Guild Wars 2 Engineer Interview

After ArenaNet’s recent reveal, Massively took the opportunity to quiz lead designer Eric Flannum about Guild Wars 2’s profession, the Engineer. Lore and gameplay aspects get both tackled inside this interview, so if you’re interested in the game and are wondering what kind of profession you should choose for your character, this is a good read. Here’s a sampling:

How did the idea for the Engineer come about? The class fits nicely with the evolution of Tyria over the past 250 years — is it something that was developed early on as the storyline was created?

We knew early on that the Tyria of Guild Wars 2 was going to be a more technologically advanced place than in the original Guild Wars. In the first game, we already had some technology in the form of exploding powder kegs, cannon, and giant hybrid mechanical/magical golems. We knew that we wanted technology to advance so that Tyria felt like a developing world, and a profession like the Engineer was necessary to embody that technological advance. It’s fair to say that the Engineer has always been in the mix for us, although it has undergone quite a few name and functionality changes over the course of development.

How do the Engineer’s weapons and gadgets fit into the world from a lore perspective? Will there be hints of the learning process that took Tyria from trebuchets to flamethrowers?

Well, we shouldn’t get ahead of ourselves; there are still plenty of trebuchets, catapults, and ballistae in Guild Wars 2. Remember that the technological revolution that the Engineer represents is fairly new in Tyria. Not every race has embraced this change, even though some individuals from that race may have. Players in general and Engineer players specifically represent heroic and unusual individuals. This is the same for a Norn Necromancer or a Warrior amongst the Asura.

The rise of technology is an important theme in Guild Wars 2, and there will definitely be opportunities for people to learn about how the people of Tyria feel about this new technology and the history behind it.