The bulk of the Guild Wars 2 panel at PAX East featured members of the ArenaNet team answering questions from fans.

Guild Wars 2 Q&A session

Can you turn off the voices of the characters?

There are about 400 lines for every player, all fully voiced. You can turn down how often they're played. “We've recorded 60 feature films' worth of dialogue for Guild Wars 2,” Johanson said.

Will players be able to know about global events so they can find them?

“There are over 1,000 [events] in the game,” Peters said. “They're never random. They're scripted and planned.” He emphasized that exploration is a major part of the game.

Grubb added that you will still be rewarded if you participate in an event and leave the area. “When the event resolves, you're still rewarded. You don't have to cash in,” he said.

Will the centaurs attack every 20 minutes?

Johanson said that they're part of an event chain. As the chain is completed, it will restart at some point. "Unfortunately, we can't make unlimited content that runs only one time," he said. "The idea is you shouldn't see the same event all time. The world's going to feel like it's alive."

How do you keep people playing?

"There is a ridiculous amount of replay value and endgame content in Guild Wars 2,” Johanson said. Every race has different stories. When you get to the end of your personal story, you can make a new character with a new story to explore different dynamic events and new content

Every 5-person dungeon in the game has a story version, and when you complete it you will unlock a repeatable version. All dungeons have multiple paths, so they're not linear.

All of the major cities have mini-games. "The human city has perpetual bar brawl,” Johanson said. The Norn city has 5v5 keg ball game in which players can dump ale and make people slip.

As far as PvP is concerned, there will be competitive 5v5 rated games and world vs. world PvP. "This is gigantic, unbalanced PvP,” Johanson said. Your server is matched up against two other servers at the same time. You can level to the cap in world PvP if you want. "When you kill someone in world vs. world, they drop loot,” Peters said.

How will the scalable AI handle a mixed level group?

Johanson said that the sidekicking system will let characters change their level depending on the content. High-level characters can lower their level to explore older content, while lower level characters can be sidekicked up to play with their higher-level friends.

What did you learn most from Guild Wars 1?

“We're going from a primarily instanced world to a fully persistent world,” Grubb said. Instancing is now a storytelling tool. By going to persistent world, you'll be encountering players all over the world.

Bauer added that from a mapbuilding perspective, adding the ability to jump is great. For example, players can now jump off cliffs and swim.

What is the overall population and lifespan of the Norn?

“Not many Norn die of old age,” Grubb said. They live into the triple digits and stay young and active well into their old age.

How will I know where to go when I'm done with a certain area in the game?

Johanson said that playtesters were wandering into the world without knowing what to do next. “We've added a system to the game called scouts,” he said. Players can talk to these NPCs to point them in the right direction, but it's a completely optional feature.

How can we improve our home instance?

“Your home instance reflects the nature of your personal story,” Grubb said. It changes based on your actions. For example, do you save the orphanage or hospital? If you save the orphanage, you'll have grateful orphans in your home instance but the hospital will be destroyed.

Will new dynamic events be added regularly?

“Guild Wars 1 is almost 6 years old and we had a major content update last week,” Price said. “It's inevitable that you'll see new events out there as the game progresses.”

Will a player who doesn't participate much in a dynamic event get all of the rewards?

Johanson said that it only works if you actively participate. You can't just shoot one bullet and sit back. "It's pretty intelligent AI," he said. You can earn bronze, silver and gold participation, which affects your rewards.

Is there an auction house?

Yes. It's a marketplace for both buyers and sellers, Peters said. For example, a player can post in the marketplace that they're looking for a specific item at a specific price.

Will there be a lot of customization with PvP and skills?

There is a lot more customization than there was in Guild Wars 1. “We made the skills a lot more like building blocks” so you can piece them together, Peters said. He emphasized that there is a lot of variety.

Darryl Gangloff, Editor-in-Chief