Guild Wars 2 blog details dynamic events

Over on the Guild Wars 2 site, ArenaNet has revealed some of the dynamic events its toying with for the MMO.

Colin Johanson, lead content designer for the game, has revealed that the traditional quest systems has been nixed, and you will no longer have to "read a huge quest description to find out what's going on".

Instead, you will know what is going on by seeing and hearing things going on within the game's world.

"If a dragon is attacking, you won't read three paragraphs telling you about it, you'll see buildings exploding in giant balls of fire, and hear characters in the game world screaming about a dragon attack," wrote Johanson.

"You'll hear guards from nearby cities trying to recruit players to go help fight the dragon, and see huge clouds of smoke in the distance, rising from the village under siege".

Also, one of the other things being worked on is NPCs will no longer just be standing around with impending danger lurking behind the trees.

"The character who gives you a quest will tell you ogres are coming to destroy the character's home, and you need to kill them," said Johanson. "You then get a quest which says, 'Kill 0/10 ogres' and you proceed to kill a bunch of ogres standing around in a field picking daisies.

"Since every player in the game needs to be able to do this quest, the ogres will never actually threaten the character's home - they will just eternally pick daisies in the field. The ogres aren't actually doing what the quest says they are - the game is lying to you.

"At ArenaNet, we believe this is NOT good enough. In Guild Wars 2, if a character tells you ogres are coming to destroy a house, they will really come and smash down the house if you don't stop them."

Sounds interesting.

The game is slated for 2011, with a Beta expected sometime this year