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Guild Wars 2 kicks off Wintersday events
The event avalanche of Guild Wars 2's Wintersday has gotten up to full speed and is currently roaring down upon the game's population. Today's update activates the previous years' Wintersday content as well as a few new additions. There's the Wondrous Workshop to explore, jumping puzzles, bell choir minigames, the Snowball Mayhem battle royale, and a quest to track down Grawnk to get a Wintersday tree for home instances. The patch also activates a couple of PvP events, new Wintersday-themed cash shop cosmetics, the daily login rewards, and the latest overhaul of the daily achievement system.
Guild Wars 2 celebrates the holidays with a player murder spree
Don't get too comfy and cozy with that hot cocoa and crackling fire; Guild Wars 2 is calling all fighters to arms for epic PvP conflict over the next month. Today, the team posted details for the game's two upcoming PvP events, both starting tomorrow and ending on January 13th. The fun and casualties begin with the WvW Sneak Attack event, which will change some of the established rules for this setting to make it harder to see who is attacking what and give a bonus to experience and rewards earned. Then the team is testing out a PvP ladder season, with prizes such as mini llamas and glorious hero's armor pieces to those who kick and claw their way up the rankings.
Guild Wars 2 season 2 to continue on January 13th
The living world episodes for Guild Wars 2 are taking a month off for the holiday season, as ArenaNet announced today that Season 2 will reconvene on January 13th for "moments that will forever change the course of Tyria." That doesn't mean that Guild Wars 2 will go silent during this time, however. Wintersday is scheduled to return on December 16th, although this time it will take place in Divinity's Reach. ArenaNet is also hosting a test of its ladder season from December 16th through January 13th, allowing players to compete for various rewards, and a WvW Sneak Attack event during this same period. Finally, there will be the game's "first-ever" ESL monthly championship on December 10th.
EGX London 2014: Guild Wars 2 promotes e-sports
ArenaNet was in London this past weekend promoting its Guild Wars 2 e-sports angle to show-goers, including some who might never have played or even heard of the MMO. A pair of videos serve to explain how Guild Wars 2 works; the first covers PvE from character creation to skills to armor, and the second, hosted by Competitive Community Manager Joshua "Grouch" Davis, covers all things PvP. We think having a Competitive Community Manager is a pretty serious declaration of your e-sports intent. Enjoy the vids below.
Guild Wars 2 launches new WvW meta-contests
Most PvP contests require you to actually be good at PvP. That seems fair, really, just as cooking contests generally work best when they feature people who are at least passingly familiar with cooking. But the two new Guild Wars 2 WvW contests don't actually require you to be any good at WvW, just good at showing the feature off. ArenaNet has partnered with Overwolf to kick off two WvW contests that are all about promoting and celebrating WvW, even if you aren't much of a player. The first contest is looking for the players who use the Overwolf application while streaming, aiming for the highest number of concurrent viewers on Twitch. Whoever wins gets some SteelSeries peripherals as well as 8,000 gems. Meanwhile, if that's not your thing, you can also create a WvW War Report, share it via YouTube, and be eligible to win 5,000 gems if your offering is the best. So it's not about your PvP skill here, just about your ability to entertain people via that skill (or lack thereof).
Adopt a Guild Wars 2 developer for WvW this fall
With the fall World vs. World tournament coming up in Guild Wars 2, ArenaNet is pushing its team outside of its comfort zones by encouraging guilds to "adopt" a developer for the season. "We want to fight by your side, experience the ups and downs, have fun and learn together with you how to make a better WvW experience," the studio posted. "We are going to be looking for guilds in different leagues who wish to host a dev. They will participate in your activities and fight for the honor of your world and guild!" There are, of course, several rules for this sort of thing that boil down to "please don't abuse our devs and make them your slave monkeys." Interested guilds can apply for adoption by sending in a PM to John Corpening. [Thanks to Zander for the tip!]
Guild Wars 2 plans siege additions for world-vs.-world PvP
As part of its September feature pack rollout, ArenaNet has today discussed the world-vs.-world improvements coming to Guild Wars 2 next month. Specifically, the team is adding a new Siege Golem Mastery ability line, which renders your character "an unstoppable juggernaut of destruction" with super speed, AoE healing effects, and (of course) an ejection seat to amuse your guildies. ArenaNet will also add consumable tricks; the first, called a Siege Disabler, is deployed like a grenade and disables weapons and golems and can be purchased with badges and coins rather than karma. If you aren't into the PvP additions, well, you could always join the folks in Rata Sum protesting the absence of Super Adventure Box. [Thanks, thegirlwiththehair.]
Guild Wars 2 signals end of armor repair costs
The latest developments in Guild Wars 2's upcoming April feature pack will improve the quality of life around Tyria, as the game will be ending armor repair and sharing gear and WvW XP across accounts. The team said that it feels as though the loss of time is enough of a death penalty that it will be removing the costs for armor repair when the patch lands. Because this will take out a goldsink, the team is also reducing the coin dropped by champion loot bags. Legendary gear, ascended items, and World vs. World XP will become account-bound rather than character-bound come April as well. This means that players can character hop and retain their progression and expensive items instead of getting them individually.
Flameseeker Chronicles: Guild Wars 2's adventures in babysitting
I'm having a great time in Guild Wars 2's new Edge of the Mists map. It's rekindled my love of World vs. World. I've spent so much time there that I've gotten pretty good at not accidentally running off ledges (although I've probably just jinxed myself), and my collections of empyreal fragments and badges of honor are steadily growing. Against all odds, I also managed to tear myself away long enough to write this column, which is good because there's a lot to talk about this week: What's so great about this cluster of floating rocks? How is Braham handling his new caretaking responsibilities? Why do people keep referencing the Zerg from Starcraft when they talk about GW2?
Flameseeker Chronicles: Living on the Edge (of the Mists) in Guild Wars 2
Regular readers of this column may have noticed that I spend very little time discussing Guild Wars 2's PvP scene. Some of you may have even jumped to the conclusion that this is because I suck at PvP and my only reason for even entering the Mists-based sPvP lobby is to try on clothes in the locker, so I'm here today to set the record straight: You are absolutely correct. I do enjoy World vs. World, both in spite of and because I am terrible at traditional team-based PvP activities -- unless you count some special event minigames, which I am inexplicably OK at. On the whole, ArenaNet has done a pretty good job in GW2 at giving someone who has no business trying to poke fancy cutlery at other players avenues through which to do it anyway without bringing the whole structure crashing down.
Guild Wars 2 dev blog explains WvW matchup system changes
There's been a small (but not insignificant) change to the way Guild Wars 2 determines world-vs.-world matchups. The official dev blog on the matter explains that, in the beginning, WvW matchups were chosen "by sorting all worlds in order of their Glicko rating, then counting off sets of three." As a result, matchups were often between the same three worlds, so ArenaNet introduced matchup variance to counter that problem. However, it appears that the devs have made an adjustment to the matchup variance formula that causes the range of worlds with which a given server can be matched to be "greatly reduced." The idea behind the new formula is that "There will be fewer matches where one or two worlds are potentially steamrolled, though it comes at the cost of seeing more of the same worlds." That's all that the average GW2 player needs to know, but if you're interested in the math and statistics behind the change, check out the full post at the game's official site.
Guild Wars 2 to make World XP account-bound
ArenaNet is pleased with the community embrace of World XP in Guild Wars 2's WvW and has announced that it will be making this XP account-bound in the near future. "As we begin to roll out our new core horizontal progression system of continually-expanded skills and traits, we felt there was no longer a need to have a character-specific progression system unique to WvW," the devs posted. "The skill and trait system will provide game-wide horizontal character progression for all players." When the change is implemented, every account will pool earned World XP, and that pool will determine world rank and world ability points. Players can then take those world ability points and dole them out to various characters as desired.
Guild Wars 2 will add the Edge of the Mists to World vs. World
If you're a fan of Guild Wars 2's large-scale PvP gameplay mode, World vs. World, there's some good news coming your way: ArenaNet is developing a new map called Edge of the Mists, and it's designed to add spice to WvW gameplay and help alleviate some of the ongoing difficulties with queue times. We were invited to a conference call with Game Design Lead Jon Peters, where he let us in on some of the details and philosophy behind this new content. Guilds can apply to be part of an upcoming beta test and help shape the development of this new addition as well. Following on the heels of recent WvW additions such as Borderlands Bloodlust and World Experience Points, ArenaNet plans for Edge of the Mists to be the gateway to even more improvements.
Guild Wars 2 launches its Blood and Madness update
It's that time again in Guild Wars 2. The crisp scents of fall and candy corn are in the air, and everyone's getting ready for another appearance by Mad King Thorn. But the newest patch, Blood and Madness, is turning things on its ear by introducing Thorn's son, Bloody Prince Edrick, which will throw the already chaotic festival into... further chaos? Chaos is generally pretty boolean; things are chaotic or they aren't. As expected, there's a guide available for those who want to get the most out of this latest update. Even if you're not interested in the dose of story that goes along with the update, you can enjoy the holiday event, and you can also enjoy the other features added with the patch. World vs. World is getting its first competitive season along with a slew of reward improvements, and combat balance has been adjusted to make all classes a bit more fun to play. Check out the full patch notes for more details, and go get yourself some candy corn.
PAX Prime 2013: Guild Wars 2's story, boss revamps, LFG, and the next big update
Not many MMOs can say that they've done as much in their first year as Guild Wars 2. The team at ArenaNet is rightly proud of what it's accomplished over the past 365 days, but the devs also know that all of what's come before is just a drop in the bucket compared to their plans for the future. At PAX Prime yesterday, Lead Game Designer Colin Johanson brought us in for an overview on Guild Wars 2's progress and upcoming direction. It's not just living story, although there is a lot of that; the team has ambitious plans that are only beginning to be revealed to the playerbase after months of preparation and build up. We've got the full scoop on where the game's headed in both PvE and PvP (or WvW if you're nasty). You know you want to know. Go ahead. Click. Let's do this.
Guild Wars 2 announces the Bazaar of the Four Winds
After four hours of tantalizing speculation, Guild Wars 2 has officially announced the game's next major update, the Bazaar of the Four Winds. Once again, there's something coming in from the sky, but this time it's not a group of pirates that seek to murder you and take all your stuff; it's a group of traders and merchants on the Zephyr Sanctum, bringing a new air of excitement to the normal proceedings of the eponymous bazaar. In a more practical sense, the update offers three new minigames (with one sticking around as a permanent addition), a reward system for account achievements, and a new PvP map. The improved achievement UI should help getting those rewards a bit easier, while the addition of Build and Repair Mastery in WvW should help out players more prone to smashing one another with weapons. So get ready for drinking, racing, exploration, and trading when the update touches down a week from today.
ArenaNet on the future of zergs and roles in Guild Wars 2's WvW
ArenaNet designer Devon Carver has teased the team's vision for the future of Guild Wars 2 world-vs.-world PvP in a lengthy new blog post. The entry is broken down into an analysis of the feature's current state as well as ANet's immediate and long-term goals. Among the latter are plans to address the zerg, player roles, and matchups and matchup scoring. "Right now our game rewards you for holding an objective, not necessarily for taking it, and overwhelmingly favors the last server to log out for the day," Carver says. "We have some ideas in the pipeline to try to increase scoring when people are playing the game and to make it much more difficult to keep your territory without actively guarding it." In other GW2 news, the dev team released a new video yesterday that focuses on the lore behind the Last Stand at Southsun and how it affects the game's "living story." Watch it after the break.
Guild Wars 2 mixes up its WvW matchups
There's a problem in the Guild Wars 2 World vs. World matching system, and it's a subtle one that's almost invisible until you look closer. Because of the way ratings are calculated and how the matchups happen, the net result for each server is always being matched up against the same servers. No matter how well you perform, you wind up locked into a certain tier without any hope of changes. It's a problem that the development team is both aware of and is moving to address. The short version of how things will work is that servers will be matched up semi-randomly, with ratings taken into account to assure that the spread between opponents isn't too severe. More math beneath the surface takes into account both the current rating of a given world and its overall deviation, producing a "real" rating that will facilitate fair matches. Take a look at the official blog for all the hard details.
Guild Wars 2 prepares for Southsun showdown
The big baddie of Guild Wars 2's recent living story has been called out. He's Canach, a renegade who thinks that that the answer to every urban planning problem is "more monsters." The Sylvari is behind a plot to use the creatures of Southsun to free settlers from the grasp of the Consortium. A showdown with Canach is set to happen when the next chapter of the game's living story rolls out on May 28. The update, titled Last Stand at Southsun, will contain a solo dungeon where players will go mano-a-planto with Canach. ArenaNet says that those who defeat Canach will then open up new group content to tackle. Other changes on deck include a zone-stomping monster and plenty of changes to world-vs.-world content. Southsun living story events, achievements, and rewards will be available until June 11th.
Flameseeker Chronicles: The matter of alts in Guild Wars 2
As is no secret, I'm something of an altoholic. This is the case in pretty much every game I play that allows for that sort of thing. If I can make multiple characters, I will. While it's not solely responsible for the longevity of my involvement in MMOs, it sure doesn't hurt. I'm presently sitting at four max characters in Guild Wars 2. That'll turn into five fairly soon, and then I've got plans for another six or seven after that. (For those of you keeping score at home, that does involve having more than one max-level character of the same profession. It's a disease.)
