Help Us Test New WvW Scoring in a Beta Test Starting February 27!
Greetings, gamers!
The Competitive team is excited to talk about an upcoming event we'll be running during the month of March! As we've talked about in the past, one of our priorities is to align player goals when it comes to winning and make winning feel important to teams. On the road to reaching this goal, we've made several changes to scoring in World vs. World (WvW) in the past. We've made updates to victory points and adjusted the points gained from objectives, both per tick and on capture, but now we're looking at changing how War Score is gained.
Before we dive into the details, it is important to note that the changes we're making for this event are not final. We'll be looking for and gathering as much feedback as possible from the community, and we will make updates or even fully roll back changes as needed.
What Is War Score, Exactly?
War Score is the term for the points you currently gain from capturing and holding on to objectives. These points accumulate over the course of a skirmish—a two-hour window in WvW—and at the end of each skirmish. Victory points are awarded to teams based on that score, which in turn accumulates over the course of the week. We want to change how War Score is gained throughout the skirmish period while incentivizing and rewarding more active gameplay. To achieve this, we have some War Score rebalancing changes that we'll be beta testing in an event in the near future!
During this test, we'll be removing the points gained from holding objectives. This sounds like a big change, and it is, but we're going to add it back in several different places. You'll earn points for taking part in multiple different activities in WvW as either a defender or an attacker while ultimately helping your team achieve victory. You can get points for things like killing guards, building siege equipment, and downing and resurrecting players. The purpose of these changes is to give more agency to players when it comes to how their team is performing in the Mist War while not relying so much on passive progress ticks. That being said, it'll still be extremely important to hold on to objectives and participate in actively defending the objectives you own, as you can generate large amounts of War Score for your team during defense events. Additionally, the points gained from capturing objectives will be increased. Several actions that grant War Score will also scale by objective type, upgrade level, and the number of defenders in the area.
Schedule Change
Currently, new teams are created during the first week of each month; however, for this test, we'll be moving team creation a week earlier, starting on February 27. This means you'll need to have the correct guild selected for team creation before lockout on Monday, February 23. This test will run for about five weeks, with the next team-creation period returning to its normal schedule on April 3, which will mark the end of this test.
Quality-of-Life Updates
We're also planning to make some quality-of-life updates to a few WvW systems alongside this test, including allowing waypoints in your home borderland and Eternal Battleground spawn keeps without needing to upgrade and a change to help cut down on players being stuck in their spawn keep versus overwhelming forces on Eternal Battlegrounds. We will also be adding access to the newly released Infinite Utility Primer and Infinite Metabolic Primer via WvW, as we mentioned on the forums. The full notes on these changes will be found in the February 24 release notes.
What Comes Next?
Before signing off, we want to give a brief overview of some other WvW work that we have planned. During the beta test, we'll be paying close attention to the amount of War Score being generated from the new sources to see how they're performing relative to our expectations. We plan to run a second beta test of the system with these War Score adjustments alongside another new system: end-of-match rewards. As mentioned earlier, we want to make winning a match feel more important to teams, and additional incentives for match placement are one element of that. After the second test is complete, we'll reevaluate the state of War Score distribution, and if we're happy with the result, the changes will stay enabled. Otherwise, we'll continue to iterate on the system through beta-event tests until we feel that it meets our goals. End-of-match rewards will be permanently enabled once we're confident that the updated War Score system is a good representation of playing WvW with the intent to win.
End-of-match rewards are a good reason to care about the match at large, but we also want to reward players for their accolades during smaller chunks of time. With that in mind, we'll be looking to create a similar reward system on a per-skirmish level to better align with individual play sessions. Log on, play for a skirmish, and get some cool stuff.
Further down the road, we also plan to look at the participation system with many of the same intentions as the War Score updates: rewarding players for active gameplay while removing some of the passivity of the current system.
These plans are largely focused on updating reward structures and incentives to better align with active gameplay, but we're also looking into new content ideas. While there aren't any specifics to share just yet, we're thinking about ways to add new gameplay experiences to WvW. Whether that will be by refreshing existing mechanics or adding new things entirely—i.e., new events—we'll likely want to leverage a similar beta test and iteration cycle for these new ideas, but our goal is to find things that will be positive permanent additions to WvW.
As always, we're on the lookout for smaller quality-of-life adjustments or mechanical tweaks to improve the overall gameplay experience and flow of the game mode for the future, and your feedback helps shape the direction of those changes.
Now through February 16 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific (UTC-8), save when you buy or gift expansions! The Steam PvP Fest Sale features price reductions on past Guild Wars 2® expansions, plus the Complete Collection that bundles them together:
[/p][p]· Expansion 5: Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds™ (Standard Edition)—20% Off[/p][p]· Expansion 4: Guild Wars 2: Secrets of the Obscure™ (Standard Edition)—30% Off[/p][p]· Expansion 3: Guild Wars 2: End of Dragons® (Standard Edition)—40% Off[/p][p]· Expansions 1 and 2: Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns® and Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire®—40% Off[/p][p]· Guild Wars 2—The Elder Dragon Saga Complete Collection (Standard Edition)—40% Off
[/p][p]Happy gaming, and we'll see you in Tyria!
[/p]
The Raids and Wardrobe Update Is Live Now!
The new Raids and Wardrobe quarterly update is live today, and the Lunar New Year festival has begun! Read on for highlights of the Raids and Wardrobe update, and catch the full release notes on our forums.
This release is an example of the ways that player feedback shapes our approach to development. In our retrospective on Guild Wars 2®: Janthir Wilds™, we talked about changing our release plans based on responses to the quarterly releases for that expansion. This new approach allows us to modestly increase the amount of story, but more significantly, it allows us to bundle the story in a way that should make the second and third major updates for Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity feel more satisfying to play through. It also allows us to focus this release on other parts of the game. As we talked about in that retrospective, we're excited to deliver features that make the game easier understand and more enjoyable to play by refining and modernizing the systems that are already in the game. Today's release is doing exactly that for two big areas of Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity—raids and the wardrobe system!
The Raids Feature and a New Raid Encounter
Players can now challenge the new raid encounter, Guardian's Glade, and face off against a truly awe-inspiring crustacean! The challenge mode will become available in three weeks. One of the easiest ways to access the new encounter is through the new raid UI, a core part of our raids update, which also features the merging of Strike Missions into raids as raid encounters. You can read about the raids improvements in detail in our recent blog on the topic and raid livestream. When you get into the game, be sure to check out the Achievements tab and the new raid reward vendor in the Lion's Arch Aerodrome to start exploring the changes for yourself!
Fashion Templates and Fashion Week
When you first log in after downloading today's update, you should receive an in-game mail with some free transmutation charges encouraging you to try out our latest wardrobe system update: Fashion Templates! You can learn all about the changes in our blog or preview livestream, or just open up your Hero panel and go to the Fashion tab (not the Equipment tab!). When you do, you'll get a one-time prompt to save your current cosmetics to Fashion Template 1 for free. You start out with two free Fashion Templates, and more—up to a total of nine—may be purchased through the Black Lion Trading Company.
To celebrate the addition of Fashion Templates, Fashion Week is taking over the official Guild Wars 2 forums from February 3 at 9:00 a.m. Pacific Time (UTC-8) to February 10 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC-8)! Fashion Week's theme is "God Walking Amongst Mere Mortals," and it's your chance to channel your divine presence, overwhelming power, or quietly terrifying reverence through your look. Whether you arrive as a benevolent deity or something far more ominous, we can't wait to see how you command the runway. And for those who truly ascend above the rest, the grand prize is a legendary weapon of the winner's choice! To enter, head over to our forums and leave the mere mortals in your wake.
Wizard's Vault Improvements
Alongside the seasonal refresh of new rewards that come with quarterly updates, we've made a number of improvements to the Wizard's Vault. At a high level, this update focuses on making objectives clearer and more flexible, improving reward variety, and protecting the long-term health of the game's economy.
Daily and weekly objectives have been refreshed to improve variety and reduce friction, with several older objectives retired and new ones added that better highlight core activities like fractals, world bosses, and World vs. World (WvW). We've also introduced greater flexibility in how you engage with the system: daily and weekly objectives can now be selected independently, and you can freely adjust your chosen categories as long as you haven't started progressing them. Combined with new special objectives that will roll out over the course of the season, including ones tied to festivals and bonus events, the Wizard's Vault should feel more responsive to how and when you want to play.
The Wizard's Vault shop has also received a broader tuning pass this season, including updates to pricing, quantities, and item availability. We're updating the seasonal inventory with three Black Lion Keys and a Bag Slot Expansion, alongside other new additions and astral acclaim price tuning. As part of this work, we've removed the unlimited Bag of Coins option and adjusted the remaining limited-supply gold reward, which now offers more total gold per season at a slightly higher astral acclaim cost. These changes are intended to limit gold inflation and support the long-term health of the game's economy. For full details on shop changes and reward availability, be sure to check out the complete release notes.
And, of course, there's a refresh of the rewards in the Wizard's Vault for everyone to collect and enjoy. The Castoran Coral Quest License takes you on a journey to obtain the Coralheart Pillar staff and Coralheart Stake sword. These ascended weapons grow bioluminescent coral formations as you wield them! The Seaside Scholar's set is now complete with three new skins to help you become a beach-loving sage. Then there's the Toxinshell weapon set with its beautiful-but-deadly design for all of our terrestrial weapons. Finally, the Tropical Leaf Cape Set grants you dramatic leafy shoulder and cape skins that surround your character with impressive foliage.
Legendary Rewards
Soak in perpetual vacation vibes with the new legendary ring! Endless Summer brings the beach with you wherever you go with splashing water effects and sand at your feet—complete with sandcastles, shells, and crabs!
Talk to Shaman Palak near the Hullgarden Pier Waypoint in Shipwreck Strand to learn more about making this ring your own.
Raiders will find new rewards waiting for them, including the new Dhuumscale skyscale mount skin. Six new combat relics for Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity are also now available.
Lunar New Year & Upcoming Events
Gallop towards a fresh Lunar New Year with decorations and festivities in Divinity's Reach! Of special note is the opportunity to earn the Celestial Hoofed Shoes boot armor skin that will grace you with hooves worthy of the noblest centaur. Other incredible rewards include the Plush Mordy Backpack, the Lucky Great Horse Backpack, Celestial's Firework Weapon skins, and the Mini Horse-Gourdon!
This festival is accessible to players of any level. Even if you're brand new to the game, you can easily take part in our Lunar New Year activities and earn new cosmetic unlocks, utility items, and more! Check your in-game mail for an Invitation to Lunar New Year, and double-click the item to teleport instantly to Divinity's Reach. The Wizard's Vault also has special objectives directing you toward Lunar New Year activities so you can earn more astral acclaim and collect your rewards!
This festival kicks off a quarter full of events:
February
February 3–24: Lunar New Year
February 24–March 10: Return to Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds™
March
March 3–10: Dungeon Rush Bonus Event
March 10–17: PvP Rush Bonus Event
March 17–24: Bonus Event (to be announced)
March 24–31: Bonus Event (to be announced)
April
Mid-April: Super Adventure Festival
Twitch Drops and Sneak Peeks
Starting today, you can earn Twitch Drops when you tune into participating Guild Wars 2 streamers! Drops are active until February 8 at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time (UTC -8), so connect your account and start watching!
Before we sign off, we wanted to give you peek at what's still in development for future releases. Below you'll catch a glimpse of the third map for Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity. And, for a less visual preview: one of the two legendary accessories coming in the next major update will be acquired in WvW! We'll also be back in a month or so to talk about some exciting experimental changes we're making to War Score in WvW.
"With the staff in hand, the way opens before us. The only path to Tyria's survival. A road I walk because someone must, and no one else will." —Vloxx
Happy Raids and Wardrobe release day!
—The Guild Wars 2 Team
Coming Soon: Fashion Templates!
The first major update for Guild Wars 2®: Visions of Eternity™ arrives on February 3 and will allow players to create and save Fashion Templates to easily swap between.
A New Home for Your Wardrobe
A new Fashion tab within the Hero panel will house wardrobe and gathering tool appearance choices, which means you will no longer find wardrobe or outfit selection in the Equipment tab. In the wardrobe, players can change the appearance of their armor, outfits, backpacks, and weapons.
As players of our own game, we're particularly excited that the wardrobe now allows you to also edit the dye colors of applicable items, rather than needing to switch between different tabs for appearance and dye options. When you have an item slot selected, you'll be shown cosmetic options, and when you select a dye channel, you'll be shown dye options. The randomize feature will continue to only impact skins or dyes in a single randomization; selecting an appearance slot will change the randomize button to only randomize skins among those available to your armor class and race, and selecting a dye channel will make it only randomize dyes.
It's important to note that the wardrobe will only display appearance options for the weapons that your character currently has equipped, and equipping weapons is still managed through the Equipment tab. Similarly, infusions are tied to the equipment item system rather than cosmetics, so they are still managed through the Equipment tab.
Introducing Fashion Templates
At the top of the wardrobe, tabs will indicate which Fashion Template a character is currently using and allow for navigation between different templates to preview or edit. Every character begins with two Fashion Templates by default, so you'll be able to swap between two separate looks. Additional template slots, up to a total of nine, will be available for purchase in-game through the Black Lion Trading Company for 600 gems. A template slot is for your entire account; each character will get the benefit of being able to swap an additional look for each template slot unlocked.
Transmutation Charges are used to save a cosmetic skin to a Fashion Template, but Fashion Templates are free to apply. A Fashion Template is first edited (which has no cost), then saved (costing a Transmutation Charge for each piece of equipment to be updated in the template itself), and then can be freely applied to your equipment until it is edited and saved again. If a piece of equipment that your character has equipped is of legendary quality, saving a new cosmetic appearance for that item in a Fashion Template will not cost Transmutation Charges.
If a Fashion Template includes the appearance of a weapon (or any piece of equipment) that you are not currently wielding, that appearance will not be applied.
When this goes live, you'll receive an in-game mail with some free Transmutation Charges and a suggestion to check out the system. On each character, you'll have a one-time chance upon first visiting the Fashion panel to save your currently equipped cosmetics to your first Fashion Template without spending any Transmutation Charges.
Fashion Endgame
Beyond the basics, there's a bevy of options for fine-tuning your fashion. Right-clicking on any single item slot saved to a Fashion Template will allow you to apply it individually, rather than needing to apply the whole template. A new checkbox will allow you to apply your chosen cosmetics to any items that your character equips, so if you're leveling or otherwise swapping out armor, you don't have to reapply the template every time. And advanced controls within the wardrobe will allow you to inspect, clear, and rename your Fashion Templates.
Like Build and Equipment Templates, you'll be able to select Fashion Templates through the quick-access menu on your skill bar and assign a hotkey to them. Hovering over a Fashion Template in the quick-access menu will show a preview of which items and dye choices are associated with that template.
And, like Build Templates, Fashion Templates will be sharable! You can generate chat- sharable Fashion Template codes that can also be saved if you want to preserve old looks or share fashion tips outside of the game.
And Tools, Too!
Like other pieces of equipment, gathering tools and their glyphs will still be managed through the Equipment tab. However, gathering tool cosmetics will be separated from the wardrobe and Fashion Templates. Their appearance can be changed—for free!—through the Tools section of the Fashion tab.
Into the Future, Fashionably
We're continuing to work on the Equipment and Fashion sections of the Hero panel, including moving mounts, gliders, and conjured doorways to the Fashion tab; expect to see additional updates in a future release for Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity.
We'll be live on our Twitch channel this Friday, January 30, at noon Pacific Time (UTC-8) to take a closer look at the Fashion Templates feature, so tune in to see it in action!
Adventure in Sophisticated Style with the Classic Leather Boots Skin
Classic Leather Boots Skin
With a timeless design and crafted from the finest materials, these boots are made to be both stylish and practical for everyday use. Perfect for a walk in the wilderness or to mount up and set out on an adventure. The Classic Leather Boots Skin is now available for 400 gems.
What's in Stock
We're getting a restock of our chairs for the season! Starting on Friday, January 30, these novelty items will be hot with a 20% discount. This offer will last until February 13. Some of our favorite items include: Ornate Grand Piano, Candy Cane Chair, Dueling Elements Chair Package, Comfortable Reading Chair, Glacial Chair, and Skyscale Chair.
Returning This Week
Salvage all you need or expand your account with this week's discounts! From today until February 3, the Copper-Fed Salvage-o-Matic, Silver-Fed Salvage-o-Matic, Runecrafter's Salvage-o-Matic, and Equipment Template Expansions are 20% off and Build Template Expansions are 40% off.
New Raid Encounter, Quickplay, and Raid System Improvements Coming February 3
The first major update for Guild Wars 2®: Visions of Eternity™ is on its way and coming with it are a new raid encounter as well as major updates for raids and the raid encounters formerly known as Strike Missions. Our goal with all of these is to unify Guild Wars 2's challenging instanced endgame content while making it easier to navigate. We introduced some of our thinking behind this change shortly before the expansion launched, which you can read here, and now we're ready to share some additional details.
The Unification of Raids
Starting with the upcoming release, Strike Missions will be known as raid encounters, and they will be available alongside raid wings in the Looking for Group panel as well as the new raid UI and every raid portal. Through the raid UI, squad leaders will be able to select which encounter to enter, including specific bosses of multi-encounter raid wings and all challenge modes. The UI will also track encounter clears for the week.
Squad leaders will also be able to move the squad directly between raid maps without first needing to exit a raid before entering a new one, leading to a more seamless experience with fewer loading screens!
Raid Encounter Quickplay
From the raid UI, selecting Quickplay will allow you to enter the queue. When the queue completes and you accept the raid, you and your new squadmates will be transported into the raid. Nobody will be assigned a commander or lieutenant role by default, and all players will have the option to put down markers and start ready checks. All players in quickplay will have an effect applied that provides moderate bonuses to help groups succeed regardless of party composition. Upon successful completion of the encounter, you'll be presented with the option to stay in your party and go to the Lion's Arch Aerodrome or leave the party and return to the map you were in before entering.
Like the quickplay queue for Fractals of the Mists, the raid quickplay queue does not try to do any matchmaking for party composition. Likewise, it has also been curated to include encounters that pose a roughly similar challenge to randomly matched groups of players. At launch, that list will include:
Aetherblade Hideout
Whisper of Jormag
Boneskinner
Cosmic Observatory
Temple of Febe
Xunlai Jade Junkyard
Old Lion's Court
Kaineng Overlook
Because of its newness, the new raid encounter will not be part of the quickplay pool and there is no bonus event planned for raid quickplay at its launch.
Rewards, Achievements, and Leaderboards
Rewards have been normalized across raid wings and encounters. This includes the conversion of Prophet Shards to Magnetite Shards; Magnetite Shards and Gaeting Crystals will be the currency for raid rewards moving forward. To accommodate that change, the weekly cap for Magnetite Shards has been raised to 800.
Raid bosses have been grouped into five categories based on difficulty, and each boss in the same category will award the same amount of Magnetite Shards. The higher the difficulty, the more rewards! Quickplay raids provide reduced amounts of the same currency as their non-quickplay version. Additionally, the reward for raid encounters is now gated weekly to be consistent with raid wing bosses.
Three new raid-exclusive rewards, including a new Dhuum-themed skyscale skin, have been added to the raid system as part of this update. These are not locked behind the same weekly gate as other rewards. Separately, a new raid rewards vendor will offer both one-time and weekly items in exchange for raid currencies.
A new daily achievement category, Raid Boss Bounties, will highlight raid encounter and raid wing bosses for bonus daily rewards. The Raid God achievement and several other new raid achievements have been added, and updates have been made to several wings and encounters to create achievement parity, including mentor achievements for the raid wings that didn't have one.
Raid achievements that are not associated with quickplay cannot be completed in quickplay raid encounters. However, two new quickplay-specific achievements have been added. There is a weekly achievement with rewards for completing up to 10 quickplay raids a week, plus a single-time multi-tier achievement for completing quickplay raids that awards new relics from the upcoming release.
We're also thrilled to introduce new raid leaderboards for challenge mode raids! These are similar to those used for adventures and will display global top completion times as well as your own time for raid challenge mode.
Coming Soon!
Everything we discussed today and more will be shown in detail during our livestream this week! Tune in to our Twitch channel this Friday, January 23, at noon Pacific Time (UTC-8) to see it all for yourself, and then start getting ready; you'll be able to put the new raid UI to the test and access an all-new raid encounter when the update lands on February 3! This will be followed three weeks later by a challenge mode.
We're excited to have everyone jump in to experience quickplay and our other raid improvements. As always, let us know what you think on our official forums.
Good luck, and happy raiding!
The Inquest Mount Package Features Two New Creatures, Direct from Castora
Inquest Mount Package
The Tyrian Alliance's efforts to free Castoran wildlife from Inquest facilities continues. These two augmented creatures are looking for a loving home to recover and flourish! The Inquest Mount Package contains the Inquest Raptor Skin and the Inquest Skimmer Skin and is now available for 1,600 gems.
What's in Stock
On Friday, January 23, unique weapon skins are back in stock at a fantastic 20% discount. This offer will be hot until February 6. Some of our favorite items include: Etched Porcelain Greatsword Skin, Colossal Greatsword Skin, Chain-Whip Sword Skin, Frostblossom Staff Skin, Disguised Fan Shield Skin, and Infernal Roar Warhorn Skin.
Returning This Week
Dazzle the masses with a brand-new look. From today until January 27, Transmutation Charges, Total Makeover Kits, Self-Style Hair Kits, and Name Change Contracts are available at a 20% discount.
Bring Home the Most Loveable Plushies with the Plush Pals 2 Homestead Package
Plush Pals 2 Homestead Package
Absolute squishy adorableness is coming back with a cuddly vengeance! The sequel to our original Plush Pals Homestead Package includes new friends with all the cuteness you need for the year. The Plush Pals 2 Homestead Package includes one of each decoration and will unlock crafting recipes for all the items. This pack is available for 800 gems and contains the following decorative pieces:
Plush Chick Pal
Plush Vulpine Pal
Plush Cuckoo Pal
Plush Raptor Pal
Plush Bunny Pal
Black Lion Chest Update: Vermilion Crane Chest
Inside each chest, you're guaranteed to find a redeemable Black Lion Statuette, a Fine Black Lion Dye Canister—Red, and two common items. You also have a chance to find something rarer in the fifth slot, including special items, glyphs, and skins from the Red Crane Weapon Collection and the Void Corrupted Weapon Collection.
Exclusive Item: Vermilion Staff Skin
The winter's chill still rages on. Face the freezing wastes with a staff made from pure fire magic—a phoenix's heart beats in this blazing weapon. The Vermilion Staff Skin is a new, exclusive drop from Black Lion Chests.
What's in Stock
On Friday, January 16, we are restocking our back slot items at a 20% discount until January 30! Make sure to check out some of our favorite items: Villainous Cape and Hood Combo, Ice Reaver Cape, Winter Monarch Cape, Defiant Glass Backpack Skin, Glittering Wings Backpack, and Magical Cape.
Returning This Week
Journey into Tyria's endless stories and discover all its secrets with our weekly discounts. From today until January 20, Black Lion Instant Level 80 Tickets and all Living World seasons and episodes are available at a 20% discount.
[signoff]
Peering through the Fog: Designing the Journey to Castora
Hello, Tyria,
I'm Chloë Mills, Story Design Lead for Guild Wars 2®: Visions of Eternity™. I'd like to give you a look under the hood at what went into making the Unending Ocean story instance in Chapter 1: Unscheduled Departures, including the design process for this instance, some technical details of its implementation, and a few interesting challenges we solved. This is a technically complex and ambitious piece of content, so hopefully you find it as interesting as I do!
This blog contains light story spoilers, in case you wish to avert your eyes now.
Planning the Voyage
At the beginning of Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity, the Inquest have a head start in traveling to the mysterious island of Castora, and the commander and their allies hastily assemble a crew to set sail across the Unending Ocean aboard two ships: the Dark Leviathan and the Martingale.
From early on, we had several key goals for the start of the story and the journey to Castora that helped shape the setting and gameplay:
Set the tone for the expansion overall and address player feedback about pacing and participation from Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds™ by beginning the story on an adventurous note and more quickly and frequently inserting the player into the action.
Ground Castora in the setting by physically traveling there. Castora is an uncharted landmass separated from mainland Tyria by a massive ocean and without pre-existing lore, so we wanted to show the player making that journey rather than taking a portal and—poof!—arriving with little thought, difficulty, or frame of reference for the vast distance.
Set up and foreshadow important narrative elements that arise later in the story. The magical fog, Isgarren's cagey behavior, and Kela attacking the Martingale unseen from beneath the waves all plant seeds for later story development centered around the seers. We wanted to demonstrate that reaching—or leaving—Castora would be fraught with danger, contextualizing the castaways' story and why Castora has remained shrouded in mystery, only roughly charted from afar by passing sailors.
During the early planning process for any expansion, we outline a rough estimate of scope for story design work. We consider the number of chapters, the number of story instances, and how complex each section will need to be. This is all based on factors including (but not limited to) the development timeline, designer and writer bandwidth, and the emerging needs of narrative beats. Story sections containing narrative focal points usually need extra attention and require higher design scope, so I designated the scope for the Unending Ocean story instance as "extra large," meaning that it would have many moving parts (literally) and a high amount of bespoke, complex implementation.
Ships and Environment as Centerpieces
The entire story instance takes place aboard the Dark Leviathan and the Martingale. This presents an interesting challenge because the physical play space is much more limited. To help compensate, I tried to get the most out of using vertical layers of the ships and design variety in what the player must do. Initially, only Sayida's ship, the Dark Leviathan, was planned, but in early prototyping, it became apparent that the small main deck of the ship and limited upper-deck space would not provide a large-enough playable area. And thus, Canach's ship, the Martingale, was born. And just as quickly, the fate of his ship was also sealed when we realized that there was an existing ship model with a spectacular break-apart animation just begging to be used.
The instance is split up into two distinct sections: traversing the vast expanse of the Unending Ocean during a storm and navigating within a dense fog offshore from Castora. These create distinct, contrasting periods of the journey that show the array of dangers faced trying to reach Castora.
Pretty much everything else in the instance centers around these two concepts.
The Storm
The storm section opens on a black screen with dialogue in the background as the commander emerges from their cabin on the Dark Leviathan. Story designers need to consider both the design of individual story sections and how different parts of the story flow between each other. The player enters the instance from Lion's Arch, and jumping directly to the middle of the ocean would be abrupt, so I wanted to make sure this transition felt natural by setting the stage with dialogue, sound effects, and a visual transition before setting the player loose.
This section demonstrates how dangerous the voyage is even before getting anywhere near Castora and the seers' defenses, while acknowledging the Unending Ocean's existing lore. Creatures of the deep—including krait, karka, reef riders, and even kraken tentacles—all attack the ships in a frenzy while lightning-strike fires lend gameplay variety between combat.
Playing Return of the Obra Dinn left a strong impression on me, and I think its influence can be seen in some of the tone and framing of this section: creatures of the depths chaotically boarding ships as crew scramble to react to each unexpected layer of danger, all while a storm rages above.
The Fog
In contrast to the violent storm, the tone in the fog section is eerier and apprehensive, punctuating the end of an already dangerous voyage. The concept was born from harrowing, real-world incidents such as the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917, where the ship Endurance faced difficult navigation through dangerous ice floes in uncharted territory. This, combined with tales of the Bermuda Triangle, began shaping our ideas.
Both sections are distinct from each other from a design standpoint, too. Each has its own set of ships, NPC spawns, and other objects, but all objects for the fog section are initially invisible. Sneaky smoke and mirrors are at play in the transition from storm to fog: as the screen fades to black, all the fog objects are turned on, the player is teleported forward to the duplicate Dark Leviathan, all of the storm objects are turned off, and then the black screen fades back to gameplay.
Having two copies of everything surprisingly simplifies the design, because the greater the number of scripted behaviors an object must perform, the more chances there are for bugs caused by interfering interactions. This strategy lets us build the story in one instance, allowing the two sections to flow together as one immersive experience while keeping scope manageable.
Smoke and mirrors continues to be a theme for the fog itself. Normally, a foggy environment in Guild Wars 2 is something called an "environment zone," which is an environment object set up by the map artist that can be turned on by the designer at designated times (this is how the stormy weather earlier in the instance is set up). However, fog created in this manner has limited maximum density.
Here, the fog needed to act as a gameplay mechanic by drastically reducing sightlines. The solution for this? The fog is actually a large visual-effects sphere created especially for this instance. It is attached to the Dark Leviathan and moves with it, offset to the left to encompass the Martingale when the two are side by side. When the Martingale swaps to the Dark Leviathan's right side for necessary positioning later along the route, a second fog bubble offset to the right replaces the first, which turns off for a seamless swap.
The environment outside the fog bubble is actually a perfectly clear, sunny day. To maintain the illusion, a tripwire sphere slightly smaller than the fog bubble prevents players from leaving its radius. This also helps ensure that design, QA, and art staff don't have to account for players wandering out of the designated play space.
Traveling Ships
Let's get more technical and talk about how the ships function. In the fog section, the two ships actually move through the water, all while allowing the player to move around and engage freely. The ships are what we call "prop gadget moving platforms." A gadget is the term we use for interactive objects: books, gathering nodes, or destructible objects such as barricades. Sometimes gadgets are placed in the world by designers, especially when we need flexibility on where they spawn. Two examples from this story instance are the launch pads that fling the player from ship to ship and the magic orbs the player collects to navigate through the fog.
Larger objects that need collision and must be properly affected by light and shadows will be placed by a map artist as an environment prop. A designer can then designate this prop as a gadget and tell it to function in certain ways, and this is called a "prop gadget." Very large bosses such as Soo-Won or Drakkar are prop gadgets. Furthermore, prop gadgets can be designated as moving platforms and scripted by a designer to move on rails, maintaining collision and allowing players to travel with it without just sliding off. This is how the commander can move around and engage freely while the ships in this instance travel through the water.
However, for anything else that needs to move with the ships—such as NPCs—a little more legwork is required. The moving platform must be specifically referenced on their spawn objects so the game engine knows to spawn them on the ship rather than floating in midair or snapping to the terrain below. With that in place, everything associated with the ships—the NPCs, the launch pads, the magic orbs, the enemy spawns, the ratlines to climb to the crow's nest—moves with them as a group and can be placed where the ships initially start out, even if they are meant to spawn later along the route.
All of this becomes invaluable when implementing the main aspect of ship gameplay design: giving the player agency to choose a direction for the ship to travel.
This is where things get fun. To successfully navigate through the fog, the player must choose correctly between navigating the ship left, right, or straight at four different points. If they choose correctly, the ship travels on the main route. If they choose incorrectly, the ship heads off in a secondary direction and enemies attack the ship, taking a looping detour back to where it started for the player to try again.
Both ships travel together on these possible routes. You may see where this is going, dear reader. Between two ships—each with four legs of a correct route and four legs of incorrect looping routes, plus two bonus rails for making the ships bob up and down in the water when not traveling forward—there are a total of eighteen different rails controlling the ships' movement over the course of the instance. Here is a visual representation of my self-inflicted pain:
When the Dark Leviathan begins moving, the Martingale will also move after a short delay to prevent the two ships from clipping through each other as they turn. Moving platforms can only move on one rail at a time, so just before it's time to start moving on a forward rail, the ships will pause their up-and-down bobbing loop on the vertical rail to prepare for this.
While moving, the launch pads for jumping between the ships are temporarily disabled, both to reduce bug potential and because the ships need to spread out while traveling. This moves the Martingale out of the fog bubble, so players who happen to be aboard the Martingale when it gets too far from the Dark Leviathan get teleported to the Dark Leviathan to maintain the fog illusion.
As mentioned previously, many interconnected components increase the likelihood for accidental buggy script interactions. Spreading the layers of functionality for complex gameplay, progressing quest steps, triggering dialogue lines, and much more across several different controller scripts keeps them clean and organized.
End of a Voyage
There is so much more to the development of this story instance and Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity as a whole that I couldn't ever possibly cover here. So much work and talent from every discipline goes into making Guild Wars 2; games truly are the ultimate collaborative medium. It's such a joy to be able to share with others what you're passionate about, and for me that is story design. I strive to challenge myself as a designer by pushing what is possible in our game engine to create exciting and novel story experiences. I hope you enjoy them.
See you soon in Tyria!
2025 Holiday Studio Update: A Message from the Guild Wars 2 Team
With the holiday season upon us, the studio is preparing to take a short break to recharge, spend time with our loved ones, and of course, complete our annual Wintersday achievements. Before we log off for the season, we want to take a moment to reflect on the year we've shared and express our gratitude for the incredible Guild Wars 2® community.
Another Landmark Year
We have a lot to be thankful for this year, and the release of Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity™, our sixth expansion, stands as one of the accomplishments we're most proud of as a studio. The team poured their hearts into this release, and it's been gratifying to see how strongly the community has responded to the changes and improvements we introduced with this expansion.
At this point in its release cycle, Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity has already outperformed Guild Wars 2: Janthir Wilds™ from a sales perspective, and the momentum from the expansion's release has helped grow the game, generally speaking. In recent months, we've seen periods where more new players joined us than at any point since our 2022 Steam debut (which itself was a high-water mark). Veteran players have been returning in droves, and overall player activity is higher now than it has been in years. It's been energizing to see momentum like this, and it's exceeded our expectations in nearly every way.
This year also marked two big anniversaries for us—the 25th anniversary of ArenaNet and the 20th anniversary of the original Guild Wars®. Reaching those milestones while Guild Wars 2 itself is thriving feels especially significant. In celebration, we released a studio retrospective documentary in partnership with Second Wind, tracing our journey from the earliest days of ArenaNet to the world we build together today, a reminder of where we began and how far we've come. If you haven't had a chance to watch it, you can check it out
At the same time, we announced Guild Wars Reforged, a renewed commitment to supporting the original Guild Wars game with a bundle that includes all three classic campaigns in a refreshed package with updated UI, modern platform support, and improved accessibility for returning and new players alike. It's our way of honoring the legacy of the franchise and welcoming both veterans and fresh faces back to the world that started it all. You can learn more about Guild Wars Reforgedhere.
This year, we also explored new, bolder ways to introduce Guild Wars 2 to a wider audience. In June, we partnered with Summer Games Fest to showcase the game on one of the biggest stages in the industry, and just last week we premiered a new trailer during the preshow of The Game Awards, the premiere event in global gaming, reaching millions of viewers around the world. It was a proud moment for all of us and a wonderful opportunity to showcase Tyria on a truly global stage. If you missed it, you can watch the new trailer below:
Having those anniversaries, the documentary, and Guild Wars Reforged land during a year of resurgence, driven by Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity, makes this one of the most meaningful chapters in Guild Wars history. It reminds us: our story isn't just about today, but about a legacy that continues to evolve.
To everyone experiencing Guild Wars Reforged or Guild Wars 2 for the first time, returning after time away, or continuing your long journey with us: thank you for making this world and this community feel so vibrant.
Looking Ahead to Early 2026
The team is hard at work on the upcoming quarterly releases for Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity, and we'll be sharing more details, and our next quarterly roadmap, around the release of Quarterly Release 1 early next year. In the meantime, here are some key dates to look forward to:
December 9–January 2: Wintersday Festival
January 13: Skills and Balance Update
January 13–20: Fractal Rush
January 20–27: WvW Rush
February 3:Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity Quarterly Release 1
New Raid Encounter
Raid/Strike System Unification with Quickplay
Fashion Templates
Wizard's Vault Update
New Legendary Ring
Speaking of the new legendary ring, here's a little tease of the visuals that come with wearing it:
Thank you for an incredible 2025. See you in the new year, and happy Wintersday!
