession combos (like shooting through them to hit enemies in different locations)? - No. Only allied team-mates can move through.
[13:44] <+Vorsakan> Q. Can you be knocked through an allied portal by a foe?
[13:44] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Also, hi Geikamir, enjoying the clouds?
[13:44] <@[ANet]Community> Izzy just got owned by copy&paste ~MK
[13:45] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Vorsakan - yes you can be knocked into a portal by an enemy!
[13:45] <+Vorsakan> O_O PvP mischief ahoy! Thanks
[13:47] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Q. Can they give us some examples of cross-profession combo's to expect with the Mesmer?
[13:47] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> - You can put up Chaos storm which adds random conditions to projectiles moving through.
[13:47] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> - On the other end, you can use your Leap skill on mainhand sword to benefit from allied combo fields.
[13:47] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> How did you arrive at the current profession mechanic for the mesmer? What iterations did you scrap and how did it evolve into what it is now? - We started off with just an illusion limiter and all the shatters where on weapon skills but found this too limiting. Also all of our illusions where different creatures but this was too confusions and hard to create so we ended up with two types clones and phantasms.
[13:49] <@Jenn> Charr Plushie Giveaway #1 (You must be a USA/CANADIAN RESIDENT): The 8th person to private message me the answer will win! What are the two exclusive trait lines for the Guardian?
[13:50] <@[ANet]Community> While our guys are busily working on the answers to your questions - just let me say thank you to all of you for stopping by ~MK
[13:50] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> SwashbucklerXX> With all these cool, exotic races that can turn into animals and make golem battlesuits and such, what's going to makke playing as a human a compelling experience? Will humans be getting any fun and flashy racial abilities?
[13:50] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> -Avatar of Melandru turns you into an awesome creature.
[13:50] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> -Summoning dual Hounds of Balthazar. Is. So. Freaking. Cool.
[13:51] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> Will certain types of opponents of the same group have different AI (such as a "brute" acting differently than a "mage"), or will each race have their own AI tendencies (such as skritt acting differently than ogres), or both? We break creatures into groups we call "families" and try to give each family a distinct feel. For example the dredge tend to be pretty stationary and use a lot of sonic themed abilities. Within t
[13:51] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> he dredge family there are things like the dredge mining suit which tends to be bigger and more "brutish".
[13:51] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> interesting text wrapping!
[13:52] <@Jenn> Congratulations to FASC|JonTheMon_work for being the 8th person to correctly answer the question. Please stop messaging me now! :p
[13:52] <+Rubi> Secondary question: Will there be human skills reflecting all six gods?
[13:53] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Yep, there are 6 human skills, based on the gods.
[13:54] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> I was wondering if you guys had any new information about the changes to traits that you previously mentioned, but have not yet revealed? - We not ready to talk about the new trait system yet, but here are some of the things you can do with traits. We have a trait that allows you to give you venoms to all nearby allies allowing a thief to run around and make his allies apply poison and other conditions. We also ha
[13:54] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> ve a trait on the ranger that allows spirits to follow you around. Well talk more about traits sometime near the begining of the year.
[13:55] <@Jenn> Congratulations to FASC|JonTheMon_work for being the 8th person to correctly answer the question. Please stop messaging me now! Please :C <3
[13:55] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> Are there any plans to release PvP footage of the Mesmer (or at least a full skill compendium), prior to Demos in 2012? We do plan to release some more footage but we haven't determined exactly what it'll be and when we'll release it so I'll pass on the request for some Mesmer PvP footage.
[13:55] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> <[TL]Bridger> Will the mesmer have any control over his illusions? For example: could he create a bunch of illusions and tell them all to retreat so the enemy would not know which one was the real one running away?
[13:55] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> -No, you cannot do this. They are simply summoned onto a target, and attack that target until the illusion dies, or that target dies.
[13:56] <+[TL]Bridger> Followup: Would a Mesmer need to act like the AI illusions to truly fool an expert player then?
[13:58] <@[ANet]Community> Chap and John are singing Billy Ocean while typing. Very disturbing. ~MK
[13:58] <+Rubi> ...
[13:58] <@Kvinna> RECORD IT
[13:58] <+[TL]Bridger> put it in the credits
[13:58] <+[TL]Bridger> that's what Big Huge did with Rise of Nations
[13:58] <+Rubi> It's clearly a minstrel skill.
[13:59] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> Do you feel that allowing people to change servers so often that servers will not have a sense of community to them for WvWvW? This is absolutely a concern for us and we will work very hard to come up with some restrictions that are fair enough such that players can play with their friends and yet will discourage people jumping to the current winning server in WvW. We'll anounce something when we know exactly what those restriction
[13:59] <@[ANet]Community> we had a Lalala La Lala La session earlier ~MK
[14:00] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Followup on Mesmer: Yes, that's definitely a viable strategy! Sometimes doing NOTHING and standing still is an amazing way to fool your opponents as a Mesmer. And just when they think you're an illusion and not the real Mesmer... You make them QQ.
[14:02] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> On reddit you mentioned to have 12 professions in mind at the start. Any chance of letting us know the 4 that didn't make it? Do you think any of them will be added later on? - As always with design we start with a large lists of ideas and then boil it down into the primordial goodness. So our large list of ideas has had lots of random things most of which we've taken the parts we like and put them into our current profe
[14:02] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> ssions but some of those ideas where: warden, marksmen, juggernaught, artificer, dualist, knight, berserker and many others I'm sure I can't remeber right now.
[14:02] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Can you give a few examples of Mesmer Elite Skills?
[14:02] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> -One elite allows you to transform a foe into a moa bird for a short time. They have moa bird skills while in this form, just to add insult to injury.
06[14:03] * +[TL]Bridger activates "eat grass" skill
[14:05] <@[ANet]Community> Ok, just to get this out of the way here: We have a studio internal selection process for our Closed Beta that starts on Friday. There will be no public application form.
[14:05] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> You mentioned that humans will get 6 skills based on the gods, but it was previously mentioned that each race has around 12 racials. Has the number decreased, or will humans get other skills that aren't god-related? Also, will also races get at least 4 elite racial skills since norn get 4 elites? - We currently have 6 race skills these are often a mixture of elites, utility skills, and heal skills for humans there is a
[14:05] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> prayer for each god and for norn there is 4 transforms and 2 utility skils.
[14:05] <+Rubi> Can you elaborate on the moa skills?
[14:06] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> What exactly does the Engineer's Supply Drop contain? And has it changed any?
[14:06] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> -It drops a smorgasborg (from Jon Peters) of different bundles! Some of them heal, some of them can be picked up by allies!
[14:06] <@Kvinna> Thanks, [ANet]Community
[14:07] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> -Moa skills: Peck, kick, screech. You get the picture!
[14:08] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> Will we be able to see technical information like weapon range, attack speed, and things of the like through the ingame UI or will that be something that players have to experiment to figure out? For the most part players will need to experiment with the things that you mention although we do plan to have tools for helping players experiment. Things like the dps target dummies in the first game.
[14:08] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> Do NPCs act differently when confused, or do they activate abilities as normal and simply take the damage? - no they just attack and get beat up like a good monster, some monsters do have condition removal however.
[14:09] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> One of the greatest changes Guild Wars 2 promises to bring to MMOs is to break the holy trinity of group roles. Would you dare say that this is true for any class/spec combination, or does it contain some modifications? An example would be; could 5 skilled Guardians using the same weapon and traits do a dungeon?
[14:09] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> -Absolutely, they could do it with the same weapons and traits. If you changed out your weapons and traits, you'd have more diversity, and would make it easier on yourself.
[14:10] <+Rubi> Guys, please direct your questions to Naut, Kentaro, or Arduin. The rest of us are unable to pass them on for you.
[14:11] <@[ANet]Community> We will also not answer PMs, sorry. ~MK
[14:13] <@Jenn> Charr Plushie Giveaway #2 (You must be a USA/CANADIAN RESIDENT): The 14th person to private message me the answer will win! What is the name of the Asuran "Religion"?
[14:14] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> will the mists have dynamic events or will it be strictly pvp and siege captures and stuff? - yes WvW will have events.
[14:14] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> following on from the server swapping restrictions question. Is Euro/US/Other split a thing you're considering like all other MMOs? Or do you want a truly international melting pot and make everyone happy? We always try to make it possible for people to play together but we don't have any final answers on this just yet, sorry.
[14:15] <@Jenn> Congratulations to TYphoon_ for winning Plushie #2. Please stop PMing now. Thanks!
[14:16] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> How will a casual player get to see big events like the Shatterer and Tequatl with a limited play schedule?
[14:16] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> -Because those large events can happen multiple times throughout the day, you can team up with anyone around you at that time and take on those larger challenges, even if you're only a casual player!
[14:19] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Will Mesmers have a skill that allows them to mimic players or creatures?
[14:19] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> -Probably not.
[14:20] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> Will Arenanet allow and encourage development of add-ons since they have become so popular and integral in MMO's now? We won't be allowing people to mod the game itself directly no. We feel that this encourages people to play the game in such a way that gives them an unfair advatage over those who don't use mods. However we understand that many people enjoy modding games and are looking into ways for people to build thing
[14:20] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> s for the game in other ways. We'll have more information on this sometime next year.
[14:23] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> With regards to WvWvW and with the recent Reddit information on them. How are you guys counteracting lag issues, especially when there's the possibility of having 2,000 players in one map? - In WvW there are 4 different maps each with a cap we put a cap on map beacuse we know this is what the server can handle, the reason we have a cap is to keep lag under control. Our cap will be somewhere around 500 per map but it all d
[14:23] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> epends on server preformance and that might change as we are always testing it.
[14:23] <@[ANet]Community> Will there be other purchasable guild wars 2 items, like different plushies other than the charr one? - We know you folks want merchandise, so we are looking into it. I can't give details on what that might be or any timeframe though. ~MK
[14:24] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> Will weather be dynamic in GW 2 (i.e with clouds forming rain or snow randomly happening), and will sky be dynamic (clouds passing by etc not just a backgound picture)? Weather can sometimes be random and sometimes is affected by specific events. For example, there is a huge snowstorm that occurs on one of the maps when a specific event is failed. This snowstorm then kicks off a new chain of events as players deal with the effects of
[14:26] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> <@Rubi> Now that all professions are out of the way, what is the team's big focus?
[14:26] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> -Right now we're working a lot on guild features, balance, finishing content, and, most importantly, figuring out what to eat for lunch.
[14:26] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> ^ For Guilds, are there going to be perks/levels setup for the guilds or will it be something that has access to everything from the get-go with the right amount of karma/gold? - There are many things that guilds can earn what and how we'll talk about as we release more about guilds.
[14:26] <@[ANet]Community> The lunch part is super important! ~MK
[14:27] <@Jenn> Charr Plushie Giveaway #3 (You must be a USA/CANADIAN RESIDENT): The 24th person to private message me the answer will win! What is the function of the "Precision" attribute?
[14:27] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> a new Q, followup on modding, can we mod sound files, and add our own sound mods to make our character sound more evil? I don't think its possible to do this but I'll pass along the request to our sound team.
[14:28] <@Jenn> Congratulations to SilasGW for winning the last charr plushie! Please stop the PMs
[14:29] <@Jenn> (The answer was increasing the chance for critical hits)
[14:32] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> Considering in structured PvP there are destructable environments can we expect to have the same feature in WvWvW too? And along those lines will there also be environmental weapons like structured PvP? - In WvW there are many seige weapons you can use to blow things up with as well as many things you can pick up and use.
[14:33] <@[ANet]Community> What kind of interactions/interfaces outside of the actual game do you guys have planned with launch (eg web profiles, stats, rankings, ladders, guild management, etc)? On a similar note, will you guys also provide web services/data feeds/api for data compiling/mining/etc to the community or fansites to play around with? - All of these are very good suggestions, and we will have at least some of them. Unfortunat
[14:33] <@[ANet]Community> annot go into details at this point. ~MK
[14:36] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> <@Vorsakan> Q. Is there a mechanic name for the 4 shatter skills e.g. virtues, tool belt? You already knew the answer! They are called "Shatters"
[14:37] <+Vorsakan> Doh!
[14:37] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> <@Vorsakan> Q. The term "familiar" has oh-so-teasingly been spoken in relation to the elementalist - can you tell us anything more about this skill type?
[14:37] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> -Nothing at the moment.
[14:37] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> <@Vorsakan> Q. Was there ever a point, after hexes and energy were dropped, that you didn't expect the mesmer to return? - No we hold the mesmer pretty closer to our heart so we knew we would make it work.
[14:38] <@[ANet]Community> Ok everybody, thanks for joining us! Guys, say goodbye! ~MK
[14:38] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> Thanks everyone for the chat! Always fun to talk to you all!
[14:38] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Wow, great questions everyone!!!! Thanks for chatting with us!
[14:38] <@Kvinna> Okay, that's concludes our dev chat for today! Thanks to Eric, Izzy, Jonathan and the CMs for coming out to answer some questions for us.
[14:38] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> Colin says that he loves you all
[14:38] <@[ANet]IzzyCartright> Thanks for the questions : )
[14:38] <+Naut> Thanks for your time guys!
[14:38] <@Kvinna> And thanks for all the questions!
[14:38] <@[ANet]Community> And thanks to Kvinna and team for organising this! ~MK
[14:38] <+Kentaro> Thanks for your time!
[14:38] <@NeoNugget> I love you too, Colin <3
[14:38] <+Arduin> Thanks for the answers!
[14:38] <+Vorsakan> Thank you for the answers <3
[14:38] <+Rubi> Thank you guys for your time.
[14:38] <+Rubi> Now eat something.
[14:39] <@[ANet]JonathanSharp> Indeed! Red Lobster!!!
[14:39] <@[ANet]EricFlannum> ugh
[14:39] <+Kentaro> Olive Garden
[14:39] <+[TL]Bridger> Thanks guys
[14:39] <@[ANet]Community> Team ArenaNet: Assemble! To the lunch mobile! ~MK
[14:39] <+Rubi> Hah. /hungry
[14:39] <+[TL]Bridger> you just gave Tales of Tyria (Tales of Tyria | A Guild Wars 2 Podcast - Tales of Tyria) a TON to talk about this week
06[14:39] * @Kvinna slaps [TL]Bridger around a bit with a large trout
[14:39] <+Rubi> Same. Can. Not. Wait. for Guildcast tomorrow night.
[14:39] <+[TL]Bridger> oooo
[14:39] <+Rubi> Bridger and I = shameless
[14:39] <+[TL]Bridger> I when does that go out?
[14:40] <@Kvinna> I think I slapped him too hard..
[14:40] <@Jenn> Thank you <3
[14:40] <@Kvinna> Thanks to Rubi, Bridger and Vorsakan for helping out!
02[14:40] * @[ANet]IzzyCartright (~JonPeters@66.162.136.17) Quit (Quit: This is Jon Peters, signing off)
[14:40] <@Kvinna> And grats to the plushie winners. :p
02[14:41] * @[ANet]JonathanSharp (~JonathanS@66.162.136.17) Quit (Quit: This is Jonathan Sharp, signing off)
[14:41] <@Kvinna> You still have a chance to win some plushies with our Wintersday Contest: Guru's Wintersday Carol Contest! - Guild Wars 2 Guru Forums
[14:41] <+Naut> Make sure to read our examples
02[14:42] * @[ANet]EricFlannum (~EricFlann@66.162.136.17) Quit (Quit: This is Eric Flannum, signing off)
[14:43] <+Naut> Guys, you can stop sending us questions now. The event is over!
03[14:43] * +Vorsakan (webchat@95.147.228.122) has left #gw2devchat
03[14:44] * +Feathermoore (webchat@feathermoore.wanna-pub.gamesurge) has left #gw2devchat
[14:44] <+Naut> We'll be making a transcript asap and putting it on guru2


^lol at last line, I win ;p