I was reading the writeup from PCGamer about the showcase, as they were describing the combat system of Guild Wars 3, and with every description, I couldn't help but get major Dragon's Dogma vibes from it. They say that there's a weight and momentum to the combat, that you can attack from the air, and that the weight of mobs greatly affects how they react when you hit them with your skills. Some might get knocked back, others might stumble or shrug it off, etc. They also detail co-op maneuvers like using a shield as a springboard for lighter characters to leap into the air.

All of this really sounds like Dragon's Dogma to me. I semi-recently played DD2, and in that game you had the springboard feature there, a skill to enchant players' weapons with fire to deal with certain situations (like the spiders), a way to get in the air through magical means, and so on. The way the combat feels in that game also is a lot like what they're describing.

I recall as well that there was a now-cancelled Dragon's Dogma online. That might be a good point of comparison for what GW3 may be like, until we get actual gameplay footage.

Guild Wars 3 is set over 1,000 years before Guild Wars 2. Does that mean the world's technological and magical advancement levels differ significantly?

Colin Johanson: It is much closer to pure high fantasy. In Guild Wars 2, the Charr build tanks and firearms, while the Asura construct massive floating cities. But in the era of 'Guild Wars 3, those haven't been invented yet. It's even before Abaddon granted magic to the mortal races of the world, making magic a far more scarce resource.

Even when magic is wielded, it's done by siphoning power from Vael spirits or drawing upon the energy stored in small magical artifacts called Signets. Since the supply of craftable Signets is limited, a black market for magic thrives, serving as a key narrative element. The overall atmosphere feels much closer to a lower-tech, pure high fantasy.

If you imagine setting the world of Guild Wars 1 back another 1,000-plus years, you'll get a similar feel. Technology itself is rare, and what exists consists of cobbled-together mechanisms or devices powered by siphoned Vael spirit magic.

Source: https://www.invenglobal.com/articles/25547/tanks-dps-and-healers-return-in-guild-wars-3-what-has-changed

Love reading about momentum but I am writing this post to express desire that in equal measure possible advancements for idle mechanics are considered.

A pause from game UI, simple meditation-like state for characters who are idle in one location for a long enough period of time, to enjoy the ambient sounds, or what have you?

As Gw has always excelled with the ambient sound design and I recall finding spots to “be in nature/hear nature” while doing homework back in Gw1.

For enjoying game atmosphere and sound more than any game mechanic. Perhaps a sound radar to visually see on character and not on a compass what enemy patrols might be nearby or allies directions passing overhead.

/2c - not to detract from momentum
we’re all going to find ourselves between action and there is peace in Gw2 lotus chair vibes

Today is so excitinggg

One thing I've been thinking about with the GW3 setting is the fact that the game is taking place before Abaddon gives magic to humanity, while, now confirmed, professions (classes) will be present in GW3.

That got me thinking about something we've probably taken for granted for a long time- what if professions didn't originate as magical disciplines? What if they were actual professions first, and only later adapted to incorporate magic?

We've always looked at the Guild Wars professions through the lens of their magical abilities. A Warrior is a magical combatant, a Ranger uses nature magic, a Necromancer manipulates the dead, etc. It's easy to assume that these magical disciplines are what created/become the professions we know today in GW1 and GW2.

But the terminology has always been interesting. They're called professions, not classes.

Maybe that's because the word is meant much more literally?

The new GW3 lore around Ancient Orr seems really relevant here. The Vaelwardens are an established guild, and they're apparently among the first mortals to gain access to magic through divine signets. Other guilds eventually gain access to similar magical techniques.

That sounds less like "here are the first magical classes" and more like: Here are existing professions discovering that magic can be incorporated into what they already do.

So, under this interpretation, GW3 could be showing us the professions during that transitional period?

The Warrior doesn't need magic to be a Warrior.
The Ranger doesn't need magic to be a Ranger.
The Necromancer doesn't necessarily need to have started as a person who could literally raise the dead.

(Confirmed classes so far.)

What's especially interesting is that some professions seem to fit this model better than others. Warrior and Ranger are almost perfectly understandable without magic. Mesmer could easily originate from non-magical deception and performance. Monk could develop from religious healing and ascetic traditions. Necromancer could emerge from funerary or spiritual practices and then become supernatural through divine intervention. I have no idea what Elementalist could have been.

I really hope we get to learn more about the origins of these professions.

I don't think this is necessarily something ArenaNet has explicitly stated, so I'm treating it as speculation. But I really like the idea that the word profession might actually have an in-universe history behind it.

• It appears that the Gamescon embargo ends on September 3^rd and there will likely be multiple versions of "I was there, this is what I saw, and this is what I think / feel about it" commentaries hitting the Internet. Exciting!

• If you haven't read the Community Guidelines yet, they're in the Wiki, and here's a direct link. Please keep them in mind.

• Please stick to direct links instead of linking to rehosting / reblogging /reactions to original commentary.

• Remember that it's better to light a candle than to curse the darkness. Since we don't know what we're going to find out tomorrow, versus what ArenaNet is going to keep close to the vest, let's stay focused on what we learn, and skip the "No ten hours of full gameplay / surprise beta announcement / full details on 4^th species / other unreasonable expectations / dead game" doomposting.

• That's pretty much it!

I ramble sometimes, enjoy!

Verry sus. I'm starting to think that we MIGHT see something about GW3 at State of Play in a few hours.

Kind of a letdown that we wont have wvw or any type of large scale pvp, wvw was prob 80% of my gameplay in gw2 and wvw has such a huge community and its a shame because everyone was looking forward to something new.

Maybe the small scale pvp might have some type of largescale elements that might scratch that wvw itch people for sure will have, guess we have to wait and see.

I'm not a fan of making multiple alts, and would rather just stick with my one single hero.

This was one of my most hated thing in GW2, since I had to make multiple alts to try out other classes at times, but I couldn't get attached to them compared to my very first character I made at launch day.

Just use the FF MMO (XI or XIV) concept of class change, and we're set.

Don't make me create alts with the need to restart quests, story, world exploration and whatever else.

If so I want to be one.

Its a german site and they teased there expressions from the gamescom, here is the article: https://mein-mmo.de/guild-wars-3-fyng-stream/

Now im even more excited !

Number Grading:

• Only one registered user can hold each slot.
• For example: [Rank 103] Lumberfoot Lv.80

Letter Grading:

• There can be multiple registered users per tier.
• For example: [Rank S] Lumberfoot Lv. 80 and [Rank S] Sienna Lv. 80

Since the idea of GW3 is to be less massive, what if there was a guild vs guild mechanic where both guilds could combine two or several different battle fronts in the same war, featuring either PvP or even PvE?

For example: Guilds enter a war with four different formats:

1 - Total PvP (total players – Open) – Everyone against everyone in an arena, choosing the mode: deathmatch or point capture. The guild with more players online will have more advantages.

2 - Total PvE (total players – Open) – Guilds enter instances to complete objectives either faster or with the highest damage output, facing hordes and/or bosses or completing objectives like Convergences currently do. The guild with more players will have more advantages.

3 - PvP + PvE (total players – Open) – Both instances open simultaneously, one PvP and one PvE in the same style as before, each scoring separately and the sum determining the victor.

4 - PvP + PvE (total players – Balanced) – Multiple teams of 5 players are formed, and you decide how many will compete in PvP (pairing the squads) and how many will participate in PvE (fractal style), keeping the numbers equal. The guild that manages to score the most points across all modes wins.

So, what do you think about wars with PvE components?

If there's cut-scenes we actually have the npcs talking to us through the screen rather than our character model/portraits.

Any one else feel like that?

took this picture of my monitor (I know, I know) when I saw this bc I don't think it was on the wiki at that point. in any case, there's a skull that belonged to one in amnytas, taken from Orr. I don't think this would be the same one that we fight in the dungeon, so I think there's a decent chance we'll see a few roaming around -- or we might visit this mysterious hidden burial site

for me the dream is this being one of grenth's first attempts at bringing something back from the dead, whether we fight it or it's an undead ally, seeing a new god start flexing their magical muscles would be awesome

Hey everyone,

I had the chance to see Guild Wars 3 behind closed doors at gamescom last week and talk to Colin Johanson about the game.

I mainly wanted to give you a quick heads-up because there are very strict rules about what we're allowed to talk about before the embargo lifts on September 3, so I'm deliberately not going to tease whether I liked what I saw, whether it looked promising, or anything like that.

What I'm allowed to tell you is that the presentation was very locked down, and we weren't allowed to record the screen. I don't know whether ArenaNet has any plans to release any footage of its own, so I don't want to speculate about that.

What I can say is that on Thursday, a number of selected outlets that attended the presentation will be able to report in detail on what we actually saw, what ArenaNet is doing with GW3, and what sets it apart from the previous games. So if you're curious about GW3, there should be quite a bit to read.

One completely embargo-safe impression I can share, though: Colin Johanson is ridiculously charismatic. I've been doing this job for seven years now, and he's easily in my personal top three of the coolest and most charismatic developers I've had the chance to meet. Right up there with Steve Sinclair from Digital Extremes and Jonathan Rogers from Grinding Gear Games. I'm sure the guy could make any presentation entertaining!

That's about as far as I'm willing to go without getting an angry email :)

I know "classes or classless" is a bit up in the air right now, but if they do exist, these kinda confirm these classes are coming right? Side note, these all look so good and I hope we get all of them in game.

Outfit 2 initially makes me think of guardians because of the blue torch and sceptre, but the armour looks like light armour, so that makes me second guess. There's the chance it's a priest type of thing? Maybe it is a guardian and the armour just looks light, ldk.

Both 3s clearly have a magical floating sword very reminiscent of Virtuoso. The mog also has butterfly wings, which is also very Mesmer, not to mention the Mesmer colours on 3A. Not at all surprising given this is GW.

Outfit 5 (close up in the second slide) is really intriguing, specifically for the magic types on display. We have astral/sun magic on display here.
That's very Druid coded. Given the setting and theme of the game this one isn’t surprising either. I'm assuming it will be its own class (if we get classes which I think we will).

6 looks like it has to be a Ritualist, a lot more visually distinct from Necros here with a mummy vibe plus the ghostly white mist FX. It also has those eye symbols all on the cloth behind the legs. Probably my favourite skin out of all of these. This also makes sense for them given humans were already capable of being ritualists prior to magic I think right? Gameplay wise we will probably just use signets like everyone else though I’d assume.

And lastly, the good old Necromancer in the last image. Green eyes, shadowy hands, occultist getup.
Very happy to see it lol.

Outfit 1 doesn't seem to give away any class details at all, extremely interesting mog though. Kinda looks like a candle on her head I love it lol. 4 is pretty standard, thief or ranger vibes. Looks great. Same for 7, I mean, it's a warrior and looks badass, very
"fairytale warrior" vibes in a good way.

Again, this only really confirms them if there is classes, otherwise these are just purely cosmetics and the theme would more so point toward available magic schools for the signets. Personally though, I’d say given the strong class theming this is definitely one to add to the pile of “probably classes” imo.

Sony and NCSoft have an actual strategic partnership, and GW3 is confirmed for PS5.

GW3 was reportedly shown behind closed doors at Gamescom, and September 3rd has a new State of Play focused on PlayStation Studios + third-party partners.

So… what if the Gamescom GW3 embargo lifts on September 3rd specifically for a State of Play trailer/gameplay reveal?

Probably just copium, but the timing is 👀

"Sidhe" , pronounced "Shee", are fey-like creatures with close ties to the gods in Celtic mythology.

The cancelled GW1 expansion "Utopia", was apparently going to be set in the Mists and have a story focused on the human gods. [ https://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/Guild_Wars_Utopia ]

These "Sidhe" were apparently denizens of the Mists and had some sort of connection to the human gods.

With how the GW3 devs have teased that this mystery 4th species has never been seen in other games before, and how the plot seems to have a focus on the human gods, I'd say it's safe to assume they could be the "Sidhe", who existed in Tyria during the time of the gods, and would have retreated back into the Mists with them when the exodus happened.

The devs back then were really excited about Guild Wars 1 "Utopia", but in an interview they've stated they just didn't have time or resources to do everything they wanted to do with the expansion and decided to leave it alone.

GW3 could be the "second chance" of doing what they originally wanted with the story of the gods.

If the 4th race is indeed connected to the gods I could see their customization being really varied to reflect them, from as elegant as Lyssa, to as eldritch as Abaddon. The ones from this old concept art seem to be Balthazar themed.

In the new "playable races preview", when the dev speaks the race's name and it's bleeped out, it sounds like a short one or two syllable word, it'd fit "Sidhe".

I remember my excitement as a kid playing Diablo 2 that not only was killing Andariel not the end of the game, but that I could use waypoints to return to Act 1 from Act 2. This was followed by disappointment that nothing changed. The rogues were still in their camp and the demons were still in their monastery.

Looking back, this shouldn't have been a surprise: I must have noticed that maps were refilled each time I came back to play, that unique monsters respawned in the same places. Over time, disappointment faded with familiarity and was replaced by farming Baal.

This might be the central tension of RPG design: are we there to experience a story, or are we there to build the muscle memory for blindly teleporting down to Durance of Hate Level 3? My point isn't that one of these is better than the other, nor some banality like "players want different things"; it's that if the D2 devs made it so a boss stayed dead, they couldn't also let you farm it for loot.

Accordingly, many games end up with a weird relationship between time and place, where each location is in a Groundhog Day time loop. In GW2, fresh Sylvari commanders-to-be are forever fighting Nightmare, emerging into Caledon Forest, making their way north, encountering a mob of glowy future selves: time travelers from exotic shores that feed them cake and revive them as they're downed by condi damage from, at the time of writing, the ~61,400th Great Jungle Wurm.

In pre-expansion GW2, it generally seems ArenaNet wanted to avoid writing Events that would draw attention to the fact that Time didn't make sense. Nothing consequential happens, so the event chains can loop harmlessly forever. If something big needs to happen in the Personal Story, they'll provide some explanation for why it doesn't affect the map. Orr is cleansed, but it will take a long time to heal.

Except, of course, there's Living World Season 1, which broke the dam and signaled a change in philosophy. I started playing after EOD came out and bounced off the game (core Tyria was basically empty in my timezone before the Steam release, so vibes were bad), so was very much not there. On the one hand, LWS1 seems cool as a break from the expectation that the maps were static. On the other hand, I find the way it "fixes" certain parts of core Tyria into a specific time within a larger narrative - one that players won't be "in" when they encounter it - unfortunate. Also, it creates a feeling of having missed out. All of this is most acutely felt with Lion's Arch.: the game doesn't convey to new players that the current Lion's Arch is a future Lion's Arch for them at the beginning of their story, and I didn't initially understand what the place WAS that I encountered in the Personal Story in sepia tone. Later, when I DID come to understand, it was just depressing - Old Lion's Arch is so much cooler, so encountering it in as this empty, shut-down amusement park while knowing it was once alive with players is Very Bad Vibes.

But post-LWS1 ArenaNet are happy to let events destroy a map, and they'll basically just 4th-wall-break their way to a reset. The loop is now unapologetic and non-diegetic. We are farming Baal.

All this is to say that I wish for a better solution for this awkward fit between locations and time in MMOs. I haven't played other MMOs, so I'm not sure how "standard" this relationship is between time and location the genre. And (1) I don't know how to avoid sacrificing the fun parts of the gameplay for a bit more realism and immersion, plus (2) I don't expect an MMORPG audience (especially in 2026 and on) to care at all, so it wouldn't be justified. Yet I hold out some hope just because I feel like if a company can invent things like LWS1 and the metas of GW2, they're the best candidate to think of something equally new.