I’ve had a few thoughts about Guild Wars 2 and in the very, very unlikely event somebody from ArenaNet actually stopped by, I thought I would toss out a few suggestions for the game.

First I have to discuss the pending character wipe before the head start/launch. I am fine with the wipe, but I would really like to be able to bring select character(s) back and restart them, keeping their physical appearance. Say I want to keep Sthel in the screenshot here as she is without having to figure out what settings I used when I try to recreate her. She would be just reset to level 1 and have to start her adventure over, but the physical creation and perhaps the story line choice made during beta would stick… basically I dug how she came out and not sure if I could do it again. 🙂

Okay, now to the camera. Pressing Print Screen is fine, but I would like to have another option, let’s call it Shift+Print Screen and/or CTRL+Print Screen. What this does is decouple the camera somewhat from being centered on the character, and move them to the side so that one can follow the Rule of Thirds. This is what the Shift+Print Screen does. The CTRL+Print Screen simply overlays the lines on the screen (that don’t appear in the screenshot) to help align the shot while also decoupling the camera as the Shift+Print Screen does. There could be an option in options menu for different type of lines, be it Rule of Thirds (both 6 and 9 square versions), center cross hair, Golden Ratio and some other common ones. This is of course in addition to the first person view to allow shots without the character in it… sure one could have a friend go first person then line up the shot for you and send you the photo, but I think a slightly de-coupled camera would be nicer. This isn’t a fully remote camera, it still keeps you character in frame, just more freedom on where in the frame they are (more so to the left and right since vertically I think we already have a decent range).

You need to get yourself Guild Wars 2 and meet me in game… or just enjoy yourself on your own time.