How does it feel to be the first well-known caster to be able to cast Guild Wars 2, and have your son start school at the same time, two of the best things in life right?It is quite the honor! Those who are familiar with my Guild Wars background already know just how passionate I was about this game and how much time and effort I dedicated to trying to promote the competitive aspects of GW1 (including the infamous rally to get UAX added to the original). So this is an exciting continuation of the passion I still have for the series. Getting to cast some of the first "showings" of Guild Wars 2 5v5 is somewhat a dream come true, and I'm just thrilled and appreciative that I was given the opportunity. I hope that I did ArenaNet and the community proud.
Having miniWHEAT start school is equally exciting because it's the next step for him. But one thing I'm very excited about is that I think GW2 will end up being the first Action MMO/RPG he plays with mom and dad!
That's awesome There's a lot of discussion regarding the support being put behind the tools and modes available for spectacting and casting games, how do you feel about the way things were setup in the build you were able to play with? The Alienware Guild Wars 2 5v5 setup wasn't exactly a "complete" broadcasting/spectating setup, but frankly I didn't expect it to be. We all know that there's still quite a bit for ArenaNet to nail down (like the inclusion of a broadcast/spectator app - and who knows what else they have in store for us). However, even the player UI was enough to properly "cast" a game from. It provided a lot of information for us, the casters, to properly convey to the audience, and it was very familiar. There are absolutely some changes that I would immediately make for GW2 5v5 Spectator Tool. For example, while the map served a big purpose and you have your standard "Ally" health bar/information bars - because GW2 5v5 is control point based, I think we also need to see "ICONS" that represent where players are on the map. So if 3 members are at the Clock Tower, we can actually see a little Clock Tower ICON next to their name. It would help the "story" that's told while casting flow more freely. Additionally, being able to see if a player is at the Trebuchet would be a big asset. However, these are all things which are easily fixable and I do believe will get implemented into the final versions of the game.
Based on the excitement of ArenaNet, and the involvement by the development staff, I got the impression they are very dedicated and passionate about the 5v5 mode and will support it accordingly!
With all of that being said, if you could add something custom to the current setup to help you with casting, what would that item do?Here are some other things I'd like to see:
Location Icon's added to each player
The ability to quickly jump to a "static" camera near each of the control points (so I could quickly jump to the action at WINDMILL and back to the CLOCK TOWER immediately, or maybe by clicking on the actual UI Control Point Graphic)
The ability to see a character's weapon load out (which DOES effect the skills a class can use)
I hope we have access to the character portrait information within the game. There was some good information like damage taken/dealt, kills, stomps, captures, etc. I would love to see it go one step further to see what the most used skills were for a particular player or team. I see this working as clicking on a player and hitting P just as you would if you were playing.
I would like the capture status to be a big bigger (currently it's in the upper right hand corner and is only visible if you are actively near that CP
Casting bars didn't label spells - but I believe that will be in the final game
I could probably keep going, but I'm also a picky SOB when it comes to this kind of thing
We can imagine, we'll let you get picky on this next widely debated topic, and what better than to ask the pro-caster himself, what does it take to make a successful spectator-friendly game?
I think there are two major things, and both of them have to do with information and action. First, a caster must get the necessary information to tell the story. To me, eSports/Pro-Gaming is about telling a story that is taking place in a virtual arena. This story has a beginning, a middle, and an end, usually a good guy and bad guy, a hero, a climax, etc. The more information that's available to a broadcaster, the better the story they can tell. Second, you have to also provide the proper amount of information to the audience member as well. They have to be able to tell what's going on and if they can't tell what's going on, the broadcaster needs to be able to properly explain it with "visual aid". At first glance GW2 does somewhat suffer from the WOW NUMBERS problems. Someone who might be unfamiliar with what's going on, is just going to be seeing a lot of numbers floating from player's heads. HOWEVER, one thing GW2 does to counteract that, is it has incredible and SPECIFIC animations to spells so you can tell what's happening. Whether it's a net which roots and opponent, or the Tornado elite for the elementalist, GW2 does a good job of presenting assets which the audience members can recognize and identify as important actions. WoW unfortunately had too many "generic fireworks" and some of the spells and actions were lost in the show. I feel like ArenaNet addressed this and many spells were quite easy to recognize.
The other thing is... shit has to be EXCITING. One thing I REALLY love about GW2 is that the action begins within the first SECONDS of the game. Whether that being one team popping all their movement skills to get to a CP faster, or a fight breaking out at the middle point, within moments of the game starting, the action is underway. This isn't like GW1 where we could have a 3 minute standoff at the flag stand because neither side wanted to make the first move Additionally, games seem to be anywhere from 8 to 20 minutes (the longer being a better game cause it usually means two GREAT teams are playing against one another). I think the "short form" of game is important for a game to be successful.
What is the biggest thing you are looking forward to in closed beta? Is there a particular class your pretty certain you will be choosing, like the Mesmer ?If the Mesmer doesn't make it into the game, I will be playing an Elementalist. I feel a bit bad for those players who excelled at the Healer role since that has been eliminated. Honestly, the biggest thing I'm looking forward to is finding out how many "throw away" spells there are in the game. As we all know, in GW1 your team was defined by the skills you picked. However, GW2 gives you more "options" for how you can play each class and this is because more spells are available. For example, depending on your main and offhand for the elementalist, you still have access to each "element" yet going dagger/dagger vs. staff/offhand yields different spells. How many of these will ACTUALLY be used in competition? That's what I'm eager to find out. But yes... give me the MESMER!!!
You deal with a lot of well known professional teams and players from all over the gaming spectrum. What do you think will be the biggest lure to attract these teams/players to the competitive scene of GW2?I think there are a few things. First of all, support from ArenaNet. It's been proven by RIOT, Valve, S2, Blizzard, etc that if a developer gets behind the game (which ArenaNet ALREADY did in GW1) that it will boost it's popularity and also get a lot of attention from pro-gaming teams.
Here's another thing that I originally was quite bummed about, but now I'm less concerned... the gametype is FIVE v FIVE. GW 8v8 was brilliant, but there was an inherent flaw with that gametype. It costs a crapload of money to send 8 guys (plus a coach?) to an event. And that's an expense that most teams aren't willing to take care of unless there are regular and major tournaments supporting GW2. Shrinking the team size down to 5v5 makes it much more feasible for a pro-gaming team to pickup GW2 and not feel the pain of traveling and housing 8 people for an event. It's a great step in the right direction.
But to be fair, the success of the game itself will be the first indication for teams to determine if GW2 is a title they wish to explore and support on a competitive level.
Do you see yourself starting a show aiming specifically at Guild Wars 2 in the future? Perhaps Team Legacy could throw some match replays your way 
I can't comment on this yet However, I'll say that if GW2 does take off there is a very good chance you could see Weapon of Choice revived for GW. I realize it's currently reserved for StarCraft 2, but my vision for WoC was to have multiple versions of the show that focused on specific game titles, so WoC: GW2 could be a reality.
Do you think a MMO such as Guild Was 2 has the potential to become close to or as big as Starcraft 2, the current front runner of Esports? Or do you think it will be more "apples" and "bananas"?To be completely blunt... no. At least not yet. I think GW2 has the potential to be huge, but we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves quite yet. I DO BELIEVE that GW2 has made steps in the right direction to get people more interested in the competitive modes by not making it so difficult to jump in and play (which was a huge concern and problem with GW1). So I do think these small tweaks will really help the initial and ongoing growth of the game. Let's not forget that GW1 was huge and still IS huge, so that might play a large role in the success of GW2 as a competitive game. Also, we didn't have wonderful Video Streaming and Player Streams during GW1, so I expect that to also help with the popularity of the game when it's released. I also expect our top pro players to be streaming their play so that others can see how awesome it can be at the highest level!!!
All of us at Team Legacy and Team Liquid thank you for your time, we quite enjoyed seeing your friendly face involved with GW2 at PAX For your fans in the GW2 community, do you think this whole MMO-Casting gig might be something you enjoy doing in the near future?Casting StarCraft 2 is certainly my focus now, but for anyone who knows my history, I've never really been tied down to one single game for too long. I would love to be adding more titles to the games I'm currently broadcasting, and if any MMO was going to get my attention... it would be Guild Wars 2. I thank you guys for the support and hope this turns out to be an exciting and competitive title from ArenaNet!
Any shout-outs?Shoutout to miniWHEAT and Jade519 (VXIX's original GW1 Healer). And for those that didn't know, I mentioned earlier that miniWHEAT's first MMO would probably be GW2. Well when Jade was preggers with the miniWHEAT, we GvG'ed almost 5 to 6 hours a night. So that kid grew up in my wife's tummy hearing techno, the cries of Monks getting hit with Dual Smite, "AEGIS", and my cries of being such a squishy target - I think he'll be right at home!
I also wanna shout out to OneMoreGame.TV - the network home for all my shows - and any old fans who listened to, contributed, and appreciated Weapon of Choice back in the day. LONG LIVE VANILLA! RIGORMORTIS!!! PEACE!
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