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What’s Next for Guild Wars 2


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  • ArenaNet Staff

(This is a message from Game Director Mike Zadorojny)

Hey, everyone,

Over the past few weeks, most of our team has been focused on getting the next couple of releases ready, which will culminate in our Living World Season 4 finale. Meanwhile, we’re also looking toward the future.

Our Philosophy

I’ve been speaking with members of the team for a few months, examining the way we create content to make sure we continue to do what’s best for the game. Lately we’ve been scrutinizing not only our plans for Season 5, but our core development philosophy. Ultimately, we believe that our core pillars for Guild Wars 2 have not changed:

  • Encourage players to interact positively
  • Support player autonomy
  • Focus on horizontal progression instead of vertical
  • Build upon previous designs
  • Strive for the fun

The Living World of Guild Wars 2 is a great way for us to accomplish all of that. It’s the best way to provide our player community with regular content updates—great features, new horizons to explore, and an engaging story that brings our world and characters to life—without charging a subscription fee.

New Guild Wars 2 Team Structure

So, what does this mean for Guild Wars 2?

We are taking the opportunity now to reorganize ourselves into four fully staffed content teams with additional teams dedicated to supporting the core game like Skills and Balance, Rewards, WvW, and sPvP.

Content teams will have more flexibility to decide what makes sense for a given release—for example, we could focus on expanding the boundaries and content of an existing map if that would provide a better experience than creating a new one. Ultimately, this will mean a relatively steady release of new content that will allow us to continue telling the story of Tyria in exciting new ways.

The Next Few Months

So, what’s next? We released Super Adventure Festival so players can return to Moto’s game world and experience the homage to the games of yesteryear.

After that, the Current Activities Team has a release that will build toward the Season 4 finale.

We’re in the process of wrapping up Episode 6 now, and we’re excited to not only announce a release date, but also to play the finale alongside all of you. It won’t fall within the two-to-three-month window that we tried to target throughout Season 4 because of the adjustments we had to make in February, but stay tuned—more info is coming soon.

We’re currently adding more polish to the final encounter in the next raid, which continues the story of Qadim and will get its own release after Episode 6. We’re utilizing one of the new team’s efforts to build some additional small-scale open world content so all of our players will have something to celebrate with the release of the raid.

The Future

The commander’s tale will continue in Living World Season 5. As the teams get going and plans become more cemented, we’ll be able to talk a bit more on that topic.

We also have our sights set on a few features that have already been in development for some time. Please understand that these are all works in progress, so details can change between here and the final version, and we don’t have a timeline for the release of any of these. These features will ship when they are ready.

  • The rune and sigil salvaging release last year was in anticipation of releasing legendary runes and sigils—the final components of legendary core equipment.
  • Over the past few months, astute players have been noticing a trend of updates and improvements to how our skill-slotting system works and have accurately speculated that the long-requested feature of build templates is in the works.
  • We’d like to increase the max cooking level from 400 to 500. This crafting profession needs a refresh to make lower-tier foods important to the ecosystem and help reinvigorate various resources throughout the game.
  • We’ve mentioned in the past how important world restructuring is to our WvW initiatives, and that hasn’t changed. While the Programming Team is focused on this initiative, the team is also focusing on smaller updates that can temporarily change the game mode, like the No Downed State Week we’ve done in the past. We’re also talking about different types of reward structures for events.
  • Swiss tournament support is the next major feature the sPvP team is working on. This feature will be utilized by our structured tournaments moving forward.

Further Down the Road

Beyond all of this, here is some of what’s on our radar for the future. None of these have been fully designed and are even more subject to change—or being shelved:

  • For WvW, we’ve talked about changing the matches so that scoring matters in 8-hour intervals. This allows us to address gameplay in off-peak hours in a way that doesn’t invalidate the work of the most active populations.
  • After the cooking 500 update, jewel crafting is the last profession needing to be extended.
  • The Competitive Team has been working on the idea of building a festival that highlights both sPvP and WvW. It’s a fun concept that would allow us to focus on those game types and try new things.

This sort of discussion of projects that we’ve kept under wraps until now is a departure from how we’ve been communicating for a while. It’s our hope that through posts like this we can help clarify for you what our priorities and goals are for the game. And while this isn’t everything we have planned for the game, it at least gives you better insight into its development. The team is passionate about not only supporting Guild Wars 2, but continuing to grow it alongside all of you.

Thanks for your time and see you in game!

z

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@Stephane Lo Presti.7258 said:

  • The rune and sigil salvaging release last year was in anticipation of releasing legendary runes and sigils—the final components of legendary core equipment.is it a power increase or QOF feature ( like Armour and weapons stat swap )
  • Over the past few months, astute players have been noticing a trend of updates and improvements to how our skill-slotting system works and have accurately speculated that the long-requested feature of build templates is in the works.finallyThank you
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So what you're saying is: the makers of Guild Wars 2 are continuing to make Guild Wars 2. /sigh

As ashamed as I am to be part of a community that apparently needed that tautology explained to them, I appreciate the effort and your consideration.

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@Stephane Lo Presti.7258 said:(This is a message from Game Director Mike Zadorojny)

Hey, everyone,

Over the past few weeks, most of our team has been focused on getting the next couple of releases ready, which will culminate in our Living World Season 4 finale. Meanwhile, we’re also looking toward the future.

Our Philosophy

I’ve been speaking with members of the team for a few months, examining the way we create content to make sure we continue to do what’s best for the game. Lately we’ve been scrutinizing not only our plans for Season 5, but our core development philosophy. Ultimately, we believe that our core pillars for Guild Wars 2 have not changed:

  • Encourage players to interact positively
  • Support player autonomy
  • Focus on horizontal progression instead of vertical
  • Build upon previous designs
  • Strive for the fun

The Living World of Guild Wars 2 is a great way for us to accomplish all of that. It’s the best way to provide our player community with regular content updates—great features, new horizons to explore, and an engaging story that brings our world and characters to life—without charging a subscription fee.

New Guild Wars 2 Team Structure

So, what does this mean for Guild Wars 2?

We are taking the opportunity now to reorganize ourselves into four fully staffed content teams with additional teams dedicated to supporting the core game like Skills and Balance, Rewards, WvW, and sPvP.

Content teams will have more flexibility to decide what makes sense for a given release—for example, we could focus on expanding the boundaries and content of an existing map if that would provide a better experience than creating a new one. Ultimately, this will mean a relatively steady release of new content that will allow us to continue telling the story of Tyria in exciting new ways.

The Next Few Months

So, what’s next? We released Super Adventure Festival so players can return to Moto’s game world and experience the homage to the games of yesteryear.

After that, the Current Activities Team has a release that will build toward the Season 4 finale.

We’re in the process of wrapping up Episode 6 now, and we’re excited to not only announce a release date, but also to play the finale alongside all of you. It won’t fall within the two-to-three-month window that we tried to target throughout Season 4 because of the adjustments we had to make in February, but stay tuned—more info is coming soon.

We’re currently adding more polish to the final encounter in the next raid, which continues the story of Qadim and will get its own release after Episode 6. We’re utilizing one of the new team’s efforts to build some additional small-scale open world content so all of our players will have something to celebrate with the release of the raid.

The Future

The commander’s tale will continue in Living World Season 5. As the teams get going and plans become more cemented, we’ll be able to talk a bit more on that topic.

We also have our sights set on a few features that have already been in development for some time. Please understand that these are all works in progress, so details can change between here and the final version, and we don’t have a timeline for the release of any of these. These features will ship when they are ready.

  • The rune and sigil salvaging release last year was in anticipation of releasing legendary runes and sigils—the final components of legendary core equipment.
  • Over the past few months, astute players have been noticing a trend of updates and improvements to how our skill-slotting system works and have accurately speculated that the long-requested feature of build templates is in the works.
  • We’d like to increase the max cooking level from 400 to 500. This crafting profession needs a refresh to make lower-tier foods important to the ecosystem and help reinvigorate various resources throughout the game.
  • We’ve mentioned in the past how important world restructuring is to our WvW initiatives, and that hasn’t changed. While the Programming Team is focused on this initiative, the team is also focusing on smaller updates that can temporarily change the game mode, like the No Downed State Week we’ve done in the past. We’re also talking about different types of reward structures for events.
  • Swiss tournament support is the next major feature the sPvP team is working on. This feature will be utilized by our structured tournaments moving forward.

Further Down the Road

Beyond all of this, here is some of what’s on our radar for the future. None of these have been fully designed and are even more subject to change—or being shelved:

  • For WvW, we’ve talked about changing the matches so that scoring matters in 8-hour intervals. This allows us to address gameplay in off-peak hours in a way that doesn’t invalidate the work of the most active populations.
  • After the cooking 500 update, jewel crafting is the last profession needing to be extended.
  • The Competitive Team has been working on the idea of building a festival that highlights both sPvP and WvW. It’s a fun concept that would allow us to focus on those game types and try new things.

This sort of discussion of projects that we’ve kept under wraps until now is a departure from how we’ve been communicating for a while. It’s our hope that through posts like this we can help clarify for you what our priorities and goals are for the game. And while this isn’t everything we have planned for the game, it at least gives you better insight into its development. The team is passionate about not only supporting Guild Wars 2, but continuing to grow it alongside all of you.

Thanks for your time and see you in game!

z

Thank you for this info Stephane and Mike Z.

I can't speak for everyone, but think that at least a simple majority is fine with not knowing for sure when, or if things get canceled, as long as we get semi-regular news about it.

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@Dami.5046 said:Well the people who wanted less new maps got their own way. Good for you.No cantha. Maybe is i shout loud enough i'll get my way.

I can’t speak for others, but the reasons I want less maps isn’t because I don’t like having more maps.

1) Too many maps result in players that are spread too thin across all maps.2) More resources spent on creating new maps takes away from resources that could be spent on other stuff, such as more armors, etc.

Forcing a new map every episode is, IMO, not the most beneficial approach. As Anet said, it is best to look at each situation and decide whether a new map, or updating an existing map is better.

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:o Legendary Runes/Sigils :o

Better start hoarding those crafting mats!

On a separate note are we likely to get non-cosmetic legendary trinkets for wvw, like how lege armour is compared with raid armour (ie plain alternatives to aurora/coalescence/etc, for ability to stay swap only)?

Same question regarding aqua breather - legendary version in any game mode?

Would like to see full legendary gear possible before runes/sigils.

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The rune and sigil salvaging release last year was in anticipation of releasing legendary runes and sigils—the final components of legendary core equipment.

  • I hope these are account unlocks we can apply to any gear from the Equipment panel and not:
    • Items cluttering the inventory and bank.
    • Items that are applied to a particular piece of legendary gear and stick to that one particular item, forcing you to craft them for every legendary.
    • Items that can only apply to legendary gear.
  • Once unlocked, there could be a cost to apply them to non-legendary gear (e.g, lucent motes or crystals, a general currency like spirit shards, etc), while of course staying free to apply legendary gear.

    Account unlocks are always better.

Over the past few months, astute players have been noticing a trend of updates and improvements to how our skill-slotting system works and have accurately speculated that the long-requested feature of build templates is in the works.

  • I hope they are something to share builds that you can keep and share regardless of you having the parts required for it or not like in GW1, and have something different to keep different pre-sets of actual gear, something more like 'build loadouts'.
    • Templates and loadouts can exist together. Templates would just be free for all and allow you to go share builds in-game so people can check them out, store them in plain text files, and go to sites like metabatle or gw2skills to download them.
    • Loadouts would store actual gear and could be monetized by letting people buy extra loadout slots per character or per account, so they'd be basically like half an inventory bag of space. Loadouts would also work as a way to store multiple appearances, so they would be useful even for those who have legendary gear or stick to one build. Players could get 1 loadout for free (the current equipment panel), get a second one from PvE (complete personal story), PvP (buy with season currency) or WvW (buy skirmish currency), and then acquire more from the gemstore and maybe expansion deluxe bonuses.
  • I also hope these work with account unlocks, not just items, without having to carry countless different pieces of gear or having to get full sets of legendary gear for all your characters. I'd be great if there was a way to unlock upgrades and stats that can then be loaded on gear with templates, with a cost for non-legendary gear, free for legendary gear. Switching between loadouts would always bee free, but with upgrade and stats unlocks we'd be able to test new builds more comfortably after skill updates for a reasonable cost before settling for the ones we finally decide to keep in our loadouts to switch between them while actually playing.

We’d like to increase the max cooking level from 400 to 500. This crafting profession needs a refresh to make lower-tier foods important to the ecosystem and help reinvigorate various resources throughout the game.

  • All crafting disciplines with lots of nested recipes like cooking and scribing would also greatly benefit from the ability to craft any recipe without having to craft all previous nested recipes, if you already have all the materials required for the sub-recipes. This could be shown in the list of recipes with square brackets [] after the parentheses. So if you have enough materials to craft 5 of something but you haven't crafted the sub-recipes, it would show like this: "Something (0)[5]".
  • Eventually it'd be nice if a fishing mastery and mini-game was also introduced, and to craft bait we'd have to salvage food to get 'food crumbs' required for the bait recipes. Fishing could be done with a new type of novelty: Tools. After unlocking your fishing rod, you'd select the fishing rod novelty in the Tool slot and go anywhere near water and use it to star fishing, Like with baloons, it'd also be possible to use the fishing tool while riding a mount, unlike when using gathering nodes. Other items that could go in the tool category are the gizmos that are are not toys and still have uses after completing their related content: Prototype Position Rewinder, the White Mantle Portal Deevice, the Brandstone Multitool, the Enchanted Lodestone, Levvi's Device, Rift stabilizers, etc.

We’ve mentioned in the past how important world restructuring is to our WvW initiatives, and that hasn’t changed. While the Programming Team is focused on this initiative, the team is also focusing on smaller updates that can temporarily change the game mode, like the No Downed State Week we’ve done in the past. We’re also talking about different types of reward structures for events.

  • I would love to see more meta-events other than the middle one. Imagine if each supply line from a camp to a keep was a meta-event, and defending a whole supply line granted bonus rewards the more parts of the line are under your team's control.
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@BlueJin.4127 said:

@Dami.5046 said:Well the people who wanted less new maps got their own way. Good for you.No cantha. Maybe is i shout loud enough i'll get
my
way.

I can’t speak for others, but the reasons I want less maps isn’t because I don’t like having more maps.

1) Too many maps result in players that are spread too thin across all maps.2) More resources spent on creating new maps takes away from resources that could be spent on other stuff, such as more armors, etc.

A new map every episode is, IMO, not the most beneficial approach.

How boring.

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Great news! Disappointing to miss the 2-3 month mark yet again, but I think this time is the most justified of them all, as everyone at Anet needs time to adapt. Hopefully it’s not too far off the mark - the end of april, of the first week of may?

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@BlueJin.4127 said:

@Dami.5046 said:Well the people who wanted less new maps got their own way. Good for you.No cantha. Maybe is i shout loud enough i'll get
my
way.

I can’t speak for others, but the reasons I want less maps isn’t because I don’t like having more maps.

1) Too many maps result in players that are spread too thin across all maps.2) More resources spent on creating new maps takes away from resources that could be spent on other stuff, such as more armors, etc.

Forcing a new map every episode is, IMO, not the most beneficial approach. As Anet said, it is best to look at each situation and decide whether a new map, or updating an existing map is better.

Ideally if every season is 6 epusode (imo) we would get 2 to 3 maps which gets expanded on with aditional map sections and events.

The absolute best scenario imo would be if future seasons in their content stype resembled se2 more. I feel like se2 had the ideal mix of episodes, maps and replayability.

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@Dami.5046 said:

@Dami.5046 said:Well the people who wanted less new maps got their own way. Good for you.No cantha. Maybe is i shout loud enough i'll get
my
way.

I can’t speak for others, but the reasons I want less maps isn’t because I don’t like having more maps.

1) Too many maps result in players that are spread too thin across all maps.2) More resources spent on creating new maps takes away from resources that could be spent on other stuff, such as more armors, etc.

A new map every episode is, IMO, not the most beneficial approach.

How boring.

Certainly not as boring as empty devoid of substance and replaybility maps every 3-4 months.

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@Fenom.9457 said:Great news! Disappointing to miss the 2-3 month mark yet again, but I think this time is the most justified of them all, as everyone at Anet needs time to adapt. Hopefully it’s not too far off the mark - the end of april, of the first week of may?

I mean unless im wrong, we didnt need mike z to tell us about it. They already missed the mark.

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@zealex.9410 said:

@Dami.5046 said:Well the people who wanted less new maps got their own way. Good for you.No cantha. Maybe is i shout loud enough i'll get
my
way.

I can’t speak for others, but the reasons I want less maps isn’t because I don’t like having more maps.

1) Too many maps result in players that are spread too thin across all maps.2) More resources spent on creating new maps takes away from resources that could be spent on other stuff, such as more armors, etc.

A new map every episode is, IMO, not the most beneficial approach.

How boring.

Certainly not as boring as empty devoid of substance and replaybility maps every 3-4 months.

Just because they use old maps doesn't mean they will suddenly become playable for the next aeon. The same will happen as the new maps i'm sure once people have done all their achievements. I certainly wouldn't feel as excited knowing they are doing a story back in Istan.I actually found this announcement to be a load of nothing in context of what will happen after season 5.

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@zealex.9410 said:

@Fenom.9457 said:Great news! Disappointing to miss the 2-3 month mark yet again, but I think this time is the most justified of them all, as everyone at Anet needs time to adapt. Hopefully it’s not too far off the mark - the end of april, of the first week of may?

I mean unless im wrong, we didnt need mike z to tell us about it. They already missed the mark.

Not exactly. 4.5 launched on 8 January. 90 says would be 8 April, which hasn't occurred yet. Add 7 days minimum to account for the week of the layoffs, although it would be fair to add 14 days.

120 days would be 8 May (not allowing for shifts due to layoffs).

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@Dami.5046 said:

@Dami.5046 said:Well the people who wanted less new maps got their own way. Good for you.No cantha. Maybe is i shout loud enough i'll get
my
way.

I can’t speak for others, but the reasons I want less maps isn’t because I don’t like having more maps.

1) Too many maps result in players that are spread too thin across all maps.2) More resources spent on creating new maps takes away from resources that could be spent on other stuff, such as more armors, etc.

A new map every episode is, IMO, not the most beneficial approach.

How boring.

Just what I think about Cantha.

Been there, done that. Sick of nostalgia patches/xpacs.

Show me something new!

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